Blog de César Salgado

Os papeis terman do que lles poñen, e internet nin che conto…

Primera licencia libre en lengua castellana (Juan Ruiz, ca. 1340)

Dice Ángel Vázquez Hernández en su blog que esta es la primera licencia libre en lengua castellana. Aparece en el Libro de buen amor escrito por Juan Ruiz, arcipreste de Hita circa 1340.

“De cómo dice el arçipreste que se ha de entender su libro” (extracto)…

[1629] Qualquier omen, que lo oya, si bien trovar sopiere,
puede más y añadir et emendar si quisiere,
ande de mano en mano a quienquier quel’ pidiere,
como pella a las dueñas tómelo quien podiere.

[1630] Pues es de buen amor, emprestadlo de grado,
non desmintades su nombre, nin dedes refertado,
non le dedes por dineros vendido nin alquilado,
ca non ha grado, nin graçias, nin buen amor complado.

Si no me equivoco, tiene efectivamente los elementos típicos de una licencia actual:

  • Pide la atribución de la autoría (non desmintades su nombre)
  • Admite obras derivadas (Qualquier omen … puede más y añadir et emendar)
  • No admite el uso comercial de la obra (non le dedes por dineros vendido nin alquilado)

Estos descubrimientos me reconcilian con el género humano. Gracias a Ángel y a todos los que compartís cultura. Que Dios os bendiga.

1 Setembro 2009 Publicado por | "Intellectual property", Education, History, Human Rights, Literature, Poetry, Politics | 2 Comentarios

Sri Lanka jails journalist for 20 years for exercising his freedom of expression

Amnesty International (AI) news: “Sri Lanka jails journalist for 20 years for exercising his right to freedom of expression”…

1 September 2009

A High Court in Sri Lanka sentenced journalist Jayaprakash Sittampalam (JS) Tissainayagam to 20 years rigorous imprisonment on Monday, for writing and publishing articles that criticized the government’s treatment of Sri Lankan Tamil civilians affected by the war. The court said the articles caused “racial hatred” and promoted terrorism.

AI said that it considers JS Tissainayagam to be a prisoner of conscience, jailed solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression in carrying out his profession.

JS Tissainayagam was the first Sri Lankan journalist to be formally charged (and now convicted) under the country’s draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) for his writing.

The verdict comes in the context of increasing pressure on Sri Lanka’s journalists. More than 30 media workers have been killed in Sri Lanka since 2004. Many others have been assaulted, abducted, threatened or forced into exile. Sri Lankan journalists say that the government is responsible for many of these incidents and has failed to protect against others.

JS Tissainayagam was arrested in March 2008 and detained in police custody for five months before he was charged with an offence. He and two colleagues were eventually accused of bringing the government into disrepute (a charge that was later dropped) and inciting racial and ethnic animosities through material published in a short-lived monthly magazine called the North East Herald. He was also accused of raising funds for the magazine to further terrorist objectives.

The right to freedom of opinion and expression is protected under international law and is also recognized in the Sri Lankan Constitution. Sri Lanka has misused the PTA and the Emergency Regulations (ER) to silence a critical voice and violate Mr Tissainayagam’s rights to freedom of opinion and expression.

Tissainayagam’s indictment was based on passages from two articles which expressed critical opinions about the government’s treatment of Tamil civilians affected by armed conflict. A July 2006 editorial headlined, “Providing security to Tamils now will define northeastern politics of the future” concluded: “It is fairly obvious that the government is not going to offer them any protection. In fact it is the state security forces that are the main perpetrator of the killings.”

A second article published in November 2006 addressed the humanitarian situation in the eastern town of Vaharai, where warfare included attacks on civilian areas. It accused the government of starving and endangering civilians to further political and strategic military objectives.

The prosecution also put forth as evidence an alleged confession made by Tissainayagam while in police custody. Tissainayagam maintains that he was tortured by the police and that the confession was forced. The Court ruled that the evidence was admissible. Sri Lanka has a long history of torture and ill treatment of prisoners. Under the PTA, the burden of proof rests with the accused to prove that the confession was made under duress or torture.

Tissainayagam was arrested on 7 March 2008 by the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) of the Sri Lankan Police in Colombo when he went to the police seeking information about the arrests the day before of two colleagues, B Jasiharan and his wife V Vallarmathy, a printer and owner of the building that housed the offices of Outreach Sri Lanka, a website Tissainayagam edited. Arrested along with Tissainayagam was reporter K Wijayasinghe, who accompanied him to the TID offices. The website’s visual editor Udayan, and G Gayan Lasantha Ranga a video cameraman, were also arrested separately on 7 March.

After repeated inquiries by Tissainayagam’s family, the police eventually confirmed that they had detained him and the others because they suspected them of being members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Early on the morning of 8 March, TID officers raided Tissainayagam’s home, searched it without a warrant and seized a copy of the Northeastern Monthly Magazine.

