DCMF journalist forbidden to leave Qatar
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.”
Smouni was to have accompanied Doha Centre director-general Robert Ménard to Bahrain, where they were to meet with culture and information minister Sheikha Mai Al-Khalifa and parliamentarians to discuss Bahrain’s press law. On arrival at Doha airport, she was told she was forbidden to leave the country. The ban was eventually lifted after the Centre intervened but Smouni missed her flight.
The Doha Centre was set up last year with Reporters Without Borders support under a cooperation agreement with the Qatar Foundation, which is headed by Sheikha Mozah, the wife of Qatar’s Emir, Hamad Ibn Khalifa Al Thani.
Source: RSF
Arien, it isn't suicide but it is mind-warpingly tough, unless you just want to act as a public relations agent. It makes me laugh when I see all the guys on huge wages with little stress to think of all the people I've known who came for minimal wages and got maximum stress as journalists. I sometimes wondered if the GM was expecting journalists to top up their wages by taking bribes - which, of course, would not mean "defaming" people as kaz puts it, just promoting them.
Kaz - you don't seem to distinguish between truth, defamation and the public interest. If you can't defame anyone (in the broadest sense of the term) you can't tell the truth and you can't serve the public interest, because you are not allowed to injure undeserved reputations. If a man threw acid on his wife, would it be wrong to shame him by telling the world? Should his reputation as a good man be protected because it was just a private, family matter? Or, indeed, because he has a large advertising budget? Or comes from an important (or ruling) family?
PS: I should add that this is a hypothetical example, I have never heard of any such incident happening in Qatar.
Journalists are also human beings, so they can make/commit miatakes. The Qatari Law set them into a premises and discipline, which is quite necessary. Being a journalist none has a licence to defame anybody in public. I think western media too has to undergo certain policies and ethics. Same constraints are promulgated by the local law. We should not be against these ethical preconditions well set here. These are for our good.
It is true for yellow-journalism only in this country. No journalist is allowed to defame anybody or any business entity for whatever motives. It is a very good thing which we miss elsewhere in the world.
being a journalist in here , would be a suicide i guess, from whatver we read on the freedom.
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Listen to Many..Speak to a few.
true colours.. no wonder the local media is too scared to print anything critical of the authorities..