Turkey’s EU Hopes Could Free Media

February 3, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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Newspapers on sale in Istanbul. But the freedom of Turkish journalists is seriously threatened. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS.

Jillian Kestler-DAmours

ISTANBUL, Feb 01 (IPS) – As negotiations in Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union remain stalled, many worry that the Turkish government has little incentive to curb its ongoing crackdown on media freedoms and freedom of expression.“Reviving Turkey’s accession process to the EU is crucially relevant to press freedom in the country for the simple reason that the process provides the government with a fundamental incentive to make progress,” wrote former European ambassador to Turkey Marc Pierini in a policy paper for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“The EU needs a prosperous, stable and democratic Turkey irrespective of whether it is a member, a strategic ally, or a neighbour. More importantly, it needs a Turkey that is at peace with itself and manages coexistence and tolerance between various strands of its society,” Pierini wrote.

In recent years, local and international human rights groups have condemned the Turkish government under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), for placing severe restrictions on media freedoms, and, in particular, for jailing large numbers of journalists.

According to a report from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) titled Turkey’s Press Freedom Crisis, Turkey imprisoned the largest number of journalists in the world in 2012, ahead of Iran, Eritrea and China.

In August alone, 76 Turkish reporters were in imprisoned; 70 percent of these were Kurdish citizens of the state. Many journalists were charged for their coverage of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which Turkey deems a terrorist group.

“Authorities have imprisoned journalists on a mass scale on terrorism or anti-state charges, launched thousands of other criminal prosecutions on charges such as denigrating Turkishness or influencing court proceedings, and used pressure tactics to sow self-censorship,” CPJ stated.

In response, Turkish Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin called the allegations included in the CPJ report “exaggerated” and stated that criticism of press freedom in Turkey was being used as a political tool against the government.

“We, as the Government, would not want any single person, whether a journalist or not, to be victimised because of their thoughts or expressions,” Ergin wrote. “Turkey is making an effort to strike the right balance between preventing the praising of violence and terrorist propaganda, and the need to expand freedom of speech.”

Still, many have pointed to Turkey’s flawed penal code as a major factor in suppressing freedom of the press. The country’s vague anti-terror legislation – writing an article can lead journalists to be accused of belonging to, or aiding, a terrorist group, for example – has been especially condemned.

According to Hugh Pope, a researcher on Turkey at the International Crisis Group (ICG), the upcoming fourth judicial reform package which the Turkish government is expected to unveil shortly must address this problematic definition of terrorism.

“The definition of terrorism is completely out of sync with the European norm and it has to change,” Pope told IPS. “It’s absolutely essential to adjust the definition of terrorism to something that is more rational and thereby allow the release of several thousand people currently in jail on terrorist charges that wouldn’t be considered to be terrorists anywhere else in Europe.”

Turkey was declared eligible to join the European Union in 1997, and accession negotiations began in 2005. The process has been stalled since 2006, however, largely due to Turkey’s conflict with Cyprus over Turkish control of half the island territory.

“It doesn’t help that in Europe, Turkey is perceived as a gagger of the press, but I think that’s not the main problem. The main problem is the major European reservations about Turkey,” Pope added. “But if Turkey had a more defensible media scene, that would make Turkey seem more European.”

Last year, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) launched a solidarity campaign for imprisoned Turkish journalists, called “Set Turkish Journalists Free”. EFJ representatives also attended court hearings in Turkey in solidarity with the jailed reporters.

“It is very important (for Turkish journalists) to feel that they are not isolated, (that) they are not alone. The visits to the court hearings have shown enormous support,” EFJ director Renate Schroeder told IPS.

“All journalists know what it is to want to write the truth even though we all know how difficult it is. Just to be critical, that’s why you are a journalist. There is a real bond and solidarity,” Schroeder said.

In its last progress report on Turkey’s EU accession aspirations released in October, the European Commission said while space exists for debating sensitive issues, and opposition views are expressed in Turkey, the state’s reforms on freedom of expression fall short.

It stated that the arrests and imprisonment of journalists, the application of the state’s anti-terror legislation, and high-ranking government and army officials who have launched cases against journalists are the most pressing problems.

“All of this, combined with a high concentration of the media in industrial conglomerates with interests going far beyond the free circulation of information and ideas, has a chilling effect and limits freedom of expression in practice, while making self-censorship a common phenomenon in the Turkish media,” the Commission found.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Diplomacy, Media, Middle East, Report Tagged With: ,

Banned Kazakh Opposition Press Vows to Continue Online

December 28, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Christopher Pala

WASHINGTON, Dic 27 (IPS) – Kazakhstan, an oil-rich ex-Soviet nation in Central Asia best known for voluntarily forsaking the world’s fourth-largest nuclear arsenal, is carrying out an unprecedented media crackdown that will leave it virtually without any opposition newspapers for the first time in its 21-year history as an independent nation.

Last week, agents of the KNB secret police swarmed the offices of Respublika, a weekly with a strong focus on economic analysis and investigative reporting on corruption that was founded in 2000, when the country’s economic boom began. They confiscated much of the equipment and closed the office.

A court found the paper guilty of “extremism” and banned its dissemination, even online, its managing editor, Tatyana Trubacheva, told IPS in a Skype interview Wednesday.

The paper has a Facebook page and it is unclear how the government could close that, she added.

“Some of our reporters have been publishing stories in Azzat,” a long-dormant title resuscitated as a weekly for the occasion, she said. “We don’t know how long that will last.”

Ultimately, she said, Respublika, which had survived multiple attacks from government institutions, will publish only on its web site, which the government has blocked since 2009.

“We’ve been educating our readers on how to use proxy servers to get to our site,” she said. “It works quite well.”

