A censorship chronicle incorporating science stories from the Age, al Jazeera, AsiaOne, BBC, CNN, Guardian, Huffington Post, Network for Education and Academic Rights (NEAR), Nature, New Scientist, New York Times (NYT), Sense About Science, Telegraph and organisations affiliated with the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX)
Australia
In June 2011, a weight-loss product manufacturer, SensaSlim, announced plans to sue a critic for libel, despite the fact that its assets had already been frozen by a consumer watchdog. Melbourne academic Dr Ken Harvey had complained to the Complaints Resolution Panel and the Therapeutic Goods Administration (a government regulatory body) about the way SensaSlim was being promoted. In response, SensaSlim launched a defamation action claiming damages for libel for the sum of A$800,000 (US$750,000) plus costs. In the same month, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission won an order freezing SensaSlim’s assets, as it emerged that research used to market the company’s products had been fabricated. (the Age, the Conversation, Sense About Science)
Editor-in-chief of the Australian, Chris Mitchell, threatened to sue a former reporter for defamation in November 2010 because she allegedly claimed reporting about climate change at the paper was ‘absolutely excruciating’. (theaustralian.com)
Azerbaijan
Rafig Aliyev was dismissed as chairman of the Department of the Automated Management Systems of the State Oil Academy on 7 November 2011. The move followed his participation in the Forum of Azerbaijani Intelligentsia on 4 November, which called for intellectuals to speak out against injustice in the country. (Azerireport)
Bahrain
A group of medics went on hunger strike in September 2011 to protest against their trial in a military court. The medics were arrested for treating wounded protesters during a crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations earlier in the year. According to a former chairman of the Shia al Wefaq organisation, civilians should not be tried in a military court because it is against the country’s constitution. (al Jazeera, European Phoenix)
Belgium
The vice president of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change attempted to ban a lecture by climate change sceptic Dr S Fred Singer in August 2011. Jean-Pascal van Ypersele questioned Singer’s ‘scientific integrity’ ahead of his scheduled speech at SEII Fondation Universitaire in Brussels and wrote to the university, stating that any links between Singer or his ideas and the university would be ‘scandalous’. The venue for the event was changed and Singer’s speech went ahead. (American Thinker)
Canada
In August 2011, federal fisheries scientist Kristi Miller was barred from talking to the press regarding her environmental research. Miller discovered a virus which may have been killing salmon in the Fraser River before they reached their spawning grounds. The research was published in Science, but the researcher was told by Ottawa’s Privy Council Office not to speak to the press to avoid ‘influencing’ the ongoing federal inquiry into the decline of the Fraser sockeye salmon. The Privy Council Office’s decision was later withdrawn. (Huffington Post)
Scientists working for Natural Resources Canada, a government ministry, were prevented from releasing their findings in October 2010. The employees were informed that they must get permission first, with the implication that they may be prevented from releasing unfavourable data. The scientists created the blog PublicScience.ca, which aims to ‘speak up for science’ by bringing government scientists face to face with Canadians and openly discussing their research findings. (Ubyssey)
China
Hundreds of protesters gathered at a solar panel factory in Haining, Zhejiang province, on 18 September 2011 after local residents complained that the factory was polluting the surrounding area, resulting in health problems among the population. Around 500 people burst into the compound of Jinko Solar Holding Company, demanding that the factory be relocated. (Guardian)
A journalist investigating a food scandal was stabbed to death in Henan in September 2011. Li Xiang, from Luoyang Television Station, had been reporting on the sale of cooking oil made from food waste found in gutters. He was stabbed more than 10 times and his laptop was stolen. Xiang’s investigations led to the arrests of 32 people, who were caught selling the carcinogenic product. (AsiaOne)
In August 2011, some 2000 people were arrested and nearly 5000 businesses shut down as authorities attempted to raise food safety standards by clamping down on illegal food additives. The country has suffered a spate of scandals in the food industry. In April 2011, three children died and a further 35 were hospitalised after drinking milk contaminated with nitrite. In 2008, at least six babies died and up to 300,000 people fell sick after consuming milk powder laced with melamine. (BBC, New Scientist)
Denmark
A leading Danish radiologist claimed in December 2009 that UK libel laws had prevented him from talking about his research. Henrik Thomsen refused to talk about findings from his work in England out of fear of being sued for libel. His decision followed a case against him from a subsidiary of General Electric, which claimed he defamed it at a conference in 2007 when he said a drug manufactured by GE Healthcare had potentially fatal side effects. The company dropped the libel action in February 2010. Thomsen said he feared the health of patients in England is at risk because the scientific community is prevented from sharing its knowledge. (Guardian)
International
