It was a slow beginning. Instead of silence, people were speaking up. There were dangers and setbacks. But word spread. New voices spoke up.
Across the Arab world, it was a brave and exciting moment.
That’s when I began this blog and soon I counted several hundred blogs across the Arab world. Many were in English because that seemed safer. But that changed as the internet created a freedom that hadn’t existed before.
There was a dream. As an Egyptian friend said – the internet is like a genie. It let loose voice and they could not be stuffed back into the bottle.
But were they?
If you had a blog, or followed a blog, please share your story here.
What happened? What changed?
لقد كانت بداية بطيئة. وبدلا من الصمت، كان الناس يتحدثون. كانت هناك مخاطر ونكسات. لكن الكلمة انتشرت. تحدثت أصوات جديدة.
لقد كانت تلك لحظة شجاعة ومثيرة في جميع أنحاء العالم العربي.
لقد بدأت هذه المدونة وسرعان ما أحصيت عدة مئات من المدونات في جميع أنحاء العالم العربي. كان الكثير منهم باللغة الإنجليزية لأن ذلك بدا أكثر أمانًا. لكن ذلك تغير عندما خلق الإنترنت حرية لم تكن موجودة من قبل.
كان هناك حلم. وكما قال صديق مصري – الإنترنت مثل الجني. لقد أطلق صوتًا فضفاضًا ولا يمكن إعادته إلى الزجاجة.
لكن هل كانوا كذلك؟
إذا كان لديك مدونة، أو تابعت مدونة، فيرجى مشاركة قصتك هنا.
Here is a story of a young woman’s rising up from poverty and abuse and blindness, a march from a village in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains. Please share it and share your thoughts with us. Shukran.
Here’s a story about facing abuse, poverty and blindness, about leaving a village in Morocco’s Atlas mountains and going far far beyond.
Please share it and share you thoughts with us, Shukran
Journalism is the Tool I Used to Change My World
Before I was a journalist, and before I was a Fulbright scholar, and before I was a founding editor of an international media platform, I was homeless. I spent six years on the streets of Morocco, where I landed at the age of 17 after being blinded by a family member and abandoned in the hospital. What sustained me was my love of storytelling.
I’d never gone to school while sighted, but I’d loved stories all my life.
Growing up in a rural Amazigh (indigenous) community in the Atlas Mountains, I’d been immersed in comedies, tragedies, mythologies, parables, dramas, fables, silly anecdotes, and allegories. There’d been no electricity in my community, which meant no TVs, audiobooks, or radios. While they worked, people told stories aloud, keeping alive a tradition that stretched back millennia. This was the tradition into which I had been born.
On my first day of class, my teachers balked when they discovered that I could neither read nor write. I couldn’t even spell my name. Luckily for me, two of my classmates took pity on me and taught me the alphabet in Braille. The following afternoon, I returned after a sleepless night spent practicing the Braille codes. My teachers’ consternation was replaced by shock when I demonstrated my newfound ability to sound out written words. After that, there was no stopping me.
I was determined to get at the stories tucked away inside the books, newspapers, and magazines that everyone else knew how to read. Since Braille books were hard to come by, I collected regular printed books as well and dragged them around in bags until I found people to read them aloud to me. Whenever I had money, I used it to pay strangers so they would read to me. I fed myself with books, even when it meant that I neglected to buy food.
When one of my teachers gave me a portable battery-powered radio, I fell in love with radio journalism. I started carrying the radio everywhere, listening attentively, training myself to speak just like the news anchors. I even practiced interviewing my fellow homeless people (who weren’t always enthusiastic participants!).
Yet as much as I loved journalism, something was missing. Besides having no food, no shelter, and no family to support me, I faced another obstacle: I had no role models. I longed to hear stories about people like me: orphans, survivors of sexual assault, children who’d been rejected by their families, and so on. Somehow, these stories never seemed to make it on the air.
For years, I thought this was because I was the only one. Only with time did I realize the real reason: people like me are rarely given opportunities to tell their stories to the world. One of my high school teachers even told me that I would never be a journalist because
only beautiful, wealthy women could work in the media. I don’t think he meant to hurt me, just to help me set more realistic expectations, but his comment stung me all the same. I set out, not just to prove him wrong, but also to make sure that well-intentioned mentors like him never again have valid reasons to say such things to their most vulnerable pupils.
I made several ambitious goals while living on the streets, from visiting Miami Beach to working for the United Nations. Today, I’ve accomplished almost all of them—including becoming a journalist and founding my own media platform.
I got the opportunity to earn my MA in journalism and strategic media in the US because of the Fulbright Program. The Fulbright recognized my potential and invested in me when no one else did. Thanks to them, I not only continued my education, but also met the love of my life, whom I’ve now married, and with whom I cofounded my platform.
My husband, Mekiya, shares my love of writing and storytelling, as well as my passion for using these tools to uplift and empower people who are fighting to achieve their dreams. Together, we launched The DateKeepers with the dual mission of creating opportunities for emerging journalists and nonfiction writers and telling the untold stories of people who’ve overcome extraordinary odds to make contributions to their fields and to the world.
In a world where writers have gotten used to “purchasing rejections,” in Mekiya’s words, we offer the writers who join our team regular opportunities to publish, constructive feedback on every piece submitted, and long-term professional mentorship. Our writers also retain a great deal of creative control over their pieces. They choose their topics and decide which aspects of their stories matter. We hold them to high journalistic and aesthetic standards, but otherwise encourage them to put their stories into the world on nobody’s terms but their own.
We also publish at least one profile every month, highlighting people who, like us, came from difficult backgrounds and went on to accomplish extraordinary things without succumbing to the temptations of bitterness or despair. One of our most recent stories painfully illustrates the importance of a platform like ours.
We first met and interviewed Mark Bookman in early 2022, about a year before founding The DateKeepers. At the time, we were freelancers, and Mark was finalizing several papers and a book for publication, preparing to film a documentary, and was on the verge of becoming Japan’s premier historian of disability. He was also living with a debilitating rare disease that had compromised his immune system, forced him to use a wheelchair, and made him dependent on personal assistants for around-the-clock care.
We wrote Mark’s profile, but months went by, and none of the outlets to which we submitted it showed any interest. They were all too busy pushing clickbait, covering the most polarizing issues of the day in as superficial a manner as possible.
At the same time, Mark and I became friends. The more I got to know him, the more I saw in him a kindred soul: someone who had every reason to feel bitter and hopeless, but who’d instead resolved to make the best of every second of his life, mentoring students, setting up institutions to support future students and scholars with disabilities, and revolutionizing the field of disability studies in Japan.
And then Mark died. At the age of 31, he suffered a fatal heart attack and collapsed in his apartment in Tokyo. He was dead before he reached the hospital. He didn’t live to see his documentary completed, his book on the bookstore shelves, or the link to our story about him in his inbox.
We founded The DateKeepers so that people like us wouldn’t have to wait for powerful media outlets to pause, take a break from jockeying for clicks, and take notice of our lives. Mark’s story is now published, and though he never had a chance to read it, we hope it will serve as a monument to his life and legacy. It can be read here.
As a woman who knows what it means to survive extreme hardship and realize her dreams, I feel an acute responsibility to ensure that stories like ours are no longer sidelined, dismissed, ignored, delayed, put off until another day—because not every story can wait. Too many stories have already been made to wait too long. Now’s the time to bring those stories out into the world.
A much valued friend from Khartoum writes about flight for life. Everything is left behind. Keys handed to a neighbor for a house that probably will be ravaged beyond belief. Life on the run. Life on hold in Cairo. What will come next?
What will come next is a mystery. But the destruction and despair felt by much suffered Sudanese is a tragedy here and now.
This report from Human Rights Watch offers the details:
Amy Braunschweiger speaks with Human Rights Watch’s Sudan researcher, Mohamed Osman, about how people in Sudan are dealing with the conflict, and what needs to happen to keep civilians safe.
What’s the situation like on the ground for people in Sudan?
There is heavy fighting in densely populated areas, in Khartoum and other cities. People are having to decide whether they stay home and risk getting bombed or looted or forcibly evicted, or flee facing risks created by the fighting on the road and the challenges of crossing borders. Many people are stranded where they are. The fighting has damaged civilian infrastructure, so there’s little access to electricity, clean water, and health care. Cellular networks are often down, and there’s only limited access to online banking, which is a crucial way of buying things like food. Also, banks in general aren’t functioning so people can’t get cash. People are trying to survive both the fighting and the devastating impact it’s having on their daily lives.
Here, writer Farah Aridi writes of her grief for Beirut.
What will follow? What will change?
“Time stopped in Beirut at 6:08 pm on the 4th of August. And I stopped counting. I stopped counting at 291 days since the beginning of the Oct. 2019 uprising, and at 144 days since COVID-19 hit the country. At 6:08 pm that day, time became irrelevant.
“I do not remember a time when I did not write you, Beirut, or to you, or about you. But I have always done so with trepidation. I have always felt that I owe you more than I show and more than my writings reflect—that whatever I write would barely amount to a faint footprint on your streets. But you do not make this any easier. There is always too much going on with you, Beirut. Always too much to keep up with.
“I have always boasted of writing you in fragments, of stitching you on cloths, and sleeves, and hearts. But I have always been cautious of wearing you on my sleeves in a country that taught us that our sleeves need always be rolled up. So I held you within me until you and I both imploded and exploded at the same time. And now we are both spilled over, scattered. But you have always been stronger than I am. And I have always been too fragile to write you when you are in distress. So allow me to try. But do forgive my intermittent silence. I promise it is only momentary. Allow me to pick myself up first, for like you, I now exist outside myself, my body like a fathom limb.
“I never would have expected to ever see you like this, scarred, mutilated, disenchanted. I never would have expected to see you in ruins, for it is us who should be kneeling in front of you, Beirut. I would never have thought that I would be searching for you in the debris, trying to identify a street corner, a favorite shop, an abandoned memory, and displaced footholds. I would never have thought that the 30-year-old civil-war pictures I spent hours perusing in the archives for research, I will be seeing with my own two eyes. I would never have imagined that I would be stepping into similar scenes, and that the violence we deluded ourself into denying, into normalizing, into covering up with metaphors of stupid birds and narratives of resilience, would blow up in our faces.”
“I never would have thought there will come a day when you would need me to dress your wounds when you were always the first to bury my sorrows, the first to ask me to dance, and the first to promise me better mornings with every cup of coffee, and better nights with every glass shared with comrades. Yes, you spurred revolutionary talk every night, and instilled us with ideas and passions, and verse, and stories. But that was never enough and we should have known.”
Some years ago in Cairo I made friends with a Uighur intellectual. He had fled from China to Turkey and then Cairo and still felt hunted. Hunted, he said, because he was a scholar of the Uighur language and history and that was something unwanted by China. He was tormented and his friends in Cairo feared that he would kill himself.
So I walked with him for hours across Cairo, and I talked about his chances of finding freedom. And he eventually did. He won a visa to the U.S. But it seems his freedom is a mirage for many in China, and now in Egypt as well.
This is from an article in the New York Review of Books, and it explains here:
“Two weeks later, Erkan had to flee Egypt. The Chinese authorities were pressuring Uighur students in Egypt to return to China, and rumors had spread in Cairo’s Uighur community of detention camps awaiting them on their return. Given the close ties between China and Egypt, the el-Sisi administration seemed unlikely to offer protection to Chinese citizens pursued by their own government, and Erkan left hurriedly for Dubai. After several months, he relocated to Turkey, where he resumed his poetic work and began studying Turkish literature. Three months after Erkan left Egypt, the Egyptian authorities, working in tandem with Chinese officials in Cairo, began rounding up Uighur students. Egyptian families hid some Uighurs, but hundreds were deported to China. Few have been heard from since.”
Le syndicat national des journalistes réclame la libération de Khaled Drareni 11/08/2020 Casbah Tribune Le syndicat national des journalistes SNJ a réagi, ce lundi 10 août, suite à la condamnation du journaliste indépendant Khaled Drareni. Poursuivi pour « incitation à un attroupement non armée » et « d’atteinte à l’unité nationale », le directeur de site d’information Casbah Tribune et correspondant de Tv5 monde a été condamné à trois ans de prison ferme.
Après cinq « longs » mois de détention provisoire, le syndicat des journalistes « à l’instar de l’ensemble de la corporation, de la classe politique, d’acteurs de la société civile, de l’opinion publique en général » entretenait un espoir de voir leur confrère libre sauf que cet « espoir » a viré « donc au cauchemar », lit-on dans le communiqué.
Le SNJ se dit « étonné » de voir, Khaled « traité différemment » de ses codétenus. En effet, sous le coup des mêmes chefs d’accusation, les deux militants Slimane Hmitouche et Samir Belarbi ont eux écopé chacun de deux ans de prison, dont quatre mois ferme (déjà purgés). Le syndicat qualifie ce traitement particulier réservé au journaliste Khaled Drareni de « précédent grave, condamnable et qui n’augure rien de bon quant aux intentions réelles du pouvoir par rapport à la liberté d’expression et de la presse en particulier ».
« L’Algérie, pionnière en matière de la libre expression et de la presse dans la région depuis trois décennies, ne peut se permettre de renoncer à ces acquis si chèrement arrachés par des générations de journalistes et de militants, au prix d’énormes sacrifices et des années de lutte contre l’arbitraire, l’obscurantisme, l’autoritarisme et le terrorisme. Et c’est spontanément que nous réclamons la mise en liberté de notre confrère Khaled Drareni » conclut le communiqué.
What has happened to the free-thinkers, opposition and other voices in Egypt?
In a long article, New York Times journalist recounts, the steps taken by the government to punish families of dissidents speaking up from outside Egypt. He writes:
“It’s nothing less than collective punishment,” said Amr Magdi of Human Rights Watch, which since 2016 has documented raids on the families of 14 exiled dissidents. At least 20 relatives have been detained or prosecuted.
Speech was never free in Egypt, at least for the longest time. But it was always wanted, always sought in so many different ways. So what is different now?
Walsh explains:
“Egypt’s rulers have long employed such tactics against the families of suspected drug traffickers and jihadists. But as President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has cranked up the repression in recent years, he has broadened his focus to target the families of exiled dissidents, journalists and cultural figures.”
How has this taken place? He writes:
“One recent case involved an exiled actor, Mohammed Shuman, who delivered an emotional appeal on Facebook from Turkey for the release of his brother and his son who, he said, had been jailed in retaliation for his role in a movie that highlighted police brutality.
Inside Egypt, Mr. el-Sisi jailed opponents and largely subjugated the news media. His intelligence services have acquired stakes in the largest private TV networks, blocked over 500 websites and even censored the scripts of the highly popular TV serials that Egyptians are currently lapping up during the holy month of Ramadan.
But his iron grip on Egyptian media may have inadvertently helped raise the profile of news outlets and bloggers based abroad.
