The Listening Post

On The Listening Post this week: Facebook's end-of-year wrap glossed over most of its own bad news. Plus, what happens when US immigration raids are caught on camera. Facebook 2018: Resolutions vs reality New Year's resolutions can be difficult to keep. That didn't stop Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg vowing at the outset of 2018 that this would be the year he would fix things. Since then, multiple controversies, including the Cambridge Analytica data breach and the United Nations' report on Facebook's role in the ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, have exposed some of the pragmatic business calculations the company has made, which contradict the feel-good image the company has worked hard to sell. Contributors Siva Vaidhyanathan - University of Virginia, author 'Anti-Social Media' David Gilbert - Tech reporter, Vice News Bernie Hogan - Oxford Internet Institute Ina Fried - Chief Technology correspondent, Axios On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Will Yong about the latest effort at media consolidation in Hungary, the Central European Press and Media Foundation, and TIME magazine's Person of the Year, which honours journalists under fire. Ice watch: Turning the lens on the US immigration agencies Before President Donald Trump took office, most media junkies in the United States would not have known that ICE stands for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. But the Trump administration's hardline immigration policies have changed all that. And with the president's ceaseless talking and tweeting about threats like a government shutdown if Democrats refuse to fund his border wall, or that migrant caravan from Honduras, stories about ICE and its sister agency, CBP - Customs and Border Protection - are right up there on the mainstream media's agenda. But the role the media are playing in this particular narrative is going well beyond just covering the story. The Listening Post's Flo Phillips reports from the US on some of the media collaborations that are turning the lens on the immigration authorities to track enforcement abuse. Contributors Palika Makam - Programme coordinator, WITNESS Ryan Devereaux - Immigration reporter, The Intercept Muzaffar Chishti - Director, Migration Policy Institute Dara Lind - Immigration reporter, Vox More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

On The Listening Post this week: An apparent cut-paste error confirms a US indictment against Julian Assange. But have the media already found him guilty? Plus, patriotic cinema in Russia. Assange: Charges in the US, trial by the media? Last week, in court papers filed in the US, in a case completely unrelated to Julian Assange, there was a paragraph confirming that a secret indictment has been filed against the Wikileaks founder. A supposed clerical error confirmed something that Assange had always feared, but that the US Department of Justice never admitted: it wants him in jail. It's been more than six years since Assange was granted asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. An investigation into sexual assault-related allegations made by two women in Sweden has long since been dropped. However, British police say Assange will be arrested the moment he steps out of the embassy for breach of bail. Less than a decade ago, Assange had media outlets eating out of his hand and governments with secrets to hide on high alert. Now, he's at the mercy of an Ecuadorian government that's running out of patience and he may be running out of time. Contributors Eric Alterman - media columnist, The Nation Glenn Greenwald - cofounder, The Intercept James Ball - Author, 'WikiLeaks: News in the Networked Era' / Contributor, The Guardian Stefania Maurizi – investigative reporter, La Repubblica On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Tariq Nafi about a New York Times' story that has exposed the questionable tactics Facebook is using to go after its critics. Russia's big patriotic screen: Making films for the motherland Vladimir Putin describes patriotism as a central tenet of today's Russia - and then relies on nationalistic rhetoric to boost morale and shore up his political base. Not just on the television airwaves, on the silver screen as well. While Russia has been criticised over its annexation of Crimea in 2014, alleged election meddling in the US and spy poisoning in the UK - the cinematic treatment of the contemporary Russia story is somewhat different. Crimea, for instance, is the stuff of romcoms. Russia's history on the battlefield and in the world of sports is a heroic and triumphant tale. The Kremlin not only backs those films to the tune of millions of rubles, it clamps down on filmmakers it calls "anti-state" and bans their work. The Listening Post's Layli Foroudi reports on the cinematic effort to produce patriotism in Russia. Contributors Larisa Malukova - film critic, Novaya Gazeta Vitaly Mansky - documentary filmmaker Vlad Strukov - associate professor, Leeds University Filip Perkon - founder, London Russian Film Week - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

