21 Jun 2021 | Austria, Macedonia, Media Freedom, Netherlands, Ukraine
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North Macedonia fans at Euro 2020. Razvan Pasarica/SPORT PICTURES/PA Images
In celebration of one of football’s biggest international tournaments, here is Index’s guide to the free speech Euros. Who comes out on top as the nation with the worst record on free speech?
It’s simple, the worst is ranked first.
We continue today with Group C, which plays the deciding matches of the group stages today.
1st Ukraine
Ever heard of the “Information War”? It is probably the biggest threat to freedom of speech in Ukraine and consumes most of the attention directed towards the state where there is often a distinct lack of freedom of expression. The information war between Russia and Ukraine is supposedly solely pro-Russian propaganda, but recent trends show that Ukraine is just as guilty of press freedom violations in this area.
The former Index employee currently detained in his native Belarus Andrei Aliaksandrau explained the tensions and Information War between the two countries back in 2014.
He wrote: “The more you lie, the less you need to shoot. And if you are very good at propaganda, you don’t need to shoot at all to win a war. The principles of an information war remain unchanged: you need to de-humanise the enemy. You inspire yourself, your troops and your supporters with a general appeal which says: “We are fighting for the right cause – that is why we have the right to kill someone who is evil.””
Essentially, propaganda between the two has forced true, fact-checked information to become secondary to a slanging match that has accompanied a territorial dispute between Russia and Ukraine over Crimea.
Ukrainian law stripped three Russian state TV channels of their licences in February earlier this year and they can no longer be shown in Ukraine.
At the time Jeanne Cavelier, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk said: “Even if the desire to combat propaganda is legitimate, it does not justify the use of censorship, and banning these TV channels is liable to stir up violence against journalists. This violation of freedom of expression violates Ukraine’s international obligations.”
The situation has also created an atmosphere in which journalists can be targeted and physically attacked. Eight journalists have been killed in Ukraine since 2014, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, four of them seemingly in a crossfire between Ukrainian and pro-Russian separatist forces.
The most recent killing was in 2019 with the death of Vadym Komarov, killed after a Facebook post revealed that he planned to publish allegations of corruption within local authorities.
Komarov was found in the city of Cherkasy, central Ukraine, with blunt trauma injuries to the head on 4 May 2019, he died in hospital on 20 June.
2nd North Macedonia
In North Macedonia, journalists are no stranger to threats and harassment. This, added to the actions of corrupt officials leads to what Reporters Without Borders (RSF) describes as a “culture of impunity”.
Violent threats towards reporters are common. Journalist Miroslava Byrns was subjected to threatening messages online after reporting on a wedding with 200 guests in the town of Tetovo, during the Covid-19 pandemic in July 2020. Byrns received one message that read “you will see what will happen to you” and was given 24-hour police protection in response.
Similarly, journalist Tanja Milevska received equally disgusting abuse after questioning the use of “Macedonia” by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The country’s name was changed in 2019, ending a long running dispute with Greece.
As a result, Milevska received a variety of awful online threats and abusive messages, including those of rape and graphically detailed violence.
Threats, sadly, are indicative of a culture of targeting bred by some North Macedonian officials.
In February 2020, then assistant head of department at North Macedonia’s Central Registry Emil Jakimovski, sent threats that included sexual comments to Meri Jordanovska and Iskra Korovesovska, the deputy editor of news website A1on and editor-in-chief of local broadcaster Alfa TV respectively. Jakimovski was later sacked.
The incident was not unusual. In 2019, local government staffers in the town of Aračinovo attempted to force a journalist and cameraman from TV21 to delete camera footage of interviews with local residents after requesting an interview with Mayor Milikije Halimi.
The two were locked in a room before being forcibly driven to the TV21 headquarters.
There is general distrust between the media and government. In 2015, the Macedonian government were found to have been wiretapping citizens, as well as over 100 journalists. The scandal led to the downfall of the then government.
It was found that the government was using the spying software FinFisher. FinFisher, according to Computer Weekly, is “a sophisticated and easy-to-use set of spying tools that is sold only to governments”.
Use of this technology is a clear violation of the rights of North Macedonian journalists to report without fear or intimidation.
3rd Austria
Most of the concerns around free speech in Austria arise due to defamation suits.
Strategic lawsuits against public participation (Slapps) are common in Austria. Slapps are a type vexatious defamation lawsuit usually aimed at journalists by large corporations or governments. The aim is to stop the journalist from publishing certain information, or pressure them with court cases that are time consuming and extremely costly.
