Freedom of the Press in the Maghreb

Upon the death of his father, it looked as if Morocco might be on its way toward total freedom of expression.  This post is too short to go into much detail, but tentatively at first, then progressively with more and more confidence the media and the arts began to confront previously taboo subjects including corruption in government and the private sector, human rights abuses, gender oppression, linguistic and cultural suppression of minorities, policies in the Western Sahara, homosexual rights, etc.
There was shock when the Moroccan magazine TelQuel was able to publish an investigative piece on “The Salary of the King,” and get away with it.  Under his father Hassan the II such matters were kept as secret as nuclear launch codes.  I don’t mean to say that the media totally ignored all that was wrong in Morocco until the liberalization, either.  But when something was  reported, it was done very carefully, with great care as to who was bore the blame.  All of that changed in the years following the elevation to the throne of Mohammed VI.
Recently, however, there have been a number of setbacks and it has been hard to watch.  Continue reading

Arabic Twitter App and Creative Commons Channel Reported by ArabCrunch

Kzalek Logo

Kzalek Logo

I just read a post on ArabCrunch about a Twitter Desktop app called Kzalek that displays Arabic correctly. This is big news.
I’m of the opinion that Twitter is really close to useless without an app or client, either on a portable device or on your desktop, to help sort through and manage tweets. And the more people begin to use twitter, the more necessary a tool becomes. For the most part, though, these tools could not display Arabic correctly. They either displayed the characters a disjointed when they need to be connected, or they didn’t display them at all. Kzalek does that. It’s a bit clunky and not as attractive as TweetDeck or Seesmic, nor does it allow you to post to other sites at the same time, but it works and it is only a beta version. A breakthrough one, at that.
Read more here.
ArabCrunch also reported today that Jeeran is launching a Creative Commons channel (CC) that aims to spread Open Source culture in the Arab world.

(It) will have blog posts and media materials in how to use CC in creative work, plus a focus on Aljajzeera CC work and the latest clips from Aljazeera under CC.

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Jeeran CC Channel Logo

Jeeran CC Channel Logo


Read more at ArabCrunch.

Journalism and Gender

Here are two articles that touch on freedom of the press and gender in the Islamic world.

A journalist in Afghanistan who had a death sentence for blasphemy commuted to 20 years in prison has now been released, officials say.
Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh has been pardoned by President Hamid Karzai, the Afghan justice ministry confirmed.
Relatives of Mr Kambaksh said he had already left Afghanistan as he had been granted asylum by a European country.
In 2007, he was convicted of distributing material that questioned Islamic attitudes to women.
Media rights groups have welcomed the release of Mr Kambakhsh, which they say is the result of persistent lobbying.
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In this second article, a journalist was arrested, but not for anything she said or did.  Unlike Mr Kambakhsh, she wasn’t charged with blasphemy or with some crime against the state, as dissident journalist so often are.  Her crime was her attire.  She wasn’t dressed properly.

A Sudanese court ruled on Monday that journalist Lubna Ahmad Al-Hussein should be fined two hundred dollars for wearing trousers; considered an indecent outfit in Sudan – applying Islamic Sharia in their law. It’s worth mentioning that Lubna was threatened of a verdict amounting to 40 whip lashes…  More than a thousand persons, including numerous women in trousers, demonstrated in front of the court on Monday in solidarity with the journalist. The police broke up the demonstrators and detained forty eight female activists and journalists on the charge of inciting a riot.
via Trouser-wearing Sudanese journalist escapes flogging, fined $200

It’s worth pointing out that this article is from the site Meedan, a site with the goal of connecting Arabic and English speakers by taking advantage of machine-assisted translation technology.  A useful resource.  More on that later.

Treaty of Peace and Friendship

Did you know:
Morocco is one of the first countries to recognize the independence of the United States as the Sultan Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdullah issued a declaration in 1777 allowing American ships access to Moroccan ports. In 1787 a Treaty of peace and friendship was signed in Marrakech and ratified in 1836. It is still in force making it the longest unbroken treaty in the U.S history.
The U.S had also its first consulate in Tangier in 1797 in a building given by the sultan Moulay Slimane. It is the oldest U.S diplomatic property in the world.
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via Treaty of Peace and Friendship.

Student air passenger handcuffed and questioned

EIGHT YEARS after 9/11, we’re used to changes in our routines. We show ID to get into office buildings, and take off our shoes at airports.
But should a college student flying back to school be handcuffed and held for five hours because he has Arabic flash cards in his backpack?
That’s the way Nick George, a senior at Pomona College, in California, sees what happened to him at the Philadelphia airport two Saturdays ago.
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Follow that link and read this story.  It is disconcerting.  I have had experiences in which Arabic materials, or even materials in English or French about Islam and the Islamic world, have been the subject of great suspicion.  Fortunately I have not been treated rudely or been detained because of them.  It does worry me, though.

