#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)
CENSORED David Cameron: Stop Sleepwalking into Censorship
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.
(Open Rights Group)
BAHRAIN Bahrain: The Arab Spring Protests You Don’t Know About
I am astonished by how little the media has covered the ongoing protests in Bahrain, Kuwait, and eastern Saudi Arabia. You would think that the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council states would be under a microscope, because what happens there immediately affects oil prices. But large media corporations have opted not to cover events in these countries, so as not to cause market panic. And there is a lot to panic about.
(Strat Risks)
CAMBODIA Freedom of speech in Cambodia, but only in English
He’s back. After four years in self-imposed exile, Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy landed in Phnom Penh last Friday to throngs of flag-waving fans wearing white caps branded with a rising sun—the Cambodia National Rescue Party’s telltale logo. Rainsy came for the showdown: this Sunday, the CNRP will face ruling Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party in parliamentary elections.
(Media Politics in Perspective)
GLOBAL Microsoft Wants Google to Censor…. Microsoft.com
In an attempt to make pirated content harder to find copyright holders ask Google to remove millions of search results every week. While these automated requests are usually legitimate, mistakes happen more often than one might expect. For example, in an embarrassing act of self-censorship Microsoft recently asked Google to censor links to its very own Microsoft.com.
(Torrent Freak)
RUSSIA RUSSIAN LGBT ACTIVISTS: BOYCOTT OF ALL THINGS RUSSIAN, OLYMPICS
Queer Nation today issued a press release which claims gay and lesbian activists in Russia support the recent dumping of Russian vodka. According to a statement included in the group’s release, those activists also support taking things a step further: boycott all Russian products – including the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.
(Towleroad)
Russian Pirate Party threatens copyright owners with ‘Black August’
Chairman of the unregistered Pirates’ Party of Russia has called upon the public to completely boycott all copyrighted content in August this year in protest against the recently introduced anti-piracy law.
(RT)
SOUTH AFRICA Archbishop Tutu: South Africa must reject homophobic discrimination
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, famous for his role in ending apartheid, has called on South Africa to reject homophobic discrimination as part of a new LGBT global public education campaign by the United Nations Human Rights Office.
(Pink News)
TUNISIA Tunisia Femen activist ‘cleared of defamation’
A court on Monday dismissed one case against Tunisian Femen activist Amina Sboui in which she was tried for contempt and defamation, her lawyer said, calling the verdict “a victory”.
(AFP)
UNITED KINGDOM Mass surveillance or just Big Data?
States, and companies, collecting huge amounts of data on people and populations around the world. Is this a mass surveillance nightmare – the digital Stasi roaming free – or just big data and we should get over it?
(Index on Censorship)
Labour MP Stella Creasy receives Twitter rape threats
States, and companies, collecting huge amounts of data on people and populations around the world. Is this a
mass surveillance nightmare – the digital Stasi roaming free – or just big data and we should get over it?
(Index on Censorship)
Censorship or safety?
In essence, Cameron’s plan is to block pornography from every home in the UK unless the individual householder deliberately chooses to receive it. We are left to question whether this represents charitable, moral action on the part of our Prime Minister or the early stages of internet censorship
(Nouse)
Cyber Censorship: Freedom is the best filter
The definitive lesson we have learned from the digital age is that the internet is the most dynamic and adaptable tool for individual freedom that we have known in generations. Yet, the old adages still ring truer than ever: there is nothing more cumbersome and static than government regulation. That is why David Cameron’s attempts at censorship are doomed to fail; he needs freedom to decontaminate the internet for him.
(The Freedom Association)
UK Sleepwalking Into Censorship? More Like Running Into It At Full Pelt
We do not live in a free country. We all know that. Our libel laws are ridiculous. Our freedom of speech is curtailed should we be “offensive”. We live under the gaze of corporate and Government officials. Even some websites are blocked. But we can at least try to hold on to some of the freedom we do have; we aren’t Saudi Arabia or China after all.
(Freedom Is Not The Problem)
Sleepwalking into censorship
After brief conversations with some of the Internet Service Providers that will be implementing the UK’s “pornwall” we’ve established a little bit about what it will be doing.
(Open Rights Group)
UNITED STATES Momentum Builds Against N.S.A. Surveillance
The movement to crack down on government surveillance started with an odd couple from Michigan, Representatives Justin Amash, a young libertarian Republican known even to his friends as “chief wing nut,” and John Conyers Jr., an elder of the liberal left in his 25th House term.
