French news agency AFP has been caught up in a self-censorship row after attempting to retract a photo of President Francois Hollande flashing a gormless smile. The whole debacle has gone viral, forcing AFP to make a statement denying they had caved to government pressure. Rather, they cited internal editorial guidelines ‘not to transmit images that gratuitously ridicule people.’ However, politicians are not strangers to banning (or trying to ban!) images that makes them look a bit silly.
You’d think that Vladimir Putin, used to being in the public eye, captured in completely random and non-staged situations like this, wouldn’t mind being the inspiration for some fine art. That turned out not to be the case when a St Petersburg gallery exhibited a painting of Putin and PM Dmitry Medvedev – the former sporting a fetching pink negligee, the latter a black lace push-up bra. Russian police raised the gallery and removed the picture in question, as well as three others depicting Russian political leaders. The reason given was that the imagines ‘violate existing legislation’.
Back in 2009, artist Conor Casby painted two pictures of former Irish taoiseach Brian Cowen sitting on a toilet naked. He then hung them on the walls of the National Gallery and the Royal Hibernian Gallery in Dublin, and broadcaster RTE made a short piece about it. The outcome? RTE had to issue a formal apology and remove the item from its online archive. Meanwhile, the police launched a country wide manhunt for Casby. He had to hand over five more paintings to the police and faced potential charges of indecency, criminal damage and incitement to hatred. All for making a politician the butt of his joke.
In 2002, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was accused of censoring a play putting him and his compatriots in an unfavorable light. Renowned theatre director Luca Ronconi used caricature pictures of Berlusconi and two other ministers as props in his production of Greek comedy “The Frogs.” Ronconi said officials from ruling party Forza Italia tried to make him remove the pictures from stage. Berlusconi, on the other hand, stated that while the pictures ‘didn’t please him’: ‘The government, the whole government, doesn’t even know what censorship is.’
South African President Jacob Zuma caused quite a stir when he demanded that a painting of him be removed from Johannesburg’s Goodman Gallery. ‘The Spear’ was in the style of portraits of revolutionary leaders, but for small fact that his, um, spear, was hanging out. He also wanted City Press newspaper to remove a photo of it from their website. When both refused, Zuma’s party the ANC declared they would take the gallery to High Court and called for a boycott of City Press. Finally, a couple of ANC supporters were caught on tape defacing the painting. Taking the matter of The Spear into their own hands, some might say (sorry).
At least it seems the future leadership of the ANC is getting some training in dealing with awkward art-related stories of their own. Bloemfontein student Alta Bonnet (17) was told her painting depicting former ANC Youth leader Julius Malema ‘as a fat cat on a gravy train’ might not be exhibited at a city art show. The picture was deemed ‘too political’.
Kansas artist Dave Loewenstein last year had his picture of Governor Sam Brownback removed from a cafe in the state’s capital Topeka. The picture is a cartoon depiction of the governor, with the words ‘REJECT BROWNBACK’ printed on. Loewenstein said the picture was in protest at Brownback’s policies and not him personally. Greg Ready, the landlord of the building, said they had chosen to remove the painting because Brownback’s daughter worked at the cafe in question, adding ‘there was no political motivation for this action whatsoever.’
But you could understand Brownback being a little thin skinned – this wasn’t the first time he had been viciously attacked. In 2011, when his office took note of a tweet by High School student Emma Sullivan (18), her principal demanded she write an apology letter to the governor. The tweet? “Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person (hash)heblowsalot.” Scathing.
Schillings, scourge of many a Fleet Street editor, clearly believes the future of libel and privacy lays online. As such, they have co-opted online security firm “Vigilante Bespoke” into “Schillings IT Security”.
Vigilante Bespoke (which wouldn’t be a bad rapper name) started in 2009 as an “ethical hacking” business, testing gaps in firms and individual’s technological security.
Now, Vigilante Bespoke founder Oliver Crofton is being cast by Schillings as the Trollhunter General. He explains on the Schillings site:
“Although the internet is seen by some as anonymous, everything we do online leaves a “digital fingerprint”, which in some instances can be traced to uncover valuable identifying information.
“During investigations we look to uncover IP addresses (these are unique codes that relate to an individual home or office internet connection), which can often lead us to the street address of the person posting the nasty comments. In some instances, website server connection logs can be analysed, which can give us the mac address (a computer’s name and location) of the computer being used to post the unsolicited content.
“Simple tools also help when tracing people online, such as indepth online searches for usernames; as these are often used across several websites and each website may vary in the amount of information available about their users.”
Apart from troll hunting, the Schillings site has lots more to say on social media: what does a company do, for example, when compromising pictures of senior figures are Instagrammed (“the Weiner Dilemma” perhaps?). How to deal with negative customer reviews on say, TripAdvisor, or how to handle an ex-employee who can’t stop ranting about your company online?
The Schillings site is, in its own way, an indicator of where the new libel and privacy battles will be fought. It’s not about newspapers any more.
Despite the bill passing its second reading by 309 votes to 247, Sky News reported that “the comfortable margin masked significant opposition across parties.”
The Guardian provides a rundown of the key questions related to the bill, including the cause of the controversy: “Charities are unhappy that their political campaigning could fall under restrictions for the first time. Legal advice obtained by the National Council of Voluntary Organisations said it could have a chilling effect. Helen Mountfield QC warns of uncertainty about what the bill means by ‘for political purpose’, saying it could ‘put small organisations and their trustees/directors in fear of ‘criminal penalty if they speak out on matters of public interest and concern’.”
