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 recent reports that give us cause for concern.
According to a document published on the state-run website of legal information, on 28 March, Vladimir Putin signed a new law that restricts coverage of court sessions. The law forbids taking photos and recording video during hearings, as well as any other form of recording without a judge’s permission. Streaming from pre-trial procedures is also forbidden.
If there is a recording of the hearing of any kind, a note regarding that fact along with the names of all media involved must be included in the minutes of said hearing. Prior to the law, journalists were not required to seek permission to film and take photos at open court hearings. The same applied for pre-trial live streaming.
The 2012 Resolution of the Supreme Court, which guaranteed journalists the right to publish live text updates, will not be changed by the new law.
On 3 April, press agency Beta reported that Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic was accused of controlling the mainstream media during his presidential election campaign. Critics are accusing the prime minister of rigging the elections by keeping a strong grip on the media in the country.
Vucic, who was elected President on Sunday, April 2nd, was also accused of orchestrating a smear campaign against his competitors. Nedim Sejdinovic, the president of the Independent Journalist Association of Vojvodina, said the elections were irregular due to a “media blackout”.
“When the government dominates the media with the lynching of political opponents, it has nothing to do with free elections and democracy,” said Sejdinovic. “But only with totalitarianism.”
On 30 March, a staff member for Ozgur Toplum magazine by the name of Fahrettin Kilic was formally arrested on charges of “membership of a terrorist organisation”, reported pro-Kurdish news agency Dihaber.
Kilic was detained on March 28th along with two other journalists who have since been released on probation terms. The charges were merely based on a photograph featuring Kilic in a regional Kurdish outfit, stated the report.
According to independent Azadliq Radio, The Azerbaijan Service for Radio Free Europe, publishing house E-Q was shut down following tax inspections on 1 April.
The director of the publishing house, Akif Guliyev, said the decision was made after a series of unsubstantiated tax inspections along with various other inspections as well. E-Q was known for publishing Azadliq newspaper, which it stopped printing in August of 2016.
Vladimir Stolyarov, the owner and editor of the infotainment website gagster.ru, was detained at his home on March 26th, reported Stolyarov’s brother on the website.
“Today, at around 4pm police officers came into my brother’s flat with a detention warrant,” said the editor’s brother. “They have accused him of extremism and detained him because he posted a link to the live stream of the protests and set up streaming on his website.”
Later that day, Vladimir Stolyarov was released, also made known on the website by his brother. [/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:1491562871372-fe072c87-7117-6″ taxonomies=”6564″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
The referendum, which is set to take place on 16 April, would authorise changes to the Turkish constitution to increase the power of the president. If approved, the role of prime minister would be abolished and the power of the parliament diminished.
The president would then become the head of state with the power to appoint all cabinet ministers and two-thirds of the country’s most senior judges. The president would also be able to create laws by decree, dismiss parliament and declare a state of emergency. Supporters, which include current president Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling AKP party believe that these changes would ultimately make Turkey a more decisive country and better protect against threats of terrorism and insurgency. Opposition groups, including the HDP and the Republican People’s Party, are concerned that the changes would be authoritarian as they would put too much unchecked power in the hands of the president.
Public opinion polls suggest that the vote will be very close because there are many undecided voters, however, the opposition groups believe that there has been unfair media coverage against their cause.
And English translation of the lyrics to Bejin Na can be found below:
Say No
For the hope of the children, say “No” Against fragmentation, say “No” For a democratic nation, say “No” Women, youth, the elder, all say “No”
No to a single flag No to a single nation No to a single language
For the revenge of Women, say “No”
For bright days, say “No”
For the promise we made to our cause, say “No”
It doesn’t work alone, say all together “no”
No to a single flag No to a single nation No to a single language
For thousand of years, dreams, say “No”
For the peace of all people, say “No”
Spread the word, all together , say “No”
No to a single flag No to a single nation No to a single language
A schoolboy resident of Bahrain and a recent PhD student in computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, Bill Marczak co-founded Bahrain Watch in 2012. Seeking to promote effective, accountable and transparent governance, Bahrain Watch works by launching investigations and running campaigns in direct response to social media posts coming from activists on the front line. In this context, Marczak’s personal research has proved highly effective, often identifying new surveillance technologies and targeting new types of information controls that governments are employing to exert control online, both in Bahrain and across the region. In 2016 Marczak investigated several government attempts to track dissidents and journalists, notably identifying a previously unknown weakness in iPhones that had global ramifications.
