The state of freedom of the press in the world in a series of tweets
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10:16 am, January 12th, 2015 - 31 comments
Categories: Abuse of power, Europe, International, journalism, Media, Politics, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, you couldn't make this shit up -
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An estimated one and a half million people have marched in France in support of freedom of the press and in remembrance of those who died at the Charlie Hebdo siege. The march included a number of world leaders whose commitment to freedom of the press could be questioned. In a series of tweets which are going viral Daniel Wickham, a member of the Middle East Society attached to the London School of Economics Student Union, is pointing out the commitment of some of the participants to freedom of the press may not be as good as could be hoped for.
1) King Abdullah of Jordan, which last year sentenced a Palestinian journalist to 15 years in prison with hard labour http://t.co/giZg7JounI
— Daniel Wickham (@DanielWickham93) January 11, 2015
3) Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, whose forced killed 7 journalists in Gaza last yr (second highest after Syria) http://t.co/w74zqVHZf9
— Daniel Wickham (@DanielWickham93) January 11, 2015
5) Foreign Minister Lavrov of Russia, which last year jailed a journalist for "insulting a government servant" http://t.co/J4Rca9chuA
— Daniel Wickham (@DanielWickham93) January 11, 2015
7) The Foreign Minister of the UAE, which in 2013 held a journo incommunicado for a month on suspicion of MB links https://t.co/15ESrDu1kh
— Daniel Wickham (@DanielWickham93) January 11, 2015
9) The PMs of Georgia and Bulgaria, both of whom have a record of attacking & beating journos http://t.co/sB0gkTtnJl http://t.co/bnvaAyic5p
— Daniel Wickham (@DanielWickham93) January 11, 2015
11) Prime Minister Samaras of Greece, where riot police beat & injured two journalists at a protest in June last year http://t.co/Vr8MPsEwWR
— Daniel Wickham (@DanielWickham93) January 11, 2015
13) President Keita of Mali, where journalists are expelled for covering human rights abuses https://t.co/LByJYLfxIe
— Daniel Wickham (@DanielWickham93) January 11, 2015
15) Sheikh Mohamed Ben Hamad Ben Khalifa Al Thani of Qatar, which jailed a man for 15 ys for writing the Jasmine poem http://t.co/8s1N0wcPC6
— Daniel Wickham (@DanielWickham93) January 11, 2015
17) Prime Minister Cerar of Slovenia, which sentenced a blogger to six months in prison for "defamation" in 2013 http://t.co/cBVYh4niys
— Daniel Wickham (@DanielWickham93) January 11, 2015
19) Prime Minister Kopacz of Poland, which raided a magazine to seize recordings embarrassing for the ruling party http://t.co/6asFIyiLr9
— Daniel Wickham (@DanielWickham93) January 11, 2015
21) Saudi ambassador to France. The Saudis publicly flogged blogger @raif_badawi for "insulting Islam" on Friday http://t.co/ZTlPCGa6u5
— Daniel Wickham (@DanielWickham93) January 11, 2015
Let us hope that this new found enthusiasm for freedom of the press causes an improvement in standards throughout the world.
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Well spotted. I woke to Al Jazeera’s coverage of the march this morning. I was saddened that other violence and press censorship doesn’t get so much opposition and news coverage.
sadly the media are at their most ardent and vigilant when their own are attacked… remember Andrea Vance’s treatment prompted some outrage…
And world leaders are at their most ardent when they can make a statement against Islam. I don’t see a good ending to any of this.
I cant see a good end for the poor of the world, the oppressed of the world, the women and children of Africa, middle east and other nations closer to home…
this is being used as a big old excuse by some powerful nations… to do what exactly??
Fantastic post Mickey. When I first heard of the world representatives marching for press freedom I was appalled at the hypocrisy of some of those marching.
The tweets listing the various atrocities is very chilling. i
It is quite an art form to construct a narrative out of a series of tweets. The 140 characters applies real discipline on the style of writing. One series I previously posted on was Giovanni Tiso’s series on dirty politics (http://thestandard.org.nz/giovanni-tiso-on-dirty-politics/)
Yes, Giovanni Tiso’s writing is always brilliant, whether it is twitter or his blog.
I have been trying to wean myself off reading twitter because I have been spending too much time on it, but there is no way I will stop reading Tiso every day.
