Freedom of Criticising and Human Rights

UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize 2012 seeks nominations

2011-11-05T07:24:00.000-07:00

2 November 2011

UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize 2012 seeks nominations

Do you know an individual, organisation or institution that is defending press freedom? If so, send in your nomination for the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize 2012 by 15 February 2012.

Named after Guillermo Cano Isaza, a Colombian journalist who was assassinated in 1986 after calling for drug traffickers to be brought to justice, the award especially recognises those who defend press freedom at great personal risk.

The winner will receive US $25,000 at a ceremony on World Press Freedom Day on 3 May 2012.

Source IFEX

23 unsolved murders in 23 days: Join the International Day to End Impunity campaign

2011-11-05T07:21:00.000-07:00

2 November 2011

23 unsolved murders in 23 days: Join the International Day to End Impunity campaign

Mohammad Ismail, the first of 23 cases being highlighted in the lead up to the International Day to End Impunity
Mohammad Ismail was in his last days before retirement as the head of a leading Pakistani press organisation when he left his home to go for an evening walk on 31 October 2006. He was found the next morning near his home, with his skull smashed in. Five years on, his killers have not been found.

Starting on 1 November and for 23 days, IFEX is bringing you "23 in 23": a story each day of a journalist, writer, artist or free expression advocate - like Ismail - who was killed on that day for reporting the truth, and whose murderers have gone free.

Go to daytoendimpunity.org to take action on each case and join our global call for justice.

It's just one way you can take part in the inaugural International Day to End Impunity on 23 November. The day marks the anniversary of the Ampatuan massacre in the Philippines in 2009, which was the single deadliest incident for journalists in recent history.

"We were able to find a case of impunity for every day between 1 and 23 November. Sadly, this is a tale that can be told practically every day of the year," said Annie Game, IFEX executive director. Some days marked the anniversary of more than one person murdered.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), in the past 10 years, more than 500 journalists alone have been killed. Nine times out of 10, the murderers have gone free.

Check out day 2: José Bladimir Antuna García, 39, of Mexico. A crime reporter ambushed by five men. Attached to his body was a note reading, "This happened to me for giving too much information to the military and for writing too much." Demand justice in his case by sending an email to Mexican President Felipe Calderón here. You can write to him in English, French, Spanish, Russian or Arabic.

Source : IFEX

MEXICO: PROSECUTION AND VIOLENCE AGAINST TWITTER USERS MUST STOP

2011-09-27T20:19:00.000-07:00

MEXICO: PROSECUTION AND VIOLENCE AGAINST TWITTER USERS MUST STOP

Mexico, 21.09.2011: On 25 August 2011, Ms Maria de Jesus Bravo Pagola and Mr Gilberto Martinez Vera were arrested and charged with terrorism for disseminating false information on their Twitter accounts. ARTICLE 19 finds these charges to be in clear breach of international law standards on the protection of freedom of expression. ARTICLE 19 is also alarmed at the report that on 15 September 2011, two mutilated bodies, were found in Nuevo Laredo with a note threatening reprisals for users of specific social media websites - indicating that social media users are being targeted by organized crime.

ARTICLE 19 calls on the law enforcement authorities in Veracruz to immediately drop all charges against Ms Bravo Pagola and Mr Martinez Vera. ARTICLE 19 also calls on the Mexican Government to promptly investigate the killings in Nuevo Laredo and to adopt the complex measures needed to protect journalists, bloggers, human rights defenders and cyber-activists so that they can work in a free and safe environment.

Social media in Mexico
ARTICLE 19 has repeatedly expressed concern about the impact of the ongoing drug cartel-related violence on freedom of expression in Mexico in recent years, such as the silencing of the press and in particular of local media. Some people even talk about the emergence of “narco-censorship”, with criminal organizations threatening local newspapers with reprisals for reporting on drug-related crimes and other violent events. Journalists and publishers who cover drug wars are frequently killed and harassed and even the largest media houses frequently report incidents of serious threats and violent attacks against them because of their reporting.

As ARTICLE 19 has documented, freedom of the press in Mexico has been dangerously deteriorating over the past year with regular reports of journalists being killed, and often without proper investigations being conducted into their deaths.[1]

This climate of fear and distrust of the authorities has led many Mexican citizens to become increasingly reliant on social media as a source of news.[2] Hashtags have become an important sorting mechanism, and are even considered to be ad hoc news services.[3]

The reliance on social media is prevalent in the state of Veracruz, which has a problematic record on protecting freedom of expression, including impunity for those who commit violence against journalists. For example, two newspaper journalists disappeared in the Veracruz state in the course of a year - Evaristo Ortega Zárate, editor of Espacio on 20 April 2010 Noel López Olguín, a journalist, on8 March 2011. Moreover, on 20 June 2011, Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco, a newspaper columnist known for writing about corruption and drug violence, was shot, together with his wife and son, in the city of Veracruz.

The events of 25 August 2011
Against this background, on 25 August, @gilius_22 tweeted a messageusing the #verfollow hashtag on his Twitter account. He claimed that five children had been kidnapped at a local school in Veracruz. The tweet, allegedly, read as follows:

“#verfollow I confirm that in the school ‘Jorge Arroyo’ in the Carranza neighborhood 5 kids were kidnapped, armed group, panic in the zone.”

The message was re-tweeted by a number of people, one of whom was @VerFollow, a popular Twitter account with more than 5,000 followers that was created to report on the violence in the city. The news rapidly spread on other social media, with different versions being reported, including that one of the drug cartels was threatening to kill a child for each cartel member killed. Several other twitter users also reported other school incidents and that helicopters were flying at low altitude.

The governor of Veracruz promptly responded by tweeting a message dismissing the rumour. However, it came too late to avert the rapid spread of panic and chaos across the city, with scores of parents rushing to remove their children from school and several schools temporarily closing. The governor subsequently tweeted that there would be legal consequences for those who had spread the rumours and a statement was later issued on his website listing sixteen Twitter accounts involved in the incident.[4]

Shortly thereafter, María Jesús Bravo Pagola and Gilberto Martínez Vera were accused of disturbing the peace and spreading fear among fellow citizens of Veracruz by disseminating false information on social networks. Martinez Vera, a schoolteacher, tweeted from @gilius_22 Twitter account; Bravo Pagola, a local journalists re-tweeted Martinez’s original posts from her Twitter account (@maruchibravo).

Martinez and Bravo were charged with terrorism and sabotage offences under Article 331 of the Veracruz state Criminal Code. The crime of “terrorism” under Article 311 prohibits “using explosives, toxic substances, firearms, fire, flood, or any other means against the people, public property or services to produce alarm, fear, or terror in the population or group thereof; to disturb the public peace; or to undermine the authority of the state or to pressure it to act, is punishable by three to thirty years in prison, a fine of up to seven hundred and fifty times the minimum wage, and suspension of political rights up to five years."[5] [emphasis added]

Terrorist charges against Twitter users violate freedom of expression
ARTICLE 19 is deeply concerned that the Twitter users in this case may be convicted of terrorism offences and be sentenced for up to 30 years imprisonment for disseminating what turned out to be false information on Twitter. ARTICLE 19 argues that the charges against Martinez and Bravo should be dropped immediately for the following reasons.

1.    Overbroad definition of the crime of terrorism in the Veracruz Criminal Code

ARTICLE 19 finds the definition of the crime of terrorism in Article 311 of the Veracruz Criminal Code to be vague and overbroad and that it fails to meet the requirements of international standards.

We remind the Veracruz authorities that even though States have a duty to protect their people from terrorist and public disorder threats, their actions must be appropriate and without excess. Under international law, it is well recognized that human rights, including freedom of expression, must be respected in the fight against terrorism and cannot be arbitrarily limited. For example, the UN Security Council Resolution 1456 (2003) states that:

States must ensure that any measure taken to combat terrorism comply with all their obligations under international law, and should adopt such measures in accordance with international law, in particular international human rights, refugee, and humanitarian law.[6]

Despite the fact that there is no agreed universal definition of terrorism, a number of international treaties deal with various aspects of the phenomenon. For example, the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing Terrorism[7]and Security Council Resolution 1566 (2004)[8]described terrorism as:

“…criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act…”

International standards also stipulate that although freedom of expression may be restricted in order to protect public order and national security, any restriction must be clearly and narrowly defined by law, must serve a legitimate aim and be “necessary” in a democratic society. This implies that the criminal offences on terrorism should be narrowly defined and applied with due restraint.

The UN Human Rights Commission issued resolutions reminding nations to “refrain from using counter-terrorism as a pretext to restrict the right to freedom of opinion and expression in ways which are contrary to their obligations under international law”.[9] On several occasions, the Human Rights Committee also urged states to

[E]nsure that its counter-terrorism legislation and practices are in full conformity with the Covenant. In particular, it should address the vagueness of the definition of terrorist act …, in order to ensure that its application is limited to offences that are indisputably terrorist offences.[10]

Other international bodies have made similar recommendations. The Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, along with counterparts at the UN, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, has called for countries to adopt definitions of terrorism which ensure that they do not criminalize speech that does not directly incite violent activities:

The definition of terrorism, at least as it applies in the context of restrictions on freedom of expression, should be restricted to violent crimes that are designed to advance an ideological, religious, political or organised criminal cause and to influence public authorities by inflicting terror on the public.[11]13

Similarly, under theJohannesburg Principles on National Security, Freedom of Expression and Access to Information[12], a set of principles developed by ARTICLE 19 and international experts, freedom of expression may be limited on national security grounds only if the government can demonstrate that: (i) the expression is intended to incite imminent violence; (ii) it is likely to incite to such violence; and (iii) there is a direct and immediate connection between the expression and the likelihood or occurrence of such violence (Principle 6).

ARTICLE 19 argues that the definition of the crime of terrorism under Article 311 of the Veracruz Criminal Code fails to meet these requirements by being both vague and excessively broad in its reach. It criminalises not only acts that are widely understood to be “terrorist” in nature, but also many forms of behaviour that, while unlawful, cannot be regarded as “terrorism”. The definition also allows for prosecution of activities that are lawful and creates the opportunity for abusing it to suppress legitimate activities.

ARTICLE 19’s main concerns over Article 311 relate to the following issues:

·         Ambiguity about the violent nature of the crime:As noted above, under international standards, antiterrorism legislation (either in the criminal codes or in specific legislation) should be limited to violent crimes that are designed to advance an ideological, religious, political or organised criminal cause and to influence public authorities by inflicting terror on the public. The UN Special Rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights also stated that the concept of terrorism should be limited to acts committed with the intention of causing death or serious bodily injury, or the taking of hostages, and should not include property crimes. Contrary to these requirements, the definition in Article 311 includes acts that do not involve violence or injury to people. It is entirely unclear whether any actual violence (or possibility of actual violence) is needed in order to qualify the act as “terrorism”. At the same time, Article 311 allows for prosecution for property-related crimes and for disruption of “public peace”.

·         Lack of intent requirement:Article 311 does not require the acts prosecuted as “terrorism” to be intentional. This is especially important in the light of the fact that a crime under Article 311 can be committed by a wide variety of actions (apart from using explosives, toxic substances, firearms etc), including publications, speeches and demonstrations. ARTICLE 19 notes that international jurisprudence considers intent to be a crucial factor in reviewing the legitimacy of restrictions on the grounds of national security. The intent requirement further serves to shield speakers from responsibility for unintended responses on the part of their listeners. Article 311 completely omits this factor.

·         Overbroad reach of the provisions of Article 311:We are concerned that Article 311 allows for the possibility of targeting behaviour that does not reach the level at which the extraordinary intrusive measures provided under antiterrorism legislation can justifiably be used. The definition extends to forms of behaviour that would warrant a public order response but cannot be widely understood to be “terrorist” in nature. For example, some anti-globalisation or animal rights protests have in the past been violent and would fall within the definition of terrorism under Article 311; however, ARTICLE 19 has previously questioned whether the use of these provisions against the protests in question would be proportionate, bearing in mind the powers already available to the authorities to deal with such situations.

·         Potential for prosecuting legitimate activities: The section of Article 311 that sanctions “any other act” [apart from those using violent means] that “disturbs the public peace; or undermines the authority of the state or pressures it to act”applies to many legitimate, non-violent protests, gatherings, demonstrations or other forms of dissent. An action that “undermines the authority of the state” can cover anything from publishing a report about human rights violations to open discussion about many different issues. Similarly, broad prohibition of activities that “pressure the state to act” can be used to penalize activities that are a part of the normal functioning of a democratic society, e.g. citizens demanding the state to address problems related to public transport, or the public demanding transparency of government operations, improvement of educational system and the like.

ARTICLE 19 therefore urges the Government of the state of Veracruz to revise the wording of Article 311 of the Criminal Code. The definition of the crime of “terrorism” should be narrowed to include only acts of serious crime that pose a serious threat to life, safety or property and that are intended to advance an ideological, religious or political cause and influence the government by inflicting terror on the public.

2.    Excessive application of criminal law in the Twitter users case

Apart from the narrow definition of criminal offences of “terrorism”, international standards also require that severe restrictions on freedom of expression should be employed only if they are truly “necessary.” As noted above, international courts examine national security claims under the ‘necessity’ requirement under two key principles: i) whether statements were made with intent to cause harm to national security, and ii) whether there is a clear nexus between the statement and the likelihood of this harm occurring.[13]

In ARTICLE 19’s view the Veracruz law enforcement authorities have applied neither of these requirements when initiating criminal charges against Bravo Pagola and Martinez Vera. ARTICLE 19 is concerned that:

·         The requirement of intent seeks to draw a line between legitimate political debate on matters of national security and incitement to illegal action. The right to freedom of expression covers all kinds of ideas, including some unpopular sentiments. On the other hand, when the speaker intends to spur others on to concrete acts against national security, it might be considered ‘necessary in a democratic society’ to limit his or her freedom of expression. While it is yet not known what the intentions of Bravo Pagola and Martinez Vera were, they have vehemently denied that they intended to cause any harm to national security or any kind of public disorder. It also remains unclear whether they knew that the information they were disseminating was false as there had been a great deal of confusion over what had actually happened at the given day on the location in question. Hence, the fact that Bravo Pagola and Martinez Vera could have simply unknowingly distributed false information is an essential factor to be considered by the Veracruz law enforcement authorities.

·         The requirement that there must be a clear nexus between the statement and the likelihood of the harm occurring has also not been met in the criminal prosecution of Twitter users. Although it appears that residents of Veracruz rely heavily on social media due to the relative weakness of local newspapers and broadcast media, it is also very well-known that Twitter is not meant as a substitute for accurate reporting. As the recent London riots made clear, while social media can be extremely effective in sharing information among its users, the information shared is not always reliable. Most importantly, individuals have to judge for themselves whether the information is sufficiently reliable to act upon it.

·         We also note that under international standards, the right to freedom of expression requires that the least intrusive remedy must be employed when restricting speech to protect overriding public or private interests. The restrictions must be proportionate, meaning that the harm to freedom of expression must not outweigh its benefits. In this case, although the exact content of the messages which were tweeted or re-tweeted by Bravo Pagola and Martinez Vera remains unclear, there is no relationship of proportionality between what Ms Bravo and Mr Martinez did – disseminating false information, whether knowingly or not – and threat to national security. In the complicated situation in Veracruz, the use of criminal sanctions for terrorism, with the possibility of up to 30 years prison sentence for sending false information on a twitter account, is clearly a disproportionate restriction.

Therefore, in ARTICLE 19’s view, although the tweets were certainly problematic and may even have been malicious, it is difficult to see how the Twitter users could have foreseen the reaction of recipients of the tweets.

False news

ARTICLE 19 also reminds the Veracruz authorities that using criminal law - especially terrorist offences - to punish those who disseminate false information, whether knowingly or unknowingly, is contrary to international standards for the protection of freedom of expression.

ARTICLE 19 also notes that the UN Human Rights Committee previously stated that criminal prosecution for “false news” is inconsistent with the guarantee of freedom of expression. The Human Rights Committee specifically concluded that “the prosecution and punishment of journalists for the crime of publication of false news merely on the grounds, without more, that the news was false [is a] clear violation of Article 19 of the Covenant.”[14]

The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression has adopted a similar position in relation to false news which causes a threat of public unrest: “In the case of offences such as …publishing or broadcasting “false” or “alarmist” information, prison terms are both reprehensible and out of proportion to the harm suffered by the victim”[15].

There are a number of reasons why the dissemination of false news in this case ought not to be criminalized. Apart from the problematic situation of freedom of media in Veracruz and the reliance on social media, ARTICLE 19 requests the Veracruz authorities to consider the following.

·                False news laws can have a serious chilling effect on the free flow of information, including “true” information. In particular, they impose a burden on users to check the accuracy of the information they publish. However, given the speed at which news travels on Twitter, it is unrealistic to expect users to check the accuracy of thousands of different sources of information, which may be contradicting each other. If such requirements were to be imposed, this would deter Twitter and other social media users from sharing “true” information. Ultimately, this would deprive citizens from potentially vital information.

·                Facts and opinions are not always easily distinguished. In many cases, opinions are expressed through superficial statements, such as sarcastic, hyperbolic or comical remarks. Given that statements on Twitter are limited to 140 characters, they may be open to mixed interpretations. A ban on false news could therefore rapidly become a ban on opinions not favoured by the authorities.

·                False news laws are open to abuse by the authorities. Such laws are often excessively broadly drafted so that individuals may end up being prosecuted for engaging in perfectly legitimate behaviour. On the same day as criminal charges against Bravo Pagola and Martinez Vera were levied, it was reported that the Mexican state of Tabasco adopted a law that punishes those who provoke “social chaos and insecurity” through phone calls or online posting with a jail term of up to two years[16]. We reiterate that under international human rights law, legal measures that restrict rights must be narrowly drafted and be proportionate to the aim pursued. Laws that fail these criteria (including the use of vague and unclear criteria such as “social chaos” or “insecurity) cannot meet the ‘provided by law’ and ‘necessity’ tests. Moreover, the example of the prosecution of Bravo Pagola and Martinez Vera indicates that the law enforcement authorities are prone to overreact. It is therefore of the utmost importance that both the legislation and the regulations under which they act provide clear and narrow guidance on the circumstances under which these provisions may be used.

Recent case of violence against users of social media
Social media users reporting or commenting on drug cartels are not immune from violent reprisals. ARTICLE 19 notes with great concern that on 15 September 2011, the mutilated bodies of a man and a woman, bound and displaying signs of torture, were found hanging from a pedestrian bridge in Nuevo Laredo, the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, bordering Veracruz. The corpses had a note attached, allegedly stating:

“This will happen to all the Internet snitches (Frontera al Rojo Vivo, Blog Del Narco, or Denuncia Ciudadano). Be warned, we’ve got our eye on you. Signed, Z.”

The sites and blog mentioned in this note are sites that denounce drug cartel activities and that report on violence. The ‘z’ signature is a reference to the Zetas drug cartel,[17] a group known for its use of extreme violence against law enforcement officials, innocent citizens, informants, and rival drug gangs. The identity of the bodies has not yet been confirmed.

Although bloggers have been targeted in Mexico in the past, this is the first reported case of the violence related to users of social media. ARTICLE 19 believes that the case of the Nuevo Laredo killing must be taken extremely seriously in the light of the general climate of violence against journalists working for traditional media, and because of the level of impunity for those committing violations.

Moreover, the fact that this case comes in the aftermath of the charges against Bravo Pagola and Martinez Vera sends an incredibly chilling message to those who dare to comment, report or share news about trafficking and drug cartel violence in Mexico. It is deplorable that instead of putting in place effective mechanisms for preventing violence, the authorities are investing resources in prosecuting and silencing online speech. In the situation where on the one hand, the Veracruz state authorities are prosecuting Twitter users for posts distributed online and, on the other hand, drug cartels violently target social media users and bloggers with impunity, few citizens will be willing to engage in online discussion and exchange. Online self-censorship will ultimately prevail also on social media.

Conclusions
In ARTICLE 19’s view, the terrorism charges againstthe Twitter users, Bravo Pagola and Martinez Vera,are clearly an overreaction on the part of the authorities, who were apparently unable to deal with the situation in the city. The charges are also highly likely to seriously hamper the free flow of information on social networks in Mexico, which is needed in the absence of other reliable sources of information for Veracruz citizens.

ARTICLE 19 urges the prosecuting authorities in Veracruz to drop all charges against Bravo Pagola and Martinez Vera.

ARTICLE 19 also urges the Mexican authorities to promptly and effectively investigate the murders and threats in Nuevo Loredo in order to bring the perpetrators to justice, and to put in place specific measures to prevent such crimes occurring again.

The Mexican Government must also urgently adopt and effectively implement all necessary political and legal measures to protect both traditional journalists and users of social media, and defend the right to freedom of expression in their societies, in accordance with their international responsibilities.

[1]See for example: http://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/1827/en/lydia-cacho:-threats-continue-as-authorities-fail-to-protect.

[2]See for example: http://socialmediacollective.org/2011/08/31/shouting-fire-in-a-crowded-hashtag/.

[3]See for example: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/in-mexico-social-media-becomes-a-battleground-in-the-drug-war/

[4]Available in Spanish at: http://www.comsocialver.gob.mx/?sala-de-prensa=se-castigara-con-todo-el-peso-de-la-ley-a-ciberterroristas-pgj.

[5]The Criminal Code of the Veracruz state is available (in Spanish) at http://statecasefiles.justia.com/estatales/veracruz/codigo-penal-para-el-estado-libre-y-soberano-de-veracruz-de-ignacio-de-la-llave.pdf.

[6]Resolution 1456 (2003), §6.. See also General Assembly resolution 60/288 of 20 September 2006 on “Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy”.

[7]International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, adopted by the UN General Assembly Resolution 54/109 of 9 December 1999; available at: http://www.un.org/law/cod/finterr.htm.

[8]Resolution 1566 (2004), adopted by the Security Council at its 5053rd meeting, on 8 October 2004 ; available at http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N04/542/82/PDF/N0454282.pdf?OpenElement.

[9]See e.g. Commission on Human Rights resolution 2003/42; Commission on Human Rights Resolution: 2004/42; The right to freedom of opinion and expression, Human Rights Resolution 2005/38.

[10]Concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee, Australia, CCPR/C/AUS/CO/5/CRP/1, 2 April 2009.

[11]The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, the OAS Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information, Joint Declaration on Defamation of Religions, and Anti-Terrorism and Anti-Extremism Legislation, 9 December 2008. Available at www.osce.org/documents/rfm/2008/12/35705_en.pdf.

[12]These Principles were developed by media experts and reflect both international and regional law standards and best practice around the world in this area. Available at http://www.article19.org/data/files/pdfs/standards/joburgprinciples.pdf.

[13]See for example the decision of the Human Rights Committee in Keun-Tae Kim v. Korea, Communication No 574/1994, UN Doc. CCPR/C/64/D/574/1994(4 January 1999) or Sener v. Turkey, 18 July 2000, Application No. 26680/95 (European Court of Human Rights).

[14]Concluding Observations of the Human Rights Committee: Cameroon, CCPR/C/79/ Add. 116, 4 November 1999, para 24.

[15]Annual Report to the UN Commission on Human Rights, Promotion, and the protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, 18 January 2000, UN Doc. E/CN.4/2000/63, para. 205.

[16]http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/09/2398566/mexico-politicians-declare-war.html

[17]See for example: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/09/14/mexico.violence/index.html or http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/americas/in-mexico-a-deadly-threat-to-scandal-mongers-using-social-media/2011/09/14/gIQAWZ23SK_story.html.

Burma : Token Internet freedom gesture amid continued draconian jailings

2011-09-27T20:07:00.000-07:00

21 September 2011

Token Internet freedom gesture amid continued draconian jailings

Part of a 2010 interactive installation in Grand Central Terminal in New York created for a Human Rights Watch event on behalf of Burma's political prisoners

JWT via Human Rights Watch

Numerous IFEX members are stepping up pressure on the new government of Burma, which still detains approximately 2,000 political prisoners despite its interest in convincing the international community to end economic sanctions and support its chairing of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2014.

This week, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued a comprehensive report on the press freedom record of President Thein Sein's government. The Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Human Rights Watch have also issued statements calling for the immediate release of the unjustly jailed bloggers, artists and activists, many of whom serve multi-decade sentences. According to SEAPA, almost a dozen journalists are among those imprisoned, most of whom worked undercover for exiled news organisations Irawaddy, Democratic Voice of Burma and Mizzima News.

"The release of journalists and some 2,000 political prisoners should be central to ASEAN's consideration to accord ASEAN chairmanship to Burma," said Gayathry Venkiteswaran, SEAPA executive director.

The IFEX organisations urged the international community not to be appeased by recent, small gestures in the right direction. This week, for example, Internet users could access previously banned sites like YouTube, Reuters, Irrawaddy and Democratic Voice of Burma, according to Irrawaddy and RSF. But Internet café users are still subject to video camera surveillance and monitoring, according to CPJ's report.

Most of the prisoners were jailed by the former military junta, which Thein Sein's government replaced after a democratic election in November 2010. Since then, however, Burma has continued to dole out draconian punishments for those who speak out.

Last week, 23-year-old Sithu Zeya was handed an additional 10 years in connection with photos he took following a 2010 bomb explosion, report Mizzima News, CPJ and RSF. In August, an army officer was sentenced to 10 years for criticising the government's reconciliation efforts, report Mizzima News and Human Rights Watch.

In August, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, interviewed jailed journalists and activists who reported sleep and food deprivation and beatings. In a hopeful sign, Burma's Lower House of Parliament proposed amnesty for all political prisoners following Quintana's visit, Human Rights Watch reports.

Source: IFEX

Li Xiang Chinese TV journalist stabbed to death

2011-09-27T20:03:00.000-07:00

21 September 2011

Journalist reporting on "gutter oil" stabbed to death

Two unemployed Chinese residents have been arrested today, 21 September, in the fatal stabbing of 30-year-old TV journalist Li Xiang. While police in the central city of Luoyang, Henan province, are calling the murder a robbery, IFEX members are urging Chinese authorities to investigate possible links between the killing and the journalist's investigative reporting.

Xiang's last blog report exposed a company that was allegedly bottling toxic waste oil from restaurants, called "gutter oil," and selling it as cooking oil, report the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF). He was stabbed 13 times, say police, as he returned to his residence at dawn. His laptop, camera and wallet were stolen, according to "The New York Times".

Additionally, IFJ reports that two other journalists were assaulted last week by security personnel at Jinko Solar Holding Company as they reported on the detrimental health effects caused by the manufacturing company in eastern China.

Despite several cases of journalists getting assaulted on the job, the Chinese government often refuses to publish information about these cases or allow public access to the trials of the assailants in such cases, says IFJ.

RSF adds that journalists are often jailed for muckraking work related to health and safety issues issues. Zhao Lianhai, who has since been freed, was imprisoned in 2008 after creating a website exposing tainted baby formula of a leading Chinese company.

In August, CPJ also reported that authorities censored environmental protests in Liaoning province, when thousands of demonstrators called for the closure of a chemical plant that could have been damaged by a storm. In July, authorities also censored news of the high-speed rail crash in Zhejiang province, which killed at least 35 people.

Source : IFEX

New law fails to protect journalists' rights : Al-Mahdi's death

2011-09-14T18:37:00.000-07:00

14 September 2011

Al-Mahdi's death big loss for media and activist community; new law fails to protect journalists' rights

Hadi al-Mahdi

Iraqi journalist, filmmaker and playwright Hadi al-Mahdi was well known for his missives to the government, his demands for peace, and more recently, as a leading organiser of Iraq's recent pro-democracy protests. But for his actions he has paid with his life. On 8 September, he was shot dead in his home in Baghdad in an apparently targeted attack to silence him, report Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI).

"The killing of Hadi al-Mahdi sadly highlights that journalism in Iraq remains a deadly profession," said Human Rights Watch. "After more than six years of democratic rule, Iraqis who publicly express their views still do so at great peril."

Al-Mahdi's popular talk radio programme, "To Whomever Listens," ran three times a week in Baghdad and covered social and political issues in Iraq - a close friend of his told CPJ that he had been calling on the government to provide better water, electricity and public services for Iraqis.

Through his Facebook page, al-Mahdi organised pro-democracy protests in Baghdad every Friday, including the Friday of the week of his death. He was undeterred, even though back in February, he was arrested, beaten and blindfolded, and forced to pledge he would never participate in a demonstration again.

