Over the past eight years, writers and publishers have been caught in a web of forbidden topics, names, phrases and words. No one in the industry can anticipate what will and will not be allowed by Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Completed projects wait for months to be reviewed by state censors and most are returned with a long list of “required modifications.”

Even books that were approved for publication in the past are now banned for “promoting Western thought” or “being immoral”. Some titles were removed from display at the fair despite being offered for sale at bookstores elsewhere.

Moreover, the government moved to shut down independent publishing firms that produce books on sociology, literature, politics and history. Under an official order, publishers must be approved by the ministry to continue their activities. Through the accreditation process, the government succeeded in banning some long-term publishers.

While Iran’s internal threats to free expression have had their impact, international sanctions have also put the publishing industry under intense pressure. The economic sanctions aimed at curtailing the country’s nuclear program have caused a dramatic rise in the cost of imported paper. As a result, publishers have been forced to limit volumes or suspend publication altogether. Prices for books have risen as a result.

Like all Iranians, the publishing industry is sizing up candidates ahead of the 14 June presidential elections. It is hoped a moderate, ‘reformist’ government will be a change agent in the international arena to end the economic embargo. They are also hoping that the ministry’s heavy-handed censorship will be lightened to fire up the printing presses.

Raha Zahedpour is a journalist and researcher living in London. She writes under a pseudonym.

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In the last week, Bahrain’s treatment of its citizens and their right to free expression has been repeatedly in the news. Sara Yasin reports on a spate of developments that raise questions about the Bahraini government’s commitment to free speech.

Blogger and activist Ali Abdulemam has been granted asylum in the United Kingdom. Abdulemam’s two years in hiding began shortly after the start of Bahrain’s political unrest in February 2011. He was sentenced in absentia to fifteen years in prison on charges of attempting to overthrow the monarchy.

Abdulemam is the prominent founder of Bahrain Online, a site that created an online space to criticise and discuss the country’s regime in 1998. Initially, he wrote anonymously, but he began to write in his own name in 2001. Public dissent in Bahrain comes at a price: the blogger was first arrested in 2005 and then once more in 2010.

News of Abdulemam’s heroic escape did not amuse Bahrain’s government:

Ali Abdulemam was not tried in court for exercising his right to express his opinions. Rather, he was tried for inciting and encouraging continuous violent attacks against police officers. Abdulemam is the founder of Bahrain Online, a website that has repeatedly been used to incite hatred, including through the spreading of false and inflammatory rumors.

The statement goes on to say that the country “respects the right of its citizens to express their opinion”, but makes a distinction between expressing an opinion and “engaging in and encouraging violence.”

Back in 2010, Abdulemam was jailed, tortured, and accused of being a part of a “terrorist network.” The real threat he posed to the state, as fellow activist Ala’a Shehabi put it last year, was that “his forum offered dissidents a voice.”

So what does “incitement” look like in Bahrain? For documenting a protest on Twitter last December, Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) member Said Yousif, was jailed and charged with “spreading false news.” According to the country’s laws, “the dissemination of the false news must amount to incitement to violence.” As Human Rights Watch’s Middle East director, Sarah Lea Witson put it:

If Bahraini officials believe that an activist is inciting violence by tweeting a picture of an injured demonstrator, then it’s clear that all the human rights sessions they’ve attended have been wasted.

The jailed head of the organisation, Nabeel Rajab, is currently serving a two year sentence for organising “illegal protests.” BCHR released a statement today expressing concerns that Rajab has been transferred to solitary confinement. He has been unreachable since relaying to his wife an account of young political prisoners being tortured earlier this week. Rajab was requesting a visit from the International Committee of the Red Cross, to document the case.

Still, Bahrain insists that freedom of expression is something that it upholds — in fact, it has gone so far as prosecuting individuals for supposedly abusing it. Just yesterday, year-long sentences were handed to six Twitter users for making posts insulting Bahrain’s King Hamad. For hanging a Bahraini flag from his truck during protests in 2011, a man was handed a three-month jail sentence today.

Looks like it might be time for Bahrain to reevaluate how it understands freedom of expression.

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Circle of Hell was painted to raise awareness of sexual harassment and assault in Egypt. Photo: Melody Patry / Index on Censorship

Since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak two years ago, artists have been active in breaking Egypt’s age-old taboos around sexual violence, especially since sexual harassment has been on the rise. In the period after the revolution, artists — including women — have covered the country’s walls with murals and slogans, using them to amplify calls for change. Melody Patry reports.

Merna Thomas, co-founder of the campaign Graffiti Harimi explains that graffiti has become one of the most popular forms of activism, and Graffiti Harimi uses the art form to give women “a voice” in Cairo’s public spaces. The project involves spray painting images of powerful female Egyptian voices alongside inspirational quotes. “Women didn’t have a voice”, says Thomas, “my hope is to open a debate within society, to start a dialogue, even unconsciously, with people who pass by our graffiti every day.”

In February, two Egyptian artists — Mira Shihadeh and Zeft — painted “the circle of hell” on a wall near Tahrir Square. The image denounced a disturbing trend of violent gang rapes against female protesters —- where women are encircled in mobs of 200 to 300 men who fight, pull, shove, beat and strip them. The surge in more violent and organised sexual assaults has led to some local groups to allege that sexual harassment is being used as a tool to scare female protesters away from participating in demonstrations.

“They try to intimidate us!” says Rana el Husseiny, an Egyptian comedian and painter, “by creating this atmosphere of fear they hope women will refrain from going to protests.”

The artist explains to Index why “it is no longer possible to turn a blind eye to what’s happening in the country”.

