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UPDATE : Kostas Vaxevanis was acquitted of breaking data privacy laws on 1 November

UPDATE: Since this article was published, journalist Spiros Karatzaferis was arrested on an outstanding charge after claiming he would publish classified documents relating to Greece’s financial bailout. Read here

In recent months Greece has recorded multiple instances of censorship and attacks on the press. Systematic efforts to curtail media freedom are taking place against a backdrop of rising police brutality used to quell anti-austerity protests and mounting neo-Nazi violence against journalists, immigrants, and homosexuals linked to rise of the far-right Golden Dawn party, which gained 18 seats in June’s parliamentary elections (having achieved a record 21 seats in the May election).

28 October, National Day in Greece, saw the arrest of investigative journalist Kostas Vaxevanis, whose Hot Doc magazine published a leaked list (nicknamed the “Lagarde list”) of over 2,000 names of Greeks with bank accounts in Switzerland. Reporters Sans Frontieres appealed for his release, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, expressed her concern, and netizens rallied to his support on Twitter, gathering over 16,000 signatures on a petition demanding that charges be dropped, as did the European Federation of Journalists.

“They are after me instead of  the truth,” Vaxevanis stated in a video uploaded on the night before his arrest.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNkCcgh5mUYA

A New York Times editorial slammed the Greek government for being “shamefully quick” to attack the messenger and strip basic social services from the country’s most vulnerable citizens but shamefully slow at probing possible tax evasion by the well-connected. Vaxevanis, whose magazine has been steadily publishing investigative reports on graft and corruption scandals, had reported a seemingly abortive ambush at his home on the northern suburbs of Athens earlier in September by five unknown individuals.

Several other incidents of censorship have plagued the media in the last month, leading to international condemnation and grave concerns about the state of democracy in its nominal birthplace.

On 25 September, a 27-year-old netizen was remanded to trial on blasphemy charges for maintaining a Facebook page titled “Gerontas Pastitsios” (Elder Pastitsios), which included satirical comments on Christianity and the noted Eastern Orthodox monk Elder Paisios and his alleged “prophecies”, as well as the commercial exploitation of Paisios’s legacy. The matter was raised by a member of parliament from Golden Dawn. According to the defendant, the blasphemy charge was later dropped, but he still faces defamation and insult charges over third-party comments left on the Facebook page (he maintains he never defamed or used abusive language himself, and even deleted abusive comments).

On 9 October, the Guardian published a report by the Nation’s Maria Margaronis on torture allegations made by anti-fascist protesters arrested after a clash with Golden Dawn members on 26 September, in which detainees spoke of being subjected to an “Abu Ghraib-style humiliation” at police headquarters in Athens. The Μinister of Public Order, Nikos Dendias, later announced his intention to sue the British newspaper for defamation and instead of ordering a public inquiry while investigating the torture allegations in a “sworn administrative inquiry”, a process described by the UNHCR in 2008 as an internal and confidential police procedure designed to protect the rights of the officer involved rather than those of the complainant.

On 11 October, religious groups and neo-Nazis protested against the gay-themed play Corpus Christi in Athens, deeming it blasphemous; they assaulted a theatre critic and forced the cancellation of the performance. Five days later, Greek public television channel NET censored a gay kiss scene from the British TV series Downton Abbey. Management apologised after a furore online against censorship, and rebroadcast the episode uncensored.

On 26 October, ERT3 state TV reporter Christos Dantsis, assigned to cover the celebrations of the liberation centenary of Thessaloniki, “disappeared” on screen, after reporting on citizen protests against the Greek Prime Minister and President of the Republic outside St Dimitrios’ church and the heavy police presence that had descended on the city. His substitute was ordered to present a more amicable image of festivities.

On 28 October, a 35-year-old man arrested in Corfu for posting photos of police and Golden Dawn on Facebook during the Ochi Day parade, was reportedly charged with breaching privacy, defamation and “spreading false news with the intent to destabilise the state”.

The following day, two journalists, Kostas Arvanitis and Marilena Katsimi, had their morning news show on Greek state TV (ERT) cancelled, after analysing claims by the Guardian of police torture of Greek anti-fascist protesters in Athens, and criticising the Greek Minister of Public Order, Nikos Dendias.Katsimi told the Guardian:

About an hour after the programme ended, the director of information called for a transcript. He didn’t ask to talk to us. And it was then announced that two other journalists would present tomorrow’s show. We were cut.

