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Our Reports
The Internet In the Arab World
A New Space of Repression?
No Rules, No Limits
United Arab Emirates:
Freedom of expression is missing despite a decision banning imprisonment for press crimes
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Law Tailors March On To The States
A U.S. Unfair Bill Against Arab Satellite Channels
Cairo December 17, 2009
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, ANHRI, said that the bill, for which the majority of the US congress members had voted for to penalize Arab satellite channels, which they considered “enemies of the United States," came as a blow to freedom of expression, and represented a sharp additional decline on the U.S. promises to improve its poor record in civil and political freedoms locally and internationally .
On 8/12/2009,the majority of the congress , 395 of a total 495 members, with only 3 rejecting , has voted to impose sanctions on satellite channels that broadcast content that could be interpreted as "hostile to the United States" and to consider the owners of these channels as supervising “terrorist organizations”.
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information said , "This bill severely conflicts with international standards and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ratified by the United States, and is an iteration of many of the serious mistakes with which the former U.S. administration has flooded both U.S. citizens and Arabs. However, when the bill is proposed at that time , while President Obama is in office, it is considered a crime and an extortion, especially as the law seems to have been drafted in a way similar to that of law tailors of Egypt, to siege and contain specific satellite TV channels" .
The Arabic Network added, "The threat of penalizing channels that broadcast " hostile " or " terrorist " content without an identification or definition of these loose terms, is considered bullying, especially that these terms may imply material that support the right to resist Israeli occupation of Palestine or the American occupation of Iraq. There is such a great difference between terrorism and resistance. "
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information called on all human rights organizations defending freedom of expression and freedom of the press to condemn this bill and urged the United States to rectify this grave mistake by declining this project or exposing this new administration, where new faces have gone on the stage, yet the same hostility to freedoms is inherited from the previous administration.
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