CJA E-letter

from the Commonwealth Journalists Association

Headquarters: 305 Goodwood Heights, Diego Martin, Trinidad and Tobago

Executive director: Josanne Leonard miribai@tstt.net.tt

Newsletter editor: David Spark david@dspark.fsnet.co.uk, who will be glad of any e-mailed comments. Views expressed in this newsletter are those of contributors and not of the CJA

The CJA thanks the Commonwealth Foundation for its financial support

Issue No 12 November 2005

Page 2   Kamara in Sierra Leone court: Media suffer in Sri Lanka election

Page 3-5               North Pakistan’s quake-hit media

Page 5                  Exiled journalists join forces in UK

Page 6/7               Awards for The Zimbabwean and David Robie

Page 7-11             News in brief from round the world

Page 11=12         Books                    Page 12   Our thanks

Spooks stop conference on murders

Families of reporters murdered in Bangladesh were to have inaugurated a national convention on November 11, called to discuss violence against journalists. But National Security Intelligence got the booking of the venue cancelled, pleading security for a South Asian summit.

Then, on November 17, Gautam Das, aged 28, who wrote for Samikal in Faridpur, was found strangled in his office. Four journalists were killed and 96 assaulted last year, Media Watch also reports.

The convention organisers, the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists, still intend to hold it later. BFUJ president Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury protested that journalists are not security hazards.

The International Federation of Journalists has protested against attacks on the press by members of the ruling Bangladesh National Party. On October 18, BNP members set fire to the Dainik Jugantor in Ullahpura, accusing it of publishing false information. The same day a BNP officer threatened to blow up the Soron Khola press club and kill its president, a correspondent for the Daily Ittefaq and the News Network of Bangladesh. This followed a report that a lecturer was illegally appointed.

Imprisoned Paul Kamara in court

A frail-looking Paul Kamara, editor of For Di People, Sierra Leone, emerged from the cold cells of Pademba Road prison on November 9 for his appeal. The court adjourned the hearing for a week. Kamara was sent to prison for seditious libel last year after alleging that a commission of inquiry in the 1960s recommended that President Kabbah, then a civil servant, should never again hold public office.

The Sierra Leone government has recently hinted that it will amend the unpopular seditious libel law that threatens prison for anyone who provokes public disaffection with the president.

The Sierra Leone Association of Journalists has threatened to boycott government activities, reports the Media Foundation for West Africa. It is pressing the government to prosecute an MP and five other suspects accused, at an inquest, of murdering the acting editor of For Di People, Harry Yansaneh. The authorities have been seeking to argue that the inquest was faulty and that the inquest documents were taken out of the country by Adam Fischer, the coroner who conducted it.

Media suffer in Sri Lankan election

Attacks on journalists and media escalated in the run-up to the presidential election on November 17, reports the Free Media Movement. The tight contest could end the already crumbling truce between the government and the Tamil Tiger rebels.

On November 3, supporters of the prime minister, who opposes any autonomy for the Tamil minority, attacked a cameraman from Swarnawahini TV. FMM says this might have resulted from the TV’s decision not to cover the Sinhalese nationalist JVP, the prime minister’s electoral ally, which had made an allegation against it.

On November 14, a grenade was thrown at the home of a correspondent for state TV and a Tamil paper, Thinakaran. On October 16 men with clubs and knives attacked the presses printing the Sunday Leader and Irudina, two papers critical of the government. On October 6 a van exploded outside the office of Thinamurasu, a paper associated with opponents of the Tamil Tigers. In August grenades were thrown at the press building of Sudaroli, after it was accused of ties with the Tigers. A security guard was killed and a journalist injured. Two Sudaroli reporters were assaulted the following day. Relangi Selvarajah of Sri Lanka Broadcasting was shot dead on August 12.

Five Sri Lankan journalists’ associations signed up on November 3 to a media charter calling for open government, freedom of information, protection of editorial independence, self-regulation by journalists and an end to political control of state-owned media.

