2 Nov 2017 | Europe and Central Asia, Malta, Mapping Media Freedom, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
On 2 November, the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, Index joined activists and five other organisations for a vigil outside the High Commissioner’s Office of Malta for murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Caruana Galizia was one of the best-known journalists and bloggers in Malta, recognised for her fearless reporting on controversial information surrounding government corruption. On 16 October 2017 Caruana Galizia was murdered in a car bomb attack near her home.
“The murder of a prominent investigative journalist in broad daylight in an EU member state underscores the seriousness of this crime,” said Hannah Machlin, project manager for Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom programme. “Daphne Caruana Galizia’s work as a journalist to hold power to account and shine a light on corruption is vital to maintaining our democratic institutions.”
Credit: Cat Lucas / English Pen
Galizia’s blog, Running Commentary, often generated more readers than all of the country’s newspapers combined. At the time of her death, over 40 libel suits had been taken out against her. According to her son, death threats were almost a daily occurrence.
“She knew there was a price to pay, but I never thought it was going to be this,” Gabriel Fraga, a friend of Caruana Galizia’s son, told Index. “Independent journalism is made by people like her. If we don’t protect people like her then we don’t have independent journalism.”
Protesters called on the European Union to hold the Maltese government accountable and to further investigate corruption in the EU.
“I’m hoping that today’s gathering really helps to establish more public pressure on the Maltese authorities and the international community to really take this seriously and investigate it,” Rebecca Vincent, UK bureau director of Reporters Without Borders said. “It’s a vicious cycle of these attacks and then impunity. It really sends a signal when nobody is ever brought to justice that violence is an acceptable means of silencing opinions, which is not the case.”
Attendees of the vigil held signs with the words #EndImpunity and #NoImpunity, chanted and read aloud articles published by Caruana Galizia.
“This shouldn’t silence her. This should fuel people to carry on her work,” Melanie Vella, said. Vella is from Malta and has written pieces for the Malta Times.
The vigil in London was attended by many concerned Maltese journalists. Across Malta, Caruana Galizia’s death shocked citizens.
Caruana Galizia’s work is sure to continue to inspire activists of free expression in Malta and worldwide.
[/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:1509644448228-6e3e0e89-f48b-9″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
31 Oct 2017 | Azerbaijan, Belarus, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Media Freedom, Montenegro, News and features, Russia, Serbia
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Since 2004, over 700 journalists have been killed for their reporting. Nine out of 10 of these cases go unpunished.
Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom platform verified a number of reports of impunity since it began monitoring threats to press freedom across Europe in May 2014. Reporters Without Borders also tracks cases of violence against journalists in its annual press freedom barometer and its end-of-year round-up of journalists killed worldwide.
“The brutal murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia on 16 October is a stark reminder of the dangers journalists face for reporting in the public interest. Pressure must be brought to bear on government officials in all countries to ensure that crimes against journalists do not go unpunished,” Hannah Machlin, project manager for Mapping Media Freedom, said.
Impunity, which is defined as the exemption from punishment or paying reparation for a crime, goes hand-in-hand with authorities’ inaction when investigating both violent and nonviolent actions against journalists.
“Violence against journalists and impunity for their attackers has become all too common in many parts of the world, and alarmingly, is on the rise in Europe, particularly in cases of journalists investigating corruption. We reiterate our call for the creation of a UN Special Representative for the Safety of Journalists to address this vicious cycle”, said Rebecca Vincent, UK Bureau Director for Reporters Without Borders.
To condemn such crimes, increase accountability and defend the rights of media professionals, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2 November as the ‘International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists’ in 2013. It has since been observed to raise awareness of impunity and condemn violence against the media.
AZERBAIJAN
Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Mukhtarli
On 29 May 2017, investigative journalist and government critic Afgan Mukhtarli disappeared on his way home in Tbilisi, Georgia. Mukhtarli reappeared the next day across the border in Azerbaijan and was accused of illegal border crossing, resisting police and smuggling when police allegedly found €12,000 on his person. He was immediately sentenced to three months in pre-trial detention.
