25 Jan 17 | Magazine, News and features, Volume 45.04 Winter 2016
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Dealing with mutilated bodies, an attempted acid attack and speakers arresting each other. All part of his job organising Hay literature festivals around the world, explains Peter Florence in the winter 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”85033″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]
Running a literature festival in a context where freedom of speech is not a given is like playing chess on a plain grey board. Sometimes you are just not able to imagine where to move, and sometimes you just keep playing on grey. But as US President Barack Obama said so eloquently after November’s election: “You say, OK, where are the places where I can push to keep it moving forward?”
Bringing people together around a table or a picnic rug or a campfire is a specific challenge. There is no mediated distance of print or broadcast. The whole point is that you’re face to face, that you’re making it personal. And the offence and the risk are as personal as the joy and the discovery. This makes it a fascinating challenge when the practicalities of running a big public event run into conflict with the authorities who license you to put up your stages.
Sometimes it comes like this: a week after a successful festival, a man you’ve been working with for a couple of years suggests a meeting in a café to review the year’s work. He’s a good man, an enabler; a man who has the careworn look of a bureaucrat who’s survived in an undemocratic regime by knowing which battles to fight.
You like him, because he’s helped navigate the public licences and public funding avenues. He orders cake. He enthuses about the opportunity to meet Hanif Kureishi at the screening of My Beautiful Launderette, and the honour of hearing Carl Bernstein speak about the First Amendment. His funder is thrilled. They love the Hay Festival in the city. We’re in a coffee shop, not his office. They are so thrilled they’d like to double the grant they give us. Alarm bells. Could we help them? Here it comes: could we programme the next festival just the same way, but without the homosexuals or the Jews?
Sometimes it’s harder. Our first festival in volatile, thrilling Mexico comes to a world heritage site in Zacatecas, because the state’s visionary governor has visited our festival in Cartagena, Colombia, and she wants to bring a similar experience to her home. The festival is a huge success. Her term ends and she is succeeded by a new governor who cancels all his predecessor’s funded projects.
But across the country a dynamic new governor in Veracruz, Javier Duarte, picks up the baton and invites us to Xalapa. A fortnight before we start, a drug cartel dumps 35 mutilated bodies onto a busy road nearby. “It’s a gang thing, an inter-narco incident,” we’re told.
We hold the festival. Tens of thousands of students come and listen and talk and wonder.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left” color=”custom” align=”right” custom_color=”#dd3333″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_custom_heading text=”Could we programme the next festival just the same way, but without the homosexuals or the Jews?” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
During the third year the talk about the Governor Duarte’s probity starts. Journalists investigating the cartels are disappeared. We bring in Salman Rushdie, Jody Williams and Carl Bernstein again to speak up alongside Mexican writers. The students embrace the festival as a beacon of freedom of speech.
Year four, we receive a petition demanding that we cancel the festival and denounce the governor for failing to stem the constant steam of killings of journalists in Veracruz. The petition is signed by more than 300 journalists and some writers from across Latin America who have attended the festival. We listen. A rival, and much bigger petition is started by the students and teachers in Xalapa begging us not to leave, saying the festival is their bulwark against silence. But we cannot operate against the wishes of writers and journalists. We broadcast the festival digitally on BBC Mundo, and move to Mexico City and then to Querétaro. Many of the students from Xalapa come too. Duarte is currently on the run from the police and the cartels.
Sometimes it’s just farcical. In 2008, at our festival in Wales we invite George W Bush’s confidant and former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton to discuss Abu Ghraib and the “war on terror”. Many supporters of Hay are appalled. Our good friend and neighbour George Monbiot, also a speaker, is so appalled he decides that he will attempt a citizen’s arrest at the festival. I assume he’s joking. Monbiot announces this is what he’s going to do in The Guardian. The Dyfed-Powys Police inform me of the legal procedure for citizen’s arrest and step away.
My mother reads me Voltaire. I brief our security team. The day comes. Bolton turns up. His interviewer is called to the BBC at lunchtime, so I have to go onstage with him. I ask him under what circumstances it would be OK for me, if I didn’t believe his answers, to tip him backwards, bag him, and pour water over his face. He doesn’t answer. He cannot say “under no circumstances”, though I’m not sure he understands that’s the issue. It’s on YouTube; it’s compelling.
Bolton knows that Monbiot is going to try to make a citizen’s arrest, and George knows I cannot allow him to do that and still hold Hay as a platform for free speech. So that’s what happens. We restrain a liberal hero from silencing an illiberal neo-con. A guy who throws a bottle of acid hits me, not Bolton. George writes a brilliant and widely shared account of why Bolton should be charged.
