11 Jun 2014 | Africa, News and features, South Africa
President Jacob Zuma of South Africa (Photo: Jordi Matas/Demotix)
Rumours in the run-up to South Africa’s fifth democratic election that a “ministry of propaganda” was planned, have come to fruition as the formation of a new “ministry of communication” has been announced. The reasons for this development could be found in the results of the 8 May national and provincial elections, which returned the African National Congress (ANC) to power but, as predicted by the party’s own research, with a reduced majority – from 65.9% to 62.1%.
The party experienced its primary electoral setbacks in metropolitan areas, particularly Johannesburg and the capital Tshwane (Pretoria), both situated in the province called Gauteng, which means “place of gold” in the local Sesotho language – aptly so, as Gauteng is the economic heartland of the country.
ANC provincial votes in Johannesburg came to 52% while provincial votes for the ANC in Tshwane dipped to 49%, both cases a decline of 10% from the previous election in 2009. It was left to the more peripheral cities to pull the ANC through in Gauteng. Another large city, Nelson Mandela Bay in the Eastern Cape, came in below 50% again, just as it had done in 2009. Notably, the ANC received its usual high percentages of votes in the predominantly rural provinces of Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Free State and KwaZulu Natal, which clocked between 64% and 78% in turnout for the ANC.
This discrepancy in ANC support between metropolitan and rural areas could be explained with regards to access to media. The residents of Tshwane and “the Afropolitan city” of Johannesburg (as some scholars call it) have several options when it comes to accessing information and news opinion. Apart from the public broadcaster’s TV and radio stations, there is a range of privately owned media to choose from: from newspapers and radio stations owned by competing media companies, to various online news sources, to social media in the form of blogs, Twitter and Facebook.
This would indicate the political need for the creation of a ministry particularly aimed at controlling the flow of information, especially as local government elections are due to take place in two years’ time, with the ANC running the risk of losing control of the most significant metropolitan areas in the economic centre of South Africa. The ANC’s poor performance in Gauteng can be attributed to various controversies concerning its leader Jacob Zuma, who has been the president of South Africa since 2009. These controversies range from the introduction of a road tolling system in Gauteng without proper public consultation to Zuma being implicated in massive misappropriation of state funds spent on his private homestead in the rural hinterland of KwaZulu Natal. Combine these events with Zuma’s status as self-proclaimed traditionalist who frowns upon women’s emancipation and gay rights, it would seem that the president was a liability that cost the ANC votes in Gauteng.
While these controversies are debated in Gauteng media, voters in the more rural provinces found themselves mostly beholden to officially sanctioned news from the South African Broadcasting Service (SABC). The SABC has been immersed in successive battles for political control which reflect the factional conflicts within the ruling ANC. Political interference in the SABC has become a feature of the Zuma presidency.
During the 2014 election campaigns, the SABC banned no less than three opposition party advertisements even though it is legally compelled to ensure fair exposure of all political parties in the run-up to elections. The reasons were spurious. For example, the SABC claimed that footage showing and criticising excessive police force amounts to inciting violence against the police. Appeals to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa), constitutionally mandated to oversee the SABC, failed. The affected political parties – the Democratic Alliance and the Economic Freedom Fighters – took to YouTube to ensure public exposure of the ads – with ads going viral.
The new ministry of communication seems a direct intervention to stem negative publicity. Polls show that Zuma has become a liability to his party. He is however just one factor influencing the growing impression that the ANC is failing in its task to overturn the legacy of apartheid. The party’s response has been to further tighten control over the flow of information – a trend that includes the adoption of the Protection of State Information Act, which seeks to clamp down on journalists and citizens generally accessing state information that reveals government corruption or incompetence.
In Zuma’s announcement of his new cabinet after the election, the erstwhile ministry of communications has been split into two: a ministry for telecommunications and postal services and a ministry for communications. The latter, he said, would be responsible for overarching communication policy and strategy, information dissemination and publicity as well as the branding of the country abroad. Improved communication and marketing will promote an informed citizenry and also assist the country to promote investments, economic growth and job creation.
