Abstract
Women and girls in contemporary Arab societies suffer from various and intersecting forms of discrimination that deny them their enjoyment of fundamental human rights. The right to freedom of expression is one of the essential areas that may expose this gender-based discrimination and patriarchal attitudes. In many contexts, freedom of expression has enabled women to speak out and organize in civil, political, social, economic and cultural spheres and contexts; participate in their own emancipation and improve their status. Women’s exercise of freedom of expression has also provided them with new rights such as the right to vote, the right to control their own bodies, the right to join unions and the right to equality before the law and to participate in decision-making and hold governments to account. In the last decade, we have witnessed different attacks on women’s rights particularly their right to the freedom of expression, as scholars, journalists, social media users, human rights defenders, politicians and activists. The aim of this article is to explore emerging challenges and to highlight the struggle of Arab women for freedom of expression.
Introduction
The feminist literature shows a concern about freedom. In her chapter: ‘Feminism and Freedom’, Allison Weir points that: ‘The Statue of Liberty, like the statue of Freedom on top of the Capitol in Washington, is modeled on the Roman goddess Libertas, who was also a symbol of the French Revolution’.
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Evidently, through the history of Western civilization, freedom, like other concepts (liberty, equality, nation, justice, etc.) values, norms and ideals, has been personified as a woman. But this is a paradox, given the status of actual women in these societies. It should not be forgotten that the Equal Rights Amendment to the American Constitution, which would accord equal rights to women, has not been ratified. Moreover, many groups are until now excluded from the ideal of freedom.
According to feminist freedom of expression and speech is considered as a central and fundamental right. In their writing, many feminist had emphasized that freedom must be exerted in the sense that humans must engage with the world and manifest their freedom through ideas, discourses and projects. In this sense, freedom of speech like other freedoms is not a given; it is something for the subject to conquer, to perform in everyday life and to fight for it in hostile environment.
Feminist philosophers had argued that: when we struggle for freedom, we need to re-imagine what freedom might be. To do this, we can draw critically on the history of philosophies of freedom, but we also need to draw on both histories of local and global struggles for practices of freedom as well as on history of women. In fact, there are lessons to be learned from different stories of women fighting for right to raise their voices and express their ideas.
Many feminist theorists (Pateman 1988; Okin 1989; Folbre 1994; etc.) have pointed out the freedom of men in the public realm has been enabled by the imprisonment of women, as housewives, and as servants and slaves, in the private realm: women have done all the work of caring for children and households so that men could be free and express themselves, share their experiences and exercise their power. Yet, this dichotomy (public/private) has served to entrench the patriarchal system and ensure the oppression of women.
For this reason, struggles for freedom of choice and autonomy, freedom of movement, freedom of expression and assembly and freedom of participation in the public realm and in political governance become central to feminist movements and activism. The ‘second wave’ of the feminist movement in Europe and North America was referred to as the ‘women’s liberation movement’. This combat confirms that the ideal of freedom have historically been existential to feminisms in many countries and cultures and there was different ways of being free.
Like their sister in many contexts and cultures, women in contemporary Arab societies had define freedom of expression as a personal agency, which has enabled them to speak out and organize in civil, political, social, economic and cultural spheres and contexts, and participate in their own emancipation and improving their status. Scholars of history of feminist Muslim women (Margot Badran 1987, Leila Ahmed 1992, Hatem Mervat 1994, Miriam Cooke 2010, etc.) remind us that the Egyptian Huda Sha’arawi (1879–1947); the Lebanese Nazira Zeineddin al-Halabi (1908–1976) and others Arab feminine role models had always resist to norms and all structures of inequality, oppression and dominance. They had succeeded admirably to both transform particular aspects of patriarchy and achieve (relative) freedom in their lives.