This case is unique in that it is the first cross-border operation alleged to be accompanied by the Georgian government. Azerbaijani lawmaker and a member of the Parliament Human Rights Committee Elman Nasirov claimed Mukhtarli’s kidnapping was “the most successful operation carried out in recent years”. Nasirov also accused him of being a member of a broader anti-Azerbaijan network. As a preventive mechanism, Nasirov claimed that Azerbaijani special forces made necessary arrangements with Georgian special forces.
Police have questioned political activists, members of opposition parties, and journalists as part of the investigation. Sevinc Vagifqizi, a freelance reporter, was detained while waiting outside the state border services where Mukhtarli was being held. Other journalists who have been questioned in the case of Mukhtarli are investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova, who is facing a travel ban despite her release from jail, and more recently, Aytac Ahmadova.
The circumstances of Mukhtarli’s arrest were also notable for the suspicious injuries he sustained. Outside of his abduction, Mukhtarli’s lawyer reported that he had suffered a broken nose, multiple bruises and a possible broken rib.
BELARUS
On 12 March 2017, Adarya Hushtyn, the editor for BelaPAN news agency, arrived from Minsk to the town of Orsha in the Vitsebsk region of Belarus to cover a protest against the tax on the unemployed which was to be held in the early afternoon.
When she arrived that morning, she was stopped at the railway station by the commander of the riot police squad to check her documents and press card. She was then detained by police officers together with Nasha Niva newspaper correspondent Siarhei Hoodzilin who had arrived to cover the same protest.
At the police station, both journalists were searched and informed that they were being checked for in the database of wanted people. Hushtyn was detained at the police station for nearly three hours without any explanation. She was only released after the protest she intended to report on was over.
Hushtyn filed a complaint against her illegal detention and was told that she was mistaken for another woman who was also wanted by the police. As it turned out, this woman was not only unlike the journalist but was found two weeks prior to Hushtyn’s detention. She also filed an application to the prosecutor’s office to initiate a criminal case under Article 198 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus “preventing from lawful professional activity of a journalist”, but was refused.
In March 2017, the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) made an appeal to the Minister of Home Affairs calling on the authorities to investigative the mass violations of journalists’ rights. The reply was that police officers did not violate any law and that BAJ “has to stop ‘covering up’ and ‘justifying’ the people who have nothing to do with mass media”.
In March alone, 94 reporters were detained and 6 were beaten by the police while covering nationwide protests.
CZECH REPUBLIC
In April 1992, Václav Dvořák was shot and killed in front of his home. Dvořák was a journalist who uncovered information regarding František Mrázek, a controversial Czech entrepreneur once believed to be the boss of the Czech mob. Dvořák both published his reports locally or passed them along to national distributors. There are thirteen other murders thought to be linked to Dvořák’s.
After more than fourteen years, police identified Dvořák’s killer as gangster Bohuslav Hájek, who is believed to have been ordered by Mrázek to carry out the murder. However, Hájek disappeared in 2001 and it is believed that he was also murdered as an inconvenience and a witness to Mrázek’s operations.
GERMANY
On 6 July 2017 in Hamburg, Germany, police assaulted a number of journalists at the G20 protests.
Of the 35 investigations launched, 27 are accusations of assault perpetrated by police officers. At this time, none of the attackers have been arrested or convicted.
“There has been no police brutality,” Olaf Scholz, the mayor of Hamburg, claimed days after the protests during a televised interview.
On 8 July 32 journalists had their accreditation revoked by federal police without explicit reasoning. This launched an investigation by federal police, who discovered police files against the journalists contained incorrect information. Although there were errors made in police documents, it is unclear if the journalists have regained accreditation.
Journalists who lost accreditations include photographer Björn Kietzmann, Rafael Heygster (Weser Kurier), photographer for Junge Welt, Willi Effenberger Alfred Denzinger (Beobachter News), photographer Chris Grodotzki (Spiegel Online), Adil Yigit (Avrupa Postasi), editor Elsa Koester (Neues Deutschland) and freelance photographer Po Ming Cheung.
HUNGARY
On 15 July 2016 investigative journalist Csaba Móricz was insulted and then chased by the mayor of Érpatak, Orosz Mihály Zoltán, in a car. Earlier that day, Móricz went to Érpatak to document a city council meeting where he expected to ask questions to the mayor regarding a series of financial irregularities that he had uncovered.
