admin @ Thu, 2006-03-02 09:00
A free press in the Mideast? Now that would be something By Souheila Al-Jadda President Bush has said that making America more secure and defeating terrorists requires more democratic reforms in the Middle East.
His Greater Middle East Initiative, launched two years ago, was supposed to do just that by transforming the region politically and economically.
One important measure of liberal nations is freedom of speech and press without fear of reproach. Oftentimes, government accountability follows from the freedom of expression.
Their colleague, May Chidiac, a famous anchorwoman with the Lebanon Broadcast Corp. (LBC), lost part of her arm and leg when a bomb exploded in her car.
Iraq was supposed to be a beacon of democracy in the Middle East after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. But the postwar insurgency has resulted in the death and injury of dozens of journalists.
Last week, Atwar Bahjat, a 30-year-old correspondent for Al-Arabiya television, was shot dead along with two of her colleagues by assailants in Samarra.
The government shut down his website. As a recourse, Abdul Nour sent newsletters by e-mail, and the state responded by blocking them. But Abdul Nour continues to create e-mail addresses every week to get his message out.
In an interesting show of hypocrisy, many Arab politicians were more intent on blaming the West and its free media than putting their own houses in order.
At my hotel outside the "zone," I tried to read an article online but was denied access by government censors. A screen popped up saying the website did not conform to the Emirates' social and religious values.
The Dubai Press Club chairperson, Mona Al Marri, explained that the government blocks mainly websites containing sexual content to protect family values. But the story I wanted to read was about Israel, not about sex.
In December, two Egyptian journalists from the independent newspaper The Dawn were sentenced to up to six years in prison for writing a story about the cousin of an Egyptian member of parliament who allegedly paid someone to serve a jail sentence for him.
The journalists first learned about their convictions in the newspapers, after the fact. So much for political gossip columns and tabloids in Egypt.
As the Middle East experiences the growing pains of democratic change, the world has neglected the dire situation of press freedom in the region.
Perhaps President Bush would garner more international support for reform in the Arab world if he addressed the dismal state of free speech there. Even Arabs wouldn't be able to argue with him on this point, at least not publicly.
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