Is there a magic formula to protect the media, all types thereof, from government oppression and the citizens from oppression by the media? I do not claim to have an answer. What I know is that the press in our countries operates under the supervision of two censorships, one governmental and the other being self-censorship, and that the Western media exploits its freedom to abuse people's freedoms. Thus we saw the News of the World, the most widely circulated Sunday paper in London, shut down after it was established that its reporters and secret informants had hacked the phones and e-mails of celebrities, and after a few dozen officials and reporters in the paper were arrested following investigations with the Murdoch group, which owns News of the World. Also, a policeman and four editors from the Sun, which is published by the same group, were arrested, after it was established that policemen were bribed in return for secret information sold to the paper. There is even an investigation into the allegation that the paper has been eavesdropping on the telephone calls of a British minister. The Press Complaints Commission then proposed imposing financial penalties on the newspapers that violate the codes of the profession. I was going over the latest developments from Lord Leveson's Inquiry, initiated last July into violations by London's papers against personal freedoms, when I stumbled on the latest World Press Freedom Index, which is published annually by Reporters without Borders – an organization founded in France in 1985. The Index's top ten ranks were occupied by Finland, Norway, Estonia, the Netherlands, Austria, Iceland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Cape Verde, then Canada and Denmark. These and other countries in northern Europe also appear at the top of the lists for transparency, (non-) corruption, freedoms and other areas. I noticed that the major powers, or the countries that have the veto right in the Security Council, occupy disparate positions on the World Press Freedom Index. For instance, Britain came in the 28th place, followed by France (38), the United States (47), then Russia far behind in 142nd place, while China was nearly at the bottom of the list, with 174th place in a list that includes 179 countries, the last being Eritrea. What position did the Arab countries occupy in the list? Again, the ranking seems to reflect to some extent their ranking in the Corruption Index. The best ranks were occupied by small Gulf countries; in the World Press Freedom Index, Kuwait came first among the Arab countries, at the 78th place, followed by Lebanon (93) – only one rank behind Israel (92) - then the UAE (112), Qatar (114) and Oman (117). The ranking of other Arab countries was as follows: Algeria (122), Jordan (128), Tunisia (134), Morocco (138), Iraq (152), the Palestinian territories (153), Libya (154), the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (158), Egypt (166), Sudan (170), Bahrain (173), Syria (176) – one rank behind Iran (175) - and one rank ahead of Turkmenistan (177). Of course, the list is not divine revelation, and is prone to contain errors. For example, I cannot understand how Namibia (20) came ahead of Britain, and Niger (29) ahead of France. Also, I do not think that Nicaragua, Maldives, Seychelles, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and Armenia have more press freedoms than Kuwait, the country where the press exercises its freedom so much that newspapers often make the citizens plead for protection from them. Further, I believe that the press in Egypt, Lebanon and Bahrain deserve to be in higher ranks. For one thing, there is a high level of press freedom in these countries, and this explains how privately owned newspapers in Egypt compete with national papers, while the civil war in Lebanon did not succeed in changing the reality of press freedoms there. Meanwhile, the position of Bahrain was perhaps influenced by the crisis with the opposition there, since Bahrain had ranked higher in previous years. I only talk about what I know. Since I am not confident of my information about the press freedoms in certain Arab countries, I shall bypass them. Also, objectivity requires me to state that the fact that the U.S. fell 20 ranks in one year, to the 47th place, is something I do not understand at all. Nevertheless, the Reporters without Borders Index is a reliable reference, and so perhaps we are seeing better Arab rankings as a result of the freedoms unleashed by the Arab spring. [email protected]
