Melon Farmers Original Version

World News Censorship


2014: Jan-March

 2013   2014 

 

Update: Unapproved Criticism...

China announces new laws to restrict journalism


Link Here23rd June 2014
Full story: News Censorship in China...State control and sensitive news
China has introduced new rules to restrict journalism. The rules say that journalists and their news organizations are forbidden from initiating critical reporting that has not been approved.

The new rules also prohibit a host of other journalistic activities. Reporters may not do reporting across industries or focus areas . News outlets are forbidden from establishing businesses in advertising, publishing or public relations. And they can't even circulate critical documents internally or on private websites. +

The government rules seem related to recent announcement that over 14,000 press cards had been revoked for supposedly bogus journalists. The measures also appear designed to address corruption scandals involving news outlets found to be practicing black PR, obtaining profits through paid-for content.

Update: More restrictions

17th July 2014. See  article from  cpj.org

The government had just announced that month that reporters were not allowed to report anything, even on their own blogs and social media sites , that had not been approved by an editor at their news organization. The announcement was aimed at heading off enterprising--and increasingly frustrated--reporters who would often release directly to their own readers information that had not survived their publications' editing and censorship processes.

 

 

Update: Black Days in Burma...

Newspapers blacked out in a protest against the jailing of 5 journalists


Link Here17th April 2014
Full story: Press Censorship in Burma...World leaders in oppressive censorship
On April 11, several Myanmar newspapers and journals blacked-out their front pages to protest the jailing of journalists by the national government.

The Myanmar Journalist Network says five journalists are currently detained in Myanmar, despite the government's commitment to further expand media freedom in the country.

The protest was organized right after a multimedia reporter for the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), an independent online publication, was sentenced by a local court to one year in prison for trespassing on government property and disrupting the work of a government official. The case involved Zaw Pe, a reporter covering a Japanese-funded scholarship program in 2012. He was accused of trespassing after attempting to visit and take footage at an office of the national Department of Education in central Myanmar during office hours.

In an interview with Irawaddy.com, DVB bureau chief Toe Zaw Latt called the sentence outrageous :

He was taking the video recording during office hours. It's outrageous that he is being sentenced for trespassing...We have to question the degree of press freedom in the country.

These are not good signs for press freedom, if journalists have to face a lawsuit for covering news during office hours. We are worried that these actions might be a sign of restrictions in press freedom again, as it was in the past.

 

 

Offsite Article: Is Hong Kong's media under attack?...


Link Here12th March 2014
A brutal knife attack on veteran Hong Kong editor Kevin Lau in February has prompted an immediate public outpouring of fear about the future of press independence in China's freest city.

See article from bbc.co.uk

 

 

Update: A Happy World...

Bloggers note effective Chinese censorship of the terrorist station attack


Link Here8th March 2014
Full story: News Censorship in China...State control and sensitive news
After last week's knife attack on Chinese people in Kunming by muslim terrorists, in which 29 people were hacked to death, the state council information office issued the following directive:

Media that report on the knife attack incident that occurred March 1 at the Kunming railway station must strictly adhere to Xinhua News Agency wire copy or information provided by local authorities.

Do not treat the story with large headlines; do not publish grisly photos. Please respond to confirm that you have received this message. Thank you.

The censorship seems to have been effective and this was noted by Chinese microbloggers. Ye Taijin wrote:

It is as if nothing happened in Kunming. If we didn't have Weibo and WeChat, we would still be living in a happy world like the one presented on the evening new on China Central Television.

 

 

Update: Caught Fixing Opinion Polls...

Turkish journalists protest against government censorship


Link Here17th February 2014
Full story: Press Freedom in Turkey...Not so free press

In Turkey , around 200 journalists protested against censorship and government pressure on the media . Many referred to the ruling party when they chanted AK Party get your hands off the media .

Last week, recordings were leaked on the Internet purportedly of Turkish TV executives manipulating an opinion poll and sacking reporters under government pressure. Journalist Hilmi Hacaloglu explained:

The government is trying to control the media by using the bosses or the journalists close to them. Journalists are saying they've had enough and we gathered here in the traditional press district.

The protests have reignited a debate about restrictions on press freedom , something the EU candidate nation is very familiar with.

 

 

Update: Drawing Conclusions...

