14 Jun 2016 | Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, India, Italy, mobile, News and features, Poland, United Kingdom
Timothy Garton Ash is no stranger to censorship. On the toilet wall of his Oxford home, there is a Polish censor’s verdict from early 1989 which cut a great chunk of text from an article of his on the bankruptcy of Soviet socialism.
Six months later socialism was indeed bankrupt, although the formative experiences of travelling behind the Iron Curtain in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s — seeing friends such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn interrogated and locked up for what they published — never left him.
Now, in Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World, the professor of European Studies at Oxford University provides an argument for “why we need more and better free speech” and a blueprint for how we should go about it.
“The future of free speech is a decisive question for how we live together in a mixed up world where conventionally — because of mass migration and the internet — we are all becoming neighbours,” Garton Ash explains to Index on Censorship. “The book reflects a lot of the debates we’ve already been having on the Free Speech Debate website [the precursor to the book] as well as physically in places like India China, Egypt, Burma, Thailand, where I’ve personally gone to take forward these debates.”
Garton Ash began writing the book 10 years ago, shortly after the murder of Theo van Gough and the publication of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons. In the second of the 10 principles of free speech — ranked in order of importance — he writes: “We neither make threats of violence nor accept violent intimidation.” What he calls the “assassin’s veto” — violence or the threat of violence as a response to expression — is, he tells Index, “one of the greatest threats to free speech in our time because it undoubtedly has a very wide chilling effect”.
While the veto may bring to mind the January 2015 killings at Charlie Hebdo, Garton Ash is quick to point out that “while a lot of these threats do come from violent Islamists, they also come from the Italian mafia, Hindu nationalists in India and many other groups”.
Europe, in particular, has “had far too much yielding, or often pre-emptively, to the threat of violence and intimidation”, explains Garton Ash, including the 2014 shutting down of Exhibit B, an art exhibition which featured black performers in chains, after protesters deemed it racist. “My view is that this is extremely worrying and we really have to hold the line,” he adds.
Similarly, in the sixth principle from the book — “one of the most controversial” — Garton Ash states: “We respect the believer but not necessarily the content of the belief.”
This principle makes the same point the philosopher Stephen Darwall made between “recognition respect” and “appraisal respect”. “Recognition respect is ‘I unconditionally respect your full dignity, equal human dignity and rights as an individual, as a believer including your right to hold that belief’,” explains Garton Ash. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean I have to give ‘appraisal respect’ to the content of your belief, which I may find to be, with some reason, incoherent nonsense.”
The best and many times only weapon we have against “incoherent nonsense” is knowledge (principle three: We allow no taboos against and seize every chance for the spread of knowledge). In Garton Ash’s view, there are two worrying developments in the field of knowledge in which taboos result in free speech being edged away.
“On the one hand, the government, with its extremely problematic counter-terror legislation, is trying to impose a prevent duty to disallow even non-violent extremism,” he says. “Non-violent extremists, in my view, include Karl Marx and Jesus Christ; some of the greatest thinkers in the history of mankind were non-violent extremists.”
“On the other hand, you have student-led demands of no platforming, safe spaces, trigger warnings and so on,” Garton Ash adds, referring to the rising trend on campuses of shutting down speech deemed offensive. “Universities should be places of maximum free speech because one of the core arguments for free speech is it helps you to seek out the truth.”
The title of the books mentions the “connected world”, or what is also referred to in the text as “cosmopolis”, a global space that is both geographic and virtual. In the ninth principle, “We defend the internet and other systems of communication against illegitimate encroachments by both public and private powers”, Garton Ash aims to protect free expression in this online realm.
“We’ve never been in a world like this before, where if something dreadful happens in Iceland it ends up causing harm in Singapore, or vice-versa,” he says. “With regards to the internet, you have to distinguish online governance from regulation and keep the basic architecture of the internet free, and that means — where possible — net neutrality.”
A book authored by a westerner in an “increasingly post-western” world clearly has its work cut out for it to convince people in non-western or partially-western countries, Garton Ash admits. “What we can’t do and shouldn’t do is what the West tended to do in the 1990s, and say ‘hey world, we’ve worked it out — we have all the answers’ and simply get out the kit of liberal democracy and free speech like something from Ikea,” he says. “If you go in there just preaching and lecturing, immediately the barriers go up and out comes postcolonial resistance.”
