2013-05-24T00:35:07-04:00 Cathal Sheerin http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=cathal-sheerin Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Cathal Sheerin Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2644004 2013-02-08T05:46:10-05:00 2013-04-10T05:12:01-04:00

Cathal Sheerin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathal-sheerin/ Political scientist, activist and author of the Holocaust Industry and Beyond Chutzpah, the famous Dr. Norman Finkelstein was in Belgium, to talk about his recent book on Gandhi. I attended the talk.



"When President Obama sits in the White House ordering drone attacks in Yemen, what could be more wretched and cowardly than that?" asked Norman Finkelstein last night (7th Feb 2013).

Finkelstein was at the town hall in Leuven, Belgium. He was giving a talk about his latest book on what Mahatma Gandhi has to teach us about non-violent resistance and civil disobedience.

The comment was merely an aside in a longer response to a question from the audience about cowardice, but Finkelstein was passionate in his condemnation of the US president's drone policy: "He's running for president for the second term and he wants to show he's being tough, so he sends out his campaign manager to tell the New York Times that he [Obama] sits around with his baseball cards deciding who he's going to kill this week and next week.....I've no doubt in my mind that the perpetrator of violence - especially remote controlled violence - is the most wretched of all cowards on earth."

Finkelstein is best-known for his activism against Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory, and, although this talk was intended to be about what Gandhi really thought about political action, Israel, Palestine and the Middle East soon took centre stage.

Finkelstein applied Gandhi's views on effecting practical, political change to the Israel-Palestine conflict. He said: "For Gandhi, [the issue] was how you get people to act on what they already know is wrong." The solution, Finkelstein said, was to carry out acts of non-violent, civil disobedience: "Seeing other people suffering usually gets the public to act." To illustrate the point he told the audience how he had been moved to become involved in the Occupy movement in New York after seeing non-violent protesters arrested and pepper-sprayed.

In the case of the Palestinians, said Finkelstein, their goal "has to be what the public is prepared to accept as being legitimate." He pointed to the opinions of both the United Nations and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as being representative of what the majority regard as a fair solution to the conflict: "a two state settlement along the June 1967 border and a just resolution on the [Palestinian] refugee issue. That is the limit."

The major obstacle to achieving this, said Finkelstein, was Israel, backed by the US. "According to the ICJ," he said, "Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem are all occupied Palestinian territory." He pointed to the West Bank separation barrier (constructed by Israel but condemned as illegally built on occupied Palestinian territory by the UN, the EU and numerous human rights organizations) as an example of where the "whole world is on one side and Israel, the US and the South Sea islands are on the other."

It was now widely recognised by the public, Finkelstein said, that "Israel refuses to obey international law."

Finkelstein said that violence was not a viable option for the Palestinians if they wanted to end the occupation. Instead, he said, they should embrace Gandhi's idea of non-violent disobedience. This part of the talk provided the most arresting image of the night as Finkelstein described an imaginary scene of civil disobedience in the West Bank:

"If the Palestinians were to march, en masse, on the wall (the West Bank separation barrier) - a hammer in one hand and a copy of the ICJ's opinion [on the occupation] in the other - and they were to say 'We are only doing what the ICJ says had to be done,' I think that would resonate, it would win over the public."

"Of course," he added, "Israel is going to react with violence. It might kill 100, 200, 250 people....[but] I'm not telling anyone to go to their deaths...I would never tell others to take risks and make sacrifices."

However, said Finkelstein, there is no way the occupation can be ended "unless the Palestinians mobilize."

Finkelstein also spoke about the recent Israeli General Elections. He criticised the strong rightward swing of the country's politics over the last few years and said that the occupation had hardly been an issue in the political debates leading up to the vote. Illustrating the country's political shift, Finkelstein referred to Ariel Sharon, the former right-wing prime minister of Israel who has been in a coma since 2006, and who was judged by his own government to bear 'personal responsibility' for the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres of refugees: "If Sharon woke up [today] he'd find himself an extreme leftist," said Finkelstein.

Finkelstein also said that Israel had "the good fortune of having a cost-free occupation: the Palestinian Authority does all the dirty work, the arresting, the killing and torturing; the EU pays the bills; the US does all the political work blocking sanctions [on Israel]."

Asked by a member of the audience to compare coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict in the US and European press, Finkelstein said that of the European media coverage, he only followed the UK press. To know what the public thought, he said, one only had to look at the opinion polls:

"Just look at the polls - the annual BBC poll - where people are asked to rate countries in terms of their negative or positive contributions to the world: the bottom four are always Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and Israel."

According to Finkelstein, Israel was now "a lunatic state."

However, Finkelstein was more optimistic than he has been in the past. If the Palestinians mobilize, he said, with public opinion generally on the side of ending the occupation, the "prospects of [a peaceful and just settlement] are good."

There were also some light-hearted moments during the evening.

Commenting on the difference between North American audiences and European ones, Finkelstein quipped: "I can't see anyone text-messaging while I'm talking - you must be in a pre-civilized state of development."

And referring to Gandhi's obsessive writings about diet and home-cures, Finkelstein jokingly described the Indian leader as a "premature Oprah."]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2599956 2013-02-01T13:28:56-05:00 2013-04-03T05:12:01-04:00

Cathal Sheerin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathal-sheerin/
Journalist Regina Martínez was murdered in Mexico's most corrupt state in April 2012; there is widespread suspicion that the official investigation into the crime is a cover-up.

