Monday, October 23, 2006
More blog censorship
Today's Guardian reports blog censorship of an altogether different kind to that being experienced by the Chief Constable of North Wales.
They tell us that Sudan is to expel the UN's top official in the country after he reported two military defeats for the government and other embarrassing details in the largely invisible war in the western region of Darfur:
Journalists and aid workers have minimal access to the conflict zone to check claims and counter claims by government and rebel commanders as well as displaced villagers, but Jan Pronk used his authority as Kofi Annan's special representative to make sensitive statements on his weblog.
This month he reported heavy government casualties, the sacking of several generals and the mobilising of Arab militias to make up for a fall in army morale after frightened troops mutinied.
His remarks were quickly denounced by the Sudanese army which described Mr Pronk as a security threat and the foreign ministry has told him to leave the country by midday Wednesday. A spokesperson for Mr Pronk confirmed he would be leaving Khartoum but added: "He will be going to New York for consultations with the secretary-general."
Mr. Pronk's site is clearly an excellent example of the use of a blog to expose injustice and attrocities to the wider world, whilst putting pressure on the rest of us to do something to end suffering. In this instance Mr. Pronk has got into places that journalists could not and told the truth.
They tell us that Sudan is to expel the UN's top official in the country after he reported two military defeats for the government and other embarrassing details in the largely invisible war in the western region of Darfur:
Journalists and aid workers have minimal access to the conflict zone to check claims and counter claims by government and rebel commanders as well as displaced villagers, but Jan Pronk used his authority as Kofi Annan's special representative to make sensitive statements on his weblog.
This month he reported heavy government casualties, the sacking of several generals and the mobilising of Arab militias to make up for a fall in army morale after frightened troops mutinied.
His remarks were quickly denounced by the Sudanese army which described Mr Pronk as a security threat and the foreign ministry has told him to leave the country by midday Wednesday. A spokesperson for Mr Pronk confirmed he would be leaving Khartoum but added: "He will be going to New York for consultations with the secretary-general."
Mr. Pronk's site is clearly an excellent example of the use of a blog to expose injustice and attrocities to the wider world, whilst putting pressure on the rest of us to do something to end suffering. In this instance Mr. Pronk has got into places that journalists could not and told the truth.
