A freedom of information tipping-point | Anas Qtiesh

We’re witnessing that the old media can still be censored, but that the people are now always a step ahead of the tyrants In a play by the late Syrian playwright Saadallah Wannous , a Mamluk (soldier of slave origin) named Jabir comes up with an ingenious idea to allow the minister send a message out of Baghdad undetected. The message was to be written on Jabir’s shaved head. He then waits for his hair to grow and successfully escapes the Caliph’s guards and delivers the message. Little did he know that a line added at the last minute to that message carried his death sentence. Luckily, we no longer need to go to such lengths to deliver a message; after three days’ mass protests in Egypt, then president Mubarak gave the orders to shut off off the internet in the country completely. Quickly, al-Jazeera became one of the last remaining reliable sources of information. Eventually, though, its broadcast was cut on Nilesat, its Cairo bureau closed , and its journalists repeatedly threatened and harassed . Shortly thereafter, ISPs raced to provide Egyptians with free dial-up connections, while Google and Twitter collaborated on creating speak2tweet , a service that would allow people to call in and record a message. Those recorded messages were then tweeted for the world to hear. Later, swarms of volunteers began transcribing and translating the recorded voice messages. Before Mubarak, former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali had turned Tunisia into an enemy of the internet through pervasive censorship and persecution of online activists and journalists. As protesters around the country demanded his removal, he then proceeded to censor more websites. Later, in a feeble attempt to appease the protesters, he promised reforms and proceeded to unblock the vast majority of previously blocked sites. But by then, it was too late. He fled to Saudi Arabia days later. Playing the same tune like a stuck record, now Libyan leader Gaddafi has taken Libya completely offline , making it the third country ever to do so, after Burma and Egypt. To me, it’s obvious that the aforementioned despots were operating out of a basic principle: the less people that know about what you’re doing, the more likely you’ll get away with it. Fortunately, today, that is simply not possible. With the omnipresence of telecoms, no matter how hard governments try to block information from leaking, the people will always be a step ahead, finding creative ways to get their messages, photos, videos, tweets and Facebook updates out to the world. Indeed, their collective voice cannot be blocked. Syria, in contrast, recently unblocked Facebook , YouTube, and Blogspot, as protests raged across the Arab world from Tunisia to Yemen. The unblocking came three days after calls for a “day of anger” in Syria on 5 February failed to bring anyone onto the streets. Media outlets close to the Syrian regime raced to proclaim that step as a token of the government’s trust in the people. They are completely oblivious of the fact that it’s the people who grant or revoke trust in the government, not the other way around. On Valentine’s Day, Syrian blogger Tal al-Mallouhi was sentenced to five years in prison for allegedly leaking info to a foreign country, namely the US. Furthermore, blogger Ahmad Abu al-Khair was arrested on 20 February and he remains incommunicado, and his whereabouts unknown. The message from Syrian government is unmistakable: keep quiet and you will be given the trust to go about your day. A reward of an Orwellian nature, I must say. If, however, you dare to speak up, you will be disappeared faster than you can say “freedom!” Google executive Wael Ghonim, arrested during the protests in Egypt, has been sharply critical of the Egyptian regime’s restrictions on the internet. His statement rings loud and clear : A government that’s afraid of Facebook and Twitter should govern a city in Farmville, not a country like Egypt. • Anas Qtiesh is speaking at The Morningside Post ‘s second annual conference, “Information Overload? Navigating the Age of Democratised Media” , at Columbia University, New York on Friday 25 February. More details via Facebook Egypt Syria Tunisia Arab and Middle East protests Middle East Digital media Social media Social networking Twitter Facebook Libya Muammar Gaddafi Internet Freedom of information Freedom of speech Censorship Al-Jazeera Anas Qtiesh guardian.co.uk

Posted by on February 23, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry