16 Jan 2014 | India, News and features, Politics and Society, Religion and Culture
It is almost impossible to believe, but the government of India’s largest and most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, has been accused of taking the country’s most popular (and shrillest) English news channel, Times Now, off the air following a wave of critical reporting. The so-called ban also extended to another channel, India News. The move led to a widespread backlash, and both channels have been restored. The Samajwadi Party government led by Akhilesh Yadav claims it was a technical glitch and not a targeted strike against its critics.
While the background causes for the ban were slowly built up over time, the immediate one was Times Now’s dogged coverage of a star-studded Bollywood event that cost “crores”, thrown by the Uttar Pradesh government – a festival called “Saifai Mahotsav.” This came at a time when victims of a riot in the town of Muzzafarnagar have been left in the bitter cold to fend for themselves in relief camps. Juxtaposing images of the young Chief Minister watching nubile Bollywood starlets gyrate to the latest hit songs with images of a little child shivering in relief camps, the channels demanded to know, among other things, why the event was taking place and where the money was coming from. The brutal Muzzafarnagar riots, which took place in late August 2013 between Hindus and Muslims in the community, ended with over 1800 Muslim families being displaced from their homes. The Indian media has routinely been reporting on the problems of resettlement, the cold, the dismal conditions of the camps and the victims’ complaints of foul play by officials there. Given this background, the glamorous Saifai festival became a rallying point for TV channels. They also started reporting that five ministers from the Uttar Pradesh government were on a foreign junket while riot victims were still suffering. The criticism against the government was loud and unforgiving, and in some cases, unrelenting.
Soon the editors of both Times Now and India News received reports that their channels were blocked across many cities and towns of Uttar Pradesh. As it stands, it seems the ban was applicable to those still watching cable and was not implemented over Direct-to-Home satellite systems. According to the Indian media, cable operators unofficially admitted that they were being pressurised by the government. The president of the Cable Service Consumer Protection Committee, Ambika Prasad Ojha told the Times of India that “the telecast of Times Now and India News has been stopped across UP because the CM got offended by their negative coverage of the Saifai Mahotsav.” Online media channel Newslaundry reported that they were unable to find any official communication ordering a ban.
In light of the increased criticism, the Uttar Pradesh government has defended itself saying that, “the [Samajwadi] party respects media freedom and that there must be some technical error and nothing else.” The Chief Minister gave an interview explaining that the festival is to boost tourism and industry in the state and has been portrayed in a bad light by the channels, and took offence to much of the language used in their reports. Party spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia singled out the word “debauchery” that Times Now’s main anchor had used to describe the festival. In the same interview, the Chief Minister talked about an interview he gave a year ago that was vetoed by the sales and marketing department of the channel, hinting that incessant coverage of the timing of the festival was not due to its newsworthiness, but to gain viewers. He even complained that the channels did not mention that the same Bollywood stars who attended Saifai Mahotsavalso, also visited sick children in hospitals.
While the young Chief Minister might feel persecuted for holding an annual festival – riot or no riot – the cable operators admissions have heavily hinted that there has been behind-the-scenes muzzling of the media. That coupled with the fact that two very vocal critics were taken off the air in the wake of heightened negative coverage does not bode well for neither the Uttar Pradesh government’s lip service to media freedom, nor media freedom in India on the whole. The incident has taken place without anyone going to an industry association with a formal complaint or a formal order for a short-term ban (as happens from time to time in India when channels break rules). The Information and Broadcasting Minister, Manish Tewari, made a statement saying that, “I think it is extremely unwarranted, it is extremely uncalled for and if at all any channel has been taken off the air for malicious reasons or a malafide reason, it is extremely uncalled for that freedom of speech and expression is trampled upon in this manner.” Tellingly, the Minister had just finished a speech in which he had said that in broadcasting, if content is king then distribution is God.
Ultimately, unless it can be proven that cable operators stopped the transmission of Times Now and India News on purpose, the story will remain mired in allegations. However, the public sentiment on social media seems to agree that the channels were unfairly targeted. What this exposes is the lack of rules when in face-offs between politicians (or perhaps, ruling politicians) and the media. Earlier reports on the Congress government have centred on requests to Google to take down posts that criticised it, as well as cases of social media users being arrested for comments critical of politicians. In this case, it seems, instead of either ignoring the criticism, or filing a formal complaint, the state government simply bullied cable operators into taking the channels off air. For a country that prides itself on a diverse and robust media environment, it is yet another in a long list of warning signs that press freedom is certainly not to be taken for granted and need to be protected at all costs.
This article was published on 16 Jan 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
15 Jan 2014 | News and features, Politics and Society, Tunisia
(Photo illustration: Shutterstock)
Tunisia’s National Constituent Assembly (NCA) is voting on a 146-article constitution, following a political crisis which put the country’s democratic transition on hold after the assassination of opposition deputy Mohamed Brahmi last July.
The NCA, where the Islamist Ennahdha Movement enjoys a 40% majority, was elected in October 2011 to draft a new constitution. To be adopted, each article requires a simple majority vote. NCA deputies will then have to approve the text in its entirety by a two-thirds majority.
Articles that guarantee freedom of expression, the rights to access information, protest and assembly, and to form unions, associations and parties were adopted last week. The charter also bans prior censorship on freedoms of thought, conscience, expression and publication (article 30) and enshrines freedom of creation (article 41) and the right to privacy and personal data protection (article 23). Article 48 further states that no future constitutional amendments that violate human rights and freedoms could be introduced to the text.
But, ironically, Tunisia’s self proclaimed progressive and secular opposition stand behind the introduction of an anti-free speech clause in the text. The NCA adopted an amendment to article 6 of the draft constitution banning Takfir (apostasy accusations). Article 6 guarantees freedoms of belief, conscience and religious practice.
On 5 January, the vote on the constitution was interrupted over death threats received by Popular Front deputy Mongi Rahoui. He said he received death threats following declarations made by Habib Ellouze, another NCA representative from Ennahdha. Speaking to the media, Ellouze referred to Rahoui as an “enemy to Islam”. The Interior Ministry confirmed the death threats against Rahoui and placed him under police protection.
“What [Ellouze] said yesterday, that I am an enemy of Islam, has lead to death threats against me”, Rahoui said at the assembly’s plenary session of 5 January. “How much more blood must there be before we understand that we are united”, he added. Rahoui was referring to the assassination of two other fellow Popular Front leaders, Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi. Belaid, in particular, a staunch critic of Islamists was before his assassination subject to fatwas labelling him as a ‘Kafir’ and an ‘enemy to Islam’ who should be killed.
Following Rahoui’s declaration, NCA deputies from the opposition demanded a revote on article 6 to add a clause ‘banning takfir and incitement to violence’. The clause was approved by 131 votes. But by moving to ban Takfir, Tunisia’s opposition acted out emotionally and without taking into consideration the chilling effect a similar clause could have on free speech. The banning of “apostasy accusations” could only open the door to more restrictions on free speech.
“In just few hours, we will be able to say that the opposition put up in place the first rock in the way of free expression”, Amira Yahyaoui, president of Albawsala, a transparency NGO tracking the NCA’s activities, tweeted before the vote. “How is it nice to watch our representatives unanimously voting in favour of draconian laws”, she added in another tweet.
Following to the opposition’s demands for a constitutional ban on Takfir, Ennahdha’s deputies also called for criminalisation of blasphemy. But, for lack of consensus among the negotiating NCA representatives, the suggestion was not submitted for a vote.
Initially, Tunisia’s Ennahdha did seek to ‘criminalise attacks on sanctities’ in a first draft of the constitution. However, those plans were dropped following negotiations with the other two parties in the ruling coalition. Article 6, still however includes a vague phrase tasking the State with “protecting sanctities” without specifying how, or defining and listing these sanctities.
Meanwhile, Tunisia’s recently established broadcast media regulator, the Independent High Authority for Audiovisual Communication (better known as HAICA) repeatedly expressed its reservations about the draft constitution. HAICA was established by decree 116 on freedom of the media, which was issued on 2 November 2011, to regulate the broadcast media sector.