At the beginning of the council meeting, instead of opening, the mayor launched into a fifteen-minute speech about the journalist, declaring him a “media rat” and “secret agent” several times, insinuating that Móricz lied about the financial situation in Érpatak for money. Two men then entered the room, one of which was Richárd Fügedi, a councillor of the far-right party Jobbik. One of the men then started threatening the journalist and asked: “Are you going to push me, Mr Móricz?“
The journalist left and drove away from the meeting, but soon realised that his vehicle was being followed by a group of three other cars – two of which belonged to the mayor‘s office. All cars involved were driving above the speed limit towards a nearby town when the journalist noticed a police patrol and decided to stop and ask for protection.
The police officers, instead of protecting the journalist, checked Móricz’s ID in the midst of a group of five people, including Mayor Zoltán and a second Jobbik MP. The group filmed the incident despite the journalist requesting they stop when his personal details, including his home address, were read aloud. Móricz had to insist to the police officers that they escort him to safety after initially being refused.
Just one month later, the authorities have opened an investigation against Móricz for breaking the speed limit. The investigation began when the website he works for wrote that he had to speed up to 140-150 km/h to escape his followers.
ITALY
Cosimo Cristina was born in Termini Imerese, an industrial village not far from Palermo, in 1935. He started working in the local newspaper L’Ora di Palermo when he was twenty. Later, he became a freelance contributor for several national newspapers and for the ANSA news agency.
In the late 1950’s, Cristina started to collect information about the clans of the Cosa Nostra, or the Sicilian mafia, in Palermo and Termini Imerese. In 1959 he published a new magazine titled “Prospettive Siciliane” (Sicilian Perspectives) with his friend Giovanni Capuzzo to cover stories on the mafia. This is when he started receiving death threats.
On 3 March 1960, he did not return home from work. Two days later, his corpse was discovered near to the railway, his skull broken. In his pockets he carried an ID and two letters; one for his fiancé and one for Capuzzo. In these letters Cristina begged for forgiveness for taking his own life. For the police it was a suicide and the case was closed. There was no further investigation or handwriting analysis on the letters found at the scene.
Five years later, police officer and expert on the Sicilian mafia Angelo Mangano began a new investigation. He knew Cristina had written several articles probing into the world of the Cosa Nostra. Mangano requested an autopsy on the corpse but the results confirmed the suicide, despite the doubts.
MALTA
Daphne Caruana Galizia
On 16 October at around 3pm, Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed when the car she was driving exploded in Bidnija in what is thought to have been a targeted attack. Galizia filed a police report 14 days prior saying that she was being threatened.
“The barbaric murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia is an attack on journalism itself. This crime is meant to intimidate every investigative journalist,” said Dr Lutz Kinkel, managing director of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom.
“Because prime minister Joseph Muscat and parts of Malta’s political elite were targets of Galizia’s disclosures, we strongly recommend an independent investigation of this case. The killers have to be found and put on trial.”
On 17 October, Galizia’s family filed an application to Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera to abstain from investigating the case because of the court’s “flagrant conflict of interest”. Galizia and the magistrate share a history of conflict and critique.
Galizia has conducted numerous high profile corruption investigations and has been subject to dozens of libel suits and constant harassment. Because of her research, in February, her bank assets were frozen following a request filed by the economic minister.
Galizia has made numerous opponents in the Maltese government and business world and has investigated and linked such high officials as opposition leader Adrian Deliato offshore accounts and alleged prostitution, real estate investment owner Silvio Debono to public land takeover and Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and his wife to hiding payments from Azerbaijan.
London: Vigil for Daphne Caruana Galizia
Join us to mark the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists by joining a vigil mourning the death of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was murdered on Monday 16 October.
When: Thursday 2 November 1-2pm
Where: Malta High Commission, Malta House, 36-38 Piccadilly, Mayfair, London W1J 0LE (Map)
MONTENEGRO
On 1 November 2007 Tufik Softic, a Montenegrin journalist and reporter for the opposition daily newspaper Vijesti, was brutally beaten in front of his home in Berane by two hooded assailants wielding baseball bats. About six years later in August 2013, an explosive device was thrown into the yard of Softic’s family home. It was not until 2014 and broad international pressure on Montenegro that both cases began formally investigating.
On 17 July 2014, police arrested two men in the town of Budva under the suspicion of involvement in the attacks against Softic. After questioning by the state prosecutor, who also confiscated their passports, the men were released on the same day.
Ten years after the initial attack in February 2017, Softic filed a lawsuit against the state for ineffective investigation. The lawsuit claims that the state is responsible for mental pain and fear which Softic suffered and will suffer because of the danger of re-attack, the Trade Union of Media of Montenegro reported. The state, TUMM continued, “encouraged attackers by ineffective investigation and eventually, its ending”.
After years of stalemate, Softc initiated the trial for compensation for non-pecuniary damage related to human rights violations. He has since been awarded €7,000 as compensation for the ineffectual investigation and mental suffering he endured, becoming the first in Montenegro’s history to do so. Softic’s case is emblematic of the atmosphere of impunity in Montenegro and the broader Balkan region.
RUSSIA
Yulia Latynina (Twitter)
After multiple life-threatening attacks, Yulia Latynina fled Russia. The columnist, contributor and writer works for independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, as well as radio station Echo Moskvy.
“I have left Russia in connection with threats to my life,” Latynina wrote on Twitter on 10 September. A week before on 3 September, her car was set on fire and completely destroyed. On July 2017 the journalist’s car and parent’s house were sprayed with noxious gas which led to the poisoning of eight people in the surrounding area. In a third incident on August 2016, faeces were poured onto Latynina while she was on her way to work at Echo Moskvy station.
In all three cases, a proper investigation was not carried out and the perpetrators were not found.
Also in Russia, on 9 March 2016, an attack was made on a minibus carrying journalists and human rights activists, near the border between Ingushetia and Chechnya. After no suspects had been identified, the investigation was suspended in February 2017. Although Ingushetia resumed the investigation after a public backlash, no progress has been made.
SERBIA
Three controversial murder cases from the nineties and early 2000’s remain unresolved in Serbia, with the most well-known case being the murder of journalist and newspaper publisher Slavko Ćuruvija outside of his apartment in Belgrade in 1999. It is believed that the order came from senior secret service officials during the regime of strongman Slobodan Milošević. Four former state security officials have been on trial for the murder as of December 2014, which continues to progress slowly. The lack of closure to the case after nearly two decades shows the perpetuation of state impunity in Serbia even after regime change.
The suspicious death of journalist Dada Vujasinović in 1994 also remains unsolved. Vujasinović is believed to have been murdered because of her published articles regarding war criminal Željko Ražnatović, better known as Arkan. She was found dead in her apartment in 1994. The police ruled it a suicide and nobody has been arrested or prosecuted to this day.
The third case is that of Večernje Novosti journalist Milan Pantić, who was murdered in 2001. He reported on criminal affairs and official corruption. As of June 2017, the police investigation had finally been completed and suspects have been identified, awaiting a trial. All three of these cases are being investigated by an independent commission established in 2013.
UKRAINE
Pavel Sheremet (Photo: Ukrainska Pravda)
Journalist Pavel Sheremet‘s killing in a car bombing in Ukraine’s capital city on July 20, 2016, cast a chill over the country’s press corps, and the ongoing impunity for those behind the crime has continued to affect journalists’ ability to cover sensitive subjects.
Sheremet was killed when the car he was driving exploded in Kyiv. In a statement, Ukrainian police said that an explosive device detonated at 7.45am as Sheremet was driving to host a morning programme on Radio Vesti, where he had been working since 2015.
The car belonged to Sheremet’s partner, journalist Olena Prytula, who co-founded Ukrainska Pravda with murdered journalist Georgiy Gongadze.
Sheremet had been imprisoned by Belarusian authorities in 1997 for three months before being deported to Russia. Though stripped of his citizenship in 2010, he continued to report on Belarus on his personal website. He moved to the Ukrainian capital in 2011 to work for the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda.
