Lanseringen av et akademisk tidsskrift for høyere utdanning i den arabiske verden, gikk ikke som planlagt da en engelsk professor ble avvist på flyplassen i Dubai fordi han ville snakke om den arabiske våren og forholdene i Bahrain.

Der har som kjent et shia-flertall gjort opprør mot de styrende sunniene.  De styrende er ikke vant til at dette forholdet omtales i full offentlighet. Men dermed ble det heller ikke noen lansering av tidsskriftet.

The editors of Al Fanar, a new publication covering higher education in the Arab world, have canceled theirinaugural event, which had been scheduled to take place in Dubai on Sunday.

“Universities can’t function properly without academic freedom,” David Wheeler, Al Fanar’s editor, said by e-mail. “We just don’t feel comfortable celebrating the birth of a publication about Arab higher education at this point in time in the Emirates.”

He was referring to the case of Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a London School of Economics professor who speaks frequently on the political challenges posed by the Arab Spring, who was pulled out of line at the Dubai airport on Feb. 22 and put on a plane back to London.

The government of the United Arab Emirates had told the organizers of a conference jointly organized by the London school and American University of Sharjah that no mention of the uprising in Bahrain, the topic of the paper Dr. Ulrichsen had planned to present, would be permitted. The school withdrew from the conference, citing the threat to academic freedom. But Dr. Ulrichsen, who was also scheduled to speak at Zayed University, also in the Emirates, decided to try to travel there on his own. — D.D. GUTTENPLAN