08 Sep 20 | News and features, Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship has filed an alert to the Council of Europe about a defamation action that is being taken against the Dublin Inquirer, its co-founder Sam Tranum and reporter Laoise Neylon. The Council of Europe has formally notified Ireland of the legal action.
The alert is the first media freedom alert on Ireland since the Council of Europe’s alert platform was launched in 2015. The platform catalogues threats to media freedom in the Council of Europe’s 47 member states.
On the back of the alert, Index on Censorship and seven other media freedom organisations have also written to justice minister, Helen McEntee, and foreign affairs minister, Simon Coveney, to express their concerns over the lawsuit.
“We believe that this legal action is a Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation (Slapp), intended to intimidate and silence an independent media outlet that is reporting in the public interest,” they wrote.
“The aim of a Slapp is not to succeed in court, but to drain their targets of money, time, and energy in an effort to discourage them from reporting further on a particular person or issue,” the letter explains.
The organisations urge the government to pursue reform of Irish defamation law and to support the creation of anti-Slapps legislation at EU level. “We call on you to get behind such measures in order to bring about concrete protections – including an anti-Slapps directive – for freedom of expression, access to information, and ultimately our democracies.”
Click here to read our report on the rise of Slapps.
Read below the letter to McEntee and Coveney in full:
8 September 2020
Dear Minister Helen McEntee TD, Minister for Justice
Dear Minister Simon Coveney TD, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade
Cc: Permanent Representation of Ireland to the EU
Index on Censorship, alongside the undersigned press freedom organisations, are writing to raise our concern about legal action that is being taken against the independent news outlet, the Dublin Inquirer, its co-founder Sam Tranum, and its reporter Laoise Neylon.
As outlined in the media freedom alert that was issued by the Council of Europe today, the Dublin Inquirer is facing a defamation lawsuit for an article it published on its website on 26 August, which reported on an eviction that had taken place in Glasnevin the previous week. Tranum, Neylon, and the Dublin Inquirer, were served with summons on 31 August.
We believe that this legal action is a Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation (SLAPP), intended to intimidate and silence an independent media outlet that is reporting in the public interest. The aim of a SLAPP is not to succeed in court, but to drain their targets of money, time, and energy in an effort to discourage them from reporting further on a particular person or issue.
The SLAPP that the Dublin Inquirer is facing is just one example of a phenomenon that has become widespread in Europe in recent years: at the time of her death in 2017, Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia had 47 vexatious lawsuits filed against her. This year, the Council of Europe Platform for the Protection of Journalism and Safety of Journalists has recorded SLAPPs in Belgium, Malta, France, Bulgaria, Poland, and Romania – and we have reason to believe that these are just the tip of the iceberg.
The lengthy process and extremely high costs associated with defending a defamation case means that Ireland’s draconian defamation laws are an ideal tool with which to threaten and intimidate. Because of the arduousness of exhausting domestic measures, the European Court of Human Rights provides little practical protection to Irish journalists and media outlets. This means that small media outlets, like the Dublin Inquirer, could face closure when targeted with such legal threats and actions.
We therefore urge you, not only to pursue the long overdue reform of Irish defamation law, but to support the creation of robust anti-SLAPPs legislation at EU level. The European Commission has committed to considering suitable anti-SLAPP measures as part of its upcoming European Democracy Action Plan. We call on you to get behind such measures in order to bring about concrete protections – including an anti-SLAPPs directive – for freedom of expression, access to information, and ultimately our democracies.
Thank you in advance for your consideration of our concerns. We look forward to your response and would be glad to schedule a meeting to discuss in more detail.
Kind regards,
Index on Censorship
European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation
Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL)
Free Press Unlimited (FPU)
Article 19
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
08 Sep 20 | Volume 49.03 Autumn 2020
In our autumn 2020 podcast we speak with Hong Kong-based journalist Oliver Farry, who discusses the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in the region, which was once a beacon of free expression. And New York-based journalist Michella Oré tells us why, even if Donald Trump doesn’t win a second presidential term, his stint in The White House has sparked a fire in the USA which will be hard to put out. Also Jemimah Steinfeld and Orna Herr from the Index editorial team discuss their favourite articles from the new magazine.
Print copies of the magazine are available via print subscription or digital subscription through Exact Editions. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship continue its fight for free expression worldwide.
