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The Zenit Arena in St Petersburg is a Confederations Cup venue.

Russia's deputy prime minister, Vitaly Mutko, has rejected claims that journalists covering the 2017 Confederations Cup will be restricted in what they can report.

Earlier this week, German Football Association (DFB) president Reinhard Grindel backed Bild newspaper over claims of censorship ahead of the tournament, which serves as a warm-up for the 2018 World Cup.

Bild, Germany's most popular paper, has said it will boycott the Confederations Cup if journalists are not given freedom to report as they please.

The newspaper said print journalists have been informed that they will be restricted in their travelling and reporting.

It said the guidelines issued to journalists working in print media with approved accreditation stipulate that they "will solely cover the FIFA Confederations Cup 2017 and related events," with their reporting limited to the "territory of the host cities and cultural sites located nearby."

But in a statement issued jointly with FIFA and published by Bild, Mutko said: "There will be no restrictions for journalists at the Confederations Cup. They can write about whatever they want."

FIFA also said there would be no restrictions for journalists with FIFA accreditation, with the statement saying: "They can work without restrictions on the territory of the host cities and the nearby territories."

Stephan Uersfeld is the Germany correspondent for ESPN FC. Follow him on Twitter @uersfeld.

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Russia denies Confed censorship claims - ESPN FC

In the past week, North Korea has allowed some Western journalists into the country to report on its military parade, and government officials have given a handful of rare interviews to international media outlets including The Associated Press, BBC, and Al-Jazeera as tensions escalated with the United States.

But this brief flurry of engagement should not be misinterpreted: North Korea remains one of the most heavily censored countries in the world. Supreme leader Kim Jong Un retains an absolute grip on the flow of public information. All media is state-owned, with the official Central Korean News Agency serving as a government mouthpiece, and the regime metes out harsh punishments for anyone accused of accessing uncensored information or sharing news from countries that it considers its enemies. Its own journalists remain strident propagandists, and advances in technology that could open up channels to independent news are fought with ever-stricter censorship and surveillance measures.

The AP maintains a permanent presence in the country, with a small team of international correspondents and photographers, and a few North Koreans who work primarily as fixers. Eric Talmadge, who has led the bureau since 2013, likens working in Pyongyang to being embedded with the military. Obviously the context is quite different, he said. But in practical and psychological terms, I find it very similar to my experiences embedded in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The freedoms granted to the AP reporters are denied to would-be journalists from inside the country, said Kang Cheol Hwan, president of the North Korea Strategy Center. Journalism in North Korea is run by the state, Kang said.

Jean H. Lee, a former AP reporter who opened its Pyongyang bureau and is now a global fellow at the Washington, D.C.based Wilson Center, said North Korean citizens rarely have access to a daily newspaper, and lack adequate electricity to watch television at home. Instead, most read copies of papers posted on news boards across the city or watch TV in public areas such as Pyongyangs main train station, said Lee, who also teaches a class on North Korean media studies at Yonsei University in South Korea.

Kang said the party elite has access to a secretive newspaper, Chango Sinmun (Reference Newspaper), with stories from Voice of America, Russias TASS agency, Chinas state-run Xinhua, and NHK in Japan. The average citizen who wants uncensored news either illegally tunes into foreign radio or relies on word of mouth, Kang said.

Advances in communications technology are mitigated by official steps to censor. Lee said the regimes elite can access news via the countrys intranet. But access to the internet is highly restricted, with only North Koreans who have a specific task, such as monitoring coverage, granted permission, she said.

In keeping with Kims efforts to appear that he is at the forefront of technology, North Korea has developed its own smartphones, tablets, and software, including Red Star 3.0, an operating system that mimics iOS, Kang said. Ultimately, these products were carefully designed to control and monitor information, he said. Red Star 3.0 has surveillance capabilities, and the interface of the intranet, Kwangmyong, is set up to give the impression that the user has full internet access. An analysis of Red Stars capabilities by the tech-focused outlet Fast Company found that its approximately 5,000 web pages mostly contain propaganda. Kang added that the countrys Arirang smartphone looks, feels and uses like a Samsung . . . but lacks the very component that makes a smartphone a smartphone such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and an internet browser.

