12 Aug 13 | Asia and Pacific, China, News and features, Politics and Society, Taiwan
Activists and civic groups march in Taipei in protest against the Want Want China Times Group’s planned acquisition of China Network Systems’s cable TV services in Sept 2012.
(Photo: Craig Ferguson / Demotix)
The connections between China and Taiwanese media owners has given rise to concerns, along with some evidence, that the industry is under growing pressure to curb reporting on topics detrimental to Chinese interests and cross-strait ties.
The capital, Taipei, erupted in protests when it became known that Tsai Eng-ming, a pro-Beijing businessman, attempted to wrest control of Taiwan’s largest newspaper, the Apple Daily, earlier this year. The attempt failed amid popular outrage. But conversations with several journalists suggest that Beijing continues to exert a quieter influence – involving self-censorship and lucrative business interests – in attempt to avoid further scrutiny.
This is perhaps most prominent at the China Times Group, a Taiwanese media conglomerate that Tsai purchased in 2008. Estimated to be worth up to US$10.6 billion, the snack manufacturer has since led its subsidiaries to become more China-friendly, accepting payment from Beijing in return for camouflaged advertising and one-sided reporting. His flagship daily, the China Times, has been fined multiple times by Taiwan’s media regulators for masquerading advertising as reporting.
“It happens far more frequently than most people realize,” said Lin Chao-yi, the former head of the Association of Taiwan Journalists, that uncovered one such example last year. After receiving a copy of a schedule detailing how a visit from a ranking Chinese official was to be covered, including pre-defined topics and article lengths, Lin then impersonated a China Times employee to ask the delegation how the paper was going to be compensated.
Caught on tape, the Chinese press officer replied that the payment would be wired to a China Times Group subsidiary in Beijing. But far from discouraging such deals from taking place again, Lin said that his report “just made them more careful.” Indeed, accepting Chinese money is not only lucrative business, but also allows the paper to stay on Beijing’s good graces – guaranteeing access from behind China’s Great Firewall – according to sources familiar with the relationship.
The China Times Group’s cosy relationship with Beijing has led some journalists working under its banner to become more aware of what might, and might not, be publishable. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one China Times reporter said that, there is an “unspoken understanding” of what articles or reports might contradict the paper’s political viewpoint, including, for example, pieces critical of either Beijing or Taiwan’s China-friendly president, Ma Ying-jeou.
“In these cases, we might choose to just drop the subject, instead of choosing to pursue it further,” the reporter said, in words reminiscent of the self-censorship taking place elsewhere in the Chinese-speaking region.
But far from taking place only at the China Times Group, self-censorship is also seen as a necessity by other media groups keen on maintaining access to the Chinese market. Much of this has to do with Taiwan’s highly profitable entertainment industry that feeds thousands of hours of programming each year into local Chinese television channels. Produced by the same media groups that also run cable news stations, coverage of some politically sensitive topics, such as the Dalai Lama or the Falungong movement, are toned down to avoid antagonizing Beijing.
“China uses its vast market as a bargaining chip,” said Cheryl Lai, the former editor-in-chief of the state run Central News Agency, adding that most of this takes place secretly and away from public scrutiny. “They know that most of these media companies are in it for the money. All they have to do is threaten to cut it off.”
The trend towards greater Chinese influence in the media is reflective of the realization that its political objectives of unifying Taiwan, which it claims to be a breakaway province, can be achieved cheaper and more effectively through propaganda, rather than force. Instead of “spilling blood on Taiwan,” an old rallying call for conquering the island by force if necessary, Beijing has deemed it easier to “spill money on Taiwan,” said Lai, who has been writing on China’s growing political sway on the island.
The same trend can be seen elsewhere where China holds political interests, such as Hong Kong, where a large number of publications are ostensibly under its influence. The South China Morning Post, for example, has reportedly been hit by allegations of self-censorship after the appointment of new Editor-in-Chief Wang Xiangwei, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress, a Chinese government body.
In Taiwan, even as most media interests are controlled by large corporations, some with extensive business ties to China, there is, however also a realization that hard-fought press freedoms must be protected. More than 100,000 protestors, including students and reporters, rallied in defence of the Apple Daily during the failed purchase in January this year, with some groups vowing to raise the equivalent funds if it meant protecting the paper’s journalistic integrity.
All this is reason why Beijing is likely to continue and incubate its media influence behind the scenes, at least for now.
12 Aug 13 | News and features
Writer and broadcaster Kenan Malik and art historian and educator Nada Shabout on one of the art world’s most contentious debates
Mark Boardman/www.mark-boardman.com
Dear Nada,
I regard free speech as a fundamental good, the fullest extension of which is necessary for democratic life and for the development of other liberties. Others view speech as a luxury rather than as a necessity, or at least as merely one right among others, and not a particularly important one. Speech from this perspective needs to be restrained not as an exception but as the norm.
The answer to whether religious and cultural sensibilities should ever limit free expression depends upon which of these ways we think of free speech. For those, like me, who look upon free speech as a fundamental good, no degree of cultural or religious discomfort can be reason for censorship. There is no free speech without the ability to offendreligious and cultural sensibilities.
For those for whom free speech is more a luxury than a necessity, censorship is a vital tool in maintaining social peace and order. Perhaps the key argument made in defence of the idea of censorship to protect cultural and religious sensibilities is that speech must necessarily be less free in a plural society. In such a society, so the argument runs, we need to police public discourse about different cultures and beliefs both to minimise friction and to protect the dignity of individuals, particularly from minority communities. As the sociologist Tariq Modood has put it, “if people are to occupy the same political space without conflict, they mutually have to limit the extent to which they subject each others’ fundamental beliefs to criticism”.
I take the opposite view. It is precisely because we do live in a plural society that we need the fullest extension possible of free speech. In such societies it is both inevitable and important that people offend the sensibilities of others. Inevitable, because where different beliefs are deeply held, clashes are unavoidable. And they should be openly resolved, rather than suppressed in the name of “respect” or “tolerance”.
But more than this: the giving of offence is not just inevitable, but also important. Any kind of social change or social progress means offending some deeply-held sensibilities. Or to put it another way: “You can’t say that!” is all too often the response of those in power to having their power challenged. The notion that it is wrong to offend cultural or religious sensibilities suggests that certain beliefs are so important that they should be put beyond the possibility of being insulted or caricatured or even questioned. The importance of the principle of free speech is precisely that it provides a permanent challenge to the idea that some questions are beyond contention, and hence acts as a permanent challenge to authority. The right to “subject each others’ fundamental beliefs to criticism” is the bedrock of an open, diverse society, and the basis of promoting justice and liberties in such societies. Once we give up such a right we constrain our ability to challenge those in power, and therefore to challenge injustice.
The question we should ask ourselves, therefore, is not “should religious and cultural sensibilities ever limit free expression?” It is, rather, “should we ever allow religious and cultural sensibilities to limit our ability to challenge power and authority?”
Best wishes,
Kenan
Mark Boardman/www.mark-boardman.com
Dear Kenan,
I too regard free speech as a fundamental good and as necessary. On the surface, thus, the simple and direct answer to the question of whether religious and cultural sensibilities should ever limit free expression should be an unequivocal NO! However, the reality is that the question itself is problematic. While free expression, and let’s think of art in this specific case, will always push the limits and “reveal the hidden”, consideration and sensitivity, including religious and cultural sensibility, should not be inherently in opposition. By positioning it as such, the answer can only be reactive. I thus disagree with your argument.
A quick note on “censorship”. Yes, we all hate the word and find it very offensive. It is a word loaded with oppression, but the reality is that censorship in some form exists in every facet of life, personal and public. It is not that one needs to restrict speech in a plural society but that this plurality needs to find a peaceful way of co-existing with respect and acceptance, as much as possible — not tolerance; I personally abhor the word tolerance and find that it generally masks hatred and disdain. No belief is above criticism and nothing should limit our ability to challenge power and authority.
