Throughout my past three years at New York University Abu Dhabi, studying both film and social research and public policy, I have become increasingly interested in examining issues of national identity, collective memory, and the use of law in the MENA region. This summer, I will be interning with the Arab Reform Initiative (ARI) with a research focus on freedom of expression in recent years, looking at the role of law, framing, and the disenfranchisement of human rights groups in justifying government violations.
Using an international human rights framework, the current transgressions on freedom of expression in the MENA region can be viewed most clearly as violations of Articles 19 and 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (the right to freedom of expression and opinion and freedom of association, respectively). Still, restrictions on freedom of expression–which range from legal justifications for censorship, state control of the media, and a pattern of arbitrary arrests facilitated by a perpetual state of emergency–threaten more than just the right to freedom of expression itself. Such violations are part of a broader, intentional system of authoritarian rule which penalizes all attempts at political participation or opposition and are central to reinforcing the absolute nature of state power.
How such violations can exist within an international human rights framework, and the value of such a framework in articulating social change, are the questions driving my project. In posing them, I hope to express the limited potential of invoking a human rights framework in the MENA context when fighting for freedom of speech, emphasizing the issues posed by international interests, the perceived threat of terrorism and emphasis on “national security,” skepticism surrounding NGOs, and the absolute nature of state sovereignty and impunity.