Nominees for the 2023 Freedom of Expression Awards – Journalism

Bilan Media (Somalia)

Bilan Media is Somalia’s first women-only media organisation and newsroom, which aims to challenge gendered threats against women in journalism, as well as covering under-reported issues. 

It is incredibly dangerous to be a journalist in Somalia. In 2022, Somalia topped the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Global Impunity Index for the eighth year running. Journalists are a specific target of militant Islamist groups, especially Al Shabaab, and are regularly shot, imprisoned and physically harmed by the authorities and other powerful groups. Women face a range of other significant threats that prevent many from being able to work safely. In a society where women are marginalised and in a country where huge swathes of territory are controlled by groups linked to Al Qaeda and Islamic State, Bilan Media believed the only way female journalists can fight censorship and find a degree of freedom of expression was to set up the country’s only all-women media house. In addition to distributing their films and reports on Somali TV, radio and websites, they have established partnerships with international media outlets, such as The Guardian, BBC and El Pais.  

As a career for women in Somalia, journalism is considered to be “the bottom of the pile”. This perception shaped how Bilan approached the type of journalism they focused on. In order to reduce verbal and sexual harassment and the threat of physical attack, Bilan decided to work as “Mobile Journalists” where they use mobile phones and other small equipment for their reporting so they are less visible to a hostile public and could escape the scene quickly if needed. 

Bilan focuses on stories that are not represented in the broader media coverage in Somalia. These include stories about people living with HIV/AIDS, girls who have recently undergone Female Genital Mutilation (FGM); orphans who were abandoned when their orphanage closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic only to return with babies of their own after being raped or forced into temporary marriages; female opioid addicts; the mistreatment of people living with albinism; underage girls sold into marriage and young children forced into hard labour to earn money for their families.

Mohammed Zubair (India)

Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of AltNews. Photo: Mahesh Shantaram / www.thecontrarian.in

After co-founding the leading Indian fact-checking platform, Alt News, Mohammed Zubair faced significant threats after challenging mis/disinformation propagated by influential members of the ruling party.

Mohammed Zubair and others decided to found AltNews.in, a portal dedicated to busting fake news to address flaws in the Indian media ecosystem, such as overt political pressure on media outlets and opaque methods by which government funding was awarded to media outlets. Alt News’ goal was to dismantle propaganda networks in a manner that could be used by other publishers. Alt News’ approach focuses on political fact-checking to scrutinise claims made by political parties, leaders and other persons in positions of authority; debunking social media rumours; and examining media misinformation and bias.

Alt News aims to foster a stronger and more vibrant media environment by amplifying dissenting voices and creating barriers to prevent mis/disinformation from spreading. As a result, the outlet has faced considerable social, litigious and political pressure to halt their work. Using both his personal twitter account, as well as the outlet’s website, Mohammed Zubair and his colleagues have reported on inter-communal violence in India, the actions of vigilante groups, as well as the use of social media platforms to amplify hate speech. 

In June 2022, following a tweet exposing a national spokesperson of the BJP making hateful and Islamophobic utterances on national TV, Mohammed Zubair was arrested by the Delhi and Uttar Pradesh state police. Based on an earlier satirical tweet posted in 2018 and reported by another user, Zubair was charged with "promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc." and “deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs”. It has been reported that whenever Zubair was granted bail on one case another FIR (or First Information Report) would be lodged against him. This led to six FIRs being lodged against Zubair, resulting in him being caught in a 24 day cycle of arrest, bail and re-arrest. The following month, the Indian Supreme Court granted Zubair bail and ordered his release, as there was no justification for keeping him in custody.

Mortaza Behboudi (Afghanistan/France)

After being forced to leave Afghanistan in his youth due to previous threats as a result of his reporting, Mortaza Behboudi was detained by the Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence on 7 January 2023 in Kabul.

At the age of two Behboudi’s family fled Afghanistan to live in Isfahan in Iran. In his early twenties, As a result of his work, Behboudi received a number of death threats from the Taliban, which resulted in him having to leave the country for France. After learning French, he continued his work, helping to co-found Guiti News, the first refugee and French-led news media in France, for which he was coined one of Forbes 30 under 30 in the media category.
 
Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Behboudi had been travelling back to Afghanistan every month to work with different media outlets, such as Business Insider, France 2, TV5 Monde, France 24, Liberation, La Croix, and many more. Notable works include "They will not erase us, the Fight of the Afghan Women", which was produced in 2022 and broadcasted on Mediapart and Arte, and "Les petites filles afghanes vendues pour survivre" for France 2.
 
On 7 January 2023, members of the Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) detained Behboudi in Kabul. According to CPJ, Behboudi was detained in the GDI’s headquarters in Kabul. On 6 February Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed to Voice of America that Behboudi was detained by the GDI, saying that details of his case could not be made public “but he is fine and he was treated well.”

An end to the ‘desperate situation’ for Europe’s journalists?

Sofia Mandilara really likes her job. As a reporter for the Greek news agency Amna, she is "often at the forefront of important events", she said. "Through us, people find out what is going on in our country." But not all that goes on in Greece is reported. This is because Amna belongs to the Greek state and is subject to the office of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Anyone who reports critically on his conservative government is censored, the 38-year-old said.

A similar situation exists at the Italian state broadcaster, Rai, which plays a major role in shaping public opinion. It is increasingly under the influence of Italy’s right-wing populist government. Immediately after taking office in October 2022, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni filled all management positions with her followers. The two previous governments did the same, but none as radically as Meloni. Prominent reporters left and even high-profile journalist and anti-Mafia author Roberto Saviano’s show was cancelled after he tangled with Meloni. Positive reports about Meloni’s government, meanwhile, account for around 70% of all political news on Rai stations, according to the media research institute Osservatorio di Pavia.

Journalists at the Journal du Dimanche, France’s leading Sunday newspaper, have also suffered a radical change of regime. In the spring, Vivendi, owned by billionaire Vincent Bolloré, got the go-ahead to buy the publishing giant Lagardère, including the JDD. Bolloré publicly denies any political interest. But as with his acquisitions of CNews in 2016 and the magazine Paris Match last year, the buy-out was followed by a sharp turn in the editorial orientation of the JDD towards the far right.

State officials who demand censorship, party functionaries who misuse public broadcasters for their propaganda and billionaires who buy media to propagate their own political interests - what was long known only in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary - is spreading across Europe. The creeping decline in media freedom and pluralism has been documented for years by the Centre for Media Freedom at the European University of Florence, an EU-funded project. There is now "an alarming level of risk to media pluralism in all European countries", researchers wrote in their annual report in June.

This puts Europe in a "desperate situation", said Věra Jourová, the EU Commission vice-president for values and transparency. The Czech Commissioner has personal experience of life without a free press. "I lived under communism, that was uncontrolled power - and unchallengeable power. This should not happen in any EU member state," she said in an interview with Investigate Europe, a co-operative of journalists from different European countries. Media are "the ones who keep politicians under control. If we want the media to fulfil its important role in democracy, we have to introduce a European safety net." That is why she is pushing to implement a landmark EU law "to protect media pluralism and independence", which would set legally binding standards to preserve press freedom in all EU member states.

She and her colleagues introduced the bill in September 2022. Among other things, it provides that: public service media must report "impartially" and their leadership positions must be "determined in a transparent, open and non-discriminatory procedure"; the allocation of state funds to media for advertising and other purposes must be made "according to transparent, objective, proportionate and non-discriminatory criteria"; governments and media companies must ensure that the responsible "editors are free to make individual editorial decisions"; owners and managers of media companies must disclose "actual or potential conflicts of interest" that could affect reporting; and the enforcement of journalists to reveal their sources, including through the use of spyware, must be prohibited.

All of this seems self-evident for democratic states and yet it met with massive resistance from not only Hungary and Poland, but also Austria and Germany. They argued the proposal is overreaching, "with reference to the cultural sovereignty of the member states", according to minutes from the legislative negotiations in the EU Council, obtained by Investigate Europe. The four governments wanted a directive rather than a legally binding regulation, which would allow the governments to undermine the bill.