When researchers from the German security company ERNW studied Red Star 3.0, they found it contained sophisticated surveillance properties, Reuters reported. This capability is particularly concerning since citizens trade flash drives to access news. The North Korean Strategy Center is among the groups distributing flash drives in an effort to combat censorship. Kang said the content typically includes PDFs of South Korean newspapers, Wikipedia pages translated into the North Korean dialect, guides on how to run businesses, radio programs, and TV shows and films, including some about the foundations of democracy such as Lincoln.

The use of cell phones has been rising in North Korea thanks to a black market and porous border with China, but the general population is barred from making and receiving international calls, Lee said. The Daily NK reported in March 2014 that North Korea had added new clauses to Article 60 of the penal codeattempts to overthrow the statewhich include a minimum penalty of five years of re-education in a prison camp and a maximum penalty of death for communicating with the outside world, including through cell phone contact. Watching South Korean media or listening to foreign radio can result in 10 years of re-education.

Even with the availability of censorship work-arounds, Kang said, Once North Koreans escape and resettle, its quite difficult for them to come to terms with the influx of information available to them.

Jessica Jerreat is senior editor at the Committee to Protect Journalists. She previously edited news for the broadsheet press in the U.K., including for the foreign desk of The Times of London and at The Telegraph. She has a masters degree in war, propaganda, and society from the University of Kent at Canterbury.

This article is adapted from CPJs publication Attacks on the Press: The New Face of Censorship, which will be released on April 25.

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North Korean censorship | The Huffington Post - Huffington Post

WASHINGTON/GENEVA (26 April 2017) : Two experts on freedom of expression of the United Nations and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights condemned today the practice of censorship and internet blocking in Venezuela, as well as the detention, attacks and stigmatization of journalists and media workers covering the recent protests in the country.

We urge the Government to immediately release all those who have been detained for their journalistic work and for the exercise of their freedom of expression, stated the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye, and the Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Edison Lanza.

The special rapporteurs also condemned the censorship and blocking of information both in traditional media and on the internet. A large part of televised media is under government control, while the private sector operates with restrictions due to expired licenses that public authorities have refused to renew in more than two years, they pointed out.

Even under a state of emergency, the regulation as well as limitation or restrictions on web-sites and television signals transmitted over the internet are disproportionate and incompatible with international standards, affirmed the experts.

Prior to and following the recent disruption of the constitutional and democratic order denounced by international mechanisms, the space for critical voices of journalists, civil society representatives, human rights defenders and members of the political opposition has continuously deteriorated, the experts warned.

Last August, the experts expressed their concern at measures that considerably increased the pressure against media and limited its ability to operate independently.

Detentions and attacks against journalists

According to reports, at least twelve Venezuelan and international journalists have been detained following the recent events. They have been released after being detained for several hours or, in some cases, a few days. One of the cases that have been reported is that concerning the journalist Yonnathan Gudez, who has now been detained for several days.

The experts also underlined that in an unprecedented act, the journalist Braulio Jatar continues to be detained since September 2016, after having distributed a video that showed individuals protesting against President Nicols Maduro in Isla de Margarita, in the eastern part of the country.

Censorship and internet blockings

Various sources of information reported that at least three online platforms offering news and information of public interest in Venezuela including VPI TV, Vivo Play and Capitolio TV had been blocked by private internet service providers, following orders by the National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel).

The decision to block the three online platforms was due to their coverage of anti-government protests across the country, which traditional radio and television media decided not to cover. Following these events, new acts of censorship have occurred, such as a prohibition imposed on pay-per-view TVs to provide access the channel CNN. Other international media platforms, such as TN from Argentina and El Tiempo and NTN 24 from Colombia, have either suffered interruptions to their transmissions or have had their signals suspended.

Conatels arbitrary orders to suspend the signals of subscriber television channels and of the internet restrict the freedom of users to seek, receive and impart information, application or service of any kind, and therefore constitute a form of censorship, the UN and the IACHR Rapporteurs emphasized.

