Flip it around and I would not be surprised if a kid writing a pro-Hezbollah essay in a U.S. school got a visit from Homeland Security. (I know that sounds like hyperbole, but the level of one-sided fear-mongering in the U.S. media is truly frightening -- and the level of paranoia around the U.S. that has Middle Eastern men regularly arrested for the most specious reasons makes me think that country is just as intollerant of dissent as you are claiming QA is.)
This is not to say the epithets apparently flying around QA about this student are justified, merely that there is context to the singling out of a dissenting view. And in this context (QA-Qatar-Middle East), it is not all that surprising to me he was singled out. Is it wrong? Sure. Of course. And in a perfect world, this wouldn't happen. But as the current state of Lebanon painfully illustrates, this is not a perfect world.
And I don't read bajesus's posts as defending it as much as not being at all surprised by it.
Flip it around and I would not be surprised if a kid writing a pro-Hezbollah essay in a U.S. school got a visit from Homeland Security. (I know that sounds like hyperbole, but the level of one-sided fear-mongering in the U.S. media is truly frightening -- and the level of paranoia around the U.S. that has Middle Eastern men regularly arrested for the most specious reasons makes me think that country is just as intollerant of dissent as you are claiming QA is.)
This is not to say the epithets apparently flying around QA about this student are justified, merely that there is context to the singling out of a dissenting view. And in this context (QA-Qatar-Middle East), it is not all that surprising to me he was singled out. Is it wrong? Sure. Of course. And in a perfect world, this wouldn't happen. But as the current state of Lebanon painfully illustrates, this is not a perfect world.
And I don't read bajesus's posts as defending it as much as not being at all surprised by it.