According to Georg Eckelsberger of the investigative media outlet Dossier, letters threatening legal action are often received by journalists in Austria.
In 2017, for example, vice president of the autonomous province Bolzano in Italy and its minister for agriculture Arnold Schuler filed a Slapp against the Jurek Vengels and the Munich Environmental Insititue (MEI) and author Alexander Schiebel. The MEI and Schiebel had helped uncover the use of dangerous pesticides by farmers in Germany.
Commissioner for human rights of the Council of Europe Dunja Mijatović cited the case in expressing her concerns over Slapps. She said: “While this practice primarily affects the right to freedom of expression, it also has a dramatic impact on public interest activities more broadly: it discourages the exercise of other fundamental freedoms such as the right to freedom of assembly and association and undermines the work of human rights defenders.”
The non-profit organisation Freedom House pointed towards libel laws protecting politicians from proper questioning, particularly members of the right-wing populist party, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). The FPÖ have been responsible for the targeted bullying of Austrian journalists.
A growing trend in the country is also tensions between press and anti-lockdown protesters, something that has been echoed across Europe (BBC Newsnight political editor Nick Watt was hounded outside Downing Street only last week).
On 6 March 2021, several photojournalists covered anti-lockdown demonstrations in the Austrian capital of Vienna. Once again, the FPÖ were heavily involved and signs and placards were seen that read “the lying press”.
4th Netherlands
The Netherlands’ record on free speech is generally good.
Perhaps one of the clearest developments regarding free speech in the Netherlands in recent years is the court case involving the online abuse of journalist Clarice Gargard.
The case, which took two years to reach a judgement, saw 24 people convicted of incitement, insult and discrimination after Gargard was abused during a live stream of a protest she took part in against Zwarte Pieta, a blackface caricature part of traditional Christmas celebrations in the Netherlands.
The case, which journalist Fréderike Geerdink wrote about for Index in the recent winter edition of the magazine, was a landmark moment in retributory action taken against those threatening journalists in the country.
The case exists now as a precedent that may deter people from sending the kind of racist and sexist abuse Gargard was subjected to.
Freedom of speech is protected by the Dutch constitution but is not absolute and it is the incitement law that is contentious. Dutch people can be charged with incitement even if the comment is in relation to an inanimate object.
Generally, however, there is little to stop someone one the Netherlands, legislatively speaking, from speaking out. Also, on the case of incitement, 70 to 90 per cent of cases don’t go to trial, according to an article by The New Republic.
That said, the International Press Institute (IPI) has expressed concern over an increase in threats to reporters after government-imposed coronavirus curfew restrictions. A number of senior reporters in news organisations have noticed increasingly threatening attitudes towards journalists during the pandemic. Partly, some believe, due to conspiracy theorists equating government restrictions such as lockdowns a face masks being supposedly due to a media narrative.
They said: “In 2020, monitoring groups in the Netherlands charted a significant increase in threats and acts of aggression against journalists, with figures nearly trebling on the previous year from 52 to 141. While this may in part be down to the success of the new PressVeilig (Press Safety) hotline – a joint initiative of the NVJ, the Association of Editors-in-Chief, the Police and the Public Prosecution Service – editors have still noted a clear increase in hostility.”
Other Groups
Group A
Group B
Group D
Group E
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20 Jun 2021 | Italy, Media Freedom, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Wales
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116924″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]In celebration of one of football’s biggest international tournaments, here is Index’s guide to the free speech Euros. Who comes out on top as the nation with the worst record on free speech?
It’s simple, the worst is ranked first.
We start today with Group A, which plays the deciding matches of the group stages today.
1st Turkey
Turkey’s record on free speech is appalling and has traditionally been so, but the crackdown has accelerated since the attempted – and failed – military coup of 2016.[1][2]
The Turkish government, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has attacked free speech through a combination of closing down academia and free thought and manipulating legislation to target free speech activists and the media. He has also ordered his government to take over newspapers to control their editorial lines, such as the case with the newspaper Zaman, taken over in 2014.[3]
Some Turkish scholars have been forced to inform on their colleagues[4] and Erdoğan also ordered the closing down of the prominent Şehir University in Istanbul in June 2020[5].
But it is manipulation of legislation that is arguably the arch-weapon of the Turkish government.
A recent development has seen the country use Law 3713, Article 314 of the Turkish Penal Code and Article 7 of the Anti-Terror Law to convict both human rights activists and journalists.
