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Among the cartoons available in the auction are original artworks by Zulkiflee Anwar Haque (Zunar); Martin Rowson; Xavier Bonilla (Bonil); and Doaa El Adl (clockwise from top left).
Index on Censorship is delighted to announce the auction of an incredible collection of cartoons that celebrate the power of art to challenge suppression. The auction will help fund our work supporting persecuted writers and artists worldwide.
Make a new donation to Index before the end of December to receive a limited-edition postcard set of 10 cartoons created by some of the world’s top political cartoonists
Earlier this year, Index commissioned 10 of the world’s leading cartoonists to pen a work on the theme of free expression. The cartoons are powerful tributes to the role of art, drawn by world-renowned artists from every continent: from a US Pulitzer Prize winner to a Syrian cartoonist beaten in retaliation for his work.
Beginning Tuesday, 24 November 2015, bidders will be able to enter bids for hand-drawn artwork by:
Xavier Bonilla (Bonil) – Ecuador
Regularly denounced, threatened and fined, Ecuador’s Bonil has earned the title “the pursued cartoonist” for his work. For 30 years he has critiqued, lampooned and ruffled the feathers of Ecuador’s political leaders, in the process earning a reputation as one of the wittiest and most fearless cartoonists in South America.
Kevin Kallaugher (Kal) – United States
US artist Kal is the editorial cartoonist for The Economist and The Baltimore Sun and his work has appeared in more than 100 publications worldwide including Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, and The Washington Post. He has won numerous awards, including the 2014 Grand Prix for Cartoon of the Year.
Signe Wilkinson (Signe) – United States
The first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning, Signe has won several other awards for her work. She comments on topical political issues and is best known for her daily cartoons in The Philadelphia Daily News.
Jean Plantureux (Plantu) – France
Plantu is the chief cartoonist for France’s Le Monde and founder of Cartooning for Peace, a global network of cartoonists. This drawing is a rare, signed copy of the world-famous cartoon Plantu drew for Le Monde the day after the attack on Charlie Hebdo.
Martin Rowson – UK
A former Cartoonist Laureate, political satirist Martin Rowson contributes cartoons to The Guardian and the Daily Mirror as well as Index on Censorship magazine. His work has earned him several awards, including the prize for the Best Humour and Satire Book of the Year at this year’s Political Book Awards.
Ali Farzat – Syria
Ali Farzat, a former Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award winner, came to global attention in 2011 when he was pulled from his car and beaten by Syrian security forces who broke both his hands. When Kuwaiti authorities closed the offices of his newspaper, Al-Watan, earlier this year Ferzat was forced to buy new materials and redrew this cartoon for us from scratch.
Doaa El Adl (Doaa) – Egypt
Doaa is a celebrated female artist in the Arab world – well know for her fearless political work. She has often tackled freedom of speech, human rights and women’s rights issues, wining numerous awards as well as controversy and even charges of blasphemy for her work.
Zulkiflee Anwar Haque (Zunar) – Malaysia
Zunar is an award-winning Malaysian political cartoonist who has been repeatedly targeted by authorities. Five of his cartoon books have been banned by the Malaysian government for carrying content “detrimental to public order” and thousands confiscated. He is currently facing up to 43 years in jail for mocking the government.
David Rowe – Australia
A three-time winner of the Stanley Award for Australia’s Cartoonist of the Year, David Rowe has worked for the Australian Financial Review for 22 years. Rowe’s bright and colourful watercolours are famously merciless.
Damien Glez – (Glez) – Burkina Faso
Glez’s cartoons regularly appear across three continents, including his own weekly satirical newspaper in Burkina Faso: Le Journal du Jeudi . He co-created pan-African monthly satirical Le Marabout, writes his own comic strip Divine Comedy and has won numerous awards internationally..
Bids must be placed by noon on Monday, 14 December 2015.
Croatian prime minister Zoran Milanović. Original image by SDP Hrvatske
A worrying escalation of attacks on the media in Croatia has been recorded by the Index’s Mapping Media Freedom project in the last three months. Since 1 September there have been 13 attacks, compared with 3 in the same period last year.
In August, we reported an increase in media violations in Croatia. Deaths, physical assaults and intimidation had been plaguing the Croatian media for months. Increasing violence is still undermining media freedom in Croatia.
Hannah Machlin, Index’s Mapping Media Freedom project officer, said: “The increasing amount of violence against Croatian journalists is quite alarming. In reaction to the migrant crisis, there’s been a particularly high number of cases on the Hungarian/Croatia border.”
The Croatian constitution guarantees freedom of expression and the press, and “these rights are generally respected in practice”. Freedom House does, however, acknowledge that journalists face political pressure, intimidation and the “occasional” attack. According to Freedom House, Croatia has been a “free” country for some years.
Below, Index on Censorship details some of the worst cases from Croatia since September.
Overall attacks, including violence, intimidation, loss of employment and censorship of work
1. Media workers assaulted by police at Serbian border
In early October, Croatia opened its border with Serbia, easing one of the main areas for congestion for refugees trying to make their way north. On 19 October, Mapping Media Freedom recorded that media workers were harassed and assaulted by Croatian police on the border near the Bapska-Berkasovo crossing. Regional N1 television reported that the Croatian police had also confiscated the journalists’ equipment.
“When they moved against me, I shouted that I was an AFP photojournalist and that their colleagues had checked my ID this morning,” Andreja Isakovic told N1. “They asked me to hand over the cards. One of them ran towards me, caught up with me and threw me into the mud. They took away my cameras in a savage manner and threw them into an orchard on the Croatian side, so I could not reach them. They did the same to my colleague from England.”
