Crisis: International
Danish paper gets bomb threat
The Copenhagen-based daily Jyllands-Posten received bomb threats in retaliation for publishing cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. A caller speaking in English told the paper’s switchboard on Feb. 7 that a bomb would explode in 10 minutes, according to reports.
Police with dogs searched the newspaper’s offices for several hours but found no bomb.
Jyllands-Posten said it was flooded with over 80,000 e-mails as hackers tried to shut down its web site.
The paper published 12 cartoons of Muhammad on Sept. 30, 2005, sparking furor in the Muslim world where depictions of the prophet are forbidden. One drawing showed Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban with a lit fuse.
Jyllands-Posten originally published the cartoons after asking artists to depict Muhammad to challenge what it said was self-censorship among artists dealing with Islamic issues.
Newspapers closed down for printing prophet cartoons
Three Yemeni newspapers and a Malaysian daily were closed down after publishing controversial cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The Yemeni Ministry of Information on Feb. 8 ordered the closure of the English-language newspaper Yemen Observer after it published three cartoons with black marks covering potentially offensive portions. Mohammed Al-Asadi, the paper’s editor, said the drawings printed on Feb. 4 sought to denounce the cartoons while calling for calm and urging Yemenis to accept apologies offered in Denmark, where the cartoons were first published last September.
The license of the Arabic-language Al-Rai Al-Aam was also revoked for publishing a selection of the drawings the week before.
The Yemen Observer and Al-Rai Al-Aam were the second and third newspapers to be closed by government order in Yemen in February. On Feb. 6, Yemen’s Ministry of Information ordered the closure of Al-Hurriya after it published four drawings on Feb. 2 as part of its coverage of the protests spawned by the cartoons.
Article 103 of Yemen’s 1990 press law prohibits publications which “prejudice the Islamic faith and its lofty principles.”
In Malaysia, the government suspended the publishing license of the Sarawak Tribune, a regional daily, and began an investigation of the newspaper staff after it printed the cartoons on Feb. 4. The suspension was immediate and will continue pending the outcome of an investigation by the Internal Security Ministry. The paper published one of the 12 cartoons, according to news reports.
The closing of the Sarawak Tribune marks the first time in almost 20 years that the government has resorted to shutting down a newspaper, according to local reports.
The cartoon controversy began in September when the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten published 12 drawings of Muhammad, one of them depicting the prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban with a lit fuse. The cartoons gained increased attention after they were reprinted in the Jan. 10 edition of Magazinet, a small Christian evangelical weekly based in Norway, according to local and international press reports.
Media banned at Nepalese polls
The Nepalese government imposed a blanket “no-entry” policy for journalists at election venues amid tight security on Feb. 8, according to International Federation of Journalists. Journalists were forcibly excluded in a spate of arrests and beatings at polling venues throughout the country.
Two journalists covering the polls in the town of Ilam in eastern Nepal were arrested and detained overnight without charges. Two more journalists, Dhiren Chemjong and Dharma Gautam, were arrested and another beaten by police while trying to cover the elections in the Dharan and Kalaiva. In Chitwan, a journalist was manhandled and briefly detained by police, while security forces threatened two journalists who tried to talk to voters and take photographs at a polling booth in New Baneshwor.
Thai broadcaster convicted
The provincial court of Ang Thong in central Thailand sentenced a community radio operator to four months in prison for breaching the Radio Telecommunications Act. Sathien Chanthon, operator of 92.25 MHz radio station in Chaiyo district, was also ordered to pay a fine of 40,000 baht (US$1,000).
Chanthon was found guilty of illegally operating the station and possessing a transmitter. The provincial court initially sentenced him to six months in jail and fined him 60,000 baht (US$1,500) but reduced the penalties because he cooperated during the trial.
Media reform advocates fretted that the court verdict would have far-reaching repercussions on the community’s fights for the right to use air waves, which are under state control.
Sathien argued that his station operated in line with Article 40 of the Constitution, which says radio and television transmission frequencies are national resources for use in the public interest.
The court, however, argued that his station should still come under the existing Radio Tele-communications Act in the absence of a broadcast regulatory body, which should have been set up under Article 40. It further said that the government’s interim rules for community radio broadcasting were not law and therefore the existing telecom-munications law would take precedence over them.
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