Tag Archives: Censorship

03Sep/21

The Egyptian TikTok Girls

Beehive: Middle East Social Media

In August issue of Beehive, Nir Boms analyses the Egypt’s recent restrictive policy on social media and its impact on young bloggers.


Campaign to release Mawada al-Adham, from facebook
Campaign to release Mawada al-Adham. From facebook, 3 August 2020.

Amidst a new wave of authoritarianism and repression in Egypt, the Internet remains one of the only platforms of alternative expression, although perhaps, not for long.

Aside from Covid-19, the water crisis of the Rival Nile Dam, and the ongoing economic challenge, Egyptian news also dealt with the visible arrest of two young “TikTok stars.” Haneen Hossam, aged 20, was sentenced in absentia by a Cairo court to ten years in prison while Mawada al-Adham, aged 23, who appeared before the court, was sentenced to six.[1]


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02Feb/11

The Tunisian Revolution: Virtual Voices Made a Real Difference


By Nir Boms & Elliot Chodoff

The demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt caught most of us by surprise. Revolutions often do. Sir Anthony Parsons, the British ambassador in Tehran, declared in 1978 that “there has been little or no evidence of unrest among the urban poor.” Shortly after, Iranians poured into the streets and deposed the Shah.

A decade later, the U.S. was shocked by the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union, another revolution from within. In October 2000, several hundred thousand people protested against Slobodan Milosevic, who was arrested by Serbian police six months later and eventually prosecuted for war crimes. In 2003, Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze attempted to steal an election, and the people prevented him from opening a new session of parliament in what came to be known as the Rose Revolution. The Ukrainian Orange Revolution followed a year later, with half a million people marching to protest election fraud, corruption, and repression.

But not all marches end successfully. In 1989, the People’s Republic of China had little tolerance for the 100,000 demonstrators gathered in Tiananmen Square following the funeral of Hu Yaobang, a popular Communist leader who believed in political and economic reforms. Lebanon is still held hostage despite its million-man freedom march in 2005. Iran has learned its lesson: Repeated attempts at revolution — including that of the students in 1999 and the Green Movement of 2009 — have been crushed with high casualties. In Egypt, Syria, Libya, and even Morocco, popular protests have been quickly crushed.

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04Oct/08

סוריה: צנזורה על הקו

בעלי בלוגים בסוריה מקבלים בשבועות האחרונים איומים טלפוניים מפקידי ממשל, המציעים להם “הצעה ידידותית” להסיר חומר פוליטי מאתריהם. על לפיתת החנק הסורית על רשת האינטרנט.
ניב ליליאן, ניר בומס

עלי עבדאללה, שעמד בשערי בית המשפט העליון לביטחון המדינה, בסך הכל ניסה להביע את דעתו בפני שוטר על חוק מצב החירום הנמשך בסוריה כבר 43 שנים. מצב החירום, משמש את המשטר הסורי לסתימת פיות ומעצר מתנגדים. זמן קצר לאחר מכן, הוא זומן להופיע בפני נשיא בית המשפט. הלה איים עליו, שאם יופיע שוב בשערי בית המשפט – הוא יוכה נמרצות.

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22May/08

Yemen’s Facade of Freedom

 

By Nir Boms and Erick Stackelbeck
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 4, 2004

Last month, as Yemen hosted the Sana’a Conference on Democracy, Human Rights and the Role of the International Criminal Court-the first such event in a country long wracked by internal strife and despotism-the Bush administration was undoubtedly keeping a watchful eye. With Afghanistan and Iraq inching slowly towards reform, Libya apparently coming clean about its WMD program, and Syria and Iran under increasing U.S. pressure, the Yemeni government’s talk of democracy appeared to be another step toward the fulfillment of President Bush’s vision of a free Middle East. But in Yemen, as in most Middle Eastern countries, there is a fine line between rhetoric and reality. 

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