03 Sep 20 | News and features, Opinion
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114664″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”right”][vc_column_text]Frédéric Boisseau
Franck Brinsolaro
Jean Cabut
Elsa Cayat
Stéphane Charbonnier
Philippe Honoré
Bernard Maris
Ahmed Merabet
Mustapha Ourrad
Michel Renaud
Bernard Verlhac
Georges Wolinski
These people were brutally murdered on 7th January 2015. Their “crime” was to work for the French satirical publication Charlie Hebdo.
Whatever your views on the content of the magazine, on their cartoons, their editorial line and their publication of an image of the Prophet Mohammed, the reality is that these people were massacred because of a cartoon. They didn’t threaten anyone. They just went to work on a normal day and were never to return to their families.
This week a terror trial has commenced in France. Fourteen people are charged with being accomplices to the terrorists who murdered 12 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, injured a further 11 people and then two days later murdered four people at a Jewish supermarket.
These were acts of terror. Designed to silence and scare. They were attacks on free expression and on freedom of religious belief. They were a hate crime. And even worse they led to more hate, more fear and more abuse towards the French Muslim community.
Index won’t publish the names of the perpetrators. These people sought to divide their country. They sought to sow the seeds of hate and distrust. They are not worthy of our time or consideration.
Today we remember the victims, the survivors and their friends and families. There is nothing more to say.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]
02 Sep 20 | News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114690″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]“The Hungarian public’s access to sources of balanced news and information is in greater danger than ever before.” This was the stark warning that Index on Censorship, alongside 15 other organisations, delivered to Executive Vice-President of the European Commission Margrethe Vestager today.
After a decade of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s rule, Hungary’s media landscape is in turmoil. Last month, 70 of the approximately 90 journalists working at Index.hu – which had been considered one of the last major independent news outlets in Hungary – resigned after the editor-in-chief was fired by the company’s CEO.
“For years, we’ve been saying that there are two conditions for the independent operation of Index: that there be no external influence on the content we publish or the structure and composition of our staff. Firing Szabolcs Dull has violated our second condition. His dismissal is a clear interference in the composition of our staff, and we cannot regard it any other way but as an overt attempt to apply pressure on Index.hu,” the departing journalists wrote in an open letter.
“Index was the most widely read news website in Hungary,” explained András Pethő in an interview with Index on Censorship. Pethő is co-founder and senior editor at Direkt36, a small investigative journalism outlet that focuses on reporting abuses of power. “It was one of the few remaining independent news websites in Hungary. It was a kind of hub on the Hungarian internet: a lot of people started their day by checking Index.”
“The organisation, the outlet itself is still here. The whole staff resigned but they hired new people. There’s a new leadership and we’ll see what that looks like, how they will cover news, and how independent they will be,” said Pethő. “What happened is bad for basically everyone who is interested in independent journalism in Hungary.”
Before founding Direkt36, Pethő had been a reporter and editor at Origo.hu, one of the largest online news outlets alongside Index. But in 2014, Origo.hu’s editor-in-chief was abruptly replaced after an investigation was published about lavish expenses claimed by Orban’s chief of staff. “Basically we went through a pretty similar story [to Index],” said Pethő. “The whole project – Direckt36 – was born as a response to the negative environment.”
What happened at Index and Origo are just two examples of the Hungarian government’s efforts to undermine independent media in the country. Index on Censorship has reported regularly on Orban’s attacks on the media and has been particularly concerned by events of the last six months fearing that the Covid-19 crisis is being used as a distraction to further curtail media freedom. In this period, we have received reports of journalists being barred from press conferences, alongside other attacks that we have documented on our map.
But despite the government’s ongoing and strategic efforts to punish critical media and reward government mouthpieces, the EU has yet to meaningfully intervene. As highlighted by the signatories of today’s letter to Vestager, such efforts have included the misuse of state aid, which has resulted in two complaints being logged with the European Commission in 2016 and 2018 respectively. The first complaint relates to Hungary’s public service broadcaster which, despite having long ceased to meet international standards due to its clear pro-government bias, continues to receive state funding. The second relates to the distribution of state advertising to media outlets in Hungary.
