media freedom

Robert Ménard and his team have left the Doha Centre for Media Freedom. "The Centre has been suffocated. We no longer have either the freedom or the resources to do our work", he explained.

Ménard concluded: "I do not doubt the sincerity of Her Highness Sheikha Mozah and her determination to advance the cause of freedom, especially media freedom. But she is not alone. And those who prefer to retain the status quo are many, powerful and obstinate.

"No-one but her would have dared imagine a Centre like the one we have built here. Maybe Sheikha Mozah is too far ahead of her fellow citizens, too ’modern’ for political figures attached to the status quo, too aware of the challenges in this world for dignitaries concerned only with their own interests."

For the full article:

A surprising debate took place last Tuesday at Qatar Advisory council calling for stringent punishment to be given to Qatar-based journalists who write against the ruler, national security, religion and the Constitution.
Khalid Abdul Rahim Al Sayed (the peninsula) questioned the proceeding on his editorial yesterday
"The Emir, His Highness, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, declared the media free in the country in 1995 and with the launch of Al Jazeera, we have shown the world that Qatar is a country which allows different opinions to be heard.

Media freedom in Qatar was the subject of a heated debate during the scheduled weekly session of the Advisory Council on Monday, according to the local Arabic press.
Initiated on the request of 24 members, the focus of the debate was on the council’s report on the issue of media freedom in the country.
It was pointed out that some people had been “bought” in to write slanted reports and analyses against Qatar and its achievements. Their reports lack “accuracy and honesty of statement”.
....“We are not against media freedom but there are some red lines that should not be crossed. Those who dare to do so should be punished severely,” said another member Khalid Rashed al-Labda.

Just when we thought that people forgot about the danes. Here it comes again, this time in Doha. Apparently, lemming Rose Culture Editor of the Jyllands-Posten was in Doha last saturday. Being invited by DCMF. Outraged sms, emails, & local blog posts calling to close down the DCMF.

The Peninsula reported:

DOHA: Doha was seething with anger and resentment last evening with heated debates in majlises and drawing rooms and people exchanging angry messages — at least some calling Al Adeed (the security helpline set up by the Interior Ministry) after news that controversial Danish journalist, Flemming Rose, Culture Editor of the Jyllands-Posten, who had commissioned and published a series of cartoons derogatory to the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) was in the city for the World Press Freedom Day conference.

The whispers grew into a raging controversy late in the evening with most citizens and expatriates alike upset with the news after Ahmad Ali, former editor-in-chief and now General Manager of Al Watan daily, in a signed editorial in yesterday’s edition of the newspaper lambasted the organisers of the Doha Center for Media Freedom for inviting Rose for the World Press Freedom Day conference. By inviting the controversial figure, who had insulted the Prophet (PBUH) by publishing the cartoons, he wrote, the Center’s head Robert Menard had insulted all Muslims. “Menard should know that there is a red line to media freedom and you cannot cross that border.” We cannot accept any media freedom that insults our dear Prophet,” Ahmad wrote.

Here's an article discussing Qatar's freedom of press, the Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and the Doha Centre for Media Freedom, from the UAE's The Nation newspaper.

We've discussed to death on QL the problems with Qatar's newspapers, journalism and media freedom, but do we think that Mr. Roth and the Doha Centre for Media Freedom will be able to change anything? It's undoubtedly good that they're turning their attention to the issues in their host country, but will it make a difference?


Qatar’s high and low roads to freedom of the

by Keach Hagey

The Qatar campus of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism rises formidably out of the desert like a temple to something grand, mysterious and exotic. And in a way, that is what it is.

Despite the reputation for outspoken journalism that Qatar has built up over the years by hosting the feisty Al Jazeera network, the local press is still a long way – legally and culturally – from being able to practise the kind of sceptical, American-style journalism that Medill is now teaching. The country is still operating under a 1979 media law that allows journalists to be jailed, helping to create a situation that the Doha Centre for Media Freedom recently said “encourages self-censorship and makes it difficult to criticise the government”.

But the opening of the journalism school last year and the media advocacy centre in 2007 – both with government backing – indicates that there is political will at the highest levels for things to change for Doha’s local press.

By Anwar Elshamy
THE chief of the Doha Centre for Media Freedom (DCMF) yesterday called on Qatar to amend its press law, while threatening to leave if the law was not amended.
Addressing a press conference to release the first annual report by the DCMF on media freedom in the Middle East and North Africa, Robert Menard, the director general of the centre, said the Qatari press law, which was issued in 1979, had never been amended in spite of a revolution in the local media scene in the country. “Without changing the status of press freedom in Qatar, it would be impossible for the centre to criticise any other country for imposing restrictions on media freedom,” Menard said.