05 Dec 12 | South Africa
US pop superstar Lady Gaga’s first sojourn to South Africa has raised the hackles of newspaper editors and religious fundamentalists alike.
Local organisers Big Concerts informed the press that, while journalists would be admitted, no press photographers would be allowed at the Johannesburg and Cape Town concerts on 29 November and 3 December. The usual practice is that press photographers take photos during the first three songs, which are then splashed across newspaper pages the next morning.
Announcing a retaliatory blackout on Gaga’s concerts, Alastair Ottor, online editor for Independent Newspapers, described it as:
a growing trend toward individuals and organisations imposing these kinds of restrictions on news media. Sporting bodies in particular have started imposing extreme restrictions on news media because of financial interests and this very often extends beyond what we are allowed to cover to how we are allowed to cover it. As the news industry evolves into a new era, placing restrictions on the use of multimedia, or our own photographs, for example, is not something that we as the media should agree to.
Big Concerts, in a typically obtuse response, pleaded ignorance about the reasons for the ban: “This is just how Live Nation (the global concert organisers) does it. They allow journalists and send (publicity) photos out afterwards,” local newspaper Beeld was told.
The South African National Editors Forum (Sanef) released a statement decrying the decision “as a form of press censorship fundamentally in conflict with the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of media in South Africa”.
Sanef, which represents editors and senior journalists, argued that reporters and photographers are “independent observers” whose coverage the public will only trust if they are not interfered with. “While it is clear that the Lady Gaga tour is just another commercial venture, recent controversy in South Africa regarding a number of religious and other organisations which have protested vigorously against even her very presence in the country, makes her visit a matter of real public interest, and not just ‘of interest’ to her fans.”
Sanef added:
Lady Gaga’s freedom to visit South Africa and to perform regardless of any offence she may cause to those opposed to her shows is in fact protected by the freedom of speech provisions in our constitution.
The organisation expressed concern about “a growing trend by commercial event organisers to try to impose censorship or restrictions on the media”.
However, Sanef omitted to mention that the South African press includes multinational companies with a commercial interest in the ownership and distribution of photos.
Gaga has recently been subjected to international press attention exposing her so-called “weight gain”, which would explain why she would want to control the kinds of images that the media elect to distribute of her.
Gaga’s Cape Town concert featured a performance espousing a feminist objection to the control of women’s bodies, as she was wheeled onto the stage hanging among make-believe animal carcases, shouting: “Do you think I am meat? Meat is precisely what we treat women as.”
Independent Newspapers decided to boycott the concerts by not publishing reviews, even though Gaga attracted some 65,000 people in Johannesburg and 40,000 in Cape Town.
But Mail and Guardian online editor Chris Roper ridiculed that stance: “It’s true! Gaga is worse than a Satanist! She’s also an enemy of democracy who spits on our Constitution, and is possibly the worst threat our fledgling country has faced… Seriously, guys? Because Gaga doesn’t want news photographers to take upskirt shots of her meat dress and no veg, it’s a threat to our Constitution?”
Roper pointed out a similarity between Sanef and fundamentalist Christians who started a Facebook page called South Africa: No to Lady Gaga and Satanists. Both, Roper says, represent “outmoded belief systems reacting with antagonism towards the inevitability of the new world. Sanef still seems to believe that it matters a damn to Gaga whether traditional media covers her concerts, and Christians seem to believe that they can stem the tide of rational secularisation.”
The South African Council of Churches, an umbrella body once known for its anti-apartheid resistance, held a small protest at the offices of the government arts and culture department in Pretoria, demanding that Gaga be denied entry into South Africa. A handful of people also protested in Cape Town, insisting that the “bride of Satan” will bring a curse upon South Africa.
27 Apr 12 | Sub-Saharan Africa
“The press in Sudan is going through the most intense crackdown,” said Adil Color, a writer and editor at Al-Midan newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP). “If we publish an issue [of the newspaper] that is critical and includes topics the government is uncomfortable with — such as the conflicts in Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan — they punish us by confiscating our next issue.”
Al-Midan’s print run has been confiscated on four different occasions in the last month, most recently on 24 April, but the newspaper remains defiant. For many years it has had to be distributed underground when the SCP was a banned in Sudan. The tabloid’s byline now reads “daily newspaper, but temporarily published on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday”.
In a recent contribution to the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Blog, a Sudanese journalist and activist, Abdelgadir Mohamed Abdelgadir, claimed that the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) confiscates independent newspapers as a way of censoring the press.
This strategy, believes Abdelgadir “focuses on economic impoverishment — leaving newspapers more vulnerable than ever.” Most newspapers in Sudan generate income from newspaper sales and advertisements, but independent newspapers that publish daring reports like Al-Midan and Al-Ayam depend on selling the few thousand copies they print, being unable to afford large print runs.
