|
|
[ad_1]
Over the weekend, news spread in numerous reputable media outlets that the Islamic Republic of Iran had dismantled its controversial morality police.
Wikipedia even changed its entry, with the edited text suggesting the force had officially been disbanded.
But these reports all rested on a vague statement made by one Iranian official, one who in the same breath said his department is not responsible for the morality police.
Not only is it unconfirmed that the morality police have been disbanded, but statements by officials since have made it clear that sharia law — and its restrictions on women’s dress — will continue to be enforced.
The morality police came under the scrutiny of Western media as of Sept. 16, the day 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini died after being detained by officers for not wearing her hijab properly.
The circumstances of Amini’s death, and the force’s involvement, have since triggered protests against the police and the Iranian regime that have swept across the country and the world.
On Sunday, multiple credible media outlets, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, led with the headline that the morality police had officially been abolished.
The New York Times for instance, reported it as being an “apparent victory for feminists.”
The original claim came from a vague comment made by one regime official — someone who is not in charge of Iran’s morality police.
At a press conference, Iranian Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri was asked why the morality police, which in Persian is called Gasht-e-ershad, has not been seen on the streets in recent days.
Montazeri said the following: “The morality police has nothing to do with the judiciary system. The same source that created it in the past — from that same source it has been shut down. Of course, the judiciary system will continue its surveillance of social behaviours across society.”
While reports suggest the morality police is not seen prominently on the streets, the regime has continued its violent crackdown on Iranian protesters. It has employed multiple military forces, including members of the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its plainclothes agents, to brutally crack down on protesters. According to one human rights group, 500 Iranians have been killed, including at least 60 children — and more than 18,000 people have been detained.
The top prosecutor’s comments include a few important points the media should have taken into consideration.
Firstly, the attorney general admitted the morality police does not fall under the purview of the country’s judiciary. And he also did not specify who exactly allegedly shut down the morality police — or when and how it was shut down. Instead, his comments were “vague and non-transparent,” as BBC Persian reported early on.
Notably, Montazeri said the enforcement of the country’s Islamic sharia laws would continue by means of “social surveillance” — demonstrating that whether the morality police exists or not, Iranian women will still be subjected to the same punitive legal system dictating the Islamic dress code.
Yes. Late in 2017, IRGC Brig. Gen. Hossein Rahimi, who also heads the Greater Tehran police, claimed that Iranian women would no longer be jailed for not wearing the hijab. Rahimi said women would instead receive lessons to “reform their behaviour.”
But in 2018, police in Tehran arrested 29 women for taking part in the “White Wednesdays” campaign, where women across Iran protested the mandatory hijab by climbing onto telecom boxes, taking off their headscarves and waving them on a stick.
A number of these women and their mothers are still imprisoned.
And while the morality police is the arms-length body that physically enforces the Islamic dress code, the country’s strict mandatory hijab law — which came into effect in 1979 — remains in place.
Iranian state media forcefully pushed back on the top prosecutor’s comments, insisting it is the Ministry of Interior that oversees the morality police — not the judiciary.
Montazeri was also quoted in Iranian state media rebuking reporting by the international media, saying that “no official authority in the Islamic Republic of Iran has confirmed the closure of the morality police.”
Three more anti-government protesters have been sentenced to death in Iran, bringing the total to five. It’s a toll human rights groups fear the regime will now expand to quell the movement.
Iranians on social media quickly expressed their dismay at the way international media reported the news, many suggesting it stems from an inherent misunderstanding of what the protests in Iran stand for.
“I think it simply underscores that the global community wants a neat resolution to this story and is not realizing that the Iranian people want a full overhaul of the system — not just the morality police,” Gissou Nia, an Iranian-American human rights lawyer at the Atlantic Council told CBC News.
And Western institutions, including the media, have had a poor understanding of the Iranian regime for a long time, said Iranian-Canadian human rights activist and lawyer Kaveh Shahrooz.
“Instead of listening to democracy and human rights activists, these institutions mistakenly listened to analysts who told them that Iran’s regime is basically normal and can be trusted,” Shahrooz said.
“Iran’s regime is not normal; its official statements are often lies designed to mislead the world. Our media should not take them at their word and must exercise extra caution when reporting on Iran.”
Iran has seen an unprecedented wave of anti-regime protests for almost three months, beginning after Amini’s death in custody.
