In the run-up to the 12 May parliamentary election, former ruling party GERB received the most mentions in Bulgaria’s media, ahead of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), and the Turkish minority movement DPS — mirroring the election results.

Media coverage, however, does not accurately capture the gap between parties. GERB was mentioned 3,642 times in election coverage — 80 per cent more than BSP. In the polls, the difference between the two parties was less than four per cent.

Bulgaria’s media grants over-exposure to those in power, and the industry seems to quickly adapt to a new political situation. While the New Bulgarian Media Group (NBMG) editorial stance was against the GERB in the 2009 elections, it changed its tune almost overnight after the party’s victory.

Given the close ties between the media and political parties in the country, distorted election coverage is not very surprising. For instance, a high-ranking DPS member owns the NBMG, which owns the Telegraph, the highest circulated newspaper in the country.

The tangles between politics and the Bulgarian media has drawn the attention of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). In a report released ahead of the election, the body expressed concerns over the “growing concentration of media ownership in the hands of a restricted circle of business people.” According to the OSCE, this “raised concerns about the independence of media from undue economic and political pressure.”

“Most media find themselves in a passive position and practically shun their most important function — to build an informed public opinion, and through that to support the political choice of the people”, says Orlin Spassov, professor of journalism at the University of Sofia. “The result of this campaign was a deficit of informed choice.”

Bulgaria has measures put in place to distinguish editorial content from political advertisements for broadcast media, but not for the press. The OSCE pointed out that “paid media coverage is often not labelled as such, thus potentially misleading the audience about the nature of the reporting.”

Bulgaria’s murky relationship with the press also creates trouble for journalists, who sometimes feel pressure for their reporting. In April Boris Mitov, a journalist for news site Mediapool.bg was summoned for questioning by prosecutors after writing an article accusing a Sofia deputy city prosecutor of illegal wiretapping. The prosecutors placed pressure on Mitov to reveal his sources, and after he refused to do so, they reportedly told him that he could face up to five years in prison for disclosing state secrets.

More troubling is the culture of self-censorship arising from pressure placed on journalists from business groups. Most common is economic pressure — which trickles down from media outlet owners to editors and reporters. The NBMG group, for instance, is largely financed by the Corporate Commercial Bank (CCB). The CCB has also held a large percentage of state-owned enterprises in the transport, energy, and defence sector — which means that NBMG is practically financed with public funds. This helps explain why the group is often cosying up to those in power.

While infrequent, sometimes journalists face direct threats from businesses. After writing a series of articles critical of a local business group last year, investigative journalist Spas Spassov received Sun Tzu’s book The Art of War in the post. Included was a note quoting a line from the book: “You should avoid those you can’t either defeat or befriend.”

The most recent election results, however, have left an unclear picture of who is in power: since no party has gain

ed a majority in Parliament. Coalition building was undermined by a deeply polarising election — which means that the media will have a difficult time knowing who to pledge allegiance to.

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Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner Photo: Demotix

Argentina has an extraordinary number of newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations. Greater Buenos Aires, the largest urban centre where 13.5 million people live has 18 newspapers, 37 TV channels (five analogue and 32 digital), seven news channels, and 550 AM and FM radio stations. Does this mean that it is a thriving market, with highly educated, enlightened audiences, where the development of the media is directly linked to prosperity?

No. The reason Argentina boasts a huge proliferation of media organisations is strictly political.

Many of the media outlets – indeed most newspapers – could not survive a single month with what they get from selling copies of the newspaper and sales in advertising space. The country’s 141 periodicals and newspapers sell a total daily average of 1.3m copies. Eighty-two per cent of them have tiny circulations of about 10,000 copies. Over 40 per cent sell less than 1,000 copies, according to the Asociación de Entidades Periodísticas Argentinas (ADEPA), the largest association of press companies in Argentina.

How do most of them survive? From state advertising paid by public funds or from surreptitious contributions made by entrepreneurs seeking to impose their political agenda.

In 2011, the government earmarked 1,490m pesos (about US$300m) for public advertising, according to data from the private organisation Asociación Argentina de Presupuesto y Administración Financiera Pública, which analyses public finance and official government data in Argentina.

Being that the state is a vital advertiser, successive governments have attempted to put pressure on the critical press by withdrawing or cutting its publicity disbursements from certain newspapers. It happened, for example, during the administrations of Carlos Menem (1989-1999), with Página/12, and, for the administrations of Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) and Cristina Kirchner (2007-present), with Perfil. In 2012, the owner of Perfil, Jorge Fontevecchia, succeeded in getting the Supreme Court to rule against the government for its discriminatory use of its advertising policies. The Supreme Court ordered the government to restore its advertising in Perfil. It did not conform.

This article appears in the current issue of Index on Censorship, Fallout: The economic crisis and free expression. Subscribe.

It was also Fontevecchia who, in 1998, publicly denounced Grupo Clarín, the largest media conglomerate in Argentina with about 44 per cent of the market, accusing it of cajoling major advertisers to avoid placing ads in his newspaper. He was not the first media entrepreneur to denounce Clarín, which, because of its dominant position in the market, was able to ‘punish’ advertisers that placed ads in other rival papers. In a practice openly criticised by its peers as ‘discriminating’, Clarín has been controlling the commercial ads market for years.

In Argentina, in many cases nobody knows who the owners of media organisations are, what their ownership structure is or even how big – or small – their sales and audience are. Official circulation figures are often pumped up and not to be trusted. This lack of transparency extends to media relationships with any kind of political influence or impact. Entrepreneurs routinely strike secret deals with government officials, including the president of the nation, resulting in financial or economic benefits on one side and favourable coverage on the other. It’s a win-win situation. These agreements, never admitted publicly, bring about self-censorship in newsrooms and are characterised by manipulation, concealment, and outright lies.