Hay Festival is 30 in 2017. We’ll be celebrating by arguing for freedoms of speaking and reading. The festival continues to run around the world in Mexico, Colombia, Ireland and Spain.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Peter Florence is the director and co-founder of the Hay Festival
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”From the Archives”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”89102″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306422012448150″][vc_custom_heading text=”Taking a stand: lit fair challenges” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1177%2F0306422012448150|||”][vc_column_text]June 2012
As literary festivals and fairs become forums of censorship and protest, Salil Tripathi considers the challenges facing writers and their readers.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”91337″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064229008534852″][vc_custom_heading text=”Soviet lit in Glasgow” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1080%2F03064229008534852|||”][vc_column_text]June 1990
Soviet writers attend literary forum, ‘New Beginnings’ Soviet Arts Festival in Glasgow, where selections from their work were read and discussed.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”94377″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064228008533066″][vc_custom_heading text=”The prisoner: an excerpt” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1080%2F03064228008533066|||”][vc_column_text]June 1980
Imprisoned for a paper on education to be delivered at a festival, Yves-Emmanuel Dogbé was imprisoned without trial for five months.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Fashion Rules” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fnewsite02may%2F2016%2F12%2Ffashion-rules%2F|||”][vc_column_text]The winter 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine looks at fashion and how people both express freedom through what they wear.
In the issue: interviews with Lily Cole, Paulo Scott and Daphne Selfe, articles by novelists Linda Grant and Maggie Alderson plus Eliza Vitri Handayani on why punks are persecuted in Indonesia.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”82377″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/newsite02may/2016/12/fashion-rules/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fnewsite02may%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
Subscription options from £18 or just £1.49 in the App Store for a digital issue.
Every subscriber helps support Index on Censorship’s projects around the world.
SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
24 Jan 17 | News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A journalist with hope is a common contradiction in these strange days. When I set forth to share my thoughts on what the new year may offer us, I was overwhelmed by the thickening siege on our profession worldwide.
Having recently witnessed President Tayyip Erdoğan praising Donald Trump for putting a CNN reporter in his place, what keeps swirling in my mind is the age-old Turkish saying that goes, in a rough translation: “Snow falls over the mountains that you trust.” It means disappointment is piling up and there is nowhere you can turn to.
That’s the taste Trump, elected as the leader of the “free world”, leaves when he redefines the professional standards we have grown up with, taken for granted and sought to establish in less free environments.
That leaves journalists, particularly those in Turkey, deeply stunned and more helpless than ever. Wishing for better times is a fragile exercise, a distant daydream, a hopeless task. What makes one think in those terms is the sheer horror of what we have been subjected to may only be a harbinger of what comes next, in a higher level of oppression.
The year we left behind marks an ordeal most of us would prefer to forget. Yet it is impossible. In every possible aspect, 2016 was annus horribilis for what we in the bold and independent flanks of Turkish journalism stand for. The year will go down in history as a midwife of a series of lethal blows to people’s right to have access to truth and diverse opinion.
It became a period of severe punishment with the constitution suspended and the rights of the Fourth Estate eviscerated. The introduction of the state of emergency, which was enthusiastically championed by Erdoğan, only accelerated the strangulation of the free word.
In the final days of 2016 journalism was in ruin: 146 journalists in jail (it now stands at 152), placing Turkey in the special position of having around 60% of the global total of journalists behind bars. More than 9,000 journalists have lost their jobs, or around 45% of the active journalists at home. Erdoğan’s regime also ended the year by shuttering more than 190 media outlets – a blend of all political leanings and various identities – leaving only one (out of 245) TV channels, the tiny Halk TV, as the lone critical voice. The remaining independent newspapers on the political left struggle with financial and circulation problems. Their alternative narrative is barely heard. A number of journalists – including myself – had to leave the country, chased into exile by the forces of the counter-coup that launched an immense purge and nearly 1,000 had their press cards cancelled. And more foreign colleagues experienced harassment at the hands of officials – as the arrest of Dion Nissenbaum of the Wall Street Journal showed – and deportations.
We entered the new year with a yet another announcement that the authorities had launched a massive legal inquiry and arrested over 62,000 people for “clandestine activity” on social media — such as critical tweeting — of which 17,000 were already indicted. This news came as Bekir Bozdağ, minister of justice, proudly declared that 25 new prisons are now being built, a 22% increase in capacity.
Journalism is a profession in agony. Frankly, none of us in this now dreaded exercise of informing the public can see any way out. The odds are that Erdoğan is only inches away from securing a fully empowered executive presidential rule, equipped with impunity and it is fair to assess that the state of emergency will continue as long as his party deems necessary. One can only pray — as a colleague told me over the phone recently — that the AKP shows mercy to release jailed journalists, who were all jailed for doing their job. Under such circumstances, it is an arduous task to report about daily events; forget about plunging into daring investigations of official corruption in the public interest.
Which leaves me with one hope for 2017: we won’t be able to give up. Turkey’s independent journalists will continue to do what they know best. But it will have to be mainly online from editorial bases outside the country. This will be a very tough battle for our integrity and a long-term one. We will have to keep our spirits intact. But we need the consistent, courageous backing of our colleagues in the West.
“The West is largely silent. And Erdoğan is triumphalist. ‘Now that the demagogue Trump is about to become the world’s most powerful man, the authoritarians believe history is on their side’,” wrote Owen Jones in The Guardian, adding:
“Turkey is a warning: democracy is precious but fragile. It underlines how rights and freedoms are often won at great cost and sacrifice but can be stripped away by regimes exploiting national crises. The danger is that Turkey won’t be an exception, but a template of how to rid countries of democracy. That is reason enough to stand by Turkey. Who knows which country could be next?”