(The New Work Times)
Jenny McCarthy, Censorship and Free Speech
Most of you have probably heard by now that anti-vaccine activist Jenny McCarthy has been picked to be a host on ABC’s The View. Following the announcement, there was a media uproar lambasting the decision. Newspapers, magazines and blogs erupted with posts questioning the wisdom of giving her a platform with millions of viewers from which she could spew her vaccine-related misinformation and fear-mongering.
(Harpocrates Speaks)
In the 1970s, mass surveillance was seen as especially a Cold War thing – what the Soviet bloc did to its own citizens, while also spying on the West. The West ‘only’ targeted a few Soviet spies and perhaps some left-wingers too — but mainly focusing on the Soviet Union and its satellites. From phone taps to opening letters, to directly observing someone, mass population surveillance was certainly undertaken by the Stasi and others, with their armies of informers. But mass snooping was not seen as a domestic concern or risk at home in the West.
Today and every day, we leave our digital footprints all over the place. Our digital trail is collected by telcos, web hosts, social media and others. And as the Snowden/NSA revelations have shown, our data is especially hoovered up from all these sources and more by the US, UK and other governments – covering millions of people around the world.
Prism, Tempora and other programmes indicate a major intelligence dragnet that surely constitutes mass surveillance, with little legal justification, and one that invades and undermines our right to privacy and our freedom of speech – since if everything we write, say and do is recorded and collected then how we behave as individuals and social animals surely changes.
Not so say some. Mass data retention isn’t snooping and surveillance until you analyse it and use it – and then there are various laws that allow targeting of suspicious individuals or groups. After all, if companies like Google, Facebook and Yahoo accumulate masses of our data, and analyse it for advertising purposes, then why should we worry that governments hoover up our data too?
This is a slippery argument and worth unpacking. If a government and its intelligence services want to spy on their own or another population, there is very little transparency and accountability as to how they do that, or what the legal justification, if any, is – and as the underwater cable taps by GCHQ indicate, often with very little need to approach the web hosts or anyone else to ask permission to intercept data.
Mass surveillance needs various elements to work for those carrying it out. You need to collect the data, analyse it according to your interests and needs, and then act on it in some way. For sure the Stasi, like authoritarian regimes and actors today, also understood well that even the act of collection could be, and was intended to be, chilling and fear-inducing.
But what of the US or British or French governments today? Is their collecting of data on all of us – around the world not just their own populations – just big data, to be used for targeted analysis? Or is it an inevitably chilling act, on the basis of which fishing expeditions are carried out, groups and individuals are identified on a large scale as potentially suspicious through the data analysis, and further monitoring and arrests, through to extraordinary rendition or drone attacks, may be the follow up.
The huge quantities of data collected on us in one programme – such as Tempora – can be analysed to build a multi-dimensional picture of our individual personal lives. And with little or no transparency as to who can access the data, or how the analysts are themselves monitored and regulated.
Mass data collection on all our digital communications challenges our rights to freedom of speech and privacy, and more broadly puts at risk our democracy – how can governments be held accountable, if journalists’ sources are no longer anonymous or campaign groups are fully monitored?
The huge overreach by the US and UK governments in deliberately collecting up our data around the world has set up the framework and data for mass surveillance. It’s a core part of monitoring us all. If we are to stop it, then we have to stop the reckless hoovering up of our data (to an extent that puts companies in the shade) and return to a more proportionate and targeted approach.
Mass data retention is a central element in mass surveillance. It needs to stop.
The Co-operative chain has told magazines such as Nuts and Zoo to clean up their act. Will women really benefit?
The “Lose the Lads Mags” campaign claims to want freedom: freedom for supermarket employees against exposure to pornography at work, and for women against sexual objectification, which the campaigners claim encourages gendered violence. But by threatening to prosecute retailers under the Equality Act if they continue to stock the magazines, they are endorsing a kind of illiberal censorship that curtails free speech, press freedom, consumer choice, and, in a climate of incipient creeping fig-leafing, sexual expression itself.
It is hard to see just how curbing the sale of lads mags would tackle the endemic root of the coalition’s ire – female objectification, a phenomena that predates the publication of Nuts, Zoo et al by several thousand years. Yet the Lose the Lads mags campaigners claim that, in normalising sexual objectification, the magazines encourage violence against women, and vaguely states that there is ‘research’ (although it is not cited) to prove it.
One such source of research is Dr Peter Hegarty, Psychologist at Sussex university, who took part in a radio debate with me on the topic. Hegarty was a co-researcher in a 2011 study which found that participants presented with descriptions of women taken from lads’ mags, and comments about women made by convicted rapists could not distinguish the source of the quotes.
