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In response to the attacks on Tolo TV on 20 January, in which eight people have been killed and 30 others injured, we stand in solidarity with the Afghan media community. We condemn this and all other attacks on Afghanistan’s journalists unreservedly and applaud their courage to stand together undeterred by those who seek to silence them. We want to tell our colleagues throughout Afghanistan they are not alone; the international community is behind them. The journalists and media workers of Afghanistan are playing a leading role in working fearlessly to ensure that the voices of violent extremists do not dominate the news agenda. We remain ready to help them in this perilous endeavour.
Signed by (and including links to additional statements on the Tolo attack from these organizations),
Article 19, UK
Committee to Protect Journalists, USA
Free Press Unlimited, Netherlands
Index on Censorship, UK
Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), Canada
International News Safety Institute UK
International Media Support, Denmark
International Press Institute, Austria
World Association of Newspapers, France
Open Society Foundations, Program on Independent Journalism, UK
Reporters Without Borders, France
Rory Peck Trust, UK
Donald Trump, who controversially called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the USA, will not be banned from entering the UK after a debate over whether he should be allowed to enter the UK. In September 2015, Tyler, the Creator, an American hip-hop artist known for his controversial lyrics, did not fare so well.
On 26 August 2015, the musician was banned from entering the UK because of words he had penned for songs released in 2009. That day, Tyler explained the situation on Twitter, saying: “BASED ON LYRICS FROM 2009 I AM NOT ALLOWED IN THE UK FOR 3-5 YEARS (although I was there 8 weeks ago) THAT IS WHY THE SHOWS WERE CANCELLED.”
Speaking to Vice at the time, Index on Censorship’s chief executive Jodie Ginsberg said: “The British government has talked repeatedly in recent months about the importance of free expression and yet shown again and again through its actions that this commitment is half-hearted. Free expression includes allowing those whose speech others find offensive to express themselves. Tyler, the Creator, should be allowed to perform.”
Tyler’s lyrics have a tendency to push buttons, with his adopted alter ego Wolf Haley spitting rhymes about raping pregnant women and using a hefty variety of slurs. However, he stands firm on the fact that his lyrical content in no way a represents him as an individual and what he believes. In an interview with the Guardian, he said: “The thing that irks me about it is that the paper saying I am denied entry to UK clearly states that these songs were written from [the perspective of] an alter ego — which means they obviously did some research on these songs that they’re detaining me for.”
Additionally, in one of his most popular tracks, Radicals, he opens the song saying: “Hey, don’t do anything I say in this song, okay? It’s fuckin’ fiction. If anything happens, don’t fuckin’ blame me, white America, fuck Bill O’Reilly.” Seconds after the disclaimer, the MC launches into a tornado of aggressive bass and lines about defying what others think of him.
Tyler wasn’t the first rapper to be banned from the UK; both Busta Rhymes and Snoop Dogg have been denied entry because of convictions for criminal offences in the US. However, he is the first to be denied due to the content of his art.
Index on Censorship has teamed up with the producers of the award-winning They Will Have To Kill Us First to create the Music in Exile Fund to support musicians facing censorship globally. You can donate here, or by texting “BAND61 £10” to 70070 to give £10.
His Majesty Sheikh Hamad bin Issa Al Khalifa,
King of Bahrain
Fax: +973 176 64 587
CC: His Excellency Lieutenant General Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa
Minister of Interior
Email: info@interior.gov.bh
His Excellency Sheikh Khaled Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Fax: 00973 17 21 05 75; ofd@mofa.gov.bh
And Permanent Mission of Bahrain to the United Nations in Geneva
Fax: + 41 22 758 96 50; Email: info@bahrain-mission.ch
21 January 2016
Your Majesty,
We, the undersigned NGOs, call on the Bahraini authorities to lift the arbitrary travel ban on human rights defender Nabeel Rajab in order that he be able to travel abroad with his family for the purpose of securing medical assistance for his wife, Sumaya Rajab.
Nabeel Rajab is President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, Founding Director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, Deputy Secretary General of the International Federation for Human Rights and on the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East Division.
A public prosecutor imposed the travel ban on Nabeel Rajab without any judicial determination on July 13 2015, the day that Your Majesty pardoned him and ordered his release following his conviction for “publicly insulting official institutions” by criticizing the government on social media. The travel ban is related to two other speech-related charges that led to his arrest on April 2 2015, charges which prosecutors have not dropped.