Indeed.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1485774465935-7b8b8f3b-cd52-8″ taxonomies=”8607″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
24 Jan 17 | Albania, Belarus, Europe and Central Asia, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features, Sweden, Turkey
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
Each week, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project verifies threats, violations and limitations faced by the media throughout the European Union and neighbouring countries. Here are five recent reports that give us cause for concern.
On 18 January a Turkish court ordered the arrest of three journalists on charges of “membership in an armed terror group,” T24 reported.
These journalists include Ömer Çelik, former news editor of DİHA daily; Tunca Öğreten, former editor of Diken news portal, and BirGün daily staff member Mahir Kanaat.
They were detained on 25 December 2016 with three others; Derya Okatan, managing editor for the ETHA news agency; DİHA reporter Metin Yoksu, and Yolculuk newspaper managing editor Eray Saygın.
After 24 days, the court ruled to release Yoksu, Sargın and Okatan on probation terms. Under the order they are barred from international travel and will have to regularly check in with their local police station.
Pre-trial custody can last up to 30 days under Turkey’s emergency rule, which was implemented on 20 July 2015 following a coup attempt.
On 25 December 2016, pro-government Sabah daily announced that the journalists would be detained in connection to email correspondence of Berat Albayrak, Turkey’s energy minister and the son-in-law of the country’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that were leaked to the media.
The arrests bring the number of journalists in Turkish prisons to 151.
The Gothenburg offices of Swedish public service TV and radio, SVT, were evacuated on Tuesday 10 January after a suspicious package containing white powder and written threats was sent to staff member Janne Josefsson, the broadcaster reported.
SVT reported that “the letter was opened and the contents spread on a coffee machine and stairs”.
SVT Chief Executive Hannah Stjärne commented on the incident: “This threat has disabled a socially important journalistic operation for several hours and is a blow to the open society which we must protect.”
Police have begun an investigation into the source of the threat. The powder was later found to be harmless.
Russian-Israeli blogger Aleksandr Lapshin was detained in Minsk on 15 January 2016, shortly after entering Belarus, Euroradio.fm reported. The detention was requested by Azerbaijan, which is seeking to have the blogger extradited.
Lapshin lives in Moscow and is wanted in Azerbaijan for visiting the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and for criticising Azerbaijani policies on his blog.
A representative for Belarus’s Prosecutor General said it was studying Azerbaijan’s extradition request.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Belorussian authorities to release the blogger without condition and allow him to return home.
Two media directors, Armand Shullaku and Alfred Lela, lost their jobs on 12 January after owners changed the “editorial orientation” of their outlets in favour of the government, ZeriaMerikas.es reported.
Shkullaku, who was the director of the news channel ABC News in Tirana, said his employment contract was not renewed for January 2017 and that he believed that the owner of the TV station changed its editorial line so that it now supports the government. “The owner told me that in his opinion, the channel needed a new managerial and editorial approach,” he said.
Lela, former director of the newspaper Mapo, said that the owner of the outlet had also declared his support for Prime Minister Edi Rama and that his contract, which ended on 31 December, was not renewed for that reason. “I was offered a new contract on condition I respected the new editorial affiliation and I refused,” he told Voice of America Albanian language service.
Lulzim Basha, the leader of the opposition Democratic Party, wrote on his Facebook page that the dismissal of these two journalists means businesses and media have joined the government against the people.
On 12 January an Istanbul Prosecutor asked for a nine-year sentence in the case of prominent journalist Hasan Cemal, reported Hurriyet Daily News.
Cemal is being charged for “making the propaganda of terrorist organisations” and “praising crime and criminals”.
On 1 September, 2016 Cemal was part of a group of nine editors who took part in the Editor For The Day campaign launched in support of the closed pro-Kurdish daily Özgür Gündemy, Bianet reported.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
Click on the bubbles to view reports or double-click to zoom in on specific regions. The full site can be accessed at https://mappingmediafreedom.org/
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1485247537834-0f5818db-acf6-3″ taxonomies=”6564″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
23 Jan 17 | Bahrain, Bahrain News, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”81222″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]The Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab was due to be sentenced on 23 January but this was postponed for an eighth time. Rajab’s ninth trial date on charges of “spreading rumours in wartime,” “insulting a statutory body” and “insulting a neighbouring country” (Saudi Arabia) – all of which are related to comments on Twitter – will be 21 February.
A tweet by Index, which Rajab shared, is being used as evidence against him. He is the winner of a 2012 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award for his efforts in speaking out against human rights infringements by Bahraini government in 2011 and was a judge of the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards in 2016.
“Bahrain’s continued judicial harassment of Nabeel Rajab only serves to mar the country’s image in the international community,” Melody Patry, head of advocacy at Index on Censorship, said. “This latest postponement is just more evidence of the Bahraini government’s disregard for global human rights norms. We urge Bahrain to immediately drop all charges against him.”
