Tuesday’s ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) said that internet search engine operators must remove links to articles found to be outdated or irrelevant at the request of individuals. Index on Censorship’s CEO Jodie Ginsberg joined Max Mosley on Channel 4 News to debate why the ruling could lead to further censorship and the re-writing of history.
(Photo illustration: Shutterstock)
The Brazilian press is “partially free”, according a study made by Freedom House published on 1 May. The study considered the deaths of three journalists in 2013, the attacks on the work of the press in June’s protests, the lawsuits against bloggers and internet companies and a large number of government requests to remove online content. Brazil scored a 45 — on a scale of zero to one hundred, zero being the best scenario.
The attacks and violence are only one side of the threats to press freedom in Brazil. Communication monopolies standardise the views and concentrate the budget and the audience. The leader is Globo Network, which owns more than half of the television advertising market. The concentration of the media and the intimacy of their owners with powerful politicians is identified by Freedom House as “one of the biggest obstacles to media diversity in Brazil”.
Televisions and radios are government grants, and although the law prohibits monopoly, this is a game of power advantageous for both businesses and the government. There are also congressmen who own or control media. Both sides reinforce each other, forming lobbies to protect their fiefdoms’s of versions and truths. Any proposal on communication democratization or regulation is shouted down by these lobbies as an attack on freedom of expression or an attempt at censorship. The Brazilian Telecommunications Code is 50 years old and a target of campaigns of freedom of expression entities.
However, there is not a declared censorship. All the guarantees of freedom of press and information are established in the Constitution and in various laws. What happens is that press freedom in Brazil is fundamentally compromised by political and state interests and private sponsorships, which finance the media. Thus, it is not a lack freedom, but a lack of autonomy.
Since June 2013, hundreds of protests have been shaking Brazil. During many of them, protesters burned cars belonging to the press. What does this mean? The level of dissatisfaction and resentment is palpable. There’s a heartache that turned against “everything-that-is-there”, including how the media covers the facts. The roles of the press and government is being questioned in the streets. Nevertheless, the sound of these voices is muffled in the media.
With the FIFA World Cup, the exacerbated patriotism and the green and yellow colors have taken control over television commercials, selling an artificial enthusiasm. Advertisers such as private banks, state companies, operators of credit cards, the soft drink industry, beers and cars have invested over £350 million for ads on only one station–Rede Globo, the country’s largest. Each advertiser is spending £1.4 million on advertising per day, the equivalent to a daily Super Bowl.
The largest communication network in Brazil has exclusive rights to broadcast the matches and has the official sponsorship of FIFA. Throughout the day, and especially between 8:30PM and 10PM –“the Brazilian primetime TV” –viewers see an exciting commercial film seeking to promote the acceptance of the FIFA World Cup. With the slogan “Somos um só” (“We are all one”), the advertisement shows how television “has the magic to put the entire country on the same vibe”.
The numbers are even more exciting. Only 30 seconds of a primetime ad cost £168,000. There is still the merchandising: the company is the only one licensed to sell FIFA products. About 1,700 items should yield £534 million to the broadcaster. Such numbers do not harmonise with autonomy of content.
Dozens of federal government announcements are also aired on television. One, for example, announces a rich country, with full employment and a promising future. A country with no inflation, social problems or misery-−”A rich country is a country without poverty”, says the slogan, ignoring the economic crisis, electric blackouts, water shortages and strikes. Petrobras ads claim a solid company, with smiling workers, while in practice the company applies a plan of voluntary dismissals and responds to an investigation into allegations of kickbacks.
With an expenditure of £614 million for ads, the federal government was the fourth largest advertiser in media last year; 65% of the total was invested in TV, according to the Department of Communication of the Presidency. The agenda is to suppress the resentment of the people with a shower of advertising. “We love football and are proud to organize the Cup of the Cups. Therefore, all who come to Brazil will be welcomed and will know a multicultural country, with happy and hardworking people”, said President Dilma Rousseff.
