Saudi authorities will shutdown the Riyadh office of Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera amid an ongoing foreign policy dispute between the neighbouring countries, according to a London-based Arabic newspaper.
Saudi Arabia last week threatened to block Qatar by land and sea unless it closed Al Jazeera, as well as cut ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and expelled Doha branches of two US think tanks, according to US-based Huffington Post.
On Wednesday the kingdom, the UAE and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Doha in an unprecedented move.
The three allies are angry at Qatar’s differing foreign policy since the Arab Spring, particularly its support of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and a different opposition group in the Syrian conflict.
They argue Al Jazeera is used as a mouthpiece for the country’s Islamic policies and accused it of bias reporting during the Egyptian conflict, in which former Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi was ousted as president in July.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have directed their citizens to resign from positions in Qatari media.
Two Emirati sports journalists on Al Jazeera announced their resignations on Twitter on Saturday.
Saudi Qatar TV correspondent Abdul Rahman Al Murshid, who is a Saudi citizen, also was quoted on Sunday as saying he had stopped working with the channel.
Qatar on Monday again dismissed the fellow Gulf states’ demands to change its foreign policy, saying its independence was “non-negotiable”.
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