Less than a decade ago, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had media outlets eating out of his hand and governments with secrets to hide on high alert. Now, he's at the mercy of an Ecuadorian government that's running out of patience - and he may be running out of time. Last week, in court papers filed in the United States, in a case completely unrelated to Assange, was a paragraph confirming that a secret indictment had been filed against him. Prosecutors called it an administrative mistake, meaning a supposed clerical error. It seemed to confirm something that Assange had always feared, but that the US Department of Justice never admitted: It wants him in jail. However, what hasn't been revealed in that paragraph is "what the charges are and what period of WikiLeaks activity they relate to," points out James Ball, author of WikiLeaks: News in the Networked Era. The clerical error took place at a court in Alexandria, Virginia, right next door to Washington, where a grand jury has reportedly been investigating Julian Assange since 2010. Back then, WikiLeaks was in its heyday. The Iraq and Afghan war logs revealed brutal truths about those invasions, confirming war crimes previously denied by the Pentagon. And the Diplomatic Cables would later expose the US's duplicity in its dealings with foreign governments. Challenging powerful institutions comes with a price, says Glenn Greenwald. "There was actually a 2008 US Army report that described WikiLeaks as an enemy of the state and talked about different ways to destroy the organisation. And we can read about that document because ironically it got leaked to WikiLeaks which then published it on its own website." In 2010, a legal case was opened against Assange in Sweden, for sexual assault - based on the testimonies of two women. Assange denied the allegations and asked to be questioned in London, a common practice in such cases. He said he feared that going to Sweden could lead to extradition to the US. While the Swedes eventually dropped the case without ever laying charges - a fact that seemed lost on news organisations - the UK says it will arrest Assange if he steps out of the embassy for breaching his bail conditions. It's a standoff the UN calls a case of arbitrary detention, a denial of Assange's human rights. "Whatever you think of Julian, whatever you think of WikiLeaks, what has been done to him over the last six to seven years is a very sustained serious and deliberate violation of his basic liberties. And yet that has been almost entirely disregarded by the western media," says Greenwald. All the measures to discredit Assange are meant to punish him and serve as a deterrent for others, according to Stefania Maurizi, an investigative journalist who has probed how the Assange case has been conducted, in both Sweden and the UK. "They fear a domino effect, they realise that inside the US intelligence community there are many people who have seen all sort of abuses. They are terrified that there could be a hundred Chelsea Mannings, a thousand Edward Snowdens. They cannot kill Julian Assange. So all they can do is use legal cases ... against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, which they have done." - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

Last week, CNN contributor Marc Lamont Hill delivered a speech at the United Nations in support of Palestinian self-determination and equal rights. Less than 24 hours later, CNN was done with him. When you boil it down, he was fired for the use of six words: 'from the river to the sea' - a reference to the territory of historical Palestine, situated between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean prior to the creation of Israel in 1948. The reference was deemed anti-Semitic. "When Marc Lamont Hill says 'a free Palestine from the river to the sea', he is acknowledging that Palestinians aren't just clustered in the West Bank and Gaza but in fact we are from places like Akka and Yafa and Magdal and the Galilee and all parts of Palestine," explains Susan Abulhawa, Palestinian writer and author. "And the significance of this is that Israel has always sought to erase this historic fact. They are not just objecting to use of the words 'from the river to the sea' but 'Palestine'." Hill's dismissal came on the heels of a seemingly coordinated attack by pro-Israel groups that have come to have a large say over what constitutes acceptable discourse on Palestine in the United States, by wilfully conflating legitimate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, and convincing news outlets to do the same. It wasn't long ago that CNN adopted the slogan "facts first". When it comes to Israel though, it's much more complicated than that, as some facts are clearly more inconvenient than others. "In terms of what Marc Lamont Hill said, I think CNN was thinking probably about viewers and about the Jewish community and saying, well the majority of the community view this as a deeply problematic, as something that threatens their very existence, and so they made that decision based on that," says Batya Ungar-Sargon, opinion editor at The Forward. By firing Lamont, who used to balance out the discussion on Israel-Palestine, "CNN essentially perpetuated this narrative, this false dichotomy," explains Abraham Gutman, opinion writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer. "This idea that you have to choose don't critique Israel or be anti-Semitic. It's even more problematic because of the positive role that it could play in this conflict and this narrative. That discussion will not be on CNN because they fired Dr Hill, but that will be a perfect place and a perfect opportunity to have this discussion." CNN's treatment of the Middle East conflict can be measured not just in the pro-Israel voices it pays to provide punditry, like former Israeli ambassador to Washington Michael Oren, ex-US Senator Rick Santorum and lawyer Alan Dershowitz, but in the airtime they are given. Even the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has said Oren's opinions verge on conspiracy theories, yet he's still a paid CNN contributor and is often interviewed by Wolf Blitzer. Blitzer's bio on CNN's news site is as revealing about the network as it is about him. It's extensive, a detailed list of his career going back 40 years, but nowhere does CNN mention that in the 1980s, Blitzer worked at AIPAC as a paid lobbyist for Israel. "It's institutional, it's embedded in the fabric of CNN," points out Abulhawa. "All these people get to stay on CNN and Wolf Blitzer, who is an ardent Zionist and with a history of working for the Israeli lobby, he gets to frame the story and rarely do Palestinians ever get a voice on CNN." Omar Baddar, deputy director of the Arab American Institute, says it is "crucial for people to understand the magnitude of the threat to free speech in the form of denying the ability of pro-Palestine activists to be part of the narrative in the United States. We are facing a very serious threat to free speech in the form of denying the right to speak honestly about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the right to advocate on it." - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

