03 Jul 14 | Campaigns, Statements
We are delighted that Arts Council England has renewed support for Index on Censorship in its latest round of funding. The Arts Council received more than 800 applications for National Portfolio Organisation funding — organisations that the council will fund for the next three years — and we are honoured to be among those who were successful, and that the Council has chosen to maintain funding at its current level.
Jodie Ginsberg, Chief Executive of Index said:
“Funding from the Arts Council enables us to continue to support writers and artists to reach a broad audience through our award-winning magazine, innovative events, and through initiatives such as our Young Writers programme. It’s great that the Arts Council recognises the importance of Index’s work in supporting freedom of expression.”
The Arts Council will support Index with £129,366 over the next three years.
03 Jul 14 | Campaigns, Statements
The Civic Solidarity Platform, a coalition of more than 60 human rights NGOs across the OSCE region, expresses its strongest concern about the arrest of and allegations against Mr. Alexander Sodiqov in Tajikistan and urges authorities of Tajikistan to immediately release Mr. Sodiqov and refrain from bringing charges against him.
Mr. Sodiqov, a scholar affiliated with the Universities of Toronto and Exeter, was detained while carrying out research for an academic project in the town of Khorog, Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Republic in the southeast of Tajikistan on 16 June 2014. Alexander Sodiqov is a citizen of Tajikistan, and a promising academic currently pursuing his doctoral degree.
Following his arrest by the State Committee for National Security (GKNB) of Tajikistan, Mr. Sodiqov was transferred to the Tajik capital Dushanbe, where he is currently held in the custody of the security services on Tursunzade Street 140. A criminal investigation has been opened against him, the GKNB citing suspicions of espionage/treason as the basis for the case. These allegations imply prison sentences from 12 to 20 years in Tajikistan.
The remote Gorno-Badakhshan region holds a particular status in Tajikistan, requiring foreign visitors to obtain a permit from the security services before travelling to the area. However, international organizations and research institutes have long been established in the regional capital Khorog. As such, the region sees more foreign visitors than many other parts of Tajikistan.
Tragically, the area became the object of increased international attention following violent clashes in July 2012. These events were investigated and described in a report published by the Civic Solidarity Platform in October 2013.
As an academic researcher, Mr. Sodiqov was carrying out sociological surveys and interviews in Khorog on the request of fellow academics at the University of Exeter, UK. The University of Exeter is considered one of the top universities in the world, ranking as number 153 internationally, and serving almost 16,000 students. Academic research on this level demands broad objectivity, which easily explains why Mr. Sodiqov included persons known to be in opposition to the central government in his list of interviewees while carrying out his research in Khorog. It does not indicate any affiliation to opposition groups, armed or otherwise, by Mr. Sodiqov himself.
Mr. Sodiqov has received vast support from colleagues and friends in the international academic community across the world, many of whom know Mr. Sodiqov personally and who are familiar with his research. Following Mr. Sodiqov’s arrest, gatherings in his support have taken place at European, American, Australian and Central Asian universities, including London, Canberra, Washington DC, Exeter, Toronto, Paris, Freiburg, Astana, Bishkek, Heidelberg and Ankara.
There is a relatively small circle of academics who specialize on Central Asia and who regularly publish scientific papers and books on subjects relating to the specifics of the region – typically issues such as border disputes, armed conflicts and the particular role of the five Central Asian republics on the global map, but also poverty, health and democratic development.
While the security services of Tajikistan may not be the immediate target group of such publications, they are widely read by stakeholders in the international community, including the United Nations, who rely on academic publications like those produced by Mr. Sodiqov and his colleagues for context and background when allocating development aid, of which Tajikistan is a major recipient.
Members of the Civic Solidarity Platform have raised human rights violations with the government of Tajikistan for years – including issues such as freedom of speech, women’s rights, freedom of religion or belief, as well as the widespread use of torture, to name but a few of the most pressing current concerns.
Considering the funds that have been provided by the international community to develop Tajikistan’s educational system and its other pressing needs, the country’s government would be ill-advised to include academic freedom to this growing list of human rights concerns. Indeed, academic freedom is one the core elements of freedom of expression and falls under protection of major international human rights treaties that Tajikistan is a party to and has obligations under.
