Kostas Vaxevanis gives his speech after winning Index on Censorship’s 2013 Journalism Award

In 2006, Mr Vgenopoulos bought a percentage of the Laiki Bank in Cyprus, through the Marfin Investment Group (MIG). Since then, the bank has been used to grant loans to businesses and individuals so that they may increase their share capital in MIG. Within Greece, MIG seemed like a giant, at the leading edge of the financial miracle. Despite occasional reports, the Governor of the Central Bank of Greece assured everyone that this was all legal.

At the end, the Laiki Bank collapsed and dragged Cyprus down with it. My magazine published the entire history of the theft of capital involved, utilising official documents including one report on the control mechanism of the Bank of Greece, which in 2009 mentioned the dangers implicit in the loaning process.

Andreas Vgenopoulos, instead of replying to these public accusations and disclosures, filed an official complaint. Apparently everyone has the right to choose legal measures to defend themselves, if they are offended. But here we have a Greek phenomenon. Politicians, businessmen, public figures regarding whom scandalous things are revealed through investigative journalism, instead of replying publicly, as they should, file complaints and lawsuits.

So the public, instead of getting answers, hears only about a slew of complaints and lawsuits filed in order to construct the image of an “offended and slandered victim”. Political and business elites have created an industry of lawsuits and intimidation, instead of apologising.

When, after many years, the cases go to trial, the harassed journalist, who has suffered great financial cost, has to continue to do his job. Needless to say, these legal measures are used against independent journalists and are usually accompanied by various anonymous reports in anonymous blogs which wonder whether the journalist is being paid off. Thus, the intimidation and the “hostage taking” of journalists replace any requirement for public figures to be accountable.

In our own defence

And what do the journalists do to defend themselves? That is a long story. In 1989, private television was introduced in Greece. This seemed to be the voice of freedom measured against a “public” television controlled by the government. Soon it became clear that this was not the case. The businessmen who invested in these new media used them as a means of pressuring successive governments in order to close various lucrative government deals. The former prime minister, Kostas Karamanlis, called them “a group of pimps” before finally succumbing to them.

Alongside the press interest groups, companies for audience monitoring and media retailers were established, all getting a slice of the revenue and advertising pie. Very soon an interwoven system was created. Journalists should have stood out against this system. Unfortunately they stood beside it. Today in Greece, where not even a grocery store can operate without a license, a law has been passed that allows TV channels to operate without a permanent license.

The policy of the banks added to this mess. They loaned to publishers, creating another hostage-taking relationship. Recently a Greek channel (one of many that exist, and it’s a wonder how they survive financially), ALTER, closed leaving debts and loans of over 500 million euros. This means that a company whose market value was only a few million received loans of one hundred times that amount.

There is a corrupt core operating in Greece. It consists of businessmen doing whatever they like, even breaking the law, of politicians that secure government deals with them and legitimise them by passing laws, and of journalists who don’t say a word.

When last October, Hot Doc published the Lagarde list of Greek depositors in Switzerland who had never been audited, the Public Prosecutor’s Office instead chose to charge me, without the official complaint of a single citizen. They arrested me at a friend’s house on the grounds of a personal data breach. Since then, five newspapers have published lists of tax evaders or others who are being legally audited, but the Public Prosecutor did not bring any charges. I was violently brought to trial and acquitted. And then the Public Prosecutor again did something unprecedented. They had the verdict cancelled and ordered that I should go on trial again on June 6. Apparently they didn’t like the fact that I was initially acquitted.

None of the Greek mass media (whose owners were on the Lagarde list) said anything about this whole affair. My arrest, my trial and my silencing were a huge point of discussion in the foreign press, but not in the Greek ones. Of course this was not the only case. When a few months ago Reuters, after a big inquiry, disclosed the substantial scandals of a Greek bank, again no comment from the Greek media. On the contrary, they published the bank’s denial. It was ridiculous and at the same time tragic to see a hollow denial for something that had never been published in the first place.

The same bank became the subject of a Hot Doc investigative report. On the same day, a fake story appeared in an anonymous blog that presented me as an employee of the Secret Services. A few months later, five people ambushed me in the garden of my house, waiting for me to come home. I called the police, but they diminished the charges to “attempted burglary”. Again the mainstream media has mentioned nothing about the incident, although it concerned a journalist and a well-known citizen.

Closing ranks

Greece lives in the grip of a peculiar state within the state. The role of journalism is trimmed and those who defend it are being targeted. Silence and concealment is one issue. The second is that an effort is being made to criminalise the investigation of the truth in opposition to the public’s right to transparent and accountable journalism. In essence, the basic journalistic functions of public scrutiny have been neutralised.

I will mention one other example from Hot Doc. Recently we discovered that Ilias Philippakopoulos, the director of New Democracy, the leading party in the government, had been an enthusiastic supporter of the Greek Junta. We published letters which he had written praising the military dictatorship which ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. The Prime Minister and his party had the obligation to prosecute this antidemocratic member of their executive. Not only did they not, but they didn’t even answer our request for an official public statement.

Greece lives under a hybrid democracy. Sure, the citizens can vote every four years, but then democracy becomes a process of manipulation by politicians, much of it deeply corrupted by vested interests. In the last three years alone, over 30 laws have been passed which favour the interests of businessmen. The citizens never learn about this, so they cannot form an opinion, nor react to it. The Greek press, being in a chronic financial state, is funded by banks’ promotions, loans and state organisations that give out their favours selectively.