Aimilios Liatsos, ERT’s general director, defended his decision and stated that the two journalists “violated minimum standards of journalistic ethics”. Various political parties and organizations have condemned ERT’s action, while journalists at ERT/NET launched a 24-hour rolling strike as of 30 October, until the decision on Arvanitis and Katsimi is withdrawn.

In reaction to these developments, The Nation’s Maria Maragaronis argues:

Greece can no longer be called a functioning democracy [...], as press freedom, always precarious in Greece where most private media are in the hands of well-connected oligarchs, is a dead letter.

David Hughes of the Daily Telegraph underlines that “press freedom is under threat in Greece and the EU doesn’t seem to care”.  Yiannis Baboulias similarly accuses European leaders of treating what is happening in Greece as a national problem, predicting in a New Statesman article that “they’re holding the door open for their countries to go down the same path”.

2006, where it all began…

An apparent lack of Internet policy and judicial ignorance of the nature of the internet had led to the first publicised incident of online censorship in Greece in October 2006. During the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) held in Athens, news emerged that Greek authorities had arrested Antonis Tsipropoulos, a Greek aggregation service administrator, and confiscated his hard drives, for linking to US-hosted blog posts that satirised Greek businessman and tele-evangelist Dimosthenis Liakopoulos. Bloggers organised a massive online solidarity campaign and held courtside protests, declaiming the lack of web savvy of the complainant and the court, as well as the technophobe spirit of the time. Tsipropoulos’ case was mired in legal limbo for years, as often happens in similar cases. Subsequent attempts over the years by Greek governments to institute “anti-blog laws” — similar to ones recently enacted in Jordan, Zambia and Malawi, among others — that would enforce mandatory registration and hold bloggers accountable for third-party comments, were held in check by netizen initiatives.

Rising encroachment of press freedom

Overt press censorship is banned by the Greek Constitution, but systematic efforts to curtail press freedom have intensified in recent years, as unpopular austerity measures, corruption scandals and police violence are fueling frequent protests and dissent. Greece notably plummeted 35 ranks in the Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders in 2010, in large part due to the assassination of online journalist Sokratis Giolias, allegedly because of his work on an undisclosed corruption story, and targeted police attacks on photojournalists covering protests. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other international human rights organisations have repeatedly chastised the Greek state, urging a “zero tolerance” approach to police violence. Threats and abuse against journalists by newly-elected politicians from the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party prompted CPJ to remark that the party “casts a shadow on Europe’s press freedom”.

While Greece is widely and casually demonised as “patient zero” of the European financial crisis, politicians and the media are routinely displaying a callous shortsightedness in addressing its corrosive effects on press freedom and free speech,  eating away at the core values that made the European Union a necessary reality. This is, in large part, to oppose the spectre of totalitarianism ever rising again in the continent.

As Kostas Vaxevanis has written: “Greece gave birth to democracy. Now it has been cast out by a powerful elite”.

Asteris Masouras and Veroniki Krikoni are Global Voices authors and editors of Global Voices in Greek

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The European Union makes great play of its commitment to free expression. All EU countries are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 10 of which states:

Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.

Clause two of the article stipulates several exceptions to this, but citizens of the EU are, broadly speaking, free to criticise their governments and heads of state, to question officials and hold power to account. But this doesn’t mean that there are not real challenges to free speech.

As more and more communication strays into the realm of publication via social media, people in democratic countries find themselves increasingly subjected to restrictions on free speech. In the UK, laws meant to govern different types of communication are now used to bring prosecutions for speech on social media.

Cases such as those of Liam Stacey, Azhar Ahmed and Paul Chambers in the UK have seen prosecution for the posting of “offensive” or “menacing” content on social networks, under laws designed either to prevent the outbreak of violence, or harassment via emails and phonecalls. The question for the democratic world raised by social technology is complex: do we continue with old laws, create new ones governing social media interaction, or accept the idea that the speed with which technology advances will make governing of online communication impractical if not impossible?

Azhar Ahmed was convicted for posting “grossly offensive” material (above) on Facebook

The issue of “extremism” often collides with free speech. In the UK, members of (now-banned) group Al Muhajiroun have faced prosecution for, among other crimes, calling for the death of British soldiers in Afghanistan, and burning poppies on Rememberance Day. Judgments in these cases have essentially found the perpetrators guilty of “offensive” statements and actions which run counter to the general societal consensus, disregarding any notion of protected political speech.Throughout Europe, many countries which experienced the full horrors of Nazism have laws against the denial or belittling of the Holocaust. While the impulse to prevent a repeat of the rise of Nazism, as well as to honour the memories of those who were murdered, is understandable, such laws can only be seen as a direct contravention of the right to free expression, placing a certain topic, however sensitive, beyond the limits of discussion. Far-right figures such as David Irving, Horst Mahler and Jean Marie Le Pen have all been convicted for Holocaust denial.French President Francois Hollande has signalled his intentionto bring in similar laws to criminalise denial of the Armenian massacres of 1915, in a mirror of Turkey’s penal code, which prevents discussion of the same subject.