Although it was a market leader, Index.hu had received virtually no state advertising in the years prior to the mass resignations. At the same time, its main competitor – the now pro-government Origo.hu, benefitted heavily. As stated in today’s letter, “the goal of these efforts is clear: to financially weaken independent media and hamper the production and dissemination of critical news.”
Pethő says that Direkt36 are among the organisations feeling the squeeze. “When we launched it in 2015 and when we had a bigger story, those stories were often picked up by several online news outlets, a couple of TV channels, radio stations… so it could travel quite widely in the Hungarian media,” he said.
“That space has been shrinking gradually more and more and now when we publish a bigger piece maybe it’s picked up by a couple of news websites, maybe there is a radio interview, maybe one TV channel. But it’s much less than what we had three, four or five years ago.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
02 Sep 20 | Magazine, Volume 49.03 Autumn 2020
Writer
Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor and publisher. He is author of the bestselling books The Circle and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Writer and campaigner
Lisa Appignanesi is a British-Canadian writer and campaigner for free expression. She is former president of English PEN. Her books include Losing the Dead and All About Love: Anatomy of an Unruly Emotion
Writer and academic
Xue Yiwei is an award-winning Chinese writer and academic who now lives in Canada. His translated works include Dr. Bethune’s Children and his collection of short stories, Shenzheners
28 Aug 20 | News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”112471″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]With attacks on free speech occurring across the world from Belarus to Zimbabwe, Xinjiang to Poland, it would be easy to think that our role is to stand up to tyrants and dictators abroad and stand with those who are leading the fight to make sure that they have the right to have their voice heard. And of course, you’d be absolutely right. Index was established to be a voice for the persecuted and to shine a light into the darkness, to give hope to writers, artists and scholars who were and are systematically being silenced. That is our core work and always will be.
But in Stephen Spender’s founding op-ed, in The Times on 15 October 1971, he made it clear that attacks on free speech can have a domestic feel to them too, and Index won’t shy away from challenging censorship wherever we find it.
“There are problems of censorship in England, the United States, and France, for example. There is the question whether it is not right for certain works to be censored or at any rate limited to a defined readership. The problem of censorship is part of larger ones about the use and abuse of freedom,” wrote Spender.
Which brings me to new legislation currently working its way through the Scottish Parliament – the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill. I don’t believe that our basic rights to free speech and freedom of expression does, or should, give us the right to incite hate or violence. There are always consequences to our actions. But these consequences have to be fair and proportionate and of course in the sphere of free speech not hinder people’s right to engage in debate or to use their voice. There must be no chilling effect. The proposed legislation does not meet this bar.
The bill directly undermines freedom of expression in Scotland. Artistic expression is challenged and our rights to engage in public debate would be threatened with potential prosecution for “stirring up hatred”. The legislative language is so vague that someone could be charged with a criminal offence (with a maximum seven-year prison tariff) if an individual’s actions were deemed to be insulting or offensive, with no consideration of the intent behind the action. Comedians could face criminal proceedings for insulting their audiences, commentators for exploring issues of gender or even for discussing religion.
We all want an end to hate speech, we all want to live in a society where people feel safe and secure, but we also want live in a country where our views are respected even when we are in the minority, where debate is welcome and celebrated, and where every one of us can speak without fear or favour.
If this legislation passes un-amended that will no longer be the case in Scotland and would set an awful precedent for the rest of the UK. Index is opposed to this legislation and will keep working with colleagues in Scotland to get the changes we all need to protect our basic human right to free speech.
Read our letter to the Scottish parliament here contesting the wording of the bill, signed by Rowan Atkinson and other public figures. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]
28 Aug 20 | Belarus, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114603″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]“As long as you don’t kill me, new elections won’t happen,” Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko told workers at the MKZT truck factory in Minsk, the capital city of Belarus last week.
The speech followed a presidential election on 9 August in which Lukashenko claims to have won a landslide victory to serve for a sixth term with just over 80% of the vote, a result heavily contested domestically and internationally. Mass anti-Lukashenko protests have been held across Belarus since the results, with many people saying the result was fraudulent and a result of vote-rigging, while the UK government does not recognise the result and The Council of EU stated that the election was “neither free nor fair”.
