Dubai gets its own font, lauds ‘free expression’
DUBAI: Dubai has long had a taste for the finer things in life. The influential Persian Gulf city has been home to the world’s tallest building, a hotel that offers guests private butlers and 24-karat-gold iPads, and even a bakery that sold gold-laced cupcakes.
Now it is getting attention for a less flashy effort that may soon be coming to a word-processing programme near you — Dubai has made its own font.
The font was announced on Sunday morning in a series of tweets from Microsoft as well as Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the crown prince of Dubai.
The new font comes in both Arabic and Latin script.
On Sunday, Prince Hamdan shared a video on Twitter that presented it as a powerful tool for self-expression. “Expression knows no boundaries or limits,” the video said. “Expression is strength and freedom. It defines who you are.”
However, there are quite a few boundaries and limits on expression in Dubai and across the UAE, where the news media is censored to remove criticism of the government or the coalition of royal families that controls it. Last week, the UAE blocked access to the Arabic-language website of HuffPost.
“What’s missing from Dubai’s new motto is a little asterisk with fine print, ‘Except that anyone who says something the emirs don’t like goes to jail,’” said Sarah Leah Whitson of the Human Rights Watch.