Iranian Blogger Dies in Prison/

Iranian Blogger Dies in Prison
A young Iranian blogger who had the audacity and courage to criticize the country's most revered mullahs has died in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison, according to his attorney.
Mohammad Ali Dadkhan, the attorney of Omir Mir Sayafi (above), said even though the death has not been officially confirmed, he quoted prison officials as saying his client committed suicide and has demanded an immediate investigation.
Here is from Agence France-Presse via Canada.com:
Dadkhah said another prisoner in Evin, a Dr. Hessam Firouzi, "had warned officials in the jail of the state the young blogger was in.

"Dr Firouzi called me from the jail to say Omid had a slowed heartbeat and he had taken him to the infirmary, but that doctors there did not take this seriously and said he was faking it," Dadkhah said.

He added Firouzi reported that Sayafi had also been very depressed.

The blogger, aged around 25, was sentenced in February to 30 months in jail for insulting Khamenei and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic.

Sayafi was first arrested in April last year and released on bail after 41 days before being detained again this year.

Iran has launched a crackdown on bloggers and Internet users deemed to be hostile to the authorities and their Islamic values.
Another Iranian blogger, Hossein Derakhshan, who started a press freedom revolution by teaching Iranians how to blog in Farsi, was arrested on Nov. 1 after traveling to Tehran from his country of residence, Canada.
He has been charged with spying for Israel.
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News and Media Law Leaders Endorse Principles for Internet Press Freedom

NEW YORK -- A conference of leading journalists, media lawyers and online news executives, meeting June 26-28 in New York, endorsed a set of 16 principles representing fundamental guidelines for maintaining and protecting the freedom and independence of Internet news, and suggested actions to implement it.
The Statement of Vienna, a body of 16 principles adopted Nov. 21 in Vienna, Austria, as the fundamental guidelines for protecting press freedom on the Internet by members of nine leading global press freedom organizations. The Statement affirms, among its principles, that “news media in cyberspace and via international satellite broadcasts should be afforded the same freedom of expression rights as traditional news media. ...” (Full text of the Statement follows).
The conference, titled Press Freedom on the Internet, was co-sponsored by the World Press Freedom Committee and the Communications and Media Law Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
The conference panels included the following topics:
The Associated Press Approaches New Press Freedom Challenges
Overview of Internet News
Growing Internet Restrictions
Press Freedom Issues at the World Summit on the Information Society
Supporting Internet Press Freedom Globally and How the Internet Can Promote Press Freedom
Where in the World Can Internet Publishers be Sued? Which Countries' Laws Should Apply?
"pressfreedom.com"
The Global Internet Freedom Act: Effective Tool for Democracy?
Endorsement of the Statement of Vienna -- and Strategies for Its Implementation
The conference featured some of the world's most renowned experts on press freedom and the Internet, including the following:

-- Tom Curley, in one of his first public statements since taking over June 1 as president and CEO of The Associated Press, said Internet issues - especially relating to intellectual property rights -- are among the greatest concerns for the AP’s worldwide operations. “In every meeting I go to, there are issues around piracy and threats to our revenue stream,” he said. Other concerns include “considerable threats to getting access to information, what happens to that information and what we are responsible for,” he said.
Curley noted that AP has just designated New York lawyer John Keitt as general counsel with special responsibility for addressing intellectual property and other business development issues.
-- Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., co-sponsor with Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif) of a bill to establish an office of Global Internet Freedom, explained his purpose in introducing the bill, which is expected to reach the floor of the House of Representatives in early July.
-- Geoffrey Robertson, noted British human rights lawyer, described the new challenges the Internet poses for publishers, who are now becoming targets for libel suits from all corners of the world based on complaints by plaintiffs that they have been wronged by material appearing on the Internet, even if it originates in another country.
-- Kim Holmes, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, declared that the United States will defend press freedom rights at the United Nations and UNESCO, and at an upcoming World Summit on the Information Society.
Others making statements included experts in news, journalism education, media law and Internet technology:
Leonard Sussman, senior scholar in international communications at Freedom House;
Shanthi Kalathil, author of global studies of Internet freedom, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace;
Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Study Program at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism;
Ben Edelman, who has written extensively about Internet blocking, Harvard Law School;
Guy-Olivier Segond, Special Ambassador, World Summit on the Information Society;
Henrikas Yushkiavitshus, Adviser to UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura;
Andres Garcia Lavin, former President, Inter American Press Association and
International Association of Broadcasting;
Mogens Schmidt, Assistant Director, Press Freedom and Democracy, UNESCO;
Ronald Koven, European Representative, World Press Freedom Committee;
Adam Clayton Powell III, Visiting Professor, Annenburg School for Communication, USC;
Timothy Balding, Director General, World Association of Newspapers;
Tala Dowlatshahi, U.S. Representative, Reporters Without Borders;
Mick Stern, Webmaster, Committee to Protect Journalists;
David Schulz, Esq., Clifford Chance LLP;
Jan Constantine , Esq., News American Publishing Co.;
Kevin Goering, Esq., Coudert Bros. LLP;
Stuart Karle, Esq., Dow Jones & Co.;
Kevin Goldberg, Communications lawyer with Cohn & Marks; WPFC General Counsel;
Jane Kirtley, Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law, University of Minnesota School of Journalism and
Mass Communication;
Paige Anderson, Staff Counsel for Global Internet Policy Initiative, Center for Democracy and Technology;
Roger Parkinson, former president, World Association of Newspapers;
Andrew Nachison, Director, The Media Center, American Press Institute;
Seymour Topping, San Paulo Professor of International Journalism, Columbia University;
Richard Winfield, Clifford Chance US LLP; former AP General Counsel.
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Press Freedom Issues at the World Summit on the Information Society
A Worthy Democratic Initiative or a Worldwide Effort to Bring Back Old Forms
of Censorship and Government Intrusion?

