September 2022 in Middle East and North Africa: A free expression roundup produced by IFEX's Regional Editor Naseem Tarawnah, based on IFEX member reports and news from the region.
The fight for women, life and freedom in Iran. Egypt’s ‘filtered’ COP27 climate summit. Jordan’s downward spiral on rights. And why Meta and Big Tech companies must move to protect online voices in the region.
Iran: Women breaking the ‘taboo of fear’
The tragic death of a 22-year old Kurdish woman, Mahsa (Jhina) Amini while in police custody has sparked nationwide anti-state protests. Tehran’s ‘morality police’ arbitrarily detained Amini for wearing an ‘improper hijab’ in violation of the country’s mandatory headscarves law, as she came out of a metro station with her brother in the country’s capital on 13 September.
Eyewitnesses told journalists Amini was beaten inside the police van while being taken to Vozara detention centre for an “education and orientation class”. Two hours after her arrest, Amini was wheeled out in a coma and subsequently transferred to a hospital where she died on 16 September. Amini’s family refuted the authorities’ claim that during her detention, Mahsa had suddenly suffered a heart attack, prompting rights groups to call for an independent investigation into her suspicious death, and for the international community to take action in ending Iran’s cycle of impunity for human rights violations.
Demanding accountability, UN experts said Amini was: “another victim of Iran’s sustained repression and systematic discrimination against women and the imposition of discriminatory dress codes that deprive women of bodily autonomy and the freedoms of opinion, expression and belief.”
Women-led demonstrations began during Amini’s funeral in her hometown of Saqqez in the Kurdistan province after mourners burned their headscarves in an act of protest that quickly became a rallying cry for an end to continued state violence against women. As anti-government protests spread across the country’s major cities and university campuses, authorities launched a deadly crackdown.
Dozens of peaceful demonstrators have reportedly been killed, and a rising number of activists, students and artists have been detained for their free expression. Both online and offline, protesters and activists have displayed their solidarity with the movement and denouncement of state violence by cutting their hair.
Despite the growing protests breaking down a ‘taboo of fear’, the Iranian state is cultivating repression. A growing number of journalists have been arrested for their coverage of the protests, bringing the country’s tally to at least 33 jailed journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF). They include Niloofar Hamedi, a Shargh newspaper reporter who was among the first journalists to report on Amini’s hospitalization, and who was detained after security forces raided her home on 22 September.
“Security forces create an environment of fear in neighborhoods when they raid journalists’ homes, scaring families and neighbors away to make sure no one reports the arrests or talks to the media, especially the Persian-language media in exile,” explained Iranian journalist and Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) senior researcher Yeganeh Rezaian.
Authorities also detained and reportedly beat prominent blogger Seyed Hossein Ronaghi Maleki, and photojournalist Yalda Moariry was also beaten and arrested on 19 September while covering protests in Tehran. “In the event that anything happens to me [while in custody] it is the responsibility of the ruling system,” wrote Moariry in her Instagram story from inside a police van full of women protesters.
Access to information stifled; LGBTQI+ activists face death sentences
Iran’s anti-government protests are the biggest protests since November 2019, when demonstrations against fuel price hikes also resulted in a vicious crackdown and a prolonged Internet shutdown. Despite videos of demonstrators being met with police violence spreading online, reports of casualties and human rights violations have emerged slowly amidst growing restrictions on access to information.
In an effort to stifle the flow of information, authorities imposed curfew-style disruptions to mobile and Internet networks, and banned access to Instagram and Whatsapp, hindering reporting and documentation efforts as well as communication with the outside world. Activists also warned that Telegram, the popular messaging app in the country, was being used by authorities to ‘identify and target’ protesters. One Telegram channel linked to the Iranian government amassed thousands of subscribers in what activists described as a “snitch line.”
This increasingly restrictive and hostile digital space has underscored calls by activists for social media companies to support protesters by providing greater access to platforms and more effective content moderation mechanisms to help reduce harm.
Against this backdrop, news verification has also proven difficult. A viral video of a woman tying up her hair before a protest was reported as that of 22-year old TikToker Hadis Najafi who was killed after being shot several times by shotgun pellets during a protest. The iconic video was widely shared by international media before it was confirmed that it was not Najafi.
Recent months have seen several viral videos of security forces or people using violence against women not complying with hijab laws in public. One video resulted in the arrest of Sepide Rashno, who was filmed arguing with another woman over enforcement of the hijab laws, and later forced to apologize on state TV before being taken to hospital for internal bleeding.
Further highlighting Iran’s dire human rights situation are the death sentences handed down against two Kurdish LGBTQI+ rights activist Zahra (Sareh) Sedighi-Hamadani and Elham (Orumiyeh) Choubdar on charges of ‘corruption on earth’, which come in the wake of increasing anti-LGBTQI+ sentiments and recent statements made by the country’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, in a speech.
“These shocking death sentences must acutely highlight that Iran’s LGBTQI community, who are socially, politically, and legally targeted and criminalised, is even at further risk of persecution and violence,” said Saloua Ghazouani, ARTICLE 19’s MENA director. “Urgent and robust action is needed to hold the Iranian authorities to account for these ongoing violations and to protect the lives and safety of Sareh and Elham and many others whose stories are sadly untold.”
Egypt: No climate justice without open civic space
Effective climate action is not possible without an open civic space, rights groups have said ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt next month. As the country gears up to host the climate summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, the rights community has drawn further attention to its alarming human rights situation and increasingly constrictive civic space. In a statement, 115 civil rights groups pointed to the Egyptian government’s restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly that they say risk undermining a successful, inclusive and participatory climate conference.
