7 Nov 2012 | Europe and Central Asia
It started with an arrest so farcical the facts seem to defy belief. In October, a 27-year-old man on the Greek island of Evia was arrested and charged with “blasphemy and insults against Elder Paisios and Orthodox Christianity” for setting up a satirical Facebook page lampooning a deceased monk held in high regard by pockets of the media and political parties.
The Hellenic police claim the arrest of was prompted by “thousands of complaints” though curiously it came shortly after Christos Pappas, an MP for the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, implored the government to stamp out the “blasphemous” page.
In a play on the Flying Spaghetti Monster meme and the traditional Greek dish pastitsio, the unnamed 27-year old renamed the monk Geron Pastitsios and created a Facebook page complete with made up miracles “Geron Pastitsios” was said to have performed.
When these miracles were repeated verbatim as the acts of Geron Paisios by right-wing politicians and media, the embarrassment was palpable. Embarrassing people might not be illegal, but blasphemy is still on the statute books in Greece.
Golden Dawn members | Demotix
The relationship between the church and the increasingly violent Golden Dawn hit the news again shortly afterwards outside the Athens premiere of Terence McNally’s play Corpus Christi. The Greek Holy Synod condemned the play — which depicts Jesus and the Apostles as gay men — as blasphemous.
At the opening, priests stood side by side with Golden Dawn members. One culture critic, Manolis V from Lifo magazine, claims he was attacked by several bystanders, including one he identified as Golden Dawn’s Ilias Panagiotaros. Throughout the attack, the police did nothing — nor did the watching priests and nuns intervene. Instead the Bishop of Piraeus, flanked by five Golden Dawn MPs, reported the play’s producers to the Hellenic police for “malicious blasphemy”.
In Corinth, a city which has been a hotbed of Golden Dawn activity, the party recently opened up new offices. To mark the opening, Greek Orthodox priests performed a blessing outside their headquarters. Not two months earlier, in August, Golden Dawn were involved in a violent standoff over a migrant centre in the city.
Some priests know from personal experience that your enemy’s enemy is not your friend. Golden Dawn may be socially conservative, but they are also notoriously violent. The Metropolitan Pavlos of Siatista, an important church figure, has came out against Golden Dawn, saying:
We all have to take a clear stand on the Golden Dawn issue … we have to preach the word of God, which has nothing to do with the acts committed by members of Golden Dawn.
The cleric has since reported that his comments have drawn death threats and menacing phone calls threatening to “burn the commie”.
In response, nine bishops across Greece have come out against Golden Dawn stating [translated]: “All men are our brothers”. It’s a small comfort, but at this stage, anything that stops the neo-Nazi party from gaining a foothold in each part of the Greek state is to be welcomed.
Dawn Foster works for the Guardian’s Comment is Free. She tweets at @DawnHFoster
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7 Nov 2012 | Awards, Awards year slider
[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content_no_spaces” css_animation=”fadeIn” css=”.vc_custom_1485788783247{padding-top: 250px !important;padding-bottom: 250px !important;background-image: url(https://www.indexoncensorship.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/awards2012_1460x490.jpg?id=81042) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}”][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1472525914065{margin-top: -150px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_row_inner equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”middle”][vc_column_inner el_class=”awards-inside-desc” width=”1/2″][vc_custom_heading text=”FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AWARDS 2012″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards exist to celebrate individuals or groups who have had a significant impact fighting censorship anywhere in the world.
