The big number: 42 billion
Add your voice to the petition to end mass #surveillance. Demand your #privacy and #freedom of speech. Tell Europe’s leaders: #dontspyonme
Index supports Belarusian human rights defenders
Index joins the International Day of Solidarity with Civil Society of Belarus to be held on 4 August, on the second anniversary of the arrest of a well-known Belarusian human rights defender Ales Bialiatski.
Mike Harris, Head of Advocacy at Index, said:
“Today we send our solidarity and support to Belarusian independent journalists and civil society activists, who continue their courageous work to defend human rights in Belarus. The government of Belarus must immediately and unconditionally release all of its political prisoners. Before the EU engages with Belarus, all political prisoners need to be released and concrete steps taken to remove restrictions that curtail freedom of expression.”
The International Day of Solidarity with Civil Society of Belarus is a joint initiative of NGOs from different countries. It is created as a demonstration of solidarity with civil society of Belarus and of moral support to human rights defenders, journalists and activists, who continue their work in the country dubbed “Europe’s last dictatorship.”
“We will observe this day every year, until the situation of civil society in Belarus changes: until its authorities put an end to imprisoning people for human rights activities, until there is a guarantee of fundamental human rights: freedom of expression, assembly and association,” the Solidarity Day Manifesto reads.
Last year, actions dedicated to the International Day of Solidarity with Civil Society of Belarus were held in 18 countries of the world. This year the organisers call on people around the globe to send letters of support to Belarusian political prisoners and human rights defenders, to publish articles and hold events about the situation in Belarus. A detailed list of possible actions within the framework of the Solidarity Day can be found here.
Ales Bialiatski, a Peace Nobel Prize nominee and a leader of Human Rights Centre Viasna, was arrested 4 August 2011, and currently serving a four-and-a-half year prison sentence for alleged tax evasion. The income on which he was found guilty of not paying taxes had in fact been used to support victims of human rights violations in Belarus.
According to Belarusian human rights defenders, there are currently 12 political prisoners in Belarus. The country is also criticised for failing to have free and fair elections and serious violations of fundamental rights and freedoms of its citizens.
Caitlin Moran: a response
Writer Caitlin Moran (Image Demotix/Ken Jack)
Times columnist Caitlin Moran’s blog post on Twitter, threats and free speech this morning has gone viral. As I type, the page has crashed due to traffic overload, and apparently taken the entire Random House website with it.
The past week, online at least, has been dominated by discussions of misogynist abuse and threats on Twitter. I’m fighting a losing battle here in trying not to refer to this behaviour as “trolling”, but I think it’s still important to call abuse and threats what they are, rather than giving them a whole new category because they occur online. Calling it “trolling” undermines both trolling itself, in some ways a noble tradition, and what’s actually happening, which is women being threatened with rape by strangers.
Moran explains the exhausting and scary feeling of being attacked on Twitter, and the despair of being told that nothing can be done about it.
She goes on to quote Telegraph tech blogger Mic Wright, who earlier this week suggested that “This isn’t a technology issue – this is a societal issue”, suggesting he was simply dismissive of the idea that something should be done about misogyny online. Mic’s a friend, and a thoughtful writer. I don’t think he’s nearly as off-hand as Moran suggests, but I’ll leave it to you to read what he actually wrote. (While you’re at the Telegraph site, read Marta Cooper’s excellent piece as well)
Moran suggests “a fairly infallible rule: that anyone who says ‘Hey, guys – what about freedom of speech!’ hasn’t the faintest idea what ‘freedom of speech’ actually means.”
This, I’m afraid, is where it gets personal. As someone who may as well change his name by deed poll to “Hey, guys – what about freedom of speech!”, I can’t help feel Moran’s talking about me. And I think I’ve been a bit more considered, even while shouting about free speech.
Moran says:
“There is no such thing as ‘freedom of speech’ in this country. Since 1998, we’ve had Article 10 of the European Convention on “freedom of expression”, but that still outlaws – amongst many things – obscenity, sedition, glorifying terrorism, incitement of racial hatred, sending articles which are indecent or grossly offensive with an intent to cause anxiety or distress, and threatening, abusive or insulting words like to cause harassment, alarm or distress.”
Well, kind of. Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights says this:
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.
(Part 2 is kind of depressing, isn’t it?)
What Moran categorises as being outlawed by Article 10 are in fact various other laws, most of which have been around in some form or other long before the 1998 Human Rights Act which established the ECHR in UK law. Laws such as the Communications Act and the Public Order Act which, Lord knows, have their problems, not least for social media users. Ask Paul Chambers.
