The demonstrations began a week ago with a protest against the Turkish government’s plan to build a shopping mall in part of Istanbul’s Taksim Square. They spread late last week into larger nationwide demonstrations against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), according to news reports. More than 1,000 have been injured in the last four days, the reports said.

“We call on Turkish police to ensure that journalists are able to cover these significant news events without being obstructed or attacked,” CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. “Reporters have been caught between overzealous law enforcement and unruly crowds.”

Tugba Tekerek, correspondent for the daily Taraf, told CPJ that police tried to prevent her from taking photographs in Besiktas district in Istanbul on Sunday. She said she identified herself as a journalist to the officers. Tekerek also said several police wrested a scarf from her face, which she was using to shield herself from tear gas.

Police firing rubber bullets into a crowd in Taksim Square hit two reporters, ATV correspondent Mesut Çiftçi and cameraman Ismail Velioglu, on Sunday, the reports said. Staff at ATV told CPJ that Çiftçi was hit in the shoulder and Velioglu was hit in the hand, but neither suffered any broken bones or other trauma.

Caner Dalgıç, cameraman for the TV8 television, said protesters threw stones at him and chased him on Saturday afternoon. He told CPJ he was hit by two stones while getting out of his car to cover protests in Ankara, and sought shelter with the police.

Police detained Erhan Karadag, a bureau chief for Kanal D TV, in Ankara on Saturday night but released him the next day. Karadağ told CPJ he was arrested while carrying bottles of water and milk, which is used to soothe effects of tear gas.

Protesters also gathered in front of the studios of NTV on Monday and demonstrated against the outlet’s conservative editorial stance, according to news reports. NTV was among mainstream TV channels that had chosen to play down the anti-government protests that erupted in Istanbul and other cities. Many traditional media outlets, conscious of Erdogan’s harsh disapproval of critical coverage, opted to play down the protests, thereby incurring the discontent of demonstrators, who see them as failing to do their journalistic duty.

The offices of the pro-government Haberturk television and the daily newspaper Sabah were surrounded by protesters on both Sunday and Monday, according to news reports. Protesters shouted “sell-out media!” and called for a boycott of the mainstream channels, the reports said.

Demonstrators also attacked news vehicles during the protests on Saturday. The vans of TV channels NTV and Fox TV were sprayed with paint and pushed on their side, according to news reports. Posts on social media said TV channels CNN Turk, NTV, and Haberturk were being targeted because they had not covered the protests or had covered them from the government’s perspective.

Prime Minister Erdogan attacked social media networks for spreading what he considered to be false information and calling them the “worst menace to societies.” He said news outlets “under the roof of the [opposition] Republican People’s Party (CHP) [were making] highly irresponsible, provocative broadcasting.”

“When top government officials make anti-media statements, hostility against journalists is interpreted as allowed, even approved,” CPJ’s Ognianova said. “We urge Prime Minister Erdogan to publicly denounce the violence against journalists and ensure all media can work freely.”

The demonstrations began after a small band of environmentalists protested a government project to cut down trees in Taksim Square. Police moved in to the area, set fire to the protesters’ tents, and sprayed them with tear gas. Images of the attacks spread on social media, galvanizing thousands into protesting in Taksim Square.

Obama should raise concerns with Al Nahyan about severe violations of fair trial rights, allegations of torture, and the laws and practices that foster exploitation of the UAE’s sizable migrant population, Human Rights Watch said.

When Obama and Al Nahyan last met, on June 27, 2012, they issued a joint statement calling on governments and citizens across the Middle East to “avoid violence, advance tolerance, and protect human rights – particularly the rights of women.” However, the backdrop to the two leaders’ forthcoming meeting is the UAE’s fundamentally unfair mass trial of 94 critics of the government, the unpunished torture by its state security services, and an escalating crackdown on free speech, Human Rights Watch said.

The UAE authorities are trying the 94 peaceful critics of the government on charges that they “initiated, established, and ran an organization seeking to oppose the basic principles of the UAE system of governance and to seize power.” Information from UAE sources indicates that many of the defendants were detained at UAE State Security facilities. Human Rights Watch has documented and receives credible reports of torture from former detainees of these facilities.

