The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post announced that they would not be endorsing anyone in the U.S. presidential election this year, breaking decades of precedent and overriding planned endorsements of Kamala Harris. The decisions were ordered by the outlets’ multibillionaire owners, Patrick Soon-Shiong and Jeff Bezos. We speak with the Los Angeles Times editorials editor Mariel Garza, who quit when the paper killed the endorsement of Harris, and veteran Washington Post reporter David Hoffman, who stepped down from the paper’s editorial board in response. “We are right on the doorstep of the most consequential election in our lifetimes. To pull the plug on the endorsement, to go silent against Trump days before the election, that to me was just unconscionable,” says Hoffman. “This is not a time in American history when anyone can remain silent or neutral,” adds Garza.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
We speak with Dr. Ahmed Ghanim, a prominent Muslim leader and former Democratic candidate for Congress, after the Kamala Harris campaign apologized for kicking him out of a Detroit election event Monday to which he was invited. Harris’s staunch support for Israel as it continues its brutal war on Gaza has infuriated many Muslim and Arab voters in Michigan, and while Ghanim says it’s a very important issue to him, he was not there to protest. He was also not given a reason for his removal, even after the campaign called him to apologize. “Apology without accountability is not an apology,” he says, adding that the incident has left him questioning whether Democrats still believe in diversity and inclusion or if “Muslims and Arabs don’t have room anymore in this party.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Award-winning Cambodian journalist Mech Dara, who was charged with incitement to provoke disorder over his social media posts, was released on bail on Thursday, media reported.
The case against Mech Dara, known for his hard-hitting reporting on cyber-scam compounds and human trafficking, drew significant condemnation from human rights groups and foreign governments.
The CamboJA News media outlet said a court in Kandal province near the capital, Phnom Penh, released Mech Dara on bail and it published pictures of him being driven away in a vehicle. Other details of his legal status were not immediately clear.
Mech Dara, a journalist, was released on bail from Kandal provincial prison on Thursday at 12 noon, after his apology last night to Senate president Hun Sen and Prime Minister Hun Manet. (CamboJA/Pring Samrang) pic.twitter.com/gl7p6qkbjj
Mech Dara was arrested on Sept. 30 and charged a day later with “incitement to provoke serious social disorder” under articles 494 and 495 of the criminal code, facing up to two years of prison.
On Wednesday, a media outlet friendly to the government published a video of Mech Dara apologizing for his social media posts and asking for forgiveness after he was brought to court for five hours of questioning.
The outlet, Fresh News, also posted photos of three handwritten, thumb-printed pages – letters it said Mech Dara wrote to Senate President Hun Sen and his son, Prime Minister Hun Manet.
The letter to Hun Sen outlined the contents of five posts in which Mech Dara purportedly mocked progress and development in Cambodia; compared how the perpetrators of traffic accidents were treated in Australia as opposed to Cambodia; and said that a quarry operation had destroyed stairs to a popular tourist destination called Ba Phnom.
He wrote that his posts were “fake news affecting the social order and the government leadership.”
In his letter to the prime minister, Mech Dara wrote that he “regrets and admits the mistakes and promises to stop posting any content that may affect the society and damage the reputation of Cambodia. I request your leniency and amnesty.”
Cambodia has seen a significant erosion of media freedom in recent years, with journalists regularly facing harassment and independent news outlets increasingly shuttered by fiat or pressure.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Samantha Power, administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, visited Cambodia and announced more than US$50 million in funding for demining programs, tuberculosis treatment, and a range of programs for the environment, media, civil society and more.
At a press conference on Wednesday evening, Power told journalists the U.S. government was following Mech Dara’s case “very closely” and said she had raised it and other cases during talks with Hun Manet.
“We have emphasized our support for finding positive resolutions,” she said.
Edited by Mike Firn
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.
A media outlet friendly to the Cambodian government on Wednesday published a video of jailed journalist Mech Dara apologizing for his social media posts and asking for forgiveness after the award-winning reporter was brought to court for five hours of questioning.
Fresh News posted the one-minute video, as well as two handwritten letters.
Radio Free Asia cannot independently verify when the video was shot or whether Dara was forced to make the filmed and written apologies.
Earlier in the day, Dara was brought to Phnom Penh Municipal Court, where he was questioned for five hours.
Dara was arrested on Sept. 30 and charged a day later with “incitement to provoke serious social disorder” under articles 494 and 495 of Cambodia’s criminal code. If tried and found guilty, he could face up to two years of prison.
In the video posted to Fresh News, Dara is seen wearing an orange jail uniform and holding up his hands in a sampeah, a Cambodian gesture of respect.
He apologizes to both Prime Minister Hun Manet and his father, former Prime Minister Hun Sen, for posts made to social media between Sept. 20 and 29.
“All the contents that I posted are fake news that affect our leaders and the country’s [image]. I apologize and regret the mistakes that I posted,” he says in the video.
“I promise to no longer post any information that may affect our leaders and country.”
Fresh News also posted photos of three handwritten, thumb-printed pages — letters they claim Dara wrote to Senate President Hun Sen and Prime Minister Hun Manet.