2. Greek journalists attacked by masked assailants
Croatian journalists condemn attack on two Greek journalists Dyonisios Verveles and George Stasinopoulos during coverage of #ChampionsLeague
In mid-October, two Greek journalists, George Stasinopoulos and Dionisis Verveles, were attacked by unidentified individuals while walking near a sporting event in Zagreb. Two men wearing face masks stopped the journalists on a street, asking them to identify themselves and their origin. When the two colleagues attempted to run away, they were attacked.
One journalist was beaten and the other was threatened by one of the assailants who was brandishing a knife. When the journalists began shouting that they were members of the press, the attackers fled the scene.
3. Prime minister’s father threatens journalist
Velimir Bujanec, host of the controversial TV show Bujica, was verbally assaulted by Stipe Milanović, father of Croatian prime minister, Zoran Milanović. Gordan Malic, a local freelance investigative journalist based in Croatia, was also threatened. Around noon on 3 October in a coffee bar in the center of Zagreb, Stipe Milanović allegedly said that “Bujanec and Gordan Malic should be beaten up”. There were three witnesses to his comment.
Bujanec reported to the media and posted it on Facebook. After speaking with his lawyer, he also reported the incident to the police and is now reportedly pressing charges against Milanović for verbal assaults and threats.
Suzana Trninic is a journalist with the Serbian television broadcaster B92. On 24 September, while travelling to a media festival in Rovinj with Belgrade license plates on her car, she and her team stopped for coffee at a petrol station in Grobnik. When they returned, one of the car’s tires had been slashed.
There was visible sticker press on the vehicle, Trninic said. She did not want to report the incident to the police and media on the day as she did not want to distract from the ongoing border crisis between Serbia and Croatia.
Trninic believes the incident is connected with her being a Serbian journalist.
5. Asylum seeker attacks TV crew
“I’ll kill you!” yelled the assailant as a stone hit the cameraman. Click image for video. Credit: Večernji.hr
Hotel Porin is both a reception and registration centre where asylum applications are completed, including fingerprinting and medical examinations. As Croatian media has reported, almost all refugees are polite and grateful and all have the right to leave the hotel and walk around Dugavama.
Details of attacks on the media across Europe can be found at Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom website. Reports to the map are crowdsourced and then fact-checked by the Index team.
Mapping Media Freedom
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/
Malian musician Fadimata “Disco” Walet Oumar, with her husband, as featured in They Will Have To Kill Us First
UPDATE: The concert in Timbuktu did not go ahead as the Malian president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita declared a 10-day state of emergency following the deadly hotel attack.
Johanna Schwartz, director of They Will Have to Kill Us First, a documentary about exiled musicians in Mali, has spoken out on the attack and deaths at a hotel in the Malian capital, Bamako, today. The director has been trying to get in touch with the musicians covered in the documentary. She believes that a big concert in Timbuktu, planned for tomorrow, is still going to go ahead. Islamists have tried to stop music being played in Mali over the past few years, after they took control of parts of the country and declared it against sharia law. Many musicians fled the country.
Schwartz said: “My inbox has been flooded this morning with people wanting to know if Songhoy Blues, Disco or Khaira Arby are caught up in the hotel attack in Bamako. Songhoy Blues are right now in Paris, where they were supposed to perform this week. I wish I could say they were ‘safe in Paris’ but we all know that’s not true. Bataclan, the music venue that was attacked, is exactly the kind of venue Songhoy Blues are getting booked into these days. Khaira Arby is not in Bamako either, but in Timbuktu where a concert is planned for tomorrow evening. This will be the biggest concert in the city of Timbuktu since the music ban. (And much bigger than the street party gig that Khaira organised last year, which I filmed.) I just heard that the concert will indeed go ahead.”
She added: “An act of enormous courage from all involved. I think more than ever we need to take our cues from these great musicians, who resist these horrific attacks with every molecule in their body. They are wilfully defiant, but peacefully so. We don’t have to accept what these terror groups are trying to force upon the planet. But crucially, we need to understand why those who are accepting it are doing so. I just got off the phone with our local producer in Mali, he is calling Disco [musician Fadimata Walet Oumar] now to see where she is. A couple of his friends work at the hotel that is under attack as I type. He can’t get through to them on their phones.”
Index on Censorship has established a fund for musicians in exile in conjunction with the team behind They Will Have to Kill Us First.
GDF, founded in 1991, is one of Russia’s oldest human rights organisations protecting freedom of the media. It provides Russian journalists with legal information and support. It also monitors media freedom abuses. GDF is the founder of the Andrey Sakharov journalist prize, Journalism As A Deed. The organisation has been headed by a well-known human rights defender, filmmaker and critic, Alexei Simonov.
GDF is not the first Russian journalist and media NGO unwillingly recognised as a foreign agent. At the beginning of 2015, another media freedom NGO, the Centre For The Protection Of Media Rights, was added to the list. In October 2015, Sobytie, a photoclub, became the 100th organisation on the list of foreign agents.
Mapping Media Freedom
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/
Bassel Khartabil, a defender of freedom expression being held in conditions amounting to enforced disappearance may be facing a death sentence, 36 local and international organizations said today. His wife has received unconfirmed reports that a Military Field Court has sentenced him to death. His whereabouts should be disclosed immediately, and he should be released unconditionally, the groups said.
Military Intelligence detained Khartabil on March 15, 2012. He was held in incommunicado detention for eight months and was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment. He is facing Military Field Court proceedings for his peaceful activities in support of freedom of expression. A military judge interrogated Khartabil for a few minutes on December 9, 2012, but he had heard nothing further about his legal case, he told his family. In December 2012 he was moved to ‘Adra prison in Damascus, where he remained until October 3, 2015, when he was transferred to an undisclosed location and has not been heard of since.