Although the UAE authorities claim that the defendants pose a national security risk, their trial appears to be part of a broader attack on the right to freedom of expression, Human Rights Watch said.

In March 2012, the UAE authorities closed the local offices of two foreign organizations that promote the exchange of ideas and political debate: the National Democratic Institute, a body linked to the Democratic Party in the United States; and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, linked to Germany’s Christian Democratic Union. In December, authorities closed down the Abu Dhabi office of the RAND Corporation, a US-based research organization. The UAE authorities issued no public statements explaining the justification for any of the closures.

In November, the UAE issued a new federal decree on cybercrime. The decree provides a legal basis to prosecute people who use information technology to exercise their free speech rights, including criticizing senior officials, arguing for political reform, or organizing unlicensed demonstrations. Although the UAE claims to be a regional leader on migrant workers’ rights, it has not made meaningful progress to protect them from severe exploitation by employers, Human Rights Watch said. The UAE has not significantly reformed the legal and regulatory framework that is responsible for the serious exploitation of migrant workers, in a country where 85 percent of the population are foreign nationals.

The combination of a highly exploitative system of sponsorship-based employment, the illegal but customary confiscation by employers of workers’ passports, and the failure of the UAE authorities and labor-sending states to eliminate illegal recruitment fees, significantly increases the likelihood and incidence of forced labor. The UAE has not implemented any legislation to protect migrant domestic workers, most of them women, who are not covered by national labor law. A draft law from 2012 is deeply flawed.

As the US State Department noted in its 2012 Trafficking in Persons Report, the UAE government has failed to address trafficking for labor exploitation, and prohibitions against contributory factors to forced labor have not been enforced.

“President Obama should break with past US soft-pedalling criticism of severe abuses in the UAE, especially when he has called publicly for other countries in the region to respect human rights,” Whitson said.

The conference was held at MADA’s headquarter in Ramallah on the morning of 27 March 2013.

Opening remarks were delivered by the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Dr. Ghazi Hanania, who noted that the past year witnessed a serious escalation in violations against journalists by the Israeli forces, who, he says, had no qualms with killing three journalists deliberately during Israel’s latest offensive against the Gaza Strip.

Hanania added, “The Israeli authorities were not even bothered to justify their murders which conveys to what extent Israel’s disregard for laws and international conventions has reached. Not only that, but its disregard for the lives of Palestinian journalists, whereby not only their freedom to express themselves has been violated but also the most important human right, the right to live.”

MADA’s annual report for 2012 explains that the status of media freedom in Palestine has had no promising signs of improvement since the start of the year. As journalists began the year with violations and attacks on their rights, they said their farewell to 2012 with the loss of three colleagues: Aqsa TV cameraman Mahmoud Alkoumi, 30-years-old, Aqsa TV photographer Hussam Salameh, also 30-years-old, and Executive Director of the Jerusalem Educational Radio Muhamed Moussa Abu Eisha, 24-years-old.

MADA also reported 238 violations against journalists and Palestinian media outlets during the past year. The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have committed approximately 70 per cent of the overall total with 164 violations, while different Palestinian factions committed 74 violations altogether, the equivalent of about 30 per cent of the total violations. In comparison with 2011 the violations have increased by about 11.5 per cent which translates roughly into 32 violations.

MADA’s General Director, Mousa Rimawi, outlined the violations committed by the Israeli forces in Palestine, and mentioned that the Israeli forces turned 2012 into a year of hell for journalists and media outlets, where they committed egregious violations against journalists, most notably the killing of the three journalists mentioned above, the bombing of media organizations headquarters and journalists’ homes, and the serious physical assaults some journalists have been subjected. Rimawi added that the Israeli forces not only committed awful violations but have also amplified them by 65 per cent with 164 violations committed in 2012 compared to 100 violations in 2011.