Despite the inundation of propaganda, a survey conducted by the Senate in late April found that 76% of the respondents consider that the expenditure on stadiums are larger than necessary; 86% believe that public funds earmarked for the event would have better use in other areas such as health, education and public safety. 42% of the respondents approve of the event, while 40% disapprove – a technical draw. The margin of sampling error is 3.5 percentage points, plus or minus. The research was not even mentioned in the press.
It can be said that freedom of the press in Brazil at this time is restricted. To talk about protests against the World Cup, a journalist must assume a mild tone to avoid displeasing sponsors. Journalists must also prevent the increasing antipathy to the World Cup, which would bring monumental financial losses. The possibility of withdrawn sponsorships generates a cold feeling for the broadcasters and FIFA.
The ball of Brazil is already rolling and it remains unclear what the outcome of this game will be. In the run up to the opening of the World Cup, workers strikes and protests are on the increase in the country. Journalists do not know what people want, but they listen to experts, the police, and the rulers.
Is the Brazilian press partial in the officialism that privileges the voices of the government and the market in exchange for financial benefits, affable policy and high profits?
The Brazilian press is its own executioner.
This article was posted on May 19, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
Caster Semenya and Oscar Pistorius in 2012 (Photos: Jordi Matas / Demotix)
Caster Semenya carried the South African flag at the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games; Oscar Pistorius waved it at the closing. Sandwiched between them was one medal, Semenya’s silver, one story of triumph over adversity, Pistorius, who is disabled after having both his legs amputated as a child ran with able-bodied athletes and proof that the country known as the Rainbow Nation does have some pots of gold.
Not even two years have passed since then and both flag-bearers have made the news for something other than sport. Pistorius has been on trial for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, who was shot dead on February 14, 2013 while Semenya’s lovelife has come under scrutiny. For both, the glory has turned into an uncomfortable glare with the spotlight shone on their most intimate moments.
The Pistorius trial is a first for South Africa because it has been covered on television in full. All proceedings have been broadcast on a specially-created channel on the satellite service DSTV although witnesses could choose if they wanted to be filmed while giving testimony. After the live feed, the focus would shift to a dissection and analysis of the day in court.
On May 14, statistics revealed the Oscar Pistorius Trial TV Channel was the fourth most watched channel on pay-television in South Africa. It is also the most successful pay TV channel ever launched in the country’s history, employs 180 freelance producers, reporters, researchers and presenters and has attracted audiences at all times of the day, even the traditionally quiet period in the mid-morning and mid-afternoon.
The success of the channel has also led to speculation the upcoming murder trial of Shrien Dewani, the Bristol-based businessman who was extradited to face charges of plotting the hijacking and shooting of his wife, Anni while on honeymoon in Cape Town in 2010, will be televised in the same fashion. South Africans, who live in a country where three women are killed every day by their partners, have shown an appetite for courtroom drama.
During the Pistorius trial viewers were able to watch the athlete retch into a bucket as he heard testimony about the damage the four bullets he shot at Steenkamp caused, to hear him cry on the stand when shown a picture of her bullet-hit head and observe how the legal process takes place. It has even given coverage to the trial in the courtroom next door where a man, Thato Kutumela was convicted of killing his girlfriend Zanele Khumalo, which would otherwise not have made the news at all.
The Pistorius trial has already had one postponement, a two-week adjournment to accommodate for public holidays over the Easter period, but it is now set for a much lengthier one. Pistorius will spend 30 days as an outpatient undergoing psychological evaluation. A psychiatrist called by Pistorius’ defence team testified that he suffered from generalised anxiety disorder from a young age which could have diminished his capacity when he shot Steenkamp.
While Semenya’s mental state has not had reason to be examined, another aspect of her private life, her relationship, has. Earlier this week news broke that Semenya had paid lobola – the traditional bride price which is comparable to dowry – for her girlfriend, fellow athlete Violet Raseboya. When newspapers tried to confirm the story, Semenya refused to help them. “I really have nothing to say about that article,” she said. Irrespective of Semenya’s statement, many public comments have been laced with nastiness about Semenya’s sexuality and gender.