In a book published in 2011, I disclosed several of these secret meetings between Grupo Clarín’s CEO, Héctor Magnetto, other media organisations, President Néstor Kirchner and public officials. Both ranking government sources and Clarín executives provided evidence that pointed to a cosy relationship. One such meeting in 2008 between President Kirchner and Grupo Clarín, for example, resulted in the opportunity for the media conglomerate to acquire shares in Telecom, one of the country’s biggest telephone companies. In 2009, the negotiation failed and the group never acquired the shares. Kirchner, in a rare television interview on 24 February 2010, disclosed that he had discussed the deal with Magnetto.

Vortex of bitter battles

Things began to change in 2008, starting a long process that ended in a declaration of war. For the last four years, media organisations and journalists have been in the middle of a virulent public debate rarely seen in this country. It is a conflict that has permeated daily life, creating a national divide. It started when the Kirchners decided to wage war against Grupo Clarín and other newspapers, magazines, TV channels and cable networks, along with many other companies. Since then, media organisations have taken sides: for or against the government. Both sides depict the opponent as the personification of evil. Grupo Clarín, together with other national and international organisations, claims President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is seeking to muzzle the independent press, stifle freedom of expression and put a stop to criticism. The government and its many supporters respond with the argument that it is the corporate media, especially Clarín, who are trying to hurt democracy and plurality.

The polarisation is such that it has become very difficult to find independent observers able to capture nuances and explain the situation in all its complexity. To understand it, you have to examine the recent history of the relationship between the press and those in power.

Until 1983, Argentina suffered several military dictatorships, during which more than 100 journalists were ‘disappeared’ (a euphemism for kidnapped and assassinated) and many magazines and newspapers were expropriated or closed down. Traditional newspapers, some of them centenarian, lived through these dictatorships without difficulties, or by agreeing to partner with military governments, supporting them enthusiastically in some cases – even backing their mass killings and disappearances. Some of those newspapers are still active today.

But it is also a country with a fertile journalistic tradition that has produced brilliant journalists and has become a model for reporting in the Spanish language throughout the world. In the 1990s, for example, we saw the birth of a vigorous investigative journalism wave that held the government and the political power to account. The turning point was the creation of Página/12, a newspaper that exposed rampant corruption in the public sector during the government of President Carlos Menem. It was a golden age for journalism.

All major polls revealed that journalism was regarded as the most prestigious national institution, above the Catholic Church, teachers and, of course, politicians.

This period also saw the beginnings of heavy concentration in media ownership. Powerful multimedia conglomerates were created, Grupo Clarín being the most powerful – economically and politically – of them all. Then came 2001 and an economic, political, social, cultural crisis – the worst in decades. Politicians, but also journalists and the media in general, were casualties of the crisis and lost public credibility. The government fell, Argentina defaulted on its foreign debt; there were riots, high unemployment and a proliferation of alternative currencies.

Néstor Kirchner came to power with little political legitimacy. He had lost in the first round against former president Carlos Menem, who, foreseeing a defeat in the second round, abandoned the race. The country was still in the middle of the great crisis. ‘They must all leave’ was the most popular slogan during 2001 and 2002, hinting at attitudes to foreign intervention.

Political parties were at their lowest levels of popularity since the return of democracy, without credible leaders or solid policies. Kirchner, like other presidents on the continent, decided to renew and revive politics. During both Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Kirchner’s administrations, the economy recovered. As in much of Latin America, the last ten years have been a period of extraordinary economic growth and prosperity for Argentina: during successive years, its GDP grew at a rate of nine percent, poverty fell from 57.5 to 20 percent and unemployment rates fell by 54 percent.

But the press did not recover.

During the presidential transition, before even taking office, Néstor Kirchner denounced the media publicly, stating that journalists were not independent: they had their own political and economic agendas. With this announcement, he drew a line between friends and foes. On one side he placed mainly the Clarín Group, with which he negotiated important agreements in private meetings, and on the other side he placed La Nación, a centenary, conservative daily Kirchner denounced for having supported the last military dictatorship.

But, in 2008, due to a series of political disagreements, the Kirchners split up with Clarín. By then, Cristina was the president. An open war commenced, in which key government officials, including the president and her husband, verbally attacked Clarín – ‘Clarín lies’, they said, calling it a ‘quasi-mafioso power’. The government, which for four years had given preferential treatment to Clarín, stopped talking to its journalists and executives. ‘Since 2008, the government has ordered its officials to cut off any contact with our journalists and to deny them access to public information’, Martín Etchevers, spokesman for Grupo Clarin, told me. The same had been done before to La Nación and this silence from those who traditionally provided official information sunk the paper. Clarín responded by becoming an anti-government newspaper.

The Kirchners also decided to damage Grupo Clarín’s economic interests in order to reduce its political influence and economic power. They withdrew their exclusive, multi-million dollar rights to broadcast football matches on television, initiated court cases to investigate their association with the last military dictatorship and managed to pass a media law that would force Grupo Clarín to get rid of most of its cable television licences, which represented more than 60 per cent of its income, as well as other assets.

Clarín refused to comply with the new media law and appealed to the courts, where a bloody battle continues to rage. Cristina Kirchner (Néstor died in 2010) seems determined to destroy Clarín, even if this is the last thing she does before leaving office in 2015. Clarín, its secret deals out in the open, has lost standing and political power.

The war has affected all media, which is now divided between those who oppose the government (Clarín, but also La Nación and Perfil, among others) and those who support it without question, small and medium newspapers and magazines and some important TV and radio stations controlled by opportunistic entrepreneurs who earn big profits from their association with those in power. Media outlets are either opponents or pro-government, with very little in between.

Today in Argentina, there is no state repression of freedom of speech, there is no censorship of the press. There is no need: the fact that journalists must align themselves on one side of the divide or the other speaks volumes about the country’s media environment.

