Showing posts with label rsf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rsf. Show all posts

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Improving Pacific media freedom record … but let’s get real

Pacific press freedom ... maybe not as bloody as elsewhere in the world, but vigilance still needed. Image: AFP/RSF
IT’S GREAT to get some bouquets on media freedom issues instead of brickbacks in the Pacific for a change. But let’s not get carried away. Instead of all the backslapping, what is needed is more vigilance because really it is all about more than watching this space.

Tonga did best in the latest Reporters Sans Frontières World Press Freedom Index, climbing some 19 places to 44th (yes, actually above the United States, but still below the best-paced Pacific island Samoa at 40th).

You would expect a healthy climb during the year, especially with former school teacher and public broadcaster (not to mention publisher of the pro-democracy Koe Kele’a) ‘Akilisi Pohiva finally becoming prime minister of Tonga.

This was an encouraging result in the November 2014 election following the first “democratic” election in 2010.

And it was expected that Fiji would also improve in the rankings after the “return to democracy” election in September – first since the 2006 military coup – flawed though that might be.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

RSF calls on media outlets to publish Charlie Hebdo cartoons in defiance of ‘barbarity’

 
Charlie Hebdo getaway video from Trung Tâm VBig.

THE PARIS-based media freedom organisation Reporters Sans Frontières has called on global media editors to publish Charlie Hebdo’s political and religious cartoons as a response to the shocking “black Wednesday” attack on the weekly satirical magazine.

Renowned internationally for its scathing and hilarious cartoons, Charlie Hebdo has always put its fight for freedom of information first, says RSF.

And now its staff has been “decimated by an unspeakable act of violence that targets the entire press. Journalism as a whole is in mourning".

Many social media posters are asking is this a new “freedom of speech war”. Supporters are declaring "Je suis Charlie" - "I am Charlie" in vigils of solidarity.

“But,” warns RSF, “freedom of information cannot shrink in the face of barbarity and yield to blackmail by those who assail our democracy and what our republic stands for. In the name of all those who have fallen in the defence of fundamental values, let us continue Charlie Hebdo’s fight for free information.

Friday, September 12, 2014

'I'll not be intimidated ... by cowards,' says Fiji death threat journalist

Fiji Sun's Jyoti Pratibha ...death threats via fake Facebook profiles. Image: Pacific Scoop
THE PARIS-based media freedom advocacy organisation Reporters Sans Frontières and the Pacific Media Centre have condemned threats and intimidation against political reporters covering Fiji’s first parliamentary election campaign since the  2006 coup.

Pacific Media Watch reports from Paris:

Two women journalists – Vosita Kotowasawasa of the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation (FBC) and Jyoti Pratibha of the Fiji Sun newspaper – received death threats on Tuesday over their previous day’s coverage of the cancellation of a live TV debate between the leading contenders for the post of prime minister.

According to Pacific Scoop, a news website affiliated with the Pacific Media Centre, Kotowasawasa received several threatening phone calls while Pratibha was threatened via fake Facebook user profiles.

Both had covered the previous day’s last-minute decision by Ro Teimumu Vuikaba Kepa, the Roko Tui Dreketi and head of the Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA), to pull out of the debate with interim Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe “Frank” Bainimarama.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Harassment of The Guardian causes UK drop in press freedom index rankings

The Guardian offices ... harassed over intelligence leaks.
Photo: Bethany Clarke/Greenslade Blog
From the Greenslade Blog and Reporters Without Borders

THE UNITED KINGDOM has slipped three places down the World Press Freedom Index rankings this year - to 33rd.

According to the global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in its report this week, this was due to the country "distinguishing itself by its harassment of The Guardian" following its publication of the NSA and GCHQ leaks by the whistleblower Edward Snowden.

That incident, and the White House administration's reaction to the Snowden affair and the jailing of Chelsea Manning over the Wikileaks revelations, also resulted in the United States falling by 13 places to 46th in the list.

RSF remarks: "The hunt for leaks and whistleblowers serves as a warning to those thinking of satisfying a public interest need for information about the imperial prerogatives assumed by the world's leading power."

Major declines in media freedom were recorded in Central African Republic and Guatemala but RSF also pointed to marked improvements in Ecuador, Bolivia and South Africa among the total of 180 countries.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Media freedom and social media - Pacific trends on Press Freedom Day



A LEADING Australian journalism law professor and freedom of the press advocate will give New Zealand’s inaugural UNESCO World Press Freedom Day lecture at AUT University today.

Dr Mark Pearson, professor of journalism and social media at Griffith University near Brisbane, will be speaking on the theme “Press freedom, social media and the citizen”, at the university on May 3, observed globally as media freedom day.

The public address is being hosted by AUT’s Pacific Media Centre and supported by the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO and the School of Communication Studies.

UNESCO, the UN agency with a mandate for freedom of expression through its Communications and Information Programme, takes a lead role in promoting this freedom as a human right through its celebration each year of World Press Freedom Day.