Egypt’s nominally independent private TV stations all offer similar, pro-state news and commentary. Talk show hosts seem to sing from the same hymnal. News bulletins can have a whiff of Soviet-era control, while government critics are branded as agents of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, or stooges of rival Qatar.
When the Muslim Brotherhood leader, Mohamed Morsi, died in June, every Egyptian TV station led with the same 42-word bulletin, evidently dictated by the security agencies.”
And how has that touched lives? He writes:
“Relatives of opposition TV anchors have been subjected to similar tactics.
Haytham Abokhalil, an anchor with Al Sharq TV in Istanbul, aired leaked photos of Mr. el-Sisi’s wife and sons in October. Days later, security agents dragged his brother, Amr Abokhalil, a psychiatrist, from his clinic as patients watched. Dr. Abokhalil is now being held in prison.
“My brother doesn’t even approve of my work,” said Haytham Abokhalil, who described himself as a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood. “His arrest is a punishment, a message that what I am doing has a price.”
Mr. el-Sherif said he recently learned that an Egyptian court had sentenced him to life imprisonment because of his YouTube broadcasts. It was “painful” to know that his brothers are in the country’s main maximum security prison on his account, he said. But he doubted that, even if he were to quit his broadcasts, they would be released.
“I know this army,” he said.”
Here’s an article from Mada Masr that talks about living in dying in Egyptian prisons:
This is the last column by Jamal Khashoggi, a friend for many years, a voice for Arab journalists
Illustration by Alex Fine for The Washington Post
رسالة من كارِن عطية محررة قسم الآراء العالمية:
تلقيتُ مقال الرأي هذا من مترجم ومساعد جمال في اليوم الذي تلا الإبلاغ عن فقدانه في إسطنبول. صحيفة الـ”بوست” كانت قد قررت تأجيل نشره لأننا أملنا أن يعود جمال إلينا كي نستطيع نحن الاثنان تحريره سويًا. الآن عليّ أن أتقبل أن ذلك لن يحصل. هذه هي آخر مقالاته التي سأحررها للـ”واشنطن بوست”. يجسّد هذا العمود تمامًا التزامه وشغفه بالحرية في العالم العربي. حرية ضحّى بحياته في سبيلها. وسأكون ممتنةً دومًا أنّه اختار الـ”بوست” ليكون آخر بيت صحفي له قبل عام ومنحَنا الفرصة للعمل معًا.
لقد كنتُ أبحث على الإنترنت مؤخرًا للنظر في مؤشر حرية الصحافة لعام 2018 الذي نشرته مؤسسة “فريدوم هاوس” وتوصلتُ لإدراك خطير. هنالك دولة واحدة فقط في العالم العربي نالت تصنيف “حرّة”. تلك الدولة هي تونس. تليها الأردن والمغرب والكويت في المرتبة الثانية بتصنيف “حرّة جزئيًا”. تُصنَّف بقية الدول في العالم العربي على أنها “غير حّرة”.
ونتيجة لذلك، فإن العرب الذين يعيشون داخل هذه البلدان إما غير مطَّلعين أو مضلَّلين. فهم لا يستطيعون معالجة المسائل التي تؤثر على المنطقة وحياتهم اليومية على نحو كافٍ، ناهيك عن مناقشتها علنًا. يهيمن سرد تديره الدولة على النفسيّة العامة وبينما لا يصدقه الكثيرون، إلّا أن أغلبية كبيرة من السكان تقع ضحية لهذه الرواية الزائفة. للأسف، من غير المحتمل أن يتغير هذا الوضع.
لقد كان العالم العربي مفعمًا بالأمل خلال ربيع عام 2011. كان الصحفيون والأكاديميون وعامة السكان يفيضون بتوقعات لمجتمع عربي مُشرِق وحر في بلدانهم. كانوا يتوقعون التحرر من هيمنة حكوماتهم والتدخلات المستمرة والرقابة على المعلومات. سرعان ما أُحبِطت هذه التوقعات وهذه المجتمعات إما عادت إلى أوضاعها السابقة أو واجهت ظروفًا أكثر قسوة من ذي قبل.
وكتب صديقي العزيز الكاتب السعودي البارز صالح الشحّي أحد أشهر الأعمدة المكتوبة في الصحافة السعودية. مع الأسف، إنه الآن يقضي عقوبة سجن غير مبررة لمدة 5 سنوات بسبب تعليقات مزعومة تعارضت مع الخط العام للحكومة السعودية. لم يعد استيلاء الحكومة المصرية على صحيفة “المصري اليوم” يُغضِب الزملاء أو يثير ردة فعل منهم. هذه الإجراءات لم تعد تحمل عواقب رد فعل عنيف من المجتمع الدولي. بدلًا من ذلك، قد تؤدي هذه الإجراءات إلى إدانة يتبعها صمت سريع.
ونتيجة لذلك، فقد مُنِحت الحكومات العربية حرية مواصلة إسكات الإعلام بمعدل متزايد. كان هناك زمن اعتقد فيه الصحفيون أنّ الإنترنت سيحرر المعلومات من الرقابة والسيطرة المرتبطَين بوسائل الإعلام المطبوعة. لكن هذه الحكومات التي يعتمد بقاؤها الفعليّ على السيطرة على المعلومات أعاقت الإنترنت بشدة. كما اعتقلوا المراسلين المحليين وحظروا الإعلانات للإضرار بعائدات وسائل إعلام معينة.
هنالك عدد قليل من الواحات التي لا تزال تجسد روح الربيع العربي. تواصل حكومة قطر دعم التغطية الإخبارية الدولية مقارنةً مع تمويل دول الجوار تجذير سيطرة النظام العربي القديم على المعلومات. في حين أنّ المنافذ الإعلامية في تونس والكويت حرّة، إلّا أنّها تركز على القضايا المحلية وليس على القضايا التي يواجهها العالم العربي الكبير. وهم يترددون في توفير منصة للصحفيين من السعودية ومصر واليمن. حتى لبنان، جوهرة التاج العربي عندما يتعلق الأمر بالصحافة الحرّة، سقط ضحية استقطاب ونفوذ حزب الله الموالي لإيران.
يواجه العالم العربي نسخته الخاصة من الستار الحديدي التي لا تفرضها جهات خارجية ولكن من خلال القوى المحلية المتنافسة على السلطة. خلال الحرب الباردة، لعبت “إذاعة أوروبا الحرّة” التي نمت على مر السنين إلى مؤسسة حاسمة دورًا هامًا في تعزيز وإدامة الأمل في الحرية. العرب بحاجة إلى شيء مماثل. في عام 1967، وافقت صحيفتا “نيويورك تايمز” و”واشنطن بوست” على نشر صحيفة عالمية مشتركة، وهي صحيفة “إنترناشيونال هيرالد تريبيون” التي أصبحت بمثابة منصة للأصوات العالمية.
لقد اتخذَت مطبوعتي “واشنطن بوست” مبادرة لترجمة العديد من المقالات الخاصة بي ونشرها باللغة العربية وأنا ممتن لذلك. يحتاج العرب إلى القراءة بلغتهم الخاصة حتى يتمكنوا من فهم ومناقشة مختلف جوانب ومضاعفات الديموقراطية في أمريكا والغرب. إذا قرأ أحد المصريين مقالًا يكشف التكلفة الفعلية لمشروع بناء في واشنطن، فسيستطيع فهم الآثار المترتبة على مشاريع مماثلة في مجتمعه بشكل أفضل.
العالم العربي بحاجة ماسّة إلى نسخة حديثة من هذه المبادرة حتى يتمكن المواطنون من الاطلاع على الأحداث العالمية. وما هو أهم من ذلك، نحن بحاجة إلى توفير منصة للأصوات العربية. نحن نعاني من الفقر وسوء الإدارة وسوء التعليم. إنّ إنشاء منتدى دولي مستقل ومعزول عن تأثير الحكومات القومية التي تنشر الكراهية من خلال الدعاية سيمكِّن الناس العاديون في العالم العربي من معالجة المشاكل البنيوية التي تواجهها مجتمعاتهم.
Truth is mourned daily in conflicts. And the Syrian crisis is an example. Here, a Syrian group of journalists talk about their effort to correct gossips, rumors and fake news.
“IT’S LONG BEEN said that truth is the first casualty of war. Nowhere is that more evident in the world today than in the Syrian conflict, where rumor, hearsay or even fake stories are common in local news sources and social media feeds.
Last year, several Syrian journalists decided that something needed to be done about the situation and, in March, launched Takkad, or Verify, an online platform that exposes and corrects inaccurate news stories and information coming out of Syria. The platform focuses largely on social media, but also examines reports by international news outlets.
The platform is run by a team of volunteers – four editors, five reporters, two translators and two technologists – all of whom have full-time jobs, but spend their spare time hunting down false news.
The website has already built a 30,000-strong readership across its social media platforms and become something of a success story for the post-uprising Syrian media. The website’s mission is to encourage people to verify all information from and about the Syrian war, using at least two sources they deem to be trustworthy.
The platform’s managing editor, 30-year-old Dirar Khattab, spoke to Syria Deeply about his team’s work, and the importance of holding media outlets accountable for the information they share.
Syria Deeply: Where did the idea to form such a platform come from?
Dira Khattab: It is almost impossible to take stock of the number of media publications, news outlets, radio channels and pages that have emerged from Syria specifically, and from the region generally, in the past five years. This never-seen-before freedom to share information and content in the Middle East without government supervision has given people a chance to share unverified information about the events taking place in the country. The new media in Syria is clearly divided on the basis of political and ideological affiliations. Unfortunately, some media outlets don’t have a problem with spreading lies as long as these lies serve a purpose, or an interest.”
As the sun stretches over the Arab world, crises unfold.
But are these stories being told? Do we hear the voices, see the needs, realize the consequences.
Read this report by Jeff Ghannam, a veteran in telling us about the role of the media in the Arab world – especially social media.
Here is a quote:
“But for all the attention to the scale of the tragedy, the kinds of information needed by the victims is often lost. To listen to Nabil Al Khatib, executive editor of Saudiowned Al Arabiya, based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, the human stories in the conflicts are buried under the daily tallies of those killed. “This is a lost story,” he says. “You will find that most reporters are reporting in a general way. It leads to boring reporting and it leads to people being detached from news,” Al Khatib says. “This is one of the biggest challenges, and it can only be resolved by training. I started my TV reporting career covering Palestine, Israel, and Jordan and my biggest issue was how to continue reporting from a humanitarian point of view and focus on individuals. Individual stories are always unique and people would like to hear them.” He says reporters covering the migrant crisis for the network in Europe were senior correspondents based in the region. While not all were trained in covering crises from a humanitarian point of view, the network devoted significant resources for special reports from Europe, tracking the migrant crisis with live reports, which Al Khatib points to with great pride as a journalistic, logistic, and operational success. Still, he says, training and raising awareness among the rank and file are needed to produce stories about the wars’ impact on humanity. “If you try to check how many humanitarian stories there are about Syrians stuck in Syria, you will see very few reports,” Al Khatib says. “The [civilians] are not being covered, the fighters are being covered. This is what the news agencies are looking for, they buy this footage from fixers who just learned how to use a video camera. A rocket was shot from here, a child got killed from here…..”
Gamal Eid has been a voice of hope for journalists across the Arab world. His struggle has been a struggle to bring respect for law and human right to journalism, and respect for the work that Arab journalists do.
Here’s a plea and a compelling statement from here. Please share your thoughts.
القاهرة – في 20 أبريل سيقرر ثلاثة قضاة بإحدى محاكم القاهرة هل سيسمحون للنيابة أن تواصل قضيتها ضدي ومتهم آخر هو الصحفي والمدافع الحقوقي حسام بهجت، في إطار هجمة الحكومة المستمرة ضد المنظمات غير الحكومية المستقلة في مصر أم لا.
القضية ضدي تستهدفني بسبب دوري في تأسيس الشبكة العربية لمعلومات حقوق الإنسان، التي تهدف الى توعية الجمهور المصري بحقوقه المدنية وحقوق الإنسان. أما بالنسبة لحسام بهجت، المعروف بأن صحافته الاستقصائية تهز الحكومة، فإن القضية ضده تركز على أنشطة المنظمة التي أسسها، وهي المبادرة المصرية للحقوق الشخصية.
لقد خصّونا دون غيرنا لأن منظمتينا تقومان بتوفير دعم قوي لمن يتعرض لانتهاكات حقوق الإنسان في مصر. فقد دافعنا عن ضحايا التعذيب من مختلف الأطياف: إخوان مسلمين، ليبراليين، يساريين، ضحايا الاعتقال العشوائي، وحتى مؤيدي النظام. لقد دافعنا عن فكرة أن حقوق الإنسان هي للجميع بغض النظر عن الأيديولوجية، وأن الحقوق المدنية مكفولة لكل المواطنين بغض النظر عن خلفيتهم أو ثروتهم أو نفوذهم.
هذا الأسبوع سوف يقرر القضاة كذلك ما إذا يحق للنيابة أن تفرض علينا غلق المكاتب، والمنع من السفر، وتجميد الأرصدة، وتوجيه اتهامات جنائية. وإذا حكمت المحكمة بذلك، فسيكون هذا بمثابة قيام الحكومة المصرية ليس فقط بغلق المنظمات المستهدفة حاليا، بل كل المؤسسات غير التابعة للدولة والمستقلة عن الأجهزة الأمنية، والتي تتبنى موقفا ناقدا لانتهاكات حقوق الإنسان.
الاتهامات الموجهة لنا هي أن نشاطاتنا تسيء لسمعة مصر، وأن مؤسساتنا أُسست خارج إطار القانون الخاص بالمنظمات غير الحكومية، وأننا نتلقى تمويلا من الخارج لدعم الإرهاب. هذه الاتهامات لا أساس لها، وإذا كانت محاكمتنا قانونية وليست سياسية فسنثبت ذلك.
مهما كانت درجة غموض هذه القضية، إلا أن الرسالة المقصودة منها واضحة: هكذا ينوي نظام الرئيس عبد الفتاح السيسي المدعوم من الجيش أن يقضي على آخر ما تبقى من المنظمات المدنية المستقلة في البلاد.
النظم السلطوية بشكل عام معادية لمجتمع مدني قوي. ومصر ليست استثناء. إلا أننا تحت حكم الرئيس حسني مبارك قمنا ببناء مجتمع مدني ناقد ومستقل بالرغم من المضايقات الروتينية من جانب الحكومة. وفي تلك الفترة كانت الشرطة قادرة على إغلاق المنظمات، ولكن نادرا ما كان يتم إغلاق المنظمات بشكل نهائي، ويكاد يكون حبس الموظفين أمرا لم نسمع به من قبل.
لكن الأمور بعد مرور 5 سنوات على سقوط مبارك تغيرت تماما. وإن كان لدى مبارك القدر الكافي من الثقة ليترك الجماعات المستقلة تعمل خارج سيطرة الدولة، فالسيسي يفتقر الى هذه الثقة بالنفس.