In Germany, media supervision is the task of regional states. On their behalf, Heike Raab from the state government of Rhineland-Palatinate, led the negotiations in the EU Council. The EU was acting as a "competence hoover in an area that was expressly reserved for the member states in the treaties", Raab argued, saying the law would be an "encroachment on publishers’ freedom" in line with the respective lobby. If publishers are no longer allowed to dictate the content of their media alone, this would "destroy the freedom of the press", the Federal Association of Newspaper Publishers declared. The European Publishers Association claimed that the EU proposal was in fact a "media unfreedom act". However, Raab and the publishers’ lobby failed to present any practical proposals on how to stop the attacks on editorial freedom.

Such opposition has so far proved largely unsuccessful. Although several controversial amendments to the law have been put forward (most notably when a majority of EU governments backed a change to allow the possible use of spyware in the name of national security), the key proposals of Jourová and her colleagues were adopted in June by most EU governments. If, as expected, the parliament also gives its approval at the beginning of October, the law could come into force early next year – and trigger a small revolution in the European media system. At least that is what Jourová hopes.

The direct influence on public service media by way of appointment of politically affiliated managers, as seen in Greece and Italy, for example, would not be compatible with the new law. “The state must not interfere in editorial decisions," Jourová said. If a member state does not comply, the Commission could open proceedings against the government for violation of the EU treaties. And if the violations continue, this could "lead to very serious financial penalties from the European Court of Justice.”

Journalists themselves could also sue governments or private media owners in national courts against censorship or surveillance on their part, the Commissioner explained.

It is questionable, however, whether this can help reverse the decline of media diversity in the right-wing populist-ruled countries. The Hungarian and Polish government are already accepting the blocking of billions in payments from EU funds because they violate the principles of the rule of law with their political control of the courts. So why should they fear further rulings by EU judges?

Viktor Orbán’s regime has for years engineered a "creeping economic strangulation" of independent media in Hungary, says journalist Zsolt Kerner of the online magazine 24.hu. The government withdrew all state advertising contracts for independent media and then pressured commercial advertisers to do the same. Today, advertising revenues only go to media loyal to the government. 24.hu survived only thanks to an economically strong and independent investor. The rest either had to close or were taken over by those connected to Orbán. This would all become illegal with the planned regulation because EU law trumps national legislation. But Kerner and his colleagues "doubt whether it will do any good in our country." After all, the government has "many good lawyers".

"Maybe Hungary is a bit immune now," said Commissioner Jourová. But there, too, the government will "sooner or later feel the political impact". An “independent European media board", including media experts from all 27 EU states, is planned under the new regulation. While the board can decide by majority vote only on assessments without legal consequences, Jourová expects that countries "which the board certifies as restricting media freedom" will "lose their international reputation, for which most governments are very sensitive.”

This could well put pressure on the right-wing nationalists in Poland, thinks Roman Imielski, deputy head of Gazeta Wyborcza, the country’s last major independent newspaper. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s government has also turned public television and the national news agency into "a Russian-style propaganda machine" that brands all critics as "traitors to the nation and conspirators", Imielski said. But if Poland looks bad to the US government, for example, "that puts pressure on it", as happened when the government tried to sell the government-critical TVN station, owned by a US group, to a Polish buyer. Under pressure from Washington, the Polish president vetoed the corresponding law in 2021.

When or even if Jourová’s grand plan actually becomes law is still unknown. After the parliamentary adoption scheduled for the beginning of October, its representatives still have to agree on a common text with the Council. As mentioned, most EU governments want to reverse the planned ban on the use of surveillance software against journalists and explicitly allow it in cases of danger "to national security". Article six, which obliges media owners to respect "editorial freedom", is also highly controversial. Member states, including Germany, want to weaken this provision considerably by only granting this freedom "within the editorial line" set by media owners. If successful, the law would fail at a crucial point.

“The problem is not media concentration in itself, the problem is that it gets into the wrong hands,” said Gad Lerner, a columnist at the still independent Il Fatto Quotidiano, who worked for La Repubblica until it was sold. “More and more entrepreneurs with a core business in other industries are buying newspapers, TV or radio to give visibility to the politicians on whom they depend for their real business."

"Of course, we don’t want rich people to buy media to influence politics. But we are not here to micromanage how the newsrooms should be organised,” Jourová said, pointing to the need for civil society and journalists to help push for stronger editorial freedoms.

The Greek journalist Sofia Mandilara, who works at the state news agency, has already given a starting signal for this. With the help of the trade union, she filed a public complaint against the censorship of statements critical of the government in one of her articles and - to her surprise - was allowed to write another article on the subject. Since then, "at least they always ask me when they want to change my texts," she said with a laugh.

