Prominent Saudi and Emirati journalists and broadcasters have been ordered by their respective ministries to quite their posts in Doha as tensions escalate between Qatar and its GCC counterparts, according to Agence France Presse Sunday.
The order from the KSA and UAE ministries follows last Wednesday's diplomatic envoy recall from Doha in which Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain ordered their diplomats to return home in protest of Qatar's alleged "meddling" in their "internal affairs" vis-à-vis supporting Islamists.
The Gulf peninsula has dismissed its counterpart's charges, saying that the Wednesday diplomatic recall move was in response to tension and "differences in regional politics." However, the recall of media personnel may now launch Qatar-GCC relations into another dimension.
Saudi columnist for Al Arab Qatari Daily Samar Mogren, as well as Saleh Al Shehi, Ahbed Bin Rashed Al Saeed, and Muhanna Al Hubail are among the KSA journalists who received specific orders from Riyadh to stop writing for the Qatari press and to quit their posts immediately in Doha.
Emirati broadcasters Ali Saeed Al Kaabi and Fares Awad who both work for Doha's Beln Sports channel announced via Twitter Saturday their resignations without giving further information over their decisions.
Emirati Sultan Rashed also announced this week that he would stop contributing to Beln and Emirati analyst Hassan Al Jassmi who worked with Beln as well as another Qatar sports channel called Alkass told media outlets that he would no longer contribute to either channel.
