In 2015 , Al Jazeera was condemned by UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash for broadcasting a false statement by UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan about the Russian Sukhoi Su-24 downed by Turkey . During a press conference with a Russian official in Abu Dhabi , Abdullah bin Zayed stated regarding the downing of Russian military jet that the UAE " offers its deepest condolences to our Russian friends on the incident of the military plane that crashed recently in Syria . " and when asked about the crash of a Russian civilian plane in Egypt he described it as " a terrorist act " . Al Jazeera reported that Abdullah bin Zayed " describes the Turkish shooting of the Russian fight jet a terrorist act " , which according to Gargash ignored that he was in fact referring to the Russian passenger plane which crashed in Egypt . The Al Jazeera statement was reported more than once and tweeted by the channel on its main Twitter account . Gargash stated " the way Al Jazeera channel has dealt with the statement of Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed was not a professional blunder ; It was part of a smear campaign by the media against the UAE . " On 5 June 2017 , after the onset of the Qatar diplomatic crisis , the United Arab Emirates closed down and blocked Al Jazeera media broadcast in the UAE on grounds of Al Jazeera being a state owned entity by the government of Qatar , and that the government of Qatar is " A major sponsor of hate speech through Al Jazeera ’s Arabic language network and through its other State-controlled media entities . " In the case filed by Qatar against the United Arab Emirates in International Court of Justice regarding the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination ( Qatar v. United Arab Emirates ) , Qatar requested that the court orders the UAE to suspend the closure of Al Jazeera and unblock its transmission . The court ordered : " Both Parties shall refrain from any action which might aggravate or extend the dispute before the Court or make it more difficult to resolve . " In June 2017 , UAE ambassador to US Yousef Al Otaiba hacked emails were reported as " embarrassing " by Al Jazeera because they showed links between the UAE and the US-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies . According to multiple observers , the extensive media coverage of the alleged email hack was seen as a exacerbation of the Qatar diplomatic crisis and the hacking as a move orchestrated by Qatar
Russian civilian plane in Egypt
Metrojet Flight 9268
Al Jazeera controversies and criticism