This is a modified version of an article that first appeared on Investigate Europe here

Contents – Express yourself: Overcoming neurodiversity stereotypes

Contents

The Summer 2023 issue of Index looks at neurodiversity, the term coined in the late 1990s to identify and promote the positives of variation in human thinking which has become more widely used in the past few years. Are old stereotypes still rife? Has the perception of neurodiversity improved? If not, was this because of censorship? Using neurodivergent voices, we wanted to know about this in a global context.

The majority of the articles are written by neurodivergent people, as we wanted to put their voices front and centre. Many said they did have more of a voice, awareness had shot up and the word “neurodiversity” empowered and welcomed a growth in onscreen representation. However, at the same time it was clear that conversations around neurodiversity were playing out along society’s current fault-lines and were far from immune.

Up Front

Mind matters, by Jemimah Seinfeld: The term neurodiversity has positively challenged how we approach our minds. Has it done enough?

The Index, by Mark Frary: The latest in free expression news, from an explainer on Sudan to a cha-cha-cha starring Meghan and King Charles.

Features

Bars can't stop a bestseller, by Kaya Genç: Fiction is finding its way out of a Turkish prison, says former presidential hopeful and bestselling writer
Selahattin Demirtaş.

Don't mention femicide, by Chris Havler-Barrett: Murdered women are an inconvenience for Mexico’s president.

This is no joke, by Qian Gong and Jian Xu: The treatment of China’s comedians is no laughing matter.

Silent Disco, by Andrew Mambondiyani: Politicians are purging playlists in Zimbabwe, and musicians are speaking out.

When the Russians came, by Alina Smutko, Taras Ibragimov and Aliona Savchuk: The view from inside occupied Crimea, through the cameras of photographers banned by the Kremlin.

The language of war and peace, by JP O’Malley: Kremlin-declared “Russophobe foreign agent and traitor” Mikhail Shishkin lays out the impossible choices for Russians.

Writer's block, by Stacey Tsui: Hong Kong’s journalists are making themselves heard, thanks to blockchain technology.

The Russians risking it all, by Katie Dancey-Downs: Forced to sing songs and labelled as extremists, anti-war Russians are finding creative ways to take a stand.

The 'truth' is in the tea, by Jemimah Steinfeld: Spilling the tea on a London venue, which found itself in hot water due to a far-right speaker.

Waiting for China's tap on the shoulder, by Chu Yang: However far they travel, there’s no safe haven for journalists and academics who criticise China.

When the old fox walks the tightrope, by Danson Kahyana: An interview with Stella Nyanzi on Uganda’s latest anti-LGBTQ+ law.

Would the media lie to you?, by Ali Latifi: Fake news is flourishing in Afghanistan, in ways people might not expect.

Britain's Holocaust island, by Martin Bright: Confronting Britain’s painful secret, and why we must acknowledge what happened on Nazi-occupied Alderney.

The thorn in Vietnam's civil society side, by Thiện Việt: Thiện Việt: Responding to mass suppression with well-organised disruption.

Special Report: Express yoruself: Overcoming neurodiversity stereotypes

Not a slur, by Nick Ransom: What’s in a word? Exploring representation, and the power of the term “neurodiversity” to divide or unite.

Sit down, shut up, by Katharine P Beals: The speech of autistic non-speakers is being hijacked.

Fake it till you break it, by Morgan Barbour: Social media influencers are putting dissociative identity disorder in the spotlight, but some are accused of faking it.

Weaponising difference, by Simone Dias Marques: Ableist slurs in Brazil are equating neurodivergence with criminality.

Autism on screen is gonna be okay, by Katie Dancey-Downs: The Rain Man days are over. Everything’s Gonna Be Okay star Lillian Carrier digs into autism on screen.

Raising Malaysia's roof, by Francis Clarke: In a comedy club in Malaysia’s capital stand up is where people open up, says comedian Juliana Heng.

Living in the Shadows, by Ashley Gjøvik: When successful camouflage has a lasting impact.

Nigeria's crucible, by Ugonna-Ora Owoh: Between silence and lack of understanding, Nigeria’s neurodiverse are being mistreated.

