CJA E-letter
from the Commonwealth
Journalists Association www.cjaweb.com
Headquarters: c/o Canadian Newspaper
Association, 890 Yonge Street Suite 200 , Toronto
ON , Canada M4W
3P4
President: Hassan Shahriar (
Vice-presidents: Doyin
Mahmoud (
Martin Mulligan (UK) emsquared2002@yahoo.ie
Executive director: Bryan Cantley bcantley@cna-acj.ca
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 20 July 2007
Page 2
Page 3 CJA
president’s statement on press freedom
Page 5 How they found a pretext to shut
Page 7 George John R.I.P. (Return if possible)
Page 10-14 News from around the world
Six journalists killed since April
Six Commonwealth
journalists have been killed since April, two in
Those killed were:
Subash Chandraboas, aged 32, editor of the Tamil magazine Nilam
in
Mahboob Khan, a 22-year-old freelance photographer, one of 28
people killed near
Selvarajah Rajivarnam, aged 25, of the Tamil daily Uthayan, shot
dead while cycling in
Noor Hakim, a reporter for the Urdu-language
Ahmed Solangi, aged 34, who wrote for a Sindhi paper, shot on
June 17 by bikers with kalashnikovs as he distributed newspapers in rural
Sindh.
Javed
Khan, cameraman
for the daily Markaz and a UK-based TV service, killed in fighting
between militia and Islamic students at the Red Mosque,
In late March,
Defence
minister threatens editor
Renewed civil war in
In March, the weekly
Mawbima became the first Sinhalese-language paper for decades to be shut by the
government, which alleges it has links with the Tamil Tigers. Mawbima had
reported on abductions and disappearances. It is associated with two former
ministers who have accused the government of violating human rights. Mawbima
journalist Maunusamy Parameshwari was held from November to February without
charge.
Tamilnet, a website
regarded as sympathetic towards the Tamil Tigers, was blocked in June.
TV under fire as protests hit Musharraf
Journalists are caught in the struggle between President
Musharraf and the many Pakistanis outraged by his firing of Chief Justice
Chaudhry. The struggle erupted into violence when Chaudhry went to speak in
Aaj
TV’s
Ten
days later the Mohajir Rabita Council named 12 journalists as ‘enemies’. Six of the 12 work for TV, two for the leading Dawn newspaper and
one each for AP and Agence France Presse. On May 29 two of the 12, and a
third journalist, received death threats, bullets being placed on or in their
cars.
Back
in
In April officials blocked transmission of Royal TV. In June they blocked
transmissions by Aaj TV, ARY TV and Geo TV, and Royal TV complained it had been
declared illegal. On June 4, the government enacted an ordinance taking new
powers to close down broadcasters. Three days later the prime minister
suspended the ordinance. At the end of the month, lawyers challenged it in the
Sindh High Court.
On May 18, the
editor-in-chief of the
Journalists suffered from
the protesters also. Sixteen were attacked, mainly by lawyers, at a Karachi Bar
Association protest in April.
Journalists’ struggle intensifies
Hassan Shahriar, International President, Commonwealth Journalists
Association issued this statement for World Press Freedom Day:
World Press Freedom Day almost forces us to look
back on a year, and to guess what the future holds for working journalists.
In developed countries of the Commonwealth some old and hard-fought rights are
being stripped away from journalists under the guise of fighting terrorism.
Terrorism, like other factors that disrupt society, must be fought. But this is
being used by people with a security mindset to stop reporters, newspapers, and
cameraman doing their work. People who never see the value of accountability
have jumped on the bandwagon of "terrorism" and are quietly removing
the rights that make politicians, the military and security people accountable.
Government and the corporatised bureaucracy are less transparent and governance
suffers.
Journalists in developing countries are also suffering. Throughout the last
year, progress in the media has been one step forward and one-a-and-half steps
back. In many countries working journalists are in a worse situation than they
were in mid-2006. This is despite many courses and conferences to promote good
governance, accountability, development and sustainability.
The most recent example is in
It is shocking that many governments talk of
democracy but silence the press either through legislation or intimidation.
