14 Nov 18 | News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”103683″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]The head judge cleared his throat and called the journalist. As soon as he pronounced her name, “Seda Taşkın,” in his high-pitched voice, a look of incredulity spread across the faces of the handful of people watching the trial in the austere courthouse in Muş, a small town in Turkey’s far east. One lawyer, startled, dared to point out the unexpected sequence of words: “Did you just call her ‘Seda?’” Rıdvan Konak asked.
For the first time throughout the trial, the judge’s impassive eyes betrayed a glimpse of nervousness. It must have dawned on him: During the previous hearings, he had insisted on calling her “Seher,” the name on her ID card. After all, the prosecution had claimed that “Seda” was nothing but a code name for her allegedly illegal activities. In fact, Taşkın’s purported code name was the sole shred of ostensible evidence for the prosecution’s charge of “membership in a terrorist organisation,” and the judge was absent-mindedly throwing it away.
A faint and uneasy smile formed below his thin moustache. “You thought all along that we were fixated on that, but we were not,” he managed to reply, looking awkwardly at lawyers from his raised platform. It was an explanation he mumbled aloud twice – just like a little boy caught in flagrante delicto trying to convince his parents that he wasn’t misbehaving. It was also an odd excuse given that the court had twice refused to release the journalist on the grounds that more evidence was needed to prove that all her family and friends had called her “Seda” since she was a toddler. Yet a hopeful question popped up in everyone’s mind. Could this slip of the tongue be a good omen?
The fact the head judge so naturally ended up calling the journalist by the name everybody used showed how much regard the court paid to the accusations levelled by the prosecution. The journalist’s lawyer, Ebru Akkal, said distorted evidence and interpretations were common in free speech cases. “But in Seda’s case, we are dealing with blatant lies,” Akkal said. Taşkın, a reporter focusing on culture, education and women’s rights, was accused of sharing articles on her social media accounts – none of which were written by her.
“Let’s imagine for a moment that they were claiming that Seda killed someone. But the prosecutor is unable to present the weapon with which the crime was committed or establish the place where the murder occurred,” Akkal explained. “What’s more, the person whom they claim was killed is not dead but stands before them. This is the kind of case that Seda was faced with.”
And it did feel as though Taşkın was being personally targeted by the anti-terrorism unit of Muş in light of the massive rights violations she experienced from the moment of her arrest, including a fabricated tipoff, physical and psychological ill-treatment during custody, threats, as well as blackmail.
Nevertheless, Akkal said they expected Taşkın’s release until the very moment that the verdict was pronounced. The judges overseeing the case, however, opted to change the goalposts at the last minute, suddenly and arbitrarily replacing the original accusation with the vaguer charge of “aiding a terrorist organisation without being a member.” The court also refused to provide any additional time to the defense to object to the charge as required.
“I think that the court was convinced that Seda had nothing to do with a terrorist organisation. But they needed to find a charge because they couldn’t let any individual who got into the authorities’ grip go without a sentence,” Akkal said.
The court eventually handed Taşkın four years and two months on the charge of “aiding a terrorist organisation without being a member” and three years and four months on the charge of “conducting propaganda,” adding up to a total of 7.5 years in jail. The journalist, who has already spent 10 months in pre-trial detention at the Silivri Prison in Ankara, will remain in jail during the appeal process. Taşkın was forced to make all her defense statements via video-conference broadcast on a screen inside the courtroom 1,000 kilometers from the capital.
The court had already buried police irregularities by refusing to investigate the identity of the person who gave the tipoff despite repeated requests by lawyers. The extension of the email address in the files, which authorities neglected to black out, clearly indicated the tipoff came from a member of the police department. The judges also refused to heed Taşkın’s long account of the abuse, strip searches, beatings and threats she suffered. But by sentencing her, they have closed the case with a minimum of fuss for the police and the prosecutor.
Taşkın’s lawyers expressed indignation at the court’s handling of the case, describing it as blatant bias. “If the judges are to wash the prosecutor’s hands and the prosecutor, in turn, the police’s hands, why not just let the police run the investigation and issue a verdict?” Akkal said.
“Eclectic and sensitive”
Only two years ago, Taşkın was thrilled when she learned that she had been appointed to the eastern city of Van by the pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya News Agency. She thought that her new position in the agency’s second largest regional office would give her invaluable experience as a journalist in a much tougher environment. The decision also meant leaving her family home in Ankara for the first time in her life. Her parents, however, were concerned about her plans, since journalists working in Kurdish provinces have become even more vulnerable to arrests and detentions since authorities declared a state of emergency in 2016.
