World-Famous Shoe-Thrower to See His Sentence Reduced

Muntadhar al-Zaidi can surely consider himself as Iraq's most celebrated journalist, even though he has been kept under custody since a fateful day, Dec. 14, 2008.

Today, he can also consider himself as one of the luckiest, as his sentence for insulting a foreign leader has been reduced and will end on Sept. 15.

Back in December, al-Zaidi had the temerity to show then-President of the US George Bush one of the Arab world's most insulting gestures, throwing a shoe at his head.

AP Photo

Al-Zaidi's first attempt missed (above), thanks to President Bush's agile dodge, and then his second one went also amiss. The entire world saw his outrageous show of contempt.

But his sudden encounter with world-wide popularity also turned him into a folk hero throughout the Arab world, who blamed Bush for an illegal invasion of Iraq that has cost hundreds of thousands of dead and untold misery among both Iraqis and American invaders.

His gesture also turned him into a criminal found guilty of an offense that cost him a three-year prison sentence.

The Associated Press:

Defense attorney Karim al-Shujairi said al-Zeidi would now be released on Sept. 14, three months early.

"We have been informed officially about the court decision," al-Shujairi told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "His release will be a victory for the free and honorable Iraqi media."

Judicial spokesman Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar said he had no immediate information about the release because it was a weekend.

Followers of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who were among the leaders of many of the demonstrations demanding al-Zeidi's release, welcomed the decision to free him early.

"We believe that al-Zeidi did not commit any crime but only expressed the will of the Iraqi people in rejecting the U.S. occupation," Sadrist lawmaker Falah Shanshal said. "Al-Zeidi's image will always be a heroic one."

One thing is for certain: Al-Zeidi can expect a hero's welcome in the Arab world once he is released from prison.

WPFC Releases World Survey of Insult Laws

The World Press Freedom Committee (WPFC) has just released a new world survey of insult laws - “The Right to Offend, Shock or Disturb: A Guide to Evolution of Insult Laws in 2007 and 2008” by Carolyn R. Wendell. The book can be downloaded for free here.

Laws against insult typically grant special protection to government leaders and officials, state institutions and national symbols. In the words of WPFC Chairman Richard N. Winfield's Preface, their purpose is “to intimidate” and, “complete repeal is the only sensible remedy.”

French expert Caroline Fourest concludes in her Introduction that the current campaign by Islamic countries to institute an internationally recognized crime of “defamation of religions” poses a major threat of global censorship that would undermine the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and break down the separation of Church and State guaranteeing religious diversity in democracies.

There was a notable advance during the two years of the study. Britain repealed the crimes of “blasphemy” and “blasphemous libel” — two original forms of insult laws providing special protections for established religions and religious doctrines. They had not been used for years in Britain, but their very existence served as a justification for similar laws elsewhere.

By contrast, France has revived use of insult laws to protect President Nicolas Sarkozy from “insult.” The French insult law has served as a model for similar laws in France's former African colonies and much of Eastern Europe, both regions where such laws are widely used to imprison and/or impose heavy fines on offending journalists and news outlets.

While the survey of 58 representative countries throughout the world shows important setbacks in WPFC's campaign to eliminate insult laws, there have been advances in serious consideration and actual abrogation in such important Latin American countries as Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay - countries where such laws are modeled on the Spanish legal concept of desacato (contempt).

Even in China, the study cited a mixed picture in which officials continue to protect themselves against criticism with defamation suits but ordinary citizens increasingly fight back with suits of their own against attacks by state-controlled media.

The study's title is drawn from a now-classic European Human Rights ruling of 1976, saying that freedom of expression also applies to information and ideas “that offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population.”

The WPFC study is a followup to two earlier world surveys — “Insult Laws: An Insult to Press Freedom,” a 2000 study of laws and their application in 90 countries, and the 2006 book “It's a Crime: How Insult Laws Stifle Press Freedom.”

A further WPFC review is under way for 2009, with the support of the Swiss-based world printing and publishing company of Ringier AG, also the sponsor of the 2007-2008 survey. The latest survey and earlier ones may be consulted or downloaded here.

For further information, contact the study's editor, WPFC European Representative Ronald Koven, 133 av. de Suffren, 75007 Paris, France. Tel. (331) 4783-3988, fax (331) 4566-8302, e-mail: KovenRonald@aol,com

The Israeli Government Walks into a Press Freedom Wasp Nest...

...And gets stung, badly.

The Swedish government is stubbornly sticking to its press freedom guns and refusing to intervene in a controversial article published by Aftonbladet, the country's yellowest tabloid, alleging that Israeli troops harvested organs among Palestinian in the early 1990's.