Reports that his wife received from alleged sources inside Military Intelligence suggest that since his disappearance he has been tried by a Military Field Court in the Military Police headquarters in al-Qaboun, which sentenced him to death. Military Field Courts in Syria are exceptional courts with secret closed-door proceedings that do not meet international fair trial standards. Defendants have no legal representation, and the courts’ decisions are binding and not subject to appeal. People brought before such courts who were later released have said that proceedings are perfunctory, often lasting only minutes.
Khartabil is a software developer who has used his technical expertise to help advance freedom of speech and access to information via the internet. He has won many awards, including the 2013 Index on Censorship Digital Freedom Award for using technology to promote an open and free internet. His arrest and on-going detention are apparently a direct result of his peaceful and legitimate work, the groups said.
Demands for his release have been published by this group since his arrest and have been echoed by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in April 2015.
The authorities in Syria should:
1. Immediately disclose the whereabouts of Bassel Khartabil and grant him access to a lawyer and to his family;
2. Ensure that he is protected from torture and other ill-treatment;
3. Immediately and unconditionally release him;
4. Release all detainees in Syria held for exercising their legitimate rights to freedom of expression and association.
List of signatories:
1. Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture (ACAT)
2. Amnesty International (AI)
3. Arab Foundation for Development and Citizenship (AFDC)
4. Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI)
5. Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
6. Centre for Democracy and Civil Rights in Syria
7. Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
8. EuroMed Rights (EMHRN)
9. Fraternity Foundation for Human Rights
10. Front Line Defenders (FLD)
11. Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)
12. HIVOS Humanist Institute for Co-operation with Developing Countries
13. Human Rights Watch (HRW)
14. Index on Censorship
15. Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR)
16. International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) under the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
17. Iraqi Association for the Defence of Journalists’ Rights (IJRDA)
18. Lawyer’s Rights Watch Canada (LRWC)
19. Maharat Foundation
20. Metro Centre to Defend Journalists in Iraqi Kurdistan
21. PAX
22. PEN International
23. Rafto
24. Reporters Without Borders(RSF)
25. Rethink Rebuild Society
26. Sisters Arab Forum for Human Rights (SAF)
27. SKeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom
28. Syrian American Council (SAC)
29. Syrian Association for Citizenship
30. Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM)
31. Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR)
32. Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
33. Syrian Women Association
34. The Day After Association (TDA)
35. Violations Documentation Center in Syria (VDC)
36. World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) under the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Turkish Cypriot daily Afrika reported on 30 August 2015 that the Turkish military forces in Cyprus had accused the paper of being against “the army and the flag”. Afrika’s articles had allegedly offended Turkish forces and made “people alienated from the army”, according to the case.
Editor-in-chief Sener Levent and writer Mahmut Anayasa, both of whom had shared an Afrika article from July on social media, were called to the prosecutor’s office for questioning. According to Costas Mavridis, a Greek Cypriot Member of the European Parliament, this is not the first time Levent has faced accusations. Both were later released.
After the questioning of Levent and Anayasa, Mavridis asked the European Commission about what actions are to be taken in order to protect the two European citizens.
“This action is clearly against human rights, specifically freedom of expression,” Mavridis said. He added that the only way for them to be safe is by making their case known to international and European public opinion, which is why he is proposing that Levent should be the Cypriot candidate for the European Citizen Prize 2015. “Sener Levent’s uninterrupted struggle for freedom of expression is a brave stance in favour of fundamental principles of the European culture at the risk of his life,” Mavridis said.
Yurdakul Cafer from the Association of Turkish Cypriot Journalists, speaking to Index on Censorship, stressed that, “media and the press in Northern Cyprus enjoy freedom of expression to a large degree”.
Before the opening of Afrika, Levent was to be the editor-in-chief of one of the first pro-European newspapers in Northern Cyprus, Avrupa, which means “Europe” in Turkish. According to a statement by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) from November 2000, the daily Avrupa was firebombed. “Extensive damage was caused and the printing house is no longer operating,” according to statement.
The IFJ had also noted that the attack “followed a period of court fines and official harassment designed to try to close down the newspaper”. Levent and other journalists were at the centre of these legal measures. As a result, the newspaper folded and was replaced by Afrika few years later.
The 2014 Freedom House report states that overall the situation of the media in Northern Cyprus is “free”. “Some media outlets are openly critical of the government,” it writes, although “in recent years some journalists who espouse anti-government positions were physically attacked, apparently by members of nationalist groups”.
“There were no such incidents in 2013,” the report concluded.
Cafer, who is also a news editor at Bayrak Radio Television, said that “despite Ankara’s strong political and military presence in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Turkish Cypriot newspapers, TV and radio stations are exceptionally democratic and open to discuss sensitive public, social and economic issues”.
The 2015 World Press Freedom Index placed the territory at 76 for media freedom in the world. Cyprus was ranked 24 in the world for press freedom. Turkey, which Northern Cyprus depends on, ranked 149 and continues to have high levels of violations against media, according to verified reports logged to Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project.
Cafer said that Levent “was taken to court on charges of espionage but the charges brought against him were not for what he wrote,” adding that “he has been released”. “If there is no trial or if you are not jailed then I don’t think that’s persecution. There is no pressure or persecution in TRNC,” Cafer said, claiming that a lot has changed since the 1996 assassination of Kutlu Adali.
Adali, a journalist for the Northern Cypriot newspaper Yeni Duzen, was fatally shot outside his home. According to Mavridis, before Adali’s assassination he had announced his willingness to reveal some facts about the government’s immigration policies, specifically the Turkish settlers in Northern Cyprus. “Adali’s murder was a dark chapter in this country’s history, but there is no other incident like this one and that Turkey or TRNC does not exist anymore,” Cafer told Index on Censorship.
