Results matching “arrested and 24 inj”

Al-Jazeera will launch a Public Liberties and Human Rights Desk headed by ex-Guantanamo inmate, Sami al-Haj, to "promote respect for human rights and public liberties by monitoring, documenting, broadcasting and raising awareness for these key issues."

The project will work with the news division of Al Jazeera and will focus on establishing a specialized database on issues of human rights and public liberties, according to AFP.

On Tuesday two reporters who helped expose a corruption scandal in the transportation ministry unit were put on trial.  The incident highlights the lack of media freedom and repression faced by journalists in Vietnam.

The two journalists exposed a scandal, known as PMU 18, in which government officials were embezzling development funds meant for infrastructure projects.  Most of the money they embezzled went to bets on European football according to AFP.  

Their coverage led to the resignation of transport minister Dao Dinh Binh and the arrest of his deputy in 2006.  Last year eight other officials were jailed in connection.

The editors of Kyrgyzstan oppositional newspaper Alibi were arrested last night, after the paper was accused of refusing to pay over US$ 28,000 towards Asilbek Saliev, the nephew of President Kurmanbek Bakiev and son of national security head Janibek Bakiev, reports Lenta.ru.

The paper's staff mentions that they were not refusing to pay the sum, but simply asking to have the payment delayed by three months.

De Facto, another oppositional title, published an article (which Alibi re-published later) suggesting that the nephew was involved in a car accident that killed a pedestrian. The author of the article noted that investigations into the accident were lagging because of Saliev's status.

Saliev filed a lawsuit against both papers and won in both cases. In addition to the US$ 28,000 that both papers were ordered disburse to Saliev, the author of the article had to pay US$80 to him personally.

De Facto put a halt on publishing on June 12, following harassment from authorities. The paper published content that suggested that the Kyrgyz Taxes and Duties Committee was corrupted.

Numerous organizations have questioned the extent to which press freedom exists in Kyrgyzstan and whether the state allows for journalists to report freely.

Source: Lenta.ru

See also:
Kyrgyzstan: newspaper forced to stop publication, pressure from authorities

The offices of Hali Halisi, the Tanzanian publishing group which prints MwanaHalisi, Mseto and Hali, three popular papers, were raided on 18 July. The Tanzanian security forces confiscated computers and other material and arrested the paper's editor.

Police went so far as to take editor and publisher, Saed Kubenea, to his home, where they continued their search and seizure.

MwanaHalisi has been critical of government corruption and the most audacious in naming names.

Earlier this year, two MwanaHalisi editors were attacked when acid was thrown on their eyes - rendering Kubenea temporarily blind. Additionally, in February, security officers raided the home of JamiiForums.com editors, seized computer hardware and detained them for a little over 48 hours.

East African Editors Forum chairman David Makali denounced the raids, saying, "The trend of attacking papers is becoming standard practice among East African states. It is cowardly for any government that has any pretence to democracy to raid a newspaper when it can use the right judicial process."

Source: EastAfricaPress.com

Belarussian journalists and bloggers issued an online protest last Wednesday by not posting anything for an hour or using a black banner, lashing out against the "On Mass Media" law that the government adopted "without public hearings and international expert examinations", Belarussian Association of Journalists (BAJ) reported.

As the last few years have shown, independent Belarussian newspapers have the tendency of being shut down by the state. Instead, many media outlets have found solace in cyberspace, according to the Boston Globe.

However, last Tuesday the House of Representatives of the Belarus National Assembly approved the law after its second reading, Jurist reported. The BAJ said that the law violates the freedoms outlined in articles 33 and 34 of the constitution.  
 
Belarus media outlets are now banned from getting foreign financial backing and are required to register with the government. Reporters Without Borders termed the law as "repressive" and predict that censorship will increase, the Globe reported.

The government is trying to save Belarussians "from foreign propaganda" by attempting to control the cyberspace, according to the Globe.
 
Earlier this year, Belarussian journalists were imprisoned or beaten up during a protest against Alexander Lukashenko, the current president. A week later, a number of journalists' home were raided as the Belarussian KGB tried to look for libel documents regarding Lukashenko, Jurist reported.

Source: Boston Globe through World News Network, Jurist, Belarussian Association of Journalists

See also:
Belarus: 3 year sentence for Muhammad cartoon-officially
Belarus: Press freedom squeezed
"Think yourself lucky if your big worry is the future of journalism"
Belarus: Two opposition newspapers shut down
Seventh independent newspaper shut down by Belarus state








 

Currently, blogging arrests are at a record high, the BBC reports. 64 bloggers have been detained from mostly China, Egypt and Iran since 2003 according to a University of Washington annual report. In 2006-2007, the number of arrested bloggers tripled to 36.