Moran then says:
“As you can see, if you are suggesting that you are allowed to threaten someone on Twitter with rape or death under “freedom of speech”, then you do not – as predicted – have any idea what “freedom of speech” means. Because it’s prosecutable.”
Two things: One, I’m not sure anyone really has been shouting “free speech for rape threats”. Two, it is possible to shout “freedom of speech” even when things are prosecutable. In fact, it’s what free speech campaigners such as Index, English PEN and Article 19 spend most of our time doing. All governments protect free speech “within the law”. Usually, the law is the problem, as we’ve seen with issues from England’s libel laws right up to Russia’s brand new anti “gay propaganda” law.
Moran identifies a certain cynicism in people who say abuse and threats are simply part and parcel of the web (“NOTHING CAN CHANGE. THE INTERNET JUST IS WHAT IT IS!”) saying what they really mean is that they don’t want things to change.
This strand certainly exists. The old-style keyboard warrior who thinks the web is strictly for arguing and not cat videos and getting strangers to help you with the crossword, or generally doing nice things and learning more about other people and places. The internet, for them is SERIOUS BUSINESS, and girls and pansies who can’t take the heat should get out of the kitchen. Or go back to the kitchen. Definitely something about kitchens.
But there is also a good reason to be wary, or at least hesitant, about calls for changing the web. A lot of time spent defending free speech is not actually about defending what people say, but defending the space in which they can say it (I’ll refrain from misquoting Voltaire here). It may be idealistic, but we genuinely believe that given the space and the opportunity to discuss ideas openly, without fear of retribution, we’ll figure out how to do things better. Censorship holds society back. In fact, it’s the litmus test of a society being held back.
When the cry goes up that “something must be done”, it’s normally exactly the right time to put the brakes on and think very hard about what we actually want to happen. The web is wonderful, and possibly the greatest manifestation of the free speech space we’ve ever had, but it’s also susceptible to control. Governments such as those in China and Iran spend massive resources on controlling the web, and do quite a good job of it. Other states simply slow the connection, making the web a frustrating rather than liberating experience. Some governments simply pull the plug. The whole of YouTube has been blocked in Pakistan for almost a year now, because something had to be done about blasphemous videos. Last month David Cameron announced his plans to take all the bad things away, after the Daily Mail ran a classic something-must-be-done campaign against online porn.
There are, as Moran rightly points out, laws against threatening people with rape. Perhaps the police and the CPS should take these threats more seriously (I only say “perhaps” because I don’t know exactly what the various police forces have been doing about the various threats in the past week, not because I think it’s arguable that the police and CPS should take rape threats less seriously), but I’m wary of demanding more action on things that are already illegal. Some of the proposed Twitter fixes are interesting, but their implications need to be thought through, particularly how they could be used against people we like as well as people we don’t like.
After outlining her support for a boycott of Twitter on Sunday 4 August, Moran concludes:
“The main compass to steer by, as this whole thing rages on, doubtless for some months to come, is this: to maintain the spirit that the internet was conceived and born in – one of absolute optimism that the future will be better than the past. And that the future will be better than the past because internet is the best shot we’ve had yet for billions of people to communicate equally, and peacefully, and with the additional ability to post pictures of thatched houses that look ‘surprised.’”
On this, I agree absolutely. In fact, I pretty much wrote the same thing last week:
The current debate in the UK portrays the web overwhelmingly as the habitat of trolls, predators, bullies and pornmongers. And that, plus the police are watching too, ready to arrest you for saying the wrong thing.
I can’t help feeling that all this doom-mongering could be self fulfilling. If we keep thinking of the web as the badlands, that’s how it will be, like a child beset by endless criticism and low expectations. We need to talk more about the positive side of life online – the conversations, the friendships, the opportunities – if we’re going to get the most out of it.
We do need to protect and promote the good parts of life online. But we should be very careful of the idea that we can simply block out the negative aspects without having a knock-on effect. We’re in uncharted territory. The wrong turn could be very, very costly.
Third Square movement hopes to unite Egyptians
When Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Abdel Fattah El Sissi last week called on ‘loyal’ Egyptians to take to the streets to give him a mandate to confront what he called “terrorism,” tens of thousands of Egyptians rallied in major squares across the country, expressing their solidarity with the army chief they believed was acting to save Egypt from the scourge of civil war.