Graciela Mochkofsky is the author of Timerman. El periodista que quiso ser parte del poder (1923–1999) (Sudamericana, 2003) and Pecado Original: Clarín, los Kirchners y la lucha por el poder (Planeta, 2011). She has investigated the relationship between the press and political powers in Argentina for 15 years.

This article appears in the current issue of Index on Censorship, Fallout: The economic crisis and free expression. Subscribe.

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The firm in question, Saradha Group, had risen to become a financial empire over the past eight years under boss and owner Sudipta Sen. The company has business interests ranging from construction to travel to exports and agriculture. When the “chit fund” scandal came to light — with an estimated loss of $4-6 billion (US) to investors — Sen fled to Jammu and Kashmir, where he was ultimately arrested.

A chit-fund scandal, or “cheat fund” as some sections of the media are calling it, operates like a ponzi scheme. Sen duped many small and middle class investors into giving him their life savings, with promises of great returns. He managed to evade the regulators by using a nexus of companies to launder the money. The money collected was used to recklessly invest in a range of industries — including a mismanaged media empire. The government of West Bengal has had to set up a $2.5 million fund to ensure that the small investors are not bankrupted.

In a letter to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Sen claims to have been misled by a group of individuals who cheated investors by using his name, unbeknownst to him. However, the letter also shows how political patronage is obtained through acquiring media houses.

Saradha Group owns 18 newspapers and TV channels in West Bengal and Assam. These include Bengal Post, Sakalbela, Kalam, Paroma, Azad Hind, Prabhat Varta, Seven Sisters Post – and the TV channels, Tara Musik, Tara Newz, South Asia TV, and Channel 10, all under the umbrella of Saradha Printing and Publishing Pvt Ltd.

As Indian media blog the Hoot reports, “many senior journalists then suspected that media ownership was a matter of business strategy to establish the company’s credentials and also a bid to emerge as the mouthpiece of the major political party and perhaps get benefits in return.”

This view is supported by BBC journalist Sudhir Bhowmik, who says he left a job with the Saradha Group after he was told to “go soft on some leaders.”

It appears that Sen bought and built a media empire, allegedly on the behest of politicians of the ruling Trinamool Congress party, to play the part of a proganda-spinning machine for the government. This is no small feat – the net worth requirement of an applicant seeking to launch a news channel had been raised by the government from approximately $555,500 to $3,703,000, ostensibly to keep away “fly by night” operators away. But since Sen had already raised his financial portfolio, by dubious financial practises as we know now, he was able to take this step to becoming a media baron.

The curious case of the Saradha Group media empire gets murkier as the story unravels. In his letter to the CBI, Sen also claims to have been regularly blackmailed by Kunal Ghosh and Srinjoy Bose — two sitting Trinamool Congress members of the Upper House — into setting up his news channels. He also says he paid Ghosh $28,000 USD a month. Ghosh, now on the back foot, claims that he was simply a “salaried employee” and that he had “no authority to sign cheques.”

Sen’s use of the media empire to build political clout and protection is now being outlined by the national media. Influential members of West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress party have been closely aligned with the media group. But some politicians are now distancing themselves from the group, despite having benefited from positive propaganda from its media outlets.

In India, which now has over 800 private satellite channels, media houses often favour particular political parties, and many are actually directed owned by politicians themselves. Amid growing unease, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has asked all channels to furnish details of their shareholding patterns and equity share. Both the ministry and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) have been looking to ways to ensure pluralism and diversity in the Indian media, and curbing monopolistic growth. They feel tracking ownership patterns might be one way of finding out which groups and individuals are involved in unethical behaviour like corporate and political lobbying, biased analysis and forecast in the political arena and sensationalism of news. The ministry has made it clear that if it finds any media group in violation of its license agreement – including shareholding patterns – it is ready to cancel licenses.

Meanwhile, another unfortunate result of the scandal is that more than 1,400 journalists are out of jobs, while some of Sen’s Channel 10 employees have filed a complaint with the police over non-payment of salaries by Sen and Ghosh.

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EGYPT
How free are Egypt’s new voices?
Two years after the 2011 revolution in Egypt, a growing number of satellite TV channels are expressing a range of views – from liberal to ultra conservative. (BBC)

INDIA
Debate on free speech limits at Mario Miranda Cartoon Festival
After joining The Current in 1952, Mario Miranda drew his first political cartoon poking fun at Bombay’s home minister at the time, Morarji Desai. The cartoon delighted Miranda’s editor, DF Karaka, but annoyed Desai and elicited angry responses from the public. “That experience taught Mario the lesson that in India for an ambitious cartoonist to lampoon some political personage was to invite trouble,” wrote author Manohar Malgonkar in the book “Mario de Miranda”.
(The Times of India)

Resisting the impunity
The agency of journalists to push the envelope and the wider public’s demand for credible, trustworthy news sources are the positive development. On the flip side, there is a real fear of casting away the hard-won freedoms, and, as its extension, a vibrant, common forum for dialogue and debate is under severe strain. The challenges come from multiple sources.
(The Hindu)

Bollywood censorship to be relaxed
India’s all-powerful censor board is planning a lighter approach to Bollywood after decades chopping tens of thousands of film scenes, from onscreen kisses to violent endings.The Himalayan Times)

IRELAND
A crock of gold for libel tourists who bring cases to Emerald Isle
Ah, the good old law of unintended consequences pops up again. Who would have thought that Irish jobs could be affected by the passage at Westminster last week of the Defamation Act?
(Ruth Dudley-Edwards, Irish Independent)

