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2. Intentionally vague: How Saudi Arabia and Egypt abuse legal systems to suppress online speech
- Author:
- Dina Sadek, Layla Mashkoor, Iain Robertson, and Andy Carvin
- Publication Date:
- 06-2024
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Atlantic Council
- Abstract:
- Egypt and Saudi Arabia are weaponizing vaguely written domestic media, cybercrime, and counterterrorism laws to target and suppress dissent, opposition, and vulnerable groups. Political leaders in Egypt and Saudi Arabia often claim that their countries’ judicial systems enjoy independence and a lack of interference, a narrative intended to distance the states from the real and overzealous targeting and prosecution of critics. Such claims can be debunked and dismissed, as the Egyptian and Saudi governments have had direct involvement in establishing and implementing laws that are utilized to target journalists and human rights defenders. Egypt and Saudi Arabia were selected as case studies for this report because of their status as among the most frequently documented offenders in the region when it comes to exploiting ambiguously written laws to target and prosecute journalists, critics, activists, human rights defenders, and even apolitical citizens. The two countries have consolidated power domestically, permitting them to utilize and bend their domestic legal systems to exert control over the online information space. Punishments for those targeted can involve draconian prison sentences, travel bans, and fines, which result in a chilling effect that consequently stifles online speech and activities, preventing citizens from discussing political, social, and economic issues. Both Egypt and Saudi Arabia enacted media, cybercrime, and counterterrorism laws with ambiguous language and unclear definitions of legal terms, allowing for flexible interpretations of phrases such as “false information,” “morality,” or “family values and principles.” The laws in both countries also loosely define critical terms like “terrorism,” thereby facilitating expansive interpretations of what constitutes a terrorist crime. Further, anti-terror laws now include articles that connect the “dissemination of false information” with terrorist acts. This vague and elastic legal language has enabled the Egyptian and Saudi regimes to prosecute peaceful citizens on arbitrary grounds, sometimes handing out long prison sentences or even death sentences, undermining respect for the rule of law in the two countries. This report explores the development of media, cybercrime, and counterterrorism laws in both countries, and demonstrates through case studies how Saudi Arabia and Egypt weaponize the laws to prosecute opposition figures and control narratives online. This report examines the relationship between criminal charges tied to one’s professional activities or online speech and how those charges can trigger online smear campaigns and harassment. In cases that involve women, gender-based violence is often used to harm a woman’s reputation. Though a direct correlation between judicial charges and online harassment cannot be ascertained, these case studies suggest that dissidents are likely to face online harm following legal persecution, even after they are released.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, Internet, Freedom of Expression, Rule of Law, Disinformation, and Digital Policy
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Saudi Arabia, and United States of America
3. Presumptively Antisemitic: Islamophobic Tropes in the Palestine-Israel Discourse
- Author:
- Race and Rights (CSRR) Center for Security
- Publication Date:
- 11-2023
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), Rutgers University School of Law
- Abstract:
- A bastion of free speech, individual liberty, and equality. This is the mantra our government repeats across the world and teaches nationwide in American schools. Rarely stated, however, are the varying limitations imposed on persons seeking to exercise such rights according to their identity. Protection of fundamental rights is at its zenith when exercised by white, Judeo-Christian communities, while exceptions are frequently invoked when racial or ethnic minorities exercise the same rights to challenge policies and laws harmful to their communities. Members of the majority engaged in dissent are treated as patriots with different political views. Minorities who dissent are treated as security and cultural threats deserving of social stigma at best or criminalization at worst.1 This racialized double standard is most acute for Muslim or Arab Americans when they exercise their free speech rights to criticize the U.S. government’s failure to hold Israel accountable for its systematic violations of Palestinians’ human rights. Often repeated statements in support of Israel across U.S. administrations stand as a reminder of Israel’s central place in U.S. foreign policy. A most recent example occurred in Jerusalem on July 14, 2022 when President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid issued a joint statement declaring: “The United States and Israel reaffirm the unbreakable bonds between our two countries and the enduring commitment of the United States to Israel’s security. Our countries further reaffirm that the strategic U.S.