26 Mar 2010 | Uncategorized
The recent dispute between Google and China has been covered in great depth by the international media, and China’s own state-owned news networks such as, Xinhua, have also been diligently reporting on the unfolding events. A search of Xinhua’s English-language website reveals a handful of fairly unbiased news stories, including a piece stating that Google’s actions will not damage Sino-Chinese relations.
However, a search for 谷歌 –– Google’s Chinese name –– on Chinese-language versions of the same website reveals a totally different story. On the same day, 23 March, Xinhua was reassuring its English readers that the row would remain a purely commercial concern “unless someone politicizes the issue”, Xinhua published another story only available in Chinese, entitled “Google has already turned into a political tool”. That article argues that America uses Google to promote its political ideology and enforce a cultural hegemony, it claims the company’s actions are a direct attempt to subvert the Chinese government.
In another damning article, entitled “China rejects the politics of Google” published on 19 March even before Google redirected traffic to its Hong Kong servers, Beijing reporters accuse the business giant of being intricately linked to US intelligence. The “freedom of information” argument, they declare, is simply a ruse to indoctrinate Chinese society with American ideals and values. Articles such as these and many more are not available in translation on its English website.
The Chinese government is unhappy its censorship procedures and appalling human rights record have been spotlighted during the controversy. The Guardian today reports that the government has released internal guidelines for any future coverage of the dispute by the press.
So English readers of Chinese news websites are provided with balanced reportage, promoting the image of China as a country of growing openness and dialogue. However, for its Chinese audiences, the news channels make available little more than state-endorsed propaganda.
This discrepancy between its approaches to international and national news reveals the sophistication of the Chinese state media. A deeper examination of press agencies such as Xinhua, shows that they are nothing more than a way for the Chinese government to simultaneously control its own public image, and the national public.
5 Mar 2010 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized
The Liberian government has been accused of resorting to intimidation to censor the nation’s media. The Center for Media Studies & Peace Building (CEMESP) has published its 2009 review of threats to freedom of expression, which urges the government to recognise the rights of others to dissent. Malcolm Joseph, Executive Director of the CEMESP, said that the use of intimidation as a means of enforcing conformance “is a treachery”. Highlighting the validity of the report, Liberian journalists were this week denied access to a meeting between former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Vice President Joseph Boakai. The CEMESP said that these tactics were more reminiscent of the regimes of Charles Taylor and Samuel Doe, the International Freedom of Expression Exchange reported.
3 Mar 2010 | Uncategorized
The Iranian authorities have banned a daily newspaper and a weekly magazine as a crackdown on reformist media escalated in the Islamic republic.
Iran’s press watchdog revoked the licences of Etemad and Irandokht on the same day that security forces arrested the 49-year-old film-maker Jafar Panahi, who is a vocal supporter of the opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.
The newspaper Etemad was banned for the first time in its eight-year history after publishing remarks made by the former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, which suggested that the country is facing a “crisis”, the Iranian Labor News Agency reported.
Mohammed Ali Ramin, Iran’s deputy culture minister for media affairs, suggested that the ban was a “bitter decision” for the government to take.
“After repeated warnings and the persistence of the paper in breaching the regulations, the watchdog had no choice but to ban it,” Ramin said.
Specifically, the board said that the newspaper had violated press law number six, forbidding media organisations from revealing secret orders or publishing discussions of parliament’s closed sessions and trials.
The Press Supervisory Board also prohibited the publication of Irandokht; a magazine run by the family of the opposition leader Mehdi Karrubi that started out as a women’s weekly, but has since altered its focus to cultural and political issues.
No official reason has been given for this decision, but the Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad told CNN that the magazine was closed after Karrubi’s wife Fatameh sent a letter to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini accusing him of abusing her son Ali.
The reporter for Etemad-e Melli said: “Now we are journalists without newspapers, and we really need help for what is happening in Iran to be heard.”
The press supervision body has been busy since the disputed re-election of president Ahmadinejad in June, with the leading business daily Sarmayeh banned in November and the popular publication Etemad-e Melli closed in August.
Highlighting the perilous situation facing many Iranian reporters, Ghanbar Naderi, a journalist for the Iran Daily, told Al Jazeera that continuing closures in the media have created a culture of self-censorship.
He said: “In these sensitive times, with the country under constant political pressure, as a journalist your first mistake will be your last.”
In a further move reflecting the continuing crackdown on dissenters, Jafar Panahi, one of Iranian cinema’s most prominent directors, is
being held at an undisclosed location after he was arrested with his wife, daughter and 15 guests at his home on Monday evening.
These arrests come just days after Iranian authorities released six journalists from Tehran’s Evin prison, including Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, spokesman for the Iranian Committee for the Defence of Freedom of the Press.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists disclosed last month that Iran is now “far and away the world’s leading jailer of journalists”. This news follows the launch of a new campaign by a number of leading press freedom and free expression groups, including Index on Censorship entitled Our Society Will be a Free Society, which aims to release the journalists and writers imprisoned by Iranian authorities.
2 Mar 2010 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized
Three Rwandan journalists have been found guilty of defaming two government ministers, in a move that has described by the Committee to Protect Journalists as an effort to silence critical journalism in the country. Former editor Charles Kabonero, acting editor-in-chief Didas Gasana, and reporter Richard Kayigamba of the private weekly newspaper Umuseso were sentenced to prison terms under Rwanda’s 2009 Media Law for a story highlighting an extramarital affair between the mayor of Kigali, Aisa Kirabo Kacyira, and Cabinet Affairs Minister Protais Musoni. The court did, however, turn down a request from the prosecution for the newspaper to be banned. Umuseso has previously been found guilty of libel after publishing an article about the parliamentary deputy speaker Denis Polisi’s political ambitions in 2004.