Index spoke with Marczak in the run up to the Freedom of Expression Awards, where he is nominated for the Digital Activism award.
Ryan McChrystal: In the summer of 2016 you discovered a previously known weakness in Apple’s iPhone that had global ramifications. Can you talk us through how that first came to light?
Bill Marczak: In August of 2016, Ahmed Mansoor, an activist in the UAE, reached out to me after he had received suspicious text messages. I had known him previously because he gets suspicious things in his inbox or on phone quite frequently. He sent me these text messages and asked me to take a look. The messages said: “New secrets about detainees tortured in UAE prison.” And there was a link inside the text message which I recognised because it was connected to a series of websites I had been tracking for the past six months or so. I had already attributed them to the NSO Group (an Israeli spyware company).
At that point, I was able to get the spyware they were using to target Mansoor
McChrystal: What does the software actually allow governments to do? What are the dangers for activists?
Marczak: The malware that NSO sells, called Pegasus, is actually pretty sophisticated in what it can collect. In the security community, the iPhone is generally thought to be more secure because Apple goes to such lengths to lock down and make it really, really hard to install an application from outside the App Store and to do something to the device that’s not approved by Apple. The fact that this malware even existed and could affect an iPhone in the single touch of a button was very surprising. Once your phone is infected, the malware would essentially be able to see everything on the device. If you had any saved passwords, for example, they would all be sent back to whoever infected you. That person would also get the ability to intercept your calls, SMS, Whatsapp, Viber, or any other communication service you use.
Perhaps most scarily, the malware allowed the user to turn on the webcam and the microphone on your iPhone to spy on activity going on around the phone. This could be used to spy on meetings or to see who you were hanging around with.
McChrystal: And this was was the first piece of malware of its kind.
Marczak: That’s correct. It was the first known zero-day remote jailbreak for the iPhone that was used as part of spyware. A jailbreak is a piece of software that allows you to get around Apple’s security precautions for the phone. Jailbreaking started out as a way for hobbyists and enthusiasts to install their own software not approved by Apple on the iPhone, so it was a very innocuous line of research. But once iPhones became more popular, people started putting their whole lives on their phones. That’s when jailbreaks became really, really valuable to people who would want to spy on iPhone users.
Nowadays, there are companies that will pay you if you sell them software or the code that jailbreak the phone. Some companies, like Zerodium, offer up to $1.5m. Presumably they’ll then be able to sell it to interested users for even more.
McChrystal: How did Apple respond when you informed them of your discovery?
Marczak: Working with the folks at Citizen Lab, I got in touch with Apple very early on in the process to alert them of what we had found. Initially, when we called up Apple was like: “Yeah, yeah, sure, send us some details and we’ll take a look.” When we sent what we were able to pull down from those links, the tone changed right away and they realised this was really serious. They said: “Give us more information because we want to work closely with you on this.”
McChrystal: How are governments using this kind of malware maliciously? And why should human rights activists specifically be worried?
Marczak: This kind of software can be used, for instance, in legitimate criminal investigations, but it can also be used essentially for anything the government wants to use it for. Once NSO Group sells the spyware to a government, that’s where NSO’s ability to control things ends. The government can then decide who it wants to target, who it wants to infect. If sold to a government agency that has a history of abusing surveillance, it’s likely they are going to abuse it to target human rights defenders and political opponents.
It’s something that human rights activists should be concerned about because everything is moving online these days. They are on their phones, communicating with other activists, human rights violations are being documented by videos or pictures on the phone. Your confidential or secret sources might be a WhatsApp contact, or a Signal contact if you’re even more secure.
If just one person has been infected, governments can map out an entire network of human rights defenders or opponents. They can keep tabs on an entire operation or human rights infrastructure in a country.
McChrystal: By bringing this malware to light, how many people’s privacy do you think you’ve helped to protect? Is there a way to put a number on it?
Marczak: The patch that Apple released, which coincided with the report that I published with Citizen Lab, went out to every iPhone user around the world. Apple subsequently issued a patch to every Mac laptop and desktop user. The number is in the high hundred of millions, if not billions of people whose phones and computers were patched.
Of course, not all of those people would have been affected, but having that sort of broad impact was very exciting.
McChrystal: Are you yourself now in danger of cyber attacks? Have there been any attempts that you’ve noticed?