“Mob attacks also result from years of denial, victim-blaming and self-censorship. A few years ago, if you had been a victim of harassment and wanted to press charges, the police wouldn’t even register your complaint. But the fact is that even now, most girls don’t want to file a complaint. They think that talking about sexual harassment is shameful. I believe that art — whatever its form — can challenge this perception.”

Conquering the culture of self-censorship around sexual harassment has been a battle for artists and activists like el Husseiny. She participated in a drama workshop on sexual harassment last November and December — which had more male participants than female ones. The workshop led to a 30-minute play entitled Maknoun (literally “what is hidden” in Arabic). In her scene, el Husseiny plays a woman who claims that sexual harassment doesn’t exist, while a man is obviously harassing her in the background.

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“This scene shows how difficult it is to address sexual harassment”, explains el Husseiny,  “not only is there no political will to do so, but our society is hypocritical”. But el Husseiny believes she has a responsibility vis-à-vis this issue: “As an artist, I want to talk about sexual harassment; showing it on stage is my way to break this taboo. But unfortunately, our audience is limited. To maximise our impact, we should perform in schools, in the streets…”

Dalia Naous and Kinda Hassan battle sexual harassment with street performance. In January 2012, Naous and Hassan cast nine Egyptian dancers and performing artists to participate in a ten-day workshop, followed by five days of street performances filmed for a video-dance project called Cairography.

Naous, who choreographed and co-directed the project, says everyone practises conscious or unconscious censorship.

“It was very interesting to see that in some areas, dancers allowed themselves to try some moves, while in other parts of the city, they felt really tense. They had in mind that people might react in an aggressive way so they censored themselves.”

Cairography uses its artistic performances to battle sexual harassment “in a more direct way” — creating a public debate through street performances, and screenings of performances in public spaces. Naous says that the key to change is facing “the problem of pressure, censorship, and self-censorship, because I find self-censorship to be one of the most dangerous things in society”.

Photo: Melody Patry / Index on Censorship

Nadine Emile, one Cairography’s dancers, says that such artistic initiatives have already begun to foster change.

“What you could not do two or three years ago, you can do now” says Emile, citing the example of the 2010 Bussy Monologues, a play she participated in telling the stories of real women through monologues, which was censored after audience members filed complaints following the first performance. The directors of the play Mona el Shimi and Sondos Shabayek, told Ahram Online, “We had a visit from the morality police, the tourism police, State Security and the censorship body, who made us take more scenes out”

Emile’s two scenes were cut from the show. In one of the cut scenes, she tells the story of a woman who had been abused by a cousin as a teenager.  “When they told me my monologue had been removed, I felt very angry. I even cried backstage”, Emile recounts, “I thought, ‘why should we take the story off?’ People need to know”.

So when she was asked to perform in the streets with Cairography, Emile feared backlash. “The first time we hit the streets, I was a bit concerned. I didn’t know how people would react”, she said. “I thought that I would be really tense and paranoid, or that I would censor myself, but it was just the opposite.” Emile says that most passersby did not notice that she was performing, and through the experience she was able to feel safe outside.

All the artists interviewed highlighted art’s ability to prompt discussions within Egyptian society. However, they also acknowledged the need to combine cultural and political initiatives to effectively battle sexual harassment.

“I would say that these artistic projects I was involved in triggered some glimmer of hope”, concludes Emile, “but the ‘fight’ has just started and much remains to be done.”

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Cartoonist Kamal Sharaf shows Shaye locked up while US Ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstein looks on holding the keys. The text says: Freedom for the Journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye

Yemeni journalist Abdul-Elah Haidar Shaye, imprisoned in Sana’a since August 2010, is set to be released “soon”, according to a new presidential order. But this is not the first time a Yemeni president has pledged to set him free.

Shaye, sentenced in January 2011 to five years in prison for allegedly being a “media man for al-Qaeda’, should have walked free a month later. Weeks after his sentence was handed down in the Special Criminal Court for Security Affairs, then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh issued a pardon for his release. But a day later Washington stepped in. In a phone call between Barack Obama and his Yemeni counterpart, the US president “expressed concern” over Shaye’s impending release. The presidential pardon was never carried out. Shaye has remained in the capital’s notorious Political Security prison ever since.

On Tuesday night the office of Saleh’s sucessor, President Hadi confirmed that “there is an order from the president to release him [Shaye] soon”, without elaborating on when this is likely to happen. Shaye’s family remain sceptical about the order that was given about a week ago. “We’ve heard nothing of the sort and it’s like the same as previous promises. So far this is the fourth time Hadi has made this promise,” said Shaye’s brother, Khaled.

During his trial — at which the journalist turned down legal representation as he refused acknowledge the legitimacy of the court — Shaye indicated the real reason behind his detention was his reporting on US strikes and specifically the deaths of civilians including 14 women and 21 children killed in a sea-launched cruise missile strike on the village of al-Majala in December 2009.  Despite the Yemeni government claiming they were responsible for destroying an “al-Qaeda training camp” Shaye blamed the killings on America after visiting the village in the province of Abyan and finding US made bomb remnants.

Seven months after the al-Majala bombing and following his criticism of both the Yemeni and US Governments, Shaye was abducted by Political Security Organisation [PSO] gunmen. Beaten and threatened before being released, in response Shaye went back on television. A month later, in August 2010, his house was raided by Yemen’s elite US-trained and funded Counter Terrorism troops. Shaye was once again beaten and tortured, according to the Yemeni human rights organisation HOOD, during 34 days in solitary confinement with no access to a lawyer or family members.