Blogging has a "political importance", since issues include exposure of corruption, human rights violations, "suppression of protests", criticism of public policies and questioning political entities. Arrests tend to multiply during times of "political uncertainty" such as during elections.

A World Information Access (WIA) report concluded that imprisonment usually follows arrest. The report says that 15 months is the average prison sentence, the longest being eight years.

The Committee to Protect Bloggers claims that 344 people were detained as a result of blogging in Burma, even though WIA cannot confirm.

Around 30 countries worldwide implement restrictions on online activities. According to the report, restrictions on blogging also take place in Canada, France, Britain and the US.

Elections in China, Pakistan, Iran and the US make it more likely that the number of bloggers arrested will increase.

Source: BBC News though I Want Media

Those are the words of Li Changqing, recipient of the 2008 Golden Pen of Freedom. At the opening ceremony of the 61st World Newspaper Congress and 15th World Editors Forum the Golden Pen of Freedom Award was given to Mr Li, Deputy News Director, Fuzhou Daily, China. Unfortunately he wasn't able to tell the audience himself. Instead his words were recited by a close friend and colleague Miss Li Jianhong who was in Gothenburg receiving the Golden Pen in his honour. Mr Li Changqing hasn't been given his passport back since being released from prison in February this year after having spent two years in  jail. Neither was Mr. Li Changqing able to travel to Gothenburg. She was stopped at the Beijing airport when trying to board the plane. Mr Li Changqing had written a letter to the audience.
The letter told the story of how he became a journalist, why he still continues to work as one, what his driving force is and was. From questioning and doubt concerning the system in China at a young age, after the death of his father, till youth rebellion at the university, followed by the intellectuals revolt in the 1980's.
The problems he discovered, the weakness in the system, and the lack of freedom for the Chinese people is what spurred him on. And this is still why he keeps writing and publishing articles about interesting issues in the country. This was what got him arrested in 2006. He had revealed and exposed the spread of the dangerous, infectious disease, dengue fever, in southern China, before the authorities had informed the public. An act that would have been greeted as the action of a hero in most other countries was deemed as the "fabrication and spreading of false information."  The outbreak of dengue fever was never recognised by the authorities. This shows the vulnerability of a society without free press. The letter ended with Mr Li Changqing putting hope in the future and blessing China.

"Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom"  is a conference organized by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and a coalition of leading press freedom groups, held on April 18-19 in Maison de la Chimie in Paris to raise the consciousness of the journalistic community, especially sports journalists, to the press freedom conditions they should expect to encounter in China.

A Chinese journalist jailed for her reporting told the conference today that press freedom and human rights have worsened in China and that conditions for journalists in the run-up to the Olympics are "considerably more catastrophic" than they were when she was arrested 15
years ago.

"Freedom of the press and human rights constitute the most serious problem currently facing China," said Gao Yu, who was arrested in 1993 and sentenced to six years in prison for sending two articles on current affairs to a Hong Kong review. She was charged with "divulging state secrets", a catch-all charge often used by Chinese authorities to stifle independent reporting and dissent.

Her arrest came weeks after China's failed bid to host the 2000 Olympics. It was her second jail term; she had previously served a 15-month sentence in 1989 for her coverage of the Beijing democracy movement.

She compared her case to that of Hu Jia, a human rights campaigner and citizen journalist who was sentenced to three years in prison earlier this month. "As the Olympic Games approach, this case demonstrates in a terribly emblematic fashion the position of the Communist Party in confrontation with freedom of expression," she said. "It also shows the riposte of the Chinese authorities to the demands of the international community."

Despite promises of reform made ahead of the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese authorities have not only failed to respect them, but they have intensified their crackdown on journalists and others who seek to exercise their right to freedom of expression. Foreign journalists now reporting from China in the run up to the Olympics are regularly harassed and even expelled, as was the case during the March 2008 events in Tibet. This violates the Organising Committee for the Beijing Olympic Games pledge that foreign media would have "complete freedom to report when they come to China".

Ms Gao, the 1995 laureate of the WAN Golden Pen of Freedom and the first laureate, in 1997, of UNESCO's World Press Freedom Prize, said:  "At the approach of the Olympic Games, all Chinese who have suffered oppression hope to be able to utilise the occasion to seek justice; the international community hopes that the Chinese government will improve the situation of the press and human rights in line with the promise made in 2001.

"But the Chinese authorities see these internal and external pressures as 'politisation of the Olympic Games. Unhappily, counterattacking against these criticisms by repressing the freedom of the press only underlines this contradiction."

