FACT: There has never been an Israeli peace camp.
In response to this story, Aziz tweeted:
In other words, such an opinion could not be expressed in an open and frank manner in an American newspaper, whereas it can in a major Israeli newspaper.
Latest Updates: free press RSS
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thabet
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johnpi
This is dumb: Afghanistan bans coverage of Taliban attacks.
Afghanistan on Monday announced a ban on news coverage showing Taliban attacks, saying such images embolden the Islamist militants, who have launched strikes around the country as NATO forces seize their southern strongholds.
The Taliban are making their own videos, they don’t need the media to get video drama when they’re standing right next to it. Here’s a Frontline documentary that aired on Tuesday, “Behind Taliban Lines.” At one point one of the fighters is shown holding up a small device – either a cell phone or a small digital camera – showing off video of one their own attacks.
This ruling is self-serving on the part of the Afghan government.
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thabet
Reason #4,593 why Rupert Murdoch is a cancer on society.
As usual, there is some brilliant commentary by Septic Isle on this.
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thabet
In an astonishing development, The Grauniad has been gagged:
Guess who is involved?
The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.
Carter-Ruck specialises in helping people with the money use Britain’s libel laws to clamp down on ‘unconformable questions’, especially online.
Rumours (and that’s all they are at present) on numerous blogs suggest that the gag may involve Trafigura, the company responsible for dumping toxic waste on the shores of the Ivory Coast which The Graun has covered quite extensively. This piece by David Leigh, published back in May, highlights one possible explanation:
Incidentally, the Trafigura dumping story highlights how damage to the environment is not the preserve of a few yuppies in London or New York, but has immediate and dire consequences for some of the poorest people on the planet.
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thabet
It seems even his fellow Italians don’t agree that Silvio Berlusconi’s Superior Civilisation is all that superior anymore:
“Free information, not on a leash,” Franco Siddi, the secretary general of the Italian Press Federation, told a crowd in the Piazza del Popolo that organizers estimated to be at least 300,000 strong. Police officials said the number was closer to 60,000.
The group planned the Rome event “after a crescendo of episodes” suggested that the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was trying to exert pressure on the national news media, Mr. Siddi said later backstage.
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thabet
‘Letting our actions speak for themselves’:
No details of that alleged activity were offered. Journalists often make contact with opposition forces in the course of their work. Last November, the Central Criminal Court of Iraq ruled that Jassam is not a security threat and asked the Americans to release him. The American response has been to politely ignore the court and keep the photographer in prison as his first anniversary in jail approaches.
Hardly new though. Jassam joins journalists like Sami Al-Hajj (held for six years without charge in Guantanamo where he was questioned not about terrorism, but about Al-Jazeera), or Bilal Hussein (held for two years without charge in Iraq by the US military) in having been held without charge for extended periods of time by the US.
Expect some loud screeching in the comments from the resident Obama cultist…
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thabet
The president of the Official Council of Jewish Communities in Sweden offers a good response to Israel’s demands that the Swedish government denounce an article in a Swedish tabloid which claimed the Israeli Defence Forces is ‘harvesting organs’ of Palestinians:
“What’s even worse is that by making the preposterous demand for a government condemnation, the debate has changed from anti-Semitism to freedom of speech in Sweden: Instead of concentrating on debunking the story, they have made it a freedom of speech issue. The government is not going to condemn the article – freedom of speech here is sacrosanct,” added Posner, who said she could see how the Swedish mainstream media, which at first attacked the tabloid for printing the piece, were now supporting it, based on the principle of preserving the freedom of speech.
So, The Only Democracy In The Middle East is a little more like its neighbouring enemies than it imagined…
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thabet
The New Iraq (The New 100% Sovereign Iraq that is):
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johnpi
Roxana Saberi, a 31-year-old dual American-Iranian citizen who was working as a journalist for Western media outlets in Iran, has been convicted of spying for the US in that country and sentenced to eight years in prison, her lawyer said Saturday, dashing any hopes for her quick release.
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thabet
Human Rights Watch criticises the UAE’s new media law.
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thabet
While Defenders of Western Civilisation cry into their cornflakes over the pulping of a trash novel, a genuine threat has developed to free press and reporting the conflict in the Holy Land:
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thabet
Below is a map showing the Reporters Without Borders free press ranking for 2007.
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thabet
Al Azhar, regarded as Sunnism’s leading scholarly and religious institution, has condemned a documentary by Iranian filmmakers on Anwar Sadat. Al Azhar has said the film should be burnt.
As the FaithWorld blogger, Aziz El-Kaissouni, notes, this is a good example how Muslim states enlist “Islamic scholars into echoing the government’s grievances with an added Islamic flavour”. No Orientalism here, I am afraid. The more uncomfortable truth may be that a major Muslim institution is acting in the service of an autocratic regime (with the added phenomenon that it is ‘nationalising’ itself further).
Iran has responded by saying the film does no represent the official view of the state and has been made by a “private organisation”. On this point, El-Kaissouni notes:
[Iran's official stance regarding the documentary] is one of the cultural issues that pops up every time something like this happens. During the Danish cartoons controversy, various figures in the religious or political establishments of Muslim countries demanded the offending paper and artists be prosecuted. They seemed to operate on the assumption that all states can control media output in their countries, as many Muslim and Arab governments do.
I don’t know if this response by Arab religious and political establishment figures can be necessarily called a ‘cultural issue’. I suggest it is more likely these establishment figures are interested in shoring up their political power. I do agree, however, that culture may play a part in what can or cannot be subjected to media scrutiny and intensity in different countries.