According to Human Rights Watch, just hours before his death, he posted the following message describing recent death threats against him:

"Enough... I have lived the last three days in a state of terror. There are some who call me and warn me of raids and arrests of protesters. There is someone saying that the government will do this and that. There is someone with a fake name coming on to Facebook to threaten me. I will take part in the demonstrations, for I am one of its supporters. I firmly believe that the political process embodies a national, economic, and political failure. It deserves to change, and we deserve a better government. In short, I do not represent any political party or any other side, but rather the miserable reality in which we live... I am sick of seeing our mothers beg in the streets and I am sick of news of politicians' gluttony and of their looting of Iraq's riches."

Ammar al-Shahbander, head of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in Iraq and a friend of al-Mahdi's, told Human Rights Watch, "This attack was different because usually journalists here have been killed in the line of duty, and you expect fatalities in war zones. But sitting in your own home and getting shot like this is too much to bear."

Al-Shahbander expressed hope that al-Mahdi's killing would not deter Iraq's journalists from reporting on events in the country. "So many journalists have been kidnapped and killed in Iraq but it doesn't matter how many are tortured, intimidated, or killed - journalists will continue doing their jobs," he said. "This attack just shows how desperate the enemies of democracy have become."

The killing of al-Mahdi follows years of targeted violence against journalists in Iraq. Since 1992, 150 journalists have been killed in the country, including five journalists killed in 2011 alone, according to CPJ. On 29 August, an assailant used a pistol to beat a prominent journalist, Asos Hardi, in Sulaimaniya, requiring Hardi to be hospitalised and get 32 stitches, reports Human Rights Watch.

Iraq has attempted to safeguard journalists in a new law, adopted on 9 August. But RSF and ARTICLE 19 say it falls short. For instance, says ARTICLE 19, it doesn't meet international human rights obligations.

According to RSF, the new law lacks concrete measures: there are no punishments outlined for those who violate the law's principles, no compensation fund, and no training for the police and judiciary in protecting journalists and prosecuting attacks on the press - to name a few shortcomings.

"The Iraqi authorities should adopt concrete measures and make effective resources available instead of limiting themselves to statements of intent," said RSF.

India: Ministers Move to Decriminalise Defamation

2011-02-21T21:43:00.000-08:00

PRESS RELEASE

21February 2011

India: Ministers Move to Decriminalise Defamation

London, 21.02.2011: ARTICLE 19 welcomes the Indian government’s initiative to reform its penal code and decriminalise defamation, used to harass and censor journalists and political figures.

“We welcome the Indian government’s initiative to decriminalise defamation, following the example of other countries such as the UK and Sri Lanka. Criminal defamation is one of worst forms of state suppression of free speech,” says Dr Agnes Callamard, ARTICLE 19 Executive Director. “ARTICLE 19 is ready to support the government in creating a new defamation code in line with international standards.”

Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Ambika Soni, and Minister of Law and Justice, Moodbidri Veerappa Moily, have publicly stated over the past month that the government are actively looking to decriminalise defamation. Both members of the Indian Union Cabinet have agreed that the criminalisation of defamation in India has produced “malicious prosecution” of journalists.

India would join a growing number of countries acknowledging that criminalisation of defamation results in a disproportionate restriction on freedom of expression.

Countries worldwide including Armenia, Ghana, Ireland, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste and the UK have all decriminalised over the last few years. In South Asia, fellow SAARC member Sri Lanka decriminalised in 2002, and the Maldives in 2009.

NOTES :

• For more on the worldwide status of defamation, see the ARTICLE 19 Defamation Map at: www.article19.org/advocacy/defamationmap/map
• For more information please contact: Oliver Spencer, oliver@article19.org +44 20 7324 2500

25 censored stories of 2009-2010

2010-12-23T07:25:00.000-08:00

22 December 2010

Project Censored reveals top 25 censored stories of 2009-2010

http://dailycensored.com/2010/10/10/top-25-censored-stories-released/

1. Global Plans to Replace the Dollar

2. US Department of Defense is the Worst Polluter on the Planet

3. Internet Privacy and Personal Access at Risk

Internet Privacy and Personal Access at Risk

Following in the steps of its predecessor, the Obama administration is expanding mass government surveillance of personal electronic communications. This surveillance, which includes the monitoring of the Internet as well as private (nongovernmental) computers, is proceeding with the proposal or passage of new laws granting government agencies increasingly wider latitude in their monitoring activities. At the same time, private companies and even some schools are engaging in surveillance activities that further diminish personal privacy.

Student Researchers:

Lynn DemosBen Solomon, Steve Wojanis, Trisha Himmelein, Emily Schuler, Claire Apatoff, Erin Kielty, and Tom Rich (DePauw University)
Alyssa Auerbach, Tyler Head, Mira Patel, Andrew Nassab, and Cristina Risso (Sonoma State University)

Faculty Evaluators:

Jeff McCall, Dave Berque, Brian Howard, and Kevin Howley (DePauw University)
Jimmy Dizmang (University of San Diego)
Noel Byrne and Kelly Bucy (Sonoma State University)
Mickey Huff (Diablo Valley College)

In spring 2009, Senate Bill 773, the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, was proposed, which gives the president power to “declare a cyber security emergency” with respect to private computer networks, and to do with these networks what it deems necessary to diffuse the attack. In a national emergency, the president would also have the power to completely shut down the Internet in the US. The proposal requires that certain private computer systems and networks be “managed” by “cyberprofessionals” licensed by the federal government. The bill permits the president to direct the national response to the cyber threat if necessary for national defense and security; to conduct “periodic mapping” of private networks deemed to be critical to national security; and to require these companies to “share” information requested by the federal government.

Such steps toward increased control over private computer networks have been taken amid an ongoing program of mass surveillance begun by the George W. Bush administration supposedly in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. In January 2002, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) established the Information Awareness Office (IAO) to “imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition information technologies, components and prototype, closed-loop, information systems that will counter asymmetric threats by achieving total information awareness.” Under the Bush administration, such surveillance technology was developed and subsequently deployed through major US telecommunication and Internet service providers (ISPs) to conduct mass, warrantless dragnets of all domestic and international electronic traffic passing through switches in the US. This technology includes so-called “deep packet inspection” (DPI) technology, which employs sophisticated algorithms to parse all Internet contents (data, voice, and video), searching for key words such as “rebel” or “grenade.”

Presently no legislation exists that disallows use of such technology to conduct mass, warrantless surveillance. In fact, in January 2009, as David Karvets reported in Wired, the Obama administration sided with the Bush administration by asking a federal judge to set aside a ruling that kept alive a lawsuit challenging the Bush administration’s authority to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants. Moreover, amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) passed in 2008—and voted for by then Senator Obama—had already made it possible for the federal government to conduct such information dragnets without warrants. The 2008 FISA amendments also require electronic communication service providers such as AT&T and Verizon to “immediately provide the Government with all information, facilities, or assistance necessary to accomplish the [intelligence] acquisition,” while granting these companies retroactive and prospective immunity against civil suits, state investigations, and criminal prosecution.

In addition, in April 2009, the Obama Justice Department invoked the “state secrets privilege” to bar American citizens from suing the US government for illegally spying on them. It also went even further than the Bush administration by arguing that the US government is completely immune from litigation for illegal spying and can never be sued for surveillance that violates federal privacy laws.

The federal government is also presently increasing its capacity to analyze the massive sea of data on the Internet. As part of an effort to gather more “open source intelligence,” the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is investing in Visible Technologies, a data-mining company that analyzes the content of social media Web sites. Visible Technologies, which has offices in New York, Seattle, and Boston, was created in 2005, and in 2006 it developed a partnership with WPP, a worldwide communications firm. This company has the capacity to examine over half a million sites per day.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has also resorted to using federal court subpoenas to try to gain access to private, online information. On January 30, 2009, IndyMedia, an alternative online news source, received a subpoena from the Southern District of Indiana Federal Court for the “IP addresses, times, and any other identifying information” of all the site’s visitors on June 25, 2008. IndyMedia was then prohibited from notifying visitors of this release of otherwise private and protected information because disclosure “would impede the investigation being conducted and thereby interfere with the enforcement of the law.” IndyMedia and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) challenged the order and the subpoena was eventually dropped.

The Obama administration is also currently working with a group of UN nations on the development of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), “a new intellectual property enforcement treaty” to prevent illegal downloading and copying of songs, movies, pictures, and other legally protected Web content. The new law is being developed in secrecy and might allow government access to personal content on hard drives thought to be in breach of copyright. On November 3, 2009, nations participating in negotiations on the proposed law met in Seoul, South Korea, for a closed discussion of “enforcement in the digital realm.” According to a leaked memo from the conference, the US is pushing for a three-strikes/graduated-response policy and proactive policing of ISPs to ensure that any digital copyright infringements are caught, stopped, and punished.

In addition to the current trend of government surveillance, private employers are also reading employees’ e-mails, eavesdropping on their telephone calls, monitoring their Internet access, and watching them through the use of hidden cameras. Millions of workers carry company-issued cell phones, which are equipped with a global positioning system (GPS). The technology required to track cell phones is inexpensive (costing only five dollars per month for round-the-clock surveillance of an employee) and is readily available.

Company-issued laptops are also being monitored. Companies usually permit their employees to use such computers for personal purposes as well as for business. However, unbeknownst to the employees, all their private files (such as e-mails, photographs, and financial records) are being inspected by company techs when the computers are brought in for upgrades or repairs. Consequently, anything the techs deem questionable can be disclosed to management. Further, if the company-issued laptop has a webcam, the employer can use it to eavesdrop on the employee, even if he or she is in the bathroom.

Such clandestine use of computer webcams has not been limited to private companies spying on their employees. In one recent case, a suburban Philadelphia school district issued laptops to its students and secretly installed software that allowed school administrators to spy on the students.

As electronic surveillance technologies continue to improve, in the absence of laws to regulate their use and government watchdogs to ensure that these laws are followed, privacy in the digital age will predictably continue to decline.

Update by Liz Rose at Free Press

Deep packet inspection is a technology that gives corporations unprecedented control over Internet communications. It’s the same technology that allows Iran and other countries to try to stifle Internet freedom. The use of DPI is now pervasive and has spread to next-generation wireless networks. In this country, the adoption of DPI means that the telephone and cable companies that provide Internet service can monitor, inspect, and block Internet traffic, posing a serious threat to the open Internet.

There are two major developments in this story:

Major telecommunications companies (including Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, RCN, and COX) have now purchased DPI technology. Because of this investment, and because the technology has now been applied to wireless communications, the industry’s control over the Internet is increasing. The latest generation of DPI enables companies to monitor and ultimately to charge people for every use of an Internet connection.Free Press filed ten pages of comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about DPI. See pages 141 to 151 of our comments in the Net Neutrality proceeding on January 14, 2010 (http://www.freepress.net/node/76101). Free Press also released a paper titled “Deep Packet Inspection: The End of the Internet as We Know It” by Josh Silver, in March 2009, before the Democracy Now! story, “Deep Packet Inspection: Telecoms Aided Iran Government to Censor Internet Technology Widely Used in US,” ran, and it provides evidence of the threat posed by corporations having the power to inspect, block, and choke traffic on the Internet: (see http://www.freepress.net/files/Deep_Packet_Inspection _The_End_of _the_Internet_As_We_Know_It.pdf).
On April 6, 2010, a federal court ruled that the FCC does not have the authority under the jurisdiction that it claimed to stop Comcast—or any company—from blocking or choking Internet traffic. So right now, there is no recourse when a company does abuse its power over online communications. The FCC has indicated that it may move ahead and try to reassert its authority to set rules of the road for the Internet, but most observers think it will be a long battle ahead over the jurisdictional issues as well as over any possible rules.

4. ICE Operates Secret Detention and Courts

5. Blackwater (Xe): The Secret US War in Pakistan

At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives inside and outside Pakistan. The Blackwater operatives also gather intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

Student Researchers:

Andrew Hobbs, Kelsea Arnold, and Brittney Gates (Sonoma State University)

Faculty Evaluators:

Elaine Wellin and Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)

Captain John Kirby, the spokesperson for Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Nation, “We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature.” Meanwhile a defense official specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. “We don’t have any contracts to do that work for us. We don’t contract that kind of work out, period,” the official said. “There has not been, and are not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services.” The Pentagon has stated bluntly, “There are no US military strike operations being conducted in Pakistan.”

Blackwater’s founder Erik Prince contradicted this statement in an interview, telling Vanity Fair that Blackwater works with US Special Forces in identifying targets and planning missions, citing an operation in Syria. The magazine also published a photo of a Blackwater base near the Afghanistan–Pakistan border.

Jeremy Scahill’s military intelligence source said that the previously unreported program is distinct from the CIA assassination program, which the agency’s director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. “This is a parallel operation to the CIA,” said the source. “They are two separate beasts.” The program puts Blackwater at the epicenter of a US military operation within the borders of a nation against which the US has not declared war—knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the US and Pakistan. In 2006, the two countries struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission. Officially, the US is not supposed to have any active military operations in that country.

Blackwater, which also goes by the names Xe Services and US Training Center, has denied that the company operates in Pakistan. “Xe Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction oversight for the US government,” Blackwater spokesperson Mark Corallo said in a statement to the Nation, adding that the company has “no other operations of any kind in Pakistan.”

A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source’s claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in “counterterrorism” operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces that now work for Blackwater while denying an official US military presence in the country. He also confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel deployed elsewhere in Pakistan.

The covert program in Pakistan dates back to at least 2007. The current head of JSOC is Vice Admiral William McRaven, who took over the post from General Stanley McChrystal, who headed JSOC from 2003 to 2008 before being named the top US commander in Afghanistan. Blackwater’s presence in Pakistan is “not really visible, and that’s why nobody has cracked down on it,” said Scahill’s military source. Blackwater’s operations in Pakistan, he adds, are not done through State Department contracts or publicly identified defense contracts. “It’s Blackwater via JSOC, and it’s a classified no-bid [contract] approved on a rolling basis.”

Blackwater’s first known contract with the CIA for operations in Afghanistan was awarded in 2002 and was for work along the Afghanistan–Pakistan border.

According to Scahill’s source, Blackwater has effectively marketed itself as a company whose operatives have “conducted lethal direct action missions and now, for a price, you can have your own planning cell. JSOC just ate that up.” Blackwater’s Pakistan JSOC contracts are secret and are therefore shielded from public oversight, he said.

In addition to planning drone strikes and operations against suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan for both JSOC and the CIA, the Blackwater team in Karachi also helps plan missions for JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

Since President Barack Obama was inaugurated, the United States has expanded drone-bombing raids in Pakistan. Obama first ordered a drone strike against targets in North and South Waziristan on January 23, 2009, and the strikes have been conducted consistently ever since. The number of strike orders by the Obama administration has now surpassed the number during the Bush era in Pakistan, inciting fierce criticism from Pakistan and some US lawmakers over civilian deaths.

The military intelligence source also confirmed that Blackwater continues to work for the CIA on its drone-bombing program in Pakistan, as previously reported in the New York Times, but added that Blackwater is working on JSOC’s drone bombings as well. “It’s Blackwater running the program for both CIA and JSOC,” said the source. When civilians are killed, “people go, ‘Oh, it’s the CIA doing crazy shit again unchecked.’ Well, at least 50 percent of the time, that’s JSOC [hitting] somebody they’ve identified through HUMINT [human intelligence] or they’ve culled the intelligence themselves or it’s been shared with them and they take that person out and that’s how it works.”

In addition to working on covert action planning and drone strikes, Blackwater SELECT also provides private guards to perform the sensitive task of security for secret US drone bases, JSOC camps, and Defense Intelligence Agency camps inside Pakistan.

Blackwater’s ability to survive against odds by reinventing and rebranding itself is most evident in Afghanistan, where the company continues to work for the US military, the CIA, and the State Department despite intense criticism and almost weekly scandals.

6. Health Care Restrictions Cost Thousands of Lives in US

7. External Capitalist Forces Wreak Havoc in Africa

8. Massacre in Peruvian Amazon over US Free Trade Agreement

9. Human Rights Abuses Continue in Palestine

10. US Funds and Supports the Taliban

In a continuous flow of money, American tax dollars end up paying members of the Taliban and funding a volatile environment in Afghanistan. Private contractors pay insurgents with the hope of attaining the very safety they are contracted to provide. Concurrently, US soldiers pay at checkpoints run by suspected insurgents in order to get safe passage. In some cases, Afghan companies run by former Taliban members, like President Hamid Karzai’s cousin, are protecting the passage of American soldiers. The funding of the insurgents, along with rumors of American helicopters ferrying Taliban members in Afghanistan, has led to widespread distrust of American forces. In the meantime, the US taxpayer’s dollar continues to fund insurgents to protect American troops so they can fight insurgents.

Student Researchers:

Anne Cozad (Sonoma State University)
Nolan Higdon (Diablo Valley College)

Faculty Evaluators:

Mickey Huff (Diablo Valley College)
Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)

Ahmad Rate Popal is a grand example of how those who controlled Afghanistan under Taliban rule are still controlling Afghanistan today and being paid by US tax dollars. Popal, who served as interpreter at one of the ruling Taliban’s last press conferences, is greatly increasing his wealth through the US war in Afghanistan. In 1988, he was charged with conspiring to import heroin into the United States. He was released from prison in 1997. Popal’s cousin is Afghanistan’s President Karzai. Popal and his brother Rashid (who pleaded guilty in 1996 to a separate heroin charge) control the Watan Group in Afghanistan, which is a consortium engaged in many different fields of business. One of Watan’s enterprises is to protect convoys of Afghan trucks heading from Kabul to Kandahar, carrying American supplies. Popal is one example of the virtual carnival of improbable characters and shady connections, with former CIA officials and ex-military officers in Afghanistan joining hands with former Taliban members and mujahideen to collect US government funds in the name of the war effort.

US security contractors as well as countless other private American corporations cannot provide the safety that they are paid to offer. So US military contractors in Afghanistan pay suspected insurgents to protect the US supply routes they were contracted to protect. A war-torn country such as Afghanistan has plenty of impoverished citizens, and, as a result, it is not hard for private contractors to find individuals willing to take money to protect supply routes.

Thus, an estimated 10 percent of the Pentagon’s logistics contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars are paid to insurgents as the US government funds the very forces American troops are fighting.

An example of these contracts are those granted to the NCL Holdings in Afghanistan run by Hamed Wardak, the young American son of Afghanistan’s current defense minister, General Abdul Rahim Wardak. NCL is a small firm that was awarded a US military logistics contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Despite the fact that the firm only operates in Afghanistan, Wardak incorporated NCL in the United States early in 2007, due to his connections there.

On NCL’s advisory board is Milton Bearden, a well-known former CIA officer who in 2009 was introduced by Senator John Kerry as “a legendary former CIA case officer and a clearheaded thinker and writer.” Bearden is an incredible asset to a small defense contracting firm. Wardak was able to get a contract for Host Nation Trucking despite having no apparent trucking experience. The contract is aimed at handling the bulk of US trucking in Afghanistan, bringing supplies to bases and remote outposts throughout Afghanistan. At first the contract was small, but very quickly it expanded by 600 percent, making it a gargantuan contract worth $360 million. NCL had struck pure contracting gold. These profits, which only go to a very select and well-connected portion of the Afghan people, build a large amount of distrust from Afghan citizens toward American troops and those connected to them.

It is persistently rumored in Afghanistan that US forces are using their helicopters to ferry Taliban fighters. The rumor is strongly denied by the military. However, the helicopter rumors heard in many areas are feeding mistrust of the forces that are supposed to be bringing order to the country. The international troops deny that they are supporting the insurgents. “This entire business with the helicopters is just a rumor,” said Brigadier General Jüergen Setzer, recently appointed commander for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in northern Afghanistan. “It has no basis in reality, according to our investigations.” But the persistent rumors that foreign helicopters have been sighted assisting the Taliban in northern Afghanistan were given an unexpected boost in mid-October 2009 by President Karzai, who told the media that his administration was investigating similar reports that “unknown” helicopters were ferrying the insurgents from the Helmand province in the south to the Baghlan, Kunduz, and Samangan provinces in the north.

Update

On June 6, the New York Times reported that the House National Security Subcommittee, whose chair is John Tierney (D-MA), is holding hearings on this issue. In a March 2010 Washington Post article, Congressman Tierney cited the article in the Nation as the reason he began the investigation.

Since our initial search of corporate media coverage on this issue in February 2010, finding zero coverage at that time, both the New York Times and the Washington Post have covered part of the story on their front pages. Both mentioned President Hamid Karzai’s cousin, and both acknowledged that in all likelihood money is making its way to the Taliban. Neither paper mentioned the US connection, Milton Bearden. The Washington Post covered the story on March 29, 2010, and mentioned the Nation magazine article. The New York Times story came out on June 6, 2010, acknowledging the corruption, but included the news that President Obama was addressing the issue with President Karzai. That the two stories came out two months apart, and that the US links are left out, led to the decision at Project Censored to keep this important story in the top censored stories list for the year.

11. The H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic: Manipulating Data to Enrich Drug Companies

12. Cuba Provided the Greatest Medical Aid to Haiti after the Earthquake

13. Obama Cuts Domestic Spending and Increases Military Corporate Welfare

14. Increased Tensions with Unresolved 9/11 Issues

15. Bhopal Water Still Toxic Twenty-five Years After Deadly Gas Leak

Around midnight on December 2, 1984, the citizens of Bhopal, India, a city of over 500,000 people in central India, were poisoned by approximately forty tons of toxic gases pouring into the night air from a largely abandoned chemical insecticide plant owned by the US-owned Union Carbide Corporation (UCC). The long-predicted gas leak at UCC was, and remains today, the worst industrial disaster in history.

Student Researchers:

Abbey Wilson and Jillian Harbin (DePauw University)

Faculty Evaluators:

Tim Cope and Kevin Howley (DePauw University)

Released by faulty and neglected equipment, methyl isocyanate, phosgene and other highly toxic gases killed an estimated 8,000 people immediately. The death toll attributed to “that night” in the following weeks and months eventually rose to 20,000 people. Hundreds of thousands of others were harmed, in many cases permanently, with lung, liver, kidney, and immune system damages, and blindness. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) concluded that over 520,000 exposed persons had poisons circulating in their bloodstream causing different degrees of damage to almost all systems in the body.

The 1984 disaster may have faded in the world’s memory, but in Bhopal, the damaged births continue today. The very same factory that spewed out poison gas has been leaking deadly chemicals into the drinking water of about 30,000 people. In affected communities, there are epidemics of kidney disease and cancer, with hundreds of damaged children.

Indra Sinha, a Booker Prize nominee for his book on the Bhopal disaster, Animal’s People, explained why the gas leak that killed 20,000 people twenty-five years ago—and continues to create health problems for countless more—is still a national scandal: “After the night of horror, the factory was locked up. Thousands of tons of pesticides and waste remained inside. UCC never bothered to clean it. The chemicals were abandoned in warehouses open to wind and rain. Twenty-four monsoons have rusted and rotted the death factory. The rains wash the poisons deep into the soil. They enter the groundwater and seep into wells and bore pipes. They gush from taps and enter people’s bodies. They burn stomachs, corrode skin, damage organs and flow into wombs where they go to work on the unborn. If babies make it into the world alive, the poisons are waiting in their mothers’ milk.”

A Greenpeace survey found substantial and, in some locations, severe contamination of land and water supplies with heavy metals and chlorinated chemicals. From their samples, groundwater from wells around the site showed high levels of chlorinated chemicals including chloroform and carbon tetrachloride, indicative of long-term contamination. Additionally, lead, nickel, copper, chromium, hexachlorocyclohexane, and chlorobenzenes were found in soil samples. Overall contamination of the site and immediate surroundings is due both to routine spills and accidents during the operation of the factory, and to the continued releases of chemicals from the toxic wastes that remain on site.

According to New Delhi’s Centre for Science and the Environment, water found two miles from the factory contains pesticides at levels forty times higher than the Indian safety standard. In a second study, the UK-based Bhopal Medical Appeal (BMA) found a chemical cocktail in the local drinking water—with one carcinogen, carbon tetrafluoride, present at 2,400 times the World Health Organization’s guidelines.

Union Carbide Corporation—now the Dow Chemical Company (Dow), following a February 2001 merger—continues to claim over sixty years of research (including research on human “volunteers”) on methyl isocyanate (the gas that leaked from the Bhopal pesticide plant) as “trade secrets.” There is more than enough research to suggest that by withholding information, propagating misinformation and the withdrawal of funds meant for medical care, Dow–UCC has impeded the efforts of the victims to help themselves. The ICMR has in turn stopped all research into the health effects of the gas in 1994 and has yet to publish the findings of the twenty-four research studies it had carried out up to that point involving over 80,000 survivors. The alarming rise in cancers, tuberculosis, reproductive difficulties, and growth retardation among children born after the disaster remains undocumented. The official agency for monitoring deaths has been closed since 1992.

The local, BMA-funded Sambhavna clinic claims that one in twenty-five—a rate ten times higher than the national average—are born with severe birth defects including lameness and twisted or missing limbs, deaf-mute, brain-damage, hare-lips and cleft palates, webbed fingers, cerebral palsy, and tumors where eyes should be. Multiple generations are now affected; one victim, Mohini Devi, claims her children and grandchildren have experienced birth defects. “My real worry is my grandchildren. Already some have been born without eyes. Why is nobody doing anything for us?” she said.

In the absence of medical information, no treatment protocols specific to exposure-induced multi-systemic problems exist. Instead, in many places, ineffective and sometimes kidney-damaging drugs are prescribed to the thousands seeking relief and medical treatment. One exception is the Sambhavna Clinic, which in 1996 began offering survivors a combination of free modern medicine, ayurvedic herbal treatments, yoga, and massage.

While today tons of poisonous pesticides and other hazardous wastes remain scattered and abandoned on the Dow–UCC factory premises, insidiously poisoning the ground water and contaminating the land, the company and its former CEO Warren Anderson have distanced themselves from the “Indian-managed company,” eventually blaming employee sabotage. As a result, the disaster has done little to affect Dow–UCC. In February 1989, after forcing a paltry compensation settlement—$470 million as opposed to $3 billion demanded by the government of India—UCC’s share price jumped 44 cents and they went back to business as usual. Survivors in Bhopal received meager compensation. Most of them got a 25,000-rupee check (about US$500) for a lifetime of suffering caused by damage to their lungs, liver, kidneys, and the immune system.

Given the hundreds of thousands of victims dead and injured, the settlement worked out to less than 9 cents a day—only enough for one cup of tea each day—for nearly twenty years of unimaginable suffering. None of the thousands since born with gas-related congenital defects or illnesses from current water contamination have received help. When Dow acquired UCC, it denied further responsibility for the disaster. A Dow public relations official maintained that the settlement was “plenty good for an Indian.”

Union Carbide Corporation and Warren Anderson, then CEO of UCC, were charged with culpable homicide or manslaughter and proclaimed absconders by the Bhopal Court in 1992, after failing repeatedly to honor the summons of the court. Warren Anderson was arrested briefly in 1984 and then fled the country. Anderson’s whereabouts were considered unknown despite the fact that his residences, one in the Hamptons, an upscale New York suburb, are publicly listed. Neither the Indian government nor the US government is willing to support the warrants for Anderson’s arrest or Dow–UCC’s responsibilities. In fact, Indian campaigners working to hold UCC responsible for its actions claim that their government has called the now-closed factory “safe” and “open for the public to tour.” The Bhopal government also allegedly neglected to work toward any sort of allegations against UCC, and simply left the plant to continue leaking chemicals.

Now, Satinath Sarangi, of the Sambhavna clinic in Bhopal, says the government is working to strike a contract with Dow, which would yield a $1 billion investment, and would allegedly allow Union Carbide to overlook its obligations to clean up their spill. “This is all about the money. Politicians in India would rather do this than fight for people who suffered,” Sarangi said.

16. US Presidents Charged with Crimes Against Humanity as Universal Jurisdiction Dies in Spain

17. Nanotech Particles Pose Serious DNA Risks to Humans and the Environment

18. The True Cost of Chevron

19. Obama Administration Assures World Bank and International Monetary Fund a Free Reign of Abuse

On April 24, 2009, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner hosted meetings with finance ministers from the world’s top economies to discuss increased oversight of the global financial system in the wake of the meltdown. The meetings preceded semi-annual gatherings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank in Washington, DC.

