August 2008 Archives

Reliable sources in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa have informed CPJ this week that our site was inaccessible on the servers of the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation, the country's official Internet service provider. A handful of separate Internet users in the country have independently confirmed seeing "The page cannot be displayed" messages when attempting to access our site. The same sources have reported that e-mails they have tried to send to CPJ have not gone through.

Philippine blog The Mindanao Examiner has an open letter to President Gloria Arroyo that is critical of her approach to press freedom in the country, one of the most deadly for journalists. The Sun Star has an update on their blog Arroyo Watch that examines her comments critical of the media. CPJ's Global Campaign Against Impunity has focused on the Philippines. Two journalists were recently murdered there.

AllAfrica.com has posted an editorial from The Daily Observer, an independent newspaper out of Banjul, about the state of human rights in The Gambia. CPJ has been monitoring the case of Ebrima Manneh, a journalist who disappeared in 2006 in The Gambia. We published an update on his arrest in June when an ECOWAS court ordered his immediate release.

Today marks the seventh day that four media workers have been held hostage by an unknown group roughly 12 miles (20 kilometers) west of Mogadishu. Freelance journalists Amanda Lindhout, Nigel Brennan, and Abdifatah Mohamed Elmi, along with driver Mahad Clise, were returning from interviews with Somali refugees at Celasha Biyaha when they were kidnapped along the Afgoye-Mogadishu road. The Australian Federal Police and Australia and Canadian diplomats are working with the Somali government to help with hostage release efforts.

 

ABC News producer Asa Eslocker was arrested on Wednesday while working on a story outside Denver's Brown Palace Hotel during the Democratic National Convention. He was arrested on charges of interference, trespass and failure to obey a lawful order, according to The Associated Press.

The International Herald Tribune has picked up an Associated Press report about the arrest of a Colombian politician in the murder of Nelson Carvajal, a broadcaster for Radio Sur killed in 1998.

The Pakistan Times and the Kashmir Observer are both covering the continued violence in Kashmir and mention our condemnation of the assaults and censorship of local journalists in the north Indian region.

Worldpress.org is covering the protests in Thailand calling for an end to the administration of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej. Protesters took control of the National Broadcasting Services, an action which CPJ denounced in an alert yesterday.

Finally this morning, the Web site AllAfrica has posted a story from The Daily Monitor, a government-run newspaper from Ethiopia, about our alert calling for the release of Amare Aregawi, editor-in-chief of the English- and Amharic-language newspaper Reporter, who has been detained since August 22.

The Washington Post has an column from Joe Davidson today that expresses concern about the CIA recruitment of journalists at a recent conference. Davidson discusses how the line between journalist and spy is often blurred abroad and how reporters like CPJ board member Terry Anderson have found themselves taken hostage when neutrality of journalists is not respected.

The Kashmir Media Service Web site has coverage of our alert from yesterday about the assaults and censorship of local journalists in the north Indian region. Pakistan's Daily Times is also reporting on our alert condemning the violence in Kashmir, as is the Associated Press of Pakistan.

Reuters has an in-depth story today on the increasingly dangerous reporting environment in Iraqi Kurdistan. Part of the problem, the article reports a local editor as saying, is that "the government thinks that journalists are the opposition."

Killings, threats, and attacks against journalists are on the rise, with about 60 occurrences reported to CPJ in the first half of 2008 alone. "The recent incidents have really stripped off the veneer and revealed it's not much different than other parts of Iraq," Reuters quoted CPJ's Joel Campagna as saying.

CPJ recently concluded a mission to Kurdistan, where our delegation met with Kurdistan Democratic Party leader Masoud Barzani and presented him with our recommendations for ensuring press freedom in the region. For more, read our full report "The Other Iraq."

Feleke Tibebu, deputy editor of private Ethiopian newspaper Hadar, was arrested in a 2005 government-led crackdown on dissidents and the private media. Tibebu (right) and 13 other journalists were charged with "outrages against the constitution or constitutional order," "impairment of the defensive power of the state," and "attempted genocide," after the publication of editorials critical of the government's conduct surrounding the May 2005 parliamentary elections. According to international news reports at the time, more than 190 people were killed when the government crushed post-election protests after the opposition contested the victory of the ruling party.