On The Listening Post this week: We look at the taboo around the Israel-Palestine debate on the American airwaves. Plus, Quechua news and the politics of language in Peru. The limits on the Israel-Palestine debate Last week, a CNN pundit delivered a speech at the United Nations in support of Palestinian self-determination and equal rights. Less than 24 hours later, CNN was done with Marc Lamont Hill. When you boil it down, he was fired for his use of the words 'from the river to the sea' - a reference to the territory of historic Palestine, situated between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean prior to the creation of Israel in 1948. The reference was deemed anti-Semitic. Hill's dismissal came on the heels of a seemingly coordinated attack by pro-Israel lobbying groups that have come to have a large say over what constitutes acceptable discourse on Palestine in the United States, by wilfully conflating legitimate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, and convincing news outlets to do the same. Contributors Omar Baddar - Deputy Director, Arab American Institute Batya Ungar-Sargon - Opinion editor, the Forward Abraham Gutman - Opinion & editorial writer, Philadelphia Inquirer Susan Abulhawa - Writer and author On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to Maria Ressa, founder of the Filipino news site Rappler, about the recent tax evasion charges laid on her, and more generally, about the climate of fear facing all critical journalists in the Philippines amid increasing hostility from President Rodrigo Duterte's government. Nuqanchik: Peruvian news and the politics of language Over 45 percent of Peru's population is indigenous - a demographic fact that the country's media have long failed to reflect. It starts with language. Spanish dominates the airwaves. But over the past year, the country's public broadcaster, Canal Peru, has launched two new news programmes in Peru's main indigenous languages, Aymara and Quechua. One of those programmes is called 'Nuqanchik', which is Quechua for 'Us'. The appearance of Quechua - the most widely-spoken indigenous language in the Americas - on a national TV channel is being seen as an attempt to redress the racist legacies of the colonial era. The Listening Post's Marcela Pizarro reports from Lima with the journalists behind 'Nuqanchik'. Contributors Clodomiro Landeo - Presenter, 'Nuqanchik' Marisol Mesa - Presenter, 'Nuqanchik' Hugo Coya - Director, National Institute of Radio and Television Raul Castro - Media anthropologist Patricia del Rio - Host, Radio Television Peru More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

Five years ago, Syrian activist Raed Fares started organising protests in his town of Kafranbel, where he came up with innovative ways to call out the hypocrisy of the West. Using various forms of media, especially radio, he riffed on news coverage he disapproved of and focused on the suffering of ordinary Syrians. With President Bashar al-Assad and his backers still largely in control of the country, some see last week's killing of Fares, as symbolic. "The first wave of protest leaders were either dead or disappeared and in jail somewhere or they had fled the country to seek safety in exile," says Rania Abouzeid, author of No Turning Back: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria. "But Raed Fares was one of the few who remained in his country and who continued his work from inside Syria. And he paid with his life for that activism." In most places, straddling the line between journalism and activism is problematic. Objectivity can suffer since audiences don’t really know what they’re getting. And calling the late Raed Fares a journalist would be inaccurate. There was too much activism in the work he did. "One of the most important aspects of media work in the Syrian Revolution is this blurring of boundaries between journalism, activism, art-making and human rights work," explains Marwan Kraidy, a media scholar at Annenberg School. He dubs Fares as a "creative insurgent." "When you are in a very dark, difficult situation where your survival cannot be taken for granted, you're not as concerned with the sort of strictly narrowly defined journalism focused on impartiality, on basic facts, as finding out how to survive and helping other people get information that helps them survive and Raed in that sense was what I called a creative insurgent." Raed Fares started to make his mark in the Syrian media space in 2013, two years after the war broke out. At the time Syrians in search of news were relying on TV channels coming out of Damascus, controlled by the Assad government, and pan-Arab news networks, some of which had their own dogs in the fight. Fares’ contribution to a media landscape that was mostly high tech, the TV news channels beaming in via satellite, the bloggers spreading information and misinformation over the internet was tactically low tech. The channel he helped create was called Radio Fresh. What was interesting about his platform was that no one was immune from his criticism, whether it be the Americans, the Syrian regime, opposition groups or even al-Qaeda-afflitiated groups. Raed Fares also knew his audiences. His messages to the outside world, pleas for help were in English – splashed on banners - telegenic and designed for export via someone else’s camera. Radio Fresh broadcasts in Arabic, to local listeners. No one has claimed responsibility for Fares’ murder but Hayat-e Tahrir Al-Sham, a fundamentalist group formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda and is in control of Kafranbel is among the suspects. Extremist groups had attacked the station before. They opposed its output and would have disapproved the way Radio Fresh was funded. The channel was launched with the help of US state department dollars and the US continued to bankroll it until the Trump administration halted the funding earlier this year. "Raed Fares was an ideal. For 7 or 8 years, Raed worked to establish a moral and principled foundation for the revolution and to promote freedom of thought and expression," says colleague Rami Fares. "He is impossible to replace. We will continue his work and carry forward his message. But free Syria has lost one of her greatest sons, Raed Fares." Contributors Marwan Kraidy - media scholar, Annenberg School Rami Fares - Radio Fresh Joseph Daher - blogger, Syria Freedom Forever and associate professor, University of Lausanne Rania Abouzeid - Author of No Turning Back: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