The first outstanding charge is for allegedly “insulting a statutory body”, under article 216 of Bahrain’s Penal Code, based on his social media comments about the alleged torture of detainees in Jaw Prison in March 2015. The second accuses him of “disseminating false rumours in times of war,” under article 133 of the Penal Code, based on social media posts criticizing Saudi Arabia-led coalition air strikes in Yemen. Violations of articles 133 and 216 carry maximum sentences of 10 and three years in prison, respectively. Neither of the alleged acts upon which these charges are based were in any way recognisable criminal offences under international human rights law, and both involved the peaceful exercise of internationally protected rights to freedom of expression and to promote and protect human rights.
In November 2015, Sumaya Rajab was diagnosed with medical conditions requiring urgent and highly specialized treatment according to the medical expert team monitoring her condition. She was told that this treatment is not available in Bahrain.
In December 2015, Nabeel Rajab’s lawyers submitted their fourth appeal against the travel ban – they have submitted two requests to the attorney general, one request to the investigating prosecutor and one request to the Public Prosecution Office – requesting that it be lifted so he could accompany his wife. The Bahraini authorities have not responded to these appeals and the travel ban remains in place.
In November 2015, 81 Members of the European Parliament called on Your Majesty to lift Nabeel Rajab’s travel ban. The European Parliament passed a resolution in July 2015, shortly prior to Nabeel Rajab’s pardon, calling for his immediate and unconditional release alongside other prisoners of conscience. The same month, 44 members of the UK Parliament called on the government of Bahrain to drop Nabeel Rajab’s current charges and to release all political prisoners and those imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of expression. After his release, three UN human rights experts – Michael Forst, David Kaye, and Maina Kiai – called for Nabeel Rajab’s charges to be dropped. This followed the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein, call for the release of all those detained in relation to their peaceful activities in Bahrain in June.
We, the undersigned, therefore call on the Bahraini authorities to:
Drop all pending free speech-related charges against Nabeel Rajab;
Lift the travel ban immediately and unconditionally, thus allowing Nabeel and Sumaya Rajab to travel; and
Guarantee in all circumstances that human rights defenders in Bahrain are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals, and free of all restrictions including judicial harassment.
Signatories:
Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
Amnesty International
Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI)
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD)
Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR)
Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE)
CIVICUS
English PEN
European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR)
FIDH, within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Freedom House
Front Line Defenders
Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)
Human Rights Watch
Index on Censorship
International Media Support (IMS)
International Service For Human Rights (ISHR)
Lawyer’s Rights Watch Canada (LWRC)
Maharat Foundation
No Peace Without Justice
PEN International
Physicians for Human Rights
Rafto Foundation for Human Rights
Salam for Democracy and Human Rights
SENTINEL Human Rights Defenders
World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Hungary’s media outlets are coming under increasing pressure from lawsuits, restrictions on what they can publish and high fees for freedom of information requests, according to a survey of the 15 verified reports to Index on Censorship’s media monitoring project during the fourth quarter of 2015.
The Mapping Media Freedom project, which identifies threats, violations and limitations faced by members of the press throughout the European Union, candidate states and neighbouring countries, has recorded 129 verified incidents in Hungary since May 2014. In the fourth quarter of 2015 the country had the second-highest total of verified reports among EU member states and the sixth highest total among the 38 countries monitored by Mapping Media Freedom.
In 2015, Hungary was ranked #65 (partially free) on the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders. Only two EU member states, Greece and Bulgaria received a worse score.
In autumn 2015, the law governing freedom of information (FOI) was amended after a series of investigative reports uncovered wasteful government spending through FOI requests. Under the changes, the Hungarian government was granted sweeping new powers to withhold information and allowed the government and other public authorities to charge a fee for the “labour costs” associated with FOI queries. Critics warned that fees would prevent public interest journalism, and, in at least one case, it appears they were right.
In other cases, journalists have been sued for slander and issued court orders for undercover reporting on the refugee crisis.
Here are the 15 reports with links to more information.
The Budapest Chamber of Commerce (BCCI) asked for 3-5 million HUF ($10,356-16,352) to answer a freedom of information (FOI) request submitted by channel RTL Klub. The Budapest Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that the price will cover the salaries of 2-3 employees who would be given the task to respond to the FOI regarding BCCI’s spending and finances.
Those fired included journalists, editors and foreign correspondents. According to the MTVA, the reason for the dismissal was the “better exploitation of synergies”, “increase of efficiency” and “cost reduction”.
András Jámbor, a blogger is suspect in a slander case because he refuted the claims of Máté Kocsis, the mayor of Józsefváros (8th district of Budapest). In August 2015, Mayor Kocsis published a Facebook post alleging that the refugees have been making fires, littering, going on rampage, stealing and stabbing people in parks.