This conflation of marketing and branding with information dissemination, all for an “informed citizenry”, is further strengthened by the “components” that the ministry would be “formed out of”:
- Icasa
- SABC
- Government Communications and Information System (GCIS)
- Brand SA and
- Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA)
As mentioned, the SABC’s constitutional mandate is to act as a public broadcaster, which includes being politically unpartisan. Similarly, Icasa is constitutionally mandated to act independently. The MDDA Act clearly states this body’s functions as impartially and independently promoting the diversification of the media. Lumping together marketers and government communicators with journalists and bodies responsible for promoting access to information suggests that the new ministry represents a more concerted attempt to obviate the country’s constitutional commitment to the “freedom to receive or impart information or ideas”.
This article was published on June 11, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
10 Jun 2014 | Americas, Brazil, Digital Freedom, Digital Freedom Reports, Index Reports, News and features
World Cup host country Brazil has the potential to become an influential, global leader in digital rights — but that will depend on key decisions taken in the coming months, Index on Censorship says in a report published today.
The internet has provided new opportunities for free expression in the country, but attempts to regulate content, inequality in access to the internet and violence against journalists, are among the challenges to internet freedom that remain in Brazil.
“With the adoption of a progressive legislation on internet rights, Brazil is taking the lead in digital freedom,” said Melody Patry, Index’s Senior Advocacy Officer and author of the report Brazil: A new global internet referee? “Digital technologies have provided new opportunities for freedom of expression in the country, but have also come with new attempts to regulate content and strong inequalities between those with and without access to the internet. Old problems like violence against journalists, media concentration and the influence of local political leaders over judges and other public agents persist,” she said. Brazil recently signed into law the Marco Civil bill, known as the internet bill of rights. It will provide a much-needed legal framework for internet rights, while also making Brazil the largest country in the world to enshrine net neutrality in its legal code. The law also includes stricter privacy standards to fight surveillance, and guarantees freedom of expression online. However, the country still faces considerable challenges in ensuring it can deliver on the promise of the new legislation.
The report is available in English and Portuguese. This article was published on June 9, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
10 Jun 2014 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
(Image: Essam Sharaf/Wikimedia Commons)
A few months after the adoption of a progressive new constitution guaranteeing freedom of expression and the right to privacy, reported plans by Egyptian authorities for indiscriminate mass surveillance of social media in Egypt have alarmed rights advocates and many within the country’s internet community.
The proposed surveillance plan has also sparked fears that internet activists may be the next targets of the military-backed government’s widening crackdown on dissent.
Defending his ministry’s decision to introduce the new mass monitoring system, Egypt’s Minister of Interior Mohamed Ibrahim was quoted by the semi-official Al Ahram newspaper on Monday as saying that the proposed system was “necessary to combat terrorism and protect national security”. He added it would be “similar to that used in the US or the UK to protect their national security”.
Seeking to allay concerns that the new system would curtail freedom of expression, Ibrahim said: “We do not seek to interfere with citizens’ privacy. The system will merely help us track and identify potential terrorist and criminal threats.”
Ibrahim’s statements came a day after the privately-owned Al Watan newspaper published a leaked call by the ministry of interior for tenders from companies to establish a sophisticated mass surveillance system.
In a statement criticising the proposed mass surveillance plan, Amnesty International said the monitoring of social media “would deal a devastating blow to the rights to privacy and freedom of expression in the country”, adding that “the new surveillance system risks becoming yet another instrument in the Egyptian government’s toolbox of state repression”. Amnesty also urged the Egyptian authorities not to replicate illegal programmes that have been used by other countries to violate the right to privacy. “Any surveillance programmes must comply with the general principles under international law of legality and judicial accountability,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, Egyptian rights groups and internet activists have expressed fears the proposed system would “close down the last remaining space for free expression in Egypt”.
Since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi by military-backed protests last summer, the interim authorities have taken measures to tighten the state’s grip on the media. Days after the military takeover of the country, several Islamist-linked media outlets were shut down by the interim government. Security forces ransacked the offices of a Muslim Brotherhood TV channel and the Al Jazeera Mubasher Channel (accused by Egyptians of being pro-Muslim Brotherhood), confiscating their equipment and arresting their journalists.There has since been a marked shift in the tone of both state and state-influenced news media with many journalists now towing the government line either for fear of persecution or of being labelled “unpatriotic.” Several journalists have complained of “harassment” and intimidation” by security agencies. In today’s deeply polarised Egypt, reports of verbal and physical attacks by “patriotic” mobs on journalists trying to cover the conflict, are all too common.