On this basis, Hegarty suggested, it is the tone of lads mags that it is the issue not the images themselves. Banning them on the basis that the cover content constitutes sexual harassment, as the Lose the lads Mags campaigners want to do, misses the scientific point and only further discredits their agenda..
What’s more, if lads magazines are ripe for prosecution then so, surely, are the tabloids and their daily diet of bikined and knicker-flashing celebs, also sold in mainstream supermarkets – particularly given the way they are displayed at prime eye-level position in their freestanding carousels in many outlets.
There could be ramifications for press freedom. If the Equality Act can be invoked by employees who feel sexually harassed by images of scantily clad women, could ethnic minority employees can sue supermarkets for forcing them to handle the Daily Mail on the basis that it publishes offensive attitudes towards immigrants, for example?
As fears about internet pornography and the sexualisation of children grow in the West, so come the protectionist and prohibitionist attempts to clamp down on sexual representation. Earlier this year, the EU Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee voted on a clause calling for the banning of all pornography in the media. The vote was split, but the censorious attitudes remain. Now that many liberal feminists have joined ranks with their radical cohorts, and the conservative right against sexual representation, a minority of those of us who believe sexual expression doesn’t have to be dehumanising or derogatory are left to defend sexual freedom for everyone.
What we need isn’t fewer lads mags, but a more diverse representation of sexuality, both male and female, and better education about the material already out there. When we consider that 42 per cent of 10 to 17 year olds have viewed internet porn in the last year, and have access to it in their own homes, on their smartphones and tablet devices, lads mags are surely an easy – and misplaced – target. Helping boys and young men to understand the difference between imagery and reality in relation to sex and women and so make informed, considered choices about the material they then consumed and their reaction to it is surely the sensible, sustainable answer.
When it comes to sexual representation, out of sight out of mind certainly doesn’t help. And no positive sexual revolution ever achieved change by cloaking what it feared.
Gaza’s de-facto Hamas government closed the office of Al Arabiya, Palestinian network Ma’an news and the local production company Lens on Thursday.
Ma’an reported the incident as having received a closure order from the Attorney General delivered directly to their offices. Al Arabiya published a report from their Gaza correspondent, stating that employees had been prevented from entering their offices by the Hamas authorities, who told them that would be arrested if they entered at any point.
Lens was shut down after Hamas took objection to their providing of professional services to the i24 news, an Israeli network based on the Al Jazeera model that broadcasts in Arabic, English and French. Hamas recently instigated a ban on journalists working with Israeli media, so it would seem this is an effort to keep the ban and its associated scare tactics on-going, even though Lens may be providing the only view inside Gaza that Israel permits its citizens to see.
The targeting of Al Arabiya and Ma’an however is related to their coverage of the situation in Egypt, specifically after both published reports saying that “six Muslim Brotherhood officials had smuggled themselves into Gaza to plan an uprising against the military in Cairo, after their Egyptian president was deposed,” according to Ma’an. In a piece for the New York Times, Fares Akram writes that the “reports attributed the information to Israeli news media reports and unidentified sources, saying that six Brotherhood leaders were directing pro-Morsi activities in Egypt from a hotel room in Gaza City.”
The office of Ismail Jaber, the attorney general in question, stated that they ordered the closure of the bureaus after receiving complains that Al Arabiya and Ma’an had deliberately “spread rumours and fabricated news”, and in so doing had “become complicit with Egyptian media outlets in incitement against the Strip”, thereby threatening “the social peace and…the Palestinian people and their resistance.” Ma’an editor in chief Nasser Lahham has since state they intend to lodge complaints with the Palestinian Journalists Union and the International Federation of Journalists.
Ma’an may have gone out of their way to object to being labelled liars, but it is perhaps beside the point whether the report is true or not. News outlets, especially those with reputations similar to that of Al Arabiya, may have to contend with such accusations from time to time, but it is perhaps more valuable that they be free to respond rather than face closure. Furthermore, the claim by Hamas that the moral health of the Palestinian people is dependent on such censorship will likely jarr with the mostly Palestinian staff of both bureaus. Much like the response by some journalists to the ban on working with Israeli media, there is the possibility that journalists will continue to work for both outlets in secret, without bylines, a danger forced on them by the conditions of both extreme poverty and authoritarianism that have become normality in Gaza.