Overall, Cafer is optimistic about the future of media freedom in Northern Cyprus, while he points out that “the biggest problem and threat to peace and reconciliation in Cyprus” could be “online media”. “Many online news outlets,” he explained, “have popped up and many of them disregard the main principles of journalism or any code of ethics, spreading misinformation or doing more harm than good. I think we need more legislation that protects good journalism, not legislation that curtails freedoms,” he concluded.
However, Mavridis, using a phrase from another Turkish Cypriot journalist, who was prosecuted and threatened many times in the past, stresses that “even when a bird flies in Northern Cyprus, it’s with the permission or the tolerance of the manager of the Turkish occupying forces”.
Mapping Media Freedom
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/
H.E. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
President of the Republic of Turkey
T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Genel Sekreterliği
06689 Çankaya, Ankara
Turkey
Dear President Erdoğan,
We, the undersigned free expression organisations, call for the immediate and unconditional release of Mohammed Ismael Rasool, a Kurdish fixer for VICE News. Rasool has remained imprisoned in Turkey on charges of “aiding a terrorist organization” for over two months despite the release of two British colleagues with whom he was initially detained.
Rasool, correspondent Jake Hanrahan, and cameraman Philip Pendlebury were all taken into police custody in the city of Diyarbakir, on 27 August while covering the current conflict in southeastern Turkey for VICE News. Specifically, they were reporting on clashes between Turkish security forces and the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement, the youth wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The lawyer representing Rasool, Hanrahan and Pendlebury has stated that the police responded to a tipoff by an anonymous caller who alleged that they were assisting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Following their detention, the journalists were questioned by anti-terrorism police, and on 31 August, all three were charged on baseless and false accusations using Turkey’s broad anti-terrorism laws. On 3 September, Hanrahan and Pendlebury were released, while Rasool continues to languish in prison.
We add our voice to communities, organisations and governments around the world calling for Rasool’s immediate release. A petition created by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has obtained over 80,000 signatures so far, and PEN International, along with almost 80 writers, journalists and press freedom organisations, have published an open letter to President Erdoğan. The United States Department of State has also called on Turkey to uphold due process for Rasool.
From 19 to 21 October 2015, a joint emergency mission to Turkey was conducted to investigate the status of press freedom and free expression in the country. Representatives from international, regional and local groups involved in the mission found that the pressure on journalists operating in Turkey has sharply escalated in the time between the 7 June parliamentary elections, which resulted in a hung parliament, and the recent election held on 1 November. The mission determined that such pressure has severely affected the ability of journalists to report independently and freely, which may in turn have had a critically negative effect on the ability of voters in Turkey to share and obtain important information, and therefore engage fully in the democratic process.
Broadly worded anti-terror and penal code statutes have allowed Turkish authorities to conflate the coverage of banned groups like the PKK with terrorism or other ‘anti-state’ activity. As a result, journalists seeking to objectively cover PKK activities have often beenimprisoned or obstructed. The use of these anti-state offense charges is just one way that the Turkish media is being intimidated and silenced in an increasing and long-term crackdown on legitimate journalism.
Media personnel must be allowed to operate freely without fear of unfounded persecution. We express solidarity with all of the journalists operating in Turkey, including Rasool and the other journalists imprisoned in the country. We, the undersigned, call on President Erdoğan and the Turkish authorities to drop all charges against Mohammed Ismael Rasool and ensure his immediate release. We further call for increased efforts to hold those responsible for violations of, and attacks on, free expression rights, and press freedom in the post-election environment and beyond.
Canadian Association of Journalists
Canadian Media Guild
Centre for Law and Democracy
International Partnership for Human Rights
Newspapers Canada
Openmedia
Platform London
VICE
VICE News
In February, journalists working at Hír TV, a Hungarian television news channel, and the daily Magyar Nemzet faced a difficult decision: they had 48 hours to decide whether to accept a job offer by the Hungarian public media. If they stayed, they found themselves “persona non grata” in the government circles. Even worse, their jobs and professional future became uncertain.
The story began when the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán had a fall out with his friend and long-time ally Lajos Simicska. The wealthy businessman – owner of a considerable media portfolio, with the Hír TV and Magyar Nemzet being the most important outlets – was the closest supporter of Orbán for 35 years.
There are many speculations, but nobody quite knows what the real reason for the dispute between the two is. The conflict became public when Simicska commented in the opposition-friendly newspaper Népszava that there will be a “total war” if the government adopts the so-called media tax that would affect his media interests.
As a reaction to Simicska’s comments, a number of his media executives resigned citing “reasons of conscience”. Among them was Gábor Liszkay, the editor-in-chief at the Magyar Nemzet, the second largest daily newspaper in Hungary, who took the paper’s entire senior management with him.
This was the moment when Simicska – who, until this point was known for his extremely discreet way of handling his business interests – went public and repeatedly called Viktor Orbán a “prick”. He also insinuated that Fidesz might murder him.
“On that day, without any formal procedure, they effectively fired the 250 people from Hír TV from the Regime of National Cooperation,” Péter Tarr, the deputy director of Hír TV, said in an interview.
In a few days, journalists and staff members, who until that point were close supporters of the Orbán government, were seen as “traitors” and “enemies” by the government. Their image became nearly as bad as the opposition journalists regularly labeled as “liberal”.
MTVA, the Hungarian public media facing criticism for being the mouthpiece of the Fidesz government, somehow obtained the names and salaries of Hír TV staff. Soon many journalists working at media outlets controlled by Simicska received well-paid job offers from MTVA.
