One of the world’s oldest cities, Kashgar serves as both the spiritual and political capital of traditional Uighur culture.  Since 1949, the modern People’s Republic of China has exerted strong control over the region, and Kashgar has been particularly hard hit.  Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, a province covering 1/6th of China’s territory holds a majority of the country’s oil and gas reserves.  Long at odds with the Uighurs’ sometimes bloody quest for independence, the Chinese government has insituted a program of subsidized migration and settlement in the area by Han majority Chinese.  In so doing, the government hopes to develop a stable and robust economy whose purpose is the exploitation of the region’s natural resources and to overwhelm the local ethnicities.  Whereas the Uighur population of Kashgar was previously as high as 90%, government settlement efforts have changed the city’s demographics to less than 70% Uighur, and the percentage is still dropping.

At the heart of Kashgar is the so-called Old City.  Of tremendous historical value, the twisting alleyways and haphazardly built houses clump together and spring out of the city’s terrain in an organic and natural way.  After sporadic uprisings and fighting between Uighurs and Hans, the Beijing-controlled municipal government has unveiled plans to completely renovate the Old City. Uighur families who’ve lived in the same location for, in some cases, hundreds of years will be uprooted and resettled in cookie cutter apartment blocks built according to contemporary Chinese building standards.  Notwithstanding the individual upheaval of this process, the redevelopment of central Kashgar will radically transform the nature of daily life in the Uighur community.  The alleyways of the Old City create a naturally closed and safe neighborhood structure in which children can play and neighbors interact without fear of outsiders or traffic.  These alleyways also lead to central streets, arteries for the community on which Uighur-owned businesses thrive.  All of this will change as the government imposes redevelopment on the Old City, though not everyone is convinced the change will be bad.

In his home not far from the Grand Bazaar, 60-year-old Mohmat* cries as he describes his life.  Hans moving into the area have taken his job and his house is soon to be demolished.  Unable to afford medicine, he smokes marijuana to relieve the pain in his liver and legs.  Pages of the Koran hang on the walls of his bedroom.  At once blaming China’s central government for his problems, he also sees some sense in the policies.  His house has no plumbing and little electricity.  With the new apartment buildings, his family would enjoy a marked improvement in their quality of life.  Still, without a more systemic overhaul of city and state policies, and clear protection for Uighur employment and religion, he sees the development of the Old City as a small step toward much needed reform in Kashgar.

Others are more optimistic.  On a bus from Kashgar to Hotan, a man named Askar* approaches me.  A Uighur living in Urumqi, the provincial capital, his english is great and he’s eager to talk.  ”I am hopeful,” he says of the future of Xinjiang.  He worries about the transformation of Kashgar, but sees it as a necessary step in the progress of the region.  His own life has changed dramatically, too.  His first career was working as a newspaper journalist, but it felt to him like a deadend job.  He spent hours upon hours teaching himself english in libraries and has been an Amway representative for the past year or two.  Amway, of course, being the multi-level marketing scheme made popular in the US in the 1970s.  ”I will be the president [of Amway] in 7 years,” he exclaims hopefully.  His trip to Kashgar and Hotan, in fact, was to set up more Amway franchises.  The business, he tells me, is an exciting opportunity, a way to live the American dream in a place that couldn’t be more different from the suburbs where Amway was made popular.  The promise of a better of life offered by the company, and which is never achieved by the overwhelming majority of Amway representatives, provides Askar with a goal far removed from the problems facing Kashgar and the Uighurs.

More photos from this story are available for license at M. Scott Brauer’s archive.

*only first name given over concern for safety

A complicated mix of politics, media and the freedom of both are colliding again in Venezuela after a national court ruled that “for the next four weeks, no newspaper, magazine or weekly of the country can publish images that are violent, bloody, grotesque, whether about crime or not”. This comes as national legislative elections are to be held in the next month and from reaction to the country’s largest newspaper El Nacional publishing an image of an over-filled morgue on its front page last week. After the ruling on Tuesday the paper published blank images with the word “censored” across their front page in protest.

The Guardian reports that “crime regularly tops Venezuelans’ list of concerns. In the absence of complete official figures, which are no longer published, watchdog groups estimate 16,000 people are murdered every year.” Today’s El Nacional led with the question “do you feel that the national feeling of insecurity is to be mostly blamed on the information transmitted by the media?” and they reported that 88% said “no”, their rebuke to the Government’s assertion that “media opponents were using gutter press tactics to sensationalise crime, sell newspapers and damage the country’s socialist revolution”.

I’m sure this all needs to be considered in the complications of local politics, but it is interesting to me that there is a newspaper publishing such shocking images (in whatever context, especially considering the image seems to have been taken last December) and is taking a bold response to censorship. It also amazes me that the censorship could be so ham-fisted, with claims to protect the “psychic and moral integrity of children and adolescents” yet only be in temporary effect until the elections. We’ll see what comes.