The Civic Solidarity Platform calls on the government of Tajikistan to immediately release Alexander Sodiqov, drop all charges against him, let him continue his academic research unhindered, and reunite with his family.
03 Jul 14 | Digital Freedom, Digital Freedom Statements, European Union, News and features, Statements
When Europe’s highest court ruled in May that individuals had a ‘right to be forgotten’ many were quick to hail this as a victory for privacy. ‘Private’ individuals would now be able to ask search engines to remove links to information they considered irrelevant or outmoded. In theory, this sounds appealing. Which one of us would not want to massage the way in which we are represented to the outside world? Certainly, anyone who has had malicious smears spread about them in false articles or embarrassing pictures posted of their teenage exploits, or even criminals whose convictions are spent and have the legal right to rehabilitation. In practice, though, the ruling was far too blunt, far too broad brush, and gave far too much power to the search engines to be effective.
At the time of the ECJ decision, Index warned that the woolly wording of the ruling – its failure to include clear checks and balances, or any form of proper oversight – presented a major risk. Private companies like Google – no matter how broad and noble their advisory board might be on this issue – should not be the final arbiters of what should and should not be available for people to find on the internet. It’s like the government devolving power to librarians to decide what books people can read (based on requests from the public) and then locking those books away. There’s no appeal mechanism, no transparency about how Google and others arrive at decisions about what to remove or not, and very little clarity on what classifies as ‘relevant’. Privacy campaigners argue that the ruling offers a public interest protection element (politicians and celebrities should not be able to request the right to be forgotten, for example), but – again – it is hugely over simplistic to argue that simply by excluding serving politicians and current stars from the request process that the public’s interest will be protected.
We are starting to see some of the (high profile) examples of how the ruling is being applied by Google. The Guardian’s James Ball reported on Wednesday that his newspaper had received an email notification from Google saying six Guardian articles had been scrubbed from search results.
“Three of the articles, dating from 2010, relate to a now-retired Scottish Premier League referee, Dougie McDonald, who was found to have lied about his reasons for granting a penalty in a Celtic v Dundee United match, the backlash to which prompted his resignation,” Ball wrote. “The other disappeared articles are a 2011 piece on French office workers making post-it art, a 2002 piece about a solicitor facing a fraud trial standing for a seat on the Law Society’s ruling body and an index of an entire week of pieces by Guardian media commentator Roy Greenslade.”
Similarly, the BBC was told that the link to a 2007 article by the BBC’s Economics Editor, Robert Peston, had also been removed.
Neither The Guardian nor the BBC has any form of appeal against the decision, nor were the organisations told why the decision was made or who requested the removals. You may argue – as some have done – that Google is deliberately selecting these stories (involving well-known journalists with large online followings) as a kind of non-compliant compliance to prove that the ruling is unworkable. Certainly, a fuller picture of the types of request, and much more detailed information about how decisions are arrived at, is essential. You can also point to the fact that it is easy to find the removed articles simply by going to a search engine’s domain outside Europe.
The fact remains that this ruling is deeply problematic, and needs to be challenged on many fronts. We need policymakers to recognise this flabby ruling needs to be tightened up fast with proper checks and balances – clear guidelines on what can and should be removed (not leaving it to Google and others to define their own standards of ‘relevance’), demands for transparency from search engines on who and how they make decisions, and an appeals process. If search engines really believe this is a poor ruling then they should make a clear stand against it by kicking all right to be forgotten requests to data protection authorities to make decisions. The flood of requests that would be driven to these already stretched national organisations might help to focus minds on how to prevent a ruling intended to protect personal privacy from becoming a blanket invitation to censorship.
This article was posted on 3 July 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
03 Jul 14 | Campaigns, Statements
Commenting on the recent articles removed from search engines by Google, Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of Index on Censorship, said:
“As Index on Censorship warned when the ruling was delivered last month the ‘right to be forgotten’ is a blunt instrument ruling that opens the door for widespread censorship and the whitewashing of the past.
Private companies like Google should not have been handed the power to make decisions – that lack any kind of transparency and accountability – about what information can and cannot be found on the internet.”