For the past few years, Border Security TV has become a regular fixture on airwaves around the globe. It's a subgenre of reality TV where camera crews follow border control officials as they search for illegal goods, interrogate suspicious newcomers, and deport those deemed unwanted. Its popularity, some say, is a clear sign of the times. "We're in a time where immigration is increasingly part of popular discourse and anti-immigration discourse is increasingly part of popular culture - the idea that we need to shut down our borders, that, quote-unquote, 'illegal immigration is changing our culture and our demographics'. And so, border security shows really appeal to people's desires to control borders", says Harsha Walia, author of Undoing Border Imperialism. While producers of shows such as Border Security: Australia's Front Line and Border Patrol New Zealand argue that this kind of programming accurately reflects the important work border security agencies undertake to protect the homeland, critics say it misrepresents what happens at nation's borders. "The shows do make good TV, but in order to do that, they need to sensationalise and exaggerate the idea of a threat at our borders. These shows give the impression that countries are under siege from overwhelming numbers of people seeking to break laws and flout regulations. What they don't show, because it doesn't make good TV, is the tens of thousands, in fact, hundreds of thousands of people, who pass through borders legitimately, every day," notes Benjamin Doherty, the Guardian Australia's immigration correspondent. Stewart Morris is the executive producer of Border Security: America's Gatekeepers, a series that follows the Customs and Border Protection agency and their operations at the bridges that connect the US and Mexico. He disputes the notion that such shows exaggerate the threat posed by border crossers. "We're recording things which would happen even if our cameras aren't there. It is truly a kind of fly on the wall obs doc series watching from the point of view of Customs and Border Protection officers. One of the problems that we had is that we had a small crew covering 28 bridges. But there's a drug bust on a daily basis. If we had a crew on every bridge we would show the true extent of the problems that officers face." Another major critique is that these shows lack any balancing commentary or journalistic rigour, telling just one side of the story - that of the immigration officials. "We're not actually talking to the people that are being humiliated on screen", says Nevin Thompson, Japan Editor at Global Voices. "It looks journalistic because you're with the officers with your camera. So, you as the viewer feel that you can judge what's happening. But we don't actually talk to the other side, the people being targeted, we tend to think that they're guilty. But there's been no due process. We don't really know anything about their background." The programmes' simple format means they offer production companies TV hits on the cheap. But access to border officers does come at a cost: Handing over editorial control to the government agencies they embed with. And with final say in the hands of the border agencies involved, there is an argument to be had that these shows are nothing short of free propaganda. Contributors Harsha Walia - Founder, No One Is Illegal and Author of Undoing Border Imperialism Nevin Thompson - Japan editor, Global Voices Benjamin Doherty - Immigration correspondent, Guardian Australia Stewart Morris - Executive producer, Border Force: America's Gatekeepers More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

On The Listening Post this week: Activist, journalist and founder of Radio Fresh, Raed Fares, is assassinated in rebel-held Idlib province. Plus, the dangers of border security TV. Raed Fares: Murdered on the front line of Syrian journalism Seven years into the war in Syria, it's easy to forget how it all began: with an uprising, a people's rebellion against an authoritarian government, a fight for democracy and a free media. Raed Fares was one of the figureheads of that movement until he was shot dead last week alongside his cameraman, probably by fighters linked to al-Qaeda. Fares used various forms of media, especially radio, to push a revolutionary agenda from the rebel-held province of Idlib. With President Bashar al-Assad and his backers still largely in control, some see the killing of Fares as symbolic, the extinguishing of any remaining hope that the values of the Arab Spring can live on in Syria. Contributors Marwan Kraidy - media scholar, Annenberg School Rami Fares - Radio Fresh Joseph Daher - blogger, Syria Freedom Forever and associate professor, University of Lausanne Rania Abouzeid - Author of No Turning Back: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Meenakshi Ravi about a Guardian story linking Julian Assange to US President Donald Trump during the US presidential campaign - no smoking gun though - and a Polish TV channel accused of spreading Nazi propaganda. Border Security TV: Crossing the Line? They are images seen on screen more and more often - border control officials searching for illegal goods, interrogating unwanted newcomers, deporting those deemed undesirable - all in the name of protecting the homeland. And those pictures don't just end up on newscasts. Border security shows have become a sub-genre of reality TV. Producers say the programmes provide an insight into the essential work of customs and immigration agencies. But in the post 9/11 climate, and in the context of a global refugee surge, the format smacks of tabloid TV at its worst - often exaggerating and sensationalising the threats posed by those crossing the border. Contributors Harsha Walia - founder, No One Is Illegal, and author of Undoing Border Imperialism Nevin Thompson - Japan editor, Global Voices Benjamin Doherty - Immigration correspondent, Guardian Australia Stewart Morris - Executive producer, Border Force: America's Gatekeepers More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