On the same day last week, other security agents closed the offices of Stan.kz, a video news company that posts its reports on Youtube and sells them to K-Plus, a satellite television station based in London that focuses on news about Kazakhstan and whose broadcasts are officially banned in Kazakhstan, though they are widely watched on Youtube. Stan.kz and Respublika were ordered dissolved as companies.

The video reporting teams work partly from home, in Internet cafes or in the offices of a related production company, said Elina Zhdanova, Stan.kz’s director. The ban, she said, will not deter them from conducting interviews and reporting independently on the news, even if they can’t get paid.

“The government thinks we only write about corruption because we’re paid to do it, they think that if we can’t pay our staff, they will stop,” she said in another Skype interview. “But of course, we do it because we care.”

The crackdown came shortly after both Respublika and Stan.kz devoted considerable resources to the first anniversary on Dec. 16 of an explosion of violence in the impoverished western town of Zanaozen, when police fired at unarmed demonstrators.

Both accused the government of covering up the true number of casualties and ignoring evidence of agents provocateurs, as did several human rights organisations.

Yevgeniy Zhovtis, the dean of human rights activists in Kazakhstan, attributes the crackdown to a gradual weakening of the system of personal guarantees instituted by the long-time president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who is 72.

“We’re in a period of uncertainty and lack of confidence, no one feels safe any more” as different business groups manipulate the government and the courts in unpredictable ways, he said.

“The big question is, will Nazarbayev be replaced by another strongman, or will the elite produce a system of institutional guarantees like in a Western democracy, which is what the opposition has been calling for all along,” he said.

Trubacheva, of Respublika, said the crackdown might be related to the succession in another way. Nazarbayev, who single-handedly built Kazakhstan into a relatively well-managed, vibrant economy, remains broadly popular despite wide discontent over the growing corruption that puts Kazakhstan in 133rd place out of 174 countries polled in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index.

“The next president is probably going to be less popular, especially if he’s not elected democratically,” Trubacheva said. “They may not want to allow open criticism of that process.”

Respublika, Stan.kz, K-Plus and Vzglyad, another opposition weekly banned earlier, have one thing in common: all are widely believed to be financed by Mukhtar Ablyazov, a former energy minister turned fugitive banker who has become Nazarbayev’s bête noire.

Ablyazov built up Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank, spent a year in jail for co-founding a technocratic opposition party, re-took the reins of BTA and grew it to become Kazakhstan’s biggest in assets before it defaulted in 2009 and was taken over by the government.

He fled to London, claiming the government gutted the bank for political reasons, while the government sued him over claims he stole five billion dollars from BTA before fleeing. Last month, the London court ordered him to pay 1.6 billion dollars to the bank.

Ablyazov has been in hiding, reportedly in France, since February and regularly gives interviews blasting Nazarbayev’s rule. Zhdanova and Trubacheva both deny they receive any funding from him.

“Things have suddenly become very harsh and nobody knows exactly why,” says former journalist and media analyst Yevgeniya Plakhina. “We’ve become like Turkmenistan,” whose founding leader, Sapparmurat Niyazov, built a personality cult second only to North Korea’s before dying of natural causes six years ago.

“They’ve even appropriated a slogan from Nazi Germany,” she said, referring to Kazakhstan’s new motto, “One Fatherland! One Destiny! One Leader!”, which brings to mind Hitler’s “One People, One Nation, One Leader!”

But, she added, “People here are more educated, so I don’t think closing all the opposition media is going to have any effect except to radicalise more people, especially Muslims. The corruption is stifling, it’s getting worse and worse, and people have no way to get the government to work for them.”

The reaction from the West has been muted because the United States and the other NATO countries have been using Kazakhstani roads to get war equipment out of Afghanistan, said Jeff Goldstein of the Open Society in Washington.

Also, Nazarbayev has built a reputation as a champion of denuclearisation that has muted criticism of rigged elections, assassinations of political opponents and repression of critical media.

That reputation, according to diplomats and historians, rests on the false notion that Kazakhstan had taken possession of SS-18 nuclear missiles with 1,200 warheads left behind when the Soviet Union dissolved. In fact, these were always under the control of Russian forces, which eventually withdrew them with U.S. financing. They were never Kazakhstan’s to give up.

The disappearance of the weeklies Vzglyad and Respublika means the only media independent of government censorship available to people who don’t use computers are Radio Azzatyk, a unit of America’s Radio Liberty, and the Russian service of the BBC, as well as K-Plus for those with a satellite dish.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Asia, Featured, Media, Politics Tagged With: , , ,

Media Giant Advances on Taiwan

December 3, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Dennis Engbarth

TAIPEI, Dic 02 (IPS) – Taiwan civic reform, journalist and labour organisations have mobilised against the acquisition of the large Next Media (Taiwan) group by tycoons linked with China. They say this threatens Taiwan’s news freedom and even the survival of its democratic political system.The Next Media Group owned by Hong Kong-based garment and media owner Jimmy Lai signed a contract in Macao Nov. 29 to sell four media operations of Next Media (Taiwan) for 600 million dollars to five investors, including Want Want China Times group president Tsai Shao-chung (son of controversial Want Want tycoon Tsai Eng-ming), Formosa Plastics Group chairman William Wong and Chinatrust Charity Foundation chairman Jeffrey Koo, Jr.

Taiwan media reported in mid-October that Next Media Group chairman Jimmy Lai planned to sell his Taiwan print and television outlets, namely the profitable Chinese-language Apple Daily, Sharp Daily, Next Weekly and the Next TV cable network to Koo, Wong and unnamed investors in the wake of losing substantial funds in his cable TV venture due to regulatory delays and difficulty in getting the channels onto operating systems.

