On July 17, 2013, the court of appeals confirmed the conviction of Sara al-Drees, 26, on charges of offending Kuwait’s emir and misusing her mobile phone when sending tweets that the authorities considered offensive. She is free on bail, awaiting the outcome of a further appeal.

“The Kuwait authorities over the past year have prosecuted dozens of people for peaceful political statements,” said Joe Stork, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

“The government should tolerate this kind of criticism, not persecute people who dare express it.”

Since a political crisis between the government and the political opposition in June 2012, the authorities have charged several dozen politicians, online activists, journalists, and others with “offending” the emir, Kuwait’s head of state.

The government should drop charges against those accused or convicted of crimes solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression, and it should amend Kuwait’s criminal code to remove the crime of “offending the emir,” Human Rights Watch said.

On May 29, 2013, a Kuwaiti criminal court convicted al-Drees of offending the emir in four tweets that she admitted sending. One referred to an October 2012 protest that local activists said was met with a violent government response and many arrests. She wrote: “What’s taking place now is a shame on Kuwait’s history. Damn this era! The curse of Allah shall rest on the oppressors!”

In another, referring to the ruling family, she wrote: “We loved you as a part of Kuwait’s history, rejecting violations by some of you, but we now feel that you are spongers imposed on us by our constitution.”

Al-Drees, who teaches high school students about human rights under Kuwait’s constitution, is not the only woman to be sentenced to prison for political speech.

On June 10, a court sentenced Huda al-Ajmi, a 37-year-old teacher, to 11 years in prison, including 5 years for “offending the emir,” after convicting her on charges based on a series of tweets. She is free on bail, awaiting the outcome of her appeal.

Article 25 of Kuwait’s penal code of 1970 sets out sentences of up to five years in prison for anyone who publicly “objects to the rights and authorities of the emir or faults him.” This provision violates the free speech protections in international treaties to which Kuwait is a party, Human Rights Watch said.

“Kuwait used to have a better reputation than most other Gulf states in respecting the right to free speech,” Stork said. “But with each case like this, the authorities are lowering themselves to the standards of the rest of the region.

Lawyer Mahdi al-Basri, 25, was arrested following a police raid on his home in Karrana, northern Bahrain.

Mahmood ‘Abdul-Majeed ‘Abdullah Al-Jamri, 34, Hassan ‘Abdali ‘Issa, 33, Mohsen ‘Abdali ‘Issa, 26, and ‘Ammar Makki Mohammad Al-Aali, 36, were detained a day later.

The five were tried in separate cases on charges of insulting the King in messages posted on Twitter.

Mahdi al-Basri was accused of posting twitter messages in June 2012 that were traced to his IP address. He has denied the charges, stating that his personal Twitter account was not the one used to post these messages and that he had no connection to the account that used his IP address.

The men were sentenced to one year imprisonment on 15 May under Article 214 of Bahrain’s Penal Code, which criminalizes “offending the emir of the country [the King], the national flag or emblem”.

“The authorities in Bahrain seem to be using every trick in the book to stop people from expressing their views,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director at Amnesty International.

“Two years after the uprising in Bahrain, and despite the government claiming to have initiated reforms, the Bahraini authorities are stepping up the repression of those daring to express their views, whether via Twitter or on peaceful marches.”

On 14 April, Bahrain’s cabinet endorsed an amendment to Article 214 of the Penal Code, increasing the penalty for offending King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah or the country’s flag and other national symbols.

The amendment, which has been referred to the National Assembly, would make such offences punishable by up to five years in prison in addition to steep fines.

In another move to restrict basic rights,,earlier this month the lower chamber of Bahrain’s Parliament proposed new amendments to the Law on Public meetings, processions and gatherings.

This further restricts the right to peaceful assembly by demanding that organizers pay a warranty of 20,000 dinars (US$53,050) for a licence. The organizers must also notify people in the area where the gathering will take place.

