The Financial Times is reporting Iraqi’s unelected Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has established a new media committee to impose strict restrictions on print and broadcast media. Any news organization that heavily criticizes Allawi may soon be banned from Iraq. As an example an aide to Allawi said any news outlet that broadcasts last week’s sermon by Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr would be banned because Sadr mocked Allawi as America’s “tail”. Ibrahim Janabi, a former Iraqi intelligence agenct and longtime Allawi ally, has been appointed to head the new Higher Media Commission. He has never worked as a journalist.

The new media committee will be located in the same building that housed Iraq’s old information ministry which controlled media outlets under Saddam Hussein.