- Awards were offered in four categories: Arts, Campaigning, Journalism and Innovation
- There was a special award to mark Index’s 40th anniversary
- Winners were honoured at a gala celebration in London at the St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/v/-dL6eCTwUi4″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1472608310682{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 20px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”WINNERS” font_container=”tag:h1|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes” css=”.vc_custom_1477036676595{margin-top: 0px !important;}”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Idrak Abbasov” title=”The Guardian Journalism Award” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”81047″]Idrak Abbasov is an Azerbaijani journalist whose investigative work has put his life in danger. Abbasov reports for the newspaper Ayna-Zerkalo and for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, which aims to give voice to people at the front line of conflict and crisis. On 9 September 2011, after Abbasov investigated the activities of a local oil company, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) sent bulldozers to his family’s home. SOCAR claimed ownership of the site as part of a project to develop local oil resources with Global Energy Azerbaijan Ltd. His parents and brother were hospitalised after being attacked by the company’s security service during the incident. No eviction notice had been lodged in a court, as is required by law, and no neighbouring residences (including that of the parliamentary speaker) were disturbed. It is believed that bulldozers targeted the journalist’s home because of his work monitoring human rights. The violence, threats, and harassment of Abbasov and his family continues. Later that month, his parents were again attacked at their home. The perpetrators arrived in a car bearing government licence plates. One reportedly said: “Tell Idrak to get smarter, or we will cut off his ears.” The Azerbaijanii government is notorious for using legal loopholes to threaten its opponents. Last year the home of human rights activist Leyla Yunus, the founder of the Institute for Peace and Democracy, was bulldozed on 11 August 2011 on a similar pretext. As attention focuses on Azerbaijan in 2012, with the country hosting the Eurovision Song Contest and the Internet
Goverance Forum, human rights violations show no sign of stopping.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Nabeel Rajab, Bahrain Center for Human Rights” title=”Advocacy” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”81050″]The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) has played a crucial role in documenting human rights violations, political repression and torture in the gulf kingdom. Despite efforts to silence and discredit it, the BCHR has kept international attention on the brutal government crackdown that began last February. It has prevented the Bahrain government from whitewashing its international image, and at times when news media were severely restricted and foreign journalists barred, it acted as a crucial source of alternative news. Former BCHR president Abdulhady Al Khawaja is one of eight activists serving life sentences for peacefully protesting at the now-demolished Pearl Roundabout. Like many other activists he claims he has been tortured in prison. It is widely reported that BCHR employees regularly experience threats, violence and harassment. In January 2012, BCHR president Nabeel Rajab was severely beaten by security forces while peacefully protesting.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Ali Ferzat” title=”Arts Award” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”81049″]Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat has been called “an icon of freedom in the Arab world”. He has spent decades ridiculing dictators in more than 15,000 caricatures. His depictions of President Assad and the police state have helped galvanise revolt in Syria. In August 2011, Ferzat was wrenched from his vehicle in central Damascus by pro-Assad masked gunmen who beat him badly and broke his hands. Passers-by found Ferzat dumped at the side of a road; his briefcase and the drawings inside it had been confiscated by his attackers. The BBC’s Sebastian Usher described the attack as a sign of Syria’s “zero tolerance” for dissent; a month earlier the dissident composer Ibrahim Al Qashoush was found dead, his vocal chords removed. Ferzat earned regional and international recognition in the 1980s with stinging cartoons of officials, autocrats and dictators including Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi. Hussein called for Ferzat’s death in 1989 after an unfavourable portrait of him was exhibited in Paris, and Ferzat’s cartoons are banned in Libya and Jordan. In 2000, he launched the publication Al Domari; Syrian authorities forced its closure three years later. Ferzat is undergoing rehabiliation in Kuwait in order to regain the use of his fingers.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Freedom Fone” title=”The Google Innovation Award” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”81048″]Kubatana is an NGO based in Harare, set up by Brenda Burrell, Bev Clark and Amanda Atwood. It encourages ordinary Zimbabweans to use information communication technology (ICT) to advocate, mobilise and lobby. One of their main focuses has been the development of local technologies on the principle that development work should strengthen the potential application of pre-existent resources, rather than innovating solely in high-tech gadgetry for a Western audience. For this reason, Kubatana developed Freedom Fone. A free software, Freedom Fone is a basic, easy to use interactive voice response system that can deliver audio information in any language over mobile phones and landlines. All you need is a telephone (landline, mobile, Skype or similar) and Freedom Fone software on a computer. The software is aimed at organisations or individuals wishing to set up interactive news services for users where the free flow of information may be being denied for political, technological or other reasons. Freedom Fone is designed help bridge the digital divide, to reach out to the 90% of Zimbabweans who do not have internet access. On top of giving people access to information, Freedom Fone can be a tool for circumventing censorship. This is because automated telephone information systems do not require a broadcasting licence. In addition, this type of digital content is not currently subject to censorship.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Memorial Archive of St Petersburg” title=”40th Anniversary Award” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”81051″]Index singles out The Research and Information Centre Memorial, which logs the brutal repression suffered by millions in former Soviet countries, for their continued dedication to guaranteeing freedom of information. The centre has demonstrated a fierce commitment to protecting human rights. It not only chronicles the crimes of the Stalinist period, but monitors current threats against those who speak out against injustice. Memorial’s remarkable archive includes letters, diaries, transcripts, photographs, and sound files. Individuals with first-hand experience of Stalin’s terror and the Soviet gulag have donated documentation they had hidden during this brutal period.
