The Doha Centre for Media Freedom has been in the throes of controversy right from its inception.
The only Qatari on its 12-member board is its chairman, Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani, who also heads the board of Al Jazeera Channel.
The board has all sorts of people, including novelists, writers and politicians as members, some of them pretty controversial. One of them being a former Indian junior minister and UN under-Secretary General for Communications, Shashi Tharoor.
Tharoor, a member of India’s parliament, had to quit Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s cabinet following allegations that he had misused his office to get shares in the India Premier League (Cricket) franchise of Cochin.
The Advisory Council of the Doha Centre for Media Freedom, similarly, though headed by the Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage H E Dr Hamad Abdulaziz Al Kuwari) has only one Qatari as member. Nasser Al Othman, the highly-respected Qatari scribe is the only national on the 10-member Council of the Centre.
Shockingly, a man who holds an Israeli passport is on the Council and he is a musician, not a journalist. Sixty-nine year old, Daniel Barenboim is basically a pianist and conductor.
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