Alongside Syria, Libya, Saudi
Arabia and Yemen, Tunisia is, under the undivided power of President Zine
el-Abidine Ben Ali, right up there on the hit list of most repressive countries
with respect to freedom of expression.
When the
Tunisian journalist Tawfik Ben Brik was freed after six months in jail for
criticising the presidential "elections", we discovered that the appeal hearing
of his colleague Fahem Boukadous was postponed until June 22nd due to continued
hospital treatment.
Boukadous had been sentenced to four years in prison for his coverage
of violent labour demonstrations in the Gafsa mining region for a satellite
broadcaster. In his case, the regime did not even think it necessary to fake a
trial using every trick in the book, as they were wont to do for Ben Brik and
the human rights activist Zouhaïer Makhlouf, victim of a proper beating at the
hands of Tunis police officers on April 24th. -- Hamid
Skif
Unchecked
Farce
By Hamid
Skif
The Yemeni army besieges a newspaper to prevent a
certain item of news from entering the public domain. In Kuwait journalists are
convicted for uncovering a rigged horse race: Arab regimes are making a laughing
stock of themselves as they endeavour to restrict the freedom of the media.
Arab people in chains before the
media: Hamid Skif says the Arab world is experiencing "Kafkaesque situations" as
governments try to manage press freedom
Life is tough for journalists in
the Arab world right now – a lamentable fact confirmed as the world marked Press
Freedom Day last May. While this freedom continues to be improved and enhanced
on the rest of the planet, the Arab world is experiencing Kafkaesque situations
in this regard. Every attempt to express a free opinion is, also through the
application of force, nipped in the bud.
Wayward journalists are
imprisoned or beaten up, with or without the addition of seemingly grotesque
trials, newspapers are shut down or providers of satellite media are pressured
to block critical radio or television programmes broadcast from abroad. Algeria
and Saudi Arabia have excelled at this in particular.
Arab regimes appear to enjoy
making themselves look risible, with actual cases such as that of the
journalists convicted for uncovering a rigged horse race in Kuwait, or
publishing a caricature of a cousin of the Moroccan leader. Not to mention the
occasion when the Yemeni army besieged a newspaper to prevent an item of news
entering the public domain.
It appears that power elites
everywhere have put their heads together and agreed that no free media should
exist on their territory. This is certainly nothing new, but the fact that the
situation persists is evidence of just how inflexibly and obstinately these
regimes cling to the status quo.
The Internet: In league with the
devil
Caricature of a cousin of King
Mohammed VI of Morocco: A caricature of a ruler or his family is not tolerated
in the Arab world, and long prison sentences for cartoonists are not
unusual.
The new hobby of Arab
dictatorships is control of the Internet, which is viewed as a force in league
with the devil. Although access to the Internet is infinitesimal, the web has
become an enemy against which special laws were enacted and special units
mobilised. The concept of "Internet crime" – a term that covers everything
deemed by censors to represent an attack on morals and criticism of the
contemptible deeds of the regime – has already notched up dozens of victims
within the blogger community.
Not a week passes without an
arrest or a trial providing the secret headlines to this fight for freedom, a
fight that seldom has repercussions abroad. The repression is organised at whim,
in the firm conviction that the support of western countries, which was
exchanged for complicity, silence at the UN or several economic advantages, nips
any impulse for protest in the bud.
Appeal for a free television
service
The state of Arab media is
neatly summed up by an appeal recently issued by three journalists for a
peaceful demonstration outside an Algerian television station nicknamed by the
general public "orphan" or "the one and only": "There is no way around the
realisation that there has been terrible retrogression as regards general
freedoms, and in particular press freedom," they write, and continue thus:
"Censorship dominates all areas of public expression. The freedom of print media
to decide themselves which tone to adopt, a freedom that also always served the
regime as an advertisement for its farcical understanding of democracy, is today
markedly impaired and has been fitted with a gag that was not there
before.
Map of press freedom on the
Internet: When it comes to freedom of expression, many Arab nations are right up
there on the hit list of most repressive countries
"We call on Algerians to
mobilise themselves to demand the opening of audio visual media to independent
initiatives, the lifting of controls on public media, to liberate images and
sound, and hand Algerian television over to the Algerians, so that it can fulfil
its true function as a public service. It is time to allow Algerians to set up
alternative broadcasters that better represent them and reflect the political
and social reality of our country."
The authors of this text, which
could have been written, with minimal amendments, by any Arab journalist, were
temporarily detained by the police on May 3rd and interrogated over a number of
hours. The Algerian State Secretary for Communication postponed the
liberalisation of audiovisual media until 2015, thereby contravening a law on
media reporting passed in 1990.
A catalogue of repression from
Tunisia to Israel
It is hardly better elsewhere.
Alongside Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, Tunisia is, under the undivided
power of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, right up there on the hit list of
most repressive countries with respect to freedom of
expression.
When the Tunisian journalist
Tawfik Ben Brik was freed after six months in jail for criticising the
presidential "elections", we discovered that the appeal hearing of his colleague
Fahem Boukadous was postponed until June 22nd due to continued hospital
treatment.
Boukadous had been sentenced to
four years in prison for his coverage of violent labour demonstrations in the
Gafsa mining region for a satellite broadcaster. In his case, the regime did not
even think it necessary to fake a trial using every trick in the book, as they
were wont to do for Ben Brik and the human rights activist Zouhaïer Makhlouf,
victim of a proper beating at the hands of Tunis police officers on April
24th.
As far the Gulf states are
concerned, Kuwait has just joined the group of countries that demonstrate
impatience with anyone attempting to express a free opinion: the persecution of
the writer and journalist Mohamed Abdel Qader al-Jassem, detained on May 18th
for something he had written in the year 2006, bears testimony to this. The
author, a victim of the Prime Minister's grim determination, has now embarked on
a hunger strike despite his precarious health.
In the Israeli occupied
territories, Palestinian journalists are repeatedly subjected to harassment by
the Israeli army, especially in the vicinity of the separation barrier that the
occupier is currently erecting through Palestinian areas. More than 60
aggressions of this nature have been recorded since 2009. The Israelis are
trying to stem the flow of all information coming out of the Palestinian
territories, and Israeli security forces set their sights in particular on
cameramen and women, as well as photographers. But unfortunately, this
persistent aggravation of Palestinian journalists finds no echo in western
media.
A lack of credible organisations
In view of the present situation
in the Arab world, it would be hard to imagine the existence of any trade union
organisations with clout. But the fact that such organisations are lacking is a
great handicap for a profession that is exposed to all manner of
abuse.
Any national organisations that
do exist are just empty husks. These are simply propaganda tools of regimes that
are masters in the conformity of every free initiative.
For example, during a Union of
Arab Journalists congress in Tunis last May, the Tunisian president received an
award for his contribution to the defence of press freedom. There may have been
the odd attempt to establish forums or independent leagues, to do something to
counter this lamentable situation. But the power of indolence, combined with
common interest networks and complicities between the regime and some
journalists and media bosses, denies these organisations any possibility of
truly making a difference.
Those that are financed by other
countries or foreign organisations are regarded as puppets of the West. Of
course governments encourage such mistrust, but despite their flaws, these
organisations are the only ones reporting on the lonely battle of Arab
journalists in a region where populations are being robbed of their basic
rights.
Hamid Skif is an Algerian
journalist and writer living in Hamburg.
©
Qantara.de
Translated from the German by
Nina Coon
1:58 AM
Sultan Shahin
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