North Pakistan’s quake-hit media

Many journalists were killed, injured or lost their families in the October 8 earthquake in Northern Pakistan. ADNAN REHMAT of Internews describes how the earthquake hit broadcasting and the local press. [The Pakistan Press Foundation has also produced a report. See www.pakistanpressfoundation.org]

The building housing AJK TV and AJK Radio in Muzaffarabad is a heap of rubble, with twisted computer frames sticking out from among bricks and broken pieces of furniture. About 160 staffers worked there. It is hard to tell what has happened to them. They have nowhere to report for work.

Rafiq Bhatti, deputy controller of news at the radio, moved his family to Islamabad. Then he set up a tent and files two to three stories a day over the phone.

All the presses that printed local papers are buried under rubble. Muzaffarabad's largest newspaper distribution agency — the Azad Book Shop — is somehow still standing, but newspapers printed in Islamabad are not making it to Muzaffarabad regularly. Few have the money to buy them.

Journalists say that newspapers will not take long to revive. Some of the major publishing houses in Pakistan are likely to move in. The small local press owners simply don't have the money to go back to their old business anytime soon.

The Muzaffarabad Press Club, like most buildings in the city, lies in ruins. From the grounds of the club there's a spectacular view of the mountains. Pine trees once dominated these slopes, but now large swathes of them are barren. Iftikhar Ali, correspondent for Jang newspaper, is camped in front of the press club. He confirms that Abdul Hafeez Salib, the club’s president, is dead.

In pre-quake times, it was difficult to report much freely in this part of Kashmir. Broadcasting, the only mass medium, was a state monopoly. The message, in a state with many military and militant groups, was controlled. Private print media existed but circulation was woeful. All of this is gone now. The silver lining is that, a few weeks before the quake, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority invited bids for private FM radio stations in 20 towns and cities of Azad Kashmir. With literacy low and money short, the cheap medium of radio is the answer to information needs. Few TV sets survive.

In North-West Frontier Province to the west, most newspapers have their district correspondents, but they cannot be reached through landlines or mobile phones – the networks are badly damaged by the earthquake.

According to Peshawar-based journalist Iqbal Khattak, most major stories in the papers have come from foreign wire services. Pakistani papers, he says, are just not prepared for the wide coverage that the earthquake demands. There is no focus on the human aspect of the stories, just statistics and general descriptions.

The media in Pakistan often rely heavily for information on government authorities ill organised to supply it.

Sabooh, a journalist from Abbotabad, works for Geo, a leading TV news. He has been reporting from Murree, Muzaffarabad, Nathiagali, Mansehra and Balakot on the disaster. In Balakot, he came across only one foreign TV channel — Al Jazeera — covering the quake in a region with high casualties and widespread devastation.

"The channels and newspapers are content to lift material from one another instead of being there themselves. There is no confirmation of news or follow-ups, communication is a huge problem and the victims cannot reach out to the world. Those affected by the quake have been asking to use our phones to call relatives," he says. Yet “it was through live reporting from remote villages that people were able to bring medicine and the army responded."

Fayyaz Ali Shah heads Radio Buraq 104 at Peshawar. He says journalists need satellite phones for effective reporting from disaster-struck areas. They also need training. With the right kind of coverage, media can help non-government organisations identify places for intervention. But Fayyaz says most reporting is done on the desk. There's little tradition of on-the-spot coverage.

Pakistani media and journalists need help now. It should focus on:

Support for specific local and state broadcasters within the earthquake zone, so they can provide news and information to victims. Needs include transmitters, antennae, mobile radio studios, and generators.

Support and equipment for production teams and journalists working for media in the disaster zone.

Support for the broader Pakistani journalistic and media community to cover the disaster and relief efforts with speed and accuracy. Needs include: access to information from humanitarian relief organisations, the government and the military

Emergency FM radio stations

Distribution of up to 100,000 radios.

Links for further information

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49755&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN

The Pakistani regulator closed down the FM 103 radio on November 14 for transmitting a BBC programme about the earthquake, reports the Pakistan Press Foundation. It also ordered two satellite TV stations not to run BBC content.

Exiles join forces in UK

Mohammed Elsharif from the Sudan was elected to chair the Exiled Journalists Network launched in Bristol in October. Over 20 countries were represented. Gordon Doh Fondo Hurd, a TV presenter from Cameroon, was elected secretary. The management committee includes Ibrahim Seaga Shaw (Sierra Leone), Mansoor Hassan (Pakistan), Olufemi Idowu (Nigeria), and Sandra Nyaira (Zimbabwe).