Update (8/20): CNN is reporting “Venezuelan judge says newspapers can print violent pictures”: “A judge has lifted an order banning Venezuelan media from printing violent photographs, an official said on state-owned VTV.” Seems like international pressure from press advocates contributed. (via @foodforyoureyes)

Trevor Paglen’s work on the hidden aspects the American military is well worth a look. Peeking into the hidden corners of the American military, his work previously has focused on the patches worn by top secret military units (available as a book, as well), code names used by secret agents, CIA black sites, and signatures found on documents used during “extraordinary rendition”. His new work, Limit-Telephotography, focuses on top secret military facilities that are located in some of the most remote areas of the United States. Using astronomy equipment, Paglen is able to take photographs from miles away, giving the images a hazy quality that speaks volumes about just how little we know about the top secret and confidential American government operations. Be sure not to miss the accounts of Paglen’s trips to photograph these sites, too.

Required supplemental reading: the Washington Post’s two-year long investigation into Top Secret America.

(via The Spinning Head)

 

“…unlike traditional employees, [freelancers] lack any labor protections to ensure that [they] get paid for the work [they] do. Freelancers Union found that 77% of independent workers have experienced nonpayment at one point, and in the last year alone, more than 40% of New York’s freelancers had trouble getting paid.” -Freelancers Union campaign letter to support NY Bill S8084

For anyone who remembers the Digital Railroad debacle or who has been stiffed by a deadbeat client, the Freelancers Union has started a campaign to draw up support for New York State Legislature bill S8084. The proposed law, sponsored by New York State Senator Daniel L. Squadron, would: grant freelancers the same wage protection as traditional employees, require the Department of Labor to pursue freelancers’ unpaid wages, and holds deadbeat executives personally liable for up to $20,000 and jail time. If you’re in New York, you can join the campaign by emailing your state senator through the Freelancers Union website. And for balance, here’s a New York City lawyer’s opinion that the law is misguided or, at least, won’t help freelancers who are already at the mercy of a patchwork of confusing laws.

 

“There is no right to embed,” Lapan said. “It is a choice made between units and individual reporters, and a key element of an embed is having trust that the individuals are going to abide by the ground rules. So in that instance the command in Afghanistan decided there wasn’t the trust requisite and denied this request.” -DOD spokesman Colonel David Lapan

 

Mother Jones has good coverage of recent developments in Mike Hastings coverage of the war in Afghanistan. The Rolling Stone reporter, previously in the news for his explosive story on General Stanley McChrystal, had been approved for an embed to report from Afghanistan, but as he announced on twitter, it has been unapproved.

Newsweek’s hard times continue. While stranded in Beijing, I picked up a copy of the China Daily (the country’s state-run English-language daily newspaper) and saw an interesting item about a Chinese investment group’s recent attempt to purchase Newsweek, the latest step in recent Chinese government- and individual-backed attempts to control China’s image across the globe. The only coverage, unfortunately, is China Daily’s report, but hopefully more deals will be forthcoming over the coming days. There is also a translated interview with the managing editor of Southern Weekly who was involved in the bid, as well as comments from the Chinese internet about the deal.

China’s global media strategy is an important topic. Just as Chinese investors have been taking over worldwide brands and real estate, the country now sees an opportunity to use its strong financial position to influence global opinion about the country and its government by investing in foreign media properties. China Radio International has been running spots on American radio stations, and owns a radio station in Galveston, Texas. There’s a 24-hour news channel aimed to compete against Al Jazeera, CNN, and the BBC. Media executives are being flown to China to for so-called “familiarization” tours. The ironically-named CCTV (China Central Television, the state television news apparatus) now broadcasts around the world in five languages. The goal of these efforts, as senior Fulbright scholar David Shambaugh recently put it in the New York Times, is “to try and raise China’s global profile and improve its image abroad.”

The Newsweek bid is one more such effort. As China Daily reports, it was a coalition of Chinese media professionals and private investors who put forth the money to buy the Washington Post Co. publication. The group, which includes the relatively independent Southern Daily Group, has denied any government involvement in the deal. Nevertheless, the move fits into the China’s general media strategy, a naive attempt to change global opinion about the country. China Daily writes:

Xiang said the move is for the world to have a better understanding of China, and for China to know more of the world.

Importantly, the investors and Chinese media watchers see this bid for Newsweek as only a beginning. Again, in the China Daily report: “The move is an encouraging trend for China’s going-out strategy,” said Yu Guoming, vice-president of the journalism school at the Beijing-based Renmin University of China. “The strategy has, for a long time, focused on overseas expansion of Chinese media.”