MALAWI
President Joyce Banda waiting for advice on press pact
President Joyce Banda has said she is waiting for expert advice from the Attorney General (AG) and the Minister of Justice on whether to sign the Table Mountain Declaration. The President has come under fire from the press as well as human rights activists over her refusal to sign the accord which proposes abolition of insult laws in Africa.
(The Daily Times)

RUSSIA
A year into Russia crackdown, protesters try again
A year ago, Russia’s political opposition was on the rise and aiming for new heights at a demonstration on the eve of President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration. Instead, authorities cracked down, ending their tolerance toward the thousands of Putin opponents who presented him with the greatest challenge to his rule since he took over the country in 2000.
(Washington Post)

UNITED KINGDOM
Why Britain Refuses To Publish Amanda Knox’s Memoir
We flatter ourselves when we boast of mastery of the ironic style. Unlike literal-minded Germans and Americans, we are not ashamed to live behind masks and speak in riddles. (Nick Cohen, the Observer)

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The country is considered as one of the most dangerous places for media professionals in the world. So far in 2013, three journalists – two in the state of Minas Gerais and one in the state of Ceará – have been killed for publishing or possessing sensitive information about crime organizations.

Old problems like media concentration — among a few huge corporations persists — and the influence of local political leaders over judges and other public agents limit the work of the press.

These issues have contributed to the defeat of innovative initiatives that would have created a public media regulation agency and a law assuring internet users’ rights.

European Union: Is the European Union faltering on media freedom?
Tunisia: Press faces repressive laws, uncertain future
Egypt: Post-revolution media vibrant but partisan

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– Journalist and human rights activist Sihem Bensedrine From the anthology, Fleeting Words, edited by Naziha Rjiba, published in cooperation with PEN Tunisia and Atlas Publications, with the support of Index on Censorship and IFEX.

Photo: fbioche / Demotix

During the next few months, the National Constituent Assembly (NCA) will present its final draft of Tunisia’s new constitution, a document that has seen many changes of emphasis since the NCA was founded in November 2011. A second draft in December 2012 offered new guarantees for free speech rights and barred prior censorship. Yet the ill-defined and repressive legal framework created by former President Zein el-Abidine Ben Ali to silence dissident voices is still in place, and free speech advocates remain concerned over Islamist vows to criminalise blasphemy.

Although Ben Ali’s autocratic rule ended almost two years ago, his legacy remains on the books. Ben Ali-era laws represent a serious threat to free speech. The public prosecutor’s office used Article 121 (3) of the Tunisian Penal Code to charge Nessma TV boss Nabil Karoui for broadcasting the animated film Persepolis and newspaper director Nasreddine Ben Saida, the publisher of the Arabic-language daily Attounissia, for publishing a photo of German-Tunisian football player Sami Khedira embracing a naked model.

The article prohibits the distribution of publications “liable to cause harm to the public order or public morals”. Supporters of free expression in Tunisia will have to wait until a third and final draft of the constitution, due in Spring 2013, to see if the NCA can find the will to amend or abolish this article and other anti-free speech laws, journalists, bloggers and artists risk facing more “public disorder” and “morality” charges.

The revolution raised urgent need to fundamentally reform the media sector in Tunisia and accordingly the interim government prepared new, progressive, if imperfect, media legislation in 2011 to replace the restrictive laws inherited from the Ben Ali regime. However the proposed legal guarantees were stonewalled by the government of Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, Ennahda’s Secretary General.

Decree-law 116 requires the creation of an independent high authority to regulate broadcast media. But this decree has been resisted by the interim government which instead has continued to make its own political appointments to senior media management posts.
To date the government has declined to implement the decree, or a parallel decree-law, 115-2011, on the print media. Months after the ousting of Ben Ali, distrust remains deep in the media sector, while resistance to reform prevails.

“The failure to abide by decrees passed under the former transitional government and run by the official gazette thus far is alarming,” said Kamel Labidi, a veteran journalist and human rights defender, who led the National Authority to Reform Information and Communication (INRIC), an independent body tasked with reforming the media sector after the revolution.

“It is shocking to see the government inclined to yield to pressure groups which were close to the country’s fugitive dictator and unwilling to conform to international standards for media broadcasting regulation.”

Attacks on the media and the rise of ‘Sacred Values’

Over 2012, street attacks on free speech in the name of religion increased dramatically, a trend that can only increase, given the apparent indifference of police and level of impunity enjoyed by the attackers. Tunisia’s current government routinely expresses condemnation of violence and its commitment to free speech. Yet the seriousness of that commitment is constantly questioned as officials turn a blind eye to the perpetrators and blame the victims.

Police brutality against journalists did not take long to resume after the fall of the regime either. As early as May 2011, journalists, bloggers and photographers were targeted while covering demonstrations and this pattern of abuse by law enforcement has continued to this date. On 24 March, Al-Jazeera journalist Lotfi Hajji was attacked while reporting from a meeting organised by supporters of the former Interim Prime Minister Béji Caid Essebsi.

Many observers saw the April 2012 statement by Ennahda leader Ghannouchi raising the possibility of “taking radical measures in the news media domain including, possibly, privatising the public media,” as giving tacit sympathy to the violent anti-media protests.

When Islamist ‘salafist’ extremists attacked the Tunis Printemps des Arts (Spring of Arts), a modern contemporary art fair in June, Tunisian Minister of Culture, Mehdi Mabrouk, was quicker to condemn the targeted artists before the attackers and vowed to take legal action against the fair’s organisers.

Previously three Islamists accompanied by a bailiff and a lawyer had toured the Palais El-Abdellia gallery and demanded that two artworks they deemed “un-Islamic” be taken down. It was the last day of the ten day event, but after the gallery closed the salafists came back in larger numbers, broke in and destroyed a number of artworks.

