26 Sep 2025 | Bulgaria, Europe and Central Asia, News, SLAPPs, Statements
Media freedom in Bulgaria faces entrenched challenges in a climate of political polarisation and legislative inertia, with urgent action needed by government and public authorities to push forward both domestic and EU-mandated reforms, a coalition of international press freedom organisations said today.
Following a three-day mission to Sofia between 24 and 26 September, the delegation concluded that progress is needed to prevent and prosecute attacks on journalists, resolve the ongoing dispute over the leadership of the public broadcaster, guarantee the independence of the Council for Electronic Media (CEM) and pass anti-SLAPP legislation. Despite the important work of key journalist associations, there is a low level of solidarity within the journalistic profession.
The mission, organised by the Council of Europe’s Safety of Journalists Platform and the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), also found that Bulgaria is lagging behind in implementing the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), in force since August this year. A government working group has been suspended, with no indication of when discussions involving all relevant authorities and stakeholders will resume.
The mission did not have the opportunity to discuss the issue with the body in charge of media policies, the Ministry of Culture, since it was the only relevant public authority which refused to meet the delegation, despite repeated requests.
Following the mission, the partner organisations jointly call for greater political will and cross-party support to address deepening institutional paralysis and drive forward much needed reforms under the EMFA, which if properly implemented will help safeguard media freedom, pluralism and independence.
Safety of journalists
Though serious physical attacks on reporters and media workers in Bulgaria remain relatively uncommon, some media stakeholders told the mission that general hostility against the journalistic profession had increased in recent years. The mission called on the authorities to promptly investigate several assaults against media workers recorded on the Safety of Journalists Platform and bring those responsible to justice. Political pressures including intimidation and insults against journalists by politicians remain a cause of concern, even though direct political pressures on journalists have lessened compared to previous years.
The Council of Europe’s Platform for the Safety of Journalists currently has 34 active alerts involving attacks on journalists or threats against media freedom. Physical attacks account for one third of the cases, although their number has also dropped compared to previous years. Threats, including death threats, against journalists remain a serious concern but are too rarely sanctioned by authorities.
The mission notes the low levels of trust by journalists in the law enforcement authorities and prosecutors to secure justice in cases of attacks. Previous cases involving attacks on journalists by police have suffered from delayed justice. Certain stakeholders raised ongoing concerns about politicised investigations by prosecutorial authorities against the media. The mission welcomes the support of the Chief Prosecutor’s Office and the President for proposals to monitor and record serious cases and strengthen provisions within the criminal code to introduce higher sanctions for those convicted of attacking journalists.
The Council for Electronic Media and the public broadcaster
The mission concludes that the ongoing dispute between the Director General of the Bulgarian National Television and the CEM risks undermining public trust in the public broadcaster and the regulator’s appointment process. Two elections by the CEM have failed to reach a majority on appointing a new director general, with the incumbent continuing in the role three years past his original mandate, as pointed out by the European Commission’s 2025 Rule of Law Report.
A judicial review into the process is ongoing and a new attempt to appoint a director general is scheduled to take place on 16 October. The mission organisations call for the process to appoint a new director general of BNT to be conducted in a fair and transparent manner and for parties involved to act in accordance with the law.
The mission also heard criticism from some stakeholders about the editorial independence of BNT, reflecting concerns raised in the EU Rule of Law Report and the Media Pluralism Monitor. It is essential that EMFA-mandated reforms are implemented to strengthen the broadcaster’s editorial independence, which must be also guaranteed by adequate, sustainable and predictable financial resources.
The delegation concludes that reforms are required to both insulate CEM from political influence and bolster its operational resources. Multiple stakeholders noted perceived political affiliations of certain council members. The mission supports legislative proposals for reforms to strengthen the independence of all future candidates, in line with the provisions of the EMFA.
However, changes to the makeup or election process for the CEM must be conducted under the principles of independence, legality and pluralism. The healthy functioning of the CEM is vital for the effective regulation of the media ecosystem in Bulgaria. The regulator also requires greater operational resources to carry out its expanded mandate. Proposals to merge the CEM with other regulatory bodies risks disrupting its mandate and weakening its regulatory powers.
Legal threats, SLAPPs and defamation
The legal environment in Bulgaria creates persistent risks for journalists. According to journalists the mission met, there are dozens of active strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) targeted at media and journalists. Investigative journalists and those probing crime and corruption are among the most targeted by SLAPPs, with major businesses and insurance companies, politicians, and judges among the most common plaintiffs. Many of these cases involve extortionate demands for financial compensation.
