World News Censorship

Sayed Pervez Kambaksh believes his long nightmare is almost over.

The 24-year-old student, sentenced to death in Afganistan for downloading internet reports on women's rights, is allowing himself to be hopeful for the first time since he was condemned.

The Independent has learnt, however, that the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, has privately assured Kambaksh's campaign team that he will be freed. Senior government figures have also indicated that they believe his sentence, by a court in Mazar-e-Sharif, was based on a mistaken interpretation of the country's constitutional law.

Kambaksh has already discreetly been issued with a passport which will enable him to start a new life abroad if and when he is freed.

A petition by readers of The Independent to secure justice for him has attracted more than 100,000 signatures. Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, said on a visit to Afghanistan yesterday that he would be raising the matter with Karzai.

Kambaksh said from his cell yesterday that he was aware that the Afghan President may save his life. This is very, very important for me. It was a court which said I must die without even hearing my side of the story. There are many judges who are very conservative and say I have insulted Islam without really considering the evidence.

They themselves are also afraid of extremists and this could influence their decision. That worries me. But I am very grateful to the international media, especially The Independent, for taking an interest in my case. I think that makes it difficult for them to just get rid of me.

According to Samay Hamed, the co-ordinator of Kambaksh's campaign team, President Karzai first agreed to pardon the student in March this year. I ... have been told repeatedly by government ministers that [they] want the matter resolved quickly.

Nader Gohar has been in the business of broadcasting for the past 25 years, but he is now standing trial for importing and owning television equipment and transmitting broadcasts without permission.

At least that is the official line.

In reality, Gohar is on trial for broadcasting the Mahalla al Kobra protests on April 6, including footage of protesters tearing down and defacing a large poster of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president.

The following day, the head of the board of the Radio and Television Union filed a complaint with Egypt'
s prosecutor general, alleging that Gohar'
s Cairo News Company (CNC) – which provides satellite broadcast services and equipment to such television networks as Al Jazeera, BBC and CNN – had been operating without the required permits.

On April 17, 35 plainclothes police officers raided CNC'
s Cairo offices, confiscating its five sets of satellite transmission equipment, effectively shutting it down.

The date of the strike, April 6, was originally set by factory workers in Mahalla al Kobra, 120km north of Cairo, who were protesting against high food prices, low wages and widespread poverty.

Clashes erupted and continued until the following day and police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters, killing at least two and wounding about 100. More than 300 people were arrested. Footage of the violence sent tremors through Egyptian society.

Chinese police have detained a political dissident because of remarks he made about the government's handling of the Sichuan earthquake, according to his family and supporters.

Guo Quan, the founder of the China Democracy party, was seized outside his home by seven or eight police officers four days ago. They searched his house and confiscated his computer.

The following day, police officers told his wife Li Jing. that her husband was being detained for at least 10 days because of false information he posted online.

It was unclear which comments upset the authorities. Guo has written a string of critical articles on the communist one-party political system. He was stripped of his professorial post at Nanjing university last year.

In the past week, he is said to have raised questions about the emergency services' response to the quake and the safety of nuclear facilities in Sichuan. Fellow members of his small party believe his detention is connected to last week's disaster.

Guo Quan is a co-founder of China'
s Netizen Party and litigant in a recent lawsuit against Yahoo!

Reporters Without Borders calls on the Egyptian authorities to free Kareem El-Beheiri, a blogger who was arrested on 6 April in the industrial town of Mahalla (100 km north of Cairo) while covering a strike in the textile plant where he worked. He has been held in Borg El Arab prison since April.

We are worried about Beheiri'
s health as he is being mistreated and has gone on hunger strike, the press freedom organisation said. The prison'
s management refuses to move him to the hospital so that he can receive appropriate treatment. We call on the authorities to release him while they decide exactly what charges they are going to bring against him.

Beheiri and two other activists who were arrested the same day, Tareq Amin and Kamal el-Fayyoumy, described their mistreatment in a joint letter on 18 May to Zakareya Abdel Aziz, the head of the Cairo Judges Club. We were tortured at state security headquarters in Mahalla on 6, 7 and 8 April, the letter said: Policemen administered electric shocks to Kareem and insulted and beat Tareq Amin and Kamal El-Fayyoumy.

Since his arrest, Beheiri has been fired from his job on the grounds of absenteeism, although his employers have received documents confirming that he is being detained. The authorities accuse him of encouraging the strike on his blog, in which he referred to the actions being organised by Egyptian workers in protest against their poor living standards.