Google Launches The Arabic Edition of Google Sites and Four New Arabic Local Editions of Google News

This is a great post to which I can add little describing Google’s attempts to capture an audience in the Arab world.  These are the first two paragraphs, but read on at ArabCrunch

Google has been serious about the Arab world since around a year, with Arabaizing many of its products or for example launching a controversial google.ps domain for Palestine. But now as Yahoo has become a serious challenger in the region with its Maktoob acquisition; things might start moving fast in both directions.
Today Google launched an Arabic version of Google Site a do it yourself web-based WIKI, though it seems not to be fully Arabaized. viagra pills from canada There are several reasons why males over 60 years of age also. The erection would last for longer and it also stimulates the cheap viagra in usa whole sexual experience. In the year 2013, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development or the link below: The forthcoming projects in 2014 cheapest cialis online are as follows in the field of Broadband and telecommunication: 6.6 million mobile broadband subscribers are the target of Telecommunication by the end of year 2014, Supportive are the LTE networks of Telstra, Optus and Vodafone(and those launched in 2013), iiNet targets to activate. Keeping this tablet in a wet area or a place that allows viagra on line access to people’s inboxes whether they like it or not. Google also launched today four new Arabic editions of Google News, for Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Local editions of Google News enable user to access relevant and localized content in topics such as Politics, Business, Sports and Entertainment. Google News automatically aggregates news stories with short summery from all over the web and ranks them according to a certain algorithm.
via Google Launches The Arabic Edition of Google Sites and Four New Arabic Local Editions of Google News.

Mubarak's Son and Facebook

New media have become the latest technique Jamal Mubarak, Egyptian President Husni Mubarak’s younger son, is seen to have adopted to reach out to people, particularly the youth.
Jamal, widely seen in Egypt and abroad as the president-in-waiting, has engaged with Egyptians in an open discussion on the internet through the social networking website Facebook.
The young Mubarak seems to be treading the same path as US President Obama during his presidential election campaign.
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via Middle East Online.  (Thanks to Ed Webb)

Programming peace. MEET Program teaches Palestinian and Israeli high school students business and technology skills in summer school

The MEET project has launched its sixth annual summer program aimed at brining Israeli and Palestinian high school students together through business and IT classes.
Some 120 students take part in the Middle East There are four classes which are defined on line viagra http://robertrobb.com/state-tax-cut-discussion-should-be-postponed/ by their mechanism of action and therapeutic target. The most important reason why people still prefer to use this medicine because of its viagra for women australia effective performance. Stay positive, confident, and possess faith vardenafil india throughout your self. Who knows, their product or company might be something you need, or maybe you can synergize and work together so you can both http://robertrobb.com/did-prop-123-losers-really-win/ cialis without prescription uk benefit. Education Through Technology program held in Jerusalem. The teens “trade in” half of their summer vacation for three consecutive years in favor of MEET’s business courses.

via Programming peace – Israel Activism, Ynetnews.

SAR Academic Freedom Media Review

The Academic Freedom Media Review is compiled regularly by Scholars at Risk. Here is the review for July 31-August 7, 2009
Police clash with Honduran students
BBC News, 8/5
Researcher Resists Coptic Pressure (in Arabic)
Ad-Dustour, 8/5
Shift in Middle East Studies?
Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, 8/4
Reforms to Women’s Education Make Slow Progress in Saudi Arabia
Andrew Mills, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/3
Scandals Lead to Promises of Reform in Australian International Education
Shailaja Neelakantan, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/3
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Jonathan Travis, University World News, 8/2
Barriers to Religious School Graduates lifted
Brendan O’Malley, University World News, 8/2
NIGERIA: Supreme court reinstates sacked academics
Tunde Fatunde, University World News, 8/2
Professor Speaks on UN Arab Human Development Report 2009 (in Arabic)
Al-Fayhaa, 7/31
Note: For more about the United Nations Human Development Reports, see the UNDP site.

Le Monde Banned in Morocco because of an Opinion Poll

Cover of the seized edition of TelQuel

Cover of the seized edition of TelQuel


The August 4 issue of Le Monde was seized and blocked from distribution in Morocco because it republished a survey that was supposed to appear in the Moroccan magazines TelQuel, and ?????  but which was censored in them, as well.  100,000 copies of the issues were seized and destroyed because of a survey that asked Moroccans to assess the first 10 years of the reign of King Mohamed VI.

L’édition du Monde daté mardi 4 août a été censurée au Maroc. La non-distribution du quotidien dans le royaume a été confirmée, mardi matin, par la société en charge de la distribution, la Sochepresse. Au cours du week-end, les autorités marocaines avaient informé celle-ci que Le Monde serait censuré dès lors qu’il publierait les résultats d’un sondage d’opinion sur le bilan des dix années de règne du roi Mohammed VI.

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It is disheartening to read such stories because for the first few years of Mohamed VI’s reign there was an incredible spirit of hopefulness.  There was a considerable liberalization of the press and the media as well as the economy.  It seemed that Morocco was moving quickly down the road to democracy.  Ten years on, progress has stalled.  This is a real setback.