Chhetria Patrakar has recently been seeing some blue in the southern reaches of the Subcontinent – not because of temperature-induced encroaching sea levels, but rather in terms of a temperament-depressing encroaching sea-of-sorrows. In another tally for the foes of media freedom, the journalist and general-secretary of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association, Poddala Jayantha, was rudely interrupted recently as he was going to buy vegetables, when he was bundled away and beaten up by a group of men. He had briefly left the country due to threats on his life, returning on the hopeful misinformation that home would be homey again. No arrests have yet been made, except for the Lankanews website editors who exposed the incident. With Jayantha recovering in the National Hospital, however, CP is happy that he won't add to the already grim statistics of murdered journalists in Sri Lanka.
And again, the press seems to have gotten in the way of 'national security' – although with the plumping-up of policing, CP wonders how to squeeze out a few words without being swallowed up by national security's gluttonous gullet. Two days after al-Jazeera aired a story on the Taliban in Kunduz province, Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) detained producers Qais Azimy and Hameedullah Shah for three days. In the report, a Taliban leader boasted of his hundreds of minions-in-waiting, including 12 suiAfide bombers purportedly ready to strike. According to President Hamid Karzai's justification for the arrests, "promotion of terrorism in the name of the freedom of the press is a violation of the press and freedom of the press." Of course, as the freedom of democratic elections presses on his campaign, President Karzai's own freedom to press charges will soon be at stake. Evidently, the two had not been expressly informed of their internment, only evasively invited over to NDS headquarters for an 'interview'.
Safety for the story-shopper rather than the scribe seems to be more the trend in media establishments – it is a commercial industry, after all. Yet CP is suspicious of the Maldivian telecommunications carrier Dhiraagu's recent promises to restrict access to child pornography sites on mobile phone. The initiative will begin by blocking access to 100 to 500 sites, with new members added to the X-rated list of sites every two hours. Not that child porn isn't deplorable, but such barriers-to-gaze don't get to the real nuts and bolts of the problem, and may end up restricting the free flow of other goods and services – as observed in Dhiraagu's Parental Control Services. Also, how many people are actually in possession of Internet-accessing phones? But with the positive publicity Dhiraagu has received from joiniAng the global initiative, CP suggests Wataniya Telecom stay true to its name and sign up as well.
Here is a story of editorial integrity. Prosecutor-General of the Maldives Ahmed Muiz has decided to file a criminal defamation case against Abdul Hameed Abdul Kareem for an article published in Manas magazine in 2007. Not author but editor at the time, charges against Hameed are for the article's claims that former Chief Justice Sheikh Mohamed Rasheed had worshiped former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom as a god, and had appealed to the public to sacrifice "their body and spirit" to Gayoom. Obviously, the two-year delay in prosecuting is due to the fact that Gayoom had to first fall from grace before such idol-worship could be considered libel. Under the current penal and Sharia code, verbal vilification can cost one almost one's tongue and one's cheek, from banishment to house arrest or fines up to MVR 3000. While many free-media associations are protesting the case, the current Lord in Office, is cooperating in making defamation not a criminal but a civil offence. President Nasheed has already sent over an amendment bill to the Penal Code to Parliament, as well as two bonuses: a press-freedom bill and another on right to freedom of expression.