Taking Free Speech for Granted in the Middle East

by vergenewmedia on January 15, 2008

jimriyadh.jpg

Dateline: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – covering President Bush from inside “the bubble”

Here in Riyadh, we’re wrapping up a trip with President Bush, which the administration hopes has jump started the Israeli/Palestinian peace process, while at the same time, building support with Gulf region states to apply pressure on Iran. As with all of these trips with the President, we’ve been working long hours, and enduring relentless travel schedules. In nine days we will have traveled to Israel, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. My job with NBC News allows me unique access to history and I take advantage of these moments to share what we’re covering with friends on Twitter. There are so many behind-the-scenes moments I like to share, that if you follow me there, you’ll know I can get a bit breathless with my dispatches.

So it came as a bit of an unwelcome surprise to see this in Abu Dhabi:

twitter-blocked.jpg

We apologize the site you are attempting to visit has been blocked due to its content being inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political, and moral values of the United Arab Emirates.
- page that loads when attempting to access Twitter from UAE

For me this was a little bit of a shock. I’ve been to a number of restrictive countries before, but as we are still in a somewhat nascent stage of the social media lifespan, I believe many of us are pushing the edges of what types of communications are acceptable to employers, and in this case, governments. A Facebook friend and social media champion, who works for the administration, had noticed that in my profile that I had been unable to Twitter from Abu Dhabi. It was an interesting contrast to see this person’s take on the draconian speech restrictions placed on web conversations here. Ultimately though, it was just a bit of a nuisance for me – causing a few hours of Twitter “blackout” – and i was able to resume posting from Saudi Arabia.

brutal realities of restricted speech

The entire thing gave me pause though. What about the people who have to live under such restrictions, often enforced at the end of a gun? I can’t begin to imagine what that life would be like. I’ve had tastes of it, if only fleetingly, ultimately to return home where I wonder sometimes if we take free speech for granted. As I sit here in Riyadh, Saudi blogger Fouad Alfaran has been held in Jeddah’s Dahban Prison since December, just for speaking freely on his blog. In China, blogger and construction company executive Wei Wenhau was beaten to death by local authorities for shooting video of a protest. And as our journey takes us next to Egypt, the courage of Wael Abbas – an Egyptian blogger who exposes tyranny and corruption in that country – must be recognized.

We work very hard to cover the President of the United States, and work very hard to do it as fairly and accurately as humanly possible, but never does it require the personal moral courage of the people listed above. As I Twittered away the hours late into the evening in the Riyadh workspace, one of my Twitter friends challenged the coverage of the White House by my colleagues and contemporaries.

us news + white house + editorially independent is a mirage so far this century… good luck managing the hypocrisy there.
- http://twitter.com/chesspark

While that stung a bit, and I don’t entirely agree with the premise, I do know that our jobs don’t require the courage of Wei Wenhau, Fouad Alfaran and Wael Abbas. So maybe I won’t take our abiltiy to speak freely quite as much for granted anymore. I only hope that faced with similar challenges, I’ll be as brave as these bloggers.

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Tagged as: bloggers, Fouad Alfaran, free speech, journalism, Wael Abbas, Wei Wenhau, White House Press Corps

  • Do you really think we take free speech for granted?

    and I think the 'don't tase me bro' kid would have some things to say about free speech in the USA, and how it can 'sting'.
  • Jim,

    I too am amazed at these nations who restrict such freedoms. I don't like every thing I read on the internet and certainly don't agree with it, but as you know, I'd give my life fighting for that freedom. I hope you and others bringing this to the forefront helps make this all a thing of the past (wishful thinking but we still have to keep trying).

    Be safe and thanks for all you do. You are a truth warrior and I am proud to call you my friend.

    Dan Mosqueda - Colorado Springs
  • Jim I wanted to thank you for sharing this perspective. Social media is icing on the cake of basic human communication. Too many people in our world can't have either while we freely indulge and forget its value.
  • I know I take freedom of speech for granted, particularly as an outspoken female. When I read about what happens in other countries (and, not for nothing, what happens in our own country sometimes), it gives me pause to reflect on how lucky I am to be able to say what I think and feel without repercussions.

    Oh, and I'd die if I couldnt access twitter. Seriously :P
  • As a blogger in the "land of the free," I have faced attempts by local government (if you can believe that) to curb my freedom of speech on my own blog. My reaction: to expose their attempts on my blog and sever all contracts with the governmental body trying to muzzle me.

    I definitely take our freedom of speech for granted, although I do try hard not to deeply offend people with what I say. But we have to fight hard to protect this freedom -- as we need to protect the other freedoms granted in our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and other amendments.

    Lately, Americans have been too willing to sign our rights away, by allowing such legislation as the Patriot Act. Why? Don't we see that this can mark the beginning of the end of many of the freedoms that we have enjoyed for over 200 years?