I suppose one needs to decide first the point of this criticism/free expression. Does it have a specific message or reason, and how best to deliver it — or is it simply someone’s personal free expression in the absolute? And if it is someone’s right to free expression, then why is it privileged above someone else’s right — religious and cultural sensibility being someone’s right to expression as well?
For example, and I will use art again, there is a problem when art/the artist is privileged as “genius”, with rights above other citizens — except not really, since the artist is subject to other limitations that may not be religious or cultural, like those of the tradition of expression, funding, law and so on. This is not to say that a religion should dictate expression. We should remember, though, that the marvel of what we call Islamic art was achieved within full respect of Islamic religious sensibilities, but also pushed the limits and critiqued simplicity in interpreting these sensibilities.
Perhaps my view here is less idealistic and more practical, but I see many unnecessary attacks on all sides that do not accomplish anything other than insult and inflame. All I’m saying is that expression is always achieved through negotiations, including limitations.
All the best,
Nada
Dear Nada,
I’m afraid that I was no clearer at the end of your letter than I was at the beginning about your actual stance on free speech. You say you ‘regard free speech as a fundamental good’ and that the answer to “whether religious and cultural sensibilities should ever limit free expression should be an unequivocal NO!” You then, however, go on seemingly to qualify that unequivocal stance but without actually specifying what it is that you wish to qualify. Where should the line be drawn when it comes to the issue of what is and is not legitimate free speech? Who should draw that line? And on what basis? These are the critical questions that need answering. You write: “It is not that one needs to restrict speech in a plural society but that this plurality needs to find a peaceful way of co-existing with respect and acceptance”. It’s a wonderful sentiment, but what does it actually mean in practice? Should Salman Rushdie not have written The Satanic Verses so that he could find “a peaceful way of coexisting with respect and acceptance”? Was the Birmingham Rep right to drop Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s play Behzti after protests from Sikhs? Should Jerry Springer: The Opera ever have been staged (or broadcast)?
You suggest that “one needs to decide first the point of this criticism/free expression. Does it have a specific message or reason, and how best to deliver it — or is it simply someone’s personal free expression in the absolute?” Again, I am unclear as to the point you’re making here. Are you suggesting here that speech is only legitimate if it has “a specific message or reason”? If so,who decides whether it does? During the controversy over The Satanic Verses, the philosopher Shabbir Akhtar distinguished between “sound historical criticism” and “scurrilously imaginative writing”, and insisted that Rushdie’s novel fell on the wrong side of the line. Do you agree with him? If not, why not? You ask: “If it is someone’s right to free expression, then why is it privileged above someone else’s right — religious and cultural sensibility being someone’s right to expression as well?” This seems to me a meaningless question. A “sensibility” is not a “right”, still less a “right to expression”. If your point is that all people, whatever their religious or cultural beliefs, should have the right to express those beliefs, then I agree with you. That is the core of my argument. What they do not have is the “right” to prevent anybody expressing their views because those views might offend their “sensibilities”.
A final point: to defend the right of X to speak as he or she wishes is not the same as defending the wisdom of X using speech in a particular fashion, still less the same as defending the content of his or her speech. Take, for instance, The Innocence of Muslims, the risibly crude and bigoted anti-Muslim video that provoked so much controversy and violence last year. I would defend the right of such a film to be made. But I would also question the wisdom of making it, and would strongly challenge the sentiments expressed in it. There is a distinction to be drawn, in other words, between the right to something and the wisdom of exercising that right in particular ways. It is a distinction that critics of free speech too often fail to understand.
Best,
Kenan
Dear Kenan,
Nicely said! I believe we are ultimately saying the same thing. It is that “distinction” that you outline in your last paragraph that I call a negotiation between all sides, cultures, etc. My answer is not clear because the issue is not simple! I am saying that it is not a black and white binary divide nor can one “draw a line”. And yes, “who should draw that line? and on what basis?” is critical and essential. I believe that should be reached through negotiation. The “wisdom” of something to exist is as important as its right to exist. But there is also the question of responsibility. Free speech cannot be “inherently good” or bad. The person who utters that speech must claim responsibility for its use and effects. The examples you cite above are not all equal. Yes, they all have the right to exist. But let’s think a bit about the Danish cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed as another example. Were they not an attack aimed to inflame Muslim communities? Was it not part of Islamophobia?
Was the aim not to ridicule and play off people’s fears and prejudices? How were they a critique of Islam? What was the point? It is not that “it is morally unacceptable to cause offence to other cultures” as you once said, but the how and why are just as important as the right to cause that offence. I agree with you that the fear of consequences has become a limitation, but that isperhaps because free speech has been abused.
Perhaps I am looking at this from a different point of view. As an educator, I often face the situation, equally here in the US and in the Middle East, of how to argue a point that has become of specific cultural/religious/political sensitivity to my students. If I offend them here, they will stop listening; in the Middle East, I will not be allowed to continue. What would I gain by doing that? By negotiation I test the limits and push gently. At least in academia, I think we are at a point where we have to teach our students to not get offended by an opposing opinion and to be able to accept various opinions and to be able to accept criticism. I don’t think I can achieve that through shock alone!
Best, Nada
Dear Nada
You write that your “answer is not clear because the issue is not simple”. Perhaps. But surely, if the answer is not simple, that only places a greater imperative to make one’s answers as clear as possible?
You believe that we are “ultimately saying the same thing”. I am not so sure that we are. So, let us try to work out where we do agree and where we don’t.
There are two questions we are debating. The first is about the legal limits to free speech. My view is that the law should not in any way protect cultural or religious sensibilities. All speech should be legal except where it directly incites violence. I assume that is your position, though you have never actually stated it as such. Do we agree on that?
The second question is about how we can define speech that is legally acceptable but morally distasteful. You say that where we draw the moral line “should be reached through negotiation”. But negotiation with whom? And on what basis?
You raise a series of questions about the Danish cartoons, and imply that the cartoons were not legitimate speech but created merely to provoke, and hence should not have been published. You don’t, however, actually say that. So, to clarify, is that your view?
Exactly the same questions were, as I pointed out in an earlier letter, asked about The Satanic Verses, and many came to the same conclusions about Rushdie’s novel: that it was Islamophobic, designed to provoke and inflame Muslim communities, that it ridiculed Islam and played off people’s fears, and so on. The philosopher Shabbir Akhtar described it as an “inferior piece of hate literature”. The liberal Ziauddin Sardar wrote that reading the novel felt like being “raped”. The novelist Rana Kabani insisted that it played upon ancient Islamophobic stereotypes.
In the case of both The Satanic Verses and the Danish cartoons, the majority of Muslims, certainly initially, stayed indifferent to the issue. A vocal minority transformed both into global controversies. So, what does “negotiation” mean in this context? Muslim objection to The Satanic Verses was as deep and as broad as that to the Danish cartoons. Yet, you seem to think that it was right to publish the novel but not the cartoons. Why? And please don’t say “My answer can’t be clear because the issue is not simple”.
In any case, the questions that you raise — Is it Islamophobic? Is the aim merely to ridicule? etc — are different from the question that we are actually addressing: “Should religious or cultural sensibilities ever limit free speech?”. There is, in my view, a moral imperative on free speech advocates to challenge racist and other bigoted speech. I certainly do not that think that about speech that offends cultural or religious sensibilities. On the contrary, the moral imperative is often to transgress such boundaries. It is the conflation of racism and bigotry, on the one hand, and of cultural and religious sensibilities, on the other, that is the problem. Opponents of free speech often conflate these two issues in an attempt to establish a spurious legitimacy for their arguments against the giving of offence.
Best wishes,
Kenan
Kenan Malik is a writer and broadcaster. His latest book is From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and its Legacy (Atlantic Books)
Nada Shabout is associate professor of art education and art history at the University of North Texas and director of the Contemporary Arab and Muslim Cultural Studies Institute
12 Aug 13 | Digital Freedom, India, News and features
The New Delhi High Court has given Facebook and Google one month to submit suggestions on how minors can be protected online in India.
