If you want to see a cheerful website, Reporters Without Borders/Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF) isn’t it. This is a press freedom group, which campaigns against persecution of journalists doing their jobs. They have quite a lot to campaign about.
I started off reading a basic news piece, and wound up reading about the carnage in the world of journalism. There’s a series of links here which DJ writers and Citizen Journalists generally might like to browse. The article itself is the tip of quite a large iceberg.
The BBC has published
a list of the countries considered by RSF to be serial offenders against press freedom. Not hard to see why, looking at the list. Such paragons of free speech as Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, and Syria are included.
Interesting to think that of that group China is the relative liberal. Our secrecy-obsessed Western governments didn’t rate a mention, but they were up against some tough competition, like Burma, and the new entrant to the list, Egypt.
From there on I got more interested in RSF itself.
It turned out to be a worthwhile series of logical connections. I followed the link on the BBC page to
the RSF site. For gruesome statistics, this is a side of the Information Revolution few would see. Try this for a set of stats:
In 2007, 63 journalists and 10 media assistants have been killed. 133 journalists and 10 media assistants have been imprisoned. 66 cyberdissidents have been imprisoned.
Cute, eh?
RSF has a s
pecial link to the war in Iraq, detailing among other things the 198 journalists killed since 2003. Two are missing.
The BBC does a brief dossier on the RSF, including
the group’s condemnation of Yahoo for giving information to the Chinese authorities which resulted in the arrest of some people. Both Yahoo and Google are receiving intense criticism for their cooperation with Chinese authorities. Both say that they are obliged to comply with Chinese internet laws.
The issue isn’t quite as simple as it seems. Although there are other ways of finding people on the net, China has gone for the big stick approach to search engines. Technically, even under a relatively moderate approach like a subpoena or court order, Western law enforcement can force disclosure of information like that from those who have it. It’s just that those arrested as a result probably wouldn’t get executed.
Also interesting is the fact that the distinction between journalists, bloggers, cyberdissidents and others doesn’t seem to matter in oppressive countries. If you spread information someone doesn’t want spread, you’re part of the problem, according to them.
If we ever wanted a look at how Citizen Journalism can be seen in some of the most oppressive countries on Earth, I think we’ve discovered where to find it.
I don’t know how this affects your world perspective, but it’s pretty much confirmed mine. Fascists are fascists, whatever they call themselves. They're still around, and they hate free speech. There's no ideology in oppression. Just pure power politics.
This may well become the legendary battle for truth, and this time it's a war where it matters who wins. Pick a side, folks, before it picks you.