This year’s international theme is: “Safe to speak: Securing freedom of expression in all media”.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

RSF media freedom index warns on Fiji, PNG, praises 'Burmese spring'


An archive video of a Paris protest action by RSF over the violence against journalists in Syria. Video: RSF

THREATS to the media in the South Pacific should not be taken lightly in two Melanesian countries, says the Paris-based global press freedom advocacy group Reporters Sans Frontières.

Papua New Guinea has dropped six places to 41st in the latest RSF World Press Freedom Index with the security forces being "regularly involved in attacks on journalists".

 In Fiji, in spite of a 10-place rise to 107th - "explained in part by the decline of other countries in this section of the index, news organisations are threatened under the Media Industry Development Decree with exorbitant fines, or even imprisonment, as in the case of a recently convicted editor of The Fiji Times".

Elsewhere in the South Pacific did not rate a mention in the report, which highlighted the "Burmese spring" in the Asia-Pacific region.

But among other Pacific Islands Forum countries, New Zealand rose five places to eighth and Australia climbed four places to 26th.

Burma was an exception to decline in freedom of information in Asia.

Source: Pacific Media Watch 8187

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Syria a graveyard for news workers amid conflict


A BELATED word of congratulations to Mazen Darwish, head of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), and the Afghan daily 8Sobh, who were jointly awarded the 2012 Press Freedom Prize by Reporters sans frontières, Le Monde and TV5Monde.

Although there were many outstanding nominees, the awards jury paid tribute to Darwish, who “displayed extraordinary courage” in the face of danger and paid with his freedom.

RSF continues to demand his release by Syrian authorities.

Mazen Darwish ... held incommunicado
by Syrian authorities. Photo: AI
Darwish was arrested by Syrian Air Force intelligence agents on February 16 during a raid on the SCM office. He has been held incommunicado ever since.

At the time of his arrest, he was a key source of information when most foreign journalists were barred.

He has also reported to have been badly tortured and his health is suffering because of lack of treatment for a medical condition.

Syrian officials have refused to disclose his whereabouts or bring him before a judge.

Winner of the media freedom category, Afghanistan's 8Sobh (8 am), was described by the award jury as “living evidence that freely reported quality journalism can develop in the most difficult corners of the planet”.

Noting the horrendous global journalist death toll during 2012 - reported by RSF as 88 , The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade wrote on his blog:
At least 17 journalists, 44 citizen journalists and four media assistants killed in 2012 during the conflict between Bashar Al-Assad's government and various rebel groups.
Syria has hit news providers hard because they are the unwanted witnesses of atrocities being committed by the regime and armed opposition groups.
Due to the polarisation of information sources, news manipulation, propaganda, technical constraints and the extreme violence to which journalists and citizen journalists are exposed, anyone trying to gather or disseminate news and information in Syria needs a real sense of vocation.
Of growing concern is the number of Al Qaeda factions reportedly involved in the rebel forces (as happened in the Libyan version of the so-called “Arab Spring”). This is exposed in the above video.

In an attack on a Sahara desert gas plant by Al Qaeda and the killing of hostages in a shoot-out with Algerian troops on January 16, it was reported: "Western and African allies who fear that al Qaeda, flush with men and arms from the defeated forces of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, is building a desert haven in Mali, a poor country helpless to combat fighters who seized its northern oasis towns last year."

Friday, January 11, 2013

Turkey branded as world’s ‘biggest prison’ for journalists

Thriving Turkish press in Istanbul ... Photo: David Robie
CAFÉ PACIFIC has returned from a Greek and Turkish odyssey – exploring ancient Greco-Roman cities and the like in mid-winter. Refreshing. Great to get away from the small island politics and pseudo media freedom issues and self-serving egotism of the South Pacific and grapple with serious issues for a change. Unlike Greece’s Euro travails, Turkey is enjoying an economic boom and even some market liberalism. On the face of it, it is a tribute to secularism in an Islamic state. However, scratch a little deeper and in spite of a thriving national media (more than 40 national dailies in Istanbul, 1000 plus private radio stations and 300 or so private TV stations competing with the state broadcaster TNT and countless online news websites) one of the most insidious contemporary campaigns against free speech is exposed.

In spite of efforts to clean up the media scene in line with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s aspirations to join the European Union, the country’s oppression against journalists has come in for some serious recent international condemnation. In spite of a raft of reforms, under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, “insulting the nation” is still a crime.

The military, Kurds and “political Islam” are also highly sensitive issues. So much so that a robust editorial or other expression of opinion can easily land a journalist in prison. Recent global freedom reports have cited Turkey as the world’s most notorious “media jail” – some 70 editors and reporters are reportedly still behind bars. This is embarrassing for Erdogan whose Islamist-leaning Justice and Development (APK) Party that won a third term of office in 2011 and is committed to joining the European Union. 

