This research was conducted as part of the Phoenix project. It forms a part of a broader SMEX-led initiative to develop a Regional Digital Rights Strategy that strengthens the capacity of civil society across MENA to understand, respond to, and coordinate against digital authoritarianism.

SMEX’s new report, “Fear as a Form of Governance: Digital Rights Under Pressure in Egypt, Iraq, and Tunisia”, examines how digital authoritarianism affects digital rights organizations and civil society in Egypt, Iraq, and Tunisia. It draws on interviews and written correspondence with 20 civil society representatives, journalists, researchers, lawyers, and digital rights experts, alongside a review of relevant laws, government policies, media reporting, and research by digital rights and human rights organizations.

Executive summary

Digital authoritarianism in Southwest Asia and North Africa no longer operates through isolated acts of internet censorship or surveillance. Governments increasingly combine telecommunications infrastructure, vague criminal and counterterrorism laws, media regulations, financial investigations, online smear campaigns, and pressure on technology companies to regulate public life both online and offline.

Egypt, Iraq, and Tunisia each present a distinct configuration of this control but share a common logic. Authorities use vague concepts such as national security, terrorism, public order, family values, and foreign interference to create an environment in which almost any online activity can become criminal. Governments do not need to prohibit every form of conduct in advance; they can decide retrospectively what deserves punishment. Fear becomes a form of governance.

Key findings

The full report maps each country’s architecture of digital control in detail.

Egypt offers the region’s most centralized model, with legal, telecommunications, media regulatory, and security institutions integrated into an apparatus that monitors, blocks, and prosecutes critics in and outside the country. Tunisia is following a similar trajectory at an accelerating pace: since President Kais Saied’s 2021 consolidation of power, Decree-Law 54 of 2022 has become the most consequential instrument of its digital crackdown. Iraq looks different, with authority split between Baghdad, the Kurdistan Regional Government, and armed actors. That fragmentation leaves some room to operate but offers little safety.

In all three countries, digital repression rarely stays online. Smear campaigns often precede arrests, office raids, and prosecutions, while “digital mobs” direct public anger towards women, LGBTQ+ people, migrants, refugees, journalists, and activists.

Digital rights organizations continue to litigate, document, train, and factcheck under these conditions. A number of constraints make that work harder to sustain, among them:

1-The Psychological Toll: Constant targeting and second-hand trauma take a heavy toll. Interviewees described burnout, anxiety, and depression, with limited access to mental health support.

2-Inconsistent Institutionalization of Digital Security: That toll can also shape how people assess risk. Digital safety is often treated as a workshop topic rather than an organizational practice.

3-A Decline in Public Trust: As campaigns portray them as suspicious or foreign, groups must spend significant time proving their legitimacy before they can begin the work itself.

4-The Challenge of Regional Coordination: These pressures would be easier to face together, yet regional coordination remains fragmented. Organizations lack a durable SWANA-based structure through which to compare threats and develop shared strategies.

5-Funding Crisis: the resources to build that capacity are shrinking. The 2025 cuts to US foreign assistance abruptly ended projects across the region. Digital rights organizations cannot indefinitely compensate for failing state institutions, abusive security actors, weak platform safeguards, and inconsistent donor commitments. Their survival should not depend on resilience alone.

Recommendations
The report sets out detailed recommendations for civil society organizations, donors, social media companies, each of the three governments, and the public. Among them:

• Civil society organizations should treat digital security as a core organizational responsibility and build public trust through sustained community outreach.
• Donors should fund SWANA-wide networking spaces, prioritize mental health support, and allow grantees flexibility when conditions change.
• Social media companies should invest in Kurdish and Arabic dialect expertise and partner with local organizations as independent factcheckers.
• Governments should repeal or amend laws used against peaceful expression, including Egypt’s 2018 Cybercrime Law and Tunisia’s Decree-Law 54, refrain from adopting vague cybercrime legislation in Iraq, and end smear campaigns against civil society.
• The public should practice good digital hygiene, including two-factor authentication and encrypted communication.

You can read the complete report, including all of its findings and recommendations, or download it from here (hyperlink).