Media freedom in the Arab world worsens
"No progress on press freedom" said Al Jazeera chief
Media freedom in the Arab world has tightened and little progress is being made to clarify ambiguous media laws, the director general of Al Jazeera Network has said.
Speaking to CEO Middle East Wadah Khanfar said he believed Arab governments had taken a five year step back in terms of freedom of the press.
“Unfortunately during the last four to five years the opposite [of improvement] has happened,” he said. “There was a growing trend of opening up but suddenly, and especially after the war on so-called terrorism, Arab governments started going back and coming up with new regulations and laws,” he said.
“Now in some countries they have courts called media courts, press courts that’s crazy,” he added.
A 2009 media study by Freedom House ranked 195 different countries for levels of press freedom. Kuwait was ranked 55, Qatar 65th, the UAE 69th and Saudi Arabia 82nd. The report considered no countries in the Middle East as having a completely “free press” while only 21 percent are considered “partly free” and 79 percent (15 countries) “not free”.
“In the last few years there has been confusion [over] issues of freedom of expression,” continued Khanfar. “But it also shows to what extent the Arab regime is shaping… a government could get angry because of an article or because of a report on TV. It means that that government or that state is not as solid, confident [and] stable as it should be,” he added.
“As long as our governments are not convinced that free media could help in developing society and as long as they see us [as] potential recruits for their propaganda, and as long as there are journalists around who will seek grants from governments to act on their behalf and to deceive and to dis-inform, I think we are going to have a problem,” he added.
The Qatar-based network has broken a number of taboos by reporting more critically on Arab governments. In May Bahrain banned the network’s journalist from the Gulf state, claiming Jazeera had flouted its laws regulating the press and publishing.
For a full interview with Wadah Khanfar see this month’s CEO Middle East magazine.
refered by ...... -> http://www.arabianbusiness.com/
url is -> www.arabianbusiness.com%2F591970-no-progress-on-mideast-press-freedom---...
i am sure he has his reasons!
Wadah is the last person to speak.
It would be better if AlJ Chief doesn't mention media freedom, specially with the "local internet forum that was shutdown" controversy few months back...
Drmana very well said.
why ppl believe, they are holy cows?
Nicely summed up drmana. People who believe otherwise should also believe in flying pigs.
DoToo ;)
Pumkin is right...how come it worsen when it doesn't exist either?!
was that article not published in arab media?
drmana,
lol... something that does not exist worsens when it goes from zero to negative!
Author may be
How can something that does not exist worsen?
lol...QL is a validation of this [Mod Removed] reality described in this article.
[Mod Removed] ;)
I'm never sure what to say when people post articles about how there is no Media Freedom in the Middle East...I don't think "no shit" is really an intelligent enough answer, yet it's the only answer that ever pops into my head...