18 Mar 2008 | Comment, News
The change of government owed a great deal to Internet activism, with bloggers even taking parliamentary seats, writes David Jardine
Malaysia’s stunning election results of 8 March, which have seen the 40-year-long two-thirds majority of the ruling BN (Barisan Nasional/ National Front) coalition blown away, have hugely important implications for freedom of expression in the former British colony where draconian British-devised legislation has been a significant prop of state power.
The opposition to new Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will include five bloggers, including the internationally known Jeff Ooi and the media reform advocate Elizabeth Wong. One Malaysian media commentator has observed that their presence is particularly ‘galling’ to BN.
Blogging, which also played a role in the ‘reformasi’ (reform) movement of the late 1990s that coalesced around the protests against perceived state persecution of the former deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, has been a highly successful means of circumventing the state-controlled and ruling party-directed media. Anwar, although until next month officially barred from running for office himself, is the de facto leader of Keadilan, and his election rallies drew large crowds even in small towns.
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24 Jan 2008 | News
A young reporter has been found guilty of blasphemy, writes Harun Najafizada in Balkh
A primary court in the city of Mazar-e Sharif in northern Afghanistan has sentenced local journalist Sayed Parvez Kambakhsh to death.
Kambakhsh, 23, a reporter for Jahan-e Naw (New World) weekly and a student of journalism at Balkh University has been accused of blasphemy and misrepresenting the verses of the Quran.
On Tuesday afternoon, the primary court of Mazar-e Sharif convened a session behind closed doors and announced the verdict after a three-hour discussion.
The session, which was not attended by defending lawyers, journalists or human rights defenders, or even by Kambakhsh’s relatives, has been widely criticised for issuing such a strong sentence and ignoring the Afghan constitution.
Kambakhsh, who was arrested three months ago by the National Security Department (the intelligence service) and kept in prison, had downloaded an article from an Iranian website and distributed it to his friends.
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8 Jan 2008 | Comment
Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris will tomorrow table an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill calling for the abolition of ‘blasphemous libel’. Here, Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society explains why such a crime has no place in a liberal society
Religion in Britain was, until relatively recently, sinking quietly into oblivion. It was suffering a lingering death brought on by utter indifference.
But now, suddenly, it is on the front page of the newspapers just about every day of the week. It often leads on the news and its ubiquity is beginning to alert even the most news-averse citizen that something extraordinary, and quite alarming, is going on. (more…)
6 Dec 2007
Bridging the gap between the monitoring of abuse and effective advocacy for change through facilitation, research, publication, advocacy and new commissioned works.
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The change of government owed a great deal to Internet activism, with bloggers even taking parliamentary seats, writes David Jardine