Iraqi newspaper office bombed after publishing caricature of Iran's supreme leader


Link Here15th February 2014
Full story: Press Freedom in Iran...As if there were any
Independent Iraqi daily newspaper Al-Sabah Al-Jadeed has survived numerous attempts to destroy it over its 10 year existence. But on 10 February, the newspaper's Baghdad office was bombed and now its future is in doubt. The daily may need to find a new office, employees are fleeing, and its website is facing one DoS attack after another.

A few hours later the bombing a militia-like group entered the building. They came threatening us in broad daylight, so to speak, says Ismael Zayer, editor in chief. The group escaped after employees managed to warn the police.

The bomb attacks followed a social media campaign to demand the closure of the newspaper after it published its weekly supplement Zad on 6 February. The supplement was devoted to the 35th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and on the cover featured a caricature of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The cover caricature is a tradition for Zad, a supplement that came into existence in the first months of the Arab Spring. These cartoons are never intended to be offensive or convey a negative message, they are just an alternative to uninteresting photos of VIPs.

 

 

Offsite Article: World press freedom index 2014...


Link Here12th February 2014
Biggest rises and falls in the 2014 World Press Freedom Index

See article from rsf.org

 

 

Feel Good Or Else...

The Indian state of Uttar Pradesh censors major news channels after Bollywood propaganda extravaganza was rubbished


Link Here21st January 2014
India's largest and most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, has been accused of taking the country's most popular English news channel, Times Now , off the air following a wave of critical reporting. The so-called ban also extended to another channel, India News . The move led to a widespread backlash, and both channels have been restored.

While the background causes for the ban were slowly built up over time, the immediate one was Times Now's dogged coverage of a star-studded Bollywood event at a time when victims of a riot in the town of Muzzafarnagar had been left in the bitter cold to fend for themselves in relief camps.

Juxtaposing images of the young Chief Minister watching nubile Bollywood starlets gyrate to the latest hit songs with images of a little child shivering in relief camps, the channels demanded to know, among other things, why the event was taking place and where the money was coming from.

 

 

Update: Malaysia censors a BBC webpage reporting on a minister taking stick for rising prices...


Link Here20th January 2014
Full story: Internet Censorship in Malaysia...Malaysia looks to censor the internet

Netizens in Malaysia are having difficulty accessing a BBC story on Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak  being derided online for a comment on rising prices, raising fears that the Internet was being censored in the country.

This goes against the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC Malaysia) charter, in which the Malaysian Government guarantees the Internet would not be censored, barring special circumstances.

The BBC article, entitled #BBCtrending: Be careful what you say about spinach, chronicles the recent uproar over a statement made by Najib that the price of kangkung (or Chinese water spinach) has gone down. In a video that has gone viral, he lamented the fact that the Government has not been praised for this, but is being criticised for the rising cost of living.

His statement has been attacked by Opposition leaders and civil advocates for being insensitive to the plight of average Malaysians, who this year face a slew of price hikes and subsidy reductions.

Internet users in Malaysia reported difficulty accessing the specific BBC post beginning late last night (January 15), with timeouts occurring after a long wait for the page to load, while the rest of the BBC site remained accessible.

Responding to queries by Digital News Asia (DNA), security expert and freelance IT solutions provider @sniiffit said that in a nutshell, what was being done is that all packets requesting the specific page were being dropped at the ISP level.

 

 

Update: Red pencil protests against press censorship in Malaysia...


Link Here 19th January 2014
Full story: Press Censorship in Malaysia...Newspapers forced to toe the government line
Malaysian journalists and activists banded together and organized a red pencil protest early this month in reaction to the decision of the Ministry of Home Affairs to suspend news weekly magazine The Heat for an indefinite period. Protesters accused authorities of suspending The Heat in retaliation for publishing a story on the spending habits of the Prime Minister and his wife.

More than 200 people gathered to demonstrate in downtown Kuala Lumpur, the country's capital. Participants belonged to the Gerakan Media Marah ( Geramm ) or Angry Media Movement, a loose coalition of journalists which was formed to push for greater media freedom in the country.

During the protest, red pencils were broken in half to symbolize the violence perpetrated against the media. Fathi Aris Omar, spokesman of Geramm and editor of online media site Malaysiakini, explained further the meaning of the red pencil:

The red pencil represents journalists who were injured (in the past, by the authorities) and a culture of control by the powers that be.

Listen to the breaking sound. That is the suffering of journalists and the media when it is broken .


 2013   2014 

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