Qatar detains two Norway journalists amid World Cup protection

Security forces in Qatar detained two journalists from Norwegian state tv for over 30 hours and deleted footage they gathered at a migrant labor camp as they tried to report on employee points forward of the FIFA 2022 World Cup, authorities mentioned Wednesday.
Qatar’s authorities accused NRK journalists Halvor Ekeland and Lokman Ghorbani of “trespassing on private property and filming without a permit” as the 2 returned Wednesday to Norway following their arrest. The journalists contended they’d verbal permission from these they filmed there.
The arrests sparked a diplomatic dispute between Norway and Qatar. Norwegian information company NTB reported that the Qatari ambassador to the nation was summoned to Oslo’s international ministry over the matter.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere referred to as the arrests “unacceptable.”
“A free press is crucial in a functioning democracy,” Gahr Stoere wrote on Twitter. “This also shows the importance of this year’s awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize (to journalists). I am very happy that Halvor Ekeland and Lokman Ghorbani have now been released.”
The arrests, a yr forward of the World Cup, present the continued sensitivity felt by the autocratic authorities of Qatar, a small, energy-rich nation on the Arabian Peninsula. Other journalists have confronted comparable issues and detentions whereas reporting in Qatar as effectively forward of the World Cup.
Ekeland, a sports activities journalist, and Ghorbani, a photographer, had been in Qatar because the nation marked one yr to go earlier than the World Cup.
“They had gotten all the permissions needed to conduct interviews,” NRK boss Thor Gjermund Eriksen instructed a information convention at its headquarters in Oslo.
Ekeland mentioned they “didn’t have a written permission” to movie on personal property however these there OK’d it. He mentioned safety forces in civilian garments later got here to their resort and requested them to return to a police station.
They “were concerned that we were not allowed to film. But we were invited there by the World Cup organization to film there and there were a bunch of other media organizations there as well,” Ekeland mentioned.
The safety forces had a “tone that was quite harsh and they wanted to intimidated us,” however he mentioned ”there have been by no means threats or violence.”
“We feel that we were treated well,” Ekeland mentioned.
The journalists instructed NRK that they weren’t allowed to depart Qatar with their gear. The Norwegian Union of Journalists and the nation’s soccer federation each criticized the journalists’ arrest.
In an announcement to NRK, Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt mentioned “they were arrested while performing their duties as journalists.”
“Freedom of expression is the mainstay of a functioning democracy, and also fundamental to be able to fulfill other human rights,” she mentioned.
Qatar’s authorities mentioned in an announcement that the 2 had been arrested after receiving a criticism from an unidentified personal property proprietor within the nation’s Industrial Area, which is dwelling to labor camps. It mentioned that Ekeland had utilized for a movie allow, however authorities hadn’t granted it earlier than he went to the positioning.
Qatar, like different Gulf Arab states the place speech is strictly ruled, requires journalists to have permissions to function and to movie.
“As in almost every country, trespassing is against Qatari law, which the crew members were fully aware of before entering the property,” the federal government mentioned. It acknowledged that “the footage they captured while trespassing was deleted by the authorities in accordance with Qatari law.”
Asked in regards to the Qatar authorities’s feedback in regards to the journalists, NRK mentioned in an announcement to The Associated Press that it disagreed and described its journalists as behaving “in line with the principles and ethics of journalism.”
“Even if the Qatari authorities believe the journalists broke any rules, the treatment they were given is not acceptable,” NRK mentioned. “The detention of the journalists and the confiscation of all their equipment are in any case completely out of proportion. It threatens free and independent journalism and creates a serious chilling effect for all journalists visiting Qatar.”
Qatar, which stands out like a thumb into the Persian Gulf, is dwelling to the ahead headquarters of the U.S. navy’s Central Command. It has confronted elevated scrutiny over the therapy of migrant labor within the nation since profitable the correct to host the upcoming event.