This move is in response to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by KN Govinacharya, a senior member of the right wing political party, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
The PIL seeks to protect citizens of India from cyber crimes, which according to the government, has cost the exchequer $4 billion last year. Some of the highlights include the PIL pointing out that despite guidelines given by the government for companies to follow the KYC normal (“know your customer”), social networking companies do not follow them. The PIL believes that Facebook is not verifying its users, and instead allowing minors to set up accounts because it uses them for marketing, advertising, and data mining purposes.
Under Indian law, children under 13 are incompetent to enter into any legal contract, yet it states that Facebook allows children to sign into its website unverified because it seeks to make revenue from them through online gaming – and this is a direct reference to a contract between Facebook and Zynga to provide gaming applications to kids that accounts for 12.5% of Facebook revenue. The PIL stipulates that through incessant data mining through the unauthorized use of emails, photographs, passwords, chats, and so on, Facebook is infringing on the right to privacy of the Indian subscriber.
The bench of the Delhi High Court took the PIL seriously in light of the allegation that minors are entering into social media networking sites and are then being lured into illegal activities, either knowingly or unknowingly. According to reports the court’s direction came after counsel for Facebook 
submitted that the site operated under the US law Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) as per which a child below 13 is not allowed to open an account. The Court expressed unhappiness that there is no mechanism that currently exists to verify the age of a child online, and that while children were protected in the US, what of the children in India.
Facebook filed a counter-affidavit to the PIL and argued that limiting social media can limit an individual’s freedom of speech and expression. Drawing on the UN Human Rights Council’s resolution that internet is a human right, Facebook has argued that the “internet is increasingly becoming a platform for citizens including minors to interact and voice their opinions and, therefore, a meaningful interpretation of the right to freedom of speech and expression would include the freedom to access social media.”
However, cyber lawyer Pavan Duggal points out that despite the freedom of expression argument, “the issue still remains that a minor doesn’t have the capacity to act under the Contract Act.” Others have pointed out that users enter into agreements with Facebook and social networking sites, not contracts. Further, law professor Saurav Datta feels that the PIL’s suggestion that all users be verified itself impinges on their privacy, and that it, “the goal of the PIL is wrong. We need to protect children, not keep people out.”
Moving ahead, it remains to be seen what social networking sites can suggest for protecting minors online. At the same time, it seems educating minors about the dangers of the internet is a good way forward as well. Facebook has joined the Internet and Mobile Association of India to bring an Internet Safety Education programme for children between the ages of 13-17. Even though this was not designed as a response to the PIL, it certainly seems a step in the right direction, regardless of the Court’s decision.
12 Aug 13 | In the News
#DONTSPYONME
Tell Europe’s leaders to stop mass surveillance #dontspyonme
Index on Censorship launches a petition calling on European Union Heads of Government to stop the US, UK and other governments from carrying out mass surveillance. We want to use public pressure to ensure Europe’s leaders put on the record their opposition to mass surveillance. They must place this issue firmly on the agenda for the next European Council Summit in October so action can be taken to stop this attack on the basic human right of free speech and privacy.
(Index on Censorship)
AUSTRALIA
Party profile: The Pirate Party
The Pirate Party of Australia will be fielding eight Senate candidates at the upcoming federal election.
(World News Australia)
BAHRAIN
Teacher ‘should have faced trial’
An American kindergarten teacher, who was deported for having links with radical opposition groups, should have been put on trial, according to political societies.
(Gulf Daily News)
CHINA
Popular China bloggers should ‘promote virtues’
Chinese Internet celebrities have been told to “promote virtues” by a leading official, state media said Sunday, after a singer sparked a free speech debate by venting about bombing government offices.
(Yahoo)
GLOBAL
The Pirate Bay Launches Censorship-Dodging Web Browser
Notorious torrent-sharing site The Pirate Bay is 10 years old today, and they got you a little something. They launched PirateBrowser, a custom Firefox browser that skirts Internet censorship and lets you access the Pirate Bay from anywhere. We should at least send them a card or something.
(Geekosystem)
INDIA
Stand up for freedom of expression: Anand Patwardhan
Acclaimed documentary filmmaker AnandPatwardhan believes civil society groups in Gujarat must unite to defend the right to free expression, especially of oppressed sections.
(Times of India)
Freedom of Expression: Indians are Becoming Increasingly Intolerant
Instead of nurturing the spirit of debate, we have become aggressive, bigoted and abusive
(Forbes India)
RUSSIA
Russia asked by IOC about gay propaganda law
Mr Rogge said in Moscow that Russian written reassurances over the Winter Olympics in Sochi needed clarification. “We don’t think it is a fundamental issue, more a translation issue.”
(Radio New Zealand)
SOUTH AFRICA
Fear of offending betrays hard-won rights
When President Jacob Zuma and the ANC calls on “intellectuals” not to be “antagonistic”, it raises several questions, says Judith February and Richard Calland.
(St Kitts News)
ST KITTS
Press Freedom and Freedom of Information Act
Press freedom and Freedom of Information Act are like two wings on which transparency, accountability and openness in government rises to the needs of democracy and good governance.
(St Kitts News)
SWITZERLAND
The power of pictures
Swiss photographer Christian Lutz began a reportage on the International Christian Fellowship (ICF) more than two years ago after gaining explicit approval from the founder of the community, its managers and event organisers. But more than 20 legal complaints stopped the publication of Lutz’s book, In Jesus’ Name.
(Swiss Broadcasting Corporation)
UNITED STATES
‘Boobies,’ the courts and free speech
The courts must protect the rights of students to express themselves on social and political issues.
(Los Angeles Times)
Political signs are free speech, not a blight on suburban lawns
While many consider political signs ugly and annoying, they are free speech at its purest. In case after case, courts have struck down efforts to limit this most basic form of political speech. In 1994, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in City of Ladue et al. v. Gilleo that curbs on political lawn signs were unconstitutional.
(Syracuse.com)
Previous Free Expression in the News posts
Aug 9 |Aug 7 | Aug 6 | Aug 5 | Aug 2 | Aug 1 | July 31 | July 30 | July 29 | July 26 | July 25 | July 24 | July 23 | July 22 | July 19 | July 18 | July 17
09 Aug 13 | Kenya, News and features, Religion and Culture
(Photo: Courtesy Boniface Mwangi)
Boniface Mwangi is an award winning Kenyan photographer and activist. During the 2007 post-election skirmishes he took thousands of photos. His coverage of those attacks entailed great danger as, more often than not, he had to falsify his ethnic identity. In 2009 he founded Picha Mtaani, the first-ever street exhibition in Kenya which was held in towns across the country, showcasing the post election violence photographs to a wider audience beyond Nairobi.
Mwangi has been recognized as a Magnum Photography Fellow, Acumen Fund East Africa Fellow, TED Fellow, and twice as the CNN Multichoice Africa Photojournalist of the Year, among other awards. He currently runs Pawa 254, a collaborative hub for creatives in Kenya. Mwangi recently received the Prince Claus Award 2012 and is now a senior TED fellow.
Mwangi was interviewed by Index on Censorship Head of Arts Julia Farrington at an arts event in Ethiopia in July.
Index: How would you describe Kenyan government’s position on freedom of expression?
Mwangi: Recently the president and deputy president had a media breakfast and invited all the top editors and bloggers, writers at the state house to a meeting. This is unheard of, it has never happened before. The new government is being advised by a British firm advising – it was actually the same firm that advised the US government on how to deal with insurgency in Afghanistan. They are a very smart PR company, they know how to package lies and make it look like the truth, they know how to package crap and sell it to the electorate. At the moment there is a communication bill that is going through parliament which goes against freedom of speech and when they met, the media said they want self-regulation, they don’t want to be regulated by the state.
But beyond this censorship in Kenya is by choice – it is because of the owner’s business interest; they don’t upset the system because they are going to lose business, lose money. The biggest advertisers in the country are the government and the bigger corporations. Editors know as long as they go on the path of truth, they won’t sell advertising space. They spend so much money on advertising – so it is more self-censorship than anything else.
Kenyan journalists are poorly paid. They are paid by story and the money is very little which makes them easy to be bribed, corruptible. If you work in the rural area you have no transport and to get around you rely on the local police to give you a ride or the local politician or drug lord and you get compromised in the process. I worked for five years I know how it works there is a lot of brown envelopes exchanging hands, depending on who is who. And sadly no-one talks about corruption in the media.