These are themes that have stalked the runner since her champagne moment in 2009, when as an 18-year-old she won the 800 metre race at the World Championships in Berlin. Instead of celebrating the gold medal she faced a barrage of accusation over her gender. Fellow competitors accused Semenya of being a man and her appearance, underlined by her short hair, strong biceps and washboard abdominal muscles, did not help that.
She was required to have her gender tested amid a wave of protests that the procedure was invasive. The results were never made public although it was revealed that she had neither a womb nor ovaries and high levels of testosterone. A year later, the International Association of Athletics Federations cleared Semenya to compete against other women but the stereotype remained.
With the spectre of the tests hanging over her and because Semenya did not look typically feminine, she was thought of as something “other.” The foregone conclusion was that she was homosexual and when media reports unveiled a girlfriend, through Drum magazine which used Facebook pictures of Semenya and Raseboya, there was a collective nodding of heads and growing of stigma.
Being black and lesbian is not easy anywhere in Africa, and illegal in some parts. Sisande Msekele, writing in Curve magazine explained. “In many black cultures being a lesbian is associated with witchcraft. Coming out as a black lesbian is to risk being called a witch, demon possessed, raped, disowned and killed.”
Semenya, who is a public figure, may not face the same dangers from her community and the close inspection of her private life will be inescapable but not illegal. Same sex marriages have been legally recognised in South Africa since December 2006.
This article was published on May 19, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
Protesters hold a vigil in Istanbul. (Photo: Nurcan Volkan / Demotix)
On the 13th of May the Soma mining disaster caused by carbon monoxide poisoning left over 230 dead. Writing this from afar, sadly there is an excessive amount of police brutality being applied to the protesters who were simply expressing their sadness and fury.
There were arrests. The most painful of all was that there were relatives of the deceased among the people who were detained. This time it wasn’t the freedom of speech that was taken away. It was the freedom to mourn.
While dreaming of awaking each morning to sunlight, there were those who awakened to a coal black. Those, who sacrificed saluting the day with sunlight and nurtured their hopes in a coal black to bring home food and to prepare a future for their children… didn’t, couldn’t… their hopes buried in coal black…
One can struggle for anything, anywhere, in any condition. As long as one breathes… but what if coal black stopped one from breathing? Children left behind without a father, women left behind without a husband, sisters left behind without a brother, mothers and fathers left behind without a son…
the sound of pain has never been filled with this much fury, fury has never turned so bitter… death has never come this blatantly…
The reasoning that easily ignores safety for the sake of more production at a lower cost per ton, causes murders. The disaster in Soma is not an accident. For the sake of mining coal for a thermal plant to produce electricity, our workers have been buried in pitch darkness so that we may be illuminated.
When lust for power and potency takes place of conscience…
When power is built upon fear…
Those, who are out of breath because of coal black, are of no worth
Those, who die at a very young age, are of no worth
Child labor, is of no worth
Freedom of speech is of no worth
Freedom of expression, is of no worth
Trying to express your feelings is of no worth
Trying to put your fury into words is of no worth
The humanitarian values are of no worth
What is of worth is, justifying those, who says “these are usual things”
What is of worth is silencing those, who show resistance
What is of worth is shutting up those, who object
What is of worth is controlling the media
What is of worth is ignoring the facts
What is of worth censoring
What is of worth is banning
What is of worth beating up
What is of worth is submissiveness
What is of worth becomes obedience
Without questioning, at the cost of lives
Brutality of those who are lacking pain empathy…
The hatred and brutality of mercilessness…
And amidst all these, the sensibility of an injured miner, with his coal black face asking in the ambulance “shall I take my boots off? Don’t want to dirty the stretcher.”
And painfully realising that this mercilessness has even taken away your words…
This article was posted on May 16, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org