Qatar, Arab Spring sponsor, jails poet for life

DOHA (Reuters) – A court in Qatar, which has supported Arab uprisings abroad, jailed a local poet for life on Thursday for criticizing the emir and inciting revolt – a sentence that drew outrage and cries of hypocrisy from human rights groups. In his verses, Muhammad Ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami praised the Arab Spring revolts that toppled four dictators, often with the help of money and other support from the tiny, energy-rich Gulf state. But he also criticized Qatar’s own absolute monarch and spoke, for example, of “sheikhs playing on their Playstations”. …