2005
building; press comments link the action with
the New Labour government’s anti-terrorism
bill passing through Parliament.• (^) The same unease concerning terrorism and
legislation aimed at stifling it, is highlighted
during the annual Labour Party conference in
Brighton in October: an elderly party member,
Walter Wolfgang, once a refugee from Hitler’s
Germany, was forcibly ejected from the confer-
ence hall for shouting ‘Rubbish!’ during a speech
by the foreign secretary Jack Straw justifying the
Iraq war. Mr Wolfgang, 57 years a party member,
was held by the police under the Prevention of
Terrorism Act and later released; the event forc-
ing apologies from Labour ministers and causing
a press furore.
• (^) The BBC announces plans to open a new
World Service broadcasting channel directed
to the Arab region, and in competition with the
24-hour Arabic news channel, al-Jazeera.
• (^) China: 400 million viewers – the largest TV
audience in history – tune in to see 21-year-old
Li Yuchun, without make-up, with spiky hair,
singing songs aggressively, including songs
written for men, win the Mongolian Cow Sour
Yogurt Supergirl Concert award. Within days the
shopping malls of Shanghai were heaving with Li
Yuchun mugs, keyrings and T-shirts. A concert
sponsored by the Better Posture Equipment
Company in the city’s largest, 39,000-seater
stadium, was sold out in hours.
• (^) Percentage of UK households with digital TV
has grown from 15.5 in 2000 to 61.9 in 2005.
• (^) Turkey: best-selling author Orhan Pamuk faces
trial for ‘denigrating the Turkish identity’ for
speaking out concerning the Armenian genocide
of 1915, when almost a million Armenians were
killed in the Ottoman Empire.
• (^) British playwright, poet, actor, scriptwriter and
political protester Harold Pinter (b. 1930), author
of Th e Birthday Party, Th e CaretakerTh e Dumb ,
Waiter and The Homecoming, is awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature.
• (^) Following harassment by the authorities in
Uzbekistan, the BBC closes its World Service
operation.
• (^) YouTube, an audio-visual network platform, is
launched.
• (^) US search engine Google resists request
by American Department of Justice to provide
a list of every website address operating
through Google for June and July 2005; but then
announces net link with China, off ering a service
available to 110 million online users. Th is agree-
ment is subject to Google’s willingness to operate
as a fi lter – a censor – of information exchange.
Repertory Th eatre in protest at Gunpreet Kaur
Bhatti’s play, Behzti (Dishonour). Despite the
play being written by a Sikh (or perhaps in a way
because it was written by one of the faith) the
action against the play – 400 protestors battling
with riot police – leads to its closure.
• (^) Launch in the UK of Spinwatch, a collaborative
venture between practising investigative jour-
nalists and academics with the aim of countering
government and corporate ‘spin’.
2005 Freedom of Information Act (UK) comes in
to force.
• (^) Somalia: BBC correspondent Kate Peyton is
fatally wounded on her way to interview the
speaker of the country’s transitional parliament.
According to Reporters Without Borders 38 of
the 636 journalists killed since 1992 have been
women. In the same month, journalist Raeda
Mohammed Wageh Wassan was found dead in
Mosul, northern Iraq, after being kidnapped by
masked men.
• (^) In the run-up to the UK General Election in
May, the Association of Gypsy Women releases a
statement protesting at laws that ‘are being used
to target Gypsies and Travellers’, with the open
encouragement of the popular press. ‘We cate-
gorically reject the terrifying image of Gypsies
that is being promoted by the Daily Mail, Sun
and Daily Express. We call on the British Press
Council to intervene’.
• (^) UK: 3rd reading of bill to ban incitement to
religious hatred passes through the House of
Commons.
• (^) New York Times journalist Judith Miller impris-
oned for refusing to declare a source; spends 85
days behind bars for breach of a law forbidding
the revealing of the names of secret service
(CIA) agents.
• (^) al-Jazeera journalist Taysir Alouni is jailed for
seven years by a Spanish court after being found
guilty of collaboration with the terrorist group,
al-Qaeda.
• (^) Rania-al-Baz, a TV announcer with Saudi-
Arabian TV, in order to publicize domestic
violence in her country, publishes pictures of
her disfigured face after being beaten up by
her husband. To avoid reprisals, she escapes to
France.
• (^) UK: Channel Four television launches new
‘adult entertainment’ channel, More4.
• (^) Frankfurt, Germany: fi rst international Wiki-
mania conference (see entry, wiki, wikipedia).
• (^) Six students at the University of Lancaster are
charged by the University authorities with aggra-
vated trespass after protesting against a ‘corpo-
rate venturing’ event in University’s George Fox