Posting will be light to non-existent for the next few weeks as I've just found out that the Singapore government has refused to renew my work visa.
The Ministry of Manpower has refused to give me any reason for this decision.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Information has rejected my application to cover the upcoming APEC summit for The Daily Telegraph, the UK's best-selling serious daily newspaper. They have also given me no explanation.
Having been in Singapore for a year, I now need to leave the city-state within a month and am reassessing my options with urgency. I plan to continue working in Southeast Asia.
Any offers of employment or freelance journalistic safe haven as well as messages of support or general abuse can be sent to me at theasiafile@gmail.com.
I'd like to thank all my readers and assure you that I will be back blogging with a vengeance once my involuntary departure is complete.
I'll also have more to say on my predicament at a later date.
At least I've now got some time to re-read the novels of Franz Kafka and George Orwell.
Showing posts with label press controls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label press controls. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Why I wish I was working in China
China appears to be opening up to foreign journalists, with a senior official from the State Council Information Office announcing that government ministries should adopt a "zero refusal" policy with foreign correspondents.
"Zero refusal means that the ministries must designate people to deal with calls and interview requests from foreign media and that they have to give a response within 24 hours or the period they prescribed, no matter what the result is," Guo Weimin, director of the SCIO press department, told China Daily, the government's main English language mouthpiece.
If (and it's a big if) upheld, this new policy from the cautious, censorious Chinese authorities contrasts sharply with the approach from many government ministries in open Singapore.
It may be one of the easiest places to do business in the world, but it is perhaps one of the hardest to do journalism.
Government spokespeople here rarely return calls before a deadline, perhaps hoping that journalists (representing both domestic and foreign publications) will not chase them and they will be spared the precarious task of actually speaking to a journalist.
Another favourite practice is not to invite foreign correspondents to any important government press conferences, perhaps because they are concerned that the news will be mis-interpreted.
To illustrate, earlier this week, I contacted the press office of the Singapore Police Force to speak to them about the rising rate of loan shark crime.
After claiming initially that I was not an accredited journalist in Singapore (I am, of course, a bona fide foreign media representative) I was eventually told that they would not speak to me, answer any questions or even provide me with any statistics because the publication I was working for on this story, the Asia Sentinel, was "not accredited".
Thanks a lot guys. Oh to be in press-friendly China...
"Zero refusal means that the ministries must designate people to deal with calls and interview requests from foreign media and that they have to give a response within 24 hours or the period they prescribed, no matter what the result is," Guo Weimin, director of the SCIO press department, told China Daily, the government's main English language mouthpiece.
If (and it's a big if) upheld, this new policy from the cautious, censorious Chinese authorities contrasts sharply with the approach from many government ministries in open Singapore.
It may be one of the easiest places to do business in the world, but it is perhaps one of the hardest to do journalism.
Government spokespeople here rarely return calls before a deadline, perhaps hoping that journalists (representing both domestic and foreign publications) will not chase them and they will be spared the precarious task of actually speaking to a journalist.
Another favourite practice is not to invite foreign correspondents to any important government press conferences, perhaps because they are concerned that the news will be mis-interpreted.
To illustrate, earlier this week, I contacted the press office of the Singapore Police Force to speak to them about the rising rate of loan shark crime.
After claiming initially that I was not an accredited journalist in Singapore (I am, of course, a bona fide foreign media representative) I was eventually told that they would not speak to me, answer any questions or even provide me with any statistics because the publication I was working for on this story, the Asia Sentinel, was "not accredited".
Thanks a lot guys. Oh to be in press-friendly China...
Thursday, August 6, 2009
UN fund kowtows to China press restrictions
The Common Fund for Commodities is a little-known inter-governmental financial organisation, set up under the auspices of the United Nations to help fund the exploitation of commodities from bananas to bamboo in developing countries.
The Common Fund is holding a big international conference in China later this month on "the importance of commodities in economic development of Asian countries and on the role the Common Fund can play in assisting countries in the region to make full use of their commodity-related potential".
As part of the Common Fund's drive to reach out and explain its work to the wider world, it initially announced that it would sponsor journalists to cover the conference, paying either for their flight to China or hotel costs.
I was one of the few who contacted the Common Fund about this opportunity and they seemed keen to get me to come along, promising to set up interviews with all the head honchos so that their work could be better understood.
However, having submitted all the necessary registration documents, I was surprised to receive the following email yesterday from Charles Jama in the Common Fund's communications department in Amsterdam:
The call for journalists to apply for sponsorship on the Common Fund's homepage was removed yesterday.
When I asked Guy Sneyers, the chief operating officer of the Common Fund, if he wanted to provide an official explanation for this sudden change of heart, he replied with a one-word answer: "no".
It is very disappointing (if not entirely surprising) to see an inter-governmental organisation with 107 member states that was set up under the UN framework caving in to Chinese press controls in such a meak fashion.
Without any proper explanation from the Common Fund, I can only guess at the reasons for their rapid about-turn. It was quite possibly simply because they could not be bothered to deal with the voluminous paperwork and bureaucracy necessary to procure a visa for a visiting journalist in China.
If that's the case, they are playing straight into the hands of the Chinese government which, like other authoritarian regimes, makes it very complicated for journalists to get visas precisely because they want to put foreign reporters off coming in the first place.
So that's Chinese censorship 1, UN 0.
The Common Fund is holding a big international conference in China later this month on "the importance of commodities in economic development of Asian countries and on the role the Common Fund can play in assisting countries in the region to make full use of their commodity-related potential".
As part of the Common Fund's drive to reach out and explain its work to the wider world, it initially announced that it would sponsor journalists to cover the conference, paying either for their flight to China or hotel costs.
I was one of the few who contacted the Common Fund about this opportunity and they seemed keen to get me to come along, promising to set up interviews with all the head honchos so that their work could be better understood.
However, having submitted all the necessary registration documents, I was surprised to receive the following email yesterday from Charles Jama in the Common Fund's communications department in Amsterdam:
I regret to inform you that we have reconsidered the media sponsorship program for the China meeting and will not be extending the offer to journalists NOT based or credentialled by the Press Bureau in the MoFA in Beijing.
The call for journalists to apply for sponsorship on the Common Fund's homepage was removed yesterday.
When I asked Guy Sneyers, the chief operating officer of the Common Fund, if he wanted to provide an official explanation for this sudden change of heart, he replied with a one-word answer: "no".
It is very disappointing (if not entirely surprising) to see an inter-governmental organisation with 107 member states that was set up under the UN framework caving in to Chinese press controls in such a meak fashion.
Without any proper explanation from the Common Fund, I can only guess at the reasons for their rapid about-turn. It was quite possibly simply because they could not be bothered to deal with the voluminous paperwork and bureaucracy necessary to procure a visa for a visiting journalist in China.
If that's the case, they are playing straight into the hands of the Chinese government which, like other authoritarian regimes, makes it very complicated for journalists to get visas precisely because they want to put foreign reporters off coming in the first place.
So that's Chinese censorship 1, UN 0.
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