In an October 2010 court hearing, after more than two hours of the prosecution presenting its case, Shaye was allowed just a few minutes to respond. In those moments he suggested what he believes is the real motive behind his incarceration. “When they hid murderers of children and women in Abyan, when I revealed the locations…it was on that day they decided to arrest me,” he shouted from behind the bars of cell alongside the courtroom.

Leaked diplomatic cables released shortly after after the conclusion of his trial confirmed Sahye’s accusations that the US had indeed carried out the al-Majala bombing.

In an interview last year with the US Ambassador to Sana’a, Gerald Feierstein reiterated to me America’s interest in his case. “Haidar Shaye is in jail because he was facilitating al-Qaeda and its planning for attacks on Americans and therefore we have a very direct interest in his case and his imprisonment,” he said. No evidence has ever been produced by either the US or Yemeni Government to support the claim that Shaye was facilitating any such attacks.

Yemeni journalists have repeatedly expressed their lingering fear over America’s meddling in Shaye’s case. Many became afraid to report on air strikes. One Yemeni journalist, like Shaye a specialist on al-Qaeda, renamed himself an “analyst of Islamic groups” and refused to do TV interviews especially with Al Jazeera after what happened to Shaye.

Since Shaye’s imprisonment in 2010 the US resumed its drone strike programme in Yemen during 2011, following a year-long break. Last year the number of strikes reached an all-time high, surpassing the number carried in Pakistan for the first time, according to monitoring groups.

In February last year Shaye went on hunger strike, but was persuaded by his family to halt the protest at his continued detention when his health rapidly deteriorated.

Human rights and press freedom organisations have continued to demand his release. On World Press Freedom Day last week the International Federation of Journalists [IFJ] reiterated its call for an end to his incarceration in a letter to the Yemeni president. In a meeting with IFJ president Jim Boumelha last year Hadi had promised to do “everything in his power” to free Shaye.

It’s unclear if this most recent order will be carried out, or if Washington will once again seek to keep Shaye behind bars.

The US Embassy in Sana’a failed to respond to requests for comment on the presidential release order.

Iona Craig is a freelance journalist based in Sana’a, Yemen and The Times of London Yemen Correspondent. She also writes for USA Today, The Sunday Times and regularly contributes to The National (UAE) and Index on Censorship
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The 22-year-old student has gained a reputation for his activism and controversial posts online, including a photograph of himself eating ice cream during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. Shortly before he went into hiding, Habib was featured in an article on a high profile Moroccan news site, and police were searching for him hours after it was published.

Atheism is not criminalised in Morocco, but Article 220 of the country’s Penal Code forbids “shaking a Muslim’s faith”. The article’s vague wording can be used to punish anyone who criticises Islam openly, or promotes any other faith with a jail sentence of up to three years. Ahmed Benchemsi wrote that this says that “when you live in Morocco, you can think whatever you want of religion, but you better keep it for yourself.”

Habib is now said to be moving between the homes of friends, after his parents threatened to hand him over to the police if he were to return to their home in Casablanca. Even though he is uncertain about what will happen to him next, Habib is still committed to his beliefs, and called on his fellow Moroccans to push for the country to “work together to apply the universal human rights.”

“If Morocco doesn’t apply universal human rights, we will turn into another religious dictatorship”,  he said.

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– Journalist and human rights activist Sihem Bensedrine From the anthology, Fleeting Words, edited by Naziha Rjiba, published in cooperation with PEN Tunisia and Atlas Publications, with the support of Index on Censorship and IFEX.

Photo: fbioche / Demotix

During the next few months, the National Constituent Assembly (NCA) will present its final draft of Tunisia’s new constitution, a document that has seen many changes of emphasis since the NCA was founded in November 2011. A second draft in December 2012 offered new guarantees for free speech rights and barred prior censorship. Yet the ill-defined and repressive legal framework created by former President Zein el-Abidine Ben Ali to silence dissident voices is still in place, and free speech advocates remain concerned over Islamist vows to criminalise blasphemy.

Although Ben Ali’s autocratic rule ended almost two years ago, his legacy remains on the books. Ben Ali-era laws represent a serious threat to free speech. The public prosecutor’s office used Article 121 (3) of the Tunisian Penal Code to charge Nessma TV boss Nabil Karoui for broadcasting the animated film Persepolis and newspaper director Nasreddine Ben Saida, the publisher of the Arabic-language daily Attounissia, for publishing a photo of German-Tunisian football player Sami Khedira embracing a naked model.

The article prohibits the distribution of publications “liable to cause harm to the public order or public morals”. Supporters of free expression in Tunisia will have to wait until a third and final draft of the constitution, due in Spring 2013, to see if the NCA can find the will to amend or abolish this article and other anti-free speech laws, journalists, bloggers and artists risk facing more “public disorder” and “morality” charges.

The revolution raised urgent need to fundamentally reform the media sector in Tunisia and accordingly the interim government prepared new, progressive, if imperfect, media legislation in 2011 to replace the restrictive laws inherited from the Ben Ali regime. However the proposed legal guarantees were stonewalled by the government of Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, Ennahda’s Secretary General.

Decree-law 116 requires the creation of an independent high authority to regulate broadcast media. But this decree has been resisted by the interim government which instead has continued to make its own political appointments to senior media management posts.
To date the government has declined to implement the decree, or a parallel decree-law, 115-2011, on the print media. Months after the ousting of Ben Ali, distrust remains deep in the media sector, while resistance to reform prevails.