She possibly chose the most difficult context possible to work “in the region,” as many reporters in the field refer to the Kurdish southeast. The crackdown on Kurdish media intensified during a military assault that was launched in the winter of 2015 and peaked under the state of emergency clampdown. Many journalists were tracked, investigated, threatened and some, such as Nedim Türfent, jailed and charged with terrorism offenses.
Ultimately, Taşkın’s motivation and determination won her family over, and the young journalist went to begin her work.
The poise she showed was a pleasant surprise for her elder sister Yelda. “We saw the change,” she says. “Seda is someone very emotional and restless. Although she tried, she didn’t graduate from university. So, Seda started as an intern at the agency and was hoping to study journalism after garnering some experience.”
In Van, she felt empowered to express her personality, especially when covering stories that were colourful or touching more so than merely political. “She was eclectic. Her sensitivity and inner conscience allowed her to report on universal subjects such as ecology or women’s issues,” her sister said. She toured villages around the Van Lake, met local people and developed her passion for photography to such a degree that she didn’t want to go back to Ankara.
Then, one day in December 2017, her agency sent her to Muş to report on as many articles as she could. It was Taşkın’s first time in the rural and conservative province. She travelled first to Varto, a former Armenian town populated today by a majority of Alevis – a community whose belief system is often labelled as a heterodox and progressive form of Shia Islam – who had fled Dersim during the state-perpetrated massacres of 1938. Dersim, today called Tunceli after the name of the Turkish state’s military operation, is also the hometown of Taşkın’s family.
After reporting on the newly established culture and solidarity association in Varto, she returned to the provincial center, a place firmly under the control of the police. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had won the municipality over the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and kept the city under strict state authority. She would be arrested shortly thereafter.
Bizarre significance of hearing dates
According to her lawyer Akkal, the mere fact that proceedings were conducted in Muş seriously affected the course of the trial. “The rulings of courts are so inconsistent and unpredictable. Had Seda been arrested in Ankara she wouldn’t even have stayed in prison a day. At worst, she would have been released at the first hearing,” Akkal said. “A very different approach exists in places such as Muş, Bitlis or Van. People are declared guilty at the moment they are arrested. [Authorities] don’t follow the evidence to find the suspect, they collect the evidence based on the suspect instead.”
Taşkın’s case followed the same trajectory. Among the several reports she was covering, Taşkın met with the family of 80-year-old Sise Bingöl, who has been in jail on terror charges since 2016 despite suffering from heart and lung disease. The recordings of her interview with Bingöl’s relatives, which were found after Taşkın was arrested, were used as evidence in the trial even though the journalist never published them. Once she was taken in custody, police seemed to have dissected her Facebook and Twitter accounts to find any post that could make a terrorism charge admissible in the eyes of the Turkey’s ever less independent judiciary.
Taşkın’s former colleague Hayri Demir, a journalist based in Ankara who followed the last hearing in Muş, stressed that social media posts containing news reports should be considered as a journalistic activity in itself. “Social media has become a publishing space for journalists. It’s a space where journalists share their own and their colleagues’ articles,” said Demir, who himself is facing 10.5 years for five tweets – all of which lacked any personal comment – on Turkey’s military operation against the Syrian town of Afrin in January.
“It’s six days per character,” he joked. “They are trying to entirely silence journalists by even incriminating their social media posts.”
Accusing journalists of sharing other people’s news articles also violates the individuality of criminal responsibility, a critical principle of modern criminal law.
But aside from the dubious practices of the authorities, there was one aspect to Taşkın’s case that seemed to amount to psychological harassment: The symbolic dates of the hearings. The second hearing of the case was held on 2 July, the 25th anniversary of an attack by an extremist mob in Sivas that killed 33 Alevi artists. The third hearing was set on 12 September, the anniversary of the 1980 coup, which resulted in imprisonment and torture for thousands of left-wing and pro-Kurdish activists. The fourth and last hearing was on 10 October, the third anniversary of Turkey’s deadliest-ever terrorist attack, which the Islamic State perpetrated against peace activists in Ankara. As for the date of the first hearing, 30 April, that happened to coincide with the liberation of Muş from foreigners after World War I.
The journalist was the first one to notice the significance of the dates, Akkal said. “She told me, ‘Ebru, they are doing it intentionally.’ I don’t believe that the dates were randomly chosen either.”
