|
Monday, 17 March 2008 |
Continuing what appears to be a trend in countries hardly known for human rights achievements, China has blocked access to the video-sharing site YouTube after prostests mount in Tibet. A court in Turkey has moved to do the same “in response to a video clip deemed insulting to the country’s revered founding father,” AP reports.
Also according to AP:
The blocking [in China] added to the Communist government’s efforts to control what the public saw and heard about protests that erupted Friday in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, against Chinese rule.
Access to YouTube.com, usually readily available in China, was blocked after videos appeared on the site Saturday showing foreign news reports about the Lhasa demonstrations, montages of photos and scenes from Tibet-related protests abroad.
[AP, NYTimes, Detroit Free Press] |
|
Read more...
|
|
Monday, 17 March 2008 |
|
Parliamentarians form the Council of Europe plan to investigate the free speech rights of athletes participating in the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.
According to RSF:
Olympic athletes should not be deterred from giving sincere and honest responses to journalists’ questions or from making comments on the situation of human rights in China or other countries out of fear that those statements will affect their sports careers in any way. Athletes and NOCs need to understand this and that Article 51(3) [of the Olympic Charter] in no way justifies restricting athletes’ right to make such statements.
Preventing athletes from talking about human rights abuses, contrary to their right to freedom of expression, violates the fundamental principles at the heart of the Olympic Charter, contradicts the spirit of the Olympic Games and amounts to condoning the human rights abuses committed by too many countries around the world, including China.
In related news, China's oppression in Tibet continues unabated. (See videos below.)
[Council of Europe, RSF]
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Monday, 17 March 2008 |
A Texas sheriff pissed off that the media covered the arrest of his son stooped to threatening reporters with jail time. "If you guys keep interfering with my business,” Sheriff Santiago Barrera Jr. said, according to reports, “I'm going to have you arrested."
In related news, Sheriff Barrera has just been nominated for the Fire in a Theater “Public Official of the Year” award. We have nothing but good things to say about Sheriff Barrera, who is an exemplary public servant that--we hope--will not arrest us.
[FOI FYI, MSNBC, Press Notes, First Amendment Center] |
|
Read more...
|
|
Tuesday, 11 March 2008 |
Another family is fighting the suppression of free speech by public schools. According to AP, “[t]he family of a middle school student who was given detention for wearing a T-shirt bearing the image of a gun has filed a federal freedom of speech lawsuit against the school district.”
We’ve all seen the so-called “terrorist hunting permits” plastered in the rear windows of Confederate flag-sporting pickups. Apparently, similar shirts are in vogue as well. AP reports, “[t]he shirt bears the image of a military sidearm and on the front pocket says "Volunteer Homeland Security." On the back, over another image of the weapon, are the words "Special issue Resident Lifetime License — United States Terrorist Hunting Permit — Permit No. 91101 — Gun Owner — No Bag Limit."
The idea of a “terrorist hunting permit” certainly is borderline tasteless, but the government should not be involved in matters of taste. And, indeed, it says it isn’t. “[A]n attorney for the school district said school must create a safe environment for students in the post-Columbine era, and bringing even the image of a gun to school violates the district's policy,” AP reports.
If it hasn’t become abundantly clear already, Columbine is to schools as Sept. 11 is to nationally security. Each is a bland, worn out excuse to forsake liberty in favor of false security. One wonders when the school’s library will be stripped of books detailing history’s violent human struggles, or whether the images of weaponry will simply be redacted.
[Yahoo]
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Wednesday, 27 February 2008 |
Holding a classmate at knife point and demanding his HoHos would warrant such discipline. Taking another student hostage in the playhouse would probably require some time away from school (and plenty of therapy visits). But Bryan Ruda of Parma Community School in Ohio is being forcibly denied his education because his unconventional haircut – a mohawk – has been deemed a “distraction” to other students.
Principal Linda Geyer stated that the haircut was “disrupting the educational program.” After all, according to Geyer, classmates had indeed been commenting on the haircut, unveiling a discovery about human behavior that is sure to shake the foundation of psychology: children like to talk about how other children look.
After being absolutely floored by this startling revelation, the board of Constellation Community Schools, which operates Parma Community School, decided that the possible distraction caused by kids looking at and talking about some other kid's hair was such a complicated problem that there was only one solution: remove the “offender” from the situation. Bryan's mom could appeal the suspension, but she has, understandably, chosen instead to move her child to another school that might not have policies that remove stimuli that could help children learn valuable lessons from the classroom.
The bottom line is that children NEED to learn how to deal with distractions. Life as an adult is largely about avoiding distractions and staying on task! In a country where drugs for the treatment of ADD and ADHD are being over-prescribed at a terrifying level, we should be vigilant about teaching our children to responsibly deal with distractions, not remove those distractions entirely from the educational experience. This is yet another case where shielding children from perceived harm is exactly the opposite of what they need to gain experience and learn life's important lessons.
[Cleveland.com]
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Tuesday, 26 February 2008 |
According to the Associated Press, a California court declined to issue a restraining order against the publisher of a “blog called ‘No Phat Pink Chicks.’ It pokes fun at [a local reporter’s] reporting, looks and personality.”
The court rejected the reporter’s “request to force [the blogger] to take down her blog and stay away from her. [The judge] said the blog's commentary was written at roughly a sixth-grade level but was legal nevertheless.”
“I think we can't avoid that there's a big, fat First Amendment staring you in the face," he reportedly said.
[First Amendment Center, Hat Tip – Press Notes]
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Tuesday, 26 February 2008 |
According to the Student Press Law Center, “The editor in chief and two other editors at Lewis University's student paper, The Flyer, resigned today amid disagreements with school administrators over control of content.”
“Former Editor in Chief Pete Nickeas said he decided to resign after Angela Durante, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, decided the paper could not publish the names of students or community members involved in alleged criminal activity, could not publish the word "nigger" in a news story about the word appearing on a flier on campus, and could not run a story about a university trustee being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission without Durante's approval.”
[Student Press Law Center, Hat Tip – Press Notes] |
|
Read more...
|
|
Tuesday, 26 February 2008 |
The managing director of an Iranian Web site was arrested for “poisoning the election atmosphere," Reuters reports.
In reality, the blogger accused “a grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of betraying the legacy of the founder of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution” and backing "wealthy moderate politicians."
“’We wish we also had a BMW car...and breathed the posh northern Tehran weather...and had the pleasure of only observing oppressed people's pain like you do,’ [the blog] said in an article addressed to Khomeini," according to Reuters.
[Reuters, Hat Tip – GigaLaw] |
|
Read more...
|
|
Tuesday, 26 February 2008 |
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists: “The Belarusian Supreme Court has ordered the early release of Aleksandr Sdvizhkov, former deputy editor of the now-shuttered independent newspaper Zgoda, who was sentenced in January to three years in a high-security prison for reprinting controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2006.”
[Committee to Protect Journalists]
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Sunday, 09 December 2007 |
|
This Andy Marlette cartoon on Gillian Gibbons, the British schoolteacher who allowed her Sudanese class to name a bear Mohammad, is priceless. Naturally, the infamous Mohammad bear is depicted in the cartoon. I suppose that makes this a bona fide Mohammad cartoon!
 Cartoon by Andy Marlette/AndyMarlette.com Check out Andy Marlette cartoons every day at TheSequitur.com. |
|
Read more...
|
|
Free Speech
