Qatar profile

An excellent long read on Qatar, including reference to social media issues: Declan Walsh, NYT, Tiny, Wealthy Qatar Goes Its Own Way, and Pays for It "The Qataris appear to have returned fire on the hacking front. For months American news media outlets have received stolen emails intended to embarrass Mr. Otaiba, the Emirati ambassador. The emails appear to come from Russia, but Saudi media reports say Qatar was behind them.
"Qatar denied any involvement in the hacking. “Qatar, as a matter of policy and principle, does not engage in cyber crimes or traffic in ‘fake news,’” the government said in a statement to The Times on Sunday."

Qatar situation

The digital element of this current dispute is significant, especially in relation to this blog. A variety of opinions are available:

BBC News, Qatar row: Six countries cut links with Doha

Middle East Eye, Three potential motives behind the spat between Qatar and its Gulf neighbours "It's clear that the hacking of Qatar's news agency last month was a premeditated assault. Here's why it happened - and why now."

 Middle East Eye, Qatar hits back as Saudi, Egypt, UAE cut diplomatic, transport ties "Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain cut their ties with Qatar and expelled the Gulf state from the coalition fighting the war in Yemen, accusing it of supporting terrorism. It opens up the worst rift in years among some of the most powerful states in the Arab world."

Arab News,  Bahrain, KSA, Egypt and UAE cut diplomatic ties with Qatar

Al Jazeera,  Inside Story: What's behind recent media attacks against Qatar?

Beggars using social media to solicit alms

The Peninsula Qatar, Beggars using social media to solicit alms, 30 May 2017 "Beggars send text or a WhatsApp message and claim that they have a relative in critical condition or need help to have a surgery done."

Social media users change profile picture in support of Qatar

thepeninsulaqatar.com, Social media users change profile picture in support of Qatar "A combination picture of the Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Father Emir H H Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani has gone viral among Qatari social media users. A hashtag calling to change the profile picture to this combination pic is also trending on Qatar social media."

"Hackers take aim at Qatar by publishing fake news on QNA"

Doha News, Hackers take aim at Qatar by publishing fake news on QNA, 24 May 2017
"An “unknown entity” has hacked Qatar’s official news agency, and is responsible for publishing a false statement attributed to the Emir, the Government Communications Office (GCO) has said."

Ramadan website

Gulf Times, Health Ministry committee relaunches Ramadan website

CFP "Muslim Religious Media and the Arab Spring"

EURAMES Info Services points to the following:

"Muslim Religious Media and the Arab Spring", Doha, Qatar, 8-10 April 2013

"A Workshop Organised by the Center for the Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies of the Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies, in collaboration with the New Islamic Public Sphere Programme of the University of Copenhagen

"The workshop will explore the processes of the creation, dismantling and reproduction of religiously-defined political influence in the context of the on-going political upheavals across the Arab World. It aims to trace the evolution of the political role of Muslim Arab religious media and to speculate about its future. It will discuss the claims to consensus it makes and the areas of debate it creates. Papers presented are expected to give special attention to the use of various textual sources and material for creating and deconstructing political arguments.

"If interested, please send abstracts (no more than 250 words) to arabspring@qfis.edu.qa no later than 20 January 2013. Final papers are not to be more than 8000 words. We will cover all expenses, including air travel (economy). Please note that this workshop aims to produce an edited volume, participants are expected to wish to contribute to this publication."

Please contact them (and not myself!). It sounds like a useful workshop.  

'AlJazeera Deletes From its Website Content that Disturb the US Government'

arabcrunch.com, Wikileaks: AlJazeera Deletes From its Website Content that Disturb the US Government, 11 Sep 2011, "A confidential US cables from US embassy in Doha, Qatar where Aljazeera head quarter is located and was published recently on Wikileaks, reveals that Al Jazeera Managing Director Wadah Khanfar has agreed to US government request to delete and altar website content that “disturb” the US government."

