11 Jun 2024 | Israel, Moldova, News and features, Russia, Ukraine
Israel’s High Court of Justice this week heard a petition challenging new legislation allowing a ban on foreign broadcasters deemed a threat to national security.
Known as the Al Jazeera law, in honour of its inaugural target, this allows the communications minister, with the consent of the prime minister and the committee of national security, to impose far-reaching sanctions.
“There is no doubt that there is a violation of freedom of expression here,” the High Court panel’s head, Justice Yitzhak Amit, told the hearing.
Yet Israel’s May shuttering of Al Jazeera – described as a “terror channel” by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – passed without much domestic concern.
Any outrage was limited to Israel’s small liberal left wing, even though in banning Al Jazeera, Israel joins the august ranks of countries including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain.
The issue is, of course, rife with politicisation. Al Jazeera is headquartered in Qatar, as is part of the Hamas leadership, and is hardly free from bias. Nonetheless, this law can be used in the future to ban other foreign broadcasters that are deemed to pose an amorphous “threat to national security”.
And crucially, it includes an “override clause” that even Israel’s high court cannot overturn.
It’s important to note that countries often introduce special legislation affecting media in times of war and crisis, amid legitimate national security considerations.
Ukraine is an obvious case in point, not least because it faces such a particularly sharp threat from Russian disinformation.
A year before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky moved to shut down three pro-Russian TV channels judged to effectively be weapons in Russia’s information war.
Immediately after the full-scale invasion, all national news channels were united into a 24-hour broadcast, and a subsequent newly revised media law was intended to be muscular enough to withstand Russian malign influence.
Yet while criticism of the government in times of war – especially one being fought with a citizen’s army – is not easy, Ukrainian journalists have quite effectively held their leaders to account.
Reporting on corruption in the defence ministry, for instance, heralded the minister’s resignation of defence minister Oleskiy Reznikov and government pledges for greater transparency.
And critically, the Government’s moves in the information sphere have not gone unchallenged. Ukraine, with its history of authoritarian government and a media scene under the sway of oligarchs and political interests, knows all too well how fragile free expression can be.
While officials made clear that the telethon would be completely free of government intervention, not all outlets were included, and critics note that some of those excluded such as Espresso, Channel 5, and Priamyi, had often criticised Zelensky and to varying degrees were associated with his predecessor Petro Poroshenko.
And there was widespread criticism of the March 2023 media law for handing too much power to government intervention, with the same measures to counter Russian disinformation all too easily abused to limit critical voices.
In neighbouring Moldova, scores of pro-Russian outlets were banned under the state of emergency declared immediately after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. More than two years later, the TV channels and websites remain blocked despite the end of the state of emergency, and many critics would argue that the country remains as vulnerable as ever to Russian propaganda.
What is needed to ensure that national security considerations do not become a tool to control free expression is a robust civil society push back and an ongoing debate on the boundary between freedom of speech and the fight against fake news.
In Israel, where the national narrative has become an inextricable part of the conflict itself, the public appears increasingly supine in the face of the official version of events.
Israel has long championed its diverse and outspoken media sector as a sign of a vibrant democracy, alongside robust laws that purport to protect free expression. But civil society and media are now experiencing repression from both official and non-state sources, with Palestinian citizens of Israel bearing the brunt.
Anti-war protests have been curtailed and violently repressed; Jewish and Arab teachers fired over left-wing posts on social media, while students have faced disciplinary actions for simply supporting a ceasefire.
Dissenting voices and journalists are being directly targeted and doxxed. Just after 7 October, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi suggested police be empowered to arrest those accused of spreading information that could harm morale or fuel enemy propaganda.
Haaretz journalist Rogel Alpher this week noted a column in Yisrael Hayom which called for articles in the penal law that mandate execution or life imprisonment enforced on those disseminating “defeatist propaganda” or “abetting the enemy”.
Of course, Israel is not about to start executing journalists. The vast majority of extreme proposals do not make it into law, just as most anti-war arrests do not lead to indictments. Even bans on specific outlets are not total; Al Jazeera can still be accessed with absolute ease online.