They also keep mum when journalists are harassed or attacked by powerful
groups.
In many developing countries the education of
journalists has not improved despite the increasing demands placed on them by
globalisation and development. There are more graduate journalists, but they
are not going into the media because, after their years of study, they can't
earn a living wage there.
So the year ahead must again be a struggle, and a fight where necessary,
to push ahead in our advocacy of the working journalist. The CJA will continue
to raise its voice against press censorship, harassment, criminal defamation
and persecution of journalists. It needs to stand up publicly for working
journalists on all fronts, and to listen and respond to their needs. With the
new CJA head office in
About 50
Why press freedom
matters for
Ehsan Sehar of the
Rural Media Network
How they found a pretext
to close The
By Demba Jawo, 
The conviction and sentence
to one year’s imprisonment of Lamin Fatty, a junior reporter at The Independent
newspaper, on June 5, is yet another sign of how far down the ladder press
freedom has slid in The Gambia. It confirms the report in May from the
Committee to Protect Journalists, listing The Gambia as one of five African
countries where press freedom has deteriorated. (Fatty was later released
when the
Fatty was arrested in March
2006, shortly after the Gambian authorities alleged that they had foiled an
attempt by some dissident soldiers to overthrow the government of President
Yahya Jammeh. He was detained for more than two months without charge. Then he
was released and accused of publishing false information.
The charge emanated from a
news item he wrote in The Independent, two days after the foiling of the
alleged coup. In this he mentioned Samba Bah, a former interior minister, as
one of those detained in connection with the coup attempt. When it turned out
that Bah was never arrested, The Independent published a rejoinder and
apologised to him.
The mistake can easily be
understood. One of those detained in connection with the coup attempt was also
called Samba Bah, which led Fatty to assume that it was the former interior
minister.
However, that understandable
error was enough pretext for the dreaded National
Intelligence Agency to round up Fatty and the entire editorial team of The
Independent, including its general manager, Madi Ceesay, the editor-in-chief
Musa Saidykhan and a few others. It has been confirmed that some of them were
subjected to both psychological and physical torture while in detention.
The authorities did not stop
at detaining the editorial team. They also shut down the paper, sealed its
premises and posted security officials at its gate to stop anyone going in. In
fact, The Independent remains shut to this day, even though there is no court
order to legitimise its closure.
Fatty’s sentence is just one
of a number of woes suffered by the Gambian independent media. In March, for
instance, another Gambian journalist based in the
In addition to The
Independent, two independent radio stations have been closed down by the
authorities without any court order. These are Citizen FM radio, closed since
2001 and Sud FM radio, closed in October 2005. The three media houses had one
thing in common. They were critical of President Jammeh and his government.
There are also the pending
cases of the murder in 2004 of Deyda Hydara, editor of The Point newspaper, and
the disappearance since July 2006 of Chief Ebrima Manneh, a reporter with the
pro-government Daily Observer. He was reported to have been taken from the
premises of the Daily Observer by people assumed to be from the National
Intelligence Agency. The police and the NIA have denied holding Manneh. There
is no indication that the authorities are investigating Hydara’s death.
There is also no indication
they are investigating other attacks on the media, including arson attacks on
The Independent and the torching of the house of the then BBC correspondent,
Ebrima Sillah, in 2004.
In face of this unprecedented
onslaught on the independent media, Gambian journalists seem to have devised
survival tactics, which, of course, include self-censorship. Apart from the
Foroyaa, which is seen more or less as an opposition newspaper, publications
publish hardly anything critical of the government. The Daily Observer has gone
a step further, virtually transforming itself into a public relations organ for
President Jammeh and his government.
Since the closure of Citizen
FM and Sud FM, the few remaining independent radio stations have shied away
from political issues. They concentrate on music and commercials and safe
topics like sports. They do not broadcast their own news.
As for the public media, the
situation is worse today than ever. They carry only news and programmes
favourable to President Jammeh and his government and never any dissenting
opinion, particularly from the opposition. This is despite the fact that
Section 25 of the Gambian Constitution states that: Every person shall have
the right to - (a) freedom of speech and expression which shall include freedom
of the press and other media.