Journalists covering “anti coup” protests have been deliberately targeted by security forces with no fewer than five being shot and killed while covering the unrest. Mayada Ashraf who worked for the privately-owned El Dostour newspaper became the latest journalist-victim of the violence when she was shot in the head in March while covering clashes between security forces and supporters of the ousted Morsi. Meanwhile, 65 journalists have been detained since the military takeover of the country nearly a year ago. There are 17 journalists currently behind bars in Egypt, according to a recent report released by the Committee for the Protection of Journalists. Three Al Jazeera English journalists have been in prison for six months, charged with “aiding a terror group and spreading false news that harms national security.” Despite pleading “not guilty”, their repeated requests to be released on bail have thus far been denied by the prosecutors in the case. A fourth Al Jazeera journalist has been in jail since August 2013 and has to date, not been charged.
Besides detecting any references to terrorism on social media, the controversial new system will also scan social networks for “calls for illegal protests and sit-ins, incitement to violence and defamation of religion,” Abdel Fattah Othman, a spokesman for the ministry of interior said in an interview broadcast Sunday on Al Mehwar Channel. In the absence of a “watch list” determining the topics the ministry intends to censor, many internet users are worried, fearing their electronic communications may be targeted.
Responses by Egyptian internet activists to the ministry’s surveillance plan have teetered between anger and sarcasm. Some Twitter users chose to take the matter lightly, mocking the decision in their tweets. #Wearebeingwatched — created by Twitter activists a week ago in response to the proposed plan — has fast become one of the top trending hashtags in Egypt with more than 50,000 uses within the span of a single week.
“State security agents when are you coming to get me?” Mahmoud El Zanaty a Twitter user jokingly asked, using the hashtag.”You never keep your appointments.”
“I’m free, that is why I’m being watched,” was another sarcastic message posted, by a user going by the twitter handle Doaa. Meanwhile, in a message addressed to the “agent” supposedly watching him, another twitter user wrote: “Farrag, come join me for tea!”
While most rights activists fear the proposed surveillance system may be used as a tool of repression, a few rights advocates have dismissed it as “mere government propaganda”.
“State security agencies have always kept a close watch on social media networks in Egypt,” Rights Lawyer Gamal Eid told Index. He cautioned however, that the ministry’s announcement was meant “to intimidate online activists and silence voices of dissent”.
Over the course of the past three years, several activists have been arrested and prosecuted for the content they have posted on social media networks. Blogger Maikel Nabil was arrested in March, 2011 and later sentenced to 3 years in prison for a Facebook post allegedly insulting the military. He had written: “The army and the people were never one hand.” He spent ten months behind bars before being released. In September 2012, Alber Saber, a Computer Science student and blogger was also arrested on allegations of having shared the YouTube trailer of the anti-Islam film “Innocence of Muslims” on his Facebook page. While police found no evidence that he had uploaded the video deemed insulting to Islam, he was nevertheless sentenced to 3 years in prison for “defaming Islam and Christianity” and allegedly “spreading atheism”. Saber was released for an appeal session a year later and subsequently fled the country. Earlier this year, Amr Hamzawy, a prominent liberal intellectual and political scientist was charged with “insulting the judiciary” for a Twitter post criticising a court ruling against three US pro-democracy civil society organisations .
Ahead of the January 2011 uprising, young pro-democracy activists had used social media networks to mobilise and organise the mass protests that brought down autocratic president Hosni Mubarak. Videos depicting police brutality and others urging Egyptians to rise against the corrupt Mubarak regime posted by the April 6 pro-democracy youth movement and “We Are All Khaled Said” — a Facebook page created by Google Executive Wael Ghoneim to bring attention to the brutal murder of a young Alexandrian (allegedly beaten to death by two police officers) — were the initial spark igniting the 2011 uprising, prompting some analysts to describe the revolt of 3 years ago, as a “Facebook Revolution”. Recognising the role of social media in the mass uprising, Mubarak cut off the internet and mobile phone lines in an attempt to quell the protests, a few days after their eruption. His rash response however, triggered public furore and only served to further strengthen the resolve of the Tahrir protesters.
