President Obama in the Oval Office

Joe Conason writes in Salon that former CNN anchor Lou Dobbbs sound like he is running for office and that if he does it will be the GOP’s nightmare.  “Lou Dobbs for president!” is the headline on the op-ed.

It send a chill up my spine, but I’ll leave Lou and his whole schtick alone for now.  Rather I want to focus on one thing Canuson reports that Dobbs said in his first radio broadcast after leaving CNN that just completely baffles me.  Nor is Dobbs is not the only one who has made the allegation, many on the right have.

He said that President Obama “focuses on the partisan and racial” in a “21st century post-partisan, post-racial society.”  I don’t know what planet Dobbs is living on, but we do not live in a post racial society.  I do think that since the Civil Rights Movement, we have slow progress toward this becoming a nation in which race doesn’t matter, but we’ve still got a long way to go.

continue reading "Post-Racial and Post-Partisan?"

A November 6, 2009 Press Release from Scholars at Risk:

Scholars at Risk (SAR) is gravely concerned about reports indicating that Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh, a respected international scholar and researcher, has been arrested, convicted and sentenced to over 12 years in prison. Reports indicating that an appeal may not be heard are of equal concern. SAR asks for letters, faxes and emails respectfully urging authorities to reconsider his case and ensure that an appeal be heard.

More information on the case and how to respond is available here.

Academic Freedom Media Review
October 30 – November 6, 2009
Compiled by Scholars at Risk

Government backs down on science freedom demands
Mark Henderson, The Times, 11/6

Scholars at Risk Calls for Letters on Behalf of Iranian Scholar Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh
SAR, 11/6

Fiji throws out Australian academic
AFP, 11/5

Israel Boycott Fight Moves to Norway
Inside Higher Ed, 11/3

continue reading "Call for Letters on Behalf of Iranian Scholar and Academic Freedom Media Review"

Al Jazeera gets such a bum rap in the United States because they are perceived as being biased against the United States and overly critical of US foreign policy. It’s not a fair evaluation, which is not surprising given that it is too often made based on hearsay by people who don’t speak Arabic, but that is not my concern in this post.

The network also does a very good job of holding Middle East governments to account. In fact, that has often gotten them into trouble. This is an episode of Inside Story, a program that is broadcast on the English service of Al Jazeera, assessing freedom of the press in the Arab World.

Al-Jazeera operates in Qatar almost completely free of official interference, but I also don’t recall seeing critical coverage of Qatar or much coverage from the Emirates, at all. You don’t hear much from those countries in which a tightly controlled press is the norm such as Saudi Arabia or Syria. The clampdown in Morocco is significant because there are fears that it signals the end of a long period of liberalization.

Thanks to 3arabawy for finding it.

Compiled by Scholars at Risk

Israel Deports a Bethlehem U. Student Because She Is From Gaza
Matthew Kalman, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/29

The United States Provides $45 Million for Higher Education Commission
U.S. Department of State, 10/29

Academia and its Discontents
Jia Ahmad, Nneka McGuire and Nicholas Wong, Columbia Spectator, 10/29

continue reading "Academic Freedom Media Review, October 23-30"

Stamp Commemorates Moroccan American Treaty of Friendship

A few days ago I posted an entry about recent setbacks in freedom of the press in Morocco.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be visiting Morocco November 2-3.  In advance of that visit Reporters Without Borders, an organization that fights for freedom of the press has sent an open letter to the Secretary of State  outlining violations of press freedom since July 2009 and concluding:

Reporters Without Borders urges you to use the opportunity offered by your visit to Morocco to talk about the difficulties that the independent media are facing and to raise this crucial issue with the Moroccan authorities. The aim of the Forum of the Future which the US government set up in 2004 is to promote democratisation in the Broader Middle East and North Africa region. Press freedom is an essential component of this democratisation.

continue reading "Reporters without Borders on Press Freedom in Morocco"

Two more Moroccan journalists were fined today for reporting false information on the health of the King, Mohammed VI.  According to Agence France Presse

The editor of the daily al-Jarida al-Oula, Ali Anouzla, was handed a one year suspended jail term, while journalist Bouchra Eddou was also given a suspended sentence of three months.

The tribunal fined Anouzla 10,000 dirhams (876 euros, $1,315) and Eddou 5,000 dirhams.