Qaradawi: Marriage after meeting over Net permissible

The Peninsula Qatar, Qaradawi: Marriage after meeting over Net permissible, 10 Apr 2011 "Eminent Islamic scholar, Dr Yusuf Al Qaradawi, has said that it is permissible in Islam for men and women who know each other through the Internet to get married.

"“I know people who came to know each other through the Internet. They met afterwards and got married. Thank God, they are having stable relations and leading a very happy family life,” said Al Qaradawi, a local Arabic daily reported yesterday."

Qatari blogger detained

aljazeera.net, Amnesty: Qatari blogger detained, 5 Mar 2011 "Amnesty International says a blogger and human rights activist has been detained incommunicado in Qatar and is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.

"The UK-based human rights group said Sultan al-Khalaifi was arrested on March 2 by around eight individuals in plain clothes, believed to be members of the security forces."

Man accidentally divorces wife during Skype chat

searchengineoptimisation.eu, Man accidentally divorces wife during Skype chat, 1 Nov 2011 "A Muslim man is paying a high price for a joke he made while chatting to his wife on a messenger conversation on Skype.

"The man in question jokingly typed “talaq”, which translates as “I divorce thee”, three times in a row during a conversation with his wife on the internet messenger. Worried about his joke, the husband decided to seek the advice of the Islamic authorities in case his actions invalidated his marriage." [posted retrospectively]

Hajj registration online in Qatar issues

Gulf News/zawya.com, Decision to free up Haj registrations in Qatar evokes mixed response, 22 Jul 2010 "According to one Haj operator, the government’s move to centralise the registration system and make it online is imprudent since some applicants could get away with providing false personal information.

"“Another issue is that most of the people going for Haj are old and not familiar with the internet, so they would find it hard to register online,” he said, according to the daily."

Arab women in social media study

thepeninsulaqatar.com, Accolades for NU-Q study on Arab women in social media, 15 Jul 2010

"Social media use among young Arab women is creative and innovative, according to a first-of-its-kind study conducted by researchers at Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q).

"The study revealed young Arab women have a deep respect for the community and the family. They are also more discerning when it comes to controlling information available in public, which leads to a high level of creativity in their use of social media

"Ivana Chalmers, NU-Q’s risk assessment specialist, and former faculty member Rodda Leage teamed up to conduct the research, which focused on social media use among women undergraduates at Education City, Doha."

The research can be found in a chapter from Girl Wide Web 2.0 - I'm still looking for info on this (there is an earlier version of the book available)

Islam Online update

MEMRI, The Islamonline Schism, 10 May 2010 "The Al-Balagh Society for the Service of Islam on the Internet, a Qatari association that owns Islamonline.net, recently decided to reorganize the popular Islamic website and to transfer supervision of its content and technology, as well as its administration, from its Cairo-based editors to the association's main headquarters in Doha. In response, some 300 of the website's Cairo employees who faced layoffs as a result of this decision launched a strike."

Background on MEMRI

Islam Online update

Heba El-Sherif, Daily News Egypt, Al-Balagh official says board only wanted to develop Islam Online, 2 Apr 2010 "The issue at popular Islamic resource Islam Online (IOL) was part of a “plan to diversify the website’s content and outreach” and not an attack on the website’s progressive approach to editorial content, according to Mohamed Badr El-Sada, one of IOL’s founders and current board member of Qatar’s Al-Balagh Foundation."

قطر .

Hannan Taha, globalarabnetwork.com, Qatar Receives Approval for Arabic Internet Domains, 30 Mar 2010 "The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced that Qatar has received approval to have its internet domains written in Arabic, one of the first countries in the world to receive approval to use non‐Latin language scripts in domain names. Once implemented, Internet Domains ending in the Arabic equivalent of “.qatar”(" قطر ." ) can be registered in Qatar’s native Arabic‐language."