The article, which has been widely debunked as baseless and sourceless, has nonetheless triggered the ire of the Israeli government, who is demanding its Swedish counterpart to take legal action against the tabloid.

EPA photo

But Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt (above) has countered by saying his country's strong press freedom laws, some of the oldest in the world, prohibit him from intervening in the publication of any article or opinion.

Others see the Israeli reaction as a smoke screen to divert attention from other, more pressing problems.

The Christian Science Monitor:

In Sweden, many see the explosive Israeli response as a ploy to distract from European Union (EU) and US pressure on the country to curb settlement expansion in the occupied territories.

On Monday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Europe for what is expected to be a tough round of bilateral talks with European leaders, Mr. Reinfeldt called for a ”toning down” of the debate surrounding an article by Aftonbladet, Sweden’s largest circulation tabloid newspaper.

Last week, the newspaper created an uproar among many in Israel, most notably the country’s foreign minister Avigor Lieberman. (...) They demanded the Swedish government denounce the story, which hinged entirely on unnamed sources.

The Monitor indicates most observers in Sweden see the Israeli indignation as a plot to undermine Sweden's leading role in the EU's attempt to pressure the Jewish state into stopping the building of settlements on Palestinian territory.

The diplomatic rift, however, places the Israeli government squarely against some of the press freedom movement's most fundamental postulates. Arbitrary government interference in the workings of a free and independent press constitutes the very essence of undemocratic regimes.

The calls for intervention also bring us back disturbing memories of Islamic countries demanding the Danish government to shut down the Jyllands-Posten newspaper after it published the Mohammed cartoons. The Danish, fortunately, also held steady under intense pressure.

But what we find most striking about Mr. Lieberman's demands is that such intervention would be deemed unacceptable in his own very country. 

As world-renown press freedom expert Floyd Abrams has said many times, against bad speech, there should be more speech.

Amen.

The Dark Lining of a Very Happy Story

We rejoiced after the liberation of American reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee.

Ling (left) and Lee arrive home to a hero's welcome after their ordeal. (EPA photo)

Dramatic stories of journalists being imprisoned in countries with little regard for human rights very rarely come with happy endings attached.

But this one did, for the better of press freedom throughout the world.

Unfortunately, and in retrospect, the chapters of this adventure are little by little rewriting themselves. The New York Times reports that human rights advocates and others are throwing harsh criticism at Ling and Lee for allegedly doing a miservice to the very organizations that have been for many years working on improving the human rights situation in that most hermetic dictatorship.

The Times:

The accusations stem from a central fear repeated in newspapers and blogs here: that the notes and videotapes the journalists gathered in China before their ill-fated venture to the border fell into the hands of the authorities, potentially compromising the identities of refugees and activists dedicated to spiriting people out of the North.

The Rev. Lee Chan-woo, a South Korean pastor, said the police raided his home in China on March 19, four days after the journalists visited and filmed a secret site where he looked after children of North Korean refugee women. He said that he was then deported in early April and that his five secret homes for refugees were shut down. The children, he said, were dispersed to family members in China, who could not afford to take care of them.

“The Chinese cited scenes from films confiscated from the journalists when they interrogated me,” said Mr. Lee, 70. As evidence of the ordeal, he provided documents he said the Chinese police gave him after the raid.

“The reporters visited our place with a noble cause,” he added. “I did my best to help them. But I wonder how they could be so careless in handling their tapes and notebooks. They should have known that if they were caught, they would suffer for sure, but also many others would be hurt because of them.”

According to the Times, other human rights workers and dissidents who were interviewed by the journalists are also coming out saying they have been compromised by the filming and recordings of their interviews.

A journalist's quest for the truth lies at the very core of press freedom, a fundamental right without which the rest of human rights become vulnerable.

But this quest is not a blank check. We are not living in a Hollywood movie. Our actions, no matter how worthy, will have consequences. And Hollywood endings are so very rare in this field of work.

Azerbaijan Editor Dies in Prison

When a journalist is put in prison, everyone's press freedom is put in prison. But when an imprisoned journalist dies in prison, a little bit in all of us also dies.

And when that imprisonment is as unjust as that of Azerbaijan's editor and activist Novruzali Mammadov, then our rejection becomes outrage.

Article 19 reports that Mammadov passed away on August 17 after a long illness while in prison. Even though "his health had seriously and visibly deteriorated," the government refused to release him from prison.
 
Mamedov, editor of the Talyshi Sado newspaper and a leader of the Talyshi ethnic minority in southern Azerbaijan, was initially arrested on Feb. of 2007 for resisting law enforcement and sentenced to 15 days in prison.

While in detention he was further charged with treason and kept incommunicado. Also, his judicial proceedings were closed to the public allegedly because of national security reasons.