The verdict will become definitive if the regional court rejects her appeal – and because Taşkın’s sentences are each under five years, she will not have recourse to the Supreme Court of Appeals if the lower court rules against her. Regional courts are hardly known for their initiative, but both lawyers and taşkın retain their hopes for a rare fair reassessment of the case. In the meantime, lawyers have applied to the Turkish Constitutional Court to halt the execution of the sentence based on a precedent for journalists Mehmet Altan and Şahin Alpay. In January 2018, the Constitutional Court ruled that the imprisonment of both journalists not only violated their right to security and freedom but that there was not enough evidence to hold the men. Although first instance courts controversially refused to implement the decision, the pair was released at the end of a legal row months later.
Taşkın’s lawyers are also preparing to file an application at the European Court of Human Rights, although Akkal noted that it will take at least a year for either of Turkey’s top courts to make a decision. Taşkın, meanwhile, may face years in prison waiting for justice to be served. “After the initial shock of the verdict, she is now calm. She is trying to spend her time productively,” Akkal said.
Her sister Yelda said Seda had started to learn English in prison and was reading lots of books. “We were expecting her to be released in each hearing. But we would like anyone who is unfairly imprisoned to be free,” she said, adding that Seda has tried to remain conscious of the fact that she is not the only journalist in jail.
Indeed, during her defense, Taşkın not only called for her release but expressed her wishes that all her colleagues would walk free – an expression of human solidarity against organised unlawfulness that has riddled the law, one unjust sentence at a time.[/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:1542196485676-71e5a902-cafb-4″ taxonomies=”8607″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
13 Nov 18 | Events
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”103677″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]This year’s UK-Internet Governance Forum meeting is being held at the Cavendish Conference Centre in London and will focus on Solutions for The Digital Age.
We are delighted to announce guests speakers including Tech UK, Privacy International, Chatham House and Kari Lawler, one of the UK’s youngest female tech entrepreneurs, as well as a key note address from the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
If you’re unable to join us but would like to join us via the live stream, you can sign up here.
Agenda
Full agenda and confirmed speakers to date:
9:00 – 9:30 Registration
9:30 – 9:40 Opening remarks: Russell Haworth, CEO, Nominet
9:40 – 10:10 Lessons learnt from Paris and Dubai
Reflecting on the insight and debate from the global IGF in UNESCO, Paris, on 12-14 November and the regional IGF in Dubai.
- Richard Wingfield, Legal Officer, Global Partners Digital
- Mark Carvell, Head of International Online Policy, DCMS
- Desiree Miloshevic, Internet Society Chapter England UK Team Lead and The Internet Society Board Trustee.
- Collin Kurre, Digital Program Officer, Article 19
10:10 – 10:25 Explainer series: The potential impact of AI in my generation, and how we can plan for the future
Kari Lawler, Founder, Youth AI
An explainer session by one of the UK’s youngest ever start-up entrepreneurs who is one of the top ten teen female tech talents in the UK.
10:25 – 10:45 Coffee Break
10:45 – 11:45 Online Safety – Making the UK the safest place to be online
A goldfish panel to discuss how the UK can be the safest place to be online with a focus on cyberbullying, hate speech and marginalisation.
- Professor Sonia Livingstone, Professor of Social Psychology, London School of Economics
- Douglas White, Head of Advocacy, Carnegie Trust
- David Wright, Director, UK Safer Internet Centre
- Vicki Shotbolt, Founder and CEO, Parentzone
- Barbora Bukovska, Senior Director of Law and Policy, London Article 19
- Jodie Ginsberg, Chief Executive, Index on Censorship
- Michael Tunks, Policy and Public Affairs Manager, Internet Watch Foundation
- Orla MacRae, Deputy Director, Online Harms, Security and Online Harms Directorate, DCMS
11:45 – 12:00 Algorithm Explainer
Ansgar Koene, Senior Research Fellow, Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute, University of Nottingham
An explainer session on how algorithms work and what the implications in terms of how we access information.
12:00 -13:00 Lunch
13:00 – 13:45 GDPR 6 months on – Lessons learnt
This session will review how the industry and consumers have reacted to the introduction of the GDPR 6 months on.
- Neil Thacker, Chief Information Security Officer of EMEA, Netskope
- Rosalind Goodfellow, Domestic Data Protection Team, DCMS
13:45 – 14:30 Personal data – What is personal?
In the shadow of high-profile stories such as Cambridge Analytica this session will discuss the ethics of selling personal data to third parties and using personal data or non-PII for targeted promoted content. It will also discuss whether the GDPR definition of personal data too restrictive for businesses to thrive.