In response, Jámbor wrote a post for Kettős Mérce blog, disproving the mayor’s claims. He added that “Máté Kocsis is guilty of instigation and scare-mongering”. The mayor denounced him for slander.
On 3 December 2015, Jámbor confirmed to police that he is the author of the blog post and sustains the affirmations he made. The police took fingerprints and mugshots of the journalist.
Gergely Nyilas, a journalist working for Hungarian online daily Index.hu, was summoned to court for his undercover report on refugee camp conditions published in August 2015.
The journalist reentered Hungary’s borders with a group of asylum seekers and, upon being detained, told the border guards that he was from Kyrgyzstan. Dressed in disguise, Nyilas reported on his treatment by border guards, the conditions at the Röszke camp, a bus ride and his experience at the police station in Győr. He eventually admitted he was Hungarian, at which point the police let him go, the Budapest Beacon reported.
Based on a police investigation, prosecutors first charged Nyilas with lying to law enforcement officials and forging official documents. The charges were then dropped but prosecutors still issued a legal reprimand against the journalist.
On 20 November 2015, László Kövér, the speaker of the parliament has banned RTL Klub television from entering the parliament building, saying that the crew broke parliament rules on press coverage. According to Kövér, the journalists were filming in a corridor, where filming was forbidden, and then refused to leave the premises after they were repeatedly asked to.
The day before, on 19 November, RTL Klub was not allowed to participate at a press conference held by Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán and NATO secretary general Jens Soltenberg in parliament.
RTL Klub, along with other Hungarian media outlets such as 444.hu or hvg.hu, were not invited to the press conference, but RTL Klub journalists still showed up. They attempted to enter the room with the camera rolling but were denied access. This incident reportedly led to the ban on their access.
RTL Klub TV, 444.hu and hvg.hu journalists were not invited to a joint press conference held in parliament by Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán and NATO secretary general Jens Soltenberg.
RTL Klub journalists still attempted to attend by entering the room with a camera already rolling but were still barred from entering.
They were told that the meeting was “private”, and journalists were not allowed to ask questions. Bertalan Havasi, the press secretary for the Hungarian prime minister, told them that their pass was only for the plenary session and that they must leave. However, state media outlets like M1 were allowed live transmission of the press conference, and MTI, the Hungarian wire service also published a piece about the meeting.
Publicly funded news agency MTI refused to publish a press release by Hungarian Socialist Party vice president Zoltán Lukács, where he asked for a wealth gain investigation into István Tiborcz, the son-in-law of the Hungarian prime minister. MTI refused to publish the press release, claiming that István Tiborcz is not a public figure.
The business interests of the son-in-law of Prime Minister Victor Orbán are widely discussed in the Hungarian media, especially because companies connected to Tiborcz are frequently winning public procurement tenders.
The article titled, A Mass of People Saluted Viktor Orbán at Nyíregyháza – Or Not?, had a photo showing that only two dozen people gathered around the Hungarian prime minister visiting the city of Nyíregyháza. Soon after the piece was published, it was removed from the szon.hu website. However, it was reportedly still available temporarily in Google cache.
The article was a reaction to a photo published by the state news agency, MTI, that was shot in such a way that it leaves the impression that there was a big crowd around the prime minister.
A technician working for Hír TV news television was assaulted at a meeting of the National Roma Council held in the city of Mohács. The technician was standing near a door, when the daughter of a member of the National Roma Council, hit him in the stomach, as she was leaving the room.
The mother of the aggressor, Jánosné Kis denied any wrongdoing, although her daughter actions were captured on film.
The Hungarian publishers’ association claimed that if the draft proposal by the interior ministry is passed by parliament, it could “harshly interfere with and damage” media freedom, and would facilitate censorship. The association represents over 40 of Hungary’s largest media companies.
Geza Szocs, the cultural commissioner in the Hungarian Prime Ministry, has asked for a modification of Hungary’s media law that would criminalise defamation, in an article for mandiner.hu. Szocs has also asked for a stricter regulation of damages caused by defamatory articles.
The commissioner wrote the piece in response to a series of articles published by index.hu, which criticised the Hungary’s presence at the 2015 Milan World Fair, a project that Szocs was managing.
“Don’t take pictures of the state secretary while he is eating,” a staff member told the journalist, who works for vs.hu.
