Menard’s exit from DCMF raises questions on Doha’s ‘Free press’ stand

Menard’s exit from DCMF raises questions on Doha’s ‘Free press’ stand
Shashank Shekhar
It’s not often that a media institution in the Arab world, particularly the Gulf takes a stand against the government of the soil it operates on. Not even Al Jazeera, the fancy symbol of the Middle East’s ‘free the press’ revolution.
So when the Director of Doha Centre for Media Freedom (DCMF) Robert Menard spoke against the Qatar government it came as a surprise. The DCMF, after all, was established and funded by the Qatar government.
The result of Menard’s statement, that came summarily, was not surprising. Out of frustration, Menard left the Centre along with his mostly French team. The Centre aspired to help journalists with serious threat to their lives. In its year long operation it rescued journalists from Iran and Sudan. It funded an independent news agency for Somali journalists, provided bulletproof jackets in Somalia, Iraq and Pakistan, opened a press centre in Gaza and supplied newsprint to newspapers in Guinea-Bissau. The centre was established on the initiative of Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned, the wife of the Emir of Qatar. In line with the Gulf’s tendency of hiring the most suitable, Menard, the founder of Paris based Reporters Without Borders was appointed its first Director.
Much in line with how staunchly independent media organisations operate, the DCMF began expressing its views freely. It spoke when a delay in official formalities led to a delay in rescuing an Afghan journalist whose life was under threat. When the news of the journalist being killed came, Menard lost his mercurial journalistic temper. He cried foul and sent out releases criticizing Qatari authorities responsible for the delay.
A few months later, the DCMF said that it was shocked that the Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir was allowed to take part in the Arab League meeting in Doha (held in March this year).
There is a warrant of arrest pending against Al Bashir from the International Criminal Court. Al Bashir, a former military official is accused of being legally responsible for murdering, raping and torturing civilians in Darfur, driving them from their homes and pillaging their property.
"Although Qatar has not ratified the International Criminal Court's Statute, and despite its vital role in mediation between Darfur and the Sudanese government, welcoming President Al Bashir to the Arab League summit is a blow to international justice", the Doha Centre said in a communique. The release was perhaps the first ever document issued from the within Qatar that was critical of the Qatari government.
"We cannot approve of the ICC Prosecutor's intervention over crimes committed by Israel in Gaza and complain about it when a friendly country is involved. By doing so, the Arab countries are themselves applying the double standards they have complained about so often in Palestine," the release that surprised journalists (it was not used in the local newspapers) in Qatar said.
The Centre opposed vehemently when one of its officials was detained at the Doha airport and cried foul whenever authorities in Doha delayed the very task it was created for – helping provide a safe exit to journalists under threat from their regime.
Ultimately, on June 23, Menard and his team left Doha. "The Centre has been suffocated. We no longer have either the freedom or the resources to do our work," Menard said in a statement that was issued from Paris by the Centre’s former Chief of Communications Sara Kianpour. That the statement was released from Paris affirms that even Menard was apprehensive whether he would face problems leaving Qatar incase he spoke against the government from within its frontiers.
Surprising as it may seem, he blamed Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani, the President of the Board of Al Jazeera for blocking flow of funds to his organization. Apparently, the Qatar government routed its funds to DCMF through Al Jazeera, its symbol for promoting free press. The angst-ridden missive that Menard had sent to all the journalists who had in the past come in contact with the centre spoke volumes on double standards that prevail in a country that has fared well on several other counts like education and distribution of wealth to its citizens.
“Some Qatari officials never wanted an independent Centre, free to speak out without concern for politics or diplomacy, free to criticise even Qatar. How can we have any credibility if we keep quiet about problems in the country that is our host?” Menard asked questions that he knew will never be answered.
“I was willing to make any necessary compromises as long as the foundations of our work – assistance grants, statements of opinion - were safeguarded. But that is no longer the case.”