Big Brother keeps getting bigger in Arab world

Said Yousif Almuhafdah's Twitter profile picture has him holding a banner featuring its famous bird logo. The sign reads: "Because of a tweet, Nabeel Rajab was arrested".

The picture was taken at a demonstration in Manama in 2013, when Bahraini protesters called for the release of Nabeel Rajab, a human rights activist who had been imprisoned for criticising the state in a Twitter post.

Rajab was eventually released, but is again back in prison on charges related to another Twitter post.

Almuhafdah was himself jailed in December 2012 for posting pictures on Twitter of clashes between police and Bahraini protesters, and spent 40 days in solitary before being released.

Speaking to al-Araby al-Jadeed from Berlin, where he has been living as a political exile, Almuhafdah is indignant that activists are still being locked up, four years after the uprising in Bahrain began.

"Dictators whether in Bahrain, Egypt, Ethiopia, Syria are still cracking down on online activists because they are afraid of democracy," he said.

Almuhafdah is now the vice-president of the Bahrain centre for human rights, and claims that Bahraini authorities arrest 30 social media users between 2012 to 2015 on politicised charges. 

	Said Yousif Almuhafdah's Twitter avatar

These include charges of insulting the king or spreading false news.

On 3 May, the Cairo-based Arabic network for human rights information published a damning report about censorship on the internet in the Arab world. The report coincided with world press freedom day.

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#Turn_around_and_go_back: internet in the Arab world examines the level of "internet freedom" in 18 Arab states. They were placed on an index of 0-100 with 0 'unfree' and 100 'free'.

According to the index, Tunisia is the most free with a score of 75, while Sudan and Saudi Arabia were last with 25.

Criteria for the report included the number of people arrested for comments posted online, websites that were blocked, the level of privacy protection, and access to information.

Kareem Abdel Rady, a researcher on the report, told al-Araby al-Jadeed that Arab governments must look at freedom of expression through a political lens, not through a security one.

"As the report makes clear, more Arabs are online than ever before. This shows that governments are incapable of censoring information or from users critiquing their policies when they fail through thousands of comments and engagement daily," he said.

According to the 96-page report, there were now 157 million internet users in the Arab world compared to 58 million in 2009.

About half of internet users access Facebook and there are seven million Twitter users in Saudi Arabia and four million in Egypt.

However, Kuwait is the most dangerous country in the region for Twitter users. Between 2013 to 2014, 280 Twitter users were referred to criminal prosecution - 160 of them on charges for insulting the emir.

ANHRI's chief recommendations to Arab governments was that prisoners of conscience, such as Nabeel Rajab in Bahrain, should be released.

Governments are incapable of censoring information or from users critiquing their policies. Kareem Abdel Rady, ANHRI

Along with the report, ANHRI launched an online advocacy campaign entitled Freedom is their right profiling each month a prisoner of conscience behind bars.

Other recommendations that Rady listed included the need to legislate information laws "with transparency in mind rather than censorship".

Only Jordan, Tunisia and Yemen have an access to information law on the books.

Almuhafdah believes that social media platforms are important outlets for raising awareness about human rights abuses, despite government surveillance of activist sites and writings.

He alluded to firsm such as Gamma International being used by Bahrain's government to target activists.

"I was detained a few times for telling the world what was happening in my country and that's the price I have paid," Almuhafdah said.

He plans to open an office for the Bahrain centre for human rights in Berlin. "Revolutions take time. I have a responsibility especially now to keep our democratic cause alive."