World News Censorship

Several Iranian news sites such as Amir Kabir [fa], a student site, reported Omid Reza MirSyafi, Iranian blogger and journalist, was sentenced to 36 months prison.

He was accused of insulting Iranian religious leaders and doing propaganda against Islamic Republic.

A court in northern Iraq's Kurdistan region has sentenced a freelance journalist to six months in prison and a fine for writing an article about gay sex, a penalty that media groups say violates the law and underscores the lack of press freedom in Kurdistan.

The Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, groups that monitor press freedom across the world, are among the international organizations demanding the release of Adel Hussein, who was arrested Nov. 24 in the Kurdish city of Irbil.

Hussein, whose article appeared in Hawlati in April 2007, is the second Kurdish journalist to land in prison in the past month. On Nov. 8, the editor in chief of the Hawal newspaper, Shwan Dawoody, was given a month in jail and a fine for a series of stories his paper ran that were critical of the judiciary in Sulaymaniya, which is part of the semiautonomous Kurdistan region.

The court that sentenced Hussein, who is a doctor specializing in sexual and reproductive diseases, said he had violated public custom by writing about health issues related to gay sex. Hussein's story was scientific, not prurient, and did not encourage homosexual behavior.

Kyrgyz authorities said today that Radio Azattyk, RFE/RL's popular Kyrgyz-language service, will not be restored to the airwaves unless its programs are submitted to the government for prior approval.

Melis Eshimkanov, the head of Kyrgyzstan's state-controlled radio and TV broadcaster, said the programs are too negative and too critical of the government and claimed that powerful Kyrgyz figures are behind the decision to keep Radio Azattyk off the air.

RFE/RL President Jeffrey Gedmin said the move may force Radio Azattyk to put its broadcasts exclusively on shortwave frequencies for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union: Frankly, we expected more from a country trying to prove its reformist credentials in the region,.

Until October 8, Azattyk's TV and radio programs were heard and seen by nearly half the Kyrgyz population. Azattyk broadcast three hours of radio programming each day and produced two weekly prime-time television news shows, Inconvenient Questions and the youth-oriented Azattyk Plus .

VIVA, one of Madagascar's national television stations, has been ordered by the Minister of Telecommunications to stop broadcasting: Following VIVA television station's 8 o clock news broadcast of a recording of a talk by the former president Didier Ratsiraka, now a refugee in France, a talk which may disturb public order and security, the television station is prohibited from broadcasting.

Blogs should not be censored as long as bloggers are responsible in their writing, said former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

He said this when answering a question from the public at a book signing session.

Bloggers should make fair comments in their articles and not undermine others, he said after signing copies of his illustrated biography titled Mahathir Mohamad: An illustrated biography and a book based on his blog titled Chedet.com - Blogging to Unblock .

As long as you don't threaten to kill people in your blog, there shouldn't be any censorship, he added.

Four journalists and rights activists from Saudi Arabia, Syria and Tunisia were prevented by their governments from travelling to Beirut to attend a regional forum on Arab press freedom.

Over 160 journalists, bloggers, publishers, editors and press freedom advocates came together for the first session of the two-day Third Annual Free Press Forum in Beirut.

This year's gathering, which was organized by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN).

The four participants invited to speak at the forum had been prevented from attending by the authorities in their respective countries, WAN CEO Timothy Balding said.

They included Tunisian journalist Litfi Hidouri and human rights lawyer and writer Mohamed Abbou and Saudi blogger Fouad al-Farhan, who was recently released from prison and has been forbidden to leave Saudi Arabia. For a second time, the director of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, Mazen Darwish, was also prevented from attending the forum.

WAN has vigorously protested these incidents, Balding said in his opening speech.

Those in the Arab world who dared to investigate government failures or wrongdoings, challenge untenable policies and call for reforms, or express dissenting opinions face charges of criminal defamation, blasphemy or endangering national security and are regularly sentenced to large fines and imprisonment.

In the meantime, we can at least thank the authorities of Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Syria for this eloquent and timely demonstration of their contempt for, and fear of, free expression, as we open this forum. The hostility toward independent and opposition media and critical voices continues to rise and the repression against these voices can be ruthless.

