THE SILENCING OF DISSENT

Craig Murray:- We all need to take a step back and see what kind of society we have become; in particular the Stalinist silencing of voices of dissent - even within our universities.

I have seen my past server host pull this website and my publisher pull my book, in attempts to silence my dissenting opinions. We overcame those, but they should never have happened. Now I have been telephoned by the University of Cambridge to be told that security staff will physically prevent me from entering the University of Cambridge to give a talk there.

What have we become? I have responded thus and am now off to Cambridge.

Dear Dr Elliott,

As I told you on the telephone, I was invited some weeks ago to speak this evening in a debate on the merits of the Afghan War. I learnt this morning that plans had changed due to a student occupation of a university building over University policy towards Gaza, and as the organisers of my debate were involved in the occupation, I was requested to switch my talk to the Law Faculty. I agreed to do so.

I then heard from you that the authorities had decided to exclude non-University members from the law faculty, and should I arrive to give my talk I will not be admitted; and indeed be physically prevented from entering.

I have given this some thought, and I have decided that the threat not to admit me to the University building is unwarranted.

As you may realise, I am Rector of the University of Dundee (and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Lancaster School of Law). I am not personally intending to occupy your building for longer than it takes to give a talk, and certainly intend to cause no damage. I am not a health and safety risk.

I am invited to lecture at Universities and other prestigious institutions worldwide; normally universities are urging me to come, not seeking to turn me away! I understand that a number of people are looking forward to hearing me this evening. To threaten to exclude me is a denial of freedom of speech which I find very peculiar behaviour for the University of Cambridge.

Student occupations are hardly a new phenomenon, and normally can easily be resolved through amicable negotiation. I was quite astonished to learn that Cambridge University had responded by attempting to starve the students out. To try also to ban a guest speaker seems to me likely to inflame and prolong, rather than resolve, the dispute.

It seems to me that the easiest way out of the current difficulty of my visit is for you to extend to me an invitation to speak this evening on behalf of the Faculty.

With all best wishes,

Craig Murray

A NEW KEN PICARD AL-JAZEERA INTERVIEW

WEB EXCLUSIVE

KEN PICARD of 7D did an interview this week with former Pentagon spokesperson-turned Al Jazeera reporter, Josh Rushing.

Rushing and Al-Jazeera English Managing Director Tony Burman, will talk about the network and answer call-in questions TONIGHT at 6-6:45 p.m. on Channel 17, CCTV. For more information, call Sam Mayfield at Channel 17 at 862-3966, ext. 19.

Rushing will also speak tomorrow night at the public forum of Burlington Telecom's two citizen oversight committees on whether to continue airing the network. | Tuesday 11 June - from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Hauke Conference Room at Champlain College.

GREG GUMA REPORTS IN ON THE BT/AJE SITUATION

Greg Guma, author of The People's Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution, co-founder of the Vermont Guardian and former exec director of Pacifica, has written an overview about Burlington Telecom's dropping of Al Jazeera English in an article on Common Dreams and on his blog. The comments on the Common Dream article are worth a read, too.

AL JAZEERA ENGLISH COULD CHANGE THE WAY YOU SEE THE WORLD - IF YOU EVER GET TO WATCH IT

I attended yesterday’s meeting about Al Jazeera’s English language television programs continuing on Burlington Telecom. The meeting brought 100 or so people to the auditorum. Haik dropped in and has a few things to say.


The public comment was predictable. A majority of speakers wanted BT to continue broadcasting AJE and claimed the network brings more program diversity to Burlington; gives an alternative news (non-corporatist/consumerist) to viewers; is even a respected news source in Israel (a woman and I said that, actually); the issue is about free speech; if viewers didn’t like it, they could just not watch it, switch channels or turn it off. A minority of speakers said AJE in Burlington was an affront to the Jewish community here; maintained that AJE was hateful propaganda. Paul Decelles, a city councilor said he'd never subscribe because having AJE on the schedule is an insult to the veterans who have fought and died in Iraq and other American wars. (Actually, he's a free-market capitalist and doesn't want BT tied to the city.)

I also reminded the committee that BT's Chris Burns should be reprimanded for pulling the plug on AJE without having let them know of his decision or even asking for their advice.

I'm no judge, but the small coterie of zionists who complain that AJE is a propaganda assault on Jews are projecting: this local group has a political agenda, too: Victimhood. (I have rarely seen Israelis talk about the Roma, gay, communist or slav experiences during the holocaust. I will add that Ha'aretz's opinion pages are critical of Israel policy - funny how these kinds of views never came up last night; all this is O/T and possibly the subject of another post on here.)

