May 1st, 2013
Preliminary research from a survey of nearly 10,000 Arab respondents has found that while most support the right to free expression online, they are apt to believe that the internet should be regulated, according to the researchers.
The survey — a joint effort between researchers at the Qatar campus of the US-based Northwestern University and the World Internet Project — explored media usage in the Arab world. Participants were drawn from eight Arab nations: Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates.
The survey questioned participants’ perceptions of the news media, finding that 61 per cent thought the “quality of news reporting in the Arab world has improved over the past two years.” Media credibility declined in countries that experienced revolutions during the Arab Spring. The Saudi Arabian respondents gave their media outlets high marks with 71 [per cent agreeing with the statement, “The media in your country can report the news independently without interference from officials”.
Overall, the survey found high Facebook penetration among respondents who used social media. Ninety-four percent of the social media users had Facebook accounts, 47 per cent used Twitter and 40 per cent used Facebook. Among the Bahrain social media users, 92 per cent had a Facebook account, while just 29 per cent of the Egyptian respondents did.
The survey aimed to assess the use of media — TV, radio, newspapers, books, web — and levels of trust respondents had toward the sources. It also sought to guage how the respondents used the internet to communicate and conduct transactions like banking or purchases.
The results can be accessed at Arab Media Use Study.
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Tags: Tags: Bahrain, Egypt, freedom of expression, internet, Jordan, Lebanon, Middle East, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates,
August 3rd, 2012
Index joins a group of international rights groups in calling on UK Foreign Minister William Hague and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to push for the prisoners’ release
Since March, Emirati authorities have arrested over 50 activists and human rights defenders in a widespread crackdown on dissent.
Dear Foreign Secretary,
We are writing to draw your attention to some disturbing human rights developments in the United Arab Emirates, where the authorities have launched a campaign of arrest, arbitrary detention and deportation to repress and intimidate peaceful political activists.
Since late March, the authorities there have arrested at least 50 Emirati civil society activists and human rights defenders. In recent weeks there has been a marked escalation in the crackdown on those advocating political reform in the UAE, with two prominent human rights lawyers, Mohammed al-Roken and Mohammed al-Mansoori, amongst those detained in a spate of arrests and detentions.
Although none of those arrested have been formally charged with any offence, there are strong indications that the detentions are being linked to issues of national security. A July 15 statement by the UAE’s official news agency said Attorney General Salem Sa’eed Kubaish had ordered the arrest and investigation of “a group of people for establishing and managing an organisation with the aim of committing crimes that harm state security”. The statement also accused this group of having connections with “foreign organisations and outside agendas” and promised to “expose the dimensions of the conspiracy”.
Al-Roken is a prominent human rights lawyer in the Emirates, and has provided legal assistance to al-Islah members detained without charge since March, including a group that authorities stripped of their citizenship. In 2011 he served as co-defence counsel for two of the five activists known as the “UAE 5 ,” who were imprisoned for seven months and tried in 2011 after allegedly posting statements on an internet forum critical of UAE government policy and leaders.
Al-Mansoori is the deputy chairman of al-Islah and a former president of the Jurists’ Association. The UAE authorities dismissed him from his position as a legal advisor to the government of Ras Al Khaimah in January 2010 after he gave a television interview in which he criticised restrictions on freedom of speech in the country. They have barred him from travelling since October 2007 and have refused to renew his passport since March 2008.
On 24 July the Abu Dhabi Court of First Instance sentenced a former judge and University of Sharjah law professor, Dr Ahmed Yousef al-Zaabi, to 12 months’ imprisonment for fraud and assuming another person’s identity. Al-Zaabi’s conviction was based on the fact that his passport still registered his profession as “judge” after his public support for political reform in the UAE had resulted in him being forced into retirement. The authorities’ targeting of lawyers has discouraged members of the Emirati legal profession from offering their services, thereby denying the detained men legal assistance.
On 16 June, the UAE deported Ahmed Abd al-Khaleq, an advocate for the rights of stateless residents known as Bidun. He had been held in detention without charge or explanation since 22 May and was informed that he would be indefinitely detained if he did not agree to leave the UAE. Abd al-Khaleq is one of the UAE 5. UAE authorities charged the UAE 5 in early June 2011 under articles 176 and 8 of the UAE Penal Code, which criminalise “public insults” of the country’s top officials. They were detained throughout a seven-month pre-trial and trial process. The Federal Supreme Court convicted them on 27 November and sentenced them to between two and three years in prison. Shortly afterward, Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE president, commuted the sentences and they were released. However, the events of recent days have again revealed the lengths to which the UAE authorities are prepared to go to curb dissent.
In January of this year, you wrote that freedom was “still flowering” in the Arab Spring and described how protection against arbitrary punishment and freedom of expression were taking hold in the region. This is manifestly not the case in the UAE, where freedom of speech is being aggressively repressed by intimidation, arbitrary detention and deportation.
We urge you and the UK government to raise these issues at the highest levels with the UAE authorities, and to criticise publicly the repression of free speech and free association, the harassment of members of the legal profession, and to call for the immediate release of the detained activists.
Yours sincerely,
Rachid Mesli, Director, Legal Department, Alkarama Foundation
Mary Lawlor, Executive Director, Front Line
Khalid Ibrahim, Acting Director, Gulf Centre for Human Rights
David Mepham, Advocacy Director, Human Rights Watch
Kirsty Hughes, Chief Executive, Index on Censorship
Read more about the UAE 5 here
March 21st, 2012
Authorities in the
United Arab Emirates have removed
two paintings inspired by the Arab spring from an art fair. The paintings, which were appearing as part of the regional art fair “Art Dubai”, unsettled the authorities and were ommitted. A painting titled
After Washing by a Libyan-born artist — showing a woman holding underwear with word “Leave” written on it — was removed. Similarly, ”You were my only love” by a Moroccan artist, which depicted an incident in Egypt in which a female protester was beaten up and stripped by members of the security forces, was also banned from the fair.
May 26th, 2010
Sex and the City 2 has been banned from the city in which the film is set, Abu Dhabi. A spokesperson for the
National Media Council said on 19 May it had banned the film from the country because the “theme of the film does not fit with our cultural values”. The
United Arab Emirates previously denied them permission to film in the country, and they also banned the first Sex in the City in 2008.
April 30th, 2010
The United Arab Emirates authorities is to
monito internet users in public places such as malls and cyber cafes according to a report from the newspaper Emarat al-Youm on Wednesday. People without newly-mandated national ID cards will not be allowed to use the internet in public places. The authorities
justified the rule saying it was introduced to combat cyber-crime and child pornography.
March 23rd, 2010
United Arab Emirates’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has ordered ISPs to block a
Facebook page supposedly authored by Allah. The TRA has also said it will ban the unnamed author, who claimed he believes in no god but himself, from holding an internet account. The author behind the page soon has over 600,000 followers and answers questions on the site.
March 17th, 2010
A recent report by the OpenNet Initiative has revealed that search terms in both Arabic and English relating to homosexuality are censored in some Middle Eastern countries. The study showed that the level of censorship on Microsoft’s Bing ranged from
‘substantial’ to ‘pervasive’ and ‘selective’ in Algeria, Syria, Jordan and United Arab Emirates. Other sexually explicit search terms were also found to be censored.
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Tags: Tags: Algeria, censorship, homosexuality, Internet censorship, Jordan, Microsoft, Middle East, sex, Syria, United Arab Emirates,
