21 Jul 23 | News and features, Opinion, Ruth's blog, Spain
Threats to freedom of speech can come from a variety of places. Sometimes it is tyrants seeking to crush dissent. But it can also come from well-meaning attempts to improve society, that come with unintended consequences. The European Union is currently discussing ways of regulating online political advertising and is in danger of creating mechanisms which will have a chilling effect on freedom of speech.
So as Spain assumes the rotating presidency of the EU, now is the time to take stock, reflect on debates so far and recommit the European Union as an ally of freedom of expression. I’ve written to the Prime Minister of Spain urging a rethink.
Dear Senor Sanchez,
With Spain having assumed the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, it is an opportune moment for the European Union to reflect on the draft Political Advertising regulations.
Index on Censorship has raised a series of concerns about the impact that the proposals will have on free speech and the power that it places in the hands of tech companies to arbitrate on what is and what isn’t legitimate free expression.
We know that countering disinformation and bringing transparency to political processes is good for democracy. We support that activity around the world where dissidents are using their voice to stand up against totalitarian regimes.
Unfortunately, the draft proposals which are currently being considered in trialogue have the potential to have a chilling effect on free speech across the European Union.
We have welcomed the recognition by the European Union that any new rules governing political advertising in the digital sphere should only apply to content promoted through paid-for political advertising services.
The original “catch-all” proposals would have wrongly sought to impose restrictions on journalists, individual citizens expressing their own point of view and/or civil society campaigns seeking to promote a cause or policy.
It would have seen unacceptable interference into free speech and free expression with the work of journalists, reporting on elections or referendums, subject to state-determined censorship administered by algorithms within big tech corporations.
Imagine if, in your own upcoming general election, a citizen wishing to express how they intend to vote via their own social media had to be regulated? It would reduce the citizen’s right to speak their mind.
However, while some advancement has been made on the scope of the proposals, we still have serious concerns about the processes for flagging content, how that should be regulated and how the proposals will safeguard against bad faith actors.
Platforms are risk adverse and when faced with new rules requiring them to consider concerns raised about content or face fines themselves, bad faith actors will overwhelm those systems and subsequently content will be removed while it is assessed.
Misuse and these unintended consequences will be the tools of censorship for those seeking to silence dissent and close down campaigns and campaigners they disagree with.
As you assess your priorities for the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, I would urge you to be an ally for freedom of expression.
Yours sincerely
Ruth Anderson
20 Jul 23 | News and features, Pakistan
“I’ve never felt so humiliated in my life as that night, when I was pushed into a police vehicle and taken to a police lock-up as if I was a criminal,” said 40-year-old Fahim Shaukat, which isn’t his real name.
On the night of 14 July, Shaukat, along with a dozen other men from the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, had gathered inside their place of worship in Kala Gujran, a town in the Jhelum district in the Punjab province of Pakistan, to stop desecration of their building after fears it may be attacked.
“Earlier that day, our community head met with the police with the latter demanding we demolish minarets [towers used for calls to prayer] or the police would be forced to do it themselves by midnight,” Shaukat told Index. “Our amir [religious head] refused and reasoned with him saying there was nothing in the law that barred us from having minarets.”
He recalled what happened that night: “Around 11:30 pm, we heard the doorbell, and at the same time the CCTV placed outside the door was destroyed. I opened the door, and was asked to step outside.”
Other people were hauled out, and Shaukat said there were around 20-25 policemen. He described how some of them went inside to look around, while a bearded man in a light blue shalwar kameez (a Pakistani outfit) took a ladder from one of the police vans and started hammering down the minaret.
While this was happening, men from the Ahmadiyya community were shoved into a police van and taken to the station and interrogated, before being released.
“This was an entirely illegal action, facilitated by the police themselves, and we suspect it was done at the behest of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan,” Amir Mahmood, the community’s spokesperson, told Index from the community’s headquarters in the Punjab city of Rabwah.
The Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), founded by Khadim Hussain Rizvi in August 2015, is one of the largest political parties in Pakistan today. In the 2018 general elections it secured a huge vote bank, especially in Punjab. It proclaims itself to be the defender of the Prophet Muhammad’s honour and demands severe punishment for those who do not believe in the Prophet’s sanctity and finality. At one time outlawed following violent protests, the party is now back in force.