Mamedov was later charged with encouraging ethnic differences and publishing his 1,000-circulation newspaper with Iranian funding. Talyshi Sado stopped publication after his arrest.

There remain at least four more journalists in Azeri prisons. We won't stop our efforts until all of them are freed or until Azeri journalists can fulfill their duty to keep the public informed without the threat of imprisonment.

That's the least we all can do for these brave souls.

In a War of Words, China Finds Its Match

China's fixation with the Internet has always encountered this dichotomy, a struggle between exploiting a wonderful way to make the country great but at the expense of unleashing the freedom genie.

What a conundrum. The more we let 1.3 billion people know about the world out there, the richer we get, but also the more we expose ourselves to the "dangers" of freedom.

Meet the Great Firewall of China, the Beijing regime's very successful barrier to keep its subjects from knowing too much. This massive censorship scheme is perhaps the most successful in human history. Thought control became a matter of zeroes and ones. George Orwell’s words were not only a warning but also a prophecy.

Really? Slow down there, Mr. Censorship, because the very sword of repression contains the edge of retribution.

That keyboard in front of you is not only the toy of censors but also the stepping-stone to thought freedom.

Here's from Reuters:

Human rights activists are looking to a new generation of Internet privacy tools to keep companies from gathering such data, hoping that it will protect dissidents like Shi.

One, called Tor, scrambles information, then sends it over the Web. It hides the user's location and gets past firewalls. Those features make it popular with activists in countries like China and Iran.

"Tor is a tunnel. What you send into it comes out the other end, untouched," said Andrew Lewman, executive director of the Tor Foundation, which is funded by the U.S. government.

It lets surfers get around Internet censorship software - whether installed by governments or companies seeking to keep workers from using social networking sites like Facebook.

Tor also can protect against identity theft and monitoring by parents, suspicious spouses and bosses. It may even be able to evade the warrantless wiretapping program started in the United States following the September 11 attacks.

Yes, this thought-control temptation is not the monopoly of the Beijing bosses. For people in power throughout the world, the Internet has become an irresistible magnet to mess up with your private life.

If that double-edge sword feels very nice in the hand, however, continue reading.

Leading Iranian Opposition Daily Shut Down

The Iranian regime has banned the country's leading opposition daily, Etemad e-Melli following reports that pro-democracy protesters, both male and female, have been sexually abused in prison.

The reports had been written by opposition candidate Mehdi Karroubi, and after the paper did not show up in newsstands on Sunday, it was feared it was shut down.

Tehran Chief Prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi, however, denied the reports and said the absence of the paper was due to "problems at the printers."

Reuters, on the other hand, quotes the website of Karroubi's party, also called Etemad e-Melli (National Trust), as saying it was Mortazavi himself who ordered the ban.

"Last night a representative of the prosecutor's office came to the Etemad-e Melli printing house and announced the temporary shutdown of the daily," the party website quoted Karoubi's son Hossein as saying.

The ISNA news agency, citing managing editor Mohammad-Javad Haqshenas, said the daily was targeted because it planned to publish a statement by Karoubi on its frontpage on Monday.

According to Reuters, some 200 people remain in prison in Iran, many of them journalists and bloggers, following the pro-democracy protests ignited by charges of election fraud during the June vote.

The summarily incarcerations turned Iran into the world's worst jailer of journalists and bloggers.

Eralier this month, the Campaign for Human Rights accused the Tehran regime of systematic torture of detainees during the pro-democracy protests.

Venezuelan Journalists Protest Beatings of Colleagues

Several independent journalists today gathered in front of Venezuela's Prosecutor's Office in Caracas to protest the attacks on several of their colleagues yesterday by alleged government sympathizers.

(EPA photo)

The protesters (above) today carried large photos documenting the incidents that left 12 journalists injured, including Marcos Ruiz, a reporter for Caracas' Ultimas Noticias newspaper, who had to be taken to the emergency room after he was beaten with clubs by several assailants.

The Latin American Herald Tribune gives us some details of the attacks:

All of the journalists who were handing out leaflets to motorists and pedestrians on a busy street in the capital are employees of the Cadena Capriles group, one of Venezuela’s biggest media companies.

Besides Ultimas Noticias, Capriles publishes two business newspapers: El Mundo Economia and Negocios, and the sports daily Lider.

The Chavez partisans arrived on the scene shouting “revolution” and “this street belongs to the people” and then pounced on the journalists, Pastrana said.

“We were there to peacefully distribute flyers and we were savagely beaten,” said reporter Ubaldo Arrieta.