المجتمع المدني ضروري في بلد كمصر لأن هذه المجموعات الحقوقية يمكن أن تلعب دور الوسيط في حالات التوتر والصراع. وهذا الدور في أوقات الأزمات يكون حيويا. في عام 2011، عندما خرج الملايين منا الى الشوارع للاحتجاج ضد النظام المباركي، يرجع الفضل الى جماعات مثلنا بجانب النقابات العمالية والمؤسسات المهنية والجمعيات الخيرية في إحداث تغيير حاسم في المحصلة النهائية: توفير الأسس لكي تظل تلك التظاهرات سلمية وبناءة، بينما إخواننا وأخواتنا في سوريا وليبيا لم يحالفهم الحظ، إذ تحولت الاحتجاجات هناك بسرعة الى نزاع مسلح لافتقاد مجتمع مدني يوفر هذه الأسس.
بعد الإطاحة بمبارك عملت مجموعات مثلنا على ترجمة المشكلات المزمنة والاحتياجات التي طال انتظارها الى مطالب قابلة للتطبيق، وعملت أيضا على ضمان أن تبقى تلك المطالب الشعبية ضمن المفاوضات السياسية. وفي عام 2011، على سبيل المثال، أطلقتْ منظمتي مبادرة شارك فيها المئات من القضاة والمحامين وضباط الشرطة والصحفيين وغيرهم في محاولة لإصلاح وزارة الداخلية، التي كانت مخيفة آنذاك. وقمنا بعقد دورات تدريبية لضباط الشرطة في أكاديمية الشرطة وتشاورنا مع مسؤولين في الوزارة.
وللأسف تم عرقلة مشروعنا مع وزارة الداخلية في نهاية المطاف من قبل الأطراف التي لا تريد الإصلاح. وقد تغير كل شيء بالفعل مع وصول السيسي الى السلطة في عام 2013، وبدأ عهد جديد أكثر قمعا.
أولا، تم الاعتداء على الجمعيات الخيرية للإخوان المسلمين، وأعقب ذلك إغلاق مؤسسات ثقافية مستقلة. واستمر نظام السيسي في إغلاق ومحاكمة قطاع واسع من المنظمات غير الحكومية التي كانت تنادي بالرعاية الصحية والتعليم وحرية الصحافة والإصلاح الديمقراطي والحكم الرشيد. ولئن كان البعض، مثل منظمتي، منتقدا بشكل صريح للسياسة الرسمية، فإن الكثيرين آثروا البقاء بعيدا عن السياسة وكرسوا جهودهم لتقديم الخدمات الأساسية التي أهملت الحكومة في توفيرها.
اليوم أصبحنا قليلين للغاية. ونحن نعلم أنه بدون دور الوساطة الذي تلعبه المؤسسات المدنية المستقلة، يمكن للخلاف الاجتماعي العادي أن يتحول بسهولة الى صراع قومي. فالأقوياء يمكن أن يستغلوا الخلافات العادية بين الجماعات والمجموعات العرقية والطبقات الاجتماعية والزج بهم نحو سياسة القوة الغاشمة. وعندما يحدث ذلك في بلد تحت نظام سلطوي يتحول المجال والواقع العام بأكمله الى لعبة لا بد فيها من خاسر بين من يملكون السلطة شبه المطلقة وأولئك الذين أصبحت حقوقهم الأساسية في خطر.
نظام السيسي يواجه تحديات أكبر بكثير من تلك التي كانت تواجه مبارك في أواخر أيام حكمه، خاصة في ظل اقتصاد يتردى، وحرب طاحنة لمكافحة التطرف في سيناء، وتفشي حالة واسعة من عدم الرضا الشعبي. من الصعب أن نتصور الحكومة الحالية تواجه هذه الأزمات على عدة جبهات بدون الاعتماد على الأساس الصلب الذي توفره منظمات المجتمع المدني. ولذلك يبدو هجوم السيسي على المجتمع المدني قصير النظر جدا.
إذا خسرنا جولة هذا الأسبوع من معركتنا القانونية، فقد تأخذ حياتي الشخصية منعطفا مؤلما. لكن الشعب المصري هو الذي سيتحمل العبء الأكبر، لأنه قريبا سيفتقد الحماية التي تحول بينه وبين دولة تنهار.
جمال عيد، محامي مصري ومدير الشبكة العربية لمعلومات حقوق الإنسان.
Peace Journalism is journalism that reports on conflicts and crises.
Here are some guidelines in English and Arabic – click on the PDF
Are these possible? Let’s talk
Before you finish your reporting, ask these questions:
Is this news necessary? Does it tell both sides of the situation?
Will this news story lead to violence, prejudice, or community distrust of negotiators for peace? If so, can you tell this story in a different way?
Do you have different voices and different opinions in your reporting?
Do you talk to the people, whose lives have been affected by the situation? Or did you only talk to experts and government officials?
Do you use words or scenes or narratives that will offend people or cause more strife or conflict? How can you avoid doing this?
Explaining conflicts and crises:
Ask yourself these questions as you report:
What are the causes of the conflict?
What do the different sides believe? What separates them? What do they have in common?
What is the history of the conflict according to the different sides? What is the bigger picture?
Who are the major individuals and groups involved?
How has the crisis or conflict evolved over time? Provide a time line.
What solutions have been heard? What do you know about the reality of these solutions? Explore the options considered by the different groups. What options are likely to bring about peace or healing?
What steps are needed to reconcile past problems?
Are there proposals for temporary solutions?
What are the major obstacles to peace or healing?
Suggestion: treat the emotions as symptoms of the crisis? How?
Suggested rules for your reporting
Do not just talk to leaders and officials.
Do not tell only about one’s side suffering and problems. Tell the whole story of all involved.
Do not repeat the words or statements of leaders without offering you own explanation of their meaning and the facts.
Do not downplay or ignore efforts to reach a solution
Do not use words that inflame and stir hatred or images
Do not report on rumors or gossip without giving the full context.
Find out the facts about rumors or gossips that appears to add fuel to the conflict or crisis. Let your reporting explain the facts behind the rumors. Explain who may be behind the rumors and what they have to gain.
Let your news outlet become a source for filtering rumors and gossip on a timely basis. Create a website that responds to these forces that drive the public.
Add documents and other resources to your website to educate your audience on all of the issues involved
Do not ignore the suffering or problems. Show that you are presenting a whole picture of the past and of what has happened to all sides. But don’t let that become the whole story.
Show the impact of violence or problems in the past. Explain what might happens if these issues continue in the future.
Conflicts are complex. Avoid simple descriptions of the causes.
Show the humanity of the people involved and on all sides
You should remember that your reporting will affect the conflict and the lives of people in it. How can you monitor this?
Avoid being used by one side or the other and to report – and if you can, avid attempts to use your reporting to figure one side or to continue the conflict.
A Basic Reminder
Do what is possible. Do not cross redlines that will cause problems for your and your news organization or your family. Move slowly forward with your news reporting. Do not rush into problems that will halt your reporting. Stay focused on what you can tell honestly and completely and what matters.
This is a collection taken from many reports and studies by organizations across the globe involved in better reporting on peace and justice and conflict resolution. Steve Youngblood’s work has been especially important. Please share your work and advice.
Another voice online…please read here…
ليست من السهولة إدخال مفاهيم الجندر(النوع الاجتماعي) في عالمنا العربي فقد تمت احاطته بالكثير من الشكوك والأوهام التي جعلت الحديث عنه كأنه محاولة لهدم الأخلاق والفضيلة وزعزعة الأمن الوطني والقومي، وهذا ليس من قبيل المبالغة انما من الوقائع التي تحكيها تفاصيل رافقت الحركة النسوية في بلادنا، وما سأتحدث عنه يتعلق بالواقع السوري.
في محاضرة ألقاها راتب النابلسي (دكتور في الشريعة وداعية ديني) بالمركز الثقافي بكفرسوسة في دمشق منذ سنوات بمشاركة عبود السرّاج (دكتور في قانون العقوبات) تحدّث عن الجندر والسيداو وهذه المفاهيم الرهيبة التي يريد الغرب ادخالها في مجتمعاتنا!! لخّص حينها الداعية هذا المفهوم بقصّة تتحدث عن (شاب أجنبي أراد الزواج من فتاة فمنعه أبوه عنها بقوله أنها أختك لكن لا احد يدري الا والدتها،وعندما فاتح أمّه بالموضوع قالت له تزوجها فانها ليست أختك وهذا ليس أبوك ولا أحد يعلم..!!) بطريقة سردية تثير الرأي العام ضد كل هذه المفاهيم حيث انطلق من الأخلاق والدين وخطر زعزعة كيان الأسرة والمجتمع مع تنامي مفهوم الجندر والمساواة والنيّة المبيته لدى الغرب كي تتقوّض الأسرة كما هو الحال في بلاد الغرب الكافر (على حدّ تعبيره) بطريقة قلب المفاهيم وتحويرها لينفر منها المجتمع المحافظ.
وفي إحدى المحاضرات يقول استاذ في القانون:”الامبريالية العالمية لا يمكنها الدخول في المجتمعات العربية المحافظة إلا بإحدى الطريقتين هما إسرائيل والنساء”.
من خلال هاتين الواقعتين وغيرهما الكثير، يظهر موقف نسبة من المجتمع تجاه موضوع المساواة بين الرجل والمرأة و من مفهوم الجندر، فلهذه المفاهيم برأيهم أهداف لهدم الأسرة وتقويض الأديان هكذا حاول بعض رجال الدين والمجتمع والقانون اظهاره وبدى ذلك واضحاًعند وضع التحفظات على اتفاقية السيداو (إزالة جميع أشكال التمييز ضد المرأة) والحرب التي بدأت ضد الحركات النسائية والمجتمع المدني عندما بدأوا بالعمل على ازالة التحفظات عن الاتفاقية، وخاصة أن التحفظ على المادة الثانية من الاتفاقية يقوّض الاتفاقية ككل فلا معنى لكل الاتفاقية بوجودها.
أما هذا الموقف والتخوّف والنظرة المؤامراتية تظهر جليّةً عند بداية كل تدريب على مفهوم الجندر حيث تطفوا المفاهيم المغلوطة على سطح الجلسات فتظهر الأفكار المسبقة الخاطئة والمغروسة جيداً من قبل اللوبي الديني القانوني التي تصل إلى حد الاعتقاد بأن الجندر والمساواة يعنيان أن يحبل الرجل وأن تربي المرأة لحية أو شارباً!!
ومن هنا يبدأ التحدّي أمام المدربة-ب في البحث عن طرائق جديدة بسيطة و عميقة لتغير الأفكار المسبقة المغلوطة عن الجندر وادخال المفهوم الحقيقي للجندر ودوره في العنف على المرأة وكذلك حول اتفاقية السيداو وأهميتها في ازالة التمييز ضد النساء، والبحث عن الطرق في دعم النساء للوصول الى المساواة ، ويبدو المدرّب-ة كمن يدخل في حقل ألغام عليها أن تنتقي الكلمات والتعابير وتكون قادرة على المواجهة مع أي سؤال صعب أو يحمل أكثر من معنى، لذلك نستخدم في التدريب محاكاة الواقع من خلال أمثلة بسيطة تبدأ بسؤال المشاركين-ات عن الأفعال التي حرموا من القيام بها لأنهم ذكور أو لأنهن اناث، والأفعال التي كانوا يجبرون على فعلها لأنهن اناث أو لأنهم ذكور، ليظهر بالرسم البياني كم الأفعال التي تجبر النساء على فعلها أو عدم فعلها مقارنة بالرجال طبعاً منذ الطفولة إلى اليوم، مع التنويه إلى أن هذه الفوارق تختلف بحسب الزمان والمكان والبيئة والوضع الاقتصادي ما يعني أنه متغير، ليصل المشاركين-ات إلى فكرة النوع الاجتماعي بأنه الاختلاف بين الذكور والإناث ما بعد الولادة وهو يتأثر بالمجتمع فيتغير بحسب الزمان والمكان، ومن ثم يتم التطرّق الى مناقشة الأدوار في المجتمع من الإنجابية والمجتمعية والإنتاجية والتعريف بها وإظهار الدور الأكثر التصاقاً بالنساء نتيجة التمييز ما يحيّد النساء عن عملية التنمية وعن حقها كمواطنة في الوصول الى الموارد والاستفادة منها والمشاركة في جميع الأدوار كالرجل تماماً، ويصل المشاركون-ات إلى النتائج بطرق سلسة وبسيطة لتزيل العقبات التي عمل اللوبي الذكوري على ترسيخها لعقود منعاً من فهمها وبالتالي ازالتها وبذلك تبدو أهمية التدريب على النوع الاجتماعي بأنه يعكس المعاناة الواقعة على المرأة والمتمثلة في التمييز المجحف وحرمانها من المساهمة الفاعلة في عملية التنمية، وإظهار كل ما يؤدي الى تحجيم وتهميش الجهود المبذولة في مشاركة المرأة للنهوض بالمجتمع وتحقيق الرفاهية ..
ويبقى المدرّب-ة على إدخال مفاهيم الجندر كالواقف على هاوية ستقلبه أي ريح لم يتوقّع قدومها..
________________________________________ *رهادة عبدوش: محامية سورية ومختصة بقضايا العنف والتمييز ضد النساء
الآراء الواردة في قسم صوت مو صدى تعبر عن آراء كاتباتها ولا تعبر عن رأي الشبكة بالضرورة.
هربنا من الحرب، والآن يشن الاتحاد الأوروبي حربا علينا، حربا نفسية. عندما نسمع إشاعات بأنه سيُسمح لنا بدخول أوروبا، نفرح. ولكن بعد أن يعطينا هؤلاء القادة أملا جديدا، يقتلونه. لماذا فتحتم الباب أمام اللاجئين؟ لماذا رحبتم بالناس؟ لو كانوا أوقفوا الهجرة لما أتينا، ولما خاطرنا بالموت، أنا وأطفالي، والآلاف غيرنا، من أجل العبور.
عمري 39سنة، وأنا كردية من مدينة الحسكة. علمَت أسرتي من مشاهدة الأخبار أن الحسكة كانت تتعرض لتهديد من “الدولة الإسلامية”. في الربيع الماضي، كانت الحكومة كل يوم تقصف أطراف المدينة بالقنابل. وفي بعض الأحيان كانت القذائف الطائشة تسقط بالقرب منا.
في أحد الأيام، في الخامسة صباحا، سمعنا قصفا متواصلا وعرفنا أن “الدولة الإسلامية” قد وصلت. أخذتُ أطفالي وكيسين وهربتُ. في تلك الأيام كان الجميع يحتفظون بكيسين جاهزين في كل الأوقات: أحدهما يحتوي على الوثائق الهامة والآخر على الملابس والحاجات اللازمة الأخرى. ركضنا عبر نهر جاف، وغطست كواحلنا في الوحل في الأماكن التي لم تكن جافة.