The letter to Hun Sen outlines the contents of five posts in which Dara purportedly mocked progress and development in Cambodia; compared how the perpetrators of traffic accidents were treated in Australia as opposed to Cambodia; and said that a quarry operation had destroyed stairs to a popular local tourist destination called Ba Phnom. He writes that his posts were “fake news affecting the social order and the government leadership.”
In his letter to Prime Minister Hun Manet, Mech Dara writes that he: “regrets and admits the mistakes and promises to stop posting any content that may affect the society and damage the reputation of Cambodia. I request your leniency and amnesty.”
Provoking condemnation
The case against Dara, known for his hard-hitting reporting on cyber-scam compounds and human trafficking, has drawn significant condemnation from human rights groups and foreign governments.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Samantha Power, administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, visited Cambodia and announced more than US$50 million in funding for demining programs, tuberculosis treatment, and a range of programs for the environment, media, civil society and more.
At a press conference held Wednesday evening, Power told journalists the U.S. government was following Dara’s case “very closely” and said she had raised it and others during talks with Prime Minister Hun Manet.
“We have emphasized our support for finding positive resolutions,” she said.
Cambodia has seen a significant diminishment of media freedom in recent years, with journalists regularly facing harassment and independent news outlets increasingly shuttered by fiat or pressure.
Media experts told RFA they viewed Dara’s case as evidence of the excessive pressure faced by Cambodian journalists.
“In terms of expressing views either by normal citizens or journalists, there should be a request for clarification or just issue an apology if authorities found out that such posts are not true,” said Nop Vy, executive director of the Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association, stressing that Dara should never have been arrested in the first place.
Am Sam Ath, operations director of rights group Licadho, said the arrest reflected an effort to suppress free expression.
“It is a violation of civic freedom as guaranteed by the Constitution and international legal instruments,” he said. “There shouldn’t be charges and detention.”
Last week, the court declined to release Dara on bail, despite his worsening health conditions.
CamboJA, a local independent news outlet, reported Wednesday that Dara had faced mounting physical and mental health issues during his three weeks in jail. His lawyer, Duch Piseth, told CamboJA that Dara had begun to hallucinate when sitting too long, while his sister, Mech Choulay, said he had lost about 6 kilograms (13 pounds).
Edited by Abby Seiff and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Khmer.
China on Monday urged Myanmar’s junta to find and punish the perpetrators of a bomb attack on its consulate in Mandalay over the weekend, but observers warned that more attacks are likely amid public anger over Beijing’s support for the military regime.
China has remained one of the junta’s few allies since the military orchestrated a coup d’etat and seized control of Myanmar in February 2021.
Chinese investment in Myanmar is substantial, and the armed opposition has attacked several projects in a bid to cut off badly-needed revenue for the junta, which is straining under the weight of global sanctions in response to its putsch.
On Friday evening, unknown assailants detonated a bomb at the Chinese consulate in Mandalay region’s Chanmyathazi township, damaging part of the building’s roof, the junta and Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Saturday. No one was hurt in the blast.
No group or individual has claimed responsibility.
On Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Li Jian condemned the attack and called on the junta to “make an all-out effort to hunt down and bring the perpetrators to justice.”
The Chinese consulate in Mandalay also urged all Chinese citizens, businesses and institutions in Myanmar to monitor the local security situation, strengthen security measures and take every precaution to keep themselves safe.
Myanmar’s junta has said it is investigating the incident and is working to arrest those responsible.
Opposition condemns attack
An official with the Mandalay People’s Defense Force, which runs anti-junta operations in the region, denied responsibility for the bombing.
“The Mandalay People’s Defense Force has not carried out any urban missions, including the attack on the Chinese consulate general’s office recently,” said the official who spoke to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
The foreign ministry Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, also condemned the bombing in a statement that said it opposes all terrorist acts that tarnish relations with neighboring nations. It said differences of views should be solved through diplomatic means rather than violence.
“Such kinds of attacks have absolutely nothing to do with our NUG government or our People’s Defense Force,” said NUG Deputy Foreign Minister Moe Zaw Oo. “We never commit terrorist acts and we condemn such attacks.”
Moe Zaw Oo suggested that the junta had orchestrated the attack to “[create] problems between our forces and China.”
“The junta is trying to exacerbate the conflict … and sowing discord,” he said, without providing evidence of his claim.
Tay Zar San, a leader of the armed opposition, echoed the NUG’s suspicion that the junta was behind the attack.
“The military regime and its affiliated organizations are intentionally provoking ethnic and religious conflict under the context of anti-Chinese sentiment,” he said, adding that the junta has “organized” anti-Chinese protests in downtown Yangon and Mandalay.
He also provided no evidence to back up his claims.
Attempts by RFA to contact junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun for a response to the allegations went unanswered Monday.
Enemy of the people
Tay Zar San said that the people of Myanmar have been angered by Beijing’s support for the junta and its attempts to pressure ethnic armed groups along its border to end their offensive against the military.
Since launching the offensive nearly a year ago, heavy fighting for control of towns in northern Shan state has sparked concern from China, which borders the state to the east, and forced it to shut previously busy border crossings.
China has tried to protect its interests by brokering ceasefires between the junta and ethnic armies, but these haven’t lasted long.