In The Guardian’s quality Media Report, Peter Preston last week highlighted how the provocative but brave Turkish daily Taraf had finally been axed, noting that while the International Press Institute had ranked Syria and Somalia “top of the murder league”, Turkey was still “leader of the incarceration championship”. 
For five years of feisty existence, a Turkish daily called Taraf (circulation just over 50,000) has told truth to power with brave élan. Its owner, a bookshop entrepreneur, cheered its editors on as they broke stories other papers wouldn't touch. He even picked up the bill when Turkey's prime minister sued for libel (and won) after Taraf called him "arrogant, uninformed and uninterested".

But now the grinding of government axes offstage appears to have claimed another victim: the editor and his deputy have resigned. No one knows what will survive. Freedom doesn't necessarily die.
The Press TV website highlighted the pressure that Turkish journalists had faced ever since Erdogan had won office in 2002, quoting the Turkish daily Aksam saying: “Turkey is the number one violator of freedom of speech and the government intensified its suppression of press freedom in 2012.”
The daily said a large number of journalists critical of the Turkish government were arrested last year because Erdogan [did] not tolerate any criticism.

Last month, press freedom watchdog, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), named Turkey as the world’s worst jailer of the press in 2012. Reporters Without Borders has also named Turkey as the world’s "biggest prison" for journalists.

According to the CPJ, Turkey detained 49 journalists as of December 1, with dozens of Kurdish reporters and editors held on terror-related charges. A number of journalists are also being held on charges of involvement in anti-government plots.

The problem, say critics, is that the Turkish government fails to differentiate between “freedom of expression and terrorism”.
 In Kuwait’s Arab Times Online, former Oil Minister Ali Ahmed Al-Baghli condemned the “disciplining of journalists” in both Turkey and Palestine in his regular column. While observing that the Middle East nations were “bedazzled by the economic success of Islamic Turkey” when compared with Islamic Iran, there was a tendency to ignore disturbing news coming from Istanbul.
One eye-catching aspect is that, most journalists who are jailed by Turkey are Kurds. They are accused of terrorism. The accounts and reports from the CPJ affirm they are mere prisoners of opinion.

To add insult to injury the Islamic government of Erdogan has officially cemented that trait. Erdogan summoned the editors-in-chief of newspapers and ordered them to discipline their reporters.

In one incident Erdogan called one of the Kurdish journalists a “traitor” for writing an article which did not go well with him and the next day he was fired by a hypocrite editor-in-chief of that particular newspaper.

Here in Kuwait, we thank Allah the Almighty because we don’t see any journalist behind bars.
Just after Café Pacific left Turkey, journalists from nine countries gathered in Edirne for the region’s inaugural working journalists'  “Balkan Meeting”. Journalists from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Turkey took part in discussing “common problems”. Said the Thrace Journalists Association president Ali Soydan: “We hope this will mark a beginning. We hope nice events and cultural changes would make news in the Balkans that became house to blood and tears for many years.”

We hope so too – but we also hope that they will be investigating ways to enhance the reporting of the tough stories impacting on the region. Fiji might learn something too.

Happy New Year everybody. Café Pacific usually hands out annual media freedom bouquets – and wooden spoons – at this time, but with such extensive travelling the awards were skipped this year.

Café Pacific 2010 media freedom awards

Journalists and human right activists protest in front of a courthouse in Istanbul 
during the trial of two prominent Turkish journalists. Photo: PressTV website


Tuesday, November 27, 2012

How to make censorship 'obsolete' - a bold new RSF digital strategy


REPORTERS sans frontières (RSF - Reporters Without Borders) has launched a website called WeFightCensorship (WeFC) on which it will post content that has been censored or banned or has given rise to reprisals against its creator.

This original website’s aim is to make censorship obsolete. It is an unprecedented initiative that will enable Reporters Without Borders to complement all of its other activities in defence of freedom of information, which include advocacy, lobbying and assistance.

Content submitted by journalists or netizens who have been the victims of censorship – articles, videos, sound files, photos and so on – will be considered for publication on the WeFightCensorship site.

The content selected by the WeFC editorial committee will be accompanied by a description of the context and creator. It may also be accompanied by copies of documents relating to the proceedings under which it was banned or other documents that might help the public to understand its importance.

There will be French and English-language versions of the site. Documents from all over the world will be published in their original language (including Chinese, Persian and Vietnamese) and in translation.

The site is designed to be easily duplicated and mirror versions will be created in order to thwart attempts to filter or block it. Internet users will be asked to circulate the censored content in order to give it as much visibility as possible.

“Reporters Without Borders is providing a deterrent designed to encourage governments and others to respect freedom of information, the freedom that allows us to verify that all the other freedoms are being respected,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

“This website aims to exploit the so-called ‘Streisand effect,’ under which the more you try to censor content online, the more the Internet community tends to circulate it. We want to show that jailing an article’s author, seizing copies of a newspaper or blocking access to a website with a certain video can prove very counter-productive and can result in the content going around the world.”

By accessing a secured “digital safe,” Internet users will be able to submit content for publication anonymously.

The website will also offer a “digital survival kit” with information about Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), encryption software such as TrueCrypt, online anonymization techniques such as Tor and other tools that news providers can use to protect their sources and, in authoritarian countries, their own safety.