In
Section 207, the Constitution also states that “the freedom and independence
of the press and other information media are hereby guaranteed. The press and
other information media shall at all times be free to uphold the principles,
provisions and objectives of this Constitution, and the responsibility and
accountability of the government to the people of The
The Constitution in Section
208 states all state-owned newspapers, journals, radio
and television shall afford fair opportunities and facilities for the
presentation of divergent views and dissenting opinion.
Despite all these constitutional provisions, the authorities continue to suppress the independent media. They also continue to monopolise the public media to the almost total exclusion of the opposition and other dissent. This has resulted in many Gambian journalists not only leaving the country but setting up online newspapers. Many Gambians now use these to criticise the government.
George
John R.I.P. (Return if possible)
Tony Deyal sent this appreciation of CJA veteran George John’s sense of humour. George died earlier this year
He called me Old Man even though I was 25 when I first met him. He would say, “Listen, Old Man,” and then go on to remonstrate, ever so gently, about my sins of omission and commission. Sometimes he left out the Listen and old-manned me with a slightly sharper tone but without anger. George John aka Holden Caulfield aka Robert P. Ingram was not a shouter, screamer or curser, never one to fuel a feud or keep it burning.
There
was one of our colleagues whom he called God.
“The man all about,” he said.
“That is why we call him God. He
work here, he work in
I
don’t remember ever calling him George although I named my first son George. He
was always Mr. John even though, as I pointed out, in Spanish that would be Don
Juan. I worked with him in public
relations for the Trinidad prime minister Dr. Eric
Williams. He handled well the spite and petulance, one-upmanship and
viciousness of that era.
The
public relations division ran a 30-minute television talk show called Issues of
Ideas. A two-part series was highly
critical of the Government’s energy policy.
George John had to take the rap. He said: “Dr Williams called me in and
told me that, while these things don’t bother him, the ‘boys’ had a problem
with the programme.” Dr. Williams never
spoke to him afterwards, but George bore him no grudge.
I
once wrote a press release referring to Doctor the Right Honourable Eric
Williams. George grinned insouciantly: “Listen, Old Man. It is possible that he might be Honourable
but he is not always right.”
George
loved puns. One particular pun-based joke he never tired of telling. In the Cold War, a British couple were introduced to the Soviet Ambassador, the formidable Colonel Rudolph,
who had started life as a meteorologist.
Standing at the window, drinking vodka, they noticed the weather had
changed. “It looks like it’s raining,”
said the man. His wife disagreed. “No, that looks more like snow to me.” “No, no, no, I’m sure it’s rain.” She raised her voice: “That is
snow.” The ambassador was attracted by
the raised voices. “You are right,” he said to the man. “It’s raining.” Still the woman insisted: “It is
snow.” “You must be wrong,” her husband replied. “Rudolph the Red knows rain,
dear.”
I
am not sure how well that joke will go down in heaven. But, if it doesn’t, he would have thousands
more to tell. George John R.I.P. (Return
If Possible).
Secretariat gets its act
together
With the appointment in
April of Canadian Eduardo del Buey as the new director
of the Communications and Public Affairs Division, the Commonwealth Secretariat
has stepped up its main news feeds.
The
Commonwealth News and Information Service now puts out an improved weekly
e-mail newsletter with details of what is going to happen in Commonwealth
circles. It is the first time we have been able to get what Commonwealth VIPs
are going to do in the future, what meetings will be held, and other timely
information. The CNIS e-mail has also been redesigned to make it more readable.
The
secretariat website
<http://www.thecommonwealth.org/Internal/143043/official_spokesperson/>
has also been upgraded. It includes details, photos, and email addresses for
the staff of CPAD so that journalists working outside
As
the weekly news feed is now of some use to working journalists you may want to
subscribe with a request to cnis@commonwealth.int.
CJA trainer edits new
paper in China
Former CJA training officer
John Lawrence from
The
Times will be published seven days a week in English. It will have a staff of
about ten under director Rodolfo Ascenso who was with the Portuguese language Ponto
Final. The publisher will be Robert Carol, who has worked in
John
Lawrence is at present working at
He
brings exceptional skills in design, layout and training staff to the new
The
Macau Daily Times has a website under construction at
www.macaudailytimes.com/.