Myanmar’s Army Commander Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, left, speaks with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a hotel in Naypyidaw, Jan. 18, 2020. (Office of the Commander in Chief of Defense Services via AP)
Junta supporters have expressed concern that territory lost to the armed opposition will not be retaken and are posting messages opposing China’s engagement on social media. Earlier, the junta supporters staged anti-China protests in Yangon, Mandalay, and the capital Naypyidaw.
Than Soe Naing, a political commentator, said that the people of Myanmar will increasingly target China if Beijing continues supporting the junta.
“As this struggle intensifies, anti-Chinese sentiment in Myanmar is likely to grow,” he said. “However, it is important to recognize that this is not a conflict with the Chinese people, but rather a response to the Chinese Communist Party’s stance and the misguided policies of its leadership on the Myanmar issue.”
Additional tension
The consulate bombing came amid reports that China’s military had fired at the junta’s Russian-made MiG-29 fighter jets as they carried out airstrikes on ethnic rebels on the border.
A video of the purported attack – in which anti-aircraft guns fire into the air while Chinese-language commands are given – went viral on Saturday evening, although RFA has been unable to independently verify its authenticity or the date it took place.
Additionally, an official with the People’s Defense Force in Sagaing region’s Yinmarbin township told RFA that his unit had ambushed a junta security detail guarding a convoy of trucks carrying copper from the Chinese-run Letpadaung Copper Mine Project in nearby Salingyi township.
At least one junta soldier was killed, but the convoy was able to proceed, said the official, who also declined to be named.
A traffic police officer directs traffic near a welcoming billboard to Chinese President Xi Jinping, in Naypyidaw, Jan. 17, 2020. (Aung Shine Oo/AP)
RFA was unable to independently verify the official’s claims and efforts to reach the junta’s spokesperson for Sagaing region went unanswered Monday, as did attempts to contact the Chinese Embassy in Yangon.
In late August, junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing vowed to protect Chinese assets and personnel in Myanmar during a meeting with the Chinese ambassador.
Last week, reports emerged that Min Aung Hlaing will visit China for the first time since the coup. When asked by Bloomberg about the military leader’s visit to China, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian declined to comment.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.
When Moroccan authorities released three prominent journalists in July as part of a mass pardon marking King Mohamed VI’s 25 years on the throne, their friends and families celebrated. But the excitement was short-lived. Taoufik Bouachrine, Soulaiman Raissouni, and Omar Radi have been shamed in the media, stalked, and harassed since their release as they face the enduring stigma of their sex crimes convictions, which are widely believed to be in retaliation for their work.
Bouachrine, Raissouni, and Radi became global icons of the fight for press freedom in Morocco after they were arrested in separate cases between 2018 and 2020 and sentenced to 15, five, and six years respectively on sexual assault and other charges. Media freedom advocates and local journalists told CPJ that the “morals” charges were intended to dampen public support for the three journalists, known for their critical reporting on the government.
Though the journalists are free, they still face the burden of these convictions, a state of affairs exacerbated by authorities’ lack of communication about the terms of their pardon. Bouachrine, Radi, and Raissouni don’t know if their sentences were commuted, or if they were fully exonerated, a meaningful distinction in terms of their ability to go back to work.
“In Morocco, in order for journalists to receive a press accreditation to legally work, they need not to have a criminal record. So, at the moment I cannot work in journalism until I figure out my unclear legal status,” Radi told CPJ.
If Bouachrine has a criminal record, it may impede him from trying to reopen Akhbar al-Youm newspaper, where he served as editor-in-chief until he was arrested in 2018, when Raissouni took over until he too was arrested in 2020. Akhbar al-Youm’s parent company, Media 21, was barred from accessing government funding, and the newspaper, one of the only independent outlets in the country, closed in 2021.
CPJ’s emailed Morocco’s Ministry of Justice about the terms of the journalists’ pardons and the Ministry of Interior for comment on the harassment facing the journalists, did not receive any responses. Harassment in pro-government media
Compounding the journalists’ insecurity is intense harassment, much of it directed by pro-government media, in which the royal family and powerful businesspeople hold stakes. Media companies including Barlamane.com, Chouf TV, and Maroc Medias, published articles about the accusations against Bouachrine, Radi, and Raissouni while ignoring evidence proving their innocence, which the journalists said played a central role in their convictions. Now that the three are out, the smears have started again.
Weeks after the journalists’ release, pro-government news website Al-Jarida 24 called them “fake heroes” and slammed a human rights group that hosted them for press conference as “glorifying individuals with a dark past of sexual assault and human trafficking.”
Aida Alami, a Moroccan journalist and a visiting professor at Columbia University School of Journalism, said the negative coverage fits a pattern. “Such attacks are common in Morocco and are meant to never lift the pressure off released journalists, even after they are freed,” she said.
She pointed to the case of journalist Hajar Raissouni, Raissouni’s niece, who was smeared in pro-government news site Barlamane.com after she received a royal pardon for a 2019 conviction of having sex outside of marriage and seeking an illegal abortion.
