Sudan: Women: World's most famous trouser-wearer, Lubna Hussein, skips lashing, fined, refuses to pay it, but fakes ...

Lubna Hussein has been mercifully spared flogging, but having refused to pay the fine on principle (she was wearing pants, a crime for women in Khartoum, Sudan). In a reversal after jailing her and putting her on trial: The government wanted her paid up, and out because of the gathering buzz of world media folks, who like vultures in town to feed upon and to feed the world the gender-politics of males-only-trousering in this Islamic land of military-dominance with the trappings of democracy.

When Hussein refused to pay even the "most merciful" mere fining, the govt brawt in Mohideen Totawi, head of the Sudanese Journalists' Association (SJA). Totawi paid Lubna's fine and this afternoon she was forcibly freed. The SJA was setup to counter the real pressfreedom organization of journalists, Sudanese Journalists' Network.

China: Internet: censorship software's mandatory installation delayed, official target is porn

BEIJING, June 30 (Xinhua) -- China will delay the mandatory installation of the controversial "Green Dam-Youth Escort" filtering software on new computers, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said here Tuesday.

The pre-installation was postponed as some computer producers said such massive installation demanded extra time, said the ministry.

"The ministry would keep on soliciting opinions to perfect the pre-installation plan," a spokesman with MIIT said.

All computers produced or sold in China were scheduled to be installed with such software after July 1, according to MIIT's previous announcement.

The ministry would continue to provide a free download of the software and equip school and Internet bar computers with it after July 1, said the spokesman.

The software is designed to block violence and pornographic contents on the Internet to protect minors. It could also help parents control how much time their children spend online.

However, the ministry did not mention when the pre-installation requirement would resume its effect.

Obviously, the story has not reached its completion. Look here for Updates as they occur in future reports of our NewsHorses.

Update:

China backs down from requirement for Web filter

China: Internet: World's largest search engine, Baidu, surpasses Google in China and many other places

The world's biggest search engine is not Google. Rather, it's Baidu, a China-based searcher that serves the thirst for new knowledge among Chinese-reading people today. So says the UK magazine, Prospect, in an article "Why don't you Baidu it?" (Jul2k9) by Tom Chatfield.

How many internets are there? Pampered by Google, most of us have got used to thinking of the online world as one seamlessly interconnected whole: 30bn pages all instantly accessible via the right search term and the click of a mouse. Yet with the number of people online (1.6bn) likely to double by 2020, we need to start thinking about internets rather than the internet: about a world in which regional idiosyncrasies are as important as global trends and where no single website, no matter how good, can be the key that unlocks every door. And, as with so many other 21st-century trends, to understand this future we must begin by looking at China.

China is already home to the world’s largest online community, with 298m users to America’s 227m. And the most visited website in China is not Google, but a home-grown company still relatively unknown in the west: Baidu. Founded in Beijing in 2000, Baidu today commands over 70 per cent of Chinese search requests, with Google trailing at under 25 per cent. The fact that Google isn’t top is not in itself unprecedented —- outside countries that use the Roman alphabet, Google is often smaller than regional rivals. Baidu is especially interesting, however, both because the Chinese-language internet is so large, and because Baidu’s particular package of tools and features has proved so resilient to Google’s considerable efforts to catch up. It’s a resilience that suggests both the limited ability of any one company to dominate an increasingly divergent internet—and some of the ways in which other companies might carve out similar niches elsewhere.

China: Repression: New curbs on Internet Access

The Chinese Health Ministry on Thursday ordered sharp restrictions on Internet access to medical research papers on sexual subjects.

Beijing Adds Curbs on Access to Internet

by Keith Bradsher in Hong Kong (Jun25,2k9)

The Chinese Health Ministry on Thursday ordered sharp restrictions on Internet access to medical research papers on sexual subjects. It is the latest move in what the ministry calls an antipornography campaign that many China experts see as a harbinger of a broader crackdown on freedom of expression and dissent.

U.S. Objects to China’s Web Filtering (June 25, 2009)
--see research link at bottom of page

In the past month, central government officials have cited a need to control pornography in ordering that filtering software be preinstalled on all new computers sold in China starting July 1.

