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Lebanon's Al-Akhbar shuts down English site

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Al-Akhbar editor-in-chief Ibrahim al-Amin speaks during a meeting at the Press Federation in Beirut, Tuesday, May 13, 2014. (The Daily Star/Mohammad A Zakir)

Al-Akhbar editor-in-chief Ibrahim al-Amin speaks during a meeting at the Press Federation in Beirut, Tuesday, May 13, 2014. (The Daily Star/Mohammad A Zakir)

by The Daily Star

Beirut: The English-language website of one of Lebanon’s most outspoken newspapers abruptly ended operations Friday, after a three-and-a-half-year stint, while plans to launch an English print edition were also put in the shredder.

Employees at Al-Akhbar English told The Daily Star that members of the newspaper’s management made the unexpected announcement Friday afternoon.

“We had two options: Either to go forward with a larger and much more expensive [print project], or to shut down,” Amer Mohsen, a senior member of Al-Akhbar’s editorial staff, told The Daily Star.

“And since the first option to publish the full-fledged paper was not possible, we decided to go the other way,” he said.

“Many factors,” including a lack of funds, led to closure of the website and the canceling of a paper launch, Mohsen added.

The closure comes days after three members of the staff were let go in unprecedented layoffs for the English site.

Al-Akhbar English, which was launched as an online-only platform in August 2011, had recently began preparing to transition into a full-fledged print newspaper under a new name, The Beirut Bulletin.

Originally, the management intended to continue running the news site until the launch of the paper, which was scheduled for summer.

But the site, which featured a blend of translations from the Arabic newspaper and original English content, was abruptly canceled when management realized plans for The Beirut Bulletin could no longer move forward.

Full text: Arnab Goswami violates norms of professionalism and fairness, say activists in open letter

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Arnab Goswami

Dear Mr Arnab Goswami,

We, the undersigned, who have on many occasions participated in the 9:00 p.m. News Hour programme on Times Now, anchored by you, wish to raise concerns about the shrinking space in this programme for reasoned debate and the manner in which it has been used to demonize people’s movements and civil liberties activists.

On 17th  and 18th February 2015, in the News Hour show , a section of activists were invited to contribute to the debate on the “offloading” of Greenpeace representative Priya Pillai. Right from the start, the activists were denied the right to articulate their views. Not only were their mikes at times muted, they were repeatedly heckled and subjected to hate speech, with you, as the anchor, encouraging, even orchestrating and amplifying these responses.

We would like to make it clear here that the point to note is not our personal hurt, humiliation or the lack of respect shown to us from the other panelists, the anchor, or the channel. We also recognize that combative questions could be put to us when we participate in such a programme and that people may express their disagreements in a heated manner.

But we do object, and take serious exception, to the repeated branding of activists as ‘anti-national’ or ‘unpatriotic’ – words that are terms of abuse and hate-speech, and that can, when repeated ad nauseam in an influential media space, have serious repercussions. Rights activists, public figures and defendants in legal cases have been subjected to hate crimes, and even killed, in the country.

The media, which has a duty to conduct itself responsibly, cannot be allowed to aggravate the vulnerability of human rights activists, who are already being targeted, vilified and demonized, by the state and other vested and dominant interests.

We are aware that on earlier occasions, too, many other guests at the News Hour studios have also been subjected to similar treatment by anchors like you or your colleagues. In the process, debates and discussions on important subjects of national import have been reduced to a one-sided harangue, with differing and dissenting voices being deliberately stifled. Loose allegations have been made about them, aspersions cast on their motives, and insinuations made about their patriotism, with all obligations of the media to conduct  themselves in a neutral, fair and accurate manner being flung to the winds.

Our objection is not restricted to the occasions when activists have been subjected to this treatment. We find it equally objectionable when guests with points of view opposed to our own, are at the receiving end. We seek media space for rational presentation of arguments – our own as well as those whom we may disagree with, not for endorsement of our points of view by the media.

We believe it is important to seek transparency and accountability from the media. We are concerned when journalistic ethics outlined by the National Broadcasting Authority are willfully and habitually violated. We would like to cite here relevant portions of the Code of Ethics issued by the NBA.

“News shall not be selected or designed to promote any particular belief, opinion or desires of any interest group….

“Broadcasters shall ensure a full and fair presentation of news as the same is the fundamental responsibility of each news channel. Realizing the importance of presenting all points of view in a democracy, the broadcasters should, therefore, take responsibility in ensuring that controversial subjects are fairly presented, with time being allotted fairly to each point of view….

“TV News channels must provide for neutrality by offering equality for all affected parties, players and actors in any dispute or conflict to present their point of view. Though neutrality does not always come down to giving equal space to all sides (news channels shall strive to give main view points of the main parties) news channels must strive to ensure that allegations are not portrayed as fact and charges are not conveyed as an act of guilt.”