However, concern over the proposed sale’s impact on Taiwan’s media pluralism, news freedom and democratic politics soared after a leading business biweekly, Wealth Magazine, reported in early November that Tsai may be behind the takeover.

Tsai, who is a major investor in Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing Asia Television, purchased the China Times, the terrestrial China Television (CTV) and CTI-TV cable television network in November 2008 and later purchased the China Systems Network, Taiwan’s largest cable TV service distributor in a deal approved by the National Communications Commission Jul. 25 this year. This was despite bitter opposition by media reform and civic organisations and ‘full court press’ assaults on critics including journalists, scholars and opposition lawmakers by Tsai`s media outlets.

Taiwan Democracy Monitor president Karl Hsu Wei-chun told IPS that the takeover by Next Media (Taiwan) by the five conglomerate tycoons who have major business stakes in the People’s Republic of China “will have a grave structural impact on Taiwan’s democracy.

“Anyone who has eyes can see that this is the method through which China is buying control over Taiwan, just as in Hong Kong in the 1990s,” said TDW’s Hsu.

Concern over the expansion of Tsai’s media empire was already manifested on Sep. 1 when nearly 10,000 journalists, students and NGO activists led by the Association of Taiwan Journalists (ATJ) participated in a ‘March Against Media Monopoly’ in Taipei City.

The imminent takeover of the Next Media (Taiwan) outlets, especially Apple Daily and Next Magazine, has reignited anxiety over freedom of expression, given the performance of Apple Daily.

Founded in 2001 by Lai after the success of Apple Daily and Next Weekly in Hong Kong, Apple Daily, known for a sensationalist and muck-raking style, has become one of top two national newspapers in Taiwan, neck and neck with the ‘Taiwan-centric’ Liberty Times. Both now have far more readership than the former market-leading conservative United Daily News or the China Times.

In the wake of Lai’s decision, student groups, including a ‘Youth Alliance Against Media Monsters’ held an overnight sit-in at the Cabinet building Nov. 27 and clashed occasionally with police. Labour unions, which had quickly organised in the four main Next Media units, held a vigil outside Next Media headquarters on the evening of Nov. 27.

The KMT government of President Ma Ying-jeou has remained largely silent, with Premier Sean Chen stating on Nov. 28 that his government “will respect the judgment” of several independent regulatory commissions on fair trade, finance and communications.

During a public hearing at the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) Nov. 29, scholars, journalists, economists and consumer rights representatives unanimously urged the FTC to veto or at least suspend approval until the national legislature enacts robust legislation to regulate media monopolisation.

ATJ President Chen Siao-yi stressed that Taiwan’s four national newspapers retain decisive “agenda setting” influence as television and radio news media and internet media get their news almost entirely from the four national dailies.

“If these tycoons gain control over 50 percent of Taiwan’s media, we will never know how much news will be lost and not published and how much of what is published is false,” Chen warned.

“Tsai Eng-meng’s WWCT Group will become a vertically and horizontally integrated hegemon if the purchase of Next Media is approved,” National Taiwan University economics department chairwoman Cheng Hsiu-ling told the FTC hearing.

Cheng estimated that Tsai would gain control of over 50 percent of the national newspaper market, 30 percent of the cable TV market and 19 percent of the wireless TV market, and warned this combination “will result in the concentration of advertising and circulation, and force the other two national newspapers out of the market.”

“We will be left with only one giant upstream source of ‘news’,” the NTU economist told IPS.

FTC Commissioner Sun Li-chun has promised that his commission would proceed with its review in a “transparent” manner.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Asia, Media, Report Tagged With: , , ,

Can Facebook Become Substitute for Live Azeri Opposition Protests?

November 21, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

EurasiaNet Correspondents

BAKU, Nov 19 (EurasiaNet) – They’ve battled police in the streets and they’ve challenged authority the courts. Now, faced with staggering increases in fines for unauthorised demonstrations, Azerbaijani opposition activists are turning to Facebook to get their messages out.A Nov. 10 amendment to the Law on Freedom of Assembly hiked penalties for participation in unsanctioned protests nearly 80-fold from a mere seven to 13 manats (nine to sixteen dollars) to a hefty 500 to 1,000 manats (637-1,275 dollars).

Those charged with organising such protests would incur far larger fines: depending on the extent of the individual’s alleged role, the punishment would range from 1,500 to 30,000 manats (1,900 to 38,265 dollars). The average monthly salary in Azerbaijan is currently about 388 manats (494 dollars). The penalties for organisers represent up to a six-fold increase over earlier fines.

Opposition activists predict that the changes will have a chilling effect on civic debate, and may well curb unsanctioned street protests. The new fine framework will go into effect on Jan. 1.

Officials explain that the changes are designed to ensure public order. Critics, pointing to the fast-approaching presidential election in February, note that authorities have an added incentive in the coming months to keep a lid on public displays of discontent.

“Most of our supporters are young university students, who cannot afford to pay that penalty,” said Tural Abbasli, chairperson of the opposition Musavat Party’s youth organisation. Non-payment, he continued, would mean that “the court would go after their property, their houses, which will be such a headache for their families.”

Abbasli, saying he didn’t what to bear responsibility for bringing hardships down upon young activists, indicated that he would feel “very uncomfortable” about advocating street action in 2013.

Other opposition activists agree; the new fines mean greater caution in organising protests, said Hesen Kerimov, chairperson of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan’s Supreme Council.

“The majority of our supporters are unemployed because of their political views,” Kerimov claimed. Even for those who have jobs, “their financial capabilities are not at all sufficient to pay the penalty,” he added.

