6 Jun 2019 | Campaigns -- Featured, Digital Freedom, Digital Freedom Statements, Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Social media platforms have enormous influence over what we see and how we see it.
We should all be concerned about the knee-jerk actions taken by the platforms to limit legal speech and approach with extreme caution any solutions that suggest it’s somehow easy to eliminate only “bad” speech.
Those supporting the removal of videos that “justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status” might want to pause to consider that it isn’t just content about conspiracy theories or white supremacy that will be removed.
In the wake of YouTube’s announcement on Wednesday 5 June, independent journalist Ford Fischer tweeted that some of his videos, which report on activism and extremism, had been flagged by the service for violations. Teacher Scott Allsopp had his channel featuring hundreds of historical clips deleted for breaching the rules that ban hate speech, though it was later restored with some videos still flagged.
It’s not just Google’s YouTube that has tripped over the inconsistent policing of speech online.
Twitter has removed tweets for violating its community standards as in the case of US high school teacher and activist Carolyn Wysinger, whose post in response to actor Liam Neeson saying he’d roamed the streets hunting for black men to harm, was deleted by the platform. “White men are so fragile,” the post read, “and the mere presence of a black person challenges every single thing in them.”
In the UK, gender critical feminists who have quoted academic research on sex and gender identity have had their Twitter accounts suspended for breaching the organisation’s hateful conduct policy, while threats of violence towards women often go unpunished.
Facebook, too, has suspended the pages of organisations that have posted about racist behaviours.
If we are to ensure that all our speech is protected, including speech that calls out others for engaging in hateful conduct, then social media companies’ policies and procedures need to be clear, accountable and non-partisan. Any decisions to limit content should be taken by, and tested by, human beings. Algorithms simply cannot parse the context and nuance sufficiently to distinguish, say, racist speech from anti-racist speech.
We need to tread carefully. While an individual who incites violence towards others should not (and does not) enjoy the protection of the law, on any platform, or on any kind of media, tackling those who advocate hate cannot be solved by simply banning them.
In the drive to stem the tide of hateful speech online, we should not rush to welcome an ever-widening definition of speech to be banned by social media.
This means we – as users – might have to tolerate conspiracy theories, the offensive and the idiotic, as long as it does not incite violence. That doesn’t mean we can’t challenge them. And we should.
But the ability to express contrary points of view, to call out racism, to demand retraction and to highlight obvious hypocrisy depend on the ability to freely share information.[/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1560160119940-326df768-f230-4″ taxonomies=”4883″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
6 Jun 2019 | Asia and Pacific, Global Journalist, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, News and features, Sri Lanka
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This article is part of Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist’s Project Exile series, which has published interviews with exiled journalists from around the world.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
Sonali Samarasinghe remembers the last words of her husband Lasantha Wickrematunge on the day he was killed in 2009: “Don’t worry, I got it under control.”
Threats weren’t new to Wickrematunge. As the editor of The Sunday Leader, a Sri Lankan newspaper that published articles exposing government corruption, he’d been followed, attacked with clubs and received a funeral wreath at his office.
Samarasinghe was the chief investigative journalist and consulting editor for the newspaper and also the founding editor-in-chief of its sister paper, The Morning Leader.
Like other journalists, the couple worked in a difficult environment, as their newspapers competed with state-owned newsrooms and faced constant pressure for criticising the government of then-president Mahinda Rajapaksa. In late 2008 and early 2009, Rajapaksa’s government was in the final months of a brutal decades-long civil war with Tamil Tiger rebels. Still, Wickrematunge’s assassination shocked the south Asian nation and would force Samarasinghe into years of exile.
“For the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration, Wickrematunge was the biggest thorn in their flesh,” Samarasinghe wrote in a blog post. “He investigated corrupt military procurement deals, spoke out strongly and passionately for a negotiated settlement to the ethnic conflict and debunked blatant government propaganda on the war.”
