During the 61st session of the UN Human Rights Council, HuMENA for Human Rights and Civic Engagement joined a civil society advocacy mission in Geneva alongside the Innovation for Change MENA Hub (I4C MENA Hub), 7amleh – The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, Smart Gov, and Wasl for Human Rights Tunisia, under the Digital Democracy Initiative (DDI) MENA. During the mission, HuMENA and partner organizations held meetings with several Permanent Missions to the United Nations, engaging diplomatic delegations in discussions on digital rights, media freedom, and the legal frameworks used to restrict online civic space across the region. The mission also included a direct meeting with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, and a side event that brought together civil society actors and international stakeholders to discuss regional patterns in the criminalization of online expression.
The discussions centered on documented concerns across six countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia. In all six, authorities have expanded the use of cybercrime, counter-terrorism, and national security laws to prosecute peaceful online expression. These laws share a common feature: they criminalize vaguely defined conduct — “false information,” “incitement,” “offensive content” — without requiring any demonstration of actual harm. The practical result is a legal framework that gives prosecutors wide discretion, routinely applied against human rights defenders, journalists, and civil society actors.
The meetings also raised a more specific concern: lawyers being prosecuted not for their own speech, but for statements made in the course of defending clients. In documented cases across the region, defense counsel have been charged under the same provisions used against their clients—an approach that extends beyond digital expression as such and directly affects the independence of legal defense.
On the procedural side, discussions addressed the use of remote trials, extended pretrial detention, and denial of legal counsel in expression-related cases, as well as informal enforcement mechanisms — including cybercrime bureau summonses that pressure individuals to delete content or sign pledges of non-repetition — that often fall outside formal prosecution statistics.
Surveillance was also on the agenda. The use of commercial spyware and device exploitation tools against civil society actors across the region was raised with diplomatic and UN interlocutors, in contexts where judicial authorization and effective oversight are largely absent.
The side event presented these concerns to a broader audience, arguing that developments across the six countries reflect a recognizable regional pattern: broadly drafted laws, specialized enforcement bodies operating outside ordinary judicial guarantees, and surveillance infrastructure that amplifies the chilling effect on civic space well beyond what formal case numbers reflect.
The February engagement builds on HuMENA’s ongoing work with Special Rapporteur mandates and UN accountability mechanisms, and is part of a continued program of international advocacy grounded in the organization’s regional documentation.