They have also forced Google to disable a function that lets the search engine suggest terms and on Wednesday night even briefly blocked access nationwide to Google’s main search engine and other services like Gmail. Some users were still having problems accessing Google sites on Thursday night.

In addition, Chinese bloggers say they have detected evidence of a concerted effort to stain Google’s image. They say that someone in Beijing manipulated Google’s software to make it more likely to suggest a pornographic search term during a state television broadcast.

At the same time, the government seems to have stepped up harassment of human rights advocates.

Liu Xiaobo, one of China’s best-known dissidents, was formally arrested Tuesday on suspicion of subversion, six months after he was detained for joining other intellectuals in signing a document calling for democracy. This month, the authorities refused to renew the licenses of more than a dozen lawyers after they agreed to represent clients in human rights cases.

The same public security agencies charged with fighting pornography are responsible for suppressing illegal political activity, said Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher in Hong Kong for Human Rights Watch. The government’s statistics for seizures of illegal publications tend to include both pornographic and political documents, he noted.

“The two are closely associated,” Mr. Bequelin said. “These campaigns work hand in hand.”

The emphasis on pornography echoes a similar crackdown in late 2005 and early 2006, rights advocates say.

At the time, seeking to allay official Chinese concerns about pornography, Google designed a new search engine for Google.cn, its Chinese service, that would not pull up references to politically delicate subjects like Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement (there's more than one, altho here probably Falun Gong is in reference but also the repression of Christians (which repression NYT is loathe to acknowledge), those Christians not willing to acknowlege the no-god of Communism and its ruling party [like, I anologize, the Japanese and Korean Christians who refused to go along with our own Christian majority in both countries during WWII to acknowledge the worship of the Emporer], or the 1989 killings in and around Tiananmen Square.

While denouncing pornography, propaganda officials reined in publications that were challenging government policies. This included the closing of Freezing Point, a popular journal of news and opinion, and the replacement of top editors at three other publications.

The Health Ministry posted regulations this week requiring medical information providers to restrict access to articles on sexual subjects. The penalty for violations is up to $4,400, with the potential for criminal prosecution for a pattern of uncorrected offenses.

At a news conference on Thursday, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, was quick to criticize Google for allowing too many links to unseemly sites, saying, “It is every government’s responsibility to protect their teenagers from porn and vulgar information on the Internet.”

On Wednesday, the American commerce secretary, Gary F. Locke, and Ron Kirk, the United States trade representative, sent a letter to Chinese officials protesting the country’s proposal that all computers sold in the country be equipped with filtering software.

“China is putting companies in an untenable position by requiring them, with virtually no public notice, to preinstall software that appears to have broad-based censorship implications and network security issues,” Mr. Locke said in a statement. The United States government did not release the text of the letter.

Asked about the complaint on Thursday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said only that he had previously defended the decision to require the software.

Google said Thursday that it was trying to limit access to pornography.

“Google has been working to remove pornography from our search results in China, in accordance with our operating license there,” the company said.

“This has been a major engineering effort,” the company said, “and we believe we have addressed many of the problems identified by the government.”

The government began stepping up pressure on Google last week. CCTV, the state-owned television monopoly, broadcast an interview in which the announcer typed the word “son” into a Google search engine and was dismayed that one of the search terms suggested in Chinese was an “abnormal relationship between son and mother.”

Google’s software makes it possible to analyze the frequency and source of search terms. In a check on Thursday, Google’s Web site showed that no one had entered the phrase “abnormal relationship between son and mother” in Chinese for months until it suddenly became a popular phrase entered only in Beijing in the days before the show, making it more likely that it would pop up as a suggested search term.

The same CCTV show included an interview with a young man, identified as a college student, who expressed horror at pornography on the Internet. Chinese bloggers have since identified the man as an intern for CCTV.

Many Chinese regulations ostensibly aimed at controlling illicit sexual activity could also be used to restrict political activity unacceptable to the authorities.

For example, Chinese law requires that karaoke bars, nightclubs and Internet cafes be monitored 24 hours a day by closed-circuit television cameras on the grounds that prostitutes may try to find clients at such locations. But according to security industry executives, China’s anti-prostitution surveillance regulations are stricter on the Internet cafes.