Indeed Wickrematunge’s first wife, Raine, was so fearful for her family’s safety that she left Sri Lanka for Australia in 2002 with the couple’s three children. Samarasinghe worked for Wickrematunge for years before the couple married in 2008, just two months before his death.
She too made powerful enemies. Samarasinghe was once interrogated for more than four hours by Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigations Department in an attempt to get her to reveal her sources in an investigation into the central bank’s dealings with a company accused of running a Ponzi scheme. In another incident, an article about tsunami relief accused Rajapaksa and other top officials of siphoning off millions in aid money. The Morning Leader’s printing presses were attacked and copies of the paper burned in 2007 by 15 gunmen after a separate exposé on the family of cabinet minister Mervyn Silva.
On 8 January 2009, Samarasinghe and Wickrematunge received a call from the newspaper while returning home from the pharmacy. It was a warning: they were being followed.
As they got out of their car, two men wearing black fatigues on a black motorcycle sped past them, staring them down, says Samarasinghe in an interview with Global Journalist. The couple went into the house and closed all their doors. Samarasinghe says she tried to keep Wickrematunge at home, but he was determined to go to the office to write his well-known political column.
On his way to the newspaper during rush hour, Wickrematunge was ambushed and killed in broad daylight by motorcycle-riding attackers, one of at least 19 journalists slain in Sri Lanka for their work since 1992, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Wickrematunge had been prepared for this outcome. He’d already written his own obituary, which included the line: “…when finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me.”
“We were up against an administration that had taken impunity to the level of a martial art,” Samarasinghe says.
Samarasinghe continued receiving threats even after Wickrematunge’s assassination. Ttwo weeks later, she escaped to New York.
She became a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in August 2009 and started the independent Lanka Standard news site in 2011. After Harvard, she spent time as a journalist in residence at City University of New York and Ithaca College.
Then in 2015 came an opportunity for justice. Rajapaksa suffered a surprise defeat to former ally Maithripala Sirisena in presidential elections. The six-year-old investigation into Wickrematunge’s death, which had yielded no convictions, was reopened. Samarasinghe was hired by the new administration to work in New York at Sri Lanka’s mission to the United Nations.
In 2016, a former soldier was found dead with an apparent suicide note in which he claimed responsibility for killing Wickrematunge’s. A police report implicated a special military unit led by Rajapaksa’s brother and defence secretary, Gotbaya Rajapaksa.
Yet progress stalled. Gotbaya, who is also being sued by Wickrematunge’s daughter in US courts for her father’s death, has announced he’s running for president to succeed Sirisena in elections later this year. Both Rajapaksas have denied involvement in the editor’s death. Meanwhile, after a wave of terrorist bombings in April killed more than 250 people, President Sirisena said that investigations into human rights abuses during the Sri Lankan Civil War had weakened the security forces and left the country at risk.
Samarasinghe spoke with Global Journalist’s Seth Bodine about the killing of her husband, the threats against her, and the prospect of those responsible escaping Sri Lankan justice. Below is an edited version of their interview.
Global Journalist: What was it like being a journalist in Sri Lanka around the time of your husband’s death?
Samarasinghe: We were up against an administration that had taken impunity to the level of a martial art. It had incrementally closed the democratic space, the space for freedom of expression. This didn’t happen overnight. It happened incrementally.
One by one private media organisations were being bought by businessmen or acolytes of the president at the time, Mahinda Rajapaksa. Even his own family.
Those who were not bought up chose to associate themselves with the ruling regime because then they could engage in lucrative business with the government. The state-controlled media was really state-controlled. It included the nation’s largest newspaper group. So, you could not compete with that.
At the time, when we were working, there was no freedom of information act. Speaking to journalists was actively discouraged by the government.
Even though the constitution provided for freedom of expression, that freedom of expression right was infringed upon by other laws. With emergency power regulations, anything could happen. There was the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which was another draconian piece of legislation which really curtailed freedom. And there were other laws, giving the government and the armed forces power to arrest without warrant.