Index: You are saying media is compromised but it is essentially independent?
Mwangi: It is independent – there is very little government interference. It’s almost non-existent – they know the media is controlled by interest. Not a single journalist is in jail at the moment. In the previous government there were a lot of libel suits that were awarded to politicians, actually a ridiculous amount of money was involved, but that has stopped.
The other thing is the emergence of bloggers and citizen journalists who can write about anything, which is actually a good and a bad thing because they can write about rumours and attack people’s lives. But sometimes they can become an alternative channel for communication. I have seen a lot of stories that have not made it into the mainstream media, but if you go on line or if you buy the tabloids, it may be exaggerated but there may be some truth in it.
Index: How would you describe the Kenyan’s people’s appetite for freedom of expression?
Mwangi: Kenyan people do not want to fight for their freedoms, they want activists to do it for them, so it is only a minority who are fighting for these rights. There is this wait and see approach on these issues, and it hurts the whole country. Kenyans have all grown up with parents who told them, don’t protest you are going to get arrested, and that fear has been carried out to this generation. There is the lock in the mind of Kenyan people that says we can’t do this, it isn’t possible it is too scary, too daring and dangerous to do it. If you don’t overcome that fear it is going to be passed on to my kids and my kids’ kids so that is what we are trying to do, to give people courage. Our acts of courage are trying to get the people to protest and resist injustices with confidence that nothing bad will happen to them.
Index: You believe doing very extreme, provocative actions is the right way?
Mwangi: We are always going for the shock effect. The shock effect says that if they can do that then other people can do some smaller than that. It has an influence – if I can do it you can do it.
Index: You don’t think it alienates? People could say those guys are crazy?
Mwangi: I don’t think many people think we are crazy – maybe some upper class people and some politicians. But the people understand where we are coming from and they understand our anger and given the chance they would also do extreme things, but they are actually afraid.
Index: Do you think that part of what you need to do is to test the boundaries of the law especially in the context of the new constitution?
Mwangi: We need to do that for Kenyans because we have some over-zealous police officers who arrest and charging people using non-existent laws . So it is important that people understand their rights. And the police should be educated on the bill of rights so that they don’t infringe on Kenyan’s rights.
Index: Some say freedom is a luxury, let’s get people housed and educated first and then let’s turn our minds to freedom of expression. What do you think?
Mwangi: Education is a term that is used very loosely. Many Kenyans are very full of wisdom and they have never been to school. So when you are talking about education you are talking about western standards of how people get educated – more education in what they call the ‘good life’ that isn’t going to change anything.
Freedom is good – it gives human beings dignity, with freedom you can do what you want – it means you can challenge authority, you can give feedback to the government about how you feel. So if you look at a dictatorship most of them stagnate because there is only one thinker amongst a population of many people. That one thinker cannot be omnipresent then you find that there is a shortage of ideas and a want of thinking. So freedom of expression is key to life and to democracy. It has to be there at the start – it is like life.
Index: This space which you have created – is it for a planning space for activists? Or it’s a public space? Or it’s both.
Mwangi: It is a space for creatives where we people share plan events, protest, a place where people discuss. So it’s a place where you can come in any time and discuss, read a book, come in anytime and do a grafitti or just chill or read a book. It’s called PAWA 254. Creatives, activists, journalists and film-makers, guys and women who are like minded who have a real job or a real career but they want a place where they can come and meet like-minded people and discuss.
It is open every day, we plan for it to be open 24 hours per day. And the debate nights are every Tuesday and other days we have different activities where we train activists, photographers, animators or cartoonists – different trainings going on at any given time.
Index: The authorities know you are there. Do they let you get on with it?
Mwangi: The thing is we have a very progressive constitution if you come to my property they need to have a search warrant or a warrant for my arrest. They can’t just come and ask questions. They have to read me my rights. That is actually something that doesn’t happen in this continent but Kenya has a very progressive constitution, which if everything was working could make it a beacon of democracy and human rights.
09 Aug 13 | In the News
#DONTSPYONME
Tell Europe’s leaders to stop mass surveillance #dontspyonme
Index on Censorship launches a petition calling on European Union Heads of Government to stop the US, UK and other governments from carrying out mass surveillance. We want to use public pressure to ensure Europe’s leaders put on the record their opposition to mass surveillance. They must place this issue firmly on the agenda for the next European Council Summit in October so action can be taken to stop this attack on the basic human right of free speech and privacy.
(Index on Censorship)
CHINA
Fault Lines Laid Bare in Hong Kong
To her supporters, Alpais Lam Wai-sze, an award-winning primary schoolteacher who shouted obscenities at the Hong Kong police last month over their handling of a street dispute between a pro-Chinese Communist Party group and an anti-Communist group, is a free-speech heroine.
(The New York Times)
GAZA
Gazans Use Satire to Bypass
Political Censorship
Cynical television presenters such as Egyptian Bassem Youssef may soon no longer appear on Palestinian television outlets as a result of the increased censorship imposed on local media. Yet, this same censorship has stood helpless with the spread of sarcastic literature and media published on social networking sites.
(Al Monitor)
MEXICO
Mexico: self-censorship for survival
Journalists in Mexico are increasingly publishing their articles anonymously. Attaching your name to a report, an article or a picture is an obligation and a right. But doing so in Mexico can cost journalists their jobs or their lives. The biggest danger facing reporters there is not being hit by a stray bullet. No, the main peril is being murdered in order to silence and censor the media.
(Radio Netherlands)
PAKISTAN
Pakistani artists challenging YouTube ban
YouTube is a source of entertainment and news for billions around the world, but Pakistanis have lost access to the video site for almost a year after clips of the controversial film “Innocence of Muslims” prompted a government ban.
(CNN)
SINGAPORE
Singapore: End ‘Scandalizing the Judiciary’ Prosecutions
Singapore’s Attorney General’s Chambers should cease using contempt of court charges to muzzle critics of the judiciary.
(HRW)
TURKEY
Singapore: End ‘Scandalizing the Judiciary’ Prosecutions
Singapore’s Attorney General’s Chambers should cease using contempt of court charges to muzzle critics of the judiciary.
(HRW)
UNITED STATES
The more nefarious US foreign policy, the more it relies on media complicity
Americans are shielded from the ugly consequences of US military power by our journalists’ self-censorship
(The Guardian)
National Park Service’s First Amendment Violations Covered Up by Hometown Paper
During the Saint Augustine Tea Party’s month-long saga of standing up for Free Speech, the Right of Assembly and the American way, the local print newspaper, The St Augustine Record, remained elusive and nowhere to be found.
(Examiner.com)
States take aim at sex-ad websites, but run into resistance
A two-word change proposed to one of the nation’s first online laws has triggered a battle between law enforcement and Internet libertarians.
(The Free Press)
Previous Free Expression in the News posts
Aug 7 | Aug 6 | Aug 5 | Aug 2 | Aug 1 | July 31 | July 30 | July 29 | July 26 | July 25 | July 24 | July 23 | July 22 | July 19 | July 18 | July 17
08 Aug 13 | France, News and features, Politics and Society
Irène Frachon is a French pneumologist who discovered that an antidiabetic drug frequently prescribed for weight loss called Mediator was causing severe heart damage.
The French term “lanceur d’alerte” [literally: “alarm raiser”], which translates as “whistleblower”, was coined by two French sociologists in the 90’s and popularised by scientific André Cicolella, a whistleblower who was fired in 1994 from l’Institut national de recherche et de sécurité [the National institute for research and security] for having blown the whistle on the dangers of glycol ethers.
While the history of whistleblowing in the United States is closely associated with the case of Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times in 1971, exposing US government lies and helping to end the Vietnam war, whistleblowing in France was first associated with cases of scientists who raised the alarm over a health or an environmental risk.