    While many people might argue that we have much more freedom than those in other countries -- as you've attested here -- that's no excuse to let government take any of ours away.

    But at the same time, we should remember how valuable those freedoms are and use them responsibly. In the case of our freedom of speech, that means sharing viewpoints and information without spreading hate.

    As for Twitter, I find it a great tool for meeting new people (like you, Jim) who can open my mind to new ideas. But I also think that in my case, it's a crutch that gives me access to social interaction without the face-to-face contact that REAL social networking requires. Someday, I hope meet you in person and hear what you have to say in sentences longer than 140 characters.

    @mlanger
  • Freedom of speech is one thing. Knowing how to deal with the information that is given to us is another. Looking through a variety of books and articles coming from the Cold War we see that many speak about reading between the lines.

    Freedom of speech is great because it gives individuals a great freedom to find the information they want about a vast range of topics. The problem is whether they want to be informed or not. Take a look at CNN coverage for example, France 24 and BBC news 24 and BBC World.

    These four outlets have a very different way of covering the news , glossing over international news and points of view in some cases whilst completely ignoring other issues. Look at BBC news 24. Whilst France 24, CNN and BBC world would have given live coverage of the Bush meeting News 24 focused on Organ Donors in the United Kingdom.

    Freedom of the press is not simply about the freedom of covering stories. It's also about audience appeal and relevance to the audience.

    The fact that we in the Western world have access to all this information does not mean that our knowledge is any more complete than that of those in the countries with censorship. In many cases those who live with restrictions are more hungry for information and seek it out, discuss it and understand what is going on.

    The blogosphere works some way to keeping people both informed and knowledgeable about issues but the issue remains. How well do you process the information that is available to you?
  • As a communications/TV production student I was often involved in discussions about free press, free speech, and how it's important to never lose sight of how important these freedoms are.

    That was over 20 years ago.

    Those lessons were never forgotten. I believe the free distribution of information to the public remains one of the most important pillars holding our society (and nation) up.

    That and a free, excellent, public education available to all. But that's for another day :).
  • Great post Jim. I shared your surprise once in Thailand. YouTube was banned at one point because of some disrespectful comments about the King. Free speech is something so ubiquitous to us in the west that it's a shock to lose it, even in a small way.

    My admiration goes out to those who speak the truth in the face of grave danger.
  • Jon
    I think it is obvious that free speech is taken for granted in the US, simply because the limits of it are so rarely challenged in what we foreigners see as mainstream US media. The unconscious tendency to self censor is there when advertising and pressure group considerations has to be taken into consideration every time you create something for TV.

    As a British resident I would consider our freedom to speak our minds as greater, simply because pressure groups and companies are generally unable to silence opinions that are oppositional to those held by themselves.

    Case in point: http://www.mcspotlight.org/case/trial/story.html

    This case got broad media coverage for the duration of the trial(s).

    Good use of free speech means that everybody is FREE to express their view without fear of being bullied, harassed, threatened, beaten up or killed simply because of the beliefs they have or who they work for. I'm sure we can all think of cases both in the US and in Western Europe, the bedrock of free speech, where people suffer all those mistreatments simply because they exercised their right to say what they mean.
  • Jim, and others,
    Serious question here when we do allow ourselves to get away from the really, really notable issue overseas that Jim has raised, which I hate to get away from because it is really important, but, that said, when we let freedom be taken for granted don't we allow the chance that it will get not just taken for granted, but ultimately just taken?
    I know I googled a picture of a skyline for my desktop background a few days ago, simply bored, you know...well anyway...the search results included a beautiful picture of the Atlanta skyline which was located at the DOJ 23rd district website.
    Well, things came up and I walked away from the PC (oh important-i build pc's as a hobby, so I have knowledge of how they work and how they sound and why) for a few minutes, actually about 20 mins.
    My pc is located in the most central area of my house, visualize open floorplan, etc...and so I sit down with a cup of tea...right, just about ready to get back into whatever I was doing online, still have DOJ website up though..."what the HECK?" why does my computer harddrive sound like an indy car during time trials suddenly? I dunno...I mean I've heard it go off before accessing some file deep down there, right, but this, I mean this thing was smoking...and it went on doing so for...well, about 20 minutes...about the time I was about to freak out and start backing up docs of most importance or whatever...I realized I thought of an answer...could it be the DOJ just uploaded my entire harddrive simply because I was checking out the Atlanta skyline? I think, yes...and felt a bit violated, and safe from terror, of course, at the same time...boy, can I tell you, I'm still in a state of confusion.
    So while our speech, especially the crap I spew out, would certainly land many of us in some serious...uh, anyway...I still feel a bit violated at the way we go about keeping these freedoms, unless you're in that camp that suggests that actually, things like unathorized stealing of an entire harddrive, and the Patriot Act, etc, are a good way for us to end up losing those freedoms.
    SO the question again: Do these measures (uploading random harddrives, wiretapping, etc) keep us able to retain these freedoms, or do are they ultimately moving towards the loss of these freedoms?
    Is freedom of speech adjusted to the freedom of privacy and vise versa?

