The recent awarding of the EU’s top human rights prize to imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi is shining the spotlight once again on the rampant abuse of freedom of expression in the Middle East and North Africa. Although Arab autocrats have long used control of the press to silence opposition, in recent months the state has turned up the heat on both traditional and digital media actors in some not-so-surprising places, like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and some surprising places, like Morocco and Tunisia.

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"Until now, V.R. has been seen mostly as a revolutionary new platform for video games, but it has the potential to transform journalism as well. At the magazine, we first began experimenting with the technology in April, when we shot a short film with the V.R. production studio Vrse about the making of our "Walking New York" cover. We didn't promote this project at the time, but we were happy enough with the results to begin making plans for the film that we're releasing now, also a collaboration with Vrse: a 10-minute journey through the lives of three different children who have been driven from their homes by war."

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