In his last blog entry, Beheiri wrote: It is now 7 a.m. on 6 April, and I am going to Mahalla to cover the factory strike. Pray for me and I hope that everyone will succeed in demonstrating the flaws in the Egyptian regime. Kareem El-Beheiri, for a free country, that of Egyptian revolutionaries.

The 6 April strike in protest against increases in the prices of basic staples was observed by several thousand people in Cairo and Mahalla. A “6 April” group on the social-networking website Facebook urging Egyptians to protest by all possible means had attracted 64,000 members by the eve of the protest.

Esraa Abdel Fattah Ahmed was detained for more than two weeks for being a member of this group. Its organiser, 27-year-old engineer Ahmed Maher, was beaten by the Mahalla police for 12 hours to get him to give the password to the Facebook group and the real names of its members. Facebook cancelled his account because it thought all the messages he was sending to members of the “6 April” group were spam.

This strike organised on the Internet was unprecedented for the authorities, who did not know who to blame it on, Reporters Without Borders said: We condemn the fact that people have been detained for several weeks just for using their right to free expression.

Update: Police Thugs

23rd May 2008

Ahmed after police interview

Egyptian authorities should immediately investigate and prosecute those security officials responsible for beating Ahmed Maher Ibrahim, Human Rights Watch said. Maher used the social-networking site Facebook to support calls for a general strike on May 4, 2008.

Maher told Human Rights Watch that officers from the Interior Ministry'
s State Security Investigations (SSI) department apprehended him on a street in the suburb of New Cairo on May 7, blindfolded him and took him to a police station where they stripped him naked, and beat him intermittently for 12 hours before releasing him without charge.

This is the work of thugs, pure and simple, said Joe Stork, Middle East deputy director at Human Rights Watch: The government must show that those responsible for upholding the law are also subject to the law.

Update: Released

3rd June 2008

Egyptian blogger Kareem El Beheiry has been released yesterday from prison.

Pervez Kambaksh, the Afghan student sentenced to death after being accused of downloading internet reports on women's rights, yesterday pleaded innocent to charges of blasphemy. He told an appeal court in Kabul that he had been tortured into confessing.

Kambaksh, 24, vehemently denied that he had been responsible for producing anti-Islamic literature. He insisted the prosecution had been motivated by personal malice of two members of staff and their student supporters at the university in Balkh, where he was studying journalism.

He was convicted in proceedings behind closed doors in a trial which he said had lasted just four minutes and where he had been denied legal representation.

Yesterday, in the first public hearing of the case, the prosecution claimed that Kambaksh had disrupted classes at the university by asking questions about women's rights under Islam. It also said he distributed an article on the subject after writing an additional three paragraphs including the phrase This is the real face of Islam ... The prophet Mohamad wrote verses of the holy Koran just for his own benefit.

In a highly emotional statement, Kambaksh said: I'm Muslim and I would never let myself write such an article. These accusations are nonsense, [they] come from two professors and other students because of private hostilities against me. I was tortured by the intelligence service in Balkh province and they made me confess that I wrote three paragraphs in this article.

Kambaksh represented himself because his family are having difficulties finding a lawyer to represent him after threats by fundamentalist groups that anyone taking on the job would be killed.

The head of the panel of three judges at Kabul, Abdul Salaam Qazizada, adjourned the trial until next Sunday to allow Kambaksh further attempts to find a lawyer. As of last night they had not succeeded.

Kambaksh's case has been raised with President Hamid Karzai by Foreign Secretary David Miliband and the US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.

On Sunday 11th May 2008 the State Security Court in Damascus stated its verdict on the Syrian blogger Tariq Baiasi who was held in detention since July 2007. Tariq was detained for leaving a comment on websites disfavored by the Syrian government. Free Tariq Campaign condemned the State'
s verdict and asks for freedom to the Syrian blogger:

The State Security Court in Damascus has sentenced Tariq to three years after lessening it from six years to three years (originally, Tariq received three years for each of the following charges):

• Dwindling the national feeling
• Weakening the national ethos.

The militarily security arrested Tariq on 7-7-2007 for leaving a comment on websites considered “suspicious” by the Syrian government.

Syrian bloggers continue to call for freedom to fellow blogger Tariq Baiassi.

Qi Chonghuai, a journalist in China'
s Shandong province who had written critically about local officials, has been sentenced to four years in prison for fraud and extortion in a trial that lasted 12 hours, according to his wife and lawyers.

Access to the trial was limited, and reporters were not allowed to attend. According to Qi'
s wife, Jiao Xia, and his defense lawyers, Li Xiongbing and Li Chunfu. Qi denied the charges.