The April G20 meeting in London secured a lot of positive media attention after world leaders announced a global package of $1.1 trillion for economic recovery and reform, mostly for the IMF. The plan, however, did not include specific information about the much needed operational reforms to the IMF and the World Bank.

Student Researchers:

Meg Carlucci and Marissa Warfield (Sonoma State University)
Abbey Wilson and Jillian Harbin (DePauw University)

Faculty Evaluators:

Laurie Dawson and Elaine Wellin (Sonoma State University)
Tim Cope and Kevin Howley (DePauw University)

Speaking five months later on the eve of the September 2009 G20 summit, Geithner called for higher regulatory standards:

As you know, the United States Congress has a very aggressive schedule to legislate sweeping changes to our financial system that are going to make—provide greater protection for consumers and investors to create a more stable financial system and to try to make sure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook in the future to bear the burdens of financial crises. But we can’t do this alone. If we continue to allow risk and leverage to migrate where standards are weakest, the entire US global financial system will be less stable in the future. We need to see competition for stronger standards, not weaker standards.

How far will the G20 go on the regulation of financial markets? A September 2009 report from Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch emphasized that the World Trade Organization (WTO) has long advanced extreme financial deregulation under the guise of trade agreements that will undermine the current professed push for increasing regulation.

Lori Wallach of Public Citizen warned of the incredible contradiction: “While the summit communiqué is going to, on one hand, talk about regulating finance, at the same time, they’re going to talk about adopting the Doha WTO expansion, and a huge part of that agreement is deregulating finance.” Wallach continued, “The problem is that the G20 commitments aren’t binding. It’s a commitment of faith on the countries about what they’re going to do domestically. But the WTO rules are very binding and enforceable by sanctions. And so, it’s hard to know if it’s ignorance or it’s cynicism, but if the Doha round goes into place, all of the world’s countries will have a commitment not only to keep in place the existing WTO deregulation dictates on finance, but to deregulate further, right in the midst of what seems to be a global commitment to re-regulate.”

The WTO has an agreement called the Financial Services Agreement that explicitly applies to over a hundred countries and mandates major deregulation. For instance, it has a rule that you cannot have a domestic law that limits the size of a financial service firm—insurance, banking, securities—even if it applies equally to foreign and domestic companies. So while everyone talks about putting into place rules regarding being “too big to fail,” there is a WTO dictate that forbids such regulation.

In short, these binding WTO rules require countries to maintain the same policies that led to the financial crisis. This agreement was never brought to a vote in any Congress.

Jesse Griffiths, coordinator of the London-based Bretton Woods Project, under the International Finance for Sustainability program of the Mott Foundation’s environmental division, said, “The ideology of the IMF and World Bank has failed and the accompanying structures have failed.” He added, “In addition to the current enormous economic instability, the system has failed to create equity and eradicate poverty; it has failed to ensure that human rights are protected, and it has failed to address environmental issues.”

The failures of these global entities have not prevented President Obama from allowing their relatively free reign in relation to the US government. In June 2009, President Obama used his sixth signing statement to negate provisions of US legislation that would have compelled the World Bank to strengthen labor and environmental standards. When signing the $106 billion war-spending bill into law, Obama included a five-paragraph signing statement with the bill in which he also refused to require the Treasury Department to report to Congress on the activities of the World Bank and the IMF.

The sections rejected by Obama would have required his administration to direct its World Bank representatives to pressure that institution into using metrics that “fairly represent the value of internationally recognized workers” rights. Organized labor groups had pushed for a revision of those standards.

Another section rejected by Obama would have pushed the World Bank to account for the cost of greenhouse gas in pricing projects and to more fully disclose operating budgets.

Yet another section rejected by Obama in this signing statement would have required Geithner to develop a report with the heads of the World Bank and IMF, “detailing the steps taken to coordinate the activities of the World Bank and the Fund,” to eliminate overlap between the two.

Obama said in a statement that “provisions of this bill . . . would interfere with my constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations by directing the Executive to take certain positions in negotiating or discussions with international organizations and foreign governments.” He added, “I will not treat these provisions as limiting my ability to engage in foreign diplomacy or negotiations.”

20. Obama’s Charter School Policies Spread Segregation and Undermine Unions

21. Western Lifestyle Continues Environmental Footprint

22. 1.2 Billion People in India to be Given Biometric ID Cards

India’s 1.2 billion citizens are to be issued biometric identification cards. The cards will hold the person’s name, age, and birth date, as well as fingerprints or iris scans, though no caste or religious identification. Within the next five years a giant computer will hold the personal details of at least 600 million citizens, making this new information technology system the largest in the world. The project will cost an estimated $3.5 billion. The 600 million Indians will receive a sixteen-digit identity number by 2014 in the first phase of the project.

Student Researcher:

Danielle Caruso (Sonoma State University)

Faculty Evaluator:

Rashmi Singh (Sonoma State University)

India’s red tape is legendary: citizens have dozens of types of identity verification, ranging from electoral rolls to ration cards, yet almost none can be used universally. The new system will be a national proof of identity, effective for everything, from welfare benefits to updating land records. Forty-two percent of India’s population is below the poverty line and citizens frequently move in search of jobs. The government believes the ID system will help citizens because they will no longer have a problem identifying themselves. The biometric identity number will be entered every time someone accesses services from government departments, driver’s license offices, and hospitals, as well as insurance, credit card, telecom, and banking companies. By bringing more people into the banking system, Indian officials also hope to raise the number of people paying income taxes; currently, less than 5 percent of the population pays income taxes.

The head of Oxfam India, Nisha Agarwal, says a lack of identity verification is a major problem, especially for urban migrants. As a result, they are excluded from dozens of government programs, which offer cheaper food, jobs, and other benefits for poor people. “They remain treated as temporary migrants and, without that piece of paper, some form of identification, they are not able to access many of these government schemes that exist now, that have large funds behind them and could actually make a huge difference in poor people’s lives.”

The scheme is the brainchild of Nandan Nilekani, one of India’s best-known software tycoons and now head of the government’s Unique Identification Authority. “We are going to have to build something on the scale of Google, but it will change the country . . . every person for first time [will] be able to prove who he or she is. . . . We are not profiling a billion people. This will provide an ID database which government can access online. There will be checks and balances to protect identities,” said Nilekani, who has also been in talks to create a personalized carbon account so that all Indians might buy “green technologies” using a government subsidy.

The government also plans to use the database to monitor bank transactions, cell phone purchases, and the movements of individuals and groups suspected of fomenting terrorism. In January 2010, the Ministry of Home Affairs began collecting biometric details of people in coastal villages to boost security; the gunmen in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which killed 165 people, sneaked into the country from the sea.

Critics say the project will turn India into an Orwellian police state that will spy on citizens’ private lives. “We do not want an intrusive, surveillance state in India,” said Usha Ramanathan, a lawyer who has written and lobbied against the project. “Information about people will be shared with intelligence agencies, banks and companies, and we will have no idea how our information is interpreted and used.” Civil liberty campaigners fear the ID card will become a tool of repression. Nandita Haskar, a human rights lawyer, said, “There is already no accountability in regards to violations of human and civil rights. In this atmosphere, what are the oversight mechanisms for this kind of surveillance?”

India’s plunge into biometric identification comes as countries around the globe are making similar moves. In 2006, Britain approved a mandatory national ID system with fingerprints for its citizens before public opposition prompted the government to scale back plans for a voluntary pilot program beginning in Manchester. United States senators have proposed requiring all citizens and immigrants who want to work in the country to carry a new high-tech social security card linked to fingerprints as part of an immigration overhaul.

23. Afghan War: Largest Military Coalition in History

24. War Crimes of General Stanley McChrystal

25. Prisoners Still Brutalized at Gitmo

Cambodia: Systematic Erosion of Freedom of Expression Puts Democracy at Risk

2010-10-07T20:05:00.000-07:00

September 2010

Cambodia: Systematic Erosion of Freedom of Expression Puts Democracy at Risk

ARTICLE 19, Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) and 15 other Cambodian and international organisations and unions are launching a new report, titled Cambodia Gagged: Democracy at Risk? in which the organisations highlight the deteriorating freedom of expression situation in the country. The report also shows how each of the pillars of democracy are being systematically silenced by the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC).

The report, which was coordinated by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), raises concern over the continued erosion of the right to freedom of expression, especially how the judiciary is being used as an organ of repression in silencing dissent and opinion critical of the government. Despite Cambodia’s commitments to protect the right to freedom of expression through domestic and international laws, the freedom of expression situation in the country is deteriorating.

“In recent years, acts of intimidation, harassment and the inappropriate use of criminal law to thwart criticism, have created a climate of fear and widespread self-censorship, depriving Cambodians of their rights to expression and information that are crucial to genuine democratic participation,” says ARTICLE 19 Executive Director Agnès Callamard.

The government’s crackdown on freedom of expression includes the targeting and silencing of parliamentarians, the media, lawyers, human rights activists and the general public. One of the key findings of the report is that such systematic attacks on freedom of expression are putting democracy at risk.

As noted by CCHR President Ou Virak, “With the use of state power to silence debate and close the space for pluralism and diversity of opinion, we fear the emergence in Cambodia of an autocratic, authoritarian political system seriously eroding the rights and freedoms of all Cambodians. The government can however still turn the tide and give democracy a real chance by protecting and encouraging freedom of expression.”

In conclusion, the report provides a series of recommendations for the government to protect and promote freedom of expression, and recommends ways in which the international community can demand greater accountability from the government regarding respect for freedom of expression and other human rights.

NOTES :

• The Report is available at:
www.article19.org/pdfs/publications/cambodia-gagged-democracy-at-risk-.pdf
• For more information please contact: Amy Sim, amy@article19.org, +44 20 7324 2500, or Chor Chanthyda, thyda@cchrcambodia.org, +855 12 515 506
• The Cambodian Center for Human Rights is a non-political, independent, non-governmental organization, which works to promote democracy and respect for human rights throughout Cambodia.

UN urged not to support laws prohibiting "defamation of religion"

2010-10-07T19:21:00.000-07:00

29 September 2010

UN urged not to support laws prohibiting "defamation of religion"

Five IFEX members urged the UN not to pass a law that would make defamation of any religion an internationally endorsed offense. Statements exposing the anti-free expression repercussions of such a law were made during a panel that was held to coincide with the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva on 16 September. The panel was hosted by International PEN and sponsored by the Norwegian and American PEN Centers, Index on Censorship, the International Publishers Association, and ARTICLE 19.

"Human rights are attached to individuals, not to states or organised groups or ideas," said John Ralston Saul, International PEN president, while chairing the two-hour session.

The UN Human Rights Council and General Assembly have passed several resolutions in the last few years that call on countries to ban "defamation of religions." Interest in such laws has grown in light of recent events around the globe, including a Florida pastor's Koran-burning attempt, bans on the construction of minarets in Switzerland and France's recent move to outlaw Islamic face veils, said Agnès Callamard, ARTICLE 19 director.

While noting that these developments are indeed alarming, the panelists argued that already existing laws on discrimination and preaching hate are sufficient to address hateful attacks on religious groups.

Budhy Rahman from the Asia Foundation said Indonesia's religious defamation laws "punish the peaceful criticism of ideas and disfavoured political or religious beliefs." Indonesia's blasphemy laws were passed in April 2010 and impose jail sentences of up to five years for those who "deviate" from the teachings of the country's official religions. Several IFEX organisations filed an amicus curiae brief urging Indonesia's Constitutional Court to repeal the laws, but the laws were ultimately upheld.

In March 2010, 40 IFEX members sent a joint submission to the UN Human Rights Council to express their dismay over the Council's recently passed resolutions on "defamation of religion."
In the collectively signed letter, the members said any law protecting religion from defamation is "counterproductive to its apparent objective" because, in practice, it would allow for "state practices which discriminate against religious minorities, dissenting voices and non-believers."

In a video statement during the panel, writer Azar Nafisi asked the particularly poignant question, "What will happen to women right now who are fighting against being stoned to death?"

Brutal repression of human rights

2010-10-07T19:19:00.000-07:00

29 September 2010

Brutal repression of human rights defenders in historic crackdown

BCHR president Nabeel Rajab is skyped into a Human Rights Council meeting on Bahrain, organised by CIHRS.

CIHRS

Hundreds of Bahraini political activists, human rights defenders and Shiite religious figures have been arrested in recent months - many of them tortured in detention - in the worst crackdown on free expression the country has ever seen, report the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) and Human Rights Watch. Authorities have blocked numerous websites, shut down independent rights groups and threatened rights defenders who have criticised the torture of prominent activists.

The international community's silence about repressive measures in Bahrain only gives tacit support to authorities to continue stifling dissident voices who are potential monitors to parliamentary elections on 23 October, say 26 rights groups, including BCHR, CIHRS, ANHRI and the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR). It is widely expected that there will be elections abuses as part of a long-held pattern of political marginalisation of Shiite and opposition communities.

To prevent independent and critical information from being published, the Bahrain Information Affairs Authority has censored the website of Al-Wefaq Society, the largest political society in the country. The Society had recently announced plans to launch a visual and audio service on its website, as well as plans to participate in the elections.

There has been a systematic campaign to create a complete media blackout, says BCHR. Among the blocked websites is BahraniNet.net, known for its rapid media coverage and photos of protests. Most of the blocked websites are discussion forums that belong to Shiite villages that continue to deal with unrest and arrests of protesters.

The Information Affairs Authority has also banned the publication of information about detained activists and has ordered all civil society organisations to support the regime or face harassment. As a result of this intense repression, BCHR and the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR) have been forced to temporarily relocate to Europe. Some human rights activists have been prevented from travelling, including Nabeel Rajab of BCHR, and Laila Dashti of BYSHR, who was supposed to attend the 15th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council last week, where CIHRS was organising events on Bahrain, including delivering an oral intervention before the Council.

The minister of development and social solidarity issued a decree to dissolve the managing board of the Bahraini Association for Human Rights and replace the elected chairman with a government official - guaranteeing the government's control over the organisation. This decision came after the organisation expressed solidarity with victims of the crackdown. The society has made several statements affirming the basic rights of detainees, including access to lawyers and family members and their right to a fair trial.

BCHR and other local human rights groups have also strongly criticised the government's treatment of detainees and published reports saying that security forces have carried out torture.

Human Rights Watch has called on King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa to conduct an independent investigation into recent allegations of torture and ill-treatment of prominent opposition leaders and demonstrators by security forces. Recent arrests of high-profile opposition leaders and activists are linked to their criticism of government policies.

In response to the crackdown, rights organisation Front Line went on a mission to Bahrain that was completed on 29 September. The mission focussed on the case of imprisoned blogger and human rights activist Ali Abdulemam, who has been held incommunicado for the last three weeks, denied so much as a phone call.

Iran : A blogger been sentenced 19.5 years in prison

2010-10-07T19:07:00.000-07:00

29 September 2010

The "Blogfather" gets 19 years in regime's war on opinion

One blogger has just been sentenced to 19.5 years in prison, another faces the death penalty and three journalists have been handed multi-year prison terms in Iran, report IFEX members. Take action now to support "The Blogfather," as Hossein Derakhshan is known, by signing the petition at: http://www.freetheblogfather.org/

The 19.5-year sentence for Derakhshan, a dual Canadian-Iranian citizen, has shocked free expression advocates around the world, many of whom admire the 35-year-old for being the first to post Farsi instructions on how to blog in 2001. ARTICLE 19, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Index on Censorship and PEN Canada have prepared a joint action on Derakhshan's case, which they have appealed to other IFEX members to sign.

Calling on Iran to immediately release Derakhshan and for the international community to step up pressure in support of Iran's political prisoners, the statement attests that, "Prison is no place for Hossein Derakhshan or for the dozens of other writers, journalists, academics and bloggers who continue to languish in Iran’s jails."

Derakhshan's sentencing occurred in a closed-door courtroom on 28 September, but was confirmed by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) with his family in Canada, who were informed via a telephone call from the judge on the case.

Derakhshan returned to Iran from Canada in November 2008 after authorities promised him he would not face charges. Yet, he was arrested at the airport on grounds of "insulting government leaders and Islam's holy texts." The blogger has published posts critical of Ahmadinejad and other fundamentalist clerics in the past but, in light of his recent writings in support of Ahmadinejad's policies, Derakhshan did not think he would be prosecuted, let alone tortured in prison.

The lengthy term does not bode well for Vahid Asghari, a 24-year-old pro-reform blogger and student who is currently awaiting sentencing and for whom prosecutors have suggested the death penalty, report several IFEX organisations. Asghari was arrested in the spring of 2008 and tortured into falsely confessing that he ran an online pornographic network. His actual crime, however, was hosting the websites of dissidents and opposition members.

Meanwhile, three journalists arrested in the months following Iran's disputed June 2009 elections, have been sentenced to prison. Shiva Nazar Ahari is a 26-year-oldreporter for the Committee of Human Rights Reporters and an advocate for women's, children's and prisoners' rights. She has been convicted of "waging war against God" among other crimes and sentenced to six years. She had been facing the death penalty.

Emadeddin Baghi also received six years for a 2007 interview he conducted for the BBC during which he challenged a since-deceased cleric. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is calling his sentence "punitive and absurd."

Finally, CPJ reports that prominent columnist Issa Saharkhiz was sentenced to three years on 27 September for "insulting the Supreme Leader." Saharkhiz, a veteran journalist, has already reportedly suffered a heart attack while behind bars since he was detained shortly after the elections.

Behind the ludicrous charges is Iran's notorious security agency, the Revolutionary Guards, which was created a few months prior to the country's last election. Amid the mass street protests and state killings that marked the summer of 2009, the Revolutionary Guards announced they were going after a "network" of supposedly incendiary bloggers and journalists that were "urging the population to rebel," says RSF.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, urged the Iranian regime to consider the geopolitical consequences of its actions at a time when appeals to consciousness seem to fall on dead ears: "Going further into repressing opposition voices and violating public freedoms will only bring about more animosities with the international community at the time Iran is in bad need to keep good relations."

Sign a petition for blogger facing execution

2010-09-01T22:58:00.000-07:00

5 August 2010

Take action!

Sign a petition for blogger facing execution

Blogger and human rights activist Shiva Nazar Ahari

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is urging you to sign a petition to save the life of jailed Iranian blogger and human rights activist Shiva Nazar Ahari. She has been charged with assembly and collusion to commit a crime, propagating against the regime and, the heaviest charge of all, "mohareb", or rebellion against God. She is facing possible execution.

Ahari is scheduled to be tried on fraudulent charges before the Revolutionary Court of Iran on 4 September. She is a spokesperson for the Committee of Human Rights Reporters (CHHR) and has been in prison since December 2009. She had been jailed for four months immediately after the disputed June presidential election and was free on bail when she was rearrested in December.

To sign, please see RSF Germany's petition at:
Save Shiva Nazar Ahari

Crackdown on rights defenders speaking out about torture and discrimination

2010-09-01T22:55:00.000-07:00

25 August 2010

Crackdown on rights defenders speaking out about torture and discrimination

Bahraini rights defender Abdul-Jalil Al-Singace has been imprisoned for his criticism of the regime's policies of arbitrary arrests, torture and discrimination.

Kristina Stockwood

Four Bahraini human rights defenders are among those recently jailed incommunicado, charged with inciting violence and terrorism, report the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) and other IFEX members. Twenty-six human rights groups, including the Cairo Institute for Human Rights (CIHRS), the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) and BCHR, say the counter-terrorism law is being deployed to criminalise free expression and to crush dissent in the lead up to elections on 23 October.

Abdul-Jalil Al-Singace was arrested on 13 August after returning from London where he spoke to the House of Lords about an increase in human rights violations and environmental degradation in Bahrain. He has criticised the systematic use of torture in prisons and discrimination against the country's Shiite population. Al-Singace, a blogger, is the head of the human rights office of the Haq Movement for Rights and Liberties (which has advocated boycotting elections), and an academic at the University of Bahrain. He has difficulty getting around without a wheelchair or crutches and is on medications he was not able to take with him to jail.

Abdul-Ghani Al-Khanjjar was arrested on 15 August after taking part in the same seminar in London as Al-Singace. Al-Khanjjar heads the National Committee of Martyrs and Torture Victims, which documents violations of torture. He is also the spokesperson of the Bahraini Coalition for Truth and Equity, made up of 11 Bahraini political and human rights groups.

On 17 August, BCHR reports that Board member Dr. Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahlawi and another rights activist, Jaffar Ahmed Jassim Al-Hisabi, were arrested. Al-Sahlawi has been arrested and imprisoned in the past for demanding political change. Al-Hisabi has lived in the United Kingdom for the past 15 years and was arrested at Bahrain airport, as he returned from a trip to Iran; he is known for his participation in protests in the UK demanding the release of detainees.

During this period, four religious and political activists were also arrested: Sheikh Mohammed Al-Moqdad, Sheikh Saeed Al-Nori, Sheikh Mirza Al-Mahroos and Sheikh Abdulhadi Al-Mukhuder.

All the activists are being held in unknown places and their families and lawyers have been barred from visiting them. "We fear they are at risk of maltreatment or torture inside detention facilities," say the 26 rights groups. The Bahraini Authority is moving towards charging the activists according to the Bahraini Anti-Terrorism Law, which has been condemned by the UN Special Rapporteur on Promoting and Protecting Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in the context of counter-terrorism.

The arbitrary arrests sparked a wave of protests which have been brutally suppressed with sound bombs, tear gas, rubber bullets and physical violence. Members of Al-Singace's family were forcibly removed from the Bahrain airport after declaring a sit-in to protest his arrest. The same day, security forces violently dispersed a peaceful assembly of dozens of people, among them rights advocates, expressing their solidarity with Al-Singace in front of his home. Al-Singace's sister was injured by a rubber bullet. Several communities in the country demonstrated against the regime's policies of arbitrary arrests, torture, discrimination and raids on villages by security forces.

Meanwhile, state-owned media have launched a smear campaign against the activists. As well, Human Rights Watch reports that, on 15 August, the state-run Bahrain News Agency cited a source at the National Security Agency as saying Al-Khanjjar, Al-Nori and Al-Moqdad were arrested for activities that intended to "undermine security and stability in the country."

The state is tightening control over the electoral process in the parliamentary and municipal elections scheduled for late October 2010, says the joint action, in a step toward the political marginalisation of the Shiite majority. All of the activists being targeted are Shiite.

Iraq: Journalist kidnapped and killed

2010-09-01T22:50:00.001-07:00

1 September 2010

Journalist kidnapped and killed

An Iraqi journalist was found dead on 24 August, six days after he was kidnapped, reports Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the International Press Institute (IPI). Journalist Kamal Qassim Mohamed had been shot. In a separate incident in Baghdad, police stormed the home of a journalist, injuring his family members.

Mohamed's case underscores the need for legislation to protect journalists. At least 114 Iraqi journalists have been murdered in the past seven years. According to the Iraqi-based Journalistic Freedoms Observatory (JFO), attacks on journalists are rising.

On 27 August, police in Baghdad raided the home of the head of the Iraqi Press Agency, Haydar Hassoun Al-Fizaa, firing at his wife and relatives who were later hospitalised. Officials said the police had not known that Al-Fizaa owned the house and claimed no shots were fired.

Newspaper suspended for exposing President's brother's crimes

2010-09-01T22:48:00.000-07:00

1 September 2010

Newspaper suspended for exposing President's brother's crimes

A Togolese court has indefinitely suspended the distribution of a Benin newspaper after crippling it with a defamation charge and heavy fines for publishing an article linking Togolese President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé's brother with drug trafficking, report the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF). A newspaper photographer covering the court case was violently detained by gendarmes.

"Tribune d'Afrique", a private bi-monthly based in Benin, has a bureau in the Togolese capital of Lomé. The paper is sold and distributed in seven West African countries, with its highest circulation in Togo. Mey Gnassingbé sued the newspaper in May after it published the first of a three-part series, titled "The white powder darkening presidential palaces: Drug trafficking at the top of the state." It was charged with publishing false news and defamation.

The judge ordered the newspaper to pay US$113,000 to Mey Gnassingbé and fined Togo-based editor Aurel Kedoté, reporter Cudjoe Amekudzi and chief executive officer Marlène de la Bardonnie US$3,800 each. In a punishing twist, the newspaper has been ordered to publish the judgement in three newspapers with large circulation or risk paying US$200 each day it refuses to carry out the order. And the court has also ordered the destruction of copies of "Tribune d'Afrique" with the offending article, currently being sold.

The paper's critical coverage of the Togolese state has resulted in threats from officials and the government-controlled media regulatory authority and loss of government advertising revenue.

Didier Ledoux, a reporter for the privately owned "Liberté" daily newspaper covering the defamation trial, was arrested and beaten by security officers for photographing the court building. The gendarmes wanted to delete the photo he had just taken because they thought they were in it. The Union of Independent Journalists of Togo (UJIT) and the Committee of Newspaper Owners immediately called the head of the gendarmerie and Ledoux was released.

http://www.ifex.org/togo/2010/09/01/suspension_fine/

Bangladesh: Opposition Newspaper Raided by Police And Forced to Close

2010-06-04T08:59:00.001-07:00

PRESS RELEASE

4 June 2010

Bangladesh: Opposition Newspaper Raided by Police
And Forced to Close

ARTICLE 19 is deeply concerned that daily newspaper Amar Desh has been forced to close after 200 police entered the printing press in the middle of the night and halted production.

Police entered the printing press and the newspaper’s office following the government’s cancellation of Amar Desh’s licence to publish. Deputy Commissioner of Dhaka, Muhibul Haque ordered the cancellation following a dispute between the acting-editor and the publisher. Acting editor Mahmudur Rahman was also arrested in the raid and has been charged with resisting arrest, assault, and obstruction.

Acting-editor Rahman worked as an energy advisor to the previous Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and the Bangladesh National Party, who were in government from 2001 to 2006. Since the Awami League came to power in 2006, Amar Desh has aligned with the opposition, and staff have been charged with more than 20 counts of criminal defamation.

Amar Desh’s licence was cancelled by the deputy commissioner under Article 5 and 7 of the 1973 Printing Presses and Publications (Declaration and Registration) Act on the grounds that it has “no publisher”. The previous publisher, Hashmat Ali, had lodged a complaint on 1 June claiming that although he had left the newspaper, it continued to publish under his name, and may attract new criminal defamation cases against him as proprietor. Staff staged a sit-in when police later raided the newspaper.

Speaking to ARTICLE 19, leading journalist and former president of the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists, Monjurul Ahsan Bulbul commented that the: “closure and highhanded manner it was done is unacceptable, however the matter of conformity with the provisions of the Printing Presses and Publications (Declaration and Registration) Act,1973, with regard to the use of authentic publisher should be left to be determined by the course of the law.”

ARTICLE 19 is deeply concerned that the raid and closing of the opposition newspaper was inappropriate and disproportionate.

ARTICLE 19 calls on the government to match their electoral pledge of upholding “freedom of all types of mass media and flow of information” (Pledge 19 of the Election Manifesto of the Bangladesh Awami League – 2008). We call on the government to adhere to its national and international obligations to protect alternative and critical voices and sources of information.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

• For more information please contact: Tahmina Rahman, Country Director, ARTICLE 19 Bangladesh, tahmina@article19.org +0171-303-9669.

Artist Alert: May 2010

2010-06-04T08:46:00.000-07:00

May 2010

Artist Alert: May 2010

Art, in any form, constitutes a key medium through which information and ideas are imparted and received. Artist Alert, launched by ARTICLE 19 in 2008, highlights cases of artists around the world whose right to freedom of expression has been curtailed and abused, and seeks to more effectively promote and defend freedom to create.

Somalia: Music, sound effects and jingles banned

Extremist religious groups in Somalia have threatened radio stations telling them to stop playing all music, sound effects and even radio jingles. According to Freemuse, on 3 April Hisbul Islam leader Ma’allin Hashi Mohamed Farah gave radio stations 10 days to stop airing music or face undisclosed penalties. In response, on 19 April the leader of the government’s regional administration Abdikafi Hilowle Osman threatened to close down any radio stations that acquiesced to the threat. Four stations, Tusmo, Somaliweyn, Voice of Peace, and Xurmo, which reside within the government-controlled area of Mogadishu, have come under direct threat of closure from the government.