Since 2010, Lavrentis Lavrentiadis, the owner of Proton Bank, who has now been detained for the embezzlement of 800 million euros, bought 10-20 per cent of almost all the media in Greece: thereby securing their silence for whatever scandalous thing he did. Independent journalism is up against a system that knows that it is in mortal danger from disclosure and will do anything it needs to survive. It funds publishers, it is engaging journalists in money laundering, and in return employs them in “press offices”. A network of bribery has always existed, but now a culture of silence has spread everywhere.

When we launched the publication of Hot Doc exactly one year ago, we chose the motto “the truth as it is, the journalism as it should be”. That is exactly what we believe. We have to reinvent journalism and to reassign it its rightful role as an authority alongside the other authorities. Alongside society.

Kostas Vaxevanis is a Greek investigative journalist and Index on Censorship Award-winner.

The post Corruption, fear and silence: the state of Greek media today appeared first on Index on Censorship.

Against a backdrop of heavy austerity measures in Greece, free speech and the right to protest are being both challenged and undermined. The policies are the result of agreements between the government and the so-called troika, made up of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. Since 2010, steps taken to restore fiscal balance have led to the impoverishment of large segments of society and unemployment has reached new highs: 26.8 per cent in October 2012. At the same time, the rise of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, with an agenda of targeting immigrants, homosexuals and “dissidents” of all kinds, has created palpable social tensions. Police repress protests and political activity by a range of groups, including anarchists and leftists, a fact that has been widely documented. These tactics have been regarded by many as evidence that the government is adopting an authoritarian stance when it comes to criticism and dissent.

The current government, run by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s conservative New Democracy Party, took office in June 2012. In a report published in July 2012, Police Violence in Greece: Not just “Isolated Incidents”, Amnesty International stated:

The failure of the Greek authorities to effectively address violations of human rights by police has made victims of such violations reluctant to report them. … Between 2009 and the first months of 2012, numerous allegations have been received regarding excessive use of force, including the use of chemical irritants against peaceful or largely peaceful demonstrators, and the use of stun grenades in a manner that violates international standards.

In the report, Amnesty made “urgent recommendations to the Greek authorities”, urging them to ensure that police “exercise restraint and identify themselves clearly during demonstrations” and calling for them to improve “safeguards for those in custody and creating a truly independent and effective police complaints mechanism”. The mainstream media — owned mainly by business leaders seen as having a cosy relationship with politicians — have censored or fired journalists who have attempted to speak out about the costly bailout agreements with the troika.

Those who have reported on allegations of police brutality, such as Kostas Arvanitis and Marilena Katsimi of the Greek state-owned public radio and television broadcasting corporation ERT have also been targeted. On 9 October 2012, Thanos Dimadis, a correspondent for Greek TV and radio station SKAI, reported that bailout payments had been only “partial” and carried out “under a regime of strict economic surveillance”. Later that day, he received instructions from SKAI TV news director Christos Panagopoulos not to include that information in the afternoon and evening news reports. The text of his story was removed from SKAI TV’s website. Dimadis’s report was annoying for the government, which was keen to prevent details about the bailout from becoming public. Payments from the troika had been suspended since June, after a partial tranche was released. The authorities were worried that the public would believe that payments were conditional on even more stringent austerity measures. Dimadis complained to SKAI’s news directors, threatening to resign if they did not back up his report. He eventually quit.

Dimadis told me that senior management at SKAI argued that the reason they withdrew his report was that the prime minister’s office had dismissed it as false. Moreover, Dimadis’s reactionwas described by SKAI as “over the top”.

Censoring the news

The government’s modus operandi is best illustrated by the Kostas Vaxevanis case. Vaxevanis, an investigative journalist and publisher of Hot Doc magazine, was arrested on 28 October 2012 for publishing the names of over 2000 Greek citizens who held Swiss bank accounts, dubbed the “Lagarde list”. The story focused on alleged tax evasion by wealthy Greeks during a time of economic crisis.

“A few months ago, before the release of the ‘Lagarde list’ and my aggressive arrest, there was an organised attempt to destroy my professional reputation: a publication presenting a fake receipt attempted to incriminate me as being on the payroll of the National Intelligence Service (EYP). I realised I was under heavy surveillance and one night I was ambushed by strangers at my home,”Vaxevanis told me in an interview.

During our discussion, on 26 December 2012, Vaxevanis said free speech in Greece was coming under attack yet again: “It’s not something new. When you have ongoing dealings between politicians and businessmen who own media groups, then it comes as no surprise that journalists are driven to self-censorship. Take a look, for example, at the non-existent coverage of the Reuters story on the Piraeus Bank case. You have such a big story, but what you see in the newspapers instead is an advertisement by the bank.”

On 1 November, Vaxevanis was acquitted and cleared on changes of violating privacy laws. But two weeks later, the prosecutor’s office ordered a retrial, claiming the original verdict was “legally flawed”. He could face up to two years’ imprisonment if he is sentenced. In April 2012, Reuters reported on an investigation into documents, including financial statements and property records, relating to Michalis Sallas, executive chairman of Piraeus Bank, and his wife, Sophia Staikou. The press report said “the couple may also be emblematic of the lack of transparency and weak corporate governance that have fuelled Greece’s financial problems”.

But according to journalist Apostolis Fotiadis, no major national or international media outlet reported on the lawsuit filed by Piraeus Bank against Reuters, though the New York Times anda couple of independent journalists attended the trial, including Fotiadis. The ruling is still pending.

On 29 October 2012, a popular morning talk show on the Greek state broadcasting corporation, ERT, was suddenly suspended, following a decision by ERT’s general director of news, Aimilios Liatsos. Shortly before the show was dropped, Kostas Arvanitis, co-presenter of the programme, and his colleague Marilena Katsimi had made comments on air about the minister of public order’s response to an article published in the British newspaper the Guardian written by Helena Smith.

