Qatar, Arab Spring sponsor, jails poet for life
By Regan Doherty
DOHA | Thu Nov 29, 2012 12:58pm EST
(Reuters) - A court in Qatar, which has supported Arab uprisings abroad,
jailed a local poet for life on Thursday for criticizing the emir and
inciting revolt - a sentence that drew outrage and cries of hypocrisy from
human rights groups.
In his verses, Muhammad Ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami praised the Arab Spring
revolts that toppled four dictators, often with the help of money and other
support from the tiny, energy-rich Gulf state. But he also criticized
Qatar's own absolute monarch and spoke, for example, of "sheikhs playing on
their Playstations".
"This is a tremendous miscarriage of justice," said defence lawyer Nagib
al-Naimi, who conveyed the verdict to Reuters after a trial held behind
closed doors in the capital Doha.
At the prison where he has been held for a year, Ajami, 36, later told
Reuters he believed the emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, to be "a
good man" who must be unaware of his plight. Lawyer Naimi said the defence
would appeal. A royal pardon may also be a possibility.
Ajami was not himself allowed in court and Naimi said the defence was barred
from making oral arguments, although he contested the prosecution case that
Ajami called for revolution in Qatar - an offence which carries the death
penalty.
For Amnesty International, Middle East director Philip Luther said in a
statement: "It is deplorable that Qatar, which likes to paint itself
internationally as a country that promotes freedom of expression, is
indulging in what appears to be such a flagrant abuse of that right."
Amnesty described Ajami's arrest in November 2011 as coming after he
published a poem named "Jasmine" - for the symbol of the Tunisian revolt in
January last year that launched the Arab Spring. In a broad criticism of
Gulf rulers, he had written: "We are all
<
http://www.reuters.com/places/tunisia> Tunisia, in the face of the
repressive elite."
"PLAYING WITH PLAYSTATIONS"
Ajami "did not encourage the overthrow of any specific regime", Naimi said.
He described the charges as having been "inciting the overthrow of the
ruling regime", a capital offence, and criticising the ruler, which is
punishable by up to five years imprisonment under the Qatari penal code.
Among offending passages from the poem, translated from Arabic, was the
line: "If the sheikhs cannot carry out justice, we should change the power
and give it to the beautiful woman."
In another section, Ajami accused a fellow poet of being "with the sheikhs,
playing with their Playstations."
Naimi, who has been largely in solitary confinement, spoke to Reuters in the
presence of prison guards and others: "The Emir is a good man," he said. "I
think he doesn't know that they have me here for a year, that they have put
me in a single room.
"If he knew, I would be freed," he said, noting the Qatari ruler's past
promotion of a more open society, including his hosting of the
groundbreaking television channel Al Jazeera, which has given a voice to
many opposition groups abroad.
"This is wrong," Ajami said. "You can't have Al Jazeera in this country and
put me in jail for being a poet."
Qatar, a close U.S. ally and major natural gas producer with a large
American military base, has escaped the unrest seen in other Arab countries.
The emir has taken a high-profile role at times in calling for human rights
- for example, when he went to Gaza last month, the first foreign leader
there in years.
Al Jazeera has assiduously covered the Arab revolts, though it gave scant
coverage to an uprising last year in neighboring Bahrain - ruled by another
Gulf Arab monarchy.
The Qatari government has also taken a prominent role in the confrontation
between, on the one hand, Sunni Muslim-ruled Arab states like itself and
Saudi Arabia and, on the other, non-Arab
<
http://www.reuters.com/places/iran> Iran and its Shi'ite allies in Syria,
Lebanon and elsewhere.
"DOUBLE STANDARDS"
Qatar is backing the rebels in Syria's civil war. It supported the
NATO-backed uprising in Libya and street protests that ousted rulers in
Egypt, Tunisia and <
http://www.reuters.com/places/yemen> Yemen. The
emirate's maroon and white flag has been a common sight on the streets of
Arab capitals where demonstrators have challenged autocracy.
But freedom of expression is tightly controlled in the small Gulf state,
home to less than two million people. Self-censorship is prevalent among
national newspapers and other media outlets. Qatar has no organized
political opposition.
In October, Human Rights Watch criticized what it said was a double standard
on freedom of expression in Qatar and urged the emir not to approve a draft
media law penalizing criticism of the Gulf emirate and its neighbors.
In neighboring monarchy <
http://www.reuters.com/places/saudi-arabia> Saudi
Arabia, human rights activist Ali al-Hattab said: "We are shocked by the
verdict.
"Qatar has tried to help other countries like Libya and
<
http://www.reuters.com/places/syria> Syria become more democratic, but they
won't accept it at home.
"It's shameful, and a double standard."
(Additional reporting by Rania El Gamal in Dubai and Dasha Afanasieva in
London; Editing by Andrew Hammond, Mark Heinrich and Alastair Macdonald)
------------[ Sent via the dehai-wn mailing list by dehai.org]--------------
Received on Fri Nov 30 2012 - 13:18:49 EST