Two exhibitors were charged: Nadia Jelassi for her sculpture depicting a veiled woman surrounded by a pile of rocks and Ben Slama over a work showing a line of ants streaming out of a child’s schoolbag to spell ‘Allah’. Prosecutors used Article 121.3 of the Tunisian penal code which makes it an offence to ‘distribute, offer for sale, publicly display, or possess, with the intent to distribute, sell, display for the purpose of propaganda, tracts, bulletins, and fliers, whether of foreign origin or not, that are liable to cause harm to the public order or public morals’.

Bloggers Ghazi Ben Mohamed Beji and Jaber Ben Abdallah Majri were also jailed under Article 121.3 for publishing online satirical writings about Islam. Majri was detained and tried, while Beji, who fled to Europe, was convicted in absentia. During an appeals hearing on 25 June 2012, the court upheld Majri’s prison sentence, while Beji’s case was not heard on appeal.

The attacks echoed violence in the preceding year, when protesters forced their way into the Afrikart Cinema in downtown Tunis in June 2011 to protest its screening of a documentary entitled Laïcité Inshallah (“Secularism, if God wills”). And in April 2011, an unknown assailant hit film director Nouri Bouzid with a metal bar, shortly after he told a Tunisian radio station that he supported a secular constitution for Tunisia and that his next film would defend civil liberties and criticised religious fundamentalism.

Other attacks carried out by Salafists have targeted artists, including a theatre group performing on Habib Bourguiba Avenue in Tunis in March and academics, notably from Manouba University in north-eastern Tunisia, and journalists as well as media personnel and institutions. The targets included Nessma TV after the showing of Persepolis, for which station boss Karoui was later arrested, tried and fined. Karoui’s home was also firebombed. The film had earlier appeared in Tunisian cinemas with few complaints but when broadcast in October it was dubbed into a Tunisian Arabic dialect, which enraged the Salafists.

The increasing violence surrounding artistic and cultural expression deemed ‘blasphemous’ came as the ruling Islamist Ennahda Movement, which controls 40 per cent of the NCA’s seats, vowed to “legally protect the sacred” and filed a blasphemy bill. Though Ennahda later agreed in principle to drop an anti-blasphemy clause from the draft constitution after negotiations with the other two parties in the ruling coalition, the Congress for the Republic and the Democratic Forum for Work and Liberties, it is by not likely that Islamists will give up their efforts to seek legal authority to criminally ‘punish’ the blasphemous.

The discussion surrounding the proposed amendment of Tunisia’s Penal Code to criminalise violations of sacred values, would impose broad restrictions on freedom of expression far beyond that permitted under international conventions in particular by seeking to protect “sacred values” and “symbols” that do not enjoy their protection.

The draft was vague, according to an Article 19 study, leaving the law, if adopted, open to overly broad interpretation and possible abuse. “What are sacred values?” asked the organisation. “Who determines them and how? What constitutes a violation?” The proposed law also ran counter to the view of UN human rights bodies that laws criminalising defamation of religions and protection of symbols and beliefs contradict rights to freedom of expression. The UN also concluded such laws can be counter-productive in that they are prone to abuse, sometimes at the expense of the religious minorities that they purport to protect.

State attempts to influence the media condemned

Meanwhile, the government continued to appoint the directors of major public media unilaterally, without consulting media professionals, and in the absence of transparent employment processes. The appointments brought the objectivity of the process and the appointees’ own merit and competence into question.

Amidst strong protest, the government had made its own choice of staff to lead the national news agency TAP, Tunisian TV and the country’s leading press house, Société nouvelle d’impression, de presse et d’édition (SNIPE) on 7 January 2012. Though most of these appointments were later revoked after protests organised by the National Union for Tunisian Journalists (SNJT), the trick was repeated in July and August with the appointment of new directors of public radio and a new CEO of Tunisian Television.

On August 21, the government fired Samari Kamel, a well-known human rights activist, as director-general of the influential newspaper group Dar Assabah. He was replaced by Lotfi Touati, a former regime-era police commissioner and government sympathiser. In 2009, Touati was identified as the prime architect of a Ben Ali regime inspired takeover of the leadership of the country’s National Union of Journalists. The Dar Assabah media group is the oldest media house in the country, established in 1951, and Touati’s appointment stirred much controversy.

The SNTJ denounced the government’s move. And Labidi said the government had made the appointments, not based on any media experience or criteria, but because of their alignment with the ruling Ennahda party.

Days after his appointment, Touati withdrew an article due to be published one of the group’s dailies that was critical of his approach. He also fired one of the three top editors at the Arabic-language daily Assabah and published a short list of people authorised to write editorials, the reports said. The chairman of the board of Dar Assabah, Mustapha Ben Letaief and another board member, Fethi Sellaouti both resigned in protest and on September 11, Dar Assabah staff went on strike to protest his appointment.

Touati continued to draw controversy. On September 13 his speeding car injured one of his own reporters, Khalil Hannachi, as he waited outside the group offices to interview him. The journalist lost consciousness and was taken to a local hospital with head and ear injuries.

In general the state of both printing and distribution of independent newspapers is still highly problematic. While many new titles emerged when restrictions were lifted in 2011, few were sustainable, as no proactive policy promoting the emergence of a professional, free, independent and pluralistic press was put in place.

Newspapers also have been facing turmoil and hardships, with individuals close to the old regime still active in the industry. “Rather than transform the public media into free, independent and professional institutions after it had served for years as merely a tool in the hands of the Ben Ali regime, the government’s appointments have honoured Ben Ali’s men in the media sector by awarding them key posts in the public service media,” journalist Fahem Boukadous of the Tunisian Centre for Freedom of the Press (CTPJ) told mission members.