“The failure to abide by decrees passed under the former transitional government and run by the official gazette thus far is alarming,” said Kamel Labidi, a veteran journalist and human rights defender, who led the National Authority to Reform Information and Communication (INRIC), an independent body tasked with reforming the media sector after the revolution.

“It is shocking to see the government inclined to yield to pressure groups which were close to the country’s fugitive dictator and unwilling to conform to international standards for media broadcasting regulation.”

Attacks on the media and the rise of ‘Sacred Values’

Over 2012, street attacks on free speech in the name of religion increased dramatically, a trend that can only increase, given the apparent indifference of police and level of impunity enjoyed by the attackers. Tunisia’s current government routinely expresses condemnation of violence and its commitment to free speech. Yet the seriousness of that commitment is constantly questioned as officials turn a blind eye to the perpetrators and blame the victims.

Police brutality against journalists did not take long to resume after the fall of the regime either. As early as May 2011, journalists, bloggers and photographers were targeted while covering demonstrations and this pattern of abuse by law enforcement has continued to this date. On 24 March, Al-Jazeera journalist Lotfi Hajji was attacked while reporting from a meeting organised by supporters of the former Interim Prime Minister Béji Caid Essebsi.

Many observers saw the April 2012 statement by Ennahda leader Ghannouchi raising the possibility of “taking radical measures in the news media domain including, possibly, privatising the public media,” as giving tacit sympathy to the violent anti-media protests.

When Islamist ‘salafist’ extremists attacked the Tunis Printemps des Arts (Spring of Arts), a modern contemporary art fair in June, Tunisian Minister of Culture, Mehdi Mabrouk, was quicker to condemn the targeted artists before the attackers and vowed to take legal action against the fair’s organisers.

Previously three Islamists accompanied by a bailiff and a lawyer had toured the Palais El-Abdellia gallery and demanded that two artworks they deemed “un-Islamic” be taken down. It was the last day of the ten day event, but after the gallery closed the salafists came back in larger numbers, broke in and destroyed a number of artworks.

Two exhibitors were charged: Nadia Jelassi for her sculpture depicting a veiled woman surrounded by a pile of rocks and Ben Slama over a work showing a line of ants streaming out of a child’s schoolbag to spell ‘Allah’. Prosecutors used Article 121.3 of the Tunisian penal code which makes it an offence to ‘distribute, offer for sale, publicly display, or possess, with the intent to distribute, sell, display for the purpose of propaganda, tracts, bulletins, and fliers, whether of foreign origin or not, that are liable to cause harm to the public order or public morals’.

Bloggers Ghazi Ben Mohamed Beji and Jaber Ben Abdallah Majri were also jailed under Article 121.3 for publishing online satirical writings about Islam. Majri was detained and tried, while Beji, who fled to Europe, was convicted in absentia. During an appeals hearing on 25 June 2012, the court upheld Majri’s prison sentence, while Beji’s case was not heard on appeal.

The attacks echoed violence in the preceding year, when protesters forced their way into the Afrikart Cinema in downtown Tunis in June 2011 to protest its screening of a documentary entitled Laïcité Inshallah (“Secularism, if God wills”). And in April 2011, an unknown assailant hit film director Nouri Bouzid with a metal bar, shortly after he told a Tunisian radio station that he supported a secular constitution for Tunisia and that his next film would defend civil liberties and criticised religious fundamentalism.

Other attacks carried out by Salafists have targeted artists, including a theatre group performing on Habib Bourguiba Avenue in Tunis in March and academics, notably from Manouba University in north-eastern Tunisia, and journalists as well as media personnel and institutions. The targets included Nessma TV after the showing of Persepolis, for which station boss Karoui was later arrested, tried and fined. Karoui’s home was also firebombed. The film had earlier appeared in Tunisian cinemas with few complaints but when broadcast in October it was dubbed into a Tunisian Arabic dialect, which enraged the Salafists.

The increasing violence surrounding artistic and cultural expression deemed ‘blasphemous’ came as the ruling Islamist Ennahda Movement, which controls 40 per cent of the NCA’s seats, vowed to “legally protect the sacred” and filed a blasphemy bill. Though Ennahda later agreed in principle to drop an anti-blasphemy clause from the draft constitution after negotiations with the other two parties in the ruling coalition, the Congress for the Republic and the Democratic Forum for Work and Liberties, it is by not likely that Islamists will give up their efforts to seek legal authority to criminally ‘punish’ the blasphemous.

The discussion surrounding the proposed amendment of Tunisia’s Penal Code to criminalise violations of sacred values, would impose broad restrictions on freedom of expression far beyond that permitted under international conventions in particular by seeking to protect “sacred values” and “symbols” that do not enjoy their protection.

The draft was vague, according to an Article 19 study, leaving the law, if adopted, open to overly broad interpretation and possible abuse. “What are sacred values?” asked the organisation. “Who determines them and how? What constitutes a violation?” The proposed law also ran counter to the view of UN human rights bodies that laws criminalising defamation of religions and protection of symbols and beliefs contradict rights to freedom of expression. The UN also concluded such laws can be counter-productive in that they are prone to abuse, sometimes at the expense of the religious minorities that they purport to protect.

State attempts to influence the media condemned

Meanwhile, the government continued to appoint the directors of major public media unilaterally, without consulting media professionals, and in the absence of transparent employment processes. The appointments brought the objectivity of the process and the appointees’ own merit and competence into question.

Amidst strong protest, the government had made its own choice of staff to lead the national news agency TAP, Tunisian TV and the country’s leading press house, Société nouvelle d’impression, de presse et d’édition (SNIPE) on 7 January 2012. Though most of these appointments were later revoked after protests organised by the National Union for Tunisian Journalists (SNJT), the trick was repeated in July and August with the appointment of new directors of public radio and a new CEO of Tunisian Television.

