Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08DOHA291
2008-04-10 14:01:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Doha
Cable title:  

QATAR'S PRESS FREEDOM TRIPPED UP BY HUMAN RIGHTS

Tags:  PREL PHUM KPAO QA 
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VZCZCXRO8746
PP RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHKUK RUEHROV
DE RUEHDO #0291/01 1011401
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 101401Z APR 08
FM AMEMBASSY DOHA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7819
INFO RUEHEE/ARAB LEAGUE COLLECTIVE
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DOHA 000291 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/09/2018
TAGS: PREL PHUM KPAO QA
SUBJECT: QATAR'S PRESS FREEDOM TRIPPED UP BY HUMAN RIGHTS
REPORT EVENT

Classified By: CDA MICHAEL A. RATNEY, FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DOHA 000291

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/09/2018
TAGS: PREL PHUM KPAO QA
SUBJECT: QATAR'S PRESS FREEDOM TRIPPED UP BY HUMAN RIGHTS
REPORT EVENT

Classified By: CDA MICHAEL A. RATNEY, FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D).


1. (C) SUMMARY: Coverage of CDA's April 8 press conference
on the Human Rights Report vividly demonstrated Qatar's
continuing media freedom challenges, particularly censorship
and self-censorship. English-language newspapers generally
highlighted both positive and negative aspects of Qatar's
human rights performance, while the Arabic press featured
much less balance. One paper editorialized in its article,
another chose to report only on the positive aspects of the
report, while a third ran balanced coverage - a first for
Doha's Arabic press. Following the press conference,
journalists told Charge that they had been forbidden from
covering the report when it was officially released on March
11, noting that strict censorship of issues deemed sensitive
to Qatar was common. One Arab journalist told Charge at the
conclusion of the event, "Please do not hold it against us if
nothing appears in the papers tomorrow." While we would have
preferred balanced, professional coverage of the human rights
report, this outcome now provides Embassy with an invaluable
case study for discussing restrictions on press freedom with
Qatari officials and editors. END SUMMARY


2. (U) Journalists from all seven of Qatar's dailies
attended Charge's April 8 press roundtable to discuss the
recently released 2007 Human Rights Report, which was
distributed to them ahead of time in English and Arabic.
Charge began with brief remarks about the history of the
Human Rights Report, its scope, and Qatar's thorniest human
rights issue: the trafficking and treatment of expatriate
laborers. All of the reporters at the event were themselves
expatriates from the United Kingdom, India, Egypt, Algeria
and Lebanon.

--------------
THE REGULAR QUESTIONS
--------------


3. (U) Charge fielded a number of predictable questions,
including what the USG's stance is on a new draft of a labor
sponsorship law, why the report did not take into account
developments since the beginning of the year, and whether or
not the report is a tool for pressuring certain countries on

particular issues. One reporter, who asked a series of
pointedly negative questions, wanted to know why the USG
criticized the media's use of anti-Israeli political
cartoons. Charge explained that these cartoons were not
criticism of Israeli Government policy, a legitimate use of
political commentary, but were hateful and degrading
caricatures of the Jewish people, which is offensive and
irresponsible.

--------------
AND A FEW SURPRISES
--------------


4. (C) The most revealing comments about human rights in
Qatar made at the press conference came not from the Charge,
but from the journalists themselves when the Charge turned
off the tape recorders and asked them to comment, off the
record, on their experiences with press freedom in this
country. One Indian journalist from "The Peninsula" asserted
that his editor -- a Qatari national -- had quashed an
article he had prepared after the launch of the Human Rights
Reports in Washington on March 11. This is typical, he said,
for any issue deemed sensitive to the Qataris, of which human
rights is one. He also claimed to have been arrested on
three occasions in the 1990s for reporting on labor
conditions in the country. "I shut up after that because I
did not want to be sent home," he added.


5. (C) Other journalists chimed in with similar comments
about censorship from their Qatari bosses. An Egyptian
reporter told Charge, "Please do not hold it against us if
nothing appears in the papers tomorrow." Later, at a wrap-up
session with the Embassy's Information Assistant, the same
journalist, speaking in hushed tones, said, "I really cannot
tell you whether or not anything will be printed tomorrow. I
don't have a clear sense of how this will go." Asked why he
was speaking so quietly, he responded, "You never know who is
listening." He was very sensitive about upsetting his
superiors, he said, because he does not want to lose his job
and be sent back to Egypt.

--------------
PRESS COVERAGE: GOOD, BAD, UGLY
--------------


6. (U) On April 7, all papers ran some coverage of the
event, with the English press generally providing the most
extensive and balanced reporting. "Gulf Times" carried a
front-page, above-the-fold article with photo, with the

DOHA 00000291 002 OF 002


headline, "U.S. Calls for Qatar to Relax Labor Laws." The
end of the article, however, featured bolded text directing
the reader to a story inside the paper on alleged CIA
renditions to Jordan. The two other English-language dailies
carried similar headlines with straightforward reporting.


7. (U) "Al Arab," an Arabic daily established six months
ago, carried a front-page article with the headline, "U.S.
Charge d'Affaires Criticized the Sponsorship Law in Qatar,"
while a sub-headline read, "Ratney quoted a hadith, the
traditions of the Prophet Mohammed, saying, 'A worker should
be paid before the sweat on his brow dries.'" "Al Arab" was
the only Arabic daily to provide straightforward reporting of
the Charge's comments and the Human Rights Report, providing
an Internet link to the full report in Arabic.


8. (U) The other Arabic dailies provided varying degrees of
less balance. On the more balanced end was "Al Raya," which
made mention of the labor problems, while noting that the
"ship of Qatari-U.S. relations" was sailing smoothly. "Al
Watan" chose to avoid any mention of labor, headlining with,
"Qatar Made Progress in Many Areas." "Al Sharq's" coverage
was the least balanced, with a headline claiming, "The U.S.
Praises Steps Taken by Qatar on Human Rights," and editorial
comment creeping into the body of the article. The reporter
praised, for example, the Charge's use of a hadith to
describe labor problems, but criticized him for not equally
applying Islamic standards to condemn homosexuals, whose
mistreatment in Qatar was also cited in the report. "Al
Sharq" ran on the same day an op-ed titled, "America and Its
Suspicious Reports," alleging that the USG is hypocritical
when it comes to human rights, and only uses these reports to
pressure and embarrass countries.

--------------
COMMENT
--------------


9. (C) This was the first public event in recent memory in
Qatar to focus on the annual Human Rights Report. We
expected the Arabic press -- which is what most Qataris read
-- to either completely ignore it, or to avoid any discussion
of our critical observations. The fact that "Al Arab's"
young Algerian journalist had the courage to file a balanced
story and his Qatari editor, a good friend of the Embassy,
had the integrity to run it, is something of a watershed.
Charge and Embassy officers will use the stark differences in
the coverage of this event to highlight to Qatari leaders and
editors that media freedom includes the willingness to
criticize and question what happens in Qatar, not just other
countries.
RATNEY