A Middle Eastern journalist friend recently had an opportunity to sit round a table with a senior political figure from the region.
He asked the man a fair, but critical question. The politician brushed it aside. When the meeting ended, the politician sought him out for a quiet word, along the lines of:
Your owners support our position on this matter. They would be very unhappy to know that you are asking such things.
The threat was clear. So when do you stop asking questions?
One response to “Censoring Arab journalists”
There’s an interesting case in Russia at the moment where Vasily Aleksanyan, an HIV Aids sufferer, is in jail and being denied access to retroviral drugs. However, the Russian press is denying this and reporting the government line that either he refused treatment or he is being treated.