Qatar: Silencing Freedom

The U.S. government has used Qatar to support “democracy promotion” in the Middle East, including as a logistical base for the invasion of Iraq. But Qatar’s rulers don’t like threats to their own tyrannical powers, even jailing a poet for life for implicitly criticizing the ruling sheikh, William Boardman reports.

Qatar’s Hypocrisy on Freedom
12 December, 2012 – By William Boardman – Consortiumnews.com

Life in prison may seem a harsh sentence for reciting a poem out loud, but it’s apparently what state security demands in Doha, Qatar, where a secret court delivered this sentence at the end of a short, secret trial in a state security case tried there in November.

Muhammed ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami, 37, a Qatari poet with a wife and child, was studying literature at Cairo University when the Tunisian revolution broke out in December 2010. Inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt, al-Ajami wrote a short poem, “Tunisian Jasmine” [see below], celebrating the overthrow of repressive elites. He recited the poem to private audiences and the audio of at least one such performance appeared on YouTube, but al-Ajami sayshe didn’t post it, and doesn’t know who did.

Qatari authorities took notice of the performance and, some months later, in November 2011, they arrested al-Ajami and held him in solitary confinement for most of a year before bringing him to trial. The state charged the poet with “insulting” Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, as well as “inciting to overthrow the ruling system,” an offense that carries the death penalty.

Al Ajami’s 2011 poem “Tunisian Jasmine” mentions no other country and does not name the Qatari emir or any other ruler. There is a report that the secret charges against al-Ajami also include a poem he wrote in 2010 that does criticize the emir.

Hereditary Monarch or Progressive?

Sheikh Al Thani, 60, came to power as emir in 1995 when, as Minister of Defense, he led a bloodless military coup that deposed his father who was then in Switzerland, and who lived in exile until 2004 (when he returned at 72).

Despite his dictatorial powers, Sheikh Al Thani is “considered to be progressive among leaders of Muslim countries. In a break with the traditional role, his second wife Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, 53, has been a visible advocate for education and children’s causes.” She has two daughters and five sons, one of whom is friends with the poet al-Ajami.

According to al-Ajami’s lawyer, Najeeb al-Nuaimi, state security called the poet in fall 2011 and asked him to report to the police. When he asked why, he was told just to report. Then he called his friend, the emir’s son, who assured him the police just wanted him for routine registration. So he went, and they questioned him about his poetry and arrested him. …more