3 Dec 2021 | Greece, News and features, Turkey
Ingeborg Beugel had been living and working in Greece on and off for years when, last month, a stone thrown at her head and a wave of online bullying and threats against her life forced her to return to the Netherlands. The attacks happened after she asked Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis why he “keeps lying about pushing back refugees” from Greek to Turkish waters. Her case adds to a growing list of violations against media freedoms in Greece, a worrying sign that all is not well in the European country.
“I hadn’t expected a digital witch hunt”, Beugel told Index on Censorship after she had returned to the Netherlands. Beugel is known in the Netherlands for her many reports from the Greek islands, where refugees are held in camps in dire conditions and where she tracks refugees personally, collecting first-hand evidence of those who are sent back to Turkey. Press conferences with authorities are not her cup of tea, but this time was different, she said:
“This was my chance to let two prime ministers, Mitsotakis of Greece and Rutte from the Netherlands, not get away with denial of push-backs anymore. Until the last minute I wasn’t sure how to phrase my question, but I knew I had to be sharp.”
What she came up with was: “When at last will you stop lying about the push-backs? Please don’t insult either mine or the intelligence of all the journalists in the world. There has been overwhelming evidence and you keep denying and lying. Why are you not honest?”
Mitsotakis reacted furiously, taking it as an insult to both himself and the Greek people. Asked if she had been impolite, Beugel answered: “You know what’s impolite? Pushing refugees back, which is against international law, and lying about it.”
In the evening following the press conference, a rock was thrown at her as she left a grocery shop, grazing her forehead. She ran home and only then discovered the digital witch hunt. [Some of those online were criticising Beugel for helping an asylum seeker, for which she was briefly arrested over the summer. – Editor]
A couple of days later, she was on a plane back to the Netherlands. The Dutch embassy in Athens, the Dutch Foreign Affairs Ministry and the Dutch Journalists Union NVJ strongly advised her to leave because her safety couldn’t be guaranteed anymore.
“’Let it blow over’, they said. So I’m waiting for it to blow over,” Beugel said.
Yannis Kotsifos, director of the Journalists’ Union of Macedonia and Thrace in Greece and chairperson at the European Center for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) in Germany, told Index: “Mitsotakis didn’t react in the right way to Beugel’s question and even though I didn’t like her style, I understand why she did it this way. But we need to be careful not to make the debate about press freedom political. Greece’s position on the press freedom list is in decline but it’s not just about this government. The problems are deeper rooted.”
Beugel agreed, and indeed placed the way she phrased her question in a wider context of the Greek media landscape, in which media don’t dedicate a lot of space to the illegal turning away of refugees to Turkey. “Mitsotakis’ denial keeps defining the journalistic narrative and I wanted to break that,” Beugel said. “I knew I would have a big audience at this press conference and that Greek pro-government media couldn’t ignore what I said and what then happened.”
Beugel recalls when she first started as an aspiring journalist in Greece 40 years ago. There was a lot of hope for the future, following the end of the Greek junta, a military dictatorship that lasted from 1967 to 1974.
“But now, the press is mostly in the hands of tycoons who are not in media for the sake of good journalism. Public TV works for the government in power, and has been underfunded,” she said.
Ownership is a problem, but ECPMF’s Kotsifos also highlighted a lack of self-regulation in the press, a lack of finances for independent journalism and for proper working conditions, and a growing distrust in the media because of rising polarisation.
“This leads to hate rhetoric against journalists and sometimes to physical violence,” said Kotsifos.
To break this cycle and encourage a freer press, the Media Freedom Rapid Response, a project that has monitored violations of media freedom across the EU since March 2020, and the ECPMF are conducting a fact finding mission in Greece this month.
The mission was considered necessary because of several worrying “signals”, the worst being earlier this year when crime reporter Giorgos Karaivaz was fatally shot outside his house in Athens. Other incidents include surveillance by the Intelligence Service of Stavros Malichoudis, who reports about migration and refugees.
New legislation is of concern too, most notably the proposed introduction of fines and jail sentences for journalists found guilty of publishing “fake news”, which would, MFRR said,”undermine the freedom of the press and have a chilling effect at a time when independent journalism is already under pressure in Greece”. SLAPP lawsuits, in which journalists are bombarded with legal cases to drain them financially and stifle their work, are also a huge point of concern (as reported here by Index).
