Journalists in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have freedoms few in the region can enjoy. And at the same time, the threats to their lives is ever-present.

Mustafa Qadri reports in the Sunday Guardian (In south Asia, independent journalism is a real risk) that journalists are heavily restricted from independently reporting India’s continued crackdown on Kashmiri independence protests. And that journalists in Pakistan face greater threats. Earlier this month journalist and activist Abdul Hameed Hayatan was found dead in Balochistan after being kidnapped in October.

In September Umar Cheema was kidnapped by what appeared to be a police patrol while driving home in Islamabad.

“They stripped me naked and tortured me,” he recalled. Tied upside down, Cheema was badly beaten and had his eyebrows, moustache and hair shaved in a six-hour ordeal after which he was thrown on to a highway some 125 kilometres from his home in Islamabad.

Cheema realised his captors were in part of Pakistan’s secretive intelligence agencies. His transgression — in their eyes — was not the usual issue of military atrocities but rather its incompetence in prosecuting persons accused of killing army personnel.

Cheema had earlier faced the wrath of the army when he wrote about two commandos who were court-martialed because they suggested negotiating during a hostage situation in 2007.

Few think anything will get done even as the situation for journalists’ safety worsens.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists no one has been prosecuted for murdering a journalist in Pakistan except in the Daniel Pearl case. Civilian authorities set up a judicial commission to investigate Cheema’s abduction, but it appears to be languishing and there have been no significant investigations of army authorities.

First posted at DC SPJ.

The BBC wanted to report on the situation of Paul and Rachel Chandler, a British couple who spent more than a year kidnapped in Somalia. It was a major story but legal steps taken by the Chandler family prevented the media from saying anything until the Chandlers were released.

The BBC program Over to You discussed why the Beeb — and other news outlets in Britain — were not able to report the story: The Chandlers: Censorship in a good cause?

The couple’s family had gone to court in the UK and asked a judge to grant them what’s called a ‘super-injunction ‘ – a legal measure that’s caused controversy as it has often been used by celebrities to stop newspapers publishing stories about their private lives.

As it’s also illegal even to refer to the existence of a super-injunction, the BBC could not explain to listeners and viewers why they were quiet on the story when others, who did not obey the ban – were not. Was this something that concerned the Editor of BBC World News, Jon Williams?

He explained that while the BBC is not in the business of censoring the news, no story is worth a life – and so the BBC accepted the argument of the family, their lawyers and the judge that to do otherwise would jeopardise the safety of Paul and Rachel Chandler.

So, as the Over to You editor asks: “What do you think?”

Should the BBC and other news outlets have violated the court injunction and report what they had?

First posted at Journalism, Journalists and the World.

Talk about copyright protection gone crazy.

Boing Boing reports that Zimbabwe justice minister is steering a bill through Parliament that seeks to amend the copyright laws by giving copyright protection to legislation, notices and other material in the Government Gazette, court judgments and certain public registers.

Yep, that means the government wants to copyright in all these documents. The law will give the government all the rights and powers of a copyright holder.

And that power means the law and the doings of government will be copyrighted and not freely distributable to the governed.

It should come as no surprise. Zimbabwe is ranked #123 of 178 in the world on press freedom, according to Reporters Without Borders.

Let’s not forget that Oregon tried this a while back: Oregon: our laws are copyrighted and you can’t publish them

First posted at DC SPJ.

The International Center For Journalists held a seminar today (Nov. 27) in Amman, Jordan.

Anyone with a Twitter account could follow the discussion as American Drew Sullivan talked. Or you could come in much later and read the Tweets and get a good overview of event.

To make life easier on our members, I used Storify to arrange the ICFJ Tweets from the discussion.

Drew Sullivan talks with journalists in Amman

First posted at Journalism, Journalists and the World.

Last week the Committee to Protect Journalists held its annual awards dinner in New York City.

Honored for their work in defending free press were Dawit Kebede of Ethiopia, Nadira Isayeva of Russia, Laureano Márquez of Venezuela and Mohammad Davari of Iran.

