Arabian oasis

It is possible – and indeed necessary – to criticise al-Jazeera for showing footage of dead British soldiers and at the same time to congratulate the Qatar-based television station for its coverage of the war in Iraq. The human costs should be honestly reported, but in filming either prisoners of war or casualties one of the basic rules is to avoid seeming to parade the humiliation of either side.

Yet honest reporting is difficult when so many sources of information are "embedded" in British or American units. Only al-Jazeera has been able to provide pictures – or indeed any reporting at all – from the Iraqi side in Basra.

The fledgling channel is an island (jazeera means island or peninsula) of free speech in a sea of state-controlled Arab media. As a beacon of what Edward Said calls Arab perestroika, it richly deserves its prize this week for the best circumvention of censorship at the Freedom of Expression Awards.