 | |
| Industry | Public relations |
|---|---|
Key people | Peter Brown (music manager), Peter Brown CBE, Chairman & CEO |
| Website | www |
Brown Lloyd James is a public relations firm with offices in New York, Washington, D.C., London, and Doha.
| | |
| Industry | Public relations |
|---|---|
Key people | Peter Brown (music manager), Peter Brown CBE, Chairman & CEO |
| Website | www |
Brown Lloyd James is a public relations firm with offices in New York, Washington, D.C., London, and Doha.
The firm has represented a number of high-profile clients, including Al Jazeera English, the Shafallah Center for Children with Disabilities, and the Kingdom of Morocco. [1] [2] [3] In 2006, the firm coordinated the launch of Al Jazeera English in the United States. [4]
In 2011, it was criticized for working with the First Lady of Syria to organize a Vogue profile. [5] [6] In July 2012, Ynetnews described the firm's May 2011 email released in the Syria Files by stating that the email gave advice "on how to create the appearance it is pursuing reform while repressing the uprising". [7] The firm responded that the document was not paid for, was a "'last-ditch' effort 'to encourage a peaceful outcome rather than violence', which the government subsequently ignored and that it was sent to Asma al-Assad, the wife of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. [8]
According to Foreign Agents Registration Act filings, BLJ Worldwide has run pro-Beijing propaganda campaigns on behalf of the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), an organization with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party. [9] [10] [11] In 2020 BLJ assisted Chinese diplomats in the US with writing op-eds and getting them published. [12]
In 2018, The Sunday Times published claims BLJ acted for the Qatar World Cup bid. It claimed the PR firm acted to undermine rival bids from the US and Australia. [13]
The political system of Qatar is a semi-constitutional monarchy with the emir as head of state and chief executive, and the prime minister as the head of government. Under the Constitution of Qatar, the partially-elected Consultative Assembly has a limited ability to reject legislation and dismiss ministers. The 2nd general election was held in 2021.
Al Arabiya is an international Arabic news television channel, based in Riyadh that is operated by the media conglomerate MBC Group which is majority owned by the government of Saudi Arabia.
Bashar al-Assad is a Syrian politician who is the current and 19th president of Syria since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the secretary-general of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, which nominally espouses a neo-Ba'athist ideology. His father and predecessor was General Hafiz al-Assad, whose presidency between 1971 and 2000 marked the transfiguration of Syria from a republican state into a dynastic dictatorship tightly controlled by an Alawite-dominated elite composed of the armed forces and the Mukhabarat, who are loyal to the al-Assad family.
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is Emir of Qatar, reigning since 2013.
Qatar established trade relations with the State of Israel in 1996, the first amongst all nations of the Arabian Peninsula after Oman reportedly did, concurrently with Israel–Jordan peace treaty. Until 2009, Qatar and Israel maintained diplomatic and financial relations, but due to Operation Cast Lead, Qatar broke ties with Israel. Since then there have been no diplomatic relations though there have been other links.
The Arab League has 22 member states. It was founded in Cairo in March 1945 with six members: the Kingdom of Egypt, Kingdom of Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syrian Republic, and Transjordan. North Yemen joined on 5 May 1945. Membership increased during the second half of the 20th century. Seven countries have observer status. The headquarters are located in Cairo, Egypt.
Since the start of the Syrian Civil War, all sides have used social media to try to discredit their opponents by using negative terms such as 'Syrian regime' for the government, 'armed gangs/terrorists' for the rebels, 'Syrian government/US State Department propaganda', 'biased', 'US/Western/foreign involvement'. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, given the complexity of the Syrian conflict, media bias in reporting remains a key challenge, plaguing the collection of useful data and misinforming researchers and policymakers regarding the actual events taking place.
International reactions to the Syrian civil war ranged from support for the government to calls for the government to dissolve. The Arab League, United Nations and Western governments in 2011 quickly condemned the Syrian government's response to the protests which later evolved into the Syrian civil war as overly heavy-handed and violent. Many Middle Eastern governments initially expressed support for the government and its "security measures", but as the death toll mounted, especially in Hama, they switched to a more balanced approach, criticizing violence from both government and protesters. Russia and China vetoed two attempts at United Nations Security Council sanctions against the Syrian government.