Likewise, websites of non-governmental organizations and of media platforms reported that they had received online attacks aimed at overloading their servers or taking them down.

Mr. David Kaye (USA) was appointed as Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expressionin August 2014 by the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Councils independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms. Special Procedures mandate-holders are independent human rights experts appointed by the Human Rights Council to address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. They are not UN staff and are independent from any government or organization. They serve in their individual capacity and do not receive a salary for their work.

Mr. Edison Lanza (Uruguay) was appointed as Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression in July 2014 by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression was created by the IACHR to encourage the defence of the right to freedom of thought and expression in the hemisphere, given the fundamental role this right plays in consolidating and developing the democratic system.

UN Human Rights, country page: Venezuela

For more information and media requests, please contact: Ms. Azin Tadjdini (+41 22 91 79 400 / atadjdini@ohchr.org) or write to freedex@ohchr.org

For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts: Xabier Celaya, OHCHR Media Unit (+ 41 22 917 9383 / xcelaya@ohchr.org)

Tag and share - Twitter: @UNHumanRights and Facebook: unitednationshumanrights

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Venezuela / Protests: UN and IACHR Rapporteurs condemn censorship, arrests and attacks on journalists - ReliefWeb

With a (symbolic) (but it's a potent symbol) election looming in Iran, the global Persian diaspora is not lacking for news organs that are producing the kind of unfiltered political news that would get you jailed or killed in Iran.

Iran's "Halal Internet" practices extensive censorship that segregates this kind of news from Iranians themselves, but the Halal Internet has an app-shaped hole in it -- the network surveillance and censorship appliances used by the Iranian government are not smart enough to block apps.

Maziar Bahari is a dissident, exiled Iranian journalist who was imprisoned and tortured by the regime for 118 days in 2009. Now he runs Iranwire, a leading Persian politics site. They've just launched Sandoogh96 (Vote 2017), an app that publishes independent political news. Word of the app is spreading in Iran, and it's challenging the dominant narrative.

If you have Persian-speaking friends and you'd like to send them some political reading, there's always this edition of Little Brother, which is a high-quality, free translation created by Iranian expats.

Bahari, who now lives in London and directs the online news organization IranWire, hopes to make the process of picking a candidate in such an environment a little easier with new app called Sandoogh96, or Vote2017 in English. It strips away the government spin and helps Iranians figure out which candidates views align most closely with their own. It utilizes a Tinder-like interface, in which users swipe left or right depending on whether they agree or disagree with a given policy proposal, until they find their perfect match. The app includes information on where candidates stand on womens rights, foreign policy, economics, and a range of other issues, as well as local news from IranWires network of citizen journalists.

This App Lets Iranians Swipe Past Political Propaganda [Issie Lapowskie/Wired]

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Wikitribune (strapline: Evidence-based journalism) is a newly launched project from Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, conceived of as a crowd-edited, crowd-funded tonic against fake news.

Intelligence officials from the so-called Five Eyes network, which includes the United States FBI, CIA and National Security Agency, are gathering for an annual intelligence-sharing exchange today in New Zealand. Reuters confirmed the get-together, at which spy agency reps from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand will also gather.

When occult historian Mitch Horowitzs excellent 2009 book Occult America was published, he received a phone call from an admiring fan: Stephen K. Bannon. Over at Salon, Mitch writes about the right wings weird connection to New Age mysticism: (Bannon) professed deep interest in the books themes, and encouraged me in my next work, One []

All moms are different. But all moms like getting flowers on Mothers Day, and thats a fact (not, however a fact we can document in any fashion.) Instead of getting chewed out for forgetting to call her on the second Sunday of May, you can take care of it ahead of time with Telefloras flower []

Yeah, Bluetooth audio is pretty common these days, so why should you care about these earbuds? Look how happy that woman up above looks. Shes gotFRESHeBUDSin. Boom. Theres your reason. Shes also at the beach and it appears to be a very nice day.But for the sake of promotion, wireless earbuds are fast becoming the []

Gets stuff done, is a good way to be described by anybody. Especially by coworkers or bosses. Because whether youre in finance or a childrens librarian, stuff needs toget done.But how do you make sure stuff gets done? You definitely cant do all the stuff yourself, unless your company/organization/government office consists entirely of you. And []

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Iran sucks at censoring apps, so the Persian diaspora is using them ... - Boing Boing

I basically agree with everything Wesley Smith says about that tortured op-ed in todays New York Times.

