13 Apr 2012 | Russia
Ex-mayoral opposition candidate Oleg Shein is continuing his 29-day hunger strike protesting against local mayoral election results. Held the same day as presidential elections, they were allegedly no less fraudulent. United Russia’s candidate Mikhail Stolyarov won 60 per cent of the vote and Shein less than 30.
Shein, member of political party “A Just Russia” and Astrakhan region duma deputy, told Index on Censorship he refused to stop the strike despite concerns over his health from doctors’ and human rights activists’, until new mayoral elections are held. “Astrakhan has become the capital of fraud”, said Shein, claiming he and his supporters will prove their allegations in court through providing it with video recordings of election law violations.
Shein told Index that he and three of his supporters have been on hunger strike for a month, nine other people have joined them in solidarity and have been on hunger strike for more than ten days, and another ten people joined the strike a couple of days ago.
In his annual address to the State Duma, Vladimir Putin said he didn’t understand why Shein was choosing hunger strike, rather than appealing to the courts. Just Russia deputies walked out, considering the remark cynical and insulting.
As Shein explained to Index, “only a silly man comes to court without proof”, which, in this case is a number of video recordings from Astrakhan’s election committees. According to Russian law, all recordings made in local election committees on election day must be provided to those who request them by the Central Election Committee. Shein only obtained some of the recordings this week — almost a month after his request and the start of the hunger strike, hence why he didn’t appeal to the court before. Sergei Mironov, leader of A Just Russia has said that the corruption and bias in Russian courts was another reason for Shein to take alternative action.
The Central Election Committee authorities, as well as Astrakhan prosecutor, said Oleg Shein’s hunger strike and his allegations are insufficient reason to hold re-elections in Astrakhan. Yesterday, the Committee’s head Vladimir Churov agreed to look into the issue and watch the video recordings together with Shein. United Russia deputies both in the State Duma and Astrakhan have condemned Shein’s hunger strike, describing it as illegitimate and accusing him of extremism. Astrakhan is flooded with hundreds of policemen, who are preventing people from forming protest camps near Shein’s headquarters.
United Russia seems to be particularly angered by the fact that every day tens of Russian citizens flock to Astrakhan in support of Shein. His supporters in Astrakhan already include Russian opposition leaders such as Alexei Navalny, Ilya Ponomarev, Dmitry Gudkov and Ilya Yashin, who are expected to be joined by popular writer Dmitry Bykov and TV host Ksenia Sobchak.
This Saturday, the opposition will hold a rally for fair elections in Astrakhan. It is expected to be the biggest opposition event since the mass protest rallies in Moscow in February.
13 Apr 2012 | Middle East and North Africa
Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa recently secured an invite to Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee luncheon.
According to the Daily Mail, the Queen invited King Hamad because it “would have been very rude to have left anyone off of the list.” Of course, the Queen would not want to suffer the embarrassment of singling out one despot, so she’s invited them all.
Bahrain’s government has been working overtime to revamp their public image after last year’s brutal crackdown on popular protests left a rather inconvenient stain on its international reputation. While paying lip service to human rights and reform, unfulfilled promises have only brewed tension in what have now become almost daily face-offs between disillusioned protesters and security forces.
It seems that the tiny kingdom does not have time to answer popular demands for reforms, after all, there are air shows to organise and a Grand Prix to hold. The United Kingdom said they would push Bahrain to implement recommendations made by the Bahrain Independent Commission for Inquiry (BICI) last November. In light of the country’s deteriorating situation, a friendly invitation to lunch only sends the wrong message, and shows an unwillingness to push where it actually counts.
The royal family is no stranger to controversial invitations. Bahrain’s Crown Prince declined an invitation to the royal wedding last year, and only months before the start of Syria’s violent unrest, a lavish dinner held by the Queen was attended by none other than the father-in-law of the country’s murderous dictator, Bashar Al-Assad.
The Bahraini King’s invitation was not an oversight — the guests at state events are cleared with the Foreign Office, as MP Denis Macshane pointed out yesterday. Invitations to state events only damage the credibility of Ministerial promises to place pressure on repressive regimes.
