Fitwatch closure illustrates threat to free speech
The ease with which the police closed down the activist site is worrying, says Val Swain
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Egyptian blogger released after four years in jail
Online free expression activists around the world are rejoicing at the news that jailed Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer has been freed and had returned to his family’s Alexandria home. Amer won the Hugo Young Award for Journalism at the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression awards in 2007.
Amer’s four-year jail sentence actually ended on 5 November, but the Egyptian authorities held on to him for nearly two weeks extra — prompting protests from Amnesty International and others. The Egyptian government — which grants itself sweeping powers under the so-called “emergency laws”— has a history of acting in defiance of its own judiciary. This includes openly ignoring court-ordered releases, or releasing a suspect and then immediately re-arresting him.
So the delay in Amer’s release had supporters worried that the police would simply keep him indefinitely.
Amer was sentenced to four years in prison in 2007, having already served two years in custody, for a package of charges that include insulting Islam, encouraging sedition and defaming President Hosni Mubarak.
His crimes: a series of blog posts that bluntly expressed his atheist beliefs and his criticism of the state of Islamic discourse. His case has already prompted a long-running solidarity campaign by supporters who consider him a “political prisoner”“, guilty of nothing more than thought crime.
Amer has made no public statements since his release. According his supporters, he has requested a bit of quiet and privacy with his family. It remains to be seen whether he will renew his writings, or whether the Egyptian police — particularly the notorious Alexandria contingent — will leave him alone.
Bollywood tackles gay taboo
Following last summer’s decriminalisation of gay sex in India, the transition from legalisation to widespread acceptance has not been seamless. Bollywood has tackled this taboo directly with last week’s release of Dunno Y Na Jaane Kyun. It is the first Indian film to show a gay kiss, and its director claims that it is also the first to offer a realistic perspective of a homosexual relationship.
The crew started filming last year following June’s welcome ruling and the first draft arrived in the editing room seven months ago. The opposition that has met the film’s director, Sanjay Sharma, and leading man Kapil Sharma, may reflect the fact that full decriminalisation of homosexuality still relies on the judgement passing through the Supreme Court.
Firstly, despite the director’s expectation that his film would escape significant sanitisation, the censors were quick to swoop. Kapil Sharma has said, “the censor board has cut 50 per cent of the kissing and love-making scenes between me and my screen-partner. They’ve also cut the shots of back nudity. Just a glimpse of the butt is there.”
There have also been expressions of regret and self-censorship amongst some of the cast, although Sharma insists playing gay was worth it. Yuvraaj Parasher who plays Kapil’s gay lover has been ostracised and disowned by his family, and some cast members seem to have distanced themselves from the project during the build up to its release.
The BJP, the ever outraged right wing Hindu nationalist party, have been making their fury known. Members of its zealous youth wing have laid siege to Sharma’s house and he has received numerous threats from individuals and organisations. In October, these threats caused a delay in the film’s release date.
And it transpires that a number of cinemas have got cold feet about screening the film. On Monday, several multiplexes in Mumbai announced they will not be showing it because the film is not compatible with the values of the family audiences they wish to attract.
Although the acting has not met with universally positive reaction, the film is not without its supporters in India, especially amongst gay activists. It is due to be released in Britain next year.
Phonetapping on the rise in Mexico
It was the scandal of the week. A clandestine telephone interception revealed the conversation between two top executives from Stendhal and Norvartis pharmaceutical companies, as they discussed pay offs to a government official working for the Mexican social security system called Instituto Mexicano de Seguro Social (IMSS) in order to obtain an $80m government contract.
The tape was aired by Televisa, the television giant, on its nightly show last Tuesday to a national uproar. It was picked up by every newsmedia, something that is rare in Mexico, where professional jealousy keeps national media away from stories that are broken by other colleagues. The story conveniently broke as the Mexican Congress was debating an overhaul of the social security system, a multi-million programme that provides top medical care to more than 14 million Mexicans employed by private businesses. The system is facing bankruptcy. The tape release cost the two pharmaceutical officials their jobs, and the position of a top social security official.
The tapes are part of a trend that has taken over Mexico, a place where charges of corruption abound, and few government officials pay for their misdoings. Citizens, politicians and unknown sources are producing clandestine telephone recordings and videotapes that go on to accuse corrupt officials. In another case, a complaint by a resident of Aguascalientes province led police to videotape a doctor who was illegally asking for graft before he offered a service that fell within his insurance.
The tape was also released in another Televisa news program called Primero Noticias and placed in YouTube. The second case led to the government levying charges against the doctor.
But the proliferation of illegal recordings and videotapes is of concern to some in Mexico, as leaks from unidentified sources often further the personal goals of those who release the material to the media.
In the case of the pharmaceutical executives, it has been revealed that the recordings disappeared from social security offices. The telephone tapes had been sent to social security director, Daniel Karam, earlier on Tuesday and submitted for an internal investigation. Thus someone in the system decided it was better to send them to national television where an outcry would condemn the individuals featured on the tape before it was investigated whether the charges were real.
One of the executives in the tape has claimed that whoever taped their private conversations conducted an illegal act and connected three different conversations to make it seem convincing. It will be hard for the public, which is so accustomed to government officials asking for bribes to believe this turn of the story. A doctor friend of mine who works at the IMSS told me corruption in the system is endemic and even doctors engage in it by not working more than three hours a day. But it seems this tape appearance is more political—the two opposition political parties have used it to attack the ruling Partido de Accion Nacional for missteps in public policy.
Last year’s most famous recording was that of the former minister of labour, Luis Tellez, who accused former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari of stealing money. The release of the tape cost Tellez his job. Nothing happened to Salinas.
These illegal tapings or videotapes subvert Mexico’s legal system. They contribute to an overall cynicism among citizens who already feel the legal system does not protect them from corruption.
More dangerous is the possibility that drug cartels are also taping individuals and government officials. One security expert said he didn’t doubt the cartels are using sophisticated eavesdropping equipment. In Ciudad Juarez last year, the Federal Police were surprised when they discovered that an aerostatic balloon that had gone up in the city had eavesdropping equipment that could target their operation communications. This balloon apparently cost the lives of several police officers.
Fifteen years ago, while working on a story on Ciudad Juarez, I found a US citizen working for the Juarez Cartel who had built intercepting equipment to tape cellular conversations. The boxes cost $50,000 at the time and had been acquired by the late kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes. The inventor was eventually killed by Carrillo Fuentes. Technology has improved and with that the right to have interception free conversations has become more and more of an issue in Mexico these days.