Federation of Arab Journalists praises Lebanon's press freedom record

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The 2010 edition of the annual FAJ “Press Freedom Report” congratulated the Press Federation and the Journalists Union for being “perpetually prepared” when dealing with press matters and praised the work of civil society groups in promoting press freedom in the country.

“The Lebanese press enjoys a broader margin of freedom when compared to other Arab states,” the findings, released at a media event in Cairo, said.

“[Lebanese journalists] are not free from certain cases of restrictions, especially in field work,” the report said.

OTV was slapped with the penalty by the Beirut Court of Urgent Matters in June for supposedly mocking the chairman of Societe General de Banque au Liban, Antoine Sehnaoui, in its comedy show “Ovrira.”

Although the episode never aired, a clip was leaked on YouTube and the station was ordered to pay damages for every time it was viewed.

The decision was eventually reversed, but the FAJ has fiercely denounced this threat to freedom of speech and has called on President Michel Sleiman to pardon all such acts in the future.

The FAJ is now working with various parliamentary committees to formulate amendments to existing laws governing media freedom in Lebanon and to further enhance its culture of press liberty. “We are taking steps to prevent this from ever happening again,” the report said.

The state of press freedom in the rest of the Arab region received a more mixed review.

“Press freedoms in Arab states differ from country to country due to conditions or circumstances concerning its development and its [social and economic] growth,” the report said.

“Journalists in a large number of Arab states are not able to [benefit fully] from their human and journalistic rights and there are … insufficient guarantees for journalists in these societies for their freedoms.”

Difficulties in Iraq and Somalia were seen as particularly bad and the report strongly condemned the willful killing of journalists which took place in the countries. Tens of journalists are thought to have been murdered in Iraq in the last year alone bringing the total to over 200 deaths since the US-led invasion in 2003. Two journalists have been killed and 15 seriously wounded in Somalia this year, but this is seen as an improvement on 2009 when 23 reporters lost their lives in the country.

Despite these difficulties, the report cited an overall improvement in regional press freedom and noted an increase in plurality of thought and opinion, deemed as integral to the wider promotion of human rights.

“[Arab journalists] are more free to express their varied directions of thought [due to] the continued legal and administrative pressures which affect the freedom of press in the Arab world,” the report said. “[In a large number of cases] existence of an opposition is allowed and the legitimacy of the opposition is recognized by the ruling regimes which respect their views.”

This standpoint contrasts to the 2009 World Press Freedom Review which covers some of the same time frame and was released by the International Press Institute (IPI) in February. The IPI report spoke out firmly against a monopoly of the Lebanese media, which is often linked to political figures. It also alluded to numerous instances of aggression and intimidation toward journalists, largely on the basis of sectarian divisions.

On a regional level the report noted the budding increase in information dissemination through increased internet usage but noted “government control of the media remains tight in almost all MENA countries, and censorship and self-censorship are prevalent throughout the region.”