Former Al Jazeera English Bureau Chief Reveals Doha’s Domestic Troubles
KABUL: (MEP) Mohamed Fahmy, an Egyptian-Canadian journalist who was the Cairo bureau chief for Al Jazeera English revealed new aspects of Doha’s domestic troubles representing in oppressions on political freedom and divisions in al-Thani family itself.
By Mohamed Fahmy – Qataris who seek greater freedom of expression and more democracy in their oil-rich nation face disappointment, and perhaps worse.
In what may presage a wider crackdown on dissent in Qatar, Sheikh Fahad bin Abdullah al-Thani — a cousin of the ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani — was last month sentenced to seven years in prison.
Sheikh Fahad was accused of shooting three officers as he stormed a police station in a bid to free his two sons, but the Qatari government’s version of events conflicts with other witnesses’.
According to family members and others to whom I’ve spoken, it was state security forces that did the storming, using armored vehicles against the sheikh’s palace in Doha, the capital, last January.
The sheikh and his sons, they say, were severely beaten during the confrontation.
Sheikh Fahad had a longtime dispute with the government over its seizure of some of his inherited land, according to his family.
But opposition activists also believe that the arrest was in retaliation for the sheikh’s political activities. According to the lawyer and human rights advocate Najeeb al-Nauimi, who is in contact with the sheikh’s family, he is in prison in Doha.
A former justice minister who has become an outspoken critic of the government, Mr. Nauimi represents dozens of Qataris who have suffered under the absolute monarchy’s silencing of opposition voices.
One of his clients is the poet Muhammad al-Ajami, who is serving a 15-year sentence, after a secret trial in 2012, for “criticizing the emir” in a poem that praised the Arab Spring. After the verdict, Mr. Nauimi said, “Our judicial system cannot be trusted.”
Qatar’s backing of Syrian Islamist rebel groups like Ahrar al-Sham and the Nusra Front has rebounded embarrassingly.