Further information:
Index urges court to rethink ruling on “right to be forgotten” (30 May, 2014)
Are search engines the ultimate arbiters of information? (14 May, 2014)
Index blasts EU court ruling on “right to be forgotten” (13 May, 2014)
03 Jul 14 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, United Kingdom
(Image: Shutterstock)
I’ve occasionally thought it might be fun, even therapeutic, to have an enemies list. I would carry it in my pocket, a single, increasingly ragged B5 ruled sheet, on which I would scribble, with my specially purchased green Bic biro, the names of those who had taken against me, or to whom I had taken against; starting with the Ayatollah Khamenei (long story) and ending, well, never ending.
I could scrawl and scrawl, adding people and organisations: the wine waiter who mysteriously sneered “For you sir, perhaps a glass of Merlot” (I know that’s an insult, I just don’t know why that’s an insult), everyone who stands on the bottom deck of a bus when there are seats upstairs, the Communist Party of Vietnam, and so on, endlessly, ‘til my little scrap of paper was a grand mess of green ink, letters over letters over letters, upside down, vertical, horizontal, furious underlines, multiple exclamation marks, sometimes, just discernible, the word “NO” in capital letters.
It would be good to have the list at hand, to have it under control, I imagine. As long as I’ve got them all written down, and the list is on my person, I won’t be caught off guard. This would not be odd, you agree. It would be an entirely reasonable thing to do in a world where foes stalk us, waiting to mug us, or make us look like mugs.
For politicians, this sense of the entire world waiting for the moment you mess up is amplified, partly because it is a reflection of the truth. Opposition activists will pick up on every word you say, and the slightest slip will be turned into a hilarious/earth-shatteringly dull meme in mere minutes, with earnest young women imploring people to retweet whatever the hell it was that proves you hate nurses/the nuclear family/your party leader, and proves you’re not fit to do XYZ.
And then there’s the “feral beasts” of the press, as Tony Blair famously referred to journalists in 2007 (this was literally worn as a badge of pride by many: the New Statesman’s then political editor had “Feral Beast” badges made, which he handed out to every journalist he met), who you spend your life trying to please while deep down knowing they are willing you to cock up. You really, really can’t win.
Faced with all this, it’s not surprising that politicians and politicos are a little wary of the world. But there is a difference between wariness and paranoia, a difference demonstrated by the reaction to the Sunday Times’s report of a speech delivered recently by Labour’s Jon Cruddas to the left-wing group Compass. An attendee of the publicly advertised meeting passed a recording of Cruddas’s comments to the Sunday Times. The journalist then had the temerity to report on the speech! According to the Telegraph’s Stephen Bush, Cruddas’s next appearance, at the Fabian Society Summer Conference, was “bad tempered” and full of attacks on the “‘herberts’ and ‘muppets’ of Fleet Street who might be listening to his every word or statement in search of a headline”.
Meanwhile Neal Lawson, Compass chairman and Cruddas’s host, wrote a strange article for the Guardian, suggesting, somehow, that Cruddas’s comments were not in the public interest, and somewhat hyperbolically claiming: “The Sunday Times got its cheap splash, but in the process our political culture is diminished, maybe fatally.”
Lawson then really went for it, claiming: “What happens next? We either accept that the Murdoch empire — and maybe others — make toxic yet another level of public life and succeed in shrivelling our body politic still further. Or we make whatever stand we can.
Their goal is not just to destroy Labour or even any alternative to the individualistic, me-first politics of the past 30 years. They want to destroy the possibility of such an alternative. Invading the spaces in which such an alternative is discussed, such as the Compass event, is just a means to an end.”
All this at first reads as merely silly, but there are a few strands in it that are quite worrying. The first is the idea that a journalist reporting on a public meeting (Lawson’s justification for claiming it was “semi-private” was that attendees had to register and there was no press list) is fatally undermining democracy. There is an authoritarian undertone to this: journalists should report on what we allow them to report, not what is of interest. This is also reflected in Lawson’s comment about journalistic practices — “For the papers who do this it’s an easy, cheap hit: no research, no digging, just someone with a smartphone who is willing to sit through boring meetings on a Saturday afternoon” — somehow the story is not a good one because it was gained through day-to-day processes rather than via the Woodward-And-Bernstein routines that are seen as “proper” “investigative” journalism.