Less than a decade ago, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had media outlets eating out of his hand and governments with secrets to hide on high alert. Now, he's at the mercy of an Ecuadorian government that's running out of patience - and he may be running out of time. Last week, in court papers filed in the United States, in a case completely unrelated to Assange, was a paragraph confirming that a secret indictment had been filed against him. Prosecutors called it an administrative mistake, meaning a supposed clerical error. It seemed to confirm something that Assange had always feared, but that the US Department of Justice never admitted: It wants him in jail. However, what hasn't been revealed in that paragraph is "what the charges are and what period of WikiLeaks activity they relate to," points out James Ball, author of WikiLeaks: News in the Networked Era. The clerical error took place at a court in Alexandria, Virginia, right next door to Washington, where a grand jury has reportedly been investigating Julian Assange since 2010. Back then, WikiLeaks was in its heyday. The Iraq and Afghan war logs revealed brutal truths about those invasions, confirming war crimes previously denied by the Pentagon. And the Diplomatic Cables would later expose the US's duplicity in its dealings with foreign governments. Challenging powerful institutions comes with a price, says Glenn Greenwald. "There was actually a 2008 US Army report that described WikiLeaks as an enemy of the state and talked about different ways to destroy the organisation. And we can read about that document because ironically it got leaked to WikiLeaks which then published it on its own website." In 2010, a legal case was opened against Assange in Sweden, for sexual assault - based on the testimonies of two women. Assange denied the allegations and asked to be questioned in London, a common practice in such cases. He said he feared that going to Sweden could lead to extradition to the US. While the Swedes eventually dropped the case without ever laying charges - a fact that seemed lost on news organisations - the UK says it will arrest Assange if he steps out of the embassy for breaching his bail conditions. It's a standoff the UN calls a case of arbitrary detention, a denial of Assange's human rights. "Whatever you think of Julian, whatever you think of WikiLeaks, what has been done to him over the last six to seven years is a very sustained serious and deliberate violation of his basic liberties. And yet that has been almost entirely disregarded by the western media," says Greenwald. All the measures to discredit Assange are meant to punish him and serve as a deterrent for others, according to Stefania Maurizi, an investigative journalist who has probed how the Assange case has been conducted, in both Sweden and the UK. "They fear a domino effect, they realise that inside the US intelligence community there are many people who have seen all sort of abuses. They are terrified that there could be a hundred Chelsea Mannings, a thousand Edward Snowdens. They cannot kill Julian Assange. So all they can do is use legal cases ... against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, which they have done." - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

Hitting cinema screens in Russia this month was a new light-hearted romcom - a story of love and construction along the Kerch Strait, the body of water that separates Russia from Crimea. The film is called The Crimean Bridge. Made with Love!, and the fact that Crimea was annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014 makes the protagonist's exclamation, "welcome to the Krimski Bridge, the biggest bridge in Russia!" somewhat controversial, as the majority of world leaders do not recognise Crimea as Russian. It was not particularly popular with Russian audiences, however, the Russian political establishment took great interest. "The theme of Crimean Bridge is something that concerns the whole country," said Dmitri Peskov, President Vladimir Putin's press secretary, at the premiere; adding that the film "must be funny". It is a film loved by politicians, not by cinema-goers; and the story was not written by a known screenwriter - but by a journalist, Margarita Simonyan. As the editor-in-chief of state-funded news network RT, Simonyan is one of Russia's most influential journalists, a surprising yet ideal author for such a patriotic blockbuster. This is one in a long line of such films produced in the past few years, and it had financial backing from the government, which contributed at least $1.5m to the Crimean Bridge budget, according to the BBC. Patriotism is always called for in difficult times, for any country. There is a need to both distract and unite people. Larisa Malukova, film critic, Novaya Gazeta The current minister of culture, Vladimir Medinsky, has been vocal in his support for "patriotic filmmaking" and under his leadership, the ministry has funded countless productions centred on the heroism and victories of Russia or the Soviet Union - whether in war, sports or space exploration. In addition to Crimean Bridge, this year's releases include T-34, a war film about Soviet soldiers who escape from the Germans in a tank, and the football-themed Coach, which came out just before the FIFA World Cup in Russia. Medinsky is a divisive figure: he has strong ideas about what it means to be Russian as well as an ambiguous relationship with facts. "For one thing, he was accused of plagiarism while kind of carrying out his doctoral dissertation and he has written books on history, [which] kind of bring in elements of fiction," says Vlad Strukov, associate professor of film at Leeds University. "He's also a member of a very specific association known as the Military Historical Society which views the second world war as a kind of a cornerstone of Russian identity." This makes Medinsky an ideal political appointment since World War II, known as the Great Patriotic War, has become the main vehicle for restoring national pride in Putin's Russia. "Patriotism is always called for in difficult times, for any country. There is a need to both distract and unite people," according to Larisa Malukova, a film critic at Novaya Gazeta. "The theme of patriotism was displayed constantly in Soviet films, the struggle against the counter-revolutionaries, enemies of the people, as well as the depiction of grand socialist construction projects. We do not like to dwell on our mistakes and failures, we concentrate on victories. This principle of making such state-supported films is being resurrected." Contributors Larisa Malukova - film critic, Novaya Gazeta Vitaly Mansky - documentary filmmaker Vlad Strukov - associate professor, Leeds University Filip Perkon - founder, London Russian Film Week - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