Belarus has been ruled by Lukashenko since 1994, after he became the country’s first president in the wake of Belarusian independence from the USSR in 1991. He rules the country with an iron fist; Belarus is the last country in Europe which still uses the death penalty, and many forms of freedom of expression are tightly governed. The state controls the media to the extent that Belarus is ranked at 153 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index, one of the lowest rankings in the world, not just in Europe. How did a country, freed from the grips of Soviet Union and starting afresh with a new constitution, end up ruled by a man internationally dubbed as “the last dictator in Europe”?
Two years into his presidency, Lukashenko set about dismantling the aspects of the constitution which would have allowed for genuine democracy. In 1996 he demanded a referendum which asked the public to vote on extending his first term from five to seven years and to increase his powers. After the vote went in his favour (although the international community questioned the validity of the result), Lukashenko dissolved the elected Supreme Soviet parliament, who had resisted the referendum, and installed a handpicked collection of loyalists to hold seats in government, effectively wiping out any political opposition and obstacles to authoritarian control.
Another referendum in 2004 took Lukashenko’s desire to retain presidency a step further. Nearing the end of his second term, the maximum number allowed by the constitution, a referendum was held which asked the public to allow him to run a third time. When this passed with an apparent large majority, the limit on the number of terms a president could sit was essentially abolished and Lukeshenko’s grip on power tightened.
In the years between these two pivotal moments in Belarusian history, Index reported from the ground in Belarus about the deterioration of freedom of expression under an evermore authoritarian regime.
A 1997 Index article chronicling attacks on freedom of expression around the world reported that Belarusian journalist Pavel Sheremet was still in the hands of the Belurusian KGB. A “vocal critic of Lukashenko’s government”, Sheremet had previously been stripped of his journalist accreditation for “insulting the ‘president and nation of Belarus’.” Fifteen journalists who picketed for his release were also arrested and detained in a clear signal to the citizens of Belarus: any form of dissent, or support of a dissenter, would be aggressively crushed.
A 1999 report by Michael Foley confirmed this trend; he found that journalists in Minsk were worse off than those in any other former Soviet state. Just five years into Lukashenko’s rule, Foley reported that “the electronic media is almost totally state-owned and the print media is forced to use state owned printing plants”.
As Lukashenko won the election in 2006, securing a third term that never should have been, human rights and freedom of expression in Belarus continued to deteriorate.
LGBTQ rights were and continue to be all but non-existent, with gay marriage constitutionally banned and few legal protections afforded to LGBTQ people. Freedom of assembly has been violated by the authorities’ attempts to prevent Gay Pride events from taking place. A 2000 parade was banned by authorities just hours before the fact, and in 2006 a conference on human rights and gay culture was cancelled after its organisers were arrested.
In 2011, months after Lukashenko’s fourth election victory, James Kirchick reported for Index from Minsk that the regime still had a grip on the media: “the Lukashenko regime has effectively rendered political opposition moot through its near domination of the press. It has silenced critical voices through two means: state control of mass media outlets like television and radio, and onerous registration laws that make the practice of independent journalism a dangerous pursuit”.
In the 10 years since the 2010 election, there has been another election, taking place in this landscape that is weighed heavily in Lukashenko’s favour. As Andrei Aliaksandrau reported for Index in 2017, TV stations continue to be state-owned and Lukashenko continues to rule as a dictator. The 2015 election, similarly to those preceding it, was dogged by controversy and suggestions of an undemocratic process. “The [2015] election process was orchestrated, and the result was preordained”, said Miklós Haraszti, The United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Belarus.
The 2020 election result has seen scenes of protest unlike Belarus has experienced before. After 26 years of propaganda and authoritarian leadership, Belarusians appear to be prepared to tolerate it no longer. Journalists have gone on strike, refusing to be used as propaganda tools. Lukashenko shut down the internet across most of the country in the days following the election, in an attempt to quash dissent, and horrific accounts of intimidation and torture have come out of the country, as our interview with the wife of an arrested protester reveals. But now almost three weeks on the people are still making their voices heard. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Lukashenko’s only opponent during the election after other contenders were picked off, spoke to the European parliament’s foreign affairs committee from Lithuania where she has fled to escape violence: “The intimidation didn’t work. We will not relent.” Could this finally mark the end of Europe’s last dictator? We all hope so. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]
21 Aug 20 | News and features, Opinion
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114590″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]August is meant to be a quiet month for news. But this month has been anything but quiet.
