Doha was seething with anger and resentment last evening with heated debates in majlises and drawing rooms and people exchanging angry messages — at least some calling Al Adeed (the security helpline set up by the Interior Ministry) after news that controversial Danish journalist, Flemming Rose, Culture Editor of the Jyllands-Posten, who had commissioned and published a series of cartoons derogatory to the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) was in the city for the World Press Freedom Day conference. The whispers grew into a raging controversy late in the evening with most citizens and expatriates alike upset with the news after Ahmad Ali, former editor-in-chief and now General Manager of Al Watan daily, in a signed editorial in yesterday’s edition of the newspaper lambasted the organisers of the Doha Center for Media Freedom for inviting Rose for the World Press Freedom Day conference. By inviting the controversial figure, who had insulted the Prophet (PBUH) by publishing the cartoons, he wrote, the Center’s head Robert Menard had insulted all Muslims. “Menard should know that there is a red line to media freedom and you cannot cross that border.” We cannot accept any media freedom that insults our dear Prophet,” Ahmad wrote. http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News&subsection=Qatar+News&month=May2009&file=Local_News2009050753858.xml

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