Wijayasinghe, Ranga and Udayan were released without charge on 19 March 2008, the day that Tissainayagam filed a Fundamental Rights Case in the Supreme Court alleging violation of his constitutional rights to freedom from torture, equality and equal protection of the law, as well as freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention.

Tissainayagam and his co-defendants were indicted in August 2008 for alleged violations of the PTA and the ER. The PTA had in fact been suspended following the ceasefire agreement between the government and the Tamil Tigers in February 2002. In prosecuting Tissainayagam for articles and activities conducted in 2006, the prosecution applied the PTA retroactively.

The Sri Lankan government dropped the charge of “bringing disrepute to the government” on 9 September 2008 but retained other charges related to editing, printing and fundraising for the magazine. Jasiharan was charged with aiding and abetting Tissainayagam to further terrorism. Vallarmathy was charged with the offence of aiding and abetting her husband Jasiharan in these acts.

On Monday, High Court Judge Deepali Wijesundara announced her verdict, finding Tissainayagam guilty of writing articles intended to create communal disharmony and of raising money for a magazine whose articles violated the PTA. Tissainayagam’s lawyer has vowed to appeal the sentence.

AI denounced the verdict as a direct violation of Tissainayagam’s right to freedom of expression and more broadly as an assault on press freedom in Sri Lanka. The organization called for the immediate release of Tissainayagam and his colleagues, and an end to the use of the PTA to silence peaceful dissent.

Read more

1 Setembro 2009 Publicado por | Amnesty International, Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, Politics, Sri Lanka | Deixar un comentario

Morocco: new jail term for Western Sahara activist Naâma Asfari (HRW news)

Human Rights Watch (HRW) news: “Morocco: New Jail Term for Western Sahara Activist. Naâma Asfari Convicted for ‘Showing Contempt’ Toward Police”…

August 31, 2009

The conviction and imprisonment of the Western Sahara human rights defender Naâma Asfari on August 27, 2009, for “showing contempt toward a public agent” shows that Morocco continues to punish peaceful activists who show their support for independence for that region, HRW said today.Asfari has been in detention since a stop at a police checkpoint on August 14 outside the city of Tantan in southern Morocco escalated into a heated exchange of words, which Asfari says began when a police officer ordered him to remove a Western Sahara flag from his keychain. The Tantan Court of First Instance sentenced Asfari to four months in prison; a cousin who was with him during the incident, Ali Roubiou, 21, of Tantan, received a two-month suspended sentence. It is Asfari’s third conviction in three years.

“Moroccan authorities keep finding new excuses to lock Asfari up, but it seems that what lies behind it all is his peaceful activism on the Western Sahara,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at HRW.

In 2007, Asfari was given a two-month suspended sentence, and in 2008, he was sent to jail for two months, in both cases on criminal charges trials that seemed driven by the authorities’ desire to punish him for his political activities.

Asfari is the Paris-based co-chair of the Committee for the Respect of Freedoms and Human Rights in Western Sahara (CORELSO). He frequently travels to Morocco and the Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara, often accompanying foreign delegations seeking to learn about the situation of Sahrawis. He was on such a mission when arrested.

Morocco laid claim to Western Sahara after Spain abandoned its control of the territory in 1975. Morocco has since exercised de facto sovereignty over the territory, although few countries have recognized its sovereignty de jure. A Sahrawi liberation movement known as the Polisario, and many Sahrawis, continue to press for a popular referendum to determine the region’s future status, an option Morocco once accepted but now opposes. The city of Tantan is near to, but not part of, Western Sahara; its population includes many Sahrawis.

In the August 14 episode, police stopped Asfari and Roubiou’s car near the entrance to Tantan to check their papers. Asfari told Human Rights Watch that a policeman noticed on Asfari’s keychain the flag of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) – an entity that Morocco does not recognize – and ordered him to remove “that thing.” Asfari responded by suggesting that the policeman remove “that thing,” pointing to the Moroccan flag on his uniform. An argument ensued, police reinforcements were called to the scene, and Asfari and Roubiou were placed under arrest.

Asfari contends that when arresting him, the police threw him on the ground, kicked him and broke his glasses. Roubiou alleges that the police beat Roubiou on his back.

The court released Roubiou on August 16 pending his trial, but placed Asfari in pretrial detention. Roubiou told HRW that he showed the bruises on his back from the beating to the prosecutor that day. After his provisional release, he circulated photographs purporting to show those bruises. He also testified about the beating at his trial 11 days later, although the bruises had healed by then.

While Asfari was in police custody, they asked him to sign a written statement (procès verbal), purportedly containing his own words, in which Asfari admits to insulting and physically attacking police agents while resisting arrest.

Asfari refused to sign the statement on the grounds that it did not reflect what he had said to the police. He testified at his trial that it was the police who had physically assaulted him and not, as the written statement suggests, the other way around. The police’s written version also omitted his explanation that the incident began with the officer’s objection to the SADR flag on his keychain.

