THE HANDSTAND

NOVEMBER-JANUARY2010

JOURNALISM - UPDATED

Iran sentences two journalists to long prison terms

New York, December 3, 2009—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by the sentencing of Hengameh Shahidi and Saeed Laylaz, two prominent journalists, to extended prison terms. Shahidi was sentenced on Monday to six years and three months in prison, while Laylaz was sentenced to a prison sentence of no fewer than nine years, according to local and international news reports.

Shahidi, who is an adviser to defeated presidential candidate Mehdi Karoubi, a blogger and contributor to reformist newspapers such as Etemad e Melli, was arrested on June 30, according to local news reports. The Committee of Human Rights Reporters, a local watchdog group, reported that Shahidi spent 50 days in solitary confinement and that she underwent “extreme mental anguish during her interrogation,” according to released detainees who had been held with her.

Laylaz, the editor of the now-banned daily business journal Sarmayeh and a vocal critic of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s economic policies, was arrested at home on June 17, his wife, Sepharnaz Panahi, told the BBC Persian service. He was among more than 100 opposition figures and journalists who faced a mass televised judicial proceeding in August on vague antistate accusations, according to local and international news reports.

“The prison terms for Saeed Laylaz and Hengameh Shahidi are highly politicized and unjustified,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Mohamed Abdel Dayem. “We urge the Iranian judiciary to overturn them on appeal. Secrecy and procedural irregularities have marred both cases. Authorities have not even officially disclosed Laylaz’s sentence.”

Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court charged Shahidi with mutiny through attending riots, activities against the Islamic Republic of Iran through conducting interviews with the “anti-revolutionary” BBC, insulting the president, and disruption of public order, Reuters reported. Shahidi rejected these charges, saying that she attended two demonstrations in June as a journalist and as an advisor to Karroubi and Etemad Melli Party, the BBC Persian service reported. Her lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaie, called the sentence “unfair,” and said that he would appeal, according to the BBC Persian service. Shahidi is currently out on bail.

Laylaz spent more than three months in solitary confinement before being moved to a group cell and has been denied newspapers as well as pen and paper, according to his wife, who was interviewed by the Committee of Human Rights Reporters Web site. Laylaz’s trial began on November 18. He was charged with “congregation and mutiny against national security, propagation against the regime, disrupting public order, and keeping classified documents,” according to local and international news sources. His wife told news Web site Kalameh that the trial lasted only two hours.

Laylaz’s wife said most of the evidence against her husband pertained to his interviews he’d done for Sarmayeh. She also stated that a centerpiece of the case against him, a so-called “classified document,” was a published investigation into the Iranian judiciary, which is widely available online. It is unclear when Laylaz was sentenced or what his exact sentence is. The semi-official Fars News Agency quoted his lawyer, Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaie, as saying that he was verbally informed that the sentence was nine years but has not received the official verdict in writing. Other local Iranian news sources have reported that Laylaz received a prison term of up to 15 years.

At least 21 killed in attack on journalists and supporters of Philippine politician

By Jim GomezTuesday, November 24, 2009

MANILA -- Dozens of gunmen hijacked a convoy carrying journalists and family and supporters of a candidate for provincial governor, killing at least 21 of the travelers Monday in the southern Philippines' worst political violence in years.

There was no claim of responsibility for the bloodshed in the predominantly Muslim region, which has been wracked by political tensions between rival clans.

The convoy of vans, carrying about 40 people, was hijacked in Maguindanao province, about 560 miles south of Manila. Army troops later found the bullet-riddled bodies of 13 women and eight men, regional military commander Maj. Gen. Alfredo Cayton said.

It was unclear whether anyone survived the attack. An army and police search for hostages was underway Monday.

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said at least 10 local reporters were part of the convoy. Their organizations failed to reach them, leading them to conclude that they, too, were killed.

"Never in the history of journalism have the news media suffered such a heavy loss of life in one day," Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.

"The frenzied violence of thugs working for corrupt politicians has resulted in an incomprehensible bloodshed," it said.

The politician, Ismael Mangudadatu, was not in the convoy and said his wife called him by mobile phone shortly before she and her entourage were abducted.

"She said . . . they were stopped by 100 uniformed armed men . . . then her line got cut off," he said. He said his wife and relatives were among the dead.

Victims' relatives blamed political rivals in national elections slated for May 2010.

Philippine elections are particularly violent in the south because of the presence of armed groups, including Muslim rebels fighting for self-rule in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation, and political warlords who maintain private armies.

The Muslim insurgency has killed about 120,000 people since the 1970s. But a presidential adviser, Jesus Dureza, said Monday's massacre was "unequaled in recent history."

-- Associated Press

freedom of the press? Europe turns it down.............

