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 Lawmakers in Kuwait and Qatar have been examining that pesky concept known as press freedom, in the wake of what reports described as “slanted reports and analyses”.
Specifically, both countries are apparently – and separately – looking at tightening existing laws or brining in new ones to crack down on articles that they don’t like that are “poisonous to society”, in the words of Mohamed bin Mubarak Al Kholaify, chairman of the Qatari Advisory Council, quoted in Gulf Times.
Up in Kuwait, this latest media brouhahah has come about following the “discovery of legal loopholes which allowed some media establishments to deviate from the approved regulations and abuse media freedom to harm national unity and Kuwait's foreign relations by deliberately insulting friendly brotherly nations, as well as violating Kuwait's legal establishment”, said a report in the Kuwait Times.
As none of the reports we saw made specific reference to the articles that kicked off this row, it’s hard to say exactly what is being referred to here. The Peninsula, Qatar’s government-owned English language paper, said the debate was directed at journalists who “write against the ruler, national security, religion and the constitution”.
Gulf Times goes further, and quotes an unnamed speaker at the Advisory Council, as saying journalists had been “bought” in to write unfavourable reports attacking Qatar and its interests. It then quoted Al Kholaify as bemoaning the fact that “hypocrites had entered the field and were trying to spoil the image of the country”.
Playing “pin the tail on the media scandal” for a moment, we could take the cynical approach and suggest that this stems from articles reporting on economic crisis-related problems, and what this has done to various firms and institutions in Qatar and Kuwait – or similar reports about other Gulf countries, which have then fired off a sharp letter.
On the other hand, these could be legitimate grievances, following some editor’s decision to publish a particularly unpleasant rant attacking everything that’s great and good. In both Qatar and Kuwait. At the same time. Well, maybe.
It’s interesting to see this happening more or less simultaneously in Qatar and Kuwait – especially in the latter, where the Kuwait Times, the region’s oldest English language paper, has apparently been operating with a degree of freedom unknown in much of the rest of the Gulf for many years, before a slight loosening of the binds in recent years.
It does look like the press freedom pendulum is swinging back towards greater scrutiny and restrictions, though – which we would argue is counter-productive, especially in countries looking to encourage outside investors, who traditionally like to have a realistic view of what’s going on in their chosen investment sites.
In any case, both countries made it clear they are NOT looking to curb press freedom – oh no. They are, however, going to make sure that the naughty people who write bad, bad things are hit hard – in the case of Qatar, possibly by raising the punishment to slander to up to six months in prison and a fine of QR300,000 ($82,000), up from QR30,000.
“We are not against media freedom but there are some red lines that should not be crossed. Those who dare to do so should be punished severely,” said Advisory Council member Khalid Rashed Al Labda, quoted in Gulf Times.
Quite.
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