The incident “is not a demonstration of respect for human rights,” Cadena Capriles’ president, Miguel Angel Capriles, told Venezuelan media.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, along with several other press freedom groups, denounced the brutal attacks on the members of the media:

"We are shocked by the vicious attack on journalists who were exercising their right to protest provisions of a bill that could impact their ability to report freely," said Carlos Lauría, CPJ's Americas senior program coordinator. "This is not the first time journalists have been attacked by pro-government supporters. Venezuelan authorities must do everything in their power to put an immediate end to these attacks on the press."

We support these denunciations but also emphasize that this kind of rule-of-thug incidents would not happen if the authorities, the Chavez government, took the the rule-of-law protections seriously.

Venezuela's independent media have long become the punching bag of the regime's frustrations and shortcomings. It's time to start looking inwards and stop shooting the messenger.

Press Freedom Becoming a Caricature of Itself

The bad guys are winning. Intimidation and violence are little by little eroding the very essence of what free press is all about: the unimpeded flow of ideas that enrich and educate us all.

We all are losers when the power of taboos overwhelms the power of ideas. And that's exactly what has taken place at one of the United States' mort prestigious publishing houses, Yale Press.

Danish author Jytte Klausen, a college professor in the US, submitted a book titled "The Cartoons That Shook the World," to Yale Press about the consequences of the publication of the Muhammad cartoons by precisely a Danish newspaper in 2005. Back then, that decision ignited a rage storm throughout the Muslim world, cost the editors and cartoonist of the newspaper a fatwa that is still in effect, and left some 200 dead people in the ensuing protests.

Given the explosive nature of the subject, Yale Press decided to consult with several experts as to whether to publish the cartoons that unleashed the tragic controversy. The answer was no, not only the cartoons but also other items that have also triggered terrorist threats from Islamic quarters.

The New York Times:

The book’s author, Jytte Klausen, a Danish-born professor of politics at Brandeis University, in Waltham, Mass., reluctantly accepted Yale University Press’s decision not to publish the cartoons. But she was disturbed by the withdrawal of the other representations of Muhammad.

All of those images are widely available, Ms. Klausen said by telephone, adding that “Muslim friends, leaders and activists thought that the incident was misunderstood, so the cartoons needed to be reprinted so we could have a discussion about it.” The book is due out in November.

The director of Yale Press, John Donatich, told the Times that the decision was "overwhelming and unanimous," that the cartoons are available for everyone on the Internet and that "when it came between that and blood on my hands, there was no question."

This is not the first time we mention how the long tentacles of religious censorship get to some of the most socially advanced countries in the world. What we see here again is the awesome power of intimidation and religious dogma, the corrosive influence of one people's taboo over other people's freedom to express themselves.

This is very dangerous. Yet 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 cartoons.

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.

Ejboel's words are prophetic. He's been warning us all along from the front lines of press freedom. And this one more example is showing us we all are letting press freedom, even in the most unexpected places, become a caricature of itself.

Iran Accused of 'Systematic Torture' during Protests

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI) minces no words in its denunciation of the Tehran regime's treatment of detainees, many of them journalists and bloggers, who were arrested during the pro-democracy demonstrations.

The Iranian regime's justifications for its repression
are just gagging the Iranian people (EPA photo).

The ruling mullahs have justified this unacceptable behavior as "negligence" and "carelessness" by members of the regime.

Even though top officials of the Tehran regime have acknowledged that prisoners' rights have been violated at the Kahrizak prison, they put the blame of a few bad apples.

Not so, says  ICHRI:

“Instead of show trials of innocent people, there should be prosecution of those responsible for torturing them, and for the shootings, beatings, and ill-treatment that have resulted in numerous deaths on the streets and in detention," stated Aaron Rhodes, a spokesperson for the Campaign.

(...)

Documentation assembled by the Campaign and other human rights organizations, as well as credible media accounts, show that the abuse of prisoners has not been limited to the Kahrizak prison.  It has also taken place at Evin prison and in other detention facilities in Tehran and elsewhere in Iran.

The abuse of detainees has been widespread, affecting as many as 2,500 persons who have been detained. The Campaign has reviewed reports by numerous detainees, many of which have been collected firsthand by the Campaign. Virtually all these reports include descriptions of treatment that is classified as torture and ill-treatment under international law.

The widespread torture of detainees in numerous detention facilities has been confirmed by photographic evidence, reports by family members who have seen evidence, as well as by released detainees who were tortured and those who witnessed torture. In some cases, officials have made references to deliberate torture.

The Iranian Congress has formed a committee to investigate the allegations. ICHRI has not only urged the committee to thoroughly investigate the violations but also urged the United Nations' High Commissioner on Human Rights to travel to Iran and take a good look at "systematic and widespread killings and torture that under international human rights law are considered crimes against humanity."

We fully support you, folks.