Qatar's Soccer Stars Are Guinea Pigs in an Experiment to Erode Citizenship Rights - 0 views
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Qatar has not simply spent money to import and train a soccer team: It has also redefined the very idea of citizenship. Like most states in the Persian Gulf, Qatar is a majority-foreigner country. There are only about 300,000 actual Qatari passport holders out of a population of nearly 3 million. Pathways to citizenship are notoriously exclusive, and only 50 new citizenships can be granted per year to those personally approved by the emir of Qatar himself. Yet 10 of the 26 players on Qatar’s national soccer team are naturalized citizens. To comply with FIFA regulations, the entire team consists of Qatari citizens. But these naturalized soccer players are not quite immigrant-origin national heroes, in the vein of Zinedine Zidane or Zlatan Ibrahimovic. These immigrant players all carry “mission passports”—documents that confer citizenship for the purposes of sports competition
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this type of citizenship comes with a built-in expiration date, making these immigrant players’ citizenships temporary as well as second class.
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that Qatar has redefined the very nature of citizenship—without fanfare, controversy, and with the sole goal of appeasing FIFA nationality regulations—takes this story of temporary citizen soccer players beyond the realm of Gulf labor exploitation
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Hamas to launch new satellite TV channel - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East - 1 views
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The Hamas-led Gaza government is preparing to launch its own Al Ra’i satellite television channel, a new addition to an array of print and electronic media outlets by the same name
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The Gaza government and Hamas own a number of media outlets, mostly established after Hamas’ victory in the 2006 elections. They include a daily and semi-weekly newspapers, a number of local FM radio stations, a monthly newspaper that deals with social issues, a variety of local news agencies and websites, a media production company and the Al-Aqsa satellite television channel, as well as a few television channels and news sites abroad.
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The current staff is comprised of approximately 30 employees, some of whom come from various government ministries and possess the required qualifications. We are also collaborating with local media production companies to produce programs at a lower cost, or sometimes free of charge,
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Press freedom a fundamental characteristic of democracy - 1 views
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The state of the Turkish media is rather troublesome. Today, pro-government outlets dominate both electronic and written media. The recent seizure of the Akşam daily by the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund and its quick sale to the Ciner Group further consolidated pro-government supremacy over public discourse. The appointments to the Akşam daily have left little doubt as to what sort of line the paper will take. It is no wonder that Reporters Without Borders recently ranked Turkey 154th out of 179 countries in terms of press freedom. According to a report published by the main opposition party, there are 64 journalists under arrest in the country and another 123 facing trial on charges of terrorism. This is, of course, not healthy and is extremely worrying for a country that has been seen as an inspiration for many others in the Arab and Islamic world.
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there are extremely vocal oppositional views expressed in papers such as Sözcü and Taraf, but these are far from able to reach mainstream Turks. Also, there are some successful online media outlets, such as T24, that have welcomed Hasan Cemal and many other alternative pens. However, these are unable to penetrate the Anatolian heartland
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such contradiction with what the AK Party stood for in 2002
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US buys ads on Facebook to fight militants - 0 views
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the US has found this year that online ads on social media websites like Facebook, rather than posts, are a cost-effective way to fight the propaganda of the Islamic State (IS) and other militant groups
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Facebook's detailed metrics for advertisers helps the government campaign reach its targets - people who might be groomed online by militants."Using Facebook ads, I can go within Facebook, I can grab an audience. I can pick country X, I need age group 13 to 34, I need people who liked Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi or any other set, and I can shoot and hit them directly with messages," he said."In some places in the world, it's literally pennies a click to do it," he said.
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Facebook, he noted, offers the government access to affordable amassed and collated user data for singling out target groups and individuals for anti-militant ads the US government runs."The best I can do right now is to have access to big data and to use the analytics tools on the social media platforms, the Facebooks and the others,"
Giulio, the islands and national security | Mada Masr - 0 views
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The security logic seems to suggest that one cannot be sure that a researcher working on Islamic endowments in the 15th century isn’t really a spy — he might be looking for maps of Siwa, Halayib and Shalatin, the Yaghbub Oasis, or Tiran and Sanafir. Since we have border disputes with all our neighbors, not only can you not copy maps related to any border issue, you can’t conduct research on any topic vaguely connected to borders.
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The security logic doesn’t stop at maps and borders. It casts suspicion on every topic. An Egyptian colleague working on Mamluk history was denied a research permit. An American colleague was denied a permit for a project on the history of private presses in the 19th century. A student of mine studies the history of the Labor Corps during World War I; his permit was also rejected
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The official’s response (I paraphrase) was:Here’s someone studying the history of irrigation, and we have a dispute with Ethiopia over the Nile waters. We have no doubt that this student is honest and isn’t a spy, but how can we be sure that his thesis won’t fall into malicious hands, that it won’t contain information that could harm us — for example, info about Ethiopia’s right to the Nile waters? Such details could damage our negotiating position. Of course, we know employees at the National Archives are sincere patriots, and the same is true of most professors and students doing research there, but we have considerations that no one understands but us.