Furthermore, the choice to close the Al Arabiya offices reflects the shifting politics of the region, especially when compared to their rival Gulf-based news service Al Jazeera. The Saudi Arabian Al Arabiya has often been critical of the Muslim Brotherhood and their Hamas offshoot, a reflection of the foreign policy of the House of Saud which chose to fund Egypt’s ruling military council but not the Muslim Brotherhood. Writing for Al Monitor, Madawi Al-Rasheed explains that “Saudi Arabia had always had a troubled relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood version of Islamism, its organizational capacity and its increasingly accepted message that combined Islam with an eagerness to engage with the democratic process.” Qatari channel Al Jazeera, whose offices remained untouched during the recent shutdowns in Gaza is however facing a lighter version of these issues elsewhere. Qatar’s alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood and their bankrolling of the Hamas government with a recent pledge of 400 million USD has lead to accusations that Al Jazeera provided little more than a mouthpiece for Doha’s policies during recent events in Egypt, leading to the resignation of 22 members of staff in Egypt and occasional raids by Egyptian security forces.
Reacting to the closure of Ma’an’s Gaza bureau, English-language editor George Hale told Index on Censorship that “needless to say, this is a disturbing and outrageous development.” While such crackdowns may have more to do with regional links- both politically and financially- than moral judgements, the problem remains that Gaza is increasingly as in need of reporting as it is starved of free expression.
#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)
MIDDLE EAST Arab Spring will take time to flower: analysts
Disappointment over the lack of democratic progress in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya is understandable, but the so-called Arab Spring of 2011 will take time to mature, analysts say, warning that the process will be chaotic.
(Gulf News)
TUNISIA In Turkey’s heartland, support for protest is thin
As Mohamed Brahmi becomes the second secular politician to be shot in Tunisia in the past six months questions are raised as to whether the Arab Spring has really made a difference
(Nouse)
TURKEY In Turkey’s heartland, support for protest is thin
Weeks of anti-government protests in Istanbul’s Gezi Park and the squares in the capital of Ankara have not affected life here or in much of rural Turkey, where Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan enjoys solid support.
(USA Today)
Homophobic prejudices broken by Gezi incidents in Turkey
The Gezi protests have shown that society is much more aware about the rights of the LGBT community than Parliament, according to an activist. ‘Gezi did in three weeks what would have taken us three years,’ says Sedef Çakmak, adding that they have gained a lot of self confidence
(Hurriyet Daily News)
UNITED STATES Gay Talk: Protecting Free Speech for Public School Teachers
In Garcetti v. Ceballos, the Supreme Court held that public employees are not entitled to free speech when speaking “pursuant to their official duties.” In most situations, this strips teachers of First Amendment protection when they discuss controversial subjects, such as homosexuality, with their students.
(Social Science Research Network)
If we want the web to be a positive place for young people, we need to start talking about the positive things that happen there
Texan teenager Justin Carter was released on bail on 11 July, after his $500,000 bail was paid anonymously. His family had been unable to raise that amount previously.
The young man had been in a Texan prison since February, charged with making “terroristic threats” on Facebook.
“I’m f—ed in the head alright. I think I’ma shoot up a kindergarten and watch the blood of the innocent rain down and eat the beating heart of one of them.”
Not pleasant, no. Not particularly funny. But is it an actual threat? I really don’t think so.
Carter’s lawyer insists that the teen posted “LOL” and “jk” (joke) immediately afterwards to clarify that he wasn’t serious. And yet he finds himself facing a terror-related charge, with a possible sentence of 10 years ahead of him.
Why?
Americans are often wrongly accused of not getting irony, but this is one of those awful cases where the letter of the law clashes with expression that is clearly not meant to be taken literally.
Britons will be all too aware that they cannot be too complacent about these cases. People such as Paul Chambers, Azhar Ahmed, Liam Stacey and Matthew Woods have all felt the full force of the law for inappropriate, ill-advised social media messages, under laws that have been clumsily applied and don’t really allow for context – the crucial component in all free speech cases (though the Crown Prosecution Service has at least attempted to offset this problem with its new recommendations).
It’s interesting that almost all these recent cases involve young men.
The only exception I can think of is 21 year-old British woman Deyka Ayan Hassan, who was recently sentenced to 250 hours community service for a tweet in the aftermath of the murder of Lee Rigby, in which she said anyone wearing a Help For Heroes t-shirt deserved to be beheaded.
A lot of social media at the moment is based on getting a reaction; our worth is based on how many likes or comments a post gets, or responses and retweets on Twitter. The most hardened editor will sit anxiously viewing how many times an article is tweeted.
