Zimbabwe's Unemployment Hits 94%

A staggering statistic in a country ruled by a staggeringly corrupt and incompetent regime.

According to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), "At close of 2008, only six percent of the population was formally employed, down from 30 percent in 2003."

Weeds are the only food many Zimbabweans
can afford even in Harare, the capital. (EPA photo)

That means that in a country of 12 million, only 480,000 people have steady employment, a direct result of the mind-blowing inflation rate, last estimated at 231 million percent.

And according to Agence France Press, were it not for the remittances from the three million Zimbabweans who have emigrated to neighboring countries, especially urban populations would be starving hungry.

The once-dynamic economy has shrunk by more than 45 percent over the past five years, leaving half of Zimbabwe's urban population relying on remittances from friends and family overseas, the report said.

An estimated three million Zimbabweans have fled the country's economic and political instability, and are now supporting their families with both cash and food.

"Importantly, in 2008 remittances from Zimbabweans in neighboring countries -- South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and Mozambique -- were in the form of food and essential household commodities, as well as cash," the report said.

The article also cites the disastrous land reform of 2000, which confiscated some 4,000 farms from white owners, as another reason for the collapse of Zimbabwe's economy, which used to rely heavily on agricultural production.

We have another reason: President Robert Mugabe's draconian press laws eviscerated the media's capacity to keep the government accountable. What we have now is a regime based on thievery and naked corruption.

Alleged Torture of Zimbabwe Journalist Investigated

The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) reports that a Harare judge has ordered an investigation into whether freelance journalist Anderson Manyere has been tortured while in custody.

As we reported on Dec. 19, Manyere, who is held on allegations of "banditry," was abducted after being lured into a police trap in the town of Norton, 40 Km. west of Harare.

Here's MISA's report:

The matter of freelance photojournalist, Anderson Shadreck Manyere, who is held on allegations of banditry, was later on 26 January 2009 heard before Harare Magistrate Gloria Takundwa; who ordered police to investigate and present a report on allegations of Manyere’s torture while in unlawful detention.

Earlier in the day, the matter had been postponed to January 27, 2009 after prison officials failed to bring Manyere and his co-accused to court citing fuel shortages. They were then brought to court in the afternoon.

In insisting on the presentation of a police report on alleged torture at the next remand date on February 9, 2009 Magistrate Gloria Takundwa dismissed an affidavit filed by State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa seeking to block the investigation. She said that Mutasa was obliged to wait for an investigation into the allegations before filing the affidavit.

Magistrate Takundwa also advised the State to come up with a trial date on February 9.

Reports that Manyere is being tortured while in detention on very doubtful charges should be reason enough for any decent judge to release him unconditionally. But this is Zimbabwe, and in too many instances, the rule of law and due process have as much face value as a Zimbabwean dollar.

The Ceaseless Attacks on Sri Lankan Media

This month we reported about a most heart-wrenching attack on a very courageous Sri Lankan journalist, the one that cost the life of editor Lasantha Wickrematunga, who wrote an editorial predicting his own life.

Tennakoon after the attack. (AFP photo)

And just more than two weeks later, another journalist, Upali Tennakoon, editor-in-chief of Rivira weekly, has been the target of those cowards who wish to silence the media.

Here is from The Times of London:

Upali Tennakoon, chief editor of the Rivira weekly, was driving on the outskirts of Colombo with his wife when two men on motorbikes pulled up in front of his car and told him to get out, according to a reporter on the paper.

When he refused, they smashed the car window and attacked him and his wife with wooden clubs and a knife, Stanley Samarasinghe, a senior journalist at Rivira, told The Times.

The two assailants escaped on their motorbikes and Mr Tennakoon and his wife were taken to hospital, where they are in a stable condition, Mr Samarasinghe said.

It was the latest in a series of attacks on Sri Lankan journalists, many of them fatal, since the government launched a military campaign to defeat the Tamil Tiger rebels after a ceasefire unravelled in 2006.

Most, including Wickrematunge's murder, have been blamed on the government, which has failed properly to investigate many of the attacks despite repeated requests from the international community.

Apparently it is not clear who is behind this new attack. Tennakoon's Rivira is perceived as a very impartial publication in a very polarized society wrecked by decades of civil war.

This relentless siege of Sri Lanka's once thriving independent media is driving many journalists into hiding or forcing them into exile.

And that is a crying shame.

China's the World's No. 1 Internet User

It was bound to happen, and according to comScore it has already happened. 