More recently, Barlamane.com went after her uncle Raissouni for giving an interview to Spanish outlet El Independiente in September describing the royal pardon as “a correction to the crimes committed by the intelligence services against us and our families with a lack of ethics never seen before in Morocco.” An unsigned article in Barlamane.com slammed Raissouni for his decision to speak to El Independiente, claiming without evidence that the Spanish outlet receives funding from Algerian intelligence. (Morocco and Algeria severed ties in 2021.) Raissouni, said Barlamane.com, has “renewed his loyalty to enemies of the state.”
Moroccan journalist Soulaiman Raissouni flashes the victory sign during a press conference at the Moroccan Association of Human Rights headquarters (AMDH) in Rabat on August 10, 2024 after he was pardoned from prison. (Photo:AFP)
In a phone call with CPJ, Raissouni defended the interview. “The only reason I spoke to El Independiente in the first place is because [authorities] will never allowme to speak in the local media outlets about how I am, and always have been, innocent and how I am being targeted in this country regardless of being pardoned.”
He called the negative coverage “beyond a defamation campaign,” saying that Barlamane.com wants him back in prison. In a recent article it called his mouth a “criminal environment” requiring “legal examination.” Before his last legal ordeal, the outlet was part of a drumbeat of coverage leading up to his arrest by urging an investigation against him.
Threatening phone calls
Radi, meanwhile, has been spared the smear campaigns that targeted Bouachrine and Raissouni, but he faces another form of insidious harassment, he told CPJ.
“In the first three days of our release, some individuals were following me every time I walk in the streets. But after we [Radi, Raissouni, and Bouachrine] held two press conferences about our release, I stopped being followed but started getting phone calls threatening to arrest me again if I don’t shut up,” he said.
This wasn’t the first time Radi was surveilled; Amnesty International said that in 2019 and 2020 Radi’s phone was infected with Pegasus, an Israeli-made spyware. In 2022, the Pegasus Project, a collaborative investigation, found that Raissouni and Bouachrine were also selected for surveillance.
Raissouni believes that the Moroccan government has effectively erased independent journalism in the kingdom, using what he calls “sewage journalism” — the pro-government media — to intimidate independent outlets and journalists. Even the few independent outlets that remain have resorted to self-censorship, he said.
“Today, it is impossible to go back to work in journalism in Morocco. There are no remaining outlets today that would allow their journalists to write anything that is not aligned with the state narrative. ‘Sewage journalism’ has become one of the most famous forms of journalism in the kingdom, when it is supposed to be true independent journalism,” said Raissouni.
Even if Radi is able to go back to work, he’s not sure what kind of opportunities await him. “There is no free media anymore. There is simply nowhere to write your opinion anymore.”
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Middle East and North Africa Staff.
A boat carrying 70 people off the coast of southern Myanmar overturned on Sunday night and eight people were confirmed dead and 17 were missing, including children heading back to school after a holiday, a rescue worker told Radio Free Asia.
The crowded ferry capsized when it encountered strong currents soon after setting off from the island village of Kyauk Kar, bound for Myeik town to the south in the Tanintharyi region, said a resident of the area who declined to be identified due to media restrictions imposed by military authorities.
“We only managed to recover eight bodies last night. There are a lot still missing,” said the rescue worker who also declined to be identified.
“There are also survivors. We don’t know the exact list. Right now, it’s chaos.”
Boat accidents are common in Myanmar, both on its many rivers and off its coasts. Hundreds of commuters, migrant workers and refugees have been involved in accidents this year.
The resident said students heading back to school after the Thadingyut holiday, along with their parents and others displaced by recent conflict in the area, were among the victims of the accident that occurred as the ferry was passing through a channel known for treacherous currents.
“From Kyauk Kar there’s … the opening of the ocean where the current is too strong,” one resident said. “When the current was too rough, due to the boat’s position and because it was top heavy, it overturned.”
The eight people found dead were identified as seven women between the ages of 16 and 60, and a three-month-old boy, residents said.
According to a rescue committee, 47 people survived while 17 children were unaccounted for. Residents and civil society organizations were searching for more victims.
The military has not published any information about the accident, and calls by RFA to Tanintharyi region’s junta spokesperson, Thet Naing, went unanswered.
An adviser to Senate President Hun Sen was arrested at Phnom Penh International Airport on Friday after returning from a business trip to China, two Cambodian news outlets reported.
It was unclear what charges Duong Dara could be facing. Earlier this year, he was named in a complaint filed by villagers in southern Svay Rieng province that accused a Phnom Penh company of scamming them out of investments that ranged between US$40,000 and US$120,000.
The Fresh News online news site and the Koh Santepheap newspaper reported that Duong Dara was arrested in connection with a citizen’s complaint. No further details were given.
Duong Dara was appointed secretary of state for the Council of Ministers – the government’s Cabinet – last year and has also worked as a personal assistant to Hun Sen.
Duong Dara is credited with creating and overseeing Hun Sen’s popular Facebook account, where the former prime minister continues to post statements and personal observations, as well as video clips from public appearances.
The arrest comes several days after Hun Sen wrote on Facebook that another adviser, Ly Sameth, had defrauded several Cambodians over the last two years by soliciting bribes in exchange for favors and government positions.
