One channel is controlled by a prominent Sunni Arab politician and the other is based in Saddam's Sunni home region.
BAGHDAD: Iraq's interior ministry ordered two television stations off the air on Sunday on the grounds they were inciting violence after Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death, a ministry spokesman said.
One channel is controlled by a prominent Sunni Arab politician and the other is based in Saddam's Sunni home region.
"Let them reject the verdict, they have the right, but don't talk about 'mujahideen' and 'resistance'," said ministry spokesman Abdul Karim Khalaf, accusing the stations of giving a platform to people who were making threats of violence.
"They are hosting people who are talking about something that is completely distinct from politics, calling for violence and killing," Khalaf said, adding that security forces had been despatched to enforce the closure orders.
The two channels continued to broadcast, however.
Baghdad-based Al-Zawra was showing music videos at 5:30 p.m. (1430 GMT) and Salahaddin, based in Saddam's home town of Tikrit, was showing a historical film.
The government has previously complained about channels it says are fomenting sectarian conflict. It bans pan-Arab news station Al Jazeera and forced its main rival, Al-Arabiya, to shut its Baghdad bureau for a month in September.
Saddam Hussein was found guilty of crimes against humanity on Sunday and sentenced to hang for the killing of 148 Shi'ite villagers after a failed assassination bid on him in 1982.
Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, which enjoyed political power and patronage under Saddam, has lost power since his overthrow by US troops, with Shi'ite Muslims and ethnic Kurds dominating the US-backed political process.
Resentment has fuelled a Sunni Arab insurgency, referred to by many Sunnis as the "resistance" and its fighters as holy warriors or "mujahideen".
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