Palestine – Features

By Anna Majavu

(source: Sowetan Newspaper Online – Tues,22/03/2011)

Western Cape high court judge Siraj Desai and former intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils have come out in support of a Holocaust survivors’ South African campaign for a boycott of Israel. Speaking at a dinner in Cape Town on Sunday night, Hajo Meyer, an 86-year-old Jewish scientist and a survivor of Nazi Germany’s Auschwitz concentration camp, called for a concentrated cultural and academic boycott against Israel.

Desai said that the Israeli occupation of Palestine was “one of the longest continuing breaches of human rights in the world”. The judge last year joined a brigade of human rights activists who flew to Egypt and planned to march on Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip, but were stopped by Egyptian security forces.

Desai said meeting Meyer and Jewish Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, who also supported the Palestinians, was a “life- changing experience”. Kasrils said the uprisings in the Middle East, which had spread to Libya and now included black Africans, were “an African revolution as well”.

Meyer was forced to flee Germany for the Netherlands alone at the age of 14 after the Nazis refused to admit Jews at schools. But even living under Nazi occupation in the Netherlands in 1943, Meyer had more freedom than the Palestinians have living under Israeli occupation today, he said.

Read More »Ex minister judge support boycott of Isarael

(source: Ma’an News Agency)

“If the aim of the blockade policy was to weaken the Hamas administration, the public employment numbers suggest this has failed,” a UNRWA spokesman said Tuesday as the UN marks Gaza’s fifth year under intense Israeli siege. Commenting on a report released by the UN agency charged with providing care and services for the one million refugees living in the Gaza Strip, on the fifth anniversary of the siege, spokesman Chris Gunness added “it has certainly been highly successful in punishing some of the poorest of the poor in the Middle East region.”

According to UNRWA, wages in Gaza fell 34.5 per cent since the first half of 2006, while unemployment reached 45.2 percent in the second half of 2010.

“These are disturbing trends,” Gunness said, “and the refugees, which make up two thirds of Gaza’s 1.5 million population were the worst hit in the period covered in this report. It is hard to understand the logic of a man-made policy which deliberately impoverishes so many and condemns hundreds of thousands of potentially productive people to a life of destitution.”

On 14 June 2006, militants in the Gaza Strip captured an Israeli soldier patrolling its border. In retaliation for the capture of a soldier, Israeli forces entered the West Bank and abducted eight Hamas ministers and 21 party lawmakers from their homes and offices. Imports and exports into and out of Gaza were scaled down to a fraction of normal levels in an attempt to pressure the ruling party Hamas to return the soldier. Hamas, negotiating on behalf of the factions which captured the soldier, are demanding the release of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in return for his release.

Read More »Un marks 5 years of Gaza siege

By Mel Frykberg in Ramallah Palestinian children sit in front of their home in Al-Moghraqa in Gaza. NGOs say that… Read More »Palestinian children in crisis

I’m here for you, says the public editor
 

Thabo Leshilo wants to promote greater understanding between journalists and their public

When Mike Robertson, the MD of Avusa Media, asked if I would like to “take on a new challenge” as group public editor, I accepted without hesitation. That is not to say I was not apprehensive.

Let us face it: this is unchartered waters for both the company and me.

The beauty, though, is that we are all on a learning curve. For me, the new responsibility represents yet another step in my lifelong apprenticeship in this noble craft called journalism.

I also accepted because the idea of having a public editor showed Avusa’s commitment to quality journalism and giving a voice to readers, which resonates with my desire to promote greater understanding between journalists and the public they serve.

This conviction is born of a fear on my part that the public does not fully appreciate what we do, hence its unwillingness to support us in our hour of need. We have, in my view, failed dismally in getting the public on our side, getting it to understand why it is important for us to be free to report for the public good.

My role is that of an independent representative of readers of Avusa Media’s publications. This means I am your advocate, batting for you full time. It is my job to ensure your opinions count.

My success will be measured by whether your comments, concerns and complaints receive timely and adequate attention and response from the company’s publications — the Sunday Times, The Times, Sowetan, Sunday World, The Herald, Weekend Post, Daily Dispatch and Saturday Dispatch.

It is informed by the belief that such responsiveness to, and greater respect for, readers’ concerns provides an added impetus for journalists to adhere to the highest standards of accuracy, ethics, integrity, fairness and balance in reporting.

I’m also charged with the role of publicly assessing the publications’ adherence to their editorial policies, the laws of the land and that of the South African Press Code, which seeks to ensure that news is “truthful, accurate, fair and balanced”. In cases of infringement, I will determine, in consultation with the editors, when and how prominent apologies and corrections will be published.

Now, it goes without saying that my success will be invariably linked to the level of commitment by all parties concerned – title editors and all journalists, including section heads and reporters.

I expect to have similar co-operation from the commercial side of the newspapers in so far as they become the subject of complaints by readers. Above all, the onus will lie squarely on you, the reader, to determine whether your public editor bites or not. In other words, whether I become the bulldog I intend to be, or get reduced to a sausage dog, will depend on the level of your engagement .

The editors are expected to set aside regular, sufficient space for a column that addresses readers’ concerns, complaints and industry issues. The column will appear weekly, alternating between dailies and weekend publications.

Most importantly, the column will be an independent platform and not be subject to the approval of an editor. The Avusa Media newspapers and their websites shall advertise prominently the existence of the office of the public editor and how to contact it.

I have no illusions that my job is going to be a walk in the park. Far from it. I expect many of my colleagues would be annoyed by the prospect of being “second-guessed” after publication. Inevitably, I will step on some sensitive toes and rub some people the wrong way. That comes with the territory, as do large egos.

That is understandable. Good journalists — including editors — take their jobs seriously and go the extra mile to make sure that their work is never found wanting. Thus they are reluctant to admit mistakes. I also expect apprehension that my views could provide added ammunition to detractors and enemies of press freedom.

I understand these concerns, but I believe we all have to learn to live with them. Given the enormous power we journalists wield, it is about time we demonstrated a greater willingness to be more transparent and accountable in our dealings with the public. That, in my view, can only endear us to the people we serve, and I cannot think of a better way to safeguard press freedom.

The public editor is open for business: please e-mail your concerns, comments and complaints to publiceditor@avusa.co.za. The postal address is Public editor, 4 Biermann Avenue, Rosebank 2196, and the fax number is 011-328-2587.

 

Read More »Im here for you says public editor