As an arcane UN body seeks new relevance and campaigns to take over internet governance, Dominique Lazanski — a member of the UK WCIT-12 delegation — outlines the risks it poses to net freedom and free speech
Kim Kardashian flew into Bahrain’s capital today to launch the country’s first Millions of Milkshakes shop — but “sources” close to the reality TV star told TMZ that her trip to Kuwait and Bahrain is about more than promoting frozen drinks.
According to the celebrity-stalking website, Kardashian wants to “use her celebrity to raise awareness about important issues in the area”, and while in Kuwait a few days ago she met with the US Ambassador to the country, Matthew Tueller.
Before heading out to the region, Kardashian tweeted that the purpose of her trip was to “set the record straight”:
According to TMZ, Kardashian will also be meeting with “local leaders”, but I have a feeling that won’t include human rights defenders from Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) despite an invitation made by its acting president Maryam Alkhawaja asking the starlet to meet with the organisation. The BCHR won an Index Freedom of Expression Award last year for its work documenting human rights violations, political repression and torture in the tiny gulf kingdom after peaceful protests calling for political reform began on 14 February 2011. As similar protests blew across the Arab world, thousands of people took to the streets calling for democratic change and pro-democracy protests continue today. Since then Bahrain’s government has engaged in a brutal crackdown, according to BCHR, at least 84 people have been killed since the start of unrest and despite promises of reform, little has changed.
Only yesterday,ahead of a court decision next week, Amnesty International demanded that “13 opposition activists and prisoners of conscience must be released immediately by the Bahrain authorities.” And Human Rights Watch say Bahrain’s human rights situation “remains critical in the wake of the brutal crackdown”.
But is this just another case of a celebrity cluelessly brushing shoulders with corrupt government officials? Kardashian’s trip has been organised by Paresh Shah and Sheeraz Hasan, the duo behind the US-based Millions of Milkshakes franchise. Shah and Hasan have partnered up for various celebrity-oriented endeavors, including celebrity news and gossip site Hollywood.tv. Shah is an attorney, and Hasan a London-born entrepreneur who moved to the United States and launched a career as a producer, presenter, and eventual businessman. After the duo’s first milkshake store opened in West Hollywood in 2008, Kardashian launched the second shop in Dubai last year and they continue to expand in the region, with shops opening this week in Kuwait and Bahrain. The shop focuses on celebrity to draw in customers, boasting a long list of camera-heavy celebrity visits — from Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson to British X-factor alum Cher Lloyd.
Shah and Hasan appear to have an interesting relationship with Bahrain’s royal family. According to their official website, the two were given a “mandate to source unique investment opportunities outside of Bahrain and developing infrastructure within Bahrain” after meeting with the royal family earlier this year.
Hasan and Shah traveled to Bahrain only weeks before the controversial Bahrain Grand Prix in April, with Hasan tweeting a photograph of himself with Shah and a pair of Rolexes the Bahraini royal family delivered to their plane. Hasan first made mention of their unique mandate in May, shortly after returning from the trip.
Bahrain is no stranger to using flashy events to attempt to whitewash its tarnished international reputation. Formula 1 went ahead with the Bahrain Grand Prix earlier this year despite violent clashes between protesters and security forces in the build-up to the race. The country has also enlisted a number of western PR companies to whitewash its image after international condemnation of its human rights record. Its not a stretch to see why Bahrain might find the Millions of Milkshakes’ celebrity-focused approach appealing.
News of Kardashian’s trip coincided with another bizarre Bahraini celebrity story. American rocker and self-proclaimed “Party King” Andrew WK claimed to be headed to the Kingdom on a “partying and world peace” trip organised by the US Embassy in Manama. His visit was cancelled by the StateDepartment but a State Department spokeswomen told reporters that a “Bahraini entity” approached the Embassy about arranging the trip. The incident raises many questions — who was the “Bahraini entity” that suggested the trip, and why is the US Embassy in Bahrain planning on bringing in celebrities for “inspirational talks”, when it really should be placing pressure on its long-term ally to commit to reform?
