8 Jun 2010 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
Two policemen have been arrested, and the country’s most senior policeman suspended from duty, after the death of a human rights activist in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Voice of the Voiceless” campaigner Floribert Chebeya, whose body was discovered last week in a Kinshasa suburb, was last heard from shortly before attending a meeting ordered by the inspector general of the national police force, John Numbi. Following the arrest of two policemen suspected of killing Chebeya, Numbi was suspended on Sunday by the attorney general, to allow an internal investigation to take place. Chebeya’s death has prompted widespread international attention. Criticisms have also been raised over increased police harassment of human rights activists. Four DRC-based human rights campaigners have been murdered in the last four years.
8 Jun 2010 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
The launch of the first new independent domestic Zimbabwean newspaper in 17 years was disrupted by Harare police on Friday (4 June). Shortly before the first edition of NewsDay was due to be delivered to newstands around Harare, the newspaper’s marketing manager, Linda Msika, was arrested along with distribution staff and vendors. Police officers were allegedly unhappy that NewsDay — given a publishing license by the Zimbabwe Media Commission last week — was to give away Friday’s edition for free. After being detained for several hours, staff members were released without charge, and the distribution of the newspaper was allowed to proceed. NewsDay, owned by the independent Alpha Media Holdings group, is expected to offer a counterpoint to Harare’s two state-owned, pro-government newspapers.
8 Jun 2010 | Index Index, minipost
La Voz de Zacate Grande, a community radio station was closed down by 300 soldiers and police officers, on 3 June. The station which began broadcasting on 14 April, defends the cause of the Association for the Development of the Zacate Grande Peninsula (ADEPZA), whose representatives are accused by agro-industrial tycoon Miguel Facussé Barjum of occupying “his“ land and “tax fraud. Yellow tape bearing with the words “crime scene” now surrounds the small station.
8 Jun 2010 | Uncategorized
Dutch writer Frank Westerman will be speaking to Index on Censorship’s John Kampfner at the Free Word Centre tonight (book here).
Readers may have heard Westerman on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning (listen here), describing how he discovered the first known film of Turkmen people — Kara Bogaz — a Soviet propaganda film from the 1930s, showing how communism brought prosperity and civilisation to the nomadic people.
The film was never actually shown. Why? At the time, Stalin would demand that he be the first person to see all films made in the USSR. The film’s creator, Konstantin Paustovsky (who had adopted the film from his 1932 book), made the mistake of allowing the French communist critic Henri Barbusse see the film. Barbusse subsequently praised Kara Bogaz in the pages of Izvestia, saying it portrayed a “great many authentically socialist moments” (incidentally, Barbusse died just three days after the publication of the review in August 1935).
Paustovsky and his filmmaking comrades, clearly terrified of the consequences of crossing Stalin, decided to stifle their film, through the odd tactic of stringing out the editing process indefinitely, thereby rendering the film unavailable for release.
Such a small, petty reason for stifling such a significant historical work. But as is often pointed out, tyrannies rule not through consistency, but through capriciousness. The subjugated must never know whether they’re on the right side or not from one day to the next.