“But what we can do — and I try to do in the book — is to move forward a conversation about how it should be, and having looked at their own traditions, you will find people are quite keen to have the conversation because they’re trying to work it out themselves.”
13 Jun 2016 | Bahrain, mobile
Nabeel Rajab during a protest in London in September (Photo: Milana Knezevic)
The Bahraini government’s ongoing attempts to silence Nabeel Rajab, one of the Middle East’s most prominent human rights defenders.
11 July
A coalition of international NGOs condemned Bahrain’s treatment of Rajab on the day of his trial on charges related to his freedom of expression. Separately a judge ordered the trial postponed to 2 August.
7 July
The European Parliament adopted, with a large majority, a resolution condemning recent human rights abuses performed by Bahraini authorities, and strongly called for an end to the ongoing repression against the country’s human rights defenders, political opposition and civil society.
28 June
Rajab was hospitalised for heart problems while in prison.
14 June
Bahraini authorities charged Rajab with ““spreading false news” and handed him a 7 day detention.
13 June
Rajab, president of the 2012 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award-winning Bahrain Center for Human Rights, was taken from his home early in the morning. According to reports, Rajab’s electronic devices were seized and no reason was given for his detention. Index immediately condemned the arrest.
22 January
NGOs appeal for lifting of arbitrary travel ban
Groups call on the Bahraini authorities to lift the arbitrary travel ban on human rights defender Nabeel Rajab in order that he be able to travel abroad with his family for the purpose of securing medical assistance for his wife, Sumaya Rajab. Nabeel Rajab is President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, Founding Director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, Deputy Secretary General of the International Federation for Human Rights and on the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East Division.
2015
14 July
Bahraini king pardons rights campaigner Nabeel Rajab
Index welcomes King Hamad of Bahrain’s pardoning of human rights defender Nabeel Rajab, who was in the third month of a six-month sentence connected to his expressing an opinion in a tweet. According to Bahrain’s official news agency, Rajab was pardoned over fears for his health. However, the country must do more to respect the freedom of expression of its citizens by dropping all charges against political prisoners whose so-called crimes have been to campaign for greater democratic rights, or expressing opinions.
9 July
Bahrain: Calls for release of Nabeel Rajab on global day of solidarity
Index on Censorship are taking part in a day of solidarity for imprisoned Bahraini activist Nabeel Rajab on Thursday 9 July. The day was organised by Nabeel’s son Adam, and participants from across the world are sharing videos, photos and messages of encouragement using the hashtag #FreeNabeel.
Having been imprisoned between August 2012 and May 2014, Rajab was once again arrested in October 2014 and charged with “insulting a public institution”. His crime related to tweets in which he alleged that some Bahraini soldiers may have defected to the Islamic State, referring to Bahraini institutions as “ideological incubators”. In May, his six-month prison sentence was upheld.
28 May
Nabeel Rajab: Tyrannical regimes like Bahrain’s are buying the silence of democratic governments
Western politicians choose narrow economic interests over the human rights of millions of oppressed people, the jailed Bahraini human rights defender said in a speech delivered on his behalf to the 2015 Oslo Freedom Forum
11 May
Bahrain: End imprisonment of democracy campaigner Nabeel Rajab
Index on Censorship has condemned the latest extension to the detention of Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab on spurious charges. He was arrested in early April over comments made on Twitter regarding abuses at Bahrain’s Jaw prison and the crisis in Yemen. On 11 May, Bahraini authorities, who had already extended Rajab’s pre-trial detention several times, prolonged his detention for a further two weeks.
17 April
Bahrain must release Nabeel Rajab
Ahead of the Formula One Grand Prix this weekend in Bahrain, Index on Censorship calls on the government of Bahrain to release human rights activist Nabeel Rajab and fellow human rights defenders. Rajab — a winner of the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards in 2012 — was arrested on April 2 on charges involving a series of recent tweets and an opinion piece published in the Huffington Post. If he is convicted on all current charges, Rajab — who was only released from jail last May after two year’s detention — could face more than 10 years in prison.