- Ailidh Callander, Legal Officer, Privacy International
- Jamie Bartlett, Demos
14:30 – 14:50 Afternoon break
14:50 – 15:20 Key note speech from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
15:20 – 16:30 Cybersecurity and the Internet of Things – ‘Security by Design’
An ‘in conversation with’ session on ‘security by design’ on how the UK can protect against Internet of Things devices and lessons learnt across the globe.
- Olaf Kolkman, Chief Internet Technology Officer, The Internet Society (Chair)
- Talal Rajab, Head of Programme – Cyber and National Security, Tech UK
- Stephen Pattison, Vice President of Public Affairs, ARM
- Eva Blum-Dumontet, Privacy Research Officer, Privacy International
- Matthew Shears, Director of Cyber, Global Partners Digital and Board Member, ICANN
- Joyce Hakmeh, Cyber Research Fellow, Chatham House
16:30 – 17:00 Sum up and wrap up by Olivier Crepin-Leblond, UK Chair, Internet Society
17:00 Networking drinks & Close[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
When: Thursday 22 November 2018, 9am–5pm
Where: Cavendish Conference Centre, 22 Duchess Mews, London W1G 9DT (map)
Tickets: Register
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13 Nov 18 | Campaigns -- Featured, Statements
Dear Mark Zuckerberg:
What do the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a Danish member of parliament, and a news anchor from the Philippines have in common? They have all been subject to a misapplication of Facebook’s Community Standards. But unlike the average user, each of these individuals and entities received media attention, were able to reach Facebook staff and, in some cases, receive an apology and have their content restored. For most users, content that Facebook removes is rarely restored and some users may be banned from the platform even in the event of an error.
When Facebook first came onto our screens, users who violated its rules and had their content removed or their account deactivated were sent a message telling them that the decision was final and could not be appealed. It was only in 2011, after years of advocacy from human rights organizations, that your company added a mechanism to appeal account deactivations, and only in 2018 that Facebook initiated a process for remedying wrongful takedowns of certain types of content. Those appeals are available for posts removed for nudity, sexual activity, hate speech or graphic violence.
This is a positive development, but it doesn’t go far enough.
Today, we the undersigned civil society organizations, call on Facebook to provide a mechanism for all of its users to appeal content restrictions, and, in every case, to have the appealed decision re-reviewed by a human moderator.
Facebook’s stated mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. With more than two billion users and a wide variety of features, Facebook is the world’s premier communications platform. We know that you recognize the responsibility you have to prevent abuse and keep users safe. As you know, social media companies, including Facebook, have a responsibility to respect human rights, and international and regional human rights bodies have a number of specific recommendations for improvement, notably concerning the right to remedy.
Facebook remains far behind its competitors when it comes to affording its users due process. 1 We know from years of research and documentation that human content moderators, as well as machine learning algorithms, are prone to error, and that even low error rates can result in millions of silenced users when operating at massive scale. Yet Facebook users are only able to appeal content decisions in a limited set of circumstances, and it is impossible for users to know how pervasive erroneous content takedowns are without increased transparency on Facebook’s part. 2
While we acknowledge that Facebook can and does shape its Community Standards according to its values, the company nevertheless has a responsibility to respect its users’ expression to the best of its ability. Furthermore, civil society groups around the globe have criticized the way that Facebook’s Community Standards exhibit bias and are unevenly applied across different languages and cultural contexts. Offering a remedy mechanism, as well as more transparency, will go a long way toward supporting user expression.
Earlier this year, a group of advocates and academics put forward the Santa Clara Principles on Transparency and Accountability in Content Moderation, which recommend a set of minimum standards for transparency and meaningful appeal. This set of recommendations is consistent with the work of the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion of the right to freedom of expression and opinion David Kaye, who recently called for a “framework for the moderation of user- generated online content that puts human rights at the very center.” It is also consistent with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which articulate the human rights responsibilities of companies.
Specifically, we ask Facebook to incorporate the Santa Clara Principles into their content moderation policies and practices and to provide:
Notice: Clearly explain to users why their content has been restricted.
- Notifications should include the specific clause from the Community Standards that the content was found to violate.
- Notice should be sufficiently detailed to allow the user to identify the specific content that was restricted and should include information about how the content was detected, evaluated, and removed.
- Individuals must have clear information about how to appeal the decision.
Appeals: Provide users with a chance to appeal content moderation decisions.
- Appeals mechanisms should be easily accessible and easy to use.
- Appeals should be subject to review by a person or panel of persons that was not involved in the initial decision.
- Users must have the right to propose new evidence or material to be considered in the review.
- Appeals should result in a prompt determination and reply to the user.
- Any exceptions to the principle of universal appeals should be clearly disclosed and compatible with international human rights principles.
