Middle East. The newspaper mainly concentrates on ruling elites, their power struggles and antics in both the Arab world and the Western world. In addition to political news in the Middle East, the publication also covers issues and events that affect the Arabic population in Europe and the United States. Arab Times' print version is published in Houston, Texas, and is distributed to at least 35 other states in the US. Both the print and online versions of Arab Times are written mainly in the Arabic language. Background
In 1997, Osama Fawzi launched www.arabtimes.com (the “Arab Times Website”), continuing with the website what he had started with the print edition of Arab Times approximately ten years earlier, but with a much larger audience and even wider dissemination. Since 2007, the Arab Times Website has gone beyond merely reporting the human rights abuses and violations of the freedom of expression prevalent in the Middle East to providing a service familiar to English-speakers in the west but scarcely permitted by Middle Eastern governments: an Arabic-language compatible, non-government, uncensored forum where readers may maintain blogs expressing their opinions. A prominent feature of the Arab Times Website is a web-portal “blog” referred to as “Hyde Park” in which users may register and post articles concerning political news and happenings in the Middle East (or any other subject). Arab governments show hostility towards Mr. Fawzi, Arab Times, and others who post on the Arab Times Website. Fawzi and the Arab Times Website focus on political happenings in the Middle East, the articles on the Arab Times Website—including those of its Hyde Park portal users—usually entail discussions and criticisms of certain Middle Eastern governments, including Jordan , Syria , Bahrain , Kuwait , Libya , Oman , Sudan , Yemen , and Saudi Arabia. Although many applaud the efforts of Arab Times to shed light on human rights abuses, the ruling families of The Arab Countries do not. They censor the Arab Times Website from their citizens—the Website cannot be accessed in those countries. Most recently, on May 4, 2009, a Jordanian government official questioned whether journalists who contributed to Arab Times should be “prosecuted” simply because “they write many things, much of it good, much of it bad.”
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10232069-38.html
Indeed, Jordan’s condemnation of the Arab Times Website has not been limited to censorship or public denunciation. Jordan has revoked Mr. Fawzi’s citizenship and passport and has in the past prosecuted and jailed a prominent female journalist and former Jordanian parliamentarian, Toujan al-Faisal, who posted an article on the Arab Times Website. Ms. Al-Faisal’s crime was questioning whether the Jordanian government charged too much for car insurance. Because she mentioned car insurance on the Arab Times Website, Ms. Al-Faisal was sentenced to jail for “tarnishing the Jordanian state,” “defamation of the judiciary,” “uttering words” before another deemed to be “detrimental to his religious feeling,” “publishing and broadcasting false information abroad which could be detrimental to the reputation of the state,” and inciting “disturbances and killings.”
(http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10232069-38.html). (http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/middle_east/jordan/hrd_jordan.htm). (http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE16/008/2002)
(http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE16/008/2002/en/1798d148-faf7-11dd-9fca-0d1f97c98a21/mde160082002en.pdf)
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http://www.arabtimes.com/AAAA/july/160.html
