26 April, 2007

Press freedom

Coming on the heels of the concluding day of the Arab Media Forum held in Dubai, an ironic newsreport:

Journalists charged with slander
A court will decide whether two senior journalists were liable for maligning two dignitaries by publishing a front-page article on how their horse was stripped of an award for taking a banned substance.

The Abu Dhabi Federal Court will issue its verdict against the UAE national journalists, a chief executive and an editor-in-chief of a Dubai-based Arabic newspaper, later this month, Gulf News has learnt.

The dignitaries' legal representative, of Rashid Bu Jsaim Advocates and Legal Consultants office, accused the defendants of intentionally publishing inaccurate and untrue information against the plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs are also suing for publishing their pictures in a slanderous manner.
...
The lawyer [for the defense] handed the court a copy of an international sport court's ruling which stripped the plaintiffs of the award. Hashim also supported the court with a copy of the medical report (issued from the International Equestrian Federation) which proved that the horse was given a performance-enhancement drug.

7 comments:

secretdubai said...

Christ I hope the court rules with some common sense.

Anonymous said...

Poor horse!
Also, notice this is a tricky post. Author of the post, So you didn’t actually write anything but the title of the post. Who are you, trying to criticize press freedom by the help of a horse?
It’s shameful to link "Press Freedom" to such an article. There has been no press freedom in this country. This is not a press freedom (by the value). This is a culture of an Arabic paper. This is what the paper found interesting for its readers. They didn't print it on the front page as an exercise of "Press freedom". They print it because they thought it's popular among their readers. Please! Press freedom is more than this

Anonymous said...

Well it is press freedom when you realise the context - ie this issue is an Abu Dhabi vs Dubai sheikh battle.

It's why other papers shied away from printing it.

Anonymous said...

The guys whose picture was published along with the article are two Shiekhs, the sons of the deputy prime minister. Its was Emarat Al Youm who published it.

Keef said...

Oh dear. There's a mountain of wasta involved with this case...

Anonymous said...

^^ Actually am surprised that this went to public. A wasta would be no good in this case.

Anonymous said...

can some1 confirm? i've been out of the country and i heard emirates evening post has either been closed down or is no longer publishing.
is there any reason? thankz!

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