Côte d'Ivoire: Music banned for critiquing government

Two musicians alleged on 22 May that Côte d'Ivoire’s national television station has refused to air their popular music because it contains social and political commentary. Newspaper L'Expression quotes musicians Fadal Dey and Lago Paulin as saying that their “subversive” music is seen as critical of President Gbagbo’s government. Highlights of some of their tracks include songs forgiving previous governments on the basis that the present government is similarly as corrupt, and others stating that human rights and social securities are absent in the country. Media Foundation for West Africa states that the national television station, Radio Television Ivoirienne, regularly broadcasts pro-government music by groups that label themselves “patriot.”

Burma: Hip-hop defiance

After studying in London’ SAE Institute and inspired by regular visits to the British Library to read about traditional Burmese folk songs, Thxa Soe has become a hugely successful hip-hop artist in Burma, singing about current affairs in the country. According to the UK Guardian newspaper, Thxa’s concerts are policed by security uniformed and plain-clothed officers, attempting to monitor growing crowds that are using hip-hop to express issues in Burma. Unlike Burmese music and lyrics, which have to be approved by government censors before broadcast, the fluidity, dynamism and underground nature of hip-hop is proving hard to control. A number of Burmese bands are utilising the growth in new technologies to share un-censored music.

UAE: Controversy over Sex and the City 2 filming location

According to Time Out Dubai, the United Arab Emirate (UAE) media council announced that they had banned the film Sex and the City 2, released on 27 May, because the “theme of the film does not fit with our cultural values.” A representative from the national media council stated that the film was also banned for attempting to portray that it had been shot in UAE, when in fact in had been filmed in Morocco. According to film company New Line Cinema, the producers had asked to shoot in Abu Dhabi and Dubai in order to highlight the growing importance and modernity of the cities. Their application was refused without reason, which is why they filmed in Morocco. Interestingly, the media council have now removed all reference to the film ban from their website.

China: Uighur banned from cultural conference

Economist and writer Ilham Tohti has been warned not to try to attend a conference on Turkic culture by police visiting his home in Beijing. Ilham Tohti who is an ethnic Uighur had both a visa and official permission to leave China and was due to leave for Turkey on 15 April when police effectively banned him from travel two days prior. According to PEN, Tohti’s case follows a similar restriction on the writer Liao Yiwu who was due to make an appearance at Cologne literary festival but was removed from the aeroplane moments before leaving China.

Iran: Tim Burton calls for release of Jafar Panahi at Cannes

In an interview at the Cannes film festival on X, Tim Burton, head of the film festival jury, called on the Iranian government to immediately free Iranian film maker and Cannes prize-winner, Jafar Panahi. Burton told a news conference: “All of us are for freedom of expression. We fight for that every day and in our lives. So of course one should be free to express oneself.” Iranian security forces detained Panahi along with his wife, daughter and 15 guests on 1 March for allegedly making a film inside his own home on the Green Movement. Whilst his wife, daughter and guests have since been released, Panahi remains in the notorious Evin prison.

Egypt/Morocco: Bans and protests for Elton John

According to the news website Monsters and Critics, the Egyptian musicians’ union successfully lobbied authorities to ban the pop star Elton John from performing in a private concert in Egypt on 18 May. The union’s head, Mounir al-Wasimi, claimed that Elton should be banned due to his sexuality, asking: “How do we allow … calls for Middle Eastern countries to allow gays to have sexual freedom?!”

Elton John held another concert in front of 60,000 fans in Morocco on 26 May, despite calls from the Islamist Justice and Development Party to ban his attendance. According to Reuters, Mustapha Ramid stated the ban was because: “This man - sorry, I should say this person, not this man - is known for bragging about his homosexuality.”

Burma: Poet released five months after sentence finished

Burmese poet Saw Wei has been freed from detention five months after his sentence had officially run out. Sam Wei had served almost three years in prison because one of his poems was deemed by the government as “inducing crime against public tranquillity”. PEN American Centre states that Sam was detained in January 2008 for the poem titled ‘February the Fourteenth’, a short poem published in Love Journal in Burma for Valentines Day. The journal quickly sold out in Rangoon as word spread that the poem’s first letter on each line spelled out “General Than Shwe is crazy with power.”

Egypt: Minister attempts to ban Sufi ceremony

In May, the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior attempted to ban Sufi dhikr (a religious group ceremonial activity) from taking place in mosques, following the submission of an obscenity case by lawyers in the country against traditional stories One Thousand and One Nights. The government claims that such ceremonies are undermining public morality by allowing men and women to mix in tents and dance in ways that are not officially approved of.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

• For more information: please contact Oliver Spencer, oliver@article19.org, +44 20 7324 2500
• ARTICLE 19 is an independent human rights organisation that works around the world to protect and promote the right to freedom of expression. It takes its name from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees free speech.

Thailand: Attacks on Media Must Stop

2010-05-21T09:53:00.001-07:00

20 May 2010

Thailand: Attacks on Media Must Stop

Following the surrender of “Red Shirt” leaders and the imposing of curfew in Bangkok, all sides must stop attacking the media in order to allow the media to report freely on the development of the crisis. The media must also uphold the professional standards of objectivity to gain public trust and credibility.

Protests across Thailand have continued today following weeks of growing conflict. Yesterday the Thai army surrounded and used live arms to disperse protesters calling for the dissolving of parliament and announcing early elections, killing many. Members of the Red Shirts, largely consisting of rural poor, have in recent weeks targeted national media houses claiming that they are biased towards the urban elite. The government, on the other hand, has blocked around 4,500 websites and former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s Twitter feed amongst other censorship measures.

On Wednesday, the Red Shirts stormed national TV station Channel 3 and set cars on fire. Journalists at The Bangkok Post and The Nation also evacuated their building in fear of their safety. Following the crackdown, some protestors also turned on the media, threatening photographers taking pictures of retreating Red Shirts in particular.

The crisis has taken a heavy toll on journalists. International and national journalists have been killed and injured in the course of the crisis. In Wednesday’s army crackdown, Fabio Polenghi, an Italian photojournalist was killed by gunshot. He is the second journalist to have lost his life after Japanese cameraman for Reuters, Hiroyuki Muramoto, who was fatally shot on 10 April. At least five other international journalists from the Netherlands, USA, Canada and the UK, and a Thai photographer working for Australian Broadcasting Corporation have been injured thus far. Besides journalists working for foreign media, two local newspaper photographers - one working for Matichon and the other for The Nation – also suffered injuries in recent clashes.

“Such attacks, as well as threats to journalists and media censorship, seriously undermine a free media environment much needed at this critical moment when the public needs updated information from all sources to understand the situation,” says Dr Agnes Callamard, ARTICLE 19 Executive Director.

ARTICLE 19 calls on both sides to end the attacks on journalists and media censorship, and to ensure the right to information and right to expression are not compromised.

ARTICLE 19 also urges journalists to adhere to the professional standards of reporting, upholding objectivity and refraining from inciting violence.

NOTES :

• For more information please contact: Amy Sim, Asia Programme Officer, amy@article19.org, ARTICLE 19, +44 20 7324 2500

Pakistan: Freedom of Expression on Internet Must be Respected

2010-05-21T09:41:00.000-07:00

For immediate release – 21 May 2010

Pakistan: Freedom of Expression on Internet Must be Respected

Decisions by a Pakistani High Court to ban numerous international websites and services violate international human rights law.

The Lahore High Court on 19 May ordered the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to block the social network website Facebook and hundreds of other pages in response to a Facebook user calling for an “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day”. The court later ordered the blocking of YouTube for the same reason. The ban has resulted in numerous other websites also being affected, including Flickr, Wikipedia, Google, Twitter, some parts of the BBC, and accessing the internet through the Blackberry mobile service. The Express Tribune has reported that the total number of blocked websites has reached 1,000.

Participants of a media forum held yesterday in Karachi to discuss the ban were attacked by protesters accusing the organisers of blasphemy.

Previously, Pakistan has banned access to YouTube, Blogspot and Flickr, along with sites relating to corruption by political officials, human rights abuses by the army, nationalist political parties and religious minorities. An attempt to block YouTube in 2008 resulted in most of Pakistan being cut off from the internet after Pakistan Telecom rerouted all YouTube visitors worldwide to a false site, leading to a massive overload of traffic and YouTube being blocked worldwide for a short time. A cybercrime law adopted in 2008 authorises the death penalty for some offenses.

These expansive blocks of internet content violate Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that all individuals have a fundamental human right to “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers … through any other media of his choice.” Pakistan signed the ICCPR in 2008.

Any curbs on the right to free expression must be strictly limited. The curb must be provided by a law which is clear and understandable, the interference must pursue a legitimate aim as set out under Article 19(3) of the ICCPR, and the restrictions must be necessary and proportionate. The blocking of millions of pages is clearly disproportionate.

“Leaders of countries around the world must understand that speech and information in new media such as the internet are equally protected under the fundamental right to freedom of expression,” says Dr Agnes Callamard, ARTICLE 19 Executive Director . “It is not lawful to ban millions of pages to prevent access to a few.”

ARTICLE 19 calls on the government to remove all blocks that are not justifiable under international human rights law and to reform legislation that allows for blocks to be imposed without due consideration of the freedom of expression.

NOTES :

• For more information please contact: David Banisar, Senior Legal Counsel, ARTICLE 19, banisar@article19.org +44 20 7324 2500

Mexico: A Fourth Journalist Goes Missing in Michoacan State‏

2010-04-11T08:04:00.000-07:00

8 April 2010

Mexico: A Fourth Journalist Goes Missing in Michoacán State

Another journalist has been reported missing in Mexico, the fourth to disappear in Michoacán since 2006. Ramón Ángeles Zalpa, a journalist with more than ten years’ reporting experience, was last seen on 6 April at 13h00, when he left home for the National Pedagogical University, where he is also a professor.

ARTICLE 19 has initiated legal proceedings with local and federal authorities in an attempt to speed up the search for Ramón Ángeles. The organisation has also requested that the National Human Rights Commission grant him “precautionary measures”, a special status intended to guarantee the safety of an individual at risk, along with their family. The Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Journalists and the local Office of the General Attorney’s in Michoacán has now opened a file (number ACPGR/MICH/U-II/034/2010).

Ramón Ángeles is a correspondent for the local newspaper Cambio de Michoacán in Uruapan and Paracho municipality. He has covered government policy, public safety, and agricultural and environmental issues. Recently, he reported on an armed attack against an indigenous family on the boundaries of the municipalities of Angahuen and San Juan Nuevo Parangaricutiro.

Ramón Ángeles is the tenth journalist to have disappeared in Mexico since 2000 and the climate for media workers trying to exercise their professional duties remains risky across the country.

In an interview with ARTICLE 19, his family explained that they had received several unusual phone calls on Friday 2 April, the last of which was answered by Ángeles himself. The caller never spoke or identified themselves and the family was unable to say whether Angeles had received a message or not.

On 11 November 2009, Maria Esther Aguilar Casimbe, a crime reporter in Zamora working for Cambio de Michoacán, also went missing in similar circumstances. She has not yet been found.

ARTICLE 19 expresses its solidarity with the family of Ramón Ángeles, his colleagues and all employees of Cambio de Michoacán.

ARTCLE 19 is deeply concerned about the escalating number of attacks against journalists in Mexico, and especially about the evident pattern of violence in Michoacán

ARTICLE 19 urges the local and federal authorities to undertake all necessary measures to find Ramón Ángeles Zalpa, with all the urgency that is required in such cases. We also urge the authorities to launch a proper investigation into the perpetration of this abduction and ensure that those responsible are brought to justice.

NOTES :

• For more information please contact: Nicola Spurr, Senior Media Officer, nicola@article19.org, +44 20 7324 2500 or +44 772 686 7868.
• For information in Spanish, please contact Ricardo González, ricardo@article19.org, +52 551 054 6500 ext. 103 or +52 1 551 452 9008.

Maldives: Defamation Decriminalised

2009-12-23T16:19:00.001-08:00

25 November 2009

Maldives: Defamation Decriminalised

The Maldives parliament has passed an amendment to the Penal Code abolishing five articles providing for criminal defamation. ARTICLE 19 welcomes these developments and calls on the authorities to ensure that they are brought into force as soon as possible.

The Bill was passed overwhelmingly by the People’s Majlis on 23 November, in a clear victory for freedom of expression. This was despite the fact that the parliamentary committee reviewing the Bill, proposed by the government, had recommended that it be rejected and the crime of defamation retained. The Bill was part of the government’s wider platform to enhance respect for freedom of expression. It was also prompted by the announcement last year of the newly appointed independent Prosecutor General that he would start pursuing criminal defamation cases, reversing a prior practice of not bringing such cases. A few criminal defamation cases have been brought over the last year.

The decriminalisation of defamation was also one of the recommendations in a joint report by ARTICLE 19 and UNESCO, Assessment of Media Development in the Maldives, which applies UNESCO’s Media Development Indicators to the Maldives. The Assessment was launched in the Maldives on 28 October 2009.

ARTICLE 19 is very pleased to welcome the Maldives to the growing community of democracies around the world that have decriminalised defamation and we call on the government and parliament to continue to introduce needed reforms in the area of freedom of expression, including in the areas of broadcasting and the right to information.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

• The Assessment of Media Development in the Maldives is available at: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/press/maldives-assessment-of-media-development.pdf
• For more information please contact: Toby Mendel, Senior Legal Advisor, a19law@hfx.eastlink.ca, +1 902 431-3688

Concerned About Continued Harassment of Oleg Orlov Under Criminal Defamation Laws

2009-12-23T15:52:00.000-08:00

16 December 2009

Russia: ARTICLE 19 Concerned About Continued Harassment of Oleg Orlov Under Criminal Defamation Laws

ARTICLE 19 expresses its concern about the ongoing civil and criminal defamation proceedings against Oleg Orlov, head of the Russian human rights organisation Memorial. ARTICLE 19 is especially concerned that Orlov faces criminal charges after his civil trial – for the same alleged defamatory remarks about Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov – has already been settled.

The cases against Oleg Orlov relate to remarks he made after the kidnapping and murder of Natalia Estemirova on 15 July 2009. Estemirova was a prominent human rights defender and represented Memorial in Chechnya. She was abducted near her home in Grozny and her body was found later the same day near Nazran, in neighbouring Ingushetia.

Orlov stated that he believed that Ramzan Kadyrov was morally responsible for the murder of Natalia Estemirova and for the overall deteriorating human rights situation in Chechnya. These remarks were later published on the Memorial website and Kadyrov sued Orlov for defamation.

On 6 October, the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow partially satisfied Kadyrov’s claims and ordered Orlov and Memorial to pay 70,000 rubles (approximately USD2,400), as well as publishing a retraction saying that the statement "does not correspond to reality”. Orlov and Memorial currently have a pending appeal against this ruling.

Subsequently, on 20 October, Orlov was further charged with defamation under Article 129.3 of the Russian Criminal Code, for the same original statement. This trial is now underway and he faces up to three years’ imprisonment if convicted.

ARTICLE 19 considers that criminal defamation is a breach of the fundamental right to freedom of expression. The organisation believes that all criminal defamation laws should be abolished and replaced, where necessary, with appropriate civil defamation laws. The criminalisation of a particular opinion or expression implies a clear State interest in controlling it, and imparts a social stigma to it, neither of which is justified in relation to the protection of individuals’ reputations. The use of civil proceedings in defamation cases is sufficient for the protection of one’s honour and reputation.

These proceedings against Oleg Orlov also come at a time when the Government of the Russian Federation has been specifically urged by the UN Human Rights Committee to protect the right to freedom of expression, as part of its obligations under the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

The UN Human Rights Committee, in its sixth periodic review of the Russian Federation’s performance under the ICCPR in October this year, expressed concern over the use of criminal defamation legislation in Russia stating “that the practical application of the Mass Media Act as well as the arbitrary use of defamation laws has served to discourage critical media reporting on matters of valid public interest, adversely affecting the freedom of expression in the State party.” In its recommendations, the Committee called on the government to de-criminalise defamation and subject it only to civil lawsuits, capping any damages awarded, and to amend its Criminal Code to reflect the principle that public figures should tolerate a greater degree of criticism than ordinary citizens and ensure that the laws have a proper balance between the protection of a person’s reputation and freedom of expression.

In addition, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is very clear that public officials should tolerate more, not less, public criticism, especially in matters of significant public interest. The Court also stresses the fact that public officials have voluntarily accepted posts that may leave them open to criticism and that there are often alternative means of redress rather defamation cases, namely by publicly countering accusations.

In particular, a 2007 ruling in the Dyuldin and Kislov v. Russia case states, “ dominant position which the government occupies makes it necessary for it to display restraint in resorting to libel proceedings, particularly where other means are available for replying to the unjustified attacks and criticisms of its adversaries or the media.”

ARTICLE 19 also stresses that the ECtHR is clear about the distinction between statements of fact and statements of opinion. In practice, the Court allows a considerable degree of leeway to statements of opinion and has been liberal in its interpretation of what constitutes a fact and what constitutes a value judgement, normally deciding in favour of the latter. The Court has also held that requiring defendants to prove the truth of value judgements is illegitimate. This is because the existence of facts can be demonstrated, whereas the truth of a value judgment is not susceptible of proof. Furthermore, even in the cases of the absence of hard proof for allegations and strong language, the Court stressed that when the discussion is on a matter of important public concern freedom of expression should prevail.
Based on the above, ARTICLE 19 therefore calls on the Russian Federation to:

To drop the criminal defamation case against Oleg Orlov and to take all necessary steps for decriminalisation of defamation as a matter of urgency.
Immediately open a full and impartial investigation into the murder of Natalia Estemirova and ensure that both the perpetrators and instigators are brought to justice.
Take all measures necessary to protect those reporting on human rights violations in Russia, and especially in the North Caucasus, against acts of violence, threats and intimidation.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

• For more information please contact Anoush Begoyan, Programme Officer for Europe at anoushb@article19.org or tel: +44 20 7324 2500.

also read
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/11/03/russia-drop-criminal-libel-charges-against-activist

Concerns about the Retreat of Freedom of Expression in 2009

2009-12-23T15:39:00.000-08:00

21 December 2009

Western Europe: ARTICLE 19 Raises Concerns about the Retreat of Freedom of Expression in 2009

According to an ARTICLE 19 statement, media freedom has been “retreating” in the countries of Western Europe throughout 2009. Research into incidents across the region has highlighted a number of problem areas where states have failed to abide by their obligations under international law to uphold the right to freedom of expression. ARTICLE 19 calls on the governments to fulfil their obligation to uphold the right to freedom of expression contained in international and European standards.

All countries within the region have committed themselves through key international and European treaties to safeguard freedom of expression as a fundamental human right. 2009 has witnessed violent assaults on journalists, limitations on their rights to report protests as well as violations of their right to protect the confidentiality of their sources. The statement also raises over-intrusive and far-reaching anti-terrorism legislation, internet surveillance and limitations of the right to information framework as key concerns. Further, the statement criticises the continuing existence of criminal defamation on the statute books of Western Europe and the considerable chilling effect this has on free speech. Several concerns are raised in relation to the increasing usage of civil defamation law, especially in relation to disproportionate awards for damages and the targeting of speech in the public interest. Worrying trends have also been reported in relation to media ownership and media plurality.

“The countries of Western Europe must be seen as leaders in the fight for freedom of expression,” says Dr Agnès Callamard, ARTICLE 19 Executive Director. “ARTICLE 19’s research demonstrates incidents where states have actively inhibited the right to freedom of expression – in direct contravention of their international obligations.”

The statement makes a series of recommendations to Western European states to address specific problem areas and abide by their obligations under international law.

NOTES :

• To view the full text of the open letter, please go to: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/press/western-europe-freedom-of-expression-in-retreat-in-2009.pdf
• For more information please contact: Oliver Spencer, oliver@article19.org or Barbora Bukovska, Senior Director for Law, barbora@article19.org, +44 20 7324 2500

Copenhagen: Transparency Disregarded

2009-12-23T15:25:00.000-08:00

A Changed Climate for Free Expression and Freedom of Information

22 December 2009

Copenhagen: Voices of those Affected Ignored and Transparency Disregarded

The outcome of the Copenhagen summit was deeply disappointing. It failed to deliver the legally binding and fair global climate deal sought by civil society organisations and individuals, and promised by many governments. The process lacked transparency, and restrictions on freedom of expression were widespread.

“Whilst at the summit, we were especially alarmed by various restrictions on human rights - notably freedom of expression and the right to protest - which were imposed during the Copenhagen meeting,” says Dr Agnes Callamard, Executive Director of ARTICLE 19.

Over one thousand people were arrested during the middle weekend of the summit and also many accredited non-governmental organisation representatives were unable to attend the final stages of the meeting. Too much of the political negotiations took place behind closed doors and were led by the principal CO2 emitting states.

The resulting political document, the Copenhagen Accord represents the summit’s marginalisation of the voices, interests and participation of the states and peoples who are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Progress can only be made by honouring and elaborating upon the transparency provisions contained in the text and the drafting of a legally binding agreement at the next possible opportunity. ARTICLE 19 calls on states to resist adopting any such legally binding agreement in small groups without the participation of countries and communities most exposed to climate threats. A planet-saving treaty requires a multilateral approach in which all voices may be heard.

NOTES :

• Read ARTICLE 19’s analysis of the Right to Information and Freedom of Expression in Climate Change debates in English at: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/publications/changing-the-climate-for-freedom-of-expression-and-freedom-of-information.pdf
In Spanish at: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/publications/cambiar-el-clima-para-la-libertad-de-expresion-y-la-libertad-de-informacion.pdf
In French at: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/publications/changer-le-climat-pour-la-liberte-d-expression-et-la-liberte-d-information.pdf
In Portuguese at: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/publications/mudando-o-clima-para-a-liberdade-de-expressao-e-a-liberdade-de-informacao.pdf
In Arabic at: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/publications/arabic-changing-the-climate-for-freedom-of-expression-and-freedom-of-informa.pdf
• For more information please contact: Sejal Parmar, sejal@article19.org +44 20 7324 2500

9 December 2009

Copenhagen: ARTICLE 19 Calls for a Changed Climate for Free Expression and Freedom of Information

In a report released today to coincide with the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, ARTICLE 19 shows how responses to climate change will not be effective unless there is transparency in their development and implementation, a free flow of information and respect for freedom of expression.

“Across the globe, we have found instances of media reporting on climate change being silenced; scientists being censored; climate change protests repressed; activists investigating environmental disasters intimidated, arrested or even killed. Even the amount, origin and use of climate change funds are shrouded in secrecy,” says Dr Agnès Callamard, ARTICLE 19 Executive Director.

The ARTICLE 19 report – Changing the Climate for Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Information – shows that climate change debates and interventions have failed so far to fully integrate a freedom of expression perspective, and that this is evident in many national and regional responses to climate change.

For example, the report details examples where journalists and others have been threatened, harassed or prosecuted by authorities or large corporations, or risked their lives to cover environmental degradation in some parts of the world. In July 2009, the French journalist Cyril Payen was arrested by security guards and handed over to the police while investigating illegal logging by a leading Indonesian industrial group in Sumatra. In November 2009, Kumkum Dasgupta, senior assistant editor with the Delhi-based Hindustan Times and Raimondo Bultrini, reporter for the Italian newspaper L’Espresso were arrested while covering a Greenpeace protest against uncontrolled deforestation in Pelalawan district in the province of Riau, on Sumatra. In Brazil, Vilmar Berna, the editor of the Niterói-based environmentalist daily Jornal do Meio Ambiente, which exposes clandestine overfishing and threats to protected marine life in Rio de Janeiro Bay, has been a constant target of threats and intimidation attempts since May 2006.

With scientists being accused of trying to manipulate the debate on one hand, and on the other, evidence that scientists in the USA were pressured to delete references to climate change in scientific papers, or were prevented by authorities from talking to the media, the importance of transparency cannot be overstated.

“To date, public participation globally in planning for effective mitigation and adaptation in the face of climate change has been marked by high degrees of inequality of access to critical information in what is an increasingly technical but opaque international debate,” adds Callamard.

“This is a profoundly wrong departure point for our joint efforts to secure the future of the planet. No matter what positive outcome emerges from the Copenhagen Conference, little will be delivered unless and until implementation is accompanied by full respect for the free flow of information, the free exercise of public debate, a free and independent media, transparency and accountability.”

The Copenhagen Conference offers the international community an unprecedented opportunity to forge a legally enforceable framework to combat climate change.

ARTICLE 19’s report includes 34 recommendations addressed to states, the media and civil society aimed at addressing some flagrant but often unrecognised flaws in current climate change agreements and practices. The recommendations call for a strengthening of the environment for effective climate change responses by ensuring that human rights, and particularly freedom of expression and freedom of information, are fully integrated into climate change strategies and respected in their implementation.

In particular, ARTICLE 19 calls for:

Strengthening the legal framework for protection of information and expression rights;

Promoting the Aarhus Principles (contained in the 1998 Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters) in international agreements;

The pro-active disclosure and updates of high quality information on climate change;

Protecting and promoting the free flow of information and public debate;

Promoting the participation of vulnerable groups;

Open, effective and transparent systems of accountability at national and international level; and

Addressing the disparities and inequality between states negotiating climate change agreements.

NOTES :

• To view the ARTICLE 19 report Changing the Climate for Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Information, go to: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/publications/changing-the-climate-for-freedom-of-expression-and-freedom-of-information.pdf
• For more information please contact: Sejal Parmar, Senior Legal Officer at ARTICLE 19, tel: +44 20 7324 2500; email: sejal@article19.org.

MARTIN ENNALS AWARD

2009-11-22T06:58:00.000-08:00

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS FOR MARTIN ENNALS AWARD

The Martin Ennals Foundation is seeking nominations for its 2010 award for
human rights defenders. The deadline is 9 December 2009.

The award, worth 20,000 Swiss Francs (US$17,500), is given annually to
individuals or organisations that have demonstrated an exceptional record
of combating human rights violations by courageous and innovative means.
Special consideration is given to those who are at risk and in need of
immediate protection.

This year's award went to Emad Baghi, a leading Iranian human rights
defender based in Tehran. Baghi has been a vociferous opponent of the death
penalty in Iran and has campaigned to challenge interpretations of Islamic
law on the subject. He has spent four years in prison within the last
decade and still faces charges related to his work for prisoners' rights.

To download a nomination form or get more information, please visit:
Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders:
http://www.martinennalsaward.org/

CHINESE DISSIDENTS BARRED FROM MEETING WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA

2009-11-22T06:46:00.000-08:00

 ASIA: CHINESE DISSIDENTS BARRED FROM MEETING WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA; CALLS
FOR AUNG SAN SUU KYI'S RELEASE

During U.S. President Barack Obama's first visit to Asia as president this
month, Human Rights Watch urged him to call on the 10-member Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to resolve issues of impunity and major
restraints on freedom of expression throughout the region. As well, IFEX
members called on the President to press for the release of imprisoned
Chinese journalists and writers on his first official visit to the People's
Republic of China.

Obama met with ASEAN leaders on 15 November, the day after the annual
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Singapore.

Human Rights Watch asked the President to communicate the importance to
ASEAN leaders of joining forces to challenge Burma and call for the release
of all political prisoners, including the democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi, as well as for an inclusive political process ahead of the 2010
elections.

The President personally asked Burmese Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein to
free Suu Kyi and other political prisoners while in Singapore, says Mizzima
News. But a post-summit statement by ASEAN did not call for the Burmese
democracy leader's release, allegedly as a result of pressure from the
Burmese junta. 

Human Rights Watch also called on Obama to encourage Vietnam to improve its
human rights policies and to begin by releasing the hundreds of peaceful
government critics, independent church activists, bloggers and democracy
advocates currently imprisoned on baseless national security charges simply
for expressing dissent.

As well, Human Rights Watch appealed to Obama to directly challenge
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's authoritarian rule, as he and other
ruling party officials use violence, threats, and the country's notoriously
corrupt judiciary to eliminate dissent by imprisoning opposition party
members, journalists, land rights activists and other government critics.