Ly Sameth, an adviser to former Cambodian President Hun Sen, in an undated photo. (Ly Sameth via Facebook)
Hun Sen wrote on Facebook on Monday that Ly Sameth’s assets should be frozen and Phnom Penh court officials should issue an order to return money he accepted from people.
Police officers went to Ly Sameth’s house on Tuesday morning, but he wasn’t at home and authorities were unable to locate him on Wednesday, Phnom Penh Municipal Police spokesperson Sam Vichheka said. Authorities haven’t charged Ly Sameth, he said.
Business interests
The complaint submitted at Svay Rieng Provincial Court in June stated that the Phum Khmer Group promised that its duck farms, animal feed factories, restaurants and real estate holdings would generate a monthly 4% payment for investors.
One investor told Radio Free Asia that he never received any interest or dividend payments, as promised in the signed contract.
Phum Khmer’s chief executive, Som Sothea, stopped responding to messages, another investor told RFA in June. Som Sothea is believed to be a close friend of Duong Dara.
Phum Khmer Group Chief Executive Officer Som Sothea in an undated photo. (Som Sothea via LinkedIn)
Several investors told RFA that Duong Dara and his younger brother, Duong Virath, all have shares in the Phum Khmer Group.
Duong Dara said on his Facebook page in June that – other than joining company workers in distributing food to the poor on one occasion – he has no involvement with the Phum Khmer Group’s business interests.
RFA was unable to reach Duong Dara for comment on Friday.
Sam Vichheka, Phnom Penh Municipal Court spokesman I Rin, Phnom Penh Municipal Police Commissioner Chuon Narin also didn’t respond to requests for comment on the arrest.
Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Khmer.
New York, October 11, 2024—German authorities must investigate emailed bomb threats made against several broadcasting centers for the regional public radio station Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) on Saturday, October 5, and ensure the safety of the outlet’s journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.
“CPJ is concerned by the bomb threats targeting MDR broadcasting centers in Magdeburg and Erfurt,” said Attila Mong, CPJ’s Europe representative. “Threats against media outlets disrupt crucial public service broadcasting and create a climate of fear for journalists that can have a chilling effect on press freedom. German authorities must investigate, identify those responsible, and take measures to prevent such threats in the future.”
On Saturday afternoon, the centers in Magdeburg, the capital of central Saxony-Anhalt state, and Erfurt, in central Thuringian state, were temporarily evacuated before police gave the all-clear and began a criminal investigation.
CPJ emailed the Saxony-Anhal and Thuringia police’s press department requesting comment on the pending investigation but did not receive a reply.
Miami, October 11, 2024—CPJ is alarmed by reports that since mid-September, Cuban state security agents questioned at least eight journalists and media workers from non-state media outlets, many in connection to alleged crimes against the state, leading several to flee the country.
“The Cuban government appears to be engaged in a campaign of harassment and intimidation against the country’s non-state media to force them into silence or exile,” said Katherine Jacobsen, CPJ’s U.S., Canada, and Caribbean program coordinator, from Washington, D.C. “CPJ calls on the Cuban authorities to respect the rights of journalists to freely express themselves and report the news.”
Cuban news website El Toque, which operates from exile, reported that the journalists were summoned as part of investigations into accusations that the journalists engaged in “mercenary” activities, including receiving foreign funding in violation of state security. If convicted, the journalists face prison sentences of 4-10 years.
CPJ confirmed eight cases of journalists being questioned and is investigating more than a dozen others. Four journalists publicly confirmed they were summoned and questioned by Cuban authorities:
Jorge Fernandez Era, a freelance writer and satirical columnist who works with El Toque, was summoned and questioned twice for an hour, reporting that authorities “expressed concern” about his writings in El Toque.
Maria Lucia Exposito, a freelance reporter, posted on a colleague’s social media that authorities questioned her for more than 6 hours and confiscated US$1,000 and her cell phone.
Alexander Hall, a freelance essayist who works with El Toque.
Katia Sanchez, a freelance communications strategist who has collaborated with El Toque and SembraMedia, a nonprofit that supports digital media entrepreneurs, was questioned and threatened with prosecution by representatives from the Ministry of the Interior for receiving a U.S. embassy grant to train journalists, she told CPJ. Sanchez subsequently left Cuba on September 13.
A representative of the Cuban government’s International Press Center (CPI) told CPJ by text message that he recommended investigating whether the U.S. government financed these media outlets and pointed to U.S. law that imposes a public disclosure obligation on persons representing foreign interests. “Investigate and you will find Hypocrisy,” he wrote.
In some cases, the questioning occurred in unofficial locations by plainclothes officers, who pressured the journalists to sign confessions admitting to “subversive” acts under threat of criminal proceedings, according to four journalists who spoke to CPJ. Two journalists told CPJ they faced intense psychological pressure to confess.
Several journalists told CPJ that officers warned them to stop working as journalists outside of official state media and told them it was a crime to participate in foreign-funded training and support programs, or to receive grants from foreign governments.
One journalist told CPJ they were pressured to become a state security informant and spy on other media and foreign governments. In return, they would be free to continue work outside the state sector.
