CJA E-letter
from the Commonwealth Journalists Association www.cjaweb.com
Headquarters: 305 Goodwood Heights, Diego Martin, Trinidad and Tobago
President: Hassan Shahriar (Bangladesh) shahriar@bangla.net
Vice-presidents: Doyin Mahmoud (Nigeria)
Martin Mulligan (UK) emsquared2002@yahoo.ie
Executive director: Josanne Leonard jleonard@cjaweb.com; miribai@tstt.net.tt
Newsletter editor: David Spark david@dspark.fsnet.co.uk, who would like to hear from you. Views expressed in this newsletter are those of contributors, not the CJA
The CJA thanks the Commonwealth Foundation for its financial support
Issue No 16 July 2006
Quote of the month
It is not the role of journalists or newspapers in Singapore to champion issues or campaign for or against the government
Press secretary, Ministry of Information, Singapore
Page 2 Letter from Uganda
Page 3 Three Asian journalists killed: big protests against Pakistan murder
Page 5 Gambia locks up website correspondents
Page 7 Launching into cyberspace
Page 8 Broadcaster needed, to reach all Caribbean
Page 9 The Commonwealth’s most influential commentators
Page 10 News from round the world
Page 12 Book review: Why poor countries stay poor
Punish attackers, says CJA Bangladesh, after 25 journalists are hurt
CJA Bangladesh, meeting on June 6, called on the government to punish those responsible for an attack at Kushtia in May which left 25 journalists injured, including the editor of the Bangladesh Observer.
The CJA resolution reads:
The Commonwealth Journalists Association, Bangladesh, has noted with great concern that journalists and media workers in Bangladesh have come under more attacks for exposing corruption and abuse of power. The meeting expresses deep concern over the May 29 attack on a rally of journalists in the western town of Kushtia by the goons hired by local ruling party lawmaker Shahidul Islam.
The attack left about 25 journalists, including the editor of the Bangladesh Observer, Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury, injured. Police posted guard at the rally failed to stop the attackers.
The meeting notes that the rally was organised to protest against the lawmaker’s harassment of four reporters in Kushtia because they continued to expose his highhandedness and autocratic behaviour.
The CJA meeting considers such attacks as attempts to undermine press freedom and stop journalists from telling the truth. The CJA believes that Bangladeshi journalists cannot be suppressed by such violence. The meeting urged the government to arrest those responsible for the attack and punish them.
Two small bombs exploded in July outside the office of the Weekly Blitz, in Dhaka. Blitz’s editor, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, is on trial on a sedition charge for writing about radical Islam in Bangladesh.
Letter to the editor
A Ugandan journalist writes:
I have been particularly moved by articles in respect of Press freedom and those falling victim where it is infringed. In Uganda we also marked World Press Freedom Day with reflections on the courage and perseverance of those who have made sacrifices for the betterment of the trade.
We have also formed an independent, non-statutory media council to arbitrate between the media houses and the public in cases of complaint. It will soon be operating. We believe it is cheaper, faster and more accessible than the technical legal alternative.
The courts annulled sections of the penal code on publishing false news; and Parliament has passed a law that will ease access to information, especially from government departments.
Three Asian journalists killed
A photojournalist, Hayatullah Khan, who was kidnapped in North Pakistan in December was found dead in June see below. Lakmal Silva, who covered the Tamil insurgency in Sri Lanka, was shot dead on July 1 when he went to meet a telephone caller in South Colombo. An Indian journalist, Aran Narayan Dekate, was fatally injured by stones thrown as he rode his motorcycle near Nagpur on June 8. He had written about illegal gaming and may have told the police about criminals.
A fourth journalist escaped death only because his captor’s gun jammed. Shujaat Bukhari, who has worked in Kashmir for The Hindu for ten years, was kidnapped by two men on June 10. He had been targeted previously by both Kashmiri separatists and government forces.
Big protests against murder in Pakistan
Found shot: Hayatullah Khan Hyderabad journalists protest against his execution
Journalists in Karachi, Islamabad, Hyderabad, Multan and Quetta protested in June against the murder of Hayatullah Khan Dawar who was found dead six months after masked men seized him in North Pakistan. Government agencies and the local Taliban have blamed each other for his death.
