The necessary freedoms

MIKE FEGELMAN

May 3 marked World Press Freedom Day (WPFD), an event that seeks to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and to remind governments of their duty to respect and protect journalists.

When reporting in the closed societies of the broader Middle East, for example, journalists are vigilantly watched, harassed and abused by authoritarian regimes, secret police and media manipulators who work for terror proxies. Their work and safety are at risk, and many reporters languish in prisons or are murdered to silence a story.

As a result of state-sanctioned violence and threats against journalists by ruthless thugs, present-day media oftentimes repress a narrative for fear of persecution, detention or death. When the media ignore the growing intimidation of their own colleagues and don’t report it to the public, that silence becomes complicity.

According to the 2010 Press Freedom Index produced by Reporters Without Borders (en.rsf.org), out of 178 countries ranked, best to worst, the following Mideast, Arab and North African nations saw journalists face what it described as “very serious” and “difficult situations,” with Iran ranked in 175th place, Syria 173, Libya 160, Saudi Arabia 157, Palestinian territories 150, Afghanistan 147, Bahrain 144, Iraq 130, Egypt 127, Qatar 121 and Jordan at 120. In comparison, Finland rated number 1, Israel rated 86 and the United States and Canada were at 20 and 21, respectively.

In Libya, as reported by the New York Times Lens blog, under Muammar Qaddafi, journalists are regularly imprisoned, for instance, and reporters have been intentionally shot at. Pro-Qaddafi soldiers have used other media professionals as human shields and several have been subjected to mock executions, as was reported in the BBC in March. This regime, along with other Arab autocratic countries, has for decades reportedly bribed Arab journalists from documenting the lack of human rights in their own countries.

Also in March, the BCC reported that Palestinian Authority and Hamas enforcers systematically intimidate and abuse Palestinian and Western journalists in Gaza and the West Bank, confiscating and destroying their equipment, and the Jerusalem Post reported that Hamas “cops” are reviled for using beatings and stun guns on female journalists. Hamas continued this trend of intimidation recently by telling a Gaza journalist from the Ma’an News Agency that they would kill her and her son if she reported on the national unity protests.

In Bahrain, reporters live under harrowing situations, as their phones and e-mails are closely monitored. Meanwhile, USA Today in April reported that three editors of Al-Wasat, Bahrain’s main opposition newspaper, will go on trial, facing charges of “publishing fabricated news,” “harming public safety” and “damaging national interests.”

In Syria, the top editor of the official Syrian newspaper, Tishrin, was fired for questioning official accounts about recent demonstrations that saw non-military gunmen open fire on protesters. Two Lebanese Reuters journalists were also recently detained and released by Syrian authorities, according to the Guardian.

In Egypt, security forces captured and then released Globe and Mail reporters Patrick Martin and Sonia Verma, CNN correspondent Anderson Cooper was punched by unknown assailants and CBS News correspondent Lara Logan was raped and assaulted by protesters. Egyptian authorities have also throttled and shut down Internet access to suppress dissent and free speech, as was reported by the Wall Street Journal. Recently, Al Jazeera reported that an Egyptian blogger was sentenced to three years in jail for a post critical of the government and army.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah minders manipulate the media by creating heavily orchestrated public relations events, where scenes are staged for foreign media to report. Journalists are taken on Hezbollah-guided tours, where their interview subjects are strictly managed and screened and Hezbollah handlers intimidate reporters.

And, last but not least, Iran, described by the Committee to Protect Journalists as the “world’s worst jailer of the press” alongside China and Turkey, has imprisoned 34 journalists in 2010 alone, according to PBS. Let’s not forget about Zahra Kazemi, the Canadian-Iranian photojournalist who, in 2003, was arrested while taking photographs outside Iran’s Evin prison. Kazemi died two days following her detention after being tortured and raped by her captors. Then there’s the case of Maziar Bahari, a Canadian-Iranian journalist at Newsweek magazine, who was held in a Tehran jail for 118 days in 2009 for filming scenes of Iran’s militia shooting at protesters. Iran also sentenced Hossein Derakhshan, the Iranian-Canadian “blogfather” of Tehran to 19 years in prison for writing dissenting opinions about the Iranian government and for training others to blog and podcast. Derakhshan was temporarily released on $1.5 million bail in December 2010.

Now, with the Arab Spring upon us, those who seek to hide the truth about the lack of fundamental human rights in their borders target the media who are tasked with covering the plight of the voiceless. Through the systematic use and abuse of “emergency rule” to suppress dissent, the plight of the people has gone out of sight and out of mind.

Mike Fegelman is executive director of HonestReporting Canada, a nonprofit organization that works towards fair and accurate Canadian news coverage of Israel and the Middle East.

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