Today, like other women in the world, women and girls in contemporary Arab and Islamic societies still suffer from different and intersecting forms of discrimination that denies them their enjoyment of fundamental human rights. According to women and girls rights include freedom of thought, freedom of information, and particularly freedom of the expression as an essential means to raise their voices and tackle this gender-based discrimination, inequality, violence against women and patriarchal attitudes.
In Tunisia, for example, the expansion of women’s rights was done by means of policy changes or ‘politics from above’, whereas after the process of writing new constitution in 2011, such changes came from women’s activists making demands and pressure upon the state. The emergence of women’s voices as agents of change within the new Tunisian political, legislative and social context marks a shift in the role that women play in determining their own role, goals as well as their strategies and form of expression.
The large literature of recent revolutions highlights different roles played by women. Some young women’s activists have braved censure or death to use their bodies to make a political statement, including Aliaa Elmahdy, the ‘naked’ Egyptian blogger, and Amina Tyler, the Tunisian blogger who posted a topless picture of herself in 2013. The female body was used as nonverbal liberation’s tool, visual text, a powerful weapon of revolt and as an instrument of protest.
No doubt, women’s exercise of freedom of expression and speech has brought them with skills, experiences and new rights such as the right to vote, parity law, the right to control their own bodies, the right to unionize, the right to equality before the law and to participate in decision-making and hold governments to account. But, in the last decade, we had witnessed a backlash and different attacks on women’s rights particularly on their exercise of freedom of expression, whether as scholars, journalists, social media users, human rights defenders, politicians or activists. Today, threats to freedom of speech are becoming increasingly apparent and challenging democracy and the human rights as well as citizen culture.
Violation of the right of freedom of expression
In many reports about human rights abuses and violations (2016), women activist living under fear, threats or jailed because of their opinions, are too often not named or invisibilized. In the opposite, men are always cited and named. As an example: ‘In Bahrain, a judge sentenced a prominent activist to three months in jail for “insulting a public official”, when an appeals court judge overturned her earlier acquittal’. 2
Yet, many tools were used to silence free media, create a threatening environment for women’s rights defenders. Insult charges, ‘false news’ defamation convictions, violations of ‘public order’, damage of reputation or prestige or stature of the state, etc. and laws such as the broad and vague provisions of the country’s counterterrorism law and cybercrime law are used to restrict civil society, particularly the civic groups that monitor and speak out about governments’ conduct.
Although Tunisia’s 2014 Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of expression in Article 31, many bloggers, civil society activists and Facebook users find themselves being prosecuted on the grounds of their online expression.
Emna Zouidi, from Sidi Bouzid, faced charges under Article 86 of the Telecommunications Code for criticizing police conduct. In December 2018, she wrote a Facebook post calling on the minister of interior to ‘control his dogs”, in reference to the chief of police who she accused of having threatened and hit one of the young protesters who in December 2018 had organized a demanding employment opportunities in Sidi Bouzid. 3
On October 8, 2020, Myriam Bribri, an anti-impunity activist, appeared before the Court of First Instance of Sfax after being charged the same day with Article 86 of the Telecommunications Code on the basis of a Facebook post she had published a week before, where she shared a footage of a police officer beating a person, with her comment referring to the police: ‘cursed be the best of you bastards’. 4
On April 12, 2020, Hajer Awadi, an activist from El-Kef, in the north west of Tunisia, posted a video on her Facebook page where she criticized the government’s poor distribution of basic foodstuff in El-Kef, saying she believed there was corruption involved. In the video, she also said that the local police had verbally assaulted and threatened to arrest her and her uncle when they went to complain about corruption. The prosecutor in the Court of First Instance of El-Kef charged them with ‘insulting a civil servant’ under Article 125 of the Penal Code and ‘causing noises and disturbances to the public’ under Article 316 of the Penal Code in reference to the altercation that took place before the arrest when the police tried to stop Hajer from filming her Facebook live on street. The first instance court sentenced them, on 20 April 2020, to a suspended 75-day prison term. 5
In July 2020, the Tunis Court of First Instance sentenced 27-year-old blogger Emna Chargui for 6 months to prison after convicting her on charges relating to a social media post deemed to be ‘offensive to Islam’. Two months earlier, on May 2, Emna Chargui had shared photo on Facebook containing text that imitated the format of a Quranic verse. 6
On February 27, 2021, Rania Amdouni went to a police station to file a complaint about the continuous harassment she has faced from the police in relation to her LGBTI Q+ activism and her participation in protests against police violence and deteriorating socio-economic conditions. Instead of registering her complaint, she was arrested. ‘Rania Amdouni’s arrest and prosecution sends a chilling message to activists who face harassment that if they dare to come forward to report police abuse they risk being turned from victim to accused’, said Amna Guellali, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International. 7
In Egypt, a crackdown on freedom of expression has made a degree of caution necessary among writers, artists and activists. 8 It is evident that authoritarian regimes and military dictatorships in the region made political use of ambiguous terms such as ‘terrorists’ and ‘extremists’ to stigmatize and exclude certain individuals, groups and communities from public life. Such challenges remain in some countries.