"The experience of China and the Olympics is, in fact, yet one more example of the terrible naivety and short-sightedness of those in leadership of our governments, our sports organisations and our businesses as they deal with repressive regimes like the one in place in Beijing," said Timothy Balding, CEO of WAN, who opened the session featuring Ms Gao.

"History, if nothing else, amply demonstrates that dictators do not voluntarily and spontaneously give up power, do not loosen the chains, do not remove the gags, after sudden illumination and conversion to belief in freedom and other human rights. They do so when they are forced to, generally through a combination of intense internal opposition and dissent," he said.

The full program can be found at here.

For more information on WAN's international campaign, in the run-up to the Olympics, to hold China to the promises it made in its successful Olympic bid to improve the press freedom and human rights conditions in the country, please go here.

Source: WAN

A day after police thwarted a murder plot against, Kurt Westergaard, the Danish cartoonist responsible for a controversial cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed wearing a bomb-shaped turban, 17 Danish newspapers printed the aforementioned drawing.

Three of the country’s largest newspapers were among those to reprint the cartoon today.  Editors staunchly defended their freedom of expression and refused to censor the content—noting that they would not be intimidated by fanatics, reports editorandpublisher.com.

The cartoon, considered offensive by numerous Muslims, was one of a series of 12 caricatures published in Sept. 2005 by daily Jyllands-Posten. Violent protests ensued in several Muslim countries in Jan. and Feb. 2006.

Danish police claimed to have arrested three people yesterday—a Dane of Moroccan origin and two Tunisian nationals in relation to the murder plot.

When asked why they chose to reprint the cartoon, the newspapers explained that they were demonstrating their right to publish uncensored material.

"Freedom of expression gives you the right to think, to speak and to draw what you like ... no matter how many terrorist plots there are," conservative broadsheet Berlingske Tidende wrote in an editorial.

Westergaard has lived in hiding for the past three months while the Danish press has maintained that it has “unanimously condemned the alleged murder plot against the cartoonist.”

The Danish Muslim community has attempted to dissociate themselves from the murder plot but have expressed disapproval of the cartoon’s publication today.

Imam Walid Abdoul Pedersen, a Protestant who converted to Islam, said: "It's not a good idea to reproduce it and the newspapers could have defended the cartoonist differently, without resorting to provocation."

Pedersen explained that while a dialogue on freedom of expression would be beneficial, perhaps the newspapers’ confrontational manner of provoking discussion, in printing the cartoon, was not the most productive.
 
The Danish foreign ministry has been forced to remain sensitive to the issue since the 2006 controversy sparked Danish flag burnings and international protests.

Source: AFP Mail – Editor & Publisher
 

The World Association of Newspapers and World Editors Forum have called on China to immediately release three journalists who are being held in violation of Chinese laws against lengthy detentions without trial.

The journalists – two reporters and a photographer – were arrested in June 2007 after reporting on a case of corruption in the Communist Party. Chinese authorities failed to release them, as required by law, when the deadline to proceed with trial expired in December.

Reporters Qi Chonghuai and He Yanjie, and photographer Ma Shiping, were detained by police in the eastern  province of Shandong and charged with "blackmail" and "suspicion of deception". In a letter to Premier Wen Jiabao, the Paris-based WAN and WEF said they were concerned that the charges were fabricated "and the real reason for their arrests is their reporting activities."

The letter called for the immediate release of the trio, and of all other jailed journalists, under reforms promised in China's successful bid for the 2000 Summer Olympic Games.

China recently released three journalists, but at least 30 others and 50 cyber-dissidents are still held in Chinese prisons. The imprisonments are in contradiction of China's pledge, contained in its "Beijing Olympic Action Plan", to follow international standards and criteria.

Read the full letter to Premier Wen.

More information about WAN's campaign for the release of Chinese journalists can be found here.

Tom Curley, president and chief executive of Associated Press has accused the US military of violating freedom of the press in their dealing with AP journalist Bilal Hussein.

Yahoo has agreed to settle on the lawsuit brought against them by the World Organization for Human Rights USA on behalf several Chinese dissidents. The case claimed that Yahoo gave information to the Chinese government that was used to arrest the dissidents.

Imtiaz Alam, Secretary General of the South Asian Free Media Association and World Editors Forum Board member, was released after a 36-hour detention. The World Association of Newspapers and World Editors Forum have sent a letter to President Musharraf to protest against the recent media crackdown.

Since November 3rd and the declared state of emergency in Pakistan, crackdowns on the press have worsened- in a country where the press freedom had reportedly improved in recent years.