The mission welcomes the preparations by the Ministry of Justice for the transposition of the 2024 Anti-SLAPP Directive. However, the organisations also express concern that the focus appears to be solely on the implementation of the EU Directive without equal attention to the Council of Europe Recommendation on SLAPPs. A key concern is that criminal defamation remains a legal tool in Bulgaria and politicians missed the opportunity to fully decriminalise defamation during recent criminal code changes.
Recent amendments lowered the minimum fines for insult and defamation and eliminated the automatic aggravated qualification when the person concerned is a civil servant. The reforms also introduced the possibility of waiving criminal liability and replacing it with administrative sanctions in cases concerning insult or defamation of state officials acting in their official capacity. Nevertheless, the continued criminalisation of defamation remains inconsistent with international freedom of expression standards and continues to allow the strategic use of criminal law against the media and journalists.
Legislation, pluralism and media capture
Repeated cycles of elections and the subsequent disruption of government working groups have resulted in delays to reforms that are badly needed to bring about a healthy media ecosystem in Bulgaria. Though initial work was done to prepare for the implementation of the EMFA, which came into full force in August 2025, the mission learnt that the Ministry of Culture has suspended the process.
Implementation of the EMFA is vital for addressing many of the systemic challenges facing media freedom and pluralism in Bulgaria. The mission concluded that the country suffers from some levels of media capture, with the non-transparency of media ownership, particularly anonymous online media, and the non-transparency of state advertising among most acute concerns. At the local and regional level, the economic dependence of media on advertising from local authorities has exposed them to financial pressures and in many cases weakened editorial independence.
Media pluralism in Bulgaria remains limited and independent journalism faces pressures from many sides, including ownership interference, self-censorship, threats to economic viability of watchdog journalism, and lingering concerns over the independence of major television broadcasters. Though Bulgaria has professional investigative journalists probing crime and corruption, they work in a climate of pressure, including death threats, harassment and vexatious lawsuits.
The legislative climate for access to information is inadequate and continues to face challenges, with journalists facing obstructions stemming from a general culture of opacity from state bodies. Requests for interviews with political leaders are routinely rejected and Freedom of Information (FOI) requests are often either ignored or partially answered. Parliamentary reporters continue to face disproportionate limits on their movement within the new parliament building, limiting scrutiny.
The precarious working conditions of many journalists in Bulgaria, including low pay and weak labour protections, pose further challenges for the profession, undermining the ability of media workers to oppose threats to editorial independence in their newsrooms.
Institutional and regulatory dysfunction, problematic media ownership and political influence have combined to weaken public trust in journalism in Bulgaria, with the country ranking among the lowest in Europe for trust in news, and among the highest levels of news avoidance.
This has created a vacuum in which disinformation can more easily spread, particularly on social media. Despite this clear threat, the government has failed to create a national disinformation strategy, with the work of the multi-stakeholder Bulgarian Coalition Against Disinformation remaining frozen since 2023. It is vital that Bulgaria swiftly designate and empower a national Digital Services Coordinator (DSC) and establish rules for penalties under the Digital Services Act(DSA).
Following the mission, the partner organisation call on the European Commission to closely observe the implementation of the EMFA in Bulgaria, provide concrete and measurable recommendations within the Rule of Law Report, deepen conditionality on EU funds, and to use all tools available to ensure compliance with the EMFA, the anti-SLAPP directive and other European standards, such as the Digital Services Act.
Recommendations
The mission outlines the following recommendations to improve the situation for media freedom in Bulgaria. More detailed recommendations will be provided in the full report to follow.
Safety of journalists
● Government and political authorities should refrain from and condemn all cases of denigration, vilification, intimidation and threats against journalists, including online attacks
● The Bulgarian government should join the
Safety of Journalists Campaign, establish contact points for journalists in law enforcement and ministerial bodies, and improve horizontal collaboration between ministries on the safety of journalists.
● Review and improve legislation to strengthen the criminal code with stronger sanctions for those convicted of attacking journalists and create a system for specifically recognising and categorising cases of attacks on the press and media workers.
● The Bulgarian government should encourage the establishment of, and support the operation of, early-warning and rapid-response mechanisms, such as hotlines, online platforms or 24-hour emergency contact points, by journalists’ organisations or civil society, to ensure that journalists and other media actors have immediate access to protective measures when they are threatened.
CEM and public broadcasters
● The process by CEM to appoint a new Director General of BNT must be conducted in a fair and transparent manner and all parties involved must act in accordance with the law.
