By Naw Noreen
Burma’s reporters (click here) took to the streets of two cities on
Friday to rally support for greater press freedom. About 100
demonstrators amassed in Prome, Pegu Division, while dozens gathered in
Mon State capital Moulmein.
The larger rally was held without an assembly permit, but no one has yet been arrested for participation. DVB’s Prome correspondent, Than Htike Aung, said that demonstrators were warned by local police but refused to dissipate.
“We marched along the main road… and we were stopped by the superintendent of Prome Police Station,” he said, “but we refused to follow his order to desist. We told him he can press any charges on us that he wished.”
Burma’s controversial Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Processions Law requires prior approval for all public gatherings, where the intention is to publicly express opinion. The law has been widely admonished, with critics claiming that authorities frequently abuse it by targeting certain outspoken activists....
Not every journalists is FOX News tapping into phone lines and websites. Journalists are the best source for citizens to prevent corruption of their government and lives. The economies of the world run best addressing quality of life when their earnings go as far as they can and promote growth. Journalists play a strong role in exposing corruption and the consequence of that is economic growth.
April 24, 2014
BAKU (RFE/RL)—A prominent Azerbaijani journalist (click here) and political analyst has been deported from Turkey and arrested in Azerbaijan on charges of high treason reportedly stemming from his repeated trips to Armenia.
Rauf Mirkadyrov, a veteran columnist for the Baku-based newspaper “Zerkalo,” was put on a plane in Ankara at the weekend and flown to Baku, where was immediately detained by officers of the Azerbaijani National Security Ministry. Mirkadyrov’s lawyer told Azerbaijani media afterwards that his client has been charged with espionage.
Mirkadyrov was formally remanded in pre-trial custody on Monday. In a statement cited by local news agencies, Azerbaijan’s Office of the Prosecutor-General claimed that Mirkadyrov was recruited by Armenian intelligence agents in 2008. It said he repeatedly met with them in Armenia, Georgia and Turkey in the following years to pass on “information about the political, social and military situation” in Azerbaijan that included state secrets.
“We are also told that he has visited Armenia and held a number of meetings there without the knowledge of official representatives of Azerbaijan’s government,” the APA news agency reported earlier in the day.
“Zerkalo” scoffed at the espionage accusation. “Any honest Azerbaijani journalist can only work for them [Armenians,]” the Russian-language independent paper commented sarcastically on its website....
If a country is going to jail journalists for spying, then they have to be considered prisoners of war. In that case the Geneva Conventions would come into play.
Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, (click here) 75 U.N.T.S. 135, entered into force Oct. 21, 1950.
The are very few exceptions to the Geneva Conventions across the globe. There is participation with one convention or another some dating back to the 1950s. These standards have to apply to every political prisoner and 'spies' are also political prisoners in custody regardless of country. Member countries and there status (click here)
Cansu Çamlıbel
ISTANBUL / Hürriyet
A new law increasing the power and immunity of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) (click here) will have a deeply injurious effect on a variety of
societal freedoms, including freedom of the press, according to Human
Rights Watch.“Basically, the winners of the Pulitzer Prize would be subject to prosecution under this law in Turkey,” Kenneth Roth, who has been HRW’s executive director since 1993, recently told daily Hürriyet in reference to the journalists at The Guardian and the Washington Post who worked on documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden about U.S. intelligence’s eavesdropping activities.
Roth’s warning came after meetings with President Abdullah Gül and Numan Kurtulmuş, deputy chair of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)....
#FreeAJStaff
#JournalismIsNotCrime
Hürriyet journalists (click here) at the newspaper’s Istanbul headquarters have voiced their support for jailed Al-Jazeera English staff in Egypt, whose trial resumed on April 22, the 115th day they have spent in prison.
The trial of Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy, Australian Peter Greste and Egyptian Baher Mohamed resumed in Cairo, on charges including “spreading false news” and supporting the now blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood of deposed president Mohamed Morsi.
At the Hürriyet World building in Istanbul, Turkish editors and reporters, including Hürriyet Publication Director Fikret Ercan, Print Coordinator Emre Oral, Digital Media Coordinator Bülent Mumay and Hürriyet Daily News editor-in-chief Murat Yetkin, taped their mouths in protest against repression of free speech in Egypt.
“Dictators and military regimes everywhere in the world see journalism as a crime and they attempt to criminalize journalism, because they are enemies of the facts. Peter, Mohammad and Baher, we stand by you,” said Sedat Ergin, an award-winning daily Hürriyet columnist.
The three Al-Jazeera English journalists were arrested in Egypt on Dec. 29, 2013. They have been charged with spreading false news, aiding or belonging to a terrorist organization, and operating without a permit....
Posted by Charlayne Hunter-Gault
The last time I saw Eskinder Nega (click here) was in 2006, on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, and what remains etched in my mind is the image of him gently rubbing his pregnant wife’s stomach during a rare, brief encounter on a dirt path on the way back to their respective prison cells. Both had been arrested and put in Kaliti prison by the Ethiopian authorities for critical reporting of a violent crackdown on protests following disputed parliamentary elections, in which, according to some reports, security forces killed nearly two hundred people. Eskinder and his wife, Serkalem Fasil, a newspaper publisher, were acquitted in 2007, but their publications were banned and the Ethiopian government denied them licenses to launch new newspapers.
April 21, 2014
Press TV has conducted an interview (click here for video, too.) with Mohamed Keita, Africa advocacy coordinator for Committee to Protect Journalists, from New York, about Ethiopia cracking down on freedom of press and independent journalism critical of the Ethiopian government.
Press TV: How would you characterize the government’s relationship with journalists in Ethiopia at the moment?
How concerned are you about individuals like Eskinder Nega who is serving an 18 year term; Woubshet Taye, 14 years; a very famous case of Reeyot Alemu – 1,000 days and counting, in prison; and then of course as mentioned in the report Somali journalist Mohamed Aweys Mudey sentenced to 27 years in prison – starting that sentence in February.
Keita: Yes we are extremely pre-occupied by the health especially of Reeyot Alemu and Woubshet Taye. Their health has deteriorated in custody and they have been denied adequate medical attention.
Authorities have also conducted reprisals against them hardening or harshening the detention conditions; or moving them from prison to prison; or denying family visits.
And we are extremely pre-occupied because unfortunately Ethiopia has already a precedent where back in 1998 a journalist dies after being denied adequate medical attention while in jail. That journalist was also in jail for writing articles. So there is a very sad precedent....
Kim Mackrael
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail
Published
Last updated
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird (click here) says he raised the case of a Canadian journalist on trial in Egypt when he met with his counterpart in Cairo this week, noting concerns about Mohamed Fahmy’s medical needs an the importance of a fair and timely trial....
...“Obviously we’re concerned first and foremost for his health, about him getting medical treatment for his shoulder,” Mr. Baird said in a phone interview with The Globe and Mail on Friday. Mr. Fahmy injured his shoulder shortly before his arrest and was not allowed to visit a hospital for an MRI until several months after his arrest.
His brother, Sherif Fahmy, told The Globe earlier this week that the family had hoped Mr. Baird would use this week’s visit to intervene on the case. Mohamed Fahmy immigrated to Canada with his family from Egypt about 20 years ago and is a dual citizen.
Mr. Fahmy is being tried along with 19 others, including two of his Al Jazeera colleagues, Australian reporter Peter Greste and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed. Their trial was adjourned for the fourth time in late March and is expected to resume April 22....
