Despite the popular uprisings and their promise of more freedom, the Arab world is not getting the independent media information it needs and deserves, media professionals from across the region said at the annual Arab Free Press Forum in Tunisia on Monday (25 November).

Illegal detention and government threats to a free press, just the latest headlines to emerge from the UK in a summer of revelations connected to NSA surveillance. Both revolve around the Guardian newspaper, and both require legal precedent to change in order to prevent Britain further lurching towards the unpleasant label of 21st Century totalitarian democracy.