10 Aug 11 | Index Index, minipost
Two of the few remaining independent newspapers in Belarus have each been fined 14m roubles (1,704 GBP) for minor infractions. Last month a legal bid to have them closed was withdrawn but both papers were warned of possible prosecutions that could lead to fines. Nasha Niva received was fined for failing to show its registration number in one of its latest issues, while Narodnaya Volya received a warning for getting a date wrong in a recent issue. Independent media in Belarus have received a torrent of warnings over their political coverage since the 11 April Minsk metro bombing.
10 Aug 11 | Index Index, minipost
In his most outspoken tweets since his release, and despite bail conditions placing him under tight restrictions for at least a year, Ai Weiwei today lashed out at the “torment” of friends entangled in his situation and pressed the cases of other detained activists. “If you don’t speak for Wang Lihong, and don’t speak for Ran Yunfei, you are not just a person who will not stand out for fairness and justice; you do not have self-respect,” he wrote. A prolific Twitter user prior to his arrest, Ai was freed in June after being detained for over two months for supposed tax evasion. Last weekend he began tweeting again, though far more sporadically.
09 Aug 11 | Asia and Pacific, China, Iran, Middle East and North Africa
State media in China and Iran have both offered their two cents in response to the riots that have swept the UK over the past three days.
A commentator at Communist Party mouthpiece, People’s Daily, opined that this sort of chaos is precisely the result of a lack of censorship of social networking websites:
The West have been talking about supporting internet freedom, and oppose other countries’ government to control this kind of websites, now we can say they are tasting the bitter fruit [of their complacency] and they can’t complain about it.
News agency Xinhua, remembering Beijing’s smooth staging of the 2008 Olympics, said:
After the riots, the image of London has been severely damaged, leaving the people sceptical and worried about the public security situation during the London Olympics.
Meanwhile, Press TV reported that Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast “urged the British government to order the police to stop their violent confrontation with the people.” He also “asked independent human rights organisations to investigate the killing in order to protect the civil rights and civil liberties.”
08 Aug 11 | Index Index, minipost
Peruvian journalist César Gonzáles has been sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay damages for the crime of “general misrepresentation of the State”. The case against Gonzáles, who directs and hosts a current affairs programme 60 Minute News on television channel UTV Canal 19 in the eastern city of Pucallpa, was initiated after he denounced corruption in the local government before the Oversight Committee of Congress. The journalist, who said he would appeal, deemed the sentence “political and judicial persecution”.
