CAIRO: Domestic and foreign media have come under fire throughout the Arab Spring, as many Arab governments have attempted to repress freedom of speech and media coverage in an effort to subdue the masses and cling to power. As the governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain, try to suppress the basic right of freedom of speech, journalists, photographers, and bloggers have become their primary targets, according to a report by the NGO, Reporters Without Borders. “Each country has its own way to control information,” stated Soazig Dollet, the lead researcher for the report, in an interview with Bikyamasr.com. “There are some common elements of course, like controlling the Internet, preventing foreign journalists from entering the country, and repressing local journalists and bloggers,” she added. Eleven media workers have been killed throughout the Arab world since unrest broke out in Tunisia at the end of the last year, several of which were internationally known photographers. “In Egypt it was really the blockade of the Internet for many days, which would never happen in most other countries. Also the way the security forces at the beginning of February targeted the foreign journalists reporting from the ground. There were more than eight cases where journalists were assaulted, harassed, or taken into custody within the first 48 hours of the unrest,” stated Dollet. Due to a comprehensive ban on foreign journalists in Syria, the Bashar al-Assad regime has primarily targeted local journalists and bloggers to prevent the dissemination of information about the violence used by the military to crush anti-government protests that spread throughout the country in March. “There is really a strong paranoia in Syria. All means of communication are controlled,” said the Reporters Without Borders researcher. Journalists in Yemen have faced arguably the most forceful media repression since protests broke out in February, with three journalists being killed, 9 assassinations attempted, 14 kidnapped, and 74 others assaulted. Photographers pose perhaps the greatest threat to the regimes because of the significance that a picture can carry. “All of these regimes are trying to prevent the spread of images of the repression. The control of the image, not just the information, is important. The weight of images can be much stronger than information,” stated Dollet. BM