Kardashian has close to 17 million Twitter followers (she is the 10th most followed account) and on arrival today she tweeted:
A message that has been retweeted over 2200 times. Kardashian reportedly receives thousands of pounds to promote products via Twitter but even if we take her trip to Bahrain at face value, it’s important to remember that celebrity visits — even if they’re just about milkshakes — are always political.
Sara Yasin is an editorial assistant at Index. She tweets from @missyasin
Friday’s newspapers gave an interesting glimpse into how the next few months of negotiation on the future of press regulation will go.
The Telegraph’s leader headline said everything you needed to know: “Let us implement the Leveson Report, without a press law.”
The Times (£) was in conciliatory mode, complimenting Lord Justice Leveson’s report as an “impressive achievement”. Importantly, the paper, target of some scorn as part of Rupert Murdoch’s News International group, noted that it was up to the press to quickly move towards independently implementing some of Leveson’s recommendations, thus avoiding a new law on the press:
The industry now needs to come together quickly to agree how independent regulation will work. It also needs to consider how to guarantee its independence…
With a flourish at the end of his press conference Sir Brian announced that “the ball moves back into the politicians’ court”. In fact it is the press that needs to act. The judge has made it painfully clear that the status quo has failed. The press, not Parliament, must act.
Stablemate the Sun was similarly supine:
MUCH of Lord Leveson’s report on the Press makes sense.
The Sun does not argue with his call for a sharper independent regulation of newspapers and many of the proposals within it.
The onus is now on the newspaper industry to come up with robust and muscular proposals for the independent regulation that can prove there is no need for the new law recommended by Lord Leveson.
The Sun is convinced this can be achieved. We have already pledged complete co-operation with a new independent watchdog that would have vastly stronger powers than the discredited Press Complaints Commission.
The Mail, while remaining quite gentlemanly about Sir Brian (“has approached his impossibly wide brief in a fine spirit of public service, firmly got behind David Cameron, who told parliament that he was not convinced by, or comfortable with, calls for a press statute:
To his enormous credit, however, David Cameron sees this report for what it is — a mortal threat to the British people’s historic right to know.
If he prevails in protecting that right, with the help of like-minded freedom lovers in the Commons and Lords, he will earn a place of honour in our history.
(It’s not entirely clear whether the “our” in whose history Cameron shall be revered is the nation or the Mail newsroom.)
The left-leaning Mirror took on Labour leader Ed Miliband’s support for statutory regulation, saying: “The Mirror is Labour’s friend,” it says, “but we refuse to swallow the party line.”
The Guardian, meanwhile, published a long and intricate editorial that did not make it entirely clear where it stood on statutory regulation. But pressed on the BBC this morning, editor Alan Rusbridger suggested that if statute was the only way of gaining the “particularly fantastic” carrots offered by Lord Justice Leveson (such as alternative dispute resolution).
Interestingly, the Daily Express, which had opted out of the PCC, pledged to get behind an independent regulator, without statute:
As David Cameron admitted yesterday, to pass a press law making newspapers ultimately accountable to Parliament for what they print would be to cross a Rubicon.
His challenge to the newspaper industry to devise its own regulatory system that complies fully with the tough principles set out by Lord Leveson, delivers fair play and yet does not require legislation is therefore one we are happy to take up.
How they’ll all figure out how to work together will make a fascinating few month’s viewing.
A blogger sued for libel by a Tanzanian media tycoon won her case today (30 November). At the High Court in London, Mr Justice Bean ruled in favour of Sarah Hermitage, who used her Silverdale Farm blog to criticise Reginald Mengi, Executive Chairman of IPP Ltd — a company with significant media interests in Tanzania.
Hermitage and her husband Stuart Middleton were driven from Silverdale Farm in Tanzania by threats and harassment. The court heard Megni’s brother Benjamin took possession of the farm following their departure. A defining factor in the ruling was the hostile coverage of Silverdale Farm by the IPP-owned newspapers. Mengi was ordered to pay £1.2million towards Hermitage’s legal costs.
Hermitage said today:
I set up my Silverdale Farm blog in 2009 to document our horrific experience in Tanzania, and to expose as a warning for others the corruption we encountered and our helplessness with no protection from the local Courts and officials.
To find myself then sued for libel in my own country, facing a claim of legal costs of £300,000 from Mr Mengi before the proceedings had even started, was itself frightening and oppressive.