This pushes content posted in certain directions: either mind-numbingly banal but well meaning to the point where people feel bad for not responding (RT IF YOU THINK CANCER IS BAD), or snarky and borderline – or just plain – offensive (CANCER IS LOLZ).
The latter type of comment is the one that’s getting young people in trouble.
A segment of the Olympic opening ceremony in London last summer made a great deal of the amazing power of communications technology in young people’s lives, with “founder of the web” Tim Berners Lee looking on benignly as a sweet love story played out between pretty teenagers wielding smartphones.
But the way we talk about the web now does not reflect that idealism. The current debate in the UK portrays the web overwhelmingly as the habitat of trolls, predators, bullies and pornmongers. And that, plus the police are watching too, ready to arrest you for saying the wrong thing.
I can’t help feeling that all this doom-mongering could be self fulfilling. If we keep thinking of the web as the badlands, that’s how it will be, like a child beset by endless criticism and low expectations. We need to talk more about the positive side of life online – the conversations, the friendhips, the opportunities – if we’re going to get the most out of it.
Index held an event last night with Doughty Street Chambers, where a panel of experts discussed whether or not democratic freedoms have been eroded by mass surveillance programmes.
The panel included the Guardian’s Technology Editor, Charles Arthur, Stephen Cragg, QC (Doughty Street Chambers), Index Chief Executive Kirsty Hughes, and Liberty’s Policy Director, Bella Sankey. The discussion was chaired by Kirsty Brimelow (Doughty Street Chambers, Chairwoman of Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales.)
Check out the conversation below, and be sure to follow @IndexEvents for updates on our future events:
Index on Censorship has been awarded the 2013 Hermann Kesten Prize by the PEN Center Germany.
The award was given in recognition of Index’s work fighting censorship around the world. In particular, the jury acknowledged Indexs lack of political bias during its 40 year history. Originally created to publish the untold stories of dissidents behind the Iron Curtain, Index has exposed free speech violations around the world, equally denouncing left and right wing dictatorships and fundamentalist regimes.
Index CEO Kirsty Hughes said: We are delighted to have won this award. It is wonderful that Indexs work defending freedom of expression has been recognised in this way. As the recent revelations about mass surveillance by the US and UK governments show, freedom of expression is a hugely important issue, affecting us all wherever we live.’
Index uses a unique combination of journalism, campaigning and advocacy to defend freedom of expression for those facing censorship and repression, including journalists, writers, social media users, bloggers, artists, politicians, scientists, academics, activists and citizens.
The PEN Center Germany is one of over 140 world associations of writers that make up PEN international. The 10,000 euro prize is funded in by German PEN and the Hesse Ministry for Science and Art.
For more information or interviews, please contact [email protected], 0044 7749 785 932
#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 Hollywood Skeptical as China Claims Relaxed Censorship Enforcement
To many in China and Hollywood, the message seemed too good to be true: In an announcement on its official online portal July 17, the Chinese government stated that its State General Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television no longer will demand that filmmakers working on projects about “ordinary topics” secure full script approval before going into production.
(The Hollywood Reporter)
Tim Cook: iPhone sales in India grew 400 percent last quarter
Apple CEO, Tim Cook, today announced iPhone sales in India grew over 400 percent in the last quarter over the quarter preceding it. Apart from India, iPhone sales took off in the Philippines, Turkey and Poland in the prepaid market apart from developed countries. Apple attributes it to some moves it made in the iPhone 5 and iPhone 4 space, pointing out towards the aggressive buyback schemes it launched in India with the iPhone 4.
(The Tech Gadgets)
NEW ZEALAND Maniac Faces More Censorship Overseas
now being banned in New Zealand. Of course, the mainstream press is latching onto the fact that this is significant considering Maniac star Elijah Wood starred as Frodo in The Lord of the Rings films…which were all shot in New Zealand.
(Shock Till You Drop)
RUSSIA Navalny, Ward, Assange, Snowden and the Attack on Free Speech
Russia does not have a functioning criminal justice system at all, in the sense of a trial mechanism aimed at determining innocence or guilt. Exactly as in Uzbekistan, the conviction rate in criminal trials is over 99%. If the prosecutors, who are inextricably an arm of the executive government, want to send you to jail, there is absolutely no judicial system to protect you. The judges are purely there for show.
(Craig Murray)
Russia legal experts warn constitutional order under threat
Russia’s constitutional order is being threatened by the current government practices, according to an open letter [text, in Russian] signed by more than 50 of Russia’s leading legal experts on Tuesday. The letter accuses the government [CSM report] of systematic rights abuses and efforts to silence political opponents and eliminate forms of legal protest.
