I was a bit disappointed with Ayman al-Safadi, editor of the liberal al-Ghad (the only Jordanian newspaper which matters), for his defense of the arrest of the four Islamist MPs the other day (their prison stay was just extended another 15 days). But he makes up for it today with a spirited defense of freedom of the media. Safadi denounces the idea of an official "media policy" put forward by the Higher Media Council as a remnant of totalitarian regimes, rejecting any notion of a government-guided media policy in favor of the right of the press to pursue its journalistic vocation. Every government, he writes, has the right, even the obligation, to present its ideas and defend its policies and pursue its vision. But no government has the right to impose that agenda on the press, to require that the press support its agenda, or to punish those who dissent from its agenda. In a period where press freedoms and freedom of expression are on the retreat across the Arab world, Safadi's editorial isn't just the statement of the obvious which it should be.
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