Private access to a beta version of the site has already been available since 13 November to those that register. To support the launch, the Publicis Bruxelles advertising agency devised a campaign ad free of charge that shows several heads of State, including Vladimir Putin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Bashar al-Assad in their birthday suits with the legend “Totalitarian regimes will no longer be able to hide anything from us.” It will appear in the print media and online.

Reporters Without Borders is an NGO with consultative status at the United Nations, UNESCO and the International Organisation of the Francophonie. It has its international secretariat in Paris, 10 international bureaux (in Berlin, Brussels, Geneva, Madrid, New York, Rome, Stockholm, Tunis, Vienna and Washington) and more than 150 correspondents across all five continents.

The WeFC project is supported by the European Union’s European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) and the Paris City Hall.


Thursday, December 22, 2011

RSF's 10 most dangerous media places - West Papua sidelined



IT'S OFFICIAL. Well, at least that is the implication of the new "10 most dangerous places for media" list published by Reporters Sans Frontieres - the Pacific is actually one of the safest places in the world for journalists. Yet many donors seem to think that a relatively safe region is more deserving for media freedom support than others in the real global hot seat. Even West Papua, which is by far the most dangerous place for journalists in the Pacific, doesn't get close to making the most risky hit list.

The 10 most dangerous places for journalists

2011 in figures: 66 journalists killed (16 percent more than in 2010)
1,044 journalists arrested
1,959 journalists physically attacked or threatened
499 media censored

71 journalists kidnapped

73 journalists fled their country

5 netizens killed

199 bloggers and netizens arrested

62 bloggers and netizens physically attacked

68 countries subject to internet censorship


Reporters Without Borders has this year, for the first time, compiled a list of the world’s 10 most dangerous places for the media – the 10 cities, districts, squares, provinces or regions where journalists and netizens were particularly exposed to violence and where freedom of information was flouted.

Overall, 2011 took a heavy toll on media freedom. The Arab Spring was at the centre of the news. Of the total of 66 journalists killed in 2011, 20 were killed in the Middle East (twice as many as in 2010). A similar number were killed in Latin America, which is very exposed to the threat of criminal violence. For the second year running, Pakistan was the single deadliest country with a total of 10 journalists killed, most of them murdered. China, Iran and Eritrea continue to be the world’s biggest prisons for the media.

The Arab Spring, the protest movements it inspired in nearby countries such as Sudan and Azerbaijan, and the street protests in other countries such as Greece, Belarus, Uganda, Chile and the United States were responsible for the dramatic surge in the number of arrests, from 535 in 2010 to 1,044 in 2011. There were many cases of journalists being physically obstructed in the course of their work (by being detained for short periods or being summoned for interrogation), and for the most part they represented attempts by governments to suppress information they found threatening.

The 43 percent increase in physical attacks on journalists and the 31 percent increase in arrests of netizens – who are leading targets when they provide information about street demonstrations during media blackouts – were also significant developments in a year of protest. Five netizens were killed in 2011, three of them in Mexico alone.

From Cairo’s Tahrir Square to Khuzdar in southwestern Pakistan, from Mogadishu to the cities of the Philippines, the risks of working as a journalist at times of political instability were highlighted more than ever in 2011. The street was where danger was to be found in 2011, often during demonstrations that led to violent clashes with the security forces or degenerated into open conflict. The 10 places listed by Reporters Without Borders represent extreme cases of censorship of the media and violence against those who tried to provide freely and independently reported news and information.

(Listed by alphabetical order of country. Full details on the RSF website)
1. Manama, Bahrain
The Bahraini authorities did everything possible to prevent international coverage of the pro-democracy demonstrations in the capital, Manama, denying entry to some foreign reporters, and threatening or attacking other foreign reporters or their local contacts. Bahraini journalists, especially photographers, were detained for periods ranging from several hours to several weeks. Many were tried before military tribunals until the state of emergency imposed on 15 March was lifted. After months of demonstrations, order was finally restored thanks to systematic repression. A blogger jailed by a military court is still in prison and no civilian court ever reviewed his conviction. Bahrain is an example of news censorship that succeeded with the complicity of the international community, which said nothing. A newspaper executive and a netizen paid for this censorship with their lives.

2. Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
Abobo, Adjamé, Plateau, Koumassi, Cocody, Yopougon ... all of these Abidjan neighbourhoods were dangerous places for the media at one stage or another during the first half of 2011. Journalists were stopped at checkpoints, subjected to heavy-handed interrogation or physically attacked. The headquarters of the national TV station, RTI, was the target of airstrikes. A newspaper employee was beaten and hacked to death at the end of February. A Radio Yopougon presenter was the victim of an execution-style killing by members of the Forces Républicaines de Côte d’Ivoire (FRCI) in May. The post-election crisis that led to open war between the supporters of the rival presidential contenders, Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara, had a dramatic impact on the safety of journalists. During the Battle of Abidjan, the country’s business capital, at the start of April, it was completely impossible for journalists to move about the city.