Reporters Without Borders deplores the latest cases of the Sri Lanka government censorship of international and local news media.

In the past few days, the BBC World Service has been jammed by the state-owned Sri Lanka Broadcasting Cooperation (SLBC) and one of the country's most outspoken newspapers, the Sunday Leader, has been forbidden to refer to the president's brother.

We are worried by the increase in direct and indirect censorship in Sri Lanka, Reporters Without Borders said. Coming after a broadcast media bill reintroducing news censorship, the selective blocking of BBC and Sunday Leader reports is disturbing. The authorities must accept the free flow of news even when it contradicts what officials are saying and irritates certain politicians.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the censorship of parts of the BBC's Sinhala service on 10 December and 27 November. On 10 December, the authorities jammed a report about protests by politicians in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu who objected to being called jokers by the Sri Lankan army chief.

On 27 November, reports on a speech by the leader of the Tamil Tiger rebels and a press conference by representatives of the Defence Watch website were rendered inaudible by the SLBC, which is contractually obliged to retransmit the BBC's Tamil and Sinhala programmes every day.

The SLBC has, since August, been broadcasting a programme immediately after the BBC programming to give the official Sri Lankan government take on what the BBC's journalists have just reported.

On 5 December, a judge ordered Leader Publications, the publisher of the Sunday Leader, not to print during two weeks any report whatsoever about the president's brother, defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who personally went to the court to accuse the press group of publishing slanderous reports about him. He is demanding 1 billion rupees (7 million euros) in damages.

This week's edition of the Economist magazine has been banned in Thailand for articles critical of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, bookstore staff said, although it was unclear who ordered the ban.

Neither the police, Foreign Ministry nor Culture Ministry - home to the official censor - said they knew of a formal ban on the magazine, which acknowledged in the article that many Thais would 'squirm' at its breaching of the taboo on discussion of the king's role in politics.

Free speech activist CJ Hinke, who runs Freedom Against Censorship Thailand, said the most likely explanation was distributors deciding themselves not to sell the edition, which questioned the palace's official position above politics.

This is one of those 'cultural harmony' bans, where the book distributors and stores take it on themselves not to distribute, Hinke said.

The government's concern, as usual, is all about saving face. Thais do not want their dirty laundry aired in foreign languages overseas. They don't want foreigners discussing Thai issues and Thai problems, he said.

The two articles in question remained freely available via Thai Internet servers four days after first being posted.

Update: Official Complaint

13th December 2008. See article from nationmultimedia.com

Ministry spokesman Director General Tharit Charungvat has sent a letter to the Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, expressing his concern and disappointment over the contents of two articles, A right royal mess and The king and them published in the 6-12 December 2008 issue.

In the letter, Tharit also pointed out and clarified the inaccuracies in the articles and calling for measures to rectify the situation.

Tharit concludes: By neglecting facts and simple logics like these, your articles blatantly make wrongful accusations regarding the Thai King and inexcusably offend Thais. They deserve our protest in strongest terms.

The draft of an amended media law would be finalised by January 2009 for submission to the Cabinet for ratification, said Dr Amal Al Qubaisi, head of the Federal National Council's Committee of Education, Youth, Culture and Media.

The draft law is a revision of the Press and Publications federal law of 1980.

Dr Al Qubaisi declined to disclose details of the amendments being proposed by the FNC in its current session.

The draft law states that there shall not be prior censorship of any media outlets in the country. It incorporates the previous directives of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to prohibit the imprisonment of journalists, resorting instead to fines when there are violations of public law. The draft law states that the owners of all newspapers and their editors-in-chief should be UAE nationals, who do not have a crime record.

In cases of emergencies (or other instances decided by the cabinet) newspapers and other media outlets, will be obligated to publish all information sent to them by government agencies.

All journalists will be invited to attend the FNC's discussion of the new draft law in its upcoming term.

Workers in the media see the decision of Shaikh Mohammad to prohibit the imprisonment of journalists as a step in the right direction for the future of media in the country.