 | |
| 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 runs under an authoritarian 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 second general election was held in 2021; political parties are banned and all candidates have to run as independents.
Bashar al-Assad is a Syrian politician, military officer, and former dictator who served as the 19th president of Syria from 2000 until his government was overthrown by Syrian rebels in December 2024. As president, Assad was the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and as well as the secretary-general of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. He is the son of Hafez al-Assad, who previously ruled Syria from 1971 until his death in 2000.
Peter Brown is an American-based English businessman. After Brian Epstein recruited Brown to run the Epstein's music store in Liverpool, he became part of the Beatles' management team. He remained Epstein's and the Beatles' personal assistant until the band's dissolution. He helped found and served as a board member of Apple Corps and assumed Epstein's duties after the manager's death. He went on to establish several companies and resides in New York City.
Jordan–Syria relations are bilateral relations between the sovereign states of Jordan and Syria. Relations between neighbours have ancient roots as both countries are historically parts of the Levant or the region of Syria. The two states were created after the First World War from former Ottoman dominions by way of a secret bilateral agreement between Britain and France.
Qatar established unofficial 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 trade relations, but due to Operation Cast Lead, Qatar broke the trade with Israel.
The Arab League has 22 member states. It was founded in Cairo in March 1945 with seven members: the Kingdom of Egypt, Kingdom of Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syrian Republic, Transjordan, and North Yemen. Membership increased during the second half of the 20th century. Seven countries have observer status. The headquarters are located in Cairo, Egypt.
Riyad Farid Hijab is a Syrian politician. He was Prime Minister of Syria from June to August 2012, serving under President Bashar al-Assad. From 2011 to 2012, he was Minister of Agriculture.
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.
Hamza Ali Al-Khateeb was a 13-year-old Syrian boy who died while in the custody of the Syrian government in Daraa. On April 29, 2011, he was detained during a protest. On May 25, 2011, his lifeless body was delivered to his family, having been badly bruised and mutilated. Hamza's family distributed photos and video of the body to journalists and activists. Shocked by what was depicted, thousands of people showed their support for Hamza online and in street protests. The incident galvanised the nascent Syrian revolution.
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 that fought against Syrian government forces in the Syrian Civil War. Its aim was to overthrow president Bashar al-Assad and establish an Islamic state ruled by Sharia law 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 bombing 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 claimed it was a remotely detonated bomb. The bombing remains unsolved.
Al Jazeera Arabic is a flagship news channel that primarily caters to an Arabic-speaking audience. Al Jazeera English, launched in 2006, is the English-language counterpart to Al Jazeera Arabic. According to Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera Arabic is editorially independent from Al Jazeera English, although it shares the same editorial vision. It is based in Doha and operated by the Al Jazeera Media Network.
The National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, commonly named the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), or the Syrian National Revolutionary Coalition (SNRC) is a political organization founded in Doha, Qatar, in November 2012 during the Syrian Civil War in an attempt to coalesce the various movements opposed to Bashar al-Assad's Ba'athist regime. 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.
State-sponsored Internet propaganda is Internet manipulation and propaganda that is sponsored by a state. States have used the Internet, particularly social media to influence elections, sow distrust in institutions, spread rumors, spread disinformation, typically using bots to create and spread contact. Propaganda is used internally to control populations, and externally to influence other societies.
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.
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 have been 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.