The US Secretary of State is headed for the Middle East and the Gulf. Sara Yasin explains the censorship issues in the region he needs to hear about
The free speech agenda for John Kerry’s “listening trip”
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CATEGORY: Middle East and North Africa
Two years on, what’s happened to Egypt’s dream of religious freedom?
Egyptians who took to the streets in mass protests in January 2011 demanding the downfall of Mubarak's authoritarian regime were rebelling --- amongst other things --- against restrictions on their civil liberties and infringement on their rights....
Doubts over Bahrain “dialogue” as teenager protester killed on anniversary of uprising
Second anniversary of Bahrain uprising is marked amid violence and scepticism over talks. Sara Yasin reports
Israel’s “Prisoner X” case and the creep of military censorship
OPINION: In June 2010, Israel’s Ynet website reported on the detention, and then six months later on the death, of unknown detainee “Prisoner X” in solitary confinement. A gag order issued by an Israeli court soon after put an end to any reporting...
Israel’s “Prisoner X” case and the creep of military censorship
OPINION: In June 2010, Israel’s Ynet website reported on the detention, and then six months later on the death, of unknown detainee “Prisoner X” in solitary confinement. A gag order issued by an Israeli court soon after put an end to any reporting on the case, or even reporting of the order itself. “Prisoner X” became a byword in the Israeli media for yet one more of the kind of security-related stories that no-one quite knows the truth of, and probably never will. Nothing more was heard until this week, when an Australian TV documentary claimed that the man in question was one Ben Zygier, a 34-year-old father-of-two and an Australian citizen who had moved to Israel a decade earlier. […]
The battle to keep women in Tahrir Square
Egyptian Salafi preacher Ahmed Mahmoud Abdulla — known as Abou Islam — recently made remarks justifying sexual violence against female protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, claiming that women who join protests are asking “to get raped”. The preacher, who owns private religious television channel Al-Ummah, has previously stirred controversy when he burnt a Bible outside the US Embassy in Cairo during last year’s protests over anti-Islam film the Innocence of Muslims. In a video posted online last Wednesday, Abdulla said that women who join the protests are “either crusaders who have no shame or widows who have noone to control them”. He also described them as “devils”, and added that “they talk like monsters”. A few days before he made […]
Egyptian court orders month-long ban on YouTube
Over the weekend, an Egyptian court approved a month-long ban on YouTube, for refusal to remove controversial anti-Islam film the Innocence of Muslims. In addition to a ban on YouTube, the same court ordered a ban on any other website hosting the...
Bahrain is Britain’s shame
At her speech in the House of Commons, Maryam Alkhawaja asked MPs to put pressure on Bahrain to commit to reforms and free political prisoners, including her father and sister. Here, the prominent human rights defender denounces Britain’s indifference
Turmoil in Egypt continues, as state of emergency is declared
Thousands of protesters took to the streets in three Suez Canal cities on Monday night, defying a night-time curfew and a month-long state of emergency declared by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi a day earlier. "Down with Mohamed Morsi! No to the...
The modern Big Brothers
Autocratic, authoritarian and totalitarian states take it upon themselves to actively stifle freedom of expression. These states can look very different – “socialist” North Korea may seem very different to “theocratic” Iran, but even with vastly differing cultures and political landscapes, we can draw similarities between the methods used by these regimes to suffocate and in some cases entirely suppress free speech