Today Beugel is in Amsterdam waiting until the commotion “blows over”. She said: “I want to return as soon as possible. I miss my dogs, who are luckily taken care of by a friend. I miss my friends, my house, my work. This situation is hard, but I know there is not only rejection, but support for my work in Greece as well.”
3 Dec 2021 | 2021 year end campaign, Campaigns, China, News and features, Syria, Turkey
At the end of every year, Index on Censorship launches a campaign to focus attention on human rights defenders, artists and journalists who have been in the news headlines during the past twelve months and their oppressors.
This year, we asked for your help in identifying the Tyrant of the Year. There was fierce competition, with many rulers choosing to use the cover of Covid lockdowns to crack down on their opponents.
Heartbreakingly there was fierce competition – with too many repressive regimes in the running. However, your views were clear.
The crown for the most oppressive Tyrant of 2021 goes to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
We can think of a few reasons why Erdoğan claimed the top spot. He refuses to release civil society leader Osman Kavala, imprisoned since 2017 despite being acquitted twice. Student LGBTQ+ artwork and campaigning on International Women’s Day has also led to arrests in the country.
He has also, perhaps ironically, become the first European leader to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention on violence against women. Kurds have also continuously seen their rights to freedom of expression curtailed while opposition politicians such as the Democracy and Progress Party’s Metin Gurcan have also been jailed for criticising the president.
While Erdoğan topped this year’s poll, two other names pulled in plenty of votes: China’s Xi Jinping came in second with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad following closely in third.
The December poll saw huge amounts of traffic on our website with thousands of votes cast. We also saw the number of cyber attacks on our site double during the period, suggesting that it had annoyed some of those in the poll or their supporters.
We give thanks to all those who voted, to those continuing to loudly criticise tyrants globally, and remind everyone to stay vigilant to those seeking to silence them and us all.
2 Dec 2021 | Events
How is Turkish theatre resisting censorship and oppression? Join Meltem Arikan, Kaya Genç, and Kate Maltby for a recital and Q&A.
Join us for the launch of the new Index on Censorship magazine, Playing with Fire: How theatre is resisting the oppressor. In this edition we are engaging with the writers, playwrights, and actors using the theatre to resist oppression and censorship.
With a particular focus on Turkey, this launch event looks closer at the potential of the theatre, the impact of censorship on culture and literature, and the risks of speaking out. The conversation will be facilitated by Kate Maltby, deputy chair of the Index on Censorship Board of Trustees.
About the speakers:
Kaya Genç is a contributing editor for Index on Censorship based in Istanbul. Kaya is a novelist and journalist whose work has been published in The New York Times, The Paris Review and The London Review of Books among others. He has a PhD in English literature and his first novel, L’Avventura (Macera), was published in 2008. His latest book is The Lion and the Nightingale, which tells of his extraordinary quest to find the places and people in whom the contrasts of Turkey’s rich past meet.
Meltem Arikan is a Turkish/Welsh author. Arikan is known for her sharp critique of society and fearless and outspoken voice in her novels, plays, poems and articles. Arikan has written 11 books including nine novels and five plays. Her fourth novel Yeter Tenimi Acıtmayın (Stop Hurting My Flesh) was banned in early 2004 by the Committee to Protect Minors from Obscene Publications. The ban was eventually lifted and Arıkan was awarded with “Freedom of Thought and Speech Award 2004” by the Turkish Publishers’ Association. She has received several awards and was short-listed for the Freedom of Expression Award in 2014 by Index on Censorship for her play Mi Minör which the Turkish authorities claimed was a rehearsal for the Gezi Park demonstrations in 2013. Their subsequent hate campaign, fuelled by state sponsored media, forced her to leave Turkey to start living in Wales. In 2019 Turkish courts accepted the so-called Gezi Indictment which seeks life sentences for 16 people including her.
Kate Maltby is the deputy chair of the Index on Censorship Board of Trustees. She is a critic, columnist, and scholar. She is currently working towards the completion of a PhD which examines the intellectual life of Elizabeth I, through the prism of her accomplished translations of Latin poetry, her own poems and recently attributed letters, and her representation as a learned queen by writers such as Shakespeare, Spenser and Sidney.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
When: Monday 13 December, 13.00-14.00 GMT
Where: ONLINE
24 Nov 2021 | News and features, Sudan
Dozens of people gather around the tax administration building in Khartoum East, not too far from Sudan’s military HQ. They are not queuing to submit their returns. They are there in order to get access to the internet from the building’s Wi-Fi network that they have somehow managed to hack and get its password.
