Al-Jazeera banned from Iranian parliament building

Al-Jazeera television reporters have been banned from entering Iran’s parliament building in protest at perceived insults by the network against the country’s most revered Shiite cleric, Iran’s official news agency IRNA reported.

The controversy started when the Egyptian host of an Al-Jazeera talk show, Ahmed Mansour, questioned Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s leadership credentials and whether he wrote his own religious edicts.

“The Majlis (parliament) has decided to ban reporters of the network from entering until it formally offers an apology over insulting Ayatollah Sistani”, IRNA quoted the parliament speaker, Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, as saying.