Qatar dictatorship’s ‘free’ press

This video says about itself:

Qatar Human Rights Official Defends Life Sentence For Poet Who Praised Arab Spring Uprisings

7 Dec 2012

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Three days after the United Nations climate change conference began here in Doha, a Qatari court sentenced a local poet to life in prison, a move that shocked many activists in the Gulf region and human rights observers. The sentencing of Muhammad Ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami came nearly two years after he wrote a poem titled, “Tunisian Jasmine,” supporting the uprisings in the Arab world. “We are all Tunisia in the face of repressive elites!” al-Ajami wrote. “The Arab governments and who rules them are without exception thieves, thieves!” We speak to his attorney and a member of Qatar‘s National Human Rights Committee.

Qatar. Where thousands of workers die because of slavery-like labour conditions. Where the government jails poets for “insulting the emir” in poems not even mentioning the emir.

Qatar. Where the government has its own “Centre for Press Freedom”.

Translated from ANP news agency in the Netherlands:

Dutchman sacked prematurely at Freedom of the Press Centre Doha

12/03/13, 08:22

Dutchman Jan Cologne was dismissed as head of the Doha Centre for Press Freedom in Qatar, an officially independent institution for promoting press freedom in the Gulf state. Cologne is the second European boss of the media center departing early, local media reported.

His predecessor, the Frenchman Robert Menard, left in 2009, complaining that “he was suffocated by the lack of freedom and independence.”

Qatar is an absolute monarchy in the Gulf of Persia, which is ruled by the al-Thani family. Sheikha Mozah Nasser al-Masnad, the mother of the current emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, founded the Centre for Press Freedom in 2007.

This reminds me of George Orwell’s novel 1984. Where there is a Ministry of Love administering torture. And a Ministry of Truth, producing lies in the “Newspeak” language. And a Ministry of Plenty presiding over poverty for most people. And a Ministry of Peace, presiding over perpetual war.

Most real governments today are not as blatantly hypocritical as Orwell’s fictional government of Oceania. They have renamed their Departments of War; not to Department of Peace, too obvious to fool people, but to Department of “Defense”. In the USA; in the UK; in the Netherlands; in Qatar. Qatar‘s Ministry of “Defense” “defends” the Qatari monarchy and supposedly “brings democracy” by bloody wars in Libya and in Syria.

In order to compare the government of Qatar‘s absolute monarchy, we don’t even have to go back in time from 2013 to 1948, when Orwell wrote his novel. We don’t have to go from Qatar all the way to England. Now, today, not far from Qatar, there is the absolute kingdom of Bahrain. This dictatorship which keeps violating human rights, has its own Ministry of Human Rights.

Maybe, the Qatar dynasty wil now make Rupert Murdoch its boss of the Centre for Press Freedom. Murdoch considers Bahrain a model of “freedom”. Murdoch practices absolute freedom for burglary, hacking phones, computers, etc. of the British royal family, murdered English girls, rival journalists, etc. etc. for big corporate media, especially Murdoch’s media, and for Big Government spying agencies.

However, I should warn the Qatari princely family about one thing. Rupert Murdoch tends to quarrel sooner or later with his friends. Like with Silvio Berlusconi. And with Tony Blair.

Related articles

• Qatar regime persecutes poet (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Qatar sacks Dutch head of media freedom centre (gulfnews.com)
• Qatar court upholds poet’s sentence (bbc.co.uk)
• Qatar Upholds 15-year Sentence for Poet Muhammad al-Ajami (arablit.wordpress.com)