وحتى قبل وصول “الدولة الإسلامية” كانت الحياة تحت رحمة القوات الكردية صعبة جدا. لم يكن لدينا الحطب لإشعال النار. وذات مرة سألتُ زوجي، “إذا اقتلعنا إحدى عارضتي السقف لإشعال النار في الموقد، وتركنا الثانية، هل تعتقد أن السقف سينهار؟”. أجاب ضاحكا: “نعم، سينهار وسنعيش في الشارع فوق أثاثنا”.
إن كان لديكم ابن في الحسكة اليوم فيجب أن ينخرط في الحرب. لا يهم إن كان الابن الوحيد أو طالبا في المدرسة. وإن لم يكن لكم إبن، فبنتكم يجب أن تنخرط. لا بد من مشاركة فرد واحد على الأقل من كل بيت في القتال إذا أردتم البقاء في المنطقة. حاولت القوات الكردية فرض التجنيد الالزامي على ابنتي. لم أجد بدا من تهريبها إلى تركيا.
سائر أفراد عائلتي موجودون في ألمانيا، ولذا قررنا أن نذهب هناك. قضينا شهرين في منطقة حدودية قبل الهرب إلى تركيا، حيث كان زوجي يعمل. وجدنا مُهرّبا عبر فيسبوك – بيننا صلة قرابة عن طريق الزواج – يسّر سفرنا بالطائرة إلى إزمير. وبعد يومين كنا واقفين في الظلام مع 35 شخصا آخرين في مكان ما على السواحل التركية.
كنا آخر الناس على الشاطئ، إبنتي وزوجها وطفلهما وأنا. أجهشت ابنتي بالبكاء. قالت إنها لا تريد أن تذهب، وإنها إن ماتت، فالذنب سيكون في رقبتي. لم أعرف ماذا أفعل. بعد ذلك، وأشبه ما يكون بالحلم، قدم شاب وحملها هي وطفلها ووضعهما في القارب.لم يبق أحد غيري على الشاطئ. ركضتُ إلى القارب ونصف جسدي تحت الماء. رفعني المهربون من أسفل وسحبني ابن أخي من فوق.
اليوم الذي وصلنا فيه هنا إلى إيدوميني كان الناس ما زالوا يعبرون الحدود إلى مقدونيا. ظننّا أننا وصلنا. واعتقدنا أن الجزء الأصعب كان عبور البحر.
ثمة قول مأثور باللغة العربية: “الجنة بدون الناس ما تنداس”.
لدي ثلاث أخوات وثلاثة إخوة في ألمانيا. الاتحاد الأوروبي يريد أن يبقينا منفصلين بين البلدان. إذا تسجلنا في برنامج إعادة التوطين، وخصص الاتحاد الأوروبي لنا بلدا أوروبيا حصلنا على جنسيته، هل سيكون بمقدورنا أن نذهب إلى عائلتنا في ألمانيا؟ أخشى أن يغيّروا القوانين ونعجز عن الذهاب حتى بعد ذلك.
في بلدنا رفضنا أن يُفصل بيننا. هل سنقبل بذلك هنا؟ الجميع في إيدوميني لا يريدون سوى أن يلتحقوا بعوائلهم؛ وإلا لما جازفوا بهذه الرحلة الحافلة بالمخاطر من أجل لم شملهم بعوائلهم. في الخيمة التالية توجد امرأتان لم تريا زوجيهما منذ سنتين. الرجلان في ألمانيا ولم يتمكنا من سحب زوجتيهما وأولادهما.
أريد من جميع القادة في أوروبا أن يسمعوني: إذا كان أي منهم يوافق على الانفصال عن ابنه أو أخيه أو أخته أو أبناء وبنات أعمامه وأخواله، فسأفعل الشيء ذاته.
إذا كانوا يريدون أن يفعلوا ذلك بنا، فليعطونا ما خسرناه من أجل الوصول هنا، وليعيدونا إلى سوريا. إن كنتُ أريد أن أعيش بين الأغراب لطلبتُ الذهاب إلى كندا. إن كنتَ مريضا من سيساعدك؟ إنك تحتاج إلى أخيك أو أختك أو أمك أو أبيك.
ليلى مصففة شعر مرخصة. طلبت إخفاء اسم عائلتها خشية من أن نشر قصتها يمكن أن يعرض عائلتها في سوريا للخطر، ويؤثر على طلبها للجوء. القصة كما أُخبرت بها الصحفية لورا دين، المقيمة في القاهرة.
So many stories have been told about the refugees, and yet so many more need to be told. Here’s one among many. A tribute to the curiosity and brilliance of journalists to bring to life the humanity they encounter. Click here for the video.
I have been affected by the Arab Spring. Some criticize me for calling it a “historical inevitability,” as if by attacking the Spring we can put an end to it. My problem began after what happened in Egypt in the summer of 2013. I have been losing friends since. I did not call it a coup – I believe the military regained a power it had held for 1,000 years. Maybe they were not friends, as a real friend cannot be lost just because your opinions differ.
Some also claim I misled them because I portrayed myself as a liberal but did not welcome the “popular revolution” that brought down the Muslim Brotherhood. I was unable to convince them that my stand is based on the principles of freedom and democracy, because they are the best solutions for Arab states that have failed due to military rule.
Some said my enthusiasm for the Egyptian revolution of Jan. 2011 was due to me being a latent supporter of the Brotherhood. The numerous articles in which I have criticized the Brotherhood and blamed it for the collapse of democracy did not change their opinion.
An editor-in-chief at a prominent newspaper disapproved that I applauded the Friday sermon by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi in Tahrir Square a week after the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak. I was astounded by the symbolism of the moment, and considered it a sign of the rise of freedom of expression in Egypt. However, the editor-in-chief only saw the Brotherhood in this picture.
He wrote an article entitled “The deceivers,” in which he said I had fooled him and others because they knew me as a liberal. He, who was supposed to be a friend, was unable to understand that liberalism is for everyone, and if applied selectively will no longer be liberal. The holder of a free pen defends principles and refuses to be restricted.
I wrote articles in which I urged stable Arab countries to help their neighbors, and called for an Arab Marshall Plan. “You want a Marshall Plan to support the Muslim Brotherhood,” replied a colleague in an article in the same newspaper, who is proud to support non-transparent rule and describes his position as courageous and noble.
In the Arab world, everyone thinks journalists cannot be independent, but I represent myself. What would I be worth if I succumbed to pressure to change my opinions?
Jamal Khashoggi
A few weeks ago, my friend Nawaf Obeid admonished me, saying: “You need to write an article in which you confirm that you are not a supporter of the Brotherhood.” I replied: “Whatever I say, I’ll never convince those who suffer from Brotherhood-phobia. They say I support this party because I criticize their favorite regime. Do that and you too will be accused of being a Brotherhood supporter.”
Journalistic independence
In the Arab world, everyone thinks journalists cannot be independent, but I represent myself, which is the right thing to do. What would I be worth if I succumbed to pressure to change my opinions? The atmosphere of freedom must be preserved, and I am happy that my government is doing so. A public meeting I had with a group of youths in Riyadh to discuss the volatile regional environment was recorded and broadcast online without any curtailment.
That was the best cure for the articles that were attacking me and the friends who were abandoning me. I talked to the youths for more than two hours, and answered their questions freely. I felt then that the world cannot bring down someone who is free on the inside. I want to be free, to think freely and write freely. I am free to do so.
This article was first published in al-Hayat on Dec. 26, 2015.
_________________
Jamal Khashoggi is a Saudi journalist, columnist, author, and general manager of the upcoming Al Arab News Channel. He previously served as a media aide to Prince Turki al Faisal while he was Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States. Khashoggi has written for various daily and weekly Arab newspapers, including Asharq al-Awsat, al-Majalla and al-Hayat, and was editor-in-chief of the Saudi-based al-Watan. He was a foreign correspondent in Afghanistan, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan, and other Middle Eastern countries. He is also a political commentator for Saudi-based and international news channels. Twitter: @JKhashoggi
Last Update: Wednesday, 30 December 2015 KSA 08:08 – GMT 05:08
You have the facts. You have the documents. You have an investigative story that is new and important and revealing.
But do you have a story to tell?
You may done all of the difficult work needed to investigative an issue, but if you can’t tell your story effectively, then your work will suffer. Your audience will be limited. Your impact will be diminished.
How do we make our work draw attention, and ring bells?
Some basic suggestions
Create a lead that will draw your audience onward. This is especially important when so much journalism appears on the Internet, where readers quickly lose their patience.
You have several options. You can create a highly personal lead, a beginning that sets the scene very powerfully. It is important here only to provide the most basic details. You will unravel the complete details later on. But here you want to you use words like paint, creating a striking image.
To do this, you need to think over the heart of your reporting and what image most powerfully and honestly tells readers what you have found. Do not create images that are sensational just for the sake of creating a powerful beginning. Your beginning should be honest and it should come from your reporting. Winning trust in your reporting is very critical and a beginning that seems untrue will damage this.
Here, for example, is the beginning of a story from an Iraqi newspaper that exposes the use of bogus or ineffective medicines.
“Bikhal, a young Kurdish woman, knows she may not live to see another spring. The leukemia that has ravaged her body since she was treated with defective chemotherapy drugs at a hospital in Iraqi Kurdistan has reduced her to a ghost of her former self.
“The 25-year-old gazes at the leaves falling from the plum tree in the courtyard of her home as her father, Hajj Saleh, relates her experience with the bogus medication that wrecked her chance of being cured of this deadly illness. A few days after it was administered at a government hospital, doctors informed her that recovery in Kurdistan had become “impossible.”
Bikhal’s father did his best to seek redress, even going to the courts to bring the wrongdoers to justice.”
Once you have led your readers into the opening scene, you need to quickly explain your findings. You sum up what you have found, and then set out to provide your facts and your proof. If you can return to your beginning scene at your ending, you will have created an arc. That is, you will have drawn your reader back to remembering the person or scene that captured their attention and their concern.
But there are other ways to begin.
You can spread out your key findings at the beginning of your report. Then you proceed to offer examples. The secret is not to overwhelm your audience with too many facts. You need to tell the story as if every word has been nailed into place. This is true in print and it is especially true in an audio or video presentation. Notice how quickly the words move here, bringing your audience to the heart of the reporting. This is collaboration between a print and TV investigative effort. Also notice the pause after the facts are laid out, and a short sentence that explains why this matters.
“Armed security guards have become a ubiquitous presence in modern life, projecting an image of safety amid public fears of mass shootings and terrorism. But often, it’s the guards themselves who pose the threat.
“Across the U.S., a haphazard system of lax laws, minimal oversight and almost no accountability puts guns in the hands of guards who endanger public safety, a yearlong investigation by The Center for Investigative Reporting and CNN has found.
“Men and women who have never fired a gun in their lives can set off on patrol in uniform, wearing a badge and carrying a loaded weapon, with only a few hours of training, if any. In 15 states, guards can openly carry guns on the job without any firearms training at all.
“The results can be as tragic as they are predictable.”
But there are other patterns that produce the same results. One of them is to begin with a scene or a situation that creates a mystery. For example, “When they found Ahmet’s body, they could see he had been operated on. But who did it, and why?”
For the rest of your reporting, you go through the facts and the issues so that when you reach your conclusion, readers clearly see your explanation. For example, “He died because of a system that allowed untrained and unsupervised staff in unregulated facility to take chances. But he never had a chance.”
Rely on images or powerful quotations whenever possible to tell your story. Make sure you have explained early on why your reporting matters. That is, what is the context for this reporting. Never ignore or withhold claims that counter your reporting. If you deal with them early in your presentation, you are sending the message that you are honest, and that you will offer the other side to these claims.
And most importantly, imagine that your presentation is a piece of music. You want to keep it moving forward and not lslow down too much, or lose the pace that makes it something that cannot be ignored.
Khartoum, SUDAN – There’s the story about the children and their schooling. The story about the young girls and their future. And the stories about rebuilding calm after so many years without any, and rebuilding the bonds that tie Sudan together.
These are the stories we talked about, among all else, here in Khartoum.
Among the many giant steps forward for Arab media, one of the greatest tools that has sped up this march forward has been the camera.
It has held up the mirror to a world that needs to see itself and needed to tell its story to itself: to celebrate, to embrace, to cheer, to mourn, to protest, to sing, to cry.
Click on the link to explore the exceptional photos of this collective of female Arab photographers
Good reporting talks to us about what matters. It questions. It points us towards answers. It makes us wonder about our lives, our communities.
Here is a story about domestic violence in Jordan from Ammanet that takes these steps; a good example of reporting that gives us context and helps us to see what needs to be done.
What’s your reaction? Steve
2014/02/05
– Only 5 out of 17,000 cases considered by family reconciliation committees since 2008
– Law on Protection from Domestic Violence failing to protect the family
– Laws in contradiction with separation of powers
– Courts neglecting to use the law
27-year-old Sofia’s husband abuses her in myriad ways: from beating her on the face to kicking, throwing coffee and hot tea at her, cutting her hair forcibly and threatening to kill her, brandishing a knife in her face.
A slim-figured, fresh-faced native of Amman, Sofia was married five years ago – and has lived in humiliation and insult ever since. She once thought married life would be filled with bliss and mutual respect. “I spent the flower of my youth on our time close together… only for him to defame my honor with the ugliest words.”
“He gives me a dinar and I spend it at home. He spends all his income on drinks. Sometimes there is no bread at home,” said Sofia, who said her husband won’t provide for the family. She does domestic work to feed her two children. When her husband learns of this, he accuses her of prostitution.
Sofia first complained to the Department of Family Protection (DFP) in September 2010. She received no opportunity to present her case until her fourth attempt in 2013 – by then, the abuse had been going on for four years. She brought a medical report stating that she’d been beaten by her husband, but was shocked by the DFP employee’s reply: “Your solution is to go to the shari’a court. Get divorced.”
Sofia refused to divorce her husband.Instead, she wanted follow-up visits and protection from the violence.
The DFP only labeled her husband a perpetrator of violence, asking him to sign a pledge not to further harm against her – but he never showed up. After all Sofia’s communication with the DFP, her husband only beat his wife and children more than ever before.
DFP Director of Public Relations Naji Al-Bataineh said that although his administration possesses full law enforcement powers, they did not go after the violent husband because this would exacerbate inner family problems, especially since the crime did not require arrest or detainment.
Sofia is one of 12,000 cases that the Ministry of Social Development has left without any follow up since 1998, according to DFP reports in the East Amman administration’s files.
This investigation reveals that the 2008 Law on Protection from Domestic Violence is weak, defective and unimplemented. Successive governments have failed to implement the law and to form the family reconciliation committees to whom the DFP and courts are supposed to pass domestic violence cases. All follow-up actions depend on this process, without which 32,000 cases of domestic violence reviewed by the DFP in the last 4 years will continue without solution or redress.
Without a national register of domestic violence cases, it is difficult to quantify the true size of the problem for abused women in Jordan. The Ministry of Social Development’s numbersindicate approximately 4100 cases of domestic abuse in 2013. DFP statistics, in contrast, show approximately 7500 in the same year, whereas the National Committee for omen’s Affairs reports 2100 cases.
