As a wave of protests against government corruption and misrule rolls from country to country, nervous autocrats are using the same formula to crush dissent.

From Russia, to Ukraine, to Venezuela, to Egypt and beyond, there are copycat crackdowns: Arrest opposition leaders on absurd charges, hold show trials, beat — or sometimes shoot — protesters, and silence media that challenge the government’s message. Then blame a foreign conspiracy for all that has gone wrong.

This formula kept many dictators in power in the 20th century. It is outdated in this one.

To understand why, let’s look at the shameful trial last week of three respected journalists in Cairo.

Australian Peter Greste, and two colleagues who work for the Al Jazeera English TV channel, were charged Thursday with undermining Egypt’s national security as they stood inside metal cages in a Cairo courtroom. The three were hauled out of their studio in Cairo’s upscale Marriott Hotel in December, and have been held since, two of them in cold, insect-infested cells without access to needed medical treatment.

All three, including Egyptian Canadian Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohamed, are highly respected journalists. Their real “crime” appears to have been that they worked for Al Jazeera, a broadcast network owned by Qatar. That Gulf emirate backs the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group that dominated Egypt’s electoral politics until the army ousted the president last summer.

However, Al Jazeera’s English-language service — unlike the Arabic service — is widely considered to be a credible, independent broadcast network. “We had been doing exactly as any responsible, professional journalist would,” wrote Greste in a letter smuggled from prison, “recording and trying to make sense of the unfolding events with all the accuracy, fairness, and balance that our imperfect trade demands.”

In its questionable effort to brand the Muslim Brotherhood a “terrorist organization,” Egyptian officials seem intent on squelching any public discussion of how to heal a deeply divided society. Nor is it permissible to write about grave human-rights violations, such as the fatal shooting last summer of hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood demonstrators at the Rabaa al-Adawiya Mosque.

In the Egyptian version of “you are either with us or against us,” even raising these subjects can mean arrest for treason.

A highly respected academic, the American University of Cairo’s Emad Shahin, was roped into a treason trial of Muslim Brotherhood leaders, apparently because he has written and spoken about the need for political dialogue between Islamic and secular segments of society. This is vital in order to stabilize the country, given that the Brotherhood, despite its flaws, still has a substantial base of supporters. Never mind that efforts to erase it may drive some of its youth into the arms of the real terrorists, salafi groups that have taken root in Northern Sinai.

Never mind that arresting journalists and moderate critics (even liberal leaders of the Tahrir revolution) will boomerang.

That is already happening in Egypt. The hate speech pouring out of official media has further polarized the country and increased instability, without curbing terrorism. That, in turn, will make it harder for the president-in-waiting, Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, to restart Egypt’s moribund economy and provide jobs for its youth.

Gulf states may bail Egypt out in the short term, but in the long term, the country needs foreign investment, and tourists, to flourish. A xenophobic, bitterly divided country is not an attractive climate for either.

And officials who are frantic to control all information can lose touch with reality. This, even as the younger Internet generation manages to access information that the regime seeks to repress.

Case in point: Last month, prosecutors investigated an allegation that a babbling hand puppet in a TV ad for Vodaphone was sending coded instructions to Islamist terrorists. Officials from Vodafone Egypt were actually summoned to respond.

Tweeters and bloggers went wild with film clips of the chattering puppet. One English-language tweet by a Mohamed Abdul Fattah: “The Onion is shutting down their website citing unbeatable competition from the Egyptian government.”

What’s happening in Cairo should serve as a warning to other autocrats who use a simular formula for repression: A government that muzzles the media and shuts down dissent is setting itself up for future failure – or even farce – as the world and its young people look on.