New Delhi, October 8, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release of Kashmiri journalist Sajad Gul on bail—after more than two years of arbitrary detention on multiple charges — and calls on authorities in the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir to immediately end all prosecution against him.
“The release of Kashmiri journalist Sajad Gul on bail is long overdue,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi on Tuesday. “The collapse of press freedom in Kashmir in recent years is stark. With elections over, the newly elected local government must immediately free other Kashmiri journalists behind bars and allow the media to report freely without fear of reprisal.”
Gul, a trainee reporter with the now-banned news website, The Kashmir Walla, was granted bail July 8 by a court in the northern Bandipora district of Kashmir, the details of which have not been made public, according to sources who told CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal. The bail was related to one of the three cases Gul faces, over charges of rioting, attempted murder, and actions prejudicial to national integration.
Gul was first arrested January 5, 2022, from his home in Bandipora in connection with a video he posted on X, showing women protesting the killing of a local militant leader, according to news reports. The journalist was detained under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, which allows for a maximum two-year detention, before a Jammu and Kashmir High Court quashed his detention under the law in November 2023, stating that there was no concrete evidence or specific allegations proving his actions were prejudicial to the security of the state.
Prior to his July release, Gul was granted bail in two other cases in connection with the video, in which he faced chargesof criminal conspiracy, assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from discharging their duty, and endangering life or personal safety, according to those sources.
Jammu and Kashmir voters went to the polls last month for the first time since India unilaterally revoked the region’s semi-autonomous status in 2019, which prompted a rapid decline in press freedom. An opposition alliance is set to form government after votes were counted on October 8.
Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of profiles of Chinese leaders on the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
Well-known among foreign journalists for his quirky comments in English and his propensity to break into musical performance, former Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin gained distinction under supreme leader Deng Xiaoping when he clamped down on student protests while serving as party chief in Shanghai in the 1980s.
Yet the smiling demeanor Jiang presented on the international stage was at odds with his status as a strongly authoritarian leader who would eventually pick Xi Jinping as the next president.
Back in 1989, as thousands of students were taking to the streets to demand a more accountable government, Jiang’s shuttering of the pro-student Shanghai-based 21st Century Economic Herald and his tough approach to meetings with student leaders in the city earned him the trust of his boss, Deng.
Jiang’s big promotion came after the fall of ousted premier Zhao Ziyang, who was blamed for not being tough enough on the weeks-long protests on Tiananmen Square.
He continued the political clampdown that followed the June 4, 1989, massacre while promoting highly able technocrats to manage the economy and promote its membership in the World Trade Organization.
Jiang effectively institutionalized the precedent set by Deng of boosting economic development but cracking down mercilessly on any form of political dissent or public protest.
A young woman is caught between civilians and Chinese soldiers during the Tiananmen Square protests, June 3, 1989. (Jeff Widener/AP)
Following mass protests by members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement in 1999, Jiang launched a brutal crackdown on the movement, which was outlawed as an “evil cult,” setting up secretive and extralegal offices to hunt, imprison and torture practitioners in a nationwide operation that continues today, rights groups and U.S. officials say.
Yet much of Jiang’s political power stemmed from his ability to correctly judge which way the wind was blowing at any given time, rather than from a strongly-held sense of ideology, political commentators said.
“He wasn’t a leader in the traditional Chinese mold,” political commentator Heng He told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. “He had a strong desire to perform.”
During the student protests of 1986, while Jiang was party secretary in Shanghai, he gave a strongly worded speech shaming the students for protesting.
Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, left, and then U.S. President Bill Clinton review Chinese troops during arrival ceremonies in Beijing, June 27, 1998. (David Longstreath/AP)
“All of the provincial and municipal leaders were still watching to see what happened, and hadn’t yet gone either way,” Heng He, who has watched video footage of Jiang’s speech at the time, told Radio Free Asia. “[Jiang] was the only one who stood up and spoke out against these relatively liberal ideas, and anything related to the student protests.”
Jiang’s status as a second-generation scion of a revolutionary family — his father died fighting the Japanese during World War II — also helped.
Drawing investment
Yet after taking power, Jiang also managed to displease Deng, who still ruled from behind the scenes.
His conservative approach to the economy in the earlier years of his rule prompted Deng to take action of his own in the form of his 1992 “southern tour” kickstarting a slew of investment-friendly reforms.
“A return to the old, left-wing line [of late supreme leader Mao Zedong] was totally unacceptable to Deng Xiaoping,” U.S.-based current affairs commentator Cai Shengkun told RFA Mandarin. “So he launched his tour to the south of China, bringing in the cavalry to assist his reform and opening up policies.”
“That was a great deterrent to [any future moves from] Jiang Zemin.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, talks with former Chinese President Jiang Zemin in front of Tiananmen Gate, Sept. 3, 2015. (Ng Han Guan/AP)
Realizing his error, Jiang once more went with the prevailing political winds, and expressed his firm support for Deng’s reform program.
U.S.-based current affairs commentator Heng He said that was entirely in keeping with Jiang’s nature as a technocrat.
“His whole rise to power was also the rise of the technocrats,” Heng said. “He wasn’t a politician. Technocrats are politically opportunistic.”
