Cynthia McKinney: The Other Black Candidate

Running under the slogan ‘Power to the People’ former congresswoman Cynthia Mckinney secured the Green Party nomination for president of the U.S. alongside Rosa Clemente. Her candidacy was endorsed by Mumia Abu-Jamal, Noam Chomsky, and M1 of Dead Prez among others. In addition to health care reform, environmental reform, and wall street reform Mckinney also advocated for reperations and an end to to the prison industrial complex.

DP75 - Tartina City

Written, produced & directed by Issa Serge Coelo
Showed at Cannes 2008

The film is a scathing attack on media repression and governments that defy their own laws. The action is set in an unnamed African country (that closely resembles Chad) where a brutal government is in power. A journalist is detained on his way abroad to report on the situation in his country and thrown in jail.

[larger story: Media repression (murder of Deyda Hydara in Gambia and journalists in Somalia, Chad...)]

The Metro we missed

The first Egyptian graphic novel, The Metro, was confiscated by the authorities last week a few months after its publication, writes Rania Khallaf Magdy El-Shafie, author and cartoonist of The Metro, widely regarded as the first Egyptian graphic novel, last week received a summons to appear before the state prosecution service following the confiscation of his novel from the publisher, Malameh. Mohammed El-Sharqawy, head of Malameh, also received a summons, this time following 15 days spent in prison as a result of his participation in the 6 April strikes.

According to the state prosecution service, El-Shafie's graphic novel, his first, contains obscenity and libelous references alleging corruption on the part of prominent Egyptian political figures. The confiscation of the novel has caused some in Egypt's cultural community to recall previous such incidents, including when the novel A Banquet for Seaweed by Syrian novelist Haydar Haydar was confiscated on similar charges in 2000.

The state of correctional facilities in Ghana and plans to change the name of the Ghana Prisons Service

“The Prisons Service, like many other public institutions, has over the years suffered under the proverbial ‘No funds’ syndrome and those who know the system very well, will admit that there is very little correction in our prison system.



Overcrowding, poor sanitation and lack of learning and training facilities have made the prisons more of concentration camps than centres of reformation...

In Ghana, very few can claim that they came out of our prisons better equipped than when they went in. Some claim spiritual development, which only confirms the physical deprivations they went through while in prison custody…

These deprivations and the stigma associated with prison life have seriously contributed to the situation where most convicts come out from the prisons ready to exert revenge on society…

We know the problems of the Ghana Prisons Service… So why do we think by giving an old institution a new name, everything will change for the better overnight?”

http://blogs.thinkghana.com/2008/05/12/welcome-ghana-correctional-service/

Arabeyes: Freedom for Fouad Al Farhan

May 5

Saudi blogger Fouad Al Farhan is now a free man, after spending 137 days in detention in Jeddah. While bloggers have all along speculated why he has been held by the authorities for this long, Arab bloggers are unanimously excited over his release. And they also share their hopes for the release of other jailed bloggers.

Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo

Murat Kurnaz

In October 2001, nineteen-year-old Murat Kurnaz traveled to Pakistan to visit a madrassa. During a security check a few weeks after his arrival, he was arrested without explanation and for a bounty of $3,000, the Pakistani police sold him to U.S. forces. He was first taken to Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he was severely mistreated, and then two months later he was flown to Guantanamo as Prisoner #61. For more than 1,600 days, he was tortured and lived through hell. Finally, in August 2006, Kurnaz was released, with acknowledgment of his innocence. Told with lucidity, accuracy, and wisdom, Kurnaz's story is both sobering and poignant--an important testimony about our turbulent times when innocent people get caught in the crossfire of the war on terrorism.

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (April 1, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0230603742 # ISBN-13: 978-0230603745

Babi Yar Symphony

G.D. Nyamndi

This unique work lifts the African question out of the dust. Against the backdrop of prison life, it explores the complex reality of being an African in today's world. Through the tight sensitivity and illuminating knowledge of its two principal characters, themselves victims of misplaced justice, greed and lust, it captures the pain and sadness that almost always comes in the wake of betrayal and egotism. The work's message is strong, and is delivered with equal strength by characters whose individual convictions also sway us to their side. We have here a new, powerful shaft of light on the landscape of recent African writing.

Laanga RPCIG, Cameroon January 2008
9956558516/ 9789956558513