On 17 April 2012, the La Antigua bar-restaurant in Minatitlán, Veracruz State, Mexico, was the scene of a gun battle between soldiers and heavily armed members of the feared drugs cartel, Los Zetas. The shoot-out went on for a number of hours before the army eventually overcame the gangsters and detained six men.



Among those arrested were Martín Padua Zuñiga and Ignacio Trujillo Cortázar - respectively the mayor of Chinameca and the former mayor of Minatitlán. Both of these politicians, reported the journalist Regina Martínez, 'had been protagonists in [the] gunfight with federal forces.'

The incident was a particularly shocking reminder of the high level of collusion between organized crime groups and local state authorities in Mexico.

Eleven days after reporting on the gunfight at La Antigua, Regina Martínez was found murdered in the bathroom of her home in Xalapa, Veracruz. She had been badly beaten and strangled.

Martínez, 49, was well-known and respected for her hard-nosed reporting on political corruption. She had been a journalist for 30 years, and for the last ten years of her life she had worked for the weekly Proceso. She had exposed numerous links between state employees and criminal gangs and was recognized for writing what few others dared to write in a state where corruption and violence are endemic, and where nine reporters have been murdered in the last two years.

Following her death, journalists and academics marched in the streets of Xalapa. They called for a thorough investigation into the Martinez's murder and protested the state government's failure to resolve the cases of previously murdered journalists.

One of those who marched was Alberto Olvera, a political/social scientist at the University of Veracruz and contributor to Proceso and El Universal. Olvera is well known for his outspoken condemnation of violence and political corruption in Veracruz. He was concerned that the authorities would not investigate 'the obvious political connotation' in Martinez's murder.

He was right to be concerned. From the start, the state seemed unwilling to even consider a link between Martinez's work and her murder:

In May 2012, a member of Los Zetas detained by the navy declared that he knew that Martínez's killers had been connected to the drug cartels.

Yet in June 2012, the Veracruz authorities leaked information to local press saying that the motive for the murder was personal and that the killing had been a 'crime of passion.' This interpretation was derided by local journalists. Martinez's ex-colleagues at Proceso - and even some federal officials - accused the state of lying, covering up the truth and hiding evidence.

The State Attorney General's investigation into the crime - though it ran to more than 1,500 pages - didn't even attempt an analysis of Martinez's work.

Instead, the picture that began to emerge was one of a state government overly-concerned with PR, manipulating the press and stifling dissenting voices.

Olvera, who has written about the case for Proceso, told me that those journalists who publicly raised doubts about the official line of investigation came under pressure from the state:

'After [Martinez's] murder, the political class became more intolerant towards the few journalists who dared to offer independent or critical opinions. Such was the pressure exerted by the state government's Department of Social Communication that, one by one, all the correspondents for the national newspapers were withdrawn from Veracruz.'

There were few other developments in the case until October 2012, when the investigators called a press conference and declared that the motive for the killing had changed - it was now 'robbery.' They also announced that they had already arrested one of the two 'guilty men', Jorge Antonio Hernández Silva, an illiterate, petty thief with no history of violence. He had, they said, confessed to the crime. The investigators refused to take questions from reporters.

This new twist was greeted with scepticism by journalists, an attitude that seemed particularly well-founded when, on 31 October 2012, Hernández Silva declared before a judge that the police had tortured him (torture of prisoners is at 'epidemic' levels in Mexico according to Amnesty International). He said that they had forced him to repeat their version of events as his own; he withdrew his 'confession.'

Free expression and press organizations have expressed serious doubts about the robbery-as-motive version of events. Martinez's ex-colleagues dismiss it out of hand, as does Olvera:

'[Investigators] lifted valuable fingerprints [at the crime scene] but they never said that they belonged to the supposed 'guilty' men. One of the 'murderers' was arrested for stealing a mobile phone a month before Hernández Silva, but he was released because of lack of evidence. If the authorities had found his fingerprints in Regina's house, they wouldn't have let him go. Everything indicates a cover-up.'

A 'cover-up' is exactly what many local journalists think is going on - whether it's because the investigators want to close the case quickly, or whether they want to avoid uncovering something even more embarrassing to Veracruz.

Despite the fact that Mexico has made attacks on journalists a federal crime, and despite the existence of a Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Freedom of Expression, Veracruz is still a rotten state: in December 2011, the Veracruz-Boca del Rio police force was considered so corrupt that it had to be disbanded; in May 2012 a hit list' containing the names of a number of journalists to be killed was circulated in Veracruz. State officials' advice to concerned reporters was 'go on holiday.'

Will there ever be justice for Regina Martínez? Alberto Olvera is pessimistic:

'The authorities won't do any further investigating...they're only waiting until they catch the other 'guilty' man. The political motives [for the murder] will never be considered. Sadly, Regina's murder will remain unsolved.'

(Regina Martínez is commemorated in Write Against Impunity, PEN International's literary protest against attacks on writers and journalists in Latin America.)