Since the start of the uprising in 2011, Amnesty International has documented scores of human rights abuses against peaceful activists in Bahrain, including arbitrary arrests, unnecessary and excessive use of force and torture, and other ill-treatment.

The Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), appointed by the Bahraini government in June 2011, was charged with investigating and reporting on human rights violations committed in connection with the 2011 protests.

The commission found the security forces were responsible for excessive use of force and arbitary arrests, but no progress has been seen in taking those responsible for the abuses to justice.

According to a white paper by ComScore, social networking is the most popular online activity worldwide; the field hosts 1.5 billion people whilst social networking behavior both transcends and reflects regional differences around the world.

At the end of 2011, there were around 18.2 million Facebook users in the Middle East, namely around 8.4% of a total population of 216.2 million (total internet users reached 78.6 million, 35.7% of the population).

Guardian’s Peter Beaumont, correspondent in the Middle East wrote that the defining moment that unites Egypt with Tunisia, Bahrain and Libya is a young woman or a young man with a smartphone. In Egypt, details of demonstrations were circulated by both Facebook and Twitter and the activists’ 12-page guide to confronting the regime was distributed by email.

Micro-blogging is gaining ground amongst web-enabled public figures. Fb-status updates and Tweets are increasingly replacing TV soundbites in the subjective recording of timeliness. Regular news stories incorporate more and more of that. Special stories are written on tweeted reactions of prominent people to events and sayings of others.

In 2008 in the US, Barak Obama used the Internet to target youth of 18 to 29 years olds, the age group most reliant on new media for information about politics and election. A few years later in northern Africa, crowds used the same means to target authority, calling for change.

Dr. Demetris Kamaras is the Editor of AlYunaniya.com

Recently, these demands are expressed though Arabic hip hop and rap which seems to be gaining momentum in many Arab Spring countries including Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria and Bahrain. Hip hop and rap carry a message of sophistication that pushes them to break the barriers of fear and face the authoritarian regimes and long term rulers who seek to ridicule their demands.

In Tunisia, Hamada Ben Amor known as El General paid for his boldness with his freedom as he was arrested by the state after he released last November a critical song about former leader of Tunisia, Ben Ali, reaching audiences around the world through media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The song was immediately banned in Tunisia, but Al Jazeera Television and other stations were still able to pick up on the El General story followed by other media outlets such as TIME magazine which ranked the 21-year-old man one of the 100 most influential people of the year as his song is credited for inspiring Tunisia to take to the streets. His music extended beyond Tunisia’s borders and inspired protestors in Bahrain and Egypt.

Demonstrators in Bahrain prepared to flood the streets with El General’s tunes to express their demands for change. Bahraini rappers talked in their songs mostly about the rationality of the Sunni- Shiite divide that served only the interest of the regime.

Egypt’s day of rage brought to the forefront a group of rappers like Ram Donjewan who composed the anthem of Egypt’s revolution by simply laying out the reasons why it was normal to revolt against the government. In order to stand against a regime and its repression claim a group of rappers “the Arabian Knightz” in their song “not your prisoner” they must overcome all the pit politics that paralyze people in their everyday lives not only in Egypt but also in the entire region.

Libya is another country, which has seen a very fast rise in its hip-hop scene. In Libya, artist Ibn Thabet adjusts a code for the Libyan youth in which his music captures the anger and frustration of young Libyans that have lived decades of repressive rule under Gaddafi.

Meanwhile, Syrian rappers are staging their own uprising in their country. A search on YouTube for Syrian revolutionary rap results in thousands of videos and songs. Little is known about the artists or their way of working because secrecy is needed to prevent artists who criticize the government from being arrested. In some cases, governments as has happened in the past, have co-opted hip hop, popularity by supporting and exclusively giving National TV airtime to artists with pro-regime lyrics.

Each of these songs which include no managers, record labels or copyright are distributed via social network sites like Youtube, Twitter and Facebook, all stand in solidarity with the revolutions sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.

Material from the Centre for Mediterranean, Middle East and Islamic Studies (CEMMIS) was used for parts of the story.