So you could be detained at that time for up to 20 months without charge. Officials were shielded from prosecution so you couldn’t even challenge them.
The culture of impunity was just staggering. I mean, at that time white vans would go around abducting journalists and activists. Some of them never to be seen again, some of them beaten to a pulp and thrown on the side of the road.
GJ: Was there any warning of the danger to you and Lasantha?
Samarasinghe: We weren’t given any warning about the motorcyclists except a few minutes before when someone from the office called to say that he was being followed. But before that, there were certain things that were happening.
For instance, he received a cutting of a newspaper which was drenched in red ink. This was like a week before. He himself knew. He was talking to me, and he said, “It’s very dangerous now.”
Then, two days before Wickrematunge’s death, a very independent TV network was destroyed. They came in and they burned the place down.
GJ: What led you to flee?
Samarasinghe: It was the trauma of going through the death of my husband in such a violent manner. Then, neighbours let us know that the motorcyclists had come back and were circling the premises.
So I immediately left my home. My mother didn’t know where I was, I didn’t tell anyone where I was, and I stayed with a friend.
Meanwhile things were happening at home. Two men walked into the house, and despite my mother’s protest, they very aggressively started taking photos of the inside and outside of my home. They photographed my little niece. Then they rushed out of the house. So, within two weeks I realised I had to leave.
Both the Australian and American ambassadors reached out to help. And ultimately, I fled to Europe and found shelter in the home of a European ambassador who took me in for two months.
GJ: What happened at The Sunday Leader after Lasantha’s death?
Samarasinghe: For the two weeks I was in charge of the newspaper following the assassination of my husband, I wrote the political column focusing on his death, the then-president’s reaction, and the immediate aftermath. I also had other journalists intensely focus on the investigation.
We ran half-page ads on a black background of threats made by president Rajapaksa to Lasantha. However, I was compelled to flee the country. The newspaper ground to a halt and understandably diluted itself and went into survival mode.
GJ: How did you feel when you left?
Samarasinghe: You really feel like your country has betrayed you. And you also have to face so many emotions. Those who knew Lasantha just denied knowing him. Everyone was scared. It was such a horrid time.
Some of my friends and family would no longer ride in the same car with me because I had to drive to work in those two weeks, fearing that they would be collateral damage, that I would be the next obvious target. For a long time, I couldn’t even convince a caretaker or friend to check in on my house because they were just scared people were watching it, or that they could be attacked or targeted.
Superstition was doing its bit. Nobody wanted to rent or buy a home they felt was one of tragedy – because it was a home of a couple whose dreams were dashed within two months of marriage. So they thought it was bad luck.
All these things, all of these cultural and political issues were just swirling around. It was a really torrid time because of that.
It was just the panic of having to leave and having to look undefeated for the cameras because you have to look strong. The panic of not seeing familiar faces, the stress of coming to an unknown place.
Language had failed me. And I was a journalist who wrote 10,000 words or more a week. It was then that I learned and was relieved to know that it was post-traumatic stress disorder.
GJ: Before Rajapaksa surprisingly lost the 2015 election, did you imagine that you would ever go back to Sri Lanka?
Samarasinghe: I had just abandoned all hope of getting back to Sri Lanka. I thought this was going to go on forever. In 2015, before the election, even the New York Times had an editorial that said the regime is going to remain. None of us expected this to happen. The next day, we all bought tickets to go back to Sri Lanka. Everyone was buying tickets.
GJ: Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was defence minister at the time of your husband’s death, and who was linked to his killing by a police report, has announced he will run for president this year. Are you upset that the people responsible for his death are still free?
Samarasinghe: Investigations into Lasantha’s murder are still continuing. It is not for me to comment at this time. The people of Sri Lanka will decide in democratically-held elections.