China, with almost 180 million Internet users, has become the world's most assiduous user of the World Wide Web.

The Economist:

Until a few months ago America had most web users, but with 163m people online, or over half of its total population, it has reached saturation point.

More populous countries such as China, Brazil and India have many more potential users and will eventually overtake those western countries with already high penetration rates.

ComScore counts only unique users above the age of 15 and excludes access in internet cafes and via mobile devices.

Now China needs to come out of the bottom of another, much less prestigious ranking: the one rating the least free Internet countries in the world.

WPFC Nominates Mizzima News Agency for Prestigious Award

The World Press Freedom Committee has nominated Mizzima News Agency —the heroic group founded by exiled Burmese journalists to keep their countryman and woman informed about Burma's situation— for UNESCO's prestigious Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize.

The nomination has been filed based on the believe that Mizzima has become the world's dominant Burma news operation and a thorn on the side of that country's ruthless military junta.

As we state in our form for presentation of candidature (below the fold), from their struggling beginnings in 1998, armed with a single computer and the determination of its three founders — Soe Myint, Thin Thin Aung and Win Aung— Mizzima has grown into a formidable force for press freedom and freedom of information in and out of Burma, a country repressed by a military dictatorship that has kept it under its iron fist for more than 40 years.

Mizzima’s accomplishments in those years are nothing short of astounding. And its capacity to produce world-class journalism was successfully put to the test during two tragic events, the 2007 Saffron Revolution and the 2008 Cyclone Nargis.

On both occasions, the military junta thought it could block the tragic news coming out of Burma the same ruthless way it successfully kept the Aug. 8, 1988 civil uprising away from the eyes of the rest of the world. On both occasions, Mizzima provided a public front seat for the international community to watch and understand what actually took place during those events.

Over its ten-year existence, Mizzima has increased its work force from three to 50, and has extended its presence to India, Thailand, Bangladesh, China and Burma itself. Today, it manages four web sites, www.mizzima.com, www.mizzimaburmese.com, www.mizzimaphoto.com  and  www.mizzima.tv.

Its English-language web site receives 9.2 million hits a year, and its Burmese-language site, considerably more than 4 million. Recognition of Mizzima’s online product clearly manifested itself right after the cyclone, on May 7, 2008, when the English language site went down because of the large number of hits. Mizzima got 5 million hits between May 1-6. But on May 7, Mizzima got 2 million hits just for its English-language site, as footage and details of the horrendous loss of life (more than 100,000) and livelihood from Cyclone Nargis surfaced.
 
Using the techniques of the new media to maximum effect, Mizzima has shown itself to be a media David to the military Goliath of the Burmese government. It’s because of its defiance in the face of overwhelming odds and its realized dream of bringing press freedom to a country starved for information that we believe Mizzima is more than a worthy candidate for this prestigious prize.

So far, the WPFC candidacy has been endorsed by the following organizations:
—Burma Action Ireland
—Burma Center Prague
—Burma News International
—Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
—CEHURDES-Nepal
—Chin Human Rights Organization
—Citizen Lab
—Executive Committee of Burma Review and Challenges International Forum
—Freedom House
—Fundación Comunica
—Index on Censorship
—International Federation of Journalists
—International Media Support
—International Press Institute
—Olaf Palme International Foundation
—Pakistan Press Foundation
—Southeast Asian Press Alliance
—World Association of Newspapers

If you wish to endorse this candidacy, please submit your organization's wishes in the comments section of this post.

What follows is WPFC's full narrative included in its nomination to the UNESCO prize:

Doha Centre Offers Protection to Shoe-Throwing Journalist

The two shoes Muntazer al-Zaidi threw at former US President George Bush could be a most expensive pair in terms of criminal justice punishment.

But the intervention of the Doha Centre for Media Freedom could spare him of up to 15 years in prison.

According to one of al-Zaidi's attorneys, his client has been tortured to get to sign an apology for his act of defience, which turned him into an instant celebrity throughout the Muslim world.

(AP photo)

On Dec. 16, during a joint press conference between Bush and Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that was supposed to be the culmination of the American president's farewell tour of Iraq, al-Zaidi (above) got up and threw one shoe and then another at Bush, who was able to dodge both projectiles. He was immediately wrestled down to the floor by security agents and taken into custody.

“After he is freed," the Centre’s director-general, Robert Ménard, said, "he will no longer be able to work as a journalist except under very great pressure. He will be at the mercy of extremists of all kinds and will not be safe in Iraq.”