“… avoid… broadcasting content that is malicious, biased, regressive, knowingly inaccurate, hurtful, misleading….”

The television shows cited here were designed to canvas certain views held by the Government and the Intelligence Bureau and appeared as a platform for the public heckling and jeering of the activists involved, not just by other panelists but by the  anchor himself. Far from maintaining neutrality and professionalism, you as the anchor were blatantly and aggressively opinionated, and never once provided the space for guests, whose views differed with yours, to voice their own opinions without continuous interruption and heckling. Apart from the fact that a fair allotment of time to them was never made, never once did you as the anchor consider the legitimate questions they raised as worthy of a response.

Not surprisingly then, an opportunity to question the accusations raised by the Government was not allowed. Instead, Government allegations were presented as self-evident facts by you as the anchor. You went on to claim that you had the ‘facts’ to prove the ‘anti-national’ character of one organization in particular and activists in general. While the responses of the activists on these panel were deliberately distorted, you as the anchor insinuated baselessly that the said activists were employing ‘hackers’, and that they had ‘deposed against India’.

We know that a similar scenario has been played out on many other occasions on the Newshour. The label ‘anti-national’ is attributed to invited guests without any basis in fact or law, as a term of abuse and hate-speech. Similar terms, used as forms of hate-speech, include, ‘Naxal’, ‘terrorist’, ‘terrorist sympathiser’.

It is inappropriate and irresponsible for channels to label anyone as ‘nationalist’ or ‘anti-national’ or ‘terrorist’ or the like. If panelists indulge in such terms, it is in fact the duty of the anchor to rein them in, and to ensure that such loaded and provocative words are not used to drown out the substantive points of the discussion or disagreement.

For moderators of the debate to allow such terms to be hurled at participants, and in fact to endorse and repeat such terms, is a gross abuse of the media’s immense power.

On one previous Newshour show on sexual violence in December 2013, intended ironically to mark the first anniversary of the ‘Nirbhaya’ rape, a prominent panelist on your programme repeatedly shouted that the two feminists on the panel were ‘Naxals who believed in free sex’. As such, the words ‘Naxalite’ and ‘free sex’ need not be pejorative. All sex should indeed be free. But in this case the terms were used as tools of abuse, equivalent to ‘terrorist’ and ‘slut’, in order to detract from reasoned argument.

Surely, even debates involving  panelists’ views on, or association with, the Naxalite movement in India, have to be conducted fairly and reasonably, without allowing the term ‘Naxal’ to be used as a form of abuse or to heckle a participant. Surely, even if participants and guests support self-determination in Kashmir; or are representatives of another country; or hold an abolitionist view on the death penalty; a news channel inviting them to express their views has the obligation to allow them to do so without being branded as ‘terrorists’ or ‘anti-nationals.’ If the Government can have talks with organisations who hold these opinions, or with leaders of these countries, they are surely entitled to be heard on national television with a modicum of dignity?

In protest against the vilification of activists and dissenting opinions, and the violation of the basic norms of professionalism, neutrality, reasonableness and fairness, we have for the present decided to stay away from Times Now debates. The purpose of this gesture of protest is to demand accountability of the television media, including Times Now, to the norms outlined by the NBA’s Code of Ethics. We take this step as an effort to promote public debate and a responsible engagement with opposing ideas and stances in order to deepen democracy.

Sincerely,

Vrinda Grover – Lawyer, Supreme Court of India

Sudha Ramalingam, Lawyer, Madras High Court and Civil liberties Activist

Pamela Philipose, Feminist and Senior Journalist

Aruna Roy, Right to Information, NREGA and Democratic Rights Activist

Anjali Bharadwaj, Right to Information Activist

Kavita Krishnan, Women’s movement and Left Activist

Kavita Srivastava, Women’s movement and Civil Liberties activist

Here is the programme in question.

Sudan seizes 13 newspapers as South Sudan threatens journalists

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A Sudanese young man looks at newspapers displayed at a kiosk in the capital Khartoum on February 16, 2015.AFP/Ashraf Shazly.

A Sudanese young man looks at newspapers displayed at a kiosk in the capital Khartoum on February 16, 2015.AFP/Ashraf Shazly.

Sudanese security officers seized the print runs of 13 newspapers on Monday in one of the most sweeping crackdowns on the press in recent years, a media watchdog said.

The National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) seized copies of the dailies — which included pro-government as well as independent titles — “without giving any reasons,” Journalists for Human Rights said.

NISS often confiscates print runs of newspapers over stories it deems unsuitable but it rarely seizes so many publications at one time.