More reading: China’s Go-Out Strategy, Can China Successfully Build Soft Power Without A Global Internet Strategy?, Five Have Left Newsweek, Staffers Believe More Are To Follow. But, Lo: Another Potential Bidder! (likely unrelated to the Chinese bid news, but indicative of Newsweek’s current situation)

The Freeman has an interesting look into various states’ efforts to make illegal the recording of police activity. In Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland, wiretapping and eavesdropping laws have been used to prosecute individuals who have recorded police activity in a public location.

“[In three states] it is now illegal to record an on-duty police officer even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense, and even if the recording is on a public street where no expectation of privacy exists.” -Are Cameras the New Guns?

In one example case, motorcyclist Anthony John Graber III was stopped for reckless driving. A plain-clothes police officer stopped him, jumped out of his car waving a gun and screaming, and issued a ticket. Graber had a video camera mounted in his motorcycle helmet; he posted video of the encounter to youtube. Ten days after the police encounter, after police found the video on youtube, Graber was arrested and charged under felony wiretapping laws, which could result in up to 5 years jail time. In December 2009, street artist Christopher Drew found himself in a similar situation in Chicago. Drew was arrested while selling art on the streets of Chicago as a test of the cities anti-peddler law. During the arrest, police officers found a small audio recorder that was recording and charged Drew under felony wiretapping laws; Drew faces 4-15 years in prison. As the Freeman reports, not everyone in the legal realm agrees with these policies: Massachusetts Supreme Court Chief Justice Margaret Marshall dissented to a 2001 ruling upholding charges stemming from recording police activity, “Citizens have a particularly important role to play when the official conduct at issue is that of the police. Their role cannot be performed if citizens must fear criminal reprisals….”

For further reading, keep up with Carlos Miller’s Photography is Not a Crime blog. Since his own arrest in 2007 for photographing Miami police (he was acquitted of all charges), Miller has been chronicling cases of First Amendment violations, many of which involve photographers arrested for taking pictures in public places. And take a look at the excellent Photographer’s Rights pamphlet for US photographers.

(via metafilter)

“The reason it matters is that because there is no longer a healthy, aggressive press corps–and no David Yepson-type dean of political journalists–candidates don’t run the same kind of gauntlet they once did. They’re not challenged by journalists.” -Joshua Green

Pundits have been offering all sorts of theories to explain the political success of Rand Paul, the radical libertarian/Tea Party candidate who recently won the Republican primary in Kentucky, especially in light of Paul’s recent political pratfalls: attacking the 1964 Civil Rights Act and saying BP is not to blame for the Gulf oil spill. Now the Republican party is trying to wrangle in the unpredictable politician.

David Simon, and others, have suggested that the next decade without newspapers will be a golden age of political corruption. Now, Joshua Green, writing on the Atlantic’s website, thinks layoffs at Kentucky newspapers, especially at the Louisville Courier-Journal, are to blame for Rand Paul’s ascendancy and his inability to handle national media attention (the Civil Rights Act flub happened during a national television interview on MSNBC and Paul became only the 3rd guest in over 60 years to pull out of an appearance on Meet the Press, a nationally-broadcast Sunday morning political news show). Without an agressive local press before the primaries, Green argues, Paul managed to keep voters focused on his message of a balanced budget and government overstepping the Constitution. Now that he faces the scrutiny of the national press corps willing to aggressively question Paul’s talking points, he’s making the sorts of mistakes one would expect to be uncovered by the local media before primary elections.

There is some counterpoint to this position, though, laying blame on the national media from the start. The Courier-Journal did, in fact, publish an editorial on April 25 which said Paul “holds an unacceptable view of civil rights.”

This just came across my favorite Foreign Policy Passport Blog: Why is Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva sporting cameras of his own so often during photo shoots with other world leaders? See the slideshow: is he’s shooting his own archive and fine art of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez? Or is it some sort of joke that none of us are understanding?

Does anyone know what’s up with this? The Internets reveal nothing. Is the president an amateur photographer or does he just grab cameras from news photographers to clown around? Are any of his snaps available anywhere? – Asks the Passport Blog

This isn’t even new, President Obama was known to take up photographers’ gear for a few frames. This is a fun mystery though. But to see behind the scenes done right, you really should look at Alex Majoli’s work from Brazil in 2004 where he spent time with the President and so much more. This is one of my most favorite photo essays around. Majoli in Brazil, 2004.

One of my favorites from the old guard of photojournalism passed away on Thursday. Charles Moore, whose name you might know but whose photos you’ve definitely seen, created a striking and complete visual history of the American Civil Rights movement of the 1960s through his work with Life magazine and other publications. John Kaplan (as part of a 1998 project for his Ohio University Masters of Science Degree in Journalism) has written a great history of Moore’s Civil Rights work that is not to be missed. Represented by Black Star throughout his career, Matt and I both got a chance to work with Moore’s negatives while interning at the agency a few years back. Seeing those negatives firsthand was a visual education like no other. His Civil Rights work was eventually collected in the 1991 book Powerful Days, still available on Amazon for a reasonable price.