A near-united NGO sector has slammed the proposal. “The Lobbying Bill represents a real threat both to the quality of debate on public policy in this country and charities’ ability to champion the needs of the poor and vulnerable through campaigns such as Make Poverty History,” said Oxfam.
‘What began as a bid to clean up politics and make the process more transparent has ended up as an attempt to restrict people and individuals engaging in politics and exercising their democratic rights of free speech,’ said anti-fascist group HOPE not Hate.
‘The government’s rushing through a new law which, if it passes, will stop us running the type of campaigns which have made us who we are during the year leading up to elections. Put simply, the new rules will make it almost impossible for campaign groups, charities and others to campaign in the way we do during the year before elections,’ said 38degrees.
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations have now written to Chloe Smith, the minister in charge of the bill, outlining their concerns. A coalition of conservative think tanks, including the Adam Smith Institute, Big Brother Watch, Centre for Policy Studies, Institute of Economic Affairs, Taxpayers Alliance have criticised the “significant failings” of the bill: “The lack of clarity in the legislation further exacerbates its complexity, while granting a remarkably broad discretion to the Electoral Commission. The potential tidal wave of bureaucracy could cripple even well-established organisations, while forcing groups to reconsider activity if there is a perceived risk of falling foul of the law. This self-censorship is an inevitable consequence of the bill as it stands.”
Moreover, the Electoral Commission have stated the bill raises “real questions around freedom of speech” reported The Independent. “There may be circumstances where we would need to ask someone to take down a blog or a website or stop a rally from happening. That is a significant intervention for the Electoral Commission to take. [But] the change to our remit does give us greater discretion. That gives us significant concerns.”
The bill has also come in for massive criticism from the opposition, with shadow Commons leader Angela Eagle dubbing it “one of the worst pieces of legislation I’ve seen any government produce in a very long time”, the BBC reported. “It’s a sop to powerful, vested interests; a sinister gag on democratic debate in the run-up to the general election; a shameful abuse of the legislative process to make cheap, partisan points. This is a very bad bill,” she adds.
Independent columnist Owen Jones argues the bill is undemocratic: “Warnings of threats to democracy should be sparingly issued: they contain the risk of undermining an argument through hyperbole, of making us numb to genuine menaces. But be under no illusions: the Government’s catchily titled Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill is an audacious stab at many of our hard-won democratic freedoms.”
Meanwhile, Conservative MP Douglas Carswell adds that the bill does little to tackle the problem of lobbying: ‘My main concern, however, is what is not in this Bill. Big corporate interests serious about changing public policy don’t mainly focus on Parliament. They go up the road to Whitehall. It is there that the nexus of influence between big corporate interests and big government lies. The Bill does little to change any of that, and fails to sort out the revolving door between big Whitehall departments and various vested interests. Who inputs directly into the civil servants as they draft policy and rules? Who has a quiet word with the new non-executives at the department? We do not know.’
Labour’s Stephen Doughty, in one of the more colourful addition to the Commons debate, stated that the bill has “whiff of Zimbabwe”.
Andrew Lansley, sponsor of the bill has defended it as tool for making “our democracy more accountable”: ‘The Transparency Bill has three key aims: to make it clear who is lobbying the Government and for whom; to make third-party campaigning at election times subject to clear rules; and to provide assurance that trade unions know who their members are.’
Chloe Smith also attempted to calm some of the charities’ fears: “At the 2010 General Election, very few charities were registered as third parties. Provided they continue to campaign as most of them always have – that is, they are not promoting the electoral success or otherwise enhancing the standing of parties/candidates – charities will not be affected by this legislation,” Smith added.
You can read a transcript of the Commons debate here , or watch it here from 12.47.
Two Tunisian rappers Aladine Yacoubi (aka Weld EL 15) and Ahmed Ben Ahmed (aka Klay BBJ) have been sentenced in absentia to 21 months in jail. A court in Hammamet issued the verdict on 29 August without summoning the two rappers to appear for trial, their lawyer Ghazi Mrabet said yesterday.
“We are surprised by this verdict…Our clients have not been summoned for trial as it is stipulated by law,” Mrabet told the privately-owned radio station Mosaique FM. They were found guilty of “insulting civil servants”, “undermining public decency” and defamation.
On 22 August, police arrested the two rappers as they were on stage performing a rap concert at a music festival in Hammamet and physically assaulted them. They were detained, for “targeting police’ in their songs, the local chief police officer told the collective blog Nawaat.
Last June, Weld El 15 received a two-year jail sentence over his “Police Are Dogs” (Boulicia Kleb) song posted on the internet. The 25 year-old was freed on appeal, when his sentence was reduced to six-month suspended sentence. According to his lawyer, Weld EL15 did not perform Boulicia Kleb at the Hammamet concert.
Klay BBJ is also known for his staunch criticism of police, the judiciary, the Tunisian legal system and the entire political class (the ruling coalition and the opposition). His songs include: iNo Pasaran! , Al Motamaridoun (the rebels) and Sayb15 (Free15) in support of Weld EL 15 when he was in prison.
“I will speak to my clients to challenge this ruling, but jail sentences demonstrate that the relentless campaign against artistic freedom, freedom of expression, continues”, rappers’ lawyer Ghazi Mrabet told AFP. Thameur Mekki, a journalist head of a support group for the rap artists described the verdict as a “revenge”. “The authorities have not understood that these matters should give rise to public debate, not trials and the permanent harassment of rappers”, he added.