What you can do:

Write to the Mexican authorities calling for justice for Regina Martínez and urging that they thoroughly investigate the potential link between her work and her killing. You can write to any of the following:

State Attorney General/ Procurador General de Justicia
Lic. Felipe Amadeo Flores Espinosa: pgiver@pgiver.gob.mx

Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Freedom of Expression/Fiscal Especial para la Atención de Delitos Cometidos contra Periodistas (FEADP)
Lic. Laura Angelina Borbolla: feadp@pgr.gob.mx

You can also send your messages to the Mexican embassy in your country: http://www.sre.gob.mx/index.php/representaciones/embajadas-de-mexico-en-el-exterior ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1839844 2012-08-29T11:59:25-04:00 2012-10-29T05:12:04-04:00

Cathal Sheerin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathal-sheerin/ Rolando Nájera is a journalist from Chihuahua, northern Mexico. He has worked for a range of different newspapers in one of Mexico's most dangerous cities, Ciudad Juárez. He was a friend and colleague of the crime reporter Armando Rodríguez Carreón who was murdered in front of his young daughter in 2008. Since the year 2000, more than 80 journalists and writers have been killed in Mexico. I interviewed Rolando about life as a journalist as part of PEN International's campaign Write Against Impunity 2012. (This is a translation of the original Spanish.)



Describe what it's like for a journalist - both personally and at work - when a colleague like Armando Rodríguez is murdered.

As a journalist and as a human being, the murder of any person is a painful event. It hurts me that there are so many murders in my country, and especially in Chihuahua, the state in which I was born and in which I still live. It's something that we see everyday, and as a society, we're already accustomed to it. At times we lose our sense of the real magnitude of these awful events.

Obviously, it's much more painful when a colleague or friend suffers this kind of attack. It makes you think that it could have been you - that you could have been in his or her place. As well as Armando, who was a friend, and with whom I had a close working relationship when I was working for El Diario in Juárez, they also killed another colleague, the photographer Luis Carlos Santiago. I didn't have a close relationship with him, but it was something that hurt all of us; he was young and was only starting out in his journalistic career.

We all thought so highly of Armando. His death had a huge impact on us. As well as being a loss to journalism in Juárez, and for the newspaper business, a person with that kind of talent and experience is difficult to find. Very few dare to do a job that is so dangerous.

How has the life of a Mexican journalist changed in the last six years? How have journalists changed the way they work?

In Chihuahua every job is risky, be it a Popsicle salesman, a taxi driver, a lawyer, a businessman....Sadly, everything carries a risk when you live and operate in the north of Mexico.

Certainly, my profession has become riskier, and this has forced crime reporters to change the way they work. Many of them now work in groups where they can protect each other. It has created more solidarity among members of the press.

Despite everything, there are those who put themselves at great risk. Personally, I admire the women journalists who have been a model of courage for the men. I believe that the female example has been crucial.

How has life in Ciudad Juárez changed in recent years? What effect has the violence had?

The violence has had a devastating effect, so much so, that I chose to leave the city and search for other jobs.

I lived in Ciudad Juárez during the years of the worst violence, when they used to kill up to 18 people a day, when they used to burn down businesses. The assaults, the extortion, the robberies and kidnappings were everyday occurrences. The violence meant that people went out less frequently and locked themselves up in their houses. Juárez was converted into a ghost town, the streets were empty at nights, and the people spoke of nothing except the violence. The daily question was: 'How many did they kill today?'

With every murder, the victim seemed to be closer to you. At first, it was the body of a stranger discovered in the outskirts of the city, then it was an acquaintance, then a neighbour, then a friend, and then came the moment when it was a member of your family.

I had to leave the city due to the violence. I was never attacked physically, but, yes, I was the victim of threats and attempted extortion.

Now, I see Ciudad Juárez slowly improving, thanks to the solidarity of its people and their fighting spirit. Their journalists also have this spirit.

Journalists regularly face death threats in Mexico - where do the threats come from? What has been your experience?

This is the worst part of it all: they are faceless persons; you never know who they are, nor where they're from. They are the threatening voices that call your telephone to tell you that they're watching you, that you'd better be careful. Some years ago, when I was the editor of Periódico PM, I was a victim of threats made by criminals. They phoned me at home to tell me that they were watching me. They said that I should go to the window, from where I would see a van parked in front of my house. I didn't sleep very well in those days. I used to receive emailed death threats everyday because of my work.

During that period, the newspaper received a direct attack. The reporter Eugenia Cicero and the photo-journalist Jaime Murrieta (may he rest in peace) were beaten up by hooded men while they were trying to report on an incident.

Those were tense days. Afterwards, I performed other roles at El Diario and I lived a calmer life. At the moment, I live in Chihuahua and I cover political news for the Grupo Informativo Omnia, so my work is less stressful than it used to be.

Do you trust the police? The politicians? What do you think their role is in impunity?

When you see that so many innocent people have died and that no-one does anything about it, it's difficult to trust the authorities. When you see how investigations are manipulated, when you see that there are never concrete results, it's difficult to trust.

I can tell you that I definitely do not trust the authorities; I think that the general population doesn't trust them either. And because of this, people don't report crimes. So, it's a vicious circle where impunity is the protagonist.

Why do journalists continue working in these dangerous states? What's their motivation? How do their families deal with it?