“Nearly every staff member was offered a new job with considerably better pay, and the actual offer depended on his or her status within the editorial team, professional experience and reputation,” a member of senior management at Magyar Nemzet who wished to remain anonymous told Index on Censorship. “They clearly tried to collapse the media outlets controlled by Simicska.”
Some staff members said that the media portfolio controlled by Simicska is a sinking ship, and they should accept the offer while they can. “The curtains will soon fall and they will pour salt into the earth where the television once stood,” recounted Tarr.
“The strategy was to attract the key people and to wait for the editorial teams to collapse like a domino,” our source said. “They didn’t want to spend too much money. They speculated that later the majority of the journalists will appear on the job market anyway, and at that time they will be able to negotiate on totally different terms.”
Although many important staff members jumped ship from both Hír TV and Magyar Nemzet, the editorial teams managed to do the daily workload.
Once things calmed down, both media outlets found themselves free of the constant government control they were previously used to. Nobody from the Fidesz communication staff held meetings with the Hír TV senior management, instructing them who they should invite, what type of programming they should produce or what questions they should ask. As for Magyar Nemzet, the “commissars” (people who clearly had a political mission) disappeared from the editorial rooms.
“After March 15th […] we were free to decide all of this for ourselves and we now keep ourselves to the so-called BBC principles of professional journalism,” explained Tarr in the interview.
“There is a sense of freedom in the editorial room,” our source working at Magyar Nemzet said, adding: “There are no expectations that lead to self-censorship, nobody has to write things he considers problematic from a professional point of view.”
If the complete takeover failed, the government will make the life of journalists as hard as possible. “Some top officials refuse to talk to Magyar Nemzet, and the lower ranking government clerks are obeying the orders they received from the top,” the journalist said. “We can use only a few people from the government as sources.”
“At the public media, there are instructions that journalists working for Magyar Nemzet can not be invited, or employed. Before, I was invited very often to comment on foreign policy issues,” another senior staff member working for Magyar Nemzet told us. “Now I receive no invitations.”
Mapping Media Freedom
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/
Archangel on the roof of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, St.Petersburg, Russia. Credit: Akimov Igor / Shutterstock
Since the amended blasphemy law came into force in July 2013, Russian journalists have faced a growth of religious censorship. This is according to a new study by Zdravomyslie, a foundation that promotes secularism.
Insulting religious beliefs of citizens was previously regulated by the Code of Administrative Offences and punishable by a fine not exceeding 1 thousand roubles (around $15). But after the scandal of the punk-prayer of feminist group Pussy Riot, who were sentenced to two years in jail for a performance in the Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in 2012, the Russian parliament adopted amendments that criminalised blasphemy.
Since July 2013, “public actions, clearly defying the society and committed with the express purpose of insulting religious beliefs” has been declared a federal crime and is punishable by up to three years in jail.
Onegin interviewed 128 employees of dozens of media organizations, including a major national television channel, radio stations, newspapers and websites. The majority, 119, said that after the revised blasphemy law came into force, managers told them not to mention religions, religious problems, traditions and “different manifestations of unbelief”. Some media organisations even prohibited usage of words “God”, “Allah” and “atheist” in headlines.
A journalist at a sports news website told the researcher that censorship had extended to idioms. For example, headlines “Hulk has talent from God” (about a Brazilian forward playing for Zenit Saint Petersburg football club) and “God’s hand helped Maradona” (about the score of the Argentinian forward at the World Cup in Mexico in 1986) were corrected to exclude the word “God”. The second headline was corrected a long time after publication because editorial staff decided to check archived articles.
Media professionals involved in a production of entertaining content also faced censorship. For example, a respondent working for a sketch show told Onegin about a ban on jokes containing phrases like “God will forgive you” or “you are definitely descended from a monkey”.
However, exceptions to the general policy of avoiding religious issues were made for Orthodox Church, which was confirmed by over the half of all respondents. For example, a journalist working for a national television channel said that her colleagues were told not to show “non-traditional for Russia religious symbols and signs”. However, the term non-traditional was not specified, so journalists started to avoid showing any religious objects, except those associated with the Orthodox Christianity.
The authors of the report presented a list of the most undesirable topics, which according to the respondents are potentially violations of the law. First place went to protest actions against the Orthodox Church (according to 84% of respondents), the second was atheism and unbelief (49%) and third place was coverage of religious events (23%).
Journalists also gave Onegin examples of when they were told not to cover stories: cancellation of celebration of Labour Day because of a coincidence with the holy week of Orthodox Lent; cancellation of performances of the Cannibal Corpse rock group due protests by Orthodox activists; protests of Orthodox activists against Leviathan, a movie by Andrey Zvyagentsev; cancellation of an Lord of the Rings-related Eye of Sauron installation on a Moscow tower a critical comment by an Orthodox priest.
The researcher came to conclusion, that the new blasphemy law and political, social and cultural conditions formed around it “have had a serious impact on media organisations, limiting freedom of speech and indirectly turning them into an instrument of a dominating religious organisation – Russian Orthodox church” and prevent audience of Russian media from getting an objective picture of civil society.
However, pressure on the press in Russia comes from other religions too. In January 2015, tens of thousands people gathered at a rally against French magazine Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in Grozny, the capital of predominantly Muslim Chechnya region. Kremlin-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov not only accused European journalists in “insulting feeling of believers”, but also threatened those in Russia who supported Charlie Hebdo, including editor-in-chief of Echo of Moscow radio station Alexey Venediktov and former oligarch and vocal Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
In February 2015, another citizen of Chechen Republic was accused of insulting feelings of believers by posting a video on social networks. Also in February, the Investigative Committee began an initial inquiry into Tangazer opera staged in Novosibirsk theatre. In March, the first blasphemy case was opened in Ural region. In April, a user of the largest European social network, the St Petersburg-based VKontakte, was accused of insulting feelings of believers in his comments. At the end of October, VKontakte MDK was blocked by a St Petersburg court decision because it contained content that “insult feelings of believers and other groups of citizens”.