While nightclubs and karaoke bars are required to store their video records on their premises, Internet cafes must be wired to the nearest police station and provide a continuous, instantaneous record of who is using which computer. If an e-mail message from a cafe’s computer later catches the attention of investigators, the police can review the video records to see who was using the computer.

The last major crackdown on pornography and political expression lasted several months and began to ebb in February 2006, after a dozen former Communist Party officials and senior scholars issued a public letter denouncing the closing of a prominent news journal.

But by then, the government had won some major concessions. Not only had Google agreed to remove considerable political content from its Chinese service, but Microsoft had disabled some blogging activity critical of China, and Yahoo had handed over the identity of an e-mail user who had shared a propaganda directive; the user was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Edward Wong contributed reporting from Beijing. Zhang Jing and Huang Yuanxi contributed research from Beijing, and Hilda Wang from Hong Kong.

-------------

"US Objects to China’s Web Filtering
by Saul Hansell (NYT, Jun24,2k9)

-------------------

"Reporters escape Taliban captors"
New York Times, Afghans reports

by Richard B. Richburg
Washington Post Staff Writer
(WaPo, Jun21,2k9)

-------------------

"Internt Censorship in China
(NYT, Jun19,2k9) Unsigned.

South Pacific: Fiji: Journalists call on Fiji government to end censorship and media expulsions

Statement by Citizens to Protect Journalists,
defending journalists worldwide

Fiji should halt censorship and media expulsions

New York, April 13, 2009--Fiji's interim government must relax its reporting restrictions after the government declared a 30-day state of emergency on Friday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Three foreign reporters have since been ordered to be deported and one local journalist detained, according to international news reports, and newspapers and broadcasts have been censored.

Australian Sean Dorney and New Zealand's Sia Aston and Matt Smith, said Monday that immigration officials ordered them to leave the country because of their reporting, according to the news reports. A Fiji Television journalist was also detained for questioning late Monday for reporting on Dorney's deportation, according to Agence France-Presse. The Australian ABC network named the journalist as Edwin Nand.

Local news reports critical of the government have been banned during the state of emergency, caretaker Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama announced Saturday in a national address marking his reappointment. He had briefly stepped down on April 10 after a senior court ruled that Bainimarama's military-backed rule--supposedly a prelude to restoring democracy--was unlawful, the reports said. "Information officers" were posted in Fiji's newsrooms to monitor reports that might incite "disorder," disrupting several reports on Sunday and Monday, according to international news reports.

"The introduction of blanket censorship during the emergency calls the government's commitment to restoring democracy into serious doubt," said CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney. "The authorities must remove censors from newsrooms, lift restrictions, free detained journalists, and halt the expulsion of foreign reporters immediately."

Fiji President Ratu Josefa Iloilo declared the emergency on Friday, overturning the constitution and firing the judiciary, after the court of appeal said Thursday that a December 2006 coup--lead by Bainimarama--was illegal, international news reports said.

Dorney, an ABC journalist whose reports were being broadcast on Fiji One, was driven with a military guard to the airport on Monday, according to Agence France-Presse. He had previously told reporters the immigration department had asked him to leave because they were unhappy with his reporting. Officials confiscated footage and a cell phone from Aston, a New Zealand TV3 correspondent, according to The Associated Press. She and cameraman Matt Smith were also asked to leave the country, international news reports said. It is not clear whether any of the three are still in Fiji.

Page two of the daily Fiji Times was blank except for a notice: "The stories on this page could not be published because of Government restrictions," AP reported. Fiji One replaced an evening news bulletin with the message, "Viewers please be advised that there will be no 6 p.m. news tonight.Three other Australians affiliated with prominent publications have been expelled from Fiji in the past 14 months. Fiji Sun manager Russell Hunter was accused of threatening national security in February 2008 after the paper reported on government corruption. Evan Hannah, Australian manager of the Fiji Times, was expelled for alleged work permit irregularities in May 2008. That paper's publisher, Rex Gardner, was forced to leave for the same reason in January 2009, according to international news reports.