Well, I think it's because we love our native land and our profession. The majority of journalists that work in Chihuahua were born in Chihuahua and those who aren't from here love this place as if they were native. Our families, friends and work are here. It's difficult to let go of something that you love and to give up the fight to change things for the better.

There are many reporters who risk their lives because they're dedicated to their profession. I think that they do it because they're convinced that there's something that can be done to change the harsh reality in which we live. I have colleagues who are very dedicated, especially those who report on crime. I know that they are motivated because of their families - they all want their children to grow up in a better environment, and because of this, they fight for change, report on crime and ask questions of the authorities.

What do you think about the new federalization of crimes against journalists?

I hope that it will have a positive result. It's something for which my colleagues have long fought, and which has finally been achieved. However, investigations carried out by the authorities into cases of murdered journalists leave much to be desired. You're always left with doubts....

I hope that the Law to Protect Journalists won't be another easily-violated law. You have to trust that the law will be properly enforced, that it won't be tarnished by the shadow of corruption.

What more must the government do to defeat impunity and protect journalists? What should the new president (Enrique Peña Nieto) do?

I believe that citizens' security must be guaranteed in general, and that in the case of journalists, mechanisms must be created that permit real free expression and bring an end to censorship. The new president of Mexico faces a huge challenge. The election was very controversial and he has a poor image amongst a large part of the population.

I think that Enrique Peña Nieto will have to give great attention to the violence suffered by journalists, and not just to those acts of physical violence, but to harassment too.

The new president has to drive forward a country that has been severely beaten by organised crime during the last six years. [President] Felipe Calderón leaves a country with grave security problems, with cases of femicides unsolved and attacks on journalists that need urgent attention.

In this regard, he (Peña Nieto) must make sure that the Attorney General of the Republic enforces the Law to Protect Journalists, and that corruption is not allowed to tarnish this law. Government officials will also need to be made more aware of the law and how it works.

What can foreign governments and NGOs do regarding impunity in Mexico?

Sadly, foreign governments and NGOs seem more interested than the Mexican government in the problem of impunity. I believe that drawing attention to what is happening in this country is already a great help, as pressure from foreign governments and NGOs, at times, does have an effect on our government.

There's a lot of talent in Mexico and there are a lot of projects organised by journalists. However, at times, this talent is wasted because of a lack of support. I believe that foreign governments and NGOS could provide this support and thereby help launch these projects that aren't supported here in Mexico.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1730598 2012-08-01T17:33:55-04:00 2012-10-01T05:12:03-04:00

Cathal Sheerin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathal-sheerin/ Abebe Tolla, (better known as Abé Tokichaw) was a newspaper satirist for Feteh newspaper in Ethiopia. He fled the country in November 2011, fearing imprisonment in retaliation for his critical news commentaries. Ethiopia is one of the repressive states in the world: the government uses very broad anti-terrorism legislation to clamp down on the free press and on any kind of dissent. It has imprisoned numerous journalists for highly questionable terror-related offences that - in other countries - would not even be regarded as crimes. In the face of this threat, many Ethiopian journalists have gone into exile. I was able to provide Abebe Tolla with some assistance after his flight to exile, and he recently told the me about his experience. What follows are his own words.



In Ethiopia nowadays, journalists - especially those working for the free press - work in constant fear. Nobody knows how long he'll stay in his job because the government can charge you with being a terrorist any time it likes.

Whenever anyone is arrested under anti-terrorism law now, people [automatically] ask: "Was he/she a journalist?" To be a journalist in Ethiopia is to risk your life.

But I don't really describe myself as a journalist; I am best known as a columnist. Most of my writings are about the problems faced by the lower social classes and the bad governance of my country. I write because I want things to change.

I still don't fully understand why I was targeted.

It started in May, 2011, when a government security agent was assigned to follow me and [monitor] my activities related to Feteh newspaper.

The government thought that I was communicating with people they described as terrorists, like the journalist Elias Kifle (recently sentenced to life imprisonment) and Ginbot 7 (an outlawed opposition party).

He told me that I had to cooperate with the government by giving him information about these 'terrorists.' I told him that I had no idea [what he was talking about], but he wouldn't believe me. He said that the government had a lot of evidence that I was working with Ginbot 7 and others.

I am a writer - I don't work with any political group.

For the following six months, the agent contacted me at least once a week. He used to visit my office, urging me to work with the government. He told me to stop my writing.

(During this time, Tolla didn't know whom he could trust, who might be watching him, or who might be listening in on his telephone calls.)

It was a time of continuous interrogation and intimidation. It wasn't easy; I was frightened all the time. [Alongside security agents] Ethiopia has many spies and informants. We even have a saying: "One spy for every person." It is obvious, too, that some journalists - even those in the free press - are informants.

Despite advice from my family and friends, I never stopped writing. I did, however, begin to censor my writing more than I had done before.

At the end of six months (during which Tolla provided no information), the agent told me that he was finished with me. He said that I wasn't helping myself by not cooperating and that I had become a threat to the country. In November he said that I would be charged under anti-terrorist law.

I had heard about the shocking torture and mistreatment of my detained friends and other political prisoners and I was not sure that I could resist the same treatment.

I realized then that I had two options: either be arrested or flee my homeland. I chose the latter.

(Tolla slipped out of the country in November 2011 and is staying in an undisclosed location. His family knew nothing of his move.)

