• The Iraq war and the truth--between blog and corporate media  - Faiza al-Arji
Three years after the start of the war, there are over 100 blogs run from Iraq.

• Democracy on the defense  - Rachel Dolev
The censor's office gains credibility with the media when it exercises discretion independently of its military superiors.

• 9/11 was a turning point  - Aboubakr Jamai
Regimes in the region can still "legally" stifle freedom of the press, but the cost of repression is getting higher.

• Struggling for renewal, remaining prisoner to the system  - Nabil Khatib
The "new" media is part and parcel of sociopolitical processes in Arab societies.

The Iraq war and the truth--between blog and corporate media
 Faiza al-Arji

In the beginning, when America began beating the drums of war in Iraq, there was no one with the know-how to set up blog sites on the web. The internet existed prior to the war, but in a very limited capacity. Most websites were under security scrutiny from the government, which was intended to bloc access to them. The public had still not been exposed to the secrets of the internet.

Then one day, a young man named Salam, a friend of my son Raed, set up a blog for himself and Raed. Salam was in Baghdad, while Raed was in Amman. The two would exchange news about the war and their predictions. The site was named, "Where is Raed?"

Somehow readers from Europe and the United States discovered the site. It registered 10,000 visitors at that time, which was an indication of how hungry people outside were for news about Iraq from ordinary Iraqis.

Now, three years after the start of the war in Iraq, there are over 100 blogs run from Iraq, some in Arabic, others in English, and some in both languages. A few encourage the occupation, and these have been highlighted in the western press, their significance exaggerated in order to give the impression that they reflect the opinions of the majority of Iraqis. Some were even invited to conferences at American universities or nominated for awards by western newspapers for "Best Website."

The blogs opposed to the occupation, including our family site, afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com, have been highlighted in the western media that opposes the war and occupation in Iraq. For the past three years, we have been receiving invitations and have met with newspapers, magazines and radio stations, all of which are opposed to American and British policies in Iraq. At times we have met with mainstream American media outlets. However, they usually distort the information on the site and ignore information from it. This, unfortunately, is irresponsible behavior by a biased media.

We find that people outside Iraq still visit sites written by Iraqis to search for the daily truths, however, it seems that for the most part, opinions have already been established--those against the war visit ours and similar sites, while those who justify and support the war visit other Iraqi sites that agree with them, despite their small number.

My last visit to America was at the invitation of a non-governmental American organization opposed to the Iraq war. Our meetings were with church congregations, university students, local communities, homes, the media, members of Congress and laborers. My tour began with Iraqi colleagues (all of us independent women) in New York, and then Washington. After that, we split up. Each one had her own itinerary to visit different states to speak about Iraq. I was sent to California. I went to Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento and San Jose before visiting Miami for a week to meet with the Muslim community.

The truth is, we were shocked. I was deeply disappointed. I used to think that America was truly the country of democracy and freedom, especially for the media. I used to think the media was independent, neutral and honest because, as they say, it is the fourth estate.

However, I was very saddened when I discovered what they call the mainstream media--the richest, most well-known press and television stations. It is not neutral at all. Rather, the mainstream media is controlled by the extreme right wing, which in turn controls government policy and insistently pushes it in a certain direction. It doesn't want to hear or allow anyone else to hear another viewpoint. Even when we went to Congress to give our testimonies on Iraq, the pro-war members and their press did not show up.

Why did you invade Iraq? I said. Why did you come into our country? Did you not say that Saddam Hussein and Arab leaders are dictators and do not allow anyone to pose their viewpoint? Here you are--your government is doing the same thing.

Early in my trip, I went to the Democracy Now television station. Their offices were small and modest, but they advocated criticism of the government. I then understood why they received no funding. But when I passed through the offices of CNN, Fox News and other major news agencies, I saw they were funded by government-friendly sources. I smiled to myself.

Their news reports were clipped and vague, and essentially meaningless. For example, they showed President Bush saying, "we are making progress in Iraq." A commander from the occupied forces would also be shown for a few seconds saying that everything was going smoothly. Then they would flash a picture of a safe, beautiful Baghdad before the war--the Tigris river was beautiful, glimmering and clean. Then the news piece would be over.

People pay attention for seconds, waiting for a new and useful sentence. When they don't hear it, they turn and talk about something else. I said to myself: So this is the news on Iraq? What might the American citizen actually understand from this?

I started asking people in my interviews: In the past three years, do you remember seeing one Iraqi opposing the war in the mainstream media? They shook their heads and say no. I would then tell them that the US media is in partnership with the government in this war. You Americans don't know anything about Iraq, about Islam, about our culture, our civilization, our religion, I said. All that reaches you is through the lens of a distorted, biased and deceitful media that sows disdain and discrimination and justifies wars and hatred between us.

Let us take a small example of a report broadcast by Fox News about the women of the Middle East. They showed a picture of a woman completely veiled, with only her eyes showing. The commentator said, this is the image of the traditional woman in the Middle East, but we are interviewing extraordinary women today. An interview with two Egyptian women working as jewelry designers then followed. I laughed and was shocked. Women in the Middle East are for the most part educated and cultured.

I think the day will come, sooner or later, when Iraq will be free of the occupation, sooner or later. My grandchildren will be proud that we did all we could to defend Iraq and the Iraqis against the occupation, violence, bloodshed, sectarianism, division and the theft of our resources.

We put ourselves in danger both inside Iraq and outside so we can tell the truth. It is as if we are in a state of clandestine struggle, like Germans under Nazi rule. However, the crisis in Iraq is worth this risk.- Published 25/5/2006 © bitterlemons-international.org

Faiza al-Arji writes for several blogs on life in occupied Iraq. She is an engineer and mother of three boys, all of them avid bloggers.

The word "censorship" provokes antagonism. One may dislike the machinery involved in censorship, but no one can deny that from time to time national security demands require the restriction of freedom of speech to protect the state. Every state and every government use different methods to protect national security secrets.

To understand the paradox of the Israeli experience, we have to look back to the history of the state. Israel has been at war since its establishment. In its declaration of independence in 1948, the national assembly proclaimed that Israel would be a democratic state. However, the first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, recognizing the security needs of the new state, adopted the "Emergency Defense Regulations" inherited from the British, from which the security censor derives its power. In order to maintain the democratic and liberal nature of the state the regulations were gradually set aside, and Ben Gurion replaced them with a creative solution: an agreement between the minister of defense and the "editors committee" drawn from the main newspapers of the day.

This agreement remains valid today. It requires that all articles, books, radio and television clips referring to security matters be submitted for approval by the Israel Defense Forces censor prior to publication. The censor's office uses its discretion according to a High Court of Justice ruling that allows the state to restrain publication only if a "near certainty of danger to national security exists". There is no censorship on commentary, opinions, criticism, etc. The foreign media has refused to become a part of this agreement, but remains subject to the censor and to the law, under the Government Press Office.

Censorship in Israel can be perceived as a "marriage of convenience". The censor's office gains credibility with the media when it exercises discretion independently of its military superiors. Censorship, like any other authority, is subject to judicial review. In effect, the institution has been approved by the High Court of Justice.

The clash between freedom of expression and national security needs was discussed in the late 1980s in H.J.C 68088 Schnitzer and other v. Chief Military Censor. In his opinion, Justice Aharon Barak established a balancing formula in case of a clash between the two values: "A democratic regime is prepared to protect freedom of expression as long as such freedom protects democracy. But when freedom of expression becomes a tool with which to injure democracy, then there is no reason for democracy to put its head on the block for the executioner. . . . A constitution is not a formula for suicide and individual rights are not a platform for national destruction. . . a democracy does not have to commit suicide in order to prove its vitality. . . the right to live in a society is prior to the right to express one's opinions." Barak added that the censor is authorized to ban publication "only where a near certainty exists of actual harm to national security and there is no alternative way to prevent the danger without preventing the harm to freedom of expression".

Although the security establishment is not fully satisfied with its lack of enforcement capabilities, the Knesset has not found any reason to change the legal situation. The continuing state of emergency in Israel and the validity of the Emergency Defense Regulations give the government sufficient tools to prevent harmful publications. Nor have recent years' increased terrorism and suicide bombing attacks caused any changes in the Israeli judicial system like, for example, in the United States, where the Patriot Act was enacted.

For the censor, the dilemma remains how to stop leaks of security information to the media in a free society, particularly when recent advances in communications technology narrow to a minimum the censor's capabilities. The world has become a global village: satellites, SMS messages, cellular phones and the internet render prior supervision nearly impossible. In my opinion, the solution differs between times of peace and war. In peacetime, legislation provides sufficient tools for plugging leaks. In wartime, strict rules such as the Emergency Defense Regulations limit media access to the battlefield. An example is the "embedding" imposed on the media by American authorities during the 2003 Gulf war.

The best solution appears to be a legal provision like the British Official Secrets Act. It limits prior restraint to those very rare cases where no one can deny the existence of a real danger to national security.- Published 25/5/2006 © bitterlemons-international.org

Rachel Dolev, an advocate, recently retired from the post of Israel Defense Forces censor. She is an expert on constitutional law and conflict between civil rights and national security.

By its very nature, the media is on the front line of change in the Middle East. Regimes willing to stem the tide of change or merely to slow it have devoted a great deal of their repressive energies to suppressing or containing the development of independent media. However, in some Arab countries powerful forces have slowly but surely eroded the authorities' stranglehold.