On The Listening Post this week: An apparent cut-paste error confirms a US indictment against Julian Assange. But have the media already found him guilty? Plus, patriotic cinema in Russia. Assange: Charges in the US, trial by the media? Last week, in court papers filed in the US, in a case completely unrelated to Julian Assange, there was a paragraph confirming that a secret indictment has been filed against the Wikileaks founder. A supposed clerical error confirmed something that Assange had always feared, but that the US Department of Justice never admitted: it wants him in jail. It's been more than six years since Assange was granted asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. An investigation into sexual assault-related allegations made by two women in Sweden has long since been dropped. However, British police say Assange will be arrested the moment he steps out of the embassy for breach of bail. Less than a decade ago, Assange had media outlets eating out of his hand and governments with secrets to hide on high alert. Now, he's at the mercy of an Ecuadorian government that's running out of patience and he may be running out of time. Contributors Eric Alterman - media columnist, The Nation Glenn Greenwald - cofounder, The Intercept James Ball - Author, 'WikiLeaks: News in the Networked Era' / Contributor, The Guardian Stefania Maurizi – investigative reporter, La Repubblica On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Tariq Nafi about a New York Times' story that has exposed the questionable tactics Facebook is using to go after its critics. Russia's big patriotic screen: Making films for the motherland Vladimir Putin describes patriotism as a central tenet of today's Russia - and then relies on nationalistic rhetoric to boost morale and shore up his political base. Not just on the television airwaves, on the silver screen as well. While Russia has been criticised over its annexation of Crimea in 2014, alleged election meddling in the US and spy poisoning in the UK - the cinematic treatment of the contemporary Russia story is somewhat different. Crimea, for instance, is the stuff of romcoms. Russia's history on the battlefield and in the world of sports is a heroic and triumphant tale. The Kremlin not only backs those films to the tune of millions of rubles, it clamps down on filmmakers it calls "anti-state" and bans their work. The Listening Post's Layli Foroudi reports on the cinematic effort to produce patriotism in Russia. Contributors Larisa Malukova - film critic, Novaya Gazeta Vitaly Mansky - documentary filmmaker Vlad Strukov - associate professor, Leeds University Filip Perkon - founder, London Russian Film Week - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