● The government should implement reforms in line with the EMFA which strengthen the safeguards for editorial and institutional independence of BNT and BNR while also guaranteeing adequate, sustainable and predictable financial resources to both broadcasters.
● The government should implement reforms in line with the EMFA which insulate the Council for Electronic Media from political influence and interference and strengthen its functional independence, while also providing it with sufficient resources for operational stability.
Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs)
● The Ministry of Justice should transpose and implement both the EU Directive and the Council of Europe (CoE) Recommendation against SLAPPs, to ensure that both cross-border and domestic SLAPPs are effectively addressed.
● The government should ensure that the indicators for identifying SLAPPs, as foreseen in the CoE Recommendation, are incorporated into national law to assist judges in recognizing such cases. During the drafting process, the Ministry of Justice should make use of the expertise available from the CoE.
● Authorities should continue to train judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and police officers on European standards related to media freedom, including defamation, SLAPPs, hate speech, access to information, and the protection of whistleblowers and journalistic sources. This is essential to ensure that court rulings and practices align with the standards of the European Court of Human Rights.
● The government and the parliament of Bulgaria should fully decriminalise defamation.
Media legislation and EMFA
● The government should swiftly implement and align domestic legislation with the European Media Freedom Act under a transparent and inclusive process.
● In addition to reforms to the public service media and media regulators outlined above, the government should implement reforms mandated under the EMFA which require the establishment of a media ownership registry, which must be transparent, functional, up-to-date and easily accessible for journalists and citizens.
● The government should implement reforms outlined in the EMFA for fair and transparent distribution of public funds and state advertising to the media. Only media companies which have registered in the ownership database and provided up-to-date information about their direct and beneficial ownership should be eligible to receive state advertising.
● In addition, the government should consider establishing conditions that only media outlets which abide by the Ethical Code of Journalists should be eligible for receiving state advertising, as a means of defunding disinformation.
● Media professionals should unite with journalistic associations and other bodies to strengthen solidarity and cooperation within the journalistic profession.
More detailed recommendations will follow in the full report from the mission.
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The mission to Sofia was coordinated as part of the Council of Europe’s Safety of Journalists Platform and the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR). The delegation was composed of representatives from ARTICLE 19, Association of European Journalists (AEJ), European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), European Broadcasting Union (EBU), European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), Index on Censorship, International Press Institute (IPI), Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT).
The delegation met with a range of stakeholders, including leading journalists and editors from print, online and investigative media, as well as media associations and unions, media experts and civil society. Separate meetings were held with the Bulgarian National Radio and the Bulgarian National Television. Meetings were also held with the Bulgarian President; Ministry of Justice; Ministry of Interior; Council of Electronic Media (CEM); Office of General Prosecutor; Commission for Personal Data Protection; Central Election Commission and representatives of embassies.
The mission held a press conference on 26 September in Sofia. A full report is due to be published after the mission and will be shared with all domestic political stakeholders, the Council of Europe, the European Union and international organisations.
26 Sep 2025 | Middle East and North Africa, News, Syria
In the upscale Damascus neighbourhood of Al-Adawi, a blue metal door bears a sign reading: “The One Room Theatre.”
The entrance feels unwelcoming. The adjacent garden is frozen in time, suggesting abandonment. This impression deepens beyond the threshold – a cluttered “waiting room” overflows with scattered cassette tapes, faded playbills, film posters and yellowed newspaper clippings haphazardly pinned to walls and windows.
Dominating the wall in the theatre room, is a photo of identical twins, Mohamad and Ahmad Malas. Over 15 years ago, they dreamed of entering Syria’s theatrical scene. Rejected by state institutions that dismissed their vision, they converted a room in their family home into an intimate theatre. Small in size, vast in ambition.
Militias in support of former President Bashar al-Assad’s regime had occupied the house at some point during the Syrian civil war, according to Mohamad Malas, but family relatives later expelled them.
“When the regime fell last December we rushed back from a Jordan film festival,” he told Index. “Returning home was painful – the house stood looted and empty. Its soul has gone.”
Ahmad Malas recalls writing plays with his brother in 2009, inspired by their studies at a private Damascus theatre institute.
Under Assad’s rule, addressing direct political topics was forbidden, so they crafted humanist stories with whispered political undertones. After the Directorate of Theatres repeatedly ignored their licensing requests, they launched the underground One Room Theatre.
They hosted three plays, the last of which was staged shortly after Syria’s revolution began.
