Qatar detained hundreds of people for videos and rumors after the Iranian attacks, similar interventions came in Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE. The regimes extend to harsh punishments.
Authorities in Qatar have detained 313 people for spreading videos and “misleading information” during Iran’s retaliatory attacks on Gulf Arab countries, Qatar’s interior ministry said on Monday. TASR informs about it according to the report of the AFP agency.
- Qatar has detained 313 people for spreading videos and misleading information.
- Iran attacked the Persian Gulf countries in retaliation for US-Israeli strikes.
The detainees, according to a statement from the Ministry of the Interior, “filmed and disseminated videos and published misleading information and rumors that could influence public opinion.”
People of “various nationalities” were detained by the Economic and Cybercrime Department of the Ministry’s Directorate General of Criminal Investigation.
Qatar, along with other countries of the Persian Gulf, was the target of Iranian attacks, which were a response to the strikes of the United States and Israel in the Islamic Republic. On Saturday, Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkiyan apologized to neighboring countries for these attacks and announced that as long as these countries do not attack Iran, Iran will no longer target their territories. The highest representative of the Iranian judiciary, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ezei, declared on Saturday that Iran will attack neighboring countries that assist enemy states in aggression against it.
Reactions and detentions
Detentions also took place in other countries after the Iranian attacks. In Bahrain, authorities detained four people for “filming and broadcasting videos of the aftermath of the Iranian attacks and spreading false information,” according to a statement from the Ministry of Interior on Friday.
Kuwaiti authorities on Saturday announced the arrest of three people for a video in which these people mock the situation in Kuwait.
Notices also in the UAE
Residents of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have received text messages about possible legal action for sharing sensitive footage or “spreading unreliable information”.
The Attorney General’s Office in the UAE also warned against “filming, publishing and disseminating photographs and videos documenting incident sites or damage caused by falling projectiles or shrapnel”. Saudi Arabia also issued a similar warning.
AFP notes that despite such warnings, pictures of missiles, drones and the consequences of the latest conflict in the Middle East are spreading on the Internet.
