LONDON: "Let freedom reign", President Bush scrawled on the bottom of the note that told him Iraq had regained its sovereignty just over a month ago. The stunt looked shallow at the time and appears all the more so in the wake of the Iraqi government's unjustified decision last weekend to close the Baghdad offices of the Arab news channel Al Jazeera.

The month-long ban - which blocks the station from operating normally in the country - is wrong on several counts. For a start it does not appear to have been carried out lawfully.

According to the station, which broadcast scenes of its own closure live around the world, a squad of Iraqi police officers arrived at its Baghdad offices on Saturday evening, but brought with them an informal letter from the interior ministry rather than an official court order.

Even if the closure had been carried out with due regard to the law, however, it would still represent a significant and disturbing blow to Iraq's nascent press freedom.

Although the country's prime minister, Iyad Allawi, has insisted that the decision was taken "to protect the people of Iraq and the interests of Iraq", his administration has failed to justify its claim that the suppression of the Arab world's most- watched and freethinking station will do anything to improve security in the country.

Instead, it looks like an inept attack on a troublesome critic that refused to be cowed by less drastic action against it earlier this year. Even supporters of Al Jazeera admit that the channel can be provocative; not least broadcasting tapes purporting to show the execution of hostages in Iraq.

The station has also given extensive coverage to the operations of insurgent forces. But so have many other news channels. What is different, of course, is that Al Jazeera is widely watched in Iraq and its neighbours and is not - in contrast to most of the Arab media - subject to strict state control.

The country's new rulers find the channel dis likeable, but its broadcasts are nonetheless a reflection of reality. The Iraqi people have been promised freedom and they definitely deserve to get it. -Dawn/The Guardian News Service.