“Fantastic post Mickey”
+1
this is why despite its limitations social media is awesome and a saving grace.
Just hoping there is no-one from the National govt there.
poor JK, probably still sulking that Obama ditched their golf game…
Pathetic journalists expecting that irony will help anything like something out of America World Police. Levelling the charge “hypocrisy” at a political leader lets everyone off the hook.
– The journalist can say “job done”.
– Politician doesn’t give a damn, fronts the media spectacle – job done.
– The public viewing the spectacle of news shrugs and goes – told ya so. Job done.
Get me another beer will ya honey?
I don’t think people are naming yet how different this European response is to either the 9/11 U.S. soil attack responses, or the London bombings, or indeed the Spanish train bomb.
No-one of course is yet proposing joining hands around the Pentagon and chant until it levitates, to be sure. (Been tried a few years ago anyway).
But this is a different kind of response.
Sure it’s orchestrated for media. (Duh!).
Sure the values of all participants, including politicians, are uneven ( well duh!)
A real question is: unlike the last ten good-sized crises, can the left build on this 1.5m march and make it a project that changes things for good?
Only the cynical and the journalists rule it out.
The march was organised by the power elite, as a photo op for the power elite, in order to reinforce the narrative of the power elite.
What exactly do you think the Left should “build on”?
They should build on the (twisted, compromised) conscience and greed of the power elite. That’s what we usually do.
Oops. Forgot, British Government smashing Guardian computers over Snowden leak. Oh, and detaining Greenwalds partner. Anyone from America there? Snowden, Chelsea Manning, James Risen, Aaron Swarz. Funny how condemnation falls on the most obvious culprits. Seems we’re still blind to some countries where arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, torture and death can befall those who speak the truth. Like, America and Britain.
but that is different, isnt greenwald a “henchman”, not a journalist?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11324113
Actually the British government oversaw the Guardian smashing its own computers. Nothing so tawdry as doing the smashing themselves 😉
Detaining Greenwald’s partner was particularly shameful.
Am wondering now if any govt should have representatives at the rally.
I can’t think of one that deserves to be there for the stated reasons. If what they’re marching for is an Axis against Islam, yeah, but they’re not there for press freedom.
Julian Assange.
Indeed, CR. You prompted me to look, so I did. As in the original list of tweets we condemn the usual suspects. In response I listed the usually cited victims of oppression. But there have been others. What started as a fact check became some ghastly responsibility to record, one by one, each individual act of State sanctioned terror on American and British journalists over the last few years. These are ordinary working journalists and photographers going about their lawful duty to observe, record and report. These were important events like Occupy Wall Street, Earth Day and NATO demonstrations, and the Ferguson shootings. Arrested. Assaulted. Detained. For being journalists. I list them below, each to their own line so they don’t get absorbed into a category: Arrested Journalist, that can be used as a label to dismiss them. Each to their own line because each is a death, the end of our freedom.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff
Lucy Kafanov
Ryan Harvey
JA Meyerson
Keith Gessen
Julia Reinhart
Molly Crabapple
John Bolger
John Farley
Natasha Lennard
Kristen Gwynne
Stephanie Keith
Marisa Holmes
Bob Plain
Peter Harris
Jonathan Meador
Malina Chavez-Shannon
Jonathan Foster
Ian Grahan
Susie Cagle
Alisen Redmond
Judith Kim
Stephanie Pharr
Katelyn Ferral
Josh Davis
Julie Walker
Jared Malsin
Jennifer Weiss
Matthew Lysiak
Karen Matthews
Seth Wenig
Justin Bishop
Patrick Hedlund
Paul Lomax
Doug Higginbotham (working for TVNZ)
Peter Harris (again)
Faith Laugier
Mark Taylor Canfield
Yasha Levine
Tyson Heder
Calvin Milam
Matthew Hamill
Carla Murphy
John Knefel
Nick Isebella
Justin Wedes
Paul Sullivan
Lorenzo Serna
Jeff Smith
Charles Meacham
Renée Renata Bergan
Stanley W. Rogouski
Victoria Soble
Zach Roberts
Jennifer Dworkin
Elizabeth Arce
Alexander Arbuckle
Adam Katz
Susie Cagle
Gavin Aronsen
John Osborn
Vivian Ho
Kristin Hanes
Yael Chanoff
Kim Beavers
Christina Kay
Luke Rudkowski
Carlos Miller
Jerry Nelson
Alex Darocy
Bradley Stuart Allen
Jacquie Kubin
Elizabeth Arce
Shawn Carrié
Steve Rhodes
Daniel Arauz
Jessica Chornesky
Jenna Lane
Amber Lyon
Kenneth Lipp
Maximilian Braverman
Joshua Lott
Taylor Hall
Jess E. Hadden
Scott Olson
Kerry Picket
Ryan Reilly
Wesley Lowery
Ansgar Graw
Frank Herrman
Lukas Hermsmeier
Ryan Devereaux
Coulter Loeb
Robert Klemko
Rob Crilly
Neil Munshi
Denise Reese
Trey Yingst
Mary Moore
Bassem Masri
Bilgin Şaşmaz
Tom Walters
Pearl Gabel
Matthew Giles
Ryan Frank
Antonio French
Umar Lee
Alan Lodge
Ben Gibson
David Hoffman
John Warburton
Nick Cobbing
John Fraser Williams
Roddy Mansfield
Simon Chapman
Ben Edwards
Ursuala Wills Jones
Justin Cooke
Paul Smith
Campbell Thomas
Martin Palmer
Maggie Lambert
John Harris
Rob Todd
https://storify.com/jcstearns/tracking-journalist-arrests-during-the-occupy-prot
http://www.poynter.org/news/mediawire/264273/which-journalists-have-been-arrested-in-ferguson/
http://www.mega.nu/ampp/www.bilderberg.org/nuj.htm
Thats some List Ross. A lot of work putting thst up. Shocking at seeing the numbers. Thanks.
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2013/turkey#.VLMhYCuUdIE
‘The Turkish authorities continued to use the penal code and an antiterrorism law to crack down on journalists and media outlets in 2012, leading Turkey to imprison more journalists than any other country in the world. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 49 were behind bars as of December.’
The NZ Herald, who posted a selection cartoons including those lampooning Christian figures, but none of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons that actually provoked the massacre. So much for solidarity.
The Associated Press, who have (had) available an image of the “Piss Christ”, a urine soaked effigy of Christ on the cross, but will again not publish any cartoons with the image of Mohammed.
I’m an atheist, but i abhor hypocrisy. I am free to be vilified by religious types for my non-belief and acknowledge that.
We should not conflate religion with race. A religion is a human belief system, and thus should be open, as all human belief systems, politics etc, to criticism and indeed ridicule.
The Herald just isn’t worth any energy discussing.
It is entertainment not the 4th estate.
Those press outlets would never normally publish such disrespectful cartoons. Why would they change their normal standards because of terrorist action.
https://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2013/egypt#.VLMhtSuUdIE
‘Egypt declined from Partly Free to Not Free due to officially tolerated campaigns to intimidate journalists, increased efforts to prosecute reporters and commentators for insulting the political leadership or defaming religion, and intensified polarization of the pro– and anti–Muslim Brotherhood press, which reduced the availability of balanced coverage.’
Oops a daisy! There’s a little country down the bottom of the South Pacific wot has a PM and government that does the same sort of thing too. Whatsitsname now?
A cartoon version of the tweets,
Nous Sommes Hypocrites
http://order-order.com/2015/01/12/richs-monday-morning-view-99/
At least 8 journalists were killed in Gaza by Israel in 2014, according to the Guardian – not 7 as the tweets inferred.
A collection of war criminals: Cameron and Sarkozi helped destroy Libya which now is enjoying a civil war. Netanyahu bombs women and children as collective punishment in Gaza. Poroshenko massacres with artillery and bombing and sniper fire Russian Ukrainians with the ok of Merkel and Hollande and Cameron. They are all part of the U$ Warshington hegemony system that finances and arms anti Assad fighters in Syria. The Hebdo killers learned their trade in Syria. Blowback anyone?
Right on the money John +1.
The kid forgot to mention the Cameron governments on going attempts to muzzle press freedoms and its often times absurd and highly dubious net censorship.
The politicians weren’t actually leading the protest march – the photos were taken at a staged photo op in a closed street surrounded by security, with extras added in to make sure there were heads and bodies behind the front row of politicians.
e.g.
https://twitter.com/borzou/status/554605138426736640/photo/1