François Fillon, presidential candidate for Les Républicains, and Marine Le Pen, the Front National candidate. Credit: Prachatai / Flickr
“No revelation on François Fillon for several minutes,” a headline from the French satirical website Le Gorafi read in March 2017. Although untrue, it captured well the spirit of a campaign marred by a steady flow of allegations of political corruption. Fillon, the presidential candidate for the conservative Les Républicains party, is one of many to face allegations. In response, he has attempted to discredit the press.
“We saw the campaigns upend and attacks on journalists have been used to try to reunite the voting base,” journalist Aurore Gorius, who has been covering the campaign for news website Les Jours, told Mapping Media Freedom.
At the end of January, Le Canard Enchaîné, a satirical weekly featuring investigative journalism, claimed Fillon’s wife Penelope had been paid to be her husband’s parliamentary assistant while there was no record of her doing any work. Other revelations include Fillon employing his underage children as parliamentary assistants, a €50,000 loan received by a businessman friend, a €13,000 gift of two suits given by a political adviser specialising in France-Africa relations and a second position held by his wife.
As soon as revelations emerged, Fillon began to discredit the outlets involved, including Envoyé Spécial, Mediapart and Le Canard Enchaîné. Recently, he claimed he knew exactly who had leaked information to Le Canard Enchaîné and threatened to sue “all of those who were at the origin” of the revelations.
Revelations of corruption also hit the Front National candidate Marine Le Pen’s chief of staff. In a similar fashion to Fillon, the party tried to discredit media outlets which broke the scandal. It also violently expelled journalists asking questions about the allegations of corruption during political meetings and blocked certain media outlets from attending altogether.
For Arnaud Mercier, a professor at Institut Français de la Presse at Pantheon-Assas University and head of the French-language version of The Conversation, “it’s not an exaggeration to talk of a trumpisation of Fillon’s campaign. Trump was an outsider and had a very aggressive attitude towards the media throughout his campaign whereas Fillon was the favourite and ended up being pushed to the side. That’s when he started adopting the same tactic.”
“The first abuses date from the 2012 Nicolas Sarkozy campaign. At the end of it, probably around the time Sarkozy realised he would lose, he radicalised his campaign,” Gorius said. Echoing Sarkozy’s attitude five years ago, Fillon and his political allies have elaborated a narrative claiming the media had fomented a plot against him, making it harder for journalists to cover the campaign. At a meeting in Poitiers on 9 February, former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin appeared to thank journalists, while the crowd booed them. A few moments later, Fillon lashed at the media, which he said was responsible for his difficulties. Party supporters followed in politicians’ steps, often more violently.
At the same meeting, Hugo Clément, a journalist for TV show Quotidien, interviewed a Fillon supporter who told him: “You’re not a journalist, you’re a shit digger. You partake in the enterprise of destruction. You want to exterminate. You were driving trains that took people to Auschwitz.” Around a month later, France Inter radio journalist Guillaume Meurice spoke to Fillon supporters during a meeting in Paris and recorded them denouncing a media plot against the conservative candidate. Meurice recorded a supporter saying: “The whole country is submitted to the gulag of the left and the media.”
“Right-wing voters think that all journalists are left-wing. Since I have been covering campaigns, this narrative keeps coming back. I’ve covered three François Fillon meetings and I have seen militants complaining to journalists, occasionally tackle them, telling them to be objective,” Gorius said. Journalists covering the conservative party have spoken up about high levels of aggression against them and difficulties to follow the candidate who travels with a handful of carefully selected journalists. On occasions, the attacks have taken a more personal or more violent turn. Mediapart co-founder Edwy Plenel wrote a short blog post to clear his daughter, who had been accused of holding a fake job by a far-right pro-Fillon website. On 6 April, Mediapart and Le Canard Enchaîné received a letter containing death threats and a bullet which had also been sent to magistrates. There were violent incidents in the weeks preceding the first turn.
Gorius and French Journalists’ Union spokesperson Vincent Lanier both pointed out that on previous presidential campaigns left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon has been known to have an uneasy relationship with the media, which he often claimed was biased against him. There was little of that this time, even if Mediapart recently pointed out that the candidate has refused the news website’s invitation to appear in one of their political show for a year, claiming it is linked to the fact he disliked some of their coverage.
