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When 55 people protesting against the military overthrow of Egypt's first freely elected president were killed after the army opened fire on Monday, you might have expected the country to unite in condemnation.A surprisingly subdued public reaction, and the independent media's outright vilification of protesters, reflects in part the depth of political opponents' distrust of Mohamed Mursi and his Muslim Brotherhood.But it also represents a triumph for the military's public relations machine which, aware of its fumbled handling of the turbulent aftermath of Hosni Mubarak's overthrow in 2011, has moved decisively, and successfully, to gain the upper hand.

Independent newspapers, many of which were fiercely opposed to Mursi when he was in power, have been, if anything, more partisan. Daily Al-Masry Al-Youm wrote the bloodletting was "the Brotherhood's responsibility." Al-Watan decried a "conspiracy by the 'Armed Brotherhood' against the army."

With television stations sympathetic to the Brotherhood shut down, senior leaders arrested and its newspaper appearing only intermittently, Mursi's supporters have struggled to convey their view of the killings - that security forces, unprovoked, fired on them while they conducted dawn prayers."The military coup has showed its hideous face after just six days," said a flyer handed out by young men at the main pro-Mursi sit-in at a mosque in northeastern Cairo."Were these people firing bullets while they bowed upon their mats in prayer?"

“The police aim to break into the accounts of users to know who communicates with whom and on what subject,” blogged Astrubal, the Tunisian co-editor of the independent www.nawaat.org website, “with the end objective of dismantling the citizen journalist networks that formed spontaneously after the Sidi Bouzid protests.”

This systematic stifling of independent opinion over the years has turned many Tunisians to the internet for news denied by the mainstream press, keeping the Tunisian online censor, popularly nicknamed Ammar 404, particularly busy.

Tunisia was the first Arab state to embrace the internet, and to no-one’s surprise, the first to systematically repress it.

There were several elements about this unprecedented political event that stood out. First was the secularism of the whole affair. Women in chadors and niqabs and scarves walked happily beside girls with long hair flowing over their shoulders, students next to imams and men with beards that would have made Bin Laden jealous. The poor in torn sandals and the rich in business suits, squeezed into this shouting mass, an amalgam of the real Egypt hitherto divided by class and regime-encouraged envy. They had done the impossible – or so they thought – and, in a way, they had already won their social revolution.

There I was, back on the intersection behind the Egyptian Museum where only five days ago – it feels like five months – I choked on tear gas as Mubarak's police thugs, the baltigi, the drug addict ex-prisoner cops, were slipped through the lines of state security policemen to beat, bludgeon and smash the heads and faces of the unarmed demonstrators, who eventually threw them all out of Tahrir Square and made it the Egyptian uprising. Back then, we heard no Western support for these brave men and women. Nor did we hear it yesterday.

They supported democracy. We supported "stability", "moderation", "restraint", "firm" leadership (Saddam Hussein-lite) soft "reform" and obedient Muslims.

The Sunday episode of Liman Yajroo Fakat (“For He Who Dares”), hosted by journalist Samir Elwafi, has been accused of breaching journalistic ethics in its coverage of Kamel Gadhgadhi, who was killed during a standoff with security forces February 4. The Ettounsiya station has been blocked from airing it again by the High Independent Board of Audiovisual Communication (HAICA), a newly-formed independent body regulating broadcast media, according to a HAICA statement released Tuesday.

The breaches mainly focused on the “lack of respect for the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and in particular Chapter 6 thereof, relating to the right to life” and the “lack of respect for pluralism of ideas and opinions,” according to the HAICA statement.

When addressing issues such as “violence incitement, white-washing, or calling for violence,” the journalist “should intervene to show that this violence or terrorism is rejected by Tunisian society, and that this presents a huge danger to the whole transition,”

the extended jailing in September 2013 of two Jaffra news site journalists, Nidal al-Faraaneh and Amjad Mu’ala, who agreed early on to register with the government, as further intimidation against publishing articles critical of the regime. A judicial official said that Faraaneh and Mu’ala were “accused of posting a video that that offends Sheikh Jasim bin Hamad al-Thani. They were charged with carrying out acts that the government does not approve of and that would expose Jordan and its citizens to the risk of acts of aggression.” The video discusses an alleged sex scandal between a Qatari official and an Israeli woman.

the publisher and editor-in-chief can be held liable for the content of the comments sections, even though readers — and not journalists — write them

the security services arrested 12 employees of the Iraqi Al-Abasiya TV station based in Amman on June 6, including station owner Haroun Mohammed. One staff member, who insisted that his name not be used due to the sensitive nature of this topic, told Al-Monitor during the night of the arrest, “Fifteen policemen came to our channel’s office, pointing guns to our heads. In the interrogation, the police kicked us while forcing us to stand on one foot.” The official noted that the police also arrested an Iraqi friend of one employee, even though he was not an Al-Abasiya staff member. Especially disconcerting was that the journalists were charged with “terrorism” offenses and “using the Internet to carry out acts that would expose Jordanians to acts of aggression.” Under Jordan’s anti-terrorism laws, the suspects could face up to five years in prison if convicted. Al-Abasiya’s website was down at the time of this writing.