11 Apr 19 | Events
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”105774″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]
In 1989, student-led demonstrations took place in Beijing, China – commonly referred to as the Tiananmen Square protests. Thirty years on, state censorship is an increasing concern in China once more as the government uses new tactics to restrict speech.
Join Chinese authors Xinran (The Good Women of China) and Karoline Kan (Under Red Skies: The Life and Times of a Chinese Millennial) for a discussion moderated by Index on Censorship magazine editor Rachael Jolley to explore some of today’s most pressing issues in China past and present.
[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”90098″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”105479″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”95586″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]
When: 25 May 2019, 8.30 pm
Where: Hay Festival Foundation Stage
Tickets: Hay Festival
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]
11 Apr 19 | Digital Freedom, News and features, United Kingdom
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
There is a tired stereotype that the British don’t “do” sex. It’s too embarrassing, too shocking to be talked about in public spaces. The cliché has long been considered outdated in the wake of the obscenity trials of the mid-1960s when works such as Lady Chatterley’s Lover were vindicated. And, so the story goes, the road has paved the way to a more permissive society.
Yet with the passage of the UK’s Digital Economy Act 2017, there could all be about to change. The act, created by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, mandates — among other things — that all pornographic websites have strong age verification checks. Ostensibly created to safeguard children from pornography, these checks would require users to either purchase a special “porn pass” in a physical shop or submit official forms of documentation to private companies for verification.
This age verification scheme has been repeatedly delayed, most recently on 1 April 2019. However, it has not been taken off the table, with the government still working to roll out the scheme sometime in the near future. This is despite the policy having been met with criticism by many anti-censorship and privacy campaigners, who see it as setting an unhealthy risk to online anonymity, net neutrality and sexual freedom.
The law has the potential to pose a severe threat to the anonymity of people in the UK.
Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of Index on Censorship, explains: “This plan is riddled with problems. As David Kaye, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression has said, identity disclosure requirements in law allow authorities to identify people more easily, which threatens anonymous expression”.
David Kaye has long been a vocal critic of violations of net neutrality such as the UK’s “porn ban”, which can have a severe cooling effect on the public’s ability to express themselves freely.
He states that: “The internet has profound value for freedom of opinion and expression, as it magnifies the voice and multiplies the information within reach of everyone who has access to it. Within a brief period, it has become the central global public forum. As such, an open and secure internet should be counted among the leading prerequisites for the enjoyment of freedom of expression today.”
According to Kaye, any requirement for the disclosure of identity or obtain an officially recognised documentation to access pornography would allow authorities to identify people more easily, and threatens that kind of anonymous expression. Similarly, creating legally sanctioned barriers which severely restrict access to online content such as pornography would be harmful to individuals’ right to expression.
The law will be overseen by the British Board of Film Classification, the 107-year-old organisation responsible for age ratings on films, which among other things rated Watership Down — a 1978 British animated adventure-drama film complete replete with violent scenes of rabbits ripping each other’s throats out — “U” for universal, or suitable for all. However, the actual enforcement of it will be left to private “age verification” companies.
The systems currently being prepared for use after the scheme is rolled out by companies such as AgeID and AgeChecked typically require the user to provide formal, high-risk personal identification such as a passport, driver’s licence or credit card through a third party. Once sufficient identification is provided, users will be granted access to all websites that use them. Other information such as names, addresses and bank details may also be required, but no matter how well encrypted, the storing of this data comes with a risk.
Yet with AgeID — the company expected to dominate the UK age verification market — being owned by pornography giant MindGeek, this risk may only be enhanced. MindGeek is also the parent company of PornHub, YouPorn and RedTube, and may represent a strong conflict of interest.
As Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group explains: “The porn company MindGeek will become the Facebook of age verification, dominating the UK market. They would then decide what privacy risks or profiling take place for the vast majority of UK citizens.”
“The government has repeatedly refused to ensure that there is a legal duty for age verification providers to protect the privacy of web users,” Killock adds. “Age verification could lead to porn companies building databases of the UK’s porn habits, which could be vulnerable to Ashley Madison style hacks.”
The risks of these databases being hacked is a distinct possibility. The 2015 Ashley Madison data breach, in which hackers exposed the names, email addresses, phone numbers and credit card details of users of the dating site whose slogan was “Life is short. Have an affair”.