Arvanitis told me:

I’ve been working as a journalist for 25 years. I’ve never experienced anything like this — not to this extent and with such intensity, at least. I consider what happened as aggressive meddling by the political system. It’s becoming more and more clear: every question that is different, every perspective that is different is considered provocative. You can understand what’s happening if you take a careful look at the media coverage of strikes.

Influential columnists and unsigned editorials very often neglect the reasons lower and middle working classes decide to go on strike. Instead of shedding light on their requests, these outlets prefer to present the strikes as instances of “abusing the public space” or “disturbing public peace”. This is the typical official government response as well. In the broader context, of course, this approach fails to report on the growing pressure on workers — on those who still have a job but with reduced salaries, and on those without one.

A Guardian article written by Maria Margaronis was published on 9 October and mentioned allegations of police brutality against protesters. It also referred to and confirmed an earlier article,published on 28 September, written by Helena Smith, that quoted ‘analysts, activists and lawyers’ as saying that the “far-right Golden Dawn party is increasingly assuming the role of law enforcement officers on the streets of the bankrupt country, with mounting evidence that Athenians are being openly directed by police to seek help from the neo-Nazi group”.

Margaronis also wrote:

Fifteen anti-fascist protesters arrested in Athens during a clash with supporters of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn have said they were tortured in the Attica General Police Directorate (GADA) — the Athens equivalent of Scotland Yard — and subjected to what their lawyer describes as an Abu Ghraib-style humiliation. If it hadn’t been for the Guardian stories, it is highly unlikely that Golden Dawn’s purported connection with the police would have reached a foreign audience — or the Greek public. The fact that these claims never made the Greek press and that Arvanitis was censored for simply commenting on one of the articles shows just how prevalent censorship is in Greece today.

Dimitris Katsaris is a lawyer for four of the protesters who alleged that they were tortured in GADA after they were arrested during the 30 October protest. He says the way the situation has been handled is a clear “indication of censorship … interviews with the anti-fascists took place in a climate of terror; at the end, the policemen tried to grab me and push me away while I was complaining to them. All of this has been recorded.” However, the censorship didn’t stop there.

Ignoring the truth

Minister of Public Order Nikos Dendias claimed on SKAI TV talk show New Folders on 16 October that the Guardian report on police brutality was false, and threatened to sue the British paper if no proof of torture was found. He questioned the source of the photographs in Margaronis’s article — which showed an injured protester — and claimed that since the anti-fascists hadn’t gone on record with their names and reports, and hadn’t filed a lawsuit against the police, the Guardian was not justified in publishing the story.

Dendias also denied assertions that the arrested protesters were afraid to go on record because they had been threatened by police or extremist Golden Dawn supporters. According to Katsaris, although SKAI and the New Folders’ presenter Alexis Papahelas were already in possession of the photographs indicating police brutality at the time they interviewed Dendias, they did not report on the evidence or broadcast the photographs; had it not been for SYRIZA MP Dimitris Tsoukalis’s intervention on the show, the photos wouldn’t have been shown on air. “From the moment the Guardian’s report was published,” Katsaris says, “I was in contact with New Folders’ editor-in-chief. A week before the show I was providing him photos and evidence that proved torture by the police.” Katsaris says he called the editor-in-chief and asked him to intervene, but after many calls, he was told there was “‘no sufficient airtime” to provide the other side of the case. “So I could not contrast the ministers’ claims. I even asked them, given the material they had, to question the minister in a fair journalistic manner. They didn’t.”

It seems that every time a story about political actions by anti-fascist protesters unfolds, the censorship machinery of the government and Golden Dawn is set in motion. Niko Ago, an Albanian national who had been working as a journalist in Greece for 20 years, faced deportation after publishing a report about alleged criminal activity by Golden Dawn spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris, who is a member of parliament. Ago revealed that Kasidiaris was facing charges for allegedly participating in a 2007 attack on a postgraduate student and for illegal possession of a firearm .Since then, Ago has been receiving threatening emails containing defamatory and racist comments, some of which he published, including one that said ”Fuck you, Albanian … all you fucking Albanians are going to get what you deserve.”

Muzzling grassroots dissent

A great deal of pressure has also been brought to bear on independent, non-corporate media collectives or individuals who offer grassroots coverage. On 20 December 2012 and on 9 January 2013, police operations were carried out at the Villa Amalias squat in Athens, which has been an important meeting place for alternative political movements for the last 23 years, and at the Radiozones of Subversive Expression, an Athens-based radio station at the University of Economics and Business (ASOEE). Anarchists, leftists and political dissidents used both sites to organise labour, anti-fascist and antiracist rallies. As part of the operations connected with the ASOEE raid, in late December, anti-riot squads and police targeted immigrant street vendors originally from Nigeria, Morocco and Bangladesh who were selling pirated CDs and wooden animal figurines, as well as those who were regarded as supposedly condemning Greece to an economic decline, as the Radiozones website put it. The government, as well as Golden Dawn, tends to regard the economic activities of immigrants as detrimental to the national economy and as a threat to local workers.

Last October, during German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Greece, nearly 100 arrests took place, as Avgi newspaper reported. During the 6-7 November general strike, a group of parliamentarians from SYRIZA denounced the massive presence of undercover police on the streets of Athens. According to the coalition, they were both acting as provocateurs among peaceful protesters and arresting people who simply looked “suspicious”. The policy of  pre-emptive arrests has been repeatedly called unconstitutional by human rights organisations, including the Hellenic League for Human Rights.