“Many have perceived these appointments as the authority’s attempt to instate individuals it can control in its effort to domesticate the media.” Also the allocation of institutional and public service advertising between media still lacks transparency despite the winding down of the Tunisian External Communication Agency (ATCE), which had used its power of advertising budget patronage to bring the Tunisian media to heel during the Ben Ali era.
Reforming the regulation of Tunisian media

Observers both inside and outside Tunisia have concluded that proposals for the regulation of the country’s media do not meet international standards. Draft clauses in the original text of the new constitution called for the establishment of an “independent media regulatory body,” but chosen by the National Constituent Assembly (ANC).

This raised fears that the government’s past bad practice in appointing staff and pressurising the media would simply be enshrined by the new body. All regulatory powers over the media, including the governing bodies of public media, must have guaranteed independence.

In frustration at the practices of government Labidi and his fellow members of INRIC decided to end its activities on 4 July, having waited in vain for a response from the government since 30 April, when it released its final report and recommendations. A commission of human rights experts on the independent Committee for the Achievement of the Revolution, Political Reform and Democratic Transition (HIROR) followed suit on 24 August.

Another reason for Labidi’s resignation was a draft amendment proposed by a minor political party to the Decree 115-2011, designed to act as a new press code. The code, which is supposed to ensure freedom of press, has been approved by parliament but not yet implemented. The proposed amendments would introduce jail time for insulting sacred icons and public figures, among other restrictions.

Meanwhile, the Internet remains partly free in practice but the repressive legal framework governing web usage under Ben Ali remains. In May the Minister for Human Rights and Transitional Justice Samir Dilou told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that “the Internet was a partner in the revolution so the government would not punish it.” The reality has been a little less straightforward.

The Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI), the web censor under Ben Ali, was ordered by a military tribunal in 2011 to filter five Facebook pages criticising the army. In early 2012, despite the objections of the new ATI leadership, there were calls for a blanket ban on access to pornographic websites, eventually overruled by Tunisia’s highest court.

The existing 1997 Telecommunications Decree and ‘Internet regulations’, make Internet Service Providers (ISPs) liable for third-party content without exceptions – in breach of international conventions. They also require ISPs to monitor and take down content considered contrary to public order and ‘good morals’.

ISPs were still required to submit a list of subscribers on a monthly basis and ban use of encryption tools without prior state approval. The proposed press code – with its powers to bring criminal defamation charges and overly broad penalties for ‘hate speech’ – can be applied to online publishers as well. However, as the cases of bloggers Ghazi Ben Mohamed Beji and Jaber Ben Abdallah Majri illustrated, ordinary public order law from the Ben Ali era can suffice to silence critical opinion.

Under the former regime, ATI used to use online censorship, but in an interview with ATI CEO Moez Chakchouk, he said the technology, installed in 2006, had not been extended or updated since 2011 and had been essentially abandoned in the face of a 50% increase in online traffic in Tunisia during that year.

“If the state wants to draw red lines for net freedom, it should first establish an independent authority to regulate the internet. Internet legislation should not be drafted without a regulation authority that creates balance, between public and individual interests. The state has the right to protect and eliminate defamation, but citizens have the right to freely express themselves. So we need balance, and if the government cannot create such balance, a conflict of interests will occur.”

Constitutional reform

The Tunisian National Constituent Assembly (NCA) is currently preparing a third version of the draft constitution, expected in the spring of 2013. The current version, published at the end of 2012 carries several articles that threaten human rights in general, raise questions about the Tunisia’s commitment to international conventions long ratified by the country and lack of sufficient guarantees for the independence of the judiciary. It also carries some improvements, such as the removal of articles that threatened freedom of expression by criminalizing “normalization” with Israel and clearer language to preserve equal rights for women in Tunisia.

The draft lacks – and would significantly benefit from – a defined section to serve as a Bill of Rights, and placed at the heart of the new Constitution. The constitution must provide a clear right for people to hold opinions and that right should not be subject to any restrictions.

The bill should define freedom of expression broadly and including the historic international right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas, while ensuring that this guarantee covers all types of expression and all modes of communication. The only legitimate restrictions on free expression must be determined by law and are necessary only when respecting the rights or reputations of others and for the protection of national security, public order or public health.

The constitution also should provide a legal mechanism to ensure that there is a right to freedom of information and there must be clear guarantees for freedom of religion for all people.

The constitution draft also fails to address the worst abuses of the Ben Ali regime in its relations with the judiciary. The guarantees for the independence of the judiciary are too limited; there is lack of clarity over the right for judges’ security of tenure and too much government authority over the definition of the conditions under which a judge can be dismissed.

An independent judiciary is key to institutionalising free expression in Tunisia and preventing people from being harassed or jailed for exercising their right to free expression,” said Riadh Guerfali, a co-founder of the participatory website Nawaat, a partner of Index on Censorship. “Ending impunity for those who attack free expression is critical as well.”

Some observers have raised questions about Article 15, which suggest that international conventions that Tunisia has ratified are only compulsory if they do not “contravene the constitution” in an unspecified way.

Under the Vienna Convention, when an international treaty had been ratified or approved it will become binding in domestic law. But the language as it stands may tempt judges and legislators to disregard these treaties on the pretext that they contradict the new constitution, Human Rights Watch said.

The importance of an independent judiciary was underlined by Guerfali, himself a lawyer. “Beyond formal guarantees of the right to freedom of expression and information in the Constitution and international instruments, what is key in today’s democracies is the case law.

“Indeed, in front of notions as vague as public morals, national security and public order, precedents established over decades have enabled the protection of fundamental rights. Yet, in Tunisia, such positive case law is lacking. There is no doubt that legal instruments should be set to prevent vague notions to undermine otherwise protected fundamental rights, including that to freedom of expression.”

– Reported by Rohan Jayasekera, Ghias Aljundi and Yousef Ahmed

World Press Freedom Day

European Union: Is the European Union faltering on media freedom?
Egypt: Post-revolution media vibrant but partisan
Brazil: Press confronts old foes and new violence

The post Tunisia’s press faces repressive laws, uncertain future appeared first on Index on Censorship.