(Jurist)
Russia for Beginners: A Literary Course for Edward Snowden
Edward J. Snowden has the time, and now he has the classics. Mr. Snowden, the former intelligence contractor facing legal repercussions for the release of classified information, has been ensconced in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport waiting to find out if he will be granted asylum.
(The New York Times)
UNITED STATES The Perceived Conflict Between Diversity and Free Speech
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has made headlines after releasing a “blueprint” for campus sexual misconduct policies that broadly redefines sexual harassment, ostensibly under OCR’s authority to enforce Title IX.
(FIRE)
Journalist Yavuz Baydar has been fired by Turkish daily newspaper Sabah, after articles he wrote criticising the government were censored
In the latest report, Freedom in the World 2013, Freedom House defines Turkey as ‘partly free’.
Authorities in Ankara – both the government and bureaucrats – refute these claims, although the Ministry of Justice openly admits that there are serious shortcomings when it comes to providing for freedom of expression, both in law and implementation.
Some international organisations, such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), meanwhile, help build the myth that Turkey tops the world rankings for one of the worst ‘oppressive’ states because of the number of jailed journalists there. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that there are 49 journalists in prison, while Reporters Sans Frontières put the number at 72, if the number of people includes all jailed media professionals. But claims that the country is entirely free or grossly oppressive are both wrong. These extreme views must be taken with a pinch of salt; the truth is somewhere in between.
The complexities of Turkey today make it a unique case, demanding careful examination so that clichés can be dispersed, particularly those deriving from the perception that the country remains a police state, as it was prior to the late 1990s.
Turkey today is exactly as Freedom House says it is: not ‘free’, nor ‘not free’, but ‘partly free’.
In this context, Turkey’s problems are already out in the open.
Thousands of Kurdish activists connected to the Koma Civakên Kurdistan network – affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – as well as around 200 students and 72 other journalists and activists (mainly Kurdish) are in detention.
According to the monitoring site engelliweb.com, internet access is blocked to approximately 9000 websites, mostly on an arbitrary, non-transparent basis.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdog˘an regularly files libel charges against journalists and cartoonists, a move that singles him out because other powerful figures do not engage in similar practices. He has developed a habit of lashing out at the media in public, which has had dire consequences.
The so-called ‘mainstream media’, in other words, the 85 per cent of it controlled by proprietors who are for the most part engaged in vast business activities other than media (and therefore dependent on the government for economic interests), is suffocated and distinctly lacking in freedom and editorial independence.
In big media outlets, fierce censorship and self-censorship are practised on a daily basis.
They are severely crippled in their pursuit of journalism, unable or unwilling to cover corruption and abuse of power or to allow critical voices and dissent to be heard. When it comes to particular topics, such as criticism of the government, corruption or abuse of power, news stories are either filtered or unpublished; direct censorship – the actual blacking out of text – is exercised when material is found to be ‘too sensitive’ for the government’s or newspaper owners’ interests. But at the same time, there is little problem with pluralism and diversity, as opposed to countries like Iran, China, Azerbaijan or Belarus. With more than 40 national dailies (including a few independent newspapers and a vital partisan, antigovernment press), 2500 local papers, 250 private TV channels (of which 18 broadcast news seven days a week, 24 hours a day), 1300 radio stations and more than 150 news websites and online portals, Turkey has a big, competitive sector. Internet access is increasing at a huge rate, with access passing the 50 per cent mark recently. Because of the internet, despite attempts to command control, this is a milieu in which no story or comment is missed.
Anti-terror law and Ergenekon
The state of Turkey’s media freedom has been oversimplified, looking only at the number of journalists incarcerated without distinction, without looking closely at the specifics for those detentions. It’s a remnant of Cold War mentality. ‘Turkey is an undemocratic country’ has become almost like a slogan, concealing far deeper problems that extend throughout many sectors and structures within Turkish society.
It is true that people are in jail for voicing dissent, among them journalists. Almost all of them are Kurds who, because of the very nature of the Kurdish cause they pursue, combine publishing and self-expression with activism. This means their activity falls inside the boundaries of the utterly problematic Anti-Terror Law, which makes it extremely difficult to distinguish between those who
are members of terrorist groups that commit acts of violence or praise acts of terrorism and those who are simply exercising their right to express opinion. Dissidents, including journalists, have faced detention and prosecution because the law makes it practically impossible to make these important distinctions. The Anti-Terror Law must, at the very least, be revised so that it conforms to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) or, better still, abolished altogether.