The imprecise wordings of the law and a wide range of its possible interpretations has arisen concerns of human rights activists. The severalonlinecampaignswerestarted to collect signatures under a petition calling for a repeal of the blasphemy law, but all of them failed to gain more than two thousand signatures.
When the Tomsk-based station TV-2 ceased broadcasting earlier this year, Siberia lost one of its few independent stations. The channel was about as free as media can be in Russia: it wasn’t funded by a state or municipal budget.
The road to its closure began in April 2014 when an antenna malfunctioned. It took 45 days to get back on the air. When it resumed transmission in June 2014, Roskomnadzor – the Russian authority that oversees media and communications – revoked the station’s right to broadcast. A previous licence extension though 2025 had been issued as a result of a “computer error”, the agency explained.
On 1 January 2015, the station stopped broadcasting over the airwaves. In February 2015, it ceased to be an internet and cable station as well.
In Russia, independent media will not likely be shuttered because of critical coverage of the state. It will have its licence revoked because glitch or be silenced through a broken feeder or some other mundane technicality.
Early in the Putin era, Moscow-based national networks could be caught in a “dispute of economic entities” to silence narratives that were contrary to the government’s line. Media takeovers by businesses aligned with the government of President Vladimir Putin drew the world’s attention and criticism. But in Russia’s hinterland, the decline of media freedom was more precipitous.
Despite a professed respect for the rule of law in Russia, regional media outlets are caught between harsh oversight by local authorities and a lack of independent sources of funding. At the same time, business interests and regional governments are often more closely affiliated than in larger cities. Nepotism and conflicts of interest are rife while courts are hamstrung by corruption.
Journalists are often victims. According to Glasnost Defense Foundation, 150 journalists were killed in Russia during last 15 years. Authorities ignored crimes against journalists and tightened the screws by criminalising slander, which spurred lawsuits that helped destroy independent-minded free media.
When journalists do uncover corruption, regional authorities act to silence them by meting out punishment for “crimes” that the individual has committed. This is highlighted by the recent case of Natalya Balyakina, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Chaikovskie Vedomosti. A well-known journalist who investigated allegations of misconduct by local officials involving the area’s municipal housing and human rights violations, Balyakina was awarded the 2007 Andrey Sakharov prize for journalism.
On 22 October 2015, the Chaikovski city court sentenced her to three years of incarceration and 761,000 rubles ($11,818) in fines and damages. Balyakina was convicted of a crime that she allegedly committed five years ago, when she was director of the regional City Managing Company. Her former company has accused her of misappropriation and embezzlement.
Whether or not the allegations against Balyakina are true, Chaikovski regional authorities benefit by having yet another investigative journalist silenced.
Regional media must also contend with a dearth of independent funding. As a result, these outlets are often forced to sign affiliation agreements with local administrators. These deals come with restrictions on how the organisations can cover regional government activities.
Journalists reporting for these affiliated outlets say they receive direct instructions on what they can write about. The editor-in-chief of one newspaper was prohibited from publishing any issues regarding healthcare because there was nothing positive to cover. Regional events that are reported by national media — disasters or human rights violations — are not covered by local outlets due to positive news restrictions.
But even the cowed national media is under continued assault. The Russian Duma is considering a bill that will allow Roskomnadzor to compel media organisations to disclose foreign funding or material support. So software provided by Microsoft could cause a regional outlet to be labelled as a “foreign agent” on the same model of the NGO law that was passed in 2012.
Long under pressure from official censorship and self-censorship, journalists’ sources are now being constrained by punitive laws that have enlarged state secrets and toughened punishments. In June 2015, Putin signed a law that classified Ministry of Defence casualties during peacetime. The result is that journalists are now forbidden from reporting on the number of Russian soldiers killed in action in Ukraine or Syria.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) is also lobbying members of the Duma to pass a draft law that restricts freedom of information around real estate transactions. Some observers say that this will hinder work to uncover corruption committed by Russian officials carried out by bloggers and journalists.
The media in Russia became one of the core targets during the strengthening political powers in last decades, but the regional journalists are put in an especially weak position.
Media freedom has declined considerably during President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s tenure, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed.
A recent report by the EU criticises Erdogan for the country’s “significant backsliding” on freedom of expression. “Ongoing and new criminal cases against journalists, writers or social media users, intimidation of journalists and media outlets as well as the authorities’ actions curtailing freedom of media are of considerable concern,” the report states.
Index on Censorship is deeply concerned with the situation in Turkey and participated in an emergency press freedom mission organised by the International Press Institute with a broad coalition of international free expression and media freedom groups before the Turkish elections on 1 November.
Our 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 164 verified incidents in Turkey since May 2014. The country has consistently come top of our list for media violations.
The days leading up to and following the election were marred by further crackdowns on press freedoms. Here are just five examples from the last two weeks.
1. Magazine editors arrested over front cover
The Turkish government arrested two journalists on 3 November over claims they promoted an uprising against the state. Editor-in-chief Cevher Guven and news editor Murat Capan of the left-leaning political weekly Nokta, known for its criticism of the government, face charges after the magazine’s latest issue suggested that the aftermath of the election would spell the beginning of unrest in Turkey.
Nokta’s cover featured a doctored selfie of a smiling Erdogan, with the coffin of a soldier – a reference to comments by the president that families of soldiers killed by Kurdish rebels could be happy that their loved ones died as martyrs. The cover hints that the post-election period would signal “the start of Turkey’s civil war”. Nokta has been removed from the shelves and access to its website blocked. Many see the move as further proof of Erdogan’s determination to root out opposition media.