Journalists for Human Rights said that the “rise” in newspaper seizures “represents an unprecedented escalation by the authorities against freedom of the press and expression.”

The editor of Al-Tayar Osman Mirghani confirmed his newspaper’s print run had been seized.

“After the printing was finished, security officers arrived and seized all printed copies without giving any reason for that,” he said.

There was no immediate word from the authorities on why the newspapers had been seized.

The Sudanese Journalists’ Network said it would hold a sit-in outside the government-run press council to protest against the confiscations.

Sudan ranked near bottom, at 172 out of 180, in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2014 World Press Freedom Index, published on February 10.

Crackdown in South Sudan

Meanwhile, South Sudan’s government on Monday threatened to silence journalists if they broadcast interviews with rebels involved in the civil war.

“We are shutting you media houses down if you interview any rebel here to disseminate his or her plans and policies within South Sudan,” Information Minister Michael Makuei told reporters.

His comments came after a local radio station broadcast an interview with a top opposition leader.

“If you can go as far as interviewing the rebels to come and disseminate their filthy ideas to the people and poison their minds, that is negative agitation,” he said.

“You either join them, or else we put you where you will not be talking,” Makuei said in the latest threat to press freedom in the world’s newest state.

Rights groups have repeatedly warned that South Sudanese security forces have cracked down on journalists, suffocating debate on how to end a civil war in which tens of thousands of people have been killed in the past 14 months.

Reporters Without Borders this month said South Sudan had slipped down six places on its annual press freedom rankings, listing it as the 125th worst nation out of 180.

It said the war has “hit media freedom hard,” noting that “news outlets were warned not to cover security issues and journalists were unable to work properly because of the war.”

Fighting broke out in South Sudan in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir Mayardit accused his former deputy Riek Machar of attempting a coup, setting off a cycle of retaliatory killings across the country.

War continues despite numerous ceasefire deals.

Over half the country’s 12 million people need aid, according to the United Nations, which is also sheltering some 100,000 civilians trapped inside camps ringed with barbed wire, too terrified to venture out for fear of being killed.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

'Supari journalism': When Arvind Kejriwal defeated the Indian media

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In the run-up to polls,the AAP leader faced hostility from the TV channels, or was totally ignored by them.

AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal flanked by his wife, Sunita, addresses supporters at the party office in New Delhi.

by Rajdeep Sardesai

In the 2015 Delhi elections, Arvind Kejriwal didn’t just demolish his opposition: he also defeated the media. That might seem a strange thing to say since the general impression for a long time has been that Kejriwal and his AAP party are a creation of the media, and television news in particular. The fact is, February 2015 is not December 2013. Then, we couldn’t get enough of Kejriwal:  he was popping in and out of TV studios and every move, every soundbite, was tracked with relentless energy.

“Would you do it with any other chief minister?” I recall Narendra Modi asking me once in a phone conversation. His concern was not unjustified. The so-called national television media essentially operates out of a small corner of Noida. So much easier to have OB vans parked outside Kejriwal’s residence in the vicinity than, let’s say, in distant Panaji. “I am also an aam admi chief minister, Manohar Parikkar told me in 2013, “but you won’t highlight that I also live a simple life because I am not in Delhi.” I have no doubt that Manik Sarkar living in distant Agartala would have had a similar grouse.

Yes, Kejriwal received disproportionate coverage in the build up to the 2013 elections. He was the new start-up, there was a buzz and excitement around him. He also had an astute media strategy and understood prime time television (his party has an unusually high proportion of journalists too in its ranks!) And then, there was the ill-fated dharna in January 2014 and suddenly the bubble was burst. “Anarchist” Kejriwal became the most common epithet we used to describe the man and AAP now became bad news.

Modi mania peaks

This was also around the time that Modi mania was beginning to peak. Television news couldn’t have enough of the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in the run up to the 2014 general elections: every speech of his was covered live, often two and three a day. A Centre for Media Studies survey suggested that in this key election period around 70% of air time was hogged by Modi. The others, including Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi, languished in single digits. The same media which had cheered the rise of Kejriwal towards the end of 2013 was now cheerleading the Bharatiya Janata Party’s mascot in his unstoppable ascent to 7 Race Course road.

But in the run-up to the 2015 elections, there was another twist. A large section of the media actually turned either openly hostile, or else totally ignored Kejriwal. The AAP leader began his comeback bid in October 2014 in near-anonymity: his initial Delhi dialogue had no live coverage, didn’t make Page One headlines. As he travelled across Delhi’s constituencies, there was no large media entourage tracking him. None of his speeches or press conferences got live coverage. Most were barely mentioned. Some channels took the extreme step of blanking him and his party out of their channels: AAP leaders were not to be called for studio discussions. This was “supari” journalism at its worst. By contrast, when Modi entered the Delhi campaign fray with a rally at Ram Lila maidan in January, most channels devoted 24 x 7 coverage to the event.

