Following reports that the editor of Indian magazine Naveena Netrikkan has been arrested and tortured, press freedom organizations are calling for his release.

Mr. A.S. Mani was reportedly arrested, imprisoned and tortured after reporting on police corruption in the Indian state of Chennai, in Tamil Nadu.

Reporters Without Borders issued the transcript of an interview with Professor Krishnaswamy, head of the A.S. Mani Support Committee:

A.S. Mani has spent nearly a month in detention. What can you tell us about the conditions in which he is being held?

A.S. Mani was taken into custody at 10:30 a.m. on 19 July and was cruelly tortured at Egmore police station (in Chennai). During his first night in prison, the police stripped him naked and beat him until he lost consciousness. When he woke up and asked for something to drink, Police Inspector Chandrasekaran urinated into a bottle and forced him to drink the urine.

What are the charges against him?

The police showed no warrant when they arrested him and the staff of Naveena Netrikkan did not learn of his arrest until the following evening. Since then, he has been held on two trumped-up charges, one of which is the attempted murder of a police informer, A.N. Senkottaiyan. As A.S. Mani was arrested at 10:30 in the morning and this attempted murder did not take place until 11 a.m., it has to have been trumped up. The other charge is an escape attempt during the night of 20 July. That is also impossible as he was unconscious all night as a result of being brutally tortured. Meanwhile, he is still being denied access to a lawyer.

How have the court appearances gone?

A judge went to the police station at 10 a.m. on 20 July at Police Commissioner S.R. Jangid’s request and, without even seeing or speaking to A.S. Mani, ordered his transfer to Puzhal Chennai prison. He was taken before the same judge on 22 July, again in Egmore police station. This time the judge ordered that he be held in the police station for five days. It should be stressed that this was against the law. I would also like to point out that A.S. Mani’s relatives paid 65,000 rupees to Jangid and Chandrasekaran at the latter’s request on 20 July in the hope that he would not be tortured any more.

What is his state of health?

We do not know very much. We only know that he saw a doctor once, in Chromepet general hospital. But he was forbidden to mention the torture to the doctor. And by giving the doctor a bribe, the police got a certificate saying that he was fine.

Following a hostage crisis in the Philippines, the country’s president, Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, wants the media to cooperate with the government on guidelines in future crises.

According to reports, Aquino wants to put his “agenda” for media coverage during crises on the table. He is contending that the press played a role in the ultimate death of 8 hostages and the hostage-taker. The situation played out on a tour bus of Chinese nationals, and the perpetrator was a Filipino national.

Aquino’s lame attempt to shift the blame seems ridiculous in light of the fact that there was a bloodbath of journalists last year in the Philippines. The government should be doing everything they can to protect the media’s rights, not undermine them to suit their own needs.

According to a report from the Manila Bulletin:

President Noynoy Aquino said he plans to meet with media organizations to forward his agenda after he lamented that full media coverage of the hostage crisis apparently gave the hostage-taker a “bird’s eye view” of the situation while hampered government actions to resolve the problem.

In a press conference early Tuesday morning at the Palace, President Noynoy Aquino explained that the government did not impose any news blackout during the 12-hour standoff since it violates the freedom of the press. But he later recognized the need for “a redefinition of the limitations” set for the media to allow the government to do its job during a crisis situation.

Aquino was later quoted as saying, “We’ll come up with terms and conditions that will help each of us achieve our objectives.”

If Aquino and his government were truly operating a democracy that’s friendly to the free press, they would know that statements like these are off limits.

The media doesn’t exist to cooperate with the government of the country it operates in. It should be a free and independent voice. What’s worse, shifting the blame in a tragedy will do nothing to prevent future deaths or bring back the lives already lost.

If you blinked in the past month, you probably missed the battle for freedom of the press that is raging in South Africa. Earlier this month, the editors of South Africa’s major publications issued a statement of protest dubbed the Auckland Park Declaration.

The Declaration was issued in response to clauses in the Protection of Information Bill and the proposed Media Appeals Tribunal. The advocacy organization Freedom House is expressing concern over the situation:

The Protection of Information bill, put forward by the Ministry of Intelligence and currently under consideration by the South African parliament, is a revised version of a bill initially submitted in 2008, which was rejected due to concerns it would lead to excessive official secrecy. Several provisions in the bill are cause for serious concern, including an overly broad definition of “national interest” with regards to classifying information and heavy penalties of up to 25 years in prison for the publication or dissemination of official or classified information. Additionally, those seeking to access or declassify information face several obstacles, including bearing the burden of proof that public interest outweighs national security concerns.

