A journalist charged with treason will remain in pre-trial detention, a court ruled on 6 September. Jean-Claude Kavumbagu was arrested on 17 July after he wrote an article about the possibility of Burundi being the target for a terrorist attack. The editor of online newspaper Net Press, has been detained four times in his 14 years of working as a journalist. If convicted he could be sentenced to life imprisonment. Judges have not yet set a date for a further hearing.
Index on Censorship’s Mike Harris was due to meet Charter 97‘s Aleh Byabenin in Minsk, Belarus last week. Instead he ended up attending his funeral. As Index reported on Saturday, Byabenin was found dead on Friday evening, apparently hanged.
Mike explained the situation in Belarus to BBC World Service’s Europe Today yesterday (6 September). Click here to listen (from 40 mins in).
Mike was also interviewed for Russian television after Aleh’s funeral, along with members of Charter 97 and the Belarus Free Theatre.
A while back, representatives of Index and other organisations and individuals signed a letter in response to what was seen as a censorious attempt to stop bookshops hosting signings of former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s new autobiography, A Journey.
The letter said:
When it comes to literature, drama, journalism, artistic expression and scientific publication we must be consistent in our support for free speech. How can we defend the right of the Birmingham Repertory to put on and advertise a play like Behzti, despite it being deemed offensive to some Sikhs, and then call on a bookseller not to promote one of its books – or a library not to stock it — on the grounds of offence? The answer, in a liberal society, is to not read the book if it offends you, and to not buy a copy if you don’t wish royalties to go to the author.
Since then, things have changed. On Saturday, Blair’s signing in Dublin was the subject of a rowdy protest by members of the anti-Iraq war Socialist Workers Party and Republican group Eirigi, who objected to Blair’s role in the Northern Ireland peace process.
The signing went ahead, but under a massive security operation.
Today, it’s been announced that Blair will not be signing books in London. Blair said:
I have decided not to go ahead with the signing as I don’t want the public to be inconvenienced by the inevitable hassle caused by protestors
This seems practical, but hardly ideal. Clearly the violent scenes in Dublin have made Mr Blair think again. But would things in London inevitably have turned out the same? I’m not sure. An equivalent group to Eirigi does not exist, and the groups that have previously protested against Blair have not, to be fair, turned violent.
Then again, they might have decided to follow the example of the Dublin crowds.
In which case, a literary event has been closed down due to fear of violence.
Which, to me, sounds like mob censorship.
(And no, I am not for a moment questioning the right to peaceful protest.)
A witness in the case of missing journalist Vasyl Klymentyev has also gone missing. According to deputy editor Petro Matvienko, the key witness disappeared last week. He refused to reveal the person’s name for fear of jeopardising the investigation, but said he had verified the information with law enforcement agencies. The police department in Kharkiv claimed no knowledge of the witness’s disappearance. In a further development, Klymentyev’s lawyer was locked in his appartment by police. Officers forced their way into Vyacheslav Ismaylov’s home on 2 September, and barricaded him inside, saying they were investigating a case involving him. The newspaper lawyer fears that police could plant something in the appartment that would be compromising to him.