I didn't tell them about my escape because I didn't want them to be stressed; that made me very sad and depressed.

I was never actually charged with any crime, so I am not sure if I am now seen as a traitor. I am not comfortable in exile - the only thing that makes me happy is that I am still writing.

I still don't feel safe at all. I get more threats now than when I lived in my own country. Most of them are messages warning me to stop writing. They say things like: 'We know where you are,' and there are lots of insults.

Ethiopia has many spies and informants in other countries. The feeling of insecurity here in 'X' (Tolla's current location) is tremendous because there are Ethiopian security agents in many places in the city. I try not to move about a lot; most of the time I just stay at home.

Everyday I think about going back to my homeland, and I wish that it could be soon.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1699793 2012-07-24T18:33:35-04:00 2012-09-23T05:12:09-04:00

Cathal Sheerin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathal-sheerin/
In the United States, cycling legend Lance Armstrong - who has never tested positive for any banned substance - is once again being accused by former Tour de France team mates of having 'doped' throughout his glory years. These former colleagues are themselves guilty of taking illegal, performance-boosting chemicals.

There is a long list of athletes banned for taking outlawed substances, and with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) promising that the London Games will be the most dope-tested in history, that list is likely to grow much longer.

WADA's promotional DVD - Level the Playing Field - pushes the message that we worry about performance enhancement in sport simply because we want 'fair play.' In the words of the organisation's Ethical Issues Review Panel, 'we want athletes to exemplify aspects of character that we admire in people more generally, such as fortitude, dedication, self-discipline, courage, and strategic wisdom.' What matters is 'not just the outcomes,' but also 'the means used to achieve those outcomes.' This is what WADA calls 'the spirit of sport.' And it is borne out by the public reaction to sport - we like to see records broken, but when one is broken with the help of an illicit substance or method, we dismiss it and condemn the athlete.

But determining what is legal, and what is not - in effect, deciding what is cheating or doping - is a process mired in confusion and inconsistency, and made more difficult by advances in science.

Grey Areas

WADA was set up in 1999 to regulate anti-doping activities in sport worldwide. It sets the policies and the rules and decides the annual list of prohibited substances and methods. According to WADA, a substance or method goes on the list if it meets at least two of three criteria: first, it must have the potential to increase sporting performance; second, it must pose an actual or potential risk to the athlete's health; third, it must be contrary to the spirit of sport. Thus, for example, anabolic steroids, which enhance performance by increasing muscle growth, but also damage the liver and increase the risk of prostate cancer, are banned.

But, as Professor Barrie Houlihan of the School of Sports and Exercise Science at Loughborough University told me on the eve of the last Olympics, 'there are grey areas'. There are technologies and substances - such as creatine - that fulfil WADA's two-out-of-three criteria, but are still permitted. And by boosting performance and violating the spirit of sport, they potentially deny fair play to all athletes. The most controversial of these grey areas is the use of hypoxic chambers, also known as altitude chambers.

Altitude chambers boost an athlete's red blood cell count, increasing endurance and recovery time. The athlete sleeps at a simulated high altitude, but trains at the optimal sea level, all without having to undergo the rigours of travel. He or she benefits simply by sleeping, and gains the same performance benefits as someone using the illegal hormone erythropoietin (EPO).

For Houlihan, it is an ethical issue. He described the use of the chambers as 'a highly ambiguous area' that will 'never be reconciled' with the current anti-doping criteria,' and said that WADA must 'not only establish a set of anti-doping regulations and protocols, but also give a moral lead in areas where there is this kind of ambiguity.'

WADA actually attempted to do this in a review in 2006 but failed. Its then chief, Dick Pound, condemned the chambers as 'tacky' and 'artificial', and the Ethical Issues Review Panel said that they were 'a violation of the spirit of Olympic sport.' But the chambers stayed off the list.

Practicality Trumps Ethics?

WADA never explained why. In a 2007 report produced by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, entitled Human Enhancement Technologies in Sport, UK Athletics' Dr Bruce Hamilton criticised WADA's lack of transparency - its 'behind closed doors' decision-making. But Dr Arne Ljungqvist, vice president of WADA merely says that there was 'a clear message' from WADA's stakeholders 'not to include it on the list.' The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport was representative of the stakeholders who went public with their opinions, when it argued that 'there would be no way to monitor the use of hypoxic tents', and that 'a ban would subject anti-doping authorities and their approaches to criticism and even ridicule.'

When I spoke to Professor Houlihan, he saw the stakeholders' point. He said that because these chambers have 'the same impact as illegal substances, but also the impact of perfectly legal occurrences' (such as living at high altitude) 'it would be hard to envisage having rules that could be enforced.' So, there remains a suspicion that the use of altitude chambers remains legal because practicality has trumped ethics. Dr Olivier Rabin, director of sciences at WADA, did not want to be drawn on this issue when I spoke to him. He stated that practicality was 'not an element we take into account at the scientific level.'

A 2007 study by scientists at the University of Verona has noted increased blood viscosity in athletes who use the chambers. It concluded that there were 'tangible health risks to the widespread use of hypoxic devices, which would make them as unsafe as other forms of blood doping.' So altitude chambers now potentially meet all three of WADA's doping criteria.

