30 Oct 2012 | Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa
Nigerian poet Wole Soyinka knows something about the dangers of speaking out. In 1967 the Nobel Prize winner was arrested and held in solitary confinement for two years after criticising the Nigerian government, a military coup had taken place in 1966 and the country had plunged into civil war.
Pambazuku News, the innovative pan-African newsletter, recently published a fascinating in-depth interview with Soyinka about his work, the rise of militants in the country, and free expression. Here are some interesting quotes:
On the rise of militant Jihadist group, Boko Haram in Nigeria:
The unrest which is taking place as a result of Boko Haram, in my view, has attained critical mass. When a movement reaches that state of total contempt even for universal norms, it is sending a message to the rest of the world, and to the rest of that nation, that this is a war to the end. The president of Nigeria is making a mistake in not telling the nation that it should place itself on a war footing. There’s too much pussyfooting, there’s too much false intellectualisation of what is going on, such as this is the result of corruption, this is the result of poverty, this is the result of marginalisation. Yes, of course, all these negativities have to do with what is happening right now. But when the people themselves come out and say we will not even talk to the president unless he converts to Islam, they are already stating their terms of conflict.
On religion:
Religion is also freedom of expression. People want to express themselves spiritually. And they also exercise the right to try and persuade others into their own system of belief. Those nations that say it’s a crime to preach your religion are making a terrible mistake. All they’re doing is driving underground other forms of spiritual intuitions and practices.
If religion was to be taken away from the world completely, including the one I grew up with, I’d be one of the happiest people in the world. My only fear is that maybe something more terrible would be invented to replace it, so we’d better just get along with what there is right now and keep it under control.
On being imprisoned for speaking out against Nigeria’s military leaders:
Writing in certain environments carries with it an occupational risk. When I was imprisoned, without trial, it was as a result of a position I took as a citizen. Of course I used my weapon, which was writing, to express my disapproval of the [Biafran] civil war into which we were about to enter. These were people who’d been abused, who’d undergone genocide, and who felt completely rejected by the rest of the community, and therefore decided to break away and form a nation of its own. Unfortunately, the nature of my imprisonment meant that I couldn’t practise my trade because I was in solitary confinement for 22 months out of the 27, and I was deprived of writing material. So I had to somehow break through the barriers, smuggle in toilet paper, cigarette paper, scribble a few poems, pass messages outside. I was able to undertake exercises to make sure that I emerged from prison intact mentally.
On claims that free expression is a Western construct rather than a universal right:
There are many cultures on the African continent where days are set aside, days of irreverence where you can say anything you want about an all-powerful monarch or chief. It’s a safety valve. It’s a recognition of freedom of expression, which perhaps has not been exercised, and bottled up grievances; this is the day when you express your grievances in society. So there is no society, really, which does not boast some form or measure of freedom of expression. Now, it’s true that freedom of expression carries with it an immense responsibility. Well that is why laws of libel exist — that when you carry things too far, you can be hauled up before the community, and judged to see whether you are right to call somebody a thief, or a hypocrite, and damage his reputation. But unless you establish that principle of freedom of expression, we might all just go around with a padlock on our lips.
Sara Yasin is an editorial assistant at Index on Censorship
30 Oct 2012 | Middle East and North Africa, minipost, News and features
Bahrain has banned all demonstrations following clashes between police and anti-government protestors on Monday (29 October). Interior minister Sheikh Rashid Al Khalifah said that the clampdown was a result of the “repeated abuses” of freedom of expression.
The emergency move is the largest scale attempt to quash the Gulf kingdom’s anti-government uprising which began in February of last year.
Index on Censorship award winner Nabeel Rajab is currently serving a three-year jail sentence for organising “illegal protests”.
29 Oct 2012 | Europe and Central Asia
Andrei Sannikov, a former political prisoner from Belarus, has been granted asylum in the UK. Sannikov told the Charter97 website:
It was not a simple decision for me. But I had no other choice — other options were to be tortured and humiliated in jail or to be quiet as a lamb. I remain a Belarusian politician and will go on telling the truth about my country and press for concrete measures of help to democratic Belarus. I think my decision will help to free my wife and son, who are still kept hostages by Lukashenko’s regime.