The above statement was published on the front page of refWrite yesterday, where an Update will shortly include only a lead-in the this Statement, plus new info on the Courts having thrown out the military coup govt of Fiji, to which the false govt responded by permitting its soldiers to shoot anybody as they saw fit.

Recent Political Developments:

South Pacific: Fiji: Court says govt illegit, govt suspends constitution & reinstates military chief, press freedom ended

China: Repression of dissent taking place on Internet 2008

An article in Economist [UK, Jan7,2k9] leads with the issue of internet censorship apparently on the increase in mainland China, "Cracking down on dissent" fro "the Economist Intelligence Unit ViewsWire":

Increasingly worried about a sickly economy sowing social unrest, the Chinese government is tightening state control over the media. Its main aim appears to be to smother dissemination of politically sensitive discussions and information on the Internet.

On January 5th authorities notified 19 popular domestic and foreign Internet companies—including Sina, Tencent, Baidu and Google—that a failure to expunge pornography from their mainland websites could lead to a shutdown. Though officials touted the move as a moral imperative, Chinese citizens often use the same websites to vent their grievances at the government on innumerable blogs and postings. In a highly publicised incident in 2007, for example, the existence of illegal brick factories employing kidnapped children came to light when desperate parents took their search to cyberspace on Tianya, which operates Internet forums. Hence, the call for stricter self-censorship of any content can easily gag all controversial topics online.

The narrative which follows the preceding info, is both fascinating, scary, and a challenge from the country dominated by a Communist one-party state. I urge every reader to remain alert half-a-year after the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Free speech: Media shutdowns: Latin American wave of privately-owned TV shutdowns add Bolivia and Ecuador to Venezuela and Cuba

Washington Times carries a story by Martin Arostegui, "Morales, Correa target TV foes" (May31,2k7):

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia -- The leaders of Bolivia and Ecuador are moving with Cuban encouragement and in concert with their mentor, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to restrict press freedom in their countries.

Bolivian President Evo Morales and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa both announced steps to crack down on independent broadcasters within days of Mr. Chavez's closure on Sunday of Venezuela's main independent television station, RCTV.

Speaking before an international gathering of leftist intellectuals in Cochabamba last week, Mr. Morales proposed creating a tribunal to oversee the operations of privately owned press and broadcast outlets. Mr. Correa announced over the weekend that he would order a review of the broadcasting licenses of opposition news channels in his country.

Both leaders have drawn support and inspiration from Mr. Chavez's increasingly authoritarian government since coming to power in the past 18 months, and both are drafting new constitutions that would greatly increase their own powers.

Mr. Correa has ousted 51 opposition deputies from his nation's Congress and Mr. Morales this week ordered the arrests of four high court judges after they issued rulings that challenged his government.

"The main adversaries of my presidency, of my government, are certain communications media," Mr. Morales said at the Fifth World Conference of Artists and Intellectuals in Defense of Humanity, a Venezuelan-backed group supporting "the process of change in Latin America."

Appearing alongside Cuba's minister of culture, Abel Prieto, Mr. Morales suggested "drawing on the experience of our friends in Venezuela and Cuba" to establish closer controls over the press.

Mr. Prieto suggested that some owners of the independent press should receive long prison sentences. "I wish that we could imprison the owner of a media outlet. With much pleasure we would give him a life sentence for lying, for confusing the people," Mr. Prieto said.

The Cuban official said it was "imperative" to establish a tribunal that would "permit the evaluation and work of the media. Not only local and national but of all the great disinformation machinery in decisive media outlets with enormous world influence."

Mr. Chavez announced Monday that he would investigate CNN as well as Venezuela's last remaining opposition news channel, Globovision. He has remained defiant in the face of international condemnation and daily street protests in Caracas, telling his opponents to "take a tranquilizer."

In Ecuador, meanwhile, Mr. Correa issued a statement saying that "radio and TV frequencies have been granted in ways that are frequently dark and it's time to analyze the matter."

He accused owners of major news outlets of using political influence to get their broadcasting licenses and using the press "to defend private interests that are often corrupt." He also announced legal action against Ecuador's opposition newspaper La Hora.