25-year-old Samira (name changed for protection) was raped by her employer and threatened with death by her brother after she’d given birth to a child from the rape. She turned to the DFP, seeking not to become a victim of “honor crime” accusations. The DFP sent her to a family reconciliation house.
After Samira had lived in the house for two years, the director of the house entered her room one morning, asking her to get out of bed, change quickly, leave her son and go to the DFP for case review.
The DFP decided to remove Samira from the house as a solution to her problem. But Samira was under a death threat and refused to leave. “How can you ask me to leave? I don’t have any place to go,” she said. The response: “There will be a shelter for you.”
No administrators found a shelter for Samira. She returned to where she’d been.
تحديث: يأتي إتمام مصرلليوم الثالث للتصويت على اختيار رئيس جديد، في الوقت الذي تشهد فيه البلاد حملة من القمع المشدد على مدار أكثر من 10 أشهر، أدت إلى مناخ قمعي يقوض كثيراً من نزاهة الانتخابات. (هيومان ريتس وتش، 28 مايو 2014)
بمناسبة الانتخابات الرئاسية المزمع عقدها يومي 26 و27 مايو\أيار الجاري، وبينما تشير جل الترشيحات إلى فوز عبد الفتاح السيسي بغالبية الأصوات، تستعرض مراسلون بلا حدود حصيلة حالة وسائل الإعلام والفاعلين الإعلاميين والوضع العام لحرية الإعلام تحت حكم القائد السابق للقوات المسلحة المصرية خلال الأشهر الأحد عشر الأخيرة.
صحيح أن مصر اعتمدت دستوراً جديداً يكفل حرية الإعلام بعد استفتاء شعبي في يناير\كانون الثاني الماضي، بيد أن الصورة العامة تظل قاتمة في ظل تزايد وتيرة الانتهاكات ضد وسائل الإعلام، سواء تعلق الأمر بعمليات اغتيال الصحفيين أو اعتقالهم أو إغلاق المؤسسات الإعلامية.
وفي هذا الصدد، أكدت لوسي موريون، مديرة الأبحاث في منظمة مراسلون بلا حدود، أن “حالة حرية الصحافة تدهورت بشكل ملحوظ منذ وصول الجيش إلى السلطة، حيث تم القبض على 65 صحفياً على الأقل في مدة تقل عن سنة واحدة، فيما لا يزال 17 إعلامياً قابعين في السجون“، مجددة تأكيدها على “حث السلطات المصرية لاحترام الدستور الجديد الذي يضمن حرية الصحافة“، مشددة في الوقت ذاته على “ضرورة الإفراج الفوري عن كافة الصحفيين المعتقلين حالياً وإسقاط التهم الموجهة إلى الفاعلين الإعلاميين“.
مقتل ستة صحفيين
منذ عزل الرئيس مرسي، لقي ستة إعلاميين حتفهم جراء إصابتهم بالرصاص الحي، علماً أن أغلبهم كانوا يغطون المسيرات المؤيدة لمرسي.
ففي يوم 8 يوليو\تموز 2013، قُتل مصور صحيفة الحرية والعدالة، أحمد عاصم سمير السنوسي، إثر إصابته بطلقة نارية خلال تغطية اشتباكات في محيط مقر الحرس الجمهوري بالقاهرة.
وكان يوم 14 أغسطس\آب يوماً مشؤوماً بالنسبة للصحفيين، حيث قُتل كل من ميك دين، مصور قناة سكاي نيوز، وأحمد عبد الجواد، مراسل يومية الأخبار المصرية، ومصعب الشامي، المصور الصحفي في شبكة رصد الإخبارية، بالرصاص بينما كانوا يغطون المواجهات الدائرة بين قوات الأمن والمتظاهرين المؤيدين لمرسي في ميدان رابعة العدوية بالقاهرة.
وفي ليلة 19-20 أغسطس/آب 2013، قُتِل تامر عبد الرؤوف، مدير المكتب الإقليمي لصحيفة الأهرام المصرية، جراء عملية إطلاق نار عند نقطة تفتيش أقامها الجيش في دمنهور بمحافظة البحيرة الشمالية. كما لقيت ميادة أشرف، صحفية جريدة الدستور والموقع الإخباري مصر العربية، مصرعها بعدما إصابتها برصاصة في الرأس يوم 28 مارس\آذار 2014 أثناء تغطية المظاهرة التي نظمها أنصار الإخوان المسلمين في منطقة عين شمس احتجاجاً على إعلان ترشيح عبد الفتاح السيسي في الانتخابات الرئاسية.
هذا ولم تقدم السلطات المصرية حتى الآن على فتح أي تحقيق مستقل ونزيه لمعاقبة مرتكبي عمليات القتل التي أودت بأرواح الصحفيين.
اعتقالات بالجملة
شهدت الأشهر الأحد عشر الماضية موجة اعتقالات تبعث على القلق بشكل خاص. فحسب إحصائيات لجنة حماية الصحفيين سُجِّل أكثر من 65 حالة إيقاف في صفوف الصحفيين، بين معتقلين ومحتجزين خلال الفترة الممتدة من 3 يوليو\تموز 2013 و30 أبريل\نيسان 2014، علماً أن هذه الحملة استهدفت بشكل خاص الإعلاميين التابعين للإخوان المسلمين أو أولئك الذين يُعتبرون في عداد المقربين من هذه الجماعة التي أصبحت محظورة من جديد. بيد أن “ملاحقة الإخوان” لا تقتصر على الصحفيين المصريين، بل تشمل أيضاً نظراءهم الأتراك والفلسطينيين والسوريين وذلك في تعارض تام مع بعض أحكام الدستور الجديد، حيث تلجأ السلطات إلى ذرائع واهية لإبقاء الإعلاميين قيد الاحتجاز.
كما لا يزال سبعة عشر صحفياً رهن الاعتقال (وفقاً للأرقام التي نشرتها لجنة حماية الصحفيين)، ومن بينهم محمد عادل فهمي، مدير مكتب الجزيرة في القاهرة، والمراسل الأسترالي بيتر غريست، و باهر محمد، الذين يقبعون في الحبس الاحتياطي منذ إلقاء القبض عليهم يوم 29 ديسمبر\كانون الأول 2013، علماً أن محاكمتهم – ومحاكمة بقية “الصحفيين” الـ17 المحتجزين – انطلقت في 20 فبراير\شباط الماضي، لكنها تأجلت أكثر من مرة. ذلك أن عشرين شخصاً تتهمهم السلطات بالعمل لصالح شبكة الجزيرة (من بينهم أربعة صحفيين أجانب)، حيث يحاكمون بتهمة محاولة “إضعاف هيبة الدولة وتكدير السلم العام” و”نشر معلومات كاذبة“، بينما يُتهم المصريون منهم بالانتماء إلى “منظمة إرهابية” كذلك. وقد تم القبض على ثمانية بينما يحاكم الـ12 الآخرون غيابياً علماً أن إدارة الجزيرة أكدت أن أربعة فقط من هؤلاء الصحفيين يعملون في القناة. ومهما يكن، فإن محاكمة “صحفيي الجزيرة” تحمل دلالات رمزية تعكس حالة حرية التعبير والإعلام في مصر اليوم.
من جهته، لا يزال مراسل الجزيرة عبد الله الشامي قابعاً في السجن منذ 14 أغسطس\آب. ورغم أن القاضي قرر في جلسة 3 مايو\أيار تمديد فترة اعتقاله لـ45 يوماً إضافياً فإنه لم يُوجه إليه أية تهمة رسمية حتى الآن. ويخوض الشامي إضراباً عن الطعام منذ 21 يناير\كانون الثاني احتجاجاً على اعتقاله ظلماً وعدواناً، علماً أنه نُقل بشكل سري إلى سجن العقرب يوم 12 مايو\أيار الماضي ، حيث أكد محاميه أن حالته الصحية قد تكون خطيرة للغاية.
وبدوره اعتُقل محمود أبو زيد، المصور المستقل المتعاون مع ديموتكس وكوربيس، يوم 14 أغسطس/آب 2013 في ميدان رابعة العدوية، وهو محتجز حالياً في سجن طرة. أما سعيد شحاتة وأحمد جمال، صحفيا شبكة يقين الإخبارية، فقد أُلقي عليهما القبض بتاريخ 30 ديسمبر\كانون الأول 2013 بينما كانا يغطيان احتجاجات جامعة الأزهر في القاهرة، حيث يواجهان تهمة “المشاركة في مظاهرات غير قانونية” و”إهانة ضابط شرطة“. من جهته، اعتُقل كريم شلبي، مراسل المصدر، أثناء تغطيته لمظاهرة معادية للحكومة يوم 25 يناير\كانون الثاني، وهو متهم بدوره “بالمشاركة في مظاهرة غير قانونية“. كما أُلقي القبض على عبد الرحمن شاهين، صحفي جريدة الحرية والعدالة (التابعة للإخوان) يوم 3 أبريل\نيسان حيث يحاكم بتهمة “التحريض على العنف“. وفي السياق ذاته، اعتُقلت سماح إبراهيم، مراسلة الصحيفة نفسها، يوم 14 يناير\كانون الثاني قبل أن يصدر حُكم ابتدائي في حقها يوم 17 مارس\آذار حيث تواجه عقوبة السجن لمدة سنة واحدة مع الشغل. وبعد الطعن الذي تقدمت به لمحكمة الاستئناف، تم تخفيض عقوبتها إلى ستة أشهر سجناً وغرامة قدرها 50.000 جنيه مصري (5300 يورو).
وتشكل هذه الاعتقالات التعسفية والاحتجازات الجائرة تعارضاً صارخاً مع مقتضيات الدستور الجديد، ولا سيما المادة 71.
إن هذا الاستقطاب الشديد الذي يطغى على وسائل الإعلام المصرية (سواء المؤيدة لمرسي أو المناهضة له) يزيد من حدة الاستقطاب المستشري بشكل عام في المجتمع المصري ككل. فكما يتبين منذ بداية الحملة الانتخابية، لا تتوانى العديد من المنابر في الإفصاح علناً عن دعمها للنظام الحاكم، وهي بالتالي لا تضطلع بدورها المتمثل في مراقبة السلطات وضمان الضوابط والموازين.
لمحة سريعة
مصر
مصر
أعضاء IFEX الذين يعملون في هذا البلد
4
الشبكة العربية لمعلومات حقوق الإنسان
المنظمة المصرية لحقوق الإنسان
مركز القاهرة لدراسات حقوق الإنسان
مؤسسة حرية الفكر والتعبير
قضايا حرية التعبير الأكثر تغطية في هذا البلد
حرية التعبير والقانونحرية التجمعاعتداءاتالرقابة
تقارير هامة ومعلومات
رقباء الإبداع : دراسة في الرقابة على التعبير الفني في مصر
مؤسسة حرية الفكر والتعبير 24 أبريل 2014
محاكمات الإيمان: دراسة في قضايا إزدراء الأديان في مصر
مؤسسة حرية الفكر والتعبير 7 أبريل 2014
حرية تداول المعلومات في مصر: دراسة قانونية
مؤسسة حرية الفكر والتعبير 5 مارس 2014
مصر: مدخل نحو تحرير المعرفة
مؤسسة حرية الفكر والتعبير 21 فبراير 2014
شاهدوا أكثر
لمحة سريعة
اعتداءات
اعتداءات:
التهديدات والمضايقات والهجوم، وأسوأ من ذلك- استخدام التخويف كوسيلة لقمع حرية التعبير.
تقارير هامة ومعلومات
إستنساخ القمع : التقرير السنوي لحرية التعبير في مصر والعالم العربي 2013
الشبكة العربية لمعلومات حقوق الإنسان 3 مايو 2014
التقرير السنوي – انتهاكات الحريات الإعلامية في فلسطين 2013
المركز الفلسطيني للتنمية و الحريات الإعلامية – مدى 5 مارس 2014
حصار الحقيقة : تقرير حول الاعتداءات والانتهاكات بحق الإعلاميين في مصر
مركز القاهرة لدراسات حقوق الإنسان 3 أكتوبر 2013
شاهدوا أكثر
البلدان الأكثر حدوثاً لهذا الانتهاك
فنزويلاسورياباكستانالفليبين
تحرك الآن
البحريني نبيل رجب يعود إلى بيته
Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab with his family after his release on 24 May 2014
أطلق سراح الناشط في مجال حقوق الإنسان البحريني نبيل رجب من السجن بتاريخ 24 أيار عام 2014. اعرفوا المزيد حول إلهامه!
من شبكتنا:
Here is something I wrote in 2006 with Heshem Melhem
The Mohammed Cartoons Controversy
(Written in 2006)
By Stephen Franklin and Hesham Melhem
Out of the global arc of violence and death stirred by a Danish newspaper’s cartoons about the prophet Muhammad, came some glimmers of hope.
Against a stream of anti-Western fury, a small handful of the Arab world’s news media chose logic over delusion and hatred.
In turn, the U.S. publications that do the heavy lifting for Arab and Muslim world coverage, struggled to understand the story and finally got it right, albeit a slower than hoped.
They presented a world of passions and diverse players far more complex than most stereotypes, offering up a different reality than the one that first flashed around the world.
This is no small matter considering how the U.S. and Arab news media have covered such crises, and the divide between the Arab world and the West that widens daily with every little flare-up.
For the U.S. news media, the improved reporting clearly is a mark of the lessons learned since the 9/11 tragedies. Prior to the terrorists’ attacks on U.S. soil, the potent forces boiling in the Arab and Muslim worlds mostly got a brief once over, if any notice at all. So, too, the world of 1.2-billion Muslims seemed as flat as a desert’s horizon.
But the attacks and ensuing crises in Europe and Iraq and across the Muslim world led to a greater commitment to cover places and issues that had gone unexplored before. The situation also created a cadre of editors and reporters savvy enough to separate the anti-Western rant of a Muslim hard-liner from that of a moderate Muslim struggling amid tremendous social pressures.
In the case of the Arab news media, the growth of Pan-Arab satellite television stations has opened Arabs’ eyes to the world around them. And as the stations have proliferated, competition has improved the product. There’s debate. There are voices never heard before. It is not what it could be. But there’s change, which didn’t exist not so long ago.
This has had a spillover effect on the print media, which still largely talks to the Arab world elite in a self-censored voice meant not to ruffle rulers’ sensitivities. Thanks to the explosion of the Internet and television in the Arab world, newspapers have had to compete, and become relevant.
And so, the incident in Denmark was a perfect test of how far the U.S. and Arab world news media had come.
Last fall (September 2005) the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten ran a series of cartoons showing the prophet Muhammad in various situations. One showed a bomb in his turban.
To the small Danish newspaper, the cartoons were part of a story about self-censorship and nothing more. Not so, said a group of Danish Muslims who refused to let the incident pass and doggedly pursued a protest campaign that would eventually touch most parts of the Muslim world.
