Posted on 07/13/2002 12:14:20 AM PDT by stilts
RIYADH (AFP) — The Saudi information ministry has forced Ahmad Mohammed Mahmoud, director general of Al Madina newspaper, to resign for repeatedly violating the kingdom's strict media law, journalists said Thursday. Mahmoud was held responsible for the publication of articles and reports deemed offensive by Saudi authorities, the journalists, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
The acting editor-in-chief of the troubled daily, Mohammed Hosni Mahjub, was also demoted to deputy editor-in-chief, a job he held before the March 20 dismissal of the paper's former editor, Mohammed Al Fal.
Fal was forced to resign for allowing the publication of a poem critical of the Islamic judiciary. The poet, Abdul Mohsen Helleet Musallam, was briefly detained for questioning.
"Mahmoud was ousted because it was found that he was partly responsible for the publication of the poem. He also allowed Fal to write a weekly column even after his sacking," one journalist said.
He was also found to be responsible for allowing the publication of a report two months ago on the demolition of a shanty area in the Red Sea city of Jedda inhabited by poor people, he said.
Governor of Mecca region, Prince Abdul Majeed Ben Abdul Aziz, half-brother of King Fahd, strongly criticised the paper for publishing the "false report."
Abdulqader Suleiman Al Khuraiji, a co-owner and a board member of Al Madina, has been appointed acting director-general, while Fahd Al Agran was promoted from marketing manager to acting editor-in-chief.
Saudi Arabia has eight Arabic-language dailies, a business daily and three English-language newspapers. They are privately owned but officially guided and supervised by the information ministry.
Saudi-owned Al Hayat and rival pan-Arab daily Asharq Al Awsat both publish from London but have a wide circulation in the kingdom.
I'd hate to be a journalist in Saudi Arabia. At least in America, ostracism is the worst penalty journalists receive for deviating from the party line.
I know that's sufficiently severe to keep them "politically correct", but I think the penalties are even harsher in the Islamic theocracies, aren't they?
Maybe they aren't. American journalists are certainly extremely reluctant to deviate.
So maybe I'm wrong.
Anybody know?
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