Three Sudanese columnists were prevented from writing by the National intelligence Security Services (NISS) after they condemned the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Journalists Salah Awooda, Zuhair Elsrag and Rishan Oshi were banned from writing for between five to fifteen days during August after criticizing the Islamist group. This is part of a growing trend in Sudan for opinion columnists to be targeted by Government censorship, rather than newspapers.
Awooda, who works for the pro-government newspaper Alkir Lahza, was removed from his desk after he suggested that the Sudanese government’s criticism of the Egyptian military was hypocritical, as they also came to power via a military coup.
“They have suspended me because I condemned their contradictions about Egyptian events and claimed that they have acted as if they are democratic people,” Awooda says.
He also pointed out that the Sudanese government and its allied Islamists groups have organised demonstrations in front of the Egyptian embassy in Khartoum protesting against military action against the Brotherhood. Moreover, the official Sudanese media and others aligned with the Government have waged a campaign against the military intervening in politics in Egypt.
“I’m just surprised how they talk about legitimacy and democracy in Egypt,” he added, “while they undertook a military coup against the democratically elected government in Sudan in 1989 and they didn’t apologise to the Sudanese people for what they did. This is double standards”.
Awooda has been suspended on three occasions over the last two months, without any legal basis, following telephone calls by NISS agents to his editor-in-chief. The columnist was barred from writing for a month, and then for a further two days, after he criticized Government censorship. He was then detained for 15 more days without any apparent cause. In 2010, Awooda’s appointment as editor-in-chief of independent daily newspaper Aljareeda was blocked despite his considerable experience as editor-in-chief of three newspapers.
“They have stopped me three times since last July without giving any official reasons” he says. “They just suspend writers according to their mood without any legal basis in NISS regulations or the current constitution.”
Sudanese journalists have been engaged in a long running battle with the government over press freedom. 15 independent and anti-government newspapers have been closed in recent years. Since 2011, about 15 columnists have been prevented from working by NISS, though some have been allowed to return to their jobs after being suspended. Five have gone on to write for web publications but now the government is preparing a new law on electronic media which may lead to further harassment. In September 2009 the Sudanese Constitutional Court in Sudan rejected an appeal brought by a group of journalists, writers and columnists against newspaper censorship by NISS.
In a report on freedom of speech published in May by the organisation Journalists for Human Rights (JHR), the Sudanese government is accused of continuing to restrain press freedoms. It noted that the Sudanese government, via the NISS, has started to put pressure on individual columnists leading to their suspension, rather than targeting newspapers as they used to.
“There are many reasons for this,” says Faisal Mohamed Salih, a Khartoum columnist and winner of the Peter Mackler Award for ethical journalism. “For a long time the NISS restrained the news and other types of journalism as they controlled the newspapers but they moved their attention to the columnists because they have become stars. Readers prefer to get their information in opinion columns instead of the news stories.
“The NISS has succeeded in controlling newspapers but they couldn’t do it with the columnists because they are not employees of the newspapers, unlike the journalists, and can publish information that journalists couldn’t do” Faisal adds.
Yassin Hassan Bashir, another columnist who has been stopped from writing, thinks that the columns are an easier target for NISS censors compared to essays and investigative stories, simply as they are quicker to read.
“Because they are shorter than other type of journalism,” Bashir says, “they can read them more easily. You sometimes find the same opinions in longer, more difficult investigative stories, but they ignore it. They are not aware enough to evaluate the longer or more complex articles or they are too lazy to read them all”.
Aldooma argues that while government censors still target newspapers, they do so less than in the past. As the nature of journalism in Sudan changes to more opinion journalism than news and investigative journalism columnists will be increasingly targeted.
For the first time since the 2010 presidential election Belarusian independent journalists can catch their breath. In March the criminal case against Andrzej Poczobut, a journalist accused of libel against the president, was dropped. ARCHE magazine, which was close to being shut down was finally re-registered by the Ministry of Information in May. OSCE Representative for Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic was allowed to enter the country in June, and authorities even met with her. Following her visit charges against Anton Suriapin for posting pictures of the famous Teddy Bear pictures, were dropped. Award-winning journalist Iryna Khalip has reached the end of her two-year sentence.
On the other hand, we should not be deceived by these positive developments. Negotiations with Mijatović did not prevent Belarusian authorities from seizing a whole print run of Nash Dom newspaper, accusing journalist Alena Sciapanava of cooperation with foreign media without a relevant accreditation, or detaining a number of reporters covering a street action by opposition activist in July.
So, is there a thaw for Belarusian media? Can further changes be expected?
One step forward after two steps back
Belarus is ranked 157th in Reporters Without Borders’ 2013 World Press Freedom Index, rising 11 places compared with their 2011/2012 rating. But this only means the country has restored the situation to where it had been before the severe clampdown on free media and civil society in December 2010. Independent journalists and online activists still run risks.
“The authorities have made a small step forward after they made two huge leaps back. The situation improved a little if we compare it with the one we had after the 2010 presidential election. But on a systemic level neither media-related legislation, nor its implementation have changed,” says Andrei Bastunets, a media lawyer and a vice chairman of the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ).