On a positive move, the constituent assembly incorporated HAICA into the draft constitution. However, the HAICA board criticised provisions in the text threatening the authority’s independence and limiting its prerogatives. Article 122 of the draft constitution states that the Parliament shall elect HAICA’s board members. The media regulator says that this selection process will ‘strip HAICA from its independence’ and make it ‘submissive to the [parliamentary] majority’. Under article 124, HAICA has an ‘advisory’ mission and is not attributed ‘regulatory’ powers which would allow it to regulate and organise the broadcast sector as it is stipulated by decree 116.
The two articles are awaiting NCA’s approval as deputies will first have to discuss and vote on chapters related to the executive branch and the judiciary.
This article was posted on 14 Jan 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
15 Jan 2014 | China, Digital Freedom, News and features, Politics and Society
Despite state censorship and political repression, social media is changing the protest landscape in China.
With the exception of economic reform that started in the late 1970’s, the country has remained restricted by government policy and ideology. A one party state has led to a national media that lacks plurality and regularly fails to report on incidents that they fear may damage the government’s image. Combined with internet censoring and heavy-handed tactics being employed against state opposition, freedom of expression has always been limited, but there is hope for change.
Social media within China has expanded rapidly, Sina Weibo — 60 million active daily users, 600 million registered users (Sep 2013) — and WeChat — 300 million registered users, of which 100 million are international (Aug 2013) — are two of the most popular. This allows a democratic spread of information that has never previously been available to citizen journalists or local people.
A media project by the University of Hong Kong showed the importance of Weibo in relation to the 2012 protest in Shifang against potential environmental damage by a proposed copper plant. Traditional media largely declined to report on the protests themselves, but made reference to ‘an incident’ and the rising stock price of a tear gas company, whose product was used on protestors. In contrast, there were around 5.25 million posts on Weibo containing the term ‘Shifang’ between 1-4 July with 400,000 containing images and 10,000 containing video. A similar incident occurred in Chengdu, Sichuan province, when factory workers went on strike to demand higher wages. State media ignored the protests while social media spread the news that tear gas was being used, along with images of the protest. Eventually officials stepped down and workers received a raise. Physical protests can be complemented by online activity, but it is not without difficulties.
In addition to the notorious firewall, the government can censor specific words to try and control the narrative of any given incident, by pushing their own agenda and restricting citizens’ freedom of expression. However, many online users use images, and memes in particular can portray a serious topic in a light-hearted manner, further increasing the spread of information.
An OECD report in 2013 evaluated government trust in various countries, China ranked very well with 66% compared to an OECD country average of 40%. However, this disguises some of the ill-feeling towards local government officials, who are usually held accountable by the people. This could change though, as economic policy, typically the role of central government, leads to growing inequality. New leadership within the government is attempting to maintain and improve government trust, by introducing ‘Mao-esque’ techniques in an attempt to bring everyone together under one nation.
It is clear that censorship is one way of trying to achieve this, as those who openly promote citizens’ rights, inclusive democracy and transparency are regularly arrested, including Xu Zhiyong. Additionally, new training materials for journalists and editors suggest a government eager to maintain control, as they expect that the media “must be loyal to the party, adhere to the party’s leadership and make the principle of loyalty to the party the principle of journalistic profession.”
Recently, a planned protest to honour a strike over censorship last year was pre-emptively halted, when police warned or detained several people thought to be involved. A well-known campaigner for freedom of expression, Wu Wei, said that protests such as this were not accepted by the government, as they did not fit “within their social stability framework.”
The government is so concerned over social instability that Tiananmen Square is heavily monitored by uniformed and plain-clothed police. The ability to suppress dissent as quickly as possible is necessary in a popular tourist destination, to portray the image of a peaceful China to both international and domestic visitors. The digital censorship employed the government is reflected in physical terms by the large security presence in one of China’s most well-known but contentious landmarks.
The Chinese government is keen to have control over the nation’s information, and fear that freedom of expression and information could pose a threat to their power. Social media offers a critical viewpoint that is lacking from state-controlled media. However, even social media has not been able to completely detach itself from the Chinese government’s censorship.
Nonetheless, the increasing use of social media and rapid spread of information is putting pressure on the government that it has never felt before while the digital revolution is gaining more and more momentum. Democratic consciousness is rising in China and with the state pursuing an oppressive agenda, cultural change from the bottom-up, rather than institutionalised change from the top-down, is necessary to pursue these principles.