Subsequent to the breach, exposed users found themselves at risk of losing careers, broken marriages and extortion or suicide, as in the case of John Gibson, a pastor at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary whose suicide note mentioned the data breach.
For one vocal critic, Clarissa Smith, professor of sexual cultures at the University of Sunderland, the law seems like an ineffective attempt for the government to appear to be addressing a largely manufactured issue. She argues that the resulting law ultimately doesn’t even address the underlying problems which it claims to address.
“As is often the case with this kind of legislation, it was rolled into a portmanteau bill, and the age verification provisions were barely discussed because they’re just one aspect of the bill,” Smith said. The legislation then passed, and most people are unaware that the provisions were even there. Those that do take note are often dismissed as the cranks or perverts ‘who don’t care about children’.”
“The result is that broader problems about data security, rights to privacy and sexual freedoms are all swept away in the name of ‘doing something for the kids’,” she added. “And people ignore this kind of legislation because they presume it won’t apply to their own sex lives, or that if they don’t watch much porn they won’t be affected.”
The issue, Smith argues, is not that pornography is accessible, but that it is not talked about with young people, except to discourage them from seeking it out.
“I think there are lots of more productive ways of dealing with adult concerns about what young people are viewing online. Too often they turn straight to protection, prevention and prohibition when what could be done would be to offer education and support so that kids make the right choices for themselves.”
According to Jerry Barnett, campaigner and author of Porn Panic!: Sex and Censorship in the UK, the regulation of the porn industry is a sign of greater underlying threats to net neutrality. For Barnett, the problems with the age verification system, though still significant, pale in comparison to the government’s power to block porn websites outright if they don’t comply with the law. He says that allowing the government to block non-compliant porn sites could set a dangerous precedent for other forms of online censorship in the future.
“While the discussion has centred on the ‘age verification’ requirement, the real problem comes with the blocking system that will be used to prevent UK citizens accessing non-compliant sites,” Barnett says. “That should be the focus of civil liberties campaigners, as it can be used to block anything.”
“The burning issue is that a ‘Great Firewall of Britain’ has been quietly built using the age verification requirements as an excuse, he adds. “The blocking system, rather than the age verification system, will fundamentally change the nature of the internet.”
The Digital Economy Act permits the BBFC to block porn websites which do not comply with their regulations, as well as allowing them to impose fines of up to £250,000 upon them as an alternative.
Barnett argues that if the law had not been specifically targeted at pornography, a law such as the Digital Economy Act would have been the subject of strong public debate, such as the recent discussion surrounding Article 13, the EU’s new copyright directive. Like Smith, he suggests that such debate struggled in the face of the strong cultural stigma which surrounds sex and pornography.
“The issue requires someone who will ‘defend the indefensible’ in the media, and there aren’t many of us around,” he says. “In order to oppose censorship, you find yourself defending things — such as the right of teenagers to access sexual content — that few people are prepared to defend.”
Despite the many issues which plague the law, the vast majority of the UK population is apparently unaware of it. According to a poll conducted by YouGov published on 18 March, less than a month before the new regulations were due to be rolled out, only 24% of Britons were aware of the new law- or what it entailed.
The same study found that 67% of those surveyed supported the changes after being informed of the law — including over a quarter of those who viewed pornography most frequently.
Seemingly, even many people who in private would be hit hardest by the new measures support them due to the social stigma of being opposed to them.
Of course, one of the largest problems which the government will face if the legislation ever becomes officially enforced — and a likely reason why the law has been repeatedly delayed — are virtual private networks such as NordVPN, HideMyAss! and Cyberghost, which allow users to browse the internet anonymously, and even appear to be doing so from a country completely different to their actual location.
With the UK being the only democratic country to so far attempt to block pornography, the “Great Firewall” is likely to be one with many holes in it.