After nearly 17 months in prison, Tibebu and seven other journalists were acquitted and released in April 2007. Facing more harassment, he fled to Kenya later that year where he waited for more than a year for approval of his resettlement petition and visa to travel to the U.S. On August 16, Tibebu arrived in Virginia, where he has extended family.

It sounds like the plot of a B movie. The charred corpse of a missing female U.S. Marine and her fetus are found buried beneath a fire pit in the backyard of a male U.S. Marine whom she had previously accused of rape. The Marine suspect flees North Carolina for south of the border where he is captured apparently by chance at a roadblock set up by Mexican police investigating a local kidnapping.

During the international manhunt for the suspected Marine, a crime beat reporter and blogger for the Jacksonville Daily News was on the story. "Couple of y'all have asked what was said in the press conferences," blogged Lindell Kay on JDNews. In another post, crime reporter Kay encouraged readers to speculate themselves and post "what your theory is on the death of [the victim] Maria Lauterbach."

Agence France-Presse is covering the abduction of two foreign journalists, their fixer, and driver in Somalia. Australian Nigel Brennan and Canadian Amanda Lindhout, along with their Somali support staff were kidnapped outside Mogadishu as they traveled to report on local humanitarian aid camps.

We released an alert urging their release yesterday. AFP quotes Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes as saying, "Somalia continues to be the most dangerous place for local and foreign journalists in Africa."

On the blogs today, War Is Boring has a post about the kidnapped journalists, as does Not Ready for my Burqua. The CNN Wire blog is also posting updates on the story

The Sri Lankan Web site Lanka Business Online has coverage of the indictment on terrorism charges of Sri Lankan journalist J.S. Tissainayagam. CPJ released an alert yesterday condemning the court's decision.

Two days after being abducted and badly beaten in Guatemala, prominent journalist José Rubén Zamora was still in shock. "I can't remember what happened, but I was drugged and left unconscious in a hospital in the outskirts of Guatemala City," he told me on Saturday after he was released from the local hospital.

His colleagues at the daily elPeriodico and members of the local media were stunned by the news on Thursday. Rumors had spread that morning that Zamora had been killed. Claudia Mendez, an editor at the paper, told me that she started crying. Zamora, a 1995 recipient of CPJ's International Press Freedom Award, is considered one of the top investigative journalists in Central America by his peers.

As the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing came to an official close yesterday, many news outlets are looking at back what the Games mean for human rights in China. The Canadian Press has a piece arguing that nothing has changed, despite the pleasant face China put on for its international visitors.

The Ottawa Citizen  is running a story that questions whether the price paid by restricting press freedom was justified by a the completion of a highly successful Olympics. The News and Observer in North Carolina looks at the case of Shi Tao, a former CPJ IPFA winner and journalist still imprisoned in China, against the backdrop of China's Olympic triumph. Also, The Huffington Post has a look at the legacy of the Beijing Olympics.

In news out of Iraq today, The Associated Press has a story about Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, inviting the Iraqi press to his office to quash rumors that he had fallen ill. The cleric has been openly critical of the press in the past.

Tribune Magazine, published in the UK, has a detailed article that examines the dire situation for the press in Mexico. CPJ held a meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon in June  in which the president pledged his support to federalize crimes against freedom of expression.

The Apple iTunes store Web site and all 8 million or so of its songs, ("Imagine an entertainment superstore that's open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week" the site urges) are not available in China and haven't been for more than a week. Not a great loss for iTunes in the very short run, it hasn't made a great effort to target the China market, but most likely damaging for Apple's future efforts there. Apple still hasn't found a Chinese carrier to partner with to support the iPhone, though it is actively looking for one.