As of 15 June this year, a total of 12 separate cases of under Law 3173[6] have seen journalists currently facing prosecution, merely for being critical of Turkey’s security forces.
This misuse of the law has caused worldwide condemnation from the European Union, the United Nations and the Council of Europe, among many others[7].
Misuse of anti-terrorism legislation is a common tactic of oppressive regimes and is reflective of Turkey’s overall attitude towards freedom of speech.
Turkey also has a long history of detaining dissenting forces and is notorious for its dreadful prison conditions. Journalist Hatice Duman, for example, has been detained in the country since 2003[8]. She has been known to have been beaten in prison.[9]
Leading novelists have also been attacked. In 2014, the pro-government press accused two authors, Elif Shafak and Orhan Pamuk were accused of being recruited by Western powers to be critical of the government.[10]
Every dissenting voice against the government in Turkey is under scrutiny and authors, journalists and campaigners easily fall foul of the country’s disgraceful human rights record.
With a rank of 153rd on Reporters Without Borders’ 2021 World Press Freedom Index, it is also the worst-placed team in the tournament in this regard.
2nd Italy
Freedom of speech in Italy was enshrined in the 1948 constitution after the downfall of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in 1945. However, a combination of the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, oppressive legislation and violent threats to journalists means that its record is far from perfect.
Slapps (strategic lawsuits against public participation) are used by governments and big corporations as a form of intimidation against journalists and are common in Italy.
Investigative journalist Antonella Napoli told Index of the difficulty journalists such as her face due to Slapps. She herself is facing a long-running suit, which first arose in 1998. She will face her next hearing on the issue in 2022[11].
She said: “We investigative journalists are under the constant threat of litigation requires determination to continue our work. A pressure that few can endure.”
“When happen a similar case you feel gagged, tied, especially if you are a freelance journalist. If you get your hands on big news about a public figure with the tendency to sue, you’ll think twice. I have never stopped, but many give up because they fear consequences that they can’t afford.”
Italy bore the brunt of the early stages of the pandemic in Europe. Often, when governments experience nationwide crises, they use certain measures to implement restrictive legislation that cracks down on journalism and free speech, inadvertently or not.
The decree, known as the Cura Italia law, meant that typical tools for journalists, or any keen public citizen, such as Freedom of Information requests were hard to come by unless deemed absolutely necessary.
Aside from Covid-19 restrictions, Italy continues to have a problem with the mafia. There are currently 23 journalists under protection in the country.[12]
3rd Wales
Wales is very much subject to the mercy of Westminster when it comes to free speech
Arguably, the most concerning development is the Online Safety Bill (also known as ‘online harms’), currently in its white paper stage.
While there are, sadly, torrents of online abuse, this attempt to regulate speech online is concerning.
The draft bill contained language such as “legal but harmful” means there would be a discrepancy between what is illegal online, versus what would be legal offline and thus a lack of consistency in the law regarding free speech.
The world of football recently took part in an online social media blackout, instigated in part by Welsh club Swansea City on 8 April[13], following horrific online racial abuse towards their players.
Swansea said: “we urge the UK Government to ensure its Online Safety Bill will bring in strong legislation to make social media companies more accountable for what happens on their platforms.”[14]
But the boycott was criticised with some, including Index, concerned about the ramifications pushing for the bill could have.
In 2020, Index’s CEO Ruth Smeeth explained what damage the legislation could cause: “The idea that we have something that is legal on the street but illegal on social media makes very little sense to me.”[15]
4th Switzerland
Switzerland has an encouraging record for a country that only gave women the vote in 1971.
They rank 10th on RSF’s World Press Freedom Index and have, generally speaking, a positive history regarding free speech and freedom of the press.
But a recent referendum may prove to be an alarming development.
Frequently, where there may be unrest or a crisis in a country, government’s use anti-terrorism laws to their own advantage. Voices can be silenced very quickly.
On 13 June, Switzerland voted to give the police detain people without charge or trial[16] under the Federal Law on Police Measures to Combat Terrorism.
Amnesty International Switzerland’s Campaign Director, Patrick Walder said the measures were “not the answer”.
“Whilst the desire among Swiss voters to prevent acts of terrorism is understandable, these new measures are not the answer,” he said. “They provide the police with sweeping and mostly unchecked powers to impose harsh sanctions against so-called ‘potential terrorist offenders’ and can also be used to target legitimate political protest.”