This article was updated on 2 May 2019 to clarify language around age verification systems.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1556793072006-c7e3356d-4e49-5″ taxonomies=”4883″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
11 Apr 19 | Index in the Press
Today saw the release of the government’s Online Harms White Paper, a publication spearheaded by the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, Jeremy Wright, and the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid. Read the full article
11 Apr 19 | Index in the Press
Monday wasn’t the best day for the government to launch Online Harms, its white paper on internet regulation. As Sajid Javid was proudly proclaiming that Britain would have the toughest internet laws in the world, it emerged that a British woman had been arrested on a trip to Dubai and faced up to two years in prison for describing her ex-husband’s new wife as a ‘horse’ on Facebook. So does the Home Secretary want the UK to have tougher internet laws than the United Arab Emirates? If so, he might find himself at odds with the Foreign Secretary, who has been working behind the scenes to secure the poor woman’s release. Read the full article
10 Apr 19 | Index in the Press
If enacted, the online harms white paper on internet regulation would make China’s state censors proud, say representatives from six civil liberties organisations. Read the full article
10 Apr 19 | Academic Freedom, News and features, Scholar at Risk
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”106191″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]“We in Syria were living in a big prison, without freedom, without good education, without good quality of life, without any desire of development,” says Dr. Kassem Alsayed Mahmoud, a food science and agricultural engineering researcher. “We have in Syria only five universities while we have more than 200 prisons.”
In 2009, Alsayed Mahmoud returned home to Syria after getting his masters and doctorate degree in France. He began working at Al-Furat University, where he quickly encountered the multitude of issues that academics in Syria face. In his experience as a professor and researcher in Syria, there is a serious lack of resources, experience and research freedom, in addition to issues of bureaucracy and corruption that all combine to create an environment that discourages and prevents academic freedom.
Despite his position as a professor at Al-Furat University and his age at the time, 37, he was forced into the one year of military service that is compulsory for Syrian citizens. He entered the military at the end of 2010 but was kept past his one-year mandatory service for an undetermined amount of time. By the end of 2012, Alsayed Mahmoud decided to defect from the military and leave Syria.
From there, Alsayed Mahmoud made his way to Turkey with the help of rebels, and then Qatar, where he remained for a year, before Scholars at Risk helped him obtain a research position in a lab at the Ghent University in Belgium. This position served as a starting point from which Alsayed Mahmoud then moved to a research position at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, where he worked on the valorisation of bioorganic wastes from the food industry, to see if food waste could be converted into something more useful like energy, other chemicals or materials that could be helpful in manufacturing processes.
In August 2018 Alsayed Mahmoud moved back to France because of his French refugee status, where he is still searching for a job in his field.
Although he describes the higher education system in Syria as a “tragedy” and “disaster”, he still hopes to return to Syria and pursue academic research in order to help rebuild the country.
“For me, I hope very soon to be a free human living in the free Syria,” says Alsayed Mahmoud. “I hope that one day I, and all, Syrian academics could come back home and do our research with freedom as all our colleagues in Europe and developed countries do.”
Dr. Alsayed Mahmoud spoke to Emily Seymour, an undergraduate student of journalism at American University, for Index on Censorship.
Index: What are your hopes for Syria and yourself?
Alsayed Mahmoud: To stop the war in Syria as soon as possible. We need to change the dictatorial regime and clean the country of all occupation and terrorist forces. I want to go back to Syria to continue my work at a university and participate in building our country. I hope that Syria can establish the principles of freedom; and change the constitution to guarantee that no dictator could stay in power for a long time. For me, I hope very soon to be a free human living in the free Syria.
Index: How have you changed in since leaving Syria?
Alsayed Mahmoud: Since leaving Syria seven years ago, I feel that I have been living with an artificial heart. Despite having found a safe place, the help of people and governments in Europe, I still need to breathe the air of Syria, to meet my friends and loved ones, and be proud to develop the country. Seven years is long enough to know that some people who should represent humanity are the cause of disasters because they do not care about other people or about the next generations. These are the people in power who are destroying the earth by making decisions out of only self-interest, waging wars, polluting the earth and increasing hate speech and racism.
Index: Did going to France for your education impact how you viewed Syria when you returned? If so, in what way?
Alsayed Mahmoud: We in Syria were living in a big prison, without freedom, educational opportunities or a good quality of life. There was no desire to develop the country, which has been under a dictatorial regime and one-party rule since 1970. In Syria, we have only five universities but we have more than 200 prisons. When I returned to Syria, I tried to apply what I learned in France, but unfortunately, they forced me to do the mandatory military service in December 2010, despite my professorial position at a university and my age (37 years).
Index: How did the revolution impact higher education in Syria?