The journalist briefly interviewed Tállai, who is also head of the Hungarian Tax Authority, in the township of Mezőkövesd, where the politician started the conversation by asking, “Why do you want to write a negative article about me?”. Tállai then smiled and asked the journalist, “You are registered at the Tax Authority, right?”
Editors at MR I Kossuth Rádió, part of Hungarian public radio, did not broadcast an interview with János M. Rainer, one of the most acclaimed historians on the 1956 Hungarian revolution.
“We don’t need a Nagy Imre-Rainer narrative!” was the justification given by one of the editors to censor the content, the reporter who interviewed Rainer claimed.
Hungarian state news agency MTI refused to publish a press release issued by Lehet Más a Politika (LMP), an opposition parliamentary party.
In the press release, LMP criticised MTI by stating the Hungarian government is spending more money every year on the news agency, yet MTI fails to meet the standards of impartiality and is being transformed into a government propaganda machine.
Hungarian journalists were not allowed to ask questions at a press conference held after a meeting between the Hungarian president János Áder and the PM of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic.
Only international journalists from Reuters and the Croatian state television were allowed to ask the politicians questions.
NGOs from the around the world call for the immediate release of prisoner of conscience Dr. Abduljalil al-Singace on his 300th day of hunger strike. Dr. al-Singace began his hunger strike in March 2015 as a response to police subjecting inmates at the Central Jau Prison to collective punishment, humiliation and torture.
Since 21 March 2015, Dr. al-Singace has foregone food and subsisted on water and IV fluid injections for sustenance. Days later, Jau prison authorities transferred him to the Qalaa hospital, where he is still being kept in a form of solitary confinement.
Dr. al-Singace’s family, who visited him on 7 January, state that the prison administration is controlling his treatment at Qalaa hospital, and has for five months continuously, denied his need for a physical checkup by his hematologist at Salmaniya Medical Complex.
According to Dr. al-Singace’s family, he is not allowed to walk outside. He remains isolated in the Qalaa hospital, and is provided only irregular contact with his family. He is frequently denied basic hygienic items including soap, and is not allowed to interact with other patients in the hospital.
Dr. al-Singace is a member of the Bahrain 13, a group of thirteen peaceful political activists and human rights defenders, including Ebrahim Sharif and Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, sentenced to prison terms for their peaceful role in Bahrain’s Arab Spring protests in 2011.
Dr. al-Singace was first arrested in August 2010 at Bahrain airport. He had just returned from a conference at the British House of Lords regarding human rights in Bahrain. Security forces detained Dr. al-Singace for six months, during which he was tortured, and released him in February 2011 during the height of protests. However, Dr. al-Singace was rearrested on 17 March 2011, after his participation in peaceful pro-democracy protests. In detention, officers blindfolded, handcuffed, and beat Dr. al-Singace in the head with their fists and batons. Officers threatened him and his family with reprisals.
On 22 June 2011, a military court sentenced Dr. al-Singace to life for attempted overthrow of the regime. Since then, he has been imprisoned in the Central Jau Prison, and has only recently received treatment for a nose injury sustained during torture. He has been denied treatment for a similar ear injury also sustained during torture since his incarceration.
In 2015, Dr. al-Singace was awarded the Liu Xiaobo Courage to Write Award by the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, and was named one of Index on Censorship’s 100 “free expression heroes” in 2016. He has long campaigned for an end to torture and political reform, writing on these and other subjects on his blog, Al-Faseela, which remains banned by Bahraini Internet Service Providers. Bahrain has become a dangerous place for those who speak out, with peaceful dissidents at risk of arbitrary arrests, systematic torture and unfair trial.
We, the undersigned NGOs, call on the government of Bahrain to immediately secure the release of Dr. al-Singace and all prisoners of conscience, and to provide all appropriate and necessary medical treatment for Dr. al-Singace.
Signatories:
Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
ARTICLE 19
Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR)
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD)
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
Croatian PEN
Danish PEN
English PEN
European Center for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR)
FIDH, within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Ghanaian PEN
Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)
Icelandic PEN
Index on Censorship
Italian PEN
Norwegian PEN
PEN America
PEN Bangladesh
PEN Bolivia
PEN Canada
PEN Català
PEN Center Argentina
PEN Center USA
PEN Centre of German Speaking Writers Abroad
PEN Eritrea in Exile
PEN Flander
PEN Germany
PEN International
PEN Netherlands
PEN New Zealand
PEN Québéc
PEN Romania
PEN South Africa
PEN Suisse Romand
Peruvian PEN
Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF)
San Miguel PEN
Scholars at Risk
Scottish PEN
Serbian PEN
Trieste PEN
Wales PEN Cymru
World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Zambian PEN
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko. Credit: Drop of Light / Shutterstock.com
Since October 2015, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project has recorded a total of 40 verified violations against press freedom in Ukraine, six of which took place in Crimea. Of these reports, 17 included a physical assault or an attack to property, showing just how unsafe the country is for many media workers. To break this number down further, seven violations were physical attacks on journalists only, six were solely damage to journalists’ property and four included a mix of both.
