30 Oct 2009 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
American journalist Courtney C Radsch was fired from her post at Al Arabiya news on 5 October for uncovering breaches of safety at Emirates Airlines. Radsch had written an article on pilot fatigue in the airline. Within 24 hours of the article’s release, Radsch was made redundant. As visas are granted to foreigners on condition of employment, Radsch was given 30 days to leave the country before her visa expired. She left the country on 29 October. Journalists are discouraged from reporting on Emirates Airlines, as its chief executive, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, is also the head of the aviation authority and a member of the country’s ruling family.
Read more here
30 Oct 2009 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
Maria de los Ángeles González Hernández, columnist at the newspaper “El Político” has reportedly received a number of anonymous death threats by email, allegedly from local labour leaders in Xalapa, Veracruz, southern Mexico.
On 22 October, the journalist said she had received seven emails with threats against her and her family. According to Gonzalez, the threats could arise from a newspaper column in which concerns the triumph of independent workers in a contest to represent employees in negotiating the collective agreement of the sugar factory Ingenio El Potrero, managing to defeat the main union of the country, the Confederation of Workers of Mexico (CTM).
30 Oct 2009 | Uncategorized
This is a guest post by Sarah El-Richani
Although Beirut is generally regarded as an oasis of freedom in a largely repressed region, the continuing censorship of the arts there is threatening to tarnish this image. While the press and TV, particularly after the Syrian withdrawal in 2005, report freely, an antiquated prior-censorship tradition has left the arts to the mercy of the gendarmes.
(more…)
29 Oct 2009 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
Jagdish Grewal, founder and editor and editor of Brampton (Canada)-based newspaper “Punjabi Post” was attacked by three masked men armed with a baton and a gun outside the newspaper’s offices, on 23 October.
Mr. Grewal, who also hosts a daily Punjabi radio show, said it is highly probable that the attack was fuelled by his political views. He does not support the Khalistan movement — a separatist movement aimed at creating a Sikh homeland within India’s northern state of Punjab — and has received threats related to this and other political positions in the past.
Read more here