Parliament Flunks Press Freedom

Time and again I find myself asking: what is the European construction all about? What are we really trying to do here. By what criteria will we judge where we have succeeded and where we have failed? What is the big picture?

Of course different people, different parties, will hold different views, views which, moreover, may change over time. But as is usual in politics those things that divide us are actually rather fewer and less important than the great issues on which there is overwhelming agreement.

What we debate, nationally or on the European stage, are really just the pathways, aren’t they, to these common goals. Goals that are not defined exactly but which we Europeans all broadly accept – democracy, the rule of law, peace, the human rights agenda, the social market economy, gender equality, a commitment to the environment and biodiversity, to inclusiveness and tolerance, to freedom, to social justice in the wider world, to learning and cultural appreciation. We look forward to the day when such values are common across the globe. These are the ‘woods’ in which we live our lives. The direction in which we want Europe to evolve.

But as is often the case in woods we become so busy looking at the trees that we lose sight of this bigger dimension. The European Parliament – parts of it at least – is particularly prone to this sort of thing, with an unfortunate tendency to focus on the detail of a proposal or a sectional interest rather than keeping its eyes firmly fixed on the broad direction in which we want Europe to go.

Thus it was that last week that the Parliament turned down, by the narrowest of majorities, proposals designed to enhance the freedom of the press in Europe.

Now press freedom must surely be one of those broad aims about which few people would disagree. Voltaire’s words – about disagreeing with what you say but defending unto death your right to say it – have been used so often that they have almost become a cliché. Given that much of Europe’s press in the 20th century was subject to dark and savage controls, you would think that the European press would now be the shining exemplar to the rest of the world.

Well, it isn’t. Reporters without Borders compiles an index of press freedom and this year’s index – also published last week – shows how poor are the press freedom ratings for certain EU members. Bottom of the list is Romania at 50 (out of 149 countries), but Italy in 49th place, Spain in 46th, Slovakia in 45th and France at 43rd, head a sinking list of shame.

True the Scandinavians come out top. They are better than most of us at practicing what they preach. But for the press of leading large European nations – such as Italy and France, – to figure so low down the list is an indictment of how we little we value free speech.

The situation is particularly acute in Italy where the concentration of media outlets and their ownership by companies controlled by Italy’s Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, is particularly worrying. Many think his control of both government and media in Italy is profoundly undemocratic.

But let us not imagine that this is only an Italian problem, which is how it was characterized by those opponents of the press freedom measures in the European Parliament. They said that it was wrong to look to a European solution for a national problem. If the premise on which that line were based was correct – that is, if the state of press freedom in Europe were simply an aberration caused by the eccentric Mr Berlusconi – it would be a justified argument. But it is not.

Press freedom is being eroded all over Europe. What freedom of information legislation gives with one hand, government secrecy claws back with the other. Dissembling by governments, gagging orders, secret reports (to which the European Parliament itself seems particularly prone where its own internal workings are involved), all erode the principles of openness and transparency on which good democratic government should be based.

There are many pressures on the media – not the least of which is financial. This leads to a concentration of the press in a few hands. Journalists, with jobs on the line, are clearly likely to refrain from stories and investigations that they know would be ‘unhelpful’ to their proprietor. The more the press is concentrated, the more it is curtailed.

It doesn’t help that the press itself does not (or will not) recognise the threats it faces. Valdo Lehari Jr., President of the European Newspaper Publishers’ Association (ENPA) was quoted last week as warning that EU legislation on media pluralism and concentration “could in fact decrease, not increase the level of media pluralism,” adding in a somewhat spurious aside that “the EU cannot regulate diversity, just as it is impossible to regulate ethics and morals.”

No one is talking about the EU regulating ethics and morals. What we are talking about is raising press standards. We are talking about the courage to be open, the courage to publish, the need for European governments and European institutions not to pussy-foot, but to be robust in their defence of free speech, even at the risk of upsetting the religious, the powerful, the sectional interest.

So last week, in a resolution cast by the Socialists, the Greens and the Liberals, the European Parliament had the opportunity of laying down a marker, of drawing a line in the sand, of saying that in the matter of press freedom we shall and we will fight. Of identifying press freedom with that great web of issues that form the backbone of our European political agenda.

Sadly, they flunked it. In a straight debate between left and right, the forces of conservatism conserved while some voices in the muffled middle appear not to have understood the importance of the question. The vote was lost by a margin of three. 13 members abstained. It was all deeply depressing.

Still, the day after Parliament presented the €50,000 Sahkarov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Memorial – a Russian NGO that campaigns against human rights abuses in parts of the old Soviet empire where journalists pursuing their trade are snuffed out with brutal regularity.