Every day the world has been exposed to a new and sustained attack on our basic human rights. In every corner of the world, our collective rights to free expression and our freedom of association seem to be under siege. And for too many, the most basic of our human rights – our right to life, to live in peace – is, too often, not considered a right at all by those who will use any tool at their disposal to retain their power and the status quo.
It seems that at any given time, there is always at least one government, one repressive regime or a non-state actor using their power to remove the rights of citizens.
The results are heart-breaking to watch and devastating for the families that are torn apart and left scared and isolated.
This week alone, we have seen images of a teenager from Sudan who drowned as he tried to get to the UK to plead asylum – a 16-year-old who was fleeing war and a military regime.
In Russia, the leader of the opposition, Alexei Navalny, is in a coma after reportedly being poisoned as he travelled back to Moscow. His wife is being refused access to his hospital bed.
The first-hand account from a Uighur teacher who had been exposed to the Xinjiang concentration camps was published this week. It is a harrowing personal testimony of a genocide.
In Hong Kong, the impact of the national security law continues to be felt far and wide with arrests and intimidation now being deployed to silence dissenters. And its reach is now being felt outside of China. On university campuses around the world, professors and academics are starting to consider the impact their teaching will have on Chinese students. Knowledge has become a vulnerability for too many Chinese students as they return to Hong Kong. Seats of academic enlightenment and learning are having to change what they teach and how they teach it in order to protect their students – this is not acceptable.
And of course, we have followed in horror what is happening in Belarus, on European soil, as Lukashenko refuses to leave office and hold free and fair elections. Journalists arrested, protestors tortured and artists and musicians sacked for standing up to the regime.
These are the stories which have held the news cycle and grabbed our attention. However, for each example I cite there are a further dozen cases of tyranny that need to be exposed and challenged, in every corner of the earth. And yet, woven through each of these affronts to our basic rights is a single thread of brave men and women who refuse to be silenced. A cadre of freedom fighters determined to protect their rights and ours. They do not know each other and they likely never will meet but they are fighting the same fight. They are holding back the tide of tyranny and they are risking everything to do so.
The question for all of us is what can we do to help? How can we support people on the other side of the world as they stand up to tyrants? How can we make sure they know that we stand with them?
At Index, it is our role but also our responsibility to stand with them. To tell their stories, to publish their work, to make sure that the world knows what is happening to them. But to do that we need your help. We need your support, emotional and of course financial. Behind each of these headlines is a person, a family, a life. Their lives are as valuable as ours but their journeys are at the moment just too hard. To support them we need your help – please donate to Index, just a five pounds a month will enable us to tell someone else’s story.[/vc_column_text][vc_btn title=”Donate to Index” color=”danger” size=”lg” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fnewsite02may%2Fregular-donation-form%2F%3Famt%3D%25C2%25A35|||”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You might also like to read” category_id=”13527″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
20 Aug 20 | News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Yury Savitsky, his wife Ekaterina and their son Nikita.
At 6pm on 10 August, 32-year-old Yury Savitsky was working in his tyre repair shop when a group of unknown people burst in, forcefully put his hands behind his back and forced him into a van with tinted windows and drove off.
Savitsky’s abduction came a day after a disputed presidential election in the country which saw incumbent Alexander Lukashenko announced as the official winner, picking up 80% of the vote and giving Lukashenko, who has been president since 1994, another five-year term.
The night before, Savitsky had taken part in a protest against the election results. International observers say that only Lukashenko’s 1994 victory has been the result of free and fair elections and many governments around the world have said they do not accept the result.
Back in May, a number of rivals to Lukashenko’s two and a half decades of power began to emerge: Viktar Babaryka, tech entrepreneur Valery Tsepkalo, popular YouTuber Sergei Tikhanovsky and lawyer Hanna Kanapatskaya.
In independent polls, Babaryka quickly emerged as the frontrunner.
Savitsky was one of those who wanted change.
His wife Ekaterina told Index by email: “My husband joined a group whose initiative was to promote [Babaryka] for president, but due to being busy with family affairs – work, family, helping his pension-age mother – he was not very active.”
As part of this group, Savitsky helped collect just 10 signatures from friends for Babaryka’s electoral registration.