Secondly, there is the Murdochophobia which escalates an agenda to a conspiracy: The Sunday Times and Murdoch’s other papers are broadly conservative, it is true, but that’s a long way from having a goal of “destroying Labour” (a party Murdoch’s papers supported for a long time).
The problem with this paranoid mindset is that nobody takes responsibility for their own actions or even their own opinions. The question of whether there is a problem with Labour policy or not, becomes simply evil newspaper versus innocent, naive, poor little politician. It is self-pitying and self-defeating. Either have the debate, or don’t. But don’t complain when reporters report.
This article was posted on July 3, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
02 Jul 14 | Asia and Pacific, News and features, Thailand
The generals behind Thailand’s latest coup, a well-planned seizure of power, have declared an ambitious agenda to fix the political system, dissolve conflict and “bring back happiness”. The steps they are taking: Closing down protest, pressuring academics and controlling the media may not deliver the results they are looking for.
Last month’s coup is markedly different from the 2006 army power grab that ousted billionaire prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. That coup provided a clear plan for restoring civilian rule and a timetable for elections. This time around army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha and his junta have refused to commit themselves. They claim “the political system has to be reformed before a new election can take place”, suggesting that it may take 15 months if things run smoothly, or maybe much longer, before new elections can be held.
In the meantime, the Thai junta have set about consolidating their power, ruling by decree and suppressing even the most innocuous and silent forms of dissent. A gathering of five or more people has been declared illegal. Anyone who defies their decrees will be tried by military court-martial. With the scrapping of the constitution and the dissolution of parliament, the military’s power over policy-making and the judiciary is absolute.
The junta’s message to the public seems to be don’t worry about the abrogation of human rights, freedom of assembly and the clampdown on the media. The military’s public relations and social psychology unit has unleashed a series of free concerts and distributed free tickets to a stirring epic film that glorifies the victories of King Naresuan of Siam (1590-1605). The concerts have also featured songs lauding the the army for saving the nation from the abyss and “bringing back happiness”.
Beyond the entertainment the message is clear: Political divisions and debates have to be dissolved. The Thai people have to be united by ultra-nationalistic fervour and reverence for the monarchy.
Perhaps the clincher for winning over the masses was the junta’s directive to ensure all World Cup matches would be shown free on terrestrial Thai TV channels, at the cost of 427 million baht, or £7.68 million, skimmed from another budget.
All this has combined to garner support from people in Bangkok and beyond, whose lives had been disrupted by months of anti-government rallies, blocked traffic and political deadlock.
There is a common theme in both coups 2006 and 2014 — the objective of disrupting and dislodging the electoral domination of the Shinawatra-led political parties and the “red shirt” supporters, that since 2001 have consistently won at the ballot box.
Background to the coup
The country’s fragile democracy had been battered and paralysed by months of raucous anti-government demonstrations, including the occupation of government ministries led by die-hard monarchists known as “yellow shirts”. They were opposed to a government led by Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of ousted tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra who lives in exile in Dubai.
Attempts to settle the conflict by holding an election in February 2014, were stymied by anti-government protesters blocking the way to many voting stations in Bangkok and the south. The election was later annulled by the courts, leaving the country in a state of political impasse.
Month after month, the Thai military chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha had fended off the media with assurances that there would be no coup because “a coup is not the solution”.
But soon after, on 20 May, the army declared martial law, stressing that it was not really a coup. On 21 May, the army chief declared “martial law is not the same as a coup”. Then on 22 May, martial law underwent a minor mutation leading to full seizure of power. Overnight, the action becaime a fully-fledged coup under the command of the NCPO — the National Committee for Peace and Order. Despite appearances and General Prayuth’s misleading statements, according to a reliable business source in close contact with the generals, it had all been planned a long time ago. This has now been confirmed by Suthep Thaugsuban, the former Democrat Party politician turned yellow shirt. The military have denied it.
Thailand is no stranger to coups. Tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted in 2006. At the election that followed his sister Yingluck Shinatra won a landslide victory, and her government suffered the same fate in 2014. This is the 12th coup since 1932 and the end of absolute monarchy.
The repression
The current hard-line military regime has set about rooting out all anti-coup opposition — both red shirt, and a politically liberal constituency, based around groups of intellectuals, writers and academics.