Privacy and reputation

Privacy and reputation have also proved controversial. English libel laws have been particularly contentious over the last three years, with Index and its partners in the Libel Reform Campaign arguing that they have a chilling effect on free speech in the UK and beyond. Cases such as those brought against science writer Simon Singh and cardiologist Dr Peter Wilmshurst, as well as several infamous “libel tourism” cases, where claimants with little or no reputation in British society used London’s court to silence criticism abroad, demonstrated the need for reform.The campaign has focused on providing a strong public interest defence, allowing journalists, academics and bloggers to write freely and honestly on controversial issues and public figures without fear of long and potentially ruinous defamation cases brought by the rich and powerful. However, a balance must be struck between the right to free expression and the right of redress for people who have been genuinely wronged.

The European Court of Human Rights has seen several controversial cases bringing the press into conflict with individuals’ right to privacy. Cases such as Von Hannover v Germany, MGN v United Kingdom, Mosley v United Kingdom have all been key in the definitions of public sphere, public interest and privacy, seen the pendulum swing back and forth in an area that, it seems, will forever be contentious. In Spain and Germany, reputation issues have led to moves to stop search engines from indexing sites detailing previous bankruptcies etc, as part of the controversial idea of a “right to be forgotten”.

Breaches of privacy via “phone hacking” brought about a crisis in the British media, leading to the establishment of the Leveson Inquiry, due to report in autumn 2012. The Inquiry is expected to make recommendations on the regulation of the press, an issue approached in many different ways throughout Europe. In Britain, “state regulation” is seen by many as having negative conotations for free expression, though many countries, including Ireland have established some kind of “statutory underpinning” of the press. In Hungary, draconian laws severely limiting media ownership and press freedom have been partially withdrawn after an international outcry.

The Leveson Inquiry has also thrown up questions of media ownership, with widespread concern at the dominance of the national newspaper market by Rupert Murdoch’s News International. The most troubling excess of this dominance was seen during Silvio Berlusconi’s rule as prime minister in Italy, when dissenting voices were marginalised bothy by state television and by Berlusconi’s TV stations, which held a huge portion of the market.

The shifting nature of public discourse in democratic societies means that the debate over free expression can take on many different forms. But the crucial point is that any restriction on free speech must be reasonable, proportionate, and limited. An assumption in favour of free expression should be the norm.

Padraig Reidy is News Editor at Index on Censorship. He tweets at @mepadraigreidy

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This has been an eventful year for relations between Belarus and the European Union. There has been an extraordinary mix of conflict and engagement, from a freeze on the assets of Belarus businessmen to the launch of the Dialogue on Modernisation, a new EU initiative to encourage democratisation in Belarus.

But the essential problem in the EU-Belarus relationship remains: EU policy has always been aimed at getting the authoritarian Belarus state to engage in democratisation, but the EU has never given more than formal support to the role of Belarus civil society. EU policy is not coordinated with Belarus democrats. They cannot currently democratise Belarus alone: they need the help of the EU.

But European politicians think Belarus civil society is weak and do not want to bet on it. So EU policy is based on the irrational hope that an undemocratic state will democratise itself.

European policy on Belarus: more for more?

The EU’s approach to Belarus is framed by the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). The big idea is that the security of the EU depends on the stability and prosperity of its neighbouring states, which in turn depends on their being democratic. Particularly since the enlargement of 2004, the EU has been preoccupied with democratisation of the Belarusian regime.

After 1996 the EU tried different ways of putting pressure on Belarus, from hard political rhetoric to partial exclusion from the ENP, in the hope that it could turn the Belarus authorities in the right direction. But that approach didn’t work. By 2008 the EU had to admit that Belarus had managed to build a sustainable authoritarian regime. “Restoration of democracy” could no longer be a reasonable pre-condition for re-engaging in cooperation. Insisting upon it would simply move Belarus further away from the EU, raising questions about the effectiveness of the whole ENP process. A new approach was necessary.

