Freedom of the press in Qatar

[qatar]

Mr. Q over at ILoveQatar.net posted an Al Jazeera story on some local workers not getting paid:

Click to view

It's cheering to see Al Jazeera pointing out injustices here in Qatar, and not just in neighboring states (even if they do it in an appalling surfer dude accent).

In more chilling news, the Shura Council just called for more stringent punishment for

Comments

[provoca7eur]

That accent was horrible, he sounds 16. Why would they let him read the story like that? So strange. But I'm happy to know they are telling the true stories now.

[qatar]

I am ashamed to say I giggled through the entire segment. But I looked Casey Kauffman up, and he's not 16 -- you can see him at the end of this segment.

[provoca7eur]

Ah, okay. I watched and it makes more sense.
Perhaps Americans sound funny once out of the States for a while.

[y_pestis]

His Wikipedia entry is interesting - was his really the report that started pointing out how nasty the Republican campaigners were getting?

(Aside: There's really a columnist at the Washington Post called Colbert I. King? I wonder whether his first name is pronounced "Cole-bert" or "Cole-bear"?)

[dubaiwalla]

I'm going to have to take issue with that graph; broad categories like 'partly free,' which lump India in with Egypt, obscure more than they reveal. But I couldn't agree more with the general thrust of your post. (No 'that's what she said' jokes kthxplz.)

[qatar]

Yeah, that map started a big discussion in my office about Egypt, which I would never in a million years call "partly free" in terms of freedom of the press. There are also significant differences between the "free" countries; I am appalled that denying the Holocaust is a criminal offense in much of Europe, but that's not enough to bump them down a notch. Such categories are rather arbitrary, but my point was merely that we should not take for granted that freedom of speech/press is something everyone has.