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Arab Media & Society - 1 views
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A prolific writer, Heikal penned dozens of books, chronicling events as a witness to history, his legacy linked with his association with Nasser. He was not just a journalist, newspaper editor, and later historian. Heikal was Nasser’s emissary with Western diplomats, a champion of Nasser’s brand of socialism and pan-Arab nationalism. He composed his speeches and ghost wrote Nasser’s political manifesto, The Philosophy of the Revolution. As the president’s alter ego, Heikal’s writings were read for clues to Nasser’s thinking. His influence derived from his proximity to power.
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Heikal blurred the line between the role of a journalist and that of a politician. “He introduced a model in Egypt and the Arab world about what your ambitions should be as a journalist. In the West or Europe, you gain your reputation from your independence as a journalist,” explained Dawoud. “When I am the president’s consultant and I attend his close meetings and I write his speeches, there is definitely a lot of information that I would have to keep secret. That goes contrary to my job as a journalist, which is to find as much information as I can.”
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The state media wholeheartedly embraced socialism and pan-Arabism, becoming a filter of information and propaganda, instead of the promised transformation of the institution into one that supposedly guides the public and builds society. Critical voices were muted, the military junta was sacrosanct, and Nasser was fortified as a national hero. The failings of the regime were not attributed to the president, but to the reactionary and destructive forces of capitalism and feudalism. Nasser’s personal confidant Muhammad Hassanein Heikal was appointed chairman of the board of al-Ahram, then later of Dar al-Hilal and Akhbar al-Youm publishing houses.
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The Internet of Elsewhere » Blog Archive » Iran announces 'halal Internet,' n... - 1 views
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Iran was working on a “halal Internet.” “Iran will soon create an internet that conforms to Islamic principles, to improve its communication and trade links with the world,” he said, apparently explaining that the new network would operate in parallel to the regular Internet and would possibly eventually replace the open Internet in Muslim countries in the regions.
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“The aim of this network is to increase Iran and the Farsi language’s presence in what has become the most important source of international communication.”
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six cyberdefense master’s degree programs and one doctoral program across various Iranian universities
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Meedan | Iranian gamers head to Europe to... - 1 views
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Iranian gamers head to Europe to promote Tehran’s developers
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Iran's government-run Press TV says: Titles produced by Iranian videogames companies include an Iran-Iraq war tank shooter, a platform adventure set in Persia, an adventure game where you play the role of a girl called Sara, a young student caught up in events during the early stages of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and a role-playing game based on Iranian mythology called the Age of the Braves.
Why more Israelis are shying away from interaction with Palestinians - Al-Monitor: the ... - 1 views
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The Peace Index for March 2016, published by the Israel Democracy Institute, shows that a sizable majority of the Jewish public rejects the distinction between global terrorism, nurtured by radical Islam, and Palestinian terrorism, nurtured by the desire to shake off the Israeli occupation. Of those polled, 64% said they agree with the idea espoused by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that global terrorism and Palestinian terrorism are one and the same.
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Israelis are in no rush to change the status quo
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Some 78% think Israel should not take into consideration international demands to refrain from “targeted killings” (as the Israel Defense Forces calls the killing of wanted Palestinians), demolitions of family homes of Palestinians involved in attacks on Israelis and other questionable means used by the Israeli defense establishment in the fight against terrorism.
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The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer: Targeted Paris stadium symbolizes pitfalls o... - 0 views
Erdoganism [noun] | Foreign Policy - 0 views
What's behind calls to close Shiite media outlets in Egypt? - 0 views
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In October 2016, lawyer Samir Sabri filed a lawsuit before the Second Circuit of the Administrative Judiciary Court, demanding that Shiite media outlets and websites be shut down in Egypt
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“It is unacceptable and unreasonable to have a media platform in Egypt promoting Shiite ideology. Egypt is an Islamic state and the main source of legislation is Sharia under the constitution, which recognizes Christianity and Judaism to be monotheistic. El-Nafis is one of the news websites inciting against Saudi Arabia, Al-Azhar and the Ministry of Awqaf, where Ahmad Rasem al-Nafis attacks in his articles the Sunnis and Saudi Arabia and calls for professing the Shiite faith.”
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“The Salafist leaders’ Wahhabism was behind the dissemination of extremism in Syria and Yemen. Shiite channels and websites in Egypt do not advocate extremism or renounce any ideology or doctrine. They call for dealing with the Shiites as Muslims at a time when Salafist movements claim that Shiites are non-Muslims.”
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