Egypt’s post-revolution mediascape is vibrant but partisan and fraught with uncertainty. Photo: Shutterstock

With Egypt divided into two camps: liberal and Islamist, the media is also split, aligning itself with one side or the other. Most private TV channels and publications have taken an anti-government stance, routinely vilifying President Mohamed Morsi and his ruling Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile, as calls grow on the streets for a return to military rule, the private media has reverted back to glorifying the military, portraying the armed forces as the “guardians of the revolution.”

Continuing a longstanding tradition of idolizing those in power., the media have put the military — perceived as being more powerful than the Islamist Morsi — above criticism. One striking example is when presenter Iman Ezzeldine on a recent live show on the independent ONTV channel, accused Morsi of paying the Guardian to publish excerpts from a leaked report on military abuses during and after the 2011 uprising. She claimed that Morsi was trying to “tarnish the image of our noble armed forces”.

On the other hand, the Islamist media has sided with the president, singing his praises and persistently defaming the liberal opposition. Meanwhile, state-controlled media especially State TV –long a propaganda tool for the Mubarak regime—continues to be used by the government as an instrument of political manipulation , dashing hopes for a major breakthrough in media freedom in post-Mubarak Egypt . Many of the journalists working for state-run newspapers or TV channels have fallen back into the old habit of self censorship.

Despite airing diverse views, the state broadcaster has adopted the familiar state line that “the opposition activists are foreign-backed troublemakers” and has repeatedly warned that “the anti regime protests would harm the economy”. Editors and presenters meanwhile continue to complain of interference by senior management in editorial content. Despite the backsliding, a handful of presenters are resisting manipulation and have taken a stand against censorship. Anchor Hala Fahmy was taken off the air after she appeared on her show carrying a white shroud symbolizing what she described as “the demise of free expression.” Bothaina Kamel, another prominent anchor has faced interrogation after asking viewers to “stay tuned for the Muslim Brotherhood news bulletin”.

State TV employees have meanwhile staged a series of protests outside the State TV building in Maspiro calling for a purge of the media and demanding that the Islamist Minister of Information step down. Among the demands of opposition activists who led the calls for reform during the 2011 uprising was “an end to state control of the media”. Critics argue that the appointment of a Minister of Information can only mean a return to censorship and government propaganda.

A wave of criminal investigations of journalists critical of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in recent months has raised concern over a return to Mubarak-era policies to silence voices of dissent. After a public outcry over the interrogation of popular TV satirist Bassem Youssef by the public prosecutor on charges of insulting religion and the president, Morsi has sought to allay fears of a government crackdown on the media, promising that no further charges will be pressed by the presidency against critical journalists.

While there’s still cautious optimism on the possibility of a free and open media in the “new” Egypt, social media has undergone a revolution of its own, giving bloggers and activists an alternative platform to share information among themselves and with the world and to openly debate the way forward for their country. While the lively debate on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter has allowed Egypt’s internet activists to steadily deepen their imprint on Egyptian society and politics, the impact of the online revolution has been limited, falling well short of the aspirations of the Tahrir opposition activists for serious reform of the media. In a country where the illiteracy rate is more than 40 percent, there needs to be a revolution in state controlled media — especially television — for the effects to be far reaching.

European Union: Is the European Union faltering on media freedom?
Tunisia: Press faces repressive laws, uncertain future
Brazil: Press confronts old foes and new violence

The post Egypt’s post-revolution media vibrant but partisan appeared first on Index on Censorship.

Across too many EU member states, press freedom is weak, faltering or in decline with little comment and less action from the EU’s leaders or the European Commission. And in neighbouring member states, including applicant countries like Turkey, the EU is failing to tackle substantive attacks on the media.

In Hungary, the independence from political interference of the country’s central bank, judicial system, media regulation and more has been called into question as its government drew up a new constitution and regulatory approaches. This is now so bad that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (Europe’s human rights watchdog – quite separate from the EU) is proposing putting Hungary on its monitoring list. If it does, Hungary will joning Bulgaria as the two EU member states on this list of shame. Yet where are the EU’s leaders? More concerned on the whole with whether Hungary’s central bank is genuinely independent than whether a core element of political and economic accountability, a free media, is under attack.

A similar picture can be seen in Greece. As the ferocity of the economic crisis, and the measures imposed by the EU’s Troika, tear at the fabric of Greek society, media freedom is deteriorating – from a position that was already weak by EU standards. Journalist Kostas Vaxevanis, winner of this year’s Index Press Freedom Award, was prosecuted in 2012 for publishing the so-called Lagarde list of Greeks who have Swiss bank accounts, and may be evading tax as a result. Having won his case, Greek prosecutors rapidly announced a retrial, due this June – which if he loses will see Vaxevanis jailed. This case is ignored in Brussels. When Index and its international partners wrote to Commission president Barroso, he delegated the reply to a junior official who wrote in a letter to Index this January that the case had been positively resolved but the Commission would keep a careful watching brief. This dismissive ignorance would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious.

Meanwhile, across the EU’s border, Turkey’s government is attacking media freedom with ever more brazen impunity, something Index recognised by putting Turkey’s imprisoned journalists on its press freedom Award shortlist this year.Turkey now stands ahead of China and Iran in the number of journalists it has jailed, while other journalists week by week lose their columns, their jobs, are censored by editors or owners or have learnt to self-censor. The EU is in – slow and lengthy – membership negotiations with Turkey. Any such candidate state is meant to meet basic standards of democracy including a free and fair press before talks start. So where is the EU and why has it not suspended talks until Turkey stops attacking the cornerstone of its democracy – the media?