Tomasz Grzyb/Demotix

During the annual Athens’ Polytechnic School rally on 17 November, dozens of pre-emptive arrests were reported on the website of the weekly political newspaper Kontra and activist websites documented many individual complaints. Indymedia Athens, the local collective of the international grassroots and activists network, published two complaints from citizens arrested on the day of the rally. In both cases, individuals were detained before the demonstration and were kept in custody for five hours without being allowed to contact a lawyer.

Mainstream media failed to report the events, while the government officially ignored complaints. Most news on the events came from blogs and free expression activists.

Online censorship

This systematic abuse is also taking place in the online environment. After posting a Facebook page that ridiculed a well-known Greek Orthodox monk, in late September 2012, a 27-year-old man was arrested on charges of‘”malicious blasphemy and religious insult”. Many online activists and commentators reflected that the page, called Elder Pastitsios the Pastafarian (which intentionally combines the name of the monk with a popular Greek food), angered members of Golden Dawn, who called for the man’s arrest under Greece’s anti-blasphemy laws. Free expression advocates responded, with the hashtag #FreeGeronPastitios trending on Twitter, and a petition addressed to parliament calling for the immediate release of the Facebook user was circulated online Vassilis Sotiropoulos, a lawyer and blogger specialising in internet legislation, writes:

“The legislature refuses to address the issue of internet censorship, thereby allowing law enforcers (prosecutors, police officers, judges and lawyers) to freely interpret and utilise the existing legal tools. This phenomenon has sometimes led to misunderstandings, which restrict individual rights of freedom of expression and privacy. Sotiropoulos added that the case of Elder Pastitsios provided perhaps the first example in Greece of an internet company disclosing information to the government in order to identify an individual accused of ‘alleged offences relating to religious satire’.

When considering freedom of speech as a universal human right, it is important to comprehend the social and economic context of our times. Currently, the political and economic elites, in Greece but elsewhere in Europe as well, are repositioning themselves within a capitalist system that is undergoing a continuous transformation.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, William I Robinson, Professor of Sociology and Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, argued that we are currently living through a phase of capitalism where “nation-state constraints” no longer apply. He stated that the “the strength of popular and working class movements around the world, in the wake of the global rebellions of the 1960s and the 1970s”, are now being effectively and successfully undermined.

Historically, during periods when there have been attempts to devalue the working class, there have also been challenges to the fundamental right to voice dissent, which has had a direct impact on efforts to improve living conditions. The current economic crisis, then, fits this model; it can also be used as an effective tool for the far right and those using fascist rhetoric to attack immigrants and workers.

Freedom of speech and protest in Greece must, then, be seen in very specific terms. The right to free expression is being systematically and effectively challenged by formidable political and economic agendas. It is crucial that activists, journalists and those being censored and abused continue to make their voices heard.

Christos Syllas is a freelance journalist in Athens. He tweets from @csyllas

This article appears in Fallout: free speech and the economic crisis. Click here for subscription options and more.

The post Free speech takes a beating in Greece appeared first on Index on Censorship.

This article was originally published on the Guardian’s Comment is free

Journalism is often either invested with magic powers or blamed for all that is wrong in the world. Both positions are wrong. Journalism is the way, lonely most of the times, of truth. Often colleagues discuss journalistic objectivity as a mausoleum where we kneel down. There is no objectivity. What matters is the decency of our subjectivity: how decent, honest and professional we stay in a world where everything is relative. How determined we are to fight against set-ups in this world of overloaded information.

It is often said: “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want to print. Everything else is public relations.” This has to be done with respect for human rights and people’s dignity. Nevertheless it has to be done.

For the past few years, journalism in Greece has had nothing to do with the truth. A corrupted elite rules the country. At its centre lie businessmen who are unaccountable. They act as they please and usually make deals with the government. The politicians then legislate as if they were common mobsters, in order to serve and many times legitimise those businessmen. In the end, the journalists reveal nothing.

There are countless examples. My arrest is one of them. For two years the government stubbornly refused to use the Lagarde list of possible tax dodgers. When I published it, I was arrested by the special branch and led to court. I was acquitted but the district attorney’s office cancelled the court’s decision as it was probably expecting a different one. Around the same time, the Guardian disclosed the fact that the Greek police had tortured individuals. The Greek media did not mention anything. The Greek minister came to sue the newspaper on account of telling the truth.

A few days earlier, Hot Doc, the magazine I publish, had revealed the fact that the director of New Democracy, the political party that is led by the Greek prime minister, had been an affiliate of the Greek junta. The government refused to answer. The Greek media made no reference to this fact. Yet the Greek constitution demands respect to the press.

The Greek Republic has become a crossbred republic. You have the right to vote every four years, but those who govern pass provocative laws, for which the public will hear nothing from the media. The ministers themselves are in a constant state of impunity because of a phenomenal law that grants them immunity.

Media barons work in close partnership with the political system. They define what is legal and what should become known to the public. Recently, Reuters had a very harsh experience after trying to conduct a research on the state of the Greek media. An attack was launched against Reuters to make it appear as if wanted to destroy Greece.

It is often said in Greece that there is no muzzling of the press since Vaxevanis can write whatever he wants. But freedom of the press is not defined by a snapshot of the greater narrative but by the environment in which journalism can operate.

We launched Hot Doc exactly one year ago. Apart from the legal adventures we have faced so far, they’ve also tried to make us appear as journalists of a specific political shade, unreliable and collaborating with the secret services. Five people attacked me in my home and the Greek police made it look like an attempted burglary. They try to intimidate and eliminate any independent voice. Even though Greeks are eating from the garbage bins, the Greek National Council for Radio and Television prohibited TV from showing pictures of poverty.