Rajab was arrested and sentenced in 2012 for voicing his critical opinions about Bahraini authorities and for leading pro-democracy protests. He has since been released and re-arrested multiple times, and his time spent in solitary confinement and unclean conditions have caused a serious decline in his health.
Rajab also faces numerous other charges, including for a letter he wrote to the New York Times in September 2016 and an opinion piece in Le Monde in December 2016.
Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, said: “Nabeel Rajab faces over 17 years in prison for these pathetic charges. Now the UK is setting a dangerous precedent in providing bombs and jets to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, worth billions, while watching in silence as rights campaigners who took a principled stance against wars and torture are harshly punished.”
There are many who face a similar plight in Bahrain. Although it is considered to be one of the most connected countries in the world in terms of technology, Bahrain has a reputation for regularly blocking critical news, as well as human rights and opposition websites. Social media is strictly monitored and the government routinely revokes the citizenship of many of its critics, rendering them stateless.
Ebrahim Sharif, former secretary-general of the secular, left-wing National Democratic Action Society, was sentenced on 13 November 2016 to a three-year prison sentence for “inciting hatred against the regime” after speaking to the Associated Press.
He was sentenced to five years in prison in 2011 for the same charges. After facing brutal torture and imprisonment in solitary confinement for 56 days, Sharif received a royal pardon on 19 June 2015. He served four years and three months in prison.
Sharif is a member of the Bahrain 13, a group of high-profile human rights advocates who were arrested, tormented and sentenced by a Bahraini military court in 2011.
Many other activists have been jailed for exercising their right to free expression. Zainab Al-Khawaja is currently in exile in Denmark, where she is a dual citizen, with her two young children. They arrived there on 6 June 2016 after she was threatened with new charges that would result in long sentences and separation from her children, following her release a week earlier.
Her father, Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, is currently serving a life sentence for the part he played in the 2011 demonstrations in Bahrain. He was head of the 2012 Index Award-winning Bahrain Center for Human Rights with Nabeel Rajab. Al-Khawaja’s sister Maryam is also currently in exile in Denmark.
In 2015, the Liberties and Human Rights Department of Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society verified 1,765 opposition-related arrests. These included the incarceration of 120 children and five women.
On 9 October 2016, sports journalist Faisal Hayyat was arrested and sentenced to three months in prison by a Bahraini criminal court due to a tweet allegedly insulting the Sunni sect of Islam. Hayyat was also arrested in April 2011 for involvement in pro-democracy protests. He wrote on Facebook a few days before his most recent arrest about the extreme physical, psychological and sexual torture he endured while imprisoned.
Writer, blogger and president of the Women’s Petition Committee, Ghada Jamsheer, began her ten-month combined sentence on 15 August 2016. She was jailed in Bahrain for exercising her right to free expression on Twitter. She requested to be freed in order to serve the remainder of her sentences outside of the prison due to her debilitating rheumatoid arthritis, but the judge has yet to inform her of his decision.
On 17 July 2016, the Bahraini Public Prosecution decided to charge Nazeeha Saeed, an award-winning correspondent for Radio Monte Carlo Doualiya and France24, for illegally working for international media. In June 2016 Saeed faced a travel ban without her knowledge, only to discover that she could not leave the country when she wasn’t allowed to board a flight.
Many other journalists working for international media outlets have faced similar threats, including Sayed Ahmed Al-Mousawi, who was stripped of his citizenship in November 2015.
Bahrain continuously stifles free speech and silences critics. It also has the highest prison population per capita in the Middle East, including 3,500 prisoners of conscience.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1485190510938-e7ffcac4-a5c4-10″ taxonomies=”3368″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
22 Jan 17 | Index in the Press
A look inside Flying Dog, the company that made a bestseller out of a beer with a naughty name—and launched a First Amendment fight to call its brews whatever the hell it wants. Read the full article
20 Jan 17 | Media Freedom, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]In recent years, there has been a perceptible increase in far-reaching restrictions on the media across the globe. This impulse to restrain media freedom stems from a variety of real and perceived “threats” – from concerns about national security, to demands for media “ethics” and “responsibility”, to accusations of the media’s role in the dissemination of so-called “fake news”, most recently. The urge of states to regulate is also reinforced by the overall devaluation of the critical role played by a free and independent media across liberal democracies around the world.
The trend towards ramping up the regulation of the media has worrying implications in these states and others who are currently considering a similar response: the inability of the media to perform its role as a – if not, the – key public watchdog, the erosion of states’ international legal obligations and political commitments on freedom of expression, and a lessening of freedom of the media as a whole.
Under international law, specifically Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, states do not have free reign to control the media. Limitations on media freedom, as an aspect of freedom of expression, are allowed only in certain, narrowly defined circumstances, such as national security or the protection of privacy. However, a great many governments are currently approaching media regulation as though restrictions may be imposed at the complete discretion of states regardless of international law and commitments.