Rimawi explained that the increase in the number and type of violations committed is due to several factors, most notably the power of the Palestinian image and word, and the key role that the Palestinian press plays in shaping the world’s public opinion and reporting on violations committed against them by the occupation. Another factor is that the occupation has never been held accountable or punished for its crimes against journalists and media freedoms, which therefore encourages members of the occupational forces to commit more violations without consideration to human rights and international laws and conventions that guarantee freedom of expression and protection for journalists.

The annual report contains important details about the number of media freedom violations, the types of violations, the dangers associated with them, and the cities most vulnerable to them.

The press conference began with a minute of silence in tribute to the martyrs of the press in Palestine and around the world.

Mr. Sellstrom, currently a project manager at a Swedish research institute, is “an accomplished scientist with a solid background in disarmament and international security,” UN spokesperson Martin Nesirky told reporters in New York.

He has taught at universities in the United States and served as Director at the Swedish Defense and Security Research Institute (FOI). He has also served in several capacities with the UN, including as senior adviser to the chairs of the UN bodies dealing with the disarmament of Iraq.

Mr. Ban announced the investigation last Thursday, after receiving a formal request from the Syrian Government. He has also received a request from France and the United Kingdom to investigate several incidents of alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria.

“The terms of reference for the mission are being finalized in consultation with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

While the terms of reference are being finalized, work is already well under way so that the mission can be dispatched quickly,” said Mr. Nesirky.

The conflict in Syria, which has entered its third year, has already claimed over 70,000 lives and displaced more than three million people since the uprising against President al-Assad began in March 2011. Some 1.1 million people have also been forced to flee Syria and take refuge in neighbouring countries.

In a message sent to the League of Arab States summit in Doha, Qatar, Mr. Ban stressed the need to inject urgency towards reaching a political solution “while there is still time to prevent Syria’s destruction.”

“The goal is difficult, but clear: an end to violence, a clean break with the past, and a transition to a new Syria in which the rights of all communities are protected and the legitimate aspirations of all Syrians for freedom, dignity and justice are met,” he stated.

“The criminal court’s decision to acquit five online activists could become a victory for free speech,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Kuwaiti authorities should take a cue from this decision and revoke sentences and drop charges against others accused of offending the emir.”

Authorities should suspend and then abolish laws that criminalize peaceful criticism of public officials because they violate international human rights standards, Human Rights Watch said.

Since October 2012, the Public Prosecution Office has charged at least 35 individuals, including online activists, with offending the emir, the defendants, their lawyers, and human rights activists told Human Rights Watch. Criminal courts havesentenced at least six of them, including the three former members of parliament, to prison terms. Al-Enzi, acquitted in this case, is currently serving a two-year prison term for “offending the emir” in a different case.

“The Kuwaiti judicial system is clearly at odds with itself, sentencing some for offending the emir, while freeing others,” said Whitson. “The court needs to set clear and unequivocal precedent that offending the emir is not a legitimate charge.”

Thanks to laws which punish dissent against the state, Turkey continues to put in jail a high number of  journalists every year. The government says it is curbing propaganda by Kurdish separatists, but the international community can’t but observe that Turkey has put more journalists in jail than any other country.

44 reporters, drawn mainly from Kurdish publications and news agencies, are on trial under the country’s anti-terrorism laws. The first hearing in September drew international publicity, but ended in chaos.

The public opinion is divided. Turkish parliamentary deputy Ertugrul Kurkcu of pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party stated that the situation is scandalous. Huseyin Akyol, editor of the pro-Kurdish newspaper Ozgur Gundem and a 23-year veteran of the paper, thinks that the fact there is a trial is a step in the right direction: “It is better than the past. In the 90s the state killed us, we lost 76 journalists and distributors and they blew up our offices. Now they just imprison us – although life in prison is difficult.”

A report published this month by the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists found 76 journalists were imprisoned, with the government claiming that most of them are not legitimate journalists but rather “propagandists” for the Kurdish rebel group PKK, which has been fighting the Turkish state for autonomy since 1984.

