28 Apr 10 | News and features, United Kingdom
The conviction of Liverpool atheist Harry Taylor for placing “offensive” cartoons in an airport prayer room has caused controversy among secularists. Butterflies and Wheels’ Ophelia Benson and Paul Sims of New Humanist magazine go head to head
(more…)
26 Apr 10 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
The building of 14 October, a Yemeni national media company, was overrun by soldiers on 21 April in order to confiscate the latest issue of Al-Tariq, a daily newspaper it publishes. The reason for seizing the outlet was that the newspaper ran a story about a raid by soldiers on a police station, which took place the day before in the nearby town of Al-Tawahi. According to Al Tariq’s report, the raid was the result of a dispute between a police and a soldier during an operation to remove illegally-built homes outside Al-Tawahi.
14 Apr 10 | Index Index, minipost
A journalist was knocked unconscious during an attack by police officers and security guards. Orlando Rucana Cuba, editor of La Revista newspaper and director of the news program Canal 27’s ITN programme, was beaten while filming a group of municipal police and security guards evicting street vendors in Huaraz, Ancash province.
25 Jan 10 | Uncategorized
Seismic Shock, a Yorkshire-based student (real name Joseph Weissman) who received an alarming visit from local police late last year. Seismic, a Christian, had been heavily critical of Anglican vicar Stephen Sizer on his blog, alleging that Sizer associated with Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites.
On 29 November, he received a visit from local police, who advised him to remove certain posts from his blog. The police officers maintained that this was an “informal chat”, but the blogger, understandably intimidated, agreed to remove his original Blogger site, while maintaining his WordPress blog.
Index on Censorship has made numerous attempts to contact West Yorkshire Police in order to clarify a) under what authority the blogger was visited by police and b) what potential breach of law had been commited by the blogger that warranted such a visit.
So far, no explanation has been offered.
Meanwhile, Stephen Sizer has seemingly been gloating about the visit on another site:
Index on Censorship will continue to demand a response from police.
UPDATE: This just in: “A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said: “As a result of a report of harassment, which was referred to us by Surrey Police, two officers from West Yorkshire Police visited the author of the blog concerned. The feelings of the complainant were relayed to the author who voluntarily removed the blog. No formal action was taken.”
This begs a question; was any attempt made in the investigation to establish whether any material posted on Seismic Shock could conceivably be construed as harassment? And was any consideration given to free expression and critical debate?