Journalists in Turkey don’t just face threats from the authorities, but from Islamist extremists operating the country as well. On 30 October, Mapping Media Freedom reported that Syrian citizen-journalist Ibrahim Abd al-Qader had been murdered in the city of Sanliurfa at the home of fellow Syrian Fares Hammadi. Both were activists in Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), a group of activists using social media to document atrocities committed by Islamic State in Raqqa, Syria, which, since January 2014, has been the capital of the militant group.
Both men had been shot in the head and beheaded. ISIS took to social media to boast about the murder, posting a picture of the friends with the caption: “A selfie before being slaughtered silently.” Several suspects were arrested, but are the Turkish authorities really doing enough to protect the rights of journalists?
3. Police storm offices of independent media group
Just a few days ahead of the election, at around 4.45am on 28 October, police with chainsaws smashed through the front doors of Koza İpek Holding and took broadcasters Bugün and Kanaltürk off the air. The incident was captured on live television. After interrupting the broadcasts, riot police arrived and issued a public service announcement on air. Bügun and Kanaltürk then continued to broadcast for several hours, going against the police order.
Police then evacuated the editorial offices and attacked journalists. Bugün reporter Kamil Maman was assaulted, taken to a hospital for examination and then arrested.
Koza İpek is linked to Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish preacher living in exile in the US. Tensions between Gulen and Erdogan, a former ally, have worsened over recent years.
4. 71 journalists lose their jobs
Seized Bugün’s reporter carries his belongings in shoeboxes after he was fired, alluding to 17-25 Dec. graft ops. pic.twitter.com/5S4olzePPG
Since the police raid, 71 journalists have been dismissed from İpek Media by a new group of trustees. The media group was unlawfully seized in a government-led police operation in late October which assigned new trustees to the board. Two of the media workers dismissed — Bugün daily news desk editor Bülent Ceyhan and reporter Kamil Maman — say they were forced to go on compulsory leave for several days and are now denied access to the building.
According to the Today’s Zaman, an English-language daily based in Turkey: “Despite the fact that the trustees had no authority to fire any worker, the editors-in-chief and general managers of the TV channels were told they were sacked. […] Some of the decisions to fire staff were made on a public holiday, an act which is against the law.”
5. Police attempt to arrest journalist during protest
On 6 November, a reporter for the independent Turkish press agency Bianet, Beyza Kural, was covering a public protest when police attempted to detain and handcuff her in Beyazit, Istanbul. Students had gathered in front of Istanbul University to protest Erdogan’s control over education.
Police officers tried to seize the memory card from Kural’s camera and shouted, “from now on nothing will be like before, we will teach you” — allegedly referring to the election results and Erdogan’s renewed authority. Police officers also assaulted students while firing rubber bullets and teargas to disperse the demonstration. Kural only escaped arrest due to the intervention of fellow journalists and protesters.
Mapping Media Freedom
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/
Ebrahim Sharif received a royal pardon before being rearrested three weeks later. He was photographed with his family during his brief release.
This is the second of two posts by Farida Ghulam, joined by her daughter Yara and son Sharif, describing the impact the Bahraini government’s crackdown on freedom of expression has had on the family. Ghulam is an advocate for freedom of speech, human rights and democracy. She has campaigned for women’s rights and is currently active in the push for democratic reforms in Bahrain. Her husband, Ebrahim Sharif, who is a former Secretary General of the National Democratic Action Society (WAAD), is currently in detention awaiting trial on charges of inciting hatred and sectarianism and calling for violence against the regime. In 2011, Ebrahim Sharif was arrested as Bahrain’s government moved to suffocate calls for democratic reforms during the Arab Spring. He was released by a royal pardon in June 2015 and rearrested three weeks later. He faces 10 years for expressing opinions in a speech marking the memory of a 16-year-old killed while protesting against Bahrain’s government. Part one: Freedom in Bahrain: “It’s like a dream, isn’t it?”
My husband’s first and second arrests, in 2011 and 2015 respectively, have inflicted painful changes on our lives as a family. Since then most of our conversations have revolved around visit schedules, notifications, updates, mistreatment or exaggerated body searches.
We wait anxiously for these visits only to feel that nothing was said because there wasn’t enough time. Not only is time scarce, but visits are always monitored by policewomen. There is no sense of privacy and the speed that one has to speak with to cover most news makes it like “quick reporting”. Cameras are always filming and must not be blocked by our seating. Phone calls are always monitored and have been cut many times because of a word or a piece of unwanted news. This leaves us with zero privacy.
After the second arrest, a video recorder became compulsory in the visitation room at all times, and it is turned on right before the visit starts. Additionally, prison guards physically monitor us by being present inside and outside of the room for the entire duration of the visit. Although the visiting arrangements and procedures are tight and irritating, we insist on using that precious time with Ebrahim because it is part of his stolen freedom.
In addition to the frustration we feel due to Ebrahim’s freedom being stolen by arresting him on false charges related to his freedom of expression, we are further irritated with the fact that our rights to privacy and freedom of expression are tied down during these visits and phone calls. They have stolen many years of Ebrahim’s life, our lives, and our time together.
Although we do not know when this cycle of government-induced revenge will end, we are all stronger and more determined than ever. We will never accept injustice and will continue fighting for Ebrahim’s freedom, for our rights, and the rights of the people of Bahrain.
Farida Ghulam
November 2015
Yara Ebrahim Sharif Daughter of Farida Ghulam and Ebrahim Sharif
I was a normal 20-year-old college student at the University of Washington in Seattle. I had just completed my exams and spring break was a few days away. While meeting a friend for coffee, I received a call that would change my life forever: “Yara, was your father arrested? It’s all over Twitter!”