Passed like a torch, the issue ignited waves of death and destruction from Asia to Africa, morphed into other Muslim- world furies, and became proof to some that the most serious problem of our time is the clash of the Muslim and non- Muslim worlds.
But except for a rare article last fall, the U.S. news media barely paid attention to what was stirring in Denmark.
At the time, Loren Jenkins, senior foreign editor for National Public Radio, remembers thinking Denmark seemed a strange venue for such a controversy, and that it was probably “one, more little manifestation” of the unease rippling through the Arab and Muslim world.
Many editors in the U.S. apparently felt likewise.
Indeed, it wasn’t an easy story for the U.S. news media. Events leapt from country to country and continent-to- continent, occurred in places typically closed to Western journalists, and swept up Muslims, who did not rush to the streets to speak out.
Ultimately, however, the U.S. news media figured out what was happening, piecing together the story part by part. It was not just a sudden outburst of rage. There were other forces at work. As a front-page article in Washington Post on Feb. 16 described it, the situation had become a “quintessentially 21st-century battle, a conflict stepped in decades, even centuries of grievances, reshaped by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and their aftermath.”
The well-thought out 3,897-world article written by Anthony Shadid and Kevin Sullivan with support from others, explained the roles played by a range of characters from hard-line activists to Muslim world political leaders eager to stoke angers to moderates snarled in the enveloping din. In comparison, only a few Arab journalists framed the issue in the way that many of their counterparts in Europe and the U.S. did: as one of freedom of expression and a rejection of imposed taboos. Few dared to point out that there are far more reasons for justified outrage against real ‘Western’ infractions such as the fate of those kept in limbo at the Guantanamo prison.
Fewer still reminded their readers and viewers, not to mention their rulers, that in the main Arabs are responsible for the horrific daily harvest of death in places like Darfur and Iraq, and that these real tragedies, more than 12 cartoons in a newspaper they have never heard of, in a small European country, deserve their attention and compassion.
The bulk of the Arab media’s coverage of the controversy underscored the fact that many Arab journalists and commentators see their role as the defenders of what is sacred in their world.
This is especially true at a time when they feel vulnerable to an assertive West led by a White House that they consider omniscient and omnipresent and bent on determining their future in places like Iraq and Palestine.
The fact that Arabs like others, engage in cultural and political double standards, was lost in the coverage. There was not much anger or a sense of loss in the Arab World or the Muslim World when the two great statues of the Buddha in Afghanistan were destroyed by the Taliban, and very little outrage over anti Jewish cartoons in some Arab newspapers and negative portrayal of Jews on some Arab television stations, not to mention attacks on Christian churches and worshipers in Egypt and Iraq, or attacks on Christians and Shia’s in Pakistan.
The same Arab governments that criticized the Danish government for its refusal to intervene or punish Jyllands- Posten in the name of free expression are very quick to claim the same when their media at times engages in anti- Jewish bashing.
It is true that Arab coverage of the controversy swung like a rickety pendulum, but there was at least another other side for Arabs to consider.
And so, there was thoughtful commentary, which mostly appeared in print in Asharq Alawsat and Al Hayat, the two large Saudi-owned Pan-Arab newspapers. And, on the other hand, there were shrill denunciations, which bordered on incitement. One was an incendiary call for a ‘day of rage’ from Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi. The powerful Muslim preacher known for his fiery oratory has his own program on al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based television station.
Most of the coverage of the controversy in Arab media was based on combined dispatches from various Western wire services with little original reporting, since most Arab media outlets have no correspondents in Northern Europe. This was also true for the coverage of the demonstrations Asia and Africa.
The mostly negative role of Muslim Danish leaders, who mobilized Arab leaders and audiences against the Danish newspaper and government during their visits to the region was covered uncritically in the Arab world. Still, there were a few exceptions such as AlArabiya.net, which pointed out the discrepancies in the Muslim Danish leaders’ statements to Western and Arab media.
For most Arab readers and viewers, the controversy was framed by a small group of commentators, pundits and Islamists, with varying degrees of sophistication and seriousness, as well as an assortment of ‘professional anti- Western’ pamphleteers.
Many commentators echoed their governments’ anger and outrage, and saw in the cartoons a new cultural ‘crusade’ in tandem with the actual military crusade in Iraq. A headline in The Peninsula in Qatar shrieked ‘Europe joins Crusade’. The ‘crusade’ charge was a favorite on some of al-Jazeera’s talk shows where the Danish cartoons were seen as an integral part of a wider, sinister Western attack against Arabs and Muslims.
A chorus of government and media personalities belted out the ready to use canards about a ‘Clash of civilizations’ or ‘biased’ European media or a ‘conspiracy against Islam’. Often these concepts or buzzwords were used interchangeably. A Syrian writer living in Sweden wrote in the Assafir newspaper in Lebanon that Denmark is not only waging war against the Iraqi people, but its laws promulgate that the blood of an Iraqi is worth only few hundred dollars.
Islamist and Arab nationalist commentators, who rarely agree on anything other than finding U.S. or Zionist conspiracies behind every problem in the Arab World, had a field day. Fahmi Huweidi an Egyptian Islamist commentator in Asharq Al-Awsat wrote a column titled, ‘The lessons from the European campaign against the prophet of Islam.’
Denmark, he wrote, is the one is responsible for the burning of its embassies. He played down the apology of the Danish newspaper, criticized the timid official Arab and Muslim response, encouraged the use of the ‘weapon’ of economic boycott and asserted that the ‘confrontation’ showed that the Muslims have many cards to win any such battle.
He went as far as saying that since the crisis has deepened the rift between Muslims and Europeans, some are seeing “cunning Zionist and American fingers in this scene…to lessen hostility towards the Americans and to pre-occupy Muslims with their ‘battle’ against Europe, so that they would not focus on American practices in Iraq.”
Not to be outdone, Buthaina Shaaban a Syrian government official and a regular commentator in Asharq Al-Awsat accused the West of waging a ‘new Holocaust’ against Islam. She saw in the Danish cartoons another manifestation of a continuing real crusade in the West against Islam that began after the September 2001 attacks which is ” becoming with each passing day a new holocaust committed by new European Nazi forces in the 21st century”.
European Muslims are treated today, she wrote, the way Jews were in the 1930’s, and Muslims in America and Europe are facing a ‘racist campaign’ to adopt Christian names in order to dilute their identity.
In response, rational and compassionate Islamists counseled wisdom and understanding, pleading with Muslim public opinion in Europe and beyond to appreciate and accept the centrality of freedom of expression in Europe. Tariq Ramadan an Islamist who lives in Europe was such a voice.
Writing in Asharq Al-Awsat, Ramadan cautioned Muslims against emotional outbursts, and explained that while there are no limits on freedom of expression, there are nonetheless ‘civil limits’ or ‘civil responsibilities’. He reminded the Europeans that the social structures in the continent have changed because of the patterns of immigration and therefore Europeans should be more sensitive towards the Muslims in their midst.
And he agreed with European criticism of Arab double standards when it comes to depictions of anti-Jewish images, while at the same time saying that hypocrisy in the Arab world should not be used as an excuse to insult Muslims in the West.
While major Arab publications and satellite stations did not publish the cartoons, a number of small publications in Jordan, Yemen and Algeria did dare to publish some of the cartoons. The editors of three Yemeni publications, two Algerian weeklies, and two Jordanian weeklies were arrested and charged with criminal counts of blasphemy and inciting violence.
Indeed, amid the cacophony of incendiary voices, there were commentators who tempered their dismay over the cartoons with thoughtful critiques of the violent reactions in some Arab and Muslim capitals, and who focused on the political hypocrisy and expediency of regimes such Iran and Syria. Some commentators accused the regimes in Egypt, Syria and Libya of encouraging the ‘mobs’ in the streets to refurbish their Islamic credentials.
A number of columnists in Asharq Alawsat produced scathing articles, as did one Kuwaiti writer, about ‘the forces of extremism and lunacy’ in the Arab world trying to achieve their “parochial hateful agendas”.
Saleh Al-Qallab, a Jordanian columnist for Asharq Alawsat, said Arabs and Muslims had lost the last round and helped distort the image of Islam, because the violence which had a sectarian tinge in Lebanon and Iraq worked to the benefit of peddlers of a ‘clash of civilization’ with the West theory as preached by Osama Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri.
Similarly, some Arab journalists on television talk shows spoke positively about the responsible way the American media dealt with the issue, as compared with the European media.
The Arab-Muslim reaction exposed the extent of alienation, weakness and vulnerability that many Muslims see at the core of their relations with the West. And the pent up anger went far beyond the offensive cartoons.
For many the controversy became one of raw power struggle; who has the right to frame such issues? Who controls the means to transform those large swaths of the Arab-Muslim world that are watching with fright the caravan of the modern world leaving them behind?
The U.S. news media did better this time because it had learned to listen more carefully to what the Muslim world is saying.
The Los Angeles Times, for example, had published a number of stories last year about Muslims in Europe. “So when this (the cartoon controversy) came up, it was part of our awareness,” says Marjorie Miller, foreign editor for the L.A. Times.
In fact, the cartoon controversy came up in a Nov. 12 story by Jeffrey Fleishman from Copenhagen. But it was only one of several points in a story describing tensions about Muslim migration “ratting” Denmark’s “aura of serenity.”
Most of the U.S. news media that provide the on-the-ground coverage of the Arab world have also upped their presence in the region. Five years ago the New York Times had one Arab world correspondent, as Ethan Bronner, the Times’ deputy foreign editor explains. Today, it has one in Cairo, another in Dubai and four in Baghdad.
But newspapers’ dedication to reporting the ongoing travail in Iraq comes at a cost to coverage elsewhere in the Arab world, says Miller of the L.A.Times. Though the L.A. Times has four correspondents in the region, only one covers the rest of the Arab world, she says.
To gain a better handle on the Middle East, the U.S. news media has clearly begun to lean more heavily on Arabic speakers and reporters familiar with the culture. For its chronology of the cartoon controversy, the Washington Post relied on Shadid. One of few Arab-American reporters covering the Middle East, he won a Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for his reporting in Iraq before and after the invasion.
When the Post decided it needed an explainer, Shadid wasn’t on assignment, recalls Andy Mosher, a deputy foreign editor for the Middle East. But Shadid volunteered to report as well as help pull the story together. It was a story, as Mosher says, that played to Shadid’s strengths.
The Post’s decision to put together a broad scenario was partially triggered by a February 9th New York Times story written by Hassan M. Fattah with reporting from Times correspondents and stringers. Like a Feb. 7th Wall Street Journal story by Andrew Higgins, it looked at that the connections Danish Muslims had made with Muslim world leaders which had catapulted their campaign. Fattah is an Iraqi born journalist raised in the U.S. who briefly edited an English language newspaper in Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s fall.
But knowing the language isn’t always the key to good coverage, and several U.S. reporters weighed in with pieces that brought more depth to the story. They wrote about Muslim moderates dismay over the violence and they pointed to the questionable role of the Syrian government in the riots over the cartoons in Lebanon and Syria.
Michael Slackman, a former Middle East correspondent for the L.A. Times, who is based in Cairo for the New York Times, parlayed his experience and intuition in a Feb. 12 article to explain the forces beneath the rage over the controversy as well to the tragic sinking of an Egyptian ferry.
Rather than a clash between civilizations, Slackman suggested that some of the passion behind the controversy may have come from Arabs’ need to “blow off steam” from living in dysfunctional societies, and from Arab governments’ need to embrace such an issue in order to dampen the rising strength of Islamic groups.
For years the U.S. coverage of the Arab and Muslims worlds rarely poked below the surface. Arabs were strange, incomprehensible bad guys, says Rhonda Zaharna, a professor of public communications at American University in Washington, D.C. The impact of returning mujahadeen or holy fighters who fought in Afghanistan went untold.
But that’s then.
The U.S. news media has shown it do can a better job in covering the politics and nuances of the Arab and Muslim worlds, though it has a way to go. Emerging from years of repression and self-censorship, the Arab news media is first finding it voice.
Yet that’s not good enough and we can’t wait decades for them to do better. The price for Arab world and U.S. journalists not doing the reporting that needs to be done is too unbearable to consider. We have only our dead from all of the tragedies that we have suffered lately to remind us of this.
-30-
Hisham Melhem is the Washington-bureau chief for the Al-Arabiya satellite station. Stephen Franklin is a former Chicago Tribune reporter with a long history of reporting in the Middle East. This article was written in early 2006.
BY STEPHEN FRANKLIN
YAYLADAG, Turkey (On the Syrian border)—Yasser Jani huddles in a tiny sliver of shade. He wants to escape from the heat and crowding and an uncertain future. But the small patch of trees just outside the camp for Syrian refugees here didn’t offer one and his face shows it.
“Most of the people here are hopeless,” says the short, middle-aged Syrian, who taught high school science before fleeing last year with his wife, two small children, mother and brother. “They lost their homes, their work, and their money and they don’t know anything about their future,” he said.
“And I feel the same way,” he flatly adds.
As Syria boils, its diaspora lives in disparate worlds of faith and despair, of denial and acceptance, and many places in between. The young bodybuilder whose stomach was plugged with bullets from Syrian soldiers nurtures old dreams while the husband, whose seventh-month pregnant wife was killed as they were fleeing, is frozen in shock.
Daily the specter grows of yet another massive population of uprooted and wounded souls in the Arab world.
Already more than 112,000 refugees are jammed in camps in Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan, with thousands more are surviving on their own in these countries. Many more Syrians appear ready to join these ranks and flee their country as the fighting grows fiercer in Syria’s largest cities.
Dr. Moustafa, a Syrian psychiatrist now living in the United Kingdom who would not give his last name, worries about the indelible scars that he says will last long beyond any resolution to the crisis. The only Syrian psychiatrist on hand here, he is forced to flit from camp to camp, dealing with panic-stricken refugees, dispensing medication and trying to measure the depth of the problem.
Yasser Jani is one of those refugees living somewhere between hope and darkness. Despite his frustration about spending the last year in the small, crowded camp, where he complains about the daily inconveniences, he has helped out with classes for young children. It’s all he can do, he adds.
Likewise, Ahmed Hassoun, 56, follows the same daily routine, which gives him meaning in Antakya, a large city in southeastern Turkey, where many Syrians have gathered. A lawyer from Idlib in northwestern Syria, where the fighting has been intense, Hassoun puts on a clean shirt and well-pressed dark pants early in the morning in an almost empty apartment, where he lives with his children, and heads to an office where he works with another 20 Syrian refugee lawyers. His wife stayed behind in Syria.
He gets no pay for his work. None of the lawyers do. But they have gathered daily, meeting with clients and taking careful notes for the last month and a half. Their goal is to produce an accurate and detailed account of the abuses suffered by Syrians under the Assad regime. They hope to turn it over to the International Criminal Court or to a court in Syria when they return, he explains.
They are also working with attorneys within Syria to compile their records.
From the handful of refugees, who visit the office daily to tell their stories or the stories of others who are too ashamed, as is the case for female rape victims, or too overwhelmed to personally recount the events, they have catalogued more than 30 kinds of torture, and at least 1,500 rapes, some of them in groups.
His records show that Syrian torturers use metal and wooden sticks and often electricity on their victims. They also use acid and it is not unusual for victims to die of their burns and wounds, he says.
Soldiers caught escaping, “are executed right away by gun or they slaughter them with knifes,” he says.
As a fellow attorney sitting beside Hassoun coolly recalls seeing someone beaten to death on the street by Syrian soldiers with a rock, Hassoun adds softly, “I feel terrible when I hear these stories.”
Many of the tortures that Hassoun has been recording were suffered by Dr. Mohammed Sheik Ibrahim, 38, a soft-spoken pediatrician, who didn’t want to leave Syria even after eight months in prison.
“They put me in a small cell for 28 days and they interrogated me four times a day for an hour or two each time. Or they would make me stand for hours. They beat me. They used wooden sticks and metal sticks,” he says. “I heard them raping women and girls in the rooms nearby.”
When Ibrahim came home to Latakia from prison, he continued to speak out to his clients, colleagues and anyone else about the regime’s abuses. “I wasn’t afraid,” he explains. Then one day a high-ranking official warned him that his life was in danger. He fled the next day, nearly nine months ago.
Ibrahim has since been working with injured fighters in Turkey from the Free Syrian Army. When thousands of fellow Turkmens from Syria poured across the border recently, driven by aerial attacks, he rushed to the camp that Turkish officials quickly set up for them here in Yayladag.
He is committed, he says, to work with the fighters and follow them into Syria when they launch a large battle. His father has asked him not to go, fearing for his life, but he remains determined to go with the fighters, he says.
He explains that he is a doctor treating one wound after another with no end in sight.
“When I am fixing them (the soldiers), I tell myself that Bashar Assad is the man with the knife and he is the one causing all of these wounds,” he says intensely, moving his arms, and raising his voice.
Like Ibrahim, Dr. Khaula Sawah knows much about the refugees’ medical needs, because she has been organizing the help coming from expatriate Syrians medical experts like herself. The expats arrive here in waves from across Europe, the United States and the Arab world. They stay several weeks and leave. Many return.
Sawah also works on finding medical supplies needed inside of Syria. A clinical pharmacist at a Cincinnati hospital, she has come to southeastern Turkey five times this year so far for this kind of work. This time she brought her two sons along with her.
Born in St. Louis, Sawah moved as a child to Syria with her Syrian-born parents. When her father was put in prison by the government, the family waited 12 years in Syria until he was released.
Now vice-president of the Turkish branch of the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organizations, Sawah has lately been filling up a small warehouse with medicine and then finding safe ways to smuggle it into Syria.
“The needs are humungous,” she says. “We’ll pitch in $100,000 worth of medicine (in Syria) and it is gone in a few days.”
At the warehouse—the basement of a nearby apartment house in Reyhanli—people are unpacking a new delivery of blood absorbing bandages. A U.S. manufacturer had donated the supplies, worth nearly $500,000, Sawah says.
From visits to the Turkish-run camps as well as clinics that the Syrian physicians have set up, she is familiar with the refugees’ frustration.
It’s been especially difficult, she says, for those who didn’t want to live in the camps because of their stark conditions or isolation. As a result, they struck out on their own, renting apartments and often doubling up with other families. In many places, rents doubled with the refugees’ arrival, the refugees say.
“They are all illegal and they don’t have any rights,” she explains. Soon they run out money and then discover that can’t get help at the Turkish hospitals because they are not registered. “I just got a call from a woman who went to the state hospital and said they wouldn’t check up her child.”
But the greatest discontent, she says, is felt by those who have been in the camps the longest. It wells up into squabbles between groups and complaints about conditions. Indeed, there have been three disturbances in refugee camps by Syrians asking for refrigerators, or water and food. Turkish security forces used tear gas and fired bullets into the air to calm an uprising at one camp.
But Sawah has also seen the way the refugees have struggled to accommodate each other and adjust to a future on hold. Some have set up small stores in the camps to earn money and make life more hospitable. And at overcrowded clinics, older patients have given up their beds and slept on the floor to make room for new arrivals.
At the Yayladag camp, where a recent fire took the lives of a newlywed couple who had arrived only a few days earlier, Yasser Jani worries about the young children who he says need more food and clothing, and the teenagers who need a school. He worries too about the women who have to put up with a lack of privacy and other difficulties.
After the fire at the camp, an old factory warehouse minutes from the Syrian border, Turkish officials talked of moving the refugees to another camp. But overcome by the arrival of as many as 1,000 refugees a day and the need to open at least two more camps, the camp here has stayed open.
Privately, Jani worries about not having money and what’s ahead. But on another day in the low 100s, he worries about just catching his breath. Most nights he cannot sleep because of the heat.
“But I’m trying to make my life better,” he adds.
The Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting supported this reporting.
Istanbul – Hot. Hot. Burning light. Escaping to a book store, I hear Arabic.
“Where are you from?”
“Libya.”
“Why are you here?”
He leans forward and whispers in Arabic.
“I’m from the Qadaffi side.”
“How is life?
“Difficult.”
“Will you go back.”
“No, I don’t think so. And I don’t think you can bring democracy from the sky with airplanes and bomb. There is a reason why there isn’t democracy in the Arab world.”
He goes on about democracy in the Arab world. We shake hands and he wanders off. Another soul wandering through Istanbul with no clear path ahead. Some fleeing from the old Arab world and some awaiting democracy in the new Arab world. He looks worn and ragged.
Before the Egyptian uprising, it would have been impossible to speak as freely as does this editorial. But before the uprising, there was this kind of alleged torture.
steve
Editorial: Can you jail an idea?
By Rania Al Malky
November 3, 2011, 7:39 pm
CAIRO: Before I embark on this editorial, I’d like to express my profound gratitude to Egypt’s venerable Military Prosecutor for giving the “No to Military Trials” campaign its biggest public boost yet earlier this week.It’s hard to think of any other activist more capable of galvanizing masses of pro-democracy advocates both inside and outside Egypt, than Alaa Abdel Fattah, who was detained for 15 days pending investigations because, as a civilian, he refused to be interrogated by a military prosecutor, drawing attention to an injustice faced by some 12,000 Egyptians since the army took power.
The trumped-up charges he faces were another reason why Abdel Fattah rejected the military prosecutor: he is being questioned in relation to the bloody Oct. 9 Maspero massacre, and may face charges of “inciting violence” against the military, ironically during clashes where 27 peaceful protesters were either shot by “unknown civilians” or crushed to death by armored personnel carriers.
Abdel Fattah also categorically rejected the lopsided notion of having the military prosecution investigate a criminal case in which the military is party to the crimes committed. It’s not rocket science: the military prosecutor is not a neutral party in this case and hence cannot be the only body allowed to probe it.
The very idea of painting Abdel Fattah as some kind of public enemy is absurd, not only because of his genetic pedigree as a member of one of the most respected activist families in Egypt (his father is Ahmed Seif Al Islam, the founder of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center which provides legal aid to victims of human rights abuses; his mother is Leila Soueif, a university professor and one of the founders of the March 9 movement which advocates academic freedom and university independence) but also because of his own contribution to the reawakening of Egyptian youth through his online activity, virtual discussion forums and street activism.
Clearly the target of this investigation is not to seek the truth about the identity of the ubiquitous “unknown civilians” intent on driving a wedge between the people and the army, but to perpetuate the smear campaign against the youth who spearheaded Egypt’s non-violent uprising, a campaign that began months ago when one of SCAF’s communiqués singled out the April 6 Youth Movement, accusing it of pursuing a foreign agenda and accepting foreign funding. It’s no surprise that, according to lawyers, a member of April 6 too will be summoned in relation to the Maspero violence.
Speaking of the “unknown civilians” with “invisible hands”, it’s both shocking and telling how press reviews, radio and TV coverage of the National Council on Human Rights’ Maspero fact-finding committee report completely buried the lead.
While the coverage mainly focused on the fact that it was not the military police but provocateurs on motorcycles who infiltrated the protest and shot and killed seven protesters, there was rarely any mention of the most crucial finding confirming that 12 of the victims were crushed to death by APCs which randomly drove through the crowd that fateful day.
While the “unknown civilians” may never be pinned down, the independent investigation has established, presumably beyond a doubt considering that we all saw the footage, that the APCs definitely killed 12 people. The question is how far will the so-called “neutral” military prosecutor bear this “detail” in mind? Can the military accuse itself of killing peaceful protesters, or will we be faced with tall stories of how knife-wielding protesters attacked the army forces and how some of the “unknown civilians” took over the APCs and killed the protesters just to frame the army?
The point is, unless the investigation is conducted by a truly impartial, independent, civilian body with nothing at stake but to reveal the truth, as the NCHR report recommended in another “detail” that most press and media coverage ignored, the truth of what happened on Oct. 9 will be buried with the 27 innocent lives who were killed that day.
Like thousands of others, Alaa Abdel Fattah too is innocent of the charges he may soon be facing before an illegitimate military tribunal. But while he could have easily acquiesced, accepted the situation, answered the questions and simply walked out to spend the Eid holidays with his family and his first child, whose birth he will probably miss, simply for speaking truth to power, Abdel Fattah chose to take the road less taken. The fact that others, like Bahaa Saber, who did exactly what he did were released without so much as a reprimand, while Abdel Fattah’s appeal was turned down on Thursday, reinforces suspicions that there is more to what the military prosecution intends for Abdel Fattah than meets the eye.
Tragically, we have come full circle, as Abdel Fattah concludes in an opinion piece he wrote behind bars published Wednesday by Al Shorouk newspaper, titled “A Return to Mubarak’s Prisons”: “I did not expect that the very same experience would be repeated five years on, after a revolution in which we ousted the tyrant, I go back to jail?…I spent the first two days only listening to stories of torture at the hands of police that is not only adamant on resisting reform, but is seeking revenge for being defeated by the downtrodden, the guilty and the innocent.”
But there is a silver lining.
If there’s one thing we’ve learnt from the January 25 uprising, it’s that ideas cannot be jailed or intimidated, that the quest for justice is so deeply rooted within the human psyche that no matter how long it takes, how arduous the struggle, or how grand the sacrifice, come what may, the free spirit will ultimately prevail, even in the face of APCs and military courts.
Rania Al Malky is the Chief Editor of Daily News Egypt.
Much of what we journalists do does not belong to one country or one culture. It belongs to the global profession of journalism. We follow standards. We observe rules. We speak, write, observe. And we are guided by what makes our profession a global calling.
But there are differences sometimes in how we tell our stories and what our audiences expect from us. What works in the West doesn’t always work in the Arab world and here’s a column from sharq alawsat that raises this point. I agree and disagree. What do you think?
The stories we journalists tell should never be so perfect they are real. Here is a story about torture and injustice, a problem for Egypt too. But it is told by a government newspaper that a year ago would never consider thinking even about such a story.
As Egyptians tried to shake loose nearly thirty years of darkness, the Egyptian press stumbled toward the sunlight, too. The early results portend vast journalistic shifts, and maybe not just in Egypt.
Egypt’s media have long been dominated by the state, as is true in much of the Arab world today. Egyptian journalists at the state-run outlets have traditionally been blind to the most pressing news while casting former president Hosni Mubarak as the people’s Pharaoh. Journalists who dared to touch taboo issues faced prison or heavy fines. News outlets that offended the regime were simply shut down. Independent bloggers were harassed and hounded by government-paid thugs.
It came as no surprise that when Al Jazeera, the fifteen-year-old Qatar-based outlet, defied threats and continued saturation reporting of the January 25th uprising, its Egyptian satellite signal was cut, its license pulled, and some of its journalists arrested. But Al Jazeera and its more conservative competitor, Dubai-based Al Arabiya, persevered. Along with a group of fearless bloggers and social media users, they cemented their place as the alternative to the state-run media’s lies.
In so doing, they underscored the necessity of honest, fearless reporting as a prerequisite for democratic change. The strongest message from Tahrir Square to journalists from Riyadh to Rabat is that stories that speak the truth carry the most power.
As the Mubarak regime’s shackles began to slip, Egyptian media reports began to change dramatically as journalists discovered their voices and consciences. Al Masry al Youm (Egypt Today), one of the country’s fledgling independent newspapers and a frequent regime critic, reported accounts of government thugs staging lootings. It challenged state media for spreading a “culture of fear” and conspiracy theories about Israeli-trained protestors. Journalists at Al Ahram, the government’s main mouthpiece, and at Rose al Youssef, another state-run paper, held demonstrations at their offices decrying corruption in journalism and lack of professionalism.
Some high-profile state television journalists took leaves of absence in protest of orders from on high to continue broadcasting propaganda. Shahira Amin, a prominent presenter, resigned. She told Al Jazeera’s English language service that she couldn’t “feed the public a pack of lies.”
While the upheaval’s fate was still unclear, Mohammed Ali Ibrahim, editor of Al Gomhouriya, a major state-run newspaper, addressed the protestors in a front-page column, saying, “We apologize for not hearing you, and if we heard you, for not paying attention to your demands.”
His apology was noted in Al Ahram’s English-language weekly, which also called out the state-run news media’s “reliance on exaggeration or outright lies” and refusal to tell the protestors’ stories. (Al Ahram didn’t mention its own record.)
This newfound honesty was only able to flourish after a path had been cleared both by journalists and social media users who risked their lives openly defying the government. Despite beatings and arrests, many journalists and bloggers persisted, bolstering morale by churning out ground-level accounts of critical events.
Twitter and the like became electronic megaphones, delivering both practical news (what streets were safe, where medics were needed) as well as charting participants’ emotions as they raced between elation, despair and, ultimately, absolute joy. Unlike failed protest drives by more established groups, youth-driven Facebook pages assembled thousands of supporters online and united disparate sectors of the eighty-million-person nation.
Just as the Tunisian upheaval inspired Egypt’s protestors, Arab journalists cannot ignore what happened in Egypt, the most populous Arab country. Although much of the region’s news media live under the thumb of the government, political parties, religious groups, or others who think they own the truth, Egypt has shown that it does not always have to be thus.
Online news operations have sprouted, angering and frustrating authorities in places like Kuwait and Jordan. Young Arab journalists are showing new daring in their reporting, and are coordinating across the region.
Arab journalists face great challenges even beyond government bullying: low pay, low respect, and editors too timid to make changes. As Egypt’s upheaval was evolving, Hisham Kassem, Al Masry al Youm’s first editor, likened the state-run media’s performance to a “crash-landing.” Speaking from Cairo, he said honest news coverage was gathering steam, but was not yet surging because editors didn’t know what lay ahead.
But the morning after Mubarak resigned, Al Ahram editors saw the future and rose to embrace it. They greeted readers with a stunning, bright red headline flared across its front page: THE PEOPLE OVERTHROW THE REGIME.