I will say this: I believe in the rule of law and I believe in divine justice. As Dr. King noted: “Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a place and Christ a cross, but that same Christ will rise up and split history into AD and BC, so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name…the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/6BIZ7b0m-08″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist is a website that features global press freedom and international news stories as well as a weekly radio program that airs on KBIA, mid-Missouri’s NPR affiliate, and partner stations in six other states. The website and radio show are produced jointly by professional staff and student journalists at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, the oldest school of journalism in the United States. [/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). We’ll send you our weekly newsletter, our monthly events update and periodic updates about our activities defending free speech. We won’t share, sell or transfer your personal information to 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_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content”][vc_column][three_column_post title=”Global Journalist / Project Exile” full_width_heading=”true” category_id=”22142″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
5 Jun 2019 | Academic Freedom, News and features, Scholar at Risk, Turkey
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Academics for Peace unites 2,237 people supporting peace in Turkey’s mostly Kurdish-populated south-eastern provinces. Many are among the 1,128 signatories of a 2016 petition — We Will Not Be a Party To This Crime — calling for an end to violence in the region. The petition condemned state violence against the Kurds and Turkey’s violation of its own laws and international treaties.
As of 29 May 2019, 724 members of Academics for Peace are on trial and facing imprisonment. So far, 180 sentences – ranging from between 15 and 36 months – have been handed down.
One of the signatories of the petition, professor Füsun Üstel, began her 15-month jail term on 8 May 2019. She is the first of the signatories to begin her sentence.
In April, professor Tuna Altınel of Claude Bernard University in Lyon had his passport confiscated when he returned to Turkey for the Easter holidays. On 11 May, he was detained when he went to the police station to inquire about his passport. He remains in custody on charges relating to a conference he organised in Lyon on 21 February 2019 in solidarity with the Kurds.
Mehmet Ugur, a member of Academics for Peace and professor of economics and Institutions at University of Greenwich, spoke with Index on Censorship about the current situation for Turkish academics.
Jessica Ní Mhainín: Professor Füsun Üstel began her sentence on 8 May. How has this affected the members of Academics for Peace and particularly the signatories of the petition?
Mehmet Ugur: The Academics for Peace were very disappointed with the decision to imprison Fusun Ustel, although it wasn’t totally unexpected since the AFP trials have so far demonstrated that the courts are following strict directions from the government. Fusun Ustel is a highly respected professor of law, whose democratic credentials are as good as her academic ones. Her imprisonment created anger among the AFP community and beyond. The recent social media campaign has focused on efforts to free her, or to at least transfer her to an open prison [where there would be less restrictions on her movements and activities]. So on one hand, AFP have reacted with disappointment and anger, but on the other hand they have shown that they are resilient.
Ní Mhainín: In 2016, you wrote that the international scholarly community should “take practical, meaningful steps to express their solidarity with Academics for Peace and their commitment to academic freedom more broadly”. Do you think that academics in Europe have been supporting their Turkish colleagues?
Ugur: I am very proud to be part of an international academic community that has shown incredible support for AFP. When we asked for signatures, thousands of academics signed. When we asked for condemnation, many wrote individual letters. Some went the extra mile by helping those academics who managed to leave Turkey (before their passports were confiscated) by mentoring them and providing them with research fellowships. We are so grateful for that.
But we have also observed that the academic community could do more given the dangers posed by the violation of academic freedom in Turkey. The resilience of the global higher education system against political interventions is at stake. Some European institutions have been partnering with the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) or the Scientific and Technological Research Council (Tübi̇tak), despite the fact that these institutions have been directly complicit in the violation of academic freedom in Turkey. Incentivised by the Turkish government’s funding, some organisations and institutions continue to hold conferences and strike quick-return partnerships with universities that were complicit in the violation of academic freedom.
The academic community is not a uniform body; there are different views and tendencies. Still, I would urge my peers to think twice before accepting offers from complicit Turkish universities or higher education funding bodies. We need to be concerned about the resilience of global higher education system against populist, authoritarian, and managerialist threat – in Turkey and beyond.
