Attacks on the Press - Committee to Protect Journalists

MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICAa n a ly s i s 201Fueled by the Internet, human rights coverage has grown throughoutthe region. Governments, initially caught unaware, are pushing backaggressively. Who will win the struggle?s u m m a r i e sBahrain 207Egypt 209Iran 212Iraq 217Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory 222Libya 226Morocco 228Sudan 231Tunisia 235Yemen 238HUMAN RIGHTS COVERAGE SPREADS,DESPITE GOVERNMENT PUSHBACKb y m o h a m e d a b d e l d ay e m a n d r o b e r t m a h o n e yThe media in the middle east loved the intifada. everydetail of Israel’s violations of human rights in the late 1980s in the WestBank and Gaza appeared in the Arabic and Farsi press. The governments thatowned or controlled these media outlets loved it, too. When pan-Arab satellitetelevision stations emerged in the 1990s, they looped hours of footage of Israelisoldiers and Jewish settlers repressing Palestinians.But it did not take long for Arab journalists to use their newly honed reportingskills on their own political leaders. “Prior to the creation of the PalestinianAuthority in 1993, Palestinian journalists reported on violations by the Israelis,but after 1993 they also started reporting on violations perpetrated by the PA,”said Musa Rimawi, director of the Palestinian Center for Development and MediaFreedoms. “In the larger Arab world we observed the same trend of moreintrospective reporting on these issues, especially with the rising prominence ofhuman rights organizations as well as transnational media.”News-starved audiences across the region flocked to the new channels,foremost among them Al-Jazeera, owned by the tiny emirate of Qatar. It builta viewership in part by covering social and political issues that national televisionoutlets in larger states like Egypt, Morocco, or Algeria would never touch.snapshots 242Algeria, Jordan, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey,United Arab Emiratesp h o t o sSection break: Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl—A spokesman for Iran’sGuardian Council speaks to reporters during the government’s massivecrackdown on dissent. Analysis: Reuters/Mona Sharaf—Reports of Egyptianpolice torture spark protests in Cairo.200