Archive for August, 2011
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011
On August 21, two
Palestinian journalists, Usaid Abd Al Majid Amarana, of Al-Aqsa TV, and Amar Abu Urfa, a reporter for Shahab news agency,
were arrested. Both journalists were seized by Israeli soldiers in their homes. According to reports, soldiers stormed and searched Amarana’s home. During the arrest, soldiers opened fire and wounded Amarana’s cousin. Urfa’s arrest in Hebron resembled that of Amarana.
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011
On August 19, two photojournalists, Narciso Contreras and Showkat Shafi, said
they were beaten by police and detained for several hours while covering a protest in Srinagar, in Jammu and Kashmir. The protest, which was a demonstration against
Indian rule, escalated into a violent clash between protesters and police forces. According to Shafi, officers continued to beat him, even after identifying himself as a journalist. Reports say both photojournalists were treated for multiple bruises in a local hospital.
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011
Bucking a trend of
official anxiety over the explosive growth of microblogs in the country, Beijing’s Communist Party Chief
urged China’s internet companies to put an end to the spread of fake and harmful information when he visited major internet firm Sina this week. Liu Qi praised the company for its achievements with Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like microblogging platform with 200 million registered users, but said internet companies should “step up the application and management of new technology, and absolutely put an end to fake and misleading information.”
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011
A court in Caracas has
issued a temporary injunction to prohibit the publication and circulation of satirical magazine 6to Poder after it published a cover with six
Venezuelan government officials portrayed as cabaret dancers on 21 August. On the same day, the Bolivarian Intelligence Service arrested the magazine’s editor, Dinorah Girón, and put out a warrant for the arrest of the president of the company, Leocenis García.
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011
Three journalists from TV station Canal 9 in
Paraguay, and the ex-director of the National Television System, Ismael Hadid, are
on trial for defamation and libel. Reporter Silvio Cuevas, host Yolanda Park, and the channel’s press director, Andrés Caballero, were sued by a lawyer, Evelio Fabio Salinas, after Cuevas in May 2010 interviewed a woman who accused the lawyer of falsifying birth certificates in order to facilitate adoptions.
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011
Blog posts of family members asking for justice following their relative’s suspicious death in police custody have been
deleted by Chinese censors, potentially to quell discourse over alleged police brutality. The official police record claims that Huang Guohui, who had reportedly trespassed onto a nature reserve in Hainan, had ”committed suicide in the interrogation room by hanging himself”. However his daughter and other family members say his body was found in the room covered in wounds.
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011
Russian investigators have detained a former lieutenant police colonel
as a suspect in the murder of Russian journalist
Anna Politkovskaya. The campaigning reporter was openly critical of Russia’s involvement in Chechnya. According to the latest investigation, Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov was offered cash to murder Politkovskaya, and he was a part of a group aiming to kill her, including
Rustam Makhmudov. Makhmudov was arrested on 31 May for allegedly shooting Politkovskaya. There are also allegations that Pavlyucenkov used his position as lieutenant police colonel to monitor the movements of the journalist.
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011
Users of an online carers forum are devastated after their site is closed following threats of legal action. Emily Butselaar reports on a worrying instance of internet censorship (more…)
