Tag Archives: press freedom

BBC News: Murdered Sri Lankan journalist’s family denied justice

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A chilling tale of the murder of a journalist and the political silence that followed: the BBC carries a report on the unsolved killing of Sri Lankan journalist Mylvaganam Nimalarajan 10 years ago.

Nimalarajan, who was working for the BBC covering the Sri Lankan separatist war, was murdered by unidentified gunmen on 19 October 2000.

His father has expressed anger at silence over the case from the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), a militant group that is now a political party.

Media watchdogs also accused the EPDP, headed by Minister Douglas Devananda, of being responsible for the killing to stop similar reports and to intimidate local journalists. He has always denied the allegations.

Full story on the BBC News website at this link…

Al Jazeera English: Two arrested in Iran after inteviewing stoning woman’s son

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Al Jazeera English reports on threats to foreign press freedom in Iran: two suspected German nationals have been arrested after entering on tourist visas and allegedly interviewing the son of a woman sentenced to execution by stoning; meanwhile an El Pais reporter has had her press accreditation denied.

Full story on Al Jazeera English at this link…

#WEFHamburg: WAN-IFRA calls on Iran to improve press freedom standards

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The World Association of Newspapers and IFRA (WAN-IFRA) used the opening ceremony of the Word Editors Forum (WEF) in Hamburg to call upon Iranian authorities to adhere to international standards of press freedom.

Presenting the annual Golden Pen of Freedom Award to Iranian journalist Ahmad Zeid-Abadi, Xavier Vidal-Folch, president of WEF, said Iranian journalists are “essentially trapped in a prison within a prison. A hellish place, where, in Ahmad Zeid-Abadi’s own words, ‘the desperation they create in prison is so bad you think it’s the end of the world’.

“Though we honour Mr Zeid-Abadi here today, it is also important to remember the other jailed journalists, the ones who don’t win awards but nevertheless suffer under despotic regimes, We should never forget them and we in the international newspaper community should do our utmost to win their release.”

Zeid-Abadi, who has worked for a range of daily and weekly newspapers in the country, is currently in prison in Iran. He was jailed, not for the first time in June 2009, after calling for Iranians to boycott the country’s election. He was sentenced to six years imprisonment and has previously been jailed and banned from practising journalism, because of his work.

According to WEF, 22 Iranian journalists are currently in prison in the country, accounting for around a fifth of all journalists imprisoned worldwide.

Accepting the award on his behalf, fellow Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji made an emotional speech in which he said treatment in prison had driven Zeid-Abadi to the “edge of suicide”. Ganji, who has himself spent time in jail because of his work as a journalist, said the family members of press freedom fighters and activists are often overlooked.

I have no doubt that if Ahmad Zeid-Abadi was here with us, he would have shared the honor of this prestigious award with other political prisoners.

One must interpret these awards as a kind of ethical and moral endorsement of democratic activists who are committed to liberty and human rights.

Today members of the world community of journalists have selected Ahmad Zeid-Abadi as the courageous journalist of 2010 fighting for democracy, and have honored him with the Golden Pen Award. This is a judicious and fair choice worthy of Ahmad Zeid-Abadi. He uses the might of his pen not just to tell the truth and expose political corruption.

In addition he also tries responsibly to use his pen and his ideas to make the world more ethical, reduce people’s pain and suffering. Without a doubt this pen will bring its responsibilities to fruition, for what that pen writes gushes forth from the soul of the person holding that pen and is the bright and shining mirror of his noble heart and his humane ideas.

Last month, Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan, who has dual citizenship in Iran and Canada, was jailed for 19 years after being convicted of “collaborating with hostile governments, committing blasphemy and propaganda against the Islamic Republic, and managing an obscene website”, according to an Al Jazeera report.

Read Xavier Vidal-Folch’s speech in full at this link…

Read Akbar Ganji’s speech in full at this link…

More from Journalism.co.uk:

Half the world’s jailed journalists were working online, says CPJ

Human rights lawyer arrested in Iran

Iranian blogger jailed for 19 years

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An Iranian journalist and blogger has been sentenced to almost 20 years in prison and a five-year ban on working in politics or journalism upon his release, after being accused of managing an “obscene website” by Iranian authorities.

Hossein Derakhshan, who has dual citizenship in Iran and Canada and reportedly previously studied in London, was convicted yesterday of “collaborating with hostile governments, committing blasphemy and propaganda against the Islamic Republic, and managing an obscene website”, according to a report by Al Jazeera.

Reporting on the ruling, press freedom group Reporters Without Borders said the sentence was the longest to have ever been made against a blogger in the country.

He is the victim of political rivalry within the government and the case against him was fabricated. We urge President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to intercede personally in order to obtain his release without delay.