“He consistently read the news and actively discussed with his friends the injustice of what was happening. But I was very worried,” said Ekaterina.
In May, Viktar Babaryka was detained on charges of illegal financial activities and his name was later struck from the election due to alleged financial inconsistencies which he denies.
Two days after Tikhanovsky announced he would run against Lukashenko, he was arrested on charges of participating in an unauthorised protest in December 2019. When his registration to take part in the election was refused, his wife Svetlana Tikhanovskaya decided to run in his place and collected the required number of valid signatures.
Meanwhile, Valery Tsepkalo was told in June that he had not achieved the required 100,000 valid signatures on his registration to take part, despite submitting 160,000. In July, he fled to Russia, fearing for his life.
After the official election result emerged, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya made an official complant but was detained for seven hours and released a video, apparently filmed under duress, calling on the people of Belarus to accept Lukashenko’s victory. After her release she fled to Lithuania where she released another video claiming it was she, not Lukashenko, who had actually won the election and with 60 to 70% of the vote.
Since the disputed result was announced, mostly peaceful protests have sprung up around the country, including women dressed in white forming solidarity chains and handing flowers to the security forces and military which our CEO Ruth Smeeth wrote about here.
Many of Lukanshenko’s opponents as well as critical journalists have been detained or tortured. News outlet Onliner.by reported how blood-stained protesters including journalist Ivan Mourauyou had been detained and beaten in a gym.
After Savitsky’s disappearance on 10 August, his wife Ekaterina – who is currently writing a children’s book about the Belarusian capital Minsk and with whom Savitsky has a four-year-old son Nikita – spent the next five days desperately trying to find out what had happened to him.
“No one from the government would tell me anything about his whereabouts or what had happened to him,” she said.
Ekaterina constantly tried to ring government phone lines where “you can find the status of everything/everyone” but they were constantly busy. She scoured lists of detained political prisoners that volunteers had been producing.
In desperation, she started visiting the prison in Okrestina Street in the town of Zhodino, where many protestors had been detained, in the hope of catching sight of her husband or hearing news of his fate.
It was a terrible place to wait for news.
“There are the screams and groans of political prisoners being beaten inside the prison walls. There is a non-stop chain of government prison trucks entering and ambulances exiting, taking beaten and traumatised political prisoners out. Every day you see terror, pain and tears in the eyes of mothers and wives awaiting for the release of political prisoners,” she said.
She told Index, “In this fiery jar of hell and blindness you find yourself for days at a time, in hopes of finding out at least something about your loved ones. I was praying that at least my husband would be in the Zhodino prison, because rumours are that at least they don’t beat their prisoners and possibly even feed them.”
This period of uncertainty was taking its toll on the family. Savitsky ‘s mother would only utter one thing – “I pray that he is alive”. The couple’s four-year-old Nikita would constantly ask for his parents.
“In this ordeal, I have been forced to learn not to break out into tears myself and instead support others,” said Ekaterina.
With no official news on who was in the prison, Ekaterina resorted to another method – running up to each released prisoner with a photo of Savitsky and asking “I’m sorry, was there someone with you who looked like this?”
After days of anxious waiting with no news, Ekaterina’s approach bore fruit – one of the emerging prisoners recognised Savitsky’s photograph.
“Have you ever felt joy from finding out a loved one is in prison? As absurd as it sounds, at least I knew my husband was alive,” said Ekaterina.
That was the good news. The bad news was that the government was preparing a criminal case against him. “They had already interrogated him, without a lawyer and without notifying any relatives,” said Ekaterina.
“I started to look for lawyers but many right now are overwhelmed with work and many are not taking on criminal cases,” she said.
Ekaterina eventually found one who would take on the case and returned to Zhodino with the lawyer.
“I was finally able to find out the details – my husband is accused of ‘organising mass protests based on article 293 of the Republic of Belarus,’” she said.
“My husband is accused of participating in and organising massive unsanctioned/illegal protests. He is also charged with the crime of using his vehicle to block the critical movement of people and vehicles, even though he doesn’t own a car and was without a car that night.”
“He didn’t break anything, he didn’t throw anything, he didn’t use any means of force,” she said. “I supported my husband, because I consider him a brave and responsible person. He went to the peaceful protest, hoping to impact change in our country and for the future of our son.”
