Yellow times è stato chiuso ( e ha riaperto dopo un giorno) perché per primo ha pubblicato le foto delle vittime americane a Nasiriayah, che la Cnn non ha voluto pubblicare con la scusa di applicare la Convenzione di Ginevra.

YellowTimes.org, un fonte americana di informazione indipendente, che fornisce punti di vista non convenzionali sugli eventi di attualità, è stata chiusa per un giorno ed ha potuto riaprire il sito solo dopo aver rimosso le foto pubblicate on line che riguardavano danni ai civili e prigionieri americani in Iraq. Le motivazioni: contenuto grafico inappropriato.
Yellow times è stato probabilmente il primo sito internet ha pubblicare le foto domenica mattina.
Erano visibili all’indirizzo http://www.yt.org/article.php?sid=1199
Ma, tramite una e-mail, il gestore dell’account ha fatto sapere che a nessuna televisione americana era stato permesso di pubblicare le foto delle vittime statunitensi.
Le immagini sono quelle dei marines americani a Nasiriayah . Inizialmente hanno circolato solo in televisioni di area, come Iraqui Tv, Al jawer, la televisione nazionale spagnola, il network portoghese e alcune stazioni europee più una televisione filippina che aveva riportato la notizia e intervistato alcuni soldati terrorizzati.
Negli Stati Uniti però è stata trovata una scusa per non diffondere le immagini. La Convenzione di Ginevra infatti impedisce la pubblicazione di immagini che riguardano i prigionieri di guerra.
Nonostante non venga applicata per quanto riguarda gli iracheni, che anzi vengono ripresi con primi piani oltraggiosi per la dignità umana.
Un portavoce di Al jazeera, accusata dalla Cnn di aver sbagliato a publicare le immagini degli americani, ha chiesto come mai non veniva applicato lo stesso criterio sugli iracheni. La risposta è stata che gli iracheni non guardavano la Cnn e i prigionieri dunque non potevano essere riconosciuti. In realtà Cnn è un broadcast internazionale ed è disponibile anche in Iraq.
Quindi l’affermazione “non è visibile per le famiglie irachene”, non è una scusa, ma una violazione della convenzione di Ginevra, per parte irachena.
Va detto tra l’altro che anche la pagina del Washington post di lunedì ha nella prima pagina una foto di un prigioniero di guerra iracheno.
In compenso la Cnn non mostra immagini della guerra utili per capire cosa sta succedendo, solo perché la guerra è devastante e mette paura. E questo non deve succedere in una situazione in cui il conflitto deve essere asettico, veloce ed efficace.
Yellow Times ha rivendicato il diritto a pubblicare i drammi della guerra, e l’orrore inflitto a entrambe le parti. E condannando la guerra, le violenze e gli orrori, ha sottolineato la necessità di condannare anche l’assenza di verità.
Per altre informazioni: http://www.YellowTimes.org

se clicco sull ultimo link mi da questo:
Account for domain yellowtimes.org has been suspended
che succede?

il sito è stato oscurato.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0303/S00228.htm

War Pictures Cause Yellowtimes.Org To Be Shut Down
Tuesday, 25 March 2003, 10:52 am
Column: Firas Al-Atraqchi

War Pictures Cause Yellowtimes.Org To Be Shut Down, Again

By Firas Al-Atraqchi

Somebody doesn't like hearing the truth. Okay, for a second, lets
scratch that and choose a slightly less politically charged term. Someone
doesn't like to be disputed with alternative views, counterclaims, research
and fact. Someone wants you, the reading public, to only gather one-sided,
monotone, Orwellian dispatch. News the way they "fashion" it. Or as CNN
will have you believe, the "most reliable source for news."

And so, once again, the staff at YellowTimes.org was threatened with a
shutdown:

"We are sorry to notify you of suspending your account: Your account
has been suspended because [of] inappropriate graphic material."

Within hours, the site was shut down.

What's next? Martial law?

An e-mail hours later was more explanatory: "As 'NO' TV station in the
US is allowing any dead US solders or POWs to be displyed (sic) and we will
not ether (sic)." Of course, at the time of this e-mail, TV stations across
the U.S. were allowing the images of U.S. POWs to be brought to the
public's attention.

These are most certainly difficult, perilous, and often confusing
times. The world has been torn asunder by first the prospect of war, and
now by the images of war fed live into our living rooms.

Today, Iraqi TV and Al-Jazeera, followed by Spanish National TV,
Portugal's networks, and most European TV stations, aired footage of U.S.
Marine fatalities in the southern town of Nasiriyah. A handful of terrified
U.S. POWs were also shown. According to the Associated Press: "Anecita
Hudson of Alamogordo said she saw her 23-year-old son, Army Spc. Joseph
Hudson, who was stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, interviewed in the Iraqi
video, which was carried on a Filipino television station she subscribes to."

There was public outrage in the U.S., citing the Geneva Convention on
treatment of Prisoners of War, which forbids the broadcast of any footage
or graphic depiction of POWs. True, the Geneva Convention does indeed
include that provision.

However, the outrage follows on the heels of extensive, and I repeat,
extensive footage of Iraqi POWs, sometimes with cameras panning in for
extreme close-ups of blank-staring Iraqi soldiers, dishevelled and fatigued
as they were.

CNN grilled an Al-Jazeera spokesperson on the (de)merits of airing
such footage today. When asked by the Al-Jazeera spokesperson why it was
allowed for U.S. stations to broadcast footage of Iraqi POWs, CNN's Aaron
Brown said, "because their families wouldn't be watching".

Not true. CNN is broadcast around the world and is available to
Iraqis. There are millions of Iraqis living outside Iraq who may recognize
an Iraqi POW as a family member.

Not withstanding, to say "their families wouldn't be watching" is not
an excuse. If it is a violation on the Iraqi side, then surely, it is as
well on the U.S. side.

(Monday's front page of the Washington Post has a picture of an Iraqi
POW being handled by U.S. troops.)

CNN, however, is accused of not airing any footage of Iraqi dead or
Iraqi civilian casualties, although this is a necessary image of war. War
is horrific and to portray it otherwise speaks of corporate agenda.

Nevertheless, I was tongue-tied at the MSNBC broadcast of a mother of
one of the U.S. POWs as she shed tears for her son. It gripped me and moved
me and I wanted to cry with her. I also wanted to cry for the parents of
the Iraqi civilian child, the top part of his skull torn off; an innocent
child caught in a war he did not understand.

So, here we have it, war affects us all. It affects Americans and
Iraqis, as well as the rest of the world.

Here, at YellowTimes.org, we did not want these stories to go untold.
We wanted to bring the horrors of war inflicted on all sides. We condemn
killing, we condemn war, and we certainly condemn persecution and torture.

We also condemn the intentional absence of truth.

However, there are some who would prefer we did not publish and inform
the public.

Consequently, as of this afternoon, March 24, 2003, we were shut down.

I do beg your pardon, no, we weren't shut down -- we were censored --
pure and simple.

****************

Firas Al-Atraqchi can be contacted at: firas6544@rogers.com

(To contact YellowTimes.org, they can be reached at their emergency
e-mail address at: yellowtimes@hotmail.com)

www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0303/S00228.htm