{"id":9967,"date":"2013-02-25T10:53:06","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T14:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=9967"},"modified":"2013-02-25T10:53:06","modified_gmt":"2013-02-25T14:53:06","slug":"qatari-poets-sentence-not-overturned-cut-to-15-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/qatari-poets-sentence-not-overturned-cut-to-15-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Qatari Poet\u2019s Sentence Not Overturned, Cut to 15 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

This just in, via Arab Literature (in English)<\/strong><\/em><\/a> blog<\/span>\u00a0by\u00a0<\/span>mlynxqualey<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The Qatari appeals court today reduced the sentence of\u00a0Mohammed al-Ajami, the poet jailed for his work, from life in prison to a long stint of 15 years.<\/em><\/h4>\n

\"alajami\"<\/a>According to\u00a0Al Jazeera,\u00a0<\/em>as the news outlet now appears to be covering the case,\u00a0al-Ajami\u00a0\u201dshouted insults at the courtroom and against the government of the Gulf state as he left the Doha court surrounded by armed security officials[.]\u201c<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0Reuters<\/a>\u00a0reported not insults, but that al-Ajami called out, \u201cThere is no law for this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 36-year-old al-Ajami\u2013 also known as\u00a0Mohammed Ibn al-Dheeb\u00a0\u2013 was jailed in November 2011 and sentenced a year later to life in prison for \u201cinsulting the emir,\u201d\u00a0Sheikh Hamad al-Thani.<\/p>\n

Amnesty International said in October that, \u201cThe prosecution\u2019s case against him is reportedly based on a poem he wrote in 2010 criticising Qatar\u2019s emir.\u201d However, it\u2019s widely believed that the real reason behind al-Ajami\u2019s outrageous sentence is his \u201cJasmine Poem<\/a>,\u201d which declares that\u00a0\u201dwe are all Tunisia in the face of the repressive\u201d regimes. (Read a rough translation of the poem.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

This is not the end of the case.\u00a0Najeeb al-Nuaimi, Ajami\u2019s lawyer, told\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/a>\u00a0after the hearing that his client would now appeal against\u00a0the verdict at the Court of Cassation, Qatar\u2019s highest court.<\/p>\n

\"Al-Ajami<\/a><\/p>\n

Al-Ajami in prison.\u00a0From al-Arab online<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a fixed trial and this shows the government is behind the justice system and that there isn\u2019t any independence,\u201d\u00a0Nuaimi told the news station.<\/p>\n

Even the\u00a0United Nations has made mention<\/a>\u00a0of al-Ajami\u2019s situation. According to Reuters, \u201cU.N. human rights spokeswoman Cecile Pouilly told a news briefing in Geneva on Jan 8 his trial had been marred by a number of procedural irregularities.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0the BBC<\/a>, Qatar\u2019s\u00a0Supreme Court is due to make a final ruling on his sentence within the next 30 days.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unknown how this might affect other Qataris\u2019 ability to read \u201cThe Jasmine Poem\u201d or others like it. In December,\u00a0Mohamed bin Saif al-Kuwari, part of an official Qatari Human Rights Committee, told Democracy Now that if anyone in Qatar were to read \u201cThe Jasmine Poem\u201d out loud in Qatar today, his understanding was that they too would be sentenced to life in prison.<\/p>\n

You can still sign the petition:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Urging al-Ajami\u2019s release<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This just in, via Arab Literature (in English) blog\u00a0by\u00a0mlynxqualey\u00a0 The Qatari appeals court today reduced the sentence of\u00a0Mohammed al-Ajami, the poet jailed for his work, from life in prison to a long stint of...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,29,52,87,91],"tags":[1358],"class_list":["post-9967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arab-culture","category-censorship","category-human-rights","category-petition","category-poetry","tag-mohammed-al-ajami"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9967"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9974,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9967\/revisions\/9974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}