    Just, as usual, totally smitten with Jim's updates and the way they provoke my thought.

    jesatiu
  • Jim another good posting. I can tell you as one who has lived in Taiwan from the repeal of Marshall Law until present and witnessing the growth of democracy it is truly exciting and inspiring. I remember when I first arrived, one friend admonished me for talking openly about a political issue saying,"Mark it is enough to know that. No reason to speak it out because you never know who is listening." Then in the same period of time other local friends began speaking out loudly on every topic they thought of and never stopped now some 20 years later.

    The same is definitely not true for China. It is equally sad that our large corporations play ball with the Chinese government selling them the technology and hardware to suppress freedom there or risk being shut out of Chinese market. It is also very disheartening when Yahoo HK part of corporation founded and run by an ethnic Chinese person:Jerry Yang handed over personal private info to the PRC government which led to his arrest and long term imprisonment.

    So essentially, yes there is much injustice in our world and we need to dig for the valuable information that moves freely along the net as well as the ephemeral.
  • Michaelangelo
    I recently read the story about the Chinese blogger that was killed in China. I lived in China this summer and our group had our lives filmed every day. We ran into some trouble with filming freely, but ultimately were allowed to film freely.

    We posted all of our videos on www.nihaoareyou.com .

    Stories like this lead many people to think that all Chinese interactions are irrational and brutal. Our group loved China and the extremely generous people we met, please take time to see the other side of China that isn't published in stories.
  • On a related note, one of the female reporters on the trip reported on the fact that at the hotel in Saudi Arabia there was a great gym. She was all set to take advantage of it when she was told that she couldn't go in because she was a woman. She suggested maybe they could set aside an hour or two when woman could use the gym and so not violate the separation of sexes rules. But she was told this wasn't possible. Later they said she could hire a driver and perhaps use a gym on the other side of town.

    Of course, as she said, Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women cannot legally drive.
  • "The internet was designed to work during a nuclear war. It sees censorship as battle damage - and routes around it." - B. Tucker
  • CNNJAY
    great observations from my colleague Jim about free speech and his impressions of Saudi Arabia from our small window in the White House press corps....also from the Riyadh stop.. some of our female colleagues went to a McDonalds and the women in the McDonalds were required to order their fast food in a line separate from the men. I know, I know, not the same thing as taking freedom of speech for granted......
  • Most of the censoring of our U.S. media starts at the corporate level. There's no way NBC with GE's controlling interest will ever expose that company to news which tarnishes its image. When you have people like Roger Ailes firing liberals and only hiring Republicans for Fox channel, you get a "news" organization that becomes an extension of the Bush government. As to all major TV networks -- most folks still get their news from TV -- I am used to seeing the same parade of conservative flacks (Coulter, Buchanan, etc), but have to ever see Noam Chomsky or his ilk on mainstream news programs.

    We're not as free one would think. When your opinions are shaped by what information you have the opportunity to hear, we as Americans are still controlled in great degree.
  • What I like most about this post is that you are able to look past the obvious (lack of free speech) to really see the individuals who do so much to make change. To see the courage of the individual is the point of view we should all have. Finding ways to support those individuals, and respecting the sacrifices they make to help others have a better life.

    It's so easy to bitch and moan about governments instead of taking small actions to make the world a freer place (freer? Maybe I should have said more free, but that would have mangled the sentence structure...)

    The world is the way it is right now. It is. There is no changing this exact moment. Once we stop complaining about "right now" accept that this moment is what it is, we are empowered to do something *different* in the next moment and the next to improve that world.

    Tweet Strong! (I just made that up, it's kind of cheesy, but I liked it.)
  • This kind of quiet, solid, eloquent ignorance about conditions abroad is incredible to behold in people who would read newspapers every day of their lives.
  • Press freedom or simply freedom of speech is a long way away for many countries. Where I come from, we have gained a reputation for having the freest press in Asia. While reporters and writers do get to produce articles positive or negative about certain issues, we also now have a growing number of slain and/or missing journalists. Is that press freedom to you?
  • great pic! :)
  • Is it taken for granted? Most certainly. There are a precious few countries that afford you the same liberties we enjoy in the US. Freedom of speech is high among them, but not the chief liberty left behind at the border.
  • With all of the new construction and economic boom in Dubai, it brings us back to reality to see their government restrict freedoms we take for granted in the U.S.
  • payday laons in payday in laons
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