J-Topics

May 3 was World Press Freedom Day, although there doesn't appear to be much reason to celebrate. Deb Jones in Town Hall links to reactions from Reporters Without Borders, the Canadian Newspaper Association and a Canadian journalist who has been subject to harrassment, all attesting to the fact that press freedom is still very much under threat here and around the world. For more background info, check out the Freedom of Expression J-Topic.

For World Press Freedom Day on May 3, Reporters Without Borders has issued its new list of the "predators of press freedom." They are, says RSF, "men and women who directly attack journalists or order others to. Most are top-level politicians (including presidents, prime ministers and kings) but they also include militia chiefs, leaders of armed groups and drug-traffickers. They usually answer to no-one for their serious attacks on freedom of expression. Failure to punish them is one of the greatest threats to the media today."

(I would add that public apathy and the failure to stand up and be counted, to fight for press rights, is as great a threat.)

The press release from RSF/Reporters Without Borders is here.

In this piece for The Gazette, president of the Alberta-based Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership Janet Keeping contends that the overzealous commissions should be controlled by changing the law, and that the best way to counter hateful or offensive speech is to maximize open debate.

Mohamed Elmasry, national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, has issued an odious news release regarding Maclean's that, in my opinion, reeks of ignorance, clobbers different points of view, and is offensive in the extreme.

In expressing dismay at what he sees as slurs against a religion that he says is "demonized in the public square, in books, in the print and broadcast media, on movie screens, and increasingly in the Internet and World Wide Web," Elmasry accuses all of Canada of extreme racism; he dismisses the many who have a different point of view from him, and imo have legitimate concerns about the role of the Human Rights Commissions and freedom of expression, "Islamophobes."