Aljazeera Publishing was formed in 1992 in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

to produce content for

expatriate An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. In common usage, the term often refers to educated professionals, skilled workers, or artists taking positions outside their home country, either ...

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bod ...

(i.e. those from the region known as Aljazeera) residents living in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. Aljazeera Publishing was disbanded in April 2011 after the sale of its main assets to regional media organizations including

Al Jazeera Media Network Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN) (Arabic: الجزيرة‎, romanized: al-jazīrah, IPA: �l (d)ʒæˈziːrɐ , referring to the Qatar Peninsula) is a Qatari international state-owned public media conglomerate headquartered at Qatar Radio and T ...

, Noor Media and MBC. Despite the similarity in names, Aljazeera Publishing has no relations nor affiliation with the Qatari state media conglomerate

Al Jazeera Magazine

Aljazeera Publishing first published a monthly magazine in 1992 called ''Al Jazeera Al Arabia''. From its start to 1993 the magazine was published by Shiite opposition groups exiled in London. Since then it has adopted a shortened version of the name as simply ''Al Jazeera Magazine'' as listed in Media UK. The shortening of the title occurred after an external investment by a Saudi Arabian investment company. Al Jazeera Publishing was highly critical of the Saudi Arabian government’s human rights records and published a number of critical reports in 1993, 1994 and 1995. These human rights reports raised Al Jazeera Al Arabia’s profile on the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

stage. Extracts of such reports were used in a

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

report as published in 1993, as well as the Islamic Research and Information Center. Since 1996 no more anti Saudi Arabian stories appeared in any of Al Jazeera Publishing titles, rather the attention appeared to have turned against the Qatari ruling family with a string of hostile articles such as "Egypt arrests Qatari prince over illegal car race", "Qatari prince convicted of abusing girls", "First church in Muslim Qatar risks backlash" and "Qatar finances sports centre in Israel". In March 2011 Al Jazeera TV Channel acquired Aljazeera.com and redirected to the website of Al Jazeera English. Aljazeera.com is, since March 2011, the main address for the Al Jazeera English website. The domain name was acquired by

in March 2011 from Aljazeera Publishing, a Dubai-based media company which owned the separate Al Jazeera Magazine, after a long-running domain name dispute between the two entities.

History of ''Al Jazeera Magazine''

Until March 2011, aljazeera.com was an English language website for ''Al Jazeera Magazine'', which was unrelated to the Arabic satellite TV channel

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...

and Al Jazeera English; the latter operated websites in both Arabic
www.aljazeera.net
and English
english.aljazeera.net
. It was also unrelated to ''Al Jazirah Newspaper'' of

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

. According to Alexa, there were fewer visitors to aljazeera.com in comparison to aljazeera.net. The former website was operated by Aljazeera Publishing, described as an "independent media organisation."

Domain name dispute

In 2005, the Al Jazeera Media Network owner of Al Jazeera English attempted to obtain the aljazeera.com domain name but failed. In the Administrative Panel Decision, the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center found the TV Channel to have brought the proceedings in bad faith and found it had abused the administrative proceedings. As of 2006, ''Aljazeera.com'' wrote on their ''About'' page: :''"Important note: Aljazeera Publishing and Aljazeera.com are not associated with any of the below organisations: :''1. ''Al Jazeera Newspaper'', Riyadh, Saudi Arabia whose website is al-jazirah.com'' :''2. Al Jazeera Satellite Channel whose website is aljazeera.net.'' :''3. Al Jazeera Information Centre who website is aljazeerah.info'' :''Aljazeera Publishing disassociates itself from the views, opinions and broadcasts of these titles."'' Views presented by Aljazeera.com are frequently misattributed to the Al Jazeera TV channel, including one case in which ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' criticised the channel in its leader column based on material published on Aljazeera.com, for which the newspaper later apologised. The magazine's editorial slant appears markedly different than that of the Al Jazeera TV channel, with the former far more critical of U.S. and Israeli policy than the latter. In April 2011, the domain aljazeera.com directed to Al Jazeera English, and the domain ownership as listed on WHOIS records was updated from AlJazeera Publishing to Al Jazeera Media Network. At the time of the purchase, a simple page stated "Moving to Doha", leading to certain long-time readers initially suspecting a hack of the website. No public details regarding the purchase of the domain has been made public by either parties.

Website contents

The content on the former Aljazeera.com was organized by section. The following sections existed:

Middle East News

'Middle East News' contained the latest breaking Middle Eastern news. A number of their stories were accused of reported bias against

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, and even against Latin American countries, such as

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. News articles often contained paraphrased quotes from familiar news outlets such as Associated Press and the BBC.

Review articles

'Review Articles' contain longer pieces about recent events. The editorial stance was one of rigorous opposition to the

Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror , image ...

, and the articles were usually reported to contain strong condemnations of American involvement in the Middle East and are accused of often reflecting anti-Zionism in describing the state of

. One article (entitled "Latest of US lies: Iraqis killing Iraqis" claimed that the sectarian violence occurring in Iraq was supported by CIA and Mossad agents: "It was the U.S.'s 'debaathification' of Iraq that eventually let icto the current death squads, supported by the U.S. and the Mossad agents."

'Let's Talk'

'Let's Talk' was a section hosted by Dr. Kareem Bin Jabbar and Sheikha Sajida. Readers sent in questions or topics for discussion, which were published at the discretion of the site. Sajida's theories (such as the notion that the kidnapping of Westerners in Iraq was carried out by agents of the US) frequently stirred up heated debate.

'Reader Comments'

Readers could leave comments in all areas except for the Conspiracy Theories section. These comments could be rated from 'Excellent' to 'Very Bad' at the discretion of readers.

IslamOnline.com

Besides Aljazeera Magazine, Al Jazeera Publishing produce
IslamOnline''.com''
which is an English-language Islamic site on the Internet. Since 1998, Al Jazeera Publishing has been involved in a dispute with Islamonline''.net''. According to

whois WHOIS (pronounced as the phrase "who is") is a query and response protocol that is widely used for querying databases that store the registered users or assignees of an Internet resource, such as a domain name, an IP address block or an autonomou ...

, the Islamonline.net domain name was registered after IslamOnline.com. IslamOnline.net is much more popular based on statistics from Alexa. Al Jazeera Publishing owns

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from othe ...

rights for IslamOnline in Europe.

Disbanding of Al Jazeera Publishing in March 2011

In March 2011

acquired Aljazeera.com. Al Jazeera Publishing's other main digital titles including ''IslamOnline.com'', ''alJazeera Jobs'' and ''alJazeera Capital'' were also sold off as separate individual entities.

References

{{Reflist Publishing companies of the United Arab Emirates Mass media in the United Arab Emirates Publishing companies established in 1992 Magazines established in 1992 Magazines published in London Arabic-language magazines Defunct political magazines published in the United Kingdom