The prosecutions in the Golf do not leave much room for legitimate dissent and criticism. Article 29 of the UAE cybercrime law, for example, makes it illegal to ‘damage the reputation, prestige or stature of the state’. 9
On 2014, prominent feminist activists, scholars and writers in Saudi Arabia (Loujain al-Hathloul, Aziza al-Yousef, Eman Al Nafjan, Hatoon al-Fassi, etc.) 10 have been in prison and have reportedly been tortured. Moreover, feminist activists and scholars have been branded ‘traitors’ in the press. Their only crime was advocating for women’s rights and expressing their point of view about Ben Salman reforms and policies.
Saudi Arabia continued to repress pro-reform activists and peaceful dissidents. Authorities imposed a foreign travel ban on Samar Badawi, Abu al-Khair’s wife, in December 2014; earlier, she had travelled to Geneva to inform the United Nations Human Rights Council of her husband’s case. 11
In Morocco, women defending rights related to lands/territories, the environment and the use of natural resources, including in rural communities have been criminalized through the application of anti-terrorism legislation. 12
In Jordan, authorities increasingly used counterterrorism provisions to detain and prosecute activists, dissidents, and journalists for speech offences. It should be noted that Jordanian law criminalizes speech deemed critical of the king, foreign countries, government officials and institutions, as well as Islam and speech considered to defame others as well as ‘disturbing [Jordan’s] relations with a foreign state’. 13 Similarly, the Lebanese penal code criminalizes libel and defamation against the president, public officials, and private individuals.
Recently, Algerian authorities have used repressive laws to prosecute dozens of peaceful protesters under charges such as ‘harming national unity’, ‘harming national interest’, ‘incitement to unarmed gathering’, ‘offending public officials’, or ‘offending the President’. 14
The use of ‘terrorism’ charges is in fact related to discrimination, misogyny, stereotypes and prejudices that affect women in their societies and communities. Such accusations may also target women and men advocating for sexual and reproductive rights and the rights of LGBTQ+ persons – who are sometimes accused of being ‘feminist terrorists’.
In other countries involved in wars and conflicts (Syria, Yemen, Libya, Soudan, etc.), women are facing different challenges. In Iraq, ‘ISIS executed over one dozen journalists, including Firas al-Bahar on May 19, Jasim al-Jubur, on May 20 and Suha Radhi on July 7, all in Mosul, the Iraqi Observatory for Press Rights said’. 15
Moreover, during COVID-19, new ‘Cybercrime Laws’ were introduced in a number of Arab countries under the mantle of fighting misinformation, disinformation and rumours but have instead stifled freedom of expression and put the lives of journalists who challenge the government’s narrative of the pandemic at risk.
