20 Apr 2010 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized
A leading Sudanese journalist is facing a lengthy prison term after being charged with “waging war against the state”. The National Press Council’s lead attorney has brought charges against Al-Haj Ali Warrag, after the opposition party member advocated an election boycott in an opinion piece published in the independent newspaper Ajras al-Huriya on 6 April. Speaking to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Warrag said that the case was “political persecution and nothing to do with the law”.
20 Apr 2010 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized
Microsoft has denied claims that its staff were involved in the silencing of internet television station Stan TV, which was raided by police on April 1. Initial reports claimed the police were accompanied by a Microsoft representative, who came armed with an order from Kyrgyzstan Prosecutor General’s office authorising him to seal the station’s equipment. The order alleged that Stan Media LLC was using pirated Microsoft software.
The use of anti-piracy legislation by local law enforcement agencies to legitimise harassment of the independent media is becoming more frequent in ex-Soviet republics, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. In November 2007, the Samara edition of award-winning Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta was effectively shut down due to accusations that the company was using unlicensed Microsoft software. In 2008, Vyatsky Nablyudatel was subject of similar allegations, but took the decision to move over to open-source software to beat the regulations, as its editor reported in Index on Censorship magazine at the time.
20 Apr 2010 | News and features
Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari, the keynote speaker at this year’s Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards, has reportedly been subject to threats by Iranian officials
(more…)
19 Apr 2010 | Uncategorized
Couple of articles still basking in the BCA’s climbdown in its defamation case against Simon Singh.
In the Guardian, Simon Singh stresses that though his case is over, the battle for reform continues:
…any reform needs to be radical, not merely tinkering. There are several issues that need to be addressed, such as the current lack of a public interest defence, the unfair burden of proof on defendants, libel tourism and so on. And each problem needs to be tackled properly.
Simon was also profiled in the Sunday Times.
Meanwhile Nick Cohen in the Observer celebrates the geeks who backed Simon’s campaign against the Chiropractics:
There is an overlap with the more assertive atheism which followed 9/11. Like atheists, skeptics treat as patronising and contemptible the cynical modern belief that you should not examine religion or alternative medicines because the simple-minded and uninformed find comfort in them. But you do not have to be an atheist to be a skeptic, merely commit to the free examination of evidence. This modest ambition is surprisingly potent.
Politicians who supported libel reform had a smart and committed network behind them. I suspect that politicians who still want to defend our irrational drugs laws or alternative treatments on the NHS will find that they will face unrelenting scrutiny from equally smart and committed opponents. My hope after Singh’s victory is that none but the foolhardy will want a repeat of the drubbing the chiropractors received.
