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Reporter talks through shocking moment Qatar officials threatened to DESTROY camera on live TV

Danish reporter Rasmus Tantholdt talks through shocking moment Qatar officials threatened to DESTROY his news crews’ camera live on TV.

The Qatar Supreme Committee has had to say sorry to Danish broadcaster TV2 after one of their journalists was threatened by security staff while broadcasting in Doha.

Reporting from Qatar just a few days before the opening match of the FIFA World Cup, TV2 reporter Rasmus Tantholdt was speaking as part of a live broadcast when he was approached by security staff that had appeared on a golf buggy.

It quickly became apparent that he wasn’t welcome to film and he was quickly threatened with having his camera smashed and destroyed.

The clip, which has gone viral across social media overnight, showed Tantholdt switching to English to ask for clarifications on where he was allegedly misconstruing any rules on filming in Qatar.

‘You have invited the whole world here. Why can’t we film? It is a public place,’ he said.

He quickly presented his press accreditation on his phone, reaffirming their permissions to film but as one man quickly covers with the lens of the camera, a security guard claims the camera will be destroyed if they do not stop filming.

The Danes show their press accreditation and say they have permission to film, before the guards follow up with a threat. If they don’t stop filming, they will destroy the camera. 

‘You can break the camera,’ he added. ‘You want to break it? Go ahead. You’re threatening us by breaking the camera.’

Speaking from Qatar to Norwegian outlet NRK, Tantholdt confirmed he had since been given an apology by delegates in Qatar but the fact he was stopped during a live broadcast raises a number of concerns for him.

‘I don’t think the message from the top in Qatar has reached all the security guards,’ he was quoted as saying.

‘Therefore, one can argue that there are some who have misunderstood the situation, but at the same time it tells a lot about what it is like in Qatar. There it is that you can be attacked and threatened when you report as a free media.’

‘This is not a free and democratic country,’ he added. ‘My experience after visiting 110 countries in the world is: The more you have to hide, the more difficult it is to report from there.’

Qatar has been heavily criticised and scrutinised over human rights violations and its attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community since it was handed the rights to the 2022 World Cup 12 years ago.

This isn’t the first time reporters have had issues trying to report freely and openly in Qatar.

Norwegian outlet NRK endured their own issues when reporting from Qatar last year.

Two of their journalists, Halvor Ekeland and Lokman Ghorbani, were arrested and subsequently were imprisoned in Qatar over claims that the pair had been filming on private land.

They were kept for around 30 hours before they were released and sent back to Norway.

Back in November 2021, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre described the treatment of reporters in the Gulf State as ‘unacceptable’.

‘A free press is crucial to a functioning democracy,’ he added.

It appears there are still problems for reporters just days out from the start of the tournament.

American writer Grant Wahl also had trouble with security staff having been told to delete a photo he had taken in the media centre.

Detailing the story on his Twitter account, Wahl wrote: ‘I took a picture of the Qatar World Cup slogan on the wall of the media center today – and a security guard came over and demanded that I delete it from my phone. Is that how this World Cup is going to work?’

He was told that a ‘picture is not allowed’ before he protested that he was simply taking a photo.

‘Kindly delete it, sir,’ came the reply.

Spoke with Sky Sports about what happened when Qatar officials threatned to destroy his camera as he reported on the World Cup whilst out in Doha.

Interviewer: “Rasmus, you saw there. You’re still in Doha. Rasmus, thanks for your time. We’ve just seen that footage of the incident. It looked quite stressful. How did you feel at the time?

Rasmus: “It was quite stressful. I mean, I didn’t feel felt threatened at all, I mean, personally. But our camera is safe and of course I covered World Cups before and I don’t know what I did expect, but I guess I didn’t expect that during a live – in front of a roundabout, not in front of a migrant labor camp or anything else controversial. It wouldn’t be a problem. So of course I was surprised. And we were sitting there with the security guards after the live for about 30 minutes. I don’t know if we were detained or if we just had to sit and wait there with them. And after half an hour, the supervisor, he came and he looked at our quotation and he said, well, you can film, there’s no problem. So, I mean, maybe it’s a kind of a misunderstanding, but to me it also shows how Qatar are when there’s not a World Cup going on, because obviously this is what those security guards have been told to do under normal circumstances. Now we have a World Cup going on and maybe they have been told to behave in another way and maybe not. All security guards in Doha, they got the message.

Hopefully this is just a one off, but with the world’s media coming over to cover the World Cup, you hope we don’t see repeat scenes.

This is how social media said reacted as the reporter talks through the shocking moment Qatar officials threatened to DESTROY his news crew’s camera on live TV…

@janelporter65: If that’s how they treat international reporters on live tv – then you wonder about how hellish the hidden lives of the domestics and manual workers must be.

@kisiello: Such a “welcoming” country as they claimed it to be 🤡

@coyb_11: they’ve invited the entire world to their country and have claimed multiple times that they’re welcoming etc., none of the individuals were on camera until they grabbed it and tried to pull away, where did they expect people to report on the WC? from their home countries??

@PossessedJ: I’m genuinely not surprised. If they treat reporters like this how will they treat the fans

@JustRob17: We shouldn’t even be there… This is a global disgrace. Applauding the absolute worst of humanity…. Shame.

@TheTweetingPie: You can’t polish a turd – no matter how many glitzy hotels and skyscrapers they build on oil money, will always be an unenlightened backwater

@michaelwebbFC: He hits the nail on the head. “You invited the whole world here”

@MattWilson98: This is going to be a shockingly bad World Cup

@CraigPr90883335: Even if this is the west deliberately breaking rules, it still highlights just what life is like. No freedom, no rights. Shame on fifa for ever giving them the World Cup.

@rebeccatracy7: I’ve just watched FIFA uncovered and it seems like everything is unravelling with this world cup sadly.

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