Some of those forces are external. The pressure exerted by the international organizations dealing with human rights and press freedom has grown alongside globalization and multilateralism. Others forces are internal. Civil society, human rights and women's right activists and even the business community have supported freer media. For obvious reasons, political opponents to the regime are also advocating the development of media other than those controlled by the authorities.

To be sure, freedom of the press is not yet constitutionally enshrined and legally protected by the law. Regimes in the region can still "legally" stifle it, but the cost of repression is getting higher. The confluence of external and internal forces is behind this nascent evolution. The advent of a global public opinion, diverse in its ideas and views but increasingly exposed to a homogenized quantum of information, has shed light on governance practices that would have been overlooked in the past.

The terrorist attacks of 9/11 were a turning point. Whatever our suspicions about the Bush administration's sincerity regarding democratization in the Middle East, the impact of its policies is undeniable: they leveraged the status of local democrats. To demonstrate its commitment to liberalization, the Bush administration has been obliged to scold allied regimes for their awful treatment of media.

On the other hand, the very nature of terrorism has prodded western audiences to take a harder look at Middle Eastern societies. This demand has led to a closer examination that, in turn, has underscored the limits on freedom of expression and of the press, exerting added pressure on western governments to lean harder on their Middle Eastern counterparts.

Freedom of the press in the region does not lend itself to generalizations. If all the regimes face a mixture of external and internal forces in favor of media freedom, these forces play out in varying degrees. In Morocco, for example, the regime is contending with a pluralistic political scene, a vocal business community and an emboldened civil society. The consequence is the advent of independent publications catering to the thirst for agorae, or political congregations, among these groups. The absence of a powerful source of rent, like oil, partially explains this situation. Pressures for change are weaker in oil-rich countries. As a result, their media face heavier constraints.

Two types of media have somewhat loosened the grip of authoritarian regimes: satellite TV and the internet. Despite all the qualms expressed against al-Jazeera, its role in providing breathing space for Arab societies cannot be overstated. One has to tune to the Doha-based TV channel to watch uncensored, taboo-breaking debates concerning one's own country. It also provides a fairer window on the world than state-run television. In reaction to al-Jazeera, Saudi Arabia has funded al-Arabia satellite channel, adding yet another perspective to Arab audiences. In sum, Arab citizens end up better informed about their own countries but also about world affairs.

Endorsing new technologies, and in particular the internet, goes hand in hand with embracing economic globalization. Confronting the ingenuity of cyber dissidents and policing the World Wide Web have become a nightmare for authoritarian regimes. As a powerful communication tool, the internet helps civil society activists and political opponents to coordinate their actions and optimize their resources.

To counter these developments, regimes often invoke terrorism and the spread of obscurantist Islam to justify censorship. On its face, this is a mistaken view. The most potent antidote to extremism can only be produced by healthy debate and exchange of views inside Arab societies. In hampering this process, repressive regimes are in fact stoking resentment and fueling the very rage that sometimes morphs into extremist behavior.- Published 25/5/2006 © bitterlemons-international.org

Aboubakr Jamai is editor of Lakome.com. He is former editor of the Casablanca-based Le Journal Hebdomadaire.

When the phone in my office rang, it was the tenth phone call that day. It was, much like every other day, a viewer from Saudi Arabia chiding me because he thought the coverage that day had been inadequate.

He said, "You are not covering the defamatory pictures of the Prophet Mohammed as much as we want you to." His call had been preceded by one from our correspondent in Cairo, who says our office phones have been ringing off the hook with calls from relatives still hoping to learn details about the tragic sinking of the ferry in the Red Sea.

In light of these two phone calls, there is a difficult decision to be made about priorities. Before and after these phone calls came a number of others--some encouraging, others not. Some callers offered advice or suggestions on subjects that the viewer felt was important.

This is what it is like every day.

And perhaps this is the scene beginning to form--the Arab people are beginning to interact with the Arab media, which presents various issues. The Arab citizen no longer feels he or she is deprived of making a difference.

In the majority of Arab countries, the media outlet provides a means of expression and an opportunity to generate change. The average Arab citizen is deprived of access to information in his or her own country, and is deprived of political participation in light of the absence of elections, the banning of political parties and the lack of other forms of democratic life.

The only constant variable, I believe, is that now the Arab viewer has access to information and entertainment alternatives, while previously these came from his or her government.

The Arab viewer, wherever located, has access to:

• Visual media continuity benefiting mutual Arab and regional interests, beyond the local Arab media.
  
• Effective and influential media that broadcasts attractively, direct and live, which makes it much more difficult at times for the government to control or monitor it.
  
• An increasingly beneficial, concentrated and less selective flow of information to the Arab public.
  
• The creation of a wider horizon for the Arab viewer.