While the government of Baku does allow protests outside the city centre, officials make it as difficult as possible for those wishing to participate, opposition leaders say.

“(The Baku city government) creates so many obstacles, such as stopping people from walking in the direction of the site of the protest (and) creating intended obstacles for taxis,” said Kerimov, a member of the Public Union, a coalition of various opposition parties and sympathisers which routinely holds protests without city permission. “They leave no option for us.”

With all other protest possibilities seemingly cut off, social media platforms, an increasingly popular venue among Azerbaijanis for debate about political topics, are the only realistic protest option left, noted Abbasli. Official statistics report that five million Azerbaijanis – about 54.5 percent of the population – have Internet access. The Facebook-traffic-analysis site Socialbakers claims that 900,000 of them are Facebook users.

Opposition activists hope that a social media-based opposition strategy, given Internet usage numbers and Facebook’s flexibility as a means of communications, will re-invigorate the movement – essentially taking one step back in order to take two forward.

“At the first stage, those people who are observers soon become active in discussions and build trust,” commented Natig Adilov, the founder and administrator of Xilas (Salvation), one of the largest Azerbaijani Facebook discussion groups, with over 200,000 members. “At the next stage, they feel confident enough to have their protests in the streets.”

Abbasli agrees: “Those protests in cyberspace will involve more people, will expand broader and it will not stay there forever. People will move back from cyberspace to the streets. This time more aggressive, more difficult to control.”

Practically speaking, it is no sure thing that voices of dissent will become bolder online than they are on the streets. Officials already carefully monitor Azerbaijani citizens’ web activities, and individuals already have been jailed for reasons related to their online activities.

One U.S. communications researcher who tracks developments in Azerbaijan cautions that moving criticism of the government from Facebook to the streets indeed poses a challenge. As political opponents increasingly go online to mobilise, government monitoring and surveillance will increase, in turn, predicted Katy Pearce, an assistant professor of communications at the University of Washington.

“That could easily discourage online dissent,” Pearce said in an email interview with EurasiaNet.org. “Despite the fact that the Azerbaijani government does little blocking of content, because individuals fear the repercussions of expression online, people self-censor and thus there isn’t freedom of expression online for Azerbaijanis.”

Azerbaijani blogger Ravil Asadov concedes that he often wrestles with self-censorship. “I am being threatened for my blog, which is critical of the government. It does not stop me. But it is annoying,” Asadov said. “Every time I write, I think of censoring myself so that I do not have more headaches.”

At a U.N.-sponsored meeting held in Baku in early November, European leaders castigated Azerbaijani authorities for their repressive web tendencies. Baku authorities, meanwhile, insist they are tolerant of the Internet’s diversity of views.

“The principal position of the Azerbaijani government is to create all possible conditions for ensuring full Internet-freedom,” Elnur Aslanov, head of the presidential administration’s political analysis department, told 1news.az on Nov. 8.

Activists like Abbasli have strong doubts about the sincerity of the government’s statements on Internet freedom, but they add they have no other option than to press on with a web-based campaign, despite the risks.

*This story originally appeared on Eurasianet.org.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Asia, Europe, Media, Politics, Report Tagged With: , , , ,

Thinking Out Loud About the Financial Crisis and Austerity

November 19, 2012 by

By Alan Fogelquist

The reason societies like those of Eurozone the United States don’t move effectively to address the real causes of economic crisis and the unnecessarily high levels of unemployment is that members of the comfortable middle class with stable positions don’t yet feel the pain felt by the victims of bad economic policy and long standing institutionalized inequality. These problems are off the radar screen of many with upper incomes and secure positions even when a much larger share of  income is flowing to a tiny minority of individuals higher up the ladder associated with financial institutions that have the power to create money in the form of debt. The crisis is rooted in debt financed speculation, but the people paying the cost of the collapse in the value of assets and financial panic are not those with high paid positions in the large speculative financial institutions that have been rescued with public money, but common citizens whose businesses or jobs are lost in the recession or whose,  jobs, wages and salaries are cut through austerity measures.
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The Eurocratic elites are doing one thing and one thing only. They are trying to force working people in Spain, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy and elsewhere to pay off odious debt with interest and penalties to banks that were allowed to gamble in derivatives and create money in the form of debt. It’s time to cancel the debt and to introduce a new leadership in Europe or for the peoples of countries most victimized to force out governments subservient to the Eurocrat oligarchy and withdraw from the Eurozone. Until one of these things happens the people have no choice but protest.
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“But that’s not my issue’, some may say. But everything is becoming everyone’s issue in the world of 21st century conflict, financial crisis and victimization of millions. It’s a global problem both ethical and real and the issues are interrelated. That’s the reason the planet urgently requires effective multidimensional efforts to resolve pressing human and environmental problems before it becomes too late.
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Yes, this  may seem like preaching from the top a soap box, but what do you think Fox News does? What counts is what is said from the top of the soap box. Millions of soap boxes are necessary to counter false ideology spread in the mass media. We need a mass media that reflects the real interests of the majority of the people,  people who carry out real productive and useful work and receive modest wages and salaries. These are the people whose interests need to be defended. We need rational economic systems that make maximum use of the world’s productive capacity, technology, and brain power to serve human needs.

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The real issues in the world financial crisis and depression are institutional and moral, not technocratic. If the technocrats were to work diligently to solve the real issues facing humanity instead of inventing technical arguments to avoid them there would be much less suffering and much less unemployment.

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© Copyright 2012 Alan F. Fogelquist, Ph.D. All rights reserved.


Filed Under: Economic Crisis, Economic Policy, Economy, Europe, Finance, Inequality, Media, Opinion, Politics, Poverty, Social Justice Tagged With: , ,

Request for Article Contributions to Global Geopolitics & Political Economy

November 17, 2012 by

The editor is continuously trying to expand the range of sources for articles presented on the site in order to provide a better selection of informative and insightful material on the Global Geopolitics and Political Economy site. Free contributions are solicited for this non commercial information project from scholars, journalists, professionals or news media on world political, economic and social issues.

Professionals with special knowledge of the affairs of particular countries or regions or global political, economic, and social issues are invited to voluntarily submit articles for publication or republication on the Global Geopolitics & Political Economy site. The site has a substantial and growing readership and is well listed on search engines. Contributors are therefore likely to get additional exposure to their work.

Articles oriented towards the general public interest, global peace and cooperation, sustainable development and equitable distribution of income and resources, elimination of poverty, and promotion of general human well being rather than individual profit are preferred. Also welcome would be articles on how to combine concerns for security with those of human rights, humanitarian law, and humane ethical conduct.

Articles should be well edited, proof-read, and related to the general subject matter that appears on the site. The site is a non commercial public information resource and all articles by outside authors should be offered free of charge. The copyright to any such articles will be listed in the name of its author and the author will be free to publish it elsewhere.

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Filed Under: Development, Economy, Environment, Geopolitics, Human Rights, Media, Noteworthy, Politics

Half-truths Prevail in the Middle East

November 17, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Julio Godoy

IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

BERLIN (IDN) – Late last August, during the conference of the non-aligned countries in Tehran, the Iranian press quoted the Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi saying that the government of Bahrain, given its dismal human rights record, had lost whatever legitimacy it had. Nothing surprising in this quote: The regime of Bahrain has indeed a dismal human rights record, it latest performance being to strip opposition leaders of the Bahraini nationality, after harassing them for many months.

A couple of days later, however, Morsi reacted with indignation to the quote: He had actually denounced the Syrian government, he complained, and accused the Iranian press of intentionally manipulating his statements. Syria, as is well known, is since more than 18 months fighting a most brutal civil war, and, as is also well known, can easily compete with Bahrain on human rights violations.

But, if Bahrain and Syrian are similar regimes behaving criminally against their own people, and there cannot be doubts about it, why did Morsi feel outraged by the “misquotation” in the Iranian press? Why did he emphasise that the Syrian regime of Bashar Hafez al-Assad has lost all legitimacy, but felt offended that somebody might have thought that he had said the same of the Bahraini despot Hamad bin Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa?

Most likely, Morsi cannot answer such questions. But he is not alone in such a situation.

Turkey

Take Turkey: A couple of weeks ago, the government in Ankara, a key member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), launched a judicial process against 44 journalists, accusing them of being accomplices of terrorism. That very same government has incarcerated 34 democratic elected Kurdish mayors, for the crime of upholding their Kurdish identity.

Just to remind you: the Kurdish population living in Turkish territory encompasses as much as 14 million people, and makes out as much as 20 percent of the population of the country. Still, Turkey, that pea-cockish NATO ally, considers those people non-existent. It has been pressing them publicly to commit themselves to being Turks – second class Turks, mind you. That’s why the government in Ankara is considering cancelling the immunity of another 15 elected parliamentarians who represent the above mentioned ethnic group. The Kurdish congress leader Lelya Zana has suffered numerous years of prison, and is banned from all political activity.

But Turkey, this country which mishandles in such a way its own citizens, is one of the leading forces supporting the Syrian armed opposition to Bashar Hafez al-Assad, along with other flawless and exemplary regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, allegedly to bring democracy to Damascus.

And what about the Western democracies? Leaders in Washington and London portentously take pride in meeting the long-time incarcerated leader of the Burmese opposition Aung San Suu Kyi. Only a few days ago, they even forced the anti al-Assad rebels to form a united coalition – against the declared will of some of these rebels. But our Western leaders wouldn’t move a finger for Zana, and never bothered to support her while she faced the harassments perpetrated by all kinds of Turkish authorities.

Why is it that the Western democracies express their abhorrence of Assad, but ignore the crimes committed against the Kurds by successive Turkish governments for more than 30 years? Why is it that the Western democracies readily forge alliances with Qatar and Saudi Arabia against Syria, but ignore the bloody intervention of precisely these two regimes to suppress the popular rebellion in Bahrain without ever batting an eyelid?

Could it be that nobody is actually interested in democracy and human rights in Syria, but that the war is being waged to attain other objectives, and whatever happens with the domestic Syrian political mores would be a by-product, welcome or otherwise?

Qatar and Saudi Arabia

Qatar, for instance, supports radical Muslim groups in Mali and Libya, and helped the regime in Bahrain to brutally suppress the popular insurrection one year ago. The Bahrain government has for years been accused of committing systematic violations of human rights, from torture to summary executions of opposition leaders. As the Human Rights Watch put it, Bahrain’s record in such matters is “dismal”.

Here an example of the atmosphere reigning in Bahrain: On September 23, the Bahraini newspaper Al Watan, widely believed to be controlled by the local government, published an article headlined “List of participants defaming Bahrain in Geneva”, including names, photographs and other details of Bahraini civil society activists who had travelled to the Human Rights Council session in Geneva. The newspaper quoted members of the Bahraini Shura Council, the upper house and main legislative body, saying that “whoever tarnishes the image of the country is a traitor who does not deserve [the Bahraini] nationality” and appealed for such persons to be held responsible for defaming the country.

And yet, other than the regular lip services to democracy, no Western government has ever really done anything to put an end to such persecution; when in 2011 Saudi Arabia and Qatar sent their troops to suppress the Bahraini uprising, leaders in Washington, London, Paris, and Berlin were looking the other way.