The centre is a living tribute to the survivors of Soviet Russia, preserving documentation that many have tried to bury, and continue to conduct their work despite constant threats. In December 2009, a group of men from the Investigative Committee of the Russian General Prosecutor’s Office raided Memorial’s offices, confiscating hard drives and CDs containing its entire archive. The attack was condemned by activists and historians across the globe, and eventually all of the material was returned after a battle in local courts. Memorial’s work is a vivid reminder of the vital and very real risk taken by those who speak out against repression. The award is particularly pertinent in Index’s 40th year. As we explore our own archive and its role in exposing international human rights violations, we are conscious of the often undervalued work of historians and archivists in keeping the memory of these violations alive.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”JUDGING” font_container=”tag:h1|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_row_inner el_class=”mw700″][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]
Criteria – Anyone involved in tackling free expression threats – either through journalism, campaigning, the arts or using digital techniques – is eligible for nomination.
Any individual, group or NGO can nominate or self-nominate. There is no cost to apply.
Judges look for courage, creativity and resilience. We shortlist on the basis of those who are deemed to be making the greatest impact in tackling censorship in their chosen area, with a particular focus on topics that are little covered or tackled by others.
Nominees must have had a recognisable impact in the past 12 months.
Where a judge comes from a nominee’s country, or where there is any other potential conflict of interest, the judge will abstain from voting in that category.
Panel – Each year Index recruits an independent panel of judges – leading world voices with diverse expertise across campaigning, journalism, the arts and human rights.
The judges for 2012 were:
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Mishal Husain” title=”Broadcaster and journalist” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”80218″]Mishal Husain is a British news presenter for the BBC, who appears on Today, BBC World News and BBC Weekend News. She was previously a presenter on HARDtalk and BBC Breakfast.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Peter Oborne” title=”Chief political commentator” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”80219″]Peter Alan Oborne is a British journalist. He is the associate editor of the Spectator and former chief political commentator of the Daily Telegraph, from which he resigned in early 2015. He is author of The Rise of Political Lying and The Triumph of the Political Class, and, with Frances Weaver, the pamphlet Guilty Men.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Sami Ben Gharbia” title=”Advocacy director” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”80217″]Sami Ben Gharbia is a Tunisian human rights campaigner, blogger, writer and freedom of expression advocate. He was a political refugee living in the Netherlands between 1998 and 2011. Sami is the author of the e-book Borj Erroumi XL.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Jeremy Browne MP” title=”Minister for State” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”80216″]Jeremy Richard Browne is a British Liberal Democrat politician who was the Member of Parliament for Taunton Deane from 2005 to 2015. He was previously a Foreign Office and Home Office Minister.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][staff name=”Sigrid Rausing” title=”Publisher” color=”#28a7cc” profile_image=”80220″]Sigrid Maria Elisabet Rausing is a Swedish philanthropist, anthropologist and publisher. She is the founder of the Sigrid Rausing Trust, one of the United Kingdom’s largest philanthropic foundations, and owner of Granta magazine and Granta Books.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1473325552363{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 20px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 15px !important;}”][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1473325567468{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][awards_gallery_slider name=”GALLERY” images_url=”80387,80412,80411,80410,80409,80408,80407,80406,80405,80404,80403,80402,80401,80400,80399,80398,80397,80396,80395,80394,80393,80392,80391,80390,80389,80388,81051,81050,81049,81048,81047″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
7 Nov 2012 | Middle East and North Africa, Tunisia
From 1 to 23 November, The International Free Expression Exchange’s (IFEX) International Day to End Impunity campaign is highlighting cases where “an individual who has been threatened, attacked or worse for expressing themselves.” In all the case the perpetrators of abuse have not been brought to account.
