Censorship

Censorship, Press, Surveillance

Warming to Censorship at the NYT

….The free press and freedom from government prior restraint is the check and balance here. We don’t have a “policy” that authorizes the media to publish leaks. We have a constitutional right to do so, and it horrifies me to see an editor who thinks that the First Amendment is some sort of government “policy” and…

Blogging, Censorship, Regulations

Registration for Russian bloggers

Russia: the home shirtless autocrats, vodka and a love of free speech rivaled by only China. The Kremlin is taking another step to squash people speaking their mind online. After building out an infrastructure that allows the government to more easily block sites it finds objectionable, now it’s building a registry of bloggers. A newly…

Censorship, Crony Capitalism

Expose crony capitalism in India

“Gas Wars—Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis” is journalists Paranjay Guha Thakurta, Subir Ghosh and Jyotirmoy Chaudhuri’s collaborative effort exposing one of India’s biggest business conglomerates’ murky dealings with the government. The authors detail how a hydrocarbon production sharing contract in Gujarat’s Kasturba Gandhi Basin was allegedly rigged to benefit Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL) and…

Blogging, Censorship, Free Speech, Liberty, Tyranny

Vietnam Torments Another Blogger

(New York) – All charges against the blogger Pham Viet Dao, 62, should be dropped, and he should be released immediately and unconditionally, Human Rights Watch said today. Pham Viet Dao, 62, was arrested on June 13, 2013, in Hanoi, for allegedly violating Vietnam penal code article 258, which provides for up to seven years…

Blogging, Censorship, Crime, Liberty, Tyranny

Vietnam censors and represses, again

The 30 month prison sentence for Vietnamese human rights lawyer and blogger, Le Quoc Quan, was today upheld by a Hanoi appeals court. Quan, who has frequently blogged about human rights violations by the government, was convicted in October 2013 on tax evasion charges. He has been arbitrarily detained since December 2012. A crowd of hundreds…

Censorship, Free Speech, Liberty

Job Opening @ The Index on Censorship

Index on Censorship is one of the leading international freedom of expression organisations, promoting and defending free speech around the world. Index combines journalism and advocacy into hard-hitting campaigning ranging from issues of repression and censorship in China, Russia and Azerbaijan, to criminalisation of social media in the UK, mass surveillance and the digital freedom.…

Censorship, China, Crime, Free Speech

China media regulator speaks over reporter arrest

But he was still arrested: Chinese media were largely critical of Chen’s detention, accusing police of abuse of power. The liberal Southern Weekly, which like the New Express is based in the southern city of Guangzhou, said Thursday on its verified account on Sina Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter, that police were seeking to…

Censorship, Press

A Sri Lankan Journalist Eagerly Toes the Line

Rajpal Abeynayake, 50, is the editor in chief of The Daily News, the country’s largest English-language daily newspaper, which is wholly owned by the government. He is also the host of a morning radio program, and the two platforms make him the most influential English-language journalist in Sri Lanka. His position atop Sri Lanka’s journalistic…

Blogging, Censorship, China, Free Speech, Tyranny

China v. Bloggers

BEIJING (Reuters) – Police in China have arrested an influential blogger and are holding a cartoonist in a widening crackdown on online “rumour-mongering”, friends and a lawyer for one of them said on Thursday. Hundreds of people have been detained since August, say Chinese media and rights groups, as the government has stepped up its…

Censorship, China

China detains (another) activist in rights crackdown

China has detained a prominent rights activist for more than two months without formally charging him, his lawyer said on Friday, the latest case in a crackdown on freedom of assembly. The length of Guo Feixiong’s detention exceeds the 37-day limit allowed for holding an individual without a formal arrest and charge under Chinese law.…

Blogging, Censorship, China, Press

The Party crackdowns on ‘rumors’

BEIJING–A Chinese investigative journalist who has accused officials of corruption has been arrested, his lawyer said on Oct. 10, becoming the latest in a series of government critics to be swept up in Beijing’s crackdown on rumors. Liu Hu, a reporter with the Guangzhou-based newspaper New Express, was arrested on a charge of defamation on…

Censorship, Crime, Tyranny

Podcast: Letters From The Gulag

Slavery-like conditions. Workdays that stretch from dawn until midnight. Sleep deprivation, beatings, torture, and even death threats. These are some of the conditions that prisoners in Penal Colony No. 14 in Russia’s republic of Mordovia are enduring, according to an open letter that jailed Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova sent to Russia’s Human Rights ombudsman.…

Blogging, Censorship

Azerbaijan Blogger Questioned Over Video

BAKU — A satirical video clip produced by a well-known pro-democracy blogger and photographer in Azerbaijan has apparently irritated the authorities. Mehman Huseynov of the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety was detained for several hours by police in Baku on October 2. Huseynov is a member of the election team for Camil Hasanli, the…

Censorship

A history of art censorship

Many works which today are regarded as exemplary or outstanding, were originally subject to censorship by political or religious figures who deemed their content inappropriate or offensive. In fifteenth and sixteenth century Italy, the strong influence of Catholicism saw a number of artists denounced as irresponsible proponents of the immoral or unholy. In 1565, under…

Censorship

Where Social Media Dare not Tread

Censorship still affects many countries around the world. Insecure governments shut down social media sites to prevent grassroots uprisings, and oppressive leadership often keeps citizens’ online activity under surveillance to control public opinion. Restricting Internet access is driven by various political, social, and national security issues — and, as cybercitizens, it’s important to be aware…

Censorship, Surveillance

The ineffectual UN

Not much, really: The Estonian president closed his 10 minute address by noting that the UN could “play a role in promoting dialogue among Member States on Internet freedom and security, and in defending Internet Freedom as part of its Human Rights agenda.” Policy, schmolicy However, as I pointed out during the course of the…

Censorship, China

China to lift ban on Facebook…but only within Shanghai free-trade zone

However Beijing’s decision to open up internet access only applies to the free-trade zone and not anywhere else in the country, the sources said. In late August the State Council, China’s cabinet, approved the launch of the free-trade zone in Shanghai, which will span 28.78 square kilometres in the city’s Pudong New Area, including the…