Saudi Arabia documents by Year:
Amid Gulf tensions, press is used as a political pawn
June 8, 2017 5:38 PM ET
Today Bahrain became the latest Gulf nation to put pressure on news outlets amid political tension, when its Interior Ministry announced that anyone publishing support or sympathy for Qatar faces up to five years in prison. The announcement came the day after the United Arab Emirates used the threat...
In censored Saudi Arabia, Raif Badawi filled a journalistic void
June 17, 2015 4:34 PM ET
On the third anniversary of the arrest of liberal activist and writer Raif Badawi in Saudi Arabia, his supporters all over the world are working hard to prevent what may lay ahead: the completion of a 10-year, thousand-lash sentence. To be effective in changing Badawi's future, it is important...
After Charlie Hebdo attack, vigils, protests and publishing bans
January 27, 2015 2:18 PM ET
Protests against the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo were held in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East and parts of Africa over the weekend, as crowds demonstrated against the magazine's portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad, according to news reports....
Saudi censorship blurs lines between journalism, activism
May 20, 2014 4:59 PM ET
Since the surprise Arab uprisings of 2011, the Saudi government has worked assiduously to ensure it has all the tools of censorship it needs to control dissent. These tools--a combination of special courts, laws, and regulatory authorities--are starting to fire on all cylinders. The result has been a string...
Most censored nations each distort the Net in own way
May 2, 2012 4:00 PM ET
One big reason for the Internet's success is its role as a universal standard, interoperable across the world. The data packets that leave your computer in Botswana are the same as those which arrive in Barbados. The same is increasingly true of modern mobile networks. Standards are converging: You...
Internet Blotter
November 16, 2010 5:07 PM ET
Egyptian blogger Karim Amer is finally free after four years in prison. Iran launches yet another police force to deal with the Internet, headquartered with the Revolutionary Guard. Its commander says the state plans to quadruple its Internet control budget. Google lobbies U.S. policymakers to consider online censorship a...
Use your Blackberry to map global surveillance
October 21, 2010 5:27 PM ET
The University of Toronto's Citizen Lab has announced a research project to analyze the global infrastructure of Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry. It's looking for BlackBerry users from any country to take part--especially those in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, India, Indonesia, Russia and China. All of...
What should journalists know about BlackBerry fights?
September 1, 2010 5:33 PM ET
The discussions between Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, and governments such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and India continue to hit the headlines. In each case, disagreements center on providing customer communications to security and law enforcement services. The rumblings from these nations over monitoring...
U.S. Senate passes 'libel tourism' bill
July 23, 2010 5:56 PM ET
This week, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill shielding journalists and publishers from “libel tourism.” The vote on Monday slipped past the Washington press corps largely unnoticed. Maybe it was the title that strove chunkily for a memorable acronym: the Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional...
Free Speech Protection Act could slow 'libel tourism'
November 16, 2009 10:57 AM ET
Free press advocates in Britain are looking to a bill stuck in the U.S. Congress for moral support in the fight to reform England’s draconian defamation laws. The U.S. bill, the Free Speech Protection Act 2009, is itself the product of those laws, which have made London the capital of...