“State and non-state actors alike are undermining the freedom of the press in Ukraine, including Crimea,” Hannah Machlin, Index’s Mapping Media Freedom project officer, said. “Clashes in the eastern region of the country, along with blocked access to local government meetings, frequently incite threats against media workers, including arrest, harassment, violence and even death, all of which set a disturbing precedent for the country as a whole.”
The media in Ukraine may be protected in theory by laws that allow access to information and the increased independence of the broadcasting regulator, but as Mapping Media Freedom shows, this isn’t so much the case in practice.
Below, Index on Censorship details just 10 of the verified incidents since October 2015, highlighting the problem of violence — from the police and politicians to far-right extremists and unidentified assailants — and damage to property against media workers in Ukraine.
Source: Mapping Media Freedom, Index on Censorship’s joint project with European Federation of Journalists and Reporters Without Borders to monitor censorship and violence against journalists in Europe.
A recent audit by the bureau of internal affairs (BSW) has uncovered two informal press surveillance units of the Polish police that were set up to monitor journalists in connection with the “tape scandal” for one year between 2014-15.
The “tape scandal” refers to a series of secretly recorded conversations between leading political figures that occurred at a well-known restaurant in Warsaw.
As the daily Rzeczpospolita reveals, the surveillance units, made up of 29 policemen, were quickly formed following the publication of recordings of conversations in 2014. One of the units oversaw the tapping and infiltrating the journalists and their contacts while the second looked into whether secret services (ABW and CBA agencies) were at the root of the affair.
According to the weekly Newsweek Polska, around 80 individuals were allegedly under surveillance, including the families and lawyers of journalists reporting on the affair.
While the list of individuals watched by the police remains unpublished, it appears that Piotr Nisztor, who brought the taped conversations to light, as well as the wife of Sylwester Latkowski, the then-editor-in-chief of the weekly Wprost, are among them.
As various Polish sources reported, in order to by-pass the law, the surveillance was of “unknown persons” and within the parameters of other investigations. Evidence of the surveillance has apparently been destroyed, so all that remains as the basis of an investigation into the surveillance are notes.
The internal audit by the BSW was ordered by Zbigniew Maj, the new head of the department.
The Association of Polish Journalists (SDP) issued an appeal to the minister of internal affairs, Mariusz Błaszczak, for a continued investigation and preventive measures for the future.
While the surveillance in question undoubtedly took place during the PO Civic Platform party term of office (a party now in opposition), increased police power is something the new government seemingly welcomes: on 15 January, the PiS Law and Justice Party-dominated parliament approved legal changes that include the widening police powers for surveillance.
Andrei Bastunets, chairperson of the Belarusian Association of Journalists (Belarusian Association of Journalists)
Belarusian authorities were busy in 2015: the government introduced new laws aimed at restricting media outlets and distributors; freelance journalists contributing to foreign media outlets found themselves facing prosecution; and websites publishing material that “may harm the national interests of the Republic of Belarus” were extrajudicially blocked.
President Aleksandr Lukashenko may have won his fifth consecutive election on 11 October, but this also raised concerns. Observers noted the electoral process failed to meet certain international standards, including equal media access for candidates, highlighting the pressure media workers find themselves under to comply with tightening government control.
Andrei Bastunets, chairperson of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, spoke to Mapping Media Freedom Volha Siakhovich about the country’s freedom of expression climate.
Volha Siakhovich: How would you describe the situation with media freedom in Belarus in 2015?
Andrei Bastunets: Press freedom has never been easy in Belarus. The country has been ranked 157th out in 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders for some years, which is the worst position among all European countries. We can also see the deterioration of the situation with press freedom and freedom of expression as a whole at the systemic level, with the further tightening of the legal framework for activities of the media set forth by new amendments to the Law on Mass Media came into force from the beginning of 2015. They had been adopted by the Belarusian parliament unexpectedly in December 2014 without any public discussion.
Why were the amendments made?