With internet penetration in Egypt at 43 per cent (at the end of last year) — relatively low compared to other countries where illiteracy rates are lower than in Egypt — the Egyptian government is nevertheless wary of social media, having witnessed first-hand the role of Facebook and Twitter in toppling the authoritarian regimes in the region. Despite provisions in the recently-adopted constitution protecting the right to privacy and guaranteeing the confidentiality of electronic correspondence, telephone calls and other means of communication, the military-backed authorities are taking no chances. Systematic monitoring of Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and possibly mobile phone applications such as WhatsApp, Viber and Instagram would enable the government to identify dissenters and possibly, crackdown even harder on them, critics fear.
In the past year, the interim government has shown little respect for freedoms and rule of law. With military strongman Abdel Fattah El Sisi now sworn in as the country’s new president and in the wake of the proposed mass surveillance plan, skeptics warn that things are likely to get even worse as a counter-revolutionary bid seeking to obliterate all traces of the 2011 Revolution that called for bread, freedom and social justice, gains ground in Egypt.
This article was published on June 10, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
9 Jun 2014 | About Index, Campaigns, Press Releases, Statements
Ahead of the World Cup, Index on Censorship’s new policy paper Brazil: A new global internet referee? (PDF: [English] | [Portuguese]) explores the challenges and threats to online freedom of expression in the country.
In the wake of a global internet conference – Netmundial – and the signing of a groundbreaking domestic internet law – Marco Civil – Brazil has the potential to become an influential leader in digital rights. But that will depend on key choices and decisions taken in the coming weeks and months. Drawing on interviews with leading figures in Brazilian civil society, internet businesses, politicians and journalists conducted in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in February 2014, the paper analyses the country’s increasing profile in global internet governance debates and the consequences of its domestic internet policies.
“With the adoption of a progressive legislation on internet rights, Brazil is taking the lead in digital freedom” Index’s Senior Advocacy Officer and author of the paper, Melody Patry said.
“Digital technologies have provided new opportunities for freedom of expression in the country, but have also come with new attempts to regulate content and strong inequalities between those with and without access to the internet. Old problems like violence against journalists, media concentration and the influence of local political leaders over judges and other public agents persist.”
By the end of June 2013, more than 105 million people, 52% of the Brazilian population, had internet access at work, home, school or in cyber cafés. Brazilians are among the world’s top users of blogs and social networks. Considerable hopes are being placed on the new Marco Civil bill, which will provide a much-needed progressive legal framework for internet rights. The bill was signed into law on 23 April 2014, making Brazil the largest country in the world to enshrine net neutrality in its legal code. The law also includes stricter privacy standards to fight surveillance, and guarantees freedom of expression online. However, Brazil still faces considerable challenges in ensuring it can deliver on the promise of the new legislation.
“Brazil must now build on Marco Civil to ensure the respect of the right to freedom of expression online and offline, and promote internet rights in the international sphere”, Patry said.
In order for Brazil to provide a safe space for digital freedom and ensure the promise of Marco Civil is met in reality, Index on Censorship offers the following recommendations:
At the international level, Brazil should:
• Use its leadership to further promote a free and fair internet by continuing to publicly advocate for fundamental internet principles such as net neutrality, user privacy and freedom of expression in international forums
• Ensure that civil society organisations are deeply involved in the discussions and decision-making process on global internet governance, and that the outcome of international debates adequately reflect their recommendations
• Resist intervention by powerful lobby groups and governments to skew the outcome of multistakeholder gathering
• Refuse to adopt or sign up to repressive measures and/or international agreements favouring internet censorship, top-down approach of internet governance and tighter government control of the internet
At the domestic level, Brazil should:
• Reform defamation and privacy laws to ensure they are not used to prosecute journalists and citizens who express legitimate opinions in online debates, posts and discussions
• Provide proper training to the judiciary and law enforcement agencies on defamation and other freedom of expression-related issues
• Introduce clear guidelines regarding civil defamation lawsuits, especially in regard to the use of content takedown and the setting of indemnification amounts
• Ensure that all cases of killings and other forms of violence against media professionals and human rights defenders are effectively, promptly and independently investigated, and those responsible are held accountable
• Be more transparent about the ongoing work around privacy legislation, including the Data Protection Bill
• Pursue their efforts in promoting digital access and inclusion to all Brazilians by expanding the Digital Cities programme and stick to the target of ensuring 40 million households or 68% of the population are able to access broadband by the end of 2014 as part of the National Broadband Plan
Brazil: A new global internet referee?
PDF: [English] | [Portuguese]
For further information and interview requests, please call 0207 260 2660