In England, the awareness that whistleblowers needed protection grew in the early 1990s, after a series of accidents (among which the shipwreck of the MS Herald of Free Enterprise ferry, in 1987, which caused 193 deaths) when it appeared that the tragedies could have been prevented if employees had been able to voice their concerns without fear of losing their job. The Public Interest Disclosure Act, passed in 1998, is one of the most complete legal frameworks protecting whistleblowers. It still is a reference.
France had no shortage of national health scandals in the 1990s, from the case of HIV-contaminated blood to the case of growth hormone. But no legislation followed. For a long time, whistleblowers were at the center of a confusion: their action was seen as reminiscent of the institutionalised denunciations that took place under the Vichy regime when France was under Nazi occupation. In fact, no later than this year, some conservative MPs managed to defeat an amendment on whistleblowers’ protection by raising the spectre of Vichy.
For Marie Meyer, Expert of Ethical Alerts at Transparency International, an anti-corruption NGO, this confusion makes little sense: “Whistleblowing is heroic, snitching cowardly”, she says.
“In France, the turning point was definitely the Mediator case, and Irène Frachon,” Meyer adds, referring to the case of a French pneumologist who discovered that an antidiabetic drug frequently prescribed for weight loss called Mediator was causing severe heart damage. In 2010, Frachon published a book – Mediator, 150mg, Combien de morts ? [“Mediator, 150mg, How Many Deaths?”] – where she recounted her long fight for the drug to be banned. Servier, the pharmaceutical company which produced the drug, managed to censor the title of the book and get it removed from the shelves two days after publication, before the judgement was overturned. Frachon has been essential in uncovering a scandal which is believed to have caused between 500 and 2000 deaths. With scientist André Cicolella, she has become one of the better-known French whistleblowers.
“What is striking is that people knew, whether in the case of PIP breast implants or of Mediator”, says Meyer. “You had doctors who knew, employees who remained silent, because they were scared of losing their job.”
This year, the efforts of various NGOs led by ex whistleblowers were finally met with results. Last January, France adopted a law (first proposed to the Senate by the Green Party) protecting whistleblowers for matters pertaining to health and environmental issues. The Cahuzac scandal, which fully broke in February and March, prompting the minister of budget to resign over Mediapart’s allegations that he had a secret offshore account, was instrumental in raising awareness and created the political will to protect whistleblowers.
For Meyer, France’s failure to protect whistleblowers employed in the public service has had direct consequences on the level of corruption in the country.
“Even if a public servant came to know that something was wrong with the financial accounts of a Minister, be it Cahuzac or someone else, how could he have had the courage to say it, and risk for his career and his life to be broken?” she says.
In June, as France discovered Edward Snowden’s revelations in the press over mass surveillance programs used by the National Security Agency, it started rediscovering its own whistleblowers: André Cicolella, Irène Frachon or Philippe Pichon, who was dismissed as a police commander in 2011 after his denunciations on the way police files were updated. Banker Pierre Condamin-Gerbier, a key witness in the Cahuzac case, was recently added to the list, when he was imprisoned in Switzerland on the 5th of July, two days after having been heard by the French Parliamentary Commission on the tax evasion case.
Three new laws protecting whistleblowers’ rights should be passed in the autumn. France will still be missing an independent body carrying out investigations into claims brought up by whistleblowerss, and an organisation to support them, like British charity Public Concern at Work does in the UK.
So far, French law doesn’t plan any particular protection to individuals who blow the whistle in the press, failing to recognise that, for a whistleblower, communicating with the press can be the best way to make a concern public – guaranteeing that the message won’t be forgotten, while possibly seeking to limit the reprisal against the messenger.
08 Aug 13 | Czech Republic, Digital Freedom, News and features, Politics and Society
When the Guardian published the news about the Prism case, it soon became clear that the Czech Republic was also one of the countries monitored by the NSA. In a country in the midst of political turmoil, the news of mass surveillance generated little interest from the media or the public.
“Friends should not be spied on,” commented Angela Merkel on the discovery that US intelligence spied on European citizens and authorities by exploiting their private data gained from internet companies, including Google. But no such clear comments have been made by the majority of Czech politicians.
Both the Czech president Miloš Zeman and prime minister Jiří Rusnok have remained quiet about the revelations. Only one member of the largest party in parliament, the Social Democrats, criticised both the surveillance itself and the fact that Edward Snowden broke his confidentiality agreement with the NSA. “It is an unprecedented insult to the mutual trust with the EU,” wrote the Social Democrat Libor Rouček, who is vice president of the European Parliament, on his official blog. “The USA should put maximum effort both into arresting Snowden as well as explaining why they spied on their European allies,” Rouček wrote. The second largest party, the Civic Democratic Party, has made no official statement on the issue.
The Communist Party (currently holding 11% seats in parliament) did not comment either, but their sister organisation, the Communist Youth Union, has published numerous articles on their website, calling the spying “a brutal attack on freedom“, and praising Snowden as a hero. The party that has offered Snowden the most support is the non-parliamentary Czech Pirate Party (holding 2. 2% support in the opinion polls). The Pirates asked the interior minister to grant Snowden asylum, but they did not receive an answer before the government’s summer recess, which began in early July.
Surveillance: no longer big news?
Just a few hours after the Guardian and the Washington Post broke the news on Prism in June 2013, the Czech media reported on it . But most of the coverage has been neutral and very few comment pieces have been published regarding the issue. In the commentaries that have been published, Snowden has been portrayed as an ambivalent character. He has been criticised for breaking his contract with his employer, but also praised for his courage to speak out about what has been suspected for a long time. Most commentators have stressed that the idea that information has been obtained through spying on big companies such as Google is not a new thing.
“It has been known for a long time that the NSA has been building big IT centres with super fast computers,” writes Jiri Sobota, a leading commentator for the weekly Respekt. “On the other hand, we are all involved in the same thing on a daily basis,” freely allowing Google to do basically the same thing: analyse our data “in order to ‘understand’ us better”.
It is hard to sum up the public reaction as there has been no Czech opinion poll on the Prism case, but a brief look at social media shows interest is on the wane. The revelations have been discussed more on social media than in regular media outlets. On Facebook, which is used by every third Czech, it was a heavily debated topic in the first half of June, but then the interest soon declined. Twitter, used by about one Czech in a 100, has seen more consistent coverage of the news. There have been about 3,500 tweets on Snowden since the Prism case started. For comparison, the hottest current issue discussed in the country – the love affair of the former prime minister Petr Necas with the head of the government´s office Jana Nagyova, who spied on Necas’s wife with the help of the state security and helped scuttle the Necas government — was tweeted about 4, 000 times in the same time period.
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Worry-free Czechs
In general, the Snowden case has created little interest in the Czech Republic. That may be surprising due to the 2012 Eurobarometer survey. While, according to the survey, 25 % of Europeans said they were worried about spying on the internet, the number was much higher among Czechs: 37%. However, though they may be worried, Czechs do not have a very strong tradition of public protest and they have never protested against mass surveillance.
When Germans protested heavily against the Google Street View recording in 2011, Czechs remained without one critical word towards the very same activity in their country. The public also remain relatively mute to the government’s draft legislation that would enable the state institutions to monitor the cell phones of every citizen in the country.
One of the explanations of the lack of interests in the Prism case is also the fact that it came in the middle of the biggest political turmoil the country has witnessed since the fall of the Iron Curtain, so the focus has generally been more on domestic politics. Also, Czechs — unlike Germans, British or other nationalities — have not yet witnessed a major scandal related to mass surveillance yet, so the public fear of such activities might be lower.
Historically, the general perception of the US has been very positive in the Czech Republic, which is why some commentators are saying that had another country been caught spying the reaction would have been stronger.
07 Aug 13 | Egypt, News and features, Politics and Society, Religion and Culture, Turkey, Turkey Statements
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Photo: Philip Janek / Demotix)
While Turkey this week jailed its former Chief of Staff, General Ilker Basbug, in Egypt, General Sisi’s popularity is still riding high following the army’s ousting of President Morsi.
