Blank screens and red text warning about threats to press freedom late on Wednesday interrupted Mongolian television to protest legal changes media groups say could harshly punish journalists accused of defamation ahead of elections.
With just 3 million people, Mongolia has long stood as an oasis of democracy, sandwiched between autocratic giant neighbors China and Russia.
Mongolia’s political transformation since a peaceful revolution in 1990 has been a big plus for foreign investors eyeing its rich mineral resources.
However, with presidential elections in June, rights groups and journalists have expressed concern that the government is using increasingly heavy-handed tactics to suppress media and stifle dissent, including jailing reporters.
The government denies seeking to muzzle the press, saying the nation is a democracy that values freedom of the media.
Yet this week, parliament is due to debate amendments that could impose large fines on reporters accused of defamation, in what media groups say amounts to a threat to make them stop reporting on such issues as rampant corruption.
More than a dozen Mongolian television stations went dark for about one hour, some carrying only the text: “Your right to know is under threat.”
Yesterday, one of the nation’s largest newspapers, Unuudur, carried the same message on its front page.
Media outlets could face penalties of up to 200 million tugrik (US$82,704) for violations under the amendments, while individual journalists and social media users could be fined 2 million tugrik each, said Hashhuu Naranjargal, president of the civil-society group Globe International in Mongolia.
The fines were a form of “economic censorship” that politicians might abuse to protect themselves, she added.
“The general political atmosphere is very negative about the protection of journalists,” Naranjargal said. “They just want to prevent negative information about themselves.”
Batbold Chimgee, a journalist for the Web site GoGo.mn, said the government had abused the libel law in the past to censor reporters.
She said the 2 million tugrik fine was equivalent to three months’ salary for many journalists.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
RIGHTS FEARS: A protester said Beijing would use the embassy to catch and send Hong Kongers to China, while a lawmaker said Chinese agents had threatened Britons Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday protested at a site earmarked for Beijing’s controversial new embassy in London over human rights and security concerns. The new embassy — if approved by the British government — would be the “biggest Chinese embassy in Europe,” one lawmaker said earlier. Protester Iona Boswell, a 40-year-old social worker, said there was “no need for a mega embassy here” and that she believed it would be used to facilitate the “harassment of dissidents.” China has for several years been trying to relocate its embassy, currently in the British capital’s upmarket Marylebone district, to the sprawling historic site in the
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate