27 Apr 2011 | Uncategorized
The latest batch of revelations from WikiLeaks, a trove of more than 700 files on prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay in the US War on Terror, confirms that an Al Jazeera cameraman was detained for years in part for information he could provide about the television network and its contacts with Osama bin Laden.
The 11-page cable identifies Sami al-Haj, a Sudanese national, as being a member of al-Qaida, as well as a member of the Taliban leadership “who acted as a money courier and propagandist for the al-Qaida network under the cover of his employment with the Union Beverage Company (UBC) and al-Jazeera media.”
The document describes al-Haj’s own account of his travel throughout the Middle East and Central Asia as a journalist for Al Jazeera, at several points trying to gain access to cover events in Chechnya at the request of the network. He was detained in December of 2001 by Pakistan while on his way to report in Afghanistan. The leaked document adds that, in talking with interrogators, al-Haj was “careful not to implicate himself as a member of an extremist organization, or to have had any dealings with extremists beyond performing interviews as a journalist.”
Despite al-Haj’s own accounting of his career as a journalist, the government labeled him a “high risk” threat to the US. The document also identifies him as a detainee of “HIGH intelligence value” and says that he was transfered to Guantanamo in part to provide information on his employer UBC and “The al-Jazeera News Network’s training program, telecommunications equipment,and newsgathering operations in Chechnya, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, including the network’s acquisition of a video of UBL and a subsequent interview with UBL.”
The US government, which has lately embraced Al Jazeera during its coverage of uprising this spring throughout the Arab world, for years tarred the network as a close ally of terrorist groups and a mouthpiece for their propaganda.
Al-Haj was released from Guantanamo, after repeated demands by orgnisations like Reporters Without Borders (and after treatment his lawyer described as torture), on 1 May, 2008.
1 Apr 2011 | Uncategorized
Hillary Clinton offered a glowing narrative of the US role in Middle Eastern Internet freedom in a speech back in February that championed American values while chastising regimes that trample free expression.
“Our commitment to Internet freedom is a commitment to the rights of people, and we are matching that with our actions,” she declared. “Monitoring and responding to threats to Internet freedom has become part of the daily work of our diplomats and development experts. They are working to advance Internet freedom on the ground at our embassies and missions around the world. The United States continues to help people in oppressive internet environments get around filters, stay one step ahead of the censors, the hackers, and the thugs who beat them up or imprison them for what they say online.”
All of this action certainly sounded good (and the image of America as benevolent global Internet expression cop surely flattered many Americans listening). But Clinton left out of her speech one messier topic – the role of US companies in facilitating those filters, sometimes even in supporting the Internet blockades State Department money then pays to help locals circumnavigate.
That element of the story out of the Middle East over the last few months has been largely obscured from public debate in the US over global Internet freedom. Some Internet advocates lamented that Clinton’s speech didn’t tackle the topic, or propose serious measures the US could take to halt the export of homegrown technology used (often with the knowledge of US companies) in censorship abroad.
Lately, though, this uncomfortable complication has been getting real attention.
“Ethical Quandary for Social Sites,” blared a New York Times headline on Monday. The story recounted the case of Flickr, the photo-sharing site (owned by Yahoo), which removed photos uploaded by an Egyptian blogger of images swiped by activists from the State Security Police headquarters. Flickr insisted the photos violated its policy that users may post only their own, original work. But activists jeered what appeared to be selective application of a policy some of Flickr’s own employees don’t follow themselves.
Facebook, meanwhile, was caught this week in a similar awkward spot over a fan page devoted to promoting a Third Palestinian Intifada. Israeli officials demanded Facebook remove the page, which had already amassed more than 200,000 friends. Facebook originally refused, arguing that content that is upsetting to some “alone is not a reason to remove the discussion.” But Wednesday, the social networking site reversed course and yanked the page (now with more than 350,000 followers), on the grounds that its peaceful discourse had dissolved into out-right calls for violence that violated Facebook policy.
That flip-flop has compounded claims that Facebook hinders protesters around the world just as much as it helps them, particularly given the company policy that porhibits activists from signing up for accounts without exposing their true identities.
In the media, stories questioning the role of less visible US technology companies have also proliferated.
“US Products Help Block Mideast Web,” warned the Wall Street Journal this week.
“Censorship: Made in the USA,” read the Huffington Post headline above a story written by Free Press campaign director Tim Karr.
Both pieces relied on revelations unearthed in a new report from the OpenNet Initiative by Jillian C York (a contributor to the new Index magazine) and Helmi Noman. The two found that American and Canadian-made software had been used to block socially and politically objectionable online content for more than 20 million web users in nine North African and Middle Eastern countries: Bahrain, the AUE, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Sudan and Tunisia.
“This is not simply a case of a general purpose, neutral tool being used for an end not contemplated by its maker,” reads the forward to the report. “The filtering products of today engage in regular communications with their makers, updating lists of millions of websites to block across dozens of content categories, including political opposition and human rights. When McAfee Smartfilter or Websense do their utmost to maintain lists of non-profit and advocacy groups their efforts directly affect what citizens in some authoritarian regimes can and cannot access online.”
The discovery is about as embarrassing as those images of Made-in-the-USA tear gas canisters that turned up in Tahrir Square, and US politicians have begun to take notice, too. Earlier this month, Dick Durbin, chairman of the Senate human rights subcommittee, wrote an op-ed for the popular Washington-based political site Politico under the banner “Tyrants can use Facebook, too.”
He finally said what Hillary Clinton did not.
“US technology companies allow millions around the world to express themselves more fully and freely,” the senator wrote. “But the industry has a moral obligation to ensure that its products and services do not help repressive governments. If U.S. companies are unwilling to take reasonable steps to protect human rights, Congress must step in.”
29 Mar 2011 | Events
Please join us in celebrating the launch of the new series of Manifestos for the 21st Century, published by Seagull Books in association with Index on Censorship.
Join us for a drinks reception on 1 April from 6.30-8.30 at the Free Word Centre, 60 Farringdon Road, London, EC1R 3GA
Please RSVP to [email protected]
020 7324 2525
*****
Free expression is as high on the agenda as it has ever been, though not always for the happiest of reasons. The Manifestos for the 21st Century series takes a fresh, inquisitive look at censorship and free speech — from sexuality to literature to the growing culture of offence and religion.
In the new series:
Stefan Collini’s Offence: Criticism, Identity, Respect looks at the common claim that criticising others’ beliefs is inherently offensive. Have the central tenets of enlightened global politics undermined our ability to speak freely and encourage challenging debate?
http://www.guardianbookshop.co.uk/BerteShopWeb/viewProduct.do?ISBN=9781906497798
In Humanitarian Assistance?, Neil Middleton considers the relationship between political agendas and humanitarian aid in times of conflict, looking at the recent histories of Haiti, Sudan and Somalia
PLUS:
History Thieves by Zinovy Zinik
Identity, politics and free expression in Who Do You Think You Are? by Andrew Graham-Yooll
And Trust: Money, markets and society by Geoffrey Hosking
24 Jan 2011 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features
Despite the eruption of Tunisia-inspired protests in Sana’a and other cities Yemen calling for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down, regime change seems unlikely. Iona Craig reports.
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