But this story goes beyond an out of touch government that treats press freedom like they are imperialists. The unapologetic response from  members of the South African media is what’s most striking. Instead of shrinking from the controversy, they are running headlong into it, refusing to accept unreasonable limitations.

As stated in the Auckland Park Declaration:

Free speech and access to information are the lifeblood of our democracy and we are at the very heart of the struggle for freedom. Human dignity is indivisible from freedom of speech.

Those in the government pushing this legislation should pause and comprehend the implications of the journalistic community at large publicly standing up against them.

What gives the position of South Africa’s journalists strength is that they are not defending their reputations or jobs or political influence, but rather lofty ideals that serve the public interest. And they are right, regardless of the cooked-up reasons the government might profess. Just ask the country’s most prominent writers, who have come out in defense of the media, according to Eyewitness News:

Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer and Man Booker Prize winner Andre Brink are leading the protest opposing government’s draft Protection of Information Bill and the ANC’s proposed media tribunal. It is being supported by fellow writers Zakes Mda, Breyten Breytenbach, Mandla Langa and many others.In a statement, the writers said that if the work and freedom of a writer is in jeopardy, then the freedom of every reader in South Africa is in danger.

For the sake of democracy, the journalists, and every reader in South Africa–long live the free press.

A major Venezuelan newspaper is butting heads with the government over the right to publish graphic photos on their front page.

El Nacional, one of the country’s oldest newspapers, has been ordered to stop publishing certain types of photos. According to the Associated Press:

A court ordered one of Venezuela’s leading newspapers on Tuesday to stop publishing photographs depicting blood, guns and other violent images and warned it could face a hefty fine for having published a photo of bodies in a morgue. Venezuelan officials say the ruling involving El Nacional — one of Venezuela’s oldest newspapers and a fierce critic of President Hugo Chavez — aims to protect children and adolescents from violent images, but opponents called the move politically motivated censorship. In its ruling, the court said it prohibited the newspaper from publishing “images, information and publicity of any type that contains blood, guns, alarming messages or physical aggression images that incorporate warfare content and messages about killings and deaths that could alter the well being of children and adolescents.”

Read the full story here.

In a strange twist on the tense situation in Pakistan following flooding that caused 1,600 deaths, the media is being silenced.

Pakistan’s two major media outlets–ARY TV and Geo TV–have been silenced for the past 3 days in Karachi and Sindh province. The row started after the stations reported on a story about President Asif Ali Zardari having a shoe thrown at him while he was in a meeting in Britain.

After the reports of the incident ran on the stations, supporters of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) are being accused of severing cable connections of the distributors that carry them.

The networks have been able to broadcast for a few hours here and there, and are on air in other parts of the country. But the ridiculous forced silence still continued as of Wednesday in Karachi and Sindh province.

Another major media outlet, Dawn, noted the hypocrisy of the situation in an editorial that said it all in just a few sentences:

…the unannounced Geo and ARY blackout constituted an attack on press freedom and a slur on a party that is in power because the people voted for it. Its commitment to press freedom in the party’s foundation documents and its various election manifestoes is categorical. During the 2007 lawyers’ movement, especially after the Nov 3 emergency, when the Musharraf government ordered the banning of many channels and policemen ransacked TV offices, the PPP leaders were among those who criticised the military government’s war on the media and the harsh Pemra guidelines that followed. That the PPP should itself now persecute sections of the media is astonishing.

The sale of Newsweek has people in the media industry scratching their heads. Partly because it went to California tycoon Sidney Harman (who has now media experience), and partly because of the numbers behind the deal.

According to the Columbia Journalism Review’s (CJR) analysis of Newsweek’s numbers (courtesy of The Daily Beast), the company was sold for $1 and the assumption of $70 million in debt.

CJR analyzes the oddities even further, though:

Newsweek has just 122 journalists, both print and digital. They make up just more than a third of the magazine’s total employees. We’re not told what the average Newsweek journalist makes, but the average employee there gets $123,000 in salary and benefits.

