Media in Islamic countries, almost, are Islamic media too. It means that majority owner and the one who run and manage media is Muslim herself/himself. There is no difficulty in portraying Muslim issue unlike other countries, but the other religious minorities’ issues are problematic in such countries like Afghanistan, Iran, and Arabic countries and so on.
All media in Islamic Republic of Iran are Islamic and are conducted by government. Issues of Jewish, Christian and so on; is less published and broadcasted. Even Islamic sects are problematic in publishing and broadcasting in Iran. Majority Shiite control the country and as well as media. Issues of others, less go to TV channels and newspapers pages. Media in Afghanistan, almost all are private exception one National Radio Station, TV Channel and 4 newspapers. One TV channel among more than 30 TV, and one Radio station, among dozens of Radio satiations and 4 newspapers among 15 newspapers inside Kabul Capital are governmental.
Media could be categorized in Afghanistan as governmental, religious leader owned and liberal. All media are responsible for respecting Afghanistan sovereignty, religious leaders, and traditions and believe and nothing can be against Islam.
Media activities in Afghanistan are ambivalent: on one hand they are private and criticize government; and are commercial too. On another hand, media activities in Afghanistan indicate freedom of speeches.
Tajikistan is a Democratic country, but people are Muslims and according to Tajik students in Hyderabad, media is non Islamic. It is quite clear that Tajikistan’s media obsessed by today Russia previous Union Soviet as even their language is Persian but the script is Russian font.
Newspapers in the Arab countries can be divided into three categories: those that are government-owned (together with semi-official papers such as al-Ahram in Egypt), those owned by political parties, and the “independent” press.
Very few of the privately-owned newspapers can be considered editorially independent; they are often owned by wealthy individuals who have political aspirations or seek to wield influence. Qatar, for instance, has six newspapers – all of them technically independent but actually owned by members of the ruling family or businessmen with close ties to the ruling family.
In general, Arab governments seek to keep a lid on political discourse and activity – especially any that might be perceived as a threat to the established order – though the degree of control varies from country to country. Besides the more obvious methods such as censorship and suppression, a number of bureaucratic and legal devices are used to restrict freedom of expression.
Until the 1990s almost all television channels in the Arab countries were government owned and rigidly controlled. These channels still exist but the situation began to change in the 1990s with the spread of satellite television. Privately owned and non-governmental channels introduced livelier programmers aimed at a pan-Arab audience and also adopted a more professional approach to news and current affairs.
The pioneer in this field was the news channel, al-Jazeera, which is financed by the government of Qatar but has enjoyed a large measure of independence. Al-Jazeera, many of whose staff originally came from the BBC, became the first Arabic channel to provide extensive live news coverage, even sending reporters to previously unthinkable places, such as Israel. Al-Jazeera also broke new ground with its discussion programmers which looked at issues from more than one point of view and often raised subjects that had previously been taboo.
In this new atmosphere of increased freedom and competition, Dubai has been making strenuous efforts to become the main media centre for the Middle East through the Dubai Media City project.
In 2008, at a meeting called by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Arab information ministers approved a charter to regulate satellite broadcasting. This was widely viewed as an attempt to assert control over the medium.
The Arab countries lagged behind most of the world in adopting the internet. One factor, until the late 1990s, was the technical difficulty of using Arabic on the internet (and on computers more generally) which tended to restrict use to those who could work in English or, in some cases, French. Another factor was cost (including high connection charges, often through a government-controlled monopoly). Saudi Arabia and Iraq were the last Arab countries to provide public internet access, in 1999 and 2000 respectively.
By the middle of 2008, more than 38 million Arabs were believed to be using the internet at least once a month and overall internet penetration (users as a percentage of population) had reached 11.1%.