The Thai Human Rights Alliance has reported that 470 people have been detained for questioning for 7 days or more, after being summoned to appear before the generals. This included not only politicians and red shirt leaders but also human rights lawyers, academics, journalists and writers. Most have been released after being pressured to sign a declaration that they would not engage in any anti-coup activity.
Universities have been warned against holding political forums. Inside schools, a decree has banned any criticism of the coup. NCPO is also considering rewriting history books to add patriotic fervour to classroom study.
Censorship of the internet was already extensive before the coup. It has reached new heights under the junta, with an attempt to close down Facebook. However it suddenly came back online after an hour with the military engaging in frantic denials.
Following the Thai junta taking control over TV, radio and print media, the only remaining source of independent information and reports from Thai reporters can be found on the web. Blocking Facebook pages is part of a long-term strategy to rival the success of Burmese counterparts in controlling internet gateways. Anyone who clicks “like” on an anti-coup comment on the web has, according to the NCPO, committed a criminal offence.
The junta tries to extend its grip overseas
Army chief General Prayuth has briefed 23 Thai ambassadors to keep a close watch for any anti-coup protests abroad. Any “inappropriate comments” about the Thai monarchy should be reported and could be prosecuted under Thailand’s notorious “lese majeste” law. This controversial law bans any public debate of the monarchy and has been widely used to discredit political opposition.
In Thailand the military’s first allegiance is to the royal family. The politics of the coup is viewed by many as part of a broader plan to ensure that the succession that follows the death of ailing 86 year old King Bhumibol Adulyadej will be managed by a Thai parliament under the firm control of deeply committed monarchists, and not Thaksin’s red shirt camp.
All sides profess affection and loyalty to the king, but the wearing yellow indicates special allegiance to increasing the powers of the throne beyond the limits of a constitutional monarchy.
In late May, the Royal Thai Embassy in London tried to lobby the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and their Thai Society, to cancel a public panel discussion on 2 June, on the coup d’état. The event featured a panel of speakers including law academic Verapat Pariyawong, one of those summoned by the junta. Despite embassy pressure, the debate went ahead at SOAS.
In Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, the long arm of the military was more successful, blocking the screening of the film 1984, based on George Orwell’s classic novel. A Thai cineclub wanted to screen it at an art gallery with an anticipated audience of probably less than 30. As a result of pressure from an army colonel who contacted the gallery, it was cancelled.
Military newspeak and Orwellian times
Addressing the Foreign Correspondents Club in Bangkok, junta spokesman Colonel Werachon Sukondhapatipakhe urged the media: “Please avoid using the word coup, because the context of what happened in Thailand is completely different. The only thing that happened in Thailand is the change of the administration of this country.” The colonel also instructed the media against using “junta”, saying: “One must never use that word, it sounds bad.”
He also declared: “I don’t like the word ‘detention’ as people were only invited to come.” However, about 50 people who declined the “invitation”, have been charged and will be tried by court martial.
The military have also said they wanted to end the country’s deeply entrenched political divisions by setting up reconciliation forums under ISOC (Internal Security Operations Command), a body established in 1966 to counter the armed communist rebellion.
ISOC spokesman Ban hot Pompeian said “it’s time for Thais to stop dwelling on the past”. Addressing primarily red shirt voters in the north and north east, he said they “should forget everything that happened before 22 May”.
In George Orwell‘s 1984, the importance of forgetting the past is all part of a totalitarian design to exert thought control and acceptance of a new reality. “Thailand in 2014 is George Orwell’s 1984,” Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a Thai associate professor of Southeast Asian Studies at Kyoto University, told Time magazine.
David Steckfuss an expert on northern Thailand, who lectures at Khon Kaen University, argues there are many things that “it would be hard for them [red shirts] to forget”, mentioning specifically the military crackdown on red shirt supporters in Bangkok in 2010, which resulted in 90 people killed. The military fired live ammunition in order to disperse a mass protest that had blocked central Bangkok for over two months.
Steckfuss argues that reconciliation based on the barrel of a gun is not going to work. Those red shirt activists and the voters in northern Thailand do not view the junta as honest brokers between the two political sides, but clearly aligned with one side comprising of the Bangkok elite, the yellow shirt monarchists and the royal palace, he said.