EJN has been set up with the help of the Bristol-based MediaWise Trust which runs the Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Media Project, set up five years ago to fight for fair and accurate representation of refugee issues in the mass media. Patrons include international editor of Channel 4 News Lindsey Hilsum, The Independent columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and president of the National Union of Journalists Tim Lezard.

The EJN, the first organisation of its kind, has managed to bring together more than 150 refugee and asylum-seeking journalists from a wide variety of different countries, religions and cultures. It can have a major impact on the lives of exiled journalists.

“We call on all supporters of press freedom and of the rights of people to seek protection from political persecution to do whatever they can to support EJN members,” said Forward Maisokwadzo, EJN coordinator.

CONTACT: Forward Maisokwadzo 0117 941 5889 (07967 974 744)

Barry Lowe of the CJA’s UK branch is seeking a Home Office grant to run a seminar for refugee and asylum-seeking journalists

The Zimbabwean wins an award

By Zaccheus Chibaya

The Zimbabwean, after only eight months in the media market, has received an award for the most innovative and appropriate use of new media in Africa at a colourful ceremony at Rhodes University in South Africa. The judges said it had a professional website with a sparse, aesthetically pleasing design. The Zimbabwean is an independent weekly published in London and Johannesburg but also reaching Zimbabwe.

The 2005 Highway Africa Awards for the Innovative use of New Media, sponsored by the South African Broadcasting Corporation, were a highlight of the Highway conference which brought together journalists and academics.

The Zimbabwean’s publisher Wilf Mbanga said he was delighted and thanked the organisers for their recognition.  He paid tribute to the many journalists and activists who give their time and skills free of charge to keep the paper supplied with informative and fearless articles.

Mbanga also thanked The Guardian Foundation and Kitsite in the UK for their help in designing the website, and The Zimbabwean’s webmaster for managing it.

Pacific award for David Robie

CJA member David Robie has been awarded the Pacific Media Freedom Award by the Pacific Islands Media Association. David is a journalism educator at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. Older CJA members will remember his no-holds-barred reporting of the Pacific a couple of decades ago.

The PIMA judges said his role in Pacific media education is unrivalled. He has been a strong advocate of journalism training in both the South Pacific and New Zealand for many years. The panel said: "The impact he has had on media freedom has also been huge - many of the region's top journalists are his proteges and they continue to ask the hard questions and play their roles in the advance of democracy."

Previous winners of the Pacific Media Freedom Award include Taimi 'o Tonga publisher Kalafi Moala and pro-democracy and newspaper activist Alani Taione.

The Scotsman’s archive goes on line

Every word of The Scotsman newspaper from 1817 to 1950 is now available online and searchable at http://archive.scotsman.com/ . It is the first complete searchable digital archive of a UK newspaper. Searching is free but you must subscribe to view the full article. Rates are reasonable, payable by credit card, and cater for occasional users. I did a quite complex search on a geographic place and it worked very well. Another search by subject for five articles I already had from The Scotsman turned them up first go. The database and its search engine are first class for anyone looking for vintage material – Pieter Wessels.

News in brief

ANTI-TERROR LAWS CRITICISED

Anti-terror laws in Britain and Australia can endanger press freedom and chill the exercise of journalism, warns the International Federation of Journalists. Under the Australian proposals, people can be charged with sedition without their having incited violence. The proposals also allow the police to demand information from journalists and make it an offence to report that someone is in preventive detention.

The British proposals make it harder to report on dissidents, by outlawing information “glorifying” terrorism. Aidan White of the IFJ argues that this would have stopped free coverage of Northern Ireland’s troubles.

AFRICA

A new Network of African Freedom of Expression Organisations was set up at a conference of 33 organisations in Accra, Ghana, in October.

AUSTRALIA

Two journalists who refused to name a whistleblower were charged in October with contempt of court. Michael Harvey and Gerard McManus broke a story, based on leaked information, that the federal government planned to cut war veterans’ benefits.

The Media Alliance has called for the dropping of charges against journalist and filmmaker Anne Delaney for illegally interviewing a prisoner in Queensland. She was inquiring into a possible miscarriage of justice.

