A Tunis court is expected to issue a verdict in the prosecution of a television station broadcaster which aired the award-winning French-Iranian film Persepolis tomorrow (3 May). If convicted of “violating sacred values”, Nabil Karoui, Nessma TV’s owner and two of his employees face up to to three years in jail which ironically is also UNESCO World Press Freedom Day.
The 2007 animated film, which contains a scene where God is depicted as a white-bearded man, was broadcast a few weeks before the October 2011 constituent assembly election. Its broadcast sparked violent protests: Nessma TV’s headquarters and Karoui’s home were attacked by ultra-conservative protesters who consider pictorial representations of God as haram (forbidden).
The court hearings were marked by tension and violence. In January, 23 journalists and activists standing in solidarity with Nessma TV were assaulted. On 19 April, and due to high tensions outside the courtroom where pro- and anti-Nessma protesters gathered, the court decided to delay issuing a verdict to 3 May.
“I hope that the court will shut this file for good, put law into practice, and put an end to this waste of time, and effort,” Sofiene Ben H’mida, a journalist for Nessma, told Index. Ben H’mida was himself assaulted by protesters showing support to the Interior Minister Ali Laarayedh on 11 January.
“The Nessma team is confident and no matter what the verdict will be, we have enough courage to continue our job”, he added.
A verdict in the trial of a webmaster accused of failing to quickly remove online comments deemed insulting to Thailand’s royalty has been postponed. Judge Nittaya Yaemsri said more time was needed to process documents in the case of Chiranuch Premchaiporn, editor of news website Prachatai, with a new court date set for 30 May. Premchaiporn faces up to 20 years in jail for comments posted on the site by users. She is being tried under Thailand’s computer-crime laws, which address hacking and other online offences, but also prohibit the circulation of material deemed detrimental to national security, including defaming the monarchy.
In a speech at Washington DC’s Holocaust Memorial Museum this week, Barack Obama this week announced US measures against technology companies aiding the Syrian and Iranian regimes in tracking and monitoring of members of the opposition. Here’s the introduction from the Executive Order signed this week, worth quoting at length:
I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, hereby determine that the commission of serious human rights abuses against the people of Iran and Syria by their governments, facilitated by computer and network disruption, monitoring, and tracking by those governments, and abetted by entities in Iran and Syria that are complicit in their governments’ malign use of technology for those purposes, threaten the national security and foreign policy of the United States. The Governments of Iran and Syria are endeavoring to rapidly upgrade their technological ability to conduct such activities. Cognizant of the vital importance of providing technology that enables the Iranian and Syrian people to freely communicate with each other and the outside world, as well as the preservation, to the extent possible, of global telecommunications supply chains for essential products and services to enable the free flow of information, the measures in this order are designed primarily to address the need to prevent entities located in whole or in part in Iran and Syria from facilitating or committing serious human rights abuses.
It’s another indicator of the fact that the online element is now an essential part of any conflict. Since Hillary Clinton’s speech on the web in January 2010, the US has positioned itself as the defender of the free internet against the censorious, snooping impulses of Iran, China et al.
Our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the United States have welcomed the White House move as ultimately “a good thing”, though with caveats. EFF say:
First, here’s what the order does accomplish:
It sanctions individuals and entities in Iran and Syria that are “complicit in their government’s malign use of technology” for the purposes of network disruption, monitoring, or tracking of individuals.
It aims to prevent entities (including companies) from facilitating or committing serious human rights abuses in Syria.
It bars the contribution or receipt of funds to any individual or entity named on the list contained within the order.
Notably, the order makes mention of companies that have “sold, leased or otherwise provided, directly or indirectly, goods, services or technology to Iran or Syria likely to be used to facilitate computer or network disruption, monitoring, or tracking that could assist in or enable serious human rights abuses by or on behalf of [the two countries’ governments]” (emphasis ours). This is notable because, when it was discovered that their products had made it to Syria and were being used by the regime to monitor network communications, executives of U.S. company BlueCoat denied knowledge of their products being in Syria.
Now, for what the order does not accomplish:
The order is solely focused on Syria and Iran, leaving out—most notably—Bahrain, where a protester was killed this weekend by police forces as well as, of course, other countries that engage in technology-related human rights violations. Bahraini human rights groups have documented the use of Trovicor technologies in surveillance there, leading to—in some cases—torture.
The order does not loosen existing restrictions by the Department of Commerce, whichbar the export of “good” technologies—including web hosting, Google Earth, and Java—to Syrians. At the Stockholm Internet Forum for Global Development last week, Syrian activist Mohammad Al Abdallah raised the Commerce restrictions as a consistent frustration amongst Syrian activists on the ground. While Treasury restrictions on Iran have been revised time and again, Commerce restrictions go unchanged.
John Kampfner, former Chief Executive of Index on Censorship and current trustee, will interview the author Maziar Bahari about the experiences out of which his latest novel, ‘Then They Came For Me’, was born. The Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahari left London in June 2009 to cover Iran’s presidential election, believing he’d return to his pregnant fiancée, Paola, in just a few days. In fact he would spend the next three months in Iran’s most notorious prison, enduring brutal interrogation sessions while terrible threats were made to his family.