We live in a European Union of stark contrasts. Europe cannot overlook its culture or its tradition of freedom. I’m proud I was born in a country that gave birth to democracy and civilisation. But democracy is like bicycle: if you don’t move forward, you will fall. Journalism today is not about recording the facts. It ought to be a battle against barbarity and obscurity. On this continent we must rediscover the universal ideas and of course the role of journalism.

On 6 June I will stand trial again for the disclosure of the Lagarde list. I don’t know what the outcome of the trial will be. I want to state that if I am going to be convicted I will not appeal but I will ask to be put in jail. I want to be a journalist in a country that is not afraid of the truth. I care for the truth of the people not that of a caste of corrupted politicians and businessmen. I do not want the people of my country to read foreign newspapers to learn what happened in their own country, as it was happening during the junta. I don’t want myself or any other journalist to in danger, because of what I reveal. I don’t want to be in danger of being presented as a “suspicious” journalist, just for stating self-evident facts, by the very propagandists of the power structure that brought my country on the edge. I want to be able to say what I think without the risk of my physical or psychological damage.

They want a journalism that is muzzled, we want a socially sensitive and truthful journalism.

Read more here about the winners of this year’s Index Awards 2013

The post Why I would go to jail for my journalistic beliefs appeared first on Index on Censorship.

Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, Greek journalist Kostas Vaxevanis, Syrian internet activist Bassel Khartabil and South African photographer Zanele Muholi were honoured at the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards in London this evening.

The ceremony was hosted by Index’s Chair Jonathan Dimbleby who dedicated the evening to, ‘a celebration of freedom of expression – that fundamental human right to write, blog, tweet, speak out, protest and create art and literature and music’.

Index CEO Kirsty Hughes said: ‘This year’s winners have shown incredible bravery and courage in the face of extreme adversity – they are an inspiration to all of us who value free speech.’

In the keynote speech, actor Simon Callow declared that ‘the price of liberty is eternal vigilance – Index on Censorship pays that price’. Fellow actor Juliet Stevenson also addressed the ceremony saying: ‘the right to free speech depends on speaking about that right and arguing for it – that’s what Index does’.

These were the last awards as Index Chair for Jonathan Dimbleby. He introduced incoming Chair, journalist David Aaronovitch, who said about his new role: “The world is changing rapidly and we are, perhaps more than ever, confused about free expression and in danger of surrendering it. That’s why I am honoured to become Chair of Index on Censorship, which challenges threats to free speech, day in day out.”

THE WINNERS
Doughty Street Advocacy award: Malala Yousafzai
In October 2012, a Taliban gunman shot education campaigner Malala Yousafzai in the head and chest for her activism, as she was returning home from school in Pakistan’s Swat district. After months of treatment, she returned to school in Birmingham earlier this week. The schoolgirl’s father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, accepted the award on his daughter’s behalf saying: ‘I want to give a message to the world. I didn’t do anything special. As a father, I did one thing, I gave her the right of freedom of expression. All fathers and mothers, give your daughters and sons freedom of expression. Freedom of expression is a most important right. The solution of any conflict is to say the right thing, to speak the truth.’

Journalism award sponsored by the Guardian: Kostas Vaxevanis
Greek investigative journalist Kostas Vaxevanis was arrested in October 2012, days after he published the “Lagarde List” of wealthy Greeks with Swiss bank accounts in his weekly magazine Hot Doc. He was found not guilty of breaking data privacy laws in November 2012, but the Athens public prosecutor subsequently ordered a retrial. Accepting the award, Kostas said: ‘Journalism has been either invested with magic powers, or has been blamed for everything. Both positions are wrong. Journalism is the way, lonely most of the times, of truth.’
Read Kostas Vaxevanis’s acceptance speech at Comment is Free

Digital freedom award sponsored by Google: Bassel Khartabil
Palestinian-born Syrian software engineer Bassel Khartabil is a champion of web freedom and a computer engineer, who specialises in the development of open source software. Khartabil has been held in prison in Syria for over a year. Accepting the award on his behalf, his friend Dana Trometer said: ‘Bassel is aware of this award and he would like to thank the judges and audience for trusting him with such an honour. He would also like to pay respect to all the victims of the struggle for freedom of speech, and, especially for those non-violent youths who refused to carry arms and deserve all the credit for this award.’
Read Google’s William Echikson on Bassel Khartabil

Index Arts award: Zanele Muholi
South African photographer and LGBT activist Zanele Muholi challenges traditional perceptions of the black female body — and specifically black lesbians — through her work. She has faced considerable opposition in South Africa where lesbians have been the targets of horrendous hate crimes including murders and “corrective rape”. Dedicating the award to two friends who were victims of hate crimes and later succumbed to HIV complications, Muholi said: ‘To all the activists, gender activists, visual activists, queer artists; writers, poets, performers, art activists, organic intellectuals who use all art forms of expressions in South Africa. The war is not over till we reach an end to ‘curative rapes’ and brutal killing of black lesbians, gays and transpersons in South Africa.’
Read more about Zanele Muholi in the Guardian

The post Winners – Index Awards 2013 appeared first on Index on Censorship.

Twenty years ago next month the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a religious decree calling for the murder of a foreign citizen, Salman Rushdie. Rushdie’s crime had been to write a novel. With a few honourable exceptions (President Mitterrand most prominent), western politicians and opinion-formers found it difficult to see what the ensuing fuss was about. Certainly, ran a characteristic equivocation, a threat of violence was unconscionable; but had not Rushdie brought on his fate by needless and provocative offence to the faithful? Had not — in the words of Dr Immanuel Jakobovits, Chief Rabbi in Great Britain — ‘both Mr Rushdie and the Ayatollah … abused freedom of speech’?