[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner content_placement=”top”][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left” color=”black” size=”lg” align=”right”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]
The trend towards ramping up the regulation of the media has worrying implications
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]There have been moves to exert political control over how the media is regulated in a number of OSCE participating states. Take, for example, the January 2016 decision by Poland in a move reminiscent of Hungary’s media law reforms of 2012, to enact a law handing over the power to appoint and dismiss members of management boards of public service broadcasters, Polski Radio and Telewizja Polska, from the National Broadcasting Council to the government. I warned, before the adoption, that the legislation “endanger[s] the basic conditions of independence, objectivity and impartiality of public service broadcasters”.
Anxieties about the effects of media regulation on media freedom are not limited to transitional or newer democracies, however, as the recent debate around the implementation of section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 in the UK, a traditional bastion of press freedom, suggests. As I have noted, the commencement of the provision would have punitive effects on the press for reporting on public interest issues in the UK, and have an especially onerous impact up on local and regional newspapers who are already facing significant financial challenges. It would also mean that the UK as a long-standing bastion of press freedom would send out a negative message to other states on the possibilities to regulation.
The picture is not all bad, of course. Some states have made significant positive strides in advancing freedom of the media by engaging with my office on legislative amendments, such as the government of the Netherlands on its draft Law on the Intelligence and Security Services, while others have shown advances in terms of case-law, such as Norway on the protection of sources.
Unfortunately, however, the dominant trend is a regressive one – towards control of the media rather than the reinforcement of it through, among other things, the promotion of media self-regulation and pluralism. This tendency of states to try and control the media is not just a matter of concern for my office, other international institutions, the media itself and civil society organisations. It is one that should worry all those who care about democratic values, the rule of law and human rights.
Dunja Mijatović is the Representative on Freedom of the Media for the OSCE, based in Vienna.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1484907257319-fb6254e3-0fad-6″ taxonomies=”6380″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
20 Jan 17 | Statements
Untitled #1, by David Pulphus
As organisations devoted to promoting the arts and freedom of expression, we condemn the recent removal of a student painting from a public passageway on Capitol Hill. The removal shows a deep disregard of a young person’s constitutional right to free expression and is a flagrant violation of the principles underlying the nation’s commitment to the protection of free speech. It is a sad day when elected representatives of the people of the United States send a message to young people in this country that they should stifle passionate expression concerning important issues of public policy.
The painting, by St. Louis High School Senior David Pulphus, is among the winners of the annual Congressional Art Competition. It depicts, in an allegorical manner, a young artist’s vision of one of the facts of our recent past: a protest against police violence. Pulphus’ painting was selected through a process set by the Competition, which included a review by the office of the Architect of the Capitol. It was approved and remained on display for six months until conservative news outlets built up a controversy around it in late December.
The media-generated controversy was followed by multiple attempts on the part of several Republican Representatives to take down the work with their own hands (each time, Representative Clay (D-Mo) put it back up). On Friday, January 13th, Stephen Ayers, the Architect of the Capitol, ordered the painting’s removal on the basis that it violated competition guidelines stipulating that “subjects of contemporary political controversy or a sensationalistic or gruesome nature are not allowed.”
The retroactive use of the very guidelines by which the painting was selected in the first place to remove the work only serves to draw attention to the how vague these guidelines are. Worse, the fact that the decision to censor the work was made under strong political pressure coming from one side of the aisle proves how easy it is to use the vague guidelines to suppress political viewpoints.
What is “controversial” is entirely subjective and thus open to abuse and the enforcement of political bias: Indeed, many other artworks in the exhibition may be deemed controversial, including a depiction of white police officers harassing an African American playing checkers, a portrait of Bernie Sanders and another of President Obama. And, of course, portraits and statuary on permanent display in Congressional buildings represent many political figures that are controversial. That Pulphus’ painting of police protests was singled out among all these for a hasty removal, after partisan political pressure by representatives who claimed the work was offensive to law enforcement, only deepens our concerns about the elected representatives enforcing political bias and stifling speech.
Political artistic expression is protected speech, no matter how controversial or offensive some may find it. Criticism of government actors such as law enforcement officials is one of the foremost reasons why we have the First Amendment. Citizens’ freedom to speak out against perceived governmental abuses and injustices is necessary to the health of our democracy: were government able to silence such criticisms, meaningful political discourse would be rendered impossible.
Removing the work sends a message to young people – and everybody else – that they should not depict the world around them for fear of offending our political representatives. At a time when we have a new administration and nationwide concerns about free speech, the censoring of an artwork because of its viewpoint is a deeply disturbing and divisive act in an already polarised nation.
We urge the Architect of the Capitol to take the time to consider arguments from both sides of the aisle and make a decision that upholds one of the nation’s most cherished values, a value that should not be subject to partisan strife: the value of free speech. We hope that rather than exacerbating partisan conflict, the controversy around this young person’s painting becomes a unifying educational opportunity to reinforce free speech principles across both sides of the aisle.
