Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Secret War

Did you know that Iraq is the only country were more journalists die in a year then in Russia? Did you know that French Constitutional Council just passed a law prohibiting anyone without journalist accreditation filming or broadcasting violence, in essence criminalizing citizen's journalism? See any common trends?

3 comments:

Irina Tsukerman said...

Why am I not surprised.

Woland said...

Russia is no surprise. French law, however does surprise me.
I can see the excuse the had for passing this law. Apparently it is supposed to fight incitement, but the side effects can be very dangerous.

Irina Tsukerman said...

Woland: French newspapers (and the courts) are already exercising a severe form censorship, though mostly self-censorship. The "anti-incitement" measures are very much one way. You can be charged with incitement if you're write something anti-Muslim, but if you actually attack Jews/Zionists/Israel, whether in print or physically, AND you happen to be Muslim... chances are, nothing's going to happen to you. (They do go after Nazis though... I think.) What's the new law actually supposed to do? Keep people with cameras from taking pictures of the burning cars... which are still burning, and about which you won't hear anything in the press.