Alsayed Mahmoud: Before the revolution, higher education was not in a good situation. There was a lack of materials, a lack of good academics and staff due to the fact that most got their PhDs from Russia and came back without any experience. Very few research papers from Syria were published in the international reviews. There was no academic freedom because many projects were refused by the secret service because they thought the research would interfere with the security of the country. Most university students and staff, especially males, were killed, arrested, tortured, left the country or were forced into the war. You had no choice if you stayed: kill or be killed. Three of five Syrian universities are out of service or displaced to another city. There is also a lack of academics, staff, materials and even students. There is no higher education system in Syria now. It’s a tragedy and disaster.
The revolution also started at universities, because students and researchers believed that the future of the country was in danger. We knew that the situation of higher education in Syria is the worst it’s been since 1970, but we believed that the development of any country is based on research and higher education. The situation now is the result of about 50 years of dictatorship, and the revolution was the right step to start a new life in Syria. We need only some time without any terrorism or occupation to create a free and well educated new generation to build what the terrorist occupations destroyed.
Index: What was it about your experience in the army that prompted you to defect and leave the country?
Alsayed Mahmoud: Before I was forced to do the mandatory service, I was completely against the dictatorial regime and I hoped that one day I could feel free to say and do what I want in Syria.
I suffered a lot when I was in the army, we were forced to obey the stupid orders of the officers who could humiliate you if they knew that you have already finished your PhD in Europe or in a developed country and came back to Syria. As the revolution started in March 2011, they prevented us from seeing what was going on outside the military camps, they did not give us our freedom even when we finished our one-year service and kept us for an indefinite amount of time. From the first day of the revolution, I had decided to defect, but out of fear for my family, I stayed until they were safe. I defected because I am against this dictatorial regime and the army that killed civilians and innocent children, and destroyed the country only because Syrians wanted to be free.
Index: What does your current research focus on?
Alsayed Mahmoud: I returned to France in August 2018 after three years in Belgium because I have French refugee status, but I am still looking for a job in my field. My previous research focused on the valorisation of bioorganic wastes from the food industry. The goal was to give more value to food waste by producing high valued products like lactic acid, which is often used in different domains like food and pharmacy. We developed a fermentation mechanism for lactic acid production in order to valorise potato effluents, which are generated from potato processes.
Index: How has the support of organisations like Scholars at Risk (SAR) been important in your journey as an academic?
Alsayed Mahmoud: Scholars at Risk has had a very important impact on my career. Since I left Syria, I looked for help to find a safe place to continue my work as a researcher. SAR was the most helpful organisation in my case because they could help me to find a host lab — the Laboratory of Food Technology and Engineering — with a grant at Ghent University in Belgium. This was the first step to then find another two year grant at the 3BIO lab in the Universite Libre de Bruxelles in Brussels, where I worked on the valorisation of bioorganic wastes from the food industry. SAR has always been supportive, even after I finished my first year at Ghent University.
Index: Why do you believe academic freedom is important?
Alsayed Mahmoud: Academic freedom is one of the most important pillars for the development of any country. Academics are often leaders that nurture the success of a country. If they are not free to think, criticise and research, they will not be able to help foster development.
Index: In your experience, what has been the difference between the three different academic settings that you’ve been in, in Syria, France and now Belgium?
Alsayed Mahmoud: I could not find a big difference between France and Belgium, but I believe that the academic situation in Syria is very far from being as good as in Europe. In my experience, academic freedom in Syria is one of the worst in the world. Academic freedom is a more important ideal in France and Belgium. The influence of power on the research in Europe is mostly positive and academia and governments often work together to develop the country. In Syria power is really against research and development despite paying lip service to it in the media. The freedom of research is the key to development here in Europe, while in Syria research is controlled by the regime and Assad’s secret services. Generally, there is a very big budget for research here in Europe, while in Syria we have just a drop of that budget, which is also often stolen before reaching us or used for bad purposes. The staff in Syria was mostly educated in Russia and other countries that have low education levels.