“Al-Midan does not get any advertisements from government companies like other newspapers, and private companies fear repercussions, so they also do not approach us for advertising,” said Color.
The “vulnerability” referred to in CPJ’s blogpost is best seen when editor-in-chiefs are pressured into making decisions for the benefit of the newspaper and the dozens of employees . When the Al-Jareeda newspaper was confiscated on 27 and 29 March because it wouldn’t stop publishing the daily columns by Zuhair Al-Siraj, a Canada-based Sudanese columnist who is critical of the government in his writings, the financial losses forced the newspaper’s management to cancel the column.
“Newspapers are not really given a choice, they can continue publishing as long as they do not allow certain journalists to write,” said Salih Mahmoud, a lawyer who is part of the newly-established Sudanese Council to Defend Rights (SCDR).
Starting this Tuesday, another writer, Heydar Al-Mokashy, will not be able to write for a week.
Mahmoud points out that the topics the state considers red lines are usually national issues that touch upon the future of the country. The booby-trapped subjects include: the wars in Blue Nile, Southern Kordofan and Darfur, and human-rights abuses but the list of banned topics grows every day.
Alawia Mukhtar, a journalist at the Al-Sahafa newspaper was moved from the patch she used to cover, South Sudan, after the paper’s management began receiving text messages from the NISS demanding it remove and/or halt the publication of any news about South Sudan.
“I cannot write about South Sudan because I can’t publish the opinions of sources from there, ” says a frustrated Mukhtar, who claims she has been accused of being part of the banned political party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North Sudan Faction, (SPLM-N) because her writings introduced her to many SPLM-N sources.
Recently, the speaker of parliament and a well-known Sudanese official both said that any journalist who interviews a source from a rebel movement is betraying his nation. Sudan’s Vice-President, Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, has spoken about a fifth column that is under scrutiny in light of the current clashes between Sudan and South Sudan, accused of spreading rumours that there is a lack of petroleum and other needs as war looms. Mukhtar thinks they are referring to journalists and that this is a direct threat.
From her perspective, Muktar feels trapped in a world where a text message sent to her boss, the editor-in-chief, can deem a story she worked on for hours “unpublishable”, but at least she is still able to see her byline in print.
Mujahid Abdullah has worked as a journalist since he graduated from university. From 2005, he was published in four different newspapers and was a well-known name until he was banned from writing in all print newspapers in Sudan. Abdullah says: “The ban came about 20 days ago, I feel like I was confiscated along with my pen, I’m waiting to be returned to the newsstand.”
Abdullah’s last job was writing for Alwan, a newspaper that was suspended for about 2 months from January to March this year. “I feel like my civil and constitutional rights and my right to make a living were taken away from me,” he adds.
The decision to ban him from writing was delivered orally, as are many NISS decisions. When newspapers are forced to kill stories or an edition is confiscated the message is normally delivered by an NISS officer talking directly to the editor-in-chief or in a short and succinct phone call.
In theory, the NISS does not have the power to confiscate newspapers, or to ban a newspapers and journalist or in fact, carry out any act against the press. If it believes that a certain journalist of newspaper is impacting national security, the security apparatus should file a complaint at the Press and Publications Council, the only body responsible for all print media.
“When we asked the Press and Publication Council about our case, they said the NISS does not tell us when they carry out such things,” says Adil Color.
Reem Abbas is a Sudanese freelance journalist. She has been published in Inter-Press Service (IPS), IRIN news, the Women International Perspective, (the WIP), Menassat and daily Sudanese newspapers. She tweets at @ReemShawkat
19 Jan 12 | Middle East and North Africa
Mouhamed Ali Ltifi, a journalist for Al-Oula, a new weekly newspaper, was assaulted and arrested by police officers on 18 January while he was taking the Tunis metro. According to a report on the newspaper’s official Facebook page, two of his colleagues witnessed the arrest.
Ltifi, who was released a few hours after his arrest, had been verbally and physically abused. Moez Zayoud, editor-in-chief of Al-Oula, told Index on Censorship in a phone call that Ltifi was “humiliated”.
“We have been harassed more than once”’, he said. “It’s not just us, but all independent and investigative media outlets face pressure.”
Zayoud said: “In the last weeks, pressure has increased over our newspaper.” In its 35th issue last week, Al-Oula published an investigation that accused the general director of the Tunisian Television institution of receiving huge amounts of money above his salary.
On 10 January, Al-Oula received a letter sent by the lawyer representing the general director warning the newspaper not to publish any personal details about his client.