By M. Kalyanaraman

New York City, June 30, 2003 -- A panel discussion on "Press Freedom Issues at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)" brought out the conflicting pulls on agenda of this UN-sponsored initiative during a press freedom on the Internet conference.
The civil society groups and the media were against the WSIS attempts to codify rights saying it would limit them and instead wanted the summit resolution to enforce, not just recognize, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Article 19 states, "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
The conference also exposed the various cross currents within the UN regarding the summit, which will be held in December of this year and in 2005.
Drawing on the past experience of UNESCO, Henrikas Yushkiavitshus, adviser to UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura, and Mogens Schmidt, Assistant Director of UNESCO’s Press Freedom and Democracy Unit, said the draft resolution shares many features of the 1982 New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) in which the UNESCO played an important part.
They pointed that the WSIS Bucharest declaration legitimized press censorship in countries like the former Soviet Union and lead to Great Britain and the United States leaving UNESCO.
They expressed their peeve that the UNESCO, which has learned important lessons from the last summit, has been marginalized this time and instead the International Telecommunication Union has been given the responsibility of organizing the summit.
But Guy-Olivier Segond, Special Ambassador to the WSIS, said the media and other groups, including the UNESCO, have been given a place at summit conferences, though the governments of the 191 UN member states will ultimately have the last word.
James Ottaway (left), WPFC's Chairman, and Guy-Oliver Segond, Special Ambassador to the WSIS, discussed their opposing views about the merits and the dangers of the summit's agenda and objectives.

Segond insisted the goals of the summit are legitimate and refused the contention that this is an attempt to bring back to life the NWICO principles.
James H. Ottaway Jr., chairman of World Press Freedom Committee (WPFC) and Senior Vice-President of Dow Jones & Co., said he is happy that Article 19 has been given central priority in the draft resolution. And that it has been opened up to civil society and media voices. But, he pointed out that 60 percent of the 191 countries that will decide the outcome have no free press.
"We are distinctively worried about this," he said.
Ronald Koven, the European representative of WPFC, said in NWICO countries tried to define a "right to communicate," beyond Article 19, as a collective right of groups and nations.
"This meant the right of governments like the Soviet Union to claim time or space in other people's broadcast or printed press to put across their propaganda," said Koven.
Koven said there are similarities to the draft papers for this summit. He added that just as the previous summit added baggage to rights only to allow governments to restrict them, this summit’s draft paper describes the information society as a new world order which also deals with economic and social development.
Andrés García Lavín, former President of the Inter American Press Association and International Association of Broadcasting, said some nostalgic people were bringing in old ideas and sophisticated rhetoric into the summit draft.
"Press, radio and television are not services but means of freedom,” he said. “And they should not be clubbed with other economic and social goals.”
UNESCO’s Schmidt said that WSIS’s goal of cultural diversity was a NWICO buzzword also, while the actual issue should be just Article 19.
Segond rejected the WPFC charge that the world summit was a threat to press freedom, indicating that since more than 91 percent of Internet users live in countries that have only 19 percent of the total population, the WSIS has to deal with policy issues relating to these realities.
Segond, a Swiss and former President of the State Council of the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland, insisted he was well aware of the principles of press freedom and democracy, indicating he comes from the world’s oldest democracy. He added Article 19 will be a priority at the summit.
Giving a positive view of NWICO, Segond said the right to communicate was a new concept for many countries. And they tried to tackle it at that conference.
“One of the aims of this summit was to contribute to preserving identities without diminishing positive aspects of internationalism," he said.
Regarding the complaint about the power given to governments, he said he agreed that they were not perfect institutions but they will decide many issues.
He also said the World Electronic Media Forum, one of the WSIS’s five preparatory meetings, was intended for media representatives, who along with other civil society groups, will have a role in the outcome of the summit.Iranian Blogger Dies in Prison

Yushkiavitshus, a Lithuanian and former Soviet-era official, suggested former Warsaw Pact member states like the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland as examples of the kind of censorship and unintended consequences initiatives like WSIS can bring about.
“These countries have a better memory of what the lack of freedom of expression in society means. Among their leaders are personalities who themselves fought and made sacrifices for human rights and fighting spirit is still alive there,” he said.

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March 19, 2009