Thanks to Greg Walton, the Asia editor for Infowar Monitor, for passing along this New Scientist article about the rapid commercialization of Internet and e-mail monitoring technology. You can access a preview of Laura Margottini's piece, but you'll need a subscription to the magazine or buy online access to get the full article. It's worth it. For context, Greg added these pdf links in his e-mail message. They're Siemens documents describing one of the products discussed in her piece.

We issued the following statement today in response to Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Vélez' request for a criminal investigation of Colombian journalist Daniel Coronell for allegedly committing a crime by failing to disclose accusations in a videotaped interview that a former lawmaker was bribed in exchange for her vote to approve Uribe's reelection.

"We reject President Uribe's request to investigate Daniel Coronell," said CPJ's Americas Senior Program Coordinator, Carlos Lauría. "We believe the motivation behind Uribe's decision is linked to Coronell's criticism of the Colombian government. We call on the Attorney General to dismiss Uribe's request." 

Bob Dietz called attention to the Chinese propaganda department's recent 21-point press directive, first reported by the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. The whole thing in English and Chinese is posted today at Berkeley's China Digital Times. Among the orders given to the domestic media during the Olympic Games is that they are not to report on the protest zones set up at three places around Beijing. This apparently holds true even if they are empty, which they are.

The Philadelphia Daily News has a story this morning about two video bloggers arrested by police in Beijing this week. The New York Times also has coverage of the arrests, along with  details about overall press harassment during the Games. CPJ issued an alert on Thursday, protesting both the detentions and the harassment of two Associated Press photographers covering a pro-Tibet protest.

Also today, the Web site Truthdig has coverage of Iraqi cameraman Ali Al-Mashhanani's release from US detention.The Mirror out of England is following the story as well.

We issued the following statement today in response to Thursday's abduction and subsequent release of Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora, a 1995 recipient of CPJ's International Press Freedom Award:

"We are alarmed by the kidnapping and reported beating of José Rubén Zamora, president of the Guatemalan daily El Periodico. Zamora has previously been the victim of attacks in retaliation for his paper's investigative work," said CPJ's Americas Senior Program Coordinator, Carlos Lauría. "Authorities should conduct a prompt and exhaustive investigation into this crime, and provide Zamora and El Periodico's staff with the necessary protection to continue working without fear of reprisal."

The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China just released its updated list of "cases of reporting interference." What's reporting interference? I'll let the FCCC's reporters speak for themselves:

Since the beginning of the Olympic period on July 25, the day the Main Press Center officially opened, the FCCC has received more than 30 confirmed cases of reporting interference. This includes 10 cases of violence, more than the total number confirmed in the whole of 2007, and 8 cases of damage to equipment or destruction of photos.

Chen Ruolin's win in the women's 10-meter platform dive today brought China's gold medal count to 46, and dominated the online headlines. With the closing ceremony just three days away, news outlets are trumpeting the unprecedented victories of the Chinese athletes, now leading their closest competitor, the United States, by 18 gold medals. They are also reflecting on what the success means.

Topping the news this morning is the release of Iraqi cameraman Ali Al-Mashhadani, who had been held by US forces without charge for three weeks in Iraq. Reuters is reporting that Al-Mashhadani was released early Thursday after being held "because he has been assessed to be a threat to the security of Iraq and coalition forces," according to the US military. Agence-France Presse and Dow Jones are also covering his release. This is the third time that he has been held without charge by the US military in Iraq, and CPJ has petitioned for his release in each instance.

Also in the news today, Voice of America has a long report about the difficulties facing independent journalists in Senegal and The Gambia.

About a week ago I mentioned a South China Morning Post article, "Screws tighten on mainland journalists" that outlined a 21-point memo that had come down from the Central Propaganda Department in July, giving guidelines for China's media coverage during the Olympics. These sorts of directives are typically disseminated across the country, to editors at every newspaper and broadcaster by the Central Propaganda Department. This list is a broad one, but during breaking stories very specific directives can come down daily, even hourly when necessary. For an example of what they look like, here's a selection from our pre-Olympics report, Falling Short. 