In Karachi, journalists marched to the American consulate, with a banner blaming ‘Bush and Mush’ [Presidents Bush and Musharraf]. In Islamabad journalists boycotted the National Assembly and demanded an independent inquiry by a supreme court judge.
The government appointed a high court judge from Peshawar, Raza Khan. Its notice of appointment described Hayatullah as an illustrious and brave journalist. Justice Khan is working in closed court, to protect witnesses.
Twenty-nine-year-old Hayatullah, father of three small children, worked for the Nation, the Daily Times and a European picture agency in North Waziristan, where the Pakistani Army has been attacking Islamic militants. He came to prominence when his pictures showed that a militant from Egypt, Hamza Rabia, had not blown himself up, as had been reported. He had been killed by an American Hellfire missile.
On December 5, two days after his scoop, Hayatullah was kidnapped. On June 16 his body was found dumped outside the town of Mir Ali. He was handcuffed and had been shot in the back. The governor of North West Frontier Province announced compensation for his family of half a million rupees (£4500).
Ashraf Ali, of the BBC’s Pushtu service, interviewed Hayatullah’s 23-year-old widow, Mehr-un-Nisa. She was angry, shocked and tearful. She told him she had frequently got calls from secret service men, saying Hayatullah was OK. But “Hayatullah is dead. No one can bring him back. We just want his killers arrested.”
Journalists also protested against the murder in May of a cameraman, Munir Sangi, and the release of the man suspected of killing him. Sangi, who worked for a Sindhi TV network, was shot during a gun battle between tribal groups in the town of Larkana.
Journalists in and around Sukkur protested against the shooting in June of their colleague Paryal Dayo, apparently over a property dispute. Doctors took four bullets from his body.
Gambia locks up website correspondents
By Demba Jawo, Banjul
The Gambian media have never had it easy since the present government of President Yahya Jammeh assumed power about 12 years ago. But this year has been exceptionally hard. Several journalists have been arrested and detained and some media houses arbitrarily closed down by the authorities for no obvious reasons.
The present troubles started in March when there was a plot to overthrow the government, for which several members of the security forces as well as some civilians were arrested. Those arrested included most of the journalists of The Independent newspaper in Banjul, including its general manager Madi Ceesay and editor-in-chief Musa Saidykhan [who has since fled to Senegal]. All but one were held in solitary confinement for more than three weeks. After which they were released without being charged.
The remaining journalist, Lamin Fatty, remained in custody for more than two months before he was charged with reporting false news. He was later released on bail.
At the same time as the journalists were arrested, The Independent was closed down without any legal ceremony. The police went to the premises of the paper two days after the coup attempt, took the keys from the staff, locked the place and asked everybody to go home. It has stayed closed. No reason has been given by the authorities.
As if that was not a sufficient affront to freedom of expression, May saw a hacking into the website of an online newspaper edited by a Gambian journalist in North Carolina, critical of the government of President Jammeh.
Whoever hacked into the site of the Freedom newspaper posted a statement on it announcing that Pa Nderry Mbai, the editor, had decided to become a member of the President’s political party. The statement also listed people whom, it said, supplied him with information about the government. The following day, that statement and the list were published by the pro-government Daily Observer in Banjul. [Among those listed was an Observer news editor, Omar Bah, who fled to Senegal. A former Observer journalist, Malick Mboob, was arrested on May 26 and still held on July 11, reports the Media Foundation for West Africa.]
About two days after the hacking, Pa Nderry Mbai issued a statement countering the allegation that he had become a member of the ruling party. He also dissociated himself from the statement posted on his website and accused the government of being behind the hacking.
Meanwhile, the police in Banjul asked all those on the website list to report to the nearest police station, warning them that anyone failing to report would be arrested and dealt with for castigating the government. In fact, all those listed and living in The Gambia were arrested and detained. Some were released a few days later. None has been charged with any offence.
One of the detainees was Mrs Duta Kamaso, a member of parliament for the ruling party. She was also dismissed from the party. Under the Gambian constitution, she automatically lost her seat in the National Assembly.