The use of altitude chambers is part of a wider debate about the role of science in athletic performance. For Professor Houlihan this is yet another grey area. He told me: 'If you see doping as the appliance of science to gain an advantage, then the development of frictionless swimsuits (now banned) or super-light fast bicycles for the velodrome all come under that heading.'

Describing the ambiguities in deciding what role technology should play in sport, Houlihan said: 'We have tended to see the development of equipment and sportswear as acceptable areas of innovation and the appliance of science, whereas doping - taking a substance - has been considered unacceptable. At one level there is no difference between the two. I've read lots of attempts to try and rationalise the distinction, saying that one is external to the body and one is internal.

'Then there's the difference between natural and unnatural substances. But these distinctions all fall down eventually. I think it comes back to be what is eventually considered to be acceptable and unacceptable. But there's no neat distinction between them at all.'

Richer, Faster, Stronger

And these grey areas not only erode the ethical high ground taken by WADA, they also have far-reaching consequences for competitive sport. Sleeping in a space-age chamber that alters your blood chemistry costs anything from $7,000 for a small tent, to $25,000 for a room. It is an expensive business, and a lack of money disadvantages the athletes from poorer countries.

Retired sprinter and 2004 Olympic gold medalist Darren Campbell voiced some concern about this issue when I spoke to him, especially in relation to altitude chambers. Although he did not think that their use was unethical, he was concerned that the cost of this technology put medals beyond the reach of poorer athletes: 'If it's only the top people that can afford it, it means the top people progress and everybody else doesn't. I can see the argument with regard to fair play: the top people will get better and no-one will catch them up.'

But WADA's Dr Rabin dismissed expense as an issue: 'We shouldn't be too naive. Many of the top athletes in the world, even if they wear the jersey of a one country, very often train in another country. So, many of them are wealthy enough to have access to a lot of devices and resources.'

The Wealthy are Sprinting Away

But the statistics suggest it is Dr Rabin who is being slightly naive. Professor Houlihan, who has studied the economics of international sport, said: 'The share of medals won by the G8 countries - the richest eight countries in the world - is almost the same as their share of world trade. There's a close association between being wealthy and winning medals. And it's because it's expensive science. It's interesting when you look at athletes from poorer countries who win medals. They tend to win in those sports where the application of science is still in its early days - middle and long distance running - rather than in highly scientific and technical sports such as diving and short distance running, or high jump and long jump. And the athletes from poorer countries who win those events tend to be those who get scholarships to American universities.'

What does this mean for the future of international sport? According to Houlihan: 'I think there is a danger that there will be a growing divide between a small group of sports superpowers and the rest, who simply can't afford the technology.'

And this divide has already started. The final medal tally of the 75 countries that took part in the 2004 Olympics showed seven of the G8 countries represented in the top ten medal-winning nations. An analysis of the 2008 Olympics medal tally shows the very same pattern. In 2004, only two of the UN's poorest 50 countries in the world managed to win any medals at all: Ethiopia and Eritrea. Over the last four major international competitions - two World Championships and two Olympics - the G8 countries have won on average 45 per cent of the medals awarded.

Against this evidence, the WADA Ethical Issues Review Panel's words that 'Sport is about the athlete and not about the equipment or expert systems upon which the athlete may rely' seem almost naïve. And the level playing field that WADA is so keen to promote in its DVD is already long gone.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1604260 2012-06-17T18:16:06-04:00 2012-08-17T05:12:10-04:00

Cathal Sheerin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathal-sheerin/ G20 host country ahead of conflict-ravaged Somalia (6 killings) and just behind blood-soaked Syria (11 killings).

Although there are other countries in the G20 - Russia and China for example - that are hardly beacons of free expression, none of them sees more journalists and writers murdered than Mexico. More journalists have been killed in Mexico this year than in all the other G20 nations combined.

The war against Mexico's journalists and writers should be more widely recognised.

The first victim of 2012 was La Ultima Palabra's Raúl Régalo Garza Quirino: he was shot in an organized hit in January. In March, the poet and translator Guillermo Fernández García was battered to death at his home. In April, journalists Héctor Javier Salinas Aguirre and Javier Moya Muñoz were shot to death in a massacre at a bar. That same month, Regina Martínez, a reporter for Proceso, was strangled. May saw two further killings. These were ex-journalist René Orta Salgado, whose body was discovered in the trunk of his car, and Marco Antonio Ávila García, a Sonora-based reporter who was strangled and dumped in the road. And last week, Víctor Manuel Báez Chino, a crime reporter for Milenio Xalapa, was kidnapped and murdered.

These victims join the list of more than 80 journalists, writers and bloggers who have been killed in Mexico since 2000. Many of these men and women wrote about or denounced organized crime and corruption. Few of their deaths have been investigated properly; there have been only a handful of convictions.

Despite the introduction of two mechanisms aimed at protecting journalists under threat, and the creation, in 2006, of the office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Freedom of Expression, the rate at which journalists are being killed in Mexico is actually accelerating.

The almost 100% impunity enjoyed by those who kill or threaten journalists in Mexico owes much of its existence to the corruption and inertia that are so prevalent throughout the Mexican states. Police and employees of local administrations are often implicated in attacks on journalists, and, as the Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Freedom of Expression publicly recognised in March 2012, threats to journalists' right to free expression often come directly from the state authorities themselves.