Asfari also told HRW that when the police returned his personal effects they had confiscated when arresting him, they gave him back everything except for the keychain bearing the SADR flag.

The prosecutor charged Asfari with “showing contempt” toward and assaulting civil servants (articles 263 and 267, respectively, of the penal code). At their trial, both Asfari and Roubiou proclaimed their innocence and insisted that neither of them had assaulted any policeman.

Although Asfari refused to sign the statement drafted by the police, it was introduced as evidence at his trial. Further evidence came from four policemen who testified at the trial that Asfari had assaulted them physically and verbally. Since they testified as victims rather than as witnesses, the officers were not required to give sworn testimony. One produced a medical certificate stating that the injuries he sustained during the incident required 25 days of rest.

The court did not, as far as HRW has been able to determine, open an investigation into the allegations, repeated by Asfari and Roubiou at the trial, that the police had assaulted them when placing them under arrest.

Within 30 minutes after the three-hour trial, the judge announced the guilty verdict and sentences. It is not known whether the two men were convicted on both charges; the written verdict has not yet been issued. Both men have the right to appeal their convictions. In the meantime, Asfari remains in Tantan prison.

The trial was conducted under heavy security, although foreign observers were able to attend. On the morning of the trial, police in Tantan intercepted several Sahrawi human rights activists who had traveled from El-Ayoun to attend the proceedings, detaining them for the entire day, then releasing them without charge. These included Brahim Dahhan, Brahim Sabbar, Mohamed Mayara, and Ahmed Sbaï, all of the Association of Sahrawi Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations; Saltana Khaya of the Forum for the Future of Sahrawi Women; and Bachir Khadda, Hassan Dah and Sidi Sbaï.

Asfari told HRW today that police were openly monitoring the Tantan home of his father, where some of the foreign trial observers had spent the night.

While there have been noted improvements in the protection of freedom of expression in Morocco over the last two decades, advocacy of independence for the disputed Western Sahara continues to be illegal. Sahrawi human rights activists sympathetic to the cause of independence are subject to police surveillance, harassment, and, on occasion, politically motivated prosecutions.

“There is no question that a traffic stop led to a sharp exchange of words,” said Whitson. “But from the confrontation over a flag on a keychain to the hastily pronounced four-month prison term, the chain of events suggests that Naâma Asfari’s pro-Sahrawi activism has led to his being in prison – yet again.”

Also available in: العربية

Western Sahara related links:

1 Setembro 2009 Publicado por | Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, Morocco, Politics, Spain, Western Sahara | Deixar un comentario

Purcell: “Tell me, some pitying angel…”, Z 196 (Christine Brandes; Rachel Elliott)

The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation, “Tell me, some pitying angel…”, Z 196 [Z means Zimmerman catalogue]. Composed by Henry Purcell (1659 – 1695). Beautifully sung by Christine Brandes in a 1994 recording (Harmonia Mundi 907167) conducted by Nicholas McGegan.

God bless TheCompletePurcell YouTube channel for sharing these treasures!

Published by Henry Playford in the second book of Harmonia sacra (1693). Text by Nahum Tate (1652 – 1715). I copied it from The Lied and Art Song Texts Page:

The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation

Tell me, tell me, some, some pitying angel,
Tell quickly, quickly, quickly say,
Where, where does my soul’s sweet darling stray,
In tiger’s or more cruel, more cruel cruel Herod’s way?
Ah, ah rather, rather let his little, little footsteps press
Unregarded through the wilderness,
Where milder, milder, where milder savages resort,
The desert’s safer, the desert’s safer than a tyrant’s court.
Why, why, fairest object of my love,
Why, why dost thou from my longing eyes remove?
Was it, was it a waking dream that did fortell thy wondrous birth,
Thy wondrous, wondrous birth?
No vision, no, no vision from above?
Where’s Gabriel, where’s Gabriel now that visited my cell?
I call, I call, I call: Gabriel! Gabriel!
He comes not.
Flatt’ring, flatt’ring hopes, farewell flatt’ring hopes, farewell.
Me Judah’s daughters once caress’d,
Call’d me of mothers the most, the most bless’d.
Now fatal change, of mothers most distress’d.
How, how shall my soul its motions guide?
How, how shall I stem the various, various tide,
Whilst faith and doubt my lab’ring soul divide?
For whilst of thy dear, dear sight beguil’d,
I trust the God, but oh! I fear, but oh! I fear the child.

Tate is commenting a strange (at least for me) biblical passage, Luke 2:41-52, the text of which I take from King James Version…

[41] Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. [42] And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. [43] And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. [44] But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day’s journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. [45] And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. [46] And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. [47] And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. [48] And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. [49] And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business? [50] And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them. [51] And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. [52] And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.

P. S. (5 – IX – 2009). I found a very good live version (OedipusTyrannus YouTube channel) sung by Rachel Elliott:

1 Setembro 2009 Publicado por | Henry Purcell, Music, Vocal music | Deixar un comentario