The positive developments are welcome – but history suggests they are not irreversible. In 2008-2009 similar period of “liberalisation” was marked with two big conferences in Minsk co-organised by the Belarusian authorities with the office of OSCE Representative for Freedom of the Media. There, the decision was made to return two national independent newspapers, Narodnaya Volia and Nasha Niva, to the wide reaching state run systems of press distribution. But the ‘good times’ turned into a renewed period of repression after 2010.
Sviatlana Kalinkina, chief editor of Narodnaya Volia, says life is easier for the publication now than it was five years ago when it had to be printed in Russia and was not allowed to be sold at newsstands or via subscription catalogues in Belarus.
“The approach of the authorities is to make the situation worse, then to return it to where it was and thus claim there have been improvements and ‘democratisation’. But in fact even after we were allowed to be printed and distributed in Belarus we were not able to come back to where we used to be. Narodnaya Volia used to be a daily, now we publish our newspaper twice a week and cannot get a permission to be printed even three times a week. Printing houses and distribution networks keep telling us it is impossible, although it is obvious these are just lame excuses. These problems are clearly orchestrated by the authorities,” says Sviatlana Kalinkina.
It is difficult for a journalist of an independent newspaper to receive a comment from state officials; they are afraid to talk to non-state press.
According to Yanina Melnikava, the editor of the online publication Mediakritika.by, the situation inevitably affects the quality of work of Belarusian journalists.
“One the one hand it makes a journalist’s work really hard. But working in the conditions of an ‘information war’ leads to a ‘barricade mind-set’ that can be used to justify mistakes and lack of professionalism,” says the editor.
Screws to be tighten again before elections
Sviatlana Kalinkina of Narodnaya Volia does not think conditions for her newspaper will significantly improve in the nearest future, because the next presidential election is scheduled for 2015.
“Political campaigns are not the best time for journalists in Belarus. People are getting more interested in independent news which makes authorities start to panic, resulting in more oppression,” Sviatlana Kalinkina says.
So why would the government allow some minor improvements of the situation? The answer is simple – just to have some “room for manoeuvre” when the screws are to be tightened again.
“The closer elections are, the more we are likely to feel freedom and democratic change is possible. But this is just an illusion. The reality is different. The authorities see election campaigns as a threat to their power and they are ready to protect their power whatever it takes,” says Yanina Melnikava.
Not ready for the first step
During her press conference in Minsk on 5 June, Dunja Mijatović said time had come for serious change in the freedom of expression situation in Belarus. She called on journalists to “work with the authorities and bother them in order to let the government of the country know about the importance of laws for development, not for oppression of the media.”
“But the real change requires a totally different relationship between the authorities and the media. Such change of an attitude should take place on an ideological level, as well as on economic and legal levels”, Yanina Melnikava admits, adding that she sees no signs of such changes at the moment.
Andre Bastunets suggests there should be a road map the authorities can keep to in order to liberalise the media field. The first step would be ceasing of economic discrimination of independent media: all non-state newspapers should be allowed back on to state-run distribution systems, restrictions of circulations and advertising in them should be lifted.
“About half of independent newspapers face problems like these now. And there is no need to change the law to solve the problem – on the contrary, we just need to implement the law,” says BAJ vice chairman.
The second step would be to ensure access to information for all journalists. The restriction to work without a special accreditation for reporters of foreign media should be lifted. The third one is to stop differentiating between state and non-state media at all.
“I am sure there should be no state-owned media in a democratic country except for bulletins with legal acts adopted by state bodies. All media should be private or public,” says Andrei Bastunets.
However, the authorities of the country show no signs they are ready event to make that first step, which means the current not-so-bad situation is always under threat of a set-back.
Brightening brightness, alone on the road, she appears,
Crystalline crystal and sparkle of blue in green eyes,
Sweetness of sweetness in her unembittered young voice
And a high colour dawning behind the pearl of her face.
Ringlets and ringlets, a curl in every tress
Of her fair hair trailing and brushing the dew on the grass;
And a gem from her birthplace far in the high universe
Outglittering glass and gracing the groove of her breasts.
News that was secret she whispered to soothe her aloneness,
News of one due to return and reclaim his true place,
News of the ruin of those who had cast him in darkness,
News that was awesome, too awesome to utter in verse.
My head got lighter and lighter but still I approached her,
Enthralled by her thraldom, helplessly held and bewildered,
Choking and calling Christ’s name: then she fled in a shimmer
To Luachra Fort where only the glamoured can enter.
I hurtled and hurled myself madly following after
Over keshes and marshes and mosses and treacherous moors
And arrived at that stronghold unsure about how I had got there,
That earthwork of earth the orders of magic once reared.
A gang of thick louts were shouting loud insults and jeering
And a curly-haired coven in fits of sniggers and sneers:
Next thing I was taken and cruelly shackled in fetters
As the breasts of the maiden were groped by a thick-witted boor.
I tried then as hard as I could to make her hear truth,
How wrong she was to be linked to that lazarous swine
When the pride of the pure Scottish stock, a prince of the blood,
Was ardent and eager to wed her and make her his bride.
When she heard me, she started to weep, but pride was the cause
Of those tears that came wetting her cheeks and shone in her eyes;
Then she sent me a guard to guide me out of the fortress,
Who’d appeared to me, lone on the road, a brightening brightness.
Calamity, shock, collapse, heartbreak and grief
To think of her sweetnes, her beauty, her mildness, her life
Defiled at the hands of a hornmaster sprung from riff-raff,
And no hope of redress till the lions ride back on the wave.