On the anniversary of the coup that brought President Ben Ali to power in Tunisia in 1987, IFEX is highlighting the case of Tunisian poet Mohamed Sghaier Ouled Ahmed, who was attacked by Salafists in August. Nobody has been arrested in connection with the assault.
God you were right
Kings would – as would Presidents too –
Ruin a village if they enter it
So ruin the castles that belong to Kings
To serve the villagers right
…
We all went to vote
And none voted for those who won
From the poem “Ilahi” (My God), by Sghaier Ouled Ahmed
Since Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, Tunisian poet Sghaier Ouled Ahmed has been accused of being an infidel and abusing Islam by the country’s religious leaders because of hard-hitting poems such as “Ilahi”.
In August this year, ultra-conservative Salafists took the accusations to a new level.
In a TV interview In the interview, Ahmed criticised the ruling Islamist party, Ennahda, which won elections after Ben Ali was ousted in 2011. A group of at least five Salafists were waiting outside the studio for the prominent poet to finish the interview.
As soon as Ahmed stepped out of the Tunis television station, one of the men punched him in the face. Onlookers and police stood idly by.
After the attack, he said,
I no longer recognise this government which cannot protect its citizens… No officers or officials will be saved from the bombs of my poetry and prose if they continue to turn a blind eye to such attacks.
The IFEX Tunisia Monitoring Group, a coalition of 21 IFEX members campaigning for free expression in Tunisia (including Index on Censorship), calls it an example of “old style repression in new Tunisia“. They report that attacks against journalists, artists and writers by police and ultra-conservative groups are actually on the increase since the country was freed from Ben Ali’s regime in 2011. And the new government has done nothing about them.
Find out more about Sghaier Ouled Ahmed and the International Day to End Impunity campaign here
6 Nov 2012 | Asia and Pacific, China
The world’s two biggest superpowers are about to choose their next leaders. While the American battle is laid bare for all to see, in China, Beijing’s new emperor and his closest advisers are something of a mystery.
Chinese flags (Shutterstock)
That hasn’t stopped the rest of the world debating what Xi Jinping (China’s most likely candidate for the new Communist Party chief) and his top officials will mean for the country. So far it’s all guesswork, and there are some widely differing opinions from Xi the reformer, to Xi the hardliner. Here’s a round-up of the predictions from Tokyo to Washington.
Hong Kong
While there is virtually no discussion in mainland media about the new incoming Politburo, Hong Kong-based pundits are free to publish their views. According to AFP, Hong Kong-based website Mirror Books is pessimistically predicting that the new line-up will be dominated by conservatives and not reformers. It predicted the line-up “would include Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Zhang Gaoli and Wang Qishan, citing sources close to the party.”
Hong Kong political commentator Willy Lam was positive: “This looks like the line-up. It is not one that will be good for reform hopes”.
Australia
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute argues that it will be business as usual under Xi. He won’t be “making any drastic domestic changes”, argues Hayley Channer, because of his “allegiance to the Communist Party.” But compared to current premier Hu Jintao, Xi is “more approachable as well as more confident.” Channer suggests that domestic problems will keep Xi busy and away from acting too feisty in regional politics.
