Instead, he unleashed a storm on the Al Roeya newspaper in Dubai. Within days, top editors were questioned. Within weeks, dozens of employees were fired and the paper was declared defunct. The paper’s publisher, Abu Dhabi-based International Media Investments, or IMI, said the closure of Al Roeya stems only from its transformation into a new Arab business outlet with CNN. However, eight people with direct knowledge of the paper’s mass layoffs told The Associated Press that the layoffs came immediately after the story about gas prices in the United Arab Emirates. Their accounts, which were given on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, show the limits of speech in the authoritarian nation that tightly controls domestic media. Self-censorship is rife among journalists at local outlets expected to provide a stream of good news in the UAE, which is touted as a globalized destination attractive to tourists, investors and Western media companies. “The UAE presents itself as liberal and open for business while continuing its repression,” said Kathryn Grote, a Middle East researcher at the Washington-based Freedom House group. “Censorship is rampant, online and offline. … It limits the work journalists can do.” IMI declined to comment on the story published just weeks before Al Roeya’s announced closure. The company highlighted its plans to enter into negotiations with a cap CNN Business Arabic months. Al Roeya, Arabic for “The Vision”, was founded in 2012 and rebranded from IMI three years ago to provide local and global news to Arab youth. IMI is owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the billionaire brother of the UAE president, who also owns the British football club Manchester City. IMI’s main outlets include The National, an English-language broadsheet newspaper, and Sky News Arabia. While Al Roeya toed the official UAE line, its pages provided in-depth business news. The story newspaper executives are telling sparked the crisis earlier this summer, when high prices were the talk of the town. Unlike its neighbors, the oil-producing UAE has phased out fuel subsidies. Citizens used to cheap gas and cradle-to-grave prosperity felt the sting after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent oil prices soaring. Al Roeya interviewed Emiratis who had resorted to cost-saving measures. Some citizens living near the border with Oman, where drivers pay half as much for fuel as in the UAE because of government subsidies, told Al Roeya they crossed into the sultanate to fill up their cars. Some have reportedly fitted extra fuel tanks to their vehicles. The story went viral on social media on June 2 — especially the joke about cross-border fuel supplies. However, within hours, the article was deleted from the site and was never printed. Several employees involved in the article were called into the office days later. They were fired from their jobs and faced extensive questioning by representatives of IMI and Al Roeya and a lawyer for every step and person involved in creating, editing and publishing the story, according to people with knowledge of the facts. A week later, the team had a choice: resign with additional benefits or be terminated and face possible repercussions. Those who signed a letter of resignation promised not to reveal anything about the reasons behind their firings or criticize the publication, according to a copy of one such letter obtained by the AP. The eight forced to resign included top editors. Morale plummeted. More than a week later, IMI CEO Nart Bouran visited the newsroom for a plenary. Going into the meeting, the remaining employees had no reason to fear for their jobs, according to some familiar with internal discussions at the newspaper. They said senior managers at IMI had reassured staff over the past year that their jobs were safe as the paper’s editorial focus shifted mainly to business coverage. Instead, Buran announced the dissolution of Al Roeya and the imminent launch of the Arabic-language business outlet with CNN. At least 35 workers lost their jobs in one day, people with knowledge said. Others said dozens more were laid off, with severance pay. IMI did not respond to repeated questions about the number of people it has laid off. Profiles on the LinkedIn jobs website suggest that around 90 people worked at Al Roeya. The paper retained a staffing staff to update its website until the launch of CNN Business Arabic, people with knowledge of the matter said. “This case (of Al Roeya) sounds like an integral part of the overall repressive environment,” said Freedom House’s Grothe. “It has a chilling effect.” While some foreign journalists are safe to return home to countries that support press freedom, Arab journalists who form the backbone of the country’s local media remain wary of jeopardizing their residency status, which is linked to their work. Al Roeya printed its last issue on June 21 with the title: “A new promise, a renewed era.” CNN Business Arabic is set to launch by the end of the year. IMI described Al Roeya’s move to CNN Business Arabic as long-planned, saying the shift “unfortunately necessitated some layoffs.” He denied that the closure of the paper was “in any way connected to Al Roeya’s publishing product”. When asked about the layoffs, CNN spokesman Dan Folks referred the AP to IMI’s statement and did not elaborate. Mohammed al-Hamadi, head of the UAE State Union of Journalists, said the group “provided the required support” to the sacked journalists and supported IMI’s account of the layoffs. The turmoil recalled other dramatic episodes that have rocked the UAE’s local press in recent years. In 2017, the government temporarily banned the publication of Arabian Business magazine after it reported that Dubai courts were liquidating dozens of failed real estate projects stemming from the 2009 global financial crisis. The recession, which sparked a series of negative headlines about Dubai’s debt crisis, prompted the United Arab Emirates to tighten media laws. The crackdown on online dissent in the country peaked after the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, which were fueled by economic discontent.
