Nabeel Rajab, the prominent human rights activist who has been held in prison since June 13 2016, was due to be released on bail by order of a Bahraini court. However, he remains in Jau prison.
After the court ruling on 28 December, the public prosecution issued an order that continued Rajab’s detention for seven days, citing further investigation into another case in which he is accused of “spreading false news,” likely to be related to letters published in the New York Times and most recently in Le Monde newspapers. His seventh hearing is set for 23 January 2017.
The letter saw fresh charges brought against him for “undermining the prestige of the state”. In it he wrote: “No one has been properly held to account for systematic abuses that have affected thousands.” The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, of which Rajab is the president, estimates that there are around 4,000 political prisoners in the country. Rajab also asked in his letter: “Is this the kind of ally America wants? The kind that punishes its people for thinking, that prevents its citizens from exercising their basic rights?”
Melody Patry, senior advocacy officer, Index on Censorship said: “The refusal to release Nabeel Rajab shows the lengths that the Bahraini government will go to to silence dissent. Nabeel‘s so-called crime was to express an opinion, something that cannot be taken for granted. Bahrain’s repeated postponement of Nabeel‘s trial is emblematic of its wider approach to the human rights of its citizens. His continuing detention is unjust, cruel and disproportionate. We call on Bahrain to honour its international commitments to freedom of expression by releasing Nabeel.”
Rajab has been in pre-trial detention since his arrest in June. His detention, much of it in solitary confinement, has caused a deterioration in his health.
The other charges against Rajab are in relation to remarks he tweeted and retweeted on Twitter in 2015 about the humanitarian crisis caused by the Saudi-led war in Yemen and documenting torture in Bahrain’s Jau prison. In all, he stands accused of spreading false information, “criticising” the government and “insulting” Saudi Arabia.
A tweet by Index, which Rajab shared, is also to be used as evidence against him. It reads:
He was first expected to be sentenced in October 2016, but the court has now postponed hearings for a sixth time, raising doubts about the reliability of evidence against him. His next trial date is 23 January 2017.
The US has called for Rajab’s release “full stop”, and the EU’s top human rights official yesterday expressed his “hope” for Rajab’s release. In September, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights used his opening statement at the 33rd session of the Human Rights Council to warn Bahrain: “The past decade has demonstrated repeatedly and with punishing clarity exactly how disastrous the outcomes can be when a Government attempts to smash the voices of its people, instead of serving them.”
On Tuesday 14 December, 23 MPs penned a joint letter to the Foreign Secretary calling on the UK government to demand the “unconditional release” of Nabeel Rajab from prison, and for the charges against him to be dropped. The letter signed by a cross-party group of MPs urges the UK to follow the lead of the US, the European Parliament, and the UN in calling for Bahrain to release Rajab.
On the same day, Index joined the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy at a protest outside Downing Street and delivered a letter to UK Prime Minister Theresa May. The letter stated: “There is nothing bold in silence over clear human rights violations, and we urge you to now make a public call for Nabeel Rajab’s immediate and unconditional release.”
On 23 December, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement calling for Rajab’s release. His spokesperson stated: “Criticising the Government should not be the grounds for detention or prosecution and we call on the Bahraini authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Mr Rajab.”
Rajab is the winner of a 2012 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award, in part for his work speaking out against human rights violations committed by the Bahrain’s government following a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests on 14 February 2011.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1483455246683-4d7c79b4-1d31-0″ taxonomies=”3368″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
The Sejm of the Republic of Poland, the lower house of the Polish parliament.
Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) has had a lot to celebrate in recent months. Just three days after the country’s 98th Independence Day, PiS celebrated one year in office on 14 November. The party, which has a majority in the Sejm, has had a largely free hand in making the “good changes” it had promised in its infamous electoral slogan.
These changes have included making the Polish constitutional court “submissive”, dismissing hundreds of journalists from the newly patriotic national – but no longer public – media, introducing limitations to the right to assembly and extending the state’s power of surveillance.
Far from incorporating these and other recommendations of Poland’s highest court into the surveillance reform, PiS allowed for all broadband lines to be tapped into directly without judicial oversight or the possibility for internet service providers to request more details as to the reasons for such activities.
Wojciech Klicki from the Polish anti-surveillance foundation Fundacja Panoptykon which is run by lawyer activists, told Mapping Media Freedom that the “most important issue has always been the lack of an institution that would check whether intelligence services are acting in accordance with the law” and that was only made worse through the surveillance act.