This week, protesters organized strikes across different cities in the country.
Many activists argued on social media that Montazeri’s comments were a form of misinformation and, in fact, a tactic employed by the Iranian regime to stop the ongoing protests in Iran.
“International media outlets must learn that when dictatorships like the Islamic Republic are in trouble, they spread propaganda, as the Iranian regime did in 2017 and as they did today,” prominent Iranian-American activist Masih Alinejad said on Twitter. “This is their modus operandi.”
[ad_1]
Opinion: Hundreds of multi-lingual media outlets are the “canary in the coal mine,” offering warnings about everything from foreign interference to psychological stresses on newcomers
Published May 09, 2024 • Last updated 7 hours ago • 4 minute read
Canada could head off foreign influence and intimidation by monitoring the country’s proliferating ethnic media, according to a new report.
Hundreds of foreign-language newspapers, radio shows and TV stations in Canada offer revealing insights into the hopes and tensions experienced by more than eight million migrants and their offspring, says a study titled Diaspora Dynamics: Ethnic Media and Foreign Conflict in Multicultural Canada.
Advertisement 2
Article content
Article content
Canada’s ethnic media is “the canary in the coal mine,” offering warnings about everything from foreign interference to psychological stresses on newcomers, whether from Iran, China, Russia, India, South Korea, the Middle East or beyond, says Andrés Machalski, president of Multilingual International Media Research (MIREMS).
But governments aren’t taking advantage of the fertile resource. Their lack of understanding of the powerful role played by ethnic media has “enabled Chinese and Indian agents to (impact) public opinion … and provided an open door to homeland subversion of Canadian democracy,” says Machalski.
MIREMS’ 54-page report maintains the media outlets are invaluable for understanding what is going on in scores of diaspora communities.
The report goes so far as to suggest many newcomers suffer from anxiety and depression associated with “complex PTSD” as they try to navigate news and views from their homelands with their new lives in Canada.
Although many of the views expressed in ethnic media are predictable, there is some range of opinion, says the report by MIREMS, which tracks more than 800 media outlets in 30 languages in Canada and worldwide.
West Coast Homes
Article content
Advertisement 3
Article content
The discussion paper includes special sections on what the ethnic media says about China, the Russian-Ukraine war, the murder of a Sikh militant in B.C., and the Israel-Hamas war.
Here are some highlights:
Beijing’s infiltration of Chinese-language media in Canada
Jonathan Manthorpe, author of Claws Of The Panda: Beijing’s Campaign of Influence and Intimidation in Canada, wrote last week in The Vancouver Sun that one of the most “venomous” activities of the Chinese Communist Party is the way it controls “almost all Chinese-language media” in Canada.
“The result of this is most contemptible among new Canadians from Mainland China. This stranglehold blocks their exposure to Canadian society and values, and sustains CCP control over their lives,” Manthorpe wrote.
The MIREMS report does not go so far. But it does capture how Chinese-language newspaper and broadcast outlets, aimed at 1.7 million Chinese-Canadians, more often than not toe the Communist Party line on human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Hong Kong pro-democracy protests, the detention of Huawei CEO Meng Wanzhou, and China’s interference in Canadian elections.
Advertisement 4
Article content
Since many ethnic Chinese writers and editors in Canada fear they are being spied on by agents from Mainland China, the report says they often “shy away from controversial topics to protect their interests.” Still, MIREMS suggests a degree of independent reporting can be found.
Russian-Canadian media silent on the war against Ukraine
While the government-controlled media in Russia stridently promotes the devastating invasion of Ukraine, Machalski says that is not the case in the Russian-language media in Canada. “It is largely silent.”
Russian-Canadian media are significantly more “balanced” than those in the homeland — and are occasionally even sympathetic to Ukraine, says the report.
Russian, Ukrainian, Latvian and Polish media outlets in Canada serve a potential audience of more than two million people. If Ottawa had been learning from them, Machalski said, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would likely have avoided the embarrassment of inviting a Ukrainian veteran who had fought for the Nazis to be honoured by Ukraine’s visiting prime minister, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Advertisement 5
Article content
Less emphasis on “World War III” in Jewish and Arab media in Canada
The mainstream media in Canada is generally more fair and nuanced than the diaspora media in covering most issues, including the Israel-Hamas war, says the report. But there can be surprises.