Many people were flabbergasted by the decision of the Gambian authorities to arrest people simply for being in touch with a newspaper which was neither registered in The Gambia nor legally banned. [Some of the people listed contributed articles; others had merely asked for the newspaper to be e-mailed to them.]
What interested many people, however, was the fact that, while The Gambia was engaged in such repression of free expression, it was also preparing to host this month’s African Union summit.
As a result of the threat of detention and the arbitrary closure of media houses, most Gambian journalists have either called it quits and left the country or are engaged in self-censorship. Both Citizen FM and Sud FM radios have been closed, apparently for carrying critical news about the government. The remaining private radios have been steering away from politics or anything that would put them and the government in collision.
It is a similar case with the few remaining newspapers, particularly since the closure of the Independent in March. Apart from Foroyaa, which is seen by many people as the organ of the opposition National Alliance for Democracy and Development (NADD), all the papers have been careful about the stories they publish, lest they get into trouble with the authorities. The public media, such as the Gambia Radio and Television Services (GRTS), which alone have countrywide coverage, are quite tightly controlled by the government.
The constitution provides that all state owned newspapers, journals, radio and television shall afford fair opportunities and facilities for the presentation of divergent views and dissenting opinion. In practice, broadcasts on both radio and television portray the government and the ruling party in a positive light. There is normally no access to GRTS for the opposition or anyone else with a dissenting view.
Only during the last two weeks of any election campaign are the opposition parties allowed access to GRTS. Even then, whatever they say is always pre-recorded and heavily edited before being broadcast.
Launching into cyberspace
CJA Fiji has set up a new website http://cjafiji.bravehost.com. So, with the help of Pieter Wessels of CJA Australia, has the Rural Media Network of Pakistan http://online-rmnp.tripod.com.
The RMNP site was inaugurated in May by the Amir of Bahawalpur, Nawab Salahuddin Abbasi above right. He said that the greatest threats to freedom of expression in Pakistant occur in rural areas, where feudal and tribal lords and government functionaries can punish, away from the glare of national and international media, any journalist who dares to report their misdeeds.
RMNP convener Ehsan Ahmed Sehar above left said the website would use both English and Urdu. It would inform rural journalists about training, media law and violations of freedom of expression.
Broadcaster needed, to reach all Caribbean
A public company should provide a radio and television service covering the whole Caribbean Common Market area. And the Caribbean Media Corporation should become that company.
Sir Ronald Sanders, a major player in Caribbean media co-operation, put this idea to the 30th anniversary meeting of CANA, the Caribbean News Agency. CANA is one of the partners in CMC. The other is the Caribbean Broadcasting Union..
He pointed out that the regional media are crucial in educating people about the merits of integrating the Caribbean economies and in enabling them to express their views about this. One reason for the death of the West Indies Federation back in the 1960s was that people did not know what it was all about. With Unesco’s help, CANA was set up in 1976 to provide an all-Caribbean news service and fill the gap. Ken Gordon from Trinidad was its first chairman.
Reaching agreement on CANA took years. One problem was that it needed money from governments but the media owners did not want government interference. The final deal was that some governments would pay for the new service but the media would own it. Privately-owned media got 54 per cent of the shares, state-owned media the rest. The Gleaner (Jamaica) stayed out, because it did not want state media in the ownership at all. But it joined after a year. Earlier, the Caribbean Broadcasting Union had been formed by state-owned broadcasters.
Sir Ronald summed up: “There are few who would doubt that the CBU and CANA separately, and then together as CMC, revolutionised how the people of the Caribbean saw each other and themselves. They aided the process of Caribbean integration and contributed to the development of a common Caribbean consciousness.”
The commentators with most influence
Who are the most influential commentators in Commonwealth countries? Correspondents of the Financial Times in London have named who they think most influential round the world. Here are their Commonwealth selections:
AUSTRALIA
Alan Jones, king of talkback radio in Sydney. Jones, a former rugby coach, has been called a pedlar of middle-of-the-road fascism and has been accused of taking cash for comment from Australian companies. But national leaders flock to his show.
CANADA
Margaret Wente of The Globe and Mail. Bernard Simon of the FT says that for perceptive observations leavened with humour and common sense she is hard to beat. Not keen on men who walk four steps in front of veiled women.