Emma Sinclair Webb, the Turkish representative of the US-based Human Rights Watch, says this mentality lies at the heart of Turkey’s anti-terror laws, and that is why so many journalists are ending up behind bars: “The anti-terror laws are so broadly written,  anything can be considered as supporting terrorism and according to the law that makes you a terrorist,” she states.

An example can be made of journalist Nedim Sener, who won international journalism awards for his work, which has included investigating an alleged conspiracy by the Turkish army against the present government. In the end, he has been accused of being involved in the very conspiracy he had been investigating.

After a long spell in jail, Mr Sener blames his detention on his ongoing investigation into the 2007 murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, which is blamed on elements within the Turkish state. The government denied the charge, saying that authorities successfully caught and convicted Dink’s murderer.

The imprisonment of the high profile journalist worried the international community.

“There is absolutely no doubt, I have to say, that some of the journalists are in jail because they have written or broadcast things which are unpalatable to the government and to the authorities in this country,” stated Richard Howitt, member of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. However,  “that is not just unpalatable to those of us in Brussels and European Union. It is unacceptable.”

The government claims it is committed to further reform, saying new legislation in parliament will address growing criticism against the jailing of journalists: “Thoughts should not be restricted by any limit,” declared deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay on Press Freedom Day last July, acknowledging that problems still exist. “In our current legislation, we still have some regulations keeping thoughts and violence together.”

Nevertheless, the European Union criticised Ankara’s “increasing tendency to imprison journalists, media workers and distributors,” in the annual progress report on Turkey’s membership bid, published this month

The report was immediately dismissed by Ankara. “Too much emphasis was placed on isolated incidents, and dangerous generalisations were reached through these isolated incidents,” stated Ergemen Bagis, Turkey’s minister for EU relations.

“Self-censorship now is the basic instinct determining journalists behaviour when they write a news report,” says Kadri Gursel, a columnist for the Milliyet newspaper. ” For journalists the minimum threat is to be fired, the maximum is jail.”

The government says the media in Turkey is still free,but people have a different opinion. Recently, due to the situation, the country has witnessed a phenomenal rise in the alternative news through social media.

Mr Sener, only recently freed from prison, is not optimistic: “Journalists are afraid, but what is worse is that society is not talking about it, the fear has spread around the public. They are not breathing. And I see this as a very dangerous course for Turkey.

Jafar Panahi and Nasrin Sotoudeh have won the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

Lawyer and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi, who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda that the Sakharov Prize will shine a light on injustices in Iran.

“I congratulate Mr. Panahi and Ms. Sotoudeh,” she said. “This prize will draw public attention to violations of human rights in Iran. This prize highlights a lack of freedom of expression in Iran, and it also pays tribute to people who work for human rights.”

Jafar Panahi is a film director known for his humanistic portrayal of Iranian life in films like “The Circle,” “The White Balloon,” and “Offside.” After years of conflict with the Iranian government over the content of his films, in 2010 he was jailed and sentenced to a six-year term and a 20-year ban on working on films, giving interviews, and from leaving the country.

The regime charged him with “assembly and colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic.”

European Parliament President Martin Schulz suggested that Panahi had clearly demonstrated the shortcomings of the current regime: “As in every good portrait,  Panahi’s films shows not only the merits but also the contradictions and the daily problems of Iranians,” he said. “State regimes clearly fear nothing more than the portrayal of the bitter reality that reigns inside their nations. And this is why people like Mr. Panahi are silenced in such regimes.”

Nasrin Sotoudeh became known as one of the most active human rights lawyers in Iran, representing Iranian opposition activists and politicians following the controversial June 2009 presidential election. She has gained international recognition for her defense of juveniles facing death sentences.

Sotoudeh was arrested in 2010 and sentenced to 11 years in jail for charges that included “activities against national security” and “propaganda against the regime.” She was also barred from practicing law for 20 years. The prison term and the ban have since been shortened to six and 10 years respectively.

Recently, she started a hunger strike to protest against the restrictions imposed on her family’s visits. Her husband and daughter are forbidden from leaving the country.

Mr. Schulz told the assembly in Strasbourg on October 26 that Sotoudeh deserved the award for her strong opposition to objectionable Iranian government practices.