While Jewish-Canadian and Arab-Canadian outlets mostly contribute to polarization over the war in Gaza, Machalski, who is from Argentina, says there is at least not much talk about “how this is the start of World War III” — a theme that can emerge when mainstream outlets cover angry street protests.
South Asian media more open, and feisty
There has long been a range of opinions expressed in the various multi-language outlets serving South Asian-Canadians, a potential audience of almost two million.
Whether serving the country’s large Sikh or Hindu populations, media outlets are now fixated on how Canada’s diplomatic relations with India have been impacted by last year’s murder in B.C. of Khalistani separatist Hardip Singh Nijjar.
Sikh-oriented media outlets largely condemn India’s government, supporting Trudeau’s allegation that Indian agents could have been involved. On the other hand, Hindu-oriented outlets tend to accuse Trudeau of pandering to Sikh militants.
Advertisement 6
Article content
All in all, the MIREMS report concludes with the perceptive theory that it is psychologically disturbing for members of Canada’s sizeable diaspora populations, many of whom experience dual identities, to be buffeted by drastically contrasting messages from different media outlets.
“The constant exposure to homeland conflicts through ethnic media on one hand, and the mainstream media on the other, can be traumatic for immigrants, who find themselves caught between their past and present lives,” says the report.
“The coverage of ongoing conflicts such as those in Ukraine, India and the Middle East might trigger symptoms akin to Complex PTSD, where the stress is prolonged and repetitive.
“This form of psychological stress is complicated by immigrants’ efforts to integrate into Canadian society while maintaining ties to their country of origin, leading to a unique set of mental health challenges.”
Recommended from Editorial
Article content
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
Ontario’s education minister says he wants to sit down with social media executives to work out how to reduce distractions and enforce bans on certain apps in the classroom.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce will table legislation on Monday designed to give the government powers aimed at cracking down on privacy issues, cyberbullying and age-appropriate internet use.
As part of the legislation, the government is planning to meet with executives at major apps like Snapchat, Facebook and TikTok to work out how to cut distractions.
The province wants help from the companies themselves with issues like students sneaking through age verification or getting around blocks on the apps in places like school WiFi networks.
“I look forward to that conversation and I believe that they’re willing to have that conversation in good faith, recognizing we have powers through the legislation, or we will have should the legislation pass, possible authorities to further protect children,” Lecce told reporters.
Those powers, if voted through, would allow the minister to implement regulations related to social media, although details have not been made public.
Ontario recently announced it would be banning access to all social media on school WiFi networks and school-owned devices. That news came alongside a strict reduction on when phones can be used by students.
Lecce’s plan to sit down with social media companies comes as several school boards in the province are taking companies behind Facebook, Snapchat and TikTok to court.
More on Politics
School boards, including Toronto District School Board and Ottawa-Carleton, are seeking $4 billion in damages, alleging some app products have rewired how children think, behave and learn and that educators and schools have been left to “manage the fallout.”
The lawsuit has not been publicly supported by the Ford government and Lecce said he is taking a “different approach” from the school boards in dealing with social media distraction.
“We believe social media companies have a role too, working with the government to get this right so that we focus our classrooms on academics,” Lecce said. “We get the distractions out of class.”
Other regulations the government said it is planning could include “age-appropriate standards for software standards” for devices students use at school like laptops and rules to ensure student data isn’t sold.
“The evolving online world provides many opportunities for children’s education and growth but there are risks to their privacy and the collection and use of their personal information,” Todd McCarthy, Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery, said Thursday.
“Our government wants our children to have a healthy, safe and age-appropriate digital experience when engaging with public sector organizations like schools which is why we are safeguarding their best interests by putting guardrails in place to better protect them.”
Along with meeting social media executives, the government said it plans to consult school boards, parent groups and law enforcement as it creates the regulations.
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
A security guard at Drake’s mansion in Toronto was badly injured in a drive-by shooting on Tuesday, police say. The shooting happened amid an ongoing musical beef between Drake and Compton rapper Kendrick Lamar. But David Dennis Jr., a senior writer at Andscape, says there’s no indication Lamar had anything to do with the shooting and that there’s a racial component to speculation that it’s linked to the feud.
[ad_2]
Source link
Comments