21 Dec 11 | Uncategorized
When the occasion really demands it Czechs are able to act professionally and in an extremely dignified fashion. At 8 a.m. today Václav Havel’s coffin was taken from Prague’s Old Town across Charles Bridge and up to Prague Castle, followed by an estimated 10,000 citizens expressing their sorrow.
These people braved for several hours the inclement weather to make their feelings known, in contrast to the four Stalinist MPs who refused to pay their last respects to Havel in the Lower Hose of Parliament.
Outside of the castle area the cortege transformed itself into a military march and the coffin was transferred on to a gun carriage led by six black horses moving towards the Old King’s Palace, where it will be laid in state until Friday when the funeral ceremony will take place in St Vitus Cathedral next door.
A speech was made by the present Czech president, Václav Klaus, who confirmed that like his co-citizens he too is able to respect the occasion and make a dignified diplomatic speech which emphasised Václav Havel´s achievements and life’s tribulations.
In some ways today’s proceedings reminded one of January 1969 and the funeral of the first student to immolate himself, Jan Palach. He decided to sacrifice himself in the hope of making his co-citizens reflect and step back from the brink of collaboration with the new powers of State agents of the normalisation process supported by Soviet tanks. His co-citizens did indeed spur themeselves to take part en masse in his funeral, which was a most solemn affair. Very quickly thereafter Palach’s legacy was swept under the carpet. Havel and co remained very much the exceptions in resisting the occupiers and their acolytes. I wonder whether this too will be the fate of Havel’s ideas and pursual of truth.
21 Dec 11 | Leveson Inquiry
A journalist at the Daily Express who covered the disappearance of Madeleine McCann told the Leveson Inquiry that featuring the story on the front page became the editor’s “obsession”.
Nick Fagge said the tabloid’s then editor — Peter Hill — had decided the case of the toddler, who went missing in Portugal in May 2007, would “sell papers” and featured the story on the front page of the paper regardless of an article’s strength.
“The editor at the time decided it was the only story he was interested in,” Fagge said, adding that he himself was concerned over the direction the coverage was going in.
Kate and Gerry McCann accepted £550,000 in damages and an apology from Express Newspapers in March 2008 for what the publisher admitted were “entirely untrue” and “defamatory” articles. The damages were donated to the fund set up to find the toddler.
Another reporter on the case, David Pilditch, told the Inquiry that “getting to the truth” of the matter was “impossible” because of the laws in Portugal restricting police talking to the press about the case.
“There was no strategy, just confusion all round, when there should have been focus”.
Pilditch and Fagge’s colleague, Padraic Flanagan, told the Inquiry that they were sent to Portugal to “produce stories” and that it would take “quite a brave reporter to call the desk and say ‘I’m not really sure about this, I’m not going to send anything back today’.”
“The questions I asked myself,” he said, “were ‘what can I find today’, ‘what can I offer the newsdesk, how can I keep up with rivals?'”, Flanagan said.
Fagge said, ” I’d be thinking of verifying the story as best I could. I wouldn’t be thinking of a potential libel case.”
With the restrictions in place, Pilditch said his sources included Portuguese newspapers, the McCanns’ spokesman, local crime reporters who had been in contact with the police, and a police translator. He told the Inquiry he was able to develop dialogue with police through these third party sources.
“All I could do was present the information [to the newsdesk] and explain the sources where the information came from,” he said, adding that there was “no way round” the situation.
Counsel to the Inquiry Robert Jay QC ran Pilditch through a series of articles about the McCanns that had his byline. One reported “findings” of Madeleine’s DNA in the family’s hire car, which Jay said was “at best inconclusive”.
He pointed out that the toddler’s DNA was not uncovered in the car, to which Pilditch said, “we know that now, but we didn’t know that then”.
He added, “a problem with a lot of this stuff was the way information was leaking out”, noting it was as though the police were “thinking out loud”.
In an article that opened with “Kate and Gerry McCann are still regarded as the prime suspects in the disappearance of their daughter”, Pilditch claimed it he “didn’t really write the story”, but the piece was bylined with Pilditch and Fagge’s names.
Later, Jay put it to Pilditch that he was “getting all sorts of tittle-tattle form different people when you knew the police couldn’t officially talk”.
He also asked Pilditch if “people like you” thought about the impact of their stories, which “imply that the child has not been abducted but something far more sinister has happened”.
Pilditch denied it was tittle-tattle, telling Jay that the information came from senior detectives on the case.
Lord Justice Leveson said: “it’s all fluff.”
The Inquiry will continue on 9 January.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson
21 Dec 11 | Asia and Pacific
An outspoken professor of constitutional law has resigned his post in the university after being investigated by police and received death threat for his comments about the Malaysian constitutional monarchy.
