You Cannot Kill the Truth with a Bullet - Jean Dominique

I know it is very easy to stick the boot into journalists. After all there is not enough investigative journalism or campaigning journalism, certainly in the British Press, but far too much emphasis on worthless celebrities and bleating vacuous, columnists (Yes I appreciate the irony of criticising columnists from a blog). And then I visit Bayeux in August and I go to the Journalist memorial and I am reminded that not every journalist is a Lunchtime O Booze style hack

When I was visiting old friend in Paris in August, we made a spur of the moment decision to visit Bayeux. I had never been there and I wanted to see the Tapestry, My friend, who had been there before wanted to see the journalist Memorial.

In 2007 Reporters Without Borders and the town of Bayeux inaugurated a Journalists Memorial to honour over 2,000 journalists (the most recent being Mexican Norberto Miranda Madrid, murdered on 23 September) who have been killed since 1944 while doing their job. Many are killed reporting on military conflict, but far more are killed for writing what others do not wish to see published.


It is a peaceful memorial, consisting of white stones bearing the names of the dead journalists. Some years, mercifully, have no deaths; some have a few including my birth year (1963) when two Vietnamese photographers died. It is depressing to see that recent years have far more deaths than the years of worldwide conflagration. The death rate appears to be increasing, as our insane propensity for warfare continues and as murder is used more often to silence truth-seekers.

"It’s the only place in the world where my husband’s name is carved in stone,” said Michèle Montas, widow of murdered Haitian journalist Jean Dominique,
Jean Dominique was an exceptionally brave man. The founder of Haiti’s first Independent Radio Station, he was a vocal opponent of the Duvaliers. Dominique, had to flee Haiti twice in 1980 and 1991, He returned for the last time in 1994.



In his final years he concentrated on issues of corruption and negligence. He took on former police chief Dany Toussaint whom he accused of having his rival for the position of Secretary of State for Public Security. On 3 April 2000 Dominique was shot four times in the chest as he arrived for work at Radio Haïti. Toussaint was almost certainly responsible.

Dominique is memorialised in Bayeux, Toussaint is alive and well and immune from prosecution.



If you are in Bayeux, it is well worth the visit

A warning in French

I saw this poster several times in Paris last month. More to follow on this

Iran - the high price of free speech continued

Jila Baniyaghoob (above)who was arrested with her husband Bahaman Ahamadi Amoee on 20 June. Their whereabouts are unknown but probably they are held in the security wing of Tehran’s Evin prison.

According to Reporters Sans Frontières (via the Guardian) the media crackdown in Iran means that the country now imprisons more journalists than any other country

In the space of two weeks Iran has beaten both China and Cuba to the top spot with more than 33 journalists in jail in Iran (the figure will almost certainly rise further). At least 25 journalists arrested since the disputed election remain in prison, the Paris-based organisation said on Friday.

This clampdown has also seen Iran jump above Burma, which RSF claims has 14 journalists in jail, Eritrea, which has 17 jailed reporters, Cuba with 24 and even China, where 30 reporters – out of the 166 that RSF claims are imprisoned worldwide.

RSF fears for the safety of those imprisoned in Iran. "Several witness accounts make us fear that torture and ill-treatment are being systematically inflicted on prisoners who have demonstrated against the regime," RSF added."Several journalists and bloggers were brutally treated by the guards and by men employed by the state prosecutor, Saaed Mortazavi."

Amnesty International today called for the Iranian authorities to release the journalists arrested since the elections.

"It is shocking that journalists whose job it is to provide information to others are being detained, on top of all the other draconian measures the authorities have taken to restrict the free flow of information about what is really happening in Iran," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, the deputy director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa programme.

"Rather than trying to investigate alleged abuses, the only message the authorities are sending is that they are seeking to hide the truth, both from their own citizens and the rest of the world."

I wonder if George Galloway or Seumas Milne will be protesting the incarceration of their comrades in Iran? Shall I hold my breath?

One thing is for sure Jila Baniyaghoob and her husband are worth a million Galloways

A partial list of Iranian journalists and bloggers arrested since the start of the protests

Information from Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres) on some of the Iranian journalists who have ben arrested

Saide Lylaz, a business reporter for the newspaper Sarmayeh, who had been very critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s policies, is arrested at his home in Tehran. His wife says she does not know where he has been taken.

Mohamad Atryanfar, the publisher of several newspapers including Hamshary, Shargh and Shahrvand Emrouz, was arrested on 15 June and was taken to the security wing of Evin prison.
Aldolfatah Soltani, a lawyer who represents many imprisoned journalists and who is a member of the Human Rights Defenders Centre, is arrested on the orders of the Tehran revolutionary court and is probably taken to the security wing at Tehran’s Evin prison.

Mohammad Ali Abtahi, also known as the “Blogging Mullah,” was arrested at his Tehran home. A vice-president during Mohammad Khatami’s presidency, he had been acting as an adviser to Mehdi Karoubi, one of the opposition candidates in last week’s presidential election.

Blogger Somayeh Tohidloo arrested on 14 June.

Although seriously disabled, Saeed Hajjarian was arrested at his Tehran. Following Khatami’s election as president in 1997, Hajjarian was editor of the now-closed daily Sobh-e-Emrouz, which supported Khatami’s reforms. After the newspaper exposed the involvement of intelligence officials in a series of murders of dissident intellectuals and journalists in 1998, he was the victim of a murder attempt in March 2000 that left him badly paralysed. He is seen as one of the strategists of the pro-reform movement.

The price of speaking out is high