What follows is Ménard's letter to al-Maliki pleading for the release of al-Zaidi:

Mr Prime Minister :

We respectfully ask you to free at once journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi, arrested on 14 December last year for throwing shoes at US President George Bush at a press conference in Baghdad.

The Doha Centre for Media Freedom does not approve of Al-Zaidi’s action. We defend every day the right of journalists to express their opinion but a physical attack is not acceptable in any circumstances as a means of expression.

However, considering the weight of charges against him and the fact that nobody was injured or even touched by the shoes he threw, we think the 39 days he has already spent in prison are greatly out of proportion, especially in view of the rough physical treatment he has received, at least at the time of his arrest.

The effects of Al-Zaidi’s action on President Bush were negligible and the president immediately indicated this. Continued prosecution of “the shoe-thrower” would also be illogical in the context of the killings and attacks on journalists in Iraq that remain unpunished.

We are also concerned about Al-Zaidi’s safety after he is freed, as we think some extremists will try to make a martyr of him.

We have sent his lawyers a proposal to give him temporary shelter at the Doha Centre for Media Freedom’s Journalists Residence in Doha while he seeks political asylum in another country.

Dropping the charges against him and releasing him at once would be a gesture of mercy and grace that would not affect in any way your understandable desire for justice.

Respectfully,
Robert Ménard Director-General Doha Centre for Media Freedom

The Long Tentacles of Censorship

It's bad enough when religious dogma and intolerance take over entire nations in the name of any given god.

But when borders become meaningless to the power of that intransigency, then we all are in trouble.

Take Holland, for instance, perhaps one of the most tolerant societies in the world, where many religious faiths coexist in a secular society and where civic freedoms have flourished for decades. Well, even the courts of that nation have given way to religious fanaticism.

Here is from Australia's ABC News:

Right-wing Dutch MP Geert Wilders, who has made a short film accusing the Koran of inciting violence, must be prosecuted for anti-Islam comments, an Amsterdam court said.

The court overruled the public prosecutor who had declined to prosecute Mr Wilders, whose film Fitna urged Muslims to tear out hate-filled verses from the Koran.

"The Amsterdam appeals court has ordered the prosecution of member of parliament Geert Wilders for inciting hatred and discrimination, based on comments by him in various media on Muslims and their beliefs," the court said in a statement.

"The court also considers appropriate criminal prosecution for insulting Muslim worshippers because of comparisons between Islam and Nazism made by [Mr] Wilders," the statement said.

Fitna, a Koranic term sometimes translated as strife, intersperses shots of the September 11, 2001 attacks and other bombings with quotations from the Koran.

"This is a very black day for me and for freedom of speech. I am shaken. I had absolutely not expected it," Dutch news agency ANP quoted Mr Wilders as saying in an initial reaction.

Black day indeed. The threatening influence of theocracies throughout the world are succeeding in bringing liberal societies into self-censorship submission.

Once again, the words of Joergen Ejboel become most relevant. He is the chairman of the board of the non-profit group that owns Jyllands-Posten, Denmark's largest newspaper and the one that published the Mohamed cartoons in 2006, which prompted Muslim leaders to issue a fatwa on his life, and those of his editors and cartoonists.

During WPFC's 2007 Andersen-Ottaway lecture, Ejboel said the following:

It’s quite common these days to hear people say, of course I support free speech and the right to say what you want, but in the hands of the autocrats this "but" has become a very effective tool to curb free speech. And governments and all kinds of groups with their taboos can ally themselves with one another. If you respect my taboo I’ll respect yours.

 If this continues long enough we will witness further limitations on speech, crimping free debate, creative journalism and exchange of information.

And then he concluded:

Freedom of speech provides oxygen for any society. Freedom of speech is the very basis for development and progress in any country, no matter where in the world. Therefore, to my mind, to Mr. Rose’s mind and to a lot of other people’s minds, we must all stand firm. There is no room for soft talk or misplaced understanding or compromise or we will be misused.

We already are, it seems.

China Keeps Hidding Its Head in the Sand

The inauguration of Barak Obama as the new president of the United States has become a synonym of change throughout the world.

And this message has been embraced but hundreds of millions as a sign of better times to come. Alas, China is building its bunker even higher in view of this transformational tsunami.

The Chinese censors tried their best that during the live broadcast or the translation of Obama's inaugural speech any reference to Communism or dissent was kept away from the country's 1.3 billion potential viewers.

Here is from the International Herald Tribune:

The comments by the newly installed U.S. president veered into politically sensitive territory for the Communist Party, which maintains a tight grip over the Internet and state-run media.