Book tips
Angela Phillips Good writing for journalists Sage Publications Ltd 2006 GBP 18.99
ISBN: 9781412919173
The art of writing for newspapers and magazine, not punctuation, spelling, and the stylistic conventions of everyday journalism. Contains many examples of powerful, memorable, colourful, or funny writing with each piece looked at in detail to see how and why it works. It's a book for those who want to develop an individual writing style. The major elements of non-fiction writing are introduced, in chapters organised by genre - profile writing, reportage, news analysis, investigation, sports writing, personal and opinion columns and lifestyle among them. This book is for the journalist who can write, but wants to do better.
Tony Harcup The ethical journalist Sage Publications Ltd
UK 2006 GBP 19.99
ISBN: 9781412918978
An engaging and innovative book that tries to bridge the gap between working journalists and academic journalists on this fashionable subject. The basic premise is that ethical journalism is good journalism. The book links theory and practice by looking at what journalists do and what academics think. Chapters include -
Why journalism matters
Knowledge is power
In the public interest
Danger: news values at work
Can I quote you on that?
Journalists and their sources
Round up the usual suspects: how crime is reported in the media
The regulation of journalism
Standing up for standards
Ethical journalism is good journalism.
Andrew Utterback: Studio Television Production and Directing Focal Press 2007 £16 ISBN 9780240808734
A clear, practical and concise manual of modern studio direction of interest to all TV journalists who must direct news and current affairs programmes. It is also an ideal book for journalists who must instruct technical staff to do the directing. From this manual they will learn enough about the theory and practice to know what to ask for – and, perhaps more importantly, what to do when the studio production is not good enough. Utterback provides a complete picture of the studio experience, using TV news as the running example and delving into production procedure - including descriptions of lighting, set, camera operations, floor direction, technical direction, audio, tape, graphics, prompting, and assistant directing.
Contents:
1. Overview of Equipment and Positions: The Studio and The Control Room
2. Audio Board & Video Switcher
3. Lighting and Sets
4. Studio Audio, Studio Cameras, Floor Directing, Talent
5. Prompter, Graphics, DVE, Keying, Tape, Engineering
6. Rundowns, Scripts, Fontsheets and Constructing the News -- Story Forms
7. Live Shots, Microwave and Satellite Remotes
8. Directing and Assistant Directing
Pieter Wessels
News from around the world
AUSTRALIA
Australian officials have been accused of covering up the
murders of five Australian journalists by Indonesian soldiers who seized
The Australian government has withdrawn a plan for the police to screen journalists working in the parliamentary press gallery.
Michael Harvey and Gerard McManus were fined 7000 Australian dollars each but not jailed for contempt of court, on June 25. They had refused to name the source of a story about government plans to cancel an increase in war pensions.
BANGLADESH
Himal Southasian,
was forced by the authorities to delete from its May issue articles headed
Khaki Politics in
Four years after his arrest when he tried to
go to Israel for a writers’ conference, Salah Uddin Shoaib Chowdhury, editor of
the Weekly Blitz, still faces charges of sedition, treason, blasphemy and
espionage. He has suffered repeated beatings and the bombing of his office.
Georges Gilbert Baongla was charged in April
with publishing obscene material, in an article alleging a homosexual scandal
involving a minister. Homosexuality is illegal in
Jawaad Faizi, of The Pakistan Post,
A judge in
FIJI
The military in May blocked access to blogs critical of the army and government members. However, some blogs reappeared at different addresses.
New Zealand journalist Michael Field, who used to cover
the South Pacific for Agence France Presse, was refused entry to
THE GAMBIA
There is still no news of Chief Ebrima Manneh of the Daily Observer,
who disappeared after being arrested a year ago. The Media Foundation for West
Africa (MFWA) is suing for his release at the West African economic community’s
court..
Modou Lamin
Jaiteh of the Pan African News Agency went into hiding in July after
intelligence agents accused him of being associated with MFWA.