In 2009 the Eastern Partnership EU initiative (EaP) created a different framework. EaP allowed Belarus to participate without any preconditions, though development of the mutual relationship was to be guided by the so-called “more for more” principle: the more democratisation there was in the partner country, the deeper the integration with the EU could be.

European policy in the eyes of Belarus authorities

Belarus agreed to play the new European game, which gave it a lot of room for manoeuvre in its relations with the EU. The “more for more” principle allowed it to use the European offer à la carte, choosing only to act in areas in which no significant political change was required and which had evident economic impact. The benefits of democratisation and the European way are not self-evident for the Belarus authorities. Belarus and Azerbaijan are much more prosperous without democracy and serious cooperation with Europe than Ukraine or Moldova, both of which have made much greater moves towards democratisation.  So the Belarus government tried to restrict cooperation to economic, energy and environment policy, leaving political questions aside. The European integration carrot failed decisively on the evening of the presidential election of 19 December 2010, when the Belarus authorities violently broke up a giant peaceful demonstration in Minsk against electoral fraud.

Since December 2010 the EU’s interest in democratisation of Belarus have led to protracted tensions with the Belarus regime’s interest in financial support for economic modernisation.

Brussels recalls ambassadors of all EU member states from Belarus, February 2012. Alexander Mazurkevich | Demotix

It was obvious that the events of the 19 December 2010 needed a response. The EU was torn between punishment, turning a blind eye and wait-and-see.

There have always been EU supporters of strict measures against the Belarusian regime. But there have always been too many obstacles to implement this approach, even after December 2010. An economic embargo could provoke humanitarian disaster. Complete political isolation of Belarus would not be acceptable because of the need to support democratic forces in the country and because of Belarus’s geopolitical importance.

The most desirable European policy for the Belarus authorities would be for Brussels to turn a blind eye — and there are powerful business interests in favour. Lithuania, Latvia and Slovenia have even argued against targeted economic sanctions against Belarus companies and businessmen close to Lukashenko regime. But this approach seems unlikely to prevail. It would entail massive political concessions from the EU — and the Belarus regime does not have the leverage that oil-rich Azerbaijan has.

The compromise option appears to kill two birds with one stone and has been favoured by the EU since December 2010. On one hand, via symbolic sanctions (visa bans, targeted economic sanctions) the EU expresses its principles: it condemns anti-democratic practices and violations of human rights in Belarus. On the other, normalisation of relations depends on a symbolic concession from Belarus authorities: the release of political prisoners. It means that the tension in EU-Belarus relations is put on hold.

Modernisation?

While the EU was waiting for a positive reply from the Belarus government, in spring 2012 the European Commission launched the European Dialogue on Modernisation with Belarus. The initiative appears to be a new attempt to influence the situation in Belarus to make up for the lack of any other effective measures.

The dialogue platform was publicised as open for participation by the political opposition and civil society. There was one condition for the participation of the government, the release of political prisoners. In theory, it should bring a European Belarus into being and lead to necessary reforms for the country’s modernisation. The process could also serve as a basis for future bilateral EU-Belarus relations, including Belarus civil society as well as the government.

But such an outcome is of no interest for the Belarus government. The authorities consider that modernisation can be postponed. The authoritarian system can maintain economic welfare and political stability, and it can find solutions in crises. Many people are still satisfied with the quality of life the regime provides them with. So resuming relations with the EU is not a vital necessity for the Belarus government.

There are many in Belarus, frustrated by the lack of opportunities for economic, social, professional development, who support the ideas of modernisation and Europeanisation of the country. They are the core of civil society in the country and encompass just about all independent non-state structures, including NGOs and private business entities. The problem is that civil society is excluded from decision-making and has no political power.

The European Dialogue on Modernisation could help civil society and the Belarus political opposition to transform the country. It gives them legitimacy for political discussion and makes it clear that Belarus needs to engage with experts as it proceeds to democratisation.

But although the EU can help Belarus democratise, it can’t solve the opposition’s problems — and no EU policy towards Belarus will ever be successful without strong support in the country itself. Democratisation must be a joint project; the EU policy needs to be more coordinated with Belarus civil society. The Dialogue on Modernisation might provide welcome space, but to work it requires two things: consolidation of Belarus civil society in one democratic movement; and clear support from the EU for the new movement. If the former is the responsibility of people in Belarus, the latter depends on EU politicians’ will to abjure their dangerous games with autocrats.