Al-Nusra Front, also known as Front for the Conquest of the Levant, was a Salafi jihadist organization fighting against Syrian Ba'athist government forces in the Syrian Civil War. Its aim was to overthrow president Bashar al-Assad and establish an Islamic state in Syria.
On 5 July 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing what it called the Syria Files, a collection of more than two million emails from Syrian political figures and ministries and from companies including Finmeccanica and Brown Lloyd James dating from August 2006 to March 2012. The emails were hacked by Anonymous before being given to WikiLeaks for release.
The 18 July 2012 Damascus bombing of the National Security headquarters in Rawda Square, Damascus, killed and injured a number of top military and security officials of the Syrian government. Among the dead were the Syrian Defense Minister and Deputy Defense Minister. The incident occurred during the Syrian Civil War, and is considered to be one of the most notorious events to affect the conflict. Syrian state-controlled television reported that it was a suicide attack while the opposition claims it was a remotely detonated bomb.
Al Jazeera Arabic is the flagship channel that primarily caters to an Arabic-speaking audience. Al Jazeera English, launched in 2006, is the English-language counterpart to Al Jazeera Arabic. Al Jazeera Arabic is editorially independent from Al Jazeera English. It is based in Doha and operated by the Al Jazeera Media Network.
The National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces (Arabic: الائتلاف الوطني لقوى الثورة والمعارضة السورية), commonly named the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) (Arabic: الائتلاف الوطني السوري), or the Syrian National Revolutionary Coalition (SNRC) is a coalition of opposition groups in the Syrian civil war that was founded in Doha, Qatar, in November 2012. Former imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Moaz al-Khatib, considered a moderate, was elected the president of the coalition, and resigned on 21 April 2013. Riad Seif and Suheir Atassi, both prominent democracy activists and the latter a secular human rights advocate, were elected vice presidents. The post of a third vice president will remain vacant for a Kurdish figure to be elected. Mustafa Sabbagh was elected as the coalition's secretary-general. The coalition has a council of 114 seats, though not all of them are filled.
Saudi Arabia–Syria relations refer to bilateral and economic relations between Saudi Arabia and the Syrian Arab Republic. Diplomatic ties between these two countries of the Middle East have long been strained by the major events in the region. Saudi Arabia has an embassy in Damascus, and Syria has an embassy in Riyadh. Both countries are members of the Arab League and share close cultural ties.
State-sponsored Internet propaganda is Internet manipulation and propaganda that is sponsored by a state.
Qatar has been accused of allowing terror financiers to operate within its borders, which has been one of the justifications for the Qatar diplomatic crisis that started in 2017 and ended in 2021. In 2014, David S. Cohen, then United States Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, accused Qatari authorities of allowing financiers who were on international blacklists to live freely in the country: "There are U.S.- and UN-designated terrorist financiers in Qatar that have not been acted against under Qatari law." Accusations come from a wide variety of sources including intelligence reports, government officials, and journalists.
Saudi Arabia's involvement in the Syrian Civil War involved the large-scale supply of weapons and ammunition to various rebel groups in Syria during the Syrian Civil War.
Collaboration with the Islamic State refers to the cooperation and assistance given by governments, non-state actors, and private individuals to the Islamic State (IS) during the Syrian Civil War, Iraqi Civil War, and Libyan Civil War.
Al Arabiya English is the English language service of the Dubai-based regional Arab newscaster, Al-Arabiya News Channel. Its main audiences reside in the United States and the United Kingdom.
The Qatar–Saudi Arabia diplomatic conflict refers to the ongoing struggle for regional influence between Qatar and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), both of which are members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). It is sometimes called the New Arab Cold War. Bilateral relations are especially strained since the beginning of the Arab Spring, that left a power vacuum both states sought to fill, with Qatar being supportive of the revolutionary wave and Saudi Arabia opposing it. Both states are allies of the United States, and have avoided direct conflict with one another.