...Or Does It Explode?

Friday Foto: Student Protests in Iran's Mazanderan Province

Students at the University of Babol are demanding the release of 15 classmates, arrested five days ago. Here's a quick summary:

Police on Sunday evening arrested 15 students at the university of Babol, in Mazanderan province, bordering the Caspian Sea in the north. The 15 were staging a protest against the arrest on Saturday of Bijan Sabbah, the leader of the local students' association, and had organized a hunger strike at the local campus to attract the public's attention to his case.

Ali Nikunesbati, spokesman for Tahkim Vahdat, Iran's main students' association, told Adnkronos International (AKI) that he considered the arrests at the university of Mazanderan "a direct consequence of recent statements by ministers of the Ahmadinejad government who said that grassroots movements, especially womens' rights and students' groups, are tools of the enemy."

"The real problem is the inability of the current government to confront the real problems of society and respond to the needs of the people," he said. "It is no coincidence that along with women and students, teachers and labour workers are the ones who are protesting today."

Sudan's "United Nations" Arms Plane

The scoop:

A confidential United Nations report says the government of Sudan is flying arms and heavy military equipment into Darfur in violation of Security Council resolutions and painting Sudanese military planes white to disguise them as United Nations or African Union aircraft.

In one case, illustrated with close-up pictures, the report says “U.N.” has been stenciled onto the wing of a whitewashed Sudanese armed forces plane parked on a military apron at a Darfur airport. Bombs guarded by uniformed soldiers are laid out in rows by its side.

The report says that, contrary to the Sudanese government’s earlier denials to United Nations investigators, the freshly painted planes are being operated out of all three of Darfur’s principal airports and used for aerial surveillance and bombardments of villages, in addition to the transportation of cargo.

The report was compiled by a five-person panel responsible for helping the Council’s sanctions committee monitor compliance with resolutions on Darfur, the war-ravaged region in Sudan. It was made available by a diplomat from one of the 15 Council nations, which believes that the findings ought to be made public.

More than 200,000 people have died in Darfur and 2.3 million have been uprooted from their homes, largely by repeated attacks from Arab militias supported and equipped by the Sudanese government.

Economist: Bloggers May Be the Real Opposition

A bit over-the-top in its claim, but a nonetheless provocative read:

THEY call themselves pyjamahideen. Instead of galloping off to fight holy wars, they stay at home, meaning, often as not, in their parents' houses, and clatter about computer keyboards. Their activity is not as explosive as the self-styled jihadists who trouble regimes in the region, and they come in all stripes, secular liberal as well as radical Islamist. But like Gulliver's Lilliputians, youthful denizens of the internet are chipping away at the overweening dominance of Arab governments.

In Egypt, for instance, blogging has evolved within the past year from a narcissistic parlour sport to a shaper of the political agenda. By simply posting embarrassing video footage, small-time bloggers have blown open scandals over such issues as torture and women's harassment on the streets of Cairo. No comment was needed to air widespread disillusionment with last month's referendum to approve constitutional changes, after numerous Egyptian websites broadcast scanned images of a letter from one provincial governor to junior bureaucrats, ordering them to vote yes...

Given the growing power of the bloggers, there must be the requisite pushback.

Khartoum from Above

Experiencing Technical Difficulties

Sham TV Sham

Sham TV is not what it may sound like. It's the real deal: Syria's first independent private TV channel. After broadcasting out of Dubai, Sham actually began broadcasting from outside Damacus in the fall.

But in October, after just a month in its new broadcast location, the plug was pulled on the station -- just hours before the first ever broadcast of a Sham TV news program. The suspension apparently came on the direct orders of the Information Minister, suggesting the Assad regime is not quite ready for an "independent" news broadcast. The official explanation of the suspension is improper paperwork filing, but the downtime has cost Sham TV over $4 million in lost revenue.

No Jail Time for Criticizing Qaddafi

Some small good news out of Algeria (despite this week's bombings): two journalists will not go to jail for criticizing their neighboring dictator, though their crime remains on the record. Reporters Without Borders reports:

Reporters Without Borders voiced relief at an Algiers appeal court’s decision today to give two journalists suspended sentences of six months in prison and a fine of 50,000 dinars (50 euros) instead of the 12-month jail terms and fine of 500,000 dinars requested by the prosecutor. The appeal court also rejected the prosecutor’s request for the newspaper to be suspended for a year.

The ruling effectively concludes the libel suit brought last October against Ali Fodil, the editor of the Arabic-language daily Ech-Chourouk, and Naïla Berrahal, one of his journalists, by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi over reports published two months earlier which, it was alleged, “attacked his person, the Libyan state and the security of the Algerian and Libyan states.”

“The sentences requested by the prosecutor were out of all proportion and unacceptable,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Nonetheless, even a suspended prison sentence is a serious press freedom violation. The sentences will always weigh on the two journalists and restrict their freedom of expression. We take this opportunity to call for the decriminalization of press offences.”

It's hard to know if the glass is half-full or half-empty.

Hey, Ben Ali, Unblock DailyMotion

In the Name of Honor

Earlier this week, France 5 TV broadcast a 2005 documentary by Lila Place on honor killings in Jordan. "Au nom de l'honneur" explores the terrible phenomenon by following Jordanian women in prison, in the hospital, with their families, in lawyers' offices, and, sadly, even in the morgue. Nadia Shamroukh, of the Union of Jordanian Women, is interviewed about the shelter and resource center her organization runs for women trying to escape the threat of honor killing. One lawyer interviewed reports of a particularly sad case: a young woman murdered by her 19-year-old brother after she was found with a love-letter signed by a man. It turns out, the letter was a fake, planted by a jealous friend. The brother was sentenced to jail... for 12 months.

Tunisian Police Hassle Reporter Yet Again

Fun times outside Tunis:

The case involves Lotfi Hajji, the local correspondent for Aljazeera who is also President of the Tunisian Union of Journalists. The IFJ says it is the fifth time in the last month that he has been barred from reporting events.

The latest incident occurred when he turned up to cover a meeting organised by the Parti Progressiste Democratique in their new building situated in Ariana district just north of Tunis. His entrance into the building was blocked by police in plain clothes who roughed him up as he tried to enter. This was the fifth time in the last month that he has been prevented from covering different events by police.