“If the fight for freedom, if the fight for human rights, for human dignity, for freedom from torture and against the death sentence, for freedom of opinion and for justice in criminal proceedings is an attack on national security, then we support this person in her attack on the national security of a regime that does not respect any of these fundamental rights,” he said. “The prize for Mrs. Sotoudeh is a clear rejection of the regime in Iran.”

This is the first time the award has been given to Iranians. The imprisoned activists will probably be unable to make it to Strasbourg for the ceremony on December 12 to collect the 50,000 euro prize.

For obvious reasons, the sovereigns had strong interest for the transfer of the above forces to their own body and for the putting them under their control. Thus the “good lad discovers another pathway”. The pathway was discovered very early and named slavery.

It is clear that the results of slavery are equivalent or greater to the transfer of the before mentioned powers, since with slavery “is actually transferred” the personal power of a set of people, of an entire society, to a person: to a king, a lord, an enlighten leader/protector of people.

However besides the muscular and intellectual attribute, man has also a third untransferable attribute that also is a gift of Nature and not of the rulers. This attribute is also a kind of power (of force, of energy), like the muscular and intellectual, and it is named “personal power”, better known as “Freedom”. Freedom is that kind of energy that transformed to the most important kind of work, which produced only by man and not by other living beings. This kind of work has the name “the making and the realizing reasonable decisions”. It is important to be noticed that animals can also “take and realize decisions”, but with the force of instincts and motives and not by the logic as man does.

From the previous ones it becomes clear that man is free when he has personal power and that man is a slave when he looses his personal power. Therefore, the full transfer of personal power to someone, who takes and carry out the decisions that concern a set of people, constitutes a loss of freedom and therefore constitutes a form of modern slavery.

The view that freedom is a form of energy and not a moral or philosophical value, results from the fact that the freedom produces work. “Energy” is an abstract noun that physicists have given to the possibility of producing some kind of work, mechanical, chemical, spiritual etc, possibility that exists to both, the living creatures and the no living entities. This view is also resulted from the fact that, as has been proved, energy and work constitute the same entity. The work is the visible form, while the energy the invisible form of the same physical magnitude [i].

The above logic has been deliberately ignored and distorted for the following two reasons, a real/objective and an artificial/selfish.

Real reason is of utmost need to restrict the absolute personal freedom, so that does not restrict the freedom of other members of the society. The Freedom resulting from the restriction, by common rules, of the absolute personal freedom, is the active freedom of the members of the society. I think the philosophers and politicians call it “rights”. It is obvious that the rights shall be the same for all people, “rulers and ruled citizens”.

Selfish reason constitutes the fact that the logic of the “untransferance” of the personal power [ii] is contrary to the interests of lords and for this reason it is usually rejected or ignored. The privileges of lords, established by them-selves, must be protected.

Is the Representation a violation of natural law?

The above question is significant, because many social institutions, with leading ones those of the Representative Democracy and of the Syndicalism, are based on the transfer of competence and power, to someone or to some other citizens, i.e. to the politicians and the leaders of Syndicalism. The answer to this question is simple and can be summarized as follows:

Depending on the real goal and rules of representation, this may constitute either Deaconship and Serving of citizens’ power, or Hybres (Ύβρις, outrage, insult) [iii], that is transfer of the “untransferable” power of the man.

It is deaconship, when the representatives serve options, commands, and decisions of the citizen’s set and not those of the delegates.

It is a hybres, when loss or restriction of the people’s power is created by the representation. This happens when the major decisions are taken by the representatives and not from the citizens’ totality.

According to the Cosmo Theory of ancient Greeks, when the representation constitutes a hybres, we unavoidably end in destruction through the following stages:

Ybres – leads to Ati ( Άτη, blindness/confusion) – then to Nemesis ( Νέμεσις wrath/anger) – and finally to “Tisis” ( Τίσις, destruction, catastrophe ).

Today the representation in the current state of democracy and of syndicalism, constitutes a Hybres or a Deaconship?