On 19 August, Alexander Lukashenko announced he had ordered security forces to end the unrest in Minsk, despite protests from around the world.
Savitsky faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
“I am overcome by horror,” said Ekaterina. “At the moment, my husband is the only breadwinner in our family. But the most terrifying thing – at home awaits his four-year-old son who doesn’t understand where his dad is. I don’t know what to tell him.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
14 Aug 20 | Belarus, Opinion, Ruth's blog
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114568″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]My Twitter feed this week, probably like yours, has been filled with terrifying, outrageous but also at points inspirational images from Belarus. The sham of an election that saw Alexander Lukashenko ‘re-elected’ with 80% of the vote has been dismissed and disputed by election observers, the European Union and the US State Department.
Lukashenko has used every tool available to a totalitarian leader. His opponent Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has had to flee the country to protect her family. The military have been deployed against protestors, with public beatings a seemingly normal occurrence. The KGB has been raiding homes overnight arresting anyone considered a threat to the regime. Dozens of journalists have been apprehended. Over 6,700 people have been detained with reports now emerging of torture taking place in the prisons and during interrogations. This is happening on European soil in the year 2020, less than 1,400 miles from London – we cannot ignore it. We must not.
As ever the repressive tools of the dictator rarely silence the population, who seem determined to stand up against Lukashenko and his allies, in numbers not seen in Belarus since the fall of communism.
Yesterday, women wearing white and carrying flowers marched on Minsk and formed solidarity chains in numerous other areas – the protest was clear “Flowers are better than Bullets”. Impromptu strike action has followed at the state owned BelAZ truck factory, with chants that they all voted for Tikhanovskaya not Lukashenko, with other factories seemingly following suit. The protest that touched me most was the protest from the Belarusian State Philharmonic who stood in front of their building with placards stating: “My voice was stolen” as they sang together.
Each of these acts of protest have demonstrated extraordinary feats of personal courage and bravery from a population that is tired and is demanding their basic entitlement of a democratic government that respects the rule of law. Their individual and collective actions are inspirational and it is up to all of us to make sure that they know that they aren’t alone.
Index was established to provide a voice to Soviet dissidents in the 1970s, many of whom were from Belarus. Our commitment to them remains as strong today as it was in 1971. We stand with the people of Belarus against tyranny and repression and we will do all we can to make sure that the world keeps paying attention to their plight.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You might also like to read” category_id=”13527″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
12 Aug 20 | News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114550″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Artists, writers and activists have joined Index and other NGOs in calling on the Scottish government to redraft a proposed new bill.
Rowan Atkinson, Mary “Doll” Nesbit, actor Elaine C Smith, Peter Tatchell and former Scottish Arts Council director Dame Seona Reid have written a joint letter to argue that the wording of the proposed Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill while well meaning risks “stifling freedom of expression, and the ability to articulate or criticise religious and other beliefs”.
Organisations including the Humanist Society Scotland and Scottish PEN as well as Index signed the letter.
The letter comes as the Scottish Parliament considers the wording of the bill which the Scottish Government says “provides for the modernising, consolidating and extending of hate crime legislation in Scotland” and will “provide greater clarity, transparency and consistency”.
The signatories to the letter say they welcome the provisions to consolidate existing aggravated hate crimes and the repeal of the blasphemy law. However, they add that the bill as currently drafted “creates a stirring up offence that does not examine the intention behind the action; a crime is committed merely because someone’s words, actions, or artwork might stir up hatred and regardless of their intentions”.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
11 Aug 20 | Covid 19 and freedom of expression, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114537″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Cartoonists are “the canaries in the coal mine” when it comes to media freedom. That, at least, is the view of multiple award-nominated Belgian cartoonist Steven Degryse, better known to his readers as Lectrr.
If so there is certainly something wrong in the mine. According to the Cartoonists Rights Network International, there have been more than twice the number of attacks against cartoonists between the months of March and May this year than there normally are, and the reason? It is a dangerous combination of restrictive legislation enacted because of the Covid pandemic, the rise of authoritarianism, frayed tempers, and offended individuals with powerful platforms.
Early on in the crisis, Lectrr’s cartoon of a Chinese flag with biohazard symbols instead of stars drew sharp criticism.