National Coalition Against Censorship
American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia
American Society of Journalists and Authors
Authors Guild
College Art Association
Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
Free Speech Coalition
Index on Censorship
PEN America
Vera List Center for Art and Politics
Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts
19 Jan 17 | Event Reports, News and features, Volume 45.04 Winter 2016 Extras
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”It may be easy to dismiss fashion as a trivial issue, but an expert panel argued otherwise at the launch of the winter 2016 Index on Censorship magazine’s new issue.” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlUhPA3TuB56uIAdpLWxk_kqBzjVOV9_J” title=”#FashionRules at Google”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
“I wasn’t trying to rebel,” former Elle magazine editor Maggie Alderson told the room at the launch of Index on Censorship’s winter 2016 issue Fashion Rules: Dressing to Oppress, which was hosted by Google at its central London offices. “I was just expressing myself.”
Maggie Alderson was speaking about how she was arrested in London as a teenager for wearing a t-shirt featuring two naked cowboys, and she lamented what she sees as a lack of creativity in modern western fashion, longing for the days when she would be frequently shocked and even appalled by designers such as Alexander McQueen.
Alderson was joined by fellow panelists — fashion historian Amber Butchart, New African Woman magazine editor Regina Jane Jere-Malanda, and award-winning journalist Laura Silvia Battaglia — for a wide-ranging discussion chaired by Index magazine editor Rachael Jolley to explore the nexus between fashion and freedom of expression.
Battaglia explained the literal interpretation of the Koran that requires women to cover their faces with “a towel”, and told of a teenage girl in Saudi Arabia who received death threats after posting a selfie without her compulsory abaya, but pointed out that those same sects of Islam also require men to dress a certain way.
Regina Jane Jere-Malanda did not hesitate to call out the misogyny of attitudes to women’s clothing in African countries, telling of how an MP in her home country of Zambia was thrown of Parliament for wearing a skirt that was too short, while Amber Butchart said that people have never liked being ordered to conform, explaining how American sailors used to sew intricate patterns into the inside of their uniforms to express themselves while on shore leave, and mentioning that Tartan became a symbol of Scottish rebellion simply because it was banned by the English.
Audience questions raised new topics such as the politics surrounding black women wearing natural hairstyles, and the taboo on men wearing women’s clothing.
Listen to the #FashionRules playlist.
Thank you to Google for hosting #FashionRules, as well as our publishers SAGE for helping to make the event happen.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]You can order your copy of the latest issue here, or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions. Copies are also available at the BFI, the Serpentine Gallery, MagCulture, (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester), Calton Books (Glasgow) and on Amazon. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship continue its fight for free expression worldwide.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”84974″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_media_grid element_width=”3″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1484923141783-3032303e-c962-0″ include=”84955,84957,84958,84959,84960,84961,84962,84963,84965,84966,84967,84968,84969,84970,84971,84972,84973,84974,84975″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”top”][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Fashion Rules” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fnewsite02may%2F2016%2F12%2Ffashion-rules%2F|||”][vc_column_text]The winter 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine looks at fashion and how people both express freedom through what they wear.
In the issue: interviews with Lily Cole, Paulo Scott and Daphne Selfe, articles by novelists Linda Grant and Maggie Alderson plus Eliza Vitri Handayani on why punks are persecuted in Indonesia. Special report on clothes and freedom, how Shakespeare challenges the censors, and assessing Correa’s free speech heritage.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”82377″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/newsite02may/2016/12/fashion-rules/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1481888488328{padding-bottom: 50px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fnewsite02may%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
Subscription options from £18.
Every subscriber helps support Index on Censorship’s projects around the world.
SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
19 Jan 17 | Index in the Press
Members and supporters of the National Secular Society gathered in Portcullis House on Wednesday night to discuss the future of free speech, two years after the attack on Charlie Hebdo. Read the full article
18 Jan 17 | Magazine, News and features, Turkey, Volume 45.04 Winter 2016 Extras
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Imprisoned journalists make headlines, but the Turkish government has a more insidious method for controlling the media, researchers BURAK BILGEHAN ÖZPEK and BAŞAK YAVCAN argue in an unpublished report excerpted in the winter edition of Index on Censorship magazine” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content_no_spaces”][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”84920″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Advertising is the latest way for the Turkish government to lean on the media to stop critical stories going into the press, according to unpublished research.
The large advertising budgets of state-controlled Turkish industries like banks, telecoms companies and Turkish Airlines are being used by the government to develop a financial grip over newspapers and control what they report.
Patterns of advertising during 2015 suggest that newspapers which do not toe the government line, or are hostile, are being starved of those revenues.
For instance, Sabah, a newspaper particularly sympathetic to the government, received more than 20% of the advertising budget of the state-controlled bank Halk Bank, while the independent Hürriyet received only 2.9%, despite both having a similar circulation.
Government-controlled telecoms company Turkcell also favoured Sabah by giving it 9.4% of its advertising, while Hürriyet took just 3.1%.
The situation was similar for another state-controlled telecoms company, Turk Telekom: Sabah received more than twice Hürriyet’s share of their total advertising.
Their research found that any paper critical of the government – those associated with the social democratic movement, liberalism, Kemalism, nationalism, Islamism – was either discriminated against, or excluded entirely, when it came to crucial advertising revenue.