Fresh wind

Modi was clearly still box office; Kejriwal was not. It changed a little bit in the last fortnight of the campaign as we began to sniff the changing air. The political hawa was changing and, typically, the media was beginning to feel the shifting mood. Suddenly, Kejriwal interviews were back on prime time and on the front page. And yet, the fact is, right till the end of the campaign, every prime minister rally was live but no Kejriwal speech was given similar prominence. Most exit pollsters were cautious in predicting a Kejriwal win. Some fly by night operators even suggested that the BJP was level pegging and in some cases even in the lead (I do hope these truly “bazaroo” pollsters are held accountable).

In the end, none of it mattered. AAP won an astounding 67 of 70 seats, one of the biggest victories in the history of Indian elections. The mainstream media’s ambivalence to Kejriwal didn’t matter. The AAP leader had gone over our heads, effectively used social media, but most importantly, gone directly to those who really mattered: the voter! Pompous editors, noisy anchors and a corporatised media ownership had all been defeated. In a democracy, we in the media are only the surround sound: the actual power in the end rests with the real aam admi. As they would tell you on the streets of Delhi, Janata janardhan!

This article first appeared on Rajdeep Sardesai’s website.

The international media is failing to report the Syrian war properly

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Civilians in Aleppo: not in the news. EPA/Ali Mustafa

Civilians in Aleppo: not in the news. EPA/Ali Mustafa

by Scott Lucas, The Conversation

February 2015 has already seen some major developments in Syria’s four-year conflict. At the start of February, rebels launched more than 100 rockets into Damascus and the Assad regime fired mortars on areas of its own capital, hoping to discredit the insurgents. At least six people were killed in the attacks.

Then came almost 50 regime air strikes on opposition-held areas near Damascus, which killed at least 82 people. Another 25 were killed in Aleppo when a barrel bomb hit a bus on a roundabout.

Meanwhile, rebels also claimed to have blown up 30 men fighting for the Assad regime – Hezbollah troops, Iranians, and Iraqis among them – at a militia headquarters west of Damascus.

All this while US-led coalition air strikes were carried out in eastern Syria against the Islamic State (IS), with Jordan in particular vowing to “wipe them from the face of the Earth” after the group murdered a captured pilot.

Take a look at the world’s media coverage, though, and you might be forgiven for thinking things were rather more quiet.

Silence

If you read The New York Times, you are unlikely to learn about much of this; the newspaper has no reporting from correspondents, only a Reuters report. The same is true of the Washington Post, CNN, and al-Jazeera English. And the BBC? As the attacks and the deaths mounted on February 5, its lead story was on the conviction of former pop star Gary Glitter on sexual assault charges; the corporation later made partial amends on its website with a story headlined Syria Conflict: Dozens Killed in Heavy Damascus Fighting.

However, both the BBC and Reuters articles relied heavily on the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which often passes off rumour and chatter gleaned from social media as a news “network” inside Syria.

There are obvious practical reasons why gathering and circulating important news from Syria is such a fraught business. The world’s media has had to withdraw journalists because of threats to their security, drastically elevated by the rise of Islamic State, and most local stringers have had to flee the country for the same reasons. The fog of war and the attempts by all sides to “spin” events makes independent verification a nightmare.

This is what Aleppo looks like. EPA/Ali Mustafa

But it’s still possible to provide in-depth day-to-day coverage of the conflict, with careful analysis of the political, economic, humanitarian, and military dimensions. Even a small news organisation can work with local activists, citizen journalists, and official sources from all sides to keep readers informed and ask challenging questions.

The real problem is not the impossibility of “seeing” what is happening in Syria. The problem is that instead of dealing with the complexity of the crisis, it’s much easier to cling to simple and often misleading narratives to explain what’s going on.

Towards the end of 2014, the favourite narrative (which never quite played out) could be summed up as “Assad is winning”. This year, the theme is “jihadists versus extremists versus jihadists”: this refers to both the Islamic State, which is fighting against Syria’s rebels, and to the “al-Qaeda-linked” Jabhat al-Nusra, which often fights alongside those rebels (but not always).

The international attention given to IS is of course understandable. However, overlooking the travails of Syria’s insurgents and the opposition to “Jabhat al-Nusra” is a serious distortion of the situation.

Main attraction

While its paramilitaries have proved effective enough on the battlefield, Jabhat al-Nusra provides only a fraction of the forces fighting against the Assad regime. It is small compared to the largest insurgent factions, the Islamic Front and the Free Syrian Army. These are part of blocs with the vast majority of Syria’s rebels, such as the Sham Front and Southern Front, which go almost unnoticed in Western media.