Aodhgan O’Rathaille, translated by Seamus Heaney
The Glamoured is my translation of Gile na Gile (literally Brightness of Brightness), one of the most famous Irish poems of the early eighteenth century. It is a classic example of a genre know as the aisling (pronounced ashling) which was as characteristic of Irish language poetry in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as rhymed satire was in England at the same time.
The aisling was in effect a mixture of samizdat and allegory, a form which mixed political message with passionate vision. After the devastations and repressions brought about by the armies of Oliver Cromwell and King William, the native Irish population became subject to the Penal Laws, a system of legislation as deliberately conceived as apartheid, enacted against them specifically as Catholics by the Irish parliament (representing the ‘Protestant interest’ which took control after William of Orange’s victory over the forces of the Catholic Stuart king, James II, at the Battle of the Boyne). The native Irish aristocracy fled – and were ever afterwards know as The Wild Geese – and dreams of redress got transferred into poetry.
Politically, the aisling kept alive the hope of a Stuart restoration which would renew the fortunes of the native Irish. Symbolically, this was expressed in the ancient form of a dream encounter in which the poet meets a beautiful woman in some lonely place. This woman is at one and the same time an apparition of the spirit of Ireland and a muse figure who entrances him completely. She inevitably displays signs of grief and tells a story of how she is in thrall to some heretical foreign brute, but the poem usually ends with a promise — which history will not fulfil — of liberation in the form of a Stuart prince coming to her relief from beyond the seas.
Aodhgan O’Rathaille (1675-1729) is one of the last great voices of the native Irish tradition, Dantesque in his anger and hauteur, a voice crying in the more or less literal wilderness of the Gaelic outback, at once the master of outrage and the witness of desolation.
Seamus Heaney, Index on Censorship, September 1998
Index on Censorship calls on the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to investigate mass surveillance and protect whistleblowers
To: Members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
Re: Motion for a resolution – Doc. 13288: Massive eavesdropping in Europe
We, the undersigned representatives of international and national human rights and freedom of expression organizations – ARTICLE 19, Reporters Without Borders, Privacy International, EDRI, Vrijschrift, Open Rights Group, INDEX, English PEN and Access Now – strongly urge the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to support the Resolution: Massive Eavesdropping in Europe, tabled on 31 July 2013 by 23 members of the PACE.
The resolution calls on member states to regulate and effectively oversee the secret services and special procedures and to pass legislative provisions at the national level to protect whistleblowers. The resolution also calls upon the Secretary General to launch an inquiry under Article 52 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Our organizations support this timely resolution and remain concerned about recent revelations of surveillance of internet and telephone communications by the governments of the USA and the Council of Europe’s members, including France, Germany, Turkey and the United Kingdom. These revelations suggest a blatant and systematic disregard for human rights as articulated in Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and other international and European treaties.
The blanket application of surveillance mechanisms to global digital communications drastically threatens the protection of human rights in the digital age. We remind the PACE members that in his June 2013 report, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, highlighted the negative impact of surveillance on civil liberties, including the right to inform and be informed, freedom of expression and respect for privacy. We believe that the proposal, formulated in the PACE Resolution, could offer an invaluable assessment of the strength of legal safeguards for right to freedom of expression and privacy in the Council of Europe member states and offer a unique insight into the legal framework of surveillance.
Further, we also support the emphasis of the proposed Resolution on the need to protect whistleblowers. Whistleblowers play a critical role in promoting transparency and upholding the human rights and interests of all members of society. PACE must strengthen this protection of whistleblowers and support efforts to combat violations of fundamental human rights
We therefore call on all PACE members support the motion for the Resolution. In particular, at this stage, we call on the Presidential Committee to start an investigation into the matter and appoint a rapporteur for it.
The autumn issue of Index on Censorship magazine brings together articles from writers including Amartya Sen, Philip Pullman, Jonathan Dimbleby and Peter Kellner, and covers India, China, Brazil, South Africa, Honduras, Colombia, Afghanistan and Mali. Under discussion are development and free speech; ignored voices; digital media; reporters under fire in South America. Get your copy of the current issue of Index on Censorship magazine, available now, by subscribing here or downloading the iPad app.
A report from China is one of many which looks at groups of people around the world who are ignored, censored or supressed by their governments, and whose voices are not heard or are ignored:
As millions of people move from the countryside to Chinese cities they end up as “invisible members of society”. The article by Jemimah Steinfeld and Hannah Leung looks at the use of hukou, a household registration document, to control society, but also to keep rural migrants as second class citizens, who have little access to state benefits and education as well as poorly paid jobs. Most are afraid to criticise the system because of their status.
Hukou are registered to the place where they are born, restricting those rights if anyone choosing to move around the country. Shanghai, for instance, now has 10 million residents who have moved from the country, and cannot access the same services as official residents.
Also in the issue:
Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen writes on democracy, the media and free speech
Reports on violent attacks against journalists in Honduras and Colombia
As global power starts to shift both South and East, and the G20 overshadows the G8, will freedom of speech and broader human rights still receive support around the summit tables?
While the BRICS – Brazil Russia, India, China, and South Africa – range from active democracies to repressive authoritarian states, none are keen to take lectures from western countries on free speech.
And whistleblower Edward Snowden’s still unfolding NSA and GCHQ revelations are surely weakening the US and UK’s credibility in promoting rights internationally. Mass surveillance of digital communications undermines free speech online: monitored conversation is not free, as anyone from Iran or China can attest.