CAMEROON

Australian freelance Andrew Mueller was arrested in South-West Cameroon on November 11, along with two leaders of a banned organisation seeking a separate state for English-speakers. Mueller was released after three days. CPJ

CANADA

Disgraced Canadian media tycoon Conrad, Lord Black, whose former company owned the Daily Telegraph in London, faces fraud charges in the United States.

THE GAMBIA

Musa Saidykhan, editor of The Independent, was interrogated by intelligence men on October 27 after his paper reported a promise by South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki to raise with the Gambian authorities the unsolved murder of Deyda Hydara, editor of The Point. Saidykhan discussed the Hydara case with Mbeki at the African Editors Forum in Johannesburg. The National Intelligence Agency has said nothing about the case since June when it released a report smearing Hydara. - CPJ

Police shut down the Gambian branch of the Senegalese radio station Sud FM in October. Sud FM in Senegal also was shut down for a day after it broadcast an interview with a rebel leader. The Gambia, stretched along the Gambia river, cuts Senegal in two. The closure of the Gambian Sud FM followed a meeting between the countries’ presidents to resolve a row over higher fares for crossing the river. - CPJ

GHANA

Jojo Bruce Quansah, editor of the bi-weekly Ghana Palaver, fled to Tema after being accosted by eight men early on November 8. The paper earlier appealed for help in paying £130,000 libel damages awarded to a minister and to the president’s brother.

Two reporters for the independent Daily Guide were attacked by activists at a meeting of Ghana’s main opposition party, the National Democratic Congress, on November 1. The party was founded by ex-president Jerry Rawlings. – MFWA

HONG KONG

A parcel bomb addressed to the chief editor of Ming Pao injured his secretary’s face when she opened it. An accompanying letter referred to an article in the paper. – CPJ

LESOTHO

Damages of £150,000 were awarded on November 7 to a recreation centre director against Lesotho’s largest publication Public Eye, whose editor-in-chief said he did not know the case was being heard and Public Eye’s lawyer did not know either. - MISA

MALDIVES

Three journalists at the three-month-old opposition newspaper Minivan Daily are in prison. Jennifer Lateef, 32-year-old daughter of the exiled Mohammed Latheef, has been given ten years for a “terrorist act”. She is accused of throwing a stone at police during a protest against the deaths of five prisoners in 2003. Mohammed Nasheed is accused of taking part in a protest this August. Abdullah Saeed is alleged to have had drugs in his clothing when he reported to a police station. – RSF

MOZAMBIQUE

Anibalzinho, accused of leading the murderers of investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso, is to be retried on December 1. He did not attend his first trial, having left for South Africa. Sent back to Mozambique, he escaped again to Canada, which returned him last January. - MISA

NIGERIA

CJA vice-president Doyin Mahmoud was a special guest at the Nigerian Media Merit Awards ceremony at Bauchi in September.

After closing down Africa Independent Television on October 23 because of its coverage of an airliner crash, Nigeria’s broadcasting regulators allowed it to reopen a day later, reports Media Rights Agenda. AIT found the crash site, photographed broken bodies and said there were no survivors. At the time state-owned television was claiming there were survivors.

Gunmen raided the Weekly Star on October 11 and took away its publisher and four employees. After being held in secret for six days, the publisher was charged in court with false reporting about clashes in the Niger delta and money-laundering.

PAKISTAN

The high court in Rajastan, India, has ordered the release of Sajid Bashir, a Pakistani journalist still being held two years after completing his 12-year sentence for contravening the Official Secrets Act. Bashir is from Bahawalpur, just across the desert from Rajastan, and was arrested when he strayed over the border while hunting.

One of Pakistan’s leading newspapers, Dawn, has petitioned the Sindh High Court against the withholding of advertising by the provincial government. The petition argues that there is an established formula for placing government advertising and that the government is displeased with its independence and impartial reporting.

Seven journalists in Sindh still face various charges although a minister promised the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists that he would withdraw them. The International Federation of Journalists has expressed its concern. On November 7 journalists at Shahdadkot demonstrated in support of a colleague, one of 220 people accused by police of incitement against the government. This followed a protest by hundreds of women against arrests and maltreatment.