The self-described anarchist-activist seemed like an unlikely press freedom martyr. But a video blogger named Josh Wolf ended up serving more time in jail for defying a court order than any other journalist in U.S. history. Wolf, then 24, was held for 226 days at a federal penitentiary in Dublin, Calif., for refusing to testify to a grand jury or turn over unedited footage of a July 2005 protest in San Francisco.

Buried in the celebration of China's now inevitable dominance of the Olympic Games, Xinhua News Agency today reported the death of a former national leader and Mao Zedong's brief successor with these few words:

The Chinese Communist Party's outstanding party member, a warrior for Communism long tested in his loyalty, a revolutionary for the proletariat, who held important posts in the party and national leadership, Comrade Hua Guofeng, because of an illness that couldn't be cured, died in Beijing on August 20, 2008 at 12:50 at the age of 87.

China returns to the forefront this morning as the Olympic Games are nearing an end. The Associated Press has a story about human rights groups' frustration at the lack of outcry, along with protests against myriad rights abuses. The story quotes CPJ's Asia program coordinator, Bob Dietz, who is working out of Hong Kong. "In the end, they pretty much defined the terms in which the media was going to operate," he said. "Those terms are not the same as in the Western world." Reuters is running a story about the crackdown against pro-Tibet protests, as well as the generally tight control Beijing officials have had on all demonstrations.

We released another alert about Dhondup Gonsar today. He's the Tibetan RFA reporter who is stuck in Hong Kong waiting for a visa that RFA was told had been set aside for him and RFA's Mandarin service reporter Jill Ku Martin. We first raised Dhondup's case on August 7, and have stayed in touch with him. Jill did make it to Beijing on time, Dhondup is still here.

Visa problems for the Beijing Games are not new. I've discussed them before, but a lot of the cases I mentioned wanted to remain anonymous in the hopes that the barrier would be lifted and they would finally get permission to go to China.

We quoted Dhondup briefly in today's alert, but here's a longer interview with him that I did when I met with him this afternoon: aug 20 gonsar intvu.mp3

In the Senegalese capital, Dakar, speculation surrounded Air Transport Minister Farba Senghor after unidentified men using a government vehicle ransacked the newsrooms of 24 Heures Chrono and L'As, two independent newspapers. The attacks came just three days after Senghor threatened unspecified retaliation against the papers over critical stories. CPJ issued an alert on Tuesday, calling attention the situation.

OpenNet Initiative is a go-to source for CPJ and anyone else who is interested in fact-based analysis of the Internet. Its academic approach--it's a consortium of the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, the Advanced Network Research Group at the Cambridge Security Programme, University of Cambridge, and the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University--has made it an island of accuracy and reasonableness in the ebb and flow of online information.

Even with the world enthralled in the drama of the Olympic Games, the more basic struggles in the rest of China continue to quietly unfold.

Nanfang Dushi Bao (Southern Metropolis Daily) today published a long article with little apparent connection to the Olympics, a rarity these days. It is actually re-posted from Zhejiang Daily, and tells the story of a farming family that grows vegetables near the city of Hangzhou who are having trouble this year because of the rising costs of production, including the cost of seeds, fertilizer, and fuel for the tractor.  

"Without plowing the earth, the vegetables won't grow," said farmer Wang Guokui.

The main headline on the Web site of the rest of the Southern Media Group is more typical, giving second-day coverage of hurdler Liu Xiang's painful exit from the race: "We love gold medals, we love you more." It's sweet. The New York Times reports that it's also state-mandated; propaganda officials have told news outlets to keep the tone sympathetic, lest rage at the fallen athlete provoke a nasty scene. Xinhua News Agency, voice of the State Council, published an open letter from Liu to his supporters in which he apologized for the disappointment.  

I didn't see any evidence of rage toward the stymied Olympian in a brisk stroll through the Chinese Web today. But I did find a blog post on Bullog reflecting on his clothes. Yes, his track uniform. A blogger departs from his native language to call it "fugly":

Why did they have to give him such a fugly uniform? Does the person who takes care of these things hate him?