Nor are the democratic BRICS yet taking any international lead on free speech and other rights.
If free speech is to be actively defended in the multipolar order, both the emerging democratic powers and the older western powers must stand up, however imperfectly, for rights, at the UN, the G20 or in bilateral dialogues, and not let economic interest, security priorities, and diplomatic convenience hold sway.
Some European diplomats confidently see the EU, US and Japan as the prime defenders of free speech, while Brazil, India and South Africa are “swing” states to bring on side against China and Russia. But from digital to media freedom to transparency and corruption, the picture is more blurred.
The Snowden revelations risk seriously weakening the US’s credibility in pushing for digital freedom and an open internet against a joint Russia-China quest for top down global internet control. The geopolitics of internet governance were exposed at an international telecommunications summit in Dubai last December – Russia and China pulling almost 90 countries including Brazil and South Africa behind them in a test vote. India wobbled before joining the US, EU and Japan.
But efforts to get democratic BRICs to support an open internet may now falter. ‘Do as we say, not as we do’ is never the most convincing of arguments.
Digital freedom may retreat further if the NSA scandal prompts a more rapid fragmentation of the internet as some fear. While Iran and China already seek to segment their national internets, if the EU and others respond with moves to insulate their networks more from the US then fragmentation may gather speed.
Yet direct censorship of the internet – imposing blocks and filters – is much more common in authoritarian regimes – with China and its great firewall targeting free speech extensively in ways not seen in the multipolar democracies.
But there are some troubling trends. Both the UK and India criminalise ‘grossly offensive’ comment on social media – with arrests for Facebook posts and tweets in both countries . And Brazil and India often top the lists in Google’s regular transparency reports on takedown requests for online content.
On press freedom, the picture for western democracies is fairly positive: they are ahead of the democratic BRICS who are, unsurprisingly ahead of Russia then China. But it’s a varied picture – Germany and the US are substantially ahead of the UK and France, with South Africa coming in just ahead of Japan according to Reporters without Borders press freedom index – and then Brazil and India trail behind. And such indicators cannot reflect the granular reality of Obama’s prosecution of media sources, or the UK debate on statutory press regulation.
At the international level, western countries are often seen as readier to challenge individual countries’ human rights records, than India, Brazil and South Africa. Yet Brazil and India voted with the US criticising Sri Lanka’s record earlier this year while Japan abstained. And the EU and US can hesitate too in the face of economic interests not least in dealings with China.
Transparency and corruption is where western countries do best. The US, Japan, Germany, France and the UK all score fairly high up on Transparency International’s annual ranking, while Brazil and South Africa languish in the middle, India is behind China, and Russia scores even below China (and India) too. But the US and UK’s transparency record will surely be reassessed given Snowden’s leaks.
With this mixed record of the democratic powers, will we hear less about free speech and human rights in the multipolar, digital world? At least, with whatever flaws and double standards, the majority of the G20 are democracies with robust debates on free speech at home. But the revelations of mass digital surveillance now cast a long shadow.
Perhaps one more positive outcome of the US’s stumbling over mass surveillance will be if it gives India, Brazil and South Africa the confidence to speak out strongly on the international stage including holding western players more to account on free speech. If so the multipolar democracies would then have more, not less, credibility in pointing the finger at authoritarian regimes.
In early August, the topic led to a sequence of accusations between two of the most influential German media outlets, the Bild Zeitung, a conservative daily tabloid newspaper, and Der Spiegel, a left-leaning weekly magazine. Both publications have the highest circulation in their respective sector in Germany. Firing first, Bild accused Der Spiegel of spreading “nonsense saying that the German population is standing under “total surveillance.” Rather than total surveillance, writes the Bild Zeitung, the German intelligence service BND gave the NSA only information on one specific person of German heritage, an abducted former Spiegel journalist. Firing back, Der Spiegel claims the intentional omission of the case from its reporting was based on the journalistic principle not to endanger abductees through reporting – an unwritten journalistic law the Bild seemed to be willing to breach.
This publicly fought battle indicates the juxtaposition of opinions on the surveillance affair between left-leaning and conservative media. It is also a window into the diverging public opinion on the matter.
With the upcoming September federal elections in mind, the NSA affair has been widely discussed in German media with sentiment raging from understanding to harsh criticism. Although opinion polls show that the majority of the German population is disappointed with the German government’s reaction, many view the surveillance programs as a benevolent necessity.
The reasons for the strong interest of Germany’s media in this issue stem from the country’s history and its involvement in the current affair. The state surveillance by the Stasi, the secret police in East Germany during the Cold War, has led to a strong public opinion against an Orwellian state. Recent disclosures, such as the wiretapping of European embassies in Brussels and Washington, therefore, led to first outcries.
Further, with the NSA recording up to 60 million German metadata connections per day, Germany has been the European country under closest scrutiny by the US and its allies. What is more, according to the whistle-blower Edward Snowden, the German intelligence, and maybe even the German authorities as some journalists assume, have had knowledge of the NSA surveillance system for many years.
“German authorities are in bed with the NSA,” Snowden said in an interview with Der Spiegel.
This aspect is taken up and heavily criticized by Germany’s left-leaning media. According to Der Spiegel, the muted reaction of the current German chancellery demonstrates its connivance, while also showing its inability to prevail against the US. The distorted notion of security since 9/11 and the disruption of the fundamental pillars of the constitutional state – particularly distinctive in the US – are further focal points for the left-oriented media.