This article was posted on 15 Jan 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
15 Jan 2014 | Europe and Central Asia, European Union, Index Reports, News and features, Politics and Society
This article is part of a series based on our report, Time to Step Up: The EU and freedom of expression
Beyond its near neighbourhood, the EU works to promote freedom of expression in the wider world. To promote freedom of expression and other human rights, the EU has 30 ongoing human rights dialogues with supranational bodies, but also large economic powers such as China.
The EU and freedom of expression in China
The focus of the EU’s relationship with China has been primarily on economic development and trade cooperation. Within China some commentators believe that the tough public noises made by the institutions of the EU to the Chinese government raising concerns over human rights violations are a cynical ploy so that EU nations can continue to put financial interests first as they invest and develop trade with the country. It is certainly the case that the member states place different levels of importance on human rights in their bilateral relationships with China than they do in their relations with Italy, Portugal, Romania and Latvia. With China, member states are often slow to push the importance of human rights in their dialogue with the country. The institutions of the European Union, on the other hand, have formalised a human rights dialogue with China, albeit with little in the way of tangible results.
The EU has a Strategic Partnership with China. This partnership includes a political dialogue on human rights and freedom of the media on a reciprocal basis.[1] It is difficult to see how effective this dialogue is and whether in its present form it should continue. The EU-China human rights dialogue, now 14 years old, has delivered no tangible results.The EU-China Country Strategic Paper (CSP) 2007-2013 on the European Commission’s strategy, budget and priorities for spending aid in China only refers broadly to “human rights”. Neither human rights nor access to freedom of expression are EU priorities in the latest Multiannual Indicative Programme and no money is allocated to programmes to promote freedom of expression in China. The CSP also contains concerning statements such as the following:
“Despite these restrictions [to human rights], most people in China now enjoy greater freedom than at any other time in the past century, and their opportunities in society have increased in many ways.”[2]
Even though the dialogues have not been effective, the institutions of the EU have become more vocal on human rights violations in China in recent years. For instance, it included human rights defenders, including Ai Weiwei, at the EU Nobel Prize event in Beijing. The Chinese foreign ministry responded by throwing an early New Year’s banquet the same evening to reduce the number of attendees to the EU event. When Ai Weiwei was arrested in 2011, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton issued a statement in which she expressed her concerns at the deterioration of the human rights situation in China and called for the unconditional release of all political prisoners detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression.[3] The European Parliament has also recently been vocal in supporting human rights in China. In December 2012, it adopted a resolution in which MEPs denounced the repression of “the exercise of the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly, press freedom and the right to join a trade union” in China. They criticised new laws that facilitate “the control and censorship of the internet by Chinese authorities”, concluding that “there is therefore no longer any real limit on censorship or persecution”. Broadly, within human rights groups there are concerns that the situation regarding human rights in China is less on the agenda at international bodies such as the Human Rights Council[4] than it should be for a country with nearly 20% of the world’s population, feeding a perception that China seems “untouchable”. In a report on China and the International Human Rights System, Chatham House quotes a senior European diplomat in Geneva, who argues “no one would dare” table a resolution on China at the HRC with another diplomat, adding the Chinese government has “managed to dissuade states from action – now people don’t even raise it”. A small number of diplomats have expressed the view that more should be done to increase the focus on China in the Council, especially given the perceived ineffectiveness of the bilateral human rights dialogues. While EU member states have shied away from direct condemnation of China, they have raised freedom of expression abuses during HRC General Debates.
The Common Foreign and Security Policy and human rights dialogues
The EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) is the agreed foreign policy of the European Union. The Maastricht Treaty of 1993 allowed the EU to develop this policy, which is mandated through Article 21 of the Treaty of the European Union to protect the security of the EU, promote peace, international security and co-operation and to consolidate democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedom. Unlike most EU policies, the CFSP is subject to unanimous consensus, with majority voting only applying to the implementation of policies already agreed by all member states. As member states still value their own independent foreign policies, the CFSP remains relatively weak, and so a policy that effectively and unanimously protects and promotes rights is at best still a work in progress. The policies that are agreed as part of the Common Foreign and Security Policy therefore be useful in protecting and defending human rights if implemented with support. There are two key parts of the CFSP strategy to promote freedom of expression, the External Action Service guidelines on freedom of expression and the human rights dialogues. The latter has been of variable effectiveness, and so civil society has higher hopes for the effectiveness of the former.
