With maybe hundreds of human rights activists named in the WikiLeaks files, and frontman Julian Assange threatening to throw them open to the world if “forced” to do so, it’s time for fair assessment of the potential threat to whistleblowers and free expression advocates argues Rohan Jayasekera
When WikiLeaks turned from publishing battlefield reports to secret US State Department cables, the initial effect of seeing state-to-state relations shorn of traditional diplomatic obfuscation was electric. The lasting effect was more like reading your teenager’s Facebook page, initially shocking but ultimately predictable, and for those with the right experience, actually pretty familiar.
Again, there were fears about exposure and endangerment. The Atlantic magazine even alleged that WikiLeaks had exposed Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to treason charges by revealing his views on sanctions, as if Robert Mugabe had ever felt that he needed “evidence” to jail someone.
Some regimes are passing laws to extend the meaning of treason to cover economic “attacks” as well as military or political ones. In that particular hall of mirrors simply voicing sympathy for a tourism boycott can get you bundled into the back of a van.
And any association with the US looks bad to a lot of people in some parts of the world, especially when done in private. WikiLeaks frontman Julian Assange hardly helped this week by telling al-Jazeera TV that many officials visiting US embassies are “spies for the US in their countries”.
Generally though, the diplomats and politicians named and shamed (and sometimes praised) in the WikiLeaks cables tended to escape chastened but safe from the experience.
The risk is far greater for the many ordinary human rights defenders and civil society activists who have risked a visit to US embassies in their home countries. They come, often in suprisingly large numbers, to make advocacy cases to what they hope are sympathetic US ears, and until WikiLeaks, away from the dictators’ prying eyes.
Mercifully, it seems — though Assange now suggests otherwise, to al-Jazeera at least — the rights defenders have been saved from being cited in US embassy CIA staff reports.
Intelligence officers have a reputation for boosting the significance of their reports by making more out of routine contact with dissidents than the exchanges actually deserve. But the CIA removed them all from the SIPRNET digital shoebox of US diplomatic cables that alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning drew from.
But the risk remains, as I was firmly told by a US embassy political attache in an Arab state this month. A veteran human rights campaigner had already warned that many local rights activists expect more support from US diplomats than they will actually get; in the vault-like security of a typical US embassy they speak more freely than they possibly should.
The embassy attache was adamant. It was only a matter of time before a human rights defender was exposed by WikiLeaks, and jailed or killed as a result. “Then in that case,” he said grimly, “you may ask Mr Assange exactly what he thinks he has done for ‘transparency and human rights’”.
Weirdly, almost on cue, Wikileaks released a cable that might have proven his point, in which the name of the source — a public critic of a particularly reprehensible head of state — was redacted by WikiLeaks. However the redactor, presumably unfamiliar with the dissident’s work, failed to recognise a giveaway clue cited in the cable’s title.
Even with the redactions, anyone with reasonable knowledge of the country concerned could have guessed who was being quoted giving off-the-record, publicly unatributable, deep background information — or so he thought — to US diplomats about top-level state corruption.
Again, dictators don’t need evidence to jail people, and the key equation at the heart of the work of free expression defenders supported by Index on Censorship is simple: risk balanced against effect.
The risk posed by exposure by WikiLeaks is one more fresh edge to the multi-faceted threat they, their families and friends already face.
But WikiLeaks is supposed to be helping, no?
Redaction of data was never meant to be WikiLeaks’ prime duty, so it should be no surprise that they do it unwillingly, and when they do, that they can do it badly or obscurely. Index on Censorship raised the issue of the giveaway clue in the title of the otherwise redacted leaked cable with WikiLeaks directly.
They replied sympathetically, but noted that the redacted name was already out there as author of a critical book about the head of state. “…(S)o we feel that too much redaction is futile,” said the reply. “However, we do feel it is better to be safe than sorry and so have redacted the title…”
Well, OK, but the root of the question is the same as that raised everywhere, very specifically at an Index on Censorship debate between WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange and UK journalist David Aaronovich at London’s City University this year.