Andrei Yahorau is the Director of the Centre for European Transformation in Minsk

Alena Zuikova is a junior analyst of the Centre for European Transformation and a representative to Brussels of Eurobelarus International Consortium

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Last weekend was a real holiday for some Belarusians as the Orthodox Easter was marked with truly good news of the release of two political prisoners. Andrei Sannikov, a former presidential candidate, and one of his main campaign aides, Dzmitry Bandarenka, stepped out of the jails they had been kept in for 16 months each. The long-awaited deep breaths of freedom, although still limited, for the opposition activists themselves, their families and friends were welcomed by all democratically-minded Belarusians and their supporters around the world.

Still, the good news does not sparkle a lot of hope for the country as a whole. Despite Sannikov and Bandarenka now being on the other side of jail bars, Belarus is still far away from freedom.

Two men of courage and civic stand freed, families re-united: no doubt the event is positive and encouraging. But — and there is no doubt about this either — it does not highlight any change of the situation inside Belarus, nor of the usual habits of the Belarusian authorities that have a long “tradition” of trading political prisoners to the West for economic benefits.

According to Belarusian human rights defenders, 13 more political prisoners are still behind bars in the country, including one more former presidential candidate, Mikalay Statkevich, and one of the leading human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Ales Bialiatski.

Listen to Index’s Mike Harris and Belarus Free Theatre’s Natalia Koliada discuss Sannikov’s release on the BBC’s The World Tonight here (at 27 minutes)

Sannikov and Bandarenka are still considered to be criminals. Officially they were freed as the result of a pardon they had asked President Aleksandr Lukashenko for. Sannikov told journalists on Monday he will spend eight more years under police supervision. His wife, well-known Belarusian journalist Irina Khalip, was not able to meet her husband when he arrived at Minsk train station Sunday night: according to her own sentence received after the anti-government protests of 19 December 2010, she must obey a daily curfew of 10pm. So, freedom in Belarus is quite a relative notion.

Quite a number of Belarusian analysts have pointed out that the release of Sannikov and Bandarenka was the result of solidarity actions within the country’s civil society, campaigning led by international organisations, and European Union sanctions (namely a travel ban for Belarusian officials responsible for human rights violations and pointed economic restrictions against some enterprises considered to be “purses of the regime”). But there is for sure one more component of this equation, which is Russia.

It is clear that the release of the two political prisoners is a kind of invitation to the EU to normalise its relationship with Belarus. It is clearly a signal to Brussels, but there is no real intention of change behind it: just the same old game.

President Lukashenko’s simple — yet quite successful — strategy is to balance between Russia and the EU, and try to gain economic benefits (like loans or cheap gas prices) by making use of the geopolitical contradictions between them. Worsening of relations with Moscow once it gets tired of subsidising Lukashenko’s ineffective economy and his pathological unwillingness to stick to his promises usually leads to a change in anti-Western rhetoric and simulation of dialogue attempts with the EU.

This is exactly the case now. Lukashenko seems to lose the momentum of unconditional support from Kremlin as its “old new” leader Vladimir Putin gets very clear about the rules of the game. Russia clearly keeps away from backing Lukashenko in his “diplomatic war” with Europe, and it is obvious that the conflict with Brussels reached its climax with all EU ambassadors leaving Minsk at the end of February. The lack of support from his eastern neighbour makes Lukashenko seek attempts to normalise his relations with Europe — well, to the extent his own understanding of “normalisation” goes. Sannikov and Bandarenka’s release is a test of how the EU will react. For the same “testing” purposes the Belarusian President also postponed his official annual address to the Parliament, previously planned for 19 April. The official reason was Lukashenko’s alleged “disagreement with excessively harsh measures of reaction to the problems in relations of Belarus with its partners.”

Yet, Europe shows quite a strong stance on this situation. The Chairman of the European Parliament, Martin Schultz, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, and EU Commissioner, Stefan Fule, all welcomed Sannikov and Bandarenka’s release. But they pointed out it is only the first step, as all the political prisoners must be released and also rehabilitated, with a clear understanding the authorities of Belarus can fulfil the former, but will never agree on the latter.

The diplomatic “dance” to follow is surely one Lukashenko will try to lead. And it will be the real test of the consistency of the EU policy and the firmness of its position — with a clear temptation of declaring “a breakthrough to a dialogue” too soon, and a threat of the situation to worsen again if the response is too disengaging. Finding the right balance is a tricky mission — but one gets additional advantage, when one’s counterpart is trying hard to get his balance right as well, both in political sense and on accounting sheets of struggling budget.