With Egyptian civil society organizations reportedly being ‘filtered out’ by a covert registration process, staff members of key environmental and human rights organizations said they are reluctant to speak out in public at COP27 for fear of retaliation. “The security apparatus will probably now more than ever before focus on environmental civil society in Egypt,” one activist from outside Egypt told Human Rights Watch (HRW). “When COP ends, they might start looking and see who is doing what, who got funds from where, for example.”
Egyptian journalists reporting on the summit are also threatened, as the government’s systematic persecution shows no signs of subsiding. Last month, independent news website Mada Masr saw its editor-in-chief Lina Attalah and three of the organisation’s female reporters, Rana Mamdouh, Sara Seif Eddin, and Beesan Kassab, summoned for interrogation after members of the pro-government Nation’s Future Party accused the journalists of publishing false news and defaming party members in an article investigating financial corruption. Released on bail, the journalists continue to face ‘false news’ charges in addition to “operating a website without a licence”.
Underscoring Egypt’s human rights crisis are the thousands of prisoners of conscience that are facing unfair trials, sentences, and maltreatment in the country’s vicious prison system bent on keeping them jailed. Prominent political activist Sherif Al-Roub was arrested on 16 September, only three months after being released from a year and a half of pretrial detention, in what rights groups said sends “a dangerous signal” about the state of free expression in Egypt.
On the three-year anniversary of the arrest of writer and activist Alaa Abd El Fattah and his lawyer, human rights defender Mohamed El Baqer, a global coalition of civil society organisations and individuals have called for their immediate release. Both have suffered significant deterioration in their physical and mental health as a result of their incarceration conditions, with Abd El Fattah reaching a life-threatening point after more than 185 days on hunger strike in protest of his continued detainment. Tried in numerous cases, Abd El Fattah and El Baqer were sentenced to five and four years respectively on new false charges in December 2021.
Receiving a four-year sentence in the same case, blogger and journalist Mohamed Ibrahim Radwan also marked three years since his detainment, with IFEX joining others in calling for his release. According to rights groups, Radwan, also known as Mohamed ‘Oxygen’, has not been allowed to leave his cell, and has not had access to adequate health care or allowed visits from his family or lawyers since February 2020. In the harsh isolation of his imprisonment at the notorious Tora maximum security prison, Radwan attempted suicide last year, and his life remains in danger.
Abd El Fattah is to be awarded the 2022 Electronic Frontier Foundation Award in November, while El Baqer will receive the UIA/LexisNexis Rule of Law Award this month.
Jordan’s shrinking civic space
“There is an urgent need to address the downward spiral on rights we are seeing in Jordan today,” said Lama Fakih, Middle East director at HRW. According to a recent report by the rights organisation, civic space in the kingdom has shrunk over the last four years as authorities persecute and harass citizens organising peacefully and engaging in political dissent. The report highlighted the use of vague and abusive laws that criminalize freedom of expression, association, and assembly.
Last month, dozens of Jordanians demonstrated in front of the headquarters of the Independent Election Commission, accusing the government of implementing measures “to silence mouths, restrict freedoms, and exclude young people from participating in [the] political environment.” Demonstrators demanded the release of dozens of political activists detained for exercising their right to free expression, largely due to vague and restrictive laws. Those detained include Anas al-Jamal, who was jailed for a social media post critical of normalization efforts with Israel, and accused of “disturbing the peace of relations”. Al-Jamal began an open-ended hunger strike in September to protest his unjust detention.
Journalists have also been ensnared by Jordan’s restrictive laws that have eroded free expression. Last month, prominent columnist Adnan Al-Rousan who was detained in mid-August for his online posts criticizing the king, was released on bail and faces charges under the Cybercrime law.
Further highlighting Jordan’s deteriorating civic space has been the government’s recent persecution of staff at the National Council of Human Rights – the country’s quasi-government rights monitor. Several of the organisation’s members are being investigated on financial corruption charges, in what rights groups have said is a ‘retaliatory effort’ to silence the organisation for its government criticism.
Digital Lens: Facebook bias and Netflix censorship
Rights groups, including IFEX, urged Meta to commit to implementing recommendations in an independent report and to take decisive action to protect the voices of Palestinians and other oppressed peoples and groups worldwide. According to an independent audit commissioned by Facebook’s parent company, its content moderation practices were biased against Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices during the May 2021 uprisings.
“Meta should not evade its responsibility any longer. The BSR report represents a golden opportunity for the company to decide whether it will implement meaningful changes based on what right defenders have been demanding for years,” wrote Nadim Nashif, founder of IFEX member The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media (7amleh).
Meanwhile, Netflix has been pressured by authorities in the region to censor content for violating “social and religious values”, reports SMEX. According to the rights group, this type of censorship, disguised as a restriction on “sensitive content,” has become a regional trend, particularly when it comes to LGTBI+ issues or political nuances.
In Brief
Tunisia: Tunisian journalists told CPJ how the country’s tough new constitution is restricting their access to information, while rights groups called on President Kais Saied to scrap a new communications and information law that will likely be wielded by authorities to silence journalists. ARTICLE 19 called on Tunisian authorities to stop using the penal code to prosecute bloggers and journalists for their opinions, and drop charges against blogger and activist Ghassen Boughdiri for his critical online posts, calling his upcoming trial “an assault on freedom of expression”. In another denounced trial, Tunisian blogger Myriam Bribri who was sentenced last year to a four-month suspended prison sentence for her online posts, saw her appeal date postponed.