A number of organisations called on the United Nations to champion access to information laws, transparency and free media as key requirements to environmental and human sustainability in November 2011. The submission by 77 organisations also called for a new international convention governing access to justice in environmental matters and a UN Freedom of Information Act. (ARTICLE 19, Colombo Telegraph)
Iran
Nuclear scientist Dariaush Rezaie was shot and killed in July 2011, the latest in a string of attacks against nuclear researchers in the country. Majid Shahriari of the Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran was killed and nuclear physicist Dr Fereidoun Abbasi was injured in separate attacks on 29 November 2010 and physicist Masoud Ali Mohammadi was killed by a bomb attack on 12 January 2010. In January 2011, there were reports that Shahram Amiri had not been seen since his return to the country following his allegations that he had been abducted and tortured by the CIA. Observers outside Iran claimed that Amiri had returned from the US because there were threats against his family and that he was imprisoned and tortured by Iranian authorities after being accused of giving away state secrets. Iran’s nuclear agency blamed Israeli agents and the US for the murders of and attacks on the scientists, accusing them of trying to disrupt Iran’s nuclear programme. (BBC, MSNBC, NYT, Telegraph)
An Iranian physics student was accused of spying in early 2011. Omid Kokabee, an Iranian graduate student at the University of Texas in Austin, was due to go on trial in August 2011 after being accused of ‘communicating with a hostile government’ and ‘illegal earnings’, but the trial was postponed. Kokabee, who was imprisoned in February 2011, was arrested by the Iranian security services while trying to leave Iran. Kokabee’s trial began on 4 October. (Huffington Post, Nature)
Iraq
In 2011, insurgents killed several academics, researchers and scientists, among them Zaid Abdul Munim, head of research at the molecular department at Mustansiriya University, on 3 April; Mohammed Alwan, dean of the faculty of medicine at al Mustansiriya University and prominent surgeon, killed on 29 March; Professor Saad Abduljabbar of the Technological University in Baghdad, killed on 27 February; and Ali Shalash, professor of poultry diseases at the College of Veterinary Medicine in Baghdad, killed on 17 February. (NEAR)
Italy
On 25 May 2011, it was announced that six Italian seismologists and a government official will face trial for manslaughter after the advice they gave prior to the 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila was deemed inadequate by an Italian court. The seismologists took part in a meeting of Italy’s Major Risks Committee to assess evidence from early warning tremors. They found no reason to indicate that these tremors were likely to lead to a large quake. A major earthquake registering 6.3 on the Richter scale hit the L’Aquila area on 6 April 2009, killing 309 people. The prospect of the trial raised concerns among the scientific community, with several experts responding that earthquakes cannot be predicted with sufficient skill and accuracy to justify a full evacuation in advance. (Sense About Science)
Japan
A heavily redacted document detailing the 11 March 2011 accidents at the Fukushima plant in Tokyo was submitted to a special science committee in August 2011. Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) submitted two manuals for accidents and severe accidents to assist with establishing the cause of the disaster, but it was reported that the six-page document on nuclear accidents was almost unreadable because it had been so severely marked up. Tepco resubmitted the manuals on 9 September. (Mainichi Daily News)
Mexico
The body of a genome specialist was found dismembered in August 2011. Yadira Dávila Martínez, who worked for the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, the country’s top public university, disappeared from a shopping centre in Cuernavaca on 5 August. Her body was discovered just over a week later in the town of Temixco. The discovery followed the attack on nanotechnology professor Armando Herrera Corral and a colleague, who were injured by a bomb sent by an anti-technology group to Tecnológico de Monterrey on 8 August. (CNN Mexico, El Universal)
Peru
A scientist had his conviction for character defamation overturned in December 2010. Dr Ernesto Bustamante faced a prison sentence for speaking to the media and writing a newspaper article disagreeing with another molecular biologist who had claimed local maize varieties were contaminated with transgenes. Before the conviction was overturned, Bustamante was forbidden from leaving Lima without a judge’s permission and was forced to present himself on the last day of every month to the court to sign a register. Bustamante also paid US$1,800 damages to the defendant. (Nature, Sense About Science)
Russia
Dr Igor Sutyagin, a nuclear scientist and former head of division at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, was released from prison on 9 July 2010. Sutyagin had been detained by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in October 1999, charged with espionage and sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment. He was accused of passing classified information to a research firm in London. Sutyagin had been conducting freelance analysis of civilian-military relations in Russia at the time of his arrest. He claimed that, as a civilian researcher, he had no access to classified sources. Sutyagin was released along with 11 individuals alleged by the US government to be Russian spies. (NEAR)
Somalia