On August 21, the government fired Samari Kamel, a well-known human rights activist, as director-general of the influential newspaper group Dar Assabah. He was replaced by Lotfi Touati, a former regime-era police commissioner and government sympathiser. In 2009, Touati was identified as the prime architect of a Ben Ali regime inspired takeover of the leadership of the country’s National Union of Journalists. The Dar Assabah media group is the oldest media house in the country, established in 1951, and Touati’s appointment stirred much controversy.

The SNTJ denounced the government’s move. And Labidi said the government had made the appointments, not based on any media experience or criteria, but because of their alignment with the ruling Ennahda party.

Days after his appointment, Touati withdrew an article due to be published one of the group’s dailies that was critical of his approach. He also fired one of the three top editors at the Arabic-language daily Assabah and published a short list of people authorised to write editorials, the reports said. The chairman of the board of Dar Assabah, Mustapha Ben Letaief and another board member, Fethi Sellaouti both resigned in protest and on September 11, Dar Assabah staff went on strike to protest his appointment.

Touati continued to draw controversy. On September 13 his speeding car injured one of his own reporters, Khalil Hannachi, as he waited outside the group offices to interview him. The journalist lost consciousness and was taken to a local hospital with head and ear injuries.

In general the state of both printing and distribution of independent newspapers is still highly problematic. While many new titles emerged when restrictions were lifted in 2011, few were sustainable, as no proactive policy promoting the emergence of a professional, free, independent and pluralistic press was put in place.

Newspapers also have been facing turmoil and hardships, with individuals close to the old regime still active in the industry. “Rather than transform the public media into free, independent and professional institutions after it had served for years as merely a tool in the hands of the Ben Ali regime, the government’s appointments have honoured Ben Ali’s men in the media sector by awarding them key posts in the public service media,” journalist Fahem Boukadous of the Tunisian Centre for Freedom of the Press (CTPJ) told mission members.

“Many have perceived these appointments as the authority’s attempt to instate individuals it can control in its effort to domesticate the media.” Also the allocation of institutional and public service advertising between media still lacks transparency despite the winding down of the Tunisian External Communication Agency (ATCE), which had used its power of advertising budget patronage to bring the Tunisian media to heel during the Ben Ali era.
Reforming the regulation of Tunisian media

Observers both inside and outside Tunisia have concluded that proposals for the regulation of the country’s media do not meet international standards. Draft clauses in the original text of the new constitution called for the establishment of an “independent media regulatory body,” but chosen by the National Constituent Assembly (ANC).

This raised fears that the government’s past bad practice in appointing staff and pressurising the media would simply be enshrined by the new body. All regulatory powers over the media, including the governing bodies of public media, must have guaranteed independence.

In frustration at the practices of government Labidi and his fellow members of INRIC decided to end its activities on 4 July, having waited in vain for a response from the government since 30 April, when it released its final report and recommendations. A commission of human rights experts on the independent Committee for the Achievement of the Revolution, Political Reform and Democratic Transition (HIROR) followed suit on 24 August.

Another reason for Labidi’s resignation was a draft amendment proposed by a minor political party to the Decree 115-2011, designed to act as a new press code. The code, which is supposed to ensure freedom of press, has been approved by parliament but not yet implemented. The proposed amendments would introduce jail time for insulting sacred icons and public figures, among other restrictions.

Meanwhile, the Internet remains partly free in practice but the repressive legal framework governing web usage under Ben Ali remains. In May the Minister for Human Rights and Transitional Justice Samir Dilou told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that “the Internet was a partner in the revolution so the government would not punish it.” The reality has been a little less straightforward.

The Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI), the web censor under Ben Ali, was ordered by a military tribunal in 2011 to filter five Facebook pages criticising the army. In early 2012, despite the objections of the new ATI leadership, there were calls for a blanket ban on access to pornographic websites, eventually overruled by Tunisia’s highest court.

The existing 1997 Telecommunications Decree and ‘Internet regulations’, make Internet Service Providers (ISPs) liable for third-party content without exceptions – in breach of international conventions. They also require ISPs to monitor and take down content considered contrary to public order and ‘good morals’.

ISPs were still required to submit a list of subscribers on a monthly basis and ban use of encryption tools without prior state approval. The proposed press code – with its powers to bring criminal defamation charges and overly broad penalties for ‘hate speech’ – can be applied to online publishers as well. However, as the cases of bloggers Ghazi Ben Mohamed Beji and Jaber Ben Abdallah Majri illustrated, ordinary public order law from the Ben Ali era can suffice to silence critical opinion.

Under the former regime, ATI used to use online censorship, but in an interview with ATI CEO Moez Chakchouk, he said the technology, installed in 2006, had not been extended or updated since 2011 and had been essentially abandoned in the face of a 50% increase in online traffic in Tunisia during that year.

“If the state wants to draw red lines for net freedom, it should first establish an independent authority to regulate the internet. Internet legislation should not be drafted without a regulation authority that creates balance, between public and individual interests. The state has the right to protect and eliminate defamation, but citizens have the right to freely express themselves. So we need balance, and if the government cannot create such balance, a conflict of interests will occur.”

Constitutional reform

The Tunisian National Constituent Assembly (NCA) is currently preparing a third version of the draft constitution, expected in the spring of 2013. The current version, published at the end of 2012 carries several articles that threaten human rights in general, raise questions about the Tunisia’s commitment to international conventions long ratified by the country and lack of sufficient guarantees for the independence of the judiciary. It also carries some improvements, such as the removal of articles that threatened freedom of expression by criminalizing “normalization” with Israel and clearer language to preserve equal rights for women in Tunisia.

