Middle East Eye

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File:Middle East Eye logo.jpg
MEE Logo (cropped).jpg
TypeOnline
Editor-in-chiefDavid Hearst[1]
FoundedApril 2014; 10 years ago (April 2014)
Headquarters1 Sussex Place, London, England, United Kingdom[2]
Websitemiddleeasteye.net

Middle East Eye (MEE) is a London-based online news website covering events in the Middle East and North Africa. MEE describes itself as an "independently funded online news organization that was founded in April 2014." MEE seeks to be the primary portal of Middle East news, and describes its target audience as "all those communities of readers living in and around the region that care deeply for its fate".[3]

Organisation

MEE is edited by David Hearst, a former foreign leader writer for the British daily, The Guardian.[4] MEE is owned by Middle East Eye Ltd, a UK company incorporated in 2013 under the sole name of Jamal Awn Jamal Bessasso. It employs about 20 full-time staff in its London office.[citation needed]

MEE has been accused of being backed by Qatar.[5][6] The governments of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Bahrain accuse MEE of pro-Muslim Brotherhood bias and receiving Qatari funding. As a consequence, they demanded MEE to be shut down following the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar. MEE has denied the accusations, saying that they are independent of any government or movement and are not funded by Qatar.[7]

On 20 October 2022, MEE cut ties with Palestinian journalist Shatha Hammad after it was discovered that she made a Facebook post in 2014 which praised Adolf Hitler for "sharing the same ideology" and the Holocaust. The Thomson Reuters Foundation had withdrawn a 2022 Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism from her, after the discovery, on 18 October.[8][9][10][11]

Coverage

Middle East Eye covers a range of topics across the Middle East. According to its website, it reports on events in 22 different countries. Content is separated into different categories on its website including news, opinion and essays.[12]

Since the foundation of the media outlet, it has provided exclusives on a number of major events in the Middle East, which have often been picked up by other media outlets globally. In early June 2017, an anonymous hacker group began distributing emails to multiple news outlets that they had hacked from the inbox of Yousef Otaiba, the UAE's ambassador in Washington D.C.[13] This included providing details from leaked emails of Mohammed bin Salman and US officials.[14] This revelation on 14 August 2017, led to other media outlets to print other material from the leaked emails.[15][16] According to The New York Times, the hacked emails appeared to benefit Qatar and be the work of hackers working for Qatar, a common subject of the distributed emails.[17]

On July 29, 2016, MEE published a story alleging that the government of the United Arab Emirates, aided by Palestinian exile Mohammed Dahlan, had funnelled significant sums of money to conspirators of the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt two weeks earlier.[18] In 2017, Dahlan brought a lawsuit of libel against the MEE in a London court seeking damages of up to £250,000. However, Dahlan abandoned the suit shortly before the case was to begin. In a statement, Dahlan maintained that the story was “fully fabricated” but claimed that he has “achieved his goals in the English courts," and was now planning to sue Facebook in Dublin where the article was “widely published”. However, according to MEE and their lawyers, by dropping the claim, Dahlan will be forced to pay all the legal costs, of both parties, estimated to be in excess of £500,000.[19][20]

In November 2019, the Turkish government officially accused Dahlan of involvement in the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt and is offering $700,000 for information leading to his capture.[21]

Criticism of coverage

Saudi Arabia accused MEE of being a news outlet funded by Qatar (both directly and indirectly).[22]

On 22 June 2017, during the Qatar diplomatic crisis, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, and Bahrain, as part of a list of 13 demands, demanded that Qatar close Middle East Eye, which they saw as sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood and a Qatari-funded and aligned outlet. Middle East Eye denied it has ever received Qatari funds.[23][24]

Notable contributors

Jamal Khashoggi

Jamal Khashoggi wrote for MEE prior to joining The Washington Post.[39][40]

According to a post on the MEE website, Khashoggi wrote for them over a period of two years. According to MEE, his op-eds were not credited to him at the time due to concerns for his safety because many of his articles for MEE are critical of Saudi Arabia and its policies, and Saudi Arabia's rift with Qatar.[39] Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, was assassinated when he entered the Saudi consulate in Turkey on 2 October 2018. After initial denials, Saudi Arabia stated that he was killed by rogue assassins inside the consulate building with "premeditated intention".[41]