The External Action Service freedom of expression guidelines
As part of its 2012 Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy, the EU is working on new guidelines for online and offline freedom of expression, due by the end of 2013. These guidelines could provide the basis for more active external policies and perhaps encourage a more strategic approach to the promotion of human rights in light of the criticism made of the human rights dialogues.
The guidelines will be of particular use when the EU makes human rights impact assessments of third countries and in determining conditionality on trade and aid with non-EU states. A draft of the guidelines has been published, but as these guidelines will be a Common Foreign and Security Policy document, there will be no full and open consultation for civil society to comment on the draft. This is unfortunate and somewhat ironic given the guidelines’ focus on free expression. The Council should open this process to wider debate and discussion.
The draft guidelines place too much emphasis on the rights of the media and not enough emphasis on the role of ordinary citizens and their ability to exercise the right to free speech. It is important the guidelines deal with a number of pressing international threats to freedom of expression, including state surveillance, the impact of criminal defamation, restrictions on the registration of associations and public protest and impunity against human right defenders. Although externally facing, the freedom of expression guidelines may also be useful in indirectly establishing benchmarks for internal EU policies. It would clearly undermine the impact of the guidelines on third parties if the domestic policies of EU member states contradict the EU’s external guidelines.
Human rights dialogues
Another one of the key processes for the EU to raise concerns over states’ infringement of the right to freedom of expression as part of the CFSP are the human rights dialogues. The guidelines on the dialogues make explicit reference to the promotion of freedom of expression. The EU runs 30 human rights dialogues across the globe, with the key dialogues taking place in China (as above), Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia and Belarus. It also has a dialogues with the African Union, all enlargement candidate countries (Croatia, the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia and Turkey), as well as consultations with Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the United States and Russia. The dialogue with Iran was suspended in 2006. Beyond this, there are also “local dialogues” at a lower level, with the Heads of EU missions, with Cambodia, Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Israel, Jordan, Laos, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority, Sri Lanka, Tunisia and Vietnam. In November 2008, the Council decided to initiate and enhance the EU human rights dialogues with a number of Latin American countries.
It is argued that because too many of the dialogues are held behind closed doors, with little civil society participation with only low-level EU officials, it has allowed the dialogues to lose their importance as a tool. Others contend that the dialogues allow the leaders of EU member states and Commissioners to silo human rights solely into the dialogues, giving them the opportunity to engage with authoritarian regimes on trade without raising specific human rights objections.
While in China and Central Asia the EU’s human rights dialogues have had little impact, elsewhere the dialogues are more welcome. The EU and Brazil established a Strategic Partnership in 2007. Within this framework, a Joint Action Plan (JAP) covering the period 2012-2014 was endorsed by the EU and Brazil, in which they both committed to “promoting human rights and democracy and upholding international justice”. To this end, Brazil and the EU hold regular human rights consultations that assess the main challenges concerning respect for human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law; advance human rights and democracy policy priorities and identify and coordinate policy positions on relevant issues in international fora. While at present, freedom of expression has not been prioritised as a key human rights challenge in this dialogue, the dialogues are seen by both partners as of mutual benefit. It is notable that in the EU-Brazil dialogue both partners come to the dialogues with different human rights concerns, but as democracies. With criticism of the effectiveness and openness of the dialogues, the EU should look again at how the dialogues fit into the overall strategy of the Union and its member states in the promotion of human rights with third countries and assess whether the dialogues can be improved.
[1] It covers both press freedom for the Chinese media in Europe and also press freedom for European media in China.
[2] China Strategy Paper 2007-2013, Annexes, ‘the political situation’, p. 11
[3] “I urge China to release all of those who have been detained for exercising their universally recognised right to freedom of expression.”
[4] Interview with European diplomat, February 2013.