If it constitutes a Hybres, then at what stage of the above mentioned evolutionary process are we?

We believe that all citizens have a clear and solid answer to these two questions.

Because it is a characteristic of human nature, “man promotes firstly his interests”, we conclude that the most likely form of representation is this of hybres and not that of deaconship.

The majority of people believe that the services to people from representatives, depends on the qualifications of the elected representatives and, by extension, on the average culture of the voters. We believe that this existence depends primarily upon the rules of the political/social system and that these rules shape the representation, either at hybres or at deaconship. This view was not based on thoughtful theories, but on people’s wisdom, which is summarized in the motto: “the animal in our orchard grazes all the pasture up to the extent its rope allows”. Therefore the protection from destruction of the orchard depends on the length and the resistance to breakage of the rope. Something similar applies to the institution of representation.

The most compatible with the natural laws form of government

From the above it is clear that the existence of a deaconship representation, or a hybres representation, depends on the institutional rules of democracy and not on the spiritual and moral characteristics of elected politicians and of voters. Nevertheless, people are trying to surpass the crisis and be led to the salvation by changing the representatives and not by the institutional rules of the regime.

When the regime of the country allows the development and functioning of hybrid representation, then the social entropy will causally increase quickly and will result in the rapid degradation of the social system and the reduction of its efficiency. The present situation of socio-political system in many countries, in terms of efficiency and degradation, is a typical example of a high-entropy system.

But what regime ensures that the representation will be that of deaconship, with protection against an eventual change at hybres ?

What regime ensures low social entropy [iv]? This regime is the Democracy of the ancient Greek spirit.

It is the Democracy in which major decisions were taken from all citizens in Ecclesia of Demos (Assembly of the Municipality). It is the Democracy in which the leaders /representatives, nor legislated, nor took the major decisions, nor exercised judicial power, but served the power of Ecclesia. It is the Democracy in which citizens have the double status, “the governor and the governed”.

A regime, with principles and institutions like those of the Athenian Democracy, adapted to the current political, economic and technological conditions, should ensure that:

(1) The representation will be a deaconship and,

(2) The entropy of the socio-political system is going to be low.

Sooner or later, but with a deterministic certainty, the natural laws will predominate on the human ones. This means that the end of the representation, the end of representation which constitutes hybres, is inevitable.

Notes:

[i] Demosthenes Kyriazis, “DIRECT DEMOCRACY IN TELEAREA”, Greek edition of book by Pataki’s Publications, 2005. (pages 17-20).

English Version available in http://www.solon.org.gr/downloads/Telearea_Dimosthenis_Kyriazis_Teliko.pdf

And in http://issuu.com/georgepapagiannis/docs/telearea

[ii] This view is essentially identical to the axiom of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the “untranferable of rights”, documented in ethical and logical principles.

[iii] Hybres (Ύβρις) in Greek means the act of arrogant overestimation of human capabilities. Such, hybres was any act contrary to the laws of the “responsible Gods”, contrary to natural laws.

[iv] Relevant article is: “Direct Democracy, the regime of low Entropy”, in http://www.dd-democracy.gr/article.asp?Id=92

Several netizens and bloggers were also detained, including Khalifa Al-Nuaimi (https://kalnuaimi.wordpress.com), Rashid Omran Al Shamsi (http://rashedalshamsi.blogspot.fr), Omran Al Radhwan (http://omran83.tumblr.com), Abdullah Al-Haajri (https://alhajria.wordpress.com/), the lawyer Salim Hamdoon Alshehhi (http://salemalshehhi.wordpress.com), and Juma Darwish Al-Felasi (http://alfelasi.com). Two human rights lawyers, Mohamed Al-Mansoori (http://www.emasc.co), the former president of the United Arab Emirates Jurists Association, and Mohamed Abdulah Al-Roken, a defence lawyer in the in so-called “UAE 5” case, were also on the list of detainees.

The group faces charges of opposing the constitution and the basic principles of the UAE ruling system, in addition to having links and affiliations to organisations with foreign agendas. The Abu Dhabi public prosecutor, Salem Saeed Kubaish, said they “are being held in preventive custody for investigation”.