On a quiet news day, South African Web site Business Day has a story outlining the situation in Zimbabwe, and looks at how limiting press freedom has inhibited peace in the country.

In other news out of Africa today, the AllAfrica Web site is running an opinion piece about the state of newspapers in Sierra Leone.

Another way of getting around Intent censorship is to use proxy servers. They are basically computers whose addresses or access are not blocked by a country's filters. You contact one of them and relay your information, say a request to access www.cpj.org (which, by the way, is still blocked as of this morning, according to friends inside the Main Press Center in the Olympic Village). The proxy server retrieves and passes back the information you want. 

It's most likely too late to get one of these if you're already in China, but for the next time you're going behind any country's Internet firewall, try to pick up one of these thumb drives. If you're among the digitally impaired, as I am, it will help you dodge the online cops. All you have to do is be able to plug this thumb drive into one of your computer's USBs. It's preloaded with a program called Tor that relies on encryption and a network of servers--and will get you through blocking technology, I am reliably told. CNET Asia provides more information. 

 

Two articles on the labor exploitation of prisoners in Havana's Güanajay Prison appeared over the weekend on the Miami-based news Web sites CubaNet and PayoLibre. The articles detailed the use of prisoners as free labor in a local shoe factory, and described the terrible conditions under which the 28 men work. Though not written by them, the pieces were reported by independent Cuban journalists José Ubaldo Izquierdo Hernández and Miguel Galván Gutiérrez, both held in Güanajay.

Just as American audiences have been fixated on the performances of Michael Phelps during the Olympic Games, Chinese viewers have been anticipating the heroics of hurdler Liu Xiang. So his dropping out of the 110-meter race today with an injury was the headliner at major news outlets. Photographs of his anguished coach and shocked commentaries of his loving fans led the Web.

All the major Philippine news outlets are covering the news this morning of the shooting death of another possible journalist. Inquirer.net, GMA News, The Mindanao Examiner, and ABS CBN are all covering the news that Ronaldo Anjo Julia, who may have been a part-time radio broadcaster, was shot and killed by gunman on a Manila street. The Web site 7DAYS out of Dubai also has coverage of the story and reports that the motive for the killing is still unclear, as Julia had also been doing work for his brother, a local politician. CPJ is currently investigating the case.

The Cebu Daily News, also based in the Philippines, has an editorial examining possible reasons for the drastic increase in violence against media workers in light of the recent deaths of Dennis Cuesta and Martin Roxas, both cases that CPJ has covered over the last 10 days.

Reuters is reporting that over the weekend two independent newspapers were attacked in the Sengalese capital of Dakar, increasing tension between the President Abdoulaye Wade's administration and the media. CPJ sent a letter to Wade at the end of June, expressing alarm at the worsening press conditions in the African nation.

Thanks to Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project at the University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and Sophie Beach at China Digital Times for taking the time to translate and post Southern Weekend's interview with Zhang Yimou, the once renegade movie maker who took on the job of organizing the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games. The excerpt is called "The Way Art Works," and it turns out that the way art works in China is not pretty. Zhang has become mainstream and in doing so has become controversial again. His early movies were low budget, set in ordinary people's lives and had a gritty reality that ran into a lot of problems with censors but found receptive audiences overseas. Lately he has veered toward more lavish movies as he has found more officially approved success and acceptance. 

It's sort of fun to catch the book and movie spin-meisters who trumpet seemingly favorable blurbs artfully extracted from otherwise bad or mixed reviews. They baldly turn criticism into praise as they try to get you to buy that movie ticket or paperback. But maybe it's more of a problem when you see a government do it.

Journalists came under fire in their car on August 10 near Tskhinvali. According to the Turkish Daily News, Turkish journalist Recep Öztürk was wounded. It is not clear who was shooting at them--the lines have been fluid as the Georgians and Russians battle in South Ossetia. At least three journalists have been killed and 10 injured since fighting began last week.