Around 10 per cent or so of those jailed are Turkish journalists whose imprisonment relates to the Ergenekon case – a clandestine, undemocratic, politically motivated mafiastyle network that, among other acts over a number of years, plotted a series of coups to oust the government and parliament. Since 2008, dozens of journalists have been arrested in connection with Ergenekon plots, together with hundreds of military officers.
Yet, in these cases, the most obvious clash with ECHR directives has to do with the extremely lengthy detention periods and trial procedure (take, for example, the case of Özkan vs Turkey). Needless to say, Turkey should have determined these periods of incarceration in line with international standards, including EU human rights legislation, releasing journalists while they awaited their trials. But apart from these cases, the European Court of Human Rights has rejected many appeals lodged by the accused, undercutting the assumption held by many that journalists should enjoy immunity even when charged with serious crimes such as conspiracy.
In addition to anti-terror laws, there are dozens of articles – in the Penal Code, in Turkey’s Internet Law, the Press Law and Turkish Radio and Television Law – that restrict freedom of expression and freedom
of the press. Some are implemented on a regular basis and some remain dormant, though still on the books. These punitive measures threaten freedom in Turkey, applying not only to media but also to academia, NGOs, political parties and ordinary citizens across the country.
The rise of independent media and the threat to public interest
Paradoxically, Turkish ‘glasnost’ under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) over the past decade, with the immense help of the EU accession process, has meant, for the most part, that there are no longer many taboo subjects. National mass hypnosis is over. Tiny but independent news outlets – like the dailies Taraf and Zaman or the weekly Nokta – have helped broaden debate about the country’s murky past, untangle myths about the army being the guardian of the system and expose crimes against humanity.
In a pluralist and hugely diverse environment such as Turkey’s, it would be a lie to claim that news dissemination has been fully blocked. Take the case of the Uludere bombing in 2011, when a group of Kurdish villagers were attacked by Turkish fighter jets as they travelled from Iraq along a well-known smugglers’ route, resulting in 34 deaths. Main media group outlets failed to report on the killings for almost a day, but minor papers and those using social media began reporting on the incident
within minutes of it happening.
It could be argued that Turkey has one of the most independent medias in the world – it is truly a phenomenon.
Many countries in democratic transition after the end of the Cold War have had complex changes in their media environment, particularly in southeastern Europe, the Black Sea region and the North Caucasus. From the late 1980s on, this environment has been marked by the emergence of a new type of media proprietor who often – as in some Balkan countries as well as in Russia – entered the media sector with other businesses in tow, with mafia-like habits and connections, with the aim of money laundering, or with enormous greed. For the most part, these players aimed to use media outlets as a tool for keeping government and bureaucracy in check because they became fearful of what might be reported in this new, thriving media landscape, but these people and companies only had personal business gains in mind. Turkey has been part of this reality, and those coming to it from wellestablished, high-standard media environments in the West either do not understand or do not consider the considerable threats to media freedom to be important.
In some countries, for example, Albania, Serbia and Ukraine, media conglomerate proprietors operate in alliance with the ruling powers, establishing politics-media cooperation in the service of their mutual interests, rather than allowing media to serve the public interests.
This addictive system is the primary source of censorship and self-censorship in the wider region, and the blame for destroying the prospects of good journalism must be shared equally between politicians and media owners. In Turkey, in most cases, proper coverage of corruption and any investigative journalism are completely dead. Because this proprietor prototype is in essence non-transparent, Turkey’s media has never bothered to or been in a position to demand transparency or accountability from those in control of the news. In this context, nowhere in the world is the self-destructive role of media proprietors more visible, more irrational or more aggressive than in Turkey
On 19 October 2011, Prime Minister Erdog˘an assembled media proprietors in Ankara to ask for ‘help’ regarding ‘terror coverage’. It’s a call the media should have rejected, but instead they went beyond even what the prime minister had desired: they openly begged him to tell them exactly how long he thought TV dispatches on funerals connected with terrorism should be and shamelessly offered to set up a ‘censorship committee’ by themselves! If created, it would be tasked with ‘filtering’ news prior to publication, particularly when it pertained to clashes between the military and the PKK and political statements issued by them and other Kurdish activists.
In a more recent case, on 18 March 2013, there were reports that the proprietor of the daily newspaper Milliyet, Erdog˘an Demirören, forced veteran pundit Hasan Cemal to resign after he wrote a column defending the right to publish accurate stories, no matter how ‘disturbing’ they would be for the government or media owners. The article was never published, a breach of the journalist’s contract with his employer. Accused of causing the departure of Cemal, Prime Minister Erdog˘an, in his blunt manner some days later, explained that the very same proprietor had visited him to ask whom he should appoint as editor-in-chief for the newspaper.
