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…
In Pakistan, a news media minefield
For the second year in a row Pakistan has topped the CPJ Killed List, making it a more dangerous place to be a journalist in 2011 than the active war zones of Libya or Iraq and Afghanistan. Senior Asia program coordinator Bob Dietz explains that Pakistani journalists are under extreme pressure from both state and…
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.…
The HRCP’s call to address threats against journalists
A quick pointer to a statement issued by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan on Monday: It said, in part, that “The HRCP is alarmed at reports of threats received by journalists on account of their work.” The commission asked the government to ensure that threats to journalists end and that risks associated with practicing…
#ANC100 debate lays bare divisions over South Africa media
On January 8, 1912, South African intellectuals–including pioneering black newspaper publishers Pixley ka Isaka Seme, editor of Abantu-Batho, and John Langalibalele Dube, editor of Ilanga lase Natal–formed Africa’s oldest liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC), in the Wesleyan Church in Bloemfontein.