Norway criticizes Qatar for arresting journalists documenting preparations for 2022 World Cup

Norway called the Qatari ambassador in Oslo for consultations on Wednesday after the temporary detention in the emirate of two journalists from Norwegian television that they documented the controversial preparations for the World Cup.

According to the chain they work for, the public NRK, Halvor Ekeland and Lokman Ghorbani were arrested without explanation, shortly before his departure from Doha, on the night of Sunday to Monday, almost a year after the start of the competition.

Both of them they were released without charge after about thirty hours, and landed this Wednesday in Oslo.

The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicated that it had called the Qatari ambassador in Oslo for consultations to discuss the situation of the two journalists.

“The arrest of NRK journalists in Qatar is unacceptable”, estimated Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre on Twitter.

“A free press is decisive for a functioning democracy”He wrote, recalling in passing the importance of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded this year to the fighters for press freedom, the Filipino Maria Ressa and the Russian Dmitri Mouratov.

In Qatar, the authorities stated for their part, the two journalists were charged with a unauthorized intrusion on private property.

“The team was authorized to record wherever they wanted in Qatar. We give them all the recording permits they requested before their arrival and we proposed to meet with senior government officials, “they said in a statement.

“These freedoms do not, however, prevail over the application of common law, which the team knowingly and voluntarily violated”, They specified.

According to cameraman Lokman Ghorbani, journalists’ material was requisitioned and they had to show “for hours” the recordings made.

“All the world I was intrigued by the material, the mission, why we were there, what purpose was it going to serve, how many reports did we carry out ”, he recounted at a press conference in the Norwegian capital.

Already critical since the time of the attribution of the World Cup to Qatar, the nordic countries are on the front line of the international pressures aimed at improving working conditions of migrants in the emirate.

The president of the Norwegian Olympic Committee, Berit Kjøll, described as “Surprising and totally unacceptable” the information about those arrests.

“We must end the attribution of large sports competitions to countries that do not respect freedom of the press or freedom of expression,” he said in a statement. (D)