Elsewhere in the region, Malaysia also takes advantage of overbroad
national security laws. Cambodia, Indonesia, and Singapore use criminal
defamation laws to control free speech and Thailand makes arbitrary use of
the "lese majeste" law and the Computer Crimes Act.

In China, IFEX members asked that human rights not be ignored in the midst
of discussions on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and trade tariffs.
Chinese authorities counted on Obama not to raise human rights, while
society activists, lawyers, and peaceful critics - the people Obama
normally allies himself with - hoped he would, said Human Rights Watch.
Obama himself is a writer and constitutional lawyer.

Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) reports that police clamped down on
dissidents across the country, with arbitrary detention and intimidation
tactics, so that critics would not be able to attempt to meet Obama or
foreign journalists. Others were strictly warned not to travel to Shanghai
and Beijing during the President's visit.

Obama tried to have a candid discussion with Chinese students in Shanghai
at a meeting of about 500 students. According to the International Press
Institute (IPI), Obama did respond to a question related to Internet
censorship. "I've always been a strong supporter of open Internet use. I'm
a big supporter of non-censorship," Obama said. However, he also added, "I
recognise that different countries have different traditions."

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) reports that Chinese
authorities forbade questions to Obama on the Internet, and ordered media
outlets to delete news about questions raised at the student forum. Despite
the ban, Obama responded to a question about Twitter that he got through
the Internet: "I should be honest, as President of the United States, there
are times where I wish information didn't flow so freely because then I
wouldn't have to listen to people criticising me all the time." According
to news reports, he added, "Because in the United States, information is
free, and I have a lot of critics in the United States who can say all
kinds of things about me, I actually think that that makes our democracy
stronger and it makes me a better leader because it forces me to hear
opinions that I don't want to hear."

In a letter to Obama, the PEN American Center called on the President to
intervene on behalf of more than 40 detained Chinese writers. IFEX members
highlighted several cases. Hu Jia, a freelance reporter and blogger and a
civil rights, environmental and AIDS activist, is serving a
three-and-a-half-year sentence for "inciting subversion." Liu Xiaobo, a
renowned writer, intellectual and literary critic, who has been detained
since December 2008, is facing 15 years in prison. Other detained writers
mentioned: Shi Tao, imprisoned for allegedly "leaking state secrets;" and
Du Daobin, Yang Tongyan and Zhang Jianhong, all serving long prison
sentences.

PEN said: "Finding writers in prison is a warning sign not only of the
state of fundamental liberties in a country but also of the health,
character, and vitality of the ideas in play and of the ability of citizens
to act on these ideas."

IPI called on Obama to focus on the link between press freedom and elements
of sustainability, poverty and governance, citing the Chinese famine of
1958-1961 in which 23 to 30 million people died. The absence of a free and
independent press meant the central government believed its economic
policies were working; in reality, millions were starving.

Similarly, the tragic outcome of the 2008 earthquake that struck China's
Sichuan province, killing more than 80,000 and rendering five million
homeless, was made worse because of poor infrastructure which investigative
journalism might have exposed, reports IPI.

Activists Tan Zuoren and Huang Qi are facing charges of subversion for
investigating the deaths of schoolchildren in the 2008 earthquake and
posting the information they had gathered online, report IFEX members.
Huang Qi remains in prison, along with at least 50 bloggers and 30
journalists throughout China.

PEN American Center concluded: "We do not write to suggest how or when you
should raise these cases or what you should say. We only ask that you not
be persuaded by those who would argue that pressing for the release of
writers is somehow counterproductive or inappropriate to the occasion."

Related stories on IFEX.org:
- PEN calls on President Obama to stand up for free expression in China:
http://ifex.org/china/2009/11/10/pen_letter_to_obama/

More on the web:
- Obama should raise human rights in China (Human Rights Watch):
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/11/09/uschina-obama-should-raise-human-rights-china
- Obama should press Asian leaders on rights (Human Rights Watch):
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/11/12/usasean-obama-should-press-asian-leaders-rights
- IPI calls on U.S. President to raise press freedom concerns during trip
to Asia:
http://www.freemedia.at/startpage/singleview/ipi-calls-on-us-president-to-raise-press-freedom-concerns-during-trip-to-asia/a530ea43ff/
- United States President touches upon human rights concerns during
official visit to China (IPI):
http://www.freemedia.at/startpage/singleview/press-freedom-update-united-states-president-touches-upon-human-rights-concerns-during-official-visit-to-china/2b202a1f59/
- China enforces new restrictions as Obama speaks out (IFJ):
http://asiapacific.ifj.org/en/articles/china-enforces-new-restrictions-as-obama-speaks-out
- U.S.-ASEAN meet fails to call for Suu Kyi's release (Mizzima News):
http://www.mizzima.com/news/world/3047-us-asean-meet-fails-to-call-for-suu-kyis-release.html

Iran: Government Launches Web Crime Unit

2009-11-22T06:20:00.001-08:00

17 November 2009

Iran: Government Launches Web Crime Unit

The government of Iran has bolstered its censorship regime with the launch of a new Web Crime Unit tasked with policing the internet for “insults and lies”. The launch comes just months after the disputed election and the so called ‘Green Revolution’ which saw demonstrators utilise the web as an important tool for organising.

The 12 member Web Crime Unit will search the web ostensibly for cyber crimes and report them directly to the Chief Prosecutor. Although vowing to fight cyber crime in general, the Unit’s political nature is indicated by its emphasis on “insults and lies” – a term often used by the judiciary to describe opposition statements.

Iran’s Green Revolution in 2009 showed that the web is one of the last remaining bastions of free expression. Before, during and after the elections, opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, as well as other reformists demonstrated the web’s potential to communicate views, inspire debate and organise support. The new Unit is the latest attempt to suppress the reform movement’s last real means of keeping its campaign alive. It also shows the Iranian authorities’ attempts to isolate the Iranian media and academic community from its global counterparts, and curtail cross-cultural dialogues and debates, with the view of maintaining tight control over information, ideas, and opinions.

“This new Web Crime Unit is clearly censorship and intimidation under the pretence of fighting crime,” says Dr Agnès Callamard, ARTICLE 19 Executive Director. “If the Iranian government arrests bloggers, activists and journalists, they are not only attacking individuals, but also undermining the rights of their fellow Iranians and others to hear the experiences and opinions of others.”

The Islamic Republic of Iran has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and is therefore obliged as a matter of international law to respect the right to freedom of expression as guaranteed by Article 19.

NOTES :

• For more information please contact: For more information: please contact Amir Bayani: Amir@article19.org; Tel: +44 2073242514.
• Read ARTICLE 19’s Submission on Iran to the UN Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review at: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/submissions/iran-article-19-submission-to-the-un-universal-periodic-review.pdf

Document: Aggressions Against Journalists

2009-11-22T06:17:00.000-08:00

19 November 2009

Mexico: ARTICLE 19 Releases Third Quarterly Report Documenting Aggressions Against Journalists

ARTICLE 19, in conjunction with its partner Cencos, has launched a report pointing to a continuing deterioration of freedom of expression in Mexico and stating that the authorities remain the principal perpetrators of aggressions against journalists.

This is the third quarterly report detailing a total of 59 attacks against journalists and the media, including the killing of three journalists, from July to September 2009. ARTICLE 19 and Cencos have recorded 201 aggressions so far this year, as well as eight deaths.

In Mexico, journalists work in an evironment where organised crime and drug traffickers operate largely with impunity, often colluding with the authorities. Usually the most serious violations, such as assassinations and forced disappearances, can be attributed to organised crime.

However, ARTICLE 19’s figures continue to point to state authorities as the principal aggressors in nearly 72 per cent of cases. The deployment of the military and police in many parts of the country have not only resulted in an escalation of violence but, in some cases, new human rights violations committed by security forces. The ARTICLE 19 report also details several serious incidents involving government officials, including the harassment of staff at the political magazine Proceso by officials of the Ministry for Public Security.

The report further emphasises an increased number of aggressions commited by supporters of political parties, during recent elections at state level and in Congress. Local police forces and municipal officials are also responsible for attacks against media workers in various states, including Sinaloa, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Guerrero and Mexico City.

Dario Ramirez, ARTICLE 19 Director for Mexico comments: “An assassination constitutes the most severe form of aggression and is an indicator of the adverse environment in which journalists and media workers are currently being forced to operate. Many of these cases have not been effectively investigated or resolved, and this constitutes a real and sustained campaign against the right to freedom of expression in this country.”

ARTICLE 19 and Cencos calls on the authorities to make a serious effort to tackle these violations of fundamental human rights and bring Mexico into line with international standards. This includes developing prevention policies, including adequate and effective human rights training for security forces, at all levels of national, state and local government.

ARTICLE 19 and Cencos reminds the Mexican State that the right to freedom of expression, which is established in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights implies a double obligation. The state is not only obliged not to violate the right, but also to protect it and promote an environment in which free expression is allowed to flourish.

ARTICLE 19 and Cencos reiterates its call on the Mexican State to tackle the impunity that is being allowed to prevail in the majority of cases of violations of the right to freedom of expression. This can only be achieved through the effective investigation of such crimes and the sanctioning of those responsible, as well as the strengthening of the bodies that are responsible for dealing with crimes against freedom of expression.

NOTES :

• To view the full report Attacks on Freedom of Expression in Mexico: Third Quarterly Bulletin go to: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/publications/mexico-attacks-on-freedom-of-expression-3rd-quarterly-report-.pdf
• For more information please contact: Ricardo Gonzalez, Programme Officer Freedom of Expression and Journalist´s Protection, Ricardo@article19.org +52 55 10546500
• For more information please contact: Iñigo Prieto Beguiristáin, Education and Research Unit, CENCOS, educacion@cencos.org, +52 (55) 55 33 64 75; +52 (55) 55 33 64 75 / 76 Ext. 108
• The Social Communications National Centre (Cencos) was the first organisation documenting attacks against the media in Mexico. Its work focused in promoting freedom of expression and press freedom as an individual right of all journalists and as a collective right of society to be informed.

New Attempts to Legitimise Religious Defamation using Principles of Blasphemy

2009-11-22T05:57:00.000-08:00

20 November 2009

UN/Ireland: ARTICLE 19 Expresses Concern at New Attempts to Legitimise Religious Defamation using Principles of Blasphemy

ARTICLE 19 is extremely concerned that the submissions on defamation of religions brought by Pakistan on behalf of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (“OIC”) before the UN Ad Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of Complementary Standards (“Ad Hoc Committee”) adopted the exact wording of the provisions of Irish legislation on blasphemous libel contained in that country’s Defamation Act, passed in July 2009. This clearly shows that the Irish legislation is being used to legitimise the proposals of Pakistan and the OIC to establish defamation of religion as a principle of international law.

The Ad Hoc Committee is mandated to “elaborate, as a matter of priority and necessity, complementary standards in the form of either a convention or additional protocol(s) to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, filling the existing gaps in the Convention, and also providing new normative standards aimed at combating all forms of contemporary racism, including incitement to racial and religious hatred” (Human Rights Council resolution 6/21). Pakistan and the OIC seek to establish defamation of religions as a new normative standard. The Irish Defamation Act 2009 has also reintroduced the offence of blasphemous libel this year. This represents a dangerous trend towards the standardisation of blasphemous libel internationally.

ARTICLE 19 has previously raised its concerns with both the Irish legislation and the Pakistan proposal to the Ad Hoc Committee, and warned that both pose serious threats to freedom of expression and have no basis in established international standards. International human rights standards protect individuals and groups on the basis of their religion or ethnicity, but do not protect religions per se. Constituting defamation of religion in international law or domestic legislation distorts and undermines existing international human rights protection of both the right to freedom of expression and the right to equality. Furthermore, the concept of defamation of religions has been abusively relied upon to stifle religious dissent and criticism of religious adherents and non-believers in a number of countries around the world.

At the adoption of the Irish Defamation Act, the Irish Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, referred to the constitutional basis of the Act and assured that the Act is formulated in a way to make it almost impossible to successfully prosecute. However, the reliance by representatives of Pakistan on the Irish legislation shows that the Irish law has provided an extremely dangerous international precedent.

Sweden, on behalf of the European Union, responded to Pakistan’s submission to the Ad Hoc Committee specifically opposing defamation of religions as a human rights concept. It is ironic that the text to which the European Union is opposed is extracted directly from the law of a Member State and consolidated democracy.

ARTICLE 19 therefore urges:
• The Government of the Republic of Ireland to recognise the effect its legislation has globally on freedom of expression, and to amend its legislation concerning blasphemy and blasphemous libel in order to uphold the right to freedom of expression and set an important example to other states;
• The Ad Hoc Committee not to accept the proposals for a convention or additional protocol that oversteps in any way the long-established limits of international human rights law, principles and values which protect individuals and groups, rather than religious ideas, objects and symbols; and
• The European Union to call on the Republic of Ireland to comply with its obligations under international law to safeguard freedom of expression.

NOTES :

• For more information please contact Barbora Bukovska, Senior Director for Law, ARTICLE 19, at barbora@article19.org or +44 20 7324 2500;
• For a copy of the submission of Pakistan to the Ad hoc Committee on the Elaboration of Complementary Standards, see http://www.article19.org/pdfs/publications/racism-racial-discrimination-xenophobia-and-all-forms-of-discrimination.pdf
• For a copy of the Defamation Act 2009 of Ireland, see http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/acts/2009/a3109.pdf.
• For a copy of open letter of ARTICLE 19 to UN Ad Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of Complementary Standards, see: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/press/open-letter-to-the-un-ad-hoc-committee-for-the-elaboration-of-complementary-.pdf. For a copy of the ARTICLE 19 statement on the Irish Defamation Act 2009, see http://www.article19.org/pdfs/press/ireland-blasphemy-amendment-contrary-to-free-speech.pdf

Sri Lanka: Journalists Still Under Threat

2009-11-07T18:38:00.001-08:00

28 October 2009

Sri Lanka: Journalists Still Under Threat, Even As Conflict Ends

ARTICLE 19 is concerned that Sri Lankan journalists remain under threat, despite the official ending of the country’s decades-long civil conflict in May this year. Two editors from the Sri Lankan newspaper The Sunday Leader, Frederica Jansz and Munza Mushataq, are the latest to receive death threats, handwritten in red ink and delivered on 22 October.

The death threats arrived after the paper published a report on video footage allegedly showing Sri Lankan government soldiers executing Tamil prisoners. The footage, which was broadcast in the UK on Channel Four news, was deemed inauthentic by the government. However, The Sunday Leader ran a technical report from the USA stating that it had not been faked.

The Sunday Leader’s previous editor, Lasantha Wickrematunge was assassinated in January this year, three weeks after receiving a similar letter. After his death, The Sunday Leader published a posthumous editorial by Wickrematunge in which he blamed the Sri Lankan Government for attacks on journalists. He wrote: “Electronic and print media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.”

The Sunday Leader’s managing editor Lal Wickrematunge told ARTICLE 19 today that they have lodged an official complaint and written to President Mahinda Rajapaksa this morning.

Journalist and former Convener of the Sri Lankan Free Media Movement Uvindu Kurukulasuriya comments: “The Sri Lankan government has failed to investigate the murder of Lasantha and bring his killers to justice and now there are the same death threats against his successors.”

ARTICLE 19 calls on the Sri Lankan government to immediately investigate the death threats against The Sunday Leader editor-in-chief Frederica Jansz and news editor Munza Mushataq, and to ensure the safety of both women.

“It is completely unacceptable to subject journalists and editors to the kind of violence and harassment that has become so commonplace in Sri Lanka,” comments Dr Agnès Callamard, ARTICLE 19 Executive Director. “The Sri Lankan government must take responsibility for the safety of working journalists and must ensure that the country’s commitment to the rule of international and domestic law is upheld.”

NOTES

• For more information please contact: Oliver Spencer, oliver@article19.org, +44 20 7324 2500

Russia: UN Human Rights Committee on Free Expression

2009-11-07T18:34:00.000-08:00

2 November 2009

Russia: Government Must Respect Recommendations of UN Human Rights Committee on Free Expression

ARTICLE 19 welcomes recommendations by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (the Committee) in its concluding observations on the Russian Federation’s implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (the ICCPR). At the same time, ARTICLE 19 urges the Russian Government to take immediate steps to implement these recommendations, in particular those related to freedom of expression.

ARTICLE 19 submitted a shadow report for the 97th session of the Committee from 12- 30 October 2009 in Geneva that provided detailed evidence of a range of abuses of the right to freedom of expression in Russia.

In the Concluding Observations issued on 29 October 2009, the Committee expressed its concern “at the alarming incidence of threats, violent assaults and murders of journalists and human rights defenders, which has created a climate of fear and a chilling effect on the media, including for those working in the North Caucasus, and regrets the lack of effective measures taken to protect the right to life and security of these persons.” These concerns are similar to those of ARTICLE 19 in the shadow report.

Likewise, the Committee also recommended an amendment to the Criminal Code, in order to reflect the principle that public figures should tolerate a greater degree of criticism than ordinary citizens, and to decriminalise defamation, making it a civil matter with a cap on potential damages.

“These recommendations are particularly relevant today as Yuri Orlov, head of the Moscow-based human rights organisation Memorial, currently faces charges of criminal defamation,” says Dr Agnès Callamard, Executive Director of ARTICLE 19. “ARTICLE 19 wants defamation to be decriminalised worldwide because it has such a chilling effect on freedom of expression,” continues Callamard.

In addition, the Committee also reiterated previous recommendation to revise the Federal Law on Combating Extremist Activity, making the definition of "extremist activity" more precise and excluding any possibility of arbitrary application. ARTICLE 19 had expressed concerns that anti-extremist legislation had been used to suppress independent and critical viewpoints, especially with regard to definitions of “extremist literature” and “social groups” accused of inciting hatred in Russia.

When determining whether written materials constitute “extremist literature”, the Committee recommended that the government ensure that the experts giving evidence in court cases must be independent and that defendants in such cases must be able to offer counter-expertise. The Committee also found that the loose definition of “social groups” was open to interpretation by courts in a manner that afforded protection to state organs and agents.

ARTICLE 19 noted several cases from around Russia where law enforcement agencies, state prosecution officials and the military were recognised as “social groups” by experts and the courts, and subsequently effectively protected from public criticism or scrutiny under anti-extremism and hate speech laws. This practice clearly illustrates a tendency to use legislation to silence criticism of powerful state actors.

The Human Rights Committee has issued a clear call to the Russian Federation to make urgent changes to its domestic laws and practice, in order to bring the country fully in line with its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. ARTICLE 19 endorses these recommendations, especially those that apply to the fundamental right to freedom of expression, and intends to continue monitoring the government’s implementation of these recommendations, along with all of the country’s freedom of expression obligations.

• For more information please contact: Nathalie Losekoot, Senior Programme Officer: Europe at Nathalie@article19.org or +44 20 7324 2500.
• For a copy of ARTICLE 19 shadow report, submitted to the Human Rights Committee as part of its preparation for the review of the sixth periodic report by the Russian Federation, see http://www.article19.org/pdfs/submissions/russia-written-comments-of-article-19-global-campaign-for-free-expression-co.pdf.
• For a copy of the Concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee on the sixth periodic report of the Russian Federation, see http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/docs/co/CCPR.C.RUS.CO.6.doc (advanced version).

Five Years After Van Gogh's Murder, Free Speech Is Under Attack

2009-11-07T18:32:00.000-08:00

Five Years After Van Gogh's Murder, Free Speech Is Under Attack

by David J. Rusin • Nov 2, 2009 at 9:26

http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog/2009/11/five-years-after-van-goghs-murder-free-speech-is

On November 2, 2004, Dutch columnist, filmmaker, and all-around provocateur Theo van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death as he biked to work on an Amsterdam street. The killer, Mohammed Bouyeri, insisted that Islam "compels me to chop off the head of anyone who insults Allah and the prophet." He targeted the anti-Islam van Gogh because of his movie Submission, which graphically highlights Koranic verses often used to justify the mistreatment of women.

A half decade later, Islamists still answer free speech with violence. Two Chicago-area Muslims were charged last week with plotting attacks against those involved in publishing the Danish Muhammad cartoons. Shortly before that, Dutch MP Geert Wilders was welcomed to the UK by Islamist thugs who warned him — and everyone else — to "take lessons from people like Theo van Gogh," because "whoever insults the prophet, kill him."

Yet the greatest threat to free speech does not come from homegrown jihadists who wish to make examples of rabble-rousing Westerners. It arises from governments and related entities blinded by the fanciful notion that radicals will leave us alone if we only stop saying things that offend them. Some recent happenings:

Last month the UN Human Rights Council passed yet another resolution — this time, with support from the U.S. and Europe — urging governments "to take all necessary measures" to combat "religious stereotyping" and "hatred." While noting a few improvements over previous years' text, law professor Eugene Volokh called it "a step backward" for the constitutional rights of Americans. The resolution will be considered in November by the General Assembly, where the Islamic bloc hopes to use it as a springboard for banning criticism of Islam and enacting global blasphemy statutes.

Paul Belien reports that "if all goes as planned, the 27 member states of the European Union will soon have a common hate crime legislation, which will turn disapproval for Islamic practices … into crimes." The text names an "intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment" as one (extremely subjective) facet of discrimination. No doubt Bouyeri would be pleased. It passed the European Parliament and will be debated by the Council of Ministers this month.

Geert Wilders continues to serve as a lightning rod for those who wish to stifle Islam's critics. First, a court order was needed to convince the British government to let him set foot on UK soil last month. Second, Pennsylvania's Temple University, which accepts state funds, pressured students to cancel an October appearance by the legislator; they refused. Third, in what may be the trial of the century, at least in the Netherlands, Wilders is preparing to defend himself against speech crime charges; the start date is January 20.

Daniel Pipes referred to the van Gogh slaying as "education by murder," part of the "slow and painful way people wake up to the problem of radical Islam." Unfortunately, for many of our drowsy leaders, the only lessons learned are the wrong ones.

Florence Hartmann’s case

2009-11-07T18:21:00.001-08:00

5 November 2009

ICTY: ARTICLE 19 Submits an Amicus Brief in Florence Hartmann’s case
ARTICLE 19 has today submitted an amicus curiae brief in the case of a French journalist, Florence Hartmann, who has been convicted of contempt of court by the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for disclosing confidential information.
On 14 September 2009, a Specially Appointed Chamber of the ICTY found Hartmann guilty of disclosing the contents of two Appeals Chamber Decisions from the case against Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević in a book and an article.

These decisions granted confidential status to documents of the Serbian State’s Supreme Defence Council related to the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. The exact content of these documents has never been disclosed but they are reported to contain details of contact between the Serbian government and the Bosnian Serb army, which would establish a link between the government in Belgrade and war crimes such as those committed at Srebrenica. Hartmann had served for a number of years as spokesperson for the Chief Prosecutor for the ICTY.

The ICTY Specially Appointed Chamber found that Hartmann’s conduct could deter sovereign states from cooperating with the Tribunal where the provision of evidentiary material is concerned, and sentenced her to a fine of 7,000 Euros.

While recognising that the tensions between the principles of freedom of expression, and the need for some degree of confidentiality to protect the administration of justice, ARTICLE 19’s amicus brief maintains that the judgment of the Specially Appointed Chamber departs in significant ways from well-established principles of freedom of expression.

By referring to the international standards justifying restrictions on media freedom to safeguard the administration of justice, the amicus brief maintains that any conviction of contempt of court must be justified on the ground of necessity and proportionality. Accordingly, it states that freedom of expression can to be invoked to excuse an accused person’s conduct, even if valid orders have been breached.

The amicus brief claims that, in the circumstances, the restriction of Hartmann’s freedom of expression was unnecessary. ARTICLE 19 points out that the disclosures were a serious and well-informed contribution to a debate about international justice. They were made a long time after the Milosevic trial ended and concerned information which was already in the public domain. The amicus brief claims that the Specially Appointed Chamber failed to apply the proportionality test and to consider the potential chilling effect on freedom of expression of imposing criminal liability on journalists reporting on matters of public interest.

• For more information please contact: David Banisar, Senior Legal Consultant, Banisar@article19.org or +44 20 7324 2500.
• The full text of the amicus brief and the leave for amicus brief can be found at http://www.article19.org/pdfs/analysis/icty-amicus-brief-in-the-case-of-florence-hartmann.pdf.
• ARTICLE 19 appreciates the assistance of Guy Vassall-Adams, Barrister with Doughty Street Chambers, who is acting as counsel for ARTICLE 19 in this case.

Mexico: Calls for Immediate Investigation into Attacks as Ninth Journalist Murdered

2009-11-07T18:18:00.000-08:00

ARTICLE 19 Calls for Immediate Investigation into Attacks as Ninth Journalist Murdered

ARTICLE 19 calls on the Mexican authorities to fully and immediately investigate the killing of journalist José Bladimir Antuna García, in the state capital of Durango in northern Mexico.

Garcia’s body was found on 2 November, some twelve hours after he had been abducted from the centre of Durango. He had two bullet wounds. According to a number of sources there was a sign left on the body which read, “This happened to me for giving information to the military and writing what I shouldn´t have. Check the texts of your articles well before publishing them. Yours faithfully, Bladimir."

Garcia was a reporter for a local newspaper called El Tiempo de Durango, where he worked as editor of the police section. He had apparently been subjected to threats for some time: his house had been attacked earlier this year and he had spoken openly of receiving a number of threats both to his cellular phone and at the newspaper offices. He had reported these threats to the State’s General Attorney’s Office but no measures seem to have been taken.

Garcia is the second journalist from this particular newspaper to have been killed this year and the third in Durango. In May, Eliseo Barron of the newspaper Milenio was abducted from his home in Durango and later found murdered. Earlier the same month, Carlos Ortega, of El Tiempo de Durango was shot dead in his car.

So far, nine journalists have been killed in Mexico this year, while eight remain missing and hundreds more have suffered threats or aggressions.

“The violence and deaths that have occurred in the north of the country in recent months, and particularly in the state of Durango, have resulted in a chilling effect on the fundamental right to freedom of expression, and more particularly press freedom,” comments Dario Ramirez, Director of ARTICLE 19 in Mexico. “Journalists living in fear for their safety are much more likely to censor themselves, being cautious about what they write and fearful of being critical.”

In an interview with ARTICLE 19, local journalist Antonio Meraz stated that: “The majority don’t want to get involved in topics related to the drug trafficking industry. For security reasons they have stopped writing about the situation.”

Mexico has an obligation under international law to protect freedom of expression. This means that the State has a duty to protect this fundamental human right, making sure that violations of free expression are swiftly and appropriately addressed through the courts.

According to a ruling by the Inter American Court of Human Rights, the Mexican State has an obligation to “prevent, investigate, and castigate” all violations of human rights that take place under its jurisdiction. Yet, out of the nine murders of journalists that ARTICLE 19 has recorded in 2009, a perpetrator has only been identified in one case so far.

ARTICLE19 calls on the Mexican authorities, and particularly the authorities of the State of Durango, to tackle the climate of impunity that is currently being allowed to prevail in cases of attacks against journalists. Only through the full realisation of the right to freedom of expression will the consolidation of democracy and a solution to the current violence and insecurity be possible.

• For more information please contact: Omar Rábago, ARTICLE 19 México and Central America Office, omar@article19.org, +52 55 10 54 65 00 ext 102

RSF INDEX HIGHLIGHTS DROP OF EUROPE AND ISRAEL IN RANKINGS

2009-10-25T19:01:00.000-07:00

INTERNATIONAL: RSF INDEX HIGHLIGHTS DROP OF EUROPE AND ISRAEL IN
RANKINGS; ERITREA, NORTH KOREA AND TURKMENISTAN WORST PLACES FOR
JOURNALISTS.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released its latest press freedom index on 20 October, showing how European countries, Israel and Iran have all slid in the rankings. The index ranks the degree of press freedom throughout the world as well as efforts made by governments to protect journalists' rights.

Although the first 13 places are held by European countries, many have
fallen in the index: "It is disturbing to see European democracies such as
France, Italy and Slovakia fall steadily in the rankings year after year,"
RSF said. "Europe should be setting an example as regards civil liberties.
How can you condemn human rights violations abroad if you do not behave
irreproachably at home? The Obama effect, which has enabled the United
States to recover 16 places in the index, is not enough to reassure us."

The United States now ranks at 20 because President Barack Obama is "less hawkish" than his predecessor, says RSF. However, the U.S. also has an additional ranking at 108 specifically for its extraterritorial actions. Both the U.S. and Israel have rankings for their actions outside their own countries.

Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip has affected its ranking as it dropped 47 places to 93, falling behind several other countries in the region. Journalists have been illegally arrested and imprisoned. Israel received a second ranking at 150 for its extraterritorial actions. Around 20 journalists were injured by the Israeli military forces in the Gaza Strip and three were killed while covering the conflict.

The main threat in Europe comes from new legislation that compromises the work of journalists, says RSF. In Slovakia (44) the culture minister wields great influence over publications. In the Western world, Canada also dropped a few spots to 19.

Scandinavia comes out on top. Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway and Sweden
share first place as the five freest countries for the media.

In Iran, automatic prior censorship, state surveillance of journalists,
mistreatment, illegal arrests and imprisonment has now brought its ranking
close to the worst cluster of states for press freedom. It ranks 172,
followed by Turkmenistan (173), North Korea (174) and Eritrea (175). Burma
remains at the bottom, right behind Iran at 171. Laos, China and Vietnam
round out the cluster of Asian countries in the bottom ten.

In Sri Lanka (162), the state sentenced a journalist to 20 years in prison
while other journalists under threat are forced to flee the country, says
RSF. Pakistan came in at 159, "crippled" by murders of journalists caught
between the military and the insurgency. It shared a record with Somalia
for the world record of journalists killed during the RSF review period.

In Yemen (167) journalists continue to "pay for the government's
scorched-earth policies towards any form of separatism." A similar downward
trend has occurred in Syria (165). In Africa, violence takes the worst toll
in countries like Somalia (164) and Democratic Republic of Congo (146).

And in the Americas, Venezuela (124) is now among the region's worst press
freedom offenders, dropping down close to Colombia (126) and Mexico (tied
with Gambia at 137). Honduras comes in at 128 after the recent coup d'état.
Cuba, where RSF says "where press freedom is non-existent," holds a spot in
the bottom ten.

The index is drawn from a questionnaire completed by hundreds of
journalists and media experts around the world. Countries are given a
ranking and score based on press freedom violations from September 2008
through August 2009. It takes into consideration physical assault,
imprisonment and murder of journalists, as well as censorship, confiscation
of newspapers, harassment and the degree of impunity enjoyed by those
responsible for press freedom violations. It includes the measure of
self-censorship and the ability of media to investigate and challenge those
in power, among many more criteria.

More on the web:
- Press Freedom Index 2009 (RSF):
http://www.rsf.org/en-classement1003-2009.html

Turkey: Threats to Freedom of Expression in Turkey

2009-10-24T19:30:00.001-07:00

16 October 2009

Turkey: ARTICLE 19 Concerned about Continuous Threats to Freedom of Expression in Turkey

Article 301 of the Turkish Criminal Code remains a dangerous tool to silence critical voices in Turkey, despite being amended in April 2008 and official reports that charges under this article have decreased this year.

ARTICLE 19 believes that the risk of prosecutions under Article 301 continues to pose a significant threat to freedom of expression in Turkey.

Article 301 makes it a crime to insult “Turkishness” as well as the Turkish Republic and its institutions, carrying sentences of up to four years. Since it came into force in 2005, more than 60 charges have been brought against journalists, intellectuals, academics and publishers. Some of these charges relate to published or spoken opinions questioning the official version of sensitive issues, such as the reality of the Armenian genocide during and after the First World War, or human rights abuses against Kurds in Turkey.

There have also been several high-profile prosecutions under this provision. The writer and Nobel laureate, Orhan Pamuk, was charged in 2005 after he made a statement to a Swiss magazine about the killings of Armenians and Kurds. Although the charges were later dropped, the case generated an international outcry, as well as rallies in Turkey to burn Pamuk’s books.

The journalist Hrant Dink was also prosecuted under Article 301 in 2006 and he received a six-month suspended sentence. Dink was later assassinated and his sentence was posthumously overturned in 2007 by the Appeal Court.

In April 2008, Article 301 was amended, following widespread national and international criticism. The amendment made it obligatory for the Minister of Justice to approve the filing of cases under Article 301.

At a Conference on Freedom of Expression held last week in Ankara, the Turkish authorities reported a significant decrease in prosecutions under Article 301 and attributed the drop to the 2008 legislative reform. According to statistics, the Minister of Justice allowed only eight cases to be filed (out of 523 requests) in 2009.

ARTICLE 19 strongly believes that, despite this decrease in prosecutions, the new Article 301 remains a serious threat for freedom of expression in Turkey. First, we note that the number of requests for prosecutions has not diminished. Prosecutors in Turkey continue to take prompt action against people who are critical of the government or question official versions of historical events and personalities. Second, the number of investigations for denigration of “Turkishness” and the Turkish Republic has decreased only because the current Minister of Justice wants to avoid further scandals concerning charges under Article 301. It is therefore likely that the number of prosecutions may increase if the next minister has a different attitude.

ARTICLE 19 calls on the Turkish authorities to protect of the right to freedom of expression, as required by international law, by abolishing Article 301 altogether for the following reasons:

• It is inherently illegitimate for the State to impose a blanket ban on the discussion of historical matters, or individuals and institutions.
• In violation of international law Article 301 is used to prosecute individuals who express opinions which diverge from official dogma regarding the history of the country.
• The term “Turkishness” is vague and gives opportunity for the arbitrary criminalisation of criticism.
• The provision is unnecessary in a democratic society since generic hate speech laws already prohibit incitement to hatred.
• It is unreasonable to spend taxpayers' money for the preparation of numerous requests for prosecutions under Article 301 which are later rejected by the Minister of Justice.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

• For more information please contact: Boyko Boev, ARTICLE 19 Legal Officer, boyko@article19.org or +44 20 7324 2500.

Concern over New Religious Defamation

2009-10-24T19:20:00.001-07:00

22 October 2009

United Nations: ARTICLE 19 Joins Other Human Rights Groups to Express Concern over New Religious Defamation Submission

ARTICLE 19 joins 26 other human rights groups in an open letter expressing concerns about recent submissions on religious defamation brought before the UN Ad Hoc Committee for the Elaboration of Complementary Standards.

The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), represented by Pakistan, and the African Group, represented by Egypt, has made submissions to the Ad Hoc Committee in advance of its Second Session currently taking place in Geneva.

The letter raises concerns that the OIC and the African Group submissions propose:
• The apparent inclusion of religions, religious ideas, objects and personalities as subjects that warrant protection under international human rights law
• The development of new binding international standards on the “defamation of religions”
• The protection of religions from offensive speech
• The defining of concepts of religion-phobias based on the presumption that all religions are internally uncontested.

The letter reaffirms the fact that international human rights standards protect individuals and groups on the basis of their religion or ethnicity, but do not protect religions per se. It is also noted that international law has consistently protected “offensive speech” because of the subjective nature of the concept. Adopting the proposals submitted by the OIC and the African Group would distort and undermine existing international human rights protection of both the right to freedom of expression and equality.

The open letter strongly recommends that the Ad Hoc Committee focus on measures to promote diversity and pluralism, as well as promoting equitable access to the means of communication, and guaranteeing the right of access to information and creating an enabling environment for both freedom of expression and equality.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

• To view the full text of the open letter, please go to: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/press/open-letter-to-the-un-ad-hoc-committee-for-the-elaboration-of-complementary-.pdf
• For more information please contact: Dr Sejal Parmar at: sejal@article19.org, or +44 20 7324 2500

More Support for Media Freedom in Africa

2009-10-24T19:18:00.000-07:00

23 October 2009

European Union: More Support Should be Provided for Media Freedom in Africa

On the occasion of the European Development Days, ARTICLE 19 joins with the Africa Forum for Media Development, the African Media Initiative, the Global Forum for Media Development, the International Federation of Journalists and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers in calling for stronger dedicated European Union support to media freedom in Africa.

“Everyone agrees that media freedom and development are central to democracy and sustainable development,” says Dr Agnès Callamard, ARTICLE 19 Executive Director. “The EU needs to do more to support this central pillar of human progress.”

In their Statement to European Development Days, Stockholm, October 22-24, 2009, the organisations welcome the priority that the European Union (EU) and African Union have agreed to give to the issue of media development. However, the organisations called for a meeting to be held with key stakeholders to focus on the way forward and to consider the practical proposals that have been made, and in particular the proposal to institute an African Peer Review Mechanism for Media Freedom and Access to Information.

The six organisations also outlined ten points to promote media freedom and development in Africa, including the following:
• A clear political commitment should be made to implement the principles of the Windhoek Declaration on Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Press and the Declaration of Principles of Freedom of Expression in Africa.
• Dedicated funds should be allocated to media development, which should not be channelled through government.
• Support should be provided to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information
• An African Peer Review Mechanism for Media Freedom and Access to Information should be created as a matter of priority.

ARTICLE 19 urges the EU to provide more support for media freedom and development initiatives in Africa and urges African governments to do more to respect media freedom.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

• The Statement is available at: www.gfmd.info
• For more information please contact: Martin Clark martin@article19.org +44 20 7324 2500

A landmark case involving the principle of open justice

2009-10-16T04:07:00.000-07:00

United Kingdom: ARTICLE 19 in Landmark Open Justice Case

ARTICLE 19 is part of a landmark case involving the principle of open justice and the right to know. The case is the very first in the newly established Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

ARTICLE 19 has applied with other leading media and civil liberties organisations for identification of the appellants in the case Her Majesty's Treasury (Respondents) v A (FC) and others (FC) (Appellants) and others.

Identification and publicity would benefit the appellants, as the media would be able to report the human-interest dimensions of the case. Identification is also in the public interest, as the case will show the effects of Anti-Terrorism Orders upon individuals and their family members.

Only Mohammed Al-Ghabra’s name has so far been identified, previously known as G, on the grounds that his identity is already in the public domain. The Court ran out of time and has not decided whether the identities of ‘A’, ‘K’ and ‘M’ will be publicised.

The case is considering whether measures contained in the Terrorism (United Nations Measures) Order 2006 and the Al-Qaida and Taliban (United Nations Measures) Order 2006 were unlawful. Under the orders, said to give effect to UN resolutions, the Treasury may freeze assets of people and their families who “may be” suspected of financing terrorism. The measures are being scrutinised in court because they were made without express authorisation by Parliament.

From 1 October 2009, the Supreme Court has assumed the jurisdiction of the current Appellate Committee of the House of Lords and the devolution jurisdiction of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

• For more information please contact: Sejal Parmar, Senior Legal Officer, sejal@article19.org, +44 20 7324 2500;
• For more materials on the case at the Supreme Court, check http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/current-cases/index.html

Nepal: Government Putting Journalists at Risk

2009-10-16T03:58:00.001-07:00

12 October 2009

Nepal: Government Putting Journalists at Risk

ARTICLE 19, the Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) and Freedom Forum (FF) strongly condemn the Government of Nepal’s intentions to use journalists as informants, to help implement its Special Security Plan. This would significantly increase the already seriously hazardous working environment for journalists. It is also contrary to international standards, as well as the Agenda for Change, launched by ARTICLE 19, FNJ and FF in February 2009. We urge the Government of Nepal to drop this idea and, instead, to take the necessary steps to protect journalists from attacks by unidentified armed groups.

“The Government’s plan is opportunistic and irresponsible,” said Dharmendra Jha, Chairperson of FNJ. “Threats and attacks against, and even murder of journalists are rampant in Nepal and to propose to use journalist as informants is at best grossly negligent,” he added.

Key problems with involving journalists in the Special Security Plan include:
• This would seriously undermine the role of an independent media in a democracy.
• It would also undermine the independence and professionalism of individual journalists.
• It would seriously increase the risk of attacks against journalists and media outlets, whereas there is an imperative need to take action to reduce this risk.

Recommendation No. 24 of the Agenda for Change states, in part: “The government should be more proactive in fulfilling its obligation to protect journalists and media property, including by allocating greater resources and attention to this, particularly in conflict areas.” Attemping to use journalists as secuirty informants is also a breach of code of conduct issued by Nepal Press Council.

ARTICLE 19, FNJ and FF urge the Nepali authorities to withdraw immediately any proposal to use journalists as informants to execute the Special Security Plan. We also call on the authorities to take all reasonable measures to promote the safety and security of journalists and media outlets.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

• For more information, please contact Tanka Raj Aryal, ARTICLE 19 Country Representative, Nepal aryal_law@yahoo.com, +97798510 75026, Taranath Dahal, President, Freedom Forum, tndahal@yahoo.com, +977 98510 87891 or Dharmendra Jha, President, Federation of Nepali Journalists, djanakpur@hotmail.com, +977 98510 71459.
• The Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) is the umbrella organisation of the journalists in Nepal. Freedom Forum is a Nepalese human rights organisation working for press freedom and the right to information

Mexico: Safety Training for Journalists

2009-10-16T03:52:00.001-07:00

Mexico: ARTICLE 19 and the Rory Peck Trust Provide Safety Training for Journalists

ARTICLE 19, in conjunction with the Rory Peck Trust, last week delivered its third security training course in Mexico for journalists working in high-risk zones.

Mexico is one of the world’s most dangerous places to practise journalism and there is almost no training available to help journalists and freelancers in the region manage the daily risks associated with their profession.

ARTICLE 19 and the Rory Peck Trust believe that, to ensure their safety and security, journalists and freelancers must know their rights. They must know how to effectively protect themselves, how to analyse potential risks, and how to identify and adopt the best possible measure to counteract them.

Journalists and freelancers, including those from Reuters, Associated Press, CNN and Televisa, attended the programme. They covered journalistic practice, coverage of security forces and public demonstrations, and the relationships between reporters, editors, security forces and emergency services. Methods of self-protection based on lessons from other countries were another feature of the course. Participants also looked at the challenges and problems facing media workers in the field, as well as the identification and management of post-traumatic stress and related disorders.

Participants received a thorough briefing on the legal realities facing journalists in Mexico today, including basic media and human rights law, as well as defamation and other tools used to stifle media freedom. The Mexican Red Cross covered first aid, emergency evacuation situations, explosions, natural disasters and survival training.

“When I undertook my first security training course I was already half way through my career,” says Manuel Carrillo, Senior Cameraman for Reuters. “It is great to see that younger journalists now have an opportunity to receive this training, particularly in light of the dangers they are now facing in Mexico.”

ARTICLE 19 systematically documents, registers and follows up cases of aggression against journalists and media workers in Mexico and Central America. Through this work, ARTICLE 19 has been able to identify specific trends relating to freedom of expression which are characteristic of this region.

“Enabling journalists to look after themselves in high-risk situations, while also reporting accurately on themes in the public interest, ARTICLE 19 hopes to assist the media in holding public bodies and elected officials accountable for their actions,” comments Dr Agnes Callamard, ARTICLE 19 Executive Director. “This will greatly enhance and protect the right to freedom of expression in Mexico and Central America.”

The course took place at the Mexican Red Cross training facility outside Mexico City and was made possible with the support of the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Mexico.

NOTE TO EDITORS:

• For further information, contact Ricardo Gonzalez, ARTICLE 19 Mexico and Central America Office, at ricardo@article19.org, + 55 11 30 57 00 42 or Catalina Cortes, Rory Peck Trust at catalina@rorypecktrust.org, +44 (0) 20 7730 141.
• The Rory Peck Trust exists to support freelance newsgatherers and their families worldwide in times of need, and to promote their welfare and safety.

Hold Russia Accountable for abuses and violations of the right to freedom of expression

2009-10-16T03:29:00.000-07:00

15 October 2009
Human Rights Committee: ARTICLE 19 Urges the Human Rights Committee to Hold Russia Accountable

ARTICLE 19 calls on the Human Rights Committee (“the Committee”) to hold the Russian Federation accountable for ongoing and systematic abuses and violations of the right to freedom of expression.
Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“the Covenant”), States must submit to a periodic review of their implementation of the Covenant’s provisions. Russia’s sixth periodic report comes under scrutiny today by the HRC at its 97th session in Geneva. In a shadow report submitted to the Committee, ARTICLE 19 provides detailed evidence of a range of abuses of the right to freedom of expression in Russia.

During the period under review, ARTICLE 19 finds that freedom of expression has steadily deteriorated in the Russian Federation. Journalists and media workers remain under constant threat of attack and there is an absence of thorough and impartial investigations into killings and assaults against journalists. Instead, a climate of impunity for crimes against journalists prevails.

Public officials, including those at the highest level of the Government, refuse to view the media as an independent critic and often regard it as a subordinate body aimed at furthering political goals. Defamation laws are regularly employed to stifle journalists and media outlets.

Opposition groups are suppressed and prevented from engaging in peaceful protest, and there are increasing incidents of attacks against minorities, including religious, sexual and ethnic groups. Legislation governing extremism and religious hatred is being used to suppress criticism of the Russian authorities, as well as artistic free expression.

“ARTICLE 19 calls on the Human Rights Committee to carefully examine and expose the deplorable human rights record of the Russian Federation, and to hold this Government accountable to its human rights obligations under the Covenant,” says Dr Agnès Callamard, ARTICLE 19 Executive Director.

ARTICLE 19 has been working in the Russian Federation for the last decade, in close co-operation with local partners, on projects relating to freedom of expression, freedom of information and defamation. Given the severity of the violations outlined in the report, ARTICLE 19 urges the Human Rights Committee to exert pressure over the Russian Government to ensure that everyone in the Russian Federation is able to exercise their rights to freedom of expression without intimidation, violence or harassment.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

* For more information please contact: Nathalie Losekoot, Senior Programme Officer, Europe, at: +44 796 985 6069 or nathalie@article19.org; or Barbora Bukovska, Senior Director for Law, at: +44 207 324 2500 or barbora@article19.org.
* The full version of the Written Comments of ARTICLE 19: Global Campaign for Free Expression Concerning the Review of the Sixth Periodic Report of the Russian Federation for Consideration by the United Nations Human Rights Committee at its 97th Session, 12-30 October2009 is available at http://www.article19.org/pdfs/submissions/russia-written-comments-of-article-19-global-campaign-for-free-expression-co.pdf
* ARTICLE 19 is an independent human rights organisation that works globally to protect and promote the right to freedom of expression. It takes its name from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees free speech. For more information on ARTICLE 19 please visit www.article19.org.

Irina Gueorguieva Bokova chosen for the post of Director-General

2009-09-23T18:45:00.000-07:00

Irina Gueorguieva Bokova chosen by UNESCO Executive Board as candidate to the post of Director-General

Paris, 22 September

The 58 members of UNESCO’s Executive Board on 22 September designated Irina Gueorguieva Bokova (Bulgaria) as candidate to the post of Director-General. On 15 October, the nomination will be submitted to the approval of the General Conference, which brings together representatives of the Organization’s 193 Member States. Once confirmed, she will be the first woman Director-General of the Organization.

At the end of the fifth round of voting, the Chairman of the Executive Board, Ambassador Olabiyi Babalola Joseph Yaï (Benin), announced the outcome of the vote. “Irina Bokova, the candidate presented by Bulgaria, was designated by the Executive Board with the majority of the ballots.” Her candidacy obtained 31 ballots.

Born in Sofia in 1952, Irina Gueorguieva Bokova is the Ambassador of Bulgaria to France and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO. A career diplomat and politician, she studied at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and at the School of Public Affairs of the University of Maryland (USA). She served as deputy minister of Foreign Affairs (1995-97) and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1996-97). In 1996, as candidate to the post of Vice President of Bulgaria, she advocated her country’s membership in NATO and the European Union.

UNESCOPRESS
Source:Press release No. 2009-102
23-09-2009

http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=46472&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

CANDIDATE FOR UNESCO DIRECTOR-GENERAL

2009-09-23T18:25:00.000-07:00

From left to right:

Nouréini TIDJANI-SERPOS (Benin)
Farouk HOSNY (Egypt)
Benita FERRERO-WALDNER (Austria)
Ina MARČIULIONYTĖ (Lithuania)
The Chairman of UNESCO’s Executive Board, Ambassador Olabiyi Babalola Joseph Yaï (Benin)
Ivonne JUEZ de A. BAKI (Ecuador)
Mohammed BEDJAOUI (Algeria)
Irina Gueorguieva BOKOVA (Bulgarie)
Alexander Vladimirovich YAKOVENKO (Russian Federation)
Sospeter Mwijarubi MUHONGO (United Republic of Tanzania)

The UNESCO website has confirmed that Irina Bokova has won the Executive Board election to be Director General of UNESCO.

Read the official notification of the selection.

I have three independent unofficial reports from reliable sources that Irina Bokova received 31 votes to 27 votes for Farouk Hosny in the fifth round of voting for the position of UNESCO Director General. Having received the majority of votes from the 58 members of the Executive Board, her name will be forwarded to the General Conference.

Read:

IFEX MEMBERS CONCERNED ABOUT CANDIDATE FOR UNESCO DIRECTOR-GENERAL

Negotiations to select the next Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) underway in France must deeply consider free speech and press freedom values of candidates, report Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) and other IFEX members. But according to
RSF and ANHRI, the Egyptian candidate has been a key player for decades in government censorship, press freedom violations and arrest of bloggers.

The nine candidates being considered are: Ms Ina Marčiulionytė (Lithuania); Mr Mohammed Bedjaoui (Algeria); Ms Irina Gueorguieva Bokova (Bulgaria); Mr Farouk Hosni (Egypt); Mr Sospeter Mwijarubi Muhongo (United Republic of Tanzania); Mr Alexander Vladimirovich Yakovenko (Russian Federation); Ms Ivonne Juez de A. Baki (Ecuador); Ms Benita Ferrero-Waldner (Austria); and Mr Nouréini Tidjani-Serpos (Benin).

News reports say Hosni, Minister of Culture for over twenty years, is the frontrunner. According to RSF, "Hosni has been one of the leading protagonists of government censorship in the Arab Republic of Egypt... constantly seeking to control both press freedom and his fellow citizens'
right to freedom of information."

Yet, "UNESCO's mandate includes promoting free expression and press freedom as basic human rights, encouraging media independence and diversity as preconditions for democratisation, and supporting the free flow of information, including on the Internet," says RSF.

The Egyptian government owns 99 percent of the country's newspaper retail outlets and has a monopoly of newspaper printing, and there are risks to being outspoken. "A total of 32 articles in different laws - including the criminal code, the press law, the publications law, etc. - stipulate
penalties for the media," reports RSF. There is tight regulation of Internet use and violations are punishable by imprisonment, says RSF.

RSF then met in Paris last week with Hosni, saying he voiced a "determination to defend the freedom of the media" and "to reinforce UNESCO's actions in this domain" if he were elected. RSF relayed its concern about free expression in

Egypt

and, in particular, the continuing
detention of two bloggers.

An opinion piece in "The Wall Street Journal" states that Hosni is unsuitable to lead UNESCO: "One can only imagine the peace in the minds of thousands of Egyptian writers, bloggers, artists, musicians, filmmakers, lecturers, broadcasters and other culture-purveyors who have been tortured, harassed, imprisoned or banned in Egypt since Mr. Hosni took office in 1987."

The Egyptian media and blogosphere have been alive with the debate. "The Daily News

Egypt

" writes, "The concerns over Farouk Hosni's potential ineligibility for the position of Director of UNESCO have arisen due to his anti-Semitic statements and suspicions of corruption." Hosni famously stated to parliament in May 2008 that "he would burn any Israeli books if
he found them in Egyptian libraries."

In an open letter to UNESCO published in June, members of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations lauded the vital contributions of the outgoing UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura for "consolidating UNESCO as a force for freedom of expression and to furthering free speech and press freedom values." The letter was signed by five IFEX members: World Press Freedom Committee, Committee to Protect Journalists, Inter
American Press Association, the International Press Institute, and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers.

The Coordinating Committee members called upon UNESCO member-states to focus on a commitment to freedom of expression as the core criteria in considering the choice of the next Director-General. This includes a commitment to fostering independent news media, selecting independent journalists widely respected by their colleagues as members of the Jury for
UNESCO's annual World Press Freedom Prize, and speaking out publicly against assassinations of news media personnel and policies that obstruct the work of the news media.

Other IFEX members are sending letters of concern to Board members.

Representatives from 58 nations who make up UNESCO's Executive Board begin voting on 17 September. If a candidate does not win a simple majority, there will be up to five rounds of voting that will finish on 23 September 2009. Following this decision, a final vote will be taken by all members of the UNESCO General Conference in October.

Related stories on IFEX.org: - UNESCO urged to continue defending freedom of expression worldwide
(WPFC): http://www.ifex.org/international/2009/06/18/letter_to_unesco/

More on the web: - Farouk Hosni responds to Reporters Without Borders (RSF):
http://www.rsf.org/spip.php?page=article&id_article=34399
- Save UNESCO:
http://saveunesco.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/unesco-elections-2009-the-stakes/
- Election of new UNESCO Director General (UNESCO):
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=46368&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
- The U.N.'s new censor (The Wall Street Journal):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204731804574392190566142468.html
- Le Monde keeps pressure on UNESCO (Daily News):
http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=24533

CHINA: JOURNALISTS PROTEST SAVAGE ATTACKS ON COLLEAGUES

2009-09-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
CHINA: JOURNALISTS PROTEST SAVAGE ATTACKS ON COLLEAGUES

A number of journalists from Hong Kong are among those who have been brutally assaulted and harassed in mainland China in the last two weeks as authorities continue to control independent coverage of ethnic violence as well as local crime, report the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

Three accredited Hong Kong TV journalists covering protests in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province, on 4 September were "kicked, punched, shoved to the ground, handcuffed by police and detained for about three hours" reports HKJA. TVB reporter Lam Tsz-ho, his cameraman Lau Wing-chuen, and Now TV cameraman Lam Chun-wai were trying to get away from tear gas and were forced to remain lying on the ground, their hands tied for 20 minutes, says RSF. Tsz-Ho told RSF the police beat them with batons and confiscated the video they had recorded.

Five other Hong Kong reporters were briefly arrested in Urumqi the same day, says RSF, and the police seized the equipment of an Associated Press Television News crew, barring them from filming protests. The equipment was returned five hours later.

News reports say thousands of Han Chinese took to the streets in early September in the city of Urumqi to protest a series of syringe attacks blamed on the province's Uighur Muslims. Both Han Chinese and Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim, minority ethnic group, are responsible for killing members of the other ethnic group. Devastating violence that broke out in July points to problems with

China

's policies towards minorities; at least 184 people were killed.

Meanwhile, hundreds of journalists protested in Hong Kong on 13 September, over the brutality faced by colleagues in

China

, news reports say. They called on authorities in Xinjiang and Beijing to end media repression. The Xinjiang government has blamed the journalists for inciting unrest.

Mak Yin-ting, chairwoman of HKJA, told "Agence France-Presse" (AFP) that media workers were angry over the "outrageous and blatantly false" allegations against the journalists.

"This is a violent trampling on press freedom," she told AFP."It is not a single incident. Even last year, lots of our journalists were beaten while reporting in

China

. The situation is getting worse now."

Meanwhile, two Beijing-based reporters employed by Hong Kong media outlets were detained in a hotel in Chengdu, in Sichuan province, on 12 August blocking them from covering the trial of a blogger, Tan Zuoren, according to RSF. Another journalist Liu Manyuan was hospitalised after being viciously beaten by security guards in the industrial city of Dongguan (in the south eastern province of Guangdong) on 31 August. In an interview with a Guangzhou TV station, Liu said he was about to take photos at a murder scene when he was ordered to leave by uniformed guards acting on orders from a superior. They then attacked him.

"The authorities will be hard put to rein in the disturbing rise in cases of violence against the press unless those responsible are dealt with in a firm but proportionate manner," RSF said. "The climate of social and ethnic tension in Xinjiang and the rest of the country do not justify such attacks, which seem to be acts of censorship, targeting investigative journalists above all. The excuses of the local authorities are clearly not sufficient."

Related stories on IFEX.org: - Journalists physically attacked, harassed in Xinjiang and Guangdong provinces:
http://ifex.org/china/2009/09/11/security_personnel_attack_journalists/

More on the web: - HK journalists protest against beatings of reporters (AFP):
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i5JqWL5r0d0hGc0IWqrZJojMDQCw
- Our Declaration for the Protest march on Liaison Office on 13 Sept 2009
(HKJA): http://www.hkja.org.hk/site/portal/Site.aspx?id=A1-812&lang=en-US

VIETNAM: BLOGGERS FACE SEVERE REPRESSION DUE TO POLICIES ON CHINA

2009-09-23T18:01:00.000-07:00

VIETNAM: BLOGGERS FACE SEVERE REPRESSION DUE TO POLICIES ON CHINA

Bloggers and journalists in Vietnam continue to be arrested for writing critically about Vietnam's policies toward

China

, report the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF). China and Vietnam, where flourishing blogging cultures have encountered severe monitoring and restriction, are among Asia's worst nations for persecuting bloggers, reports CPJ.

Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, a blogger who writes under the pen name Me Nam, or Mother Mushroom, was arrested on August 28 by police officials who stormed her house at around midnight, the Free Journalists Network of Vietnam (FJNV), an independent press freedom group, told CPJ.

According to news reports, she agreed to stop blogging as a condition of her release. "It's time for me to put an end to this blog,'' Quynh said in a handwritten statement posted on her website after her release on 13
September. ''I was wrong and I am responsible for what I did.''
Recently, she had blogged about a controversial bauxite mining project led by Chinese investors in the country's Central Highlands region and territorial disputes with China over the Paracel and Spratly islands, says
SEAPA.

According to RSF, Quynh was arrested for the same reason as Bui Thanh Hieu, the blogger arrested on 27 August, and Pham Doan Trang, the online journalist arrested on 28 August. They were all arrested due to the
Communist Party's desire to suppress all criticism of its relations with

China

in the run-up to the 2011 congress, at which the country's top posts will be decided. Hieu and Trang have been released.

Trang edits "Tuan

Vietnam

," an online weekly that is a part of "Vietnamnet," the country's most popular news website, says RSF. In her articles, she has criticised China's role during Vietnam's partition in
1954 and refuted China's territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Hieu also wrote about the bauxite mining project and the criticism it has received because of the threat it poses to the environment, says RSF. He has been on the radar of the state and questioned many times about his
political activities since taking part in an "anti-Chinese" demonstration last year.

"We deplore the arrests of one blogger after another and the systematic suppression of online free speech," RSF said. "The Vietnamese authorities are so sensitive about relations with China that one wonders what role the
Chinese government is playing in this crackdown on bloggers writing about China and

Vietnam

."

A third blogger who wrote under the pen-name "Sphinx" was detained by authorities on August 29 and released four days later, reports CPJ.According to FJNV, he was subjected to sleep deprivation during
interrogations over his posts that also touched on Vietnam-China relations, including the bauxite mining project and territorial disputes.

The government announced in August that it would prosecute some or all of the 27 democracy activists arrested in recent months, says RSF.

Vietnam

was ranked 168th out of 173 countries in the 2008 RSF press freedom index. In 2008, CPJ found that bloggers and other online journalists were the single largest professional group in prison, more than print and broadcast journalists for the first time.

Related stories on IFEX.org:
- Another blogger detained in Vietnam; three others released:
http://ifex.org/vietnam/2009/09/09/quynh_arrested/

More on the web:
- Freed Vietnamese blogger agrees to stop writing (The New York Times):
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/09/14/world/AP-AS-Vietnam-Blogger-Released.html
- Another Vietnamese blogger released by police (SEAPA):
http://www.seapabkk.org/

UGANDA: CRACKDOWN ON RADIO JOURNALISTS

2009-09-23T17:52:00.000-07:00

UGANDA: CRACKDOWN ON RADIO JOURNALISTS

A spasm of violence shook Uganda last week in a power struggle between the government and the

Buganda

kingdom. State-run Uganda Broadcasting Council shut down radio stations on 11 September, ordering a halt to political debate and commentary on clashes in the capital, Kampala, according to the Media Institute (MI), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and other IFEX members.

News reports say tensions over land and power between President Yoweri Museveni's government and

Buganda

, one of the East African country's four historical kingdoms, boiled over on 12 September. Police blocked the

Buganda

monarch, known as the Kabaka, from visiting a flashpoint town east of the capital on territory claimed by his kingdom. Along with rumours of arrests of Buganda leaders, it was a catalyst for riots in Kampala and several central towns. Local media say at least 21 people died and over 500 were arrested. Tensions have been building between the kingdom and the government since President Museveni refused to grant Buganda semi-autonomous status through federalism five years ago, says MI.

Daniel Kalinaki, managing editor of Uganda's independent "Daily Monitor" newspaper told "Reuters" that the government was caught off guard by the protests, and shut down the Central Broadcasting Service (CBS) to cut the link between the kingdom's leaders and rank-and-file members on the streets. "Without a coherent message from the centre, the rioting became localised and criminalised as gangs ... took to indiscriminate violence and
looting, quickly turning many of the people who would otherwise support the visit into its victims."

"The government banned live radio debate programmes known as "ebimeeza" on the grounds that radio stations were unable to control their content, says Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
Council agents backed by soldiers seized transmitting equipment, crippling CBS, reported CPJ. Council technicians and soldiers also raided Radio Sapientia, a Catholic-run station and Suubi, a commercial, youth-oriented station. Radio Two Akaboozi Kubiri was also suspended. Information minister Kabakumba Matsiko accused the stations of inciting riots, says RSF.

"The closure of CBS is a big blow to the independent media in the country, which is hurtling towards general elections in 2011," says MI. "It is the only radio that had withstood state intimidation largely because it enjoyed
the special status of being owned by the Buganda Kingdom."

A widely respected journalist, filmmaker and talk-show host of Radio One's "Spectrum," Kalundi Sserumaga, was abducted outside WBS Television on 11 September after criticising Museveni in a television debate, says RSF and the International PEN's Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC).

The WiPC reported on 14 September that Sserumaga had been transferred to a hospital to receive treatment for injuries he sustained as a result of severe police beatings. He told reporters he expected to stay in hospital
for at least a day, but that he would be returned to police detention. Human Rights Watch reports that on 15 September he was charged with six counts of sedition and released on bail.

"The government is employing sweeping measures and making broad assertions to crack down on critical media," CPJ said. "They're not fooling anyone."

IFEX members are preparing a joint letter to President Museveni condemning recent attacks on the media and calling for the government to uphold freedom of expression rights, which is being released on 17 September.

Related stories on IFEX.org:
- Four radio stations closed; talk-show host detained for "inciting riots":
http://www.ifex.org/uganda/2009/09/14/four_radio_stations_closed/

More on the web:
- Riots point to more turmoil before Uganda poll (Reuters):
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLE656459
- End media clampdown (Human Rights Watch):
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/09/15/uganda-end-media-clampdown

Camden Principles on Freedom of Expression and Equality

2009-09-17T17:16:00.000-07:00

September 2009

Asian Launch of ARTICLE 19’s Camden Principles on Freedom of Expression and Equality

ARTICLE 19 and Allansi Jurnalis Independen (AJI) jointly hosted a regional launch of the Camden Principles on Freedom of Expression and Equality in Jakarta, Indonesia today. The Principles are founded on the understanding that freedom of expression and equality are mutually supporting and foundational human rights. They describe the various ways in which these key rights reinforce each other, and also address potential tensions between the rights, particularly in the area of hate speech. Today’s Asia launch of the Principles aims to raise the profile of the Principles in one the largest and most diverse continent in the world.

Speakers at the Asian launch of the Principles included Bambang Harymurti, Corporate Chief Editor of Tempo magazine, Augus Sudibyo, Deputy Director of the SET Foundation and Coordinator of the Indonesian Coalition for Freedom of Information, and Toby Mendel, Senior Legal Counsel for ARTICLE 19. Harymurti and Mendel participated in meetings to develop the Principles. The speakers outlined the main standards contained in the Principles and highlighted their relevance in Indonesia, and the region, which faces challenges in realising both freedom of expression and equality.

The Principles outline, among other things:

An overview of the key international standards regarding freedom of expression and equality
Aspects of the right to be heard and to speak, including through the promotion of diversity in the media
The need for legal and social measures to promote intercultural understanding
The legitimate scope of restrictions on harmful speech, including hate speech.

ARTICLE 19 and AJI call on States in Asia, as well as social actors such as the media, politicians and civil society organisations, to take steps to implement the standards set out in the Principles, as well as to promote their widespread dissemination and acceptance.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

• The Camden Principles are available in English at:
http://www.article19.org/pdfs/standards/the-camden-principles-on-freedom-of-expression-and-equality.pdf
and in Indonesian at: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/standards/prinsip-prinsip-camden-tentang-kebebasan-berekspresi-dan-kesetaraan.pdf
• For more information please contact: Toby Mendel, Senior Legal Counsel, a19law@hfx.eastlink.ca, +1 902 431-3688 or Nezar Patria, President, AJI, npatria@yahoo.com, +62 811829135.
• Allansi Jurnalis Independen (Alliance of Independent Journalists) is an independent journalists’ association that works to promote and defend the rights of journalists, including their right to freedom of expression.

Proposed Electoral Law Restricts Internet Freedom

2009-09-16T08:44:00.000-07:00

For immediate release – 14 September 2009

Brazil: Proposed Electoral Law Restricts Internet Freedom

Proposed reform of the Brazilian electoral rules, part of broader reforms in this area being debated by the Senate, would subject internet media to the same rules as traditional broadcasters during electoral campaigns. ARTICLE 19 calls on Brazilian legislators to respect freedom of the internet by rejecting these proposals.

The proposed amendment to Law 9.054/1997, which regulates electoral campaigns, were put forward by Senator Eduardo Azeredo. The proposals would prohibit internet providers and the websites of media outlets, during a three-month period prior to an election, from focusing on a specific candidate unless there is a “journalistic reason” for doing so. Instead, these outlets would have to guarantee the presence of at least two-thirds of the candidates in any video or audio coverage of the elections. Furthermore, only presidential candidates would be allowed to publish paid advertising on the Internet. Breach of these rules could lead to a fine of R$5,000 to R$30,000 (USD2,700 to 16,300).

Blogs, personal websites and social networks would not be subject to these rules and would be allowed to publish information about candidates, although not anonymously. National elections in Brazil will take place in October 2010. The new electoral law needs to be approved by 2 October 2009 to be applied during the next elections.

These rules unduly restrict freedom of expression on the internet, which should not be treated in a similar manner to a broadcaster due to very important differences between these two mediums. The Internet has played an important role in elections in many countries, as demonstrated effectively by the Obama presidential campaign.

ARTICLE 19 calls on the Brazilian Congress to respect freedom of the internet, especially considering the importance of a public debate during electoral campaigns, by rejecting these proposed amendments to the electoral law.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

• For more information please contact: Mila Molina, mila@article19.org, +55 11 3057 0042

ARTICLE 19 Provides Analysis of Broadcasting Law

2009-09-16T08:42:00.000-07:00

For immediate release – 11 September 2009

Montenegro: ARTICLE 19 Provides Analysis of Broadcasting Law

ARTICLE 19 has produced a Note analysing the Montenegrin draft Law on Electronic Media. The Note recognises that the draft Law has a number of positive features, but also highlights some shortcomings, including the lack of clarity as to where responsibility for licensing broadcasters lies, along with the fact that broadcasters are required to go through two licensing processes.

The draft Law on Electronic Media is part of a series of legal and other reforms in the area of telecommunications and broadcasting regulation in Montenegro, some of which have been the subject of earlier ARTICLE 19 analyses.

The Note highlights, among others, the following concerns with the draft Law:

The lack of clarity as to responsibility for licensing broadcasters as between the broadcast regulator established by the draft Law and the telecommunications regulator

The failure of the law to set out clear criteria for allocating licences

The failure of the law to recognise community broadcasting

Inadequate provisions in the law on how the system of complaints it envisages would work in practice

The independence of the proposed regulator could be improved by not providing for one member to be nominated by a minister and through more robust sources of funding

The system of sanctions unduly promotes the most extreme sanction – licence revocation – at the expense of a more graduated approach to sanctions.

ARTICLE 19 calls on the Montenegrin authorities to ensure that the law that is ultimately adopted is in line with international standards in this area.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

• The Submission is available at: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/analysis/montenegro-note-on-the-draft-law-on-electronic-media.pdf
• The draft law is available at: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/laws/montenegro-draft-law-on-electronic-media.pdf
• For more information please contact: Toby Mendel, Senior Legal Counsel, a19law@hfx.eastlink.ca, +1 902 431-3688.
• ARTICLE 19 prepared an analysis of draft amendments to the Law on Public Service Broadcasting in September 2008, available at:
http://www.article19.org/pdfs/analysis/montenegro-comment-on-proposed-amendments-to-the-law-on-public-service-broad.pdf

Afghanistan: ARTICLE 19 Calls for Investigation into Journalist’s Death

2009-09-16T08:34:00.000-07:00

15 September 2009

Afghanistan: ARTICLE 19 Calls for Investigation into Journalist’s Death

ARTICLE 19 calls for an immediate investigation into the death of Afghan journalist Sultan Munadi. He was shot dead on 9 September during an armed raid by British-led NATO forces to rescue him and British journalist Steven Farrell.

Sultan Munadi and Steven Farrell had been kidnapped and held captive by the Taliban in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz since 5 September. At the time, Sultan Munadi had been working as a fixer and interpreter for Farrell, who was investigating the NATO air attack on two fuel tankers which had been hijacked by Taliban militants. Media reports suggested that the air strike had killed many people, including many civilians.

At dawn on 9 September, British-led NATO forces raided the place where Taliban militants were holding Farrell and Munadi. Although Steven Farrell was rescued, Sultan Munadi was killed in the gunfire. One British NATO soldier and two civilians were also killed.

ARTICLE 19 welcomes the rescue of Steven Farrell and supports the decision of journalists like him to undertake such investigations, which are clearly in the public interest, provided they are confident about their personal safety and that of their local colleagues. However, ARTICLE 19 is profoundly saddened by Sultan Munadi’s death, which raises serious questions about the safety of Afghan journalists employed by foreign media organisations in Afghanistan and the extent to which international forces are committed to protecting their right to life. ARTICLE 19 emphasises the importance of finding out how Sultan Munadi was killed during the rescue raid not only for his family but also because a lack of credible information and accountability may lead to rumours, misrepresentation and further mistrust of international forces in Afghanistan. This may exacerbate tensions and fuel the armed conflict.

ARTICLE 19 emphasises that NATO-led forces and the Afghan government must respect international human rights law by inter alia ensuring protection against arbitrary killings. Possible violations of the right to life in Afghanistan that involve NATO-led forces need to be investigated under Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. ARTICLE 19 also reminds states contributing to the NATO-led forces in Afghanistan that they should comply fully with the obligations applicable to them under international humanitarian law related to the protection of civilians,, including journalists and other media professionals.

In particular, ARTICLE 19 emphasises the obligations upon states to respect and ensure respect for Article 79 of the Additional Protocol I, regarding the protection of journalists engaged in dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict. We also call attention to UN Security Council Resolution 1738 on attacks against journalists in conflict situations. The latter emphasises “the responsibility of States to comply with the relevant obligations under international law to end impunity and to prosecute those responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law”.

ARTICLE 19 also recalls the UNESCO Charter for the Safety of Journalists Working in War Zones or Dangerous Areas which states that “isks to be taken by staff or freelance journalists, their assistants, local employees and support personnel require adequate preparation, information, insurance and equipment” and that “ditors should beware of exerting any kind of pressure on special correspondents to take additional risks.”

Recommendations

ARTICLE 19 urges the NATO-led forces and the Afghan government to:
• Ensure that the killing of Sultan Munadi is promptly and thoroughly investigated, and if a violation of applicable international human rights law and/or humanitarian law is found as a result, that the responsible parties are made accountable
• Exercise due diligence and protect the human rights of everyone under their jurisdiction, in particular both Afghan and non-Afghan journalists, including their rights to life, liberty and security of person, and freedom of expression
• Ensure that all attacks against journalists, as well as other abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law, are promptly and thoroughly investigated and that those suspected of carrying out or ordering such actions, as well as those organising or assisting in such actions, are brought to justice, according to procedures that meet international standards of due process
• Ensure that all operations by NATO-led forces against armed groups, such as the Taliban, comply with applicable international human rights and humanitarian law, in particular the prohibition on attacks against civilians and other non-combatants (including journalists), indiscriminate attacks, torture and ill-treatment, excessive use of force and arbitrary detention.

ARTICLE 19 urges media organisations operating in Afghanistan to:
• Properly train their journalists and media professionals operating in Afghanistan – whether they are international, local or freelance – in safety procedures in situations of armed conflict
• Ensure that these journalists and media professionals have adequate insurance cover for illness, injury and death
• Support the establishment of a solidarity fund to compensate the families of journalists who have been killed whilst practicing their profession in Afghanistan, where insurance is insufficient or non-existent.

ARTICLE calls on The New York Times to:
• Ensure that Sultan Munadi’s family receives all necessary financial support for their loss and the damage suffered as a result of Munadi’s death. Such support must take into account the drastic loss of income resulting from his death and the material well-being of the family, including education of his children.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

• For more information please contact: Dr Sejal Parmar, Senior Legal Officer, sejal@article19.org +44 20 7324 2500

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/2009/09/090915_outlook_mudanifather.shtml

KENYA: Kenyan PEN President released

2009-09-09T07:13:00.000-07:00

KENYA: Kenyan PEN President released

9 September 2009

Update #2 to RAN 13/09

The Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of International PEN welcomes the release of Philo Ikonya, President of Kenya PEN, and a student activist following their arrest yesterday while taking part in a peaceful demonstration against corruption in Nairobi. Both were acquitted of taking part in an illegal demonstration this morning and are in good health. The WiPC thanks all PEN members who took immediate action in this case; no further action is required.

Philo Ikonya (author, human rights activist and President of Kenyan PEN) was arrested on the afternoon of 8 September 2009 while taking part in a peaceful protest and poetry reading outside the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission (KACC) in Nairobi. She was detained alongside Jacob Odipo (NB: not Kenyan PEN Secretary General Kingwa Kamencu, as previously reported), who is a media student and member of a member of the civil society group Bunge la Mwananchi (People's Parliament).

Ikonya and Odipo were taken to Kilimani police station in Nairobi and charged with taking part in an illegal demonstration. They were detained overnight and appeared in court this morning. The magistrate ruled that the charges were defective and ordered their release. Ikonya and Odipo were held in a cramped and insanitary cell, but were not otherwise ill treated. Both are in good health.

Background
Ikonya and Odipo, along with Kamencu and Kenyan PEN Treasurer Khainga O'Okwemba, were protesting against President Mwai Kibaki's reappointment of Justice Aaron Ringera as Chair of the KACC for a second five-year term despite the fact that not a single senior official has been convicted of corruption to date. Both Ikonya and Kamencu were carrying placards bearing stanzas from poems they had written on impunity. One of these was as follows:

Impunity means unity,
A Kenya without liberty;
Set Kenya free.

Ringera must go
Wako must go
Ali must go

(Ringera is the newly re-appointed Chair of the KACC; Amos Wako is Attorney General; Mohamed Hussein Ali was the Police Commissioner until yesterday afternoon, when he was reshuffled to Postmaster General following criticism of extrajudicial killings and human right violations attributed to the police under Ali's tenure - for more information on the reshuffle, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8244594.stm).

According to Kamencu, "A very glaring issue of suppression of freedom of expression stands here. In addition to reciting the poetry, Philo was dressed in a sack-dress that had pieces of manila paper sewn on it with poems and writings expressing discontent at impunity and the re-appointment of Ringera. When she was arrested they tried to take away her dress and removed the writings she had sewn onto it."

For more information on Ikonya's arrest, see Update #2 to RAN 13/09 of 8 September 2009.

***No further action is required. Thank you for taking action in this case.***

For further details please contact Tamsin Mitchell at the Writers in Prison Committee London Office: International PEN, Brownlow House, 50-51 High Holborn, London WC1V 6ER Tel: +44 (0) 207 405 0338 Fax +44 (0) 207 405 0339 email: tamsin.mitchell@internationalpen.org.uk

source: http://www.internationalpen.org.uk/go/news/kenya-kenyan-pen-president-released

26 Exchanges

2009-09-07T09:13:00.000-07:00

http://www.internationalpen.org.uk/go/news/26-exchanges

26 Exchanges

26 Exchanges: Journeys between and behind the lines of language
September 21 - 25, Royal Academy of Engineering

How can we overcome barriers to understanding created by different languages? How can we create greater dialogue between cultures when such language barriers exist? A collaboration between International PEN, 26, Pentagram and UNESCO, 26 Exchanges is an exhibition resulting from the Free the Word! festival 2009 to see what happened when one language adventures boldly into another. 26 members were twinned with PEN members from around the world to translate a text and tell the story of its journey in translation. Falling back on their own resources, 26 members searched for ways to understand stories in Basque, Khasi, Ndebele and Aymara among others, to find meaning and connections across cultures. The exhibition is a digital installation of these stories with readings from and conversations between the participants.
26 Exchanges, 21 - 25 September, 9.30am - 5.30pm, Monday - Friday, Free
Royal Academy of Engineering, 3 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5DG
For more information visit www.26.org.uk

Brazil: 1st National Conference on Communication to Go Ahead

2009-09-07T09:11:00.000-07:00

7 September 2009

Brazil: 1st National Conference on Communication to Go Ahead

On 1 September 2009, after much uncertainty, the national preparatory commission for the first Brazilian Conference on Communication has finally been made official. The main differences of opinion on the Conference have been overcome and it should now take place in December 2009. ARTICLE 19, an active member of the São Paulo State Conference Commission, calls on all levels of the Brazilian government to engage fully and cooperatively to ensure that the conference is successful in promoting a wide-ranging and productive debate about the future of communications policy in Brazil.

National conferences are official forums created by presidential decree to promote meaningful dialogue among government, civil society and the business sectors, with a view to providing substantive input into official planning and policy-making. The Conference on Communication, earlier threatened by budget cuts and issues of representation, has been long demanded by groups calling for urgent review of the seriously outdated law and policy currently applicable in this area.

The Conference will have 1,539 delegates, divided among the private sector (40%), civil society (40%) and government (20%). The approval of sensitive issues, an earlier deadlock, will require the endorsement of 60% of participants, including at least one vote from each sector. The level of private sector representation has been controversial, as civil society groups believe it is over-represented considering the greater plurality of social movements.

Discussions on communications are taking place all over Brazil currently, including through informal preparatory meetings at the municipal, inter-municipal and state levels. ARTICLE 19 was involved in the organisation of a preparatory seminar in São Paulo on 1 August titled “From the communications we have to the communications we want”. That meeting brought together over 270 people to discuss such topics as broadcasting licensing, women and the media, and the situation of community radios.

ARTICLE 19 calls on all levels of the Brazilian government to engage fully in the National Conference process so as to ensure that the final outcome reflects the aspirations of Brazilians for a democratic and public interest broadcasting system.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

• For more information please contact: Paula Martins, Brazil Coordinator, paula@article19.org, +55 11 3057 0042

Venezuela: Authorities Threaten to Close Another 29 Radio Stations

2009-09-07T09:10:00.000-07:00

7 September 2009

Venezuela: Authorities Threaten to Close Another 29 Radio Stations

On 5 September 2009, Minister Diosdado Cabello, Director of Venezuelan´s National Commission on Telecommunications (Conatel), announced that 29 unidentified radio stations will soon be forced to cease operations. They will bring the number of closures in the last couple of months up to 63 radios and TV stations.

Conatel notes that all the cases involve stations whose licenses are up for renewal, whose owners have died or given up their rights, or where proposed title transfers have been denied. According to reports received by ARTICLE 19, Conatel has also opened administrative procedures against more than 200 broadcasters, which may lead to temporary or permanent suspension of their licences. Minister Cabello claims that the closures are aimed at “democratising access to the airwaves”.

ARTICLE 19 notes that Conatel is not independent from the government, as broadcast regulators are required to be by international guarantees of freedom of expression, and that, as a result, Conatel is not in a position to promote broadcasting in the wider public interest.

Broadcasting is by far the most important source of information, as well as of entertainment, for most people in countries around the world. Due to its centrality as a source of information and news, and its growing profitability, governments and dominant commercial interests have historically sought to control broadcasting. Governments have exerted control through the licensing process and other regulatory measures, as well as through informal pressure, while commercial interests have used wealth and connections to monopolise the broadcasting sector, often leading to a focus on low quality but profitable programming.

Oversight by a regulator which is independent of both government and commercial interests, and which has a clear mandate to promote broadcasting in the public interest, is the key to democratising the sector and avoiding regulation being abused to allow for government control.

ARTICLE 19 calls on the Venezuelan authorities to establish an independent broadcast regulator with a mandate to promote pluralism in the airwaves, through rules that are fair and objective, and that ensures that due process is respected in all administrative procedures. Radio and TV stations should not be closed down due to their political views and editorial lines.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

• For more information please contact: Paula Martins, Brazil Coordinator, paula@article19.org, +55 11 3057 0042

THAILAND: ACTIVIST JAILED FOR 18 YEARS FOR INSULTING MONARCHY

2009-09-02T23:00:00.000-07:00

THAILAND: ACTIVIST JAILED FOR 18 YEARS FOR INSULTING MONARCHY

An opposition activist in

Thailand

was sentenced to 18 years in jail last week for insulting the monarchy, report the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) and international news media.

On 28 August Daranee Charnchoengsilpakul was convicted on three counts of lese majeste, each carrying a six-year jail term, for remarks that she made in speeches last year criticising the 2006 coup that ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The speeches were made at rallies of the "Red Shirts", the name given to Thaksin supporters who believe the current government led by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is illegitimate, and who call for Thaksin to be reinstated.

Authorities have also blocked excerpts of Daranee's speeches on YouTube, which had been the basis for the complaints filed against her, says SEAPA.

The judge hearing Daranee's case closed the court to the public and the media last month, citing national security concerns. And because Daranee showed no remorse, the court found no cause for leniency, reports SEAPA.

"It is what I expected to happen," Daranee told reporters after the verdict. "I will appeal."

Arrested on 22 July 2008, Daranee has been denied bail three times despite her lawyers' pleas, and claims that her health may be deteriorating.

The decision to fight the charges is unusual. According to news reports, human rights lawyers say the charges are difficult to beat in a nation known for its intense loyalty to the Royal Family, and most defendants choose to plead guilty and beg the King for mercy.

Several people have been charged with lese majeste in recent years, such as a Thai engineer who got 10 years for sending online pictures that offended the Royal Family, and former BBC correspondent Jonathan Head, who presided over a public debate.

Police are investigating the entire board of the Thailand Foreign Correspondents' Club for possible breaches of the laws, say SEAPA and news reports.

Under current rules, anybody can file a complaint of lese majeste, which has led to many Thai politicians using the laws as a tool to silence their rivals.

According to SEAPA, lese majeste charges have surged since the 2006 coup, and are punishable by up to 15 years in jail.

Earlier this year Abhisit said he would look into ensuring the laws were not abused but little progress has been made.

Related stories on IFEX.org:
- Activist gets 18-year prison term for lese majeste:
http://www.ifex.org/thailand/2009/08/28/da_torpedo_sentenced/

More on the web:
-Red Shirt activist jailed for 18 years for insulting Thai Royal Family
(The Times):
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6814184.ece

From The Times

August 29, 2009

Red Shirt activist jailed for 18 years for insulting Thai Royal Family

Sian Powell in Bangkok

A court in Bangkok sentenced a political activist to 18 years in prison yesterday for insulting the Thai Royal Family, the latest in a flurry of cases that analysts say are inhibiting freedom of speech and stifling political dissent.

Daranee Charnchoengsilpakul was convicted of three charges of lèse-majesté for remarks that she made in speeches last year criticising the 2006 coup that ousted Thaksin Shinawatra, who was then the Prime Minister.

Mr Thaksin, who was convicted in absentia last year of breaching conflict of interest laws and lives abroad to avoid a jail term, remains a polarising figure in Thai politics.

Mr Thaksin’s Red Shirt supporters plan to rally again in central Bangkok tomorrow to demand change. They are furious with the Government led by Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Prime Minister, which they deem illegitimate, and want Mr Thaksin to be reinstated.

When his supporters protested in April they disrupted an Asean summit and brought parts of Bangkok to a standstill.

The Red Shirts, known formally as the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), said that the rally tomorrow will be peaceful.

The Government, however, has invoked the Internal Security Act to ban gatherings at three of the locations used for Red Shirt rallies, and deployed troops and police.

Red Shirt leaders fear provocateurs will try and to cause trouble. “If any unrest occurs, it will not be caused by the Red Shirts,” Jatuporn Prompan, the UDD leader, told Thai media yesterday.

Daranee, 46, was sentenced to three six-year prison terms to run consecutively for insulting the monarchy in speeches that she gave at Red Shirt rallies. Prommas Phoo-sang, the judge, closed the court to the public and the media last month, citing reasons of national security.

“It is what I expected to happen,” Daranee said after the verdict. “I will appeal.” The decision to fight the charges is unusual.

Human rights lawyers said that the charges are difficult to beat in a nation known for its intense loyalty to the Royal Family, and most defendants choose to plead guilty and beg the King for mercy.

Several people have been charged with or investigated over lèse-majesté in recent years. They include a man who refused to stand for the royal anthem in a cinema, the Australian author Harry Nicolaides, whose book sold seven copies, and the former BBC correspondent Jonathan Head, who presided over a public debate.

Police are investigating the entire board of the Thailand Foreign Correspondents’ Club for possible breaches of the laws.

Many Thai politicians appear to regard lèse-majesté laws as a tool to use against their opponents. Earlier this year Mr Abhisit said that his Government would discuss amending the laws but little progress has been made.

SRI LANKA: TAMIL JOURNALIST SENTENCED TO 20 YEARS OF HARD LABOUR

2009-09-02T22:37:00.000-07:00

SRI LANKA: TAMIL JOURNALIST SENTENCED TO 20 YEARS OF HARD LABOUR

Popular Tamil journalist J.S. Tissainayagam has been sentenced to 20 years hard labour on charges of supporting terrorism and inciting racial hatred,becoming the first journalist to be convicted under Sri Lanka's draconian anti-terrorism law, report Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ),Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and other IFEX members.

An English-language columnist for the Sri Lankan "Sunday Times" and editor of the news website OutreachSL, Tissainayagam was arrested on 7 March 2008.

He spent five months in prison without charge before his indictment in
August 2008 for promoting terrorism through the magazine "Northeastern
Monthly", which he briefly published in 2006. The magazine criticised the government's role in the war against the Tamil Tiger rebels and accused authorities of withholding food and other essential items from
Tamil-majority areas.

On 31 August, a High Court judge ruled that Tissainayagam's articles
violated the law because they were aimed at creating "communal disharmony."

The court also found that he had received money from the LTTE to fund his website, but RSF has established that the site was funded by a German aid project.

"The imposition of this extremely severe sentence on Tissainayagam suggests that some Sri Lanka judges confuse justice with revenge," RSF said. "With the help of confessions extracted by force and information that was false or distorted, the court has used an anti-terrorism law that was intended for terrorists, not for journalists and human rights activists."

According to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), which has been campaigning tirelessly for his release, Tissainayagam was repeatedly tortured and denied medical treatment while in prison.

Despite the end of the war, the Sri Lankan state continues to attack
journalists who do not support its policies.

According to the International Press Institute (IPI), 12 journalists have been killed in Sri Lanka since 2006, and many others have been harassed, threatened and arrested. RSF has reported that Sri Lanka is one of the worst-hit countries in the world when it comes to the kidnap, arrest and disappearance of journalists.

CPJ announced that it will honour Tissainayagam with a 2009 International Press Freedom Award. Meanwhile, the Globe Media Forum and RSF report that Tissainayagam will be the first winner of the Peter Mackler Prize, "a newly created award for journalists who display great courage and professional integrity in countries where press freedom is not respected."

Related stories on IFEX.org:
- Journalist sentenced to 20-year jail term under terror law:
http://www.ifex.org/sri_lanka/2009/09/01/tissainayagam_sentenced/

TAKE ACTION:

Please write polite letters to the Sri Lankan authorities calling for:

The immediate and unconditional release of prisoner of conscience, J.S. Tissainayagam who has been targeted for his work as a journalist;
Protection of the rights to life, liberty and security of media workers in compliance with Sri Lanka’s obligations under international law;
An end to Sri Lanka's climate of impunity for attacks on the media which has made it impossible to get an accurate impartial picture of what is happening in the country.

WRITE TO:

His Excellency the President Mahinda Rajapaksa
Presidential Secretariat
Colombo 1
Sri Lanka
Fax: + 94 11 2446657
Email: priu@presidentsoffice.lk or modadm@sltnet.lk

Salutation: Your Excellency

His Excellency Dayananda Rupasoma Perera
High Commissioner
High Commission for the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
333 Laurier Avenue West, Suite 1204
Ottawa, ON, K1P 1C1
Canada
Fax: + 613 238-8448
Email: slhcit@rogers.com

Salutation: Your Excellency

FURTHER BACKGROUND:

The conflict in Sri Lanka is between government forces, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and armed Tamil groups alleged to be aligned with the government. The conflict in the north and east of Sri Lanka has continued to escalate since the end of a ceasefire agreement on 16 January 2008. There is no independent reporting of the conflict and media coverage of war has effectively been silenced – through threats, restrictions and violence. The restrictions placed on freedom of expression in Sri Lanka far exceed those which may legitimately be imposed for reasons such as national security. Violations of journalists’ right to life and freedom from torture and ill-treatment can never be justified in the name of national security and constitute violations of Sri Lanka’s obligations under international law.

At least 14 media workers have been unlawfully killed since 2006 and others have been arbitrarily detained, tortured and allegedly disappeared. There is a strong need for media freedom in Sri Lanka, where deaths on all sides are very high and large numbers of civilians are caught in the crossfire. All parties to the conflict are responsible for grave violations of human rights and breaches of international humanitarian law.

Source : http://www.amnesty.ca/take_action/actions/sri_lanka_journalist_silenced.php

--------------- The Newyork Times ---------------------

Sri Lankan Editor Lauded by Obama Is Sentenced to 20 Years

By LYDIA POLGREEN

Published: August 31, 2009
On World Press Freedom Day in May, President Obama held up J. S. Tissainayagam, the editor of a crusading magazine in Sri Lanka who has been jailed since March 2008, as a symbol of the oppression of the media.

On Monday, a judge in Sri Lanka sentenced Mr. Tissainayagam to 20 years of hard labor for violating the country’s tough antiterrorism laws by writing articles highly critical of a government military offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels who had controlled a large chunk of Sri Lanka’s north.

Mr. Tissainayagam, who is Tamil, was the editor of the now-defunct North Eastern Monthly magazine, and was accused of accepting money and other support from the Tigers. He was convicted under laws that give harsh sentences for offenses like using racially divisive language or promoting disharmony. These laws were enacted in response to the Tamil Tiger insurgency. The insurgents, members of the Hindu Tamil minority, sought a separate state from Sri Lanka’s Buddhist, Sinhalese majority. The government decisively defeated the Tigers in a bloody final battle on a strip of beach in northern Sri Lanka in May, ending one of Asia’s longest civil wars.

As is often the case with local journalists in conflict zones, Mr. Tissainayagam’s reporting reflected the prevailing point of view of the minority to which he belonged, but the government argued that his work went further.

“The Constitution itself gives freedom of press, but that doesn’t allow anybody to spread false information to spur ethnic violence,” Sudarshana DeSilva, the prosecutor, told the court, Reuters reported.

But rights advocates say that Mr. Tissainayagam’s sentence reflects the plight of Sri Lanka’s embattled press corps. At least seven journalists have been killed since 2007, including some singled out by the Tamil Tigers. Many more have fled the country.

“It is very serious blow,” said Sanjana Hattotuwa, editor of Groundviews, a citizen journalism Web site. “It sends a chilling message that the independent expression of opinion is no longer tolerated in Sri Lanka.”

Lucien Rajakarunanayake, spokesman for Sri Lanka’s president and a columnist, said that Mr. Tissainayagam had the right to appeal.

“The court has believed the evidence placed before it,” Mr. Rajakarunanayake said. “That he did accept money from a terrorist organization and did work that furthered the cause of terrorism in this country.”

The sentence is sure to increase pressure from the West on Sri Lanka’s government, which has been criticized for its handling of the last battle against the Tamil Tigers and the treatment of Tamils displaced by the war.

Mr. Tissainayagam’s lawyer told reporters that he planned to appeal. Though he confessed, he later said that the confession was given under duress. Legal experts said that the antiterrorism laws under which he was convicted violated the Constitution.

Asanga Welikala, a lawyer who has written on press freedom in Sri Lanka, said that the law was so vague that practically any speech could be prosecuted.

“Totally unacceptable that we should have such a law, and even more unacceptable that a court of law should feel that this journalist should get the maximum possible sentence under that law for simply doing his job,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/world/asia/01lanka.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

Remember the Disappeared

2009-09-02T18:25:00.000-07:00

Sunday 30th August marks the International Day of the Disappeared

Ratify the Convention against Enforced Disappearance NOW!

The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 2006.

We only need 7 more countries to ratify the Convention in order for it to enter into force.

Sunday 30th August marks the International Day of the Disappeared

In El Salvador, Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz were seven and three years old, respectively, when they disappeared on 2 June 1982.

In Guatemala, 200,000 people disappeared or were extra-judicially executed during the internal armed conflict of 1960 – 1996.

These are just a few examples of the thousands of people who have been victims of enforced disappearances around the world. Their family members and friends have no knowledge of their fate.

Stand Together and Remember the Disappeared

Call on governments to ratify the Convention! Join the movement in sending a letter to the countries we are targeting now!

INDIVIDUAL AT RISK

James Balao, an activist working on Indigenous Peoples rights, was forcibly disappeared on 17 September 2008 in Baguio City, Philippines. He was last seen near his home being roughly bundled by armed men into a white van. One of the men who took him shouted at onlookers, and told them not to interfere because they were police officers arresting James. A court has ordered the authorities to reveal where he is, and do no further harm to him, but has not authorised his family to look for him in places of detention. He is one of hundreds of Filipinos who have been forcibly disappeared and have not been found yet .

James, a member of the Indigenous Benguet Ibaloi tribe in the Cordillera region in Northern Philippines, dedicated himself to research and fighting for Indigenous Peoples rights, particularly ancestral land rights. He contributed to the drafting of the Philippines’ Constitution. He is one of the founding members of the Cordillera People's Alliance (CPA), an alliance of local organizations from the different Indigenous tribes in the Cordillera region.

Take action!
Join the call to Surface James Balao and Stop Enforced Disappearances in the Philippines.

Take photos of yourself or with friends, ideally in front of a local landmark to show international solidarity, holding up a message such as: "End Enforced Disappearances -- the world is watching" or "Where is James Balao?"

The photos will be used as part of an international solidarity campaign on the one-year anniversary of James' disappearance. Email photos to philmasteam@gmail.com or online.communities@amnesty.org by 31 October 2009.

Mexico: ARTICLE 19 Submission to UN Human Rights Committee

2009-07-11T19:45:00.000-07:00

Mexico: ARTICLE 19 Submission to UN Human Rights Committee

ARTICLE 19 has called attention to key freedom of expression issues in Mexico, including the State’s failure to protect journalist and human rights defenders from attacks, and a broadcasting system that fails to promote public interest broadcasting. These concerns are contained in a written Submission to the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) for consideration at its 96th session in Geneva from 13-31 July 2009. ARTICLE 19’s Submission is due to be read in conjunction with the Government of Mexico’s fifth periodic report to the HRC, under the provisions of Article 40 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

ARTICLE 19’s Submission highlights the following concerns:

Violence against those who exercise their right to freedom of expression is increasing throughout the country and there is a lack of adequate rules and institutions to address these attacks, leading to a prevailing climate of impunity.
There is an inadequate framework for broadcast regulation, which lacks independence from government, does not foster pluralism in the airwaves and has failed to prevent monopolies in the media.
A prevalence of obstacles exists in relation to implementation of the right to information law, particularly at the local and state level.
Criminal defamation laws continue to exist in 21 of the 32 Mexican states.

ARTICLE 19’s key recommendations to the Mexican government are:

Effective measures should be put in place to respond to attacks – which are carried out in order to limit freedom of expression – on journalists and others. Investigations into attacks should be undertaken by federal powers and it is important to promote the federalisation of these investigations. The Special Prosecutor’s Office for the Attention of Crimes against Journalists (FEADP) should also be strengthened so that it is able to investigate and take action against attacks.
The legal framework for broadcasting should be fundamentally revised to bring it into line with international standards in this area, including by imposing limits on the concentration of media ownership and by enabling community and independent public service broadcasting.
All right to information laws in Mexico, at the state and federal levels, should be amended to bring them into line with Article 6 of the Constitution, guaranteeing the right to information. This article must also be respected in practice, when implementing these laws.
Defamation should be fully decriminalised in all Mexican states. Civil defamation rules should place the onus on public officials to prove the falsity of allegations of fact, should require public officials to tolerate a greater degree of criticism, and should impose overall limits on damage awards.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

• For more information please contact: Cynthia Cárdenas, Legal Adviser, cynthiac@article19.org, +52 55 10546500.
• ARTICLE 19’s Submission to the Mexico Country Report Task Force of the Human Rights Committee is available at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/hrcs96.htm.
• The Government of Mexico presented its report to the Human Rights Committee in compliance with Article 40 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), in September 2008. Article 40 stipulates that States Parties to the Covenant must submit reports on the measures they have adopted to give effect to the rights recognised by the ICCPR.

Azerbaijan: Civil Society and the Media Out of Immediate Danger?

2009-07-11T19:44:00.000-07:00

Azerbaijan: Civil Society and the Media Out of Immediate Danger?

ARTICLE 19 welcomes a decision on 30 June by the parliament of Azerbaijan, the Milli Mejlis, not to adopt the most restrictive proposals in a package of legislative amendments governing civil society and media. However, questions remain as to why these restrictive amendments were proposed in the first place, why some were adopted, and why members of civil society who demonstrated against the amendments were harassed.

Demonstrators, protesting against the adoption of the amendments yesterday, ahead of the parliamentary session in Baku, were not allowed to march towards parliament. They had their placards forcefully taken away, reportedly by plain-clothes national security officers. A previous demonstration on 10 May 2009 also saw members of the public beaten by police and approximately 50 peaceful demonstrators were detained for a number of hours on that day. ARTICLE 19 believes that these incidents are clear infringements of the rights of citizens to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

Civil society and independent media organisations have cautiously celebrated the outcome of yesterday’s extraordinary session of the Milli Mejlis, which could have led to the imposition of severe restrictions on their establishment and funding. But they remain concerned that some amendments, which have been adopted, retain restrictive provisions such as those concerning financial reporting and registration of foreign non-governmental organisations. It is unclear why these amendments were adopted and there are concerns about their implementation.

Azerbaijan has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which guarantees the fundamental rights to freedom of expression, freedom of association and freedom of assembly. ARTICLE 19 urges the Azerbaijani government to respect and uphold these rights, cornerstone to human rights protection.

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

• For more information please contact: Nathalie Losekoot, Senior Programme Officer, Europe at Nathalie@article19.org or +44 207 324 2509

Artist Alert June 2009

2009-07-11T19:41:00.000-07:00

Artist Alert
June 2009

Since ARTICLE 19 published a report in 2005 entitled Art, Religion and Hatred; Religious Intolerance in Russia and its Effects on Art, artistic expression in Russia remains stifled and artists self-censor their work.

There is no specific law that explicitly bans artists in Russia from exploring certain issues, but in practice artists are harassed, detained and charged for breaching various loosely-defined laws, such as the 2002 law that was established to prohibit expression of nationalist extremism. Police and security services can use vague legislation such as the 2002 law, as well as legal loopholes to instantaneously arrest and detain artists and close down exhibitions.

Russia: artist arrested for collage of Putin

Well-known and influential Russian artist Alexander Shchednov was arrested on June 11 by the FSB whilst displaying a collage in an exhibition in the city of Voronezh.

The collage which depicts the coy-looking head of prime minister Vladimir Putin on the top of a woman’s body, has written on it: “Oh I don't know ... a third presidential ... it's too much, on the other hand .”

Shchednov was arrested whilst attempting to hang the collage, and claims that he was questioned and abused for seven hours before being charged with “uncensored swearing in a public place”.

Russia: trial of curators facing five years imprisonment starts

The trial of Yury Samodurov and Andrey Erofeev for organising an exhibition entitled “Forbidden Art 2006” at the Andrei Sakharov Museum has resumed two years after the nationalist religious organisation, Narodnyj Sobor, submitted a formal complaint.

Samodurov and Erofeev face five years in prison on charges of inciting religious and ethnic hatred under Article 282 of the Russian Penal Code. Examples of some of the art works exhibited included a crucified Lenin and Mickey Mouse as Jesus. Incitement legislation is widely used in Russia to suppress dissent and criticism of government.

Turkey: growing religious conservatism threatens free expression

Turkish author Nedim Gursel believes that increasing religious conservatism is undermining freedom of expression in Turkey in the count down to its European Union candidacy.

In 2009 a Turkish court allowed a case to be brought against Gursel for “insulting religion” and “inciting hatred”. Although Turkey is infamous for charging many authors, including Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk, under laws that criminalise insulting “Turkishness”, Gursel argues that increasingly it is the religious establishment that is becoming the bigger threat against freedom of expression.

Gursel is on trial for his book “The Daughters of Allah” against which a case was brought earlier in 2009 on the charges of insulting religion and inciting hatred. The book describes a fictional interpretation of the Prophet Mohammad and his life and joins a number of other publications that are indicted with insulting “Turkishness”.

China: bird’s nest architect under increasing censorship attempts

The designer of the Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium, Ai Weiwei, has come under increasing state censorship since the end of the 2008 Beijing Olympic games. Ai’s blog was shut down by China’s biggest news portal Sina in the run-up to the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen protests, after he had allegedly refused authorities’ requests not to write anything about the anniversary.

Ai had also asserted in his blog that Chinese security officers were following him and intimidating his family, friends and colleagues, including his 76-year-old mother.

A highly regarded designer and artist, Ai gave the Chinese authorities grounds for disapproval after he began a campaign to expose the reasons why so many schools collapsed during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

Mexico: assault of political cartoonist

Prominent political cartoonist Mario Robles from the newspaper Noticias Voz e Imagen de Oaxaca was violently assaulted and subjected to death threats in late April by members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which controls the Oaxaca state government.

Cartoons serve a specific purpose in political commentary and can often be more influential, further reaching and create a larger impression than written words. Attacking a cartoonist not only impacts on Robles, but also censors political commentary and denies citizens an opportunity to receive information.

Robles has been a political cartoonist for 30 years and has won the state journalistic award six times. In an interview with ARTICLE 19 Robles asserts that two party campaigners attacked and kicked him repeatedly before warning him that he needed to “modify his cartoons” or they would kill him and his family.

Iran: censorship of book industry pervasive

According to an International Publishers Association investigation, since the election of President Ahmadinejad in 2005, censorship within the Iranian publishing industry is clearly on the rise, with decisions about what gets published becoming more unpredictable, uncertain and arbitrary.

Although the number of titles is slowly rising, the average print run is now only 3,000 compared to an average of 10,000 in the 1970s. This is entirely due to censorship. The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (MCIG) never officially bans books. Rather, if an author does not hear within two years, they understand that their manuscript has been rejected.

In Iran, an author must obtain permission to print from the MCIG and a licensed publisher must obtain separate permission to distribute. In some cases the author gains permission to print, but the publisher does not gain permission to distribute.

NOTES TO EDITORS:


• For more information: please contact Oliver Spencer, oliver@article19.org, +44 20 7324 2500

Brazil: Journalist Luiz Flavio Pinto Ordered to Pay US$15,000 for Defamation

2009-07-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

Brazil: Journalist Luiz Flavio Pinto Ordered to Pay US$15,000 for Defamation

The Superior Court of the State of Para, in the north of Brazil, ordered journalist Luiz Flavio Pinto to pay approximately US$15,000 for defaming Romulo Maionara, a deceased local businessman.

In the case, Romulo Maionara Jr and Ronaldo Maionara accused Pinto of offending the honour and reputation of their father, a businessman who built the main media group in the region, Grupo Liberal for an article published in Jornal Pessoal, which Pinto runs, in 2005 which claimed that Romulo Maionara was involved in smuggling activities in the 1950s and 1970s. Pinto argued before the court that he was not the first to make these allegations, and presented copies of documents he believes prove that his allegations are general knowledge and also accurate. According to Pinto, such activities were commonplace in the isolated state of Para at that time.

According to Pinto’s calculations, the damage award, which together with legal fees may amount to US$20,000, is equivalent to more than a year of the newspaper's gross income. The Court also ordered Jornal Pessoal to publish a note drafted by the Maionara brothers in full, and forbade Jornal Pessoal from again publishing any statement that could be considered aggressive, defamatory, calumnious or slanderous in relation to Romulo Maionara and his two sons, or face a further US$15,000 penalty.

Pinto, who has 42 years of experience in reporting on environmental devastation and corruption in the Amazon, has in the past been the victim of death threats, physical attacks and dozens of civil and criminal defamation lawsuits. He currently faces 14 other lawsuits filed by the Maionara brothers. ARTICLE 19 is concerned about this decision, which involves allegations of high public interest. The decision fails to elaborate on the basis for finding Pinto’s allegations to be false and does not address the documents presented by Pinto in his defence.

ARTICLE 19 is of the view that in cases involving matters of public interest, the plaintiff should be required to prove the falsity of their allegations. ARTICLE 19’s research indicates that the civil defamation provisions is open to abuse and we have previously expressed concern about the lack of clear standards for civil defamation in Brazil, including as to the size of damage awards. ARTICLE 19 calls on the Brazilian authorities to amend the rules on civil defamation so that they are clear and respect international standards, including as to the burden of proof in cases involving matters of public interest. We also call on the authorities to decriminalise defamation and related crimes.

NOTES TO EDITORS:


• For more information: please contact Paula Martins, paula@article19.org, +55 11 3057 0042

RUSSIA: EDITOR SUCCUMBS TO HEAD INJURIES

2009-07-11T19:32:00.002-07:00

RUSSIA: EDITOR SUCCUMBS TO HEAD INJURIES

A leading editor who reported on corruption in southwestern

Russia

succumbed to head injuries he suffered in an attack in April, report the
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

Vyacheslav Yaroshenko, editor-in-chief of the independent Rostov-on-Don
newspaper "Korruptsiya i Prestupnost" (Corruption and Crime), was found
unconscious with a head wound in the entrance of his apartment building on
30 April. He was hospitalised with skull and brain trauma, underwent
surgery, and spent five days in a coma, his deputy, Sergei Sleptsov, told
CPJ at the time.

On 29 June, Yaroshenko was operated on again, but did not survive.

According to CPJ, Sleptsov said he believes Yaroshenko was attacked in
retaliation for his newspaper's work. In the weeks before the incident,
"Korruptsiya i Prestupnost" had reported on corruption allegations
involving Rostov law enforcement agencies. "I don't have even the smallest
doubt," Sleptsov told the opposition news website Kasparov. "Our newspaper
was published on eight pages; seven of them were allotted to corruption in
the law enforcement structures."

Rostov law enforcement officials have given conflicting accounts of what
happened to Yaroshenko in April, first saying that he was injured in a
street fight, then later that he hurt himself by falling down the stairs in
his apartment building. According to Sleptsov, they had immediately ruled
out criminality.

Sleptsov said that the paper is carrying out its own investigation into the
editor's death.

Russia

is the third deadliest country in the world for journalists and the
ninth worst in solving reporters' killings, according to CPJ. In a 25 June
letter, CPJ urged U.S. President Barack Obama to address the pressing issue
of impunity in violent crimes against the press when he meets with Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow this week.

Meanwhile, Russia's Supreme Court has overturned the acquittals of three
men accused of involvement in the October 2006 murder of reporter Anna
Politkovskaya, allegedly because of procedural violations during the trial,
reports CPJ.

Related stories on IFEX.org:
- Independent editor dies in hospital:
http://www.ifex.org/russia/2009/07/01/editor_dies/
- Obama should address Russian impunity in upcoming summit, says CPJ
http://www.ifex.org/russia/2009/06/29/impunity_letter/
- Supreme Court orders retrial in Politkovskaya murder:
http://www.ifex.org/russia/2009/06/29/politkovskaya_suspects_retrial/

More on the web:
- Shock at death of newspaper editor who was badly beaten two months ago
(RSF): http://www.rsf.org/Shock-at-death-of-newspaper-editor.html

Freedom of Criticising and Human Rights

UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize 2012 seeks nominations

UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize 2012 seeks nominations

Source IFEX

23 unsolved murders in 23 days: Join the International Day to End Impunity campaign

23 unsolved murders in 23 days: Join the International Day to End Impunity campaign

MEXICO: PROSECUTION AND VIOLENCE AGAINST TWITTER USERS MUST STOP

Burma : Token Internet freedom gesture amid continued draconian jailings

Token Internet freedom gesture amid continued draconian jailings

Li Xiang Chinese TV journalist stabbed to death

Journalist reporting on "gutter oil" stabbed to death

New law fails to protect journalists' rights : Al-Mahdi's death

Al-Mahdi's death big loss for media and activist community; new law fails to protect journalists' rights

India: Ministers Move to Decriminalise Defamation

25 censored stories of 2009-2010

Project Censored reveals top 25 censored stories of 2009-2010

Top 25 Censored Stories Released

Student Researchers:

Faculty Evaluators:

Update by Liz Rose at Free Press

Student Researchers:

Faculty Evaluators:

Student Researchers:

Faculty Evaluators:

Update

Student Researchers:

Faculty Evaluators:

Student Researchers:

Faculty Evaluators:

Student Researcher:

Faculty Evaluator:

Cambodia: Systematic Erosion of Freedom of Expression Puts Democracy at Risk

UN urged not to support laws prohibiting "defamation of religion"

Brutal repression of human rights

Brutal repression of human rights defenders in historic crackdown

Iran : A blogger been sentenced 19.5 years in prison

Sign a petition for blogger facing execution

Take action!

Sign a petition for blogger facing execution

Crackdown on rights defenders speaking out about torture and discrimination

Crackdown on rights defenders speaking out about torture and discrimination

Iraq: Journalist kidnapped and killed

Newspaper suspended for exposing President's brother's crimes

Newspaper suspended for exposing President's brother's crimes

Bangladesh: Opposition Newspaper Raided by Police And Forced to Close

Artist Alert: May 2010

Thailand: Attacks on Media Must Stop

Pakistan: Freedom of Expression on Internet Must be Respected

Mexico: A Fourth Journalist Goes Missing in Michoacan State‏

Maldives: Defamation Decriminalised

Concerned About Continued Harassment of Oleg Orlov Under Criminal Defamation Laws

Concerns about the Retreat of Freedom of Expression in 2009

Copenhagen: Transparency Disregarded

MARTIN ENNALS AWARD

CHINESE DISSIDENTS BARRED FROM MEETING WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA

Iran: Government Launches Web Crime Unit

Document: Aggressions Against Journalists

New Attempts to Legitimise Religious Defamation using Principles of Blasphemy

Sri Lanka: Journalists Still Under Threat

Russia: UN Human Rights Committee on Free Expression

Five Years After Van Gogh's Murder, Free Speech Is Under Attack

Five Years After Van Gogh's Murder, Free Speech Is Under Attack

Florence Hartmann’s case

Mexico: Calls for Immediate Investigation into Attacks as Ninth Journalist Murdered

RSF INDEX HIGHLIGHTS DROP OF EUROPE AND ISRAEL IN RANKINGS

Turkey: Threats to Freedom of Expression in Turkey

Concern over New Religious Defamation

More Support for Media Freedom in Africa

A landmark case involving the principle of open justice

Nepal: Government Putting Journalists at Risk

Mexico: Safety Training for Journalists

Hold Russia Accountable for abuses and violations of the right to freedom of expression

Irina Gueorguieva Bokova chosen for the post of Director-General

Irina Gueorguieva Bokova chosen by UNESCO Executive Board as candidate to the post of Director-General

Paris, 22 September

CANDIDATE FOR UNESCO DIRECTOR-GENERAL

CHINA: JOURNALISTS PROTEST SAVAGE ATTACKS ON COLLEAGUES

VIETNAM: BLOGGERS FACE SEVERE REPRESSION DUE TO POLICIES ON CHINA

UGANDA: CRACKDOWN ON RADIO JOURNALISTS

Camden Principles on Freedom of Expression and Equality