Geovanni Acate, director of Radio Televisión Oriente, is facing a 10-year prison sentence after being charged with disrupting public tranquility and instigating the public to commit the crime of rebellion. Geovanni Acate, as Radio La Voz and other radio stations in the region, has been persecuted after reporting on the protests that took place in Bagua Grande in 2009.
Belarus: The Ministry of Information has refused to register the newspaper Silnye Novosti Gomelya, run by the Pechatnoe Slovo company, according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists. The refusal was justified on the basis that the editor’s qualifications did not meet the Ministry’s requirements. According to the BAJ, at least eight newspapers have been denied registration by the government since the autumn of 2009. The news coincides with reports that a journalist and candidate for the city council in the town of Babruisk was beaten by police for raising the white-red flag of the Belarusian People’s Republic, a symbol of protest against the government of President Alexander Lukashenko. His trial continues.
Last week, pro-government activists held a picket in front of the offices of the opposition “Narodnaya Volya” newspaper over an extract they published from Illya Kopyl’s book Nyabyshyna, which documents activity of Soviet guerillas in the period of Nazi occupation. In other news, Maxim Vunyarski, an activist for the European Belarus movement, is to face trial for participating in a rally for Solidarity Day on March 16.
France: A Paris court has fined the France 24 news channel for reporting press rumours that first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was having an affair with a French pop singer. Judges ordered the publicly-funded television channel to pay 3,000 euros to the singer in question, Benjamin Biolay, following a ruling that the coverage violated his privacy. On April 6, it was reported that President Sarkozy has ordered a “campaign of terror” to punish those responsible for rumours which circulated last month on supposed tit-for-tat, extra-marital affairs by the French first couple reported in Britain and Switzarland. Lawyers for France 24 argued that it that exceptional level of international coverage made it a legitimate story to include in their press review. The court rejected this defence.
According to Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun the Chinese Central Propaganda Department has issued guidelines on reporting of the Qinghai earthquake disaster. All internal news items circulated within mainland China are to be approved by state officials before publishing, and can only focus on positive aspects of the relief effort.
Western media has already been more critical, focussing on aspects such as the unrecognised efforts of the 200 Tibetan monks who were banned from accessing certain areas of the city, instead concentrating on helping the rural population whose houses suffered the most damage. Other aspects that have hampered the rescue operation include delays in the arrival of aid packages and the altitude sickness experienced by many workers not native to the area. In a similar twist to the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, people have again been questioning why only government buildings have remained standing, whilst schools and homes have suffered the most destruction. Chinese news channels have been banned from reporting on these aspects of the disaster.