There have been no arrests in the journalist’s murder.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”80577″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.balcanicaucaso.org/bloc-notes/Impunita-dei-crimini-contro-i-giornalisti-una-scelta-politica”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
696 è il numero esatto di professionisti dell’informazione uccisi dal 2007 ad oggi nel mondo, secondo i dati raccolti dal Comitato per la Protezione dei Giornalisti (CPJ).[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”96211″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2017/10/targeting-journalists-name-national-security/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
As security – rather than the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms – becomes the number one priority of governments worldwide, broadly-written security laws have been twisted to silence journalists.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”96229″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2017/10/turkish-injustice-scores-journalists-rights-defenders-go-trial/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
About 90 journalists, writers and human rights defenders will appear before courts in the coming days[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”96183″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2017/10/interpol-the-abuse-red-notices-is-bad-news-for-critical-journalists/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Since August, at least six journalists have been targeted across Europe by international arrest warrants issued by Turkey, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_custom_heading text=”Mapping Media Freedom” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-times-circle” color=”black” background_style=”rounded” size=”xl” align=”right”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]
Since 24 May 2014, Mapping Media Freedom’s team of correspondents and partners have recorded and verified over 3,600 violations against journalists and media outlets.
Index campaigns to protect journalists and media freedom. You can help us by submitting reports to Mapping Media Freedom.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Don’t lose your voice. Stay informed.” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate, and monitor threats to free speech. We believe that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution – no matter what their views.
Join our mailing list (or follow us on Twitter or Facebook) and we’ll send you our weekly newsletter about our activities defending free speech. We won’t share your personal information with anyone outside Index.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
31 Oct 2017 | Magazine, News and features, Volume 46.03 Autumn 2017
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”From broadcasting uprisings to employing Russian spies, Radio Free Europe brings news to poorly served regions. In the autumn 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine, Sally Gimson looks at the station’s history and asks if it is still needed today”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Gregory Baldwin / Ikon
In Georgia, the future of Radio Free Europe, and sister station Radio Liberty, is looking precarious. This summer the Georgian government’s central broadcaster shut down two of RFE/RL’s most popular political programmes. The broadcaster said it was part of a wider restructure, but civil society organisations condemned the move and suggested the station wanted to eliminate critical viewpoints. The move and the subsequent outcry highlight the role RFE continues to play, namely to often act as a platform for free expression in parts of Europe where these values are strained.
Radio Free Europe and Russian station Radio Liberty, which it merged with, have been broadcasting to eastern Europe and Russia since 1950. While its remit originally was to fight communism, it now states its function as serving the cause of democracy more generally.
Today in Chechnya, for example, RFE is the only station where you will hear reports from journalists and stringers in the Chechen language about the influence of Isis and the persecution of gay people. It is the only Western international station operating in Moldova, even if it broadcasts for only a few hours a day. In Armenia, its TV provides a counterbalance to government-controlled media, as well as broadcasting to the wider diaspora. And in Kazakhstan, it provided special coverage of the early parliamentary election last year with six hours of live-streamed video on its website.
John O’Sullivan, executive editor of RFE between 2008 and 2012, argues passionately that “the radios”, as he calls the stations, have key roles to play in making sure people have a strong source of news and hear different viewpoints, and in holding governments to account with local journalists reporting on the ground.
“At the moment, there is a moral war between all these countries and the argument that commercial stations can do this job is fine, except they can’t do the job of the radios,” he told Index. “CNN is … never going to have a lot of correspondents in Armenia and never going to have correspondents in Chechnya. It’s going to be doing a story once every three months. Those audiences need it every day.”
Originally set up as an intelligence services-led project, RFE aimed to counter what the US government saw as superior propaganda coming out of the Soviet Union. Although primarily funded by the CIA, it was promoted to the US public as a project for truth and freedom to which they should contribute. Future US president Ronald Reagan, a young actor in the early 1950s, fronted up the public service advertisement, encouraging donations with the exhortation: “This station daily pierces the Iron Curtain with the truth, answering the lies of the Kremlin and bringing a message of hope to millions trapped behind the Iron Curtain.”
Victoria Phillips, who runs the RFE research project at Columbia University, told Index: “These men [who founded RFE] … really did believe in the power of truth and freedom of ideas, and when I read about some of those people, you don’t like the fact that they tried to invade places, and they had coups, but in the end the core was a belief in the power of ideas, and if ideas are allowed to vent then good will take place…”[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left” color=”custom” align=”right” custom_color=”#dd3333″][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”2/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”RFE was accused of encouraging insurgents to believe the USA would intervene on their behalf militarily” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]In the beginning, the broadcasts used émigrés and dissidents for their programmes. They spoke from the headquarters in Munich to their countrymen and women in their own languages and were broadcast on short wave radios, which were widely accessible. It was an alternative source of news to the official Soviet broadcasters.