Yet the mass prosecutions and heavy sentencing under the so-called Ergenekon case in Turkey do not simply show a welcome assertion of civilian over military power. Nor does the military’s role in Egypt constitute what US secretary of state John Kerry rather remarkably referred to a week ago as “restoring democracy” – contradicted this week by John McCain for the first time calling the coup a coup.
Both Turkey and Egypt have failed so far to find a way to reconcile democracy, Islam, and the role of the military. And while a big segment of the Egyptian population is now rashly putting its faith in its army to lead it to a fully functioning pluralist democracy, Turkey’s recent past shows precisely why that might result in modernisation but not democracy.
Yet the recent protests in both countries also show that majoritarian democracy, without respect for the rule of law, human rights, and media freedom, will not lead to a fair, open and stable democratic system either. Where Turkey was once seen as the poster boy for democracy in a Muslim majority country, that picture is now truly tarnished. But the route via military power will never make a good alternative model.
The Military and Kemalism
Turkey for decades followed a path – led by its military and various Kemalist and secularist supporters – of modernisation and westernisation, a sort of quasi-democracy with the military there as a ‘guard rail’ against Islamists and other ‘enemies’ of the state. This army-protected approach did little to propel democracy though it led to some substantial economic and social modernisation especially in the west of Turkey (though its neglect of the smaller businesses of central Anatolia was one part of Erdogan’s remarkable success when he swept to power in 2002).
But, without proper political accountability or a genuinely independent judiciary and free media, corruption and the ‘deep state’ grew and prospered in Turkey tying together a range of unlikely bedfellows, while labelling as dangerous enemies a range of people from Islamists to Kurds, leftists and Alevis with civil society, academics and independent journalists seen as at best deeply suspicious too.
Turkey’s last military coup was in 1980 but the so-called ‘soft coup’ of 1997 pushed the Justice and Development Party (AKP)’s predecessor out of power. Frustrated and oppressed by military-backed politics, when Erdogan’s Islamist-leaning AKP came into power in 2002, many liberals welcomed it as heralding and introducing major steps forward in starting to create a genuinely pluralist democracy, one that would respect minorities, seriously tackle Turkey’s appalling record of torture, and open up the prospect of finally replacing the 1982 military-imposed constitution.
The nationalist-secularist deep state was less impressed fearing underlying Islamist intentions. But attempts at an ‘e-coup’ in 2007 (through military expressed disapproval of the Erdogan government) to the attempted banning of the AKP in the ‘judicial coup’ of the following year failed. And so over his eleven years in power, Erdogan has asserted increasing civilian control over the military.
But the over-reach in the Ergenekon trials, with a wide range of observers criticising the politicisation of the prosecution, lack of due process, and the severity of the sentencing, some labelling it a witch hunt, suggest a process more of political revenge or what commentator Cengiz Candar labels “civilian authoritarianism” rather than a democratic breakthrough. With only 21 acquitted from 275 defendants, in a very wide set of charges around terrorism and coup plots, the Ergenekon sentences mark a moment of deepening political division in Turkey. The draconian nature of the sentences against several journalists and writers have been severely criticised by Dunja Mijatovic, the OSCE’s freedom of the media representative and condemned by the Association of European Journalists.
As this more authoritarian Turkish democracy has developed over the last five years, Turkey’s media has become ever less independent, ever more crushed or complicit – with more journalists in jail than in China and Iran, and sacking of columnists and editors rife even before the surge in dismissals that followed the recent Gezi Park protests and the Ergenekon imprisonments.
Nor has Erdogan stopped at media pressure and control. Turkey has a weak record on internet freedom too. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in May this year that Turkey’s blanket blocking of sites violated freedom of expression – a ruling that will doubtless not have impressed Erdogan and his ministers who were so outraged by free speech on Twitter and other social media during the recent protests.
But it would be hard to argue that Turkey would be better off today if it reverted to its old, failed ways of military coups and a corrupt, elitist deep state. Turkey needs a truly independent, impartial and honest judiciary, a free, strong media to hold politicians to account, a free and open internet. And it also needs healthy dynamic opposition parties too. Yet the recent mass protests showed only too clearly that the stumbling Republican People’s Party (CHP) has still failed to find a convincing modern democratic voice, even as Erdogan has shifted from progressive to more authoritarian ways. The masses of protesters – looking for a more genuine, pluralist democracy – still lack serious political parties to work through.
It is a vicious circle – as the lack of dynamic opposition parties interacts with the ever crumbling, no longer independent media, government over-reach and the failure to introduce a modern constitution respecting human rights, free speech, and an independent judiciary.
Any Lessons for Egypt?
It is this sort of majoritarianism democracy, but worse, that Egypt has now supplanted with its own protest-backed military coup. Morsi’s government had lurched into an authoritarianism that went a long way beyond where Erdogan has taken Turkey. Where Erdogan failed to introduce a new constitution, Morsi rammed one through that undermined any hopes of establishing a genuine pluralist democracy with full respect for human rights for all.
But the omens for Egypt’s coup as a pro-democracy move are not good. The military have moved rapidly to restore in full public sight various secret police groups. Muslim Brotherhood politicians, including Morsi, are in jail, protesters have been shot and killed – often in the head or chest in what many have called a massacre. And media are being watched, with those sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood closed down or censored. This week 75 judges were questioned about their political sympathies for the Brotherhood – a step the Turkish deep state would have only applauded and concurred with. The so-called Third Square movement, attempting to create support for a new democratic path that supports neither military nor Morsi, is so far small compared to the other two camps.
The US, EU and Arab diplomats are now stepping in urgently – attempting to stop a lurch into indefinite and widespread violence, and to stop further killings as the Egyptian authorities threaten to close down the two Brotherhood protest camps in Cairo. But today disturbingly the interim presidency said these efforts have failed – more violence may well loom.
The same challenge
In the end both Turkey and Egypt face the same challenge: how to get to a fully functioning democracy, with rights for all not just the majority. It cannot be done through military coups, violence and military-backed modernisation. It cannot be done through street protests alone. And where Erdogan’s AKP in 2002 showed a possible way ahead, that model now lies in tatters as Erdogan has shed his progressive mantle.
Yet the tools and the vital steps are not a mystery; they include a free and independent media, full respect for human rights, an independent judiciary, and a vibrant set of political parties. The political challenge is how to create and defend those tools; that is the big task for progressive civil society and for genuinely democratic politicians in both countries – and for their supporters in other countries.
07 Aug 13 | Africa, Digital Freedom, Index Reports, News and features, Politics and Society, Religion and Culture, South Africa
(Photo illustration: Shutterstock)
Though the shackles of apartheid and the public role of Nelson Mandela have faded, South Africa is confronting questions about government surveillance in the digital era, media regulation and artistic censorship.
Apartheid in South Africa (1948-1994) was partially kept in place with restrictions on the flow of information. The state attempted to draw a veil of secrecy over the intensification of repression through detention without trial, house arrests and the torture and killing of opponents from the 1960s onwards. Music and literature were among the modes of anti-apartheid resistance from the 1960s onwards. Literature and music supportive of political opposition or that was deemed sexually permissive was banned. Some journalists, authors and musicians left the country to escape prosecution while many who stayed were persecuted. Television was only allowed in the country in the mid-1970s and only when the then ruling National Party was convinced it could control the medium.
The transition to democracy in the 1990s under Mandela marked a radical departure, with openness and transparency declared primary aims. Clause 16 of the Bill of Rights in the South African Constitution of 1996 guarantees that “everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes freedom of the press and other media; freedom to receive or impart information or ideas; freedom of artistic creativity; and academic freedom and freedom of scientific research.” However, this right is not absolute. The same clause warns that it “does not extend to propaganda for war, incitement of imminent violence; or advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm.” Clause 14 (d) of the Bill of Rights safeguards the right to privacy, including the right not to have the privacy of communications infringed.
South Africa’s adoption of the right to freedom of expression in its Constitution is reflected in a lively national debate as democracy takes root. However, as pundits claim the space to hold to account the government and, less frequently, business, the past five years have seen worrying moves against free expression. These range from verbal threats to legislative measures to the irregular arrest of a journalist. Protesters have also targeted journalists at community-level demonstrations about socio-economic rights.
