Hajar Smouni

Reporters Without Borders, which helped set up and is a supporter of the Doha Centre for Media Freedom, are getting more and more annoyed with the Qatar authorities treatment of the DCMF;

Reporters Without Borders is deeply concerned about a hardening in the attitude of the Qatari authorities towards the Doha Centre for Media Freedom. Hajar Smouni, head of research at the Centre and a former member of the Reporters Without Borders staff, was prevented from leaving Qatar today.

This latest incident appears to be just the tip of the iceberg;

“The Doha Centre has for months been struggling to keep its independence and is under pressure from the Qatari authorities,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard said. “This ban is a violation of the undertakings Qatar gave to the Doha Centre.”

Is it feasible that the DCMF would pull out of Qatar altogether if the authorities continue to renege on their promises to the centre?

Reporters Without Borders is deeply concerned about a hardening in the attitude of the Qatari authorities towards the Doha Centre for Media Freedom. Hajar Smouni, head of research at the Centre and a former member of the Reporters Without Borders staff, was prevented from leaving Qatar today.

“The Doha Centre has for months been struggling to keep its independence and is under pressure from the Qatari authorities,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard said. “This ban is a violation of the undertakings Qatar gave to the Doha Centre.”

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.