During the Cold War RFE was also a hotbed of spies, double agents and political resistance. The Bulgarian novelist and playwright Georgi Markov was assassinated in London with the tip of a poisoned umbrella in part because of his RFE In Absentia programme. Markov had dined with the communist elite and knew all about their lives. He revelled in satirising them and the absurdity of the system for his audience back home. According to the communist government he “insolently mocked” the regime and “encouraged dissidence”.
When O’Sullivan was executive director RFE/RL, he remembers the Iranian secret service taking pictures of the Iranian journalists coming into the offices, then in Prague, in an effort to intimidate them. “We know in a general way that some of the countries had agents embedded in the service which broadcast to them. We didn’t know who they were obviously. And in one particular case, in the Russian service, [there was] a man who had defected [back to Russia]. He had been in RFE during the Cold War and he defected and went to work for Radio Moscow and he subsequently wrote a tell-all memoir in which he had to confess that journalistic standards in Radio Moscow were well below the standards in Radio Free Europe, or in his case Radio Liberty.”
Later, RFE played an instrumental role in the fall of the USSR. As writer Irena Maryniak explained in an article for Index in 2010: “Western radios became a forum for dissenting views and personalities: people like Václav Havel (later president of the Czech Republic); the Russian physicist and civil rights activist Andrei Sakharov; the Polish historian Adam Michnik; or indeed maverick party members like Boris Yeltsin, who broadcast on Radio Liberty when he was out of favour with colleagues at home.”
Today, many of the 23 countries where RFE works are areas where the USA still wants foreign policy influence. It broadcasts across a huge range of media, not just radio. And the languages and countries the station covers, from the Caucasus and the Balkans to Afghanistan via Iran and Pakistan, read like a map of East-West tension.
Indeed, the congressionally funded Broadcasting Board of Governors, which has openly funded RFE since the 1970s and pours $117 million of taxpayers’ money into the service, is robust about its “soft power” intentions. Its 2016 budget report contains headings such as Countering a Revanchist Russia. And the report explicitly links broadcasting with foreign policy priorities.
So can we trust its journalism? The answer from O’Sullivan is yes. It’s not constrained to put the US view in the same way as Voice of America, and it actively seeks to encourage free speech and news coverage in countries where this is underdeveloped or difficult. Indeed, many reporters risk their lives to report for RFE, such as Khadija Ismayilova, who was imprisoned in Azerbaijan for exposing the president’s link to corruption. She was awarded the Unesco/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 2016 for her fearless work for the station. The station also won two prizes at the New York Festivals’ International Awards this spring, including one for the Kyrgyz service’s short video feature A Snowy Trek on Horseback to Teach School.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left” color=”custom” align=”right” custom_color=”#dd3333″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”The people who were broadcasting suddenly realised that there were huge ramifications if you promised, or seemed to promise, something and it didn’t come true.” 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]There have been darker moments at RFE, the most famous being its reporting on the Hungarian uprising of 1956 when at least 2,500 people were killed and many more were forced into exile, imprisoned and deported. RFE was accused of encouraging insurgents to believe the USA would intervene on their behalf militarily and therefore making people risk their lives unnecessarily. A couple of its programmes offered tactical military advice, and one commentary told people not to give up their weapons.
George Urban, the director of the Radio Free Europe division at the time, admitted they got it wrong. He said: “The radio was young and inexperienced. After barely five years of broadcasting, its management was still testing the instruments and boundary lines of the Cold War and was simply not up to the task of responding with clarity or finesse to its first great challenge. Hungary, its baptism of fire, cost it dear.”
As Phillips said: “The people who were broadcasting suddenly realised that there were huge ramifications if you promised, or seemed to promise, something and it didn’t come true. That people were going to die; your friends were going to die.”