Media Freedom
Four large corporations dominate South Africa’s print media sector, which limits diversity in opinion. While the sector has been battling plunging circulation figures, as elsewhere in the world, it has still managed to invest in investigative journalism, which remains vibrant. Art and related types of journalism have however suffered from a lack of resources. The media stand at the centre of vehement political debates in the country, with newspaper leaks common in the infighting between factions of the ruling African National Congress (ANC). The combination of political and investigative exposures has led to ANC threats of appointing a “media tribunal” to replace the system of self-regulation. In response, the media funded a public consultation process, and a new system has been instituted which remains self-regulatory but includes more mechanisms to allow greater accountability of the press to the public. However, the ANC has decided that the country’s parliament should still investigate the creation of a media tribunal “that is empowered to impose sanctions without the loss of any constitutional rights”.
The Protection of State Information Bill was adopted by parliament this year, despite concerted resistance from a wide range of organisations and individuals. The bill, driven by state security agencies, is expected to undermine access to state information and inhibit investigative journalism. Revisions did not address its draconian penalties of up to 25 years or the overly narrow scope of its belatedly included public interest clause. In a significant improvement, however, the bill no longer overrides the Protection of Access to Information Act or the Protected Disclosures Act, both passed in 2000.
Recent changes in print media ownership have seen the Independent Newspapers (former Argus) group returned by the Irish company Independent News and Media (INM) to South African control. While INM is generally regarded as having “harvested” the Independent Newspapers and thereby stunting its growth in South Africa, the acquisition by Sekunjalo has raised concerns about political control as business allies of the ruling party are involved in the deal.
Most South Africans remain dependent on television and especially radio for information. The state-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) remains the dominant TV and radio outlet with its programming in all 11 languages. However, the SABC has been riddled with management battles and repeated allegations of political interference, which included the blacklisting of commentators critical of the government.
Digital Freedom
After a good start in the 1990s when Internet use was commercialised in South Africa, tardy and expensive broadband has slowed connectivity. Recent research suggests that 39 percent of adults, or 14 million people, access the Internet at least once a week. Another study found that a relatively high percentage of South Africans use mobile phone services (66 percent). According to the 2011 government census, half of those who use the Internet use their mobiles to do so, as only about 23 percent of households have a computer at home. Internet service providers believe this number would be higher if mobile broadband prices were more competitive. While mobile broadband is more affordable and faster than fixed-line services, prepaid mobile customers pay more than contract customers, which means poorer people have less access.
Regarding government measures, the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act of 2002 (RICA) requires service providers to record and keep customer information, which can be requested by government agencies. The act disallows interception of communication, subject to judicial approval. Similarly, a judge has to grant permission before government agencies can access mobile phone records.
The Right2Know (R2K) civil society campaign in 2012 mobilised against the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill, which would have empowered state-security operatives to monitor e-mails and social media communication without permission from a judge. While this expansion of powers was avoided, R2K pointed out that the final version of the bill still did not provide clarity regarding the monitoring of electronic communication passing through a foreign server. The Mail and Guardian newspaper has reported on the illegal bugging of private citizens’ communication. Security agencies’ illegal monitoring of communications has become a weapon between factions in the ruling party. In the most notorious case, the ascendancy of the current president, Jacob Zuma, to the highest office was clinched with the withdrawal of corruption charges against him on the basis of “spy tapes”. These recordings, seemingly illegally made, allegedly showed a political plot against Zuma that involved the National Prosecuting Authority. Interceptions by the police’s crime intelligence divisions rose sharply between 2009 and 2010, including illegal bugging that led to the recent resignation of the head of the South African Revenue Services for attempting to recruit someone in return for sexual favours. Meanwhile, the implications are unclear of the National Cyber Security Policy that the ANC wants the government to adopt by 2014 to prevent the distribution of “harmful and anti-social” content.
Artistic Freedom
Artists have enjoyed unprecedented freedom to be creative in South Africa since the transition to democracy. However, political tensions have risen about art seen as ridiculing Zuma. In 2012, Brett Murray’s painting called “The Spear” was exhibited at a Johannesburg art gallery, depicting Zuma in a well-known pose of Communist leader Vladimir Lenin but with his genitals exposed. ANC leaders pressurised the gallery by leading a march of ANC supporters to its doors. Two men defaced the painting while on display.
An amendment in 2009 to the Film and Publications Act of 1996 that every unregistered print and online publication that contains sexual content be submitted for classification by the Film and Publications Board has since been declared unconstitutional by the High Court. The Constitutional Court still has to confirm the High Court’s decision. The board has been skittish about films depicting teenagers in sexual situations, whether consensual or forced. In 2008 it banned the Argentinian film “XXY” and this year it banned the South African film “Of Good Report” on the basis of being “child pornography”. Both bans have since been overturned.
This article was originally published on 7 Aug, 2013 at indexoncensorship.org. Index on Censorship: The voice of free expression
07 Aug 13 | In the News
#DONTSPYONME
Tell Europe’s leaders to stop mass surveillance #dontspyonme
Index on Censorship launches a petition calling on European Union Heads of Government to stop the US, UK and other governments from carrying out mass surveillance. We want to use public pressure to ensure Europe’s leaders put on the record their opposition to mass surveillance. They must place this issue firmly on the agenda for the next European Council Summit in October so action can be taken to stop this attack on the basic human right of free speech and privacy.
(Index on Censorship)
GLOBAL
Google revamps search to feature in-depth articles
Want to know more about censorship, love, or legos? The Web giant reworks its search feature to display more comprehensive articles, papers, and blog posts alongside its quick answer listings.
(CNET)
Bitcoin is crucial for the future of free speech, say experts
When US servicemen Bradley Manning was found guilty on 20 counts in connection with leaking classified military information, experts mused that bitcoin was instrumental in the continuing operation of WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing website that he helped.
(Coin Desk)
From the U.K. to Vietnam, Internet censorship on the rise globally
In the U.K., a proposed filter would automatically block pornography and, according to Internet rights groups, other unwanted content. In Jordan, newsWeb sites can’t operate without a special license from the government.
(Washington Post)
RUSSIA
Welcome to my world: An open letter to Edward Snowden
Roman Dobrokhotov has some words of wisdom for Russia’s newest resident, Edward Snowden. Translated by John Crowfoot.
(Index on Censorship)
Russia opens probe into flag desecration by US band
Russia’s interior ministry on Monday launched a criminal probe into flag desecration after a US rock musician stuffed a Russian flag down his trousers at a concert.
(Dawn)
SOUTH AFRICA
Free speech for all, save the chief justice?
CHIEF Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng may face an impeachment hearing before the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) for comments he made last month at the annual general meeting of Advocates for Transformation.
(Business Day Live)
TANZANIA
Report: Anti-media attacks in Tanzania on rise, repressive laws sowing fear, self-censorship
A media watchdog says that a rise in anti-press attacks and repressive laws is sowing fear and self-censorship among journalists in Tanzania.
(Washington Post)
TURKEY
Former head of Turkish army is one of 17 jailed for life over ‘Deep State’ coup plot
Ringleaders of ‘deep state’ plot are sentenced as epic trial concludes with 300 verdicts
(The Independent)
UNITED KINGDOM
Guardian rejects press watchdog as ‘own goal’ threatening independence
New regulator will lack support of press intrusion victims and allow dominance by biggest papers, says CEO Andrew Miller
(The Guardian)
Dear Mr. Cameron: U.K.’s Love for Porn and Censorship Don’t Mix
There’s an insatiable demand for Internet porn in the U.K. Whether it be straight, gay, tranny or BDSM, modern Brits have put their arms around the idea of devouring sexually explicit material in the privacy of their own homes.
(XBIZ)
UNITED STATES
Bringing global human rights into the surveillance debate
Guest Post: Surveillance is no longer the Cold War mentality of “us” and “them”
(Index on Censorship)
The Judd Apatow Test of Free Speech
The issue was whether a school district in Pennsylvania violated the rights of two middle-school girls who were suspended for wearing “I ♥ boobies!” bracelets.
