Doha News statement on the blocking of its website in Qatar
▻https://medium.com/dohanews/doha-news-statement-on-the-blocking-of-its-website-in-qatar-9f3759a99282
As many are aware, Doha News became inaccessible to most online users in Qatar as of yesterday, Nov. 30.
Our URL — dohanews.co — was apparently blocked by both of Qatar’s internet service providers, Ooredoo and Vodafone, simultaneously.
Since then, the majority of people in the country have been unable to access our website on their desktop computers and mobile devices.
[…]
While we waited for their response, we temporarily diverted readers from dohanews.co to another domain name, doha.news.
However, that URL also stopped working in short order.
Deliberately blocked
Given this development and the silence from the government and ISP providers, we can only conclude that our website has been deliberately targeted and blocked by Qatar authorities.
We are incredibly disappointed with this decision, which appears to be an act of censorship.
We believe strongly in the importance of a free press, and are saddened that Qatar, home of the Doha Center for Media Freedom and Al Jazeera, has decided to take this step.