Media law assistance website for journalists

The  Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) has recently launched a Media Law Assistance Website to provide journalists around the world with legal assistance, information and resources.

The globally accessible site contains information and resources on media law and serves as a source of both information and analysis through seminal texts, legislation, and court decisions on media law.

Journalists around the world are invited to register on the site; registered members can participate in forum discussions with other members, create an online profile and network with media participants, communicate privately with other members, read and comment on the website’s regularly updated news blog and access the website’s library.

To visit the website, go to http://www.globalmedialaw.com/blog/.

June 4 Forum in Beijing

Scholars, lawyers, and June 4 activists gather at a forum in Beijing, May 10.

On May 10 in Beijing, 19 prominent scholars, lawyers, and activists gathered at a forum to discuss the events of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen square crackdown. The forum was the first to be held in the 20 years since China’s military crushed the student-led pro-democracy movement.

Attendees included China Social Science Academy researcher Xu Youyu, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Guangming Daily Xu Xiao, and “Si Junzi Square” Zhou Duo. Discussions focused on the relationship between the government response to the incident and China’s subsequent economic boom. In the week following the forum, several of the attendees were summoned by police for questioning.

Yahoo! pledge to be a good Netizen

It’s about time: Yahoo! new chief executive Carol Bartz says that human rights trump doing business. Bartz’s remarks on May 5 opened a Yahoo! Business & Human Rights Summit at which she acknowledged that the US Internet pioneer made some mistakes in foreign markets. “It is really going to take all of us working together to learn better how to act as good world citizens,” Bartz said. “We don’t want to impinge on anybody’s rights. We don’t want to force our beliefs versus someone else’s beliefs but we do have a responsibility.” “It isn’t our Number One obligation,” she maintained. “Our Number One obligation is to be good world citizens.” Carol Bartz replaced Jerry Yang last January. Two years ago, Jerry Yang – as well as other Internet executives – were summoned to Washington to answer for their role in the arrests of Chinese journalist Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning. Yahoo agreed to settle with affected Chinese dissidents, paying them undisclosed compensation. Yang stated, “After meeting with the families, it was clear to me what we had to do to make this right for them, for Yahoo, and for the future.” In response, Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos, chairman of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, stated, “It took a tongue-lashing from Congress before these high-tech titans did the right thing and coughed up some concrete assistance for the family of a journalist whom Yahoo had helped send to jail. What a disgrace.”

The Race for the World’s Farmland

A panel of experts speaking at the Woodrow Wilson Center here today discussed how governments—scared by high global grain prices and volatile commodities markets—and investors, who see farmland as a stable investment, are increasingly acquiring farmland overseas.

Wealthy, food-importing, water-scarce countries of East Asia, for example, are buying up land in poorer countries of Africa and Southeast Asia, they said.

By late 2008, five countries—China, South Korea, Japan, UAE, and Saudi Arabia—stood out for the amount of foreign arable land they had acquired.

That’s 7.6 million hectares of cultivable land overseas—or more than five times the land under cultivation in Belgium.

The experts suggest a new code of conduct and measures to make it stick.

They also called for transparency through media access, and for governments and civil society to keep an eye out for the interests of locals.

Panelists included:

Carl Atkin – Partner and Head of Research, Bidwells Agribusiness

Gary R. Blumenthal – President and CEO, World Perspectives, Inc.

David Hallam – Deputy Director, Trade and Markets Division, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

Chido Makunike – Agricultural Exporter and Consultant (Senegal)

Ruth Meinzen-Dick – Senior Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Raul Q. Montemayor – National Manager, Federation of Free Farmers Cooperatives, Inc. (Philippines)

Alexandra Spieldoch – Director, Trade and Global Governance Program, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP)

Is it culture or censorship?

Great article today in the New York Times on the Chinese media and its resistance to foreign content and management. Time Warner, Viacom, News Corp are scaling down their hopes for the Chinese market. Murdoch – who has been successful in various anglo-saxon markets – tried to bring MySpace with the help of his Chinese born wife – but made no great impact on the booming Chinese social media scene.

Vietnam among the worst to be blogging in

If you are a blogger, don’t go to Vietnam. Blogging was virtually unknown two years ago in Vietnam. But it caught up like wild fire once the generation of eager, Web savvy students discovered the fun of speaking your mind and connecting with friends online. Unfortunately for them, the censors caught up and, afraid as they always are of things they don’t understand, they went after the most articulate of them with a vengeance.

The Committee to Protect Journalists issued a report on the state of freedom of the press to mark World Press Freedom Day, May 3. The report calls attention to online repression. CPJ considers bloggers whose work is reportorial or fact-based commentary to be journalists. In 2008, CPJ found, bloggers and other online journalists were the single largest professional group in prison, overtaking print and broadcast journalists for the first time.

METHODOLOGY

In consultation with Internet experts, CPJ developed eight questions to assess blogging conditions worldwide. The questions:

• Does a country jail bloggers?
• Do bloggers face harassment, cyber-attacks, threats, assaults, or other reprisals?
• Do bloggers self-censor to protect themselves?
• Does the government limit connectivity or restrict access to the Internet?
• Are bloggers required to register with the government or an ISP and give a verifiable name and address before blogging?
• Does a country have regulations or laws that can be used to censor bloggers?
• Does the government monitor citizens who use the Internet?
• Does the government use filtering technology to block or censor the Internet?

Based on these criteria, CPJ regional experts nominated countries for this list. The final ranking was determined by a poll of CPJ staff and outside experts.

Burma, Worst for Bloggers – CPJ

According to the New York based Center to Protect Journalists, Burma is the worst country for bloggers. Vietnam comes number 6 on the list of difficult places for freedom of expression and China number 8.

“Bloggers are at the vanguard of the information revolution and their numbers are expanding rapidly,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “But governments are quickly learning how to turn technology against bloggers by censoring and filtering the Internet, restricting online access and mining personal data. When all else fails, the authorities simply jail a few bloggers to intimidate the rest of the online community into silence or self-censorship.”

“The governments on the list are trying to roll back the information revolution, and, for now, they are having success,” Simon added. “Freedom of expression groups, concerned governments, the online community, and technology companies need to come together to defend the rights of bloggers around the world.”

‘Deep Scars’ Left by Nargis

A year after cyclone Nargis wrecked Burma, hundreds of orphaned children are still a long way from recovering. Monks are stepping in to provide shelter and protection.  Will it be enough for these young lives to grow?

Popular social media tool blocked in China

Plurk, a technology which is similar to twitter and is quite popular in China is blocked. Read about it tomorrow on the RFA Cantonese service.

As the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen events approaches the Chinese government may be taking action against social media tools during this sensitive period. Chinese people have recently been quite successful at organizing protests via instant messages or other tools available on their cellphones.

Police Swoop on Beijing University

University professor Sun Dong Dong was reported as saying that 99 percent of long-term petitioners —were mentally ill.

Not surprisingly, they didn’t like it and let it be known.

See the original article