| We interrupt the non-stop coverage of the Pope's death and funeral to bring you this message from the small-souled: |
Arabs throughout the region assiduously followed the pope's numerous initiatives, including his unrealized desire to go to Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 to see how Iraqis suffered under international sanctions. But radical Islamists, who advocate the expulsion of non-Muslims from Islamic countries, have been using Islamist Web sites to vent their anger at Arab television stations for according the pope such importance. One such user lashed out at Al-Jazeera, saying viewers were "annoyed" with extensive reports eulogizing the pope, who the user described as an "old tyrant."
"What is mortifying is that this hooligan channel pretends [to defend] Islam," added the user, who wrote under the name Muhib al-Salihine on the Islamic News Network, a site often used by Islamist militants operating in Iraq. "What is more humiliating - I think that it was Al-Arabiya channel - is that the imam of a mosque ... praised the memory [of the pope]," said Seri Eddine le Libyen on the same site. "I have started to hate Al-Jazeera for the multiplicity of information on the grieving" for the pope, said another user.
In Lebanon, the Al-Manar satellite television of the Shiite group Hizbullah, interrupted its programs after the announcement of the pope's death to broadcast live from the Vatican. Four other private Lebanese stations and the public Tele-Liban did the same. In Iraq, the public television station Iraqiya also interrupted programming on Saturday night to announce the pope's death.