Andrei Bastunets: The Belarusian authorities are always in keeping with the trend of stifling freedom of speech through legal restrictions. The current authorities’ actions against the media are related to the 2015 presidential election campaign and economic crises in Belarus. These circumstances have provoked the tightening of state control over the media field. It affected traditional media, the web and the distribution of print outlets. Before the election, all media had been subjected to more strict limitations.
What problems are associated with state control over the distribution of media?
Andrei Bastunets: In accordance with new legal provisions all media outlets distributors (except for editorial boards) have been obliged to submit to the ministry of information the required information for their incorporation into the State Register until 1 July 2015. Any non-registered distributors’ activity is considered illegal. The ministry of information has various penalty tools that can be applied in relation to media distributors, including the banning of their activity. The distributors are now in fact forced to monitor the content of the distributed media under threat of sanctions. That may lead to the hidden censorship.
Several independent outlets that used to sell the major part of their print-runs through different trade companies and entrepreneurs have faced a reduction in sales since a significant part of press distributors have not agreed to apply to the ministry of information of Belarus for a special permit. At the same time, the “Belposhta” and “Sayuzdruk — state-owned monopolist press distributors — continue to discriminate against Belarusian independent media refusing to co-operate with them.
What negative consequences have followed the changes to the legal regulation regarding the web?
Andrei Bastunets: There is an active interference by the ministry of information of Belarus into the web, which has remained the freest segment in the Belarusian media space. According to the adopted amendments to the Law on Mass Media and provisions of presidential decree No.6 of 28 December 2014 On Urgent Actions to Counteract Illegal Drug Trafficking, which came into force at the beginning of 2015, the ministry of information was authorised to block access to websites extrajudicially for publishing information prohibited by law. It particularly includes the information, which ‘may harm the national interests of the Republic of Belarus’. Now owners of websites are obliged to monitor their web contents including comments of users.
Any state agency can contribute to the formation of a “black list” of websites. It is enough to inform the ministry of information that, in its opinion, a website violates the law. It is important to note that the process has been completely removed from the judicial sphere and has been assigned to the state agencies and the ministry of information. A procedure for judicial review of such decisions is not provided.
Not only are websites to be blocked, but blogs as well. It is a mechanism of a manifestly repressive character and it does not agree with the principles of freedom of expression. In addition, this mechanism is in the hands of the authorities who do not respect these basic principles. Now it is clear that there are no possibilities to appeal against their decisions in fact besides applications to the authorities themselves.
On 18 June 2015, the ministry of information used its power and blocked access to the website KYKY.org. As it was stated in the ministerial report, some KYKY online publications “contained derogatory statements concerning the Belarusian Victory Day public holiday, as well as the citizens of the country who celebrated it, thus… calling in question the significance of this event for the state and distorting the historical truth about the Great Patriotic War”. The editorial staff had to remove all publications that the ministerial officers disliked in order to get back online.
What were the main restrictions to media freedom facing Belarusian journalists last year?
Andrei Bastunets: We witnessed intensified persecution of freelance journalists contributing for foreign media, detentions of journalists by police, interference of the ministry of information in the work of media and the blocking of access to information for journalists. The situation remained highly unfavorable, and the intensification of pressure on journalists and media was recorded during in the course of the presidential election in Belarus in October 2015.
Although no new criminal cases were brought against journalist in 2015, Belarusian journalist Aliaksandr Alesin remains a suspect in an espionage case which has been going on since 25 November 2014, when he was first detained. Alesin is a military expert and a columnist of the weekly Belarusians and Market. At first, the journalist was charged with treason and co-operation with foreign secret services or intelligence agencies. The charge of treason was withdrawn and he was freed, but he still stands accused of co-operation with foreign intelligence services.
In your opinion, why do the Belarusian authorities chase freelancers co-operating with foreign media?
Andrei Bastunets: Prosecution of freelance journalists cooperating with foreign media started in 2014 was continuing in 2015. During 2015, Belarusian freelance journalists have been fined 28 times under Art. 22.9 of the Code of Administrative Offences for “illegal making and distributing mass media productions”. As before, the authorities repressed the independent media workers for the mere fact of publication of their pieces in foreign media. I believe, this is explained by the desire of the Belarusian authorities to restrict the influence of foreign media as the important independent sources of information in the conditions of the lack of independent audiovisual media in Belarus. All the fined freelance journalists worked for foreign radios or TV channels broadcasting for Belarus in Belarusian of Russian languages. As the Belarusian authorities are not able to control these media, they aim to control Belarusian citizens contributing to them.