The USA has “fallen ill” since the attacks on the World Trade Center, writes Klaus Brinkbäumer, deputy editor of Der Spiegel. According to him, the US is willing to breach every international law if it serves its national security and, therefore, the War on Terror. In his opinion, the US has gone off the democratic track into the abysses of unlawfulness.
The “super-fundamental right of security”, as described by Germany’s Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, “sneaked into legal and domestic policy discussions and outweighs all other fundamental rights,” Heribert Prantl, head of the domestic division of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, wrote in an editorial.
In contrast, the conservative Bild Zeitung justifies the intelligence services’ actions against the privacy of the public. They happened “for the benefit of the German population,” reads an editorial by Hugo Müller-Vogg.
“In times of global terror, more surveillance than we prefer becomes necessary,” writes Bildeditor Daniel Killy.
Bild’s headline “Who wants to thwart terror must be informed earlier,” illustrates the propagated notion: the necessity of these surveillance programs for the greater good. While the Bild Zeitung expresses gratefulness towards the US for helping to secure the German population, it also agrees with the left-leaning media on the wrongness of the US wiretapping of European authorities.
As for Snowden, his depiction in German media also diverged along political lines. For the Bild Zeitung “Snowden is no hero.” His disclosure of practices of Western intelligence services is alleged to have aided the “enemy,” says Bild. From now on, argues the paper, it will become increasingly difficult to track down terrorists.
Der Spiegel depicts Snowden as a person who helped to “broaden the understanding of the architecture of the so-called security system.” As a ‘thank-you’ for his deeds, that have already led to a long overdue public discussion about the daily state surveillance and its consequences, Der Spiegel suggests that states around the world should offer Snowden asylum.
The Süddeutsche Zeitung, which depicts Snowden as a “classical political refugee,” goes even further by proposing Germany should give Snowden a temporary residence permit in order to enable him to fight for asylum on German soil.
“Edward Snowden (…) served the constitutional democracy with the disclosure of US intelligence practices; he started a discussion that can save the constitutional state in destroying itself; he revealed the misuse of power and the fundamental rights of European citizens and the fundamental rights of their elected representatives in the EU boards,” Heribert Prantl of Süddeutsche Zeitung writes in an op-ed.
However, the majority of the German public disagrees with these propositions. According to a recent opinion poll by YouGov, although 61 per cent of the German public view the disclosures as a positive action, 58 per cent would vote against an asylum for Snowden in Germany. While more than two-thirds of those polled are disappointed by the reaction of the German chancellery on the matter, 40 per cent approve state monitoring of private communication for security reasons.
But, extensive communication surveillance can have wide-ranged repercussions for the public, German media warn.
“The internet has become the life-world of many Germans,” writes Johannes Boie from the Süddeutsche Zeitung, “to monitor it, means to monitor whole lives.”
Madras Cafe is a Bollywood film, a fictional feature based on real events – in this case, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Tigers) role in the assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, on his comeback trail. (The LTTE assassinated former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, on his comeback trail, later saying it was “a blunder”.)
I haven’t seen the film because UK cinema chains Cineworld, Odeon and Vue, won’t let me. Apparently in response to protests from the local Tamil community, Cineworld issued an anodyne statement, saying: “Our policy is to show a wide range of films for different audiences. However, following customer feedback and working with the film distributors, we have decided to not show Madras Café. We apologise for any inconvenience.”
Customer feedback? Press reports suggested that some Tamils had complained that the film was anti-Tamil. The Facebook page of the Tamil Youth Organisation UK has been full of agitation against the film, but I was curious about the basis of the chain’s decision, so I asked them what kind of feedback they had received. Was it in writing or a phone call? Had the customers giving such feedback seen the film? (How, considering that the film was being released simultaneously worldwide on 23 August?) I also asked if it was normal practice for Cineworld to see customer feedback before showing each film. I’m not sure if Cineworld had shown any of the following films, so I wanted to know if they had sought prior customer feedback from any of the communities that may have been offended by films like “Borat” (Kazakhs), “LOC Kargil,” “Gadar: A Love Story”, or “Zero Dark Thirty” (Pakistanis), “Bruno” (gay people), “Waltz With Bashir” (Israelis), or the many American films critical of US foreign policy and Vietnam war? If not, why not? A Cineworld official sent me, again, the press release about customer feedback.
True, protests in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu has also led to the film being withdrawn from most cities there. Ransacking and attacking theatres is not unusual in India. But this is Britain. I wanted to know if there had been a violent threat, and if so, did the theatre seek police protection. But we didn’t reach that far.
Have we learned nothing? A quarter century ago, Muslims in Bradford burned copies of Salman Rushdie’s novel, The Satanic Verses because the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa on the novelist. At that time, some in Britain didn’t want anything to do with the problem. Outraged by the intellectual acquiescence of some, Hanif Kureishi wrote the fine novel, The Black Album ridiculing the fundamentalists and the fair-weather free speech defenders.
At that time of The Satanic Verses protests, while some bookshops caved in to pressure, as Rushdie has noted later, many brave booksellers insisted on displaying the novel and selling it, reinforcing freedom of expression, and keeping the idea of unfettered imagination alive.
That was then. It is different now.
