Late on Tuesday evening, the news was published that two journalists from the Norwegian public service media NRK had been arrested in Qatar. Halvor Ekeland and photographer Lokman Ghorbani.
Ekeland and Ghorbani were arrested on Sunday night before they were to travel home to Norway on Monday morning, and were then locked up for 32 hours without being allowed to contact NRK. When they were then released on Tuesday, they were not allowed to bring their mobile phones, computers or camera equipment home to Norway (where they are now) from Qatar, according to the Norwegian newspaper VG.
– We were arrested at the hotel on Sunday night. We were taken to the police station and we stayed there for several hours, Ekeland told VG first before they made a more detailed statement in a later statement:
– There was no furniture or anything, ten to twelve people and cockroaches, Ekeland says according to NRK.
During the interrogations, Ghorbani had to play back all the recordings and tell where and when they were taken. However, he believes that the police gave a nice impression otherwise.
– Other than that, they were nice. I had to go with an officer for some tea and a cigarette in the backyard, says Ghorbani.
The arrest provoked reactions in the world on Wednesday.
NRK manager Thor Gjermund Eriksen commented on the TV channel’s website and said the following:
– We are first and foremost happy and relieved that both are in good condition and on their way home. I talked to them early today. They were taken by what they had been through but eventually got both food and some sleep. This thing has the highest priority with us. We have done that in order to get Ghorbani and Ekeland released and get them home safely to Norway.
The Norwegian Football Association also reacted.
– We are happy that the Norwegian journalists are on their way home. It is completely unacceptable for Qatari authorities to arrest journalists who engage in objective and critical journalism. We react very strongly to this and are deeply concerned about the conditions of journalists in Qatar, says Terje Svendsen who is chairman of the Norwegian Football Association to NRK.
The Swedish Football Association’s general secretary Håkan Sjöstrand also condemned the incident.
Qatar, in turn, later on Wednesday commented on the arrest. They said that the Norwegian journalists had broken Qatari law and that was why they were arrested.
“A NRK team was arrested early on November 22 for trespassing on private land and for filming without a permit. The authorities arrested the team at their hotel after the owner of the private land, which the team illegally entered, arrived. in with a complaint “, Qatar writes in a statement that continued:
“As in almost every country, trespassing is a violation of Qatari law, which the journalists were fully aware of before entering the area. The team had been given permission to film wherever they wanted in Qatar. They received all the permits they requested before arrival. However, those freedoms are not above the law, which the team deliberately violated “.
The football channel’s Olof Lundh, who was on site in Qatar and met Ekeland and Ghorbani before the arrest, called on Tuesday for Fifa and other players to act and put pressure on Qatar.
– It is completely incomprehensible that Qatar acts like this against journalists who do their job. Unfortunately, this shows how Qatar views freedom of the press. I really hope that Fifa and other players act and really put pressure on Qatar. This is not how it can go, Lundh said.
The Football Channel has now received a statement from the international football federation Fifa, which has commented on the matter. They do not mention anything about the confiscated property and lean on Qatar’s information that the NRK journalists have broken the law.
“Fifa defends the principles of press freedom. We have been in regular contact with local organizers (Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy) and NRK to establish the conditions regarding the arrest of the NRK team in Doha recently,” Fifa writes in its statement and continues :
“We note the statement by the State Communications Agency in Qatar, which states that the team deliberately defied the law by infringing on private property before they were released without charge. Fifa will continue to be in contact with NRK and the Supreme Committee, which cooperated with, and assisted, NRK- the team during their time in Doha “.
Qatar lacks a democratic system and is governed by an emir. In the country, homosexuality is banned, freedom of the press is extremely limited (the country is ranked 128th out of 180 on Reporters Without Borders’ list of world press freedom) and the country applies the whipping and death penalty. According to the human rights organization Human Rights Watch, the laws in Qatar discriminate against immigrants, women and LGBTQ people.
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