Going North to the UK, there is chaotic disarray as British politicians attempt to establish a new system of press regulation in response to the phone-hacking scandal. The cross-party consensus on the proposed new regulator oversteps a crucial press freedom red line, with MPs voting on detailed characteristics of a new regulatory system. The bulk of the press has rejected this new approach – one that would impose exemplary damages for those not joining its ‘voluntary’ regulator – something the European Court of Human Rights will doubtless be called to judge on if the new regulator goes ahead. The Telegraph, Daily Mail, News International and others have proposed a different form of ‘independent’ regulator – one that gives them a veto on core appointments, an industry own-goal where genuine backing for a truly independent regulator would have given them the moral highground. It’s a shambolic mess – parliament showing itself careless on press freedom, and the UK apparently incapable of designing a tough, new regulator that is genuinely independent both of politicians and the press.

Where is the EU in all this? Mostly still ever-focused on the euro crisis. Senior EU leaders are starting to worry about the vertiginous loss of political trust in the EU across most member states, but showing little concern for a key element of European political systems, a free press. European Commission Vice-President Nellie Kroes did establish a High Level Group on Media Freedom and Pluralism. But while its report had some welcome recommendations, the Group, rather anachronistically failed to begin to address and embrace the freedoms of the digital age where we are potentially all reporters and publishers.

On this World Press Freedom Day, it is time that the EU remembers its roots in democracy and freedom of expression and starts to hold its members – and candidate countries – seriously to account wherever press freedom is under attack.

Tunisia: Press faces repressive laws, uncertain future
Egypt: Post-revolution media vibrant but partisan
Brazil: Press confronts old foes and new violence

Photos: Shutterstock

The post World Press Freedom Day: Is the European Union faltering on media freedom? appeared first on Index on Censorship.

The independent journalists covered an annual street action of the Belarusian opposition, The Chernobyl Way, that commemorates the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.

The journalists were detained by plain-clothed police officers on Friday evening on their way to editorial office. The police claimed the journalists “behaved in a suspicious way” and allegedly forcibly resisted detention. Barbarych and Yarashevich spent the weekend in a detention centre and stood an administrative trial on Monday. Judge Kiryl Paluleh sentenced them to three days of arrest each for “unlawful resistance to legitimate claims of police officers”, despite the fact accusations against the reporters were only based on contradictory evidence from the police.

The journalists denied the charges, saying the plain-clothed officers failed to present valid police IDs and they did not resist their detention.

Both reporters were released on Monday evening.

“I think the reason for our detention were pictures we made. Our cameras were confiscated, and given back to us with all the photos deleted,” Henadz Barbarych told Radio Liberty.

Detentions and physical violence of the police against journalists during street rallies have become quite common in Belarus.

Several civil activists were also detained on 26 April. Short-term detentions were aimed at preventing activists of a Belarusian ecological and anti-nuclear movement from participating in the rally. Three more activists were detained after The Chernobyl Way; one of them, Ihar Truhanovich, was  beaten by the police. Iryna Arahouskaya and Aksana Rudovich, journalists of the Nasha Niva newspaper, who were filming the beating of Truhanovich, were also detained for about an hour, but later released.

“The authorities of Belarus keep demonstrating its brutality. They act with impunity for citizens of Belarus to keep living in fear. Such illogical and unnecessary violence serves as a signal to the society that even if the government sanctions events, they don’t endorse them, and people should be afraid to participate in any oppositional street actions,” says Uladzimir Matskevich, the Chair of the Coordination Committee of the Belarus National Civil Society Platform.

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After the story was published on 8 April, the newspaper was immediately the hit with a cyber attack, according to El Periodico’s publisher, José Rubén Zamora. The website went dead and nobody could read the story for a few days. Readers who did manage to access the website had their computers infected with a virus. The attack was the latest salvo against the daily, which focuses on exposing government corruption. Zamora said it was the sixth attack against its website in the last year. He said each attack had occurred after the newspaper published investigations into corruption in Molina’s government. Zamora said that they have been investigating the attacks — which have been coming from a neighbourhood in Guatemala City. “We will pinpoint the exact area soon”, he said. The Inter American Press Association wrote a letter to Guatemala’s government expressing their concern over the attacks.

According to Zamora, officials have pulled government advertising from the newspaper, and constantly harass independent advertisers who work with the daily. In the last two decades, Zamora has been at the helm of two newspapers. His first paper was Siglo Veintuno, which he left after disagreeing with his co-owners over the paper’s robust coverage of corruption and government abuses. He has been target of kidnappings and death threats, and even had his home invaded by armed men in 2003, who held his wife and three sons hostage for several hours at gunpoint. Zamora won the Committee to Protect Journalists Freedom of the Press award in 1995, and in 2000 was named World Press Freedom Hero by the International Press Institute.

I asked Zamora why he continues to put his life in danger with government exposés:

Ana Arana: You knew the danger with this story, why did you want to publish it?

José Rubén Zamora: It is indispensable to stop the corruption and self-enrichment by the Guatemalan political class. They forget that our country is overwhelmed by misery, malnourished children, and racism. Guatemala is a country without counterweights or institutional balances to protect it from abuses. That is why to write about these stories is our obligation. If we did not focus on these issues, why should we exist?

Our stories are written so Guatemalans get strong and do not accept abuses of those in power. We also do it to get information on corrupt practices and human rights violations in Guatemala out in the international community.

AA: What is the real problem in Guatemala?

JRZ: I think there is an excessive concentration of power and money, and a serious penetration of organised crime, especially drug trafficking organisations, in  spheres of power.

AA: Do you fear any further attacks against the newspaper?

JRZ: Yes, I expect them to harass us through taxes, and to engage in defamation campaigns to discredit the newspaper. Sources close to the Presidency have said that the government is trying to organised a commercial boycott that could take the newspaper towards bankruptcy.

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