The anti-terrorism act which came into effect in late June enables unchecked surveillance of foreign nationals once the ABW — Poland’s internal security agency — establishes their possible ties to terrorism. It also allows for websites to be blocked for five days without prior judicial consent and up to 30 days thereafter, should they be deemed to disseminate terrorist content.
Klicki said: “This has enormous implications for media freedom. Fundamentally, the laws do not offer a precise delineation as to what constitutes a ‘connection to an event of terrorist character’. Such a connection may be an article reporting on an event. And the definition is very broad, not only including obvious events like a bomb attack but other common crimes, which were committed with the aim to direct public authorities towards a certain decision, for example through bribery.”
Klicki noted that a five-day ban of a website can mean its demise in times of fast data, as such an incident is likely to result in a withdrawal of advertisers.
As part of its campaign against the law, Fundacja Panoptykon set up a petition and took part in a public consultation specifically for NGOs and activists with the governmental human rights representative Adam Bodnar. Indeed, Polish authorities are hard-pressed to justify the severity of the law due to the country’s very low terrorist threat – in April, the British Foreign Office, stressed the danger of driving a car in Poland while emphasising the terrorist threat there was negligible compared to the European average. Aside from a “tiny tweak of the definition for the ‘event of terrorist character’” as Klicki noted, the law was enacted within two months of its announcement in late April, and ratified by the president, Andrzej Duda, on 22 June.
Of course, journalists can’t be immune from surveillance by their own country or foreign secret services and Polish journalists have had their fair share of encounters with their domestic Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA). The Gazeta Wyborcza journalist Bogdan Wróblewski won a case against the Bureau in 2013 which consequently had to apologise to him for tapping his telecommunication billings. The CBA’s reason for its ambitious investigation, it emerged during the trial, was to uncover Wróblewski’s and several other regime-critical journalists’ sources. The events took place under the former PiS government term.
Klicki assesses that the recent anti-terrorism laws only exacerbate the problem, especially for foreign journalists. Due to the changes, “journalists can have huge trouble to manage to adhere to their professional confidentiality in Poland”. Asked how Polish journalists make sure they are able to protect their sources, Klicki says they were “now becoming aware of how necessary it is to increase their know-how in the realm of secure communication”, by attending workshops on anonymity, which are offered by his foundation. There is also more information on secure communication online specifically for fixers.
The human rights representative Bodnar submitted the anti-terrorism law to the constitutional tribunal. However, the tribunal has effectively lost its status as an institution of checks and balances though the numerous legislative changes over the past year. Former judge of the tribunal, Andrzej Zoll, commented: “This is the end of a democratic rule of law.”
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Syrian citizen journalist HAZZA AL-ADNAN writes in the summer 2016 Index on Censorship magazine on the realities of reporting in a country where a pseudonym and bulletproof vest offer little protection from constant danger” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Aleppo: Somehow destroyed buildings and massacres become part of the daily view and even marks to guide people to places. (Photo: Zaina Erhaim)
“THE PSEUDONYM HELPS me to feel safe,” said Ali, a citizen journalist who works under a false name in Syria’s government-held regions. “I always pretend to be completely loyal to Bashar al-Assad’s regime while at the same time I am documenting the abuses perpetrated by his government against the activists and civilians.” Because of fear, many of the journalists inside Syria work under pseudonyms, especially in the government-held areas and those controlled by IS.
Despite the dangers of working as a journalist in Syria, there are still many who strive to report the truth, while trying to minimise the risks to themselves as much as possible. They receive some support and training from Western institutions, from time to time. But most work with local or Middle Eastern media agencies.
“If your aim is to report the truth, you cannot work in areas under government control, because it doesn’t want the truth to come out. You can work in the opposition-controlled areas, but you have to keep hidden from the government forces’ aircraft, and the Russian aircraft, and the IS organisation’s intelligence apparatus,” said Mounaf Abd Almajeed, 26, who works for Fresh Radio, a radio station in Idlib, northwest Syria.
“The government accuses us of terrorism, and the majority of the armed opposition factions do not look upon us favourably, because they confuse intelligence work with journalism,” Abd Almajeed added. “We always have to convince these factions that we are journalists, and not agents of the intelligence organisations of the US or Saudi Arabia or Qatar and so on.”