CPJ's Washington Representative Frank Smyth has a posting on The Hill Blog today about how the FBI went through back channels to obtain phone records of New York Times and Washington Post journalists in Indonesia in 2004. The news that the FBI director is set to testify in front of Congress on this matter in September has revived debate over the need for a federal shield law to protect journalists' First Amendment rights.

Read Smyth's post at The Hill Blog.

Global Voices Online noticed yesterday when guerrilla blogger Zola (Zhou Shuguang) began tweeting his own detention. His BlackBerry let the world know that local officials had intercepted him in the town of Fengmuqiao in Hunan province, and he posted updates as they forced him into a car to drive him home. If he leaves his hometown of Meitanba again, they told him, there will be trouble.

Zola is a citizen reporter who takes it upon himself to travel to places where news is happening and blog about it, relying on the kindness of strangers as he goes. (He gets around the ethical quandary this presents by refusing to call himself a journalist.)

The Miami Herald is covering news out of Colombia that TV network Telesur has again been accused of having ties to FARC rebels. A journalist for the network has been fingered by the government after his name was allegedly found on confiscated FARC computers. CPJ is quoted in the story: ''The fact that Parra's name has supposedly been found on a FARC computer is not proof of any wrongdoing,'' said Americas Senior Program Coordinator Carlos Lauría. The Olympian in Washington is also running this story today.

AllAfrica has republished our alert on the disappearance of prominent Egyptian editor, Reda Halal, who vanished on his way home from work five years ago in Cairo. There has been no progress made in the case, and CPJ's repeated calls to the Egyptian government have been largely ignored. For more, read our special report on Reda Helal: "The Forgotten Man."

Lastly this morning, Islam Online.net has a story about the continued targeting of media in Iraq that cites our numbers of at least 130 journalists and 50 media workers killed since 2003.

First, a pointer to Rebecca Mackinnon's Asia Wall Street Journal oped from yesterday, The Chinese Censorship Foreigners Don't See . She makes many of the same points I did about how the Great Firewall is leaky, and the control of the Internet in China relies on much more than technology.

During the war in Vietnam, the daily press briefings by the American military were called the "Five o'clock Follies" by the foreign press corps that was on the receiving end of the military's damage control aimed at controlling the story from Vietnam. The Beijing Games have their own daily press meeting, at 10 am, hosted by BOCOG's media chief, Wang Wei, and its spokesman, Sun Weide. Giselle Davies appears as the IOC's spokeswoman. Sometimes they have an additional speaker at the podium. The idea is to project a positive image, downplay disputes, and deal with what seems to be a slowly rising level of frustration from the journalists in attendance.

We issued the following statement today in response to the attack on a Fox News crew in Gori, Georgia:

"We are troubled that despite the ceasefire, journalists and cameramen have come under fire once again. This is unacceptable and we call on all the parties in the conflict zone to ensure reporters' safety," CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said. "This conflict has already taken the lives of three colleagues and left at least 10 wounded. Commanders must remind all deployed forces that journalists are civilians and entitled to the full protection of the Geneva Conventions."

Fox released video footage of reporter Steve Harrigan and his crew under fire.

In the Gaza Strip, anyone with a camera is fair game. That's the inescapable conclusion from the Israeli army's investigation into why one of its tank crews fired at least two shells at a Reuters television journalist openly filming them from a mile away.

The cameraman, Fadel Shana, 24, filmed the muzzle flash of the Merkava-4 tank that sent a dart-scattering shell above his head. The screen goes black as Shana falls dead in an open patch of sandy ground near the Israel-Gaza border, southwest of Gaza City on April 16. His soundman, Wafa Abu Mizyed, is wounded. Eight other civilians, aged between 12 and 20, were killed; six of them were under 16. At least seven other bystanders aged from 10 to 18 were also hit. None was armed or was a militant.

In a six-page letter to Thomson Reuters dated August 12, the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) military advocate general, Brig.-Gen. Avihai Mandelblit, absolves the tank crew and their superiors of any responsibility or criminal wrongdoing. The letter outlines some of the findings of a confidential inquiry into the killing. It skates over testimony from witnesses quoted by Reuters and other media and human rights groups, and concludes that the decision to fire a shell designed to kill concentrations of battlefield infantry at a two-man TV crew was "reasonable" and "sound."