Islam Online "on-strike" [update]

صوت إسلام أون لاين
The above link goes to Voice of IslamOnline.net, a blog collecting videos, campaign information and news on this major story. Some recent 'catch-up' links are below:


Ramadan Al Sherbini, GulfNews, Website workers defiant after boss dismissed, 26 Mar 2010


Fox News, Moderates forced out of top Islam Web site, 26 Mar 2010


"The Qatari government has forced out the moderate leadership of a popular Islamic Web site and plans to reshape it into a more religiously conservative outlet, former employees of the site said Thursday.
Sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi, the widely respected cleric who co-founded IslamOnline and is known as a relative moderate, is no longer the head of al-Balagh, the company which funds the Web site, said his secretary, Youssef Aboul-Naga."

I was surprised to see Fox describe al-Qaradawi as 'relative moderate'(discuss) ...


Zawya, Negotiations beak down between IOL staff and Qatar, 26 Mar 2010

"Representatives of Abdullah El-Naggar, head of Media International's board and member of the board of Al-Balagh foundation, IOL's main funder, met Thursday afternoon with a team of lawyers headed by Yasser Fathy.  
""They demanded that all employees resign in order to receive their financial packages," Fathy told Daily News Egypt.

""This is a [classic] case of Egyptian employees being hampered at the hands of a foreign management.""

ikhwanWeb.com, A Statement Clarifying the Real Situation at IslamOnline.net, Mar 26, 2010‎

ikhwanWeb.com, Ousted Islamonline's employees launch new website, 26 Mar 2010  

"The launching of a new website project titled "Alam Al-Umma" or "Islamic Nation Information," was revealed after the website Islamonline's employees were unjustly relieved from their positions on the website earlier this month."

Diana Mukkaled, Asharq Alawsat, IslamOnline: What Moderation?, 26 Mar 2010

""Whatever the case may be, this is a crisis that raises a question that relates to all aspects of Islam in the post-9/11 era; what kind of media for what kind of Islam after more than a decade of crises where politicians, philosophers, and activists have explored and analyzed everything connected to Islam to the point that the media is leaning towards irrational fear rather than towards research and knowledge?""

Hadeel al-Shalchi, AP, Moderates forced out of top Islam Web site, 26 Mar 2010 "Fathi Abu Hatab, who has been with the company for 10 years, said repeated pressures from management to change the site's approach prompted them to go on strike.

""Our Doha correspondent wasn't allowed to cover the Doha Film Festival because it was deemed unIslamic. We were receiving complaints (from management) about our discussions on women's health, homosexuality, and films.""

Islam Online "on-strike" [update]

Bibi-Aisha Wadvalla, Guardian, Comment is free, Why we're on strike at IslamOnline, 18 Mar 2010 "The dominoes came falling down as we learned that Qatar had blocked Egypt's access to the server. Then it was revealed that a contract – of which nobody seemed aware – between al-Balagh and Media International (which produces the website for al-Balagh) ends on 31 March and will not be renewed, and all employees will be released. The duplicity by Qatar persisted, with promises made to compensate those who resigned. They reneged on the deal a day later."

Yusuf al-Qaradawi

Marc Lynch, foreignpolicy.com, The Qaradawi Index, 21 Jan 2010 "Yusuf al-Qaradawi is in the news these days, denounced on a daily basis on Saudi, Palestinian and Egyptian op-ed pages, forums and TV over his stances on Gaza, on Hamas and Abu Mazen, on Yemen, and more. Following those controversies is an excellent window into what divides and arouses passion in Arab politics today. Hate him or love him, the man has a keen sense of Arab opinion -- whether he's following or leading it -- and has a proven track record of driving the debate. The fury of his adversaries on the other side of the so-called "new Arab cold war" is a pretty direct function of the fact that his opinions, aired on al-Jazeera and spread through multiple online and real-world networks, matter."

Doha Meeting

Peninsular Online, Islam’s young envoys to gather in Doha, 10 Jan 09

"Islam’s young ambassadors include Haroon Moghul, director of public relations at New York University’s Islamic Centre, which has arranged for Friday sermons to be downloaded via the internet to a weekly audience of 15,000.

"“One of the important issues is to challenge the kind of discourse that one finds often in Islamic communities, which doesn’t necessarily respond to the needs and desires of people in terms of the contemporary world,” Moghul said Thursday."