Kevin Hewison, a Thai studies expert who heads the Asia Research Centre at Australia’s Murdoch University, commented that General Prayuth’s actions during anti-government demonstrations were “biased towards the anti-government side, protecting and promoting them under the guise of the military being ‘neutral'”.
Dark days ahead
Thailand’s political history has been riddled by coups, usually involving a semi-feudal elite at loggerheads with both the new capitalism represented by Thaksin Shinawatra and his telecom empire, and with the recent sense of empowerment by the voters of north and north-east Thailand.
Buddhist scholar Sulak Sivaraksa points out: “Unfortunately, the military hasn’t learned much from their previous mistakes; that is, every coup thus far has been a fundamental failure, and the military must take full responsibility for this.”
If the country is to emerge from this crisis, Sivaraksa argues the elite and the military have to start respecting the poor who vote for red shirt parties and are starting to assert their political rights.
“Many red shirts are not pawns of Thaksin Shinawatra. They have bravely struggled for freedom from domination by the ‘ammarts'”, Sivaraksa said, referring to the traditional elite closely linked to the judiciary and the royal palace.
There is a chance that the military’s reform of the Thai system, and their apparent preference for a more limited or guided democracy will only be welcomed by the yellow shirt royalists, and rejected by any election based on one man one vote.
If there is to be a credible reform process, Dr Lee Jones of Queen Mary London University says: “The only way forward is a new social contract that distributes power and resources more equitably. We get that by talking and negotiating, not from the barrel of a gun.”
This article was posted on July 2, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
02 Jul 14 | Draw the Line, Events, News and features, Young Writers / Artists Programme
Index hosted the first of our Draw the Line events on Monday, as ten young adults met to discuss issues surrounding the free expression records of the countries participating in the World Cup.
The big question was, should we blow the whistle on free-speech offending countries? During this World Cup, democratic countries will engage with regimes with poor records on freedom of expression, so what should we do? Should some countries be kicked out? Which ones? And what about the hosts of these tournaments?
Members of the group started off by voicing their opinion on whether or not some repressive countries should be allowed to participate, but the conversation soon developed from there.
The group was split in half and asked to determine which four of this year’s World Cup countries they thought would be included in a free expression “Group of Death”. Index provided cards that gave statistics on each country’s press freedom, democracy, civil liberties, net freedom, and corruption. After much shuffling and discussion, both groups decided on the same four countries: Cameroon, Iran, Nigeria, and Russia.
Participants were split into smaller groups, each researching one country, and made their case for why their country was the “winner” in repressing freedom of expression. This sparked conversations on topics including the idea of government versus civil responsibility, as well as conditioning of citizen behaviour and use of propaganda.
After much debate and idea sharing, the group reached a common consensus: countries repressing free speech should not be banned from global sports, but they believe a campaign should be set up to prevent freedom of expression and human rights offending countries hosting events like the World Cup.
Tweet us your thoughts with #IndexDrawtheLine to participate in the Draw the Line debate.
This article was posted on July 2, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
02 Jul 14 | Uncategorized
This blog is no longer updated. You can find Index on Censorship here.
02 Jul 14 | News and features
This blog is no longer updated. You can find Index on Censorship here.
01 Jul 14 | India, News and features
(Image: Shutterstock)
A month has passed since Narendra Modi became prime minister of India, and brought the right wing Hindu nationalist BJP (Bharatiya Janta Party) back into power. Much has been written about his government, with observers either hailing him as an economic messiah who will fix India’s dwindling economy or a divisive politician who has built his career on the back of communalism.
Those watching freedoms, especially of free speech and the media, are among the people apprehensive about life under Modi’s government. While the prime minister himself has blogged about the importance of free expression, recent arrests, including of citizens directly critical of him, paint a worrying picture. Additionally, the rise of “communal posts” on social media, real or planed, have lead to violence on the ground, and a debate about how best to police social media and free speech online.
In June, a young Muslim IT graduate lost his life to an angry mob in the city of Pune, Maharashtra, due to violence that erupted after morphed pictures of a historical figure appeared on Facebook and WhatsApp. The pictures were said to be triggers for crowds to damage shops and public transport, ultimately resulting in communal violence and the loss of an innocent life. However, reports from the Anti Terror Squad of the Maharashtra police indicate that the outbreak of violence following the uploaded picture does not seem sporadic or unplanned.