On July 21, CPJ welcomed the release of Tunisian Internet journalist Slim Boukhdhir from prison. A contributor to Tunisian and Arab news Web sites, Boukhdhir was serving a one-year term in Sfax Prison because he had written articles critical of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and the country's first family. CPJ sent a mission to Tunisia in early July, focusing the journalist's case. Now Boukhdhir has sent us kind words from Tunis that we'd like to share:

"In addition to other positions adopted during my ordeal by people of good conscience throughout the world, CPJ's stance was a badge of honor that I had been wearing in jail and CPJ's solidarity lighted the darkness of my ordeal."

Bouhkdhir also extended his "warm thanks" to CPJ's Middle East senior program coordinator, Joel Campagna. Campagna was part of the delegation to Tunisia and had been advocating for Boukhdhir's release since his arrest.

Boukhdhir ended his note this way: "I have great regard for your commitment to freedom of the press. Long live CPJ as a prosperous oasis to defend journalists and long live press freedom."

He signed it, "Your brother, Slim Boukhdhir."

NBC coverage of the women's gymnastics team competition made incessant mention of the controversy over the Chinese athletes' ages. Are they really 16, or are they underage? And what does that say about the awful and efficient "machine" that pumps out China's Olympians? NBC announcers made sure that American viewers pondered the matter as the gold medal went to the Chinese team.

BBC News has coverage this morning about the media's reaction to Israel's decision to clear the soldiers involved in the death of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana. The "Editors' Blog" on British site Journalism talks about Reuters' "dissatisfaction" at the verdict and the Middle East Online Web site has a report that cites our alert on the ruling, and quotes the concerns of  CPJ's Middle East Senior Program Coordinator Joel Campagna: "These findings mean that a journalist with a camera is at risk of coming under fire and there's not that much that can be done. That's unacceptable."

Australia's Sydney Morning Herald also covers the IDF's ruling and quotes our statistic of eight journalist deaths in the West Bank and Gaza since 1992. The Lebanese Web site Menassat has republished our alert from yesterday as well.

The arrest of ITN reporter John Ray yesterday in Beijing has stirred up fresh concerns about press freedom during the Games and China's overall human rights record. From England, both The Telegraph and The Guardian have stories today about the IOC's unwillingness to admit China's failures, particularly in regard to freedom of the press. The International Herald Tribune is also covering the story, as is the Web site Monsters and Critics.

Kristin Jones has been doing a great job monitoring the Chinese media and the more unofficial online world. One of the realities she has pointed out is the similarity of coverage across China's media when sensitive issues crop up. There is a reason for that.

An interesting piece, "Screws tighten on mainland journalists," ran in the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong's largest English-language daily. SCMP staff in Beijing spoke with some Chinese reporters recently and they told SCMP of a 21-point directive that came down last month from the Central Propaganda Department. Taboo subjects include everything from seating arrangements for dignitaries at the opening ceremonies, food safety issues, and an outright ban on using any source of information other than the official Xinhua News Agency for Games-related scandals. The standard rules for referring to Taiwan (the acceptable form is "Chinese Taipei" not the Republic of China (Taiwan) were also on the list, but no mainland Chinese reporter really needs to be reminded of that. 

The Russian-Georgian conflict continues to be the focus of many news outlets this morning. The Associated Press outlines vital statistics from the conflict, which includes our reporting on journalist casualties. McClatchy News Service also cites CPJ in its reporting on the situation. The International News Safety Institute, meanwhile, has an important posting that explains the continued danger for the news media in the region.

At the Olympics censorship concerns in China are again the topic of discussion in various news reports today. The Associated Press quotes CPJ's Bob Dietz in an article about China's restrictive approach toward journalists who attempt to cover stories that are not sports-related. Also, MediaChannel has reprinted our alert from yesterday about the Chinese blocking our Web site.

This morning, Reuters is covering news that the Israeli militar