13 April
End reprisals against leading human rights defender Nabeel Rajab
We in the Bahrain and international human rights NGO community condemn the arrest and detention of Nabeel Rajab, a prominent human rights defender in the Kingdom of Bahrain. On 4 April, the Bahrain Public Prosecution Office renewed Mr. Rajab’s pretrial detention for a further 15 days. We call on the Bahraini authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Mr. Rajab and to drop all charges against him.
On 2 April 2015, security forces surrounded Mr. Rajab’s home and arrested him in relation to two new charges involving a series of recent tweets and an opinion piece published in the Huffington Post.
4 March
Bahrain: Ruling on Nabeel Rajab appeal set for March 15
Index on Censorship award winner Nabeel Rajab was told today to expect a decision in his case on March 15. The travel ban against Rajab is still in place. Rajab was handed down a six month suspended sentence pending payment of a fine in January. He is seeking to overturn that verdict, which stems from a tweet that both the ministry of interior and the ministry of defence allege “denigrated government institutions”.
26 February
Bahrain: Nabeel Rajab summoned by police and fears new arrest
Nabeel Rajab, one of Bahrain’s most prominent human rights activists, says he has again been summoned by the police. He believes he will be handed down a new charge and that he could be arrested at any time. “Just to inform you that I was summoned today morning to attend the police station at the same time – and I came to know that the new charge against me will incitement of hatred against the regime,” Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and a member of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East Advisory Board, said in an email to supporters this morning.
20 January
Bahrain: Nabeel Rajab sentenced for a tweet
Human rights campaigner Nabeel Rajab was sentenced to six months, which would be suspended pending a fine, Rajab’s lawyer told the BBC. Rajab has been granted bail while he appeals the verdict in his case. In October a court ruled that Rajab would face criminal charges stemming from a single tweet in which both the ministry of interior and the ministry of defence allege that he “denigrated government institutions”. Rajab could have faced up to six years in prison.
2014
29 October
Bahraini court postpones trial of Nabeel Rajab until 20 January
Nabeel Rajab has been freed without bail as a court postponed his trail until 20 January. A Bahraini court had ruled last week that Nabeel Rajab would face criminal charges stemming from a single tweet in which both the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Defense allege that he “denigrated government institutions.” The court had postponed the trial until Sunday, 2 November. If convicted, Rajab could face up to six years in prison.
17 October
Foreign Secretary: Use UK influence on Bahrain to free Nabeel Rajab, Zainab Al-Khawaja and Ghada Jamsheer
Index joined other groups to write to Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond regarding the arbitrary arrest and detention of human rights defenders Nabeel Rajab, Zainab Al-Khawaja and Ghada Jamsheer in Bahrain for cases of peaceful expression.
9 October
Bahrain: Nabeel Rajab to face trial for expressing opinion
Human rights activist Nabeel Rajab will stand trial on 19 October for allegedly insulting Bahraini government institutions on Twitter.
See earlier articles about Nabeel Rajab
13 Jun 2016 | About Index, Bahrain, Bahrain Statements, Campaigns, Campaigns -- Featured, Statements
Index on Censorship condemns the arrest on Monday 13 June of human rights campaigner Nabeel Rajab in Bahrain. According to reports Rajab was charged on Tuesday 14 June with “publishing and broadcasting false news that undermines the prestige of the state” and detained for seven days.
Rajab, a former Freedom of Expression Award winner and a judge on this year’s awards, is one of the Gulf region’s most well-known human rights activists. Since the Bahraini uprising of 2011, he has been arrested on numerous occasions: he spent two years in jail between 2012 and 2014, and was arrested just months after his 2014 release for tweets in which he called Bahraini institutions “ideological incubators” for ISIS.
Rajab, president of the award-winning Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), and a member of the advisory committee of the Human Rights Watch Middle East division, spent three months in jail for the tweets. He was rearrested on Monday, according to the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy. The reasons for the arrest were unclear.
“The harassment of Nabeel Rajab must stop. We call on the international community – and especially Bahrain’s close ally, the United Kingdom – to condemn this ongoing attempt to silence one of the region’s most highly respected human rights campaigners,” said Index chief executive Jodie Ginsberg.