The coastal state of Veracruz illustrates this problem. In December 2011, the police service of Veracruz-Boca del Rio was considered so corrupt that it had to be disbanded altogether; law enforcement was handed over to the navy. But this did not make Veracruz any safer. Recently, a 'death list' containing the names of a number of journalists to be killed has been circulating in Veracruz: it is alleged that members of the army and navy are planning to carry out these executions.

Last week, PEN International, the global writers' and free expression organisation, published an open letter addressed to all journalists who will be covering the G20 summit on 18-19 June. We asked them, in the course of their reporting, to raise the issue of the violence suffered by journalists and the impunity enjoyed by those who commit these crimes.

PEN International has long campaigned for changes to Mexican law in order to better protect journalists and writers. Earlier this month, a long-awaited law that would make all attacks on journalists federal crimes was finally approved.

However, Mexico's commitment to freedom of expression will not be measured by legislation, but by a reduction in the number of attacks on journalists and writers, by the prosecution and conviction of those responsible for these crimes, and by tackling corruption.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1501260 2012-05-08T17:50:22-04:00 2012-07-08T05:12:08-04:00

Cathal Sheerin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathal-sheerin/
Martínez was a well-known spokesman for the lesbian and gay rights group Kuculnan and was politically active in Libertad y Refundación, the party of Manuel Zelaya, the former Honduran president who was deposed by a military coup in 2009.

The motive for Martínez' killing is unknown. But as a journalist critical of the current Honduran government, and as a Zelaya-supporter, Martínez was doubly vulnerable in a country where the rate of attacks on members of the press and the political opposition is accelerating. He is the seventeenth journalist to be murdered in Honduras in the last two years. Many more have suffered beatings and death threats, with government officials - including the army and the police - regularly implicated in these attacks.

As recently as 25 April 2012, unidentified gunmen shot and killed another journalist, Noel Alexander Valladares, as he drove away from the studios of Maya TV in the capital, Tegucigalpa. On 8 September 2011, in a similar attack, gunmen killed 62-year old, pro-Zelaya radio journalist Menardo Flores.

The coup of 2009 produced an illegal regime that ruled by force, suppressed opposition and censored the press. It was eventually succeeded in 2010 by President Porfirio Lobo Sosa's government - still unrecognized by some countries - which immediately offered an amnesty to all those involved in the coup.

But little has changed on the ground, at least in terms of the violence. Journalists such as Flores and Martínez, who still seek to expose those implicated in the coup or who merely have ties to Zelaya, can at the very least expect a death threat.

So too can the newspapers and broadcasters that focus on police corruption, secrecy in the public administration, or criticism of current large-scale privatization projects.

On 6 December 2011, Luz Marina Paz Villalobos, a reporter for the radio news station Cadena Hondureña de Noticias, was shot to death while travelling in a car belonging to a member of the armed forces. The previous day, in an unrelated incident, armed men fired shots at the offices of the daily newspaper La Tribuna, seriously wounding a security guard. According to the newspaper's editor, attacks on La Tribuna staff are a regular occurrence.

Unsurprisingly, self-censorship in the press is a growing trend.

As a signatory to the American Convention of Human Rights, Honduras is obliged to protect its citizens' right to free expression. At its most recent Universal Periodic Review (November 2010), Honduras committed itself to defending this right and pledged to investigate attacks on journalists and other media workers.

However, 18 months later, even President Lobo recognizes that Honduras is failing in this regard, with very few assaults or murders investigated properly.

Lobo publicly acknowledged this in November 2011. He also called for a 'review' of free expression and, tellingly, made a distinction between 'libertad de expresión [y la] defensa de los intereses particulares' (freedom of expression and the defence of special interests).

Exactly what he meant by this isn't clear, but it gives little reason for hope: leaders who make this kind of distinction too often end up trying to deny opposition opinion its voice, as if citing the 'special interests' of an opponent were justification enough for exempting them from the protection guaranteed by a state's legal commitment to free expression.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1378636 2012-03-25T19:20:57-04:00 2012-05-25T05:12:02-04:00

Cathal Sheerin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathal-sheerin/
If you're wondering why that might be important, you should consider the case of Miguel Ángel López Velasco, a columnist for the Veracruz-based newspaper, Notiver.

On 20 June 2011, a few days after publishing an article on drug trafficking in Veracruz State, López was shot to death at his home. His wife and son were executed alongside him. The main suspect in the killing is a former state police officer.

You might also think about Osvaldo García Íñiguez, a manager at the business daily El Financiero. He disappeared whilst travelling to Guadalajara on 14 November 2011. The last call he ever made was a panicky message to colleagues, telling them that he was being tailed by two police patrol cars.

In both these cases, uniformed state employees (or former state employees) are the key suspects and local state authorities are charged with investigating the crimes; there have been no prosecutions, no arrests. These cases are the tip of the iceberg.

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world in which to be a journalist. Since 2006, at least 45 reporters have been murdered or have 'disappeared' in connection with their work. The drug cartels are believed to be behind the majority of these crimes, but police officers and other state employees are implicated in many of them.

Those who attack or murder journalists do so brazenly and with relative impunity: since 2000, there have been less than a handful of convictions for these crimes.