That’s probably a good number for the journalists, too. If so, its newsroom labor costs it just $15 million. Overall labor is $42 million.

The mag took in $165 million in revenue last year (to look at it one way, that’s $1.4 million per journalist).

The problem, of course, is it spent $222 million and lost $28 million (it benefited from a big pension credit). It costs a lot of money to print and distribute a magazine (not to mention to get subscribers).

But the New York Observer reports that Mr. Harman has no intention of cutting costs on his new venture by cutting staff. The Observer quoted Harman’s pep talk speech to Newsweek staff:

“The people are our primary asset,” he said. “How in the world can you pass up the opportunity to lead an organization like this? I have no thought of investing a great deal of money so I can make a great deal of money. I would be delighted over a period of some years to see Newsweek flourish and getting by on its own generated fuel. Break-even is a serious accomplishment, especially in this world, in the world of journalism.”

No matter how Harman approaches the challenge of making the company profitable, Newsweek’s fate in the coming year will be a media industry object lesson worth watching.

The media is often used by those with competing messages to disseminate information or dis-information. Sometimes, though, the message is a lie.

Vietnam is an unfortunate example of manipulating the media and choking free speech for their own destructive ends.

Just yesterday, several Vietnamese writers were given honors for their work under severe pressure from officials including harassment and imprisonment when Human Rights Watch (HRW) recognized the work of 6 Vietnamese writers among 42 from 20 countries.

HRW gives the Hellman/Hammett award every year to recognize courage in the face of political persecution, and said of the writers:

“Vietnamese writers are frequently harassed, or even jailed, for peacefully expressing their views,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch in a statement. “By honoring courageous writers who have suffered political persecution, lost their jobs, or even sacrificed their freedom, we hope to bring international attention to voices that the Vietnamese government is trying to silence.”

The Vietnamese awardees include blogger Bui Thanh Hieu, who writes under the name “Nguoi Buon Gio” (Wind Trader); Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, a blogger known on the internet as “Me Nam” (Mother Mushroom); human rights activist Pham Van Troi, currently serving a four year prison sentence; Tran Duc Thach, a poet and military veteran, is currently serving a three-year prison sentence; teacher Vu Van Hung, currently serving a three-year prison term; and writer Tran Khai Thanh Thuy, currently serving a 42-month prison term.

Ironically (or not), just a few weeks before the HRW announcement, the Vietnamese government made an announcement of its own.

The Vietnamese government–one of the world’s last weak communist regimes–announced on July 15 it will publish a monthly human rights magazine. Not only are they not joking, but the Associated Press quoted a sickening statement from Vietnam’s ruling party about the magazine.

The AP story quotes official state media s saying that the magazine will help people inside and outside the country to understand that “protecting human rights is the nature of our regime.”

To publish such a statement for public consumption is a terrible abuse of the media, and it is republished on this blog only to showcase the absurdity of the Vietnamese officials’ perception of reality.

Communist regimes–to use Vietnam’s own word–around the world have modeled nothing for society but the wrong way to do things. According to a book called Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, communism is responsible for 80 million unnatural deaths, and human rights abuses in communist countries has always been present.

Vietnam is no exception, but rather they prove the rule. A communist regime cannot coexist with freedom of speech, thought, and belief.

In the Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) annual “Attacks on the Press” 2009 report, they noted the noose around Vietnamese writers’ necks.

The CPJ found 300 cybercafés are outfitted with software tracking visits to banned websites. This poses a problem for the lie that the Vietnamese regime is trying to perpetrate on the rest of the world. The CPJ says in its report:

The government estimated that as many as 2 million users maintained blogs of various types. The surge in blogging posed a dilemma for the authoritarian government: It sought to promote Internet access to modernize the economy while maintaining strict restrictions on freedom of expression, especially criticism of top-ranking Communist Party leaders or discussion of sensitive government policies.

Amnesty International, in their 2009 annual report on human rights, notes in the damning section on Vietnam:

At least 11 peaceful activists received prison sentences, bringing the number of dissidents imprisoned to 30 since a crackdown began in November 2006. Most were supporters of Bloc 8406, an internet-based pro-democracy movement, or other unauthorized groups calling for democracy and human rights. The majority were charged with offences under the national security section of the 1999 Penal Code which carried lengthy prison terms, with additional sentences of up to five years of house arrest on release. An unknown number of dissidents remained in pre-trial detention.