Then there is the most important component of the equation. Andrei Dmitriev, one of the leaders of Tell the Truth campaign and a former political prisoner himself, wrote on his Facebook page on Monday that he was surprised so few people came to meet Sannikov in Minsk: half of the small crowd that gathered in front of the train station on Sunday night were journalists. Almost no leaders of other oppositional forces were there to great their colleague. The opposition is still recovering from the severe crackdown after December 2010 with continuous nightmare of searches, interrogations, courts and torture that followed. It surely needs to unite forces and summon their strengths to prove the regime is wrong thinking the democratic movement of Belarus is crashed. The upcoming Parliamentary election campaign scheduled for 2012 will be a good time for that.

Just let the weekend smiles of Andrei Sannikov’s family give us some hope.

Andrei Aliaksandrau is the vice chair of the Belarusian Association of Journalists

Index is campaigning with the Belarus Committee to liberate the 13 remaining political prisoners in Europe’s last dictatorship. Find out more here.

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In Macedonia a popular joke recounts they no longer get progress reports from the EU, but stagnation reports. The country’s name has been a roadblock to EU membership since 2005; the Greeks fear ‘Macedonia’ implies territorial ambitions on its northern territories, for ordinary Macedonians it is a matter of intense anger their southern neighbour blocks their entry into NATO and, more importantly, the EU. The Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski channels this anger into nationalist fervour. A new 92-foot statue of Alexander the Great dominates the centre of Skopje. Neo-classical buildings rise from Skopje’s particularly bleak architecture – the old town was flattened in an earthquake in 1963. Amidst this change, the Prime Minister has started his third term. Ordinary Macedonians identify with his ordinary man who lives in a small flat rather than his official residence, and rejects ostentatious shows of wealth.

Yet, in his third term, Gruevski is turning stagnation into regression according to the 2011 EU Progress Report on media freedom and the report of the OSCE Special Representative on Freedom of the Media. On 17 – 18 November, Index on Censorship joined an International Partnership Group on Macedonia to investigate these concerns.

Straight after the election, a new broadcasting law was rushed through that added 6 new members to the broadcasting council. There was no consultation. The president of the council, Zoran Stefanovski, only found out when the bill was in parliament. In all it took 70 hours for the law to pass. Every single one of the new members of the council were selected by the ruling coalition group in Parliament (VMRO-DPMNE). We spoke to the president of the broadcasting council in Skopje. He is furious and thinks the new members were added to block any decisions adverse to the government. Since these changes were made, the council is in deadlock.

Beyond rewriting laws, the government uses its influence in other ways. The Macedonian government is one of the largest spenders on advertising in the country. One estimate is the state spends an estimated 0.4 – 1.5 per cent of its budget on advertising, which if applied to the UK would be the total cost of Accident and Emergency hospital care or as much as Child Benefit. This huge purchasing power unfairly distorts the media market. There was evidence that it serves to disadvantage media outlets critical of the government. Whilst some of the advertising could be deemed in the public interest, a number of commercials feature the symbols or flags of the government parties according to Stefanovski.

Whilst private media continues to benefit from government largesse, “Macedonian television” the public broadcaster is under-resourced and almost entirely reliant on parliamentarians for its income. Macedonian householders pay two Euros per month for their television licenses, around 11 per cent of its total income. Private advertising, limited to outside ‘prime time’ (thus much less valuable) accounts for a further eight per cent, with 72 per cent coming directly from an annually-renewable grant from Parliament. (p.22, ). The socialist opposition have proposed increasing the monthly fee to five to eight Euros, but this would still leave the broadcaster reliant on an annual grant from Parliament for over half of its income. That Parliament can effectively bankrupt the broadcaster at will, has an impact on its ability to challenge the government and opposition. From 2008 – 9 its budget fell by 4 per cent. The government should fix the licence fee to wages with the majority of the broadcaster’s income from this fee, if a top-up from Parliament is necessary it should be a fixed grant over the entire parliamentary term, rather than renewed annually. Macedonians told us about the blandness of state TV. And viewers are switching over: its market share has deteriorated from 16 percent in 2004 to just eight per cent now.

One law that does need rewriting is Macedonia’s defamation code. The country is highly unusual in Europe, not just that it still has criminal defamation on its statute books (France does too), but that it actually uses these draconian laws. In October, Focus journalist Jadranka Kostova was fined 18,000 Euros (five to six years’ wages for a journalist) for libel after she made supposedly defamatory statements about former Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki. Incredibly, more defamation cases reached court in Macedonia in 2010 than in England and Wales, which has a population 25 times greater. The majority of lawsuits were filed by politicians. MPs from the governing coalition were keen to suggest that the opposition were behind most of these (we received no evidence this was the case). MP Ilija Dimovski told us that his governing party would put in place a moratorium of defamation cases.