“Desecration of our places of worship is a violation of the Constitution of Pakistan,” Mahmood said, referring to a 2014 judgment which was set out to promote religious tolerance and protect minorities, by the former chief justice of Pakistan, Justice Tassadduq Hussain Jillani. “Justice Jillani had ordered that a special police force be formed for the protection of that. It is ironic that instead of protecting and safeguarding them, the police are themselves carrying out these tasks specially in the province of Punjab.”
Deputy superintendent of police, Abdul Jabbar, denied that the police involvement was vandalism, saying: “That’s a complete lie!” He also denied that people from the community were manhandled or detained for hours in the police lock-up.
“Our job is to protect the people and their property irrespective of their religious beliefs. We cannot be party to such illegal activity as demolition of the minarets,” he said.
According to Shaukat, the deputy superintendent in fact “led the attack” that night.
“If that’s a lie, why did the station house officer at Kala Gujran police station return our licensed gun that the police had taken away during their raid?” Shaukat said.
“According to my information, it was the Ahmadis [people from the Ahmadiyya community] who pulled down the minaret,” said Asim Ashfaq Rizvi, former district president of the TLP.
Rizvi has announced, and confirmed to Index, that if the local administration does not ensure that minarets in all the three places of worship around the city have been demolished, “we will come forward and remove them ourselves on Muharram 10,” which is one of the holiest dates for Muslims and which falls on 29 July. “It’s my own proclamation and not that of the TLP leadership, and I will follow it through,” he said.
“Pamphlets have been distributed and leaflets plastered across Jhelum talking about Rizvi’s Muharram 10 plan,” confirmed Shaukat.
Rizvi said: “For the last two years, we have been pointing out this anti-state and anti-constitutional activity to the government and the police.”
He said the Pakistan Penal Code 298, also known as the blasphemy law, provided him the licence to carry out such acts against people who allegedly insult Islam. Under Section 298-C of the code, Ahmadis cannot claim to be Muslims or propagate their faith.
In 1984, military dictator General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq used a presidential ordinance to ban members of the community from the usage of epithets, descriptions and titles reserved for certain holy persons.
In the vandalism of minarets, Shaukat believes the TLP was “playing the religion card” to win over the sentiments of the general population, huge swathes of which look down on the Ahmadiyya community. This is all the more poignant now, with Pakistan’s 2023 general election on the horizon and the TLP looking for votes.
17 Jul 23 | Afghanistan, News and features
The words could not have been starker. “My money is finished. I don’t have food to eat at home. I am exiled to a country worse than Afghanistan. I have no other choice than to sell my kidney.” But these words, which came from an Afghan journalist living in Pakistan, were not unusual. For a growing number of Afghans selling a kidney has, perversely, become an essential way to survive.
Afghanistan has been gutted. At the start of 2022 the UN reported that the country was on the brink of “a humanitarian crisis and economic collapse” and the situation has only worsened. It’s hard to keep track of the increasingly grim reality there, from stories of schoolgirls being poisoned, news of a spiralling mental health crisis, images of people starving and, for that matter, images of people’s post kidney-removal scars.
Among the worst affected are Afghan journalists. The fall of Kabul meant the fall of independent media. An industry that took years to nurture and grow vanished overnight, leaving most without a job and a stable source of income. At the same time the Taliban’s relentless attack on dissent has made these people a primary target. Those who are left behind find themselves faced with both starvation and assassination.
One journalist wrote to me last month. He said he scours the backstreets of Kabul looking for scraps to sell. He sent me pictures of himself before August 2021. He looks relaxed and is wearing a sharp suit and jeans. Some of the images are of him behind a camera. Others show him speaking at a conference for women’s education, something he tells me was one of his proudest moments – championing the rights of girls and women which today are null and void. We communicate on an encrypted messaging app, and even then we delete everything in case his phone falls into the wrong hands. The journalist is trapped, his options limited. He ends the message asking for help.
Those who have escaped are not necessarily faring better, as the man considering selling his kidney attests. The Taliban’s reach spreads to neighbouring countries. Afghan journalists must constantly look over their shoulder, and contend with the added stress of visas, which are not always guaranteed despite the threats they face at home. Threats to be sent back to Afghanistan or imprisoned are commonplace and bribery is rife.
A couple of months ago I was messaging with an Afghan journalist in Pakistan. “It’s more than one year that I’m without job and any income with 6 months baby boy. My economical situation is too bad, I really need to your help and kindness,” she told me. Attached to the message were scans of her press credentials and passport photo, information to help verify that she is in fact who she says she is because in the middle of all this people are being impersonated. Goodwill runs low. The woman made the trip over the border while pregnant. Her baby is unwell. It’s not serious if treated quickly, only she doesn’t have the cash for the surgery. She can’t work on her visa. Besides, she’s looking after a poorly baby. Can I help?