Mr. Correa has repeatedly attacked the ownership of news channels by current and former opposition legislators. A reporter for one such radio network was expelled last week from a press conference given by Economics Minister Ricardo Patino.

Indications that Mr. Morales is preparing to follow the example of his close Venezuelan ally have alarmed Bolivian opposition leaders and news editors, who are frightened by his moves against the judiciary.

"Morales identifies his enemies," read a banner headline in the Santa Cruz newspaper El Mundo, which pictured a newsroom in the cross hairs of a telescopic rifle.

Mr. Morales tried to deflect mounting protests on Sunday by saying that he had no immediate plans to close down any TV station and that his criticism was aimed at owners of news organizations and not at individual journalists.

He organized a game of soccer with the presidential press pool on Tuesday to show his personal affinity with reporters.

I'm wishing there were a nonpartisan internantional Christain media news and opinion monitoring agency, so I could form at least workibng opinion of what the opposition media has been saying about their regirmes. In any case, I don't any of the four countries in Latin American that are moving toward totalitarian policy regarding freedom of speech.

Politics: Fiji: Bloggers and the new strategy proposed for coping with constitutional and military crisis in the Fiji Republic

Fiji Daily Post carries an Editorial that deserves thawtful consideration from friends of the island Republic around the world, "State of emergency brings peace to the nation" (May16,2k7). Hat Tip for the heads-up from correspondent Dr. Bruce Wearne. The Editor-in-Chief of the independent and courageous Fiji Daily Post is Dr. Robert Wolfgramm.

The decision to extend the state of emergency decree is a wise one. Without the furtherance of the decrees, the nation would surely disintegrate into violence of a scale sometimes warned about by our traditional prophets and doomsday commentators, but (thankfully) not witnessed on these shores in the past.

Every passing day brings more economic slowdown and unrelenting signs of a military clamp-down on free speech of some of our alleged dissidents. Qarase remains island-bound and his court case appears moribund in the administrative and legal processes of the courts.

The SDL case likewise appears becalmed. The combination of an economic downturn with no sign of a speedy return to democracy, coupled with the selective repression of the freedoms of some, is a recipe for turning patience into anger. And if the bubble of security is going to burst, the question is when and what will trigger it. The Interim regime knows that and so it is to their great credit and for the safety of all citizens that we must all put up with more, not less, state of emergency. It is the only way to keep a lid on potentially growing dissent and mounting opposition to Interim control. That is to say, we are as far from satisfying the doctrine of acquiescence as we ever have been and may be even further now than we were on December 5.

Yes, there are a few scattered voices raised here and there in support of the interim regime, but their influence and representativeness, is far from known or acknowledged. On the other hand, anti-Interim websites proliferate. Until the conditions which give rise to opposition to the Interim regime are moderated or allayed completely - that is, until democracy is restored and in its train assistance packages refurbished to our ailing economy and the rights of dissidents respected - a state of emergency is the best option for the foreseeable future.

We must get back top democracy as a priority, but not if an all-out war between the political factions that currently divide the nation is allowed to erupt. The state of emergency may not be pleasant, but like a leash on a dog, it restrains tempers and lets most people walk the streets and sleep safely at night. It allows for a sense of well-being for most and ensures the nation is at peace.

I chime in, thinking Dr Wolfgramm has alerted us in the past to the antidemocratic and unconstitutional actions of the military in dismissing the elected government of President Quarase, while replacing it with an illegal "Interim" government by the self-appointed "guardians"--namely, the military. At this distance, I find myself trusting editor Wolfgramm, a principled Christian-democratic thinker.

The fleeting glimpses the Editor-in-Chief gives us of the economic downturn (resulting from the withdrawal of aid packages from New Zealand, Australia, and the European Union -- if I recall correctly); and of the understandable rise of militant blogging against the military regime; both of these glimpses lead on to certain geostrategic considerations that make the overall picture in Fiji even more grim than hitherto.