In most cases, they even supported the criminals in Cairo and Carthage, as long as they behaved as puppets of the West. Exemplary therefore is the German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle, who recently said, his “sense of justice” demanded that the Syrian dictator Assad be brought before the International Court of Justice. It is the same Westerwelle, whose “sense of justice” in 2010 was not as developed as nowadays, and at the time praised the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak as a “man of enormous experience and wisdom,” and who would only be motivated to secure “the future of his country.”

In a nutshell: The international involvement in the Syrian civil war aims less to transform the country into a democracy, and rather constitutes an ‘ersatz war’, one being fought on the Syrian soil and shedding Syrian blood, but aimed at weakening the regional position of Iran. The Syrian regime is controlled by Alawites, a branch of Shia Islam, and is as such a close ally of the Shia-led regime of Iran. Together, they build an unofficial coalition against the Sunnite front, led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In Bahrain, the government is Sunni, but the majority of the population is Shia.

Israel

By the same token, no Western leader has shown the least indignation before all the crimes committed by Israel in Gaza. Instead, the same statements come again and again, about Israel’s right to self-defence – and by so doing, cement and aggravate an illegal status quo. The champions of human rights would recognise only in their ‘pious’ speeches that the Palestinians, suffering under a most brutal occupation for 50 years, enjoy the very same rights. Surely, those words will find a rapid end, if in the newest edition of the Gaza war, Qatar and Egypt and Saudi Arabia materially support the Palestinians against Israel. [IDN-InDepthNews – November 16, 2012]

Copyright © 2012 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


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Manufacturing Works: New Post-Election Analysis Finds Manufacturing, China, and Outsourcing Dominated 2012 Political TV Advertising

November 13, 2012 by

Nearly 1 Million Ad Occurrences Focused on Jobs, Trade, and Outsourcing

Alliance for American Manufacturing

November 13, 2012—More than 975,000 mentions were made in presidential TV advertising about the key issues of jobs, outsourcing, and trade generally or involving China specifically, and Gov. Romney’s involvement with Bain Capital, according to a new report released today by Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG) conducted for the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM).

The new report analyzed the broadcast TV advertising airtime devoted to the presidential race as well as key Senate races in four industrial states: Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The analysis was based on advertising tracked in all 210 U.S. media markets as well as on 11 national broadcast networks and more than 80 national cable networks.

“America’s airwaves were jammed with 30- and 60-second ads about persistent joblessness, the government bailout of the automakers, and the impact of outsourcing and trade—specifically, trade with China—on domestic employment,” said Elizabeth Wilner, vice president of Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group. “Even in today’s service-and-dotcom economy, one of the most popular images in 2012 political advertising was the American factory. Whether depicted as desolate through chained gates or shot from a brightly lit, busy floor, the factory starred in an air war dominated by debate over the American economy.”

According to AAM Executive Director Scott Paul, “Both the Democratic and Republican candidates spent a stunning amount of money on television advertising to convince voters that they could best represent the interests of America’s manufacturers and their workers. Obviously they latched on to the right issues because jobs and outsourcing are absolute, top-of-mind issues. Across the partisan spectrum, these issues move voters.”

This summer, bipartisan pollsters Mark Mellman and Whit Ayres conducted a national poll for AAM that found voters greatly concerned about outsourcing, with 62 percent of voters saying Washington needs to get tougher when China violates trade agreements. And fully 83 percent of voters express an unfavorable view of companies that outsource jobs to China.

China dominated the trade debate overall. In all five of the races examined by CMAG, the majority of trade-centered TV advertising put the spotlight on China. In the Wisconsin and Indiana Senate races, China was the focus of all the TV advertising about trade. In the Pennsylvania Senate race, it was the focus of all Republican advertising about trade. In the Ohio Senate race, the vast majority of trade-related advertising focused on China—and all of it was aired by Democratic advertisers.

“China has become a pivotal issue,” said Paul. “The only question now, after all the hundreds of millions that have been spent, is whether the winning candidates will follow through on their promises. Voters will be watching for action.”

Added Paul, “The auto rescue may have been unpopular when it was initiated in 2009, but it was a key to the President’s victory in Ohio in 2012. Persuading voters that you stand for American manufacturing is going to be a litmus test for any serious national candidate moving forward.”

Some key findings from the study:

o Republicans outspent and out-aired Democrats on jobs. In all five races, Republicans spent more money and had higher spot count rates than Democrats on advertising that mentioned “jobs.”

o Democrats’ ads about jobs focused on businesses that sent jobs overseas and laid off workers, which explains why the two sides’ spending and spot-count levels on jobs were closer to parity in the Presidential contest but much further apart in the Senate races. While Bain Capital’s business practices were a major theme of advertising in the race for the White House, the issue was exclusive to that race.

o Despite being outspent and out-aired, Democrats’ messaging on jobs proved more effective.

o Republican mentions of “jobs” tended to increase, and Democratic mentions tended to decrease, around the release time of the monthly jobs reports.

o “Jobs” was the most-mentioned issue in 2012 advertising by far, not just in the five races but in federal races overall.

o In the four Senate races in particular, Republicans outspent and out-aired Democrats on jobs mentions by anywhere from 2:1 to 4:1. The Democrats used their ads about outsourcing and firing workers to distance the Republican candidates from the voting blocs they needed to win, often punctuating them with taglines such as, “He’s not for us anymore,” and “If [he] wins, the middle class loses.”

