Free speech in the Arab world

AMMAN - Three small but grim pieces were recently added to the great Arab jigsaw — and none of them should surprise us.

Last week, an Egyptian court in Alexandria sentenced 14 women to 11-year prison terms on charges related to participating in an anti-government protest.

In Dubai, an American was charged with violating internet laws. Al Jazeera reported that he had posted a parody video about youth culture in the emirate.

And in Beirut, custom agents have beaten up four journalists from the independent Al-Jadeed TV. This was after the head of customs refused to be interviewed for an investigative report on allegations of corruption at Beirut airport customs. 

Leaving aside the shocking severity of the Egyptian sentences, these moves amounted to a blatant attack on free speech, the one gain that Arab protesters from Bourguiba Avenue to Tahrir Square believed they had secured at the start of revolutions and historic upheavals that erupted in much of the region since 2011.

They — and we — now need to think again.

Egypt in particular has set the tone for the rest of the region since June, when the army toppled Mohamed Morsi, the country's first elected Islamist president. Its new Protest Law restricts demonstrations and significantly reduces the space for criticism of the military-led government; so do provisions in the new constitution for military trials of civilians. All this, of course, casts a long shadow over presidential and parliamentary elections, still scheduled for 2014. 

What kind of electoral campaigns will they be when freedom of assembly has been curtailed, anti-government slogans and criticism crushed and the majority of the mainstream press does as it’s told without question?

In the Arab world, we know exactly what those electoral campaigns will look like: exactly the same as they have always looked.

Let me tell you how I think it will go from here. The roll-back has begun in earnest in Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere. Free speech — always a lonely and sickly child in the Arab world — is already back in intensive care throughout the region.

Street protests will gradually die out in most of the capitals that have seen upheavals over the past three years.

Dissenters will continue to be arrested and given harsh sentences. The compliant will be rewarded.

Sustained government propaganda will convince the public that political stability and economic prosperity are far more important than personal freedoms, rule of law, universal human rights and democratic values.

Despite the wishful thinking of the crowds, the final chapter of the Arab Spring is being written: it looks like it is about over.

Next year’s annual report by Freedom House will reflect the regression in media liberties and freedom of expression across the region, as emboldened Arab leaders try to restore the old order.

Egypt’s military rulers are intent on choking freedom. Security in Libya and Syria is worsening, political tension is growing in Tunisia and freedoms are being diluted in Jordan.

Much of the region is now back to business as usual. Judicial authorities are resorting again and again to the same articles in the penal codes that repress free speech instead of looking into fixing the laws inherited from old autocratic governments that criminalize criticism of public figures and institutions.

Today, serious professional journalists are being punished across the region for doing their job.

In Iraq, they face a double threat: Armed gangs gunning them down and prosecutors more concerned with going after journalists than bringing criminals to justice.

Since early October, four journalists have been assassinated in Mosul, the capital of Iraq's Ninewa Province. At the same time, Iraqi prosecutors have stepped up criminal prosecutions of journalists for defamation and have increased other ways of harassing journalists, especially those covering politically sensitive topics, such as poor security, corruption and basic public services.

In Tunisia, prominent activists like Walid Zarrouk, a union leader who criticized the politicization of prosecutions, was briefly detained. And prosecutors have summoned journalist Zuheir al-Jiss for moderating a radio program in which a guest criticized Tunisia's president. Zied al-Heni is the latest victim of crackdown on freedom of expression in Tunisia. He was detained for protesting the arrest of a cameraman for filming an egg-throwing attack on the culture minister.

Even though Article 15 of the 2011 Jordanian constitution guarantees free expression, the authorities continue to prosecute media professionals and political activists on criminal charges related to free speech.

A proposal by the government, at the recommendation of King Abdullah II, to restrict the jurisdiction of the quasi-military State Security Court to terrorism and four other serious crimes — espionage, treason, currency counterfeiting and drug offenses — has not been implemented.  

There is also serious doubt as to whether the country's largely conservative and apolitical parliament will amend or eliminate penal code provisions, which are used to try peaceful protestors on terrorism-related charges.

Against this bleak outlook, the 6th annual conference of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) opens in Amman on Friday.

Over 360 journalists, editors and media professors will debate the worrying regression in freedoms across the region. This is in addition to the growing wave of hate-speech, disinformation and character assassination.

They will hopefully engage in frank discussions on a question of key importance: Why does the Arab media prefer to sit on the warm laps of the powerful instead of serving their society as the watchdogs they should be?