Freedom of Speech in Saudi

According to The New York Times, a popular Saudi video blogger, Feras Bugnah, was arrested on Sunday along with his two colleagues, Hosam al-Deraiwish and Khaled al-Rasheed. The reason that they were arrested was because of their report on poverty in the kingdom’s capital, Riyadh, which was viewed hundreds of thousands of times on YouTube. The team’s video report on conditions in an impoverished district of Riyadh, “contained realistic scenes, interviews and comments that are all considered familiar to the majority of Saudi society.” The group also accused the kingdom’s interior ministry of “trying to control the new Internet media” and sending a message to other young Saudis not to initiate such projects. This report was the 4^th episode in the past 2 months which features Mr. Bugnah on camera, narrating the reports and interacting with his interview subjects. When they set up the show’s YouTube channel this summer, the filmmakers declared: “we are going to talk about the subjects that are badly implemented in our country. We want our voice to reach to the decision makers so they can make changes that will make the people who love in this country more satisfied.” The supporters of the men have turned to social media to vent their anger at the arrests and one of those comments, posted by a 19-year-old Saudi student named Sara Nasser, read: “Those who say the truth are detained, while those who steal billions are free.”

The particular issue that is being talked about in this article is the idea of human rights. Human rights is the idea that everyone has inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being. The issue being examined is to what extent should the government be able to control and how much freedom should we be given to express our ideas and opinions. By expression opinions that differ from the government’s point of view, should the government be able to condemn and arrest the individual? Although by revealing these issues to the rest of the world, it reveals to the rest of the world what the country is hiding and through this we are able to see the poverty that is happening within this country. Also, is it wrong to use this method to try to get more people to help? The divide between the rich and poor is getting too great and the rich are getting richer while the poor are continuing to suffer. This is a great example of freedom of speech where he expresses his opinion freely on his blog for others to see and understand what is happening.

In addition to human rights, the issue of ethics is also involved here. Should the government be able to decide what can be posted online and what cannot be posted? Is what blogger Feras Bugnah doing by posting the opposite of what the government wants wrong? By posting what he did on his blog, he revealed to the outside world the suffering and pains that the people are going through and that the government is hiding from the rest of the world. Should the government be able to decide what they want the rest of the world to see about their country and what they want to hide from the outside world? Or should everyone be able to see everything that is happening within a country? He is not trying to defame the government or leaders of the country in any way but rather he is just trying to get the leaders of the country to make changes to help the poor who are constantly suffering. But then again, if the government has no control over what people post on the internet, what if confidential information is posted online for the rest of the world to see? Should the government be given the right to protect their own country and censor out this information? Therefore the issue boils down to ethics and censorship. How much should a government be able to control and how much freedom should be given to the people?

In my opinion, blogger Feras Bugnah represents the idea of freedom of speech. He tries to tell the people of the world the poverty that the people in his country are going through in order to try to get help. Although the government should have some control over the freedom of speech, they should be able to censor information that might reveal confidential information and cause a threat to the nation. Another example of a similar case to this was also another Saudi blogger, Fouad al-Farhan, who according to the government, was arrested “for violating rules not related to state security”. Again, he was arrested for posting on his blog, but this time on the rights of others who were a group of men who were arrested without charge or trial. This again brings up the issue of how much control should the government have on what the people post and if they should be allowed to arrest them over this matter.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/saudi-video-blogger-reportedly-detained-for-showing-poverty-in-riyadh/?ref=world

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/31/AR2007123101915.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights