Tag Archives: RSF

Reporters Without Borders publishes alleged secret Chinese media directive

Press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has published what it alleges to be a document issued to Chinese news organisations by the country’s Propaganda Department.

The directives in the document were reportedly delivered only via word of mouth to journalists at meetings where note-taking was banned.

The document (Chinese language) reportedly bans the coverage of a number of contentious issues in China, including: “the property market, rising prices, corruption, the demolition of housing and compulsory relocation, residence permits, the absence of social security, inadequate transport during the Chinese New Year and popular discontent that finds expression in anti-government demonstrations.”

RSF has accused the Chinese Propaganda Department of placing the country’s media within an “editorial straitjacket”.

Nobody from RSF was available to comment on when, or from whom it obtained the document.

Nobody from the Chinese Embassy press office, London was available to comment on the report.

Full RSF post at this link.

RSF creates centre of operations for Haitian journalists

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is to set up a centre of operations for Haitian journalists in Port-au-Prince with the aim of enabling them “to cover the situation and thereby assist the process of providing assistance to the population”.

[T]he centre will be equipped with laptops, mobile phones and generators provided by the leading Canadian media group Quebecor, Reporters Without Borders’ partner in this initiative.

(…)

The creation of this centre of operations will be followed by reconstruction assistance – again in partnership with Quebecor – for Haiti’s media, which are virtually all currently unable to function. This will be one of the targets of the donations raised by the appeal already issued by Reporters Without Borders.

Full story at this link…

RSF: Journalist sentenced to 60 lashes in Saudi Arabia – for link to TV programme about sex

[Update from the AP: The Saudi monarch, King Abdullah, has now waived the flogging sentence, ‘the second such pardoning of such a high profile case by the monarch in recent years’. Full article at this link…]

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has released a statement condemning the sentence of 60 lashes passed by a judge in Jeddah, on journalist Rozanna al-Yami, ‘because she worked for the Lebanese Broadcast Corporation (LBC), a satellite TV station that shocked conservative Saudis last July by broadcasting an interview with a Saudi man talking openly about his sex life’.

It is understood that the judge dropped the charges that she had directly worked on the programme, but imposed a sentence nonetheless.

RSF release at this link…

More from the Associated Press at this link.

RSF: Yemen’s ‘harassment and denigration’ of Al Jazeera

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has issued a statement condemning Yemen’s ‘harassment and denigration’ of  Al Jazeera television, including a threatening telephone call to Sanaa bureau chief, Mourad Hashem, earlier this week.

RSF said that Al Jazeera has been branded by the authorities as the ‘enemy of a united Yemen’ because the channel covered unrest in the south of the country.

“The authorities use and abuse defence of national unity to censor media that try to cover events in southern Yemen,” the press freedom organisation said in the release.

Full statement at this link…

RSF: Where are the journalists…? Don’t look for them here

A sobering Where’s Wally style cartoon on the front of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) homepage, asking:

wherearejournalists

A reminder of the ‘Press Freedom Barometer 2009’:

The Economist: Rows at Doha Centre for Media Freedom

From The Economist: ‘A freedom-promoting media centre is accused of going too far too fast’. The organisation’s head, founder and former secretary-general of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Robert Ménard, is involved in rows with Qatari officials and critics.

“When the Qataris asked Robert Ménard to run what they heralded as the world’s first press freedom centre, in Doha, their capital, they were probably asking for trouble. An intrepid Frenchman who had previously run a Paris-based lobby, Reporters Without Borders, Mr Ménard is famous for courting controversy. Last year he disrupted a torch-lighting ceremony in Greece that was meant to be a dignified prelude to the Olympic games in China. Later he scaled Notre Dame Cathedral and unfurled a protest banner as the torch was carried through Paris. Now, only months after becoming head of the Doha Centre for Media Freedom, he is entangled in a row that may well be more bitter than anything he has experienced.”

Full story at this link…

RSF: ‘New wave’ of obstacles for communication in Burma

“Reporters Without Borders condemns a new wave of obstacles that Burma’s military government has imposed on internet usage as well as its expulsion of two American journalism teachers on May 6. It is getting steadily harder for Burmese to send emails or access websites while all means of communication were cut yesterday around opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s home,” the organisation reports.

Full story at this link…

RSF: Two journalists charged in Bahrain; information ministry steps up internet filtering

“Reporters Without Borders is concerned about freedom of expression in Bahrain. In the past couple of months, two journalists have been charged because of what they wrote and the information ministry has stepped up Internet filtering,” the organisation reports.

“Around 600 websites are currently blocked in Bahrain and online censorship has become more extensive since 21 April, when the authorities ordered that access to the Washington-based news website Aafaq.org, Ghada Jamsheer’s women’s rights blog Bahrain-eve and the blog aggregator Bahrainblogs.org should also be blocked.”

Full story at this link…

RSF: YouTube blocked again in Turkey

The Turkish Telecommunications Council has endorsed the fourth court order blocking access to YouTube. According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF) “the authorities claim that content posted on YouTube is either disrespectful to Kemal Mustafa Atatürk, the Turkish Republic’s founder, or supports the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).”

RSF: Turkey blogs are back up ‘provisionally’

Access to Google’s two blog services, Blogger and Blogspot, has been temporarily restored in Turkey. A court in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir had blocked them as the result of a complaint by the TV station Digiturk. They are now reactivating them ‘provisionally’ to enable Digitürk, that filed the original complaint about allegedly pirated video footage, to submit all the required evidence.