In recent months, these assorted anti-Assad groups have not only turned the tide on the Damascus regime’s forces, but have made notable advances throughout Syria. Sometimes working with Jabhat al-Nusra, they have moved into towns and villages and captured Syrian military bases.

They now control most of north-west and south-west Syria, and, in January 2015, they advanced from the south towards Damascus. They have also been battling the Islamic State throughout Syria, from Aleppo Province in the northwest to Hama and Homs Provinces in the centre, to the greater Damascus area.

But without any “jihadists” or “extremists” for the headline, it seems this real news hardly registers outside Syria itself.

This just in

Many analysts have effectively given up on thorough evaluation, since it’s far easier and more dramatic to post the latest social-media flutter about a foreign fighter. An entire website is dedicated to “Jihadology”, and a leading news agency creates “Under the Black Flag” on the Islamic State, with critiques such as “‘Watch Out For Satanic Earrings!’ IS Publishes Women’s Manifesto”.

Syrian refugees at the Turkish border. EPA/Ulas Yunus Tosun

In contrast, relatively little journalistic time is being spent monitoring the state of the Syrian opposition and the Assad regime, or indeed the situation of the many Syrian people who do not align with one of the competing sides.

The outcome is that there are two very different Syrian conflicts. On the one hand there’s the byzantine soap opera rendered in the international media, a saga of slaughter in which the villainous Islamic State outshines Assad and extremist factions upstage his other opponents. The current episode is “Jordan Unleashes Wrath on Islamic State”, in which the extent, location and impact of Jordan’s claimed air strikes are starting to become clear.

Meanwhile, the more substantial Syrian conflict – the one with another 200 deaths daily, and 300,000 since 2011, with 4m refugees worldwide and 7m people displaced inside the country – has all but disappeared from view.

British journalist caught lying about being abused at a Mosque

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Channel 4’s Cathy Newman Apologises After CCTV Footage Emerges Of Mosque Incident

by Jessica Elgot, The Huffington Post

Channel 4 presenter Cathy Newman has apologised after CCTV footage obtained by The Huffington Post UK appeared to contradict her claim that she was “ushered out of the door” of a London mosque on the weekend.

The South London Islamic Centre, where Newman claims she was turned away despite turning up wearing a headscarf, says surveillance video shows the reporter arriving at the mosque, being directed by a male congregant, but leaving alone through the courtyard.

Newman sparked a social media firestorm after tweeting she was “ushered onto the street” during ‘Visit My Mosque Day’ which the mosque said provoked threatening voicemails which it has reported to police.

Footage from inside the mosque of the Channel 4 presenter arriving

Footage from inside the mosque of the Channel 4 presenter arriving

The man in the striped jumper (circled) can be seen in a brief exchange with Newman inside the mosque but does not follow her

Cathy Newman leaving South London Islamic Centre alone

But the mosque, which initially apologised, claims Newman’s story is “not correct” and Newman has now apologised for any “misunderstanding”.

After Newman tweeted that she had been “ushered out of the door”, the story was covered by the national media, including the Guardian, Daily Mail, Independent andThe Huffington Post.

It later emerged Newman had actually gone to the wrong location, and her Channel 4 colleagues were waiting for her 15 minutes away at a mosque that was taking part in the open day.

The CCTV clips show the journalist entering the mosque and beginning to take off her shoes while having a very brief conversation with a congregant in the lobby. The man gestures several times to the left, pointing her in a specific direction. She puts her shoe back on, and leaves alone, walking through the courtyard. The entire encounter lasts just seconds.

The man the journalist spoke to inside, who has been identified by the mosque, claims he misunderstood Newman and directed her to the church next door. The man was not a member of the mosque’s management or religious leadership, and none of the Islamic centre’s committee claim to have seen Newman arrive or leave.

Watch the CCTV clip below

Although she briefly returns to the courtyard, and paces around outside the mosque on the street, she does not appear to speak to anyone else within the mosque’s property, only stopping to speak to a few passing members of the public, well outside the mosque’s confines.

“We can see [from the CCTV] that she arrived and that she came into the lobby by the shoe racks and started to take off one shoes,” Aslam Ijaz, the mosque’s chair of trustees and a founding member of Lambeth Interfaith, told HuffPost UK.

“The prayers had already started and you can see a couple people rushing past her but most people are already inside. The gentleman who you see in the video is obviously pointing in the direction of the church, which is what he thought she wanted to go to.”

Ijaz admitted there may have been a misunderstanding of the man’s stated intention in directing Newman to the church. “Maybe she misunderstood, but he is clearly trying to direct her,” he said. “You can see she turns to leave herself, she looks a little confused and then she comes back into the courtyard again, and you can see her twice coming back to outside the mosque and standing on the pavement.”