At one point, Obama said earlier generations "faced down communism and fascism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions." He later addressed "those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent - know that you are on the wrong side of history."

The Chinese translation of the speech, credited to the Web site of the official English-language newspaper China Daily, was missing the word "communism" in the first sentence. The paragraph with the sentence on dissent had been removed entirely.

The censored version was carried by Xinhua, the official news agency, and posted on popular online portals like Sina and Sohu. Another portal, Netease, used a version without the paragraph mentioning communism, but retaining the part about dissent.

You can fear change only for so long until it ends up washing you away from relevance. The regime's censors can work as diligently as they have for many years, but you can pluck only so many holes in the bursting dam. For all those who can escape the Chinese government's Medieval approach to freedom of the press and of information, let me give you the totality of President Obama's speech here.

And the following are the parts that threw the Chinese censors into a fit. The one about communism:

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

The one about regimes attached to power by the injustice of their abuse:

To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

No matter how high the Chinese government builds its bunker, no matter how tightly it clinches its fist, sooner or later the tsunami of change will also reach China's shores as well.

And one more thing, for all those unwilling to unclench their fits, take notice that during an inauguration that almost 2 million attended, the number of arrested people during the celebrations came up to the grand total of zero.

See, there is nothing to be afraid of.

Barack Hussein Obama, 44th President of the United States of America

Barack Obama, with his wife, Michelle, and his
daughters, Malia and Sasha, as witnesses, takes
the oath of office as President of the United States.
(EPA photo)

Very rarely has the inauguration of a president, of any country, ever generated so much excitement and hope in the minds of millions of people throughout the world.

The challenges awaiting him are daunting and numerous. But we wish to join our voice to that of the Committee to Protect Journalists urging President Obama "to reaffirm America's role as a staunch defender of press freedom throughout the world."

We are excited about President Obama's call for accountability and transparency in his administration, a "new era of responsibility," he called it. But we all know that goal will be hard to achieve if press freedom fails to be fully guaranteed at home first, as CPJ's letter warns.

In any instance, there is reason to be at least hopeful, and that we are.

A Lonely Task: Reporting from Gaza

The Doha Centre for Media Freedom has landed an exclusive interview with one of the very few editors in command of a news crew in the Gaza Strip during the current Israeli invasion.

Non-Palestinian media outlets have been banned from the region by the Israeli government, so the task of reporting about the conflict that has left some 1,200 Palestinians dead and many more wounded has been resting squarely on the shoulders of the local media.

One of those Palestinian editors is Shahdi al-Kashif, editor-in-chief of the Ramattan News Agency, and here is the interview:

How do you feel after the Israeli and Hamas ceasefires?

We’re lucky to be still alive. Now we can breathe a bit. The first thing the journalists are going to do is visit their families and friends to check they’re all safe. We’re going to continue working but we won’t forget our colleagues who’ve been killed or the deliberate attacks on buildings that house media offices, including Reuters. The building we’re in became the last refuge for most Gaza journalists, even though Israeli tanks were only a kilometre away and bombs shook the building several times.

Will foreign journalists quickly be let into the Gaza Strip?

We would’ve liked them to be let in during the three weeks of bombing and report what we Palestinians went through. But we of course hope they can now come and see the results and hear how people feel. Every family in Gaza has lost a relative or their home. Many tonnes of bombs were dropped on this poor and tiny land.

Ramattan’s TV crews took spectacular footage during the Israeli offensive and it was used around the world. Do you sometimes think you take too many risks?

We’ve got 20 film crews out there all the time. We’re a motivated, tightly-knit team. We want to be the eyes of the world about the events in Gaza and indeed we’ve often been the only ones. Our footage was bought by over 70 TV stations around the world. We were ready to die getting out there and doing our job rather than die just sitting at home. Three of our staff were injured. But as I say, we’re lucky to be still alive.

What’s your relationship with Hamas and is it true it uses journalists?

We’ve been reporting on Gaza for a decade now and we’ve got offices in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Khartoum, Darfur, Cairo and Kuwait. We get sometimes get accused of being a bit biased or of being used. But Hamas is the government in the Gaza Strip so it’s normal to report what it says. Journalists everywhere should be allowed to come to Gaza and question Hamas. If Al-Qaeda was in power here, we’d try to interview them too. Our rule is to never appear in the film, never take sides and just be a witness to events. It’s not for us to say what’s right or wrong. That’s for the world to judge.