Posts Tagged ‘media suppression’
August 1st, 2011
Gnanasundaram Kuhanathan, editor of the Tamil-language daily Uthayan, was on Friday evening
beaten by unidentified men with iron bars in the northern Sri Lankan city of Jaffna. Having been rushed to hospital with critical head injuries, he remains unconscious.
Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF) says that while physical attacks against journalists have largely fallen since 2010, threats and acts of intimidation continue to be common in Sri Lanka. In May, Kuhanathan’s colleague, reporter S. Kavitharan, was attacked by armed men as he made his way to work.
August 1st, 2011
Syrian forces
stormed the opposition stronghold of Hama on Sunday, in a bid to crush demonstrations before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. By this morning (1 August), the death toll had been
reported to have reached 84. The head of the political department of the Syrian army, Lieutenant General Riad Haddad, called the attacks on some cities an “indispensable necessity” to defend and protect the country. With Friday prayers having been a major rallying point for protests, more frequent visits to mosques during Ramadan might raise the potential for more regular demonstrations. But the weekend’s crackdown may well spur more protests and widespread violence during the holy period. Meanwhile, foreign journalists remain banned from Syria, leaving much
reporting in the hands of activists and citizen journalists, who face considerable risk.
July 29th, 2011
Translated screenshots from journalist Lu Chaoguo’s Tencent microblog account reveal his detention and mistreatment by police after reporting on recent
riots in Anshun, Guizhou province. The riots were sparked by a “city management” official beating to death a handicapped fruit seller.
July 29th, 2011
Guinea’s state-controlled media regulatory agency this week
imposed a “temporary” ban on media coverage of the 19 July attack on the private residence of President Alpha Condé, silencing private radio and television debate programmes in which questions were being raised over the event.
Radio France Internationale (RFI), a popular international radio station in French-speaking Africa that had originally planned to debate the attack during one of its daily news call-in programmes, has felt the pressure of the ban. Its deputy director told the
Committee to Protect Journalists: “We are not submitting to a censorship measure; we regret it and we hope that it will be temporary.” In the past, RFI has had its broadcasts temporarily banned and reporters expelled in several sub-Saharan African countries, though it continues to assert its editorial independence.
July 29th, 2011
Kyrgyzstan’s Central Elections Committee (CEC) has
decided to bar web-based news media from participating in the campaign ahead of the 30th October presidential election. Eleven news sites have been denied accreditation to inform voters on pre-election developments. While some NGOs have
claimed the move restricts citizens’ access to information, a CEC spokeswoman said, “the Kyrgyz law on mass media does not regard web-based news agencies as media outlets; that is why they cannot generate revenue from promotion of the candidates.”
The decision comes just weeks after Kyrgyzstan became the first country in former Soviet Central Asia to
decriminalise libel, a move hailed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as a boost for press freedom.
July 25th, 2011
Reporters Without Borders has revealed several journalists covering Malawi’s recent
protests have been beaten and detained, while the government has banned radio stations from covering the demonstrations. The protests were in place to express anger against fuel shortages, price hikes and a general decline in the economy, as well as to call for more democratic governance.