As protests surged, the twins joined the uprising personally, not only through art. Arrests and security threats followed, forcing them to flee Syria in late 2011. Heartbroken, they locked their theatre door. Months later, their family abandoned the home and headed to Saudi Arabia, leaving it silent.
The Malas Brothers drifted through Lebanon, Egypt and finally France, where they pursued theatre in Arabic and French. One play, The Two Refugees, serendipitously reached Damascus in late 2024.
On their return, the twins deliberately left the waiting room’s chaos untouched – tapes strewn, posters peeling. Their only change was to move the theatre to a sunlit balcony near the kitchen due to Syria’s chronic power cuts. At 4pm, natural light frames their play All Shame Upon You.
Photo by Mawada Bahah
Mohamad Malas explained that the play, staged 20 times post-Arab Spring but paused in Syria, now features rewrites “we’d never dare perform before liberation”.
The performance unfolds on a crumbling sofa “stage” before low chairs. It follows two opposites sharing a flat: a heartbroken intellectual whose lover married during his imprisonment, and a crude soldier dreaming of martyrdom-for-glory. Their clashes blend rage, dancing and tears, culminating in the soldier forcing the poet to call his lost love.
The Culture Ministry has promised support – unlike the pre-revolution era when security agents monitored every show. Yet the twins remain pragmatic.
“The theatre in Syria doesn’t pay for bread,” Mohamad Malas said, adding that he and his brother will split time between France (to earn a living) and Syria (to follow their passion).
Their French passports offer global protection but “mean nothing in Syria,” he added. “If a French passport serves me better, our country is still on the wrong path.”
In their last show on 5 June, before they returned to France, the Malas brothers cautiously pushed boundaries, hinting at identity-based killings on Syria’s coast earlier this year.
In March, hundreds of minority Alawite civilians in coastal cities were killed by Sunni fighters, according to Reuters news agency reporting and several monitoring groups. Assad belonged to the Alawite sect, and the massacre came after a rebellion by remaining Assad loyalists, that ended in bloodshed.
The attacks took place only three months after Assad’s ousting in December ended his brutal rule and followed almost 14 years of civil war.
“Freedom isn’t just criticising the past regime,” Mohamad Malas said.
A pivotal line lingers in his play: “Was the homeland worth all this suffering?” When asked, Ahmad Malas admitted: “Sometimes, no, not after children died in Daraya, Ghouta… then again on the coast after the revolution.”
Despite Syria’s wounds, they harbour hope: “Mistakes happened, but awareness and law can heal rage.”
But despite the gloomy theme of the play, the Malas brothers struggle to hide their joy. The reason is that they’re finally able to stage work without censors hiding in the audience.
24 Sep 2025 | News, Volume 54.03 Autumn 2025
In mid-May 2023, The Irish Times published an article that accused women who use fake tan of mocking those with naturally dark skin. The op-ed was initially said to be written by Adriana Acosta-Cortez, a 29-year-old Ecuadorian health worker living in north Dublin.
But no such person existed. “The article and the accompanying byline photo may have been produced, at least in part, using generative AI technology,” read an editorial in The Irish Times four days after the piece first published.
Two months later, HoldtheFrontPage— a news website for journalists with a focus on regional media across the UK— published an investigative piece documenting how artificial intelligence (AI) was used to launch a publication purporting to be called The Bournemouth Observer, which turned out to be a fake newspaper. “It was obvious that the content was written by AI because the writing was so bad,” editor of HoldtheFrontPage, Paul Linford, told Index. “But since then, AI has got much better at writing stories, and I suspect it will eventually become harder to spot when writing is being done by AI or real journalists,” said Linford.
Index on Censorship was also caught out by a journalist calling themselves Margaux Blanchard whose article was published in the Spring edition of the magazine. Ironically it was about journalism in Guatemala and written by AI. Others – Wired and Business Insider – also fell victim to “Margaux”.
James Barrat claimed AI “will eventually bring about the death of writing as we know it.” The American documentary maker and author has been researching and writing about AI for more than a decade. His previous books include Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era (2013), which ChatGPT recently ingested. “There are presently ongoing lawsuits about this because OpenAI took my book [without my permission] and didn’t pay me,” Barrat explained. “Right now, if you tell ChatGPT ‘write in the style of James Barrat’ it doesn’t produce an exact replica, but it’s adequate, and machine writing is getting better all the time.”