Twenty-two young medics, doctors and government ministers were killed in a suicide bomb attack at a graduation ceremony in December 2009. The attack, at the Shamo Hotel in Mogadishu, injured 90 people. The graduates were only the second group of medical students to receive their diplomas in almost 20 years. The university was set up in 2002 to train doctors after many had fled the country or been killed in the civil war. (NEAR)
Turkey
Dr Çig˘dem Atakuman, editor of the popular science magazine Bilim ve Teknik (Science and Technology), was dismissed in March 2009 after he planned to publish a ‘controversial’ cover story. The story, which celebrated the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, was replaced by a feature on global warming. The cancellation of the feature was the latest in a series of conflicts between scientists and Islamic creationists in Turkey, many of them initiated by Adnan Oktar, who argues that evolution discredits Islam. Scientists also claim that the creationist organisation BAV has intimidated those who speak out against creationism. (Hurriyet, New Scientist)
Turkmenistan
Biologist and environmental activist Andrei Zakota was released from prison on 6 November 2009 after his five-year sentence was commuted and replaced by a fine of 1000 manat (US$350). It was widely believed that Zakota’s imprisonment was a politically motivated move to silence the scientist. He was attacked without warning on 20 October 2009 and was arrested by two police officers at the scene. (NEAR)
United Kingdom
Government ministers were accused of refusing to fund vital research relating to the lethal brain disease CJD on 19 September 2011. Expert advisers said they believed that up to 15,000 people in the UK could carry the prion infection agents that cause variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), but that this figure was said to have been ignored or sidelined. Researchers argued that acknowledging the true figure would mean they could create precautionary measures that fit the scale of the problem. (Guardian)
Tobacco company Philip Morris International (PMI) used Scottish freedom of information laws to access research held by Stirling University regarding young people and smoking in September 2011. The university’s Centre for Tobacco Control Research fought the move but was ordered to provide the required information. The research details attitudes to smoking and packaging. The director of the centre, Professor Gerard Hastings, said the tobacco company was mining his research for confidential data on children’s attitudes to cigarettes. (BBC)
An Oxford academic won the right to read previously secret data on climate change in July 2011. Jonathan Jones, a physics professor at Oxford University, submitted a freedom of information request for the findings of research carried out by the head of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, Phil Jones, in 2009. The unit initially refused to provide the data, but was forced to following a ruling by the information commissioner. The decision was hailed as a landmark ruling that will mean that thousands of British researchers will be required to share their data with the public. (Guardian)
British Medical Association (BMA) members voted in June 2011 to adopt into policy a call for a stronger public interest defence and a restriction on the ability of commercial organisations to sue for libel. (Sense About Science)
The British Chiropractic Association (BCA) dropped its defamation case against science writer Simon Singh on 15 April 2010. The BCA lodged a case against Singh after the publication of an article in the Guardian in which he criticised the association for defending chiropractors who treat conditions such as colic and asthma in children without having significant evidence that the treatment will be effective on the condition. The case, in which Singh received substantial support, was initially lodged by the BCA in 2008. (Guardian)
United States
In October 2011, a Texan oceanographer claimed his work was being censored after he submitted research to the state’s environmental agency. John Anderson claimed that his report on the Galveston Bay estuary was altered prior to publication and that key information on the impact of climate change on the area had been omitted. Anderson believed that the state of Texas did not want to publish findings suggesting human contribution to global warming. (Houston Chronicle)
A study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that black scientists with a PhD received 10 per cent fewer funding awards than white scientists or scientists from other ethnic minorities. The study, published on 19 August 2011, analysed over 80,000 applications for funding from scientists with a PhD. Of those, 1149 came from black applicants. Whites had a 29 per cent success rate for applications, while blacks received funding just 16 per cent of the time. When the researchers adjusted for country of origin, additional training, previous research awards, and publication record, the discrepancy was still 10 per cent. (New Scientist, sciencemag.org)
US government funding for stem cell research was blocked in late August 2010, following a judgment that ruled the research violates laws prohibiting the destruction of human embryos. The temporary injunction bars federal funding for studies on stem cells derived from human embryos that are later discarded. (Guardian)
Scientists investigating the deaths of dolphins in the area affected by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 were ordered by the government not to release their findings. Wildlife biologists working for the National Marine Fisheries Service were investigating the rise in dolphin mortality, but they were told to keep their findings confidential as the cause of the deaths would form part of the ongoing federal criminal investigation into the disaster. (Daily Mail)
Compiled by Marta Cooper and Alice Purkiss