Some armed opposition factions are extreme Islamists, some of them are moderate Islamists and some of them belong to civilian or secular groups, and there is a state of cold – and sometimes hot – war among them. Abd Almajeed thinks that even if a journalist can gain the trust of a particular faction, the battle is not yet won, because he must now convince the other factions that he has not picked a side or become an agent.
Abd Almajeed tries to minimise the risks of the work by wearing a helmet and bullet-proof jacket when going to areas where clashes are taking place. He rarely works at night for fear of being kidnapped, and he doesn’t ever go to areas held by IS or the government. He believes these precautions have helped him to avoid many injuries, especially around seven months ago, when he was covering one of the battles between government and opposition forces around Aleppo, in northern Syria. When the trench that he was hiding in was targeted in an air raid, which he believes was conducted by Russian aircraft, four journalists were killed, but Mounaf was only slightly injured.
Abd Almajeed believes that Western media NGOs could do more to help by offering the required support to journalists inside opposition areas, but rather have confined their support to Syrian press organisations outside the country.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left” color=”custom” align=”right” custom_color=”#dd3333″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_custom_heading text=”However much we try to minimise the risks; hardly a week goes by without our losing a friend or colleague” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:left|color:%23dd3333″ google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic” css_animation=”fadeIn”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
But Ahmed Jalal, 35, editor of the local magazine Al-Manatarah, does not agree. He thinks that the diminished support is due to concern for the safety of their employees, and Syrians working with them, after the country became so dangerous for journalists.
As for the burden of responsibility laid on the journalists inside Syria, Jalal said: “In the early stages of the revolution we did not have a great responsibility to convey the truth to the international community because the door was open to journalists from all over the world, and many of them came in and reported the truth to their communities. But after a year or two of the revolution everything changed because Bashar al-Assad succeeded in getting his propaganda message across to the West that he was fighting terrorists and that the alternative to him was chaos and terrorism.”
Jalal believes that IS’s pursuit of journalists, and execution of some of them, forced Western agencies to withdraw their correspondents, and then the opposition factions’ media made repeated mistakes until the world began to view the Syrian conflict as a “sectarian war between the Alawites and the Shi’a on the one hand and the Sunnis on the other, or as a fundamentalist Islamic revolution that crossed borders, and not a people’s revolution”.
Jalal sighed, took a drag on his cigarette, and continued: “Our responsibility has become great, it is now up to us to convince the international community that we are reporting the truth, which can be expressed as the aspirations for freedom and justice of a people that a criminal regime is killing – and this is what compels us to risk our lives.”
Working under a pseudonym and wearing bullet-proof jackets is all journalists inside Syria can do to minimise the risks, according to Jalal, because nobody recognises the immunity of journalists, and nobody respects the international laws and conventions governing their work. He said: “We are in a jungle … all we can do is persevere, coping with the fear and the grief. However much we try to minimise the risks; hardly a week goes by without our losing a friend or colleague, who has died covering some battle or other, or in the bombing of civilians by government forces or their allies, or in an execution by Da’esh [IS].”
The editor said: “Hardly a day goes by without our seeing the dead body of a child torn apart by Bashar al-Assad’s aircraft.” In the opposition-held areas, ordinary citizens do not look upon journalists favourably.
Jalal added: “Every time we go to take a photograph we encounter people who refuse and say ‘You media people take photos and rake in the money and we get bombed by Bashar al-Assad’s planes because of you taking pictures.’”
Many journalists inside Syria want their output to reach the international community. “Unfortunately, it rarely gets through because most of the journalists in these areas do not possess English or the skills to communicate with the outside world, so when talking to the world they rely on compassion rather than understanding,” said Jalal.
Jalal wishes the armed opposition factions would invite Western media organisations into their areas and provide them with protection. And if that is impossible, then he asks “powerful news agencies like Reuters, Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press, and powerful networks like the BBC and CNN” to put trust in local journalists or citizen journalists in these areas.
Ahmed said: “We have now got good journalists inside the opposition-held areas who have received training from Western institutions such as the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and Reporters Without Borders and the CFI [run by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs], and we now have training centres in these areas; all that we lack is the trust of the powerful Western agencies and the networks in us.”
The writer of this piece, Hazza al-Adnan, was introduced to Index on Censorship by our 2016 Freedom of Expression Award winner Zaina Erhaim.
Erhaim won the journalism award for using her own skills to train other Syrians to be able to tell their stories too.