No, they had not; of course. Rushdie writes books. The forces of obscurantism, reaction and bigotry sought to silence him, permanently. Yet the cruel and stupid notion that those who mock people’s deeply held spiritual beliefs deserve censure is with us still. It has even found its way into the legal system of western democracies. This week, a Dutch court ordered prosecutors to indict Geert Wilders, leader of the right-wing Freedom Party, on charges of ‘inciting hatred and discrimination, based on comments by him in various media on Muslims and their beliefs’. The court thereby reversed a decision of the public prosecutor’s office last year not to pursue charges against Wilders.

Wilders’s populist and nativist politics are exactly opposed to my own views, and entirely beside the point. In a constitutional state, with liberal political rights and the rule of law, a man is being prosecuted for causing offence by expressing his views. Wilders’s protest that the judgement is ‘an attack of freedom of expression’ is scarcely adequate to the infringement on liberty. These proceedings are a monstrous abuse of power. Wilders must be supported.

To see how mired in confusion — to put it no higher — is the political culture of even this most tolerant of European states, you need only consider that the court ‘considers appropriate criminal prosecution for insulting Muslim worshippers because of comparisons between Islam and Nazism made by Wilders’. So criminal law is being invoked against insults to a system of belief. I have no reason to doubt the offence caused to Muslims by Wilders’s campaigns. Mockery and denunciation of what others hold literally sacred will inevitably cause anguish and outrage. And faced with mental suffering on the part of some of its citizens, a free society must do nothing at all. No one is entitled to restitution for hurt feelings: not now; not ever.

The most — and not the least — that religious believers might be entitled to is human sympathy. They won’t get it from me; they might get it from you; but they must not get it as a matter of public policy, because a state has no business concerning itself with how its citizens feel.

Insisting on the right to offend religious believers may seem an unfeeling and uncaring doctrine. (The non sequitur that many Muslims in western societies are poor is often brought into the discussion at this point.) But the case for liberty has never been that it protects sensibilities. It is rather that by allowing people’s beliefs to be scrutinised, criticised and — yes — insulted, bad ideas are more likely to be superseded by better ones. Allowing ideas to die in place of their adherents is a mark of a civilised society. It is not hyperbole to say that in the defence of the unlikely figure of Geert Wilders lies also the defence of western civilisation.

Oliver Kamm is a leader writer for The Times

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The Guardian Journalism Award

This award recognises journalism of dogged determination and bravery

Ahmet Altan/Taraf (Turkey)

As editor-in-chief of independent daily newspaper Taraf, Ahmet Altan bravely takes on the Turkish establishment by challenging the army’s role in civilian affairs, chiselling at enduring taboos and publishing allegations of military misconduct. Taraf manages to regularly upstage rivals and dominate the news agenda with its commitment to freedom of information and defence of democracy. It was instrumental in uncovering the “sledgehammer” plot to overthrow the Turkish government in 2009, a story that hit international headlines. In 2008, Altan came under pressure to reveal sources and hand over material connected to the paper’s coverage of an attack against a military unit. Despite being charged in 2008 with “denigrating Turkishness” for publishing an article on the Armenian genocide, Altan continues his work, ignoring fears for his own safety and the safety of his colleagues. Taraf stands out in the Turkish media landscape for its fearlessness, independence and editorial integrity.

Al Ayyam (Yemen)

The popular Yemeni daily al Ayyam, based in Aden, is owned and edited by the Bashraheel family, who founded the paper in 1958. The paper provides critical coverage of the political scene combined with stories on social issues such as poverty and homelessness. In May 2009, Yemen’s information minister banned publication of al Ayyam and seven other papers on the grounds that they were “harming national unity” by reporting on deadly clashes between government troops and protesters demanding more resources for the country’s impoverished south. Al Ayyam delivery trucks were twice seized and set on fire by people the paper described as government sympathisers. On 15 July, Anis Ahmed Mansour Hamida, a reporter for al Ayyam, was sentenced to 14 months in jail. Campaigners regarded it as part of a major campaign by the authorities against the paper. “After applying indirect censorship, the authorities have gone to a new level in their harassment of this independent publication,” said Reporters Sans Frontières.

Suzanne Breen (Northern Ireland)

Suzanne Breen is northern editor for Dublin newspaper the Sunday Tribune. In April 2009, police officers arrived at Breen’s home, demanding to see her journalistic materials and threatening her with sanctions under the Terrorism Act 2000. Breen had interviewed a member of the Real IRA, which claimed to be responsible for killing two British soldiers and a former Provisional IRA member who had been revealed to be an agent for British security forces. Breen went to court to fight for her right to protect her sources and herself and on 18 June 2009, the Recorder of Belfast accepted her legal team’s argument that to give up the material would amount to a breach of her right to life under the European Convention on Human Rights. Breen noted: “We are not detectives or agents or informants for the state. We exist to put information into the public domain…It is up to reporters and photographers to fight for press freedom, not to capitulate at the first police phone call, letter, or other approach.”

