BROOKE GLADSTONE: On Monday, the United Nations inaugurated its new Human Rights Council, a 47-member body that replaces the discredited Human Rights Commission. The group Reporters Without Borders swiftly expressed concern about some of the council's member states, including Saudi Arabia, where it said censorship is the rule.

Joel Campagna is the Mideast program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists. Last month, he released a report about press freedom in Saudi Arabia, after making two trips to the kingdom and speaking with more than 80 members of the Saudi press.

Now, back before the first Gulf War, the Saudi press made news by failing to report Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Campagna says the press has loosened up a little since then because of what happened after September 11th, 2001.

JOEL CAMPAGNA: Mainly, the pressure internationally on Saudi Arabia to reform, the idea that the lack of liberties in Saudi Arabia had helped the country become a hotbed for extremism, this led to a lot of internal reflection, efforts towards reform.

And I think the first place where we saw attempts at opening was in the Saudi press, where we saw this slight liberalization where the press was tackling subjects that were previously off limits just a few years earlier, like crime, unemployment, the security force's battles with religious extremists.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: In March of 2002, 15 students, girls, were killed in a school fire, and you called this a watershed moment for the press, too. How come?

JOEL CAMPAGNA: Allegations that the country's feared religious police had actually prevented girls from leaving the premises because they didn't have the proper head scarves on, and that had led to the unnecessary deaths of several girls, those allegations were printed by Saudi newspapers, really breaking a taboo. So for the time being, there was this unprecedented debate about the role of the religious police.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And now the third trigger in 2003, suicide attacks in Riyadh. What was the press reaction then?

JOEL CAMPAGNA: We saw probing articles about how religious sheiks were purveying extremist ideologies openly in the kingdom, and we had columnists warning of the potential dangers that that posed to Saudi security. Some of the most daring Saudi publications were questioning some of the religious underpinnings of the Wahhabi brand of Islam that prevails in Saudi Arabia, and talking about teachings that militants have exploited to condone acts of violence — really, when you look at Saudi society, really explosive issues that were being tackled.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So, here you have an example of three triggers, three efforts at liberalization, but, as your report points out, none of those triggers actually created a permanent change.

JOEL CAMPAGNA: Every time we saw the press exhibiting more daring in their coverage, the state would push back by banning writers and sacking editors. We saw, as we mentioned earlier, the case after the suicide bombings in Riyadh. Al-Watan newspaper, which is known for its liberal bent, had published editorials that were critical of Wahhabism. Well, a couple of weeks after those articles ran, the paper's editor was sacked under pressure from the government and by order of, at that time, Crown Prince Abdullah.

And I think the best way to describe Saudi press freedoms after September 11th is to use the words of a liberal Saudi academic, who I spoke with. He said, "The margin of freedom in the press in Saudi Arabia is one that is given and taken away."

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Now, as you lay it out in your report, there are three forces at work in suppressing news coverage in Saudi Arabia — government officials, who dismiss editors, suspend and blacklist dissident writers in order to appease that other force that's working against the media, which are the conservative clerics.

And then, of course, you have a compliant government-approved media. That pretty much sums it up, right?

JOEL CAMPAGNA: Indeed.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Sounds like a closed circle to me.

JOEL CAMPAGNA: That's true. Saudi editors of the leading publications are approved by the government. If you are an editor of a leading paper, you must get the assenting nod of the information minister as well as the interior minister. So essentially, Saudi editors are loyalists of the royal family.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So it sounds as if, if you want to tap into what Saudi Arabians are thinking outside of what is permitted, then you have to go online.

JOEL CAMPAGNA: When you look at the Internet or when you look at what Saudis are saying on satellite television, on blogs or even in their own homes, the debate is open. It's lively. But, unfortunately, much of that is not happening or is not written about or talked about in the Saudi press.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well, thank you very much.

JOEL CAMPAGNA: Thank you.