The state government has issued familiar warnings about the misuse of social media by groups that are looking to incite communal tension. Home Minister, R. R. Patil, was quoted as saying that “anti-social elements are posting inflammatory posts to stoke hatred, bitterness and disharmony between sects”, warning that such posts could result in action not just against those who post the photos, but also those who “like” them. Of course, this was the same state which saw two girls were arrested last year for allegedly sparking communal violence — one for writing a Facebook update, and the other girl simply for “liking” it. Therefore, any action by the government needs to be tempered by what the fallout could be for ordinary citizens and their right to free speech.
But authorities are not alone in seeking a solution to the problem of potentially inflammatory social media postings — civil society groups are also trying novel ideas to counter the trend. Ravi Ghate, a social entrepreneur and founder of a community SMS newsletter in Maharashtra, has banded together with like-minded folks to form a group on Facebook called “Social Peace Force”. Amassing over 18,000 members in ten days, the mission of the group is to “stop anti-social messages on Facebook” by reporting them as spam. “It’s the easiest and technological way to fight the culprits who are spreading anti-national messages/images and stopping ourselves from development!” is the logic the group adheres to. Many of the new members have posted comments indicating their genuine desire to help stop the spread of abusive and communal messages. Therefore, once identified, all members of the group will report a message or posting to Facebook thereby pressurising them to remove the post before it can do any more damage. The group has also instituted a panel of experts who are meant to examine any troubling post and give the go-ahead for the group to act.
What has spurred this move? “How many times can you go to court,” Ghate told Index. “It is too expensive. And the problem is that by the time the police takes down the content, the riot has already taken place.” For them, “suppressing content at the source” in a timely manner is key. A technological solution within the boundaries of Facebook’s own rules of engagement seems to some a far more pragmatic solution than going to the courts again and again.
Seen from a broader lens however, the group’s solution seems to be to shift the onus from the courts to decide the parameters of free expression and “objectionable” content, to big, profit-making, multinational corporates. What might seem today a no-brainer because of some obviously mischievous content, could in time, pose an interesting dilemma: Should social media giants control the boundaries of (social media based) speech in countries such as India, based on their own internal policies, and not the laws of the land? And all this, because of a push by the citizens themselves, to bypass courts and go directly to the corporates.
It is ironic that “Big Brother’ – which is what some newspaper headlines called the group – when translated into Hindi could be interpreted as “elder brother”, indicating a protective instinct, which certainly seems to be the case here. The current mandate of the group is only to focus on religious content to keep “social harmony”. That in itself is not a straightforward task; just ask Wendy Doniger, author of ‘The Hindus: An Alternative History’. However, this and the many spinoff groups they will inspire could morph into something they did not intend. Legitimate art, literature, satire and other forms of expression could become victims of the mob. Then there is danger of more organised groups and political parties taking to social media directly to suppress content — especially political critique — on a regular basis. And finally, those who wish to subvert social media platforms to have an excuse to incite violence on the street, will certainly find more creative ways to do so.
There is of course, the other side of the coin. Will Facebook remove content that has been pre-determined to be objectionable when faced with a large number of people reporting it? The simple answer is, we don’t know. Facebook has its own community standards, and these cover a broad range of topics, including the following: “Facebook does not permit hate speech, but distinguishes between serious and humorous speech. While we encourage you to challenge ideas, institutions, events, and practices, we do not permit individuals or groups to attack others based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or medical condition.”
And a recent experiment by an Indian think-tank revealed that Facebook did not necessarily remove content flagged as objectionable by users, solely on the basis of it being flagged. As Facebook told them: “We reviewed the post you reported for harassment and found it doesn’t violate our Community Standards.” It is quite possible that the newly formed Social Peace Force will feel let down by Facebook as well, if content is not removed immediately. What happens then?
However, this latest development harks back to the problems with India’s current legal mechanisms. India’s IT Act has become infamous for a certain Section 66(A) which can be used to arrest people for information used for the purposes of “annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will”. Public outrage at wrongful arrests led to the courts passing an order that no person would be arrested without “prior approval from an officer not below the rank of inspector general of police”. At the same time, the establishment is not above slapping graver charges (such as inciting communal violence) under other sections of Indian law — including the Indian Penal Code — for fairly innocuous activity. This has lead to some amount of distrust at the government’s own commitment to freedom of expression.
