MUMBAI: The Iraqi government has ordered the closure of the Baghdad office of a Dubai-based television station.

That is because the newscaster wore black mourning clothes while reporting on the hanging of Saddham Hussein.

A spokesman for the interior ministry was quoted in media reports saying that the Al-Sharqiya station, owned by a former chief of radio and television for Hussein, had incited violence and hatred in its coverage and had ignored warnings to stop.

Brigadier Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the spokesman, said that the order was issued after an allegedly false report by the news channel about the abduction of three Sunni Arab female students from a university.
Reports add that the order also followed criticism of the tone of Al-Sharqiya's coverage of Saturday's execution, which struck some as sympathetic to the ousted dictator.

In contrast to state-run television reports that described Saddam as a 'tyrant' and 'criminal,' a newscaster on Al-Sharqiya - which means '`The Eastern One' - referred to him as 'president'.