Bahraini authorities have repeatedly targeted Rajab as well as other human rights campaigners and political activists. Last week, Zainab Al-Khawaja was forced into exile in Denmark. Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, her father, is serving a life sentence for his calls for democracy in Bahraini society. Her sister, Maryam Al-Khawaja, has also been harassed by the authorities and has been exiled to Denmark.
Related: Bahrain continues to use arbitrary detention as a weapon to silence critics
10 Jun 2016 | Greece, Mapping Media Freedom, mobile, News and features, Serbia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine
Click on the dots for more information on the incidents.
Each week, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project verifies threats, violations and limitations faced by the media throughout the European Union and neighbouring countries. Here are five recent reports that give us cause for concern.
On 1 June David Jiménez, who was fired as El Mundo’s director on 25 May, filed a complaint against the paper.
Jiménez alleges that Antonio Fernández-Galiano Campos, president of El Mundo’s owner Unidad Editorial, pressured him to edit the paper to conform with the publisher’s corporate strategy.
Jiménez, who was hired as director in May 2015, claimed his right to direct editorial coverage independently was suppressed. His firing came just four days after the paper laid off 168 staffers including 38 journalists due to financial pressures.
Riot police overseeing an operation to move refugees from a camp in Idomeni, on the border near Macedonia (FYROM), only allowed public broadcaster ERT and the national Athens News Agency to cover the events.
The Greek Union of Photojournalists denounced the “flagrant violation of the freedom and pluralism of press”, during an operation to evacuate the country’s largest informal refugee camp of Idomeni. The statement stressed that journalists and photojournalists were not in danger, at least “not more than the ERT and ANA journalists”.
“If the trapped people use violence it won’t be against journalists and photojournalists, but against the police,” the organisation said in its statement.
In an interview with Greek TV, Mega Channel, a representative of the government commented that “there are always restrictions to the press during such operations”.
Journalists for the provincial radio and TV station RTV Vojvodina claim they will be replaced by new journalists who have been chosen by the Serbian Progressive Party, which has been the ruling party in the autonomous region Vojvodina since the elections in April 2016.
The entire editorial staff was told on Wednesday 18 May 2016 that they no longer need to come to work, and that other journalists would take over their jobs. They have not been fired.
Editor-in-chief of TV channel 1, Mirjana Jovic, and general director Srdjan Mihajlovic had earlier resigned. Both are believed to have left the station under “political pressure”. Programme director Slobodan Arezina has also been dismissed, B92 reported.
In response, around forty journalists and editors have sent an open letter in which they express their worries about “sudden personnel changes that have not been clearly explained”. They are demanding a public explanation from the management “about why there has been such a sudden shift without explanation and whether this is a political decision”.
A court in the city of Mersin sentenced journalist Arzu Yildiz to 20 months in jail and deprived of legal guardianship over her children for footage she published in May 2015.
The footage was from a court hearing where four prosecutors were on trial for ordering a search of trucks belonging to Turkey’s MIT intelligence agency as they traveled to Syria in 2014, Reuters reported. President Erdogan accused those who covered the story as plotting against his government along with enemies to undermine Turkey and to embarrass the country.
The lawyer said the decision to strip parental rights was an act of revenge. “There are many cases in which the court does not execute this article of the penal code. They didn’t have to do it”.
Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko signed a decree to impose personal sanctions against 17 Russian media executives for broadcasting propaganda, the Unian information agency reported.
According to Human Rights Watch, among the 17 are Konstantin Ernst, general director of Channel One, Russia’s main state-owned television channel, and Margarita Simonyan, chief editor of Russia’s international television network RT (formerly Russia Today) and the Rossiya Segodnya news agency. Journalists on the list also include Vladislav Fronin, chief editor of the official government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, and Vitali Leibin, editor at Russkiy Reporter magazine. Russia either owns — at least partially — or exerts significant control over the media outlets listed in the presidential decree, HRW said.
According to the decree the 17 individuals “create real and potential threat to national interests, national security, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Ukraine; facilitate terrorist activity and violate citizens’ rights and freedoms; contribute to the occupation of territories, and obstruct full realization of rights and freedoms by Ukrainian citizens.”
The decree bars the 17 from entering Ukraine through December 31 2017.