All these cases show the following: - There is no universal sense of freedom of speech. - Freedom of expression depends on a highly specific political, cultural and ideological framework. - Women and girls as well as LGBTQ+ groups are more conscious about their need to freedom. Today, they become more able to express their own desires despite authoritarian regimes and patriarchal structures of oppression. - It appears that largest factors exist and contribute to, or limiting, women’s freedom of expression. - Analysis should be contextualized because the authority to silence and punish women is very complex: in many cases, there is an intersection between different structures of power: government, religious institution, the family, educational institution, Academia, extremist groups, etc. (Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, etc.).
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- The judiciary in the region rarely use their authority to protect freedom of speech.
If we look to the production of knowledge in the region we find that there is a gap in the literature regarding how women understand freedom of expression and speech and practice this right. Scholars rarely address this issue. For this reason, it is important to take into account the perceptions and beliefs of women and girls in these countries. As Nancy J. Hirschmann and others feminist had undermine, the ‘language and categories of knowledge available to women are structured to express men’s experiences and desires and to obscure, ignore and deny women’s experiences and desires. 17 Indeed a ‘feminist theory of freedom of speech’ in Arab and Islamic societies is needed.
Impacts of restriction of freedom of speech
The debate on Freedom of expression highlights continuities and the socio-cultural resistance to change. The use of cybercrime laws – which are only aimed speech posted via electronic outlets such as Twitter, Facebook or YouTube – show the increased attention governments in the region are paying to online speech. Consequently, the local press; academia as well as activists and regular citizens in these countries practice extreme self-censorship.
‘Working in the social science field is very difficult, as society is more dominating than politics’, said a female professor in Libya who asked not to be named. ‘Doing research or discussing topics related to sex or drug addiction is very critical. So we practice self-censorship regularly to avoid being hurt’. 18 It should be mention that some universities in the region are actively silencing groups of scholars and students who critique the government in order to maintain a sheltered environment.
Although renouncement to pursue freedom is tempting for all human beings, but in this context of civil war, submission is more appealing to women than men. This not to say that women actively choose submission but they consent to the submission that is prescribed to them by social norms and gender order.
In Egypt, many female scholars have internalized their oppression and been indoctrinated into the dominant culture. Some said that social restrictions on freedom of expression are harder than those imposed by governments and employers and that it could be almost impossible to tackle a forbidden topic in some societies. 19
Moreover, the majority of women scholars who are knowledgeable about Islam become reluctant to engage publicly with religion. They fear they will get into controversy and be attacked by religious institutions or ‘ulama’, especially when they live in an environment restrictive, intimidating dominated by orthodoxy or extremist groups and sometimes even life-threatening. In this case, it is argued that the right to free speech has no primacy and that it must be limited in the name of respect for the other and truth.
If we agree that freedoms are vital to the creation of knowledge, and to challenging the improper use of power we can understand why many scholars decide to stay and work in the United States or European countries where they can benefit from structures and policies necessary for critical thought, and for diverse voices to be heard without the fear of repression or reprisal.
Another consequence of restrictions on freedom is the use of language. Arab writers are sometimes obliged to publish in English or French to avoid restrictions or to be labelled as anti-Islam. But what happens when someone perform in a language that it is not his/her own?
Indeed this environment of political persecution, social, religious and culture oppression on one hand discourage and block women’s entry into the field of news journalism, politics, etc.
One Egyptian journalist had confessed: ‘This toxic mix of legal, political, professional, and social constraints makes it extremely difficult, and many times impossible, for Arab women journalists to do their job safely and properly’.
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On the other hand, this new political and social environment pushes some young women like Elmahdy, Amina Tyler, Emna Chargui, Rania Amdouni and others to left their countries and applied for asylum in Europe or the United States. No doubt that in the contexts of fake news, cancel culture, hate speech and the populist backlash against women’s and minority rights, migration becomes the only way to survive.