Despite these controversies, RFE has survived, in part because the US Congress has continued to invest in the European operation, if on a smaller scale than during the Cold War. But O’Sullivan believes “the radios” should be given a lot more money and are needed more than ever to compete with stations like Russia Today (with a budget of about $300 million in 2016) and Al Jazeera.
“I think that people will accept there is an argument for good journalism which gives the news about their own country to people whose country would like to deprive them of it, and good journalism which sets standards to which we hope the journalists in transitioning countries will aspire and gradually achieve,” he said.
This article was updated on 1 November 2017 to include additional information.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]This article first appeared in the Autumn 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine, an award-winning, quarterly magazine dedicated to fighting for free expression and against censorship across the globe since 1972. You can subscribe here or via Exact Editions here. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/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=”89160″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306422011399691″][vc_custom_heading text=”Surviving Lukashenko ” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1177%2F0306422011399691|||”][vc_column_text]March 2011
James Kirchick looks at the climate for alternative media in the aftermath of the 2010 Belarus elections.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”94267″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064228208533431″][vc_custom_heading text=”Extolling the communist party” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1080%2F03064228208533431|||”][vc_column_text]October 1982
Janis Sapiets questions whether Soviet broadcasting is partaking in censorship or responsibility to the party. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”94034″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064228308533503″][vc_custom_heading text=”Censorship in retreat” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1080%2F03064228308533503|||”][vc_column_text]April 1983
Hungary’s best-known novelist writes on the craving in Eastern Europe for communication and exchanges of ideas.[/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=”Free to air” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2017%2F09%2Ffree-to-air%2F|||”][vc_column_text]Through a range of in-depth reporting, interviews and illustrations, the autumn 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine explores how radio has been reborn and is innovating ways to deliver news in war zones, developing countries and online
With: Ismail Einashe, Peter Bazalgette, Wana Udobang[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”95458″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2017/09/free-to-air/”][/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.
Subscription options from £18 or just £1.49 in the App Store for a digital issue.
Every subscriber helps support Index on Censorship’s projects around the world.
SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
30 Oct 2017 | Campaigns -- Featured, Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
The Bahraini authorities on Monday 30 October sentenced the mother-in-law, Hajer Mansoor Hasan (49), and brother-in-law, Sayed Nizar Alwadaei (18), of UK-based human rights defender Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei to three years in prison in reprisal for his work.
Mansoor Hassan and her son Sayed Nizar Alwadaei were not in court for the sentencing in a trial criticised by UN experts and Amnesty International for fair trial violations, including torture, and as a reprisal against his human rights work. Hajer and Nizar each received three years in prison on fabricated charges of planting a “fake bomb” in January 2017, while Mr Alwadaei’s maternal cousin, Mahmood Marzooq (30), was acquitted from the “fake bomb” case but sentenced to a month and half in prison and charged a 100 Bahraini dinar fine for obtaining a dagger.
The three family members of Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), were arrested in Bahrain in March 2017. After days in detention, during which they were ill-treated and tortured into signing false confessions, they were presented with terrorism charges. During the interrogation, Mr Alwadaei’s family members were questioned extensively about his work in the UK.
Public prosecution evidence papers, seen by BIRD, found no physical evidence — DNA, fingerprints or otherwise — tying the Alwadaei family to the “fake bomb” they were alleged to have planted in January 2017. Their prosecution has depended entirely on confessions extracted under conditions of torture.
In September, six UN human rights experts expressed “grave concern” over the allegations of arbitrary arrest, detention, death threats and torture in relation to Mr Alwadaei’s family. The UN experts also expressed grave concern that the actions were intended to “intimidate and impair the human rights activities” of Mr Alwadaei. The UN Committee Against Torture has also raised significant concern over the “widespread acceptance by judges of forced confessions”.
The reprisals against the Alwadaei family began in October 2016, when Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei protested King Hamad of Bahrain’s arrival at 10 Downing Street to meet the British Prime Minister. Within hours of that protest, Mr Alwadaei’s wife, Duaa Alwadaei, who was travelling from Bahrain to the UK, was detained at Bahrain International Airport, interrogated for seven hours, barred from leaving the country and threatened. As reported by Human Rights Watch, an interrogator asked her, “Where shall I go first, shall I go to his family or your family?” Duaa Alwadaei was able to leave Bahrain following international pressure and the intervention of the US embassy in Bahrain. Five months later, her mother and brother were targeted for reprisals.
Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, Director of Advocacy of BIRD said: “The lowest the Bahraini monarch can go is to come after my family because I protested his presence in the UK and dedicated my work to exposing his government’s horrific rights abuses. I was distraught to see my family suffer torture, persecution and interrogations about my activities. The judge relied on coerced confessions extracted under torture to convict them. I will not rest until they are freed and will do whatever I can to hold the perpetrators to account.”
Husain Abdulla, Executive Director, Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain: “The ‘fake bomb’ charge is absurd, and today’s proceedings show how far Bahraini courts are willing to go to in jailing innocent people. The United States has encouraged this behaviour. When the Trump Administration drops human rights conditions and approves multi-billion dollar arms deals to Bahrain, they are saying that this abuse is acceptable in their eyes.”
Joy Hyvarinen, acting head of advocacy, Index on Censorship, said: “We call on the Bahraini government to immediately overturn its conviction of the family members of Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei as punishment for his work as an activist and a critic of the regime. These are reprisals for nothing more than peacefully holding opinions.”
Hajer Mansoor Hassan
Hajer Mansoor Hassan did not attend today’s court hearing, as the authorities failed to transfer her from detention to the courtroom. Since March, she has been held in the Isa Town Women’s Prison. On 24 October, Hajer announced a hunger strike along with three other women prisoners, demanding more humane treatment and the removal of a new glass barrier in the visitation centre. The hunger strikers’ demands were met yesterday, 29 October, when they ended their strike after six days. Hajer was repeatedly hospitalised in the past week as her health faltered in the course of the hunger strike.
International Outcry over Alwadaei ’s family reprisals; UK Responds Noncommittally
Hajer was sentenced on 30 October, alongside her son and nephew, in a political trial which has been described by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and six UN experts as a reprisal against the human rights work of BIRD’s Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei.
Last week, 16 NGOs sent letters to 11 state bodies, including the United Kingdom, United States and the European External Action Service, calling on them to take action ahead of the trial. Their voices are joined by 40 Members of the European Parliament, who have made similar calls to the European Union.
27 cross-party parliamentarians also wrote to the British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, stating “Despite this attack on his human rights campaigning here in Britain, our government has taken no discernible action to support Mr Alwadaei or his family.” They added, “The UK must not condone the flagrant human rights violations committed by the Bahraini authorities against innocent civilians for human rights campaigns that take place on British soil.”
The UK’s Middle East Minister Alistair Burt was asked whether the Foreign & Commonwealth Office had raised this case with the Government of Bahrain. He stated that “we continue to follow these cases closely” but did not state whether the British government had indeed raised the case.
1. 16 rights groups’ letter to the 11 States: http://birdbh.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/2017.10.26-NGOs-letter-on-Reprisals-Against-the-Alwadaei-Family_Final-.pdf
2. Breaches of the International Law perpetrated by Bahrain against the family members of Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, prepared by Reprieve, (Attached)
3. 27 UK parliamentarians letter to Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson (attached)
4. The MEPs letter is available here: https://www.ecdhr.org/bahrain-meps-call-for-the-release-of-sayed-alwadaeis-family/
5. Read Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei’s comment on the Guardian about the ordeal his family is facing here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/24/daughter-stateless-uk-bahrain-torture-human-rights
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_cta h2=”HOW TO HELP” h4=”Write to your representatives” style=”custom” css=”.vc_custom_1509363600769{background-color: #b7b7b7 !important;}” custom_background=”#919191″]Tell them to call on the Bahraini authorities to release Hajer Mansoor Hasan and her son Sayed Nizar Alwadaei and to unconditionally drop all charges against them. The right to free expression must be upheld and there must be no reprisals.
Theresa May, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Office of the Prime Minister, 10 Downing Street, London, SW1A 2AA
Tel: 020 7219 5206
Email: [email protected]
Boris Johnson, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 4682
Email: [email protected]
Simon Martin, British Ambassador to Bahrain
21 Government Avenue, Manama 306, PO Box 114 Manama, Bahrain
Tel: + 973 17574100
Email: [email protected][/vc_cta][/vc_column][/vc_row]
