15 Mar 2010 | Comment, News
Opposition voices targeted to silence them before parliamentary elections says Index’s Rohan Jayasekera
The word McCarthyite is all too easily tossed about these days, but it’s hard not to apply it to what’s happening in Sri Lanka, as President Mahinda Rajapaksa prepares to follow his snap re-election with a blitz parliamentary vote and a ruthless crackdown on political critics and independent media ahead of it.
Rajapakse’s January re-election and last year’s military victories over separatist Tamil Tiger insurgents have not slowed his habit of publicly denouncing his critics without evidence; fully aware that his words put his targets at risk from gangs of armed supporters.
“This is clearly a politically motivated practice of making accusation of disloyalty or treason without proper regard for evidence,”says journalist and rights activist Uvindu Kurukulasuriya. Brad Adams, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch describes it as “a carefully coordinated witch hunt… extremely dangerous and irresponsible in a country where journalists and activists have often been threatened and killed.”
With less than a month to go before parliamentary elections, Kurukulasuriya tells Index that the main aim is simple censorship. “It is a psychology of fear through abductions, killings and other form of pressure that is brought in,” he says. “It’s not so much about what is written, but what you should not write. For instance, we are asked not to refer to this and that, or to the President, or to the Secretary of Defence. Media in Sri Lanka certainly (suffer from) a certain censorship, but this is beyond the norm.”
Since the January 2010 presidential election, the government has engaged in a campaign to silence and discredit journalists and non-governmental organizations, a trend that reached a peak with the publication on March 3 of an apparently leaked government surveillance list of more than 30 journalists and activists.
Two of the names high up the list, Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) Executive Director Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu and J.C. Weliamuna, Executive Director of Transparency International, Sri Lanka (TISL) warned there are reasonable grounds for fear about the physical liberty and safety of those named.
“There has been no justice or punishment served by recourse to the criminal justice system in the numerous cases of killings, enforced disappearances and abductions,” they wrote to Rajapakse this week, “and the entrenched culture of impunity, arbitrariness and the ineffectiveness of law enforcement have only encouraged further abuses.”
“There is a fundamental misconception that opposition to specific actions and policies by the government is equal to support for the opposition,” said Saravanamuttu and Weliamuna. “It is not only a fundamental democratic principle but also part of the fundamental rights declared and protected by the constitution that Sri Lankans are entitled to the freedoms of thought, conscience, opinion, expression, association and occupation.”
“This smacks of retaliation for reporting on violations during the presidential election,” says Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific director. “Despite the elections and the end of the war against the Tamil Tigers, the government seems to have a hard time getting rid of the habit of repression.”
Both the CPA and TISL played a key role in monitoring the January presidential election, reporting on electoral violations and the government’s misuse of state resources to campaign in favor of incumbent Rajapaksa.
Dozens of journalists and activists have fled the country and am atmosphere of impunity and intimidation that has worsened since January. Journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda of Lanka eNews disappeared on January 24 and remains missing, despite calls for a serious investigation. On March 9, the parliament voted to extend emergency regulations, widely used to target activists, until after April’s elections.
“In the run up to the legislative elections slated for April, the Sri Lankan government is clearly trying to divert criticism from itself after the egregious violations perpetrated against the press and other opposition candidates during the recent presidential election,” said Jennifer Windsor, executive director of US based free speech group Freedom House this week. “This is yet another example of the government acting with impunity and trying to discredit voices of dissent.”
15 Mar 2010 | Uncategorized
Last Tuesday was exactly five years since the threats hanging over the head of Azerbaijan’s popular investigative journalist Elmar Huseynov were finally carried out. The 38-year-old Huseynov, founder and chief editor of the weekly journal Monitor, was shot seven times with a silenced pistol in the stairwell of his apartment in capital Baku.
Enquiries into the death of the famous journalist have been condemned as vague and half-hearted — with neither the hit man nor those behind the killing ever brought to trial. The investigation remains unproductive five years after the tragedy, so few Azerbaijanis believe the case will ever be solved. Huseynov’s colleagues and human rights watchdogs say the death was politically motivated and had been contracted to silence his work. The assassination was a decisive slap in the face to an already curtailed media.
Huseynov was the most prominent and outspoken among the few Azerbaijani journalists who dared to write investigative articles. He revealed embedded corruption, lawlessness and power abuse, often involving high-ranking members of the government and close associates of the president.