Qi said two police officers hit his head against the floor during a break in the trial, Li told CPJ by phone from Tengzhou after emerging from court. Qi reported being beaten while in prison in August 2007.

We condemn Qi Chonghuai'
s sentence and the brutal treatment he has received throughout his detention, said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Bob Dietz. This case, coming less than three months before the Olympics, illustrates the government'
s failure to institute the freedom of the press promised when the Games were awarded to China in 2001.

Qi and a friend, Ma Shiping, wrote a June 8, 2007, article accusing a low-level Tengzhou official of beating a local woman for arriving late to work. The article was published on the Web site of the U.S.-based Falun Gong-affiliated Epoch Times, according to a written report provided to CPJ by Li. Qi and Ma also posted photographs of a luxurious Tengzhou government building on the anti-corruption Web forum of the government-run Xinhua News Agency on June 14. Officials questioned Qi about the article and the photographs before his arrest on June 25, according to Li.

The major Egyptian government-owned ISP has blocked the website of a leading opposition movement, a rights group said, in the latest crackdown on the country's cyber dissidents.

The website for the Egyptian Movement for Change - Kefaya has been blocked in Egypt (for) users who have access to the Internet through TE-Data ... since May 4, the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said in a statement.

TE-Data, a branch of Telecom Egypt and the largest Internet service provider (ISP) in Egypt, is controlled by the Egyptian government.

A dissident Chinese writer in police custody faces trial for inciting subversion as part of an apparent government crackdown on dissents ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

Zhou Yuanzhi, a former tax official, and his wife were taken away by the National Security Bureau of Zhongxiang city.

Zhou is a freelance writer who has published two books in Hong Kong and more than 500 articles under several pen names in overseas Chinese-language magazines and Web sites. Many of his articles have been critiques on social issues and official corruption.

He lost his job in Zhongxiang city's taxation bureau in 1992 and was stripped of his Communist Party membership for contributing an article to Voice of America in defiance of a ban.

The decision by Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo to impose a four-month ban on a private television station has not gone down well with United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Ambeyi Ligabo.

Ligabo cited the move as an example of tactics used by governments to restrict the independence of the press whilst seemingly allowing States to maintain a façade of respect to democratic principles such as freedom of expression.

In Guyana CNS Channel 6 was suspended for four months for 'infringing the terms of its license' after an interviewee, speaking during a live broadcast, called for attacks against the President.

Take note of what'
s been happening in Malaysia these past few days since popular blogger and political commentator Raja Petra Kamarudin was imprisoned on Tuesday after a trial which saw him charged with sedition for having written a blog post.

If the Malaysian government was truly worried about bloggers effecting social unrest, now they have it. Remember, this is a country where any politician worth their mutton has a blog, and even the old goats now blog too.

Ex-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has a highly-read blog, as does PM hopeful Anwar Ibrahim.

They set up their blogs, and they try to close down our blogs, said Raja

Raja is one of the sharpest voices both online and off in Malaysia.

Bahrain has announced a new draft press law, long demanded by journalists and rights groups, which scraps jail terms for most offences but leaves courts to rule on two key areas.

The draft law guarantees freedom of expression as long as religion is not insulted or national unity threatened. The information minister, asked whether offenders could be jailed, said judges would decide.

This is left to the judiciary and is not the affair of the information ministry, Minister Jehad Bukamal (pictured) said at a news conference.

No journalist has been imprisoned in Bahrain since 1999, the rights group Reporters Without Borders said in a March report on the country, which was placed 118 out of 169 in its 2007 press freedom index, behind Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

Kuwait is the only other Gulf Arab state that has decriminalised press offences, the organisation said.

We're happy that Bahrain has decriminalised press offences, but journalists can still be prosecuted under the penal code, for insulting the king or religion for example, Reporters Without Borders' Middle East chief Hajar Smouni said.

It is not clear how the draft law will affect bloggers, and a Bahraini official said blogging would be dealt with in later legislation.

It was not clear when the new draft press law would be presented to parliament for approval. Bahraini journalists said Islamist lawmakers, who have dominated parliament since 2006 polls, might object to the law, particularly in relation to insulting Islam. But Bahraini officials said they were confident the law would be passed soon because King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has backed press law reform.

Police in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, have detained a journalist and three support staffers of a private entertainment magazine since May 2.

Local journalists say the detentions are related to a cover story about the high-profile trial of Ethiopia'
s most popular pop singer, Tewodros Kassahun.

Deputy Editor and owner Alemayehu Mahtemework and the three media workers from the monthly Enku remained in police custody today without charges. Local journalists also reported that Editor-in-Chief Fekadu Mahtemework went into hiding after being summoned for questioning.