The prosecution of freelance journalists dramatically intensified at the beginning of summer 2015. At the beginning of August 2015, after the president’s promise to look into the problem during his interview to journalists of independent media, initiating such cases was stopped. However, there were no legal guarantees that the situation would not repeat after the presidential election. And in December policemen in the Gomel region drew up three reports for cooperation with foreign media. Now we are expecting that the reports will be sent to the court.
What are the current main challenges with the Belarusian Association of Journalists?
Andrei Bastunets: As always, the challenges of Belarusian Association of Journalists are the protection of journalistic freedom and free speech values through interaction with state bodies, legal assistance and international advocacy.
The winter 2015 issue of Index on Censorship magazine, focusing on taboos. Cover image by Ben Jennings
All over the world, taboos are preventing discussion and debate. This is most problematic when that debate might make people aware of a problem and give them an opportunity to fix it.
Taboos change from country to country, but everywhere they create ignorance and, often, fear.
That’s why, for the latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine, we explored worldwide taboos in all their guises. As part of this, we commissioned a selection of cartoonists from around the globe to draw taboos from their homelands – from nazism, atheism and death to domestic violence and necrophilia.
One cartoonist, the Paris-based T0ad, tackled nudity. He said: “In this cartoon, I tackle the taboo around nudity as only sexual. Googling ‘nude’, for instance, shows a set of images that have sexual connotations. Here, pornography is the sacred veil covering the plain (non-sexual) body.”
We caught up with T0ad afterward to discuss his life as a cartoonist, drawing Donald Trump and his biggest concerns in French politics.
Matthew Brown was a member of the Index Youth Advisory Board from July to December 2015. Learn more.
Matt Brown spent July to December 2015 on the Index on Censorship Youth Advisory Board. He has written a post to tell us about his time on the board.
For the last 6 months, I have worked for the Index on Censorship’s Youth Advisory Board. The board consists of young students and professionals interested in contemporary issues affecting freedom of expression who are willing to write, discuss and campaign on a diverse range of issues, from the protection of bloggers in Bangladesh to tackling art censorship in London.
The monthly tasks and Google Hangout meetings have been an important learning experience, offering the opportunity to discuss hot topics in the field of freedom of expression with like-minded colleagues. We are now part of an alumni that will continue to work in the area of human rights and protection of free speech.
To anyone considering applying for the Advisory Board, I can wholeheartedly recommend it. Not only is this an experience that will enhance any CV, but also it allows you to have great discussions with people regarding important issues of the day and hear about freedom of expression concerns in different parts of the world. My time working on the Youth Advisory Board has broadened my awareness of the issues people face in different countries. I hope to continue this interest through once my period on the Board ends.
What’s the difference between “offensive” and “grossly offensive”? Is it, as is said of the erotica versus pornography, the difference between using a feather and using a whole chicken?
Last week in Belfast, it was left to District Judge Liam McNally to decide whether a solitary quill or an entire bird had been deployed by an Evangelical preacher who, in May 2014, told his congregation that Islam was a “Satanic” doctrine and that he did not trust Muslims.
Pastor James McConnell’s sermon caused considerable controversy, which escalated when he appeared on the BBC’s Stephen Nolan show and refused to back down. Then-first-minister Peter Robinson, of the Democratic Unionist Party, attempted to pour oil on troubled water by saying he wouldn’t trust a Muslim on the big issues, but he’d happily send one down to the shops for him.
Anyway, more than a year later, in June 2015, prosecutors charged McConnell not, as one might imagine, with incitement to religious hatred, but with causing the sending “by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character”.
That is Section 127 of the Communications Act, a law which, as has been pointed out here and elsewhere many times before, was designed to prosecute heavy breathers harassing telephone operators in the 1930s. It was not ever supposed to be used against fire and brimstone preachers in Northern Irish megachurches. At the time, this column questioned the Public Prosecution Service’s use of this instrument. The PPS must have thought this was the best means of securing a conviction, but it is odd that an online stream of a sermon should be singled out as a grossly offensive message, and a rather dangerous precedent for broadcasters, news publications, bloggers and, as we have seen many times before, social media users. If a recording of a sermon available on the web is liable to prosecution under the Communications Act, why not, say, a newspaper column, or even a documentary in which “offensive” views are aired?