Of course, citizens have a right to appeal to social media platforms if they take offense to any content posted there. The point remains, however, that maintaining communal harmony and law and order is a tricky and layered problem. The role of the state, and the loss of confidence citizens have in it, must be addressed as well. Earlier solutions have included the state governments of Jammu and Kashmir preempting violence by switching off social media and YouTube for a few days, in the wake of burgeoning riots around the world because of the video “The Innocence of Muslims”. At another time, the government of India restricted text messages to five a day to curtail vicious rumours targeting a minority community settled in south India. India’s National Integration Council met in September 2013 after social media posts had been blamed for causing riots in Uttar Pradesh, and many states are setting up social media monitoring departments to raise “red flags”, much like the Social Peace Force itself.
A coherent and honest study of the abuse of social media platforms by fringe groups to incite violence should take place. Given the fast paced nature of the medium, the question for a country as prone to communal riots as India is: how can one control them? Is counter-speech to drown out hate speech a strategy to be employed? Is clamping down on free speech effectively going to reduce religious intolerance? Does bypassing legal routes and going straight to the “source” help? A national dialogue on the matter might be more fruitful in the long run than the flowering of surveillance groups cutting across the board — be they citizen or state-led.
This article was published on June 30, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
27 Jun 14 | News and features, Religion and Culture, Statements, United States
New York’s Metropolitan Opera cancelled a simulcast of composer John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer after discussions with a Jewish group.
While Adams’ opera exploring the hijacking of the cruse ship Achille Lauro in 1985 and the death of wheelchair-bound American Leon Klinghoffer will still be performed, the simulcast, which would have reached a larger audience, will not go forward. The Met’s director, Peter Gelb, told The New York Times that the November 2014 simulcast was cancelled after discussions with the Anti-Defamation League. Gelb told The Times that broadcasting the opera “would be inappropriate at this time of rising anti-Semitism, particularly in Europe.” All the parties involved with the discussions said that they did not think the opera itself was anti-Semitic.
The move has prompted a range of reactions, including the launch of a Change.org petition calling for the Met to reverse its decision. Joshua Markel, the creator of the petition, writes from his point of view on the cancellation:
The decision by the Metropolitan Opera to cancel the simulcast of “The Death of Klinghoffer” is a blow against artistic freedom and all forms of freedom of expression.
John Adams is perhaps the greatest living American opera composer and his opera, “The Death of Klinghoffer” has been recognized around the world as both a first class work of art and a moving and balanced presentation of the moral and political dilemmas inherent in the conflict over Palestine.
Peter Gelb, Director of the Met has been quite open about the fact that this decision was driven by pressure brought from the Anti-Defamation League and a fear that many important Met funders might be alienated by airing the work. Gelb portrayed the decision as a kind of compromise since the work will still be staged live. Not only does this kind of compromise vastly decrease the audience for this important art work but sets a terrible precedent that money and influence should control content.
Ironically, the success of the Anti-Defamation League in silencing the broadcast of this work not only limits free speech it furthers the very forces of anti-Semitism it pretends to oppose. One of the basic tenets of anti-Semitism is that Jews exert power and influence way beyond their numbers in controlling the discussion of Middle East policy. The ADL’s success in this matter certainly bolsters that impression.
The best thing Peter Gelb could do would be to reverse this decision, but he surely won’t unless confronted by a groundswell of opinion in favor of freedom of expression.”
This article was posted on June 27, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
27 Jun 14 | Egypt, News and features, Young Writers / Artists Programme
On Monday, three Al Jazeera journalists were sentenced in Egypt to 7 years imprisonment each, to the shock of media outlets and NGOs worldwide. Cartoonist Ben Jennings shares his take on journalism in the country.
Index strongly condemns the jailing of journalists for doing their job.
In light of the sentences, Michelle Betz writes about her own experience of being on trial in Egypt as part of an NGO, Shahira Amin looks at the blow to press freedom in Egypt the trial has had, while Casey Prottas attended the minute’s silence outside BBC Broadcasting House, held exactly 24 hours after the verdict was read.