Mahtemework and the others were picked up early Friday evening as they carried 10,000 copies of the current edition from the printer to their offices. The police impounded all the copies of the paper, allegedly after receiving a tip from an informant at the printer that the cover story could lead to “incitement,”. The story focused on the trial of jailed pop music icon and government critic Kassahun, better known as Teddy Afro, and included interviews with his lawyer and fans.

The seizure of Enku and the arrests of its staffers is a continuation of the Ethiopian government'
s ongoing efforts to stifle the private press from freely reporting on important public issues, said CPJ'
s executive director Joel Simon: We call on the Ethiopian authorities to abandon these crude tactics of intimidation and release our colleagues immediately. We also condemn this flagrant act of censorship and ask that the authorities return the confiscated copies of the magazine.

Update: Released

Based on article from cpj.org , 5th August 2008

Ethiopian journalists tell us that police in Addis Ababa have finally released 10,000 copies of Enku magazine that were impounded on May 2 because of a cover story about the jailed pop music icon and government critic Teddy Afro. The May edition is expected to finally go on sale on Saturday. CPJ had protested the seizure with Ethiopian officials.

We also denounced the arrests of Enku 's deputy editor and owner, Alemayehu Mahtemework, and three staffers, who were accused of "inciting the public" against the government because of the magazine's interviews with the singer's supporters. Mahtemework and his colleagues were released without charge after five days in custody.

An annual survey of media freedom has reported a mixed picture in East Asia - with some losses and some gains.

The US-based Freedom House organisation says China tightened some restrictions in 2007, but also tolerated more investigative journalism into cases of official corruption and enforced child labour. Gains were offset by an elaborate web of regulations and laws, which allowed the tightening of media control and internet restrictions in China.

The report noted gains last year in Thailand and Malaysia, but said Vietnam and Laos continue to fare poorly.

It ranked North Korea as the world's most restricted media environment. Freedom House said the Burmese media environment remained among the most tightly restricted in the world during 2007, with conditions worsening in August and September due to the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations. As many as 15 journalists were detained during the unrest.

The report said Vietnam had reversed some of the gains in press freedom that had been made in 2006, with a crackdown on dissident writers. For every step forward in press freedom last year, there were two steps back. It said the country's fledgling community of online pro-democracy writers was targeted by the government - with six cyber-dissidents imprisoned within one week in May.

Freedom House says press freedom has declined in the world overall. Finland and Iceland are described as the world's freest media environments.

Mikhail Zlatkovsky has been lampooning Russian leaders since the days of perestroika. But he has discovered that satire permitted by Gorbachev and Yeltsin is dangerous under Putin.

When Yeltsin named Vladimir Putin as acting president on New Year's Eve 1999, Zlatkovsky drew the ailing Yeltsin dredging a mermaid-tailed Putin out of the sea and putting a crown on his head. Putin became a regular feature of Zlatkovsky's cartoons. But the new President was officially inaugurated on 7 May 2000, and the next day, Zlatkovsky's editor at Literaturnaya Gazeta, where he then worked, came into the newsroom, fresh from a Kremlin reception.

He said to me, 'Misha, we're not going to draw Putin any more,' recalls Zlatkovsky: The young lad is very sensitive. From that day onwards, Zlatkovsky has not had another cartoon of Putin published. Nowadays, the only cartoons of the Russian leader to appear in the Russian press are those that depict him in a positive, or even heroic light.

As Putin's rule went on, says Zlatkovsky, the number of taboo subjects increased – ministers, Kremlin aides, Chechnya and top military brass all became off limits. Recently a cartoon depicting Alexy II, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, propmpted a phone call from the patriarchate and a strong request never to draw him again.

There's no central censor these days, says Zlatkovsky: Instead, we have the censorship of the fire safety inspectorate; or the censorship of the tax police. Satirise the ruling class today, and tomorrow the newspaper offices will be paid a surprise visit by fire inspectors who will find a bureaucratic regulation that the office does not meet, and close it. Or there will be a call from the printworks stating that the price of paper has inexplicably risen tenfold. Many cartoonists have given up, finding other work, and newspaper editors prefer to err on the side of caution and not publish cartoons at all.

Bending over backwards to Putin's wishes

Russia's lower house of parliament voted yesterday to widen the definition of slander and libel and give regulators the authority to shut down media outlets found guilty of publishing such material.

The legislation, passed by the State Duma 339-1, is the latest attempt by the government to squeeze the country's increasingly embattled news media.

