17 Oct 2017 | Campaigns -- Featured, Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Responding to reports of violence at the 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair, Index on Censorship magazine editor Rachael Jolley said:
“Free speech must apply to all — even people whose ideas we may find offensive. Physical violence is never acceptable, and at a book fair like anywhere else, if people resort to assaulting each other they are likely to be arrested.
“It feels particularly shocking that attendees at
Frankfurt Book Fair, which is all about the global exchange of ideas, are not able to consider other people’s ideas without resorting to violence. Free expression is not just about speaking, it is also about listening. There seems to be a growing section of society that is not willing to allow people to speak who they disagree with. “
[/vc_column_text][/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][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:1508857169237-c1300623-fda9-2″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
17 Oct 2017 | Europe and Central Asia, Malta, Mapping Media Freedom, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, News and features
Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese journalist and blogger known for her investigative reporting on controversial and sensitive information.
Fifteen days after filing a police report that she was being threatened, Caruana Galizia was killed when the car she was driving exploded.
“We strongly condemn the violent killing of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. We urge the Maltese authorities to swiftly and thoroughly investigate the circumstances to bring the perpetrators to justice,” Hannah Machlin, project manager of Mapping Media Freedom, said.
Caruana Galizia ran her own news blog, Running Commentary. The site sometimes attracted as many as 400,000 readers a day (Malta’s population is just around 420,000). Her blog relentlessly exposed corruption among Malta’s politicians. It became the focal point of many legal battles, including multiple libel suits.
In August 2017, opposition leader Adrian Delia filed a lawsuit against Caruana Galizia over stories linking him with offshore accounts connected to sex work in London. She accused Delia of money laundering, claiming that around £1 million earned from prostitution in London flats was being processed through Delia’s Barclays International account in Jersey. Delia filed five libel suits against Caruana Galizia.
Caruana Galizia also published a series of articles accusing Silvio Debono, owner of real estate investment company DB Group, of making a deal with the Malta government to take over a huge area of public land to build a Hard Rock Hotel and two towers of flats for sale. In March 2017 Debono filed 19 libel cases against Caruana Galizia.
When Galizia reported in February that Economic Minister Chris Cardona and EU presidency policy officer Joseph Gerada visited a brothel in Germany while on official business, four precautionary warrants froze her assets. Each politician also filed two civil suits against her.
In January 2016, lawyers requested that Caruana Galizia reveal confidential sources, one of which claimed that the energy minister was seen kissing his communications coordinator. The minister’s lawyers questioned her “professional capacity as a journalist”.
Caruana Galizia was the first to report that Malta’s government minister Konrad Mizzi and chief of staff Keith Schembri were connected to the Panama Papers leak. Her involvement in history’s biggest data leak named her among Politico’s “28 people who are shaping, shaking, and stirring Europe”.
In March 2013 she was arrested for discussing politics on the internet during “day of silence,” a day in which no one in Malta is allowed to publish anything that may have an effect on voters or voters’ intentions. On her blog post recounting the experience: “It was obvious to me that they had come with a warrant of arrest to have an excuse to keep me locked up until tomorrow and away from the internet, literally physically preventing me from writing.”
Caruana Galizia was born in Sliema on the northeast coast of Malta in 1964. She attended the University of Malta and graduated BA in archaeology in 1997. She began her career as a columnist for the Sunday Times of Malta in 1987 and later became the Associate Editor of The Malta Independent.
One of her sons, Matthew Caruana Galizia, was part of the team that broke the Panama Papers.
17 Oct 2017 | Europe and Central Asia, Mapping Media Freedom, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, News and features, Russia
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Alexei Navalny arrested in Moscow during protests on 26 March 2017. Credit: Evgeny Feldman
At least nine media workers were detained across Russia on 8 October during protests organised by Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny.
Photojournalist David Frenkel was detained in St. Petersburg, while eight media workers – six journalists and two bloggers – were detained in Moscow.
“The arrest of journalists covering these protests is unacceptable and raises concerns that journalists will think twice about covering such demonstrations in future,” Hannah Machlin, project manager for Mapping Media Freedom, said. “The Russian government must cease detaining journalists, a clear breach of media freedom and the right of Russian citizens to receive information of public interest.”
In all, the demonstrations coinciding with president Vladimir Putin’s birthday resulted in more than 250 arrests. According to independent TV channel Dozhd, one of their reporters, Sonya Groisman was detained along with Life journalist Roman Vdovichenko and two reporters from Daily Storm, Rostislav Bogushevsky and Ilya Gorshkov.
Despite carrying their press cards, they were detained near Kitay Gorod metro station in the city centre. While others were taken to a police department, the reporters for Dozhd and Life were quickly released. Popular bloggers Georgiy Malets and Pavel Ryzhevsky, who were broadcasting live via Periscope during the protests, and a reporter for Open Russia were also detained in Moscow. [/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:1508246490261-0eb7753e-faac-7″ taxonomies=”15″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
16 Oct 2017 | Europe and Central Asia, Malta, media freedom featured, Statements
Daphne Caruana Galizia
Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed on Monday afternoon 16 October when her car exploded shortly after she left her house.
“We strongly condemn the violent killing of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. We urge the Maltese authorities to swiftly and thoroughly investigate the circumstances to bring the perpetrators to justice”, Hannah Machlin, project manager of Mapping Media Freedom, said.
Galizia was recently threatened according to TVM.
Galizia was sued in March 2017 by a property developer who filed 19 libel cases against her. In February 2017, economic minister Chris Cardona and his EU presidency policy officer Joseph Gerada filed four libel suits against the journalist.
Galizia had also conducted investigations linking Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat and his wife Michelle, to secret offshore bank accounts revealed by the Panama Papers.