After the policemen had sodomized the bus driver with a broomstick, and after one of the officers had sent a cell-phone video of the attack to other bus drivers in downtown Cairo to make clear that the cops could do as they pleased, and after someone had given the video to Wael Abbas, who posted it on his blog, something unusual happened — at least, something unusual for Egypt.
The video went viral on the Internet. Two officers were charged, convicted, and ultimately given three-year prison terms.
It was an extraordinary moment, this sudden burst of justice back in 2006. Few have dared to point their fingers at police wrongdoing in Egypt. And it’s even rarer that the culprits have been punished.
The tumult that has rocked Egypt this winter was clearly sparked by the Tunisian revolution. But the Egyptian uprising didn’t begin on Jan. 25. It was rooted in the waves of workers’ strikes and protests; the explosion of the Internet as a rallying megaphone for dissent about government abuse, corruption, and a vampire economy where a few flourish while many struggle; and a growing willingness by reporters, writers, and human-rights groups to tell the truth in the face of great risks.
The roots could be seen by anyone who has paid attention to the upheavals that have marked Egyptian society these last few years. But they were dismissed up until now as inconsequential and insufficient.
He is a compelling note that Olfa Tantawi from Liberation Square. This explains much what Egyptians feel.
the Tahrir square story is unbeleivable. Today, already thousands of people are there and more and more are flooding the streets, all my friends and relatives are either in the square or on the way to go. These are people whose relation to politics and activism used to be to read the story in the newspaper and discuss it over lunch or dinner. Everybody is there right now including my 70 years old aunt. despite the attacks and the fear we all feel safe and happy.Yesterday, I spent the day there, late at night I went back home. Behind the safe doors of my house, suddenly it was a vaccume of fear. We had to watch the Egyptian media’s false propaganda. They told Egyptians that the protestors in the the Tahrir square are causing serious damage to the economy and endangering the safety of the country. In other, allegdly, more independant Egyptian media channels, some of the most influential writers and analysts were trying to sell to the people the idea that it is time to go home, you made it people, just give the current government enough time to make it right again. Actually among the Egyptians there are those who just want their lives back to normal and beleive that the present achievements, Mubarack’s promise to leave office, is good enough.
Angry and worried I shifted to the news flowing from other International media channels. As usual, their intense focus is on the fights, the bloodshed and the terror, they ask questions about who is leading, what about the Muslim brotherhood, and the other opposition leaders, they speak to irrelevant people, who do not make part of the event , but just like the media they are observers. sunddenly in my safe warm home, I am worried, afraid and unsure.
Than again today back to the square to find the that the number of those who support the uprising is increasing tremendously. The charm of the Tahrir square is attracting more and more people, some flew all the way from the United States, Canada, Germany, London and even South Africa to be there in the square at this very moment of ultimate hope. Others are coming from different Egyptian governorates, simple people who came a long way because they beleive that this is a true revolution fighting for their rights and they were determined to give it all their support.
One very simple lady from the rural Fayoum governorate told me,” I am here to support the youth.” she posed and added,” when Mubarak’s grand son died we all felt for him , we dressed in black and cried for the innocent child, why on earth is he now doing this to our sons? How many mothers are now crying for a child who is dead or lost. ”
Many analysts in the media speak of Egypt’s economy, they say that the economic growth did not trickle down to the poor and this is why this is happening. This is too simplistic. This revolution is not about poverty or need. The people in the streets from all walks of life , rich and poor are their because they want freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom.
In the square amazingly there is no anger and no violence, People are singing and clapping their hands. they form circles and forums and indulge in heated discussions that usually ends with laughter or songs. The pro- Mubarak camel riding thugs, on the oher hand, are poor ignorant people paid, reportedly, by wealthy busnissmen, to fight for the man and for his gang’s short sighted business interests, this is poverty and hunger at work, people are selling their souls and swords for the highest price. But the freedom fighters in the freedom square (Tahrir means freedom) are truely, innocently happy souls whose aim is to get their Egypt back from the hands of a regime that abused and exploited the country and the people for over 30 years.
It is a revolution lead by young intellectuals. It started as a virtual idea in the social media. They did not at the time, just ten days ago, think that it could lead to such an astounding uprising. One young blogger told me that they did not think that one can simply set a date and a time for a revolution, “we used to joke about it saying let us meet tomrrow at cilantro after the revolution, or we better do this or that thing ahead of the revolution.” Although it started and was fed by the connectivity of the internet, once it started rolling, people already were connected even in the absence of the internet and the mobile phones. Awreness and beleive is a super network that connected people.
In the media they speak of an international community afraid of a power vaccum, they speak of a fear from Islamic radicalism, others speak of the absence of the building blocks of democracy. This is exactly because they do not undrestand the nature of this revolution, the people, literally for the first time in history, are taking the lead and deciding for themselves, the government will continue to make its concessions and offers, and the street is the judge. It is a different process where the voting is a continuous process, as the street reacts to the government announcements and measures
The absence of a person or a group of persons as a recognizable leadership group or figures is intentional. The intellectual young people who started all this are actually leading by spreading awareness among the people in the square, rather than by giving orders and this is making the pressure of the street crowds even more forceful. Simply because it is the people rather than this or that specific name who is reacting and deciding.
The media should make a drastic shift and start asking the right questions, they should discuss the needed, on the ground, garantees that will make sure that the present regime including the new vice president and prime minister, at the end of an interim period will effectively let the Egyptians choose a new Egyptian administration. The people need a guarantee that whoever rules will at the end of the day month, yera go back to his home knowing that his initial identity is an Egyptian citizen and not an everlasting ruler. uptill now the Egyptian government failed the transparency exam, trying hard to hide what is happening in the square from the eyes of the world. They continue to speak a language that is not reflected in actual measures such as the announcement of new parliamentary election in three or six months with guarantees of international and judiciary monitoring.
The story of the tahrir squre is not about who is with Mubarak and who is against, it is about a truely civilized, very peoceful people who decided to regain control of their destiny. This is a total super change. It means that they have given up their let go attitude, they have broken the seal of fear that has been stamped allover their bodies and soul. they will for ever be responsible and work to rebuild the whole country.
Craig, in Shaa Allah, in ayear time you should come for a vist I beleive and hope you will find avery very different Egypt. See you then
When they began staging their protests in downtown Cairo, it seemed so risky, so unimaginable, so likely to be brutally swatted away by the heavy-handed hordes of government thugs.
In the republic of fear that has long reigned over Egypt, such things didn’t happen. Showing the smallest hint of disobedience could be painful and sometimes fatal.
Yet the workers kept on coming despite the beatings, the threats and long confrontations with the government and companies that seemed to be going nowhere, and rarely toward workers’ interests.
But they were—I know what I saw in Cairo last year. The nation’s workers were one of the groups who began to open the doors to the room where Egyptians have for decades stored their collective grit and outrage. They are now rediscovering those national assets.
The forces that first brought angry workers to downtown Cairo and to factories’ gates across the country a few years ago were powerful and deeply disruptive —the reason for the venom that poured forth.
Several years ago, when the state stepped up its privatization of government-owned facilities in a further liberalization of the one-time socialist economy, workers more often wound up as losers.
The new owners trimmed the ranks of the facilities, cut wages, reduced benefits and essentially wiped out the tiny sense of economic security that the workers had clung to. As the demonstrations grew against the new owners, the government promised to look into the problem and to slow the privatization. But the damage was already done and the promises were rarely met.
While Egypt’s economy boomed and luxurious gated communities blossomed in the desert surrounding Cairo, workers’ lifestyles were withering away as inflation ate away at their meager earnings and wages remained stuck at subsistence levels.
Time and again workers pleaded for the government to boost the minimum wage, which was about $7 per month for most of last year. But the government held off and officials said that workers actually were doing better. Their average wages were up around $70 a month, according to government officials.
So as new hotels and new malls bloomed, four out of ten Egyptians were earning less than $2 a day last year.
This viper economy meant that there has been a booming market in Egypt for people to sell their body parts to merchants in Egypt and across the Middle East. But even when they do, they are often cheated out of the money and left terribly sick from an economic fantasy gone bad.
Desperation has brought a brisk trade in selling young girls as short-term brides to wealthy Arab visitors, a euphemism meant to deal with Muslim sensitivities. In actuality, the girls are prostitutes who are sold for weekend services to super rich Gulfies, who have left behind thousands of youngsters without financial or any other support.
In most countries of the world, the ones with the highest unemployment rates are the low educated. Not in Egypt. College graduates dominate the ranks of the unemployed because many of their degrees are worthless, and the only jobs many can find are low-wage service jobs.
That is why there has been a slow trickle of young well-educated Egyptians trying to smuggle themselves into Europe and into better lifestyles. A number of these have lost their lives at the hands of heartless smugglers.
Without stable, decent-paying jobs, they have no prospects for improving themselves and no chance of getting married. Before marrying in Egypt, a groom needs to be able to support a new family. Many young men can’t and that is just one reason why you see mostly young faces marching in Cairo and Alexandria today.
On the books, Egyptian officials have been able to point to figures showing a national economy growing steadily.
But when Egyptians have reached into their pockets, they have often found barely enough to keep them going. That’s one reason why the country has a high rate of stunted children – youngsters who never grow to full size.
On paper, most workers belong to unions. But in reality the unions have shown little interest in workers’ rights or securing a better future for them. That is why nearly all of the more than 3,300 factory occupations, strike and other forms of protest since 2004 involved workers on their own or through their attempts to create dissident unions.
In a traditional society, the men have been the ones that have led the protests. But female workers began shouldering their share of the fury several years ago, taking part in the demonstrations and protests. In one case, women alone led and dominated a factory occupation, their children by their sides.
Hungry, tried and frustrated, workers began challenging the government to improve their lives several years ago. Sometimes the uproar was so great that the government caved in and met their demands. But it always took a clinched battle for the government to eventually back away and reach a deal, factory by factory.
But this time, they are no longer worried about what they could lose.
The power of the press is the greatest when it touches a truth that others will not accept and the truth touches all.
I am moved by this column from Hani Shukrallah in al Ahram online:
“Hypocrisy and good intentions will not stop the next massacre. Only a good hard look at ourselves and sufficient resolve to face up to the ugliness in our midst will do so
We are to join in a chorus of condemnation. Jointly, Muslims and Christians, government and opposition, Church and Mosque, clerics and laypeople – all of us are going to stand up and with a single voice declare unequivocal denunciation of al-Qaeda, Islamist militants, and Muslim fanatics of every shade, hue and color; some of us will even go the extra mile to denounce salafi Islam, Islamic fundamentalism as a whole, and the Wahabi Islam which, presumably, is a Saudi import wholly alien to our Egyptian national culture.
And once again we’re going to declare the eternal unity of “the twin elements of the nation”, and hearken back the Revolution of 1919, with its hoisted banner showing the crescent embracing the cross, and giving symbolic expression to that unbreakable bond.
Much of it will be sheer hypocrisy; a great deal of it will be variously nuanced so as keep, just below the surface, the heaps of narrow-minded prejudice, flagrant double standard and, indeed, bigotry that holds in its grip so many of the participants in the condemnations.
All of it will be to no avail. We’ve been here before; we’ve done exactly that, yet the massacres continue, each more horrible than the one before it, and the bigotry and intolerance spread deeper and wider into every nook and cranny of our society. It is not easy to empty Egypt of its Christians; they’ve been here for as long as there has been Christianity in the world. Close to a millennium and half of Muslim rule did not eradicate the nation’s Christian community, rather it maintained it sufficiently strong and sufficiently vigorous so as to play a crucial role in shaping the national, political and cultural identity of modern Egypt.
Yet now, two centuries after the birth of the modern Egyptian nation state, and as we embark on the second decade of the 21stcentury, the previously unheard of seems no longer beyond imagining: a Christian-free Egypt, one where the cross will have slipped out of the crescent’s embrace, and off the flag symbolizing our modern national identity. I hope that if and when that day comes I will have been long dead, but dead or alive, this will be an Egypt which I do not recognize and to which I have no desire to belong.
I am no Zola, but I too can accuse. And it’s not the blood thirsty criminals of al-Qaeda or whatever other gang of hoodlums involved in the horror of Alexandria that I am concerned with.
I accuse a government that seems to think that by outbidding the Islamists it will also outflank them.
I accuse the host of MPs and government officials who cannot help but take their own personal bigotries along to the parliament, or to the multitude of government bodies, national and local, from which they exercise unchecked, brutal yet at the same time hopelessly inept authority.
I accuse those state bodies who believe that by bolstering the Salafi trend they are undermining the Muslim Brotherhood, and who like to occasionally play to bigoted anti-Coptic sentiments, presumably as an excellent distraction from other more serious issues of government.
But most of all, I accuse the millions of supposedly moderate Muslims among us; those who’ve been growing more and more prejudiced, inclusive and narrow minded with every passing year.
I accuse those among us who would rise up in fury over a decision to halt construction of a Muslim Center near ground zero in New York, but applaud the Egyptian police when they halt the construction of a staircase in a Coptic church in the Omranya district of Greater Cairo.
I’ve been around, and I have heard you speak, in your offices, in your clubs, at your dinner parties: “The Copts must be taught a lesson,” “the Copts are growing more arrogant,” “the Copts are holding secret conversions of Muslims”, and in the same breath, “the Copts are preventing Christian women from converting to Islam, kidnapping them, and locking them up in monasteries.”
I accuse you all, because in your bigoted blindness you cannot even see the violence to logic and sheer common sense that you commit; that you dare accuse the whole world of using a double standard against us, and are, at the same time, wholly incapable of showing a minimum awareness of your own blatant double standard.
And finally, I accuse the liberal intellectuals, both Muslim and Christian who, whether complicit, afraid, or simply unwilling to do or say anything that may displease “the masses”, have stood aside, finding it sufficient to join in one futile chorus of denunciation following another, even as the massacres spread wider, and grow more horrifying.
A few years ago I wrote in the Arabic daily Al-Hayat, commenting on a columnist in one of the Egyptian papers. The columnist, whose name I’ve since forgotten, wrote lauding the patriotism of an Egyptian Copt who had himself written saying that he would rather be killed at the hands of his Muslim brethren than seek American intervention to save him.
Addressing myself to the patriotic Copt, I simply asked him the question: where does his willingness for self-sacrifice for the sake of the nation stop. Giving his own life may be quite a noble, even laudable endeavor, but is he also willing to give up the lives of his children, wife, mother? How many Egyptian Christians, I asked him, are you willing to sacrifice before you call upon outside intervention, a million, two, three, all of them?
Our options, I said then and continue to say today are not so impoverished and lacking in imagination and resolve that we are obliged to choose between having Egyptian Copts killed, individually or en masse, or run to Uncle Sam. Is it really so difficult to conceive of ourselves as rational human beings with a minimum of backbone so as to act to determine our fate, the fate of our nation?
That, indeed, is the only option we have before us, and we better grasp it, before it’s too late.”
desert wind - -الرياح من الصحراء 