Derakhshan defended the Islamic Revolution’s principles, supported Ahmadinejad’s policies and returned to Iran from Canada after being assured by people close to the president that he would not be arrested. Canada and the rest of the international community must press for this harsh sentence to be quashed and for Derakhshan to be freed at once.

Derakhshan can appeal the decision, according to reports. A petition has been launched calling for his release.

Red Cross launches journalism award to recognise Philippines conflict coverage

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The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has launched a journalism award in association with its Philippines’ branch to recognise humanitarian reporting in the country.

The 2011 prize will honour journalists who have written stories about the long-running conflict in the Philippines, according to reports.

Nominations will close on 12 March 2011 and a ceremony will take place on 8 May with winners receiving digital recorders and training opportunities.

In November last year, more than 30 journalists and media workers were murdered in the Philippines when there convoy was ambushed and attacked.

Full story on ABS-CBN News site at this link…

Japanese journalist tricked Afghan captors into letting him tweet

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On Monday, Journalism.co.uk reported on the release of Kosuke Tsuneoka, a freelance Japanese journalist, who had been freed after being held captive by soldiers for five months in northern Afghanistan.

Kosuke Tsuneoka had been missing since 1 April, when a message posted to his Twitter account indicated he had travelled to a Taliban-controlled region of northern Afghanistan. According to the Associated Press, friends then received information that he had been kidnapped.

Tsuneoka’s Twitter account then lay unused until last Friday, when a post appeared in English saying “I am alive, but in jail”. He was reportedly released to the Japanese Embassy on Saturday.

But new details have emerged as to how Tsuneoka managed to send the tweets that led to his release. According to reports, the journalist managed to send the messages from one of his captor’s phones.

Says IDG Net via PC World:

The soldier had heard of the internet, but he didn’t know what it was. When Tsuneoka mentioned it to him, he was eager to see it, but the phone wasn’t signed up to receive the carrier’s GPRS data service for accessing the Internet.

“I called the customer care number and activated the phone,” he said. Soon after he had the captor’s phone configured for internet access (…) “But if you are going to do anything, you should use Twitter,” he said he told them. “They asked what that was. And I told them that if you write something on it, then you can reach many Japanese journalists. So they said, ‘try it’.”

#iq2privacy: Privacy, the press, and Max Mosley

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Journalism.co.uk will be at tonight’s ‘Sex, bugs and videotape’ debate organised by Intelligence Squared. Given this week’s renewed focus on phone hacking at the News of the World and debates on the privacy of footballers and public interest, tonight’s proceedings are pretty timely.

Proposing the motion that the private lives of public figures deserve more protection from the press will be Rachel Atkins, a partner at Schillings law firm; and Max Mosley, no stranger to the News of the World and secret videotaping himself.

Speaking against the motion are Tom Bower, journalist and author of books on Robert Maxwell and Richard Desmond; and Ken MacDonald QC, defence lawyer and former director of public prosecutions.

You can follow tweets from the event with the hashtag #iq2privacy or in the liveblog below:

Sex, bugs and videotape – privacy and the media debate

CPJ: Radio journalist fatally stabbed in Somalia

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A radio journalist working in Somalia was fatally stabbed last week, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Abdullahi Omar Gedi, 25, was attacked after leaving work at Radio Daljir. The motivation for the killing is not yet clear, says the report.

Full story on CPJ website at this link…

Related reading: BBC World Service journalist Mohamed Olad Hassan on the dangers of working in Somalia.

FT.com: British press stays silent on South African press freedom threat

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The FT’s chief foreign affairs commentator criticises the British press for its lack of coverage of a proposed law in South Africa that would pose a substantial threat to press freedom.

The proposed law is a major threat to South African democracy. Yet, I have been struck by the almost total silence of the British press on this subject. Papers that devoted acres of space to the success of the World Cup cannot be bothered to follow up with a report of what’s going on in South Africa now.

Full post on FT.com at this link…

Mexican drug cartels silencing country’s reporters

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Reporting on press freedom issues in China, Russia, South Africa, Sudan or elsewhere, we are accustomed to thinking of censorship as the work of the government and the judiciary. But according to a Los Angeles Times report, newspapers in Mexico are subject to an altogether different kind of restriction – “narco-censorship”.

It’s when reporters and editors, out of fear or caution, are forced to write what the traffickers want them to write, or to simply refrain from publishing the whole truth in a country where members of the press have been intimidated, kidnapped and killed.

Drug traffickers are reportedly co-opting the country’s journalists, who fear for their life following the murder or disappearance of more than 30 reporters since a drug-war was declared on the cartels by President Felipe Calderon in December 2006.

From the border states of Tamaulipas and Chihuahua and into the central and southern states of Durango and Guerrero, reporters say they are acutely aware that traffickers do not want the local news to “heat the plaza” — to draw attention to their drug production and smuggling and efforts to subjugate the population. Such attention would invite the government to send troops and curtail their business.

And so the journalists pull their punches.

Full report at this link…