Caracas -- Three journalists (click here) – two of them foreigners – detained during a working visit to a prison were released on Sunday after a court hearing, Venezuela’s SNTP media workers union said.
Jesus Medina, Filippo Rossi and Roberto Di Matteo were released without charges, the SNTP said on Twitter.
Rossi is a Swiss citizen and Di Matteo is Italian.
The three men were arrested Saturday by agents of the prisons ministry at Tocoron penitentiary in the north-central state of Aragua, where they went to do a news story.
The SNTP said that while Medina, Di Matteo and Rossi were detained on charges of bringing audio-visual recording equipment into the prison without authorization, the journalists complied fully with regulations.
Tocoron is among the penitentiaries that have yet to implement a new set of guidelines that the prisons ministry says are aimed at “pacifying” Venezuela’s notoriously violent jails.
Media outlets have reported that inmates at Tocoron direct kidnappings, protection rings and black-market activities from behind bars.
In some countries journalists are considered to be spies, regardless, of their lack of a relationship with their home governments in a way that would bring secretive information considered to be intelligence.
The reason these misunderstandings occur is because the government involved doesn't understand the JOB journalists have or simply don't approve of it. The West has a unique paradigm with journalists that someone like Vladimir Putin finds pliable enough to use as a weapon. That is a problem the citizens of The West may find difficult to control. Freedom of speech isn't suppose to be used as a weapon, but, it is in the year 2017.
Journalists value freedom of speech and seek to bring information to their readers to improve their understanding of the truth. Propaganda is an enemy. Lies are not illegal. However, misdirecting information to create a danger to the sovereignty of a country is a crime.
To many, journalists are not friends, but, the profession never demands it should be. The profession of journalism only demands that it exist on it's own standards.
October 9, 2017
Ankara (Reuters) - Turkey will retry a lawmaker (click here) from the main opposition party after a court annulled his 25-year prison sentence but he will remain in custody, broadcaster NTV and opposition lawmakers said on Monday.
Enis Berberoglu became a symbol for more than 50,000 people detained in the wake of a failed coup in July 2016.
The chairman of his secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) started a 425 km (265 mile) protest march from the capital Ankara to Istanbul when he was convicted and sentenced in June for military espionage.
The court had said Berberoglu gave an opposition newspaper a video purporting to show Turkey’s intelligence agency trucking weapons into Syria....
How much bail is Iran asking for this time? I would think with nuclear sanctions lifted there would be no more need for the Iranian government to raise funds through false arrests.
October 9, 2017
By Saeed Kamali Dehghan
A British-Iranian woman (click here) serving a five-year jail term in Iran after being accused of trying to orchestrate a “soft overthrow” of the Islamic Republic is facing fresh charges that may lead to an additional 16 years in prison, her husband has said.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 38, a project manager at the Thomson Reuters Foundation, has been in jail for 18 months and was due to become eligible for early release next month, but the new trial means she will remain behind bars.
Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said that at a court hearing on Sunday inside Tehran’s Evin prison, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was told her case had been reopened and she was facing charges including demonstrating outside the Iranian embassy in London, based on a photo found from accessing her private email account....
Iran should have more confidence in its people. Does the current government actually believe the Iranian people want to go back to the time of the Shah? I doubt they do. I think they may want more freedom of expression that would solve social ills, but, to move back to a dictatorship that starved its people is hardly the Iran most of it's citizens long for.
The Iranian government should seek to provide greater freedom of speech. Oddly, freedom of speech tends to act as a buffer to revolution. Interestingly, it can prevent revolution when the people are heard and the government understands the best way forward.
I think the Ayatollah opened a twitter account long before Trump became president. He should know talking with the people is a constructive method to solve problems in finding a way forward for them. I simply can't believe a British-Iranian woman has all this power to threaten the government of Iran. I think it is time Iran realize it's short fall of incite in regard to her.
Victims can enact revolution far easier than those heard in opposition to social and political standards. The Iranian government needs to reflect on Iran of the past opposed to the Iran it's citizens long for today.
Rossi is a Swiss citizen and Di Matteo is Italian.
The three men were arrested Saturday by agents of the prisons ministry at Tocoron penitentiary in the north-central state of Aragua, where they went to do a news story.
The SNTP said that while Medina, Di Matteo and Rossi were detained on charges of bringing audio-visual recording equipment into the prison without authorization, the journalists complied fully with regulations.
Tocoron is among the penitentiaries that have yet to implement a new set of guidelines that the prisons ministry says are aimed at “pacifying” Venezuela’s notoriously violent jails.
Media outlets have reported that inmates at Tocoron direct kidnappings, protection rings and black-market activities from behind bars.
In some countries journalists are considered to be spies, regardless, of their lack of a relationship with their home governments in a way that would bring secretive information considered to be intelligence.
The reason these misunderstandings occur is because the government involved doesn't understand the JOB journalists have or simply don't approve of it. The West has a unique paradigm with journalists that someone like Vladimir Putin finds pliable enough to use as a weapon. That is a problem the citizens of The West may find difficult to control. Freedom of speech isn't suppose to be used as a weapon, but, it is in the year 2017.
Journalists value freedom of speech and seek to bring information to their readers to improve their understanding of the truth. Propaganda is an enemy. Lies are not illegal. However, misdirecting information to create a danger to the sovereignty of a country is a crime.
To many, journalists are not friends, but, the profession never demands it should be. The profession of journalism only demands that it exist on it's own standards.
October 9, 2017
Ankara (Reuters) - Turkey will retry a lawmaker (click here) from the main opposition party after a court annulled his 25-year prison sentence but he will remain in custody, broadcaster NTV and opposition lawmakers said on Monday.
Enis Berberoglu became a symbol for more than 50,000 people detained in the wake of a failed coup in July 2016.
The chairman of his secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) started a 425 km (265 mile) protest march from the capital Ankara to Istanbul when he was convicted and sentenced in June for military espionage.
The court had said Berberoglu gave an opposition newspaper a video purporting to show Turkey’s intelligence agency trucking weapons into Syria....
How much bail is Iran asking for this time? I would think with nuclear sanctions lifted there would be no more need for the Iranian government to raise funds through false arrests.
By Saeed Kamali Dehghan
A British-Iranian woman (click here) serving a five-year jail term in Iran after being accused of trying to orchestrate a “soft overthrow” of the Islamic Republic is facing fresh charges that may lead to an additional 16 years in prison, her husband has said.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 38, a project manager at the Thomson Reuters Foundation, has been in jail for 18 months and was due to become eligible for early release next month, but the new trial means she will remain behind bars.
Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said that at a court hearing on Sunday inside Tehran’s Evin prison, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was told her case had been reopened and she was facing charges including demonstrating outside the Iranian embassy in London, based on a photo found from accessing her private email account....
Iran should have more confidence in its people. Does the current government actually believe the Iranian people want to go back to the time of the Shah? I doubt they do. I think they may want more freedom of expression that would solve social ills, but, to move back to a dictatorship that starved its people is hardly the Iran most of it's citizens long for.
The Iranian government should seek to provide greater freedom of speech. Oddly, freedom of speech tends to act as a buffer to revolution. Interestingly, it can prevent revolution when the people are heard and the government understands the best way forward.
I think the Ayatollah opened a twitter account long before Trump became president. He should know talking with the people is a constructive method to solve problems in finding a way forward for them. I simply can't believe a British-Iranian woman has all this power to threaten the government of Iran. I think it is time Iran realize it's short fall of incite in regard to her.
Victims can enact revolution far easier than those heard in opposition to social and political standards. The Iranian government needs to reflect on Iran of the past opposed to the Iran it's citizens long for today.