It's been more than a month since the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which Riyadh has admitted was a "rogue operation". But, given the ensuing geopolitical public relations disaster, one might have thought that the Saudi authorities dealing with the media would be on their best behaviour. However, news has surfaced of another Saudi journalist, Turki bin Abdulaziz al-Jasser, who was arrested eight months ago and allegedly tortured to death while in detention. Al-Jasser ran what he thought was an anonymous account on Twitter, a platform that used to be a proxy public square for Saudis, but where an army of trolls has poisoned debate, harasses dissidents and spreads misinformation. The mastermind of that campaign was Saud al-Qahtani, who worked behind the scenes as an enforcer for Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). As his boss conducted a charm offensive on the western media, al-Qahtani ensured journalists back home toed the line and critics stayed quiet. He was reportedly fired over his role in the Khashoggi killing, but the chilling effect of his work remains. "He [Qahtani] is not only implicated in Khashoggi's murder but in the kidnapping of former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri. He is a very powerful man, not only in terms of shaping public opinion but in executing Mohammad bin Salman's decisions," says Feras Abu Helal, editor-in-chief, Arabi21. But besides al-Jasser, there are countless others who are missing or imprisoned for their online political activities, according to Ali al-Ahmed, director of The Institute for Gulf Affairs, and former Saudi political prisoner. "There is a famous journalist, an opinion columnist, Turad al-Amri. He has disappeared and we don't know if he is free or not. Ali al-Dhufairi, who worked for Al Jazeera Arabic has gone silent for over two years. We don't know if he's in jail or not. Israa al-Ghomgham, they want to send her to death because she actually used social media to write about the protest in the eastern province in Qatif." But even in the diaspora, Saudis are not "immune," points out Sahar Khamis, associate professor at the University of Maryland. "They were trying to bug Omar Abdulaziz and get into his accounts and get into his social media platforms. And that's why some of them are stopping their activism." In Riyadh, the latest official explanation of the Khashoggi murder places the blame on five allegedly rogue operatives who, according to the foreign minister, could face the death penalty. Saud al-Qahtani faces a travel ban, but nothing more. Meanwhile, his boss MBS - who apparently was completely unaware of the operation that killed one of his most prominent critics - can be seen on Saudi television - meeting with investors, visiting soldiers wounded in the war in Yemen and smiling for selfies with Saudi children. As the Saudi press is "going about their business of trying to show him as the responsible leader, statesman who has Saudi interests at heart", says Chris Doyle, director of The Council for Arab-British Understanding, "I think it's questionable whether this will work right now, certainly it won't work internationally." Contributors Ali al-Ahmed, The Institute for Gulf Affairs Feras Abu Helal, editor-in-chief, Arabi21 Sahar Khamis, associate professor, University of Maryland Chris Doyle, director, The Council for Arab-British Understanding More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

South Korea's President Moon Jae-in's visit to North Korea in September was the latest in a series of steps aimed at defusing tensions on the peninsula. But despite the increasing talk of reunification, South Koreans don't know as much about their northern neighbours as you might think. Most of what they do know comes from the testimonies of those who have sought asylum in the South. Those testimonies have become the basis for a unique genre of television programming, one that's being called 'Defector TV'. The formula takes a reality TV approach - putting asylum seekers on the air, exploring what their lives were like before defecting and even setting them up with romantic partners from the South. The producers involved say they're out to improve understanding, pave the way to reunification of countries divided since the end of World War II, but sceptics aren't buying that. They say the shows are heavy on misrepresentation, sensationalism and sexist stereotyping. In December 2011, South Korea's Channel A launched a programme with defectors from North Korea. It was part talk show, part talent show, part beauty contest - and it was the beginning of a trend. There's never been a programme about North Korea before ... North Korea was only ever seen through the news, which kept talking about nuclear issues, the North Korean army, how poor North Korea is ... that was it. Kim A-ra , defector and broadcaster of Channel A "There's never been a programme about North Korea before," explains Kim A-ra, defector and broadcaster of Channel A. "North Korea was only ever seen through the news, which kept talking about nuclear issues, the North Korean army, how poor North Korea is ... that was it." South Korean channels, eager to find a different lens through which to present North Korea, could finally break away from the usual portrayals of famine and human rights abuses and add an element of entertainment. "The question of whether they break down prejudices or reinforce them is difficult," says Christopher Green, co-editor of Sino-NK. "The fact of the matter is they mostly do both simultaneously. They certainly seek to convey information about North Korea ... [and] they have the tendency to reinforce some prejudices as well." For instance, well over 70 percent of North Korean defectors are women and the ones that find themselves on TV often end up reinforcing a cultural stereotype: that beautiful North Korean women are the best partners for South Korean men. In shows like 'Love Unification', young North Korean women are paired with South Korean men who proceed to instruct them on the ways of the modern, developed country in which they now live. The messaging is less than subtle and it conforms to the South Korean nationalistic narrative that North Korea is the "weaker" nation that needs protection by the stronger South. "The concern is that such a caricatured, immature and objectified image of these women is then extended to all North Korean defectors and the North Korean population in general," explains Park Hyun-sun, sociology professor at Ewha Womans University. "So South Koreans may end up looking down on North Koreans or thinking 'we can treat them carelessly'." In a situation where stories about North Korea remain politicised and by their very nature speculative, defectors are a rare source of news. The fact that the information they provide gets turned into infotainment says as much about the South Korean television market as it does about their neighbours to the north. Contributors Kim A-ra - defector and Broadcaster, Channel A Christopher Green - co-editor, Sino-NK Park Hyun-sun - sociology Professor, Ewha Womans University Kim Ji-young - defector and Broadcaster, TV Chosun - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

