by Azmat Haroon
Doha: Many universities in the Middle East do not have programmes on media law, said the coordinator of the mock court trials contest being held in Qatar.
“Media law is a relatively new field, at least for universities here as well as world over,” said Nicole Stremlau, coordinator of the Programme in Comparative Media Law & Policy (PCMLP) at Oxford Univeristy.
Stremlau is here for the Middle Eastern round of the Monroe E Price International Media Law Moot Court Competition.
The sensitive issue of media law has been put forth before teams from the Middle East, including Qatar University, who began arguing their cases in front of an international panel of judges yesterday.
The competition is organised in collaboration with Qatar University (QU) and Al Jazeera.
“We have a programme on media law at Oxford, but we are also trying to enhance the teaching of the programme and training next generation of lawyers, that in some cases will be defending you as journalists,” said Stremlau while speaking to reporters at the Al Jazeera’s Media Training and Development Centre yesterday.
She said that when it comes to freedom of expression, the issues that students from this region are raising are not very different from what students in other parts of the world are struggling with.
“The issues that the students are grappling with here are very similar to what students and other legal systems are grappling with all around the world,” Stremlau said.
Questions about national security, the role of media in society as well as in transformation — particularly in the backdrop of the Arab Spring are at the forefront for now.
“A lot of questions are about the kind of media people should be allowed to have access to, and the kind of media that is blocked – whether it’s Al Jazeera or Facebook,” she added.
Drawing comparison with parallel challenges elsewhere in the world, Stremlau said that similar debates began in the UK when the prime minister said that BlackBerry should be blocked during the 2011 London riots.
“The issues raised at moot discussions are similar to what Al Jazeera is advocating, which is freedom of speech,” said Mounir Daymi, Director of Aljazeera Media Training & Development Centre.
He said that Al Jazeera hopes to create awareness about media law through such programmes.
The competition has four sets of preliminary rounds, in which students argue the same case in all the rounds from different sides. The top two teams will be moving forward to the final round.
For the moot court rounds in the Middle East, students argue on international laws instead of national and regional laws.
“This is because it (international law) is more freely available. Also, there is not as much mooting culture here, so students are not as much familiar with mooting or media law. We think this might be an entry point for them,” she said.
The Peninsula