Marczak: It’s something that I’ve thought a lot about. If you look at the security industry as a whole, researchers themselves can be very easily targeted. There have been instances where foreign intelligence agencies have targeted anti-virus companies, for instance, to figure out what they are working on next.
That’s the main risk I am worried about: if some foreign intelligence agency decides “hey, Bill’s working on some interesting stuff. Let’s hack him and see what he’s up to.”
When I’ve done some work in the field, for instance in the Middle East, I think through a set of operations security procedures like how to prevent someone coming into my hotel room when I’m away and bug my laptop.
McChrystal: What’s your connection to Bahrain and how did that lead to the establishment of Bahrain Watch?
Marczak: My own connection with Bahrain began in 2002. I went to high school there because of my dad’s job. Going to high school in a place, you obviously develop a lot of connections and experiences that tie you there, at least emotionally. Bahrain very much feels like one of my homes.
While I was there, I was never much interested in the political situation. But going back to the USA for college and observing from abroad, I did start to notice by reading the international media that there were certain things not right with the country, especially in 2011, when the Arab Spring protests started. Once I saw that police were shooting protesters in the street, and that one of my homes was in crisis, I though if there was a way that I, a computer science student sitting in Berkeley, California, could do anything to have a positive impact on the situation.
At the time, I didn’t really know what to do. I started following Bahraini activists, people on the ground and those who were actually at the protests. Those involved in the Arab Spring very much engaged with the rest of the world through social media. They sometimes sent out pictures of shotgun shells or tear gas canisters, asking if anyone knew who was manufacturing and supplying the government with them.
I was able to respond to these requests and see if I could find out some new information. I started off doing research into the various kinds of weapons that the police were using. That initial research got me some recognition among activists on the ground. We got in touch and developed connections which led us to decide to found Bahrain Watch in 2012.
Bahrain Watch initially focused on these arms, but them later expanded to documenting western PR companies that the government had hired to influence the media narrative. It expanded from there to a bunch of different areas.
McChrystal: The situation for human rights activists in Bahrain is changing, and in many ways it’s become more difficult. What does this mean for Bahrain Watch operations over the next year?
Marczak: You’re definitely right that the situation on the ground is very bad. In the past year we’ve seen the continued harassment of human rights defenders on the ground. One of the things we are trying to do going forward is to is, we started off in 2012 as an all-volunteer organisation and we were very much sustained by the energies and the passions of the Arab Spring.
But in the years since, a lot of that energy has died off to an extent, not just in Bahrain, but in the broader activist community. One of our challenges going forward has been to try and formalise the organisation so that we’re actually getting funding and have the capacity and resources to undertake more longer-form types of work. We’ve got some of that already, we have gotten a bit of funding, and we’re looking mainly to continue our work with digital security, so trying to provide support and advice to dissidents on the ground to help enhance their security posture, given the ongoing crackdown by the government.
At the same time we want to do more broader types of investigations into corruption more closely into the government’s strategy of controlling the media.
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In May 2016, Baptist pastor Evan Mawarire began the most important protest movement in Zimbabwe’s recent history when he posted a video of himself draped in the Zimbabwean flag, expressing his frustration at the state of the nation. A subsequent series of YouTube videos and the hashtag Mawarire used, #ThisFlag, went viral, sparking protests and a boycott called by Mawarire, which he estimates was attended by over eight million people. A scale of public protest previously inconceivable, the impact was so strong that private possession of Zimbabwe’s national flag has since been banned.
“I called the campaign #ThisFlag because it encouraged citizens to get involved in reclaiming national pride by condemning the shameless actions of government and its officials,” Mawarire told Index on Censorship.
Mawarire went into hiding soon after the videos release, fearing for his safety following an attempted abduction. He was arrested and charged with inciting public disorder, but the prosecution then added the more severe charge of subversion on the day of his trial without notifying his legal team. During his trial, a magistrate judge ruled that it was unconstitutional for the prosecution to bring new charges in court and acquitted Mawarire of all charges.
The pastor then temporarily left the country following death threats. He returned on 1 February, where he was immediately rearrested at Harare International Airport on his return to the country from New York for “subverting the constitutionally elected government”.
Index spoke with Mawarire before his return to Zimbabwe. He recorded a message to be posted in the result of his arrest.
On 8 February, Mawarire was granted bail. The high Court ruled that he must surrender his passport, report twice a week to the police and pay a $300 bond. His trial has been postponed and his next hearing is on 21 April.
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