[lbo-talk] Re: Reporter's death fuels fear for Russia media freedom

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 10/9/06, Michael Givel <mgivel at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Here is what RSF says about independent press freedom of these countries:
> (including Iran)  "The governments of Libya, Iran, Syria, Tunisia and Saudi
> Arabia have total control over news within their borders and are among the
> world's most repressive regimes. All are ruled by men who deeply distrust
> the independent media and freely crack down on dissenting voices."
> http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=579
>
> "Iran is still the region's biggest prison for journalists. At the end of
> the year, five were in jail there, including the best-known, Akbar Ganji.
> Pressure by the international community and human rights organisations have
> often called for his release, in vain. The accession of hardliner Mahmoud
> Ahmadinejad to the presidency on 3 August did not make things easier and the
> last quarter of the year was especially repressive, with at least 32
> newspapers suspended."
>
> So I take it they downgraded Iran's status due to total press censorship,
> press suspension, and major jail time as a little incentive as they say to
> keep journalists in line.  Also by the way the countries you mentioned are
> all fairly close: Tunisa--147, Saudia Arabia-154, Libya-162 and  Iran--164.
>
> Does this sound like a better deal for press freedom if you live in Tunisa
> rather than Iran? Sounds all about the same to me. Pretty harsh.

Of course, in Libya, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, etc. in the Middle East
and several other countries you and I can think of, there is no
opposition newspaper to even suspend to begin with!

Akbar Ganji was released and touring the US this year, and Sepideh
here attended one of his events:
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20060814/015856.html>,
and so have been others.

Now, according to RSF itself, Iran has two in jail, which is bad, but
is it really, really worse than China (32 in jail) , Ethiopia (22), or
Turkey (4), to pick some examples from RSF's own list:
<http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=116>?

On the same list, we also find that the USA (not in Iraq) has two in jail:

United States (2)
20 September 2006 - Josh Wolf, blogger and journalist
15 December 2001 - Sami Al-Haj, Al-Jazeera

Shouldn't Americans be focusing on these two first and foremost?
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>