-Israel partnership is based on a bedrock of shared values, shared interests, and true friendship.”2 Among the countless analyses expounding on the strong bond between the U.S. and Israel in policy terms, few examine the relationship between Islamophobia and U.S. policy on Palestine-Israel.3 Specifically, when Muslims and Arabs in America defend the rights of Palestinians or criticize Israeli state policy, they are often baselessly presumed to be motivated by a hatred for Jews rather than support for human rights, freedom, and consistent enforcement of international law. The resulting harm occurs at the individual and systemic level. Systemically, informed and critical debate about U.S. foreign policy is hampered by censorship campaigns targeting college students, faculty, human rights organizations, journalists, and elected officials.4 Individually, Muslim and Arab Americans are defamed and effectively excluded from critical public debates pertaining to U.S. policies executed in their names and with their tax funds. Should Arabs and Muslims exercise their constitutional rights of free speech and assembly in defense of Palestinian human rights, they frequently become targets of aggressive intimidation, harassment, and blacklisting campaigns5 in their workplaces, towns, and universities.6 This report examines how Islamophobia shapes American foreign policy in the three following ways: 1) restricting open debate about unconditional U.S. support for Israel notwithstanding documented and systematic violations of international law by the Israeli government,7 2) perpetuating racist tropes that Muslims and Arabs innately hate Jews, and 3) discrediting the Palestinian people from realizing their full civil, political, national, and human rights. Such racialized foreign and domestic policy was brought into sharp relief in 2022, with the response in the United States and Europe to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. As Americans in and out of government united in supporting the political, civil, and national rights and defense of Ukraine and Ukrainians, the approach in Washington to similar Palestinian interests ranges, with a few exceptions, from qualified, muted neutrality to outright hostile opposition.8 Such double standards prompt multiple questions that reveal how race and racism infect foreign policy and the treatment of minority communities who espouse unpopular views or dissent from the political orthodoxy, including the defense of human rights for all. What role does Islamophobia play in the formation of policies that restrict Palestinians from the same right of self-determination that are celebrated for Ukrainians and Israelis? How does Islamophobia silence and punish Muslim and Arab Americans who defend Palestinians’ rights in universities, the media, the public square, and online? This report explores these questions by addressing three key components of Islamophobia and related (though not identical) anti-Palestinian racism. First, Islamophobia adversely shapes public discourse on Palestine in the United States, currently and predating the “War on Terror.” Racist stereotypes of Muslims as savage are deployed to promote discriminatory policies against Palestinians. Second, an ecosystem of Zionist institutions and prominent individuals perpetuate Islamophobia to promote the policies and goals of Israel in its theft and occupation of Palestinian territory, decades of dispossession and marginalization of the Palestinian people, and denial of the rights of Palestinian refugees. Finally, Islamophobia is juxtaposed against antisemitism, portraying Muslims globally and domestically as agents of antisemitism; attempting to create a competition, or even a zero-sum scenario between Muslims and Jews–rather than allowing principled opposition to both antisemitism and Islamophobia to unite joint social justice struggles. As a result, legitimate efforts to combat antisemitism are disingenuously co-opted to undermine Palestinian aspirations for self-determination and human rights, as well as to defame Muslim and Arab human rights defenders as inherently antisemitic. Palestinian aspirations are often portrayed by the media and Zionist organizations as a cover for a uniquely Arab and Muslim antisemitism. Related is the tendency to pathologize Palestinians and all aspects of their political, cultural and social lives. This both stigmatizes the very idea of civil, national, and human rights of Palestinians and attempts to censor Arab and Muslim Americans’ political activism. Discrediting any criticism of Israeli state practices violating Palestinian human rights as antisemitism overlooks the growing number of Jews and Muslims working together to promote Palestinian rights.9 Concerns of American supporters of Israel, including Jewish Americans who have a deeply personal stake in the well-being of the Jewish people of Israel, and American supporters of Palestinians, who have an equally deep and personal stake in the well-being of the Palestinian people in Palestine, are not equally considered when crafting American policy in the region. Islamophobia, though far from being the sole reason for U.S. policy exceptionalizing Palestine, is a substantial factor. In turn, Muslims or Arabs (who are often mistaken as all Muslim) who criticize America’s unconditional support for Israeli state practices, regardless of the human rights implications, are immediately ostracized as antisemitic. The consequent harm is twofold: Palestinians’ lives and rights are discounted, and Muslim and Arab Americans are denied meaningful participation in public discourse on U.S. foreign policy and the ability to exercise their free speech rights.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, International Law, Minorities, Freedom of Expression, Islamophobia, Anti-Semitism, Discourse, Racism, Self-Determination, Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims
- Political Geography:
- Israel, Palestine, and United States of America
4. Religious Intolerance and America’s Image and Policies Abroad
- Author:
- Amy Lillis and Arsalan Suleman
- Publication Date:
- 11-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
- Abstract:
- The Oct. 27, 2018 attack on worshipers in Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue was a stark reminder that hate crimes and religious persecution threaten not just individuals and communities, but undermine fundamental human freedoms. A new ISD report on “Religious Intolerance and America’s Image and Policies Abroad” examines the rise in domestic hate crimes against Jews, Muslims, and other faith communities in America – and how the impact of domestic religious intolerance and bigotry extends far beyond the U.S. border. The report, based on a March 2018 working group and public forum with experts from the diplomatic corps, academia, nongovernment organizations, and U.S.-based faith communities, explores these dynamics and ways in which governments and civil society can mitigate the dangerous consequences.
- Topic:
- Crime, Diplomacy, Religion, Freedom of Expression, Discrimination, and Soft Power
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
5. Gradual and Deliberate Engagement Leads to Trust and Change in Cameroon
- Author:
- Michael S. Hoza
- Publication Date:
- 04-2016
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Ambassadors Review
- Abstract:
- Since its independence in the 1960s, Cameroon has shared few common objectives with the United States. Its vaunted political stability has been predicated on a complex system of tribal patronage and—through most of its history—strict controls on freedom of expression and assembly. This stability has been punctuated by periods of political violence and crackdowns, most recently in 2008, which have alienated the international community and strained bilateral relations. Yet, confronted by the threat of violent extremism and virulent pandemics, Cameroon and the United States have begun to “push on open doors” to expand and deepen bilateral relations, and this in turn has opened up further—previously impossible—avenues for discussion on sensitive topics, such as humanitarian assistance and democratic and political transition.
- Topic:
- Political Violence, Humanitarian Aid, Bilateral Relations, Violent Extremism, and Freedom of Expression
- Political Geography:
- Cameroon and United States of America
6. Internet Freedom and Human Rights
- Author:
- Daniel Joyce
- Publication Date:
- 04-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This article considers whether the Internet has become so significant, for the provision of, and access to, information and in the formation of political community and associated questions of participation, that it requires further human rights protection beyond freedom of expression. In short, should Internet freedom be configured as a human right? The article begins by considering the ubiquity of the Internet and its significance. A wider historical view is then taken to understand Internet freedom in terms of its lineage and development from earlier debates over freedom of expression and the right to communicate, through to the recognition of the significance of an information society and the need for Internet regulation on the international plane. The current debate over Internet freedom is then analysed with particular focus given to Hillary Clinton’s speech on Internet freedom and its subsequent articulation by Special Rapporteur Frank La Rue. The concluding part introduces the critical work of Evgeny Morozov and Jaron Lanier to an international law audience in order to deepen the debate over Internet freedom and to point to the concept’s limitations and dangers. It is too early to say whether a ‘right to Internet freedom’ has achieved universal recognition, but this article makes the case that it is worth taking seriously and that Internet freedom may need its own category of protection beyond freedom of expression.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, International Law, History, Regulation, Internet, and Freedom of Expression
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Global Focus, and United States of America
7. What Political Institutions Does Large-Scale Democracy Require?
- Author:
- Robert A. Dahl
- Publication Date:
- 07-2005
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- ROBERT A. DAHL examines the political institutions necessary for a democratic country. He argues that a large-scale democracy requires the following political institutions: elected officials; free, fair, and frequent elections; freedom of expression; alternative sources of information; associational autonomy; and inclusive citizenship.
- Topic:
- Elections, Democracy, Citizenship, Freedom of Expression, and Institutions
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus and United States of America