The timestamp on the video shown by the mosque to HuffPost UK appears to match Newman’s tweets on Sunday.

The footage does not show anyone attempting to guide or “usher” Newman out of the mosque or “onto the street”, as she wrote in her tweets. “I was really surprised that she would say she was ushered out of the mosque, being a journalist I was surprised she would use that description, it was misrepresented. Now there’s this impression we don’t like women. She said something that was not correct,” Ijaz said. Later, Newman can be seen speaking to two people on the street outside the mosque, one a member of the public who the mosque has not identified and who does not enter the mosque. The other is a local cafe owner who claims he came over to ask if she needed assistance, and is seen gesturing her across the road. He claims he was giving Newman directions, the Hyderi Centre is a fifteen-minute walk away, or a bus ride from a stop across from the mosque. Although the time stamp of the CCTV indicates that Newman was still to send her tweets, neither man came from inside the mosque, making it impossible for them to “usher” Newman out, as she describes. She is last seen crossing the road, away from the mosque.

Cathy Newman outside the Streatham mosque

Ijaz later apologised to Newman for her experience, fearing she had been insulted by an uncouth congregant, but said he had not viewed the CCTV footage at the time. Since the story was picked up by national press, the mosque claims has received two threatening voicemails, which it has reported to the police, and a litany of online abuse, but Ijaz said he took particular affront at the accusation the mosque was anti-women. Newman told the Guardian she believed it must have been a men-only mosque, and was not made aware of this, but Ijaz said that is not the case. “We were the first mosque in the area to have a prayer section for women, both ladies and gentleman are welcome here and it wouldn’t be unusual at all to see a woman here,” he said. “I am known for my interfaith work, whenever there is an event with churches, temples, synagogues, I am there. We have open days here at the mosque, and ladies and gentleman are both invited to attend.”

Newman, who has made it clear in subsequent tweets that she wishes to draw a line under the incident, would not expand on why she claimed she had been ‘ushered out’ of the mosque, but told HuffPost UK: “As the primary purpose of Visit My Mosque day was to increase understanding of Islam, I was horrified to hear the Mosque I visited in error has had death threats.

“I’m sorry for any misunderstanding there has been. I would be happy to pay a private visit to South London Islamic Centre once again.”

“It’s not something I would expect from a journalist from Channel 4, it doesn’t make sense,” another congregant told HuffPost UK, adding that Islam as a religion prioritised hospitality.

When queried as to why the mosque had declined to take part in Visit My Mosque Day, Ijaz said: “We were only informed about this initiative [Visit My Mosque Day] on Friday and it’s too short notice for us. There wasn’t anyone to man it. Next time we have a gathering here, I would love to have Cathy here.”

Outside the mosque, which is indeed next to a church, there is a banner inviting visitors in to receive a free Koran. The mosque’s secretary, who said he was uncomfortable giving his name, told HuffPost UK that the mosque had up to 1,000 congregants on a Friday, and several hundred at other times. He added that although there were many regulars, it would not be unusual for worshippers to see visitors they did not recognise. “We often have school visits, teachers here, it wouldn’t have been something that would have fazed anyone.”

Urdu newspaper editor in Mumbai arrested for reprinting Charlie Hebdo cartoon

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A policeman stands guard outside the French satirical weekly 'Charlie Hebdo' in Paris in this February 9, 2006 file photo.

A policeman stands guard outside the French satirical weekly ‘Charlie Hebdo’ in Paris in this February 9, 2006 file photo.

Mumbai: Police have arrested and bailed the editor of an Urdu newspaper in Mumbai for reprinting a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) from satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, police said Thursday.

Shirin Dalvi, editor of the Mumbai edition of the daily Avadhnama newspaper, was arrested by police in the town of Mumbra in Thane district.

The caricature was carried on the front page of the January 17 issue of the Urdu Daily Avadhnama published from Mumbai.

A resident of Mumbra complained to the Mumbra police after he reportedly saw the paper on the stands in Govandi. A complaint was also filed at Lower Parel police station, informed a police official.

Dalvi was booked for outraging religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion with malicious intent under Section 295 A of the Indian Penal Code. Dalvi was presented before the court that granted her bail.

“The section in the FIR registered against her is bailable, hence the court granted her bail,” informed a police official from Mumbra.

Dalvi, who later spoke to the media here, said she had made a mistake but had no intention of hurting religious sentiments.

Apart from the the Rashtriya Ulema Council activists, the Urdu Patrakar Sangh, an Urdu language journalists’ association, had also demanded the arrest of the editor and publisher.