Radio La Voz (Peru)

Operating in Bagua Grande in the Utcubamba Region of Peru, Radio La Voz was founded in 2007 by respected broadcast journalist Carlos Flores Borja and his sons. The aim of the station is to broadcast cultural programmes and information about environmental protection and human rights, fight political corruption and support local communities. Radio La Voz lost its licence in June 2009 after the government accused the station of ‘supporting violence against security forces’ when deadly clashes shook the area in mid-2009. Thirty-four people were killed as Amazonian communities protested about the opening up of huge tracts of land to foreign investment. To date no government representative has offered any evidence to support the veracity of its allegation against the radio station. Flores Borja says that La Voz was only doing its duty as an independent media source. He claims “the government took advantage of the moment to silence a voice critical of its policies”. On 16 February 2010, the case against Radio La Voz was dropped.

Bindmans Law and Campaigning Award

This award is given to lawyers or campaigners who have fought repression, or have struggled to change political climates and perceptions. Special attention is given to people using or establishing legal precedents to fight injustice

Netsanet Demissie and Daniel Bekele (Ethiopia)

Netsanet Demissie and Daniel Bekele wereimprisoned for two and half years for their efforts to ensure the 2005 Ethiopian elections were monitored legitimately, and for providing information and education about the election process to the electorate. They were convicted in April 2007 – alongside journalists, politicians, and civil society leaders – in a trial internationally regarded as a sham. The pair chose not to sign a letter of apology to the government, which would have secured them an early release; instead they contested the charges in court. After they were released from prison in March 2008 they continued to protest against the government’s moves to make the expression of dissent illegal, despite receiving threats. They are outstanding campaigners for social justice and the eradication of poverty, committed to bringing free speech, free press and free elections to the forefront of debate in Ethiopia.

Rashid Hajili (Azerbaijan)

Rashid Hajili is the chair of the Media Rights Institute in Azerbaijan, which monitors free expression and works for the protection of journalists and bloggers. In a country with an ever-worsening record on press freedom, Hajili is one of a small group of individuals who defends the rights of journalists and advocates for greater access to information. He has defended a number of prominent journalists, including imprisoned editor Eynulla Fatullayev. A leading voice in the campaign for media law reform in the country, Hajili is a prolific writer and tireless campaigner, who has drafted legislation on protection of sources and broadcasting freedom. In December 2009, he worked with the organisation Article 19 on a case in the European Court of Human Rights to decriminalise defamation. “A country where freedom of speech is suppressed cannot have a positive image in the international community”, says Hajili. “Lack of tolerance to criticism means that democratic principles and values do not function in this country.”

Human Rights Centre Memorial (Russia/Chechnya)

Human Rights Centre Memorial is a Russian campaign group that monitors and highlights human rights violations. It brings criminal cases to court, compiling lists of missing people, and investigating kidnappings and disappearances. In July 2009, one of its most respected and courageous activists, former journalist Natalya Estemirova was abducted and brutally murdered. Estemirova worked in the Grozny office of Memorial, she was a tenacious investigator of torture and human rights abuses in Chechnya. In a region where the murders of journalists and human rights defenders often go unpunished, there is little hope of bringing the killers to justice. Following the murder, the organisation suspended its work in Chechnya, but it has since resumed operations despite the extreme dangers of working in the region. The organisation is committed to keeping Chechnya on the international human rights agenda. “Memorial and this group of activists have set the standard for human rights work in Russia”, says Holly Cartner of Human Rights Watch.

Charter 97 (Belarus)

Charter 97 is a campaign movement dedicated to principles of independence, freedom, democracy and respect for human rights. In Belarus its website is the main independent source of information on human rights and free expression activities in the country. The site comes under constant attack by hackers thought to be working for the country’s secret service and Charter 97 are regularly forced to move offices. Along with her team, Head of Press Natallia Radzina works to bring to light the cases of arrest, detention and harassment of critical journalists and human rights activists, despite being arrested on a regular basis. “Only because of such courageous and talented people like Natallia Radzina and the whole team of Charter 97, devoted to truth and morality in journalism, do we Belarusians and the whole world know what is happening in the last dictatorship in Europe”, says Natalia Koliada of the Belarus Free Theatre.

New Media Award supported by Google

This award recognises the use of computer or internet technology to foster debate, argument or dissent. Nominations can also include those who enhance online freedom through the use of new technologies

Emin Abdullayev and Adnan Hajizade (Azerbaijan)

Emin Abdullayev – known as Milli – and Adnan Hajizade are two young Azeri bloggers who were charged with ‘hooliganism’ and sentenced to four years imprisonment in November 2009 after it was alleged they were involved in a fight. Both men had been actively using social media to mobilise opposition against the government, speaking out on a variety of issues, including government corruption, misuse of oil revenues, censorship and education. Several weeks prior to their arrest, the pair posted a video on YouTube mocking the government’s decision to spend a vast amount of money on importing two donkeys from Germany. Locals believe the tongue-in-cheek video angered the regime and was the real reason for their arrest. The Secretary General of the Council of Europe voiced concerns about the sentences and the ‘inevitable chilling effect on freedom of expression in Azerbaijan’. Their convictions were upheld in a March 2010 appeal hearing.

Yoani Sánchez (Cuba)

Writer Yoani Sánchez is best known for her Generation Y blog – a critical portrayal of life in Cuba under its current government. In November 2009, US President Barack Obama applauded her efforts to “empower fellow Cubans to express themselves through the use of technology”, he said her blog “provides the world [with] a unique window into the realities of daily life in Cuba”. In January 2009, Sánchez launched Voces Cubanas. This citizen journalism project seeks to provide a multimedia platform to independent bloggers in Cuba. She explained: “It is a website where all those who want to express ideas, put their projects online, can do so… I have the feeling that the Cuban blogosphere will play an important role in the democratisation of Cuba.” In November, Sánchez and three others were violently detained by men she claims were state agents. The vicious attack prevented them from attending a march against violence.

