As UAE
Greets UN's
Ban, It Blocks
Prof's Talk on
Bahrain, Qatar
Poet Gets 15
Years
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
February 25 –
Days before UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon
visited the
United Arab
Emirates and
elsewhere in
the Gulf, the
UAE openly
denied entry
to Dr Kristian
Coates
Ulrichsen to
speak about
Bahrain at a
conference
organized by
the American
University of
Sharjah.
The UAE's
foreign
ministry
explained, or
bragged,
“Coates
Ulrichsen has
consistently
propagated
views
de-legitimizing
the Bahraini
monarchy. The
UAE took the
view that at
this extremely
sensitive
juncture in
Bahrain's
national
dialogue it
would be
unhelpful to
allow
non-constructive
views on the
situation in
Bahrain to be
expressed from
within another
GCC state.”
So the
UAE blocked
“non-constructive
views,” by an
academic.
During Ban
Ki-moon's
visit and
talks with the
UAE foreign
minister, did
he raise it?
The UN
has tweeted
a photograph
of Ban with
the UAE
foreign
minister,
and looking
out from the
world's
tallest
building in
the UAE. Inner
City Press tweeted
back the
question: "Did
Ban ask of
blocking
speaker on
Bahrain at AU
of Sharjah?"
So far no
answer. So far
not a word
about Bahrain,
much less
freedom of
speech.
Meanwhile
in
Qatar, the prison
sentence of
poet Muhammad
ibn al-Dheeb
al-Ajami
was set at 15
years. Inner
City Press has
repeatedly
asked at the
UN for any
response to
the jailing of
tweeters of
Bahrain
and this poet
by Qatar,
owner of Al
Jazeera; Ban's
silence has
been deafening.
Watch this
site.
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