INDIA
Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, whose columns are republished in Indian newspapers. His bestseller The World is Flat extolled India’s brilliant future in a globalised world.
KENYA
Louis Otieno and Wycliffe Muga. Otieno, anchor for TV’s Newsline, presents a popular phone-in, made possible by greater political openness. Muga of the Daily Nation is a scourge of President Kibaki whom he thinks allows his ministers to get away with too much.
NIGERIA
Dele Olojede, Pulitzer-prizewinning investigative reporter for Newsday. He wants to make an impact on Nigeria’s press which he thinks lacks quality and critical muscle.
SOUTH AFRICA
Moeletsi Mbeki, President Thabo Mbeki’s younger brother. He is critical of elites, including South Africa’s black businessmen, and wants more South African support for democracy in Zimbabwe.
UNITED KINGDOM
Trevor Kavanagh, political editor of The Sun, the biggest selling tabloid daily. John Lloyd writes: “Kavanagh rules because of the size of his readership, his own industry and a style that destroyed the boundaries between reporting and commentary.”
News from round the world
AUSTRALIA
A newspaperman, Mark Scott, from the Fairfax group, has been appointed managing director of the ABC, Australia’s influential national broadcaster.
BOTSWANA
The Botswana National Sports Councl is seeking an apology and £500,000 in libel damages from the Botswana Gazette. The dispute concerns BSNC and a leading woman athlete who may be a man.
FIJI
Vasemaca Rarabici, who set up the CJA’s Fiji branch, won a Sasakawa Pacific Islands Fellowship to visit Japan and Okinawa.
KENYA
Mo and Me, a film about Kenya’s and Africa’s most famous photojournalist, Mohammed Amin, has been made by his son Salim. It is a warts-and-all portrait, showing him as a ruthless competitor with other cameramen; but it was his pictures which drew world attention to the civil-war-fuelled Ethiopian famine of 1984. He died in 1996 when an Ethiopian airliner in which he was flying was hijacked and landed in the Indian Ocean.
NIGERIA
Rotimi Durojaiye of the Daily Independent and Mike Gbenga Aruleba, of Nigeria’s largest private TV network, AIT, were detained for some days in June on sedition charges. Duojaiye had commented on President Obasanjo’s newly-acquired plane and Aruleba suggested it was second-hand. Lawyers said the sedition law is a dead letter. It was killed by a court judgment in 1983.
PAKISTAN
Kalashnikov-wielding activists of the ruling Muslim League stormed the Peshawar Press Club on June 29 to stop dissident league members holding a press conference. Journalists and dissidents were beaten. Members of the press club decided to boycott the Muslim League and not to negotiate until the organisers of the raid were arrested.
Military intelligence officers seized two TV journalists who filmed at an American airbase in the Pakistani province of Sindh in March and held them secretly for three months. One of them, Mukesh Rupeta, said: “I thought I would be killed the way they treated me.” He said his cameraman had entered a prohibited area by mistake. Police have accused the two of breaching the Official Secrets Act.
Six journalists were hurt in rural Sindh in June when a crowd of 50 people barged into their press club. The cause was a news story about the use of substandard material in an irrigation project. Also in rural Sindh, two journalists received death threats after reporting on a feudal assembly which sought to settle a murder dispute by handing over five young girls for marriage. Another Sindhi journalist, Mehruddin Marri, disappeared after being taken away in a police car on July 2.
Police said in May that they had closed down 87 illegal radio stations in North West Frontier Province. Clerics commonly set up radios to teach and propagate their views. FM transmitters can be made locally for as little as 5000 rupees (£45).
SINGAPORE
The state-owned Today newspaper suspended the weekly column of a well known blogger in July, after a government official criticised a column headed Singaporeans are fed up with progress. It focused on people who, despite progress, cannot make ends meet. Today had taken on ‘Mr Brown’ (Lee Kin Mun) in an attempt to win younger readers.
Police are investigating another blogger who posted cartoons of Jesus Christ on the web.
SOUTH AFRICA
The Freedom of Expression Institute has protested against a decision to require two journalists to give evidence in the fraud trial of a reflexologist.