The bill allows authorities to suspend and close down media outlets for libel and slander — punishment that is identical for news media found to be promoting terrorism, extremism and racial hatred.

It also expands the definition for slander and libel to dissemination of deliberately false information damaging individual honor and dignity.

The legislation will be considered in two more readings, before heading to the upper house of parliament, where approval is likely, and then to Putin for signing.

The bill's passage comes just days after a scandal involving a tabloid newspaper that had reported that President Vladimir Putin had divorced his wife and planned to marry a champion gymnast.

Malaysia's government lifted the ban on a newspaper catering to ethnic minority Indians, but denied caving in to criticism that it was stifling press freedom. 

The Home Ministry told the Tamil-language Makkal Osai , or People's Voice, last week that its operating license had not been renewed. Authorities subsequently said the newspaper flouted media guidelines on how racial issues should be reported.

The newspaper's general manager, S.M. Periasamy, said he received a letter from the ministry Thursday informing him that the ban had been dropped. No reasons or conditions were given, and the newspaper expects to resume publication Saturday, Periasamy said.

Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar confirmed he approved a new annual permit for Makkal Osai , saying its editors have assured the government that: they will abide by the guidelines and contribute to our nation-building efforts.

He denied that the government had backtracked because of fierce criticism by opposition leaders and media activists. Syed Hamid had said last week he was considering doing away with the annual licensing and switching to licenses that only need to be issued once, saying the country needs press freedom in order for us to have a check and balance in government.

A prominent democracy activist whose blog featured reports on demonstrations against the relay of the Beijing Olympic torch was arrested by Vietnamese police.

Police arrested Nguyen Van Hai, who blogs under the name Dieu Cay, on charges of tax evasion.

Hai is a member of a group of internet bloggers known as the Union of Independent Journalists. Other members of the group have called for protests along the torch's route when it is carried through Ho Chi Minh City.

On his blog, Hai had featured articles on protests against the torch in other cities around the world, and others critical of China's policies in Tibet and the Spratlys and opposing the torch's relay through Vietnam.

A detailed schedule for the relay in Ho Chi Minh City was published in the Vietnamese press in March, but has apparently been rescinded since pro-Tibetan protests were staged against the torch's progress through various European cities.

Prominent Saudi blogger Fouad Alfarhan was freed today. He is back home in Jeddah after 137 days in custody.

Alfarhan was arrested on 10 December 2007 for unspecified: violation of non-security regulations.

The Committee to Protect Journalists deplores the Tunisian government's apparent censorship of the opposition weekly Al-Mawkif.

Over the past month, Tunisian authorities have prevented distribution of four successive issues of Al-Mawkif, published since 1984 by the opposition Progressive Democratic Party (PDP). Rachid Khechana, editor of Al-Mawkif, told CPJ that plainclothes police have seized copies of the newspaper at kiosks throughout the country. In a statement, the newspaper said authorities have acted without any judicial or legal ground.

The censorship comes at a time when Al-Mawkif facesa major civil defamation lawsuit, a case that Khechana claims is politically motivated.

Khechana told CPJ that five companies that market cooking oil filed a lawsuit against the weekly this month, alleging that the paper “spread false news” and “harmed their interests.” Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, the paper's managing editor, and Khechana have been summoned to appear in court on May 10. Each company seeks 100,000 Tunisian dinars (US$87,000) in damages.

The lawsuit was triggered by an April 4 opinion piece by Khechana that called for a transparent investigation into allegations that contaminated Tunisian cooking oil was illegally exported to neighboring Algeria. The April 4 edition was among those seized by police.

Related: Come 4 Censorship News

12th May 2008

Reporters Without Borders condemns the Tunisian government's censorship of the international French-language news website Come4news , to which access has been blocked in Tunisia since 10 March.

Come4news (C4N) allows Internet users to express themselves directly online, the press freedom organisation said. Banning access to such a website in Tunisia, where the number of Internet users is growing steadily, just helps to reduce the country's Internet to silence. We call on the government to give an official explanation for the decision.

The Index of Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards are awarded to honour those who, often at great personal risk, have given voice to issues and stories that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.

2008 Award Winners:

• Guardian Journalism Award: Arat Dink
  
  Recognising determined and brave journalism that often represents a different point of view in the media.
  
  Index on Censorship Chief Executive Henderson Mullin commented: The bravery of Arat Dink, and the rest of the staff of Agos, in the face of Draconian laws restricting their freedom of expression, provides inspiration for journalists throughout the world. In honouring Arat, we also commemorate the work of his late father, Hrant Dink.
   