Table: Daily newspapers’ share of advertising from part-public firms in 2015
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Burak Bilgehan Özpek is an associate professor and Başak Yavcan is an assistant professor in the department of political science and international relations at TOBB University of Economics and Technology in Ankara. This is an extract of their article from the winter 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine, which is based on their as-yet unpublished research into press freedom in Turkey. The magazine article can be read in full for free on Sage Journals until 31 January 2017.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Fashion Rules” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fnewsite02may%2F2016%2F12%2Ffashion-rules%2F|||”][vc_column_text]The winter 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine looks at fashion and how people both express freedom through what they wear.
In the issue: interviews with Lily Cole, Paulo Scott and Daphne Selfe, articles by novelists Linda Grant and Maggie Alderson plus Eliza Vitri Handayani on why punks are persecuted in Indonesia.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”82377″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://www.indexoncensorship.org/newsite02may/2016/12/fashion-rules/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fnewsite02may%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
Subscription options from £18.
Every subscriber helps support Index on Censorship’s projects around the world.
SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
16 Jan 17 | France, Greece, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”81193″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Each week, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project verifies threats, violations and limitations faced by the media throughout the European Union and neighbouring countries. Here are five recent reports that give us cause for concern.
A Hatay court issued a detention order for Ceren Taşkin, a reporter for the local newspaper Hatay Ses, on the basis of her social media posts, news website Gazete Karinca reported.
Taşkin was detained earlier for “spreading propaganda for a terrorist group” via her social media posts. Taşkin was arrested and sent to prison on 12 January on the same charges.
Her arrest brings the number of journalists in prison to 148, Platform 24 reported.
The National Radio and TV Council has banned independent Russian television channel Dozhd from broadcasting in the country.
“The channel portrayed the administrative border between Crimea and Kherson region as the border between Ukraine and Russia,” national council member Serhiy Kostynskyy said during a council meeting, Interfax-Ukraine reported.
According to Kostynskyy, the channel repeatedly violated Ukrainian law in 2016 by broadcasting Russian advertising and having Dozhd journalists illegally enter annexed Crimea from the Russian Federation without receiving special permission.
The ban is set to be officially published by the authorities on 16 January, Interfax-Ukraine reported.
Dozhd Director Natalya Sindeyeva said that the channel is broadcasting through IP-connection without direct commercial advertising in Ukraine and follows the Russian Federation law requiring that media outlets use maps to show Crimea as part of Russia.
Dunja Mijatovic, media freedom representative at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, wrote on her Twitter that this decision is “very damaging to media pluralism in Ukraine.”
Police arrested Giannis Kourtakis, publisher of Parapolitika newspaper, and its director, Panayiotis Tzenos, following a lawsuit filed against them for libel and extortion by the defence minister and leader of the Independent Greeks Party (ANEL), Panos Kammenos, the news website SKAI reports.
Kourtakis said he voluntarily went to police headquarters after being informed about the lawsuit, while director Panagiotis Tzenos was arrested in his Athens office.
ANEL issued a statement stressing that the lawsuit was prompted by allegedly slanderous claims about Kammenos’s son, saying that he was an “anarchist” and involved in a terrorist group on their radio programme which aired on 9 January.
In July 2015, Kammenos gave Athens press union (ESIEA) a list of journalists who had allegedly received improper funding through advertising from the state health entity KEELPNO, which included the Parapolitika executives.
According to SKAI, Kammenos claims that the journalists made slanderous statements about his son in order to make him retract allegations that the Parapolitika executives were receiving funding.
The public prosecutor who investigated the lawsuit has since reportedly dropped charges of criminal extortion.
Greece’s main journalists’ union and opposition parties have expressed concern over the general tendency of police’s interventions to journalists’ offices.
“Journalism must be exercised according to specific rules, but also press freedom must be defended and protected,” the Journalists’ Union of the Athens Daily Newspapers writes in its statement.
Vladislav Ryazantcev, correspondent for the independent news agency Caucasian Knot, reported on Facebook that he was assaulted by five unknown individuals whose faces were covered by scarves.
According to Ryazantcev, one of them grabbed his hand and asked him to “follow him for a talk.” Right after that an additional four individuals came up and started to hit the journalist on the head.
Ryazantcev reported that bystanders then helped rescued him.
“I do not know what the attack is connected to,” he wrote on Facebook. He later filed a complaint to the police.
The day before on 9 January, Magomed Daudov, speaker of the Chechen parliament, published threats against editor-in-chief of the Caucasian Knot, Grigori Shvedov, on Instagram.
A TV crew working for TF1 channel was reportedly assaulted in Compiègne while trying to film a building set to be emptied of its inhabitants because of alleged high criminality linked to drug trafficking, Courrier Picard reported.
“We tried to film a story there this morning. Our crew was attacked and stoned by thugs who stole our camera in this unlawful zone. It was very violent,” TF1 presenter Jean-Pierre Pernaud said. The assault occurred in the Close des Roses neighbourhood.
