Category Archives: Transhuman News

In many countries, journalists have to fight censorship when trying to publish critical stories. The organization Reporters Without Borders has launched a website to publish stories otherwise suppressed by the censors.

When something is banned, it's bound get people curious. Videos and images that are suppressed, therefore, often spread like wildfire on the Internet: the topless photos of Kate Middleton, future queen of England, were online everywhere within hours. And it's this principle that Reporters Without Borders now wants to use for journalistic content.

"We believe that there has to be a platform to publish stories that are being censored in the very countries where they should be published," Matthias Spielkamp, board member of Reporter Without Borders in Germany, told DW. The focus is explicitly on well-researched features by journalists who, because of a lack of press freedom, cannot publishtheir storiesin their country's newspapers, TV or radio.

The website is not meant to be platform like WikiLeaks and isnot intended to bea place for tabloid stories, Spielkamp explained. The project is getting financial support from the European Union, the city of Paris and from donations.

Support for censored authors

One of the first stories published is from Morocco, whereOmar Brouksy is no longer allowed to workas a publisher. In October, the government withdrew his accreditation because the journalist had beenoverly critical of the royal family's role during a recentelection.

Brouksy's text, however, continues to be available online. Reporters Without Borders published the piece in agreement with the author on their website, wefightcensorship.org. Online with text,the page also explainswhy each story is being censored.

The website offers to publish anymaterial that's being censored in an author's home country.Articles are sent anonymously, and in a way that the author's identity cannot be traced. Reporters Without Borders, which itself does ask for the author's identity to check whether the story is credible,offers to keep the writers anonymous for their own protection,explained Spielkamp.

Should the stories not be writtenin English or France, they will be translated for the page. All the material will also be offered for download, and even outrightcopying of an entire workisencouraged. Readers can post the stories on social media networks as well as on a list of regional services.

More security than a blog

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New website to fight censorship

In many countries, journalists have to fight censorship when trying to publish critical stories. The organization Reporters Without Borders has launched a website to publish stories otherwise suppressed by the censors.

When something is banned, it's bound get people curious. Videos and images that are suppressed, therefore, often spread like wildfire on the Internet: the topless photos of Kate Middleton, future queen of England, were online everywhere within hours. And it's this principle that Reporters Without Borders now wants to use for journalistic content.

"We believe that there has to be a platform to publish stories that are being censored in the very countries where they should be published," Matthias Spielkamp, board member of Reporter Without Borders in Germany, told DW. The focus is explicitly on well-researched features by journalists who, because of a lack of press freedom, cannot publishtheir storiesin their country's newspapers, TV or radio.

The website is not meant to be platform like WikiLeaks and isnot intended to bea place for tabloid stories, Spielkamp explained. The project is getting financial support from the European Union, the city of Paris and from donations.

Support for censored authors

One of the first stories published is from Morocco, whereOmar Brouksy is no longer allowed to workas a publisher. In October, the government withdrew his accreditation because the journalist had beenoverly critical of the royal family's role during a recentelection.

Brouksy's text, however, continues to be available online. Reporters Without Borders published the piece in agreement with the author on their website, wefightcensorship.org. Online with text,the page also explainswhy each story is being censored.

The website offers to publish anymaterial that's being censored in an author's home country.Articles are sent anonymously, and in a way that the author's identity cannot be traced. Reporters Without Borders, which itself does ask for the author's identity to check whether the story is credible,offers to keep the writers anonymous for their own protection,explained Spielkamp.

Should the stories not be writtenin English or France, they will be translated for the page. All the material will also be offered for download, and even outrightcopying of an entire workisencouraged. Readers can post the stories on social media networks as well as on a list of regional services.

More security than a blog

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New website fights censorship

Editor's note: The artwork, which can be seen lower in this story, may be offensive to some readers.

The talk at the Newark Library these days has nothing to do with an anticipated book collection, the next visit by schoolchildren or a lecture on Brick City history.

Its all about a huge drawing hanging in the second-floor reference room, raising so much ruckus that the head librarian has had to cover it up so no one can see what it shows.

Its covered with cloth and thats the way many employees want to keep it.

Kara Walker, a renowned African-American artist who examines race, gender, sexuality and violence, created the drawing. It depicts the horrors of reconstruction, 20th-century Jim Crowism and the hooded figures of the Ku Klux Klan.

But thats not what has people upset.

One part of the drawing shows a white man holding the head of a naked black woman to his groin.

"I didnt notice it at first," said Kendell Willis, a library services employee. "Then I looked up and was blown away."

Willis sent Library Director Wilma Grey an e-mail, and so has Sandra West, a library associate who called Walkers work disgusting. She said several employees came to her expressing shock that the library would display such graphic artwork.

"It can go back where it came from," West said. "I really dont like to see my people like this. We need to see something uplifting and not demeaning."

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Censorship or common decency? Newark Library covers up controversial artwork