Iraq shuts 2 TV stations after Saddam ruling

Iraqis hold up image of Saddam Hussein as they protest his death sentence verdict in his hometown of Tikrit on Sunday

BAGHDAD, Nov 5 (Reuters) - Iraq's interior ministry ordered two television stations off the air on Sunday on the grounds they were inciting violence after Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death, a ministry spokesman said.

One channel is controlled by a prominent Sunni Arab politician and the other is based in Saddam's Sunni home region.

"Let them reject the verdict, they have the right, but don't talk about 'mujahideen' and 'resistance'," said ministry spokesman Abdul Karim Khalaf, accusing the stations of giving a platform to people who were making threats of violence.

Within hours, the two channels were showing a message saying they had been closed by order of the government. A journalist at Salahaddin said Iraqi security forces had come to the office and ordered them to stop broadcasting.

The government has previously complained about channels it says are fomenting sectarian conflict. It bans pan-Arab news station Al Jazeera and forced its main rival, Al-Arabiya, to shut its Baghdad bureau for a month in September.

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