There was a media presence. Channel 17 will no doubt have the meeting on its website. In identical stories by Dave Gram in the Times Argus and the Boston Globe (he’s the AP stringer here) I read:

Mousa Ishaq, a Palestinian born in the West Bank who has lived in Essex Junction for 30 years, said after the meeting that Al-Jazeera is not just an Arab propaganda organ, and that those urging its removal from Burlington Telecom would find some allies in the Middle East.

"Al-Jazeera has been kicked out of every single Arab country," he said. "Arab governments do not like Al-Jazeera."

Of course they don't: many governments in the Middle East (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait) are not democratic and oppress their citizens. Al Jazeera's in-depth reports on some of these countries goes against their rule!

So I did a quick google search “why arab governments don't like al jazeera” and found several reasons. The results also showed why our American government doesn't like AJE.

The following article below is more current (May, 2008) and even mentions BT’s carrying AJE. Read all of it for more background --

This headline should become a mantra for pro-AJE forces in Burlington!

Al Jazeera English Could Change The Way You See The World--If You Ever Get to Watch It

Stebbins says the U.S. government embarked on a campaign to deligitimize Al Jazeera's journalism. "I think we still live with the legacy of that campaign," he says of the Al Jazeera English network. "They still successfully manage to associate us with radicalism."

But Al Jazeera isn't radical, he argues. Its motto, Stebbins says, is "the opinion and the other opinion," and it encourages charged and open debate. At times, that debate can become heated, especially when it comes to U.S. foreign policy. "An Al Jazeera colleague said to me, the difference is that the Western media covers the war from where the missiles were fired," Stebbins says. "Al Jazeera covered it from where the missiles landed."

These below are older stories, but noteworthy:

al Jazeera awakens the Arab world

Neslen sees the channel reporting multiple viewpoints, journalism virtually unimaginable in the Western media, "a willingness to take risks in showing controversial images of the horrors of war, reporting from ‘behind enemy lines’, critical coverage of Saddam Hussein and George Bush alike and an avoidance of the 'news pool'."

A sign of the increasing interest being generated by al-Jazeera is the release of the film Control Room. Telling the story of how the channel decided and made the news during the Iraq war, the film has already broken box-office records in the US. With senior Bush officials accusing the station of anti-Americanism, an increasing amount of Americans clearly want to make up their own minds. The Christian Science Monitor highlighted the main thrust of the film: nobody has a monopoly on truth.

Al Jazeera and the Net – free speech, but don't say that

Essentially Al Jazeera's 'Iraqi propaganda' activities are no greater (perhaps even rather less) than those of many liberal media outlets. In the UK many of these have also been criticised by the government, but they have not been the subject of major hacking attacks, nor have hosting and services companies declined to do business with them. We should also clarify something regarding the footage of the prisoners and the dead servicemen; military spokesmen to the contrary, reproducing such images is not a breach of the Geneva Convention. The Geneva Convention is directed at governments, and does not cover news organisations. Al Jazeera has arguably broadcast images of the Iraqi Government breaching the Geneva Convention, but that is not the same thing.

To get this into perspective, note that one of the most striking pictures from the Vietnam war was of a South Vietnamese officer shooting a prisoner - do we argue that this should not have been published? If Al Jazeera had footage of an Iraqi shooting a British prisoner, should that be broadcast? The other way around? Are our standards today different from those of the 60s, or do the criteria differ depending on the nationalities of the participants and/or the audience? The answers are not straightforward, nor should they be. In deciding whether or not to report a story and how to report it news organisations have to take into account the motivation of the people they're covering, standards of taste and decency and likely impact on people involved, such as friends and family.

By Western standards Al Jazeera may have breached standards of taste and decency, and may not (again by Western standards) have sufficiently contextualised bin Laden and Iraqi exercises in propaganda. But by Middle Eastern standards Western media could similarly be accused of too readily parrotting propaganda in the other direction, and of too frequently operating a system of self-censorship. There's some merit to both points of view, the demise of Arnett being a good example of self-censorship, but there's no good reason for casting Al Jazeera into outer darkness - unless of course the problem is that its coverage has been increasingly reaching a Western audience.

AL JAZEERA COMES TO BURLINGTON

From Ken Picard/Seven Days about the "local matter" concerning censorship of news in Burlington:

AL JAZEERA will be covering today's Burlington Telecom Advisory Committee and the Citizen's Advisory Committee meeting today at the Contois Auditorium in Burlington's City Hall.