One of the journalists told Courrier Picard that the channel would file a complaint.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
Click on the bubbles to view reports or double-click to zoom in on specific regions. The full site can be accessed at https://mappingmediafreedom.org/
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
12 Jan 17 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan Statements, Campaigns, Campaigns -- Featured, Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Mehman Huseynov (Twitter)
The undersigned organisations strongly condemn the abduction and torture of Azerbaijani journalist Mehman Huseynov and call on Azerbaijan’s authorities to immediately investigate the case and to hold those responsible accountable. Moreover, Huseynov’s conviction should be overturned and the travel ban against him lifted. We further call upon the Azerbaijani authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all journalists, bloggers and activists currently imprisoned in Azerbaijan solely for exercising the right to freedom of expression.
Mehman Huseynov, Azerbaijan’s top political blogger and chairman of the local press freedom group, Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS), the country’s leading press freedom group, was abducted in Central Baku at around 8 pm local time on Monday 9 January. He was pushed into a vehicle by unknown assailants and driven away. His whereabouts were unknown until early afternoon on Tuesday, when it emerged that Huseynov had been apprehended by unidentified police agents.
On 10 January, Huseynov was taken to Nasimi District Court, where he was tried on charges of disobeying the police (Article 535.1 of the Administrative Offences Code), which carries a sentence of up to 30 days in jail. The Court released him; however, he was fined 200 AZN (approx. 100 EUR).
Huseynov said he was tortured while in police custody. He reported being driven around for several hours, blindfolded and suffocated with a bag. He also said that he was given electric shocks in the car. On being brought to Nasimi District Police Department he lost consciousness and collapsed. An ambulance was called, and he was given painkillers and sleep-inducers by way of injection. His lawyers confirmed that his injuries were visible during the court hearing. The court also ordered that Nasimi district prosecutor’s office conduct investigation into Mehman Huseynov’s torture reports.
“We resolutely denounce this act of torture and wish Mehman Huseynov a rapid recovery,” said Gulnara Akhundova, the Head of Department at International Media Support. “All charges against Huseynov must be dropped unconditionally, and those responsible for his torture should be tried in an independent and impartial manner, as should those in the chain of command who are implicated”.
‘The fact the Mehman Huseynov was convicted of disobeying the police for refusing to get into the car of his abductors beggars belief. We know that the Azerbaijan authorities have a long history of bringing trumped up charges against writers and activists. His conviction should be overturned immediately’ said Salil Tripathi, Chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee.
“This is another example of continued repression against journalists in Azerbaijan, which is why RSF considers Aliyev a predator of press freedom. Huseynov is one of dozens of journalists and citizen journalists who remain under politically motivated travel bans. Although he has been released, he remains at serious risk. The international community must act now to protect him and other critical voices in Azerbaijan.” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.
Although Huseynov’s family and colleagues had repeatedly contacted the police since his disappearance on 9 January 2017, they were not informed about his arrest until early afternoon the following day when he was brought to court. Hence, the undersigned organisations consider Huseynov’s abduction as an enforced disappearance, defined under international law as the arrest or detention of a person by state officials, or their agents, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty, or to reveal the person’s fate or whereabouts. The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has repeatedly clarified that ‘there is no time limit, not matter how short, for an enforced disappearance to occur’. As a signatory of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED), Azerbaijan is obliged to refrain from acts that would defeat or undermine the ICPPED’s objective and purpose.
Despite the much-lauded release of political prisoners in March 2016, the persecution of critical voices in Azerbaijan has accelerated in recent months. Currently, there are dozens of journalists and activists behind bars for exercising their right to free expression in Azerbaijan.
“The government has sought to destroy civil society and the media in Azerbaijan, while developing relations with Western states to secure lucrative oil and gas deals”, said Katie Morris, Head of the Europe and Central Asia Programme at ARTICLE 19.
“While the government may release a journalist one day, the following day they will arrest or harass others, creating a climate of fear to prevent people speaking out. The international community must clearly condemn this behaviour and apply pressure for systemic reform”, she added.
“We must stop the sense of impunity on attacks against journalists and human rights defenders in Azerbaijan, of which this attack against Mehman Huseynov is a sad illustration. The international community must seriously address this climate of impunity and take concrete actions, through the Council of Europe and the United Nations Human Rights Council, to regularly monitor the human rights situation in Azerbaijan and hold the authorities to their commitments in this regard,” said Ane Tusvik Bonde, Regional Manager for Eastern Europe and Caucasus at the Human Rights House Foundation.
The undersigned organisations call on the authorities to take the necessary measures to put an end to vicious cycle of impunity for wide-spread human rights violations in the country.
We call on the international community to undertake an immediate review of their relations with Azerbaijan to ensure that human rights are at more consistently placed at the heart of all on-going negotiations with the government. Immediate and concrete action must be taken to hold Azerbaijan accountable for its international obligations and encourage meaningful human rights reform in law and practice.
Supporting organisations:
ARTICLE 19
Civil Rights Defenders
English PEN
FIDH – International Federation for Human Rights
Front Line Defenders
Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights
Human Rights House Foundation
IFEX
Index on Censorship
International Media Support
International Partnership for Human Rights
NESEHNUTI
Netherlands Helsinki Committee
Norwegian Helsinki Committee
PEN America
PEN International
People in Need
Reporters Without Borders
World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)[/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1484232949524-420ae29e-2c22-0″ taxonomies=”7145″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