“I have decided to resign due to the pressure, which makes it impossible to fulfill the ideals of being an academic,” Professor Abdul-Aziz Bari said in an email interview. “The pressure on my [academic] friends is also part of the reason as I do not want to get them into trouble.”
He said his last day as the law lecturer of the International Islamic University Malaysia (Universiti Islam Antarabangsa- UIA) will be on 31 December.
In early October, he commented that it was “unusual and inconsistent” for the Selangor state’s Sultan, Sharafuddin Idris Shah to come out in defence of the state’s religious department (Selangor Islamic Affairs Department- JAIS), which has come under fire for raiding a church allegedly converting Muslims. Under Malaysia’s law, proselytising Muslims is prohibited. The Sultan had admitted that although the department had evidence of proselytising occurring at the raided church, it did not warrant legal prosecution.
The professor’s comment was deemed to insult the monarchy by Malay ethno-religious pressure groups and he was attacked by a daily newspaper, Utusan Malaysia, owned by the ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). A senator from UMNO lodged a police report against him. Following the controversy, the university suspended Bari, but the move provoked public outcry. Activists, opposition law makers and academics criticised the suspension as a violation of academic freedom. On 24 October, the university lifted the suspension after hundreds of university students reportedly staged a demonstration against the decision.
Discussion of the role of the monarchy remains a sensitive topic in Malaysia, nine of its thirteen states are ruled by Sultans, while the remaining four have a Yang Dipertua (Head of State). The Federal Constitution and the Sedition Act 1948 outlaw questioning the position of the monarchy, and both have been exploited by politicians and right-wing groups to condemn any discussion of the role of royalty. Bari, who has written extensively on monarchy and politics, argued in an 12 October article published on news website Malaysiakini that criticism of the monarchy is permitted under Malay law — the line is crossed when someone calls for its abolision. After the article was published, both Malaysiakini and Bari were questioned by the Communications and Multimedia Commission, the regulator of electronic and online sector
On 29 October, he received a bullet along with a warning in the post. In early November, the Higher Education Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin said the Professor should resign. By late November Bari found himself in deeper controversy, after the Sultan expressed his disapproval of comments Bari made on another issue. Bari said that an earlier amendment to the state enactment exempted the accounts of the state religious council (Selangor Islamic Affairs Council-Mais) and the Selangor Zakat Board from audit by the national Audit-General. But he said that given the limited access to the documents of the amendment, he could have been mistaken in his comments and was willing meet the Sultan to clear the air.
Although the police have completed investigation of his case, Bari remains concerned about what will happen to him.
“I’m worried because I’m not informed of what the police will do, they could charge me” he said.
21 Dec 11 | Uncategorized
Lacoste has refuted claims that the work of Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour was removed from the shortlist for the Lacoste Elsee prize based on her work being too “pro-Palestinian” as she has claimed.
Lacoste told Index that the work was removed from the shortlist “because it didn’t correspond to the theme of the 2011 edition” which was “joie de vivre” and said that they “regret the political interpretation” of their decision.
Soren Lind, husband and assistant of Sansour, denied that this was the case and said Sansour had received “nothing but praise” for her work.
Nominees for the prize were told in an email that even though the museum was teaming up with Lacoste, it was not an “advertising campaign” and gave the nominees “total artistic freedom” in interpreting the theme. Lind said that the artists were told that they “didn’t have to take [the theme] literally.”
The question of violating the rules was new to Lind. According to him, “nothing in communications prior had anything saying that she doesn’t meet the requirements.” Messages exchanged between Musée de l’Elysée and Sansour also contradict the reasoning offered by Lacoste. In a message notifying Sansour of her removal from the list, a representative from the museum said that “the decision was taken by Lacoste” and that the museum had defended her work.
Lind also mentioned that the director of the museum, Sam Stourdzé, told him in a phone conversation that while the “piece is not anti-Israeli, he still felt it was too political.”
Steering clear of political themes has been a point of conflict in the past, Lind said. One of last year’s finalists, Camila Rodrigo Grana also created debate with her work, which showed a bootleg vendor in Lima selling counterfeit Lacoste polo shirts, which also could be interpreted politically. Lind said that although concerns were voiced, the committee “ended up allowing the project” rather than pulling her from the nomination list.
Lind pointed out that officials were censoring artists and “expecting them to be compliant.” The museum, which has offered to display Sansour’s work separately, attempted to convince her to sign a statement stating that she “decided to pursue other opportunities.”
Index has also attempted to contact the Musée de l’Elysée, but has not yet had a response.