The number of universities is a sign of a healthy education system in France and Belgium, while in Syria we have only five universities but more than 200 prisons. You can generally get what you need to carry out your research in Europe without any big financial or political problems, but in Syria, researchers are very limited by materials and budgets. The freedom of mobility to any country for the purposes of attending a scientific event is not a big issue here in Europe, while as a Syrian researcher you are limited by visa and political problems. I hope that one day I, and all Syrian academics, can return home and do our research in freedom — as all our colleagues in Europe and developed countries do — and be proud to be a Syrian researcher.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_single_image image=”105189″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.scholarsatrisk.org/”][vc_column_text]This article was created in partnership with Scholars at Risk, an international network of institutions and individuals whose mission it is to protect scholars, promote academic freedom, and defend everyone’s right to think, question, and share ideas freely and safely. By arranging temporary academic positions at member universities and colleges, Scholars at Risk offers safety to scholars facing grave threats, so scholars’ ideas are not lost and they can keep working until conditions improve and they are able to return to their home countries. Scholars at Risk also provides advisory services for scholars and hosts, campaigns for scholars who are imprisoned or silenced in their home countries, monitoring of attacks on higher education communities worldwide, and leadership in deploying new tools and strategies for promoting academic freedom and improving respect for university values everywhere.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1554827510836-1e64b768-ccba-7″ taxonomies=”8843″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
09 Apr 19 | Awards, Fellowship, Fellowship 2019
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/diIMLPp-ayw”][vc_column_text]Mimi Mefo is one of less than a handful of journalists working without fear or favour in Cameroon’s climate of repression and self-censorship. An award-winning broadcast journalist at private media house Equinoxe TV and Radio, Mefo was arrested in November 2018 after she published reports that the military was behind the death of an American missionary in the country. Mefo reports on the escalating violence in the country’s western regions, a conflict that has become known as the “Anglophone Crisis” and is a leading voice in exposing the harassment of other Cameroonian journalists, calling publicly for the release of those jailed.[/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1554821270741-a1ce18f2-897c-9″ taxonomies=”31772″][vc_custom_heading text=”2019 Fellows” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][awards_fellows years=”2019″ color=”#db3b65″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
09 Apr 19 | Awards, Fellowship, Fellowship 2019
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/keuoW49mUy0″][vc_column_text]Fundación Karisma is a civil society organisation that challenges online trolls by using witty online ‘stamps’ that flag up internet abuse. It is an initiative that uses humour to draw attention to a serious problem: the growing online harassment of women in Colombia and its chilling effect. The organisation offers a rare space to discuss many issues at the intersection of human rights and technology in the country and then tackles them through a mix of research, advocacy and digital tools. Karisma’s “Sharing is not a crime” campaign supports open access to knowledge against the backdrop of Colombia’s restrictive copyright legislation.[/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1554821195961-3b2424b2-f0f4-4″ taxonomies=”31745″][vc_custom_heading text=”2019 Fellows” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][awards_fellows years=”2019″ color=”#db3b65″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
09 Apr 19 | Awards, Fellowship, Fellowship 2019
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/dtbX0d7pO1A”][vc_column_text]Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI) is a small organisation with a big impact: monitoring threats and abuses against editorial cartoonists worldwide. Marshalling an impressive worldwide network, CRNI helps to focus international attention on cases in which cartoonists are persecuted and put pressure on the persecutors. CRNI tracks censorship, fines, penalties and physical intimidation – including of family members, assault, imprisonment and even assassinations. Once a threat is detected, CRNI often partners with other human rights organisations to maximise the pressure and impact of a campaign to protect the cartoonist and confront those who seek to censor political cartoonists.[/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1554821613447-1229817e-a75d-10″ taxonomies=”31720, 6777″][vc_custom_heading text=”2019 Fellows” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][awards_fellows years=”2019″ color=”#db3b65″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
09 Apr 19 | Awards, Fellowship, Fellowship 2019
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/sjaKFw-3zlo”][vc_column_text]Released from prison on 24 February 2019, Zehra Doğan is a Kurdish painter and journalist who, during her imprisonment, was denied access to materials for her work. She painted with dyes made from crushed fruit and herbs, even blood, and used newspapers and milk cartons as canvases. When she realised her reports from Turkey’s Kurdish region were being ignored by mainstream media, Doğan began painting the destruction in the town of Nusaybin and sharing it on social media. For this she was arrested and imprisoned. During her imprisonment she refused to be silenced and continued to produce journalism and art. She collected and wrote stories about female political prisoners, reported on human rights abuses in prison, and painted despite the prison administration’s refusal to supply her with art materials.[/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1554821547002-a0e21804-7cf1-1″ taxonomies=”22555″][vc_custom_heading text=”2019 Fellows” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][awards_fellows years=”2019″ color=”#db3b65″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
09 Apr 19 | Campaigns -- Featured, Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
As Egypt’s President el-Sisi and President Trump meet in Washington, Index on Censorship and leading international human rights lawyers at Doughty Street Chambers are renewing calls for all charges and sanctions against Amal Fathy, detained for speaking out against sexual harassment in Egypt, to be dropped.