IBN7 associate editor allegedly sacked for questioning channel's bias against AAP

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IBN7 Associate Editor, Pankaj Srivastava.

IBN7 Associate Editor, Pankaj Srivastava.

New Delhi: In a sudden, unprovoked and illegal move the management of IBN7 the Hindi News Channel owned by Network 18 has terminated the services of Associate Editor, Pankaj Srivastava on 21 January, 2015. The termination notice was abruptly served to Pankaj by Deputy General Manager, HR, Mayank Bhatnagar at 10 PM last night. The notice mentions that “services are hereby terminated with immediate effect”.

According to Srivastava, this termination was allegedly followed after a text message by Pankaj to Deputy Managing Editor Sumit Awasthi. The message stated —“ Aiysa lagata hai ki hum AAP ko harwaney mein jute hain yeh theek nahi hai, logo ka kehna hai ki Satish Uppdhyay ke bhai Umesh hamarey editor hain isliye aisa hai..ye patrakaron ke usoolon ke khilaaf hai, Pankaj Srivastava” (It seems that we have joined campaign to defeat AAP, this is unfair. Many people believe that this is happening because Umesh our Editor is brother of Satish Upadhyay. This goes against journalistic principles, Pankaj Srivastava). This mobile text message was sent by Pankaj at 8:48 from his official mobile number.

Srivastava claims, that the channel was biased against AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal and was only focusing on highlighting BJP’s chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi.

According to a press release uploaded by him, he states that, “He has on number of occasions approached editors and tried to persuade that the practice of complete black out of Aam Admi Party is unethical and goes against established norms of journalistic propriety. Majority of journalists working with IBN 7 and CNN-IBN are not comfortable with internal censorship on many issues – particularly relating to Aam Admi Party and its convenor Arvind Kejriwal who is also Chief Ministerial candidate of the party. These issues were raised number of times during editorial meetings.”

A series of programmes like “Kiran Ka Karsihma” to highlight the BJP’s CM Candidate are being telecast in the channel are debated and criticised internally.

Srivastava is all set take the issue a step ahead. He is taking legal advice and within due course of time, he will challenge “his unfair and uncalled termination in the court of law.”

Pankaj Srivastava his began his journalistic career in 1997 with with Amar Ujala in Kanpur. After a brief stint with Samay channel, he joined IBN7 on March 10, 2008.

His sacking reflects the insight of electronic media which has been under-fire from many quarters particularly non-BJP groupings for bias and one-sided coverage.

Senior journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta has aptly described predicament of journalists in present time as he says, “It is not easy to be a journalist in India because you realise that it is not often easy to offer alternative narratives to challenge the orthodoxy and to raise questions”.

Freedom of speech: Long-time presenter Jim Clancy leaves CNN after ‘anti-Israel’ Twitter rant

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Jim Clancy

by RT

Veteran US TV journalist Jim Clancy has abruptly left the international news broadcaster after 34 years, following a seemingly tangential Twitter argument over Charlie Hebdo that escalated to a verbal war between Clancy and pro-Israel social media users.

“Jim Clancy is no longer with CNN. We thank him for more than three decades of distinguished service, and wish him nothing but the best,” said a terse statement from the Atlanta-headquartered network, which had sent Clancy as a reporter to Beirut, London, and Berlin before making him a senior anchor and contributor.

Although neither Clancy nor CNN revealed the reasons for the departure, almost all media outlets connected it with a somewhat incoherent Twitter spat that began in the wake of the fatal attacks on Charlie Hebdo, the satirical French magazine.

“The cartoons NEVER mocked the Prophet. They mocked how the COWARDS tried to distort his word. Pay attention,” tweeted Clancy on January 7 – from an account that has since been deleted – referring to the magazine’s editorial output.

The ironically-named anonymous pro-Israeli blogger Elder of Ziyon, and Oren Kessler, a Jewish-American Middle East analyst, both piped in with comments contradicting Clancy, saying that there had been explicitly anti-religious cartoons, and reminding the journalist that the magazine had been previously targeted by Islamists.

The debate then took an odd turn, with Clancy tweeting “Hasbara” – the name for Israel’s policy of spreading its message through mass media.

“This is great, a pro-Israel voice try [sic] to convince us that cartoonists were really anti-Muslim, and that’s why they were attacked. FALSE. These accounts are part of a campaign to do PR for Israel(including “Jews Making News”) but not HR (Human Rights.),” read one tweet.

Despite being met with incomprehension, Clancy then mysteriously tweeted “It’s called satire” before launching into a series of general anti-Israeli comments.

Several included mentions of Israeli officials being tried at the International Criminal Court, as well as Israeli settlements – a subject Clancy has covered extensively.