Among the Arabic Medias’ Saudi Arabia are more traditional and restricted as bellow: In Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, the council of ministers issued a set of internet rules which, among other things, prohibited users from publishing or accessing:
· Anything contravening a fundamental principle or legislation, or infringing the sanctity of Islam and its benevolent shari’ah, or breaching public decency;
· Anything contrary to the state or its system;
· Reports or news damaging to the Saudi Arabian armed forces, without the approval of the competent authorities;
· Anything damaging to the dignity of heads of states or heads of credited diplomatic missions in the kingdom, or that harms relations with those countries;
· Any false information ascribed to state officials or those of private or public domestic institutions and bodies, liable to cause them or their offices harm, or damage their integrity;
· The propagation of subversive ideas or the disruption of public order or disputes among citizens;
· Any slanderous or libelous material against individuals.
There are TV channels such Aljazeera acts freely even in an Islamic country and funded by Muslim sheikhs and millionaire of Qatar.
Media in western countries portray distorted Islam and show Muslim as terrorists, plunderer and killer. As one of friend told me I have never seen any good news about Afghanistan in the media in my country.
Muslims are almost at the top of Indian media. They are well presented in this part, particularly in comparison to other sectors of the economy. Three of Bollywood's top stars, Salman Khan, Shahrokh Khan and Amir Khan, since the 1990s are Muslims and their religious identity have never been an issue. So many writers, producer, directors, anchors and reporters, are Muslims.
The role of Islam in Tajik Media
As far as the facts show the 95% of the Tajik population is Sunni & 3% of the Tajik nation is Shi’a Muslims and the total percent consist of 98% Muslims in Tajikistan.
The role of Muslims in Tajik Media is a right version, but when the country is not Islamic and the majority of population is Muslim, let’s says ‘The role of Islam in Tajik Media’!
According to the facts, which are shown above -
Islam’s propagation was a strict forbidden during the Soviet Union Time. Beginning from communists to ordinary people - they had not the right of knowing who they are according to their religion, they could not pray and fast publicly, the ceremony of grief “Janoza” (Arabic word) of the communist writers, poets, scholars, and historics happened privately at night.
After the Soviet Union collapse1991-92 Tajik nation faced misunderstanding among the nation by the interference of the bordered countries, which turned out to the Civil War. Here the Tajik media played a great role in reaching agreement among the nation for keeping the Tajik nation as nation and not to allow any bordered countries interference.
The Constitution of Tajikistan adopted on 6 November 1994.
The Constitution of the Republic of Tajikistan in 1999 established a new bicameral parliament and extended the President's term of office from five to seven years. The Constitution declares ideological and political pluralism, ensuring human rights and social-legal guarantees.
After that period the most important contributions, the new laws, which were held for the public and supported by the public, were adapted to the Constitution of the Republic of Tajikistan and were propagated widely through media as (according to Shari’a) Islamic rule were like:
The first step of the contribution was made by the Tajik president Emomali Rahmon - ignoring
the respected forms of treating, like Your Excellency or His Excellency through the all media sources and giving the example of equality of all human being according to Shari’a’s rule.
The next contributions, which were adapted to Constitution of the Tajik Republic through the media’s propagation and publics support, were like:
The Wedding Parties, which were held as big and important ceremonies, spending much time and money on them, were under the control of the government - as the whole ceremony has to take place only during 2 hours not more like earlier (it took a week or more to celebrate one Wed. Party) and the amount of money, which supposed to be spend has to consist of $2000 not more like earlier (it was possible around $10 000, $20 000 or more according to the family budget. The number of guests has to be not more, than 200 people from one side or from both sides not more than 300 – the bride and the groom. These and other kind of strict new lows were adapted to the Constitution of the Tajik Republic, which contains a strict control and a serious strict fine of much money in case of going beyond the control.
Another strict low for making a healthy mother, a healthy prosperous family - was the control of getting birth, reproductively
At the beginning these and all other new lows, which were adopted to the constitution were not supported easily by the public and it was again the important role of Islam, of Islamic rules according to Shari’a, which were media examples to propagate the public to forget about the tradition and to think about the stability of the family budget, country budget to think about the future state of economy in the country for the country development.
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