3. Cairo’s Tahrir Square, Egypt
The pro-democracy demonstrations that finally forced Hosni Mubarak to stand down as president on 20 February began at the end of January in Tahrir Square, now the emblem of the Arab Spring uprisings. Foreign journalists were systematically attacked during the incredibly violent first week of February, when an all-out hate campaign was waged against the international media from 2 to 5 February. More than 200 violations were reported. Local journalists were also targeted. The scenario was similar six months later – from 19 to 28 November, in the run-up to parliamentary elections, and during the weekend of 17-18 December – during the crackdown on new demonstrations to demand the departure of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

4. Misrata, Libya
After liberating Benghazi, the anti-Gaddafi rebels took Misrata, Libya’s third largest city and a strategic point for launching an offensive on Tripoli. But the regular army staged a counter-offensive and laid siege to the city, cutting it off from the rest of the world and imposing a news and information blockade lasting many weeks, during which its main road, Tripoli Street, was repeatedly the scene of particularly intense fighting. The Battle of Misrata highlighted the risks that reporters take in war zones. Two of the five journalists killed in Libya in 2011 lost their lives in this city.

5. Veracruz state, Mexico
Located on the Gulf of Mexico and long dominated by the cartel of the same name, Veracruz state is a hub of all kinds of criminal trade, from drug trafficking to contraband in petroleum products. In 2011, it became the new epicentre of the federal offensive against the cartels and three journalists were killed there in the course of the year. Around 10 others fled the state as a result of the growing threats to freedom of information and because of the inaction or complicity of the authorities in the face of this threat.

6. Khuzdar, Pakistan
The many cases of journalists who have been threatened or murdered in Khuzdar district, in the southwestern province of Balochistan, is typical of the extreme violence that prevails in this part of Pakistan. The province’s media are caught in the crossfire between the security forces and armed separatists. The murder of Javed Naseer Rind, a former assistant editor of the Daily Tawar newspaper, was the latest example. His body was found on 5 November, nearly three months after he was abducted. An anti-separatist group calling itself the Baloch Musallah Defa Army issued a hit-list at the end of November naming four journalists as earmarked for assassination.

7. The Manila, Cebu and Cagayan de Oro metropolitan areas on the islands of Luzon and Mindanao, Philippines
Most of the murders and physical attacks on journalists in the Philippines take place in these three metropolitan areas. The paramilitary groups and private militias responsible were classified as “Predators of Press Freedom” in 2011. The government that took office in July has still not come up with a satisfactory response, so these groups continue to enjoy a total impunity that is the result of corruption, links between certain politicians and organized crime, and an insufficiently independent judicial system.

8. Mogadishu, Somalia
Mogadishu is a deadly capital where journalists are exposed to terrible dangers, including being killed by a bomb or a stray bullet or being deliberately targeted by militias hostile to the news media. Although the Islamist insurgent group Al-Shabaab withdrew from the capital, fighting continues and makes reporting very dangerous. Three Somali journalists were killed in Mogadishu this year, in August, October and December. And a visiting Malaysian cameraman sustained a fatal gunshot injury to the chest in September while accompanying a Malaysian NGO as it was delivering humanitarian assistance.

9. Deraa, Homs and Damascus, Syria
Deraa and Homs, the two epicentres of the protests against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, have been completely isolated. They and Damascus were especially dangerous for journalists in 2011. The regime has imposed a complete media blackout, refusing to grant visas to foreign reporters and deporting those already in the country. The occasional video footage of the pro-democracy demonstrations that began in March has been filmed by ordinary citizens, who risk their lives to do so. Many have been the victims of arrest, abduction, beatings and torture for transmitting video footage or information about the repression. The mukhabarat (intelligence services), shabihas (militias) and their cyber-army have been used by the regime to identify and harass journalists. Physical violence is very common. Many bloggers and journalists have fled the country. Around 30 journalists are currently believed to be detained.

10. Sanaa’s Change Square, Yemen
Change Square in Sanaa was the centre of the protests against President Ali Abdallah Saleh and it is there that much of the violence and abuses against journalists took place. Covering the demonstrations and the many bloody clashes with the security forces was dangerous for the media, which were directly targeted by a regime bent on crushing the pro-democracy movement and suppressing coverage of it. Two journalists were killed while covering these demonstrations. Pro-government militiamen known as baltajiyas also carried out punitive raids on the media. Physical violence, destruction of equipment, kidnappings, seizure and destruction of newspapers, and attacks on media offices were all used as part of a policy of systematic violence against media personnel.

Friday, December 31, 2010

Café Pacific's New Year Honours list 2010

NEWSPAPER of the Year – The Fiji Times: This is the second year running it has won the Café Pacific newspaper prize. Although The Fiji Times went off the boil under Netani Rika’s leadership and headed for a disastrous demise with it uncomprising but unrealistic stance when dealing with a military regime, the newspaper wins the award again - this time for its change of ownership, change of tactics and a realistic overhaul of its strategic direction. Under the naïve management in the last stages of the News Ltd era, the 141-year-old newspaper was heading for closure under the 10 percent local ownership ultimatum under the regime’s Media Industry Development Decree. This fate would have sealed the end of any credible fightback for an independent media in Fiji.

