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The hot new fad for political regimes: censoring media
by Alexander Paladino
The basic freedoms of speech, religion, and the press are
fundamental tenets of an individual’s rights in the United States of America
and many other modern countries around the world. This liberty, however,
is not as quickly bestowed upon citizens of second and third world nations.
These countries tend to be ones where the governments are
communist or socialist; however, most important is that these governments are
almost all run by authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. The dictatorial
nature of how the government holds the lives of citizens under a fine scope
often leads to the abuse of power and manipulation of the public.
One stark example of such manipulation is a censorship of
media that is commonplace, allowing terrible leaders to remain in power.
Recently, this questionable act has proliferated across second and third
world nations, from Cuba to Iran to China.
The Arab Spring uprisings, a wave of revolts from Northern
Africa to the Middle East that started in late 2010, have brought about
liberation and democracy, yet at the same time hardship and an increased
scrutiny of citizens. While liberating Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen,
the newfound democracies put in place are not all too different in terms of
censorship.
During April 2013, Bassem Youssef, host of an Egyptian
comedy program akin to The Daily Show,
made a joke that offended President Mohammed Morsi. Youssef was
questioned for several hours and the channel that broadcast his program was
pulled from the air.
This act raises the question of whether or not some of
these democratic countries in the Middle East are merely veiling their
authoritarian rules through censoring media that pokes holes at them.
In accordance with the International Press Institute’s
report, the IPI Press Review 2009 Focus on the Middle East and North Africa,
the situation regarding censorship is getting worse. Dozens of
journalists have been convicted of crimes without trial. News blackouts
are put on foreign media. Countries like Iran have arrested online
bloggers who speak against them and have cracked down on the online flow of
media on a whole.
While the censorship of civilians for political gain is
occurring in the Middle East and North Africa, it is occurring all around the
world, and is not due to the Islam religion prevalent in the Middle East.
In terms of online freedom, in order from least to greatest
the bottom three countries are as follows: Iran, Cuba, and China. Iran is
mostly Muslim, yet Cuba is mostly Christian, and China has no one majority religion. The list follows with the Muslim countries of Syria and
Uzbekistan, yet then goes to Christian Ethiopia, and Buddhist Myanmar and
Vietnam (Sterling).
The religious lineup of countries with minimal online
freedom is erratic and does not point censorship to any one religion.
However, all these countries do have similarities. Most have
communist, socialist, and/or authoritarian governments.
Governments with these ideals are often malicious to their
people. They tend to strip rights away from their citizens in order to stay in
power, and those who try to uncover the corruption are the ones who
unfortunately get punished.
Works cited
Sterling, Joe. "Report: Mideast, North African Countries
Censor, Control Media." CNN World.
CNN. 10 Feb. 2010. Web. 07 Feb. 2014.
Bibliography
Calamur, Krishnadev. "U.S. Embassy
Tweets Jon Stewart's Egypt Monologue; Diplomatic
Incident Ensues." NPR. NPR, 03 Apr. 2013. Web. 07 Feb.
2014.
Fortin, Jacey. "The Surprising Truth About Internet
Censorship In The Middle East.
"International Business Times.
N.p., 12 Oct. 2012.Web. 07 Feb. 2014.
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