Perhaps the most offensive and telling tweet read “It’s my Friday night” – this was actually a Wednesday – and said “the Hasbara team need to pick on some cripple on the edge of the herd.”

The seemingly unprovoked outpouring sparked the ire of the Ruderman Family Foundation, a Jewish disabled people’s foundation.

Its head, Jay Ruderman, wrote an open letter to CNN, calling Clancy’s remarks “appalling” and asking why “in this day and age a senior anchor at CNN, a world leader in the media, would use a word such as ‘cripple,’ which is a derogatory term for people with disabilities.”

More and more media outlets picked up on the story, and Clancy first deleted several of the more inflammatory posts, and then eventually his account. However, screenshots of the tweets had been saved by Gawker and several other outlets.

By Friday, Clancy’s biography had been taken off the CNN website, and the journalist wrote a goodbye letter, saying “CNN has been a family to my own family,” and thanking it for providing “great adventures and achievements.”

17 Journalists Killed in Media’s Deadliest Year in Palestine by Israel

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media-death

by Al-Akhbar

2014 was the deadliest ever for journalists working in the Palestinian territories, a Gaza-based watchdog said on Thursday, months after a bloody war in the besieged enclave claimed the lives of more than 2,310 Gazans.

Meanwhile, a UN senior official on Thursday called on Israel to “immediately” unlock millions of dollars in taxes owed to the Palestinian Authority (PA) that were withheld after it decided to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the late December.

“2014 was a black year for freedom of the press in Palestine… and it was the worst and bloodiest,” the Gaza Center for Press Freedom said in its annual report.

The report accused Israel of committing 295 separate “violations of press freedom” across the occupied Palestinian territories.

These resulted in the deaths of 17 journalists during the deadly war in July and August, including that of an Italian photographer working for Associated Press.

The report revealed Israel arrested or detained an unspecified number of journalists, denied freedom of movement to local media workers wanting to leave the blockaded Gaza Strip, and partially or completely destroyed 19 buildings housing editorial operations during its bombardment of the territory during the conflict.

According to the Gaza Center for Press Freedom, the PA also committed 82 violations of press freedom, including arresting or summoning 28 journalists, and injuring or assaulting 26 more.

For 51 days this summer, Israel pounded the Gaza Strip — by air, land and sea — with the stated aim of ending rocket fire from the coastal enclave.

According to estimates based on preliminary information, as many as 96,000 Palestinian homes were damaged or destroyed during the days of hostilities, a higher figure than was previously thought.

Withheld tax revenues

On Thursday, UN Assistant Secretary-General Jens Anders Toyberg-Frandzen called on Israel to resume the transfer of $127 million tax revenues that were withheld after the PA decided to join the ICC.

He told the Security Council that the freeze of tax funds imposed on January 3 was in violation of the Oslo agreements between Israel and the PA.

The council’s monthly meeting on the Middle East was the first on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the failure of a Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations Security Council in December.

On Thursday’s meeting, chief Palestinian delegate Riyad Mansour called the withholding of Palestinian tax revenues a “blatant act of reprisal and theft of Palestinian funds” and condemned Israel’s “rabid settlement colonization.”

The Israeli side has also condemned Palestinian moves, with Ambassador Ron Prosor accusing Palestinians of “running away from negotiations” and obstructing the peace process.

The United States and the European Union have criticized Israel’s retaliatory move in response to the Palestinian application to join the ICC, which could investigate war crimes complaints against Israel.

Israel-Sweden encounter

Meanwhile, Israel said on Thursday that Sweden’s foreign minister was not welcome for an official visit in the country, with relations strained over Stockholm’s recognition of Palestine.

The minister, Margot Wallstroem, last week postponed a trip to Israel indefinitely, with Israeli media reports suggesting that Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman did not want to meet her.

Sweden’s decision in October to recognize the state of Palestine — the first major EU nation to do so — infuriated Israel, which temporarily recalled its ambassador to Stockholm.

“Do not wait to travel to Israel until the Swedish foreign minister comes here, because that could take a long time,” Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon told public broadcaster Swedish Radio.

“The Swedish foreign minister would not have been given any official meetings in Israel if she had traveled here. What Sweden did was an utterly unfriendly action,” Nahshon added.

Wallstroem considered making the trip without official meetings but would have been without a security detail during the commemoration of Swedish Holocaust hero Raoul Wallenberg and other events, the radio said, without giving sources.

“It is basically an insult,” Per Joensson, an editor with the Swedish Institute for International Affairs, told AFP.

“That is not a way to treat a sovereign foreign minister, unless you really want to punish her.”

Despite the furore, Sweden said Wallstroem would visit Israel after its March 17 legislative elections.

(AFP, Reuters, Al-Akhbar)

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