The examples below show how gender as a category of analysis is important to understand contemporary political dynamics and the process of democratization. The impact on the law-making process, the contents of the laws and their implications for democratic governance, women’s rights and human rights, cannot be underestimated. There are reasons to be morally legally politically concerned about different strategies to silencing women. It is beyond its relation to free speech because the right of speak means the right to take a position against oppressions, discrimination, harassment and others forms of violations and violence, the right to be heard and taken seriously and the right to be respected and protected by laws.
Women’s fights continue
Greeks and Romans understood freedom as the men capacity to participate in the public realm (Agora) in collective self-government. In modern Western philosophical and legal traditions, individual freedom is most often construed in terms of rights, laws and policies. Many feminist theorists draw on socialist and Foucauldian theories to argue that the focus on individual rights problematically constructs individuals as free choosers unencumbered by social contexts and relations of power.
For decades, civil society and feminist organizations and activists were fighting against patriarchy in all its forms. Today, we are witnessing the emergence of new wave of feminist activism which is highly dependent on new communications technology (#MeToo campaign denouncing gender-based violence, misogyny, police aggression and sexual harassment). This new dynamism to feminism and feminist activism is accelerating the temporality of communication and allowing for organizational power and reach.
The second wave of uprising in Algeria, Sudan, Lebanon, Iraq (2019) and Tunisia and Soudan (2021) protests have been led by young people demanding a change in government an end to corruption and more rights. What is striking is how young women have been key actors and leaders in many of these movements. They were active in organizing the protests and social media postings, unafraid of speaking out. LGBTQ+ actors had highlight other macro structures than patriarchy, such as systems of race, age and class, that allow particular women, for example, women of the upper classes, to change the discourses of identity within patriarchy. All those new actors and women’s activists believe that ‘all is politics’ and free discussions of political issues are a prerequisite for democracy. They participate in the process of democratization as subjects and not just as objects and become more visible.
Yet, online feminist activism is empowering women from different class, age, and race but according to Bahraini journalist and researcher, Nada Alwadi, cyberfeminism: Was ‘very much a double-edged sword for many Arab women activists. On one hand, it provided a crucial platform for them to amplify their voices and to publicly articulate their demands. On the other hand, by enhancing their public visibility, and boosting their celebrity status, it made them vulnerable targets of regimes’ retaliation and persecution.
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According to young women; the spiral of violence is to be remedied by the spiral of action and non-silence. Moreover, this new generation is discussing new tools for empowerment, new feminist style of writing. Fighting become a mode of life and a way to accomplish full citizenship.
Concluding remarks
To sum up, we can say that the legal right to freedom of expression is mainly constructed as a relation between the state and the citizens, but the perception of the role of the state is in transition in many countries. Also, the idea of freedom of expression, as an individual right as well as a common good, is under transition. According the American scholar Ruth Lister, ‘there has been a shift or a move from positive terms to negative terms when it comes to the state’s responsibility for the freedom of individual citizens, and the urge for promotion has been changed to the urge for protection’. 22
Indeed, feminist activists continue to work within their respective domestic and regional spheres to advance (and preserve) women’s rights. Their work in defending human rights and democracy has become particularly urgent at a time when powerful States seek to undermine and roll back rights.
Obviously, the model of women patiently suffering and the narrative of victimization had changed. Women and girls in Arab contemporary societies are raising their voices, expressing themselves and demanding more rights. For them, freedom of speech is a way of being. It is related to performance as it was elaborated by Judith Butler. So, it is no more a ‘quiet Revolution’.
Those young women are able to speak out and claim their right to be respected but we are silencing them preventing them from talking and doing. Although the presence, voices and agency of non-elite women, young women and other LGBTQ+ groups in the various battles for freedom and equality remain hidden from the history, a group of feminist scholars are paying attention to their actions, hearing their voices. Those feminist believe that they need to learn more about the emergence of new movements, voices, conceptions, vision and practices of freedom of speech and expression.
Indeed Speech is action; words can do things and transform realities, lives and narratives.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
