28 Apr 11 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
The Syrian regime has launched a massive crackdown against protestors demanding political reform in the country. The killing of protestors in 14 separate towns on April 22 heralded a dramatic escalation in violence. In an attempt to pre-empt further protests, the government ordered (25 April) tanks to move in to the city of Deera, which has been at the centre of unrest in the last few weeks. Human rights groups have estimated that 400 people have been killed by security forces since protests began five weeks ago.
31 Mar 11 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
Reuters has announced that two of their reporters are missing in Syria. Jordanian correspondent, Suleiman al Khalidi, was detainted by the Syrian authorities on Tuesday, while Syrian photographer, Khaled al Hariri, has been out of contact since Monday. The disappearances follow the detention of two of Reuters television journalists who were released by the Syrian authorities on Monday and expelled to Lebanon. Editor in chief Stephen Adler has expressed his concern for the whereabouts of Khalidi and Hariri and has stated “We call upon the Syrian authorities to help us urgently in ensuring their safe and timely release.”
18 Feb 11 | Uncategorized
by Emily Badger
When CBS News announced earlier this week that chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan had been hospitalised for a brutal sexual assault in Egypt’s Tahrir Square last Friday, journalists across the nightly news and blogosphere were appalled. Some also expressed the faint hope the news might help remove the stigma female journalists face in acknowledging such encounters. An even bigger shock, though, came the next day, as left-leaning journalist Nir Rosen tweeted the reaction that he quickly came to regret.
“lara logan had to outdo anderson. where was her buddy mccrystal?” Rosen tweeted, referring to CNN broadcaster Anderson Cooper’s report that he’d been punched in the face in Cairo two weeks ago. Logan had earlier criticised a controversial Rolling Stone profile of General Stanley McChrystal, who was later relieved by President Obama for his own intemperate remarks.
Then, Rosen added:
“jesus christ, at a moment when she is going to become a martyr and glorified we should at least remember her role as a major war monger.”
He later took down the tweets – but not before some conservative news sites snapped screen shots of them for posterity. “I thought, it’s just silly social media,” a chastened Rosen told media blog FishbowlDC, by which time it already was too late. New York University announced that Rosen would resign as a fellow with the Center on Law and Security.
“Nir Rosen is always provocative, but he crossed the line yesterday with his comments about Lara Logan,” the programme’s executive director, Karen J. Greenberg, said in a statement. “I am deeply distressed by what he wrote about Ms. Logan and strongly denounce his comments. They were cruel and insensitive and completely unacceptable. Mr Rosen tells me that he misunderstood the severity of the attack on her in Cairo. He has apologised, withdrawn his remarks, and submitted his resignation as a fellow, which I have accepted. However, this in no way compensates for the harm his comments have inflicted. We are all horrified by what happened to Ms Logan, and our thoughts are with her during this difficult time.”
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg called Rosen’s history of incendiary comments “deeply pathetic.” Salon scolded: “Apparently he still hasn’t remembered that sexual assault isn’t great joking around material.” Mother Jones, to which Rosen has contributed, said he “completely lost his mind today and forgot that “joking” about rape falls into the category of NOT EVER FUNNY.” Cooper, for his part, confronted Rosen personally on his show on Wednesday night.
Rosen has now attempted to explain his position in an article for Salon. He described what he wrote as “a disgusting comment born from dark humour…developed working in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen and Lebanon—and a need to provoke people.” He also pointed out the apparent double standards which allow “racist right-wing pundits (to) say whatever they want on serious platforms.”
08 Nov 10 | Uncategorized
Morocco’s on-again off-again ban on the Al Jazeera satellite news channel is apparently on again. The kingdom is famously touchy about certain issues — last year it banned a magazine for publishing an opinion poll about King Mohammed II’s popularity. The poll actually showed a 91 per cent approval rating, but the palace felt it was disrespectful to even ask the question.
This time around, there doesn’t seem to be one specific incident that prompted the latest Al Jazeera ban. Communications minister Khalid Naciri, in announcing the ban, said the channel’s editorial line, “systematically tarnishes Morocco’s image,” whatever that means, and accused it of “transmitting a caricature of Moroccan reality.”
One news report quoted an anonymous Moroccan government official as saying the regime was reacting “to the way Al Jazeera handles the issues of Islamists and Western Sahara.” The 2003 Casablanca bombings prompted a sweeping crackdown on fundamentalist Muslim groups that continues to this day. Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, was annexed by Morocco in the mid-70s and remains home to a vibrant separatist movement.
Turkey has once again banned YouTube after the site refused to remove footage linked to a political sex scandal. Access to the site had already been blocked since 2008 over videos that made fun of Turkey’s venerated founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. That ban was lifted just last week, but within days a new 30-month ban was levied over a video showing the country’s main opposition leader Deniz Baykal in a romantic hotel room tryst with a female staffer. Baykal resigned in May over the scandal. Here’s a link to a (safe for work) excerpt from the video in question.
From the self-censorship file, Egypt’s most prominent modern novelist, Alaa Aswany, is working to PREVENT one of his books from being made available in Hebrew. An Israeli research center translated The Yacoubian Building (an excellent read by the way) against Aswany’s will in the interest, they said, of “expanding cultural awareness”. Aswany, like many Egyptian writers and intellectuals, wants no part of what he considers “normalisation” with Israel until there’s a fair resolution to the Palestinian issue. Aswany, by the way, recently announced he was giving up writing his regular column in the independent daily Al-Shorouk. The reason: the government, as part of its ongoing press crackdown, was raiding and shutting down unrelated businesses owned by Shorouk owner Ibrahim Al-Muallem to pressure him to tone down criticisms by Aswany and other columnists. Also worth reading is the Guardian’s always perceptive Brian Whitaker, here he points out one of the ways Egypt’s government controls information: by monopolising statistics.
In Libya, the government has shut down the weekly Oea newspaper. Coverage of the incident in a Qatari newspaper (in Arabic here) pins the ban to a recent editorial that, “claimed that the government had failed to handle the problem of corruption”. The twist: the paper is partially controlled by Said Al-Islam Qaddhafi, son of the Libya’s leader Col. Muammar Qaddhafi. The paper was already banned for six months earlier this year and only resumed normal publication in July.
Courtesy of the +972 blog, here’s a useful guide to the political line of the major Israeli newspapers, for those seeking to unravel the often bewildering complexities of Israeli politics.
In Lebanon, the country’s General Security office censored a five-minute scene from a recent play. The scene in question dealt a little too flippantly with Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The play’s Shia writers claim they meant no disrespect to Nasrallah and say they are mystified by the decision. Lebanon is known as a bastion of comparative liberalism in the Middle East, but the General Security office in the Ministry of Interior still has broad powers to ban works of art that could upset the country’s delicate political sensitivities.