But I still have misgivings with some of the pro-free speech arguments I often hear from my friends and colleagues on the right, including here at National Review.

That may be because Ive long been a defender of censorship, rightly understood. I came to this view by way of Irving Kristol.

Irving wasnt for political censorship, and neither am I (depending what you mean by the term). Irving argued that, If you care for the quality of life in our American democracy, then you have to be for censorship. But he more famously said, The liberal paradigm of regulation and license has led to a society where an 18-year-old girl has the right to public fornication in a pornographic movie but only if she is paid the minimum wage.

These two quotes are perfectly consistent. What Kristol was getting at was the fact that societies survive by upholding minimum standards of decency. Such views seem awfully quaint in the era of online porn and whatever-the-Hell-this-is. But I think he was basically right. Progressives spent decades arguing for maximalist free speech in areas not traditionally considered speech at all. I am highly dubious that the authors of the First Amendment ever had strip clubs in mind.

But Im no Comstock and, besides, these horses left the barn long ago. What vexes me is that at the same time progressives have maximized the right to free expression to even cover federal subsidies for craptacular art, they have worked assiduously to constrain the only speech the founders really cared about: Political speech.

As Ive written many times, this approach puts the whole argument of free speech rights on its head. Normally, we defend extreme forms of free speech on the grounds that if we maintain these freedoms on the frontiers of our civilization, our core freedoms will not be threatened. This is the form arguments for everything from abortion rights to gun rights usually work. We must protect this questionable thing less we risk this other, unquestionable, core right.

The argument about free speech on campuses is so maddening because these petty magistrates want to crush the free exchange of serious ideas in a setting that is supposed to encourage such exchanges.

But the more important point, at least for me, is not the censoriousness of the campus commissars, but the ideology. Most of the speakers they want to ban arent spewing hate speech whatever that is theyre offering heresy speech. Defenders of murderous Communist regimes arent banned from speaking on campuses heck they often get tenure. Christina Hoff Sommers, Ayan Hirsi Ali and Charles Murray are kept off campuses because they are dangerous to leftwing orthodoxy and they expose the inability of college students to deal with arguments that undermine the secular religion of campus leftism.

That said, in a morally and intellectually healthy society, Id have no problem with campuses refusing to lend resources to certain speakers. The idea that, say, the administrators of Yeshiva University, should be required to offer a venue to David Duke strikes me as silly as silly as saying he has a right to run an article in National Review.

In other words, the problem isnt a lack of commitment to free speech (though that is a problem). The free speech argument is downstream of the real dilemma: The people running what should be citadels of civilizational confidence have turned against our civilization. Maybe some atheist speaker has been banned because he would hurt the feelings of religious students, but Ive not heard about it. In other words, these administrators arent principally concerned with the sensitivities of students or even students of color or female students, but of particular students who adhere to a specific ideology. The administrators use them as props and excuses to justify their ideological, quasi-religious, agenda.

The irony comes when the defenders of these totalitarian enclaves must defend their stance to the larger society. Normal people and other elite critics shout What about free speech? And so the secular priests contort themselves into pretzels trying to make the case that their censorship is somehow consistent with some nonsensical notion of a higher principle of what free speech is. They cant be honest and say, We have a hecklers veto for anything that smacks of heresy and were not afraid to use it.

So much of the arguments about free speech would be better served if they skirted the issue of rights and stuck to old-fashioned notions of decency, good manners and sound judgment. But such antiquarian considerations dont do the work the left wants them to do. Those standards wont keep Charles Murray & Co out (though they might leave Richard Spencer in the anonymity he deserves). Worse, such values stem from a mainstream tradition of what college is supposed to be and how democracy is supposed to work, and in the new time religion, those wellsprings have been rendered off-limits.

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What The Free Speech Debate Misses - National Review