15 Sep 2011 | Azerbaijan News, Index Index, minipost
Relatives of an Azerbaijani journalist were severely beaten while they attempted to prevent his house from being demolished by heavy machinery. Idrak Abbasov’s house was targeted for demolition amid accusations that it had been built illegally. The attack on 9 September was carried out by security personnel from the state-owned Binagadi Oil Company, whose activities were being investigated by the reporter. Abbasov’s family were beaten with clubs during the attack, and three of his relatives were admitted to hospital. Video footage here.
15 Sep 2011 | Index Index, minipost
The Ecuadorian Telecommunications Superintendency has announced it would seek to punish seven radio broadcasters for a simultaneous broadcast of a debate on free speech without first notifying the authorities. On Ecuador’s Independence Day (10 August), Ecuadoradio, a broadcaster owned by the El Comercio group that publishes the eponymous newspaper, organised a debate between several radio broadcasters to discuss President Rafael Correa‘s proposed communications bill, which would limit business interests of media companies and promotes government regulation of such companies. On the same day, several major Ecuadorian newspapers ran the same cover, titled “For Freedom of Expression”.
15 Sep 2011 | Americas, Mexico
The butchered bodies of a young man and a woman were found on Tuesday hanging from freeway overpass in Nuevo Laredo, Taumalipas on the US-Mexico border. Two hand-scribbled cardboard placards were left beside the bodies as a warning for Twitter and Facebook users reporting violent incidents online and through social media networks. The women’s body had been disembowelled and the ears and fingers were symbolically mutilated.
“This is going to happen to all of those posting funny things on the internet,” one sign said. “You better (expletive) pay attention. I’m about to get you.” The placards listed two specific sites which track drug crime Al Rojo Vivo and Blog del Narco and according to a spokesman from the state attorney’s office, the signs accused the unidentified victims of denouncing drug-related violence. The note was signed with the letter Z, suggesting the murders were the work of the Zetas, the organised crime syndicate which controls large parts of Taumalipas.
Maria Elena Meneses, social media expert at the Tecnologico de Monterrey, said that this new attack underscored the importance that social media has in Mexican regions with drug related violence. “People tweet and use Facebook in these areas because they feel abandoned by local government officials who cannot provide them with security, and the local news media which cannot inform,” she said. “To tweet is to mitigate uncertainty.”
A 2010 study on media and violence by the Fundacion de Periodismo de Investigacion (MEPI) found that the news media in the city of Nuevo Laredo exercised 100 per cent self censorship. In one incident, on the day that a mass grave was found with the bodies of 72 migrant workers, the Taumalipas daily El Mañana chose to run a front page story about a woman beating her young daughter instead. As drug cartels silence the press, locals have turned to social media to hear and share the news, an option it its clear that organised crime is now keen to shut-down.
14 Sep 2011 | Index Index, minipost, News
According to a source on the ground in Sudan, National Scurity forces prevented the distribution of Al-Maydan, the newspaper belonging to the Sudanese Communist party on 13 September. Yesterday was the fifth confiscation of the tri-weekly newspaper since last week. Other newspapers have also been confiscated on multiple occasions in the past month.