Jiang, a Moscow-trained electrical engineer, then teamed up with economist Premier Zhu Rongji to ramp up economic reforms in the late 1990s, pushing through politically difficult market-opening reforms that helped China join the World Trade Organization in 2001, drawing vast foreign investment into its increasingly attractive economy.
World limelight
Jiang seemed to thrive in the international limelight and rubbed shoulders with world leaders from U.S. President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to the upcoming Russian leader Vladimir Putin, as well as maintaining ties with traditional Communist allies like Cuba’s Fidel Castro and North Korean leader Kim Il Sung.
In the West, Jiang is largely credited with breaking China out of the isolation imposed by democratic nations in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, as well as a successful bid for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, left, greets then Britain’s Prince Charles during a banquet prior to ceremonies for the Hong Kong handover, June 30, 1997. (David Longstreath/AP)
Inside China, he is credited with hiring an extremely able premier in Zhu Rongji, who launched nationwide reforms of ailing and inefficient state-owned enterprises, as well as an open-minded attitude to private wealth, with members of a newly emergent class of billionaires admitted to the ranks of the ruling party for the first time.
The result, according to a July 24 commentary by U.S.-based economist He Qinglian, was greater state control over “valuable assets, namely, oligopolistic state-owned enterprises in key sectors of the national economy, like energy, public utilities and foodstuffs.”
Changing regulations
Changes to urban land regulations that opened up large swathes of farmland around major cities paved the way for intensive industrial development and mass forced evictions, including ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Yet protests by evictees and the hundreds of millions of workers laid off from state-owned companies met with violent suppression and arbitrary detention in “black jails” or labor camp, in cases documented across two decades by Radio Free Asia.
Under Jiang, the beneficiaries of the booming economy were mostly officials and state-backed monopolies, which transferred wealth among themselves, while also benefiting a club of favored private sector collaborators, according to Cai Shengkun.
“They formed this complex, closed-circle model,” with “reforms” largely benefiting the wealthy, rather than trickling down to the general public, he said.
Falun Gong
Politically, Jiang was no more liberal than any of his predecessors, Cai said.
“Human rights and the rule of law were basically destroyed when Jiang Zemin started cracking down on the Falun Gong,” he said. “It was something Jiang worried about constantly, and couldn’t let go of.”
For Jiang, the 100-million-strong Buddhist-inspired meditation movement, which numbered some high-ranking officials and army officers among its ranks before it was outlawed on July 20, 1999, represented a threat to party rule because it offered ordinary people something they might want more than party ideology.
The crackdown, sparked by a sudden, silent protest of thousands of practitioners sitting outside party headquarters in Zhongnanhai in April 1999, was Jiang’s own brainchild, according to Heng He.
Thousands of members of the Falun Gong sect sit in silent protest next to Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leaders compound, April 25, 1999. (Chien-min Chung/AP)
“There are plenty of documents proving that everything that happened between April 25 and July 20 [1999] was instigated by him alone,” Heng said. “Nobody in the Politburo Standing Committee supported him at the time — it was his decision alone.”
“He saw [the Falun Gong] as competing with the Chinese Communist Party for the [loyalty of the] masses,” he said.
Over time, Jiang’s anti-Falun Gong campaign was to create more casualties than Deng’s Tiananmen massacre, and continues today, according to Cai Shengkun, who cited the treatment of disappeared former Falun Gong defense attorney Gao Zhisheng.
Chinese police wrestle a man to the ground in Tiananmen Square two days before the second anniversary of the crackdown on the Falun Gong sect, July 20, 2001. (Greg Baker/AP)
“What kind of rule of law can there be when we see what has happened to Gao Zhisheng since,” Cai said. “He took a Falun Gong case, and wrote an open letter to China’s leaders about it, and now, nobody knows if he’s dead or alive.”
The crackdown led a federal judge in Argentina to find senior Chinese officials guilty of “genocide and crimes against humanity” in a landmark lawsuit filed by Falun Gong practitioners overseas.
Positive image
Yet Jiang’s image remained largely positive among Western media outlets, given his low-key diplomatic policy and hands-off treatment of Hong Kong and Macau in the early years following their return to Chinese rule.
“Western countries weren’t wary of China back then,” Cai said. “And I don’t think Jiang Zemin had any ambition to rule the world, or lead it in a certain direction.”
By the end of his allotted two terms, Jiang was reluctant to quit politics, and, like Deng, remained a powerful figure behind the scenes during the Hu Jintao administration.
“Hu and [then premier] Wen [Jiabao] wanted to reform the political system, but couldn’t, because the tentacles of Jiang’s influence were everywhere,” Cai said. “That restricted what Hu and Wen were able to accomplish.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Luisetta Mudie and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Kitty Wang for RFA Mandarin.
The Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha, who fled Gaza in December after being detained by the Israeli military, is releasing his second book of poetry, Forest of Noise, next week. We speak to him one year into Israel’s relentless slaughter in his home of the Gaza Strip as he notes, “It is really devastating to think that after a year, the world is still thinking about October 7 only, rather than about the years and decades before October 7 and the many and long, long days and weeks that followed October 7.” Abu Toha also pays tribute to his former student, Hatem al-Zaaneen, who was recently killed while collecting firewood for his family, and shares the status of his own surviving family members in Gaza, who have been displaced once again as they seek safety from unrelenting Israeli bombardment.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Cambodian authorities have circulated photos of a handcuffed domestic worker who was deported from Malaysia after calling her country’s former leader Hun Sen “despicable.”
Nuon Toeun, a 36-year-old domestic worker over the past six years, was arrested Saturday at her employer’s home in the state of Selangor, which surrounds Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur. She was escorted to Cambodia by an embassy official and handed over to Cambodian authorities on Monday.
After detaining her in Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar Prison on charges of “incitement,” Cambodian authorities distributed photos of Nuon Toeun in front of the facility, handcuffed and under military escort.
Her deportation, arrest and public shaming drew condemnation on Thursday from observers and human rights advocates who slammed the Malaysian government for its complicity in Cambodia’s “transnational repression.”
Former Cambodian parliamentarian Mu Sochua, who is now living in exile, called the case an example of how autocratic regimes seek to “silence dissent.”
“A Cambodian domestic worker was immediately sent to prison after #Malaysia, complying with @hunsencambodia, deported her,” she said, in a post accompanying the photos of Nuon Toeun in handcuffs on the social media platform X.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, left, stands next to his father Hun Sen, former prime minister during the country’s 70th Independence Day in Phnom Penh, Nov. 9, 2023. (Heng Sinith/AP)
Nuon Toeun often used social media to criticize Cambodia’s leadership including Prime Minister Hun Manet and his father Hun Sen, who held the post from 1985 until last year before passing the role to his son and taking a new role as president of the senate.
She also criticized the Cambodian government over handling a variety of social issues.
‘Despicable guy’
A few days before her arrest, Nuon Toeun had posted a video to her Facebook page in response to a comment telling her to “be mindful of being the subject of sin,” in reference to talking negatively about Hun Sen.
“If I have sinned because I [have cursed] this despicable guy, I am happy to accept the sin because he has mistreated my people so badly,” she said in the video. “I am not a politician, but I am a political observer and expressing rage on behalf of the people living inside Cambodia.”
Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates Director Phil Robertson slammed the “shameful collaboration” between the two governments in deporting and jailing Nuon Toeun for her comments.
“Add yet another case in very long list of transnational repression actions undertaken by #Cambodia gov’t of @Dr_Hunmanet_PM @hunsencambodia,” Robertson wrote. “Hun Sen going after a maid in KL who called him ‘despicable’ & embassy escorts her back!”
“What’s truly despicable is #Malaysia‘s involvement in this!” he added.
Josef Benedict, a researcher with the Civicus Monitor, a global civil society alliance, expressed alarm that Anwar Ibrahim’s government in Malaysia would facilitate Cambodian efforts to punish dissent.
“A clear violation of international law & a new low for this government,” he posted to X on Thursday.
Nuon Toeun had been a supporter of the Cambodian National Rescue Party, or CNRP, which had been the main opposition party in Cambodia prior to its supreme court declaring the party illegal and dissolving it in 2017.
Attempts by RFA to contact Cambodian government spokesman Pen Bona for comment on Nuon Toeun’s case went unanswered Friday.
Am Sam Ath of the Cambodian rights group Licadho said that critics living abroad shouldn’t be deported for exercising their right to freedom of expression and warned that the case would only invite additional international scrutiny of the Cambodian and Malaysian governments.
“The arrest drew a lot of criticism of Malaysian authorities for working with Cambodia to deport the maid,” he told RFA Khmer. “The international community has raised the issue of freedom of expression, which the Malaysian government should respect.”
Am Sam Ath said that his organization is working to meet with Nuon Toeun at Prey Sar, who does not currently have legal representation.
Translated by Samean Yun. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Khmer.
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined seven partner organizations in a statement on Friday, October 4, 2024, condemning legal action taken by Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico against Peter Bárdy, the editor-in-chief of the news website Aktuality and the outlet’s publisher, Ringier Slovak Media. The statement called on the court to dismiss the case.
The legal action followed the use of a photo of Fico on the cover of a book authored by Bárdy, entitled “Fico-Obsessed with Power.”
Bárdy was the editor at Aktuality when Slovak investigative journalist Ján Kuciak was shot and killed on February 21, 2018. Kuciak is widely believed to have been targeted in retaliation for his corruption reporting. Despite the hitmen and intermediaries receiving lengthy prison sentences, the businessman accused of masterminding the crime, after threatening the journalist, was twice found not guilty.
The death toll from Hurricane Helene has reached 190 as fallout from the storm becomes clearer. Hundreds remain missing and presumed dead. President Biden has ordered the Pentagon to deploy 1,000 active-duty troops to help with flood relief efforts. Power outages and water shortages remain rampant across six southeastern states hit by one of the most destructive hurricanes in U.S. history. Democracy Now! speaks with immigrant rights activist Cesar Bautista Sanchez about how the storm has affected his area of Tennessee and the increasing danger of extreme weather events under the climate crisis. “This is starting to become a pattern,” says Bautista Sanchez.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
