21 Oct 2011 | News, Uncategorized
As the Occupy movement protesting against social and economic inequality rumbles on and spreads across the world, journalists covering the protests are facing increasingly negative treatment from the police, particularly in New York.
Freelancer Natasha Lennard, John Farley of MetroFocus magazine and Kristen Gwynn, freelancer with news websiteAlterNet, were all arrested in the earlier stages of the movement, whilst a cameraman and a journalist from Fox 5 were both assaulted. All three were arrested because they didn’t have the correct press cards.
Since August 2010, the responsibility to issue press cards in New York lay with the police department. A wide range of restrictions are in place to determine who qualifies as a journalist. To be granted press accreditation, a journalist must have published or broadcast breaking news at least six times in the past year, and without a press card, they cannot cover the protests.
Two other reporters have been assaulted during their coverage of the protests. Cameraman Roy Isen, of Fox 5, was pepper sprayed in the face, and his colleague, reporter Dick Brennan, was hit with a police baton.
Rumours are suggesting that anyone with a camera is being targeted by the police force, including professional and citizen journalists, hampering coverage of the protests. NYPD have denied those with cameras are being singled out.
The Occupy movement has adopted the slogan “we are the 99%”, noting the difference in wealth with the top 1 percent of earners in the USA. The protests began in New York on 17 September and have become referred to as “951 cities in 82 countries”, having spread across the world to cities including Reykjavík, Amsterdam, Auckland and Kuala Lumpur.
20 Oct 2011 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost
A radio commentator in the Philippines was shot dead on 14 October. Datu Roy Bagtikan Gallego was shot dead on the national highway in Sitio Mamprasanon, in Lianga town during an ambush. Gallego, who often criticised mining operations and spoke in defence of tribal rights was due to start a new slot on a radio program this week with 92.7 Smile FM San Francisco. Gallego’s death comes one week after the murder of fellow journalist Johnson Pascual. Lianga Police have not yet identified any suspects or a motive for the murder.
19 Oct 2011 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
The security guards of a Peruvian congressman have been involved in attack on two journalists. Carlos Chávez Galdós and Leucario Madera Guardaluna, from TV stations Compañía de TV Cuzqueña and Canal 47 de Cuzco, were attacked outside a nightclub in Cuzco, southern Peru, after they suprised Congressman Rubén Coa Aguilar while he was drunk. According to the journalists, the Congressman’s bodyguards and nightclub security personnel attacked them and took their video cameras, after Coa Aguilar asked his security to hit the reporters, take their equipment and delete their videos.
19 Oct 2011 | Africa, Index Index, minipost
A parliamentary seminar to discuss proposed changes to Sudan‘s press law was subject to a heated debate about pre-publication censorship on Monday. During the seminar, a leading member of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), Fathi Shilah, described press censorship as an act of backwardness regardless of the authority that implements it. The current press law in the country, passed in 2009, has been heavily criticised by journalists who claim the law only appears to create a free press. Newspapers are confiscated and censored by security authorities aiming to prevent publication and large financial penalties can be handed to journalists.