The organization also released its annual report.

While the CPJ looks at the whole world, its 201o report selected Somalia, Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Pakistan, Mexico and Azerbaijan for special attention because of the threats to journalism and journalists in those countries.

Seems the American public is not the only ones being screwed by the banks.

Earlier this month Bank of America closed the accounts of the embassy and consulates of Angola in the United States. The accounts were closed Nov. 9 after the bank warned the Angolans of the decision with an unsigned letter. The bank gave no explanation for its action.

The most likely reason: Banks are calculating that the effort spent making sure government accounts are not being abused for money laundering purposes is too complicated and costly to justify keeping the accounts.

And it looks as if Angola is not the only one being hit. As many as 37 embassies in Washington could soon face similar action. Seventeen of those embassies are from African countries.

So why is this an important story? Why is it important to journalists and journalism organizations?

One simple word: Retaliation!

Already the Angolan government is showing its displeasure with the bank action by refusing to accept the credentials of the U.S. ambassador-designate to Angola. (The Angolan government says the U.S. government needs to do more to force the banks to accept their accounts.)

On the horizon, the governments could cancel permission of U.S. banks to operate in their countries. They could also freeze or cancel the local banking accounts of companies such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron. This latter option is already being discussed in Angola.

The few U.S. news outlets that have international correspondents and bureaus, could find their overseas accounts frozen. This would lead to an inability to pay stringers, local staff, interpreters and — in general — local expenses.

In a larger view, a tidal wave of account closings could make it impossible to conduct simple business across borders. It could bring further economic woes to a global economy just now coming out of the 2008 crash.

Looking at who has carried the story, it seems that after the Wall Street Journal reported it, picked up the Reuters‘ feed, all the local Fox TV stations carried it — at least on their websites. Then Reuters picked it up. But as of early morning on Sunday, I was hard pressed to find many major news organizations in the States carrying the story.

First posted at Journalism, Journalists and the World

Radio Free Asia reports that a Chinese bride-to-be who wrote an anti-Japanese message on Twitter has ended up with a sentence of one year in a labor camp. And this all happened on her wedding day.

Seems Cheng Jianping, was sent to undergo “re-education through labor” for “disturbing social order” when she re-Tweeted a Twitter comment urging nationalist protesters to smash Japan’s pavilion at the Shanghai Expo and added the words “Charge, angry youth.”

Amnesty International told the Washington Post that “Cheng may be the first Chinese citizen to become a prisoner of conscience on the basis of a single tweet.”

Cheng’s fiance and family did not know she was arrested for about 18 days. And even then, it took another couple of weeks to get an official explanation for what happened.

The story first appeared in a report from Radio Free Asia and was then picked up by the BBC. From there, other news outlets grabbed hold of the story. Following the links in Boing Boing, you end up at the Washington Post blog page rather than a news page. But at least the story is getting around.

I guess China is still working on that freedom of expression and rule of law thing that Premier Wen told Fareed Zakaria was so important to the future of his country.

Egypt will be holding parliamentary elections later this month, and the BBC reports that freedom of the press in the country is being restricted as election day approaches.

According to the report, Egypt’s government has “closed a number of television channels, tightened regulations on the sending of news by text message, and forced operators of satellite dishes to reapply for their licences.”

The media director of the ruling National Democratic Party says that these events have been “taken totally out of context.”

But Nader Gohar, whose satellite dish operation — Cairo News Company — must reapply for a new license, says that many media operators in the country feel like they are working under threat of being shut down.

AFP reported Sunday on a gathering in Moscow, Russia, to protest recent assaults against journalists.

The two journalists mentioned in the article — Mikhail Beketov and Oleg Kashin — had been covering a controversial plan to build a highway near Moscow when they were severely beaten. Beketov was attacked two years ago, but Kashin was beaten earlier this month.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has promised a full inquiry into Kashin’s attack.

We have all seen the story: Cost of Obama trip to India is $200 million a day.

Too bad none of it is true.

It all started with an Indian newspaper quoting an unnamed local provincial source.

And now Jon Stewart explains it all: