Attacks on the Press - Committee to Protect Journalists

attacks on the press in 2009middle east and north africa: bahrainAs governments wagecounterattacks, humanrights reporters arefeeling the heat.new landscape. And they are adapting in Egypt by allowing new, semi-independentnewspapers to open while at the same time putting pressure on current affairsdirectors at the satellite channels when they get too far out of line.”The consensus among those journalists and academics interviewed by CPJis that any dip in the upward curve of human rights reporting is only temporary.Countries in the region cannotseal off information from theoutside world. Many of these nationsembrace trade, so they needto embrace the Internet as well.They also have an overwhelminglyyoung population that is increasingly wired and aware of freedoms enjoyed bytheir contemporaries in other parts of the world.“This is a very different world from in the ’90s and it’s a world in which governmentscan no longer completely control the message,” Pintak said. “They cancrack down on individual news organizations, they can jail individual reporters,they can harass individual editors, but they can’t stop the flow of information.”BAHRAINBahrain has made significant strides in improving its humanrights record since political reforms enacted in 2001, particularly concerning universalsuffrage and the dismantlement of an abusive state security court system.But some reforms have yet to be fully realized, among them improving politicalrepresentation for the marginalized Shiite majority and ensuring more equitablestanding for women in family courts. The press freedom climate, which hadimproved with the establishment of seven independent newspapers in the wakeof the 2001 reforms, has undergone a gradual deterioration over the past severalyears. That decline accelerated in 2009 as the government blocked domesticaccess to more than 1,000 Web sites and pursued politicized court complaintsagainst critical journalists.Culture and Information Minister Sheikha Mai bint Muhammad Al-Khalifaissued an order in January compelling Internet service providers to block Websites identified as offensive by the ministry. Despite protests from numerous pressfreedom groups, including CPJ, the government blocked dozens of sites in thefirst eight months of the year. The censorship effort escalated in September, whenthe Ministry of Information ordered the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority,the government’s Internet regulator, to block 1,040 more sites, accordingto the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. Although the government characterizedits campaign as being aimed at pornography, CPJ research shows that journalisticblogs, news Web sites, discussion forums, and human rights Web siteswere also blocked. Internet users who attempted to reach those pages were metwith a screen that read: “This Web site has been blocked for violating regulationsand laws of the Kingdom of Bahrain.”With one of the most Web-connected populations in the region—a third ofits residents are online—Bahrain had been home to hundreds of Web sites, accordingto the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. Among them were about 200blogs, many focusing on political and social issues and most written anonymously.Bahrain filters sites critical of the government, the ruling family, and Islam,according to August 2009 findings published by OpenNet Initiative, an academicpartnership that studies Internet censorship.The online dichotomy reflects the country’s political development over theMohamed Abdel Dayem is CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa programcoordinator. Robert Mahoney is CPJ’s deputy director.Country summaries in this chapter were reported and written by Middle Eastand North Africa Program Coordinator Mohamed Adbel Dayem, ResearchAssociate Mariwan Hama-Saeed, Middle East Representative Kamel EddineLabidi, and freelance writer Lilia Bellahsene.2062 0 7