Two Tunisian rappers Aladine Yacoubi (aka Weld EL 15) and Ahmed Ben Ahmed (aka Klay BBJ) have been sentenced in absentia to 21 months in jail. A court in Hammamet issued the verdict on 29 August without summoning the two rappers to appear for trial, their lawyer Ghazi Mrabet said yesterday.
“We are surprised by this verdict…Our clients have not been summoned for trial as it is stipulated by law,” Mrabet told the privately-owned radio station Mosaique FM. They were found guilty of “insulting civil servants”, “undermining public decency” and defamation.
On 22 August, police arrested the two rappers as they were on stage performing a rap concert at a music festival in Hammamet and physically assaulted them. They were detained, for “targeting police’ in their songs, the local chief police officer told the collective blog Nawaat.
Last June, Weld El 15 received a two-year jail sentence over his “Police Are Dogs” (Boulicia Kleb) song posted on the internet. The 25 year-old was freed on appeal, when his sentence was reduced to six-month suspended sentence. According to his lawyer, Weld EL15 did not perform Boulicia Kleb at the Hammamet concert.
Klay BBJ is also known for his staunch criticism of police, the judiciary, the Tunisian legal system and the entire political class (the ruling coalition and the opposition). His songs include: iNo Pasaran! , Al Motamaridoun (the rebels) and Sayb15 (Free15) in support of Weld EL 15 when he was in prison.
“I will speak to my clients to challenge this ruling, but jail sentences demonstrate that the relentless campaign against artistic freedom, freedom of expression, continues”, rappers’ lawyer Ghazi Mrabet told AFP. Thameur Mekki, a journalist head of a support group for the rap artists described the verdict as a “revenge”. “The authorities have not understood that these matters should give rise to public debate, not trials and the permanent harassment of rappers”, he added.
Three Sudanese columnists were prevented from writing by the National intelligence Security Services (NISS) after they condemned the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Journalists Salah Awooda, Zuhair Elsrag and Rishan Oshi were banned from writing for between five to fifteen days during August after criticizing the Islamist group. This is part of a growing trend in Sudan for opinion columnists to be targeted by Government censorship, rather than newspapers.
Awooda, who works for the pro-government newspaper Alkir Lahza, was removed from his desk after he suggested that the Sudanese government’s criticism of the Egyptian military was hypocritical, as they also came to power via a military coup.
“They have suspended me because I condemned their contradictions about Egyptian events and claimed that they have acted as if they are democratic people,” Awooda says.
He also pointed out that the Sudanese government and its allied Islamists groups have organised demonstrations in front of the Egyptian embassy in Khartoum protesting against military action against the Brotherhood. Moreover, the official Sudanese media and others aligned with the Government have waged a campaign against the military intervening in politics in Egypt.
“I’m just surprised how they talk about legitimacy and democracy in Egypt,” he added, “while they undertook a military coup against the democratically elected government in Sudan in 1989 and they didn’t apologise to the Sudanese people for what they did. This is double standards”.
Awooda has been suspended on three occasions over the last two months, without any legal basis, following telephone calls by NISS agents to his editor-in-chief. The columnist was barred from writing for a month, and then for a further two days, after he criticized Government censorship. He was then detained for 15 more days without any apparent cause. In 2010, Awooda’s appointment as editor-in-chief of independent daily newspaper Aljareeda was blocked despite his considerable experience as editor-in-chief of three newspapers.
“They have stopped me three times since last July without giving any official reasons” he says. “They just suspend writers according to their mood without any legal basis in NISS regulations or the current constitution.”
Sudanese journalists have been engaged in a long running battle with the government over press freedom. 15 independent and anti-government newspapers have been closed in recent years. Since 2011, about 15 columnists have been prevented from working by NISS, though some have been allowed to return to their jobs after being suspended. Five have gone on to write for web publications but now the government is preparing a new law on electronic media which may lead to further harassment. In September 2009 the Sudanese Constitutional Court in Sudan rejected an appeal brought by a group of journalists, writers and columnists against newspaper censorship by NISS.
In a report on freedom of speech published in May by the organisation Journalists for Human Rights (JHR), the Sudanese government is accused of continuing to restrain press freedoms. It noted that the Sudanese government, via the NISS, has started to put pressure on individual columnists leading to their suspension, rather than targeting newspapers as they used to.
“There are many reasons for this,” says Faisal Mohamed Salih, a Khartoum columnist and winner of the Peter Mackler Award for ethical journalism. “For a long time the NISS restrained the news and other types of journalism as they controlled the newspapers but they moved their attention to the columnists because they have become stars. Readers prefer to get their information in opinion columns instead of the news stories.
“The NISS has succeeded in controlling newspapers but they couldn’t do it with the columnists because they are not employees of the newspapers, unlike the journalists, and can publish information that journalists couldn’t do” Faisal adds.
Yassin Hassan Bashir, another columnist who has been stopped from writing, thinks that the columns are an easier target for NISS censors compared to essays and investigative stories, simply as they are quicker to read.
“Because they are shorter than other type of journalism,” Bashir says, “they can read them more easily. You sometimes find the same opinions in longer, more difficult investigative stories, but they ignore it. They are not aware enough to evaluate the longer or more complex articles or they are too lazy to read them all”.
