By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, February 25 – Days before UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere in the Gulf, the UAE openly denied entry to Dr Kristian Coates Ulrichsen to speak about Bahrain at a conference organized by the American University of Sharjah.
The UAE's foreign ministry explained, or bragged, “Coates Ulrichsen has consistently propagated views de-legitimizing the Bahraini monarchy. The UAE took the view that at this extremely sensitive juncture in Bahrain's national dialogue it would be unhelpful to allow non-constructive views on the situation in Bahrain to be expressed from within another GCC state.”
So the UAE blocked “non-constructive views,” by an academic. During Ban Ki-moon's visit and talks with the UAE foreign minister, did he raise it?
The UN has tweeted a photograph of Ban with the UAE foreign minister, and looking out from the world's tallest building in the UAE. Inner City Press tweeted back the question: "Did Ban ask of blocking speaker on Bahrain at AU of Sharjah?" So far no answer. So far not a word about Bahrain, much less freedom of speech.
Meanwhile in Qatar, the prison sentence of poet Muhammad ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami was set at 15 years. Inner City Press has repeatedly asked at the UN for any response to the jailing of tweeters of Bahrain and this poet in Qatar; Ban's silence has been deafening. Watch this site.