In Cairo’s eastern suburb of Nasr City meanwhile, thousands of Islamist supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi continued their sit-in outside a mosque, demanding Morsi’s re-instatement and denouncing what they describe as a “military coup against legitimacy.”
In the deeply polarized country, a seemingly unbridgeable gap between the two opposing rival camps and the intolerant attitude of you-are-either-with-us-or-against-us adopted by both Morsi’s opponents and his supporters, have left little room for neutrality. Yet, amidst the conflict and division, a third group has emerged — one whose members hope to re-unite Egyptians behind the common cause of “a free, democratic and civil Egypt.”
Made up of around 400 liberals, leftists and moderate Islamists, the so-called “Third Square” movement opposes both the military and the Muslim Brotherhood and is trying to promote a middle way amid the political turmoil, reminding Egyptians that they need to continue to work to achieve the goals of the January 2011 Revolution.
The opposition movement has adpoted the motto of “Down with all those who betrayed us: the Muslim Brotherhood, the army and Mubarak regime loyalists.” Since Islamists made sweeping gains in the 2012 parliamentary elections, the Muslim Brotherhood has often been accused by the liberal opposition of “stealing the revolution.” Meanwhile, during the transitional period when the SCAF was in power, revolutionary activists blamed the ruling military regime for the widespread human rights abuses — including the disappearance, detention and torture of hundreds of revolutionary activists — saying “the masks of the army generals running the country have dropped” and “the army and the people were never one hand.”
“The Muslim Brotherhood and the army are two faces of the same coin,” said activist/blogger Tarek Shalaby who joined the movement’s protest rally held at Sphinx Square in Cairo’s upscale neighborhood of Mohandessin last Sunday. “We neither want to be ruled by intolerant islamists whose aim is to establish a theocracy nor do we want a return to military dictatorship. ”
“No to the military junta; No to an Islamic state” and “Yes to a civil state,” read the banners raised by the activists at Sunday’s rally. The protesters also carried pictures of El Sissi and Morsi crossed out in red.
Shalaby and the other Third Square activists have used Facebook and Twitter to organize a series of protest rallies and mobilize support for their nascent movement. Posting humorous anecdotes that poke fun at the former rulers (SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood), they also use the social media network to engage in lively discussions on the way forward for Egypt.
“We are trying to create a space where the January 2011 Revolution can stay alive and flourish. Our movement takes a firm stance against all counter-revolutionary forces . We hope to recruit more and more revolutionaries to the cause, paving the way for a political infrastructure that can lead to the democratic, civil society we aspire for,” said Shalaby.
Launched no more than a fortnight ago, the movement’s Facebook page has already attracted more than 8,300 fans and the number of followers is increasing. Yet, on the streets of Cairo, the voices of the Third Square activists are being drowned out by the cries of protesters in the two main opposing camps. Tamarod, the movement that organized the June 30 mass protests demanding Morsi’s ouster (and which now backs the interim government that replaced him) has accused the Third Square of being “counter-productive and divisive.”
“The movement is dividing the people. They are living in the past. Now is the time for consensus, we need to move forward,” Tamarod spokesman Mohamed Abdul Aziz told Voice of America. He also alleged the movement was “being led by Islamists” referring to former presidential candidate and Muslim Brotherhood member Abdel Moneim Abul Fottouh, whose Strong Egypt Party is heading the initiative.” It is a new face of the Muslim Brotherhood”, he told Daily News Egypt.
Pro-Morsi protesters camped out in Cairo’s northeastern suburb of Nasr City welcome the initiative, describing it as a “new front in the battle against military rule”.
“We welcome any movement that supports the goals of the January 2011 Revolution. It doesn’t bother us that the Third Square is against Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. At least they oppose the military coup”, said Amany Kamal, a radio presenter working for the Egyptian Radio and TV Union, who recently helped establish a coalition of anti-coup journalists at Rab’aa where Morsi supporters are camped out.
Skeptics however, dismiss the significance of the movement, saying it can have little impact in effecting tangible change. “The Third Square is facing two very strong, well-organized adversaries — the military and the Muslim Brotherhood. Its chances of success are slim given the fact that it is outnumbered by the rival opposing camps”, said Amina Mansour, a photo journalist who participated in the anti-Morsi protests in Tahrir Square.
However, organizers of the movement say they will not be deterred by numbers alone. “We may be starting small but we are certain our movement will grow and spread throughout the country,” insisted Shalaby.
While he acknowledged that “the Third Square does not provide practical real-world solutions to the country’s political crisis,” he says “it’s a start and one of the many roads we need to walk down if we are to come out victorious.”