All Videos Tagged censorship (Atheist Nexus) - Atheist Nexus

Pedo-Prophet (Draw Mohammad Day)

2013-05-20T10:38:22.983Z

In support of free expression and against censorship. For Draw Mohammad Day 2013.

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North Korea Undercover - Panorama

2013-04-16T15:37:37.852Z

'Journalists are all but banned from North Korea, so I'm going in undercover," says John Sweeney. I think he quite likes saying that. He is of course with a group of LSE students on a study trip, pretending to be a history teacher. He looks the part too. Don't forget they don't really have the internet in North Korea, so they won't have seen his famous Scientology rant on YouTube.

"I'm glad to meet you here in Pyongyang," says guide number one, from the front of the tour bus. Glad to meet you too sir. And you madam, guide number two.

I worry for both of them now – are they in the gulag?

Sweeney does some undercover reporting from the toilets of the hotel. There are no lights, and it smells. And outside there's a building site, they're building a bank, "night and day, day and night" says Sweeney. That wasn't in the brochure.

In the main square above kids on rollerblades, portraits of Lenin and Marx have gone, it's more accurate to look at North Korea as a far right state, an analyst says. And on to the mausoleum where Kim il-sung isn't looking his best – pasty and blotchy, well he has been dead since 1994, though he still pretty much leads the country. His son, Kim Jong-il, dead for a little over a year, looks a little fresher. The undercover reporting is getting better. And continues to do so.

Back on the bus, Sweeney looks out of the window, at poverty and greyness, at anti-aircraft guns, and military convoys going the other way. They visit a bottling factory where no bottling is going on. At a collective farm there are no crops, or animals, just propaganda blaring out from speakers all day long.

At a smart new hospital there are no patients; mostly they come and get treated in the morning because in the afternoon they go to work or have social activities, explains the doctor. Good system, perhaps the NHS could learn something.

The metro looks nice too, if it wasn't for the infernal propaganda. Nice and deep too, just in case of nuclear attack.

"Welcome to the real North Korea," says Sweeney, holding on to the barbed wire that surrounds another hotel he is staying in. It is very courageous reporting (especially from inside the circus along with what feels like the entire North Korean Officer Corps) and clearly the right thing to do now, as Kim Jong-un tells the world he is preparing for a nuclear attack on America.

But how much does Sweeney actually discover from inside North Korea that isn't already known? The interesting analysis and insight comes from outside the country, from escapees over the border in South Korea and from experts and analysts. A lot of the footage – of the Kims, shows of military strength, inside the gulag, starvation in the 1990s, comes from other sources. From inside he doesn't find out how how much the of sabre rattling is serious, of course he doesn't.

He finds out that North Korea is a secretive, dangerous place, with a brainwashed people, ruled by fear and the cult of personality. And often in the dark because the lights don't work. Now I'm no expert but I think we knew quite a lot of that already. Still, it's not a bad time to be reminded.

The Turkish media muzzle

2013-04-16T06:20:12.914Z

As Turkey has jailed more journalists than any other country, we investigate the red lines that restrict journalism.

To investigate Ankara's agenda for the media, Listening Post's Flo Phillips reports from Istanbul on the red lines that restrict Turkish journalism, and are even starting to affect entertainment programmes on television.

To discuss Turkey’s deteriorating state of press freedom, we speak with Yavuz Baydar, of Sabah newspaper; author Andrew Finkel; writer and political commentator Ece Temelkuran; and columnist for Hurriyet newspaper Mustafa Akyol.

As Turkey has jailed more journalists than any other country, we investigate the red lines that restrict journalism.

Ever since the election of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AK Party back in 2003 Turkey has been presented as a modern and mostly democratic state - a political model for the region.

Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Ennahda party in Tunisia often say Erdogan and the AKP have proved that parties like theirs, which seek a greater role for Islam in politics, can govern and preserve democratic values.

But Turkey's image is suffering as a result of the prime minister's heavy-handed approach with Turkish journalists who refuse to toe the line.

A country of 75 million, Turkey has a multiplicity of media voices - 250 private channels, more than 40 national daily papers, hundreds of radio stations – most seem to adopt the party line; the exceptions, and there are a few, feel the heat.

In recent years, Turkey has jailed more journalists than any other country, thanks to the liberally interpreted anti-terrorism law, a law that highlights deep structural problems within the Turkish legal system.

In January 2013, 11 journalists were arrested during a raid on a Marxist political party meeting. Police said the group were planning to attack and murder government officials. Five of them were sentenced to jail, joining the 64 media persons already behind bars.

In the run up to the recently announced ceasefire between the biggest Kurdish Party, the PKK and the Turkish government, sensitivity over coverage was at its height – just days before the announcement, a prominent columnist, Hasan Cemal, suddenly disappeared from the pages of a leading paper, Milliyet.

And Erdogan's cozy relationship with conglomerates means he can squeeze the ones that own media outlets from all kinds of different angles.

To investigate Ankara's agenda for the media, Listening Post's Flo Phillips reports from Istanbul on the red lines that restrict Turkish journalism, and are even starting to affect entertainment programmes on television.

To discuss Turkey’s deteriorating state of press freedom, we speak with Yavuz Baydar, of Sabah newspaper; author Andrew Finkel; writer and political commentator Ece Temelkuran; and columnist for Hurriyet newspaper Mustafa Akyol.

NewsUndies - 20120504 (NU1218)

2012-05-04T12:06:57.219Z

All the news that shouldn't be news for May 4, 2012, Including: * Barrymore von Sydow?!; * It's What He DIDN'T Say!; * OV: Romney - Rice?; * Apologies to Ric...

Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee on imagining worlds

2012-04-26T01:09:11.035Z

For one week the French city of Lyon became the worldwide capital of the web.

Major players from around the globe came, along with the inventor of the web, Tim Berners-Lee.

The British computer engineer devised the system that allowed the creation of websites and links.

In 1989 he put these principles into effect on the information network at CERN in Switzerland, where he worked, and the web as we know it took shape.