But this all helps create a chilling atmosphere, serving to normalise such actions and increasing self-censorship.
Israel’s Hebrew-language media has chosen to self-censor to such a large extent that Jewish Israelis experience what Esther Solomon, editor-in-chief of Haaretz English, describes as a “cognitive gap” between the content they consume and what the rest of the world sees.
This means that anything confronting the profoundly uncomfortable reality of war and contradicting the accepted IDF narrative is seen as traitorous and a threat to national security.
The public acceptance of vaguely worded censorious media laws seems to fit all too well with the ongoing slow and creeping deterioration of Israel’s democracy.
10 May 2024 | Bahrain, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, China, Ecuador, Eritrea, Hong Kong, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Magazine Contents, Mexico, North Korea, Palestine, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Volume 53.01 Spring 2024
Contents
12 Apr 2024 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Saudi Arabia
Within a few hours of Ghanem al Masarir accepting the invitation to perform at Index’s January comedy night – an event centred on dissent – the Saudi satirist had sent over a script of what he wanted to say.
It was great – funny, pacey and laced with on-the-nose jokes about Saudi’s Crown Prince that you’d want from a dissident. The only problem was it was a bit short for his allocated timeslot. Could he expand it?
His reply was to pull out of the event entirely. He told me his mental health was in such a state that he didn’t think he could do it. We’d spoken in the morning, a time when he typically feels more robust. By the afternoon he’d been having doubts and was concerned that, as per his current pattern, he’d be unable to muster the strength to perform at a night-time event. My request for a bit more bulk tipped him over the edge.
Al Masarir’s message was disappointing, but it was not unpredictable. The Saudi authorities have been terrorising him for years, in a way that is intended to destroy his mental, as much as his physical, health.
He arrived in the UK in 2003 when he came to study. He was in his early 20s and had no intention to stay, but while he was here he encountered Saudi opposition – a fact that made its way back to Saudi authorities who, in al Masarir’s words, went crazy.
“They wanted to make my life miserable. If you visit Osama bin Laden they’re fine with that, but not if you visit opposition,” he told Index.
Al Masarir said the harassment took the form of trying to discredit his reputation and thereby limit his professional opportunities, as well as illegal actions such as stealing his car (it apparently later showed up in Dubai) and hacking his bank account.
His first job was recruiting students from the Middle East to study in the UK, something he was driven out of after several people he recruited were themselves threatened.
In 2015, al Masarir turned his hand to comedy. He set up a YouTube channel on which he’d post satirical videos, talk show-host style, about the Saudi state. The videos were watched by tens of thousands, mostly from Saudi Arabia – a testament to the hunger in the country for this kind of content (“black messages”, as al Masarir calls them), which he thought would be more effective in their messaging than more formal content.
Throughout this time al Masarir was still in contact with his family. That ended in 2017 following a campaign where he called on people in Saudi Arabia to upload their own videos (which some did, using VPNs to protect themselves). The Saudi authorities promptly pressured his family to cut ties and he hasn’t spoken to any of them since – an obviously painful fact, and one that he says he tries not to think about too much in a bid to stay positive.
I wanted to meet al Masarir, to speak to him face to face. But he is evasive. Then he tells me he rarely leaves his London home.
“I used to go to Hyde Park to walk around. I’d meet people in the city centre. Now I don’t,” he said.
In 2018, al Masarir was outside Harrods in central London when he was badly beaten by men who, it is believed, were hired by the Saudi state. (Citizen Lab confirmed that his phone had been hacked using Pegasus spyware.)
While al Masarir was lucky to get away without anything broken, the same could not be said of his spirit. “They destroyed me emotionally,” he said.
“The UK is a great country and everything is amazing, but I think the UK is too close to the Saudis. You run away from the evil Saudis and they can reach you in the West.”
At the same time, they destroyed him financially, blocking his videos in Saudi Arabia and asking YouTube on occasion to take them down. He said they obliged.