In 2004, when Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti wrote a play, Behzti (Dishonour) which dealt with rape and abuse in a gurdwara (the Sikh place of worship), the Birmingham Repertory stopped performances because some members of the local Sikh community threatened violence. Later, “Behzti” could have readings in London, and Bhatti even wrote another play in 2010 – “Behud” (Beyond Belief) – which examined the state of censorship and artistic freedom in Britain.
And now? Madras Cafe can’t be shown, and much of the British media has ignored the story, except industry publications. That reflects the underlying paternalism of the media towards the politics within Britain’s minorities. Like female genital mutation, which was initially considered a quaint ritual among immigrants, and forced marriage, which was confused with arranged marriages among Britain’s Asians, intolerance by young hotheads is seen as a cultural characteristic of specific immigrant groups, and being good multicultural people, we should all accept that. Rights – of equality, of expression – are seen as the privileged majority’s heirloom. Since loud individuals within a minority don’t want it, why impose “our” values on them?
But those values are universal, not western. Madras Cafe may be a terrible film – who knows? – but that should be for the viewers and audiences to decide. The aggrieved Tamils have no obligation to see it; indeed, they have the right to picket peacefully outside theatres. They also have the right to tell their story and broaden our understanding of the Sri Lankan conflict, so that the British leaders who go to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet in Sri Lanka in November know the kind of hosts whose hands they will shake.
The Sri Lankan story is complex, with neither the government nor the LTTE coming out looking good. The many victims of that conflict – Sinhala and Tamil alike – deserve better. Madras Cafe won’t tell that story – that was never its aim. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be shown.
Cinema chains need to rise to the challenge, and screen the film, with police protection, if necessary. Far more is at stake than a Bollywood blockbuster’s box office returns.
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The autumn issue of Index on Censorship magazine brings together articles from writers including Amartya Sen, Philip Pullman, Jonathan Dimbleby and Peter Kellner, and covers India, China, Brazil, South Africa, Honduras, Colombia, Afghanistan and Mali. Under discussion are development and free speech; ignored voices; digital media; reporters under fire in South America. Get your copy of the current issue of Index on Censorship magazine, available now, by 
As global power starts to shift both South and East, and the G20 overshadows the G8, will freedom of speech and broader human rights still receive support around the summit tables?
French news agency AFP has been caught up in a self-censorship row after attempting to retract a photo of President Francois Hollande flashing a gormless smile. The whole debacle has gone viral, forcing AFP to make a statement denying they had caved to government pressure. Rather, they cited internal editorial guidelines ‘not to transmit images that gratuitously ridicule people.’ However, politicians are not strangers to banning (or trying to ban!) images that makes them look a bit silly.
You’d think that Vladimir Putin, used to being in the public eye, captured in completely random and non-staged situations like this, wouldn’t mind being the inspiration for some fine art. That turned out not to be the case when a St Petersburg gallery exhibited a painting of Putin and PM Dmitry Medvedev – the former sporting a fetching pink negligee, the latter a black lace push-up bra. Russian police raised the gallery and removed the picture in question, as well as three others depicting Russian political leaders. The reason given was that the imagines ‘violate existing legislation’.
Back in 2009, artist Conor Casby painted two pictures of former Irish taoiseach Brian Cowen sitting on a toilet naked. He then hung them on the walls of the National Gallery and the Royal Hibernian Gallery in Dublin, and broadcaster RTE made a short piece about it. The outcome? RTE had to issue a formal apology and remove the item from its online archive. Meanwhile, the police launched a country wide manhunt for Casby. He had to hand over five more paintings to the police and faced potential charges of indecency, criminal damage and incitement to hatred. All for making a politician the butt of his joke.
In 2002, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was accused of censoring a play putting him and his compatriots in an unfavorable light. Renowned theatre director Luca Ronconi used caricature pictures of Berlusconi and two other ministers as props in his production of Greek comedy “The Frogs.” Ronconi said officials from ruling party Forza Italia tried to make him remove the pictures from stage. Berlusconi, on the other hand, stated that while the pictures ‘didn’t please him’: ‘The government, the whole government, doesn’t even know what censorship is.’
South African President Jacob Zuma caused quite a stir when he demanded that a painting of him be removed from Johannesburg’s Goodman Gallery. ‘The Spear’ was in the style of portraits of revolutionary leaders, but for small fact that his, um, spear, was hanging out. He also wanted City Press newspaper to remove a photo of it from their website. When both refused, Zuma’s party the ANC declared they would take the gallery to High Court and called for a boycott of City Press. Finally, a couple of ANC supporters were caught on tape defacing the painting. Taking the matter of The Spear into their own hands, some might say (sorry).
At least it seems the future leadership of the ANC is getting some training in dealing with awkward art-related stories of their own. Bloemfontein student Alta Bonnet (17) was told her painting depicting former ANC Youth leader Julius Malema ‘as a fat cat on a gravy train’ might not be exhibited at a city art show. The picture was deemed ‘too political’.
Kansas artist Dave Loewenstein last year had his picture of Governor Sam Brownback removed from a cafe in the state’s capital Topeka. The picture is a cartoon depiction of the governor, with the words ‘REJECT BROWNBACK’ printed on. Loewenstein said the picture was in protest at Brownback’s policies and not him personally. Greg Ready, the landlord of the building, said they had chosen to remove the painting because Brownback’s daughter worked at the cafe in question, adding ‘there was no political motivation for this action whatsoever.’