“I started to receive a lot of hate mail on my social media, most of it in Chinese, and a lot by fake accounts and manufactured texts. After a while I also received a death threat by one of the accounts,” said Lectrr.
While he did not feel pressured by the negative reactions, not all cartoonists share this sentiment. Australian cartoonist Badiucao received a death threat from a Twitter user following the publication of his Wuhan Diary; likewise, Mahmoud Abbas and his family’s location was shared on social media following the publication of his oil crisis cartoon that sparked a smear campaign against him as well as death threats.
Terry Anderson, executive director of Cartoonists Rights Network International, says that in countries where democracy is weak or entirely absent, legislation that is said to be in the name of monitoring false information about coronavirus is “actually being used to detain critics who…aren’t pleased with how the situation is being handled in their country”. Anderson said, “Authoritarianism, isolationism, and exceptionalism are pretexts by those who have an inclination to curtail freedoms…under the auspices of protecting public health, protecting from misinformation and disinformation, from fake news, and so on.”
Lectrr said there has been a rise in both violence and legislation that prohibits criticism of the government, or that the government deems seditious in countries “where we see the rise of autocratic leaders…[like] Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban, and Francken who constantly bash or criminalize journalists and cartoonists with their followers”.
This is something that the Index on Censorship has been acutely aware of. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, there have been more than 200 violations of media freedom which we have reported on an interactive map, in conjunction with our partners at Justice for Journalists Foundation.
For example, Brazilian president Bolsonaro suspended the deadline for when his government must respond to a request for access to information in an attempt to prevent the public from accessing government records; a study in Hungary found that public information on the coronavirus pandemic has been centralised and restricted in an attempt to control the pandemic’s narrative; and in the United States, the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and NYU Langone Health has ordered faculty doctors not to speak with reporters about Covid-19 without express approval from the Office of Communications and Marketing under threat of termination. These legislative and regulatory attacks on media freedom have affected journalists and cartoonists by preventing their access to pertinent information, and therefore curtailing criticism of respective governments. However, government regulation of media is not the only type of violence that cartoonists have had to endure.
With billions of people around the world in lockdown, media content has been at the forefront of everyone’s mind. People are constantly on the news—newspapers, social media, televised reports—and right along with the daily news is a critical cartoon.
Anderson said, “Because so many things in their common life are gone, people are consuming information in a much higher quantity, so when a news story breaks, everyone is paying attention. If there’s a cartoon that pisses people off, it’s going to piss off far more people far more quickly.”
Lectrr’s cartoon was one of many that upset powerful people.
In the early months of 2020, “there was a rash of diplomats specifying cartoons that they took umbrage with…when a diplomat, somebody with an enormous platform and prestige singles out an individual practitioner, it’s an open invitation to harassment,” said Anderson. “The majority are state actors: governments, police forces, and military.”
When cartoonists, who are often freelance artists, are targeted by someone as powerful as a diplomat, they become the eye of public dissent, and as a result, become victims of smear campaigns, death threats, and, in some cases, violent, physical attacks.
Usually, a cartoonist or journalist can be silenced in the EU with the “brutal intimidation…of lawyers. Cartoonists and journalists often don’t have the means to go into lengthy trials, so even when they are right…they often don’t stand a chance against powerful enemies,” according to Lectrr.
These kinds of defamation cases run “dry the resources of cartoonists,” he continued, but in the age of the coronavirus, the most effective way to silence a cartoonist seems to be by putting them in the centre of a storm of loyal, angry, low-patience supporters, bypassing the need to spend money on a trial, and instead using a sea of threats to intimidate and silence cartoonists.
This Covid-inspired attack on cartoonists has led some media outlets to conclude that cartoons and cartoonists are a problem, Anderson stated.
“It’s a strange thing, just five years after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, to see so many places saying, ‘yeah, we’ll just do without—we won’t have cartoons.’”
Although a world without cartoons feels more imminent now during the clash of authoritarian leaders and a deadly virus, Lectrr warns that “where cartoonism [sic] is in decline, so is freedom of speech, or even democracy.”
What happens to a society when freedom of speech is regulated, or worse, eradicated, by governments? And how close are we to that edge?
Read more about Index on Censorship’s mapping media freedom during Covid-19 project. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You might also enjoy reading” category_id=”40456″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