Be there at 4:00 p.m. to stand up for freedom, justice, and the American way. :-P

STUDENTS FREE SPEECH IN A VERMONT SCHOOL CHALLENGED

“Insist upon yourself. Be original.” -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Jesus statue project was primarily conceived by Helms, who asked Olivetti to help out. Helms, 18, says he was connecting to themes in the play, "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail," which was on the AP course reading list. The play examines, among other things, the 19th century writer Henry David Thoreau's act of civil disobedience in refusing to pay taxes to the U.S. government while it waged what he viewed as an immoral war in Mexico.

Thoreau was trying to point out hypocrisy by the U.S. government, Helms said, and the student in turn wanted to point out what he views as hypocrisy at Mount Abraham with regard to the constitutional separation of church and state.

The school asks students to say the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, and has a permanent mural displaying Apollo, an ancient Greek God, Helms said. Yet it wouldn't allow him to display the Jesus statue. "My thesis was that the government and the administration of our school is often hypocritical in what they allow and what they do not allow."

KISS BURNS GOOD-BYE? BT/AJE CONT'D....

Ken Picard reports on the 05/21/08 edition of Seven Days that Burlington's mayor, Bob Kiss, has stated that BT will not be dropping Al Jazeera anytime soon. Without getting advice or even informing the BT citizens advisory committee, Chris Burns of BT decided unilaterally to drop AJE. The BTAC will meet, maybe even take public comment [shocker!] at 4 p.m. next Tuesday in Contois.

There are a whole slew of letters on the BT/AJE deal in 7D (05/21/08), too.

And Haik Bedrosian on his blog continues to offer excellent comment and wise advice.

Democrats should not attack the mayor for stepping in. He's doing the right thing. A fledgling city department is veering off course and the mayor is responsible . So is the city council.

The Republicans may not philosophically agree with the city owning a telecom utility, but at least they understand it for what it is. Burlington Telecom is a political entity. There's no getting around that. I think that's great. Some people don't and believe all telecom utilities should be commercial or private. That's a debate we can have. But if the Dems try to accuse the mayor of politicizing what the Progs and the Republicans already know is political anyway, they run the risk of appearing out of touch and/or disingenuous. I hope they don't go there.

The fact is, this is a city department. There are oversight committees and there are processes. Burns cancelled the channel unilaterally without telling the oversight committees. That's un-democratic. This is a democracy, and Burlington Telecom is a public utility. If you want to infringe on someone's first amendment rights, you at least have to go through due process.

If y'all have time and the interest --

Open Forum: Open Government Committee

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

2nd Floor, Firehouse Gallery/City Arts

7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

If the BTAC meeting on Tuesday has not room for public comment, you'll have a chance to have your say on Wednesday. After all, BT is a city department whose focus is communication! Let's hope Channel 17, that Burlington bastion of free speech records these meetings and carries them live-stream on its nifty website!

Spanish Police raid over controversial cartoon

GUARDIAN - Spanish police were ordered to raid newsagents across the country yesterday to remove copies of a satirical magazine deemed to have offended the country's royal family by publishing a cartoon of the heir to the throne having sex.

The cartoon on the front cover of El Jueves magazine showed Crown Prince Felipe and his wife Letizia in the midst of an ardent session of love-making.

A speech bubble issuing from the prince's mouth makes a joke about the amount of work done by the royal family and a government decision to give families €2,500 (£1,680) for each new child.

"Do you realise what it will mean if you get pregnant?" the prince asks. "This is going to be the closest thing to work that I've ever done."

A judge at Spain's national court yesterday ordered police to impound all copies of the magazine, arguing that it contravened a law that prevents Spaniards from being "rude or insulting" about King Juan Carlos or his family. It's all here...

I don't see much of the Western or US press or liberal blogs covering this story, though the Free Press hid it in some short world news stories in the back pages of today's print edition. But in an internet search, I found that the cartoon-in-question is now for sale on eBay.

ejh at The Tomb - It is all right for cartoons to risk provoking hatred against Muslims but it is not all right for cartoons to risk provoking laughter against princes. Read the rest... there's more to this story than just the free speech issue.

NGO bans controversial sculpture

Mad Priest - The African women's NGO Rainbo has been forbidden to exhibit a controversial sculpture at the Your Voice Against Poverty rally in London on 2nd June. The Danish artist Jens Galschiøt is astonished. He declares: "I have been censored by totalitarian regimes, but I have never imagined my sculptures to be banned by 'progressive' Western NGOs."