• The Economist New Media Award: Wikileaks
  
  Having faced down an attempt by an investment bank to have it shut down, wikileaks continues to be an invaluable resource for anonymous whistleblowers and investigative journalists.
   
• Bindmans Law and Campaigning Award: U Gambira
  
  U Gambira is the pseudonym of the leader of the All-Burma Monks Alliance, which organised and spearheaded the nationwide protests in September of last year.
   
• TR Fyvel Book Award: The Art of Political Murder: Who killed Bishop Gerardi? by Francisco Goldman. Publisher, Atlantic Books
  
  The culmination of years of investigative journalism, The Art of the Political Murder is an astonishing account of the search for the killers of Guatemalan bishop Juan Gerardi. The book has made a huge impact in Guatamela, even majorly influencing the result of the recent presidential election
   
• The Index Film Award: Ahlaam (Dreams)
  
  Bradford-based director Mohamed Al-Daradji's film Ahlaam (Dreams) interweaves the stories of three broken souls in a broken Baghdad. The director explores the aftermath of the collapse of the Saddam regime and the US-led occupation.

The judges of the 2008 awards are: Peter Wright, Mark Kermode, Maureen Freely, Lemn Sissay, Rabinder Singh QC, Richard Sambrook.

Malaysian officials have rejected a Tamil-language newspaper's application for a publishing permit - an annual requirement for periodicals under the draconian Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA) - in effect, banning the daily that had existed since the early 1990s.

The publishing permit of Makkal Osai (The People's Voice) expired on 15 October 2007. The newspaper, which had a staff of more than 100,
had continued publishing upon informal assurances from the authorities that it could while its application for a fresh licence awaited approval.

On 16 April 2008, Makkal Osai received a letter from the Ministry of Home Affairs informing the daily of the rejection but giving no reason for the ban. However, Home Affairs Minister Syed Hamid Albar later alleged that the daily had violated guidelines threatening racial harmony. The minister did not explain nor specify the objectionable contents.

Although the law states that the minister's decision is final and cannot be challenged in court, Makkal Osai officers have said they will file an appeal.

Malaysia has long used a licencing regime to keep a short leash on all publications, leading to chronic self-censorship in many newsrooms.

However, the prospects of saving "Makkal Osai" may not be as bleak as before following the political sea change in Malaysia which saw five states out of 14 falling into the hands of the Federal-level opposition parties.

CIJ and the Writers Alliance for Media Independence (WAMI) called on these five states "to offer the owners of 'Makkal Osai' an opportunity to publish" there.

WAMI chairperson Wong Chin Huat cited Section 25 of the PPPA as the loophole that would allow this possibility: We can see 'Makkal Osai' back on the news stands tomorrow if any of the state governments will issue an authorisation letter today for the daily to publish for the state. And no newspaper from now on (need) be afraid (of having their publication permit withdrawn).

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today welcomed an agreement by Sudanese authorities to end censorship after journalist union leaders brought together a group of newspaper editors in a concerted effort to strengthen ethical journalism and media independence in the country.

The Sudanese Journalists' Union (SJU) held a meeting on Wednesday with 27 newspapers editors and officers from the security services responsible for media and agreed to end all censorship and stop the practice of sending newspaper stories to the censor before publication.

The newspapers also agreed to adhere to the media code of conduct and to further discussions on how to protect press freedom and responsible journalism.

Update: Al-Wan

22nd May 2008

Sudanese security forces have closed a newspaper indefinitely for publishing sensitive military information that might be linked to a rebel attack on Khartoum.

The Arabic-language Al-Wan paper has Islamist links.

The paper's managing editor, al-Tayyib Farraj, told Reuters a force from state security came to the paper on Wednesday evening: They had a decree to close the paper and confiscate all its possessions.

He did not know which article had caused problems but believed the closure could be related to an article on a missing fighter jet which had been published after the attack.

Farraj complained that the closure was unfair because censors had read the paper before it was published. Strict censorship laws were reintroduced several months ago: For months we have daily censorship and our paper doesn't go to the printing press without them reading it first. Any objections should have been voiced then.

Bending over backwards to Putin's wishes

Moskovsky Korrespondent, the newspaper that first reported rumours of a marriage between Vladimir Putin and Alina Kabaeva, a 24-year-old gymnast, has closed, shortly after the President told journalists it was unacceptable to pry into his private life with snotty noses and erotic fantasies.

Putin strongly denied that he had divorced his wife Ludmilla and planned a June wedding with Ms Kabaeva.

