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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On 27 November, a final verdict will be issued in the case of five activists known as the “UAE Five”, who have been detained since April for posts made on the internet forum UAE Hewar. A coalition of seven international human rights group, including Index on Censorship, today call on the United Arab Emirates to “launch an independent judicial inquiry into the decision to prosecute the men” in order to ensure a fair trial for the men.

The five activists are blogger and engineer Ahmed Mansoor, Nasser bin Ghaith, an economist and lecturer at Sorbonne, and online activists Fahad Salim Dalk, Ahmed Abdul Khaleq, and Hassan Ali-al-Khamis.  They were all charged in June under articles 176 and 8 of the the UAE’s penal code, which rule that any individual that publicly insulting “the president of the state, its flag, or its national emblem” is punishable by a prison. Al Karama (Dignity), Amnesty International, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), Frontline Defenders, the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, and Index on Censorship, have all reviewed the messages allegedly posted on the now banned UAE Hewar, and determined the messages only criticise political leaders or government policy. This would not violate the law in question, suggesting that the UAE 5 are being targeted for political reasons.

The activists have refused to recognise the courts jurisdiction after been subjected to four secret trials, on one occasion the UAE 5 stormed out of the court, after demands for a fair trial were repeatedly denied. Following the incident, they have protested by refusing to attend any further hearings. In a letter written by the activists in August, they expressed certainty that they would not have a fair trial, “which every defendant deserves.” State security agents were the only ones allowed to attend and take notes during the secret trials. While the court eventually allowed for public hearings, reports show that the trial has been unfair and full of inconsistencies.

According to a report by Jennie Pasquarella a civil liberties lawyer following the trials, said that the “case has been riddled with legal and procedural flaws from the beginning,” making the trial “grossly unfair in favour of the prosecution.”

During the 2 October hearing, the court heard closing arguments from the prosecution without giving the opportunity to the defence to present their case, and according to Christoph Wilcke, a representative for Human Rights Watch, the defense was kept from cross-examining witnesses and discussing accusations with clients beforehand. According to the coalition, the defendents also have not had access to all evidence used against them in the case. The activists will remain in custody until a final verdict is issued.
Sara Yasin is an editorial assistant at Index on Censorship

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At the heart of the system is the National Media Council — an unfortunate remnant of the UAE’s old Ministry of Information and Culture. The NMC claims that it has become more tolerant and now only censors books that offend Islam or are pornographic. However there is little doubt that it still actively bans a wide range of books, or — more accurately — simply avoids providing the necessary approval to willing distributors. The US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor reports on the UAE confirm this view, regularly detailing banned publications in the UAE. The NMC’s other responsibilities include the blacking out of nudity in media output (still done by using black felt tip on newspaper and magazine articles), and running a department for external information, which keeps a close eye on UAE-related content in foreign publications and seeks to limit the output of certain writers.

The NMC is also responsible for enforcing the UAE’s press law. Although this legislation has recently been amended, and the NMC can no longer impose jail terms on offending journalists, very large fines have been introduced as an alternative. If anything, the new version of the law is more restrictive than before, with fines for journalists who ‘damage the UAE’s reputation’ or ‘harm the economy’. Thus, the NMC can continue to rely on a national body of journalists who have been weaned on decades of self-censorship: the majority of reporters are expatriates and few are willing to jeopardise their livelihood in the UAE. This is exacerbated by an atmosphere of ambiguity, with few journalists or editors quite able to establish what is permissable. At present, few will risk running stories about redundancies or corruption scandals.

Perhaps of equal interest is what the NMC fails to censor. It never prevents anti-Semitic cartoons from being published in the domestic newspapers. The cartoons often depict Israeli leaders being compared to Hitler, and Jews being portrayed as demons. In January 2009, at the height of the Gaza conflict, the UAE’s bestselling English language newspaper, Gulf News, not only featured such a cartoon (featuring an Israeli solider with a forked red tongue), but also published a Holocaust revisionist piece which claimed ‘…it is evident that the Holocaust was a conspiracy hatched by the Zionists and the Nazis… the Holocaust was a major crime in history and the Israeli culprit is at it again today’.

In parallel to the NMC’s work, it is widely understood that telephone calls are monitored in the UAE and that the bulk of households and commercial buildings still have their Internet fed through proxy servers controlled by one of the UAE’s two major providers. These in turn are supervised by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority. As per official memoranda, the TRA is only supposed to block websites falling into specific ‘prohibited content categories’. These include websites that promote criminal or terrorist activities, social networking websites that may facilitate premarital or homosexual relations, websites relating to narcotics, pornographic websites, and websites with content offensive to religion.

However, a very large number of other websites are either permanently or periodically blocked. Sites containing information about political prisoners, human trafficking, or other human rights abuses that mention the UAE are often blocked. Uaeprison.com and Arabtimes.com remain permanently blocked. The former details abuses of the justice system in the UAE, often involving South Asian expatriates. Inoffensive websites containing information on the Baha’i faith, Judaism, and testimonies of former Muslims who have converted to Christianity are also often blocked. Perhaps least forgivably, personal blogs have also been blocked, and only reopened following international petitions from the blogging community. In summer 2008, it was announced by the TRA that the duopoly would soon unblock thousands of censored websites. Unfortunately these newly accessible sites were simply those whose content owners had made modifications specifically in line with the TRA’s requirements. Again, a story of self-censorship.

Christopher Davidson is the author of Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success
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