Archaic media policies make China a poor partner
President Obama has promised to raise issues of human rights when he and his administration meet with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping in the next day. After that, Xi, billed as China’s next leader, is expected to make some speeches, visit a few factories, stop at the Pentagon, sign some contracts that will strengthen economic…
Dripping with blood
When high profile murders take place in Pakistan it is routine to include police and government forces along with criminals and ne’er-do-wells. This is the stark reality of the simmering and often bloody terrorist war in Balochistan. The Economist explains how a long standing secessionist movement and rampant corruption make Pakistan a dangerous place in…
India’s challenge: Intolerance vs. intellectual freedom
Because of criticism from Hindu fundamentalists, the showing of a documentary by filmmaker Sanjay Kak at the Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce in Pune has been indefinitely postponed. The conservative student organization Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parisha protested Kak’s film, “Jashn-e-Azadi” (How we celebrate freedom), which is critical of the Indian army’s role in Kashmir.…
CPJ Impact
News from the Committee to Protect Journalists, January 2012 Journalist released after 163 daysCPJ was pleased to report on the January release of imprisoned journalist Hermann Aboa, who languished behind bars for 163 days. The former Ivorian state TV presenter was freed on bail after being jailed in July 21 on antistate charges for his role as a moderator…
Mazhar Abbas: Shahzad was no Pearl
Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the disappearance of Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl in Karachi on January 23, 2002. On February 21 of that year, a video of his beheading was released. In the wake of the judicial inquiry into the murder of journalist Saleem Shahzad, veteran Pakistani journalist Mazhar Abbas has taken…
A deeper reading: Umar Cheema on the Shahzad report
With the shooting of Mukarram Khan Aatif on Tuesday, the once high-profile case of Saleem Shahzad has almost been overtaken by events. The day before Aatif’s death, Umar Cheema had sent me a link to his analysis of the judicial inquiry into the killing of Saleem Shahzad.
What US can’t accept in Belarus, it supports in Uzbekistan
Last week, President Obama signed into law a bill that expands sanctions against Belarus, whose authoritarian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko continues to imprison his opponents and critics. Lukashenko unleashed the latest crackdown hours after the flawed December 2010 presidential vote, which declared him winner of a fourth term. Repression in Belarus is ongoing. Last week, authorities…
No culprits named in Shahzad investigation, media reports
About six months after it was launched, the commission investigating the murder of journalist Saleem Shahzad submitted its report to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Tuesday. In the past, the government has not released results of such investigations into the deaths of journalists, but there might be an exception this time. There are early…
Sami al-Haj: From Gitmo Detainee Back to Al Jazeera as Liberties/Human Rights Advocate
Sami al-Haj has now returned to Al Jazeera, an organization he previously worked for a decade ago as a cameraman covering the then nascent war in Afghanistan. While on assignment in December 2001 he was delayed by a passport problem during a routine over land crossing into the country from Pakistan. Quickly named an ‘enemy combatant’ by the U.S.…