Middle East tensions

Blocking

In 2016, the United Arab Emirates blocked the Middle East Eye in what was a countrywide ban. MEE says it contacted the UAE embassy in London for an explanation, but never received a response.[42] Saudi Arabia also blocked the website across the country in May 2017. Following protests against the President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in September and October 2019, Egypt also blocked the website.[43]

2017–2018 Qatar diplomatic crisis

In June 2017, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Bahrain ended their diplomatic relationships with Qatar, followed by a list of 13 demands to restore diplomatic relations.[22][24] MEE was mentioned in one of the demands to be shut down by Qatar even though the news organisation denies receiving funds from them stating that 'the demand as an attempt to "extinguish any free voice which dares to question what they are doing."[44] In a statement responding to the demand, the publication's editor-in-chief said "MEE covers the area without fear or favour, and we have carried reports critical of the Qatari authorities, for instance how workers from the subcontinent are treated on building projects for the 2022 World Cup."[45][46]

Cyberattack

In April 2020, MEE was one of 20 websites targeted by hackers that cybersecurity experts, ESET, have linked to an Israeli surveillance company called Candiru. The website was impacted using a Watering hole attack which serves malicious code to certain visitors allowing the attackers to compromise their PCs.[47]

References

  1. ^ "David Hearst". Middle East Eye. Archived from the original on 11 April 2019. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
  2. ^ "About – Coverage". Middle Easy Eye. Archived from the original on 11 June 2019. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
  3. ^ "About Middle East Eye". Middle East Eye. Archived from the original on 2019-06-11. Retrieved 2014-09-09.
  4. ^ "David Hearst | The Guardian". the Guardian. Archived from the original on 2021-11-08. Retrieved 2021-11-08.
  5. ^ Berman, Ilan (2018). Digital Dictators: Media, Authoritarianism, and America's New Challenge. American Foreign Policy Council. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 90. ISBN 978-1-5381-1991-4. Archived from the original on 2022-04-02. Retrieved 2021-12-23.
  6. ^ James M. Dorsey [de] (2017). "The Gulf Crisis: Small States Battle it Out". SSRN Electronic Journal. Elsevier BV. doi:10.2139/ssrn.3003598. ISSN 1556-5068.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ "'An attack on free thought': Middle East Eye responds to Saudi demands". Middle East Eye. June 23, 2017. Archived from the original on May 26, 2022. Retrieved December 9, 2019.
  8. ^ "Reuters retracts award for Palestinian over pro-Hitler, pro-terror comments". The Jerusalem Post. 2022-10-18. Retrieved 2022-10-22.
  9. ^ "Palestinian journalist stripped of award over antisemitic comments". Arab News. 2022-10-21. Retrieved 2022-10-22.
  10. ^ "2022 Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism update". Thomson Reuters Foundation. 2022-10-18. Archived from the original on 2022-10-21. Retrieved 2022-10-22.
  11. ^ "Middle East Eye cuts ties with Palestinian journalist Shatha Hammad". Middle East Eye. Archived from the original on 2022-10-20.
  12. ^ "News page". Middle East Eye. Archived from the original on 2019-03-20. Retrieved 2019-02-04.
  13. ^ "Someone Is Using These Leaked Emails To Embarrass Washington's Most Powerful Ambassador". HuffPost. June 3, 2017. Archived from the original on February 10, 2019. Retrieved November 8, 2021.
  14. ^ "Saudi crown prince wants out of Yemen war, email leak reveals". Middle East Eye. Archived from the original on 2019-06-21. Retrieved 2019-06-21.
  15. ^ "UAE ambassador says 'whole of Saudi Arabia is cuckoo' in leaked email". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2022-05-14.
  16. ^ "Yousef al-Otaiba berates Saudi in leaked emails". Al Jazeera. August 19, 2017. Archived from the original on June 21, 2019. Retrieved June 21, 2019.