My autism is not a lie, by Meltem Arikan: An autism diagnosis at 52 liberated a dissident playwright, but there’s no space for her truth in Turkey.

Comment

Lived experience, to a point, by Julian Baggini: When it comes to cultural debates, whose expertise carries the most weight?

France: On the road to illiberalism? by Jean-Paul Marthoz: Waving au revoir to the right to criticise.

Monitoring terrorists, gangs - and historians, by Andrew Lownie: The researcher topping the watchlist on his majesty’s secret service.

We are all dissidents, by Ruth Anderson: Calls to disassociate from certain dissidents due to their country of birth are toxic and must be challenged.

Culture

Manuscripts don't burn, by Rebecca Ruth Gould: Honouring the writers silenced by execution in Georgia, and unmuzzling their voices.

Obscenely familiar, by Marc Nash: A book arguing for legalised homosexuality is the spark for a fiction rooted in true events.

A truly graphic tale, by Taha Siddiqui and Zofeen T Ebrahim: A new graphic novel lays bare life on Pakistan’s kill list, finding atheism and a blasphemous tattoo.

A censored day? by Kaya Genç: Unravelling the questions that plague the censor, in a new short story from the Turkish author.

Poetry's peacebuilding tentacles, by Natasha Tripney: Literature has proven its powers of peace over the last decade in Kosovo.

Palestine: I still have hope, by Bassem Eid: Turning to Israel and Palestine, where an activist believes the international community is complicit in the conflict.

In trying to protect us online, legislators risk silencing us

I regularly start my weekly blog with the exclamation “there is just too much news!” Too much horror and heartbreak and this week the assertion is all too true.

Russia has invaded a sovereign country and daily we are seeing evidence of war crimes on the continent of Europe; China is arresting yet more democracy activists on the flimsiest of excuses; there have been bombings targeting schools in Afghanistan; a neo-fascist is, yet again, in the final run-off in the French Presidential elections; there are riots in Sweden against the far-right with dozens hurt; people are starving in Shanghai under Covid-19 restrictions; there is active conflict again in Jerusalem, with over 150 Palestinians hurt in clashes after a series of terror attacks targeting Israelis in recent weeks; another video of a black man being fatally shot by the police has emerged in the US - Patrick Lyoya was killed, while being held on the ground, defenceless, on 14 April and riots have followed in Michigan.

Our team at Index is working on every one of these news stories. We work with people on the ground, and we commission dissidents and writers, in country, to give us a first-hand account. In the twenty-first century we can speak to people in every corner of the globe, as events are happening, because of the internet and the social media platforms which afford us all a level of protection because of end-to-end encryption. We work with people on the ground who would be arrested, tortured, or even killed because they want to share their experiences with the world. They want the world to know what is happening to them and to their communities. They are on the frontline in the perpetual fight for our democratic right to freedom of expression. They are vulnerable because of who they are and what they want to share with us, whether that’s their writings, their opinions or their art.

They are brave and inspirational and determined to stand up for what is right. For as long as they want to tell their stories there is a moral onus for us to listen to them.

Which brings me to the current proposals to regulate our online lives currently being progressed in the European Union and in the United Kingdom. In Europe, today (Friday) the final negotiations on the substance of the Digital Services Act are underway and, in the UK, the Online Safety Bill began its parliamentary journey on Tuesday.  Index is working actively with partners to try and mitigate the worst aspects of both pieces of legislation and we were in Brussels this week to make the case for additional protections for freedom of speech. Our overriding goal is to make sure that our access to those brave dissidents is protected and that our rights to discuss the detail of these horrors are protected. To make sure that while legislators are trying to ‘protect’ us online they don’t end up inadvertently silencing us.

Index advocates for free expression within the protections afforded to us by the European Convention on Human Rights. There is no right not be offended. There is no right not to see things online, or in real life, that will upset you. Of course, we all want to protect each other from seeing the worst aspects of human life – that’s an admirable aspiration but it isn’t the grounds for making new law. In fact, it’s the exact opposite – legally we have protected freedom of expression, it’s a fundamental right. I have written before about our concerns regarding online regulation and in the coming months I’ll be writing extensively on it – but we start with the basic principle – what is legal to say should be legal to type. And that should be the case whatever any new legislation seeks to amend.