Plenty of European countries have had restrictive media laws, right up to the 1980s. The difference in Qatar is the willingness of the police and courts in Qatar to use those laws to subdue negative reporting.
Even if the press laws were repealed, the authorities have still got the libel laws to fall back on. In many countries, you'd have to prove malicious intent to convict a journalist of libel, and in most western nations it's a civil rather than criminal offense. In Qatar, journalists have been sentenced to jail time for writing stories with poor sources. No journalist here will write "Joe Bloggs, the convicted murderer, was today sentenced to six years in jail", not because of the press laws, but because of the libel laws.
And if all these laws were repealed (which they won't be), you'd still have a media that is owned and run by a few families who also run the country and all the major corporations. Why would you write a story criticising your boss's brother, when you're likely to be sacked and deported?
p.s. Prof Roth is talking shit about the press improving over the past year. Yesterday, when this article was published, The Peninsula ran three photos of the Emir on its front page. Prof Roth and Northwestern are an irrelevant distraction. None of NU's graduates will ever work in Qatar's newspapers. A business editor with 20 years experience is paid less than US$1500 a month at a Qatari national newspaper. It's just nonsense to think the newspapers will be changed by 15 graduates a year, who are all aiming to be employed at Jazeera, and most of whom realistically won't enter the workforce.
Plenty of European countries have had restrictive media laws, right up to the 1980s. The difference in Qatar is the willingness of the police and courts in Qatar to use those laws to subdue negative reporting.
Even if the press laws were repealed, the authorities have still got the libel laws to fall back on. In many countries, you'd have to prove malicious intent to convict a journalist of libel, and in most western nations it's a civil rather than criminal offense. In Qatar, journalists have been sentenced to jail time for writing stories with poor sources. No journalist here will write "Joe Bloggs, the convicted murderer, was today sentenced to six years in jail", not because of the press laws, but because of the libel laws.
And if all these laws were repealed (which they won't be), you'd still have a media that is owned and run by a few families who also run the country and all the major corporations. Why would you write a story criticising your boss's brother, when you're likely to be sacked and deported?
p.s. Prof Roth is talking shit about the press improving over the past year. Yesterday, when this article was published, The Peninsula ran three photos of the Emir on its front page. Prof Roth and Northwestern are an irrelevant distraction. None of NU's graduates will ever work in Qatar's newspapers. A business editor with 20 years experience is paid less than US$1500 a month at a Qatari national newspaper. It's just nonsense to think the newspapers will be changed by 15 graduates a year, who are all aiming to be employed at Jazeera, and most of whom realistically won't enter the workforce.