AMMAN — The
Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists (CDFJ) issued a report on Monday on the state of media freedoms
in the Arab world in 2021. Titled “Threatened”, the report covered five Arab
countries: Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Morocco.
اضافة اعلان
The investigative
study conducted by the center found that, in Jordan, government interventions
top the challenges facing journalists, at a rate of up to 90 percent; 96.6
percent of the respondents said the government is not keen on preserving the
independence of the media. Another 96.6 percent of
Jordanian journalists
believe that the biggest threat are laws enabling the imprisonment of media
professionals. Thus, self-censorship is higher in Jordan than in any other
country surveyed, with a percentage of 93.3 percent of the sample.
The report aims at exposing the state of the media
in the five countries covered, the condition of journalists, the political,
economic, and legal environments in which they work, and the impact of these
environments on media freedoms.
The report concluded that media freedoms in the
Arab region, in general, and in the five countries, in particular, are under siege,
subject to restrictions in some countries and seriously threatened in others.
It emphasized the relatively similar characteristics
of and challenges in Arab countries, pointing to what it described as extensive
control of the executive authority over the judicial and legislative branches.
The report pointed to the most recent classification
of the five countries in the Media Freedom Index issued by Freedom House:
Jordan and Palestine as “not free”, while Tunisia, Lebanon, and Morocco as “partly
free”.
The report noted that monarchies in both Jordan and
Morocco enjoy wide powers, that the executive authorities in both are the
strongest, and that the judiciary in the five countries is occasionally
subjected to soft interventions; it also noted the weak parliamentary oversight
over government action.
It pointed to the similar economic situation and
legislative environment in the five countries, highlighting the
freedom-depriving penalties in cases of freedom of expression, whether on
charges of defamation, disturbing the public peace, or other broad charges,
among others.
The report explained that while some laws regulating
the work of the media in the five countries do not include freedom-depriving
penalties, the multiplicity of legal references in these countries makes it
possible to sentence journalists to prison terms. In some of these countries
prosecutors do not use publication laws to prosecute journalists, but resort to
the Penal Code or anti-terrorism laws instead.
The report said that even though there are freedom
of information laws in Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, and
Lebanon, their application
varies from one country to another. In Jordan and Tunisia the law is applied
selectively.
The report pointed to cases of mobile phone tapping,
beatings, denial of the right to cover an issue, threats, and self-censorship
as common violations in all five countries.
It said that in these countries, governments are
doing everything they can to control digital media by enacting restrictive
legislation and harassing bloggers and media professionals. Moreover,
governments in these five countries deal with the media as a security issue.
The report referred to the recommendations issued by
the center in its previous Arab reports (2012–2018), noting with frustration
that nothing has changed since the first one was published.
It called on the
executive and legislative authorities in the five countries to build stronger ties with the media by
selecting professional media spokespersons who are able to communicate effectively
with journalists, provide them with information that helps them perform their
tasks, and facilitate their work.
The report called on civil society organizations to
form a broad coalition that includes legal experts, media professionals, and
parliament members to develop alternative legal texts for crimes related to
freedom of expression.
It recommended
that civil society organizations start a media campaign to explain and
publicize the issue of lack of accountability of governments that punish journalists,
to develop clear legislation targeting those who attack journalists or media
personnel while performing their jobs, and to consolidate the principle of
voluntary union membership, among other things.
The report called on
journalists and
lawyers unions in the
five countries to establish specialized centers to provide legal assistance to
media professionals, boost their professional competence, and improve the
efficiency of lawyers working in those centers.
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