As it turned out, McConnell was found not guilty by Judge McNally last week, on the basis that the judge was unwilling to attach the “grossly” description that turns being offensive into an offence. In a judgment, which hinted at irritation with all parties, McNally made it clear that yes, the pastor’s statements were offensive, and that offence could have been avoided:
“He is a man with strong, passionate and sincerely held beliefs,” the judge found. “In my view, Pastor McConnell’s mindset was that he was preaching to the converted in the form of his own congregation and like-minded people who were listening to his service rather than preaching to the worldwide internet. His passion and enthusiasm for his subject caused him to, so to speak, “lose the run of himself”. Having said that, I am satisfied that … he must have realised that there was a risk of offence being caused and, unfortunately, ignored it.”
He also hinted that McConnell was ignorant about Islam — that he did not demonstrate any theological justifications for his views on the religion.
But McNally’s conclusion raised a question over why the case had come up: “The courts need to be very careful not to criminalise speech which, however contemptible, is no more than offensive. It is not the task of the criminal law to censor offensive utterances. Accordingly I find Pastor McConnell not guilty of both charges.”
This is a fine and cheering judgment in an age when we could reasonably have expected it to have gone the other way. McNally has grasped, one can see, that the state has no place interfering in free expression of thought and belief, barring perhaps the prevention of imminent violence.
In the same week as this little triumph for free speech, we marked the first anniversary of the Paris attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket.
One braced for repeats of the equivocation that followed the murders last year, and sure enough, Professor Nigel Biggar of Oxford University obliged, writing of the slain Charlie staff in the Times that: “Even if we have a legal right to spit on other people’s sacred cows for the sheer, malicious fun of it, we have no moral permission.”
What’s fascinating about Biggar’s vicarish utterances (he does at least concede “Charlie’s journalists certainly didn’t deserve to die”, which is good of him) is the idea that someone is, or should be, in a position to grant permission to others regarding what they can or cannot say, write, or draw. The men who carried out the slaughter at Charlie Hebdo certainly believed they should decide who is allowed say what: one suspects in their own way, the likes of Nigel Biggar’s do too.
It’s this authoritarian impulse, whether carried out with weapons, secular laws or smug religious entitlement, that should be confronted. A recent Irish Times editorial addressing the issue of offence and the McConnell case, expressed this sentiment well, stating that ultimately it is the reader who decides “how civilised debate will be conducted. Not the courts, regulators, overzealous prosecutors, politically-correct civil society groups, or even over-prescriptive press councils”.
It is to his credit Judge McNally understood this as he let the unpleasant Pastor McConnell walk free. We should carry his lesson with us into 2016.
The criminal trial by the Vatican justice against the reporters is a serious one. The journalists are accused of violating “Crimes against the Fatherland” in the Vatican penal code, specifically a 2013 amendment that added section 116, which says “whoever procures illegally or reveals information or documents whose disclosure is forbidden, shall be punished with imprisonment from six months to two years or with a fine from thousand to five thousand euro”. But “if the conduct has related to information or documents concerning the fundamental interests or diplomatic relations of the Holy See and the State, punishment of imprisonment is implemented from four to eight years”.
Fittipaldi and Nuzzi are not the only people standing trial in the case. The alleged sources of the internal Vatican documents — Lucio Vallejo Balda, secretary of Cosea, the commission that conducted the survey on the finances of the Vatican, and Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, a member the commission — are also in the dock. A fifth person, Nicola Maio, a former contributor to Cosea, is also being prosecuted. Balda, Chaouqui and Maio are also accused of criminal association.
So far, there have been three hearings as part of the trial. The first on 24 November ended with a decision by the court to reject requests for deferral submitted by the defendants, who said they didn’t have enough times to organise their defence, having received court documents only the day before. The second hearing on 30 November lasted only 13 minutes, during which the court deferred the trial until 7 December. On that day, the court admitted all the witnesses requested by the defence.
“I am a journalist, and when a reporter has some news and verifies it, he must publish it”, Fittipaldi said of the Vatican’s decision to prosecute. After the second hearing, Nuzzi said: “It is a Kafkian process, in which the elements of surrealism occasionally fall on the stage of the case. I do not share the codes of this process, we are talking about a process to press freedom.”
Press freedom organisations have been quick to express solidarity with the journalists and called on the Vatican to end the proceedings. The FNSI (National Federation of Press in Italy) called the disputed allegations “paradoxical”. Dunja Mijatović, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, asked the Vatican, which is a member of the OSCE, to withdraw the criminal charges set against the reporters. The CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists) called on Vatican to drop the charges against Nuzzi and Fittipaldi. EFJ (European Federation of Journalists) said: “Journalists must be free to investigate and report about the use of public money. The protection of their sources is also part of the ethical code of journalists.”
The next hearing of the case has yet to be scheduled.
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