On the conservative side, there were stranger attacks. On 10 March, Les Républicains MP Jean-François Mancelpresented a law proposal aimed at restricting the confidentiality of journalists’ sources. “The proposal has no chance whatsoever of being turned into a law, as this principle is a cornerstone of democracy – these are mere gesticulations,” legal journalist Marc Rees explained. But he said there had been more insidious threats to the principle of sources confidentiality. “France adopted a new antiterrorist legislation last year. The text includes protection for four professions – magistrates, lawyers, MPs and journalists – who cannot be submitted to surveillance while performing their mandate. Except that when a journalist is under surveillance it’s hard to know what falls within their mandate or doesn’t. This disposition clearly opened a gaping hole, which could be abused by whoever is to come to power,” Rees said.
In March, the French journalists’ union made a statement denouncing attacks against journalists. Lanier said they had received an incredible amount of abuse following this. “It’s clear something is broken. And it’s not new. There’s a lack of trust between the media and the public. There’s serious problems within the media. Direct broadcasting playing on a loop, experts who are not experts. This creates a situation where people don’t believe in the media. This time, among young journalists there’s an awareness that they have to be more thorough”, he said.
But this very uncertain campaign has prompted a massive interest with newspapers sale rising in February after the first revelations on Fillon started. According to Gorius: “10 million people were watching the first debate between candidates on TF1. That’s as much as for a huge football match. I feel there is enormous curiosity, as voters feel we are at a turning point. There’s also disappointment. The debate about ideas has failed to take place.” [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1492586488812-a75617ed-73cc-10″ taxonomies=”6564″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese civil right activist who won the Freedom of Expression Award in the Whistleblower of the Year in 2007, today lives in New York City. When Index on Censorship honoured him, Chen Guangcheng was serving a prison sentence for organising a landmark class-action lawsuit against authorities in Linyi, Shandong province, for the excessive enforcement of the one-child policy.
Released in 2010 from prison, he remained under house arrest at his home in Dongshigu Village. In April 2012, Chen escaped his house arrest and fled to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. After negotiations with the Chinese government, he left the embassy for medical treatment in early May 2012. On 19 May 2012, he, his wife, and his two children were granted U.S. visas and departed Beijing for New York City. Due to the help of New York University professor Jerome A. Cohen, Chen was granted a placement at NYU. He started learning English and remained a public critic of the Chinese government, with editorials in the New York Times and other media outlets.
At the same time, Chen developed a close association with conservative Christian and pro-life figures in the United States. In October 2013, he accepted an offer from the conservative Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey, and became a Distinguished Senior Fellow in Human Rights, as well as a Visiting Fellow of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America. In his role as Witherspoon fellow, he has delivered public lectures, including one at Princeton University entitled “China and the World in the 21st Century: The Next Human Rights Revolution” in which he asked for the support of America to the Chinese opposition that fights against the government.
Chen Guangcheng’s memoir, The Barefoot Lawyer, was published in March 2015.
Constantin Eckner is a member of Index on Censorship’s Youth Advisory Board. Originally from Germany, he graduated from University of St Andrews with a MA in modern history, and is currently a PhD candidate specialising in human rights, asylum policy and the history of migration.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”85476″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2016/11/awards-2017/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards
Seventeen years of celebrating the courage and creativity of some of the world’s greatest journalists, artists, campaigners and digital activists
Russian activist Ildar Dadin spoke about the total breakdown of the rule of law and his own incarceration and torture at an event hosted by Doughty Street Chambers as part of the programme of events accompanying the 2017 Freedom of Expression Awards. Dadin is a finalist in the campaigning category.
Dadin, who was released from prison in February, is subject to a travel ban and spoke via video link, whilst his wife and fellow activist Anastasia Zotova was in London and acted as his translator. He had been arrested under the notorious ‘three strikes’ law which bars public protest in Russia.
Dadin began by explaining why he thinks he was treated so badly in Prison Number Seven of the Karelia region of the country.
“For Putin it’s very important to break the spirit of a free man and to make him afraid to make a prisoner stop protesting,” he said.
“It was very important for Vladimir Putin’s regime to make a person afraid [by using] violence because it is impossible for the regime when a person remains unafraid and is able to prove that, even in prison, you can be human and you can still express your point of view.”
In November 2016 a letter written by Dadin to his wife from prison detailed his abuse at the hands of the guards.
After the letter was published Dadin says that the physical violence stopped, but that other forms of torture continued. He said: “The psychological torture was even more than before. For example, prisoners are made to stand for an hour and wait for a conversation with the head of the prison and they are told they should stay upright.”
Dadin said that the general treatment of prisoners was dehumanising, that “they treated prisoners not like people, but like animals”.
Dadin and Zotova are often stymied by what they see as a corrupt Russian system. Dadin said: “When we write complaints to the prosecutor’s office, the Russian investigator’s office and the police, they tell us that it’s false, that no-one tortures prisoners. However our lawyers go every month to these prisons and they see prisoners with broken legs, broken arms, broken skulls, and it clearly means that these prisoners have been beaten.”