AI “will eliminate 30% of all jobs”
In early September, Barrat published The Intelligence Explosion: When AI Beats Humans at Everything (2025). The book makes two bold predictions. First, AI has the potential in the not-too-distant future to potentially match, and perhaps even surpass, our species’ intelligence. Second, by 2030 AI will eliminate 30 percent of all jobs done by humans, including writers. Freelance journalists will benefit in the short term, Barrat claimed. “Soon a basic features writer, using AI, will be able to produce twice as much content and get paid twice as much,” he said. “But in long run the news organisations will get rid of [most] writers because people won’t care if content is written by AI or not.”
Tobias Rose-Stockwell did not share that view. “There will always be a market for verified accurate information, which requires humans,” the American writer, designer, technologist and media researcher said. “So truthful journalism isn’t going away, but it’s going to be disrupted by AI, which can now generate content in real time. This will lead to more viral falsehoods, confusion and chaos in our information ecosystem.”
Rose-Stockwell elaborated on this topic in Outrage Machine (2023). The book documents how the rise of social media in the mid-2000s was made possible by algorithms, which are mathematical instructions that process data to produce specific outcomes. In the early days of social media users viewed their feeds in chronological order. Eventually, though, Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, and other social media platforms realised it was more profitable to organise that information via algorithmic feeds, powered by artificial intelligence and, in particular, machine learning (ML) where AI is used to identify behaviours and patterns that may be missed by human observers. ML tools analyse users’ behaviour, preferences, and interactions, keeping them emotionally engaged for longer. “Feed algorithms are much better at re-coordinating content than any human ever could,” said Rose-Stockwell. “They can even create bespoke little newspapers or television shows for us.”
“AI is already in the process of rapidly transforming journalism,” said Dr Tomasz Hollanek, a technology ethics specialist at the University of Cambridge with expertise in intercultural AI ethics and ethical human-AI interaction design. “As AI systems become more adept at producing content that appears authentic, detecting fabricated material will get harder.”
Hollanek spoke about editors giving journalists clear guidelines about when and where AI can be used. The Associated Press, for instance, currently allows staff to test AI tools but bans publishing AI-generated text directly.
“What’s important about these guidelines is that while they recognise AI as a new tool, they also stress that journalism already has mechanisms for accountability,” said Hollanek. He also criticised the sensationalist tone journalists typically take when writing about AI, pointing to unnecessary hype, which leads to distorted public understanding and skewed policy debates.
“Journalists strengthening their own critical AI literacy will make the public more informed about AI and more capable of shaping its trajectory.”
AI’s role in news “needs to be trackable”
Petra Molnar, a Canadian lawyer and anthropologist who specialises in migration and human rights, claimed “the general public needs to understand that AI is not some abstract tool out there, but it’s already structuring our everyday lives.”
Molnar said there is an urgent need for public awareness campaigns that make AI’s role in news and politics visible and trackable. She described companies such as Meta, X, Amazon, and OpenAI as “global gatekeepers [of information] with the power to amplify some voices while silencing others, often reinforcing existing inequalities.”
“Most people experience AI through tools like news feeds, predictive texts, or search engines, yet many do not realise how profoundly AI shapes what they see and think,” said Molnar, who is the associate director of the Refugee Law Lab at York University, Toronto— which undertakes research and advocacy about legal analytics, artificial intelligence, and new border control technologies that impact refugees.“AI is often presented as a neutral tool, but the reality is that it encodes power.”
Last year, Molnar published The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (2024). The book draws attention to a recent proliferation across the globe of digital technologies that are used to track and survey refugees, political dissidents, and frontline activists crossing borders in times of conflict. Molnar claimed that “AI threatens to accelerate the collapse of journalism by privileging speed and engagement over accuracy and depth.” She cited examples of journalists using OpenAI-generated text tools to churn our surface-level articles that echo sensational framings around migration, without investigative depth.
“Automated systems may generate content that looks like journalism, but it’s stripped of accountability and critical inquiry that’s required to tell complex stories,” said Molnar. “Journalism’s future depends on human reporters who can investigate power and rigorously fact check, something AI simply cannot replicate.”
Human oversight
Sam Taylor, campaigns & communications officer at the UK’s National Union of Journalists (NUJ), shared that view. “Editors and writers should exercise caution before using AI in their work,” he said. “Generative AI often draws on databases from the internet that contains stereotypes, biases, and misinformation.”
“To maintain and strengthen public trust in journalism, AI must only be used as an assistive tool with human oversight,” said NUJ general secretary, Laura Davison.