“Those wrongly suspected will have to prove that they will not be dangerous in the future and even children as young as 12 are at risk of being stigmatised and subjected to coercive measures by the police.”
56.58 per cent came out in support of the measures.[17]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW_c30hwXTM&ab_channel=Vox
[2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306422020917614
[3] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/03/turkey-fears-of-zaman-newspaper-takeover/
[4] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306422020917614
[5] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306422020981254
[6] https://rsf.org/en/news/turkey-using-terrorism-legislation-gag-and-jail-journalists
[7] https://stockholmcf.org/un-calls-on-turkey-to-stop-misuse-of-terrorism-law-to-detain-rights-defenders/
[8] https://cpj.org/data/people/hatice-duman/
[9] https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2021/01/the-desperate-situation-for-six-people-who-are-jailednotforgotten/
[10] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/12/pamuk-shafak-turkish-press-campaign
[11] https://www.balcanicaucaso.org/eng/Areas/Croatia/Croatia-and-Italy-the-chilling-effect-of-strategic-lawsuits-197339
[12] https://observatoryihr.org/iohr-tv/23-journalists-still-under-police-protection-in-italy/
[13] https://twitter.com/SwansOfficial/status/1380113189447286791?s=20
[14] https://www.swanseacity.com/news/swansea-city-join-social-media-boycott
[15] https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2020/09/index-ceo-ruth-smeeth-speaks-to-board-of-deputies-of-british-jews-about-censorship-concerns/
[16] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/freedom-of-expression–universal–but-not-absolute/46536654
[17] https://lenews.ch/2021/06/13/swiss-vote-in-favour-of-covid-laws-and-tougher-anti-terror-policing-13-june-2021/[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
17 Jun 2021 | Africa, Burkina Faso, News and features
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President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré. (Koch/MSC/WikiCommons)
Burkina Faso is supposedly one of Africa’s gems when it comes to press freedom.
In a continent full of countries with extremely poor records on how they treat the media, the Western African state has, traditionally, set a better example. It is placed at number 37 on Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF’s) World Press Freedom Index, sitting between the United Kingdom at 33 and the United States at 44.
But some in the country are raising concerns.
In February two Spanish reporters, David Beriain and Roberto Fraile, and Irishman Rory Young, head of anti-poaching group Chengta Wildlife, were killed in an ambush. The group were filming a documentary highlighting wildlife poaching in the country. Illegal poaching in Burkina Faso is largely facilitated by organised criminal and terror groups who reside mainly in northern Burkina Faso in regions such as the Sahel.
The jihadist group Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wal Muslimeen, an affiliate of al Qaeda, has claimed responsibility for the attack, according to AP. There is no suggestion that the journalists themselves were deliberately targeted but their deaths show the risks those reporting and working in the country face.
Another international journalist working in Burkina Faso, who wishes to remain anonymous, said: “The biggest threat to journalists is kidnapping, death or injury from Islamist terror groups. Second to that, it is local security forces and the state. There is no real threat of violence from them, but detention, deportation or obstruction of work are real concerns.”
The deaths of Beriain and Fraile seem to represent a watershed moment.
“In Burkina, the threat has certainly gotten worse in recent weeks,” the journalist said. “From March 2020 there was a period of relatively few attacks. I was certainly feeling more emboldened to go out to more remote areas of the countryside to report.”
“[But] since what happened to [these] journalists, as well as a recent spate of major attacks in the last few weeks, that has led me to reconsider where I will travel and for how long.”
Burkina Faso is also facing a displacement crisis. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says “violence [has] led to the displacement of more than one million people in just two years and has left 3.5 million people in need of assistance, a 60 per cent increase from Jan 2020 to Jan 2021”.
In May, journalists were denied access to internally displaced people (IDP) sites, with the government citing the “safety and the dignity” of those in the camps. However, the safety and dignity of the displaced is clearly already under threat, with reports of sexual abuse against female IDPs.
“The threat from the state and security forces has certainly gotten worse,” the ISS report continued. “Two French journalists were quietly deported from the country last month a few days after they arrived.”
In early June, more than 100 people were reported killed by militants in Solhan, north-eastern Burkina Faso. Some 500 people have been killed in this region alone in 2021.
Questioning the reporting of the attack, the government announced 132 dead and reprimanded Radio France International, who reported 160 deaths.
President of the Association des journalistes du Burkina (AJB) Guézouma Sanogo says recent events are “unprecedented” and things are getting worse.