Al Masarir must have had a morsel of strength left, though, because in 2022 he made the unprecedented move of suing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the UK for hacking his phone and for the 2018 assault. He won the case, only to have the Saudis appeal it a year later. They lost, and today al Masarir is awaiting the outcome of the damages they owe him, and he hopes to get what he deserves for what they’ve done to him.
Is there a number that can be put on that? The short answer is “No”.
“I’m now 43. I’ve lost the best years of my life. I don’t think I can get that back,” he said.
His case could help other hacking victims in the UK sue foreign governments who order similar attacks, and thereby dissuade those governments from such conduct.
“I hope it sends a message to not commit these sorts of crimes in a sovereign country. Saudi should not be allowed to do what they have done,” al Masarir said.
On the day of the Index event, my phone buzzes. It’s al Masarir sending over an extra part for the script. He still doesn’t have the strength to perform on stage, but the fact that he can write it – and that he wants others to see it – is something.
You can read the routine that Ghanem planned to deliver here.
12 Apr 2024 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Saudi Arabia
Hey everybody, how’s it going tonight? Good? Awesome! So, I’ve been thinking a lot about dissidence lately. You know, the art of going against the grain, challenging the status quo, and basically being a rebel with a cause. Or without a cause. Because, let’s be honest, sometimes rebellion is its own cause, right?
I mean, who here has ever disagreed with something just for the sake of it? Come on, raise your hands. Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Dissidence is like the rebellious teenager of adulthood. It’s that little voice in your head saying: “Hey, why not take the road less travelled? It might have better snacks.”
I recently had this realisation that dissidence is like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. And sometimes it gets so strong that you find yourself questioning everything. I questioned my morning coffee once. I asked it: “Are you really the best part of waking up, or is that just a catchy jingle?”
You ever notice how dissidence has its own soundtrack? Like, rebellion comes with its own playlist. The moment you decide to go against the flow, suddenly punk rock becomes your theme music. I once played Anarchy in the UK while doing my taxes. It didn’t make them more enjoyable, but at least I felt like a financial maverick.
Of course, with dissidence comes critics. People who just can’t handle you breaking the mould. I had someone tell me: “Why are you always going against the grain?”
I said: “Have you tried the other side of the bread? It’s pretty delicious.”
But hey, dissidence is not for everyone. It’s an acquired taste, like cilantro or political debates at Thanksgiving.
You know who the real rebels are? People who assemble furniture without reading the instructions. They’re out there, living on the edge, defying the laws of Swedish design. And let me tell you, that’s a rebellion I can get behind. Screw you, Allen key!
Speaking of defying expectations, did you hear about Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the UK? They were so worried about him carrying a bone-saw that they installed metal detectors at Buckingham Palace. Turns out, the Queen wasn’t a fan of impromptu home improvements.
But hey, let’s not be too hard on them. Maybe they just wanted to make sure he wasn’t planning a surprise visit to the Tower of London gift shop.
And speaking of surprises, have you caught wind of the new Saudi Arabian cooking show? It’s called Dissident Chef. Contestants compete to make the most revolutionary dish without getting censored… The winner gets a lifetime supply of olive oil and a free subscription to Cooking in Exile magazine.
They say the secret ingredient is dissent, but good luck finding that in the spice aisle.
You know you’re in Saudi Arabia when the government hires GPS for its dissidents. “In 500 metres, make a U-turn to the nearest detention centre. Failure to comply may result in unexpected travel plans to a place with less Wi-Fi.”
I heard the Saudi government is introducing a new reality show. It’s called Dissidence Island. Contestants compete to see who can question authority the longest without disappearing. Spoiler alert: the winner gets a one-way ticket to Freedom Island – also known as exile.
In conclusion, let’s celebrate dissidence. Embrace your inner rebel, question the norms and remember that, sometimes, the best way to have the last laugh is by being the one who laughs first. Cheers to the misfits, the contrarians and the ones who refuse to colour inside the lines!
Thank you, everyone! You’ve been a fantastic crowd. And remember, if life gives you lemons, make dissident lemonade. Goodnight!