However, under the new ownership of the Motibhai group (“Mac” Motibhai Patel was a Fiji Times director for about four decades) and with the recall of a previous outstanding Australian publisher, Dallas Swinstead, to the hotseat, the paper now has the chance to fight another day. Neogotiation rather than confrontation seems to be the new approach under editor Fred Wesley. Time will tell whether this succeeds.

But paradoxically The Fiji Times also blots its copy book with the Most Toadying Story of the Year – a front page story on Fiji Water that ran as a sort of advertising wrap around given the marketing image displayed. When the US-based company Fiji Water announced its closure this was a petulant response to a massive tax clampdown on the company, many breathed an “about time” sigh – they regarded the company as having exploiting Fiji for years. While some in the media fraternity expected the regime to cave in – as it had done on a previous attempt to boost the state tax returns - this time it was the company that surrendered with a reversal of its close down edict and a vow of business as usual. The Fiji Times needed to have published a more exhaustive inquiry into the economics of Fiji Water and also ought to have a higher level of scrutiny of other foreign-owned companies operating in the country. This is revelatory about the level of business journalism on the paper at the moment.

Media film – There Once Was an Island: Te Henua e Noho: Strictly speaking, this isn’t a media film at all, but a powerful and heart-rending documentary about the realities of climate change in the Pacific, a film that every journalist working on environmental issues should watch. It is extremely educational about the power relationships between politicians in far-away Pacific capitals and their incompetent functionaries and island communities struggling for survival on remote islands with the political odds stacked against them. Filmmaker Briar March lived with the community on the Polynesian atoll of Takuu (also known as the Mortlock islands) as they wrestled with their life-and-death decisions over a move to the Bougainville autonomous region mainland some 250 km to the south-west.

This film had its premier in the New Zealand International Film Festival in July and was also screened at the Oceans, Islands and Skies creativity and climate change conference at the University of the South Pacific in September. Sadly, not one local Fiji journalist took the trouble of seeing it, let alone write about it. It has already won four awards in 2010 and was the runner-up as the best political film for the AOF Festival 2010.

Media monitoring agency – Reporters sans frontières (RSF): Again, this award is well-deserved globally for 2010, but the agency is also now boosting its Asia-Pacific coverage with several new nations now being included in its Pacific section of the annual media freedom survey. Its coverage of East Timor and Papua New Guinea is particularly welcome. According to RSF's 2010 end-of-year report:

57 journalists killed (25 percent fewer than in 2009)
51 journalists kidnapped
535 journalists arrested
1374 physically attacked or threatened
504 media censored
127 journalists fled their country
152 bloggers and netizens arrested
52 physically attacked
62 countries affected by internet censorship
Check out the full report.

Independent new website - Taimi Media Network Online: This new website is a hybrid offering from both the feisty independent newspaper Taimi ‘o Tonga and the government-owned Tonga Chronicle and TMN-Television 2. Congratulations Kalafi Moala and his team. This could not be better timed as the momentous post-election changes are settling down in Tonga. Scrutiny is needed now more than ever.

Also, a special mention of the Pacific Media Centre’s new revamped regional website: www.pmc.aut.ac.nz – unlike some of the regional media websites, this is genuinely independent and carries no vested interests baggage.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Bloggers and the Paris 'anti-censor shelter'

TOMORROW is International Blog Day – and already an innovative venture by Reporters Sans Frontières is more than two months old. While Café Pacific's publisher was in Paris visiting RSF, the media freedom organisation was launching a new tool to protect the identities of bloggers exposing truths unpalatable to some regimes.

The world’s first “anti-censorship shelter” was launched in mid-June in a clever new attempt to foil oppressive regimes. Take note, Fiji bloggers. The shelter tries to ensure that online journalists and bloggers can freely publish while staying anonymous.

RSF pledges "an active commitment to an internet that is unrestricted and accessible to all”. Its strategy for doing this is to offer censorship victims a way of protecting their online information.

The organisation has partnered with a security firm, XeroBank, to form what it describes as a "virtually untraceable high-speed anonymity network". Traffic is mixed with that of thousands of other internet users from country to country, making detection impossible.

RSF has also created a website for hosting “forbidden material” in order to outwit global censorship.

As many regimes have become more suspicious of bloggers and ever more oppressive, the online writers continue to publish news and information that traditional media dares not cover. Online sites, like CoupFourpointFive, have provided a key safety valve and clearing house for the Fiji opponents of dictator Voreqe Bainimarama.

Last year, RSF published a handbook offering practical advice and techniques on how to create a blog, make entries and get the blog to show up in search engine results. It gives clear explanations about blogging for all those whose online freedom of expression is subject to restrictions - and it shows how to sidestep state-imposed censorship measures. Writes editor Clothilde Le Coz:
Let's acknowledge that blogs are a fantastic tool for freedom of expression. They have loosened the tongues of ordinary citizens. People who were until now only consumers of news have become players in a new form of journalism, a "grassroots" journalism, as expressed by Dan Gillmor, that is "by the people for the people".