Both men have appealed and accused the government of simply trying to clamp down on the press. As I noted previously, it continues a worrying trend.
continue reading "The Perils of Being a Journalist"

Upon the death of his father, it looked as if Morocco might be on its way toward total freedom of expression.  This post is too short to go into much detail, but tentatively at first, then progressively with more and more confidence the media and the arts began to confront previously taboo subjects including corruption in government and the private sector, human rights abuses, gender oppression, linguistic and cultural suppression of minorities, policies in the Western Sahara, homosexual rights, etc.

There was shock when the Moroccan magazine TelQuel was able to publish an investigative piece on “The Salary of the King,” and get away with it.  Under his father Hassan the II such matters were kept as secret as nuclear launch codes.  I don’t mean to say that the media totally ignored all that was wrong in Morocco until the liberalization, either.  But when something was  reported, it was done very carefully, with great care as to who was bore the blame.  All of that changed in the years following the elevation to the throne of Mohammed VI.

Recently, however, there have been a number of setbacks and it has been hard to watch. 
continue reading "Freedom of the Press in the Maghreb"

The Flag of the United States of America

This is such a good piece about the symbolism of our national flag. Like the columnist, it has pretty much gotten to the point that if I see a flag displayed too prominently on an email or on a web page, I assume that the accompanying message is likely to be insulting and full of unsupported, reckless claims and attacks on the duly elected President of the United States.

How did the flag become this? It should be a symbol of our national unity, not a cudgel we use to beat those who don’t agree with us.

But Amy Hardin Turosak says it so much better than I in her piece “Our Flag is Not a Prop” for the Christian Science Monitor. It’s pithy, concise and to the point. She argues:

The flag must not be used as a point of argument but as a symbol of the solidarity that binds the diversity of our nation.

But, if you protest, you have a responsibility to protest based on fact. This is not a university football game. This is the future of our country.

This Land Is Your Land – Ryan Bingham from Ryan Hargrave on Vimeo.

I’m not one of those who get’s all his news from The Daily Show, I swear, but as Jon Stewart points out in this segment, it’s hard to get it anywhere else.

But at least they are making sure Saturday Night Live gets the facts straight.

And then there’s this guy. Look what he did with some scraps that, quite frankly, a junkyard owner wouldn’t have bothered to save.

He did all that based on images in a library book? It took me hours to set up the surround sound in my family room, and I had diagrams and specific color coded cables! I’m calling William Kamkwamba next time. You know all those leaks in the Big Dig Tunnels Here in Boston where I live, they should have just told William Kamkwamba what they wanted done. Remember the Mars Climate Orbiter that NASA lost because they confused Metric and Imperial measurements? Maybe William Kamkwamba should have taken charge. I’m exaggerating, of course, but this kid’s story does make you wonder, if he can do that with what he had, what would he do with all the benefits I have. As he says in the interview, what if he had Google?

Here are two articles that touch on freedom of the press and gender in the Islamic world.

A journalist in Afghanistan who had a death sentence for blasphemy commuted to 20 years in prison has now been released, officials say.

Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh has been pardoned by President Hamid Karzai, the Afghan justice ministry confirmed.

Relatives of Mr Kambaksh said he had already left Afghanistan as he had been granted asylum by a European country.

In 2007, he was convicted of distributing material that questioned Islamic attitudes to women.

Media rights groups have welcomed the release of Mr Kambakhsh, which they say is the result of persistent lobbying.

via Afghan Journalist Freed from Jail

In this second article, a journalist was arrested, but not for anything she said or did.  Unlike Mr Kambakhsh, she wasn’t charged with blasphemy or with some crime against the state, as dissident journalist so often are.  Her crime was her attire.  She wasn’t dressed properly.

A Sudanese court ruled on Monday that journalist Lubna Ahmad Al-Hussein should be fined two hundred dollars for wearing trousers; considered an indecent outfit in Sudan – applying Islamic Sharia in their law. It’s worth mentioning that Lubna was threatened of a verdict amounting to 40 whip lashes…  More than a thousand persons, including numerous women in trousers, demonstrated in front of the court on Monday in solidarity with the journalist. The police broke up the demonstrators and detained forty eight female activists and journalists on the charge of inciting a riot.

via Trouser-wearing Sudanese journalist escapes flogging, fined $200

It’s worth pointing out that this article is from the site Meedan, a site with the goal of connecting Arabic and English speakers by taking advantage of machine-assisted translation technology.  A useful resource.  More on that later.