Since WikiLeaks decided to take editorial responsibility for selecting, redacting and publishing the content, what editorial criteria do they apply, what process is followed, what in-house oversight is there of their work and what qualifies for redaction under its “harm minimisation procedure”?
WikiLeaks itself said this was a problem, solved by opening up the data in advance to selected international publications, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and the New York Times among them. That relationship has since splintered over coverage of Julian Assange’s personal issues, but the relevance of adding external expertise to the process — expertise that WikiLeaks doesn’t have — still stands.
Assange repeatedly maintains that “(WikiLeaks) must protect our sources at whatever cost. This is our sincere concern”. But while he says his organisation presently releases files in a “responsible” manner, he fears extradition to the US and makes a clear threat to everyone involved, willingly or otherwise. “If I am forced we could go to the extreme and expose each and every file that we have access to.”
It’s easy to underestimate how much time US embassy staff spend talking to dissidents, opposition leaders, human rights and civil society activists. Hundreds could be named in the WikiLeaks collection of diplomatic cables still unreleased. It might be helpful to provide advance warning to dissidents about to get their moment in the WikiLeaks sun, and prepare the various organisations charged to defend them.
The WikiLeaks core principles, at least as they were when Index on Censorship honoured the organisation in 2008, are good ones. But surely it’s possible to bring together independent groups of advisors, or draw on the advice of local human rights defenders. Maybe just three experts, easy to find, who before redacting or not redacting a name, will have at least read one of the redactee’s books or are more personally acquainted with the threats he or she faces?
Rohan Jayasekera is Associate Editor and Deputy Chief Executive of Index on Censorship
Press censorship feared in Eastern Africa as the ICC indicts first media personality. Ernest Waititu reports
There is fear that some East African governments might clamp down on local-language stations in the wake of indictment of a Kenyan journalist by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity.
Joshua Arap Sang, a broadcast journalist, has become the first media personality to be indicted by the ICC.
Sang was on 15 Dec named alongside six politicians and government officials for having masterminded the 2007-2008 post-election violence.
He is the head of operations at Kass FM, a nascent radio station that broadcasts in the Kalenjin language. The language is spoken in Kenya’s Rift Valley region, where much of the violence took place.
In naming the radio personality as one of the six suspects, the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said that together with two politicians from the Rift Valley indicted for instigating the violence “Joshua Sang played a crucial part” in coordinating attacks.
Arap Sang, as he is popularly known by his listeners, was, according to the ICC Prosecutor, “involved in planning this operation, collecting supporters and also using coded messages” on radio to plan the violence.
Moments before and after the ICC prosecutor made the indictment, Sang was on air on Kass FM. He responded to the indictment with appeals to his listeners to remain calm, saying he was confident of his innocence.
A disputed election result in late 2007 led to violent attacks in various Kenyan regions, including Kisumu, Mombasa, Eldoret, and the capital, Nairobi. The violence left 1,133 people dead and over 650,000 homeless.
Media observers and monitors singled out certain local-language radio stations for contributing to ethnic animosity through hate speech. The observers noted that some local-language radio stations not only took clear sides supporting leading political parties but also spread fear and propaganda through their programming, slandered individuals and communities and propagated ethnocentrism.
Speaking in Nairobi a few days before the indictment, in an exclusive meeting with journalists working with community and local-language radio stations, which included Sang, Moreno underlined the importance of in the peace process in Kenya, saying the radio stations “have a bigger role than me in dividing or uniting Kenyans.”
Although they were cited for unfair coverage of the election campaigns and the violence that broke out after the contested results were announced, mainstream media seem to agree with others on the role that local-language radio played during the violence.
Earlier in the year Joseph Odindo, editorial director of Nation Media Group, the largest media house in the region, called local-language radio station “poison”. In his view, vernacular radio stations played a role in “fanning the violence” that followed the elections in 2007.
Others in the mainstream media say the naming of Sang as a key suspect in post-election violence should not be taken as an indictment of the Kenyan media in general, but as censure of an individual journalist. The chair of the Editors’ Guild in Kenya, Macharia Gaitho says the indictment of a journalist by the International Criminal Court (ICC) is not a reason to pass judgment on Kenyan media as a whole, which in general acted responsibly in reporting the 2007 general elections and the violence that followed.
Media scholars in the region acknowledge the influence of local-language broadcast radio in a region still plagued by low literacy rates. Dr Levi Obonyo , the head of communications at Daystar University and a council member of the Media Council of Kenya, says that local-language broadcast journalists in Kenya have bigger influence over listeners than your average media personalities.
The indictment of Sang has sent shock waves in the East-African region, which saw a number of media personalities indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for having participated in the genocide that killed close to a million people in 1994.
In the neighboring Uganda, media commentators hope that Sang’s indictment will not serve as an excuse for the Ugandan Government, which has a history of gagging the media, to roll back media freedoms.
Journalist Benjamin Rukwengye writes that for Uganda, which is in the build up to another divisive election, “every journalist has a role to play in ensuring that the relative media freedom we currently enjoy is augmented, rather than curtailed by a government which will eagerly flaunt Arap Sang as [a point of] reference.” Ernest Waititu, a native of Kenya, is founder and editor of Afrikanews.org. He first wrote for Index on this topic in Volume 39 Number 2.
The Hungarian parliament has passed a new law creating a media watchdog with powers to restrict and punish private news agencies. The new body has the power to impose sanctions upon media outlets if it decides that their coverage is unbalanced or breaches the rules on coverage of sex, violence and alcohol. The Hungarian parliament is dominated by the centre right ruling party Fidesz, which will also act as the majority in the media watchdog. Hungary is set to take EU presidency on 1 January 2011.
Index on Censorship calls on Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani, head of the judiciary in Iran, to overturn the sentences handed down this week to the film directors Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof. Jafar Panahi was sentenced this week to six years in prison for “colluding in the gathering and making of propaganda against the regime”. He is also banned from making films, writing scripts, travelling abroad and talking to the media for 20 years. Mohammad Rasoulof also received a prison sentence of six years.
In a letter to Ayatollah Larijani, Index on Censorship’s chief executive John Kampfner says:
We would like to remind you that Iran’s own constitution guarantees the right to freedom of expression, the essential condition for any artist to engage in their work and enjoy the freedom to create. We therefore ask you to guarantee this most fundamental of human rights to Mr Panahi, Mr Rasoulof and all artists, academics and journalists currently facing similar sentences.
Index on Censorship urges the Iranian government to recognise Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof as ambassadors for Iran’s creative culture, instead of treating them as criminals. “The Islamic Republic’s continuing crackdown on artists, journalists and writers can only harm the future of its people,” writes John Kampfner in his letter.
Jafar Panahi is amongst Iran’s leading film directors. His first film The White Balloon won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes film festival in 1995 and he was awarded the Golden Lion in 2000 for his film The Circle.
Speaking in support of Jafar Panahi, documentary filmmaker Kim Longinotto says:
Jafar Panahi has been an inspiration for me and my friends for many years. His poetic, sensitive and gripping films tell complex stories with well-rounded characters that he treats with great affection and respect. His films never tell us what to think, or give easy answers — they allow us to discover things for ourselves. He gives me hope for a future where men and women can truly identify with one another’s experiences.
Trainee accountant Paul Chambers, who was convicted of sending a “menacing communication” after he joked on Twitter that he would blow Doncaster’s Robin Hood Airport “sky high” if his flight was affected by weather, has won the right to appeal the decision, Index on Censorship has learned. (more…)
Iranian director Jafar Panahi has been sentenced to six years in prison for “colluding in gathering and making propaganda against the regime”. Panahi has also been banned from directing films or speaking to the press for 20 years.
Nikolai Khalezin in hiding after the KGB issue arrest warrant for the co-founder of the Belarus Free Theatre. Mike Harris reports