Sadiq News, a monthly newsletter, is being launched in December to draw attention to violations of the rights of rural journalists. It is being published by the South Punjab newspaper Nawa-I-AhmedpurSharqia, with the help of the Rural Media Network and Unesco. Journalists unions and rural press clubs will receive it free.

Pakistani journalists protested to the Spanish embassy in Islamabad against a seven-year sentence on an Al Jazeera TV reporter accused of collaborating with Al Qaeda.

SINGAPORE

The outgoing American ambassador, Franklin L.Lavin, has criticised the government’s tight control on political expression as incongruent with access to information. The government has been seeking to extend its grip to include websites.

SWAZILAND

Douglas Dlamini, a sports journalist at the Times of Swaziland, was slapped by a footballer after reporting he had been in court on a drink driving charge.

UGANDA

The government demanded on November 15 that the independent daily The Monitor withdraw a report about the choice of army chief. Managing director Conrad Nkutu said: “There’s a threat to close us down.” The report was written by Andrew Mwenda, already in the government’s sights over a talkshow that discussed the helicopter crash which killed Sudan’s vice-president John Garang.

Mega FM is seeking to help end Northern Uganda’s 19-year civil war by inviting rebels to leave the bush and rejoin their communities.

UNITED KINGDOM

Josephine Marfo, president of the UK branch, is going to the Commonwealth summit in Malta at the end of the month with the branch’s help.

ZAMBIA

Fred M’membe, much prosecuted editor-in-chief of The Post, was back in court on November 10, pleading Not guilty to a charge of defaming the president. The Post had accused President Mwanawasa of foolishness, stupidity and lack of humility in a dispute concerning the proposed new constitution.

The government has rejected a proposal that the new constitution should guarantee access to official information. Ministers also want to set up a Press Complaints Authority with power to enforce rulings. - MISA

ZIMBABWE

Voice of the People, the only independent voice on Zimbabwe’s air waves, has been jammed since September 18, says Reporters Sans Frontieres. It can be heard only in rural Matabeleland, which is beyond the reach of the state broadcasting transmitters believed to be doing the jamming. VOP was set up in 2000 by former state broadcasters with help from the Soros Foundation and a Dutch voluntary agency.

Books, reviewed by Pieter Wessels

Why broadcasting as a public service matters

Those of us who must “talk-the-talk” of public service broadcasting will find Unesco’s Public Service Broadcasting: A Best Practices Source Book (Unesco, Paris, October 2005 143 pp) an essential reference. Do not be put off by the foreword by Dr Abdul Waheed Khan, which is full of adjectives and clichés. Dr Khan, assistant director of communications at Unesco, does not talk like that so one can only guess where it came from.

Further in, the editors Indrajit Banerjee and Kalinga Seneviratne of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre explain why public service broadcasting is important in developing countries, and give cogent examples of its value in the developed Commonwealth. The one thing the book does not address is how to express the value of public service broadcasting in money terms, in an age when bean-counters reign supreme. In her endorsement Elizabeth Smith of the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association says: “This is an essential reference book for all working in the media.”

Public Service Broadcasting is free from most Unesco offices and a free, fast download from the Unesco site. <http://portal.unesco.org/ci/admin/ev.php?URL_ID=20394&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201&reload=1129704846>

How Super Caley went ballistic

Susie Dent - Fanboys and Overdogs: The Language Report <

http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-280676-9?view=ask> Oxford University Press on 6 October 2005; hardback, pp163; ISBN 0192806769; UK price £10.99 is OUP’s annual catch-up on the language. It is full of hard opinions and delightful examples. Here is how The Sun summed up the defeat of Glasgow football club Celtic by newcomers Inverness Caledonian Thistle, popularly known as Caley:

Super Caley go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious

And the Queen's decision not to attend the wedding of Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles offered an intriguing transatlantic contrast.

Britain's Mirror headline read Royal wedding snub sensation: heir rage. The New York Post’s was Queen to skip Chuck nups.

Our thanks

For news in this newsletter, we once again thank contributors and also the International Freedom of Expression Exchange and its informants the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the Free Media Movement (FMM), the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), Media Rights Agenda, the Pakistan Press Foundation and Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF). We also thank Internews for permission to use Adnan Rehmat’s account of the aftermath of the Pakistan earthquake.