Everyone Index spoke to agreed that AI, for all its flaws, offers journalists enormous benefits, including automating mundane routine tasks, like transcription and data sorting. AI can also make data journalism, exploring large data sets to uncover stories, much more accessible as AI can crunch the data and identify interesting nuggets far faster than a person can. This will leave journalists with more time and energy for critical thinking, and ultimately, to tell more complex and nuanced stories.
But there was also an overwhelming consensus that AI cannot fact-check accurately or be trusted as a credible verifier of information. Not least because it suffers from hallucinations. “This means due to the complexity of what is going on inside it hallucinates,” James Barrat explained. “When this happens, AI gets confused and tells lies.”
“The jury is still out on whether or not this hallucination problem can be solved or not,” said Tobias Rose-Stockwell. “Journalism must remain grounded in ethical responsibility and context,” said Petra Molnar. “What we need is human judgement, applied critically and ethically, supported by but not replaced by technology.”
Is AI a threat?
Anyone who believes in journalism’s primary mission, to challenge power by investigating the truth, is undoubtedly likely to agree. But is this wishful thinking from a bygone era? James Barrat believes so. He points out that, eventually, we may not have the option to choose. “A scenario that could happen in near future is that AI could become hostile to us,” he said. “AI could take control of our water and our electrical systems. Just recently, a large language model (LLM) agreed that its creator should be killed.”
Barrat mentions an interview he did with the British science fiction writer and futurist Sir Arthur C Clarke, before his death, aged 90, in 2008. Clarke co-wrote the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Directed by Stanley Kubrick, the Oscar winning film tells the story of an AI-powered computer— aboard the Discovery One spacecraft bound for the planet Jupiter— called HAL. Eventually, HAL experiences a program conflict, malfunctions, and, to defend itself, turns on its human crew members.
Arthur C Clarke told Barrat, “Humans steer the future because we are the most intelligent species on the planet, but when we share the planet with something smarter than us, they will steer the future.”
“AI’s intelligence grows exponentially,” Barrat concludes. “As it gets smarter, we will stop understanding it. We really are inviting disaster.”
The autumn issue of Index magazine, titled Truth, trust and tricksters and published on 26 September, looks at the threats that artificial intelligence poses to freedom of expression
24 Sep 2025 | About Index, Americas, News, Newsletters
Haiti has played on my mind for months, not least since reading a piece in the Miami Herald in June about people being beheaded in a church. That level of violence will always make one sit up but what really got to me were the perpetrators. It was not at the hands of the infamous gangs – it was at the hands of so-called self-defence brigades set up to fight the gangs. At the time of reading this I was surprised the story wasn’t more widely covered. I mostly put it down to one simple fact – a challenge we are all too familiar with – distraction by other world events. I’ve now done some digging and it’s more than that.
Today Haiti is facing an intense crisis, or “total chaos” as the UN has described it. They’re led by a coalition set up almost two years ago to offer stability after the former prime minister, Ariel Henry, was ousted. Except the coalition is deemed dysfunctional and useless. A network of gangs control swathes of the country, a main spokesman for the largest being the ominously named Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier (Barbecue is in fact simply a reference to his mother’s food stall). The gangs run many of the roads, a convenient way to tax people using them and grow rich in so doing. The country’s main airport, in the capital Port-au-Prince, is effectively closed after several planes were shot at. A patchwork of counter militia have emerged who rival the gangs in violence. Thousands have been killed, millions displaced, starvation is rife, as is rape.
Given the violence, alongside the logistical challenges of getting in and out of the country and travelling internally, international media have largely stayed away. This is a big frustration for Michael Deibert, an author, journalist and Index contributor, who is rare in actually still visiting (and will be writing more in-depth for Index on this). He has been reporting from Haiti for decades and was last there in July. While he recognised the extreme difficulties for foreign correspondents, he did nevertheless stress that they needed to be there. As an aside Deibert also told me that he regularly receives videos of gang atrocities.
Deibert’s point about the absence of foreign media is made all the more important because local journalists are struggling to report the story. They are terrified of both sides – the gangs and militia – and speaking to either in the interests of impartial journalism risks them being deemed a “collaborator”. Meanwhile even seemingly neutral areas to cover, like the reopening of a hospital, have led to the death of several of their own.
The violence isn’t just about silencing the messenger, it’s about the message: A viral video of someone being murdered, the ringing sounds of gunshots in the distance, a woman raped in the open – these make people incredibly cautious about speaking out lest they’re next. The UN might describe the scenes in Haiti as “total chaos” but they’re also ones motivated by total control.