I could list endless conversations like these. Since August 2021 the Index inbox has been flooded with people asking for assistance. Back in September 2021 we set up a messaging group for Afghan journalists. What started off as small today has over 40 people in it. Sometimes positive news is shared – an award won, for example, to a chorus of congratulations. Other times it’s the worst kind of information – news of an Afghan journalist who died in a boat off the coast of Italy and who many in the group knew. Most of the time though it’s information on how people can get funding and get out.
The worst thing is that none of the journalists in the group see the UK as a viable option right now. It’s a ridiculous situation given that in August 2021 then prime minister Boris Johnson announced the creation of the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme (ACRS), with the aim to help resettle 20,000 Afghans in the UK. ACRS was meant to give priority to those who stood up for democracy and specifically mentioned journalists.
Almost two years on and the number of Afghan journalists we’ve helped is negligible. This despite the fact that immigration to our country has increased. Granted we might not feel the threat of proximity or sense of commonality that has driven our policy with Ukrainian refugees. And granted we might not feel the weight of history, as we did when we successfully opened up the BN(O) scheme for those from Hong Kong. But Afghanistan is still part of our story. British troops were involved in Afghanistan from the US-led invasion in 2001 right through to the Taliban takeover. We encouraged the transformation of the country along democratic lines.
The UK government has been called out on its poor record. Last December eight Afghan journalists who worked for the BBC and other British media organisations challenged the government’s refusal to relocate them in a High Court hearing. They said they had “worked alongside and in support of the British government’s mission” in Afghanistan and as a result put their lives at risk. Their lawyer, Adam Straw, said the British government had “betrayed the debt of gratitude” owed to his clients by refusing to relocate them. Since this hearing their visa applications have been reopened – a positive step – only it shouldn’t take a court case to get here.
Index wrote to home secretary Suella Braverman in March to ask about progress on ACRS. Months on and again no response or progress. Meanwhile France has just issued visas to two people in our network. They arrived in Paris this month. It’s a relief to know they are now safe, only these cases should be the norm, not the exception, and the UK should be welcoming such individuals too.
Ultimately we’ve turned our back on Afghan journalists in their darkest hour. There is still time to change course, but we must act – now.
Click here for more information on Index’s upcoming event Those Left Behind: A Night for Afghan Journalists
14 Jul 23 | China, News and features, Opinion, Ruth's blog
It seems I am reminded daily that I am very lucky to live in a democracy. I may not agree with my Government – but I have the right to tell them I don’t. I may not agree with what’s written in a newspaper – but I have the right to tell the world I don’t. I may not support the status quo in terms of what is happening in my community – but I have the right to speak to my neighbours and demand better and demand change.
Those basic rights to challenge the orthodoxy, to challenge my political leaders, to challenge authority is a blessing and one that I value every day, especially when I am exposed to what happens to people who by dint of birth just aren’t afforded the same rights as me.
This week, yet again, we’ve read reports of events in China. Not only has the CCP continued their persecution of political dissidents by taking in Nathan Law’s family for questioning but they’ve also rolled out a new tool for ‘training’ journalists. The new smartphone training programme from the All China Journalists Association seeks to train aspirant and current journalists in the ‘Marxist vision of journalism’. I honestly have no idea as to what that could possibly entail as I’m not sure that the Communist Manifesto issued ideological guidance for the execution of occupational journalism.
However, what we do know is that no good will come from a CCP-sanctioned training programme designed to brainwash aspiring journalists, who live under a despotic regime, into writing acceptable forms of ‘journalism’. To compound the propaganda element of the training programme – journalists will be forced to undertake the programme before they take an exam to test their loyalty to Xi Jingping and if you don’t pass you don’t get to be a journalist.
This isn’t journalism in any way that those of us who live in a freer society would recognise. It’s an effort to ensure the ongoing practice of national propaganda under the pretence of ‘journalism’. It’s the ultimate effort to ensure that no one can speak truth to power and that only one dominant narrative – that of the CCP – is heard. There will be no challenge to the status quo. There will be no free media. There will be no dissent.
The question for global media outlets then becomes how on earth do you cover events in China if journalists on the ground are actually propaganda agents and it’s increasingly difficult for foreign news journalists to operate freely. We covered this earlier this year. But as some dictators become even more fearful of their own people – this is a question which is increasingly going to dominate newsrooms around the world.