The list of condemnations from human rights, press freedom organizations, and governments (including the U.S.) goes on and on. And it begs a question–what on earth does the Vietnamese regime plan to fill the pages of their new “human rights” magazine with, other than lies?

[following are photos from the Human Rights Watch website of their Vietnamese awardees]

A Lebanese reporter was killed during fighting on the Israel-Lebanon border on Tuesday.

The reporter, Assaf Abu Rahal, worked for the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar. According to media reports and press freedom organizations, he was killed near the southern town of Al-Adaysseh.

Assaf Abu Rahal, a reporter for the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar/Committee to Protect Journalists

He was killed when a shell landed next to him.

Abu Rahal was 55 years old and covered southern Lebanon for Al-Akhbar for the last four years. He reported on the aftermath of the 2006 conflict between Israeli and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, according to his newspaper.

He was married with three children.

It was the first media casualty in the area since freelance photographer Layal Najib was killed in the war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006.

Four others–three Lebanese soldiers and an Israeli officer–were also killed in the fighting.

Aerial view of the Israel/Lebanon border/IDF

Much has been made over WikiLeaks’s recent document leak on Afghanistan. Some of the most interesting commentary can be found from journalists.

The Columbia Journalism Review says in an article called “The Story Behind the Publication of WikiLeaks’s Afghanistan Log” that the most interesting part of the story is what happened behind the scenes before the logs were published:

You wouldn’t be reading the coverage of the so-called Afghanistan logs—in The New York Times, Der Spiegel, and The Guardian—if Nick Davies, a senior contributor to the British paper, hadn’t tracked down WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in Brussels one month ago.

Davies’s interest had been piqued in mid-June when Bradley Manning, a junior army intelligence analyst and the alleged source of several high-profile WikiLeaks disclosures, was quoted in chat transcripts claiming to have leaked a voluminous amount of yet-to-be disclosed diplomatic cables.

Editor & Publisher offered up the fact that this isn’t the first time WikiLeaks has published something without context:

An Internet activist with a clear political agenda posts a strategically-edited snippet of seemingly-explosive video on his website and sits back to enjoy the media fireworks.

Sounds like Andrew Breitbart, right?

But let’s not forget that Julian Assange, over at Wikileaks, did precisely the same thing back in April with the infamous “Collateral Murder” video of an attack by a U.S. Apache helicopter crew. Wikileaks claimed its edited version of the video “[depicted] the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people” in a Baghdad suburb — and the mainstream media quickly fell all over itself to help disseminate the damning excerpt.

It turned out, of course, that a viewing of the longer, unedited version of the video showed a “fog of war” situation that, while troubling, was considerably less clear-cut.

An analysis in The Epoch Times shows something surprising and less focused on by mainstream media reports on the leaked documents.

Reports Joshua Philipp:

Civilian casualties and corruption in the Afghan government have been among the largest topics surrounding the reports, yet the actual content is much different from the hype.

The Epoch Times sorted through the top 45 documents rated by severity.
When sorted by level of severity, the reports show that the overwhelming number of civilian casualties and injuries were caused by the Taliban and other insurgents. Also, all reports of contact with insurgent forces show what appear as large victories for U.S. troops, with limited civilian casualties.

The fact that the media and press organizations had to sort through the meaning and value of the WikiLeaks documents demonstrates the downside of acting as a source for leaked documents and video.

Without editorial context or ethical standards, the truth can become so hazy that the leaked information only raises questions–not provides answers. They don’t call it the fog of war for nothing.

Bipartisan legislation that would protect journalists from libel suits filed abroad, authored by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), passed the U.S. Senate last week.

S. 3518 the Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act or SPEECH Act, would prohibit a domestic court from recognizing or enforcing a foreign judgment for defamation against an American.

According to a summary of the bill, it:

Provides that any U.S. person, against whom a foreign judgment is entered on the basis of the content of any writing, utterance, or other speech by that person that has been published, may bring an action in district court for a declaration that the foreign judgment is repugnant to the Constitution or laws of the United States.

Senators Leahy and Sessions said in a statement that they authored the bill, which now goes to the House, “to protect American authors, journalists and publishers from foreign libel lawsuits that undermine the First Amendment.”

The legislation had the support of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a DC non-profit that provides free legal assistance to reporters.