Aldooma argues that while government censors still target newspapers, they do so less than in the past. As the nature of journalism in Sudan changes to more opinion journalism than news and investigative journalism columnists will be increasingly targeted.
For the first time since the 2010 presidential election Belarusian independent journalists can catch their breath. In March the criminal case against Andrzej Poczobut, a journalist accused of libel against the president, was dropped. ARCHE magazine, which was close to being shut down was finally re-registered by the Ministry of Information in May. OSCE Representative for Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic was allowed to enter the country in June, and authorities even met with her. Following her visit charges against Anton Suriapin for posting pictures of the famous Teddy Bear pictures, were dropped. Award-winning journalist Iryna Khalip has reached the end of her two-year sentence.
On the other hand, we should not be deceived by these positive developments. Negotiations with Mijatović did not prevent Belarusian authorities from seizing a whole print run of Nash Dom newspaper, accusing journalist Alena Sciapanava of cooperation with foreign media without a relevant accreditation, or detaining a number of reporters covering a street action by opposition activist in July.
So, is there a thaw for Belarusian media? Can further changes be expected?
One step forward after two steps back
Belarus is ranked 157th in Reporters Without Borders’ 2013 World Press Freedom Index, rising 11 places compared with their 2011/2012 rating. But this only means the country has restored the situation to where it had been before the severe clampdown on free media and civil society in December 2010. Independent journalists and online activists still run risks.
“The authorities have made a small step forward after they made two huge leaps back. The situation improved a little if we compare it with the one we had after the 2010 presidential election. But on a systemic level neither media-related legislation, nor its implementation have changed,” says Andrei Bastunets, a media lawyer and a vice chairman of the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ).
The positive developments are welcome – but history suggests they are not irreversible. In 2008-2009 similar period of “liberalisation” was marked with two big conferences in Minsk co-organised by the Belarusian authorities with the office of OSCE Representative for Freedom of the Media. There, the decision was made to return two national independent newspapers, Narodnaya Volia and Nasha Niva, to the wide reaching state run systems of press distribution. But the ‘good times’ turned into a renewed period of repression after 2010.
Sviatlana Kalinkina, chief editor of Narodnaya Volia, says life is easier for the publication now than it was five years ago when it had to be printed in Russia and was not allowed to be sold at newsstands or via subscription catalogues in Belarus.
“The approach of the authorities is to make the situation worse, then to return it to where it was and thus claim there have been improvements and ‘democratisation’. But in fact even after we were allowed to be printed and distributed in Belarus we were not able to come back to where we used to be. Narodnaya Volia used to be a daily, now we publish our newspaper twice a week and cannot get a permission to be printed even three times a week. Printing houses and distribution networks keep telling us it is impossible, although it is obvious these are just lame excuses. These problems are clearly orchestrated by the authorities,” says Sviatlana Kalinkina.
It is difficult for a journalist of an independent newspaper to receive a comment from state officials; they are afraid to talk to non-state press.
According to Yanina Melnikava, the editor of the online publication Mediakritika.by, the situation inevitably affects the quality of work of Belarusian journalists.
“One the one hand it makes a journalist’s work really hard. But working in the conditions of an ‘information war’ leads to a ‘barricade mind-set’ that can be used to justify mistakes and lack of professionalism,” says the editor.
Screws to be tighten again before elections
Sviatlana Kalinkina of Narodnaya Volia does not think conditions for her newspaper will significantly improve in the nearest future, because the next presidential election is scheduled for 2015.
“Political campaigns are not the best time for journalists in Belarus. People are getting more interested in independent news which makes authorities start to panic, resulting in more oppression,” Sviatlana Kalinkina says.
So why would the government allow some minor improvements of the situation? The answer is simple – just to have some “room for manoeuvre” when the screws are to be tightened again.
“The closer elections are, the more we are likely to feel freedom and democratic change is possible. But this is just an illusion. The reality is different. The authorities see election campaigns as a threat to their power and they are ready to protect their power whatever it takes,” says Yanina Melnikava.
Not ready for the first step
During her press conference in Minsk on 5 June, Dunja Mijatović said time had come for serious change in the freedom of expression situation in Belarus. She called on journalists to “work with the authorities and bother them in order to let the government of the country know about the importance of laws for development, not for oppression of the media.”
“But the real change requires a totally different relationship between the authorities and the media. Such change of an attitude should take place on an ideological level, as well as on economic and legal levels”, Yanina Melnikava admits, adding that she sees no signs of such changes at the moment.
Andre Bastunets suggests there should be a road map the authorities can keep to in order to liberalise the media field. The first step would be ceasing of economic discrimination of independent media: all non-state newspapers should be allowed back on to state-run distribution systems, restrictions of circulations and advertising in them should be lifted.
“About half of independent newspapers face problems like these now. And there is no need to change the law to solve the problem – on the contrary, we just need to implement the law,” says BAJ vice chairman.
The second step would be to ensure access to information for all journalists. The restriction to work without a special accreditation for reporters of foreign media should be lifted. The third one is to stop differentiating between state and non-state media at all.
“I am sure there should be no state-owned media in a democratic country except for bulletins with legal acts adopted by state bodies. All media should be private or public,” says Andrei Bastunets.
However, the authorities of the country show no signs they are ready event to make that first step, which means the current not-so-bad situation is always under threat of a set-back.