SRI LANKA
Sri Lanka’s cabinet has agreed to reintroduce a state-controlled press council. The Free Media Movement sees this as imposing censorship on some defence and other issues.
A BBC team were kept out of the district of Mannar on June 17. Newspapers reported that civilians were attacked there after the government fought the Tamil Tigers at sea.
The Supreme Court terminated charges of contempt of court which the Bribery Commission had brought against journalists at The Sunday Leader. The Leader had published articles about the commission.
The authorities closed down CBN Sat, a private satellite broadcaster, just before the World Cup. It had been broadcsting for over a year.
SWAZILAND
Acting Chief Justice Jacobus Annandale in June refused a request for a ban on reporting of the trial of an alleged serial killer.
UGANDA
Two journalists of the Weekly Observer were accused in June of promoting sectarianism. The Observer in December had accused President Museveni and generals from his ethnic group of plotting to keep rival presidential candidate Kizza Besigye in jail.
A human rights group alleges that the government paid journalists to vote for its preferred candidate for the presidency of the Uganda Journalists Association.
ZIMBABWE
The Harare-based radio, Voice of the People, much harassed by the Mugabe government,has won the special media award of the One World Broadcasting Trust.
Book review
Why poor countries stay poor
Corruption in poor, not-very-democratic countries is not just a sign of poverty and of a greed which rich, democratic states also display. It is a deliberate policy that keeps the Old Toad Kings of Africa in power. They do not need to court the majority of their fellow citizens, by helping them grow less poor. They simply need the support of an influential minority. The easy way to recruit this minority is to offer them corrupt privileges and opportunities.
This explanation of why poor countries stay poor comes in a book called The Undercover Economist, by Tim Harford of the Financial Times, London. Harford went to Cameroon to find out how it succeeds in the, theoretically, near-impossible task of getting poorer.
In theory, poor countries should grow richer because, if they have few good schools and roads, every new school and every new road should make a difference, by providing new skills and opportunities. And the World Bank supplies money for building such things. So why, in some countries, does poverty nevertheless prevail?
Harford found that in Cameroon there is little incentive to do well at school. Jobs do not depend on school results. There is also a disincentive to use roads. Drivers get waylaid by gendarmes seeking bribes, a much more lucrative use of their time than catching thieves. Since thieves go unpunished and debts unpaid, it is unrewarding to run a business even if you can afford the high fees for starting one. It is more profitable to be a thief.
The World Bank has pointed to the number of permissions required in some countries before a business can start. This is not just bureaucracy. It is a system for enabling would-be business people to be fleeced. In Cameroon, to get a court to enforce payment of an unpaid bill takes two years and requires 58 procedures, each an opportunity for an official to seek “speed money”.
Harford points out that Cameroon and similar countries offer perverse incentives. Unproductive work such as bribe-seeking is encouraged. Productive work falls victim to bribe-takers. Civil servants (and aid officials) have more to gain from launching a project than seeing it operates well. Most people have an interest in doing other people down. Meanwhile President Biya remains in power, after 24 years. His opponents are political amateurs, he says.
The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford (Little, Brown: contact Kirsteen.Astor@twbg.co.uk)
Our thanks
We once again thank our news sources including the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Freedom of Expression Institute (South Africa), the Free Media Movement (Sri Lanka), the International Federation of Journalists, the Media Foundation for West Africa, the Media Institute of Southern Africa, the Pakistan Press Foundation, the Rural Media Network Pakistan, Reporters Sans Frontieres and the South-East AsianPress Alliance
The CJA’s officers
Past presidents Derek Ingram (UK), Ray Ekpu (Nigeria), Murray Burt (Canada)
Executive committee
East Africa Sam Aola Ooko (Kenya), Cindy Wirtz (Seychelles)
Southern Africa John Gambanga (Zimbabwe)
West Africa Demba Jawo (Gambia)
East Asia Florence Yii (Malaysia)
South Asia Ashis Chakrabarti (India), Champika Liyanaarachchi (Sri Lanka)
West Asia S.M.Fazal (Pakistan)
Caribbean Dale Enoch
North America Chris Cobb
Europe Syed Belal Ahmed (UK)
East Pacific Lance Polu (Western Samoa)
West Pacific Reggie Dutt (Fiji)