Fathy was arrested in May 2018 after posting a Facebook video about sexual harassment of women in Egypt. Fathy was charged with membership of a terrorist organisation and other related charges. She was released from prison after several months in difficult conditions, but she remains bound by debilitating bail conditions and under constant threat of being summarily returned to prison.
Her husband Mohamed Lotfy and their young son were also held after the night-time raid on their apartment in May 2018 but were released after several hours. Lotfy is co-founder and executive director of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF), which has played a key role in increasing awareness of enforced disappearances, censorship, torture and violations of freedom of expression and association in Egypt.
Lawyers from Doughty Street Chambers, jointly with ECRF and Index on Censorship, have lodged complaints with the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on freedom of expression and the situation of human rights defenders regarding Fathy’s situation, and in July 2018 they raised Fathy’s case with the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which will begin its next session later this month.
Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC, Doughty Street Chambers, said: “Our client Amal Fathy spent 230 days in prison, in unsafe and unsanitary conditions, separated from her young son and family, simply for speaking out about the rights of women in Egypt. The threat of being returned to prison continues to hang over her. This is the reality of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi‘s regime. The US has a moral obligation to call on Egypt to quash her conviction and ensure she is truly free.”
Perla Hinojosa, Fellowships & Advocacy Officer at Index on Censorship said: “Index on Censorship urges Egypt to drop all charges against Amal Fathy and compensate her for the months she spent in prison. It must be acceptable to criticise sexual harassment in Egypt and we urge the government to address this important issue.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1554819698259-37353be8-3f0f-9″ taxonomies=”25926″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
09 Apr 19 | Academic Freedom, Campaigns, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Trinity College, Knights of the Campanile initiation ceremony. Credit: Eleanor O’Mahony, The University Times
UPDATE: Some 74 per cent of students voted against slashing the funding of The University Times at Trinity College, Dublin.
A student newspaper at Ireland’s oldest university, Trinity College, Dublin, could face closure after a forthcoming student referendum due to a row over methods used to investigate a story about initiation into an elitist all-male college society.
The initiation ceremony, or “hazing”, was seemingly meted out to those invited to become members of the Knights of the Campanile, an invitation-only sporting society, based on similar bodies at Oxford and Cambridge universities.
The story was published in The University Times, a student union-funded, though independent newspaper, last month. The story, Knights of the Campanile Hazes Members on Campus, went on to say that reporters from the newspaper had witnessed an initiation ceremony for the elite invitation-only society. It claimed members were taken to the rooms of the society president, while the reporters listened outside and left a recording device outside the door. The reporters heard the potential members being jeered, taunted and told to “bend over”, “get in the shower” to “whisper insults in each others’ ears” and that “HIV is going on your toast tomorrow”.
Groaning, gagging and retching sounds were heard coming from the room. Members were told “it’s gonna be a long night, boys” before being driven away in rental cars.
There was an almost instant condemnation of the methods used rather than the society and the hazing allegation, including from the rival newspaper, Trinity News, which called for the resignation of the editor and said the methods were contrary to journalistic ethics. A petition calling for the newspaper to be defunded, which would almost certainly close it, was also initiated.
However, the story grew. The NUJ’s Ethics Council came out in support The University Times, whose staff are student members of the union, and the International Federation of Journalists described the attempted closure as an attack on press freedom. The university’s School of Law is split, with three professors highlighting the inviolability of the dwelling in the Constitution of Ireland, which the journalists are meant to have breached. Their colleague, professor Eoin O’Dell, defended the newspaper, its reporters and their methods, based on a public interest defence that trumped privacy and was justified by the public interest and the importance of the story. Michael McDowell, Ireland’s former Attorney General and former Minister for Justice, argued at a public meeting at Trinity that the public interest and the guarantees of a free press in the constitution were enough to protect the newspaper and its ethical behaviour.
Another solution, which was not taken up, was that instead of threatening a newspaper with closure, the issue should be taken to the Irish Press Council for adjudication, as both student newspapers are members.
The same newspaper had previously published a story concerning hazing by the college boat club.
The referendum will take place on 10 and 11 April.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1555078636454-225c0bbf-fd09-5″ taxonomies=”8843″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