The arrests were made a day after the authorities announced the existence of a group alleged to be plotting against national security.

Reporters Without Borders calls for their immediate release. “The authorities must put an end to successive arrests of campaigners and human rights campaigners, which flagrantly violates basic freedoms,” the organization said. “The authorities wilfully regard any sign of criticism of the system as a danger to national security in order to stifle dissent. These attempts at intimidation are doomed to fail.”

The group of prisoners of conscience in the country, known as the “UAE 27” then the “UAE 30”, continues to grow. Today 31 activists and campaigners are in detention, all of whom have been arrested since March. Most are signatories of a 2011 petition calling for the Federal National Council, the UAE’s advisory council, to be given legislative powers and control over the executive.

It is not the first time the government has acted to conceal criticism. In April last year, a group of netizens known as the “UAE 5” were arrested for publicly insulting UAE leaders and calling for anti-government demonstrations.

Ahmed Mansoor, a blogger and administrator of the democracy discussion forum Al-Hewar, Farhad Salem Al-Shehh, also a blogger and the forum’s co-administrator, Nasser bin Ghaith, a writer and professor at Abu Dhabi’s Université Paris-Sorbonne, and the activists Hassan Ali Al-Khamis and Ahmed Abdul Khaleq, who have expressed themselves freely on the Internet and also signed a petition urging the authorities to carry out reforms. After a trial, they were sentenced on 27 November last year to between two and three years’ imprisonment for insulting UAE leaders and calling for anti-government demonstrations. They were pardoned and released the following day.

The activist Ahmed Abdul Khaleq was deported to Thailand on 16 July after being falsely summoned to a government office for administrative reasons on May 22. Stripped of their citizenship, he and his family were granted Comoros passports and economic citizenship, without political rights. In theory, this should allow them to live in the UAE and eventually to become naturalized citizens on the basis of a 2009 agreement between the two countries.

The United Arab Emirates is among countries under surveillance on the list of Internet Enemies published by Reporters Without Borders in March. For months the government has been stepping up pressure on netizens, cracking down on dissident voices and calls for democratic reform.

As the doors to freedom and democracy swing open in the wake of the Syrian Uprising, citizen journalists have taken smartphones in their hands, Tweeted about protests, and journalists followed their prerogative. “In repressive regimes, journalism has become a form of activism,” said Courtney Radsch, a former reporter with al Arabiya who is now programme manager for the Global Freedom of Expression Campaign at Freedom House.

After decades of media oppression, Syrian journalists inside Syria and in exile have gathered to announce the establishment of the Syrian Journalists Association (SJA) on February 20. “The establishment of the Syrian Journalists Union as a professional and independent union has been undertaken as a response to the revolution of freedom and honor that started last year according to Nouri AL Jarrah in an interview with Reuters.  He describes it as an act in solidarity with the Syrian people “taking part in the revolution against the oppressive regime.” The founding statement of the union criticized the existing journalist union, describing it as “a bureaucratic organization aiming to control the workers in the media field and pushing them under the control and service of the regime… siding with the oppression the regime continues for the peaceful demonstrations.” The new union criticized the “negative role of the existing journalist union and its silence against the ban of satellite channels from entering Syria, the oppression of journalists, and the extreme difficulty of carrying out their job under such circumstances.”

In Syria, the media is primarily owned and controlled by the government and the ruling Baath party, which assumed power in 1963. Over two hundred websites are banned by the regime for everyone, but a closed tight circle of the ruling elite. Criticism of the president and his family is not allowed, journalists practice self-censorship, and foreign reporters rarely get accreditation.  Though there have been developments in Syrian press freedom since Bashar al-Assad became president in 2000, the state continues to use the unending state of emergency law, suppressing freedom of expression and free access to information, to arrest media workers. Journalists and political activists risk arrest at any time for virtually any reason and are. According to the annual census by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) annual census of imprisoned journalists, Syria ranks as one of the world’s top jailers with 8 Syrian journalists behind bars with Iran being first.