  17. ^ Kirkpatrick, David D. (1 July 2017). "Journalist Joins His Jailer's Side in a Bizarre Persian Gulf Feud (Published 2017)". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 9 November 2020. Retrieved 28 October 2020.
  18. ^ "EXCLUSIVE: UAE 'funnelled money to Turkish coup plotters'". Middle East Eye. Archived from the original on 2021-11-08. Retrieved 2021-11-08.
  19. ^ Tobitt, Charlotte (September 12, 2019). "Middle East Eye journalism 'vindicated' after Palestinian politician drops libel case". Press Gazette. Archived from the original on December 9, 2019. Retrieved December 9, 2019.
  20. ^ "Dahlan drops libel case against MEE over article on Turkey coup". Al Jazeera English. September 12, 2019. Archived from the original on December 9, 2019. Retrieved December 9, 2019.
  21. ^ "Turkey to offer $700,000 bounty for exiled Palestinian strongman Dahlan". The Times of Israel. November 22, 2019. Archived from the original on December 9, 2019. Retrieved December 9, 2019.
  22. ^ a b Wintour, Patrick (14 November 2017). "Qatar given 10 days to meet 13 sweeping demands by Saudi Arabia". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. Archived from the original on 11 June 2019. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
  23. ^ Carlstorm, Gregg (24 June 2017). "What's the Problem With Al Jazeera?". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 29 April 2019. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
  24. ^ a b Mandhai, Shafik (18 July 2017). "Al Jazeera: 'Business as normal' despite Gulf Crisis". Al-Jazeera. Al Jazeera Media Network. Archived from the original on 31 May 2019. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
  25. ^ "Britain is right to welcome Saudi crown prince and support his reforms". Middle East Eye. March 6, 2018.
  26. ^ "Ian Cobain bio". Middle East Eye.
  27. ^ Jonathan Cook, bio, Middle East Eye
  28. ^ "From Obama to Trump: The lessons, the challenges". Middle East Eye. February 2, 2017.
  29. ^ "Richard Falk bio". Middle East Eye.
  30. ^ "Turkey: Why the West should show more support". Middle East Eye. January 26, 2017.
  31. ^ "Faisal Kutty bio". Middle East Eye.
  32. ^ "Ali Lmrabet bio". Middle East Eye.
  33. ^ "Gideon Levy bio". Middle East Eye.
  34. ^ "Political Islam will go the same way as nationalism and communism". Middle East Eye. June 15, 2016.
  35. ^ Joseph Massad bio, Middle East Eye
  36. ^ "Peter Oborne bio". Middle East Eye.
  37. ^ Madawi al-Rasheed bio, Middle East Eye
  38. ^ "Sarah Leah Whitson bio". Middle East Eye.
  39. ^ a b "Jamal Khashoggi articles". Middle East Eye. Archived from the original on 2019-06-09. Retrieved 2019-06-19.
  40. ^ Mayhew, Freddy (June 29, 2017). "UK-based Middle East news outlet also targeted for closure in Saudi-led demands against Qatar". Press Gazette. Archived from the original on May 11, 2018. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
  41. ^ Smith, Saphora (October 24, 2018). "Saudi Arabia now admits Khashoggi killing was premeditated". NBC News. Archived from the original on October 25, 2018. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
  42. ^ "UAE government blocks access to Middle East Eye". Middle East Eye. Archived from the original on 2019-06-20. Retrieved 2019-06-20.
  43. ^ "BBC Arabic website blocked in Egypt". BBC Monitoring. Archived from the original on 2019-10-30. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
  44. ^ Carlstrom, Gregg (2017-06-24). "What's the Problem With Al Jazeera?". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 2019-04-29. Retrieved 2022-04-26.
  45. ^ "Unacceptable call for Al Jazeera's closure in Gulf crisis". Reporters Without Borders. 28 June 2017. Archived from the original on 23 April 2019. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
  46. ^ "'An attack on free thought': Middle East Eye responds to Saudi demands". Middle East Eye. Archived from the original on 2022-05-26. Retrieved 2019-12-09.
  47. ^ Brewster, Thomas. "Blacklisted Israeli Surveillance Company Linked To Middle Eastern Hacks, Denies Knowing Whom Customers Spy On". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2021-11-28. Retrieved 2021-12-22.

External links

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