Kevin Rudd, the Chinese-speaking former Australian prime minister, pointed out last month that the new government — likely to be announced on 8 November, two days after the US elections — will have the same key goal as all other Chinese governments since 1949: that is “the new leadership will seek to sustain the political pre-eminence of the Chinese Communist Party within the country.” This will be tough, Rudd says, because of corruption, economic issues, and the need to boost the country’s international standing.
In terms of issues of free speech, Xi will be walking into a much freer China: “Democratic forces within China also now have greater space to operate than used to be the case,” Rudd writes. “There is now a much more open debate about Chinese policy questions in the Chinese media.”
And while the Party itself is off limits and will continue to be so as a topic of public discussion, Rudd suggests that “the public debate, both in the mainstream media, the social media and on the ground through popular protest activity over local decisions, is now a firm and probably fixed feature of Chinese national political life.”
We can only bide our time, he says, to see how much Xi is prepared to allow this develop.
Xi Jinping during a trip to Dublin, Ireland, February 2012. Art Widak | Demotix
Japan
Dr. Satoshi Amako at The Association of Japanese Institutes of Strategic Studies bleakly pedicts that Xi will be more hardline than Hu.
“Some analysts contend that [Xi] will adopt more conservative policies and try to strengthen one-party rule domestically,” Amako says. “ His statements are conservative but reformist, China-centric but internationalist.”
Xi will have to grapple with a number of crucial issues, one of which is the struggle between a growing need among the people for more freedoms and the supremacy of the Party. He says:
China’s open reform policies not only realized economic growth but also generated a sense of rights, and the Communist Party has applied a strong brake to social and political liberation. On the other hand, various steps have been taken to introduce a degree of flexibility. Nevertheless, resistance from minorities, farmer movements, frequent civil and mass protests, civil rights movements aimed at raising public awareness of rights, and expansions of “free spaces” by informal media are now all evident.
Amako, sadly, offers no prediction over how Xi will attempt to juggle this one.
United States
Xi’s strong ties to the military could mean that he will be a “formidable leader for Washington to contend with”, writes Jane Perlez in the New York Times. With an increasingly stronger People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Xi is likely to focus on making China more assertive on the world stage, particularly in Asia, Perlez cites analysts as saying.
Not so, says infamous former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. After he held talks with Xi this year he said he was convinced China’s new leader would bring sweeping reforms to the country.
“It’s unlikely that in 10 years the next generation will come into office with exactly the same institutions that exist today,” Kissinger said.
Like Rudd, Kissinger believes internal issues will dominate Xi’s agenda so that he will not be looking for confrontation with the West:
What we must not demand or expect is that they will follow the mechanisms with which we are more familiar. It will be a Chinese version (…) and it will not be achieved without some domestic difficulties.
According to The Diplomat, Xi’s “confidence” — which Channer in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute also referred to — may be good or bad. A. Greer Meisels writes:
It could mean that President Xi may be more difficult to work with, at least from an American perspective, because he may feel as if the U.S. should be more deferential to China and its core interests. On the other hand, he could be easier to deal with because he may have the confidence to make bolder moves on the foreign policy, political, and economic reform fronts.
So again we’re advised to “wait and see”. And we may have to wait some time: The Diplomat warns that it will be at least one to two years before Xi will have amassed enough “political capital” to make his mark.
United Kingdom
The Economist asks if Xi has “the courage and vision to see that assuring his country’s prosperity and stability in the future requires him to break with the past?” In other words, Xi must start to relax the party’s grip on power to deal with the problems facing China today: a slowing economy, corruption and growing social discontent.
Social media and growing incomes have meant people are more willing and able to voice their complaints, and news of protests can now be debated nationwide.
Xi could, the Economist says, privatise rural land and give it to peasants. The judicial system needs to properly address grievances, and “a free press would be a vital ally in the battle against corruption.”
While the magazine concedes this scenario is highly unlikely, it argues that Xi has no choice if he wants a strong a stable China in the years to come.
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China will change leaders, but keep censorship