TOM FEELEY OF INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE COLLECTED THESE QUOTES ABOUT PRESS FREEDOM:

Tom Feeley

"A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society" Walter Lippmann : American journalist (1889-1974)

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"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself." - Joseph Pulitzer

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The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands. Oscar Wilde 1854-1900 Irish novelist,

playwright, poet, short story writer

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"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." -- Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823. ME 15:491

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"The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787.

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"There is no more important struggle for American democracy than ensuring a diverse, independent and free media. Free Press is at the heart of that struggle." Bill Moyers

Watchdog by Brigitte Alfter

Reporting forbidden?

“Media and politics – the tension between freedom of the press and personal rights in print media and the internet”. Monday November 9^th, 18.30, Residence Palace, Brussels – se invitation at the bottom of this blog entry.

Can only Norwegian media report about the British parliament? For one absurd day exactly that appears to have been the case last month, when the Guardian was gagged to report about a certain company by a court injunction. Norwegians colleagues were threatened with legal steps but published in Norway and online about the story. A unique cross-border coopearation of colleagues from the Guardian, BBC, Volkskrant and NRK.

Earlier this year in Brussels a German liberal member of the European Parliament, who wanted to be re-elected, systematically approached media with threats to withhold one certain information: Her attendance figures in the previous period. What caused the politician to act, as she did, is not known. But her lawyer did get a temporary injunction against the important German daily FAZ, she tried to stop parts of an interview in German public service tv ARD, she tried to stop Brussels journalist and blogger Hajo Friedrich and she tried to stop German journalist and blogger David Schraven of Ruhrbarone. Her various actions were reported by German media magazine Zapp.

In Italy sueing journalists appears to be near normal. According to Italian MEP Mario Mauro from the first of January 1994 till 2009 6.745 penal and civil cases have been announced against press and tv. The average is 449 yearly, more than one a day.

Slovenia has accused Finnish journalist Magnus Berglund, who researched and aired a story about alleged corruption in an arms deal between Finnish company Patria and Slovenia. Finnish police is currently investigating the case.

Going furhter south from Slovenia to EU applicant countries in the Balkans, the situation gets even worse. Croatian journalist Hrvoje Appelt – currently under police protection – has started to gather information about assaults against journalists in his own country and the neighbouring countries. Do run his overview over assaults against journalists through Google translate – it is saddening reading.

When Reporters Sans Frontieres recently published its annual index of press freedom, the conclusion read “Europe continues to recede”.

“Europe should be setting an example as regards civil liberties. How can you condemn human rights violations abroad if you do not behave irreproachably at home?” Thus reads the text of the press freedom watchers.

Coming Monday one step is taken to address at least one of the aspects. Journalists have invited politicians and lawyers to talk about the issue with each other in Brussels.

„Media and politics – the tension between freedom of the press and personal rights in print media and the internet“

Experts on the panel and in the audience discuss in German and English (simultaneous translation provided)

in the Residence Palace, Brussels, Rue de la Loi 155, Room Polak

on Monday 9 November 2009,

18.30 Welcome drinks

19.00 – 20.30 Panel discussion

On the Panel:

Philippe Leruth (Vice-President of the European Federation of Journalists, EFJ), Klaus-Heiner Lehne (MEP (PPE) and Chairman of the Legal Affairs Committee in the European Parliament), David Schraven (Freelance Jounalist and Blogger of the German website „Ruhrbarone“), Martin Huff (Journalist and Lawyer, Director of the Local Bar of Cologne), Eberhard Kempf (Lawyer, German Bar Association) and Gregor Kreuzhuber (Partner, GPlus-Communications Consultancy; Brussels)

Chair:

Hajo Friedrich (freelance journalist).

Manifold are the tensions between media and the people in the focus of media coverage. More and more often political reporting in print media and the internet is subject to – often costly – litigation in court. According to the Italian MEP Mario Mauro politicians in Italy have brought 6745 civil and criminal proceedings against media coverage since 1994. Also German MEPs have in the past filed law suits against the press.

In most cases there is a conflict between freedom of the press and personal rights, between journalists who investigate and politicians who feel pilloried. A new development seems to be that top politicians and other prominent figures take legal action against media reports even beyond national borders as with the World Wide Web print media have increased their sphere of influence enormously. In this regard the „internal market“ of the World Wide Web already has difficulties to respond to the question which national law and which court of jurisdiction are applicable.

Beyond identifying the essential issues in view of the above-mentioned tensions the panellists – together with the audience – will seek to find morals, answers and compromise solutions. For the first time the panel discussion will bring together representatives of almost all involved parties in Brussels: journalists and their lobbyists, lawyers, politicians, media and public affairs consultants.

The discussion will be in English and German (simultaneous translation German/English and vice versa will be available). Drinks & Snacks will be provided.