Dadin also alleges that Putin’s government is complicit. He told the audience: “The Putin regime hides the criminals who are involved in torture from criminal trials and they are not even fired. They still work in these prisons, and with these prisoners. This is because Russia is not a democratic or rights orientated society.”
Asked about whether things would change if Putin was ever deposed, Dadin and Zotova said they were pessimistic.
Dadin responded: “Putin is only a face of this system and the system should be changed. We need big changes in Russia, governmental changes. People who work in different institutions and commit crimes have the opportunity to beat or kill someone, and everyone who works in these systems knows that they are not in danger. They can do what they want without there being any punishment.”
Dadin then spoke about the recent reports of horrific abuse towards gay men in Chechnya, the semi-autonomous region where Ramzan Kadyrov is president. For Dadin, this is yet another symptom of Russian structural inadequacy.
“In Russia, Putin’s regime shows people that there will not be punishment for their crimes and the same thing is even worse in Chechnya. It is not like the rest of Russia. It is almost not Russia and Russian law doesn’t work there.
Zotova agrees: “In Chechnya It is ‘Ramzan [Kadyrov] said’, and ‘Ramzan’s law’. They have the opportunity to violate human rights and do whatever they want there. For example, to LGBT people.”
Dadin added: “Now, the only way to save people is to spread information as wide as possible.”
With an election and the football World Cup taking place in Russia in 2018, it will be a year of intense global scrutiny on Russia.
Zotova spoke of the World Cup. She said: “Different people in Russia are saying that it’s impossible, playing the World Cup in Russia is like the Olympic Games taking place in Nazi Germany. How can people come to Russia for football and enjoy themselves when we have Nazi camps in Karelia?”
Both Dadin and Zotova are committed to fight in defence of human rights issues across Russia. Zotova said: “Frankly speaking I would like to have another job, but I understand that were we to stop being involved in this [the fight for human rights], no-one else will do it.”
Dadin added: “If you use violence for your goals innocent people will suffer. I do not want it, but I am ready to sacrifice my life to prevent violence or war in Russia.”
He committed to continue with peaceful protest “without violence but with courage against a criminal regime that lies to its citizens”.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1492534036386-d1218b1f-7b31-2″ taxonomies=”8935, 15″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Beatrice Mtetwa is a noted Zimbabwean human rights attorney. She received the Bindmans Law and Campaigning Award from Index in 2006 for her efforts in protecting journalists arrested by Zimbabwe’s repressive regime, headed by President Robert Mugabe. Since receiving the award, she has continued in much the same vein and gone on to scale even greater heights – defending the human rights of Zimbabwean citizens at significant risk to her own liberty. Notable cases include defending, and securing the release of, two foreign journalists from The New York Times and The Telegraph in 2008.
In that case the two journalists, Barry Bearak and Stephen Bevam, were arrested in Harare as they attempted to cover the bitterly contested – and possibly rigged – presidential elections. The charges were based on the fact that they had practised journalism without being accredited – an act that did not amount to an offence under Zimbabwean law. Mtetwa was instrumental in securing the quick release of the journalists from an uncertain period of detention as political prisoners of the Mugabe regime. In 2009, she became the first African after Nelson Mandela, to receive the Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize for her efforts at advancing human rights in Zimbabwe.
In her attempts to protect Zimbabweans from violations of the rule of law, she has also found herself at the receiving end of targeted prosecutions. Most recently, in 2013, she was charged with “obstructing justice” during a police raid. The state alleged that she made insulting statements to officers during the raid. The specific allegations in question? That Mtetwa shouted “at the top of her voice” that the raid was “unconstitutional, illegal, and unlawful” – statements that the court found did not warrant the charges that were brought against her.
Despite this arrest, Mtetwa has not been deterred from her indefatigable efforts to hold her government accountable. In 2016, she acted to secure the release of leaders of the war veterans association taken into custody by the Mugabe regime. She has also fought for and won several other critical human rights cases for people persecuted by the Mugabe regime.
With all the instability and uncertainty surrounding the rule of law in Zimbabwe, there is one constant. The world continues to watch Beatrice Mtetwa with admiration.
Tarun Krishnakumar is a member of Index on Censorship’s Youth Advisory Board. He graduated from the National Law School of India in Bangalore and currently works with a New Delhi-based law firm on public policy and regulatory affairs with a focus on technology.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”85476″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2016/11/awards-2017/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards
Seventeen years of celebrating the courage and creativity of some of the world’s greatest journalists, artists, campaigners and digital activists
