TA3BEER

Freedom House, a NGO tasked with ranking countries the world over in terms of Political Rights & Civil Liberties freedom, scores Qatar’s Political Rights 6 and Civil Liberties 5. The scale is from 1-7, with 7 being the least free and 1 being the most free. Thus, it should come as no surprise that when the tiny peninsula country of Qatar began witnessing protests fomenting in its immediate neighbor Bahrain, Al-Jazeera remained curiously quiet on the cascading events there. Surely, the monarchy was concerned of protests spreading to its own populace. In addition to Al-Jazeera not reporting seriously on the protests and violence in Bahrain, the network remained silent on the brewing demonstrations in both Oman and Saudi Arabia, too. Interestingly, Al-Jazeera has been vociferously reporting on the protests in Yemen and President Ali’s brutal crackdown there. Hammond and others have speculated that this is because Yemen, unlike Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Bahrain, is not a member of the GCC.

What has for years been remarkable about Qatar is the dichotomy between the inherently authoritarian regime and (until recently) the free press of Al-Jazeera. The two are simply not commensurate. In addition to the relative freedom and leeway that Al Jazeera has to operate within the Monarchy, the citizens of Qatar themselves do not perceive the country as being corrupt or tyrannical. The Corruption Perception Index is another NGO that globally ranking and scoring countries, this one on the level of perceived corruption within a country, either from the government or in general. Qataris ranked their country a 7.7, which is the 19^th highest ranking in the world. This ranking is better than the United States (22^nd), Britain (20^th), and France (25^th). This is truly remarkable. The citizens of Qatar – one of the most (empirically) unfree countries in the world – has a lower perceived corruption ranking than three of the oldest and most consolidated democracies in the world. Truly, this is a paradox.

Al-Jazeera is a metaphor for this paradox. Since 1996, the network has been a beacon of free press in an otherwise draconian and authoritarian region. It has defined and played this role unwaveringly. However, the network, despite its years of commitment to journalistic integrity, remains housed in an undeniably authoritarian country. The network is a victim of the circumstances of the Arab Spring, and as a result, has had to show the true colors of its sponsor: authoritarian Qatar.

By Patrick Friedel