Lamin Dibba was dismissed by the pro-government Daily Observer for the second time in June. On both occasions he had reported on patients treated by President Jammeh who claims he can cure Aids.
GHANA
Security guards stopped Ian Motey covering an Asante Kotoko football match for The Ghanaian Times. They said Times journalists were banned.
GUYANA
Caribbean media representatives in May called on
the government to lift its ban, imposed in November, on state advertising in
the Stabroek News.
KENYA
The government in April stopped state agencies advertising in The
Standard or on the associated Kenya TV Network. The government and the Standard
group have been at loggerheads since a police attack on group premises a year
ago.
The
International Press Institute in June criticised plans for a statutory media
council.
LESOTHO/MALAWI
Governments in Southern Africa
continue their war with local radios. Listeners protested in June when one of Lesotho Malawi
MALAYSIA
The award-winning website Malaysiakini and a ruling party
website, Utusan Online, are being sued by
Police in the Sibu district of Sarawak told journalists in June that they must not publish crime stories without permission.
The regulator in June
ordered broadcasters not to cover opposition politicians.
MALDIVE ISLANDS
The information minister marked World Press Freedom Day by dropping a disobedience charge against the deputy editor of the opposition Minivan Daily and reducing charges against the editor to one. The charges related in particular to reporting of an opposition activist. The activist has been jailed. A Minivan Daily photographer was held without charge for nine days in June after being arrested when police broke up a prayer meeting. A reporter Fahala Saeed is serving a life sentence on drugs charges which colleagues believe were fabricated.
NAMIBIA
A family from Italy
Namibian Broadcasting workers demonstrated for better pay and working conditions.
NIGERIA
Dare Folorunso of Ondo State Radiovision was beaten into a coma by police at a May Day rally.
About 100 supporters of a local politician, some wielding machetes, attacked the offices of the Oyo state broadcaster in May, injuring staff. They were protesting against a decision to go ahead with elections on May 24.
The local authority in
Two gunmen burst into the office of The Punch in
PACIFIC
Journalists at the
Pacific Islands News Association convention in the
On May 26
hand grenades were lobbed at the
Pakistani journalists in
SIERRA LEONE
A
report in the Frontline Club newsletter (
The
govrnment has banned a film about Said Zahari, a former top journalist who was
held without trial for 17 years. Said is famous for leading a strike in 1961
against the political takeover of the newspaper Utusan Melayu, of which he was
editor-in-chief.
The
Pretoria High Court in May refused to stop Beeld newspaper publishing a leaked
report about a controversial traffic information system. Also in May the court
refused a request that a nuclear smuggling case be held in secret.
Police
questioned Sonali Samarsinghe, editor of The Morning Leader, for four hours on
May 15, trying to discover the sources of articles about a Hong Kong-based
coin-selling scheme. Executives connected with the scheme have been arrested in
The
health minister has banned the media from
Over
40 people at a
Breeze
FM marked World Press Freedom Day with an interview with Sam Phiri of the Open
Society Initiative for
Edward
Chikombo, a freelance cameraman who worked for Zimbabwe Broadcasting
Corporation till 2002, was found dead after being abducted on March 29. He may
have been involved in smuggling out of the country film of opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai,
badly injured after a beating in police custody on March 11.
Gift Phiri, chief
reporter for the London-based weekly The Zimbabwean, was taken to hospital
after being released on bail on April 5. He had been beaten during four days’
police custody. He has been charged under the notorious Access to Information
Act.
Boldwill
Hungwe, a photographer at The Standard, went into hiding from police in May,
after The Standard published pictures of badly beaten lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa.
Former ZBC
producer Sylvester Tamfumaney
has launched a TV website ZimdiTV.com. Zimdi stands for
Zimbabwean diaspora.
Our
thanks
We once again thank our
news sources including Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, the Institute
for War and Peace Reporting, the Inter American Press Association, 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
International Press Institute, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance
(Australia), Media for Democracy in Nigeria, 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
Asian Press Alliance
The
CJA’s officers
Past presidents Derek Ingram (
Executive committee
East Pacific Lance Polu
(
West Pacific Reggie
Dutt (