(Wall Street Journal)
‘Virgin Mary Should’ve Aborted’: Facebook Page Is Not Anti-Christian Hate Speech, Says Social Network
Another rabble-rousing community page is testing the limits of Facebook’s policies regarding offensive content, only this time it’s the devoutly religious who say they are the target of hate speech.
(International Business Times)
‘CENSORSHIP’: ANTI-ABORTION ACTIVISTS PREPARE TO BATTLE THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA
Pro-life groups have had enough of what they call a “media blackout” when it comes to the abortion issue. So, they’re coming together to hold a “March on the Media” this Thursday. The protest rally is being organized by Lila Rose, president of Live Action, an anti-abortion group. The event’s targets are mainstream media outlets that some critics, including Rose, believe have been too silent about issues pertaining to life and the protection of the unborn.
(The Blaze)
Sen. Rockefeller Continues His Quest To Regulate Free Speech With His ‘Violent Content Research Act’
Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s pet project — fighting violent media — just got a shot in the arm from the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee (because those three seem like perfect complements…), which “advanced” his legislation directing the National Academy of Sciences to study the effects of violent media on children.
(Tech Dirt)
It’s Dangerous For Free Speech When We Confuse Leakers With Spies
We’ve tried to make similar points a few times in the past about our concern with the Obama administration going after whistleblowers and the journalists who publish their leaks by using the Espionage Act more than all other Presidents in history, combined (more than twice as much, actually).
(Tech Dirt)
VIETNAM
US Concerned About Vietnam Censorship Law
The United States is criticizing a new decree in Vietnam that would outlaw sharing news stories online.
(VOA)
Previous Free Expression in the News posts
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06 Aug 13 | Digital Freedom, France, Germany, Guest Post, News and features, Politics and Society, Russia, United Kingdom, United States
(Photo illustration: Shutterstock)
Around the world, there is confusion and alarm over the impact of the U.S. National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance program on human rights. In the U.S., the debate is focusing on the gross violations of privacy rights of Americans. Barely a word is being spoken about the human rights of people outside the country whose personal communications are being targeted, and whose communications content is collected, stored, analyzed and used with little legal protection.
A growing group of international civil society groups and individuals wants that to change and is coming together to present the newly empowered U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Board (PCLOB) with a joint letter, asking the Board to make “recommendations and findings designed to protect the human rights not only of U.S. persons, but also of non-U.S. persons.” Before PCLOB’s mid-September deadline for public comments, I encourage global civil society to add their name to this powerful statement.
As the letter makes clear, there is great concern from the global community that the recently revealed surveillance program conducted under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) poses a severe threat to human rights. It rightly notes that the surveillance “ strikes at the heart of global digital communications and severely threatens human rights in the digital age.” “The use of unnecessary, disproportionate, and unaccountable extra-territorial surveillance not only violates rights to privacy and human dignity, but also threatens the fundamental rights to freedom of thought, opinion and expression, and association that are at the center of any democratic practice. Such surveillance must be scrutinized through ample, deep, and transparent debate. Interference with the human rights of citizens by any government, their own or foreign, is unacceptable.”
Why then is all the attention in the U.S. focused on just the rights of Americans? The U.S. draws its obligations to protect rights in conducting surveillance from the U.S. Constitution, specifically the Fourth Amendment, which protects “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The “people” generally means all people located within the United States regardless of citizenship, and then only when they have a “ reasonable expectation of privacy.”
Except in the most extraordinary circumstances, and for U.S. citizens and lawful residents when they are travelling abroad, people outside the U.S. have no privacy protections under the Fourth Amendment. This is a feature in the U.S. Constitution and it animates every part of U.S. surveillance law and practice. That is why Section 702 of FISA requires targeting and minimization guidelines that are aimed (albeit inadequately) at ensuring that the communications being targeted are those of people reasonably believed to be outside the U.S. It’s also why they provide some level of protection for ordinary Americans whose communications are ensnared in foreign intelligence activities and take no notice of the rights of ordinary people all over the world whose personal communications now reside in NSA databases.
It may be hard to fathom now, but Congress created the FISA Court to rein in surveillance after revelations about illegal political spying on Americans surfaced in the 1970’s. The Court had a narrow charge: to ensure that electronic surveillance conducted in the United States for intelligence purposes is conducted pursuant to a warrant. The warrant protection did not apply to surveillance conducted outside the U.S., so it did not protect the rights of foreigners outside the U.S. However, in those days, communications surveillance within the U.S. was a limited and highly targeted activity aimed at hostile foreign powers and their agents. The phone conversations of ordinary people were of no interest. International phone calls between a person in the U.S. and person abroad were quite expensive and relatively rare.
Today, the assumptions that informed the enactment of FISA have been worn thin by a radical shift in threats – from states to diffuse non-state actors – and an even more radical shift in technology. The advent of the internet, the data storage revolution and big data analytics, fueled by fears about terrorism, have, in the post-PATRIOT Act world, fueled a growing government appetite for data. Today, the NSA isn’t just trying to listen in on the embassy abroad of a Cold War rival; instead, it doesn’t know whom to listen in on because it does not know who might pose a threat. In the process, individualized targeting based on specific indicia of threat has given way to bulk programmatic targeting of foreign communications without any consideration of human rights of people beyond our borders.
This position is simply untenable in today’s much smaller world, where the Cold War line between “us” and “them” has blurred.
When FISA was enacted, there was no global internet and the cost of international calls was prohibitive. Large parts of the world were unreachable for political or technical reasons. Now, we are a nation of more immigrants, global businesses and frequent travelers. We live online and carry our cell phones everywhere. The cost of an international call has plummeted by more than 90% and the number of U.S. billed international calls and the use of VOIP has skyrocketed. Skype calls worldwide alone grew 44% to 167 billion minutes in 2012.
Everyday, Americans are calling, emailing, texting and “friending” family, friends, colleagues and customers around the world, engaging in so-called “foreign communications.” For those on the other side of our emails and calls, there is no protection for free expression or privacy rights. In fact, their communications may be collected, examined and used by the government for any legal purpose.
The U.S. is certainly not alone in the breadth of its surveillance activities. Britain’s spy agency monitors the cables that carry the world’s phone calls and internet traffic in close cooperation with the NSA. Indeed, according to leaked documents, Britain’s GCHQ collects more metadata than the NSA with fewer limitations. Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the BND, is monitoring communications at a Frankfurt communications hub that handles international traffic to, from and through Germany, and the BND is seeking to significantly extend its capabilities. Le Monde reports that France runs a vast electronic spying operation using NSA-style methods, but with even fewer legal controls. And Russia’s notorious SORM system is reportedly even more advanced than the American system.
The U.S. is also not alone in focusing most of the protections of its surveillance laws internally. Such focus is also a feature of the surveillance laws and practices in democratic countries around the world, most of which take a highly territorial view of their human rights obligations and are unlikely to willingly give them extraterritorial application.
There is an urgent conversation to be had in the U.S and beyond about the implications of cross-border surveillance. Given the globalization of information society services, we now must assume that the data pertaining to the citizens of one country will flow through the infrastructure of another and be subject to collection and use for national security purposes. Surveillance standards must be strengthened everywhere to ensure that robust judicial oversight and that principles of specificity, necessity, proportionality, data minimization, use limitation and redress for misuse are the norm. In a globally networked world, legal standards must also recognize the human rights implications of cross-border surveillance and set out a way forward to protect the rights of people beyond state borders. There is ambiguity about whether our largely territorial human rights paradigm is adequate to meet the challenge.
That is why the call to PCLOB to speak to the rights of non-Americans is so important. PCLOB has a simple mission: to make sure privacy and civil liberties are at the table as new security measures to protect the nation are considered. It has boldly taken on the NSA surveillance program as its first task, but it is too soon to know whether it has the muscle or the will power to push meaningful reforms. It has an opportunity to show global leadership by heeding the call to make concrete recommendations about the rights of non-U.S. persons that can frame the global discussion about surveillance and human rights going forward. Add your name to the letter and tell PCLOB to seize the opportunity.