This is largely because the vast majority of attacks on journalists are investigated at state level, where the Mexican authorities are under-resourced, often inept, and at their most corruptible: bribery and threats ensure that crimes aren't investigated too thoroughly.

Sometimes, though, it isn't even necessary to bribe or threaten the local officials. Sometimes, they're already 'employees' of criminal gangs. The drug cartels have been known to 'hire' young men long before they go to college and then sponsor them through police training; practically every class of fresh police graduates contains someone with cartel connections.

In some states, the corruption of the local authorities is almost total. In December 2011, the Veracruz municipal police force was considered so rotten that it had to be disbanded altogether; law enforcement was handed over to the Mexican navy. The previous month, an armed gang had assaulted the offices of the Veracruz-based El Buen Tono. The gang members were so unconcerned about the local police that they didn't even bother to hide their faces, despite everything being recorded openly on security cameras.

The federalization of attacks on journalists is a key issue on which PEN International, the global writers and free expression organisation, has long campaigned. By taking investigations into attacks on journalists out of the hands of individual states and giving overall responsibility to the federal authorities, cases will be less susceptible to the corrupting influences that are so rife at the local level.

At the moment, empowering the federal authorities offers the only realistic hope for ending the climate of impunity that exists in Mexico for those who attack journalists.

There have already been steps in the right direction: since 2006, an extra 30,000 federal officers have been employed, many of whom have been put through a strict vetting regime consisting of drug and polygraph tests, and psychological and background checks. By 2013, more than half of all federal officers will have been vetted in this way.

The amendment passed by the Senate on 13 March has been fought over and debated since 2008. It now needs to be passed by a majority of states to become law. That will require another fight, but Senate leaders believe that it will be won before the summer.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1326564 2012-03-07T19:00:00-05:00 2012-05-07T05:12:02-04:00

Cathal Sheerin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathal-sheerin/
It's also unlikely that you've heard of María Elizabeth Macías Castro. She was the mother of two teenagers, a keen blogger and the editor of the daily newspaper Primera Hora. She was found dead on 24 September 2011, in Tamaulipas state. A note had been placed next to her body accusing her of 'denouncing' Mexico's drug-violence. Like Ordaz de la Cruz, she too had been decapitated.

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world in which to be a writer or a journalist. Since 2006, forty-five print journalists, writers and bloggers have been killed or 'disappeared' in the course of their work. Most of the victims have been men, but in the last two years a new trend has emerged, with women increasingly being targeted.

In 2011, five of the nine writers killed in Mexico were women.

These include Ana María Marcela Yarce Viveros, reporter for the political magazine Contralinea, and Rocio González Trápaga, freelance journalist and former Televisa reporter. Both women were found dead on 1 September 2011, lying side-by-side in a park in Mexico City. They had been abducted the previous night, tied up, and choked to death.

Also on the list of victims is Susana Chávez Castillo, a 37-year-old poet and social activist. She was found dead in Ciudad Juarez on 6 January 2011. She had been strangled; her killers had also cut off her left hand. In the bloodiest of ironies, Chávez had been leading protests against the murder of women in Ciudad Juarez.

It is widely believed that organised crime groups are responsible for most of the killings of journalists in Mexico. But there is also evidence to suggest that members of the police and army - some of whom are in the pay of the drug cartels - are implicated in a number of these murders.

We can speculate as to why there has been an increase in attacks on women journalists, but perhaps the most persuasive (and mundane) explanation is hinted at by veteran reporter Charles Bowden in his book, El Sicario (The Hitman).

During an interview in the book, a former cartel assassin suggests that the rise in attacks on women is due merely to the changing role of women in Mexican society. Some years ago, he says, women and children were considered virtually off-limits to a professional hitman, but now that greater numbers of impoverished women have been pulled into taking more active, stereotypically 'male' roles in the drug trade, they are judged to be fair game.

Similarly, there are many more women working as journalists nowadays: more women are investigating the influence of organised crime in Mexico, more women are incurring the wrath of the cartels.

As with all the cases of murdered reporters in Mexico, the investigations into the killings of women writers have been slow and careless, with few arrests and fewer prosecutions. Details are taken, information is entered into databases, press statements are issued, and then the cases are let drift.

Why is this?

Partly it's the corruption that is endemic in Mexico. Bribery and - when bribery fails - violence are the oil that lubricates the Mexican machine, especially at the state level. The drug cartels that are suspected of carrying out the majority of these attacks can pay-off or threaten politicians, judges and the police, thereby ensuring that justice doesn't get done.

Partly it's also because Mexico's legal system is not up to the task: killings and disappearances are usually dealt with at state level, where the system is at its most corruptible. Currently, there are moves to change the law so that attacks on journalists, writers and bloggers are made federal crimes. This offers only a small glimmer of hope.

In January, PEN International, the global writers' and free expression organisation sent a delegation to Mexico to raise international awareness of the violence suffered there by writers and journalists. The delegation met with, among others, the Mayor of Mexico City, the Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Freedom of Expression and the President of the Senate. The delegation came away daunted by the scale of the task facing those who are willing to tackle the problem, reform the system, and bring justice to those who attack and kill writers.

On International Women's Day, 8 March 2012, spare a thought for the murdered women writers of Mexico. We should remember them - the system seems inclined to forget.]]>