Ní Mhainín: You have decided to not return to Turkey, at least for the foreseeable future. How have you come to this decision?
Ugur: I have made a decision not to return to Turkey because of legal uncertainties brought about by the Turkish courts’ reliance on flimsy evidence to arrest and imprison people. I was imprisoned in Turkey in the early 1980s after the military coup. The conditions were very harsh but we knew what charges we would face and what sentence we would get. The Justice and Development Party (AKP)’s regime is so unpredictable – and it is aided by the pro-government media (95% of the media outlets in Turkey), by an army of trolls who act both as informers and secret witnesses, and above all, by a compliant judiciary, who are driven by both career incentives and ideological enmity against progressive politics. This is why I feel that it would be unsafe to go to Turkey.
Having said that, many of my colleagues who are signatories to the peace petition are going to Turkey. Some are returning safe but some of them, as we know from the case of Tuna Altınel, are not. It all depends on whether someone complains about you on social media or if a speech you made some years ago has re-surfaced and caught the attention of the authorities. The uncertainty makes me feel that it is not worth going. But I would not say that my assessment is applicable to everyone.
Ní Mhainín: On 9 May 2019 the Constitutional Court ruled that the imprisonment of Ayşe Çelik, who had been convicted of “disseminating propaganda” in favour of a terrorist organisation for calling on the media to “not keep silent” about the killings in South East Turkey, constituted a violation of freedom of expression. This ruling might offer Academics for Peace some hope. How has news of the court’s ruling been received?
Ugur: In the case of Ayşe Çelik, not only did the court rule that her call for peace in the Kurdish region didn’t constitute propaganda for a terrorist organisation, but it went further by saying that even if someone is spreading terrorist propaganda, it should be considered freedom of expression unless it incites terrorist action. Ayşe Çelik was convicted under the same article that has been used to sentence AFP signatories: article 7.2 of the Anti-terror Law, which carries a heavier sentence than article 3(1) of the Turkish Penal Code (contempt against the Turkish state), which had also been considered by the judiciary.
The AFP have already submitted an application to the Constitutional Court indicating that the actions of the AFP signatories should also be considered freedom of expression rather than terrorist propaganda. The court met on 29 May 2019 but failed to make a decision. There appears to be some tension between the court and the government, but I’m not very optimistic. If the court rules in AFP’s favour, we will celebrate of course, but if it doesn’t then the charade of the Turkish legal system will be proven at another level.
Ní Mhainín: How do you see the situation in Turkey progressing over the coming months and years?
Ugur: It’s very difficult to predict the future, but I think that in the short-term, the situation will continue to be bad for defenders of democracy and freedom in Turkey. This is because of the alliance that keeps the government in power, which is based on two parties: the AKP and the Nationalist Action Party (MHP). The AKP is informed by a synthesis of religion and nationalism, while the MHP originates from a fascistic tradition going back to the 1950s. The current political establishment is against improving academic freedom, democracy or human rights, hence why you have academics, journalists, and people like Osman Kavala being tried and imprisoned.
The government has so far been using the Kurds to maintain its authoritarian, anti-democratic regime but I think that the set-up is increasingly becoming unsustainable. I believe that people are no longer as affected by the fear and intimidation campaigns that the government is instigating. The results of the local election [31 March 2019], along with the economic crisis, have weakened their campaigns. So there are some signs that this authoritarian regime is running out of steam – and this is a good sign! But I wouldn’t jump to celebrate yet; you need to have a critical mass of people gelling together into a collective assessment that the regime is no longer sustainable. However, I feel that this looks more likely now than it did before the local elections.
I think we will eventually see a gradual erosion of the authoritarian, nationalist and fascist elements in Turkey. Where will it lead? I can’t tell. Changing and rebuilding the institutions will be a massive task. I’m not clear about how that can be done — it will be a challenge.[/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:1559732361631-5b64146f-397d-7″ taxonomies=”55″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
