Emaj Magazine

The difference between Arab Bloggers 2009 and Arab Bloggers 2011 is that we are no longer the couple of hundred crazy people who believed change is inevitable. With this in mind, after three successful revolutions in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, Arab bloggers set out to participate in the 3rd Arab Bloggers meeting in the ”free” Tunisia. The Arab spring that started with Bou Azizi setting himself on fire, just a couple of hour’s drive from the place where the conference is held, has given hope for more democratic and freedom respecting regimes. Tunisia and Egypt were supposed to be one of them, however, as the time passes, we are seeing indications that this is not the case.

Just last month, Imad Bazzi (@trella), a Lebanese blogger was denied entry to Egypt. He was sent back home from Cairo International Airport. Speculations are that his refusal is caused by his visit to Michael Nabil, an Egyptian blogger arrested in post-revolution Egypt for his opinions against the Army Council.

Now it is Tunisia’s turn. Arab Bloggers Meeting was supposed to host eleven Palestinian representatives (several bloggers and two employees in the Heinrich Boel – Ramallah, one of the organizers of the event), but only one showed up – due to visa problems. The reasons behind the rejection of visas for the Palestinian participants are still uncertain. The Palestinian bloggers said that the embassy told them that the order came from the Ministry of Interior.

“It is absolutely unacceptable for such an action to happen, especially in the “new” Tunisia, and certainly when the purpose of the gathering is to speak about change in the Arab world through social media”, a disappointed Tunisian activist Kacem Jlidi said.

In Gaza and Ramallah, most of the bloggers followed the conference stream, commenting and interacting with other participants in the discussions and talks. Some of the bloggers also contacted mainstream media both online and offline to voice their concern regarding the inexplicable visa problem. In a perid when many of the world countries are showing support for Palestinian right to statehood, it was especially discouraging for them that a fellow Arab state refuses to grant visas for Palestinians.This decision has casted a dark shadows over the conference where many of the side discussions, live coverage on twitter and posts dealt with the issue of preventing the Palestinian bloggers from entering Tunisia. Many of the tweets rotated around the idea that an Arab bloggers conference without the Palestinian participation remains lacking and represents a strike to the values of democracy promoted during and after the Arab spring.

AFP, Reuters, Al Arabiya and many other media platforms quoted Saleh Dawabsheh, a Palestinian blogger prevented from coming to the conference, who stated that “all the Palestinian applicants were denied visa except for one blogger” who had applied for it before the rest. Racha Hilwi added: “We are accustomed to refusal of visas for Palestinians, but from an Arab state that has achieved a revolution, we expected that the treatment would be better”.

The organizers of the Arab Bloggers Meeting have issued a statement the first day of the conference mentioning the names of the Palestinian bloggers who could not attend. On the following day, Heinrech Boel, Nawat.org and Global Voices published another statement condemning the ministry of interior’s decision and announcing a Skype video conference with some of the Palestinian bloggers. The official statement said: “We demand an explanation from the Tunisian Interior Ministry and seek clarification as to why Palestinian participants’s visas were denied. Among those denied visas were two key organizers of the conference, who are employees of the Heinrich Boell office in Ramallah; a Palestinian living in Egypt was also denied by the Tunisian Embassy of Cairo.”

The online activists created a campaign “Bloggers Rejected” including a Google document, a Facebook fan page, a twitter hashtagh #visarejected and online petition to voice this case to the rest of the world. Many blog posts about this matter were published, one of which is Abir Kopty’s: An insult to Arab Spring: Palestinian bloggers denied visa.

Saed Karzoun, the only Palestinian blogger that made it to the conference, commented: “I feel bad about this, but I am happy to be able to represent Palestine in the AB11 conference”. Saed applied for the visa before the rest of his countrymen. When he got his visa, they told him that he was the “first among the applicants to get it”. Malek Khadrawi, coordinator of Arab Bloggers Forum said that the Ministry of Interior told him that even Saed’s visa was going to be withdrawn.

The participants in the event also decided to raise their voices regarding Palestinian absence by issuing a statement to be signed, circulated and sent to the respective authorities. Ramsey George, co-founder of 7iber.com, a Jordanian online citizen journalism website, said: “The Palestinians are living under siege and occupation; they seldom get the chance to express themselves and exchange experiences, banning them from showing up hurts”.

Dina Najm, an Iraqi blogger added: “It is expected that we, the Arabs, should support the Palestinians since we already know what they are going through, I was looking forward to meet some fellow bloggers from Palestine but unfortunately my hopes did not see light”.

Skype chat @ 3rd Arab Bloggers Mtg w/ Palestinians denied visa to attend #AB11 via @georgiap

The Arab Bloggers conference continues its course until the final session on Thursday, allowing activists from different Arab countries to connect and learn from each other’s experiences. Many bloggers from Lebanon, GCC and Maghreb area are eager to know how their fellows in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya made the revolution happen and to learn methods of fighting censorship, lobbying for social justice and spreading values of freedom.

But in the light of at the recent events against online and offline activists in these countries, it is apparent that there is still much work to be done to cleanse the post-revolution countries from the mentality of censorship and control. Finding out that Tunisia (and maybe other Arab countries) has tested censorship software for western companies (revealed in AB11), we should not be surprised how many yet-to-be-revealed censorship mechanisms are still in place.