The owner of the paper, Alexander Lebedev, had said he thought the story was "nonsense" and the editorial team admitted there was no factual basis to the story.

The head of the paper's parent company, Artem Artemov, told journalists the paper was being "temporarily halted" due to its lack of profitability, and insisted there was no political subtext to the decision. Most Russian media obey the Kremlin line that Putin's private life is off limits.

Lebedev is a billionaire who has good relations with the Kremlin but also co-owns the sharply oppositionist Novaya Gazeta, where the murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya worked. There are suggestions the incident may have been an attempt to set up Lebedev by hardliners involved in a Kremlin turf war.

Sergey Topol, who wrote the story, told The Independent that he based it on a contact in a St Petersburg firm that was allegedly bidding for a secret tender to host the wedding.

Reporters Without Borders called on the Sudanese government today to lift its almost three-month censorship of the privately-owned press in Khartoum which has intensified in recent days with the seizure of six daily newspapers.

These are the most serious press freedom violations since the 2005 peace agreement that was supposed to end emergency laws, the worldwide press freedom organisation said. Secret police surveillance of newspaper staff is outrageous and illegal and the national unity government must put a stop to it. The media, one of the better aspects of modern Sudan, is being punished without reason and in violation of the national constitution.

The National Security Service (NSS) domestic intelligence agency phoned the editors of 10 daily papers on 13 April and ordered them to henceforth submit all their content for prior approval under the censorship illegally reestablished on 6 February. But the papers all refused to comply and printed their editions in the normal way. The police then went to the printers and seized copies of Ajras al-Huriyya, Rai al-Shaab and Al-Ayyam on 15 April.

The editions of Al-Sudani, al-Ahdath, Ajras al-Huriyya, Rai al-Shaab and the English-language daily The Citizen were seized the next day after several tens of thousands of copies had been printed. The four Arab-language dailies had been warned not to report the press conference held the day before by the editors of Ajras al-Huriyya criticising the new censorship, a local journalist told Reporters Without Borders.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns actions by officials of the Beijing Municipal Detention Centre in denying human rights activist Hu Jia his right to lodge an appeal against his jail sentence.

Hu was sentenced on April 3 to three-and-a-half years' jail and one year's denial of political rights for making comments to foreign media and publishing articles on Boxun, a banned Chinese-language website based in the United States, that were critical of China's record on democracy and human rights.

According to Section 180, Chapter 3, Part 3, of the Criminal Procedure of the Chinese Constitution, all defendants have the right to appeal.

Hu's lawyer, Li Fangping, has told the IFJ that he was not allowed to see Hu on April 13, which was the last possible day to lodge an appeal.

Li had planned to meet Hu to seek his approval to lodge an appeal, but an officer at the detention centre denied his request, saying that Hu was undertaking a physical examination, a requirement of his transfer from the detention centre to prison.

Pakistan's new government has decided to repeal stringent press laws introduced by the president, Pervez Musharraf, under emergency rule in November, the new information minister said.

The move is another indication of how Musharraf, whose allies suffered a crushing defeat in elections on 18 February, is facing growing isolation.

The cabinet has given approval for the repeal of all discriminatory amendments made in the Pemra laws, the information minister, Sherry Rehman, told a news conference.

Musharraf had accused some television channels of adding to the political uncertainty that led to the imposition of emergency rule on 3 November, and enforced rules prohibiting the media from broadcasting or publishing statements ridiculing him, top government officials and the military.

On the day after her husband's sentence to 3.5 years in prison for his blogging activities, house arrested blogger Zeng Jinyan wrote a letter explaining her side to their story....

...Read the full article

Zeng Jinyan asks for harassment to stop

Zeng Jinyan wrote last week on her Twitter account that the heavy surveillance she and her daughter are under has been stepped up in recent days and now includes regular physical harassment.

...Read the full article

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns an order by the Yemeni government to cancel the license of the independent weekly newspaper Al-Wasat.

Yemeni Information Minister Hassan al-Lawzi ordered the newspaper's license terminated because the paper had damaged relations with Saudi Arabia, and violated technical provisions of the press law.

A Yemeni government spokesman who asked that his name not be used told CPJ that the Information Ministry revoked Al-Wasat's license because the paper had published articles threatening national unity, and spreading messages that promote violence and hate. Yemen supports the freedom of the press [...BUT only that ...] that adheres to professional standards and practices.

Contrary to the government's lofty statements in support of a free press such shameful acts of censorship have regrettably become the norm in Yemen, said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon: We call on the Yemeni authorities to reverse this flagrant measure immediately.

HRinfo condemns the banning of the Al Hiwar channel on the Nile Sat satellite by Egyptian state-owned Nile Sat administration. The channel was banned without any explanation on 1 April 2008. The action coincides with the implementation of the new Principles for Organizing Satellite Radio and TV Broadcasting in the Arab Region approved by Arab information ministers in February.

Banning the Al Hiwar channel contradicts all professional and free expression values. It also reveals the wrathful attitude of the Egyptian government towards trustworthy and serious media outlets that aim to provide Arab audiences news of all kinds.

This decision reveals the falsity of assertions made by Arab information ministers who said that the new document on broadcasting principles would not harm serious information channels. The Al Hiwar channel commenced broadcasting in mid-2006, and was known for its serious and objective handling of public issues.

We knew about the wrathful censorship, even hidden, of some satellite channels, especially Egyptian ones , said Gamal Eid, the executive director of HRinfo. Banning the Al Hiwar channel is a cruel inauguration of the Arab information ministers' document. Only in the Arab world can minor authorities such as information ministers control the fate of television channels. It is an Arab scandal.

Update: The Markings of Censorship

13th April 2008. See letter from CPJ

Zaher Birawi, Al-Hewar TV's program director, called Nilesat's move “surprising” and “unjustified.” Al-Hewar TV said in a statement that it might be linked to “the dissatisfaction of the Egyptian government with the high level of freedom with which the channel tackles different issues, particularly those related to the situation in Egypt.”

Al-Hewar features talk shows such as “Peoples' Rights,” which often invites human rights activists harassed or persecuted by Arab governments, and “Egyptian Papers,” which has hosted prominent Egyptian government critics such as editor Ibrahim Eissa and dissident judge Hisham Bastawissi.

Last week, the Egyptian daily Al-Dustour quoted Al-Hewar's lead shareholder Azzam Tamimi as saying that the Nilesat decision could also be related to the channel's coverage of popular support for Palestinians under siege in the Gaza Strip—stories that highlighted inaction on the part of Arab states and Egypt.

The secretive closure of Al-Hewar TV bears the markings of censorship and poses a grave threat to the free flow of information. We call on you to publicly clarify the reasons for terminating Al-Hewar TV's signal and see to it that the station is able to resume broadcasting immediately.

The blog of the detained Saudi blogger Fouad Alfarhan has been blocked today in Saudi Arabia, along with Freefouad website dedicated to Alfarhan's case and the pro-reformist blog Freedoms .

Users trying to access these blogs from Saudi Arabia were met with a notice saying “Blocked URL. Dear User, Sorry, the requested page is unavailable.

115 days after his arrest, on 10 December 2007, Fouad Alfarhan remains jailed for unspecified violation of non-security regulations.

The webmaster of Yemen Portal continues the campaign to allow free access to information in Yemen. The next step is launching Free Yemen Portal , which displays the content of all the websites banned in Yemen.

Proxies in Yemen are blocked by the government ISP, in addition to a wide variety of news websites.

The anti-website censorship website freeyemenportal.org was officially launched today by Mideast Youth and YemenPortal.net as part of an ongoing campaign to free yemenportal.net from a two-month long ban imposed by the Yemeni government. Furthermore, yemenportal.info was also activated as a mirror site to circumvent the blockage of the earlier blocked domains.

The launch of the website coincides with an unprecedented wave of bans by the Yemeni regime targeting news and opinion websites including blogs and discussion forums. The blocking of Yemenportal.net and its alternative domain was protested by many local and international advocacy organizations including Reporters sans Frontiers, Committee to Protect Journalists, Article 19, the World Association of Newspapers plus many others.

After spending over four months in detention, Beijing-based blogger Hu Jia has now been sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for “state subversion,” which, according to his lawyer Li Fangping, is a decision that is likely to draw more international criticism of the country's political controls ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

Hu has ten days in which to file an appeal.

Reporters Without Borders previously said: Together with the Fondation de France, we had just awarded Hu and his wife, Zeng Jinyan, a special prize on 5 December for their courageous stance in defence of human rights in the approach to next year's Olympic Games in Beijing.

We express our solidarity with Hu and Zeng and their six-week-old daughter and we urge the European Union and the rest of the international community to rally to Hu's defence so that he does not become another victim of China's pre-Olympics repression.

Hu participated in a European parliamentary hearing in Brussels on 26 November on the human rights situation in China. He said at one point during the hearing: It is ironic that one of the people in charge of organising the Olympic Games is the head of the Bureau of Public Security, which is responsible for so many human rights violations. It is very serious that the official promises are not being kept before the games.