Monitor stood out from much of the mainstream Azerbaijan media, which continues to remain under total state control. Husneyov also founded the Bakinskiy Bulvar and Bakinskie Vedomosty newspapers, which were known for critical reporting and hard-hitting commentary. Few journalists in the Caucuses are willing to cover politically sensitive topics but Huseynov produced numerous investigative articles at great personal risk, receiving death threats and heavy fines.
The Azerbaijani authorities constantly harassed Huseynov. He faced scores of politicised lawsuits — that could result in imprisonment and / or hefty libel fines — dozens of threats and bribes, all aimed at stopping his work. On many occasions, the authorities attempted to close down businesses that printed Monitor and confiscated copies of the journal from newsstands. The government repeatedly charged him with defaming the Azerbaijani population, insulting the honour and dignity of government officials, and spreading libellous information.
But this intimidations and harassments did not discourage Huseynov. In one of his interviews, he likened his way of journalism to “guerrilla fighting”. He never shied away from personal risks. He was courageous and tough on the government’s record on human rights abuses.
The assassination of Elmar Huseynov on 2 March 2005 led to international demands for an honest investigation to bring the killers to justice. Then Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Terry Davis, said, “I am shocked by the brutal murder of Elmar Huseynov, which has all the hallmarks of a contract killing and I condemn it in strongest terms”.
The Azerbaijani authorities were quick to deny that the government was connected to this vicious crime. President Ilham Aliyev called the murder a “black spot” on the country’s international image. He assured the family, colleagues and public at large that justice would be done. The death was designated as “terror act” and the investigation mandate was later transferred from the Office of Prosecutor General to the Ministry of the National Security (MNS). Although two ethnic Azerbaijani citizens of Georgia — Tahir Khubanov and Teymuraz Aliyev — were declared to be the prime suspects, their photos and information on their alleged roles are still classified. Georgia refuses to extradite the two men back to Azerbaijan.
Today, the official investigation remains stalled. With the killers at large and no clear evidence of who actually ordered the death, Elmar’s widow Rushana speculates that someone from the government ordered the assassination of her husband. When she published her suspicions she received death threats. Rushana, with her young son, is now a political migrant in Norway.
Azerbaijan continues to record a downtrend trajectory in international freedom indexes, with Reporters Sans Frontiers ranking Azerbaijan 146th out of 175 countries. The state-orchestrated media crackdown ensured that Azerbaijan lags well behind the other two states in Southern Caucasus – Georgia and Armenia. Amnesty International said the opposition journalists in Azerbaijan are “increasingly living under the threat of politically motivated arrests, physical assault and even death”.
The authorities expanded a crackdown on media in early 2009 by banning Azeri language service of the Radio Liberty, Voice of America and BBC radios in local frequencies. These radio outlets were the only stations offering a range of political views, dissenting voices and alternative information to the Azerbaijan society. At present, Eynulla Fatullayev and Ganimat Zahid, chief editors of country’s two prominent opposition papers are kept behind the bars on politically-motivated charges. The arrest of Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade, two well-known youth activists and bloggers, has further limited the space for free expression. Their jailing sent a chilling message to those who use social media and are critical of the government. [Mili and Hajizade are on the shortlist for Index’s on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards 2010]
The government’s targeting of critics and its failure to solve the murder of Elmar Huseynov shows how far the country is from being a democracy with a working independent judiciary and real political will. At stake is not only the declining media freedom, but also the lives of Azerbaijan’s determined journalists.
15 Mar 2010 | Events
In association with the Human Rights Watch Film Festival (17-26 March) Index on Censorship are pleased to present screenings of The Red Chapel, plus a one-off Q&A with filmmaker Mads Brgger. This daring, humorous documentary follows Korean-born comics Jacob and Simon as they visit North Korea from their adopted home of Denmark. Working with Mads Brgger, who poses as their manager, they get permission to put on a show in Pyongyang as a form of cultural exchange. As bizarre an expedition as it may seem, the film gives us a rare insight into North Korea through the eyes of two hilarious and sensitive individuals.
Friday March 19, 2010 6:30pm, ICA, The Mall, London. Includes Q&A with Mads Brgger
15 Mar 2010 | Magazine, Volume 39.01 Spring 2010
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