Bahrain’s violent suppression of protests sparked by last year’s Arab Spring was met with international outrage. Before an external body could step in, King Hamad commissioned the Bahrain Independent Commission for Inquiry to investigate whether or not human rights were violated in the months following the crackdown. The commission was met with scepticism from activists within the country. Still, evidence was gathered and the final report was released in November last year.
The report confirmed many of the violations documented by local activists during the crackdown. At a ceremony held at his palace, King Hamad expressed a commitment to implementing the committee’s recommendations, and called the report a “historic opportunity for Bahrain to deal with matters that are both serious and urgent”. In the months following the report’s release, committees were formed and international experts brought in, including disgraced assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, John Yates. The Bahraini government also enlisted Miami Chief of Police John Timoney to train security forces. Despite the government’s readiness to celebrate its commitment to transparency and human rights, the months following the report’s release have only shown a deteriorating situation. Well-known activist Abdulhadi Alkhawaja is currently serving a life sentence for his role in protests last year. He has been on hunger strike for over 60 days, and family members fear that he is close to dying. Calls for his release have been ignored, and instead, the government seems to be more concerned with ensuring that the controversial Formula One race go ahead as planned.
The aim here is clear: A slick new Bahrain that only looks like it values human rights in order to repair profitable international relationships.
12 Apr 2012 | Europe and Central Asia
This is a crosspost from the Media Legal Defence Initiative
On the eve of the Eurovision song contest, Azeri journalists have complained to the European Court of Human Rights about the president’s stranglehold over the country’s broadcasting system.
Every year millions of people around the world watch the Eurovision Song Context, one of the biggest annual international media events. But many may not know that this year it is being hosted by a country which tightly controls its own media and offers its own viewers little choice in what they can watch – Azerbaijan.
In this former Soviet republic most TV and radio outlets are controlled by President Aliyev or members of his family, while nominally independent broadcasters are owned by people close to him. Moreover, the president appoints all nine members of the broadcasting regulatory body, the National Television and Radio Council, whose responsibilities include granting broadcast licences.
One consequence is that, though freedom of speech is officially guaranteed by the constitution, there is little public debate on political, economic and other vital issues. Violence against journalists and bloggers in the country is endemic and independent journalists work in a climate of constant legal threat.
But now two prominent Azerbaijani journalists have gone to the European Court of Human Rights to challenge this effective monopoly of control. The journalists — Yashar Agazade and Rasul Jafarov — have lodged a complaint about the repeated refusal of the regulatory council to grant a licence for the independent radio station they wish to set up.
They argue that this refusal not only denies their right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights but means Azerbaijan is failing to ensure a pluralistic media landscape as the Convention requires it to.
Their application comes on the back of some fifty other complaints from Azeri journalists already pending at the Strasbourg court.
The matter has particular urgency because elections are due in 2013, and a favourable decision would force the government to make media reforms that would allow for more open debate before then. So whatever the outcome of the coming Eurovision contest, the journalists are hoping their case — which is being supported by MLDI — will result in a “nul point” verdict from the European Court judges.
Mark Stephens of Finers Stephens Innocent, part of the legal team for the applicants, said:
“Azerbaijan has de facto outlawed criticism of its leadership. If an Azeri journalist engages in the sort of tongue-in-cheek commentary that is provided for Eurovision by Graham Norton, chances are it will result in their imprisonment. So it is essential for this case to be successful if tongue-in-cheek comments are to be made either by Graham Norton, or indeed Azeri journalists on local political matters — or, indeed, Eurovision.”
www.mediadefence.org
12 Apr 2012 | Africa, Index Index, minipost
The Comoros’ interior minister Ahamada Abdallah has withdrawn state daily Al Watan’s latest monthly supplement from distribution and issued a decree suspending its managing editor, Pétan Mouignihazi. The supplement had a special report on corruption and waste in the state sector. In a news conference this week, Abdallah said: “Any state media journalist who wants the freedom to write or speak has to conform to the government line, or have the intellectual honesty to go and work elsewhere, for a privately-owned news outlet. The government is not going to receive lessons from Al Watwan.”