On this episode of The Listening Post: More than a month after Jamal Khashoggi's killing, control on media and public discourse in Saudi Arabia continues to tighten. Plus, 'defector TV' in South Korea. Saudi Arabia post-Khashoggi It's been almost six weeks since the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Riyadh reaffirmed this past week that it was a rogue operation, but its story keeps changing. And news has surfaced of another Saudi journalist, Turki bin Abdulaziz al-Jasser, who was arrested eight months ago, and was allegedly tortured to death while in detention. Al-Jasser ran what he thought was an anonymous account on Twitter, a platform that used to be a proxy public square for Saudis, but where an army of trolls has poisoned debate, harasses dissidents and spreads misinformation. The mastermind of that campaign was Saud al-Qahtani, who worked behind the scenes as an enforcer for Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. As his boss conducted a charm offensive on the western media, al-Qahtani ensured journalists back home toed the line and critics stayed quiet. He was reportedly fired over his role in the Khashoggi killing, but the chilling effect of his work remains. Contributors Ali al-Ahmed, The Institute for Gulf Affairs Feras Abu Helal, editor-in-Chief, Arabi21 Sahar Khamis, associate professor, University of Maryland Chris Doyle, director, The Council for Arab-British Understanding On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Will Yong about the latest developments in Gaza: where Israeli warplanes destroyed the headquarters of Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV; and India - where a top TV news anchor has been criticised for a report on the conflict between government forces and the Maoist or Naxalite insurgency in the northeast of the country. South Korea's 'Defector TV' South Korea's President Moon Jae-in's visit to North Korea's capital of Pyongyang in September was the latest in a series of steps aimed at defusing tensions on the peninsula. But despite talk of reunification, most of what South Koreans know about their neighbours comes from the testimonies of those who have sought asylum in the south. Those testimonies are now being used to produce so-called 'Defector TV', reality TV that puts North Koreans on the air, exploring what their lives were like before defecting and even setting them up with romantic partners from the south. The producers involved say they're out to improve understanding, pave the way to reunification of countries divided since the end of World War II, but the sceptics aren't buying it. They say the shows are heavy on misrepresentation, sensationalism and sexist stereotyping. Contributors Kim A-ra - defector and broadcaster, Channel A Christopher Green - co-editor, Sino-NK Park Hyun-sun - sociology professor, Ewha Womans University Kim Ji-young - defector and broadcaster, TV Chosun More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

This week, US President Donald Trump teased his 55 million Twitter followers about his latest action against Iran in the style of a Hollywood movie poster - a picture of him with the words: Sanctions are Coming. The United States has reimposed oil and financial sanctions against Iran, significantly turning up the pressure on Tehran in order to curb its alleged missile and nuclear programmes. Back in 2015, when former President Barack Obama signed the multilateral nuclear deal designed to monitor and limit Iran's nuclear programme, few would have predicted that his successor would not only pull out of the agreement, but re-impose sanctions. The Trump administration says it wants to force Iran back to the negotiating table. But given the severity of the sanctions, the list of conditions from the US and the tone of the Trumpian rhetoric - the question becomes: is the White House is really looking to create a dialogue or a confrontation? "Most Americans don't know anything about Iran," explains Barbara Slavin, director, Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council. "They know about the hostage crisis. Maybe they know about 'Death to America' and 'Death to Israel' which are slogans that are chanted regularly and so they are predisposed to believe that Iran is a very bad country. But I question whether hyping Iran's abuses is going to really get you into a better place. I think it just makes it harder to reach compromises in the future." Some of the 12 conditions the Trump administration has attached to the lifting of sanctions such as Iran ending its ballistic missile programme, and not just missiles built to carry nuclear payloads, are hardly the basis for productive negotiations. Washington says its goal in Iran is not regime change, or to hurt ordinary Iranians. It just wants the regime to change its behaviour. But the administration's talking points, its stated attempts to get Iran back to the negotiating table, after abandoning a nuclear deal reached at that same table - simply don't add up. "That is as ridiculous and as preposterous a statement as it can come," points out Trita Parsi, founder, National American Iranian Council. "Sanctions, particularly such broad based sanctions, always hurt the population first." "Reality is the Iranians are at the negotiating table ... the only party that is not at the negotiating table is the Trump administration," says Parsi. Iran's compliance to the 2015 agreement has actually strengthened it's position on the world stage, according to Mohammad Ali Shabani, the Iran Pulse editor at Al-Monitor. "Iran's message has been to say to the world that, 'We're responsible. Even though the other side has abrogated its commitments, we're going to keep our word, as long as we get the benefits promised to us by the nuclear deal.' And I think that goes down well with the Iranian people. They're saying that, ok, for the first time in a long while, we can tell the world, 'we're not rogues. It's the US which is the rogue regime here, not us'." Contributors Mohammad Ali Shabani - Iran Pulse editor at Al-Monitor Trita Parsi - founder, National American Iranian Council Narges Bajoghli - assistant professor, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Barbara Slavin - director, Future of Iran Initiative, Atlantic Council More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/