The draft lacks – and would significantly benefit from – a defined section to serve as a Bill of Rights, and placed at the heart of the new Constitution. The constitution must provide a clear right for people to hold opinions and that right should not be subject to any restrictions.

The bill should define freedom of expression broadly and including the historic international right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas, while ensuring that this guarantee covers all types of expression and all modes of communication. The only legitimate restrictions on free expression must be determined by law and are necessary only when respecting the rights or reputations of others and for the protection of national security, public order or public health.

The constitution also should provide a legal mechanism to ensure that there is a right to freedom of information and there must be clear guarantees for freedom of religion for all people.

The constitution draft also fails to address the worst abuses of the Ben Ali regime in its relations with the judiciary. The guarantees for the independence of the judiciary are too limited; there is lack of clarity over the right for judges’ security of tenure and too much government authority over the definition of the conditions under which a judge can be dismissed.

An independent judiciary is key to institutionalising free expression in Tunisia and preventing people from being harassed or jailed for exercising their right to free expression,” said Riadh Guerfali, a co-founder of the participatory website Nawaat, a partner of Index on Censorship. “Ending impunity for those who attack free expression is critical as well.”

Some observers have raised questions about Article 15, which suggest that international conventions that Tunisia has ratified are only compulsory if they do not “contravene the constitution” in an unspecified way.

Under the Vienna Convention, when an international treaty had been ratified or approved it will become binding in domestic law. But the language as it stands may tempt judges and legislators to disregard these treaties on the pretext that they contradict the new constitution, Human Rights Watch said.

The importance of an independent judiciary was underlined by Guerfali, himself a lawyer. “Beyond formal guarantees of the right to freedom of expression and information in the Constitution and international instruments, what is key in today’s democracies is the case law.

“Indeed, in front of notions as vague as public morals, national security and public order, precedents established over decades have enabled the protection of fundamental rights. Yet, in Tunisia, such positive case law is lacking. There is no doubt that legal instruments should be set to prevent vague notions to undermine otherwise protected fundamental rights, including that to freedom of expression.”

– Reported by Rohan Jayasekera, Ghias Aljundi and Yousef Ahmed

World Press Freedom Day

European Union: Is the European Union faltering on media freedom?
Egypt: Post-revolution media vibrant but partisan
Brazil: Press confronts old foes and new violence

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Egypt’s post-revolution mediascape is vibrant but partisan and fraught with uncertainty. Photo: Shutterstock

With Egypt divided into two camps: liberal and Islamist, the media is also split, aligning itself with one side or the other. Most private TV channels and publications have taken an anti-government stance, routinely vilifying President Mohamed Morsi and his ruling Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile, as calls grow on the streets for a return to military rule, the private media has reverted back to glorifying the military, portraying the armed forces as the “guardians of the revolution.”

Continuing a longstanding tradition of idolizing those in power., the media have put the military — perceived as being more powerful than the Islamist Morsi — above criticism. One striking example is when presenter Iman Ezzeldine on a recent live show on the independent ONTV channel, accused Morsi of paying the Guardian to publish excerpts from a leaked report on military abuses during and after the 2011 uprising. She claimed that Morsi was trying to “tarnish the image of our noble armed forces”.

On the other hand, the Islamist media has sided with the president, singing his praises and persistently defaming the liberal opposition. Meanwhile, state-controlled media especially State TV –long a propaganda tool for the Mubarak regime—continues to be used by the government as an instrument of political manipulation , dashing hopes for a major breakthrough in media freedom in post-Mubarak Egypt . Many of the journalists working for state-run newspapers or TV channels have fallen back into the old habit of self censorship.

Despite airing diverse views, the state broadcaster has adopted the familiar state line that “the opposition activists are foreign-backed troublemakers” and has repeatedly warned that “the anti regime protests would harm the economy”. Editors and presenters meanwhile continue to complain of interference by senior management in editorial content. Despite the backsliding, a handful of presenters are resisting manipulation and have taken a stand against censorship. Anchor Hala Fahmy was taken off the air after she appeared on her show carrying a white shroud symbolizing what she described as “the demise of free expression.” Bothaina Kamel, another prominent anchor has faced interrogation after asking viewers to “stay tuned for the Muslim Brotherhood news bulletin”.

State TV employees have meanwhile staged a series of protests outside the State TV building in Maspiro calling for a purge of the media and demanding that the Islamist Minister of Information step down. Among the demands of opposition activists who led the calls for reform during the 2011 uprising was “an end to state control of the media”. Critics argue that the appointment of a Minister of Information can only mean a return to censorship and government propaganda.

A wave of criminal investigations of journalists critical of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in recent months has raised concern over a return to Mubarak-era policies to silence voices of dissent. After a public outcry over the interrogation of popular TV satirist Bassem Youssef by the public prosecutor on charges of insulting religion and the president, Morsi has sought to allay fears of a government crackdown on the media, promising that no further charges will be pressed by the presidency against critical journalists.

While there’s still cautious optimism on the possibility of a free and open media in the “new” Egypt, social media has undergone a revolution of its own, giving bloggers and activists an alternative platform to share information among themselves and with the world and to openly debate the way forward for their country. While the lively debate on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter has allowed Egypt’s internet activists to steadily deepen their imprint on Egyptian society and politics, the impact of the online revolution has been limited, falling well short of the aspirations of the Tahrir opposition activists for serious reform of the media. In a country where the illiteracy rate is more than 40 percent, there needs to be a revolution in state controlled media — especially television — for the effects to be far reaching.

