Mona Eltahaway writes at globeandmail.com on how young bloggers in countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia are infuriating their governments and paying the price through harassment and, in some cases, imprisonment.
Why are bloggers so feared by authoritarian regimes in the Arab world? Because they are young and blogging is, at last, a way to express themselves in a world where they are ignored. The majority of the Arab world is under the age of 30 and this majority has few venues in which to express their views — political or otherwise. ...
Much has been said about how Al Jazeera and other satellite channels in the Arab world have triumphed over state-owned media — but it is one old man's voice challenging another. The so-called "new media" in the Arab world is still the old making little room for the voices of the young.
And bloggers are mostly the young. And blogging is becoming powerful.
Last November, a triumph of blogging took place in Egypt, when two police officers were sentenced to three years in prison for sodomizing a bus driver with a stick. Egyptian authorities were cornered into prosecuting the officers after public outcry and international media coverage. What caused it? Two bloggers posted a video clip of the assault that one of the officers had filmed using a mobile phone.
The clip then made it to YouTube and was used as evidence against the officers during the trial.
One of the bloggers who posted the clip was Wael Abbas, who last year became the first blogger to win the prestigious Knight Award for Journalism in recognition of how influential his blog has become in setting the news agenda in Egypt.
Mr. Abbas has been threatened by Egyptian security forces, and his YouTube account was shutdown for a few days. He believes it was by the Egyptian authorities — it reappeared after international media reported on YouTube's action.