Just three days after Syria's best-known political cartoonist, Ali Ferzat, was beaten up by the regime's thugs, President Assad issued a decree on Sunday to "reform" the country's media law.

This is the latest in a series of apparently futile "reforms" announced by the president in the midst of the continuing carnagewhich have included a law permitting (but restricting)demonstrations and another permitting (but restricting) political parties.

The new law for media (Arabic text here, English summary here) follows a similar pattern. It establishes a nine-member National Media Council which, among other things, will be responsible for issuing licences (for an unspecified fee) to independent media. 

Similar licensing systems in other Arab countries create a bureaucratic framework which can then be used to restrict "undesirable" publications on technical rather than political grounds and the new Syrian law seems designed to serve the same purpose. Its rules look particularly complicated and, as with the licensing of political parties, applications for media licences are not allowed from anyone "convicted of a felony or misdemeanour" – which could rule out former political prisoners.

While the new law does appear to indicate that journalists cannot be imprisoned in connection with their work, it provides for hefty fines ranging up to a million Syrian pounds (more than $20,000). It also says that "any attack on [a] journalist in the line of duty is considered an attack on [a] public employee" – though that will be of little comfort to Ali Ferzat as he recovers from his injuries.

Predictably, the new media law has been hailed (at least, according to the official Syrian news agency) as a great step forward, opening up "prospects for diversity, creativity and competition" but Ferzat's own history as a cartoonist and publisher provides a cautionary tale.

In the 1990s, before he became president, Bashar al-Assad visited one of Ferzat's exhibitions which included some of his banned cartoons, and expressed the view that they should all have been published. Ferzat remembered the conversation and, shortly after Bashar inherited the presidency from his father, applied for a licence to publish a satirical newspaper. Amazingly, permissionwas granted.

Launched in 2001, the new weekly – Addomari ("The Lamplighter") – was Syria’s first independent newspaper in 38 years and for a while each issue sold more copies than all the official dailies put together. 

By 2003, though, the regime had taken a dislike to it and the information minister demanded to see the content of each issue before publication. Ferzat refused and temporarily suspended publication. Later, when he tried to publish another issue without submitting it for approval, the authorities prevented its distribution. 

A government decree then rescinded its licence on the grounds that Addomari had "violated laws and regulations in force by failing to appear for more than three months" as required by the conditions of its licence. 

There's nothing in the new law to suggest that independent publishers will be treated any differently in future.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 29 August 2011