Erhaim told Index: “Hazza attended the first training I did in Idlib suburb. He is a lawyer and had no experience in journalism at all. After the training, he started publishing on our website [the Institute of War and Peace’s Damascus Bureau], and when their local radio station Fresh was established, he started working as an editor with them. He writes for many Syrian websites and has passed the training I gave to him to more than 30 others.”
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]This article appeared in the summer 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”From the Archives”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”80561″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306422014535688″][vc_custom_heading text=”Syria tracker: Syria’s inside track” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1177%2F0306422014535688|||”][vc_column_text]June 2014
Report on an ambitious project to chart and verify countrywide citizen reports, social media updates and news articles.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”89073″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306422013511563″][vc_custom_heading text=”Rise of Turkish citizens’ media” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1177%2F0306422013511563|||”][vc_column_text]December 2013
Turkey’s mainstream media bias made the public turn to a new type of media outlet for their news.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”80562″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306422014548623″][vc_custom_heading text=”Holed up in Harare, Zimbabwe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1177%2F0306422014548623|||”][vc_column_text]September 2014
Natasha Joseph talks to journalists who walk the line of reporting in Zimbabwe, which is dangerous business.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Danger in truth: truth in danger” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2016%2F05%2Fdanger-in-truth-truth-in-danger%2F|||”][vc_column_text]The summer 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine looks at why journalists around the world face increasing threats.
In the issue: articles by journalists Lindsey Hilsum and Jean-Paul Marthoz plus Stephen Grey. Special report on dangerous journalism, China’s most famous political cartoonist and the late Henning Mankell on colonialism in Africa.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”76282″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2016/05/danger-in-truth-truth-in-danger/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship has for the past four decades published the work of censored writers and artists. Now we face the possibility of censorship thanks to a UK government law that means — as a publisher that refuses to sign up to a regulator approved by a state-created body — we could end up paying both sides in a legal dispute even if we ultimately win the case. The law, Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, as it stands is a danger to a free press.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner content_placement=”top”][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-times-circle” color=”black” background_style=”rounded” align=”right”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]
Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act is a direct threat to press freedom in the UK and must be scrapped.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]This part of the act, created as a response to the Leveson Inquiry into phone hacking, has been on the statute for three years but was not enacted because — until earlier this year — there was no approved regulator of which publishers could be part. That changed when Impress, a regulator to which so far only small local media publishers have signed up, was approved in October by the Press Recognition Panel (PRP). The PRP was established through an arcane state mechanism called a Royal Charter following the Leveson Inquiry. Having an approved regulator means Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act could now be brought into force and that we and many other small publishers could face crippling costs in any dispute, threatening investigative journalism or those who challenge the powerful or the wealthy.
Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act is a direct threat to press freedom in the UK and must be scrapped. The government is currently consulting the public on section 40.
Index has warned consistently of the dangers from the Crime and Courts Act.
1. Under s.40, or the “cost provisions”, in relevant media-related court cases, newspapers which are members of a recognised self-regulator are exempt from paying their opponents’ legal costs, even if they lost a case. The presumption would also mean that newspapers outside a recognised self-regulator must pay their own and their opponents’ legal costs, even if they win a case. The s.40 incentive is based on the fact that recognised self-regulators have to have a low cost arbitration scheme that replaces the need for court action.
2. Please provide the evidence that supports your view (max 250 words)
As a small, independent magazine publisher that is a “relevant publisher” of news-related material as per the definition provided in section 41 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 and that is not subject to any of the exemptions listed in Schedule 15, Index on Censorship faces the prospect of having to pay the costs for both sides if a claim is brought against us – even in a case we are ultimately successful in winning. This could potentially bankrupt the organisation, effectively silencing a magazine that has for the past 44 years dedicated its existence to the publishing of work by, and information about, censored writers and artists worldwide.
3. To what extent will full commencement incentivise publishers to join a recognised self-regulator? Please use evidence in your answer. (max 250 words)
Index on Censorship will not sign up to a regulator that has to be approved by a state-appointed body. Freedom of the press – including total freedom from any state involvement in regulation of the press – is the bedrock of a free and democratic society. Section 40 stands in direct opposition to this principle. Introducing punitive statutory penalties is not an incentive – it is a threat. Forcing publishers to join a recognised regulator or face the threat of punitive costs makes a mockery of the notion that the self-regulator is in any way voluntary.
We urge everyone to write to their MP and to Secretary of State Karen Bradley requesting its immediate repeal or to respond to the online consultation.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”Press Regulation” category_id=”8996″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