This scene of young people sitting around buildings in downtown Khartoum and Khartoum University, along with the tea ladies, was a common sight after the government cut off the internet following the coup against the country’s civilian government in which Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok, his cabinet and most of his advisors were placed under house arrest. They have since been reinstated – as has access to the internet – but it is clear who is really in charge.
These young WiFi-jackers give the password to newly arrived friends to enjoy a service that’s become very precious indeed.
Most of these people are young men and they have been doing this from the second week of the coup, when the Sudanese people woke up to the news of the arrest of the whole civilian government. Accompanying this was a near total blackout of the internet and the telephone network, which allowed only incoming international calls.
Kamal al-Zain, 45, is one of those who comes every day to the tax building from the outskirts of Khartoum.
“I used some cafes, but their internet is getting very expensive and it’s as great as this open one,” he told Index.
Al-Zain works at a private company in Khartoum but his work has stopped since the internet disappeared: “It has a direct impact on my work which depends on transferring money in dealing with customers using the internet.”
Al-Zain is also politically engaged with Sudan’s “resistance committees”. These pro-democracy neighbourhood-based committees emerged during the era of former dictator Omer al-Basher and organised the protests that toppled him in 2019. They have continued organising during the transitional period to Hamdok’s election and the protests against the coup of 25 October.
These committees, like most modern political bodies, normally use the internet to communicate and to announce for the schedules and dates of the protests on their social media sites.
“It’s become more difficult now to call for protests,” said al-Zain. “In the beginning I was afraid that the protests would be weak and that not many people would turn out, but I was wrong. We had to work on a strategy of door to door calling and sending text messages whenever the cellphone network is working.”
Many journalists working with online media outlets in Khartoum have lost their jobs following the internet blackout.
“I know some young journalists are now working as taxi drivers because their work has stopped,” said Haider el-Mukashfi, the general editor of al-Jareeda daily newspaper which stopped printing during the first week of the coup mainly because of the blackout but also because some key bridges get closed whenever there is a call for big protests, affecting its distribution.
The situation for companies has improved a little.
“You needed to let them know that you are a company not an individual to let you enjoy the service. We got our internet back with a new contract under the name of a new company,” said Majid al-Gaouni, the managing editor at the paper.
Shaza el-Shaikh, a journalist working for a Sudanese website, told Index on Censorship: “We are not working at the moment due to the internet cut off. They have decided to give me half of what they used to pay me.”
Others are using different tactic to get web access. I have had to book a room in a hotel in order to use its internet connection. Even that got cut off on 17 November when at least 14 protestors were killed by armed forces at a rally against the coup.
Communications in the country have been under military control since 2019 following the ousting of al-Basher. The military signed a power-sharing deal with the protest leaders in the autumn of that year and put the National Communications Authority (NCA) —the body that provides and regulates the internet—under their authority. It was previously under the remit of the ministry of information and communications.
The economic consequences of the blackout in Sudan are huge; some economic experts estimate that the telecommunications companies have been losing around US$6 million per day of which 40 per cent goes in VAT to the government.
Despite the seemingly huge loss for the government, cutting off the internet is the normal response whenever the government faces protests. It happened after the 3 June massacre in 2019 at a sit-in in protest at the army which resulted in more than a hundred deaths when bodies were dumped in the Nile, dozens were raped and many hundreds injured.
Protests that follow the government lifting subsidies and raising the prices of basics often lead to internet blackouts too.
It is not a new phenomenon.
In 2012 protests inspired by the Arab Spring Revolution began after an increase in bread and fuel prices and led to a blackout. However, the government unblocked some porn sites for days so that could distract youngsters hoping to keep them away from the protests; that didn’t work out. Normally, porn sites are blocked in Sudan due to sharia laws.
Al-Zain, along with many other people who had to travel long distances to just check their emails, are defiant.
“They think that we will stop our resistance by cutting off the internet, but they wrong, we have long experience of defying dictatorships for all those decades and we have created new ways to continue.”