In meetings with our mission, the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs and Chief of Communications, all stated they were committed to action on criminal defamation by the end of this year. Yet, it was also clear that criminal defamation and the heavy fines of civil defamation are useful tools for politicians from all parties in silencing criticism they don’t wish to hear.

International pressure is moving the government on reform. The founding of a working party to discuss media issues in partnership with the Association of Journalists has at least opened dialogue. Macedonia is not the only European country where journalists are feeling the chill. From our meeting, the strong impression lingered that the Prime Minister Gruevski feels his country is being singled out. As reported last month, Hungary has a new media law, again passed by a new government with a large majority, which stifles press freedom. Worse still, the Hungarians wish to export their model. The European Commission is beginning to see there may be a problem – to stop contagion it must act on Hungary and remind Macedonia that entering the European Union is a privilege not a right.

The International Partnership Mission consisted of:

Index on Censorship, ARTICLE 19, Freedom House, International Press Institute, Global Forum for Media Development, Media Diversity Institute, Open Society Media Program, South East Europe Media Organisation and South East European Network for Professionalization of Media

International Partnership Group on Macedonia Mission Statement

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In a move signalling increased international pressure on President Alexander Lukashenko’s authoritarian regime, the European Union’s Council of Foreign Ministers today strengthened its sanctions against Belarus. The tougher sanctions are  a direct response to the jailing of opposition activists and former presidential candidates and followed last week’s OSCE decision to invoke the “Moscow Mechanism”, a rarely used tool to monitor human rights that provides official support for a rapporteur to visit Belarus with or without a visa. Earlier this year, official OSCE rapporteur Professor Emmanuel Decaux was refused a visa to travel to Belarus.

The Czech Republic delivered today’s statement, on behalf of 14 OSCE members — Germany, USA, Canada, Denmark, Finland, United Kingdom, Iceland, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Sweden:

It is our view that a particularly serious threat to the fulfilment of the provisions of the OSCE human dimension has arisen in Belarus. We therefore called for a fact-finding mission to examine concerns regarding the demonstrations that took place in Belarus on 19 December 2010, as well as developments since then, in order to produce an independent and impartial report…The recent sentencing of presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov and several other participants in the December demonstrations only confirms the urgent need for independent scrutiny of Belarusian compliance with OSCE human rights commitments.

At 2pm (GMT) today, the Council of Foreign Ministers added another 13 names to its Sanctions Lists of 176 individuals, which includes the president. Those on the list are barred from entering the European Union and will have their financial assets frozen. The new names added to the list include judges and prosecutors who have been involved in the recent trials of political prisoners. The Council discussed further economic sanctions —  supported by the European Parliament —  but held back after opposition from Italy and Latvia. Diplomats have concluded additional economic sanctions will take weeks to formulate. Carl Bildt, the Swedish Foreign Minister said the extension of the Sanctions List list was in response to the trials: ”In Minsk, which is on the continent of Europe, we have ongoing political trials, ongoing political verdicts of a nature that is completely unacceptable. And that means that further measures will have to be taken.” He added: “We also have an ongoing financial crisis, verging on financial collapse, in Minsk. So it is a dramatic situation there as well.”

The pressure on the regime from financial markets also intensified today with the Belarus Central Bank devaluing the ruble from Tuesday. The official exchange rate will fall from 3,155 rubles to the dollar to 4,930 rubles per dollar. This is still significantly higher than the free-floating interbank market rate of around 6,400-6,800 roubles per dollar, suggesting further devaluations cannot be ruled out. According to Royal Bank of Scotland’s director for emerging market research, Timothy Ash, Belarus is running a current account deficit of 16 per cent of GDP. To put this into context, Greece’s deficit peaked at 14.4 per cent of GDP in 2008. The balance of payments crisis had been attributed to inflationary measures the state took in the run up to last year’s presidential election, when Lukashenko ordered a 40 per cent increase in public sector pay. Now mainstream economists are raising fears of hyperinflation and further devaluations.

Moscow sees the country’s economic troubles as an opportunity. Belarus’s Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich has confirmed that the country plans to sell its stake in the nation’s gas pipeline network to Russia for $2.5 bn after a bailout loan from Moscow. With the Kremlin urging further state asset sales, it seems Lukashenko is willing to mortgage his short-term political survival for his country’s economic future.