o Looking more closely at the presidential race, Democrats spent $57 million in TV advertising attacking Gov. Romney’s former firm, Bain Capital, for its alleged practices of shipping jobs overseas or eliminating them altogether. The Obama campaign also devoted substantial advertising to the outsourcing angle, including an ad suggesting that, under Romney’s leadership, Bain laid off workers and destroyed livelihoods.

o While the anti-Bain ads received enormous media attention, more money—$68 million—actually was spent to advertise about trade. The two sides spent roughly the same amount on ads mentioning trade, about $34 million, but all the Republican spending went toward ads specifically mentioning China trade. The Romney campaign in particular used ads to accuse the President of not being tough enough on China trade and currency manipulation.

o The Ohio market in general and Cleveland in particular were dominant for both presidential ad spending and occurrences on all these issues. Across all markets seeing presidential advertising, Cleveland ranked second-highest for both spending and spot mentions of jobs: $37 million and 33,877, respectively. For anti-Bain mentions, it ranked second-highest for spending and highest for spots: $4.8 million and 5,676. On trade, it ranked second-highest for spending and highest for spots: $5.8 million and 5,138. And on China trade, it ranked highest for both spending and spots: $4.6 million and 4,722.

READ THE FULL REPORT: Post-election analysis by Kantar Media/CMAG.

DOWNLOAD: Kantar Media/CMAG’s full summary of election ads and costs.

VIEW A CHART: Spot count trend of TV ads mentioning "jobs" in the election.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing is a non-profit, non-partisan partnership formed in 2007 by some of America’s leading manufacturers and the United Steelworkers to explore common solutions to challenging public policy topics such as job creation, infrastructure investment, international trade, and global competitiveness. For more information, please visit www.americanmanufacturing.org. 


Filed Under: Announcements, Economy, Elections, Media, Trade Tagged With: , ,

Veil Falls Over Egyptian Media

August 25, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Cam McGrath

CAIRO, Aug 25 (IPS) – The former regime of Hosni Mubarak tightly controlled the press and intimidated journalists who dared to criticise it. Now it appears the Muslim Brotherhood has adopted similar tactics to stifle dissent.Commentators have accused the once-banned Islamic movement, whose leaders have risen to control Egypt’s parliament, presidency and many state institutions, of using its new political muscle to dictate media policy and appointments. In recent weeks, the group has extended its influence over the state press while allegedly attempting to silence journalists who hold critical views against it.

“We’re seeing an escalation (in pressure) by those affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood against freedom of expression in Egypt,” says Sherif Etman, spokesman for the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR). “They’re using some of the same techniques to repress the media as Mubarak.”

Mubarak’s authoritarian regime used draconian press laws and a complicit state media apparatus to vilify Islamist groups and other political opponents. Although the dictator was toppled during an uprising last year, Muslim Brotherhood leaders have accused public media institutions of perpetuating old biases. They also warn of a negative media campaign to undermine the country’s newly-elected Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, who was a senior member of the Brotherhood’s political wing before taking office.

Earlier this month, Morsi revealed that his cabinet would include an information ministry, a tool successive Egyptian regimes used to set the editorial line of state television channels. His selection of Salah Abdel Maqsoud, a Brotherhood member, as minister fuelled suspicions that the group was seeking to exert influence over public broadcasters.

Critics also accuse the Muslim Brotherhood of using the group’s dominance in the Shura Council, the upper house of parliament, to tighten its grip over the state press. In June, the Council formed a 14-member committee headed by a Brotherhood MP to select new chief editors for 45 state-run publications.

Several journalists resigned in protest against what they described as a flagrant attempt by the committee’s Islamist members to manipulate the selection process and force through their own candidates. They complained that many of the appointed editors did not meet the established criteria and were chosen for their predisposition to serve the new Islamist-led government, rather than their professional calibre.

Media activists claim the new chief editors moved swiftly to impose an editorial line that ensures favourable coverage of the new president and the Muslim Brotherhood.

“If you compare the last issue (of each publication) produced under the old editor with the first issue of the new one… it’s obvious that they wanted to prove their loyalty,” Abeer Saady, deputy head of the Journalists’ Syndicate told IPS.

Within hours of taking office, the new chief editor of the flagship state newspaper Al-Ahram cancelled a page that tracked how the president was faring in fulfilling the promises of his first 100 days in office. No reason was given.

Mohamed Hassan El-Banna, the new chief editor of state-run daily Al-Akhbar, summarily axed an opinion page known for its criticism of the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Banna denied any attempt to mute opposition to the group, claiming the decision was solely due to space considerations.

Several columnists at the paper have complained of censorship. One literary critic said editors asked her to tone down an article in which she criticised the Brotherhood for attempting to dominate the state and its apparatuses. El-Banna reportedly said he was willing to accept the critique, but the article was pulled after the writer refused to change the offending phrase, “journalism has worn a veil.”

Aside from accusations that the Muslim Brotherhood is attempting top-down control of state media, the organisation has also come under fire for allegedly orchestrating a crackdown on media outlets critical of the group and its interests. In recent weeks, Morsi’s government has taken steps to suppress critical news coverage and prosecute opposition journalists using Mubarak-era laws.

On Aug. 11, authorities confiscated copies of Al-Dustour newspaper and sent its editor – an outspoken critic of the Muslim Brotherhood – to criminal court on charges of insulting the president and fuelling sectarian strife. Days earlier, the privately-owned television station Al-Faraeen was taken off the air on charges that Tawfik Okasha, its owner and leading presenter, had attempted to incite viewers to assassinate the president.

Media activists have described Al-Dustour’s editorials as spiteful and inflammatory, while Okasha is a former Mubarak loyalist infamous for his conspiracy theories and venomous rants. Yet despite the unflattering descriptions, the activists condemn the way authorities acted to silence them.

“It’s not that we’re for or against the Al-Faraeen channel, what worries us is that it was shut down by an administrative decree rather than a court ruling,” says Saady. “Even Mubarak didn’t do that – or at least not till the end of his 30-year rule. If (Morsi’s government) starts like this then how will they end?”

The Muslim Brotherhood has repeatedly denied any intention to censor or suppress critical opinion. Leaders say the group respects freedom of expression, but lines must be drawn when journalists irresponsibly defame the president, call for violence, or stir sectarian tensions.

Information minister Abdel Maqsoud would seem to agree. When questioned about the confiscation of Al-Dustour and closing of Al-Faraeen, he regretted that freedom of expression must have limits.

“There is a clear difference between freedom on the one hand and libel, slander, character-assassination and incitement to murder, on the other,” he said.

Last month, Morsi’s spokesman said the president was pursuing legal action against two unnamed news organisations accused of impugning his character by publicising “false news.” The Muslim Brotherhood has also filed its own lawsuits against various media organisations.

But a spokesman for the group emphasised that the majority of legal cases are initiated by citizens unaffiliated with the Brotherhood who are “upset about the disgusting insults” that some media outlets have been spreading.

Activists accuse the group of tacitly encouraging its followers to file lawsuits, and to harass and intimidate its detractors.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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Assange’s Limbo in Ecuador’s UK Embassy Likely to Drag On

August 18, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Coralie Tripier

NEW YORK, Aug 17 2012 (IPS) – Two months after he sought refuge in Ecuador’s London embassy, WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange was formally granted asylum by Quito on Thursday.

But with Sweden and the United States pursuing him for potential criminal charges, Assange is unlikely to make his way out of the U.K., which has threatened to break in to the embassy to arrest him.

Assange has been avoiding extradition to Sweden for months, where he is to be questioned over sex assault claims, a mere “attempt to get (him) into a jurisdiction which will then make it easier to extradite (him) to the U.S.,” he told the Sun in December.

The Ecuadorean government said that the decision was taken after the UK, Sweden and the U.S. refused to guarantee that once extradited to Sweden, Assange would not be sent to Washington to face additional charges.

The three countries “would not provide any guarantees that he would not be sent to the U.S. to be tried for political crimes,” Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) told IPS.

“So (Ecuador) had no choice under international law but to grant him asylum,” Weisbrot said.

“We believe (Assange’s) fears are legitimate and that he could face political persecution if the measures are not taken,” Ricardo Patino, Ecuador’s minister of foreign affairs, said Thursday at a press conference in Quito.

The famous hacker, once called a “hi-tech terrorist” by the Barack Obama administration, fears that he would then face other charges for having leaked top-secret information, including 400,000 documents about the Iraq war and U.S. torture of detainees.

He has thus far found refuge in the premises of the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he has been sleeping on an air mattress since June. If he sets foot outside of the building, he will be arrested by the British police, sent to Sweden, and possibly the United States.

Thursday, applause from many of Assange’s supporters could be heard outside of the embassy as news came that Ecuador had granted diplomatic asylum to their Australian refugee.

“I am grateful to the Ecuadorean people, President Rafael Correa and his government. It was not Britain or my home country, Australia, that stood up to protect me from persecution, but a courageous, independent Latin American nation,” Assange wrote on WikiLeaks before posting “Gracias a Ecuador y ustedes” (Thanks to Ecuador and to you) on his Twitter.

If extradited to Washington, the famous whistleblower would likely face heavy charges.

“Assange would risk the severest penalties – life imprisonment or even the death penalty – if he were tried in the U.S.,” Reporters Without Borders’ Delphine Halgand told IPS.

“The resources deployed by the U.S. authorities to track down WikiLeaks activists and supporters and obtain their personal data can only reinforce these concerns,” she said.

But while the announcement of asylum came as good news for Assange and his numerous supporters, it did not change his situation in any way, with the U.K. police now surrounding the embassy in a “menacing show of force”, according to WikiLeaks.

Should Assange attempt to leave his safe haven, he would be arrested before reaching the airport.

“We will not allow Mr. Assange safe passage out of the U.K., nor is there any legal basis for us to do so,” the British foreign secretary said in a statement released Thursday.

“The U.K. does not accept the principle of diplomatic asylum,” the statement read.

London had previously threatened to enter the Ecuadorean embassy to arrest Assange. However, such a move would blatantly infringe on the inviolability of diplomatic premises as defined under the Vienna Convention, according to Michael Ratner, a legal adviser to WikiLeaks.

“The fact that the British – and I was as shocked as anybody – said yesterday that they might invade the embassy to get their hands on Julian Assange is an incredible violation of international law that is unheard of,” he told Democracy Now.

“I mean, think about the Chinese going into the U.S. embassy to get Chen out in China… This is unheard of in law, it’s unheard of in diplomacy, and it’s an outrageous and egregious undermining of the right of a country to give asylum,” Ratner added.

Other legal experts doubt the UK would actually follow through on such threats.

“(The UK) mentioned revoking diplomatic status for the embassy… Too legally risky in my view,” Carl Gardner, a former lawyer for the British government, told IPS.

If he still refuses to surrender, Assange has two options – holing up in his hideout or trying to reach an airport via an embassy vehicle, which would very likely lead to his arrest.

“I’d be tempted to advise him to go to Sweden and defend himself if there’s a trial. I think that’s inevitable in the end. I don’t think I could offer him any hope of a way out,” Gardner told IPS.

But Gardner adds, wryly, that there’s yet another possibility: “Ecuador could name Assange its representative to the United Nations. That would make him immune from arrest while traveling to U.N. meetings around the world.”

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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