The uphill struggle: how to solve Turkey’s media dilemmas?
These episodes speak volumes about how polluted Turkey’s media corporate culture is today. Media professionals – by which I mean real, decent journalists, and not those who either defend the government no matter what, or those who condemn it outright under the false belief that all journalism must be oppositional and not critical – face two rather hopeless challenges.
The first frontline for journalists is the political executive and the legislature. Unless the current government amends all laws in favour of freedom of expression and the press, these problems will keep reappearing. In general, the current parliament is a forum of intolerance for freedom of the press, opinion and dissent. In the mindset of the current parliament, the ‘old Turkey’ still rules.
Secondly, media proprietors represent a real challenge to free speech: most of them have no clue about the role and nature of good journalism.
I have long argued that unless these media owners are challenged, one cannot simply go on blaming everything on the political powers. But how do we challenge media owners? Because this is the key to enhancing freedom and independence in Turkey.
It is an uphill struggle. Journalists in Turkey have been forced to live under the ‘unholy alliance’ between governments and big media owners. It is a vicious cycle and very tough to break. We must persuade owners not to interfere in editorial decisions and let us be; we must encourage them to ct transparently in their businesses. Currently, none of them has the civil courage or the wisdom to be on the side of journalists’ fight for freedom.
We could try to persuade the government to ban media owners from entering public tenders, restrict cross-ownership, support local media and allow high share investments for foreign capital owners, with the aim of giving much more autonomy to the national broadcaster, Turkish Radio and Television.
And, of course, we can pressure the government to ensure union activities and memberships in all media outlets are protected by law.
Although their cases are of course the most urgent, problems regarding media freedom in Turkey will not cease to exist when all the journalists in jail – detained or sentenced – are released and pardoned. Turkey can never be part of the democratic league as long as it insists on suppressing and punishing dissent and free speech. But if we limit our professional struggle to these cases only, and introduce minimal amendments to some of the worst laws, we will continue to affect only the tip of the iceberg. If we do only this, held back by a sector that is bleeding spiritually, ruled by owners who are insensitive to the profession, operating without independence, we will continue to operate in appalling conditions, where newsrooms resemble open air prisons.
Freedom must be coupled with true professional independence.
Yavuz Baydar is a columnist for Today’s Zaman and was, until he published a piece criticising media ownership in The New York Times, the news ombudsman for the daily newspaper SABAH
Today, 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.
We’d be grateful if you could support our efforts by signing and sharing the petition with the hashtag #dontspyonme
This petition is supported by Index on Censorship, English PEN, Article 19, Privacy International, Open Rights Group and Liberty, European Federation of Journalists, International Federation of Journalists, PEN International, PEN Canada, PEN Portugal, Electronic Frontier Foundation, PEN Emergency Fund, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE), the National Union of Somali Journalists and the Bahrain Center for Human Rights.
INDEX EVENTS NSA, surveillance, free speech and privacy
Edward Snowden’s leaks about the US’s international mass surveillance programmes has prompted perhaps the definitive debate of our age: How free are we online? Can we ever trust technology with our personal details?
25 July, Time 6.30pm, Free, but RSVP required. Space is limited.
Doughty Street Chambers, WC1N
(More information)
GHANA Why free speech is a non-negotiable …
Nurturing institutions of society is an important aspect of growing a democracy, and encouraging free speech is an important step on that road.
(Ghana Web)
SYRIA On the ground in Syria: Fear still rules political expression
More than two years after the start of the uprising in Syria, the security apparatus remains committed to stifling freedom of expression. In its monthly reports, the SKeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom, based in Beirut, has documented the arrest of 12 journalists and dissident intellectuals since January this year. Well-known media activists, such as Mazen Darwish, who was arrested in 2012, continue to be held under charges of terrorism.
(All Voices)
UNITED STATES ‘United we stand’ not just a motto
What is America ’s favorite freedom? It’s freedom of speech by a wide margin, according to the annual State of the First Amendment survey.
(TriCities.com)
‘United we stand’ not just a motto
What is America ’s favorite freedom? It’s freedom of speech by a wide margin, according to the annual State of the First Amendment survey.
(TriCities.com)
ZAMBIA Press Freedom Group Helps Circumvent Net Censorship in Zambia
The non-governmental organisation Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has made a strong statement in favour of freedom of the press by offering several banned websites solutions to circumvent the government’s efforts to block access by citizens.
(Zambia Reports)
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