Slashdot Mirror
Sharp Rise In Jailing of Online Journalists; Iran May Just Kill Them
bckspc writes "The Committee to Protect Journalists has published their annual census of journalists in prison. Of the 136 reporters in prison around the world on December 1, 'At least 68 bloggers, Web-based reporters, and online editors are imprisoned, constituting half of all journalists now in jail.' Print was next with 51 cases. Also, 'Freelancers now make up nearly 45 percent of all journalists jailed worldwide, a dramatic recent increase that reflects the evolution of the global news business.' China, Iran, Cuba, Eritrea, and Burma were the top 5 jailers of journalists."
rmdstudio writes, too, with word that after the last few days' protest there, largely organized online, the government of Iran is considering the death penalty for bloggers and webmasters whose reports offend it.
But what better cover for a spy than a profession that cannot be used as cover for spies?
There's going to be a large, violent revolution soon.
If McCain / Palin had won the election, I might agree with you.
I don't even think that McCain would have gone into Iran. You'll note that Bush didn't. Iran can't win a war against the United States but they can make it sufficiently expensive to deter us from undertaking such a venture unless our back is truly against the wall. They can creditably threaten to close the Strait of Hormuz. Could they keep it closed indefinitely against the US Navy? Not likely. But closing it for even a few days would send the global price of oil through the roof and bring enormous diplomatic pressure down on the United States.
I don't think you have to worry about an American->Iranian war anytime soon. I'd worry more about what the Israeli's will do if they feel that the world is allowing Iran to obtain a nuclear bomb. They have much less to lose from a preemptive strike and very good motivation to ensure that Iran doesn't become a nuclear power.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
That's probably because you don't pay much attention to the world. If you had, you may have heard of this African country called Sudan, and a particularly a region in it called Darfur, a place where mass genocide has been going on- in fact, where as many as half a million civilians may have been slaughtered so far. Eritrea is one of the nations that has been accused of supporting the Darfur rebels fighting against the Sudanese government, but has since moved into a mediating position over the crisis.
To be fair though, part the reason you probably hadn't heard about it is because the world's media was mostly too busy covering middle east stuff like Israel's war with Lebanon. Apparently Israel killing 1000 odd Lebanese, many of which were Hezbollah militans and Hezbollah killing 130 Israelis, many of which were soldiers is somehow so much bigger a tragedy than the 10s of thousands of African civilians that were brutally raped, mutilated and murdered around the same time. For some reason, the tragedy in Darfur and the hundreds of thousands of dead, the hundreds of thousands raped and mutilated and the millions displaced just don't get the attention of the media like a good old fashioned suicide bombing in downtown Baghdad or a verbal spat between the US and Iran.
So yeah, Eritrea is an African nation with some quite close ties to the Darfur conflict. In it's short existence as a sovereign nation (since 1993 iirc) it's also managed to get itself in fights with Ethiopia, Yemen and possibly even Somalia I believe. It's relatively pro-Western, but not blindly so as there was some fuss about them allowing some militant in that the US claimed had Al Qaeda ties. It borders the red sea towards the North Eastern end of Africa.