Blogs are more or less controllable for those who want to keep them under surveillance. Governments that are most up to do date with new technology use the most sophisticated filtering or blocking techniques, preventing them from appearing on the Web at all. But bloggers don't just sit back and let it happen. The essential question becomes how to blog in complete safety.

And that’s where the new RSF blogging tool comes in. RSF is also helping journalists in other practical ways too, like hiring out media flak jackets at a fraction of the commercial rates.

Pictured: RSF graphic; flak jackets in the RSF headquarters in Paris, near La Bourse; RSF's Asia-Pacific coordinator Vincent Brossell (centre) and colleagues with the PMC's David Robie. Photos: David Robie

Friday, January 1, 2010

Café Pacific’s awards to spice up the new decade

CAFÉ PACIFIC’S scribes have been on leave so we are a bit slow off the mark for our New Year honours. Still, better late than never. Here is a brief lineup as 2010 starts cruising:

Newspaper of the year – The Fiji Times: As a crusading daily under the helm of battling Netani Rika, it is hard to go past this Australian-owned publication – the strongest daily newspaper in Fiji in spite of its past political baggage and track record that goes right back to its colonial days in Levuka. While Bainimarama’s regime regularly chokes for breakfast over this Murdoch paper and blames it (along with Fiji Television) for the “need” to impose its promised/threatened new media law, the rest of the region can thank Rika and his team for keeping up the good fight and exposing life under media censorship.

But we should not get carried away with the accolades. The Times still has plenty of flaws in both its coverage and strategy. The region also needs to acknowledge the courage of many other journalists in Fiji and the resolve and commitment of other media in tackling the regime in rather more subtle and intriguing ways. Things need to be kept in perspective globally too, there is a quantum leap between the relatively mild (but inexcusable) press freedom abuses in Fiji and the truly repugnant violence against media in such countries as Burma and even in a democracy such as the Philippines where 30 journalists can be assassinated by private militia in one dreadful killing field obscenity and when Filipino radio talkback broadcasters or reporters, in particular, can be murdered with near impunity for exposing corruption.

Media film – Balibo: The on screen version of the murder of five journalists working for Australian news media – two Australians, two Britons and a New Zealander – by Indonesian special forces invading East Timor on 16 October 1975 has revived controversial and painful memories. Not only has the Robert Connolly film reflected on the wounds of the past, and even stirred the wrath of the widow of the lead journalist killed, Greg Shackleton, it has triggered debate about journalistic professionalism in an age when bravado was perhaps more important than the safety concerns dominant today.

In a recent clandestine showing of the film – banned in Indonesia – to journalists in Jakarta the emphasis was on the “journalism” rather than the human rights issues. Warief Djajanto Basorie of the Jakarta Post wrote:
Balibo can be labelled a political film, a war film, a human rights film, or a journalism film.

After the Makassar screening, discussion focused on the journalism. The question asked: As journalists, what can you learn from the film?

In covering a conflict, it tells you to make a choice.
Either you stay or you go, replied one participant.

“I would go,” he said emphatically.

Most of the 31 journalists present agreed. The majority argument was to leave the war zone, prioritising safety and the ability to continue reporting in the future.


At least two participants, however, insisted they would stay for the story because it was “too big a story to miss”.
Basorie claimed the five murdered newsmen were “embedded journalists” – embedded with Fretilin.

Independent newspaper – Wansolwara: The student journalism newspaper published by the University of the South Pacific deserved to win the Ossie Award for regular publications this year for publishing under a state censorship regime. Not only did the courageous students publish a special edition examining the media in Fiji under a military regime, but they also reported global warming, environmental issues and human rights in the region.

Wansolwara
, which has not only won the most Ossie awards of any publication in Australia, NZ or the Pacific (10, plus it scooped the pool in 2000 with the online and print coverage of the George Speight coup). For 13 years, the newspaper has been self-funded by the students themselves through advertising revenue. But this year, the students brought off a coup themselves – with a deal to publish their newspaper as a liftout in the daily newspaper Fiji Sun. This immediately lifted their circulation from 2000 to more than 20,000.

Unfortunately the Reader’s Digest judge surprisingly overlooked this newspaper’s achievements and quality and awarded the “best regular publication” prize to AUT University’s Te Waha Nui instead.

Media monitoring agency – Reporters sans frontières (RSF): This award is well-deserved globally for 2009, but RSF needs to beef up its Pacific content, not just concentrate on Fiji and one or two other higher profile issues. In its roundup for the year, RSF highlighted the Ampatuan massacre – largest ever killing of journalists in a single day - and the unprecedented wave of arrests and convictions of journalists and bloggers in Iran. The agency’s summary for the year:
76 journalists killed (60 in 2008)
33 journalists kidnapped

573 journalists arrested

1456 physically assaulted

570 media censored

157 journalists fled their countries

1 blogger died in prison

151 bloggers and cyber-dissidents arrested

61 ph
ysically assaulted
60 countries affected by online censorship
Check out the full report.