“Burkina Faso has been fighting terrorism since 2015. Journalists have since been threatened by telephone. Some have left their places of residence. Radio stations have closed in the Sahel. A radio station was even destroyed in the Sahel. But what happened in April 2021 is unprecedented. No journalist had yet been killed in the fight against terrorism in Burkina.”
Sanogo also pointed to increasingly restrictive legislation and says the country’s placement in the RSF index does not reflect the reality in the country.
In 2015, the ABJ accused the government of president Roch Marc Christian Kabore (pictured top) of interfering in the professional duties of journalists when it issued a directive to state broadcaster RTB to prioritise coverage of the head of state.
Even before that, press freedom has been under attack for decades.
In 1998, the investigative journalist Norbert Zongo, publishing director of the Independent, was assassinated in the country. “There has so far been no justice in this matter,” says Sanogo.
“RSF’s ranking is undoubtedly based on the laws which adopted in September 2015 and decriminalise press offences. But these laws have instituted very heavy fines for journalists in the range of 500,000 FCFA to 3,000,000 FCFA (£650 to £4,000).”
“Since then, the government has also passed laws criminalising coverage of terrorist attacks by journalists.”
Indeed, in 2019, the National Assembly of Burkina Faso introduced a reform to its penal code which stated that journalists and others can receive up to ten years’ imprisonment for reports that “demoralise” soldiers when reporting any military information regarding troop movements or weapons.
The amendment was introduced “to reduce the threat from terrorism”.
The Burkina Faso-based journalist who spoke to Index does not feel restricted by the country’s legislation.
They said: “The legislation for a free press in Burkina Faso actually looks quite good on the surface.”
“There is a prevailing culture here where journalists often self-censor and avoid certain subjects. Although there is little legislation to limit access to places or subjects, in practice there’s a large number of unwritten rules and obstructions which can land you in trouble if you do not abide by them.”
The deaths of David Beriain and Roberto Fraile may well have been collateral damage in the escalating fight between Burkina Faso’s military and Islamist groups but, even if that is the case, the situation for journalists in the country remains precarious.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also like to read” category_id=”581″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
16 Jun 2021 | Opinion, Ruth's blog, Syria, United Kingdom
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116906″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]There is a phrase which for the rest of my life will be synonymous with one person, their life and legacy. More in common.
Five years ago this week, my friend and former colleague Jo Cox was assassinated on the streets of the UK. She was a British Member of Parliament, a mum of two, a daughter, a sister and a friend. She was also brave, dedicated and determined, campaigning for better outcomes not just for the communities she represented in Batley and Spen but also for better British foreign policy, a people led foreign policy that sought to support people on the ground. In her short period in Parliament, Jo became one of the leading voices on the plight of the Syrian people and the need for aid.
On Friday 16 June 2016, I was in a meeting in my office when one of my team interrupted to tell me that Jo had been attacked as she was doing her job in the community she represented. A few hours later, we received the horrendous confirmation that she had died. That evening I sat with my family and sobbed, remembering Jo, thinking of her husband Brendan, their children and her family.
I also reflected on what this meant for British democracy.
This was the murder of an elected politician on the streets of the UK. Jo was targeted by a right-wing political extremist because of her work seeking to represent all communities. Her voice, a voice for the unempowered, for the silenced, for the persecuted, had been ended.
Life is fragile, democracy even more so, it requires all of us to recognise not only its value but also its relevance and the need for all of us, every day, to make the case for democratic values. Jo’s assassination was a vicious assault on our democratic values, which required a global response – that duly followed in the days after her death.
You could ask why Jo’s murder is relevant for Index? Her actions as an MP and her legacy are at the core of who we are and why we were established. In her maiden speech in the House of Commons she addressed the issue of division in the UK and throughout the world, arguing that: “We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.”
It’s this shared belief in humanity that drives the work of Index – that we will be a voice for the persecuted wherever they live, so that those in repressive regimes can be heard.
Today I’ll be thinking of Jo’s family and friends and remembering her laugh and tenacity. But today is also an opportunity for us to reflect on Jo’s legacy and the words of her maiden speech – “more in common”. As the debates on cancel culture and woke behaviour continue and people become increasingly toxic online – these are the words we need to hold onto and seek to make a reality wherever we live.
Rest In Peace Jo, your memory really is a blessing and we miss you.
Jo Cox, 22 June 1974 – 16 June 2016[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