European Union: Is the European Union faltering on media freedom?
Tunisia: Press faces repressive laws, uncertain future
Brazil: Press confronts old foes and new violence

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Despite the criticism, the draft law — which was prepared by the Islamist-dominated Shura Council’s Human Development Committee — has been given preliminary approval by the Council, the upper house of Egypt’s parliament endowed with legislative powers until the election of a new People’s Assembly or lower house.

Egypt’s government is considering a draft NGO law. Photo: Shutterstock

If passed, the legislation would put the 13,000 or so local and international NGOs operating in Egypt under full government control, requiring security agencies to grant them licenses and monitor their funding. According to the draft law, a committee comprising members of the Interior Ministry and Egypt’s National Security Agency would decide whether NGOs may or may not receive funding from abroad. Furthermore, those allowed foreign funding would not have direct access to the money as transfers would get deposited in a government bank account, ensuring that all transactions take place under close government scrutiny. NGOs would also need the committee’s permission to transfer funds abroad and would be barred from conducting surveys and from profiting from their organization’s activities.
　
Rights groups and campaigners have decried the draft legislation, arguing that it is even more restrictive than the current Mubarak-era Law 84 (issued in 2002) which was designed to limit and control the operations of NGOs. The draft law would severely hamper the work of NGOs, they say.

“The draft law would make it almost impossible for NGOs to operate in Egypt,” lamented Heba Morayef, director of Human Rights Watch, Egypt in comments published in state-sponsored daily al-Ahram.

Freedom House, a U.S.-based NGO working to promote democracy and human rights has also expressed deep concern over the draft legislation, stating “that the proposed bill would radically restrict the space for local and international NGOs working on issues of human rights and democracy.” It called on the Egyptian government to demonstrate its commitment to democratic reform by replacing the current draft law with one that promotes freedom of association.

“The legislation blatantly contradicts the Egyptian government’s stated goal of moving the country toward democracy,” Freedom House President David Kramer said in a statement posted on the NGO’s website. He also urged the international community to link political and financial support for Egypt with the Egyptian government’s actions to advance progress toward democracy.

Lawmakers and some members of the liberal opposition have defended the bill, however, arguing that it was “necessary to protect Egypt’s national security interests. ”

“Some of the NGOs are undercover espionage cells secretly promoting a US-Israeli agenda”, Nagi El-Shehabi, a member of the Generation Party has been quoted by al Ahram as saying.

The allegations echo similar accusations made last year by then-Minister of International Cooperation Fayza Aboul Naga against foreign-funded non-profit organizations working to promote democracy and human rights in Egypt. Aboul Naga had claimed that the pro-democracy organizations were working “to spread chaos in the country”. Her remarks came after a vicious crackdown on NGOs — both local and foreign, including Freedom House by security forces. In December 2011, security raids were conducted on 17 NGO offices and hundreds of their staffers were threatened with investigations. Meanwhile five mostly-US funded NGOs working to promote human rights and democracy were accused of “receiving illegal funding from foreign governments, including the US ” and of “operating in Egypt without a license”–charges that were denied by the NGOs.

Forty-three NGO workers were prosecuted including 17 foreign nationals who left the country some weeks later, save for one defendant who chose to remain and face trial. A verdict in the landmark case is expected on June 4, 2013. While state-run media lambasted the NGOs, accusing them of plotting to divide the country and threatening Egypt’s national security, rights campaigners insisted that the widely-publicized NGO case “was politically motivated”. Bahieddin Hassan, Director of the Cairo Centre for Human Rights Studies, meanwhile suggested that the foreign NGOs were attacked “to intimidate local NGOs and undermine their work.”

The chilling NGO court case also succeeded in fueling suspicions among an already skeptical public of foreign organizations operating in the country, consolidating the government’s view that the NGOs’ activities were tantamount to “foreign interference in the country’s internal affairs”. The trial of the pro-democracy activists (which has dragged on since), meanwhile coincided with public service announcements that were broadcast on Egyptian TV channels, warning citizens against talking to foreigners “because they might be spies.” Although the TV spots were quickly removed after fierce denunciations by critics that they were “fueling xenophobia”, they unleashed a wave of angry attacks by demonstrators on tourists and foreign journalists covering protests against military rule during the country’s turbulent transitional period.

Meanwhile, Essam El Erian, a former Presidential advisor and a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, FJP, has lauded the draft law as “an attempt to curb corruption promoted by some international NGOs.”

“Some of the money given by the US to those NGOs has gone to spreading corruption in the country,” he said, adding that the bill would ensure “greater transparency of NGOs’ activities and funding”.

The storm raised by rights campaigners and NGOs over by the contentious draft legislaion has forced Freedom and Justice Party MPs, who hastily pushed the draft law through at a Shura Council session last week, to back down. After the session during which the draft law was “approved in principle” by lawmakers in parliament, Shura Council Speaker, Ahmed Fahmy — a Muslim Brotherhood member — affirmed that “the Council was still willing to review an alternative NGO law drafted by the government”.

Although no details have yet been released about the government-drafted law, rights groups and activists hope that the alternative legislation — which MPs have promised to discuss in parliament “within days” — will be free from the restrictions and tight control on funding and licensing that threaten to cripple Egypt’s civil society (if the MPs draft law is passed).

“We want an NGO law that would empower civil society organizations contribute to the development of this country not one that undermines their work”, Omar El-Sharif, Deputy Justice Minister, told a parliamentary session last week. Many are holding their breath.

See more coverage: Shahira Amin | Egypt

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Al-Sissi defended the armed forces, insisting the military had “protected Egypt and safeguarded the January 25, 2011 Revolution.” He also warned the media against slandering the military.

Al-Sissi’s comments came in response to leaks to the Guardian and Egypt’s independent Al Shorouk newspaper from a report by a fact-finding commission implicating the military in human rights abuses during and after the 18-day mass uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak. The commission was formed after President Mohamed Morsi came to power in June 2012 in the wake of tensions with the country’s powerful military. In a report handed to President Morsi in December, the commission stated that “the military had ordered doctors to operate on wounded protesters without anaesthetic and that soldiers killed and tortured demonstrators — including performing humiliating virginity tests on female protesters less than a month after the uprising”, according to the Guardian. The military had also participated in forced disappearances, with more than 1,000 people reported missing during the 18 days of the January 2011 uprising.

While al-Sissi has denied the charges, a video clip posted on YouTube shortly after his statement was broadcast on Egyptian state TV tells an entirely different story. The video was posted by Askar Kazeboon, or Military Are Liars — a group of volunteers whose declared aim is to “expose the lies of the armed forces and inform the public about military abuses.” The clip showed soldiers brutally beating and kicking protesters. It also depicted scenes of the December 2011 “blue bra incident” during which a female protester was dragged by soldiers and stripped half naked during protests against military rule outside the parliament building in Cairo. During the clashes between military forces and protesters on Qasr al-Aini Street, the army had also assaulted and arrested journalists, confiscating their equipment, and targeting news outlets. A military spokesman soon afterwards denied any wrongdoing, claiming that the army had “exercised self-restraint.”

Activists responded to the claims by launching Askar Kazeboon — an alternative campaign to “expose the state media propaganda lies” by screening video clips in public spaces across the country, depicting scenes of military forces practicing severe brutality against peaceful demonstrators. The footage is often interlaced with military denials of involvement in any criminal activity. Besides screening videos of military abuse, the Askar Kazeboon — or the Military are Liars — team has staged protest-marches in several cities and towns and used social media networks Facebook and Twitter to raise public awareness about the violent military crackdown on protesters demanding an end to military rule during the transitional period (when the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces was in power). The group’s Facebook page has approximately 149,000 fans and the number is steadily increasing.

The latest Askar Kazeboon video which has gone viral on social media networks Facebook and Twitter, has embarassed the armed forces while serving as a reminder that it is becoming all the more difficult to hide truths in the ‘Information Age’ when activists and bloggers are constantly taking pictures on their mobile phones, uploading and sharing them with internet users around the world. But the video is not the first of its kind countering the narrative of state media . On 27 January 2012, the group’s video clips were projected onto the facade of the Egyptian State Television building at Maspero “to shame the state broadcaster for propogating lies” — according to campaign members — after state TV channels broadcast a video produced by the military’s Public Affairs Department depicting protesters throwing rocks and molotovs at military forces in downtown Qasr el Aini Street and showing children “confessing” to having been paid to attack the military. The following month, the Askar Kazeboon group took their campaign one step further, projecting their video clips onto the outer walls of the Ministry of Defence –the SCAF Headquarters.

“By taking our protest movement out of Tahrir Square into other districts , villages and hamlets, we have managed to attract more followers to our cause ” Reem Dawoud, a founding member of the campaign told Index. She added that the group’s mission was the pursuit of” transparency, accountability and free flow of information.”

The campaign has over the last sixteen months evolved into an initiative “countering the lies of those who speak in the name of religion” — in reference to the ruling Muslim Brotherhood, which has reneged on several promises, including the promise not to field a presidential candidate. Askar Kazeboon and other initiatives — like Ikhwan Kazeboon and the No to Military Trials Campaign — do more than just open peoples’ eyes to vivid truths; they also symbolise an unprecedented level of street and cyberactivism that was lacking in the pre-revolution days. Gone are the days when the state had near-total control over the media and when the government had succeeded in silencing voices of dissent. Despite growing fears that a government crackdown on media critical of the Morsi regime in recent months could pave the way for a regression in the freedom of expression — overturning the gains made in freedom of speech since the revolt more than two years ago — the campaigns bring hope of a freer, more transparent society where every citizen has the right to access information and hold authorities to account.

Journalist Shahira Amin resigned from her post as deputy head of state-run Nile TV in February 2011. Read why she resigned from the  “propaganda machine” here.

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Last March, a primary court in Mahdia (eastern Tunisia) sentenced Mejri and his friend Ghazi Beji to seven and half years in prison. Beji, who published a satirical book entitled “the illusion of Islam” online, fled Tunisia. Mejir, however, has been in prison since he was arrested on 5 March 2012.

Both men were fined 1,200 dinars (GBP £480) and sentenced to five years in prison for publishing content “liable to cause harm to the public order” under article 121 (3) of the Tunisian Penal Code. They each received a two-year jail term for “offending others through public communication networks” (article 86 of the Telecommunications Code), and another six months for “moral transgression.”

On 25 June 2012, the Monastir Court of Appeal upheld Mejri’s conviction.

On 23 April 2013, a committee supporting the two young men published a letter from Mejri, written in his prison cell in Mahdia, in which he claims he has been subject to torture. Mejri wrote:

There’s no freedom of expression here in Tunisia, it is dead…I am forbidden from medicines to cure my illness and from other rights. Seven years and six months is a long period to spend within a dark and gloomy small place. Officers find pleasure to torture me [sic]”

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