Incidentally, for those with special concerns on internet freedoms, it is good news that Lucie Morillon has been appointed as the new head of RSF. She established the RSF office in New York five years ago and has long been a champion of online free speech.

The efforts of the new Pacific Freedom Forum, the International Federation of Journalists and the Pacific Media Centre's Pacific Media Watch also deserve praise for their specifically Oceania work.

Independent blog – Croz Walsh’s Fiji: Crosbie Walsh is not actually a journalist. However, as an adjunct professor and retired founding director of the University of the South Pacific’s Development Studies programme, he is an acute observer and commentator about facts and falsehoods about Fiji. Thrust into blogging almost by accident (he became rather frustrated over poor media coverage of the realities in Fiji), he established his own excellent and reliable information and analysis website in a bold attempt to make sense of the complexities of Fiji’s political, social and economic order since the 2006 coup.

In the process, his blog has embarrassed many leading journalists who profess to be “experts” on Fiji by repeatedly exposing the shallowness of their reporting. He has also been a counterfoil for some of the rabid anti-Fiji regime blogs (including several run or contributed to by journalists) and their propaganda and lies. The context and complexities may be frequently missing from mainstream media coverage, but Croz is filling many of the gaps and balancing the misrepresentations. A comment in a recent posting has taken AAP's Tamara McLean to task:
A Tamara McLean article in the NZ Herald/AAP provides readers with a rehash of what was once news, and "fresh" comments from "an Auckland University academic sympathetic to Bainimarama" (Prof Hugh Laracy) countered by three "Pacific specialists (Dr Jon Fraenkel, Jone Baledrokadroka and Prof Brij Lal) at the Australian National University" who are not." The use of "academic" and "specialists" tells readers where Tamara is coming from, but it's neither subtle nor accurate for all four are academics and specialists.
Special freedom of speech award - José Belo: For remaining defiant in the face of threats and a legal onslaught over his exposes of corruption that could have led to imprisonment in East Timor. He was ultimately saved by the collapse of the trumped up “criminal defamation” case against him and Tempo Semanal.

Pictured: A National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) protest against the killing of media workers (Photo: Bayanihan Post) and José Belo of East Timor at work (Photo: Etan).

Thursday, December 3, 2009

'Godfather' indicted after worst journalist massacre in Philippines

EIGHT members of the clan accused of being responsible for the obscene slaughter of 57 people - including up to 30 journalists - in the southern Philippines province of Maguindanao late last month have been rounded up and charged.

The accused include the so-called "Godfather" of the clan. Hundreds of police and security agents have been detained and reports say the entire police force of the province will be replaced.

Women victims were reported to have been mutilated.

Bai Genalin Mangudadatu, wife of Buluan Vice-Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu, suffered 17 gunshot wounds and several "incised wounds," according to a medical report of the National Bureau of Investigation. But the NBI reportedly found no sign of rape among the 15 female victims it had examined.

Genalin had been on her way to file her husband's certificate of candidacy for Maguindanao governor when gunmen blocked her convoy and killed her and at least 56 others on November 23.

Maguindanao Governor Andal Ampatuan Sr is one of eight members of his clan indicted by prosecutors probing the massacre.

He has been described as the "Godfather" of the political clan favoured by President Gloria Arroyo.

The prosecutors have charged him with multiple murder, destruction of property and robbery.

Ampatuan Sr's son, Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr, is already in jail on charges of masterminding the election-related killings and on 25 counts of murder.

Another of Ampatuan Sr's sons, Governor Zaldy Ampatuan of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, has also been asked by Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno to answer within five days allegations that he had failed "to protect the civil, human and political rights" of the victims.

An Al Jazeera report described the powerful Ampatuan clan as "political untouchables".

A congressman accused the government on Friday of being the biggest arms supplier of Filipino warlords after the discovery of a large arms cache near the mansion of Governor Zaldy Ampatuan Jr on Thursday.

"The arms cache found near the Ampatuans' mansion confirms that the government, particularly the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines), is the biggest arms supplier of the country's warlords," Bayan Muna Representative Teodoro Casiño said in a text message.

“This bloodbath is beyond human understanding,” says a journalist from the nearby city of Koronadal. He told Reporters Sans Frontières: “I have lost 12 of my colleagues in this massacre.”

Nonoy Espina of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), who is in Mindanao, told Reporters Sans Frontières before the latest arrests of the clan leaders: "The government is not doing enough to arrest those responsible."

Eight of the journalists have now been buried and media people will stage a protest rally at Mendiola, Manila, on Wednesday, December 9.

Meanwhile, an international emergency mission led by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has arrived in the Philippines to support local journalists and the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) in the wake of the massacre.

The delegation comprises representatives from leading journalists' rights and press freedom organisations including the IFJ, the Southeast Asia Press Alliance (SEAPA), the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance MEAA - Australia), the Thai Journalists' Association (TJA), International News Safety Institute (INSI), International Media Support (IMS), the Institute for Studies on the Free Flow of Information (ISAI) and Union Network International (UNI).

Photo: BJNES






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