irishal

I am moving to Doha next week and would like to ship my very large book collection with me. The books mostly consist of history, some science, including a lot on evolution and a large collection of graphic novels, such as Marvel, Batman and a lot of Judge Dredd.

Is this going to be an issue at customs and am I likely to loose a lot of them? Or do they not really check personal effects being shipped into the country?

Benny80

The collection you are describing should mostly be ok. When i moved to Qatar i had a few books amongst other personal effects shipped. I suggest just to be careful of anything that could be offensive or controversial. I'm guessing that they do sometimes check the contents at customs. Probably best not to have anything by Richard Dawkins ;-)

irishal

Cheers for the advice dude. Its hard to determine what's offensive, I have a copy of a Judge Dredd graphic novel called "Satan", nothing offensive in the pictures, but I don't know if the title will give offence.

In total my collection is about 400 books, but my company is paying for full shipping, so I would love to take them with me, just don't want to get in trouble or loose them at customs.

Benny80

Yeah honestly it's hard to know what would cause offense. Personally i would go on the side of caution and maybe leave a few potentially controversial ones behind. either that or split up the shipment so that you don't have your whole shipment tied up for months.

co durham boy

They're only looking for porn . If there's no porn they're not fussed plus they're too bone idle and uninterested to be rifling around looking at words and writing .

irishal

Having worked temporarily in the Middle East before, I pretty much thought that would be the case.

If they find anything unacceptable or offensive, will they just confiscate it, or will i end up in trouble?

co durham boy

They'll just sling it in the bin mate to be honest , if it's worth anything they'll steal it .

From what you've described you'll be fine , i wouldn't sweat on it too much .

irishal

Thanks for the response, I think I will ship them and see what happens. See you all in doha next week

DOCUAE

When I moved from Dubai, the shipping company packed all the books & DVD's separately, as they said customs would then only open these boxes to inspect. Customs didn't touch them, as mentioned above, probably ot bone idle

irishal

Perfect, pretty much thought they wouldn't open them.