Mike Harris is Public Affairs Manager at Index on Censorship

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In neighbouring France, the lower house of parliament looks set to approve a ban. President Sarkozy has already stated his belief that the garment reduces women to servitude and undermines their dignity, saying the burqa is “not the idea that the French republic has of women’s dignity”. This, despite (or perhaps because?) not having consulted a single woman who wears the face veil in the committee set up to “discuss” the issue. In a move which presumably is not an affront to human dignity, Sarkozy announced that women wearing full-face veils would be turned away from hospitals, public transport and government buildings and his UMP colleague Frederic Lefebvre demanded that any woman breaking the proposed law, be “deprived of her rights”.

Absent are the voices which might question whether the French traditions of equality and secularism are truly threatened by 200 women wearing face veils. Or who might ask if, in fact, those ideals are not themselves threatened by a judicial precedent which singles out a minority of women for persecution, despite one of the key battles of France’s revolution having been inalienable rights for all citizens, regardless of class or creed.

The truth is modern France is in the midst of an identity crisis, just like, if not worse than, that being faced by the rest of Europe.

The homogenous nature of Europe’s intellectual elites has, like broader society, begun to shift. This change has led to a questioning not so much of society’s guiding principles, but of some of their real world applications. This challenge to the hegemony of the older European elites in matters of culture and power continues to be filtered through the, as yet unburied spectre, of (post-?) colonial superiority. Historically, the colonised Arabs needed emancipation from their debased state of being through the imposition of “French” culture, the so-called “civilizing mission”. Today, many French can’t tolerate the thought these former barbarians turned citizens might have a say in defining modern French identity. Meanwhile, the ripple effect of this discriminatory legislation is vindicating already widespread islamophobia and racism. French Muslims of Maghreb ancestry are already the victims of nearly 68 per cent of racist violence and in May, a Muslim woman’s veil was ripped off in what police describe as France’s first case of “burqa rage”.

It is no surprise that here in the UK, it was Philip Hollobone, Tory MP for a small semi-rural Northamptonshire county, who raised the ban, after stating that were a burqa-wearing constituent to come to his surgery, he’d refuse to talk to her. In other words, despite being her elected representative, Mr Holloborne would actively discriminate against one of his constituents and this, with uncritical support from portions of the media and political class.

This debate was never about the smoke-screen of security or women’s rights. It is about who gets to define Britishness and its limits in a post 9/11 climate where Muslims are suspect citizens. The reason this debate is rousing sleepy villages from Tarres to Kettering, is because in a Europe whose homogenous identity is gradually fading away, these rural cantons are the last bastions of a former concept of national self. The burqa ban is symbolic means of repealing dreaded immigration and its attendant cultural changes. In other words, it is a focus for Europe’s xenophobic angst.

The government’s attempts to present the motivations of the al-Qaida operatives as ideological, rather than more accurately, as political, has compounded the problem, blurring the distinction between Muslims and terrorists. Former head of counter-terrorism, Dr Robert Lambert recently stated, “we went to war not against terrorism, but against ideas, the belief that al-Qaida was a violent end of a subversive movement.” The remainder of the proverbial iceberg is a Muslim community whose allegiance to an ill-defined conception of Britishness continues to be called into question, marginalising them from the debate and leaving symbols, such as the burqa, open to suspect status.

In a climate of fear, compounded by a gloomy economic outlook, which historically has seen Europe retract into its darkest postures of xenophobia, such symbols can mobilise a disgruntled population, whose substantive concerns are less easily alleviated. The burqa has become a rallying point in an attempt at reclaiming a righteous posture of cultural superiority, which informed the glory of the former Empire. At a time of insecurity and ambiguity, it appears to offer an obvious point of certainty, by embodying Europe’s most sensitive issues, notably immigration, Islam and terrorism.

What it really offers is a glimpse of how our society treats minorities and manages diversity, the real measure of a civilised nation. There are those who will decry the burqa as the marker of a backward mentality at odds with liberal values and women’s rights. The truth is, only women who wear the burqa can truly tell us what its significance means to them. As a society, we must offer women the space to make informed decisions about all aspects of their being, not least their dress code, and ensure that the actions of our leaders are guided by a desire to empower women, not by cheap populism or misguided concerns. Once women are given the necessary parameters of education, safety and freedom from which to make informed decisions about themselves, we must not infantilise or marginalise them, out of a false sense of superiority. More broadly, we should never let the exigencies of a particular politico-historical juncture betray the fundamental ideals of this society.

Myriam Francois-Cerrah is a freelance journalist and a PhD candidate at Oxford University

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