UAE

A basement in the gray, Gothic heart of the University of Toronto is home to the CSI of cyberspace. “We are doing free expression forensics,” says Ronald Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, based at the Munk Centre for International Studies. Deibert and his team of academics and students investigate in real time governments and companies that restrict what we see and hear on the Internet. They are also trying to help online journalists and bloggers slip the shackles of censorship and surveillance. Deibert is a co-founder of the OpenNet Initiative (ONI), a project of the Citizen Lab in collaboration with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. ONI tracks the blocking and filtering of the Internet around the globe.

In our special report “Middle East Bloggers: The Street Leads Online,” CPJ’s Mohamed Abdel Dayem says blogging has become a crucial front in the region's struggle for freedom of expression. Here, Abdel Dayem describes how two regional trends--booming Internet audiences and repression of traditional media--have made blogging a vibrant news alternative. Listen to the mp3 on the player above, or right click here to download. (2:05)  

New York, July 6, 2009--A criminal court has suspended a newspaper that reported on a horse-racing scandal, upholding a 2008 ruling. Its editor and publisher were also fined.

In conjunction with the International Freedom of Expression Exchange general meeting, the Norwegian government hosted a Global Forum on Freedom of Expression featuring three days of discussions, seminars, and lectures from leading experts. For me, a highlight was finally meeting Sami al-Haj, at left, the Al-Jazeera correspondent who was held for six years at Guantanamo Bay. 

On Thursday, I participated in a panel discussion about media in the Middle East at the United Nations to commemorate World Press Freedom Day. Other panellists included Alya Al-Thani, counsellor, Permanent Mission of Qatar to the United Nations; Abderrahim Foukara, chief of the Washington Bureau of Al-Jazeera; Ebtihal Mubarak, journalist for Saudi Arabia's English-language daily Arab News; and Ghassan Shabaneh, assistant professor of Middle East and International Studies at Marymount Manhattan College. I talked about the great obstacles to press freedom in the region...

Your Highness: We are writing to express our concern about a draft of the United Arab Emirates' ‎media law, recently approved by the Federal National Council. We urge you to reject the law in its current form, which if passed would negatively impact the state of press freedom in the UAE.

Dear Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, We are greatly disturbed by your government's decision on Friday to stop satellite re-transmission of GEO TV and ARY One World Television through the Dubai Media City. The fact that the stations remain off the air five days after the decision undermines the stated aim of the United Arab Emirates "to transform Dubai into a knowledge-based society and economy" as described on the Media City Web site.

As democracy falters, Arab press still pushes for freedom By Joel Campagna Across the Middle East, political reform gained momentum in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Egyptians and Lebanese clamored for democracy; elections in...