SouthWest Pacific > Fiji's dissident bloggers

Undoubtedly there are countries which would want a SouthWest Pacific listening post and puppet showcase--Russia, even more so China, and not forgetting the India-heritage population-segment now in Fiji for generations, let's add India to this list. One or all of these could suddenly prioritize Fiji by offering an aid package that could outdo whatever the island Republic was receiving from elsewhere. To my mind, what argues against this scenario is the military leadership's apparent adulatory cultivation of American politicians and Survivor-escape tourist ventures. But, I don't think these affinities are enuff to push aside the constraining American reliance on the New Zealand + Australian sphere of influence in the SouthWest Pacific. [I've further thawts on all these countries in relation to Fiji, from the standpoint of world geostrategic reflection, but that's for another time; and I would pursue them in my Neo-Constantinian Horizons blog, not here as a contribubuting blogger, or in my refWrite frontpage column.]

Rookmaker Club geostrategic analysis

As to the proliferation of militant regime-overthrow bloggers (I may be forecasting instead of reporting by using the term "regime-overthrow" here, as such trends sometimes develop an inner dynamic all their own, sometimes becoming dominated by forces without a peaceful democratic society honestly in mind as their goal and at heart as their envisioned norm), Dr Wolfgramm states simply that "anti-Interim websites proliferate." Who is financing them, just the irate citizens that have had enuff? Or do we look to countries or corporations that would have an interest in financing such dissidents and which have a new or old interest in Fiji--an interst in Fiji not for its own sake, but for its value as a stepping stone to other countries in the region? Does China want a capitalist-communist pro-China base--a Hong Kong?, a Macao?, a Cuba--nearby its prized customers / espionage targets New Zealand and Australia? Just asking. Or, turning the question about, is such worriment precisely what the Interimist-military complex fosters and seeks to use as leverage in furthering its own ends. So the residual questio: whether only an Interimist fictional scenario is behind anti=Interimist support for anti-regime bloggers?, or whether a real political praxis by an expansive Chinese communo-capitalist state (for instance) is behind much / some / a few of the dissident bloggers?

Dr Wolfgramm concludes:

Until the conditions which give rise to opposition to the Interim regime are moderated or allayed completely - that is, until democracy is restored and in its train assistance packages refurbished to our ailing economy and the rights of dissidents respected - a state of emergency is the best option for the foreseeable future.

Sadly, I have to concur. I do so out of a Christian-democratic neo-Constantinian anti-revolutionary framework of political values and geostrategic thinking. But the anti-revolutionary component has its limits, as does the neo-Constantinian.

Yes, we should keep in mind, sometimes the doctrine of acquiescence is definitively blocked in a potentially revolutionary situation, and intransigence prevails past its shelf-date. If one can't retreat from Fiji and the kairos moment comes when the peace on the street is broken, even for the general public of the island once-upon-a-time Republic, what criteria could be proposed for direct action to preserve / restore the Republic in democratic fullness? By peaceful means only, in the first instance? How to coalesce bloggers calling for direct action yet wanting peaceful democracy in an indepemdent Republic distinct from any bloggers who may turn to revolutionism that really works toward a dictatorship alternative to the military-Interimist regime? How to discern the spirits if direct action becomes a cause? How to configure a coalition that isolates out from the circle of democratic and Christian-democratic co-belligerents, those others following a revolutionistic path pure and simple? Fiji is not Nepal, but....

Could Christian-democratic discussion clubs focused on these issues help in this situation at this moment?

Speaking in regard to action, one could ask: How to divide the bloggers who are authentic Fijian patriots from those who are serving foreign interests (whether foreign states or mega-corporations which may be the root of the military's coup, or may be a new force seeking to wedge its way into influence / power in this moment of weakness for all Fijian democracy and constituitonality)?

I will be posting further on the Fiji dissident bloggers on refWrite refBlogger Insert--a reformational blog which is devoted to exposing blog abuse and to supporting bloggers who are repressed, denied at least a modicum of freedom of speech in various represssive countries. As regular readers will know, I do not believe in an absolute freedom of speech, but there is a time and place for much expression that you or I may detest and consider to be quite anti-normative. In that lite, we must search for guidelines for our communal Christian reformational stance, an intelligence-fortified basic argument to defend the freedom of speech / blogging by the new Fijian extra-parliamentary opposition (a very mixed designation, I'd guess), freedom of speech within normative limits, and opposition to any imposed illegal extra-constitutional regime--that remains de rigeur.