By Victor Pickard
A foundation created by e-Bay (click here) founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam recently bolster impoverished U.S. - based journalism....
The international journalists being held in Turkish prisons should be returned home.
May 9, 2017
Turkey marked May 3 International Press Freedom Day (click here) amid growing concerns for the state of press freedom in the country.
According to the Turkish Journalists Association (TGC), there are currently some 159 journalists in Turkish prisons.
“In order for peace in the country to be established, the 159 jailed journalists need to be released immediately,” a statement by TGC read, adding that “journalism will always exist.”
“We believe that these hard times will pass, the oppression deemed suitable for journalists will end and that the politicians who cause this will go away, but that journalism will always exist,” it also said.
Turkey’s Press Council High Commission held a meeting to mark International Press Freedom Day at the Yaşar Kemal Culture Center, which is close to Istanbul’s Silivri Prison, where a high number of journalists are being kept in.
The spouses of the jailed journalists also attended the meeting....
While asking the "Free World" to support jailed journalists, it would be nice if the Free World did not victimize them either.
May 3, 2017
The Law Commission (click here) is currently consulting on replacing the Official Secrets Act with a new Espionage Act.
The new proposed law states a new offence could be committed by “someone who not only communicates information” but also “by someone who obtains or gathers information” – i.e. a journalist.
The consultation also suggests that maximum sentences for breaching Official Secrets Act style offences should be increased from two years to 14 years in prison.
It broadens the scope of the law to include information which “affects the economic well being of the United Kingdom in so far as it relates to national security”....
And then there are the new cries for freedom.
March 5, 2017
By Mustapha K. Darbo
World Press Freedom Day (click here) will be marked in Gambia on Wednesday for the first time since the fall of the country’s authoritarian president.
During his 22-year rule, Yahya Jammeh imprisoned dozens of journalists and forced hundreds into exile. Others disappeared after being arrested by the secret police and one celebrated journalist was murdered 13 years ago. His killer or killers have never been brought to justice.
The atmosphere of repression led some to dub the small west African state the North Korea of Africa.
Bai Emil Touray, president of the Gambia Press Union, described Gambia under Jammeh as “the most difficult country for practising journalism”.
“In the past, journalists were subjected to all forms of degrading and inhuman treatment including torture, enforced disappearances, killings and incarcerations,” Touray, who was jailed by Jammeh in 2009, told Anadolu Agency.
According to Reporters Without Borders, Jammeh “established a climate of terror… in which journalists were murdered or disappeared, were spied and informed on, were arrested arbitrarily and were subjected to nightmarish trials.”...