Twitter (USA)

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables users to send and read messages with a 140-character limit. Twitter was thrust to the fore of international politics during the contested 2009 Iranian elections. During the huge protests that followed, the site played a pivotal role in mobilising protesters and facilitated a direct line of communication between demonstrators, news outlets and engaged people around the world. Maintaining its service in the face of a totalitarian regime, Twitter demonstrated how social networking can have a direct impact on the world stage. It was used as a powerful tool in protecting free expression in the UK when solicitors Carter-Ruck, acting on behalf of Trafigura, the multi-national oil company, tried to prevent the press from publishing details of a parliamentary question about a report into the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast. Within hours ‘#trafigura’ and ‘#carterruck’ were the site’s most popular topics.

Ai Weiwei (China)

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese political activist, artist, curator and architectural designer. Ai, who is the next artist to take on the Tate Modern’s annual Turbine Hall commission, is very politically active. After the Sichuan earthquake of May 2008 he began an investigation into why so many schools had collapsed in the quake. By April 2009, he had published on his blog the names of the all 5,385 school children who died in the disaster. He began to be intimidated by plain-clothes policemen, his family and associates were also targeted. His blog was closed soon after. In August he was assaulted by armed police in Chengdu while attempting to attend the trial of fellow activist Tan Zuoren, who had been detained and accused of ‘undermining the authority of the state’ after calling for an investigation into the collapse of schools in the earthquake.

His installation, Remembering, commemorating the deaths of the Sichuan schoolchildren, opened at the Haus der Kunst gallery in Munich in October. “I call on people to be ‘obsessed citizens’, forever questioning and asking for accountability. That’s the only chance we have today of a healthy and happy life” says Ai Weiwei.

Sage International Publishing Award

This award is given to a publisher who has given new insight into issues or events, or shown a perspective not often acknowledged, or given a platform to new voices

Afghan PEN (Afghanistan)

In 2009, Afghan PEN published seven books, one novel, two short story anthologies and four poetry collections despite extremely limited resources. It publishes books that would not be available otherwise and also arranges literary performances outside the capital in areas still affected by war. The organisation publishes literature and poetry from all ethnic communities in the country, it has more than 1,000 members in four sections – Dari, Pashto, Uzbek and Turkmen – which annually rotate the presidency.

As well as monitoring free expression in Afghanistan; campaigning on individual cases – such as the murder of Afghan journalist Sultan Munadi in Kunduz; – and hosting weekly literary events; Aghan PEN will play a leading role in the 2010 Kabul Book Fair in 2010. They plan to publish more writing by Afghan women writers and, with the support of the Goethe Institute, they will host the annual national literary festival.

Jama Musse Jama (Somaliland)

Dr Jama Musse Jama is a Somaliland activist, author, publisher and founder/organiser of Hargeisa International Book Fair. In 2009, Jama published Weerane (The Mourning Tree), biography of Mohamed Barud Ali, one of a group of political activists known internationally as the Hargeisa Self-Help Group, who were imprisoned under the late dictator Siyad Barre. Jama is editor of www.redsea-online.com, the only forum dedicated to the exchange of views on Somaliland culture and literature in both English and Somali languages. The site also acts as online library and bookstore. Jama wrote and published Somali Writers’ Association 2008 book of the year, Freedom is Not Free, which explains to ordinary citizens the significance of Article 32 of the Somaliland constitution, which “guarantees the fundamental right of freedom of expression and makes unlawful all acts to subjugate the press and the media”. The book is part of a wider campaign in conjunction with Somaliland human rights groups for freedom of expression.

Yael Lerer/Andalus Publishing Press (Israel)

Founded in 2000, Andalus is a unique Israeli publishing house dedicated to the translation of Arabic literature and prose into Hebrew.

Saqi Books (Lebanon/ UK)

Saqi Books was founded in 1984 in London, publishing quality cutting-edge and authoritative voices from North Africa and the Middle East. Together with Dar al Saqi, its publishing house in Beirut, it has made a significant contribution to Arab cultural heritage around the world. Saqi has a reputation for publishing writing that challenges taboos and offers fresh perspectives on politics, current affairs and art. Its fiction and non-fiction lists encompass a diverse range of subjects – honour killings, food and drink in the so-called ‘Axis of Evil’ states, homosexuality in the Arab world and the history of black Britain among them. One of its chief aims is to promote freedom of expression in the Middle East, often in the face of restrictive censorship laws, and though many of its books are banned in the region, it continues to publish controversial and groundbreaking material.

Freemuse Award

This award is given to a musician that highlights issues around censorship and freedom of expression

Iran has a vibrant underground music scene that explodes tired clichés about Iranian society, and Mahsa Vahdat is a fabulous example of this sub-culture. Vahdat continues to resist the pressures placed on female musicians by conservative sectors of Iranian society. In 2009, she recorded an album with American Mighty Sam McClain called Scent of Reunion – Love songs across civilizations. Mahsa was also featured in the powerful film on underground music in Tehran called No One Knows About The Persian Cats. She has shown courage and bold resistance in continuing to follow her artistic ambitions despite obstacles.

For almost three decades Turkish musician Ferhat Tunç has insisted on exercising his right to perform his music, ignoring several court cases and other threats against him in recent years. He has continued to sing in the minority language Zaza (Dimli) and in Kurmanci (Kurdish), as well as in Turkish. He has firmly refused to succumb to any form of intimidation, without expressing any hatred against its perpetrators. Through his brave stand against censorship, Ferhat has actively propagated the strengthening of human rights and democracy in Turkey.
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