I immediately called my mother to confirm, but she didn’t answer, so I called my sister, Aseel, who works abroad. She picked up the phone half asleep as it was 3am there and had no clue what I was talking about. I called my mother back and, luckily, she picked up. As soon as she confirmed the arrest and detailed the manner in which my father, Ebrahim Sharif, was arrested, I told her to slow down so that I could write all the details down on my laptop to publish online.
I recorded how masked men with guns came over our fence at 2am on 17 March 2011, arrested my father without a warrant, mocked my mother and left no contact information with our family. I didn’t know if my writing would gain any traction online or if anyone would read it because I had about 50 followers on Twitter at that time. Overnight, the followers jumped to over 3,000, and that’s when it all began.
I had hoped that it would all pass by and my father would be released soon. A month went by, and we still had no idea where he was, who he was with or if he had been tortured or not. I was instructed to stay in the US by my family and advising professors, so I took the quarter off and spent it in a bubble of depression, only responding to reporters who contacted me for statements, but for the most part, it was just a never ending gut-wrenching feeling.
My hope of my father being released in a few weeks never came true. I came back to see him after his unjustified sentence during visitation hours. Things continued like this for more than four years. I graduated from university while my father was in prison. I moved back to Bahrain in 2013, started part-time work and moved abroad a year later for an exciting job. I had hoped my father would be there for these moments, for him to fly with and help me choose an apartment, help set up some IKEA tables just as we had with my sister when she moved for work.
I had hoped to make and enjoy breakfast in my new apartment with my family, just as we had done five years earlier for my sister. None of these things happened. I had to inform my dad about everything either over the phone or on steel chairs during monitored visits where he was separated from us behind an open window.
There were no real-time updates — the kind of updates children like to give their parents in person, the kind of updates any child would want to celebrate with their parents. There was no flying to Bahrain to surprise my parents at home. Instead, I was flying to Bahrain to visit my father during scheduled hours after being frisked by policewomen.
The biggest personal impact of having my father arrested was that he never got to see me grow up. I was studying for my bachelor’s degree between the ages of 18 to 21. My father was arrested when I was 20. I am 25 now. My father won’t recognise the person I have grown to be, and I can only blame the government of Bahrain.
He doesn’t know who I was during those years, and who I am becoming. He doesn’t know the real growth I’ve experienced because a one hour monitored visit with eight other family members surrounding you gives you no chance to really connect for more than a few minutes. My relationship with my father was stolen from me; I was robbed from sharing important milestones with him and I can’t wait for the day to share my life with him, to update him on all the years gone by.
It has not been an easy road for me, or for any of my family members. My sister is still waiting on her wedding day, despite being married for four years now. She refuses to have a wedding without a father to dance with. My brother has graduated and moved abroad as well, with my father missing those milestones too. My mother continues to fight for his right to be free and for the freedom of the many people of Bahrain that share the same fate behind bars. Despite these being difficult times, we know that our father’s conscience is clear. He is in jail because he stands on the right side of history — because he defends the less fortunate and speaks the truth. He is a man of courage and conviction, and we can learn a lot from him.
As my father said in his hearing in the Higher Court of Appeals on 5 June 2015: “They may imprison our bodies, but they will not be able to imprison our dream… a dream of freedom and dignity for our people.”
Sharif Ebrahim Sharif Son of Farida Ghulam and Ebrahim Sharif
No one should ever wake up to a call in the middle of the night to hear that something terrible has happened to a loved one, but that’s exactly what I went through in my sophomore year of college when my father was arrested in Bahrain for daring to speak his mind.
A friend of mine at the University of Michigan woke me up with his call, and sounded a little tense and upset as he asked me if I had heard the news and if I was OK. I had no idea what he was talking about, and that’s when he told me my father had been arrested and no one knew where he was. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I felt like the walls were closing in on me, I couldn’t breathe, my heart was racing as I sat there in my dark dorm room, thousands of miles away from home, completely powerless to help.
My family was kept in the dark about my dad’s whereabouts for quite a while afterward. Occasionally there would be rumors that he had been spotted at some hospital or other receiving treatment, but that was all we had to go on. The feeling that my life was crashing down around me was with me every day, made worse by the fact that I still had lectures to attend, tests to take, projects to work on. I had to go about my life while my dad was missing. It was a soul crushing experience, having to force myself to put aside my fears and my worries and my sadness and work on that next calculus set or programming assignment. Over time, we got more details as to my dad’s whereabouts, and eventually he was allowed to call us; just hearing his voice was an incredible relief because it meant that he was alive.
My dad has been forced to miss the entirety of my adult life. I’m a very different person now than I was when I got that call all those years ago, and I’ve had to go through the process of becoming an adult with only infrequent windows of contact with him, usually lasting no more than 10 minutes every other week at most. He couldn’t even attend my graduation. With every major life event I went through I had to wait a week or more before I could tell him about it. Even when we did get to talk, I had to condense topics and prioritise because there just wasn’t enough time. Even then we were censored as there were topics we weren’t allowed to discuss over the phone, especially politics. Until his temporary release that lasted all of three weeks, the extent of my interactions with my dad as an adult were all through these little 10 minute windows, and occasionally longer visits when I was back home, where everything we said was being monitored. Not being allowed to even have a private conversation is insidiously oppressing — everything I say has to pass through a filter: “Can I say this? Will the monitors cut the call off? Am I OK with the Bahraini government knowing this?”
I am glad at the very least that my dad got to see my sisters and I as we are now, without any surveillance or prison walls separating us, for those three weeks that he was free. I want my dad back more than anything and am hopeful that he will be a full part of our lives again soon.
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