After the Sheikhs by Davidson Christopher

Author:Davidson, Christopher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2013-06-23T16:00:00+00:00

Censorship and limiting expression

Best viewed as an early response to the accumulating internal pressures in the Gulf monarchies, coupled with a lack of transparency associated with prevailing political structures, there has been a dramatic increase in censorship in the region. For decades there have been crude attempts to black out articles in foreign newspapers, ban certain books, fire journalists, and harass academics who spoke out of line. But with the advent of new communications—especially involving mobile telephones and the internet—the governments’ responses have had to become far more sophisticated, often employing the latest technologies, methods, and new legal apparatus to cut off channels of free expression and remove or discredit those responsible. As the final chapter of this book demonstrates, this is becoming harder for governments to do, as media evolves and opponents manage to keep information and ideas flowing beyond governmental control.

Nevertheless, there have been notable examples of effective censorship in all of the Gulf monarchies in the past few years. This has not gone unnoticed, with all six states having slipped further down the World Press Freedom Index, as compiled by Reporters without Borders. As of early 2012, the highest ranked Gulf monarchy was Kuwait—in 78th position—with the UAE, Qatar, and Oman ranked firmly below dozens of African dictatorships—in 112th, 114th, and 117th positions respectively—and with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain ranking among the very worst countries in the world.157 Although superficially successful in the short term in limiting opposition voices, the various censorship strategies employed have been leading to heightened fears and widespread criticism and condemnation of the regimes responsible, not only from the international community, but also from resident national and expatriate populations. In a summer 2011 YouGov poll commissioned by the BBC’s Doha Debates, which collected the responses of 1000 participants from the region, it was revealed that more than half of the Gulf respondents were ‘too afraid to speak out against their rulers’. This contrasted sharply with a similar poll amongst nationals of North African Arab Spring states, where respondents reportedly expressed optimism about their freedoms.158

Bahrain unsurprisingly provides some of the most extreme examples of censorship and attacks on free speech, with a large number of recent assaults and arrests involving opinion-makers and commentators. In August 2010, for example, it was reported by the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights that the editor in chief of Bahrain’s Alwatan newspaper159 was attacked by several masked men outside the newspaper’s headquarters in the early hours of the morning. He claimed that they asked him if he worked for the newspaper, to which he said ‘yes’, and then they began to beat him and set fire to his car.160 Although Alwatan is believed to be funded by a member of the ruling family, has close links to the regime, and has been accused of promoting sectarianism in Bahrain, its pro-government stance is thought to have wavered in recent years. The following month another disturbing incident happened when the founder of Bahrain’s most popular internet forum161—Bahrainonline.org—was arrested by security services and his website blocked on the grounds that it was ‘spreading false news’.

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