Andrei Sannikov after being beaten by police on election night in December 2010
Sannikov and six other opposition candidates were arrested after presidential elections held on 19 December 2010. Five of them were jailed. Sannikov was severely beaten by the police on election night while protesting the result in Minsk. The brutal breakup of a peaceful protest against election fraud marked the start of a mass crackdown on opposition.
He was later sentenced to five years imprisonment after being convicted of organising mass riots, his wife was also arrested.
While Sannikov and his wife Irina Khalip were both being held in KGB jails, the authorities tried to permanently remove their son Danil, then three, from their care and send him to an orphans’ asylum.
Sannikov and his aide Dzmitry Bandarenka were released on 14 April 2012 after months of international campaigning by civil society inside the country and abroad, including Index.
Sannikov’s wife Irina Khalip, a well-known journalist,remains in Minsk under house arrest serving a two-year suspended prison sentence despite a promise to lift her travel restrictions made by president Alexander Lukashenko during a recent interview with Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of the Independent newspaper.
Mike Harris, Head of Advocacy at Index on Censorship said:
In the run-up to the 2010 presidential election, I interviewed Andrei in his office in Minsk. He was under huge pressure even before his arrest. Sannikov’s detention and subsequent torture show that President Lukashenko is committed to crushing any political dissent. Sannikov is still barred from standing in any future election, forcing his hand to seek asylum. The EU must call for the unconditional release of all the political prisoners before any engagement or IMF bailout of Belarus’s ailing economy.
Lukashenko came to power in 1994, and has an iron-grip on Belarus prohibiting protest and limiting civil freedoms. Human rights defenders say there are still 12 political prisoners jailed in Belarus.
Andrei Aliaksandrau is Belarus and OSCE Programme Officer at Index. He tweets at @aliaksandrau
29 Oct 2012 | Digital Freedom, India
Following outrage from India’s civil society and media, it appears the country’s government has backed away from its proposal to create a UN body to govern the internet. The controversial plan, which was made without consulting civil society, angered local stakeholders, including academics, media, and industry associations. Civil society expressed fear that a 50-member UN body, many of whom would seek to control the internet for their own political ends, would restrict the very free and dynamic nature of the internet. The proposal envisaged “50 member States chosen on the basis of equitable geographic representation” that would meet annually in Geneva as the UN Committee for Internet-Related Policies (UN-CIRP).
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Indian parlimentarian and critic of the proposal, said: “CIRP seems like a solution in search of a problem”. At present, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), a non-profit with ties to the US State Department, serves as the platform for internet governance, using an organisational structure that allows input from the wider internet community and not just governments of the world.
Sachin Pilot, India’s Minister of State for Telecom
However at the 4-5 October Conference on Cyberspace in Budapest, the Minister of State for Telecom, Sachin Pilot, indicated that India was moving away from the “control of the internet by government or inter-governmental bodies”, and moving instead towards enhanced dialogue. Pilot has now confirmed the change to Index, saying that the Indian government has now decided to “nuance” its former position.
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The sudden move can be explained by India’s decision to now develop its own stance, claiming that it was initially just supporting proposals made at the India, Brazil and South Africa seminar (IBSA) on Global Internet Governance in Brazil in September 2011. However, there are indicators that the country might have played an active role in pushing for the new body.
The government representatives present at the IBSA seminar drafted a set of recommendations focused on institutional improvement, which pushed for the UN to establish a body “in order to prevent fragmentation of the internet, avoid disjointed policymaking, increase participation and ensure stability and smooth functioning of the internet”. The proposal was to be tabled until the IBSA Summit on 18 October 2011, but according to a Daily Mail report, Indian bureaucrats publicly discussed the proposal at the 2011 Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Kenya, saying that the move “was criticised across the board by all countries and scared away both Brazil and South Africa.” The report also alleges that the Indian government only consulted one NGO — IT for Change — in drafting the proposal presented in Brazil, despite repeated offers from other participants to pay for members of the country’s third sector to participate in the seminar. India’s proposed UN-CIRP was slammed for moving away from multi-stakeholderism and instead opting for government-led regulation.
Whatever the truth behind the Indian government’s motives in proposing UN-CIRP, its new and more “nuanced” position is a welcome move. It remains to be seen if India will maintain its new stance at the upcoming IGF, which will be held from 6-9 November in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Mahima Kaul is a journalist based in New Delhi. She focuses on questions of digital freedom and inclusion