- Facebook should collaborate with other stakeholders to develop new independent self-regulatory mechanisms for social media that will provide greater accountability3
Numbers: Issue regular transparency reports on Community Standards enforcement.
- Present complete data describing the categories of user content that are restricted (text, photo or video; violence, nudity, copyright violations, etc), as well as the number of pieces of content that were restricted or removed in each category.
- Incorporate data on how many content moderation actions were initiated by a user flag, a trusted flagger program, or by proactive Community Standards enforcement (such as through the use of a machine learning algorithm).
- Include data on the number of decisions that were effectively appealed or otherwise found to have been made in error.
- Include data reflecting whether the company performs any proactive audits of its unappealed moderation decisions, as well as the error rates the company found.
Article 19, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Center for Democracy and Technology, and Ranking Digital Rights
Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente
7amleh – Arab Center for Social Media Advancement
Access Now
ACLU Foundation of Northern California
Adil Soz – International Foundation for Protection of Freedom of Speech
Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC)
Albanian Media Institute
American Civil Liberties Union
Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
Arab Digital Expression Foundation
Artículo 12
Asociación Mundial de Radios Comunitarias América Latina y el Caribe (AMARC ALC)
Association for Progressive Communications
Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law
Bytes for All (B4A)
CAIR San Francisco Bay Area
CALAM
Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI)
Cedar Rapids, Iowa Collaborators
Center for Independent Journalism – Romania
Center for Media Studies & Peace Building (CEMESP)
Child Rights International Network (CRIN)
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
Digital Rights Foundation
EFF Austin
El Instituto Panameño de Derecho y Nuevas Tecnologías (IPANDETEC)
Electronic Frontier Finland
Elektronisk Forpost Norge
Foro de Periodismo Argentino
Foundation for Press Freedom – FLIP
Freedom Forum
Fundación Acceso
Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente
Fundación Datos Protegidos
Fundación Internet Bolivia.org
Fundación Vía Libre
Fundamedios – Andean Foundation for Media Observation and Study
Garoa Hacker Club
Gulf Center for Human Rights
HERMES Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights
Hiperderecho
Homo Digitalis
Human Rights Watch
Idec – Brazilian Institute of Consumer Defense
Independent Journalism Center (IJC)
Index on Censorship
Initiative for Freedom of Expression – Turkey
Instituto Nupef
International Press Centre (IPC)
Internet without borders
La Asociación para una Ciudadanía Participativa ACI Participa
MARCH
May First/People Link
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)
Media Rights Agenda (MRA)
Mediacentar Sarajevo
New America’s Open Technology Institute
NYC Privacy
Open MIC (Open Media and Information Companies Initiative)
OpenMedia
Pacific Islands News Association (PINA)
Panoptykon Foundation
PEN America
PEN Canada
Peninsula Peace and Justice Center
Portland TA3M
Privacy Watch
Raging Grannies
ReThink LinkNYC
Rhode Island Rights
SFLC.in
SHARE Foundation
SMEX
South East Europe Media Organisation
Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA)
SumOfUs
Syrian Archive
Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM)
t4tech
Techactivist.org
The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression
Viet Tan
Vigilance for Democracy and the Civic State
Visualizing Impact
Witness
13 Nov 18 | Press Releases
Politische Parteien fühlen sich ungern von den Medien an die Wand gedrängt, die italienische Regierungspartei Fünf Sterne ist keine Ausnahme. Ihre verbalen Ausschläge gegen Kritiker sind jedoch Besorgnis erregend. Journalisten seien nichts als „Nutten“ und „Pennivendoli“, wörtlich „Federnverkäufer“. Pennivendolo ist ein abfälliger Begriff, der vom faschistischen Regime Mussolinis geprägt und jetzt vom Fünf-Sterne-Spitzenmann Alessandro Di Battista gebraucht wurde. Read the full article.
13 Nov 18 | Index in the Press
A report on threats facing members of the press in Europe has criticised UK politicians for having “smeared journalists and media outlets critical of them” and dismissing news reports as “fake news”. Read the full article.
12 Nov 18 | Europe and Central Asia, Media Freedom, News and features
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“Today journalism has become one of the most dangerous professions in the world,” said Frane Maroevic, director of the Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, at a panel discussion for the launch of Demonising the media: Threats to journalists in Europe at the Foreign Press Association in London on Friday 9 November.
The report surveys over 3,000 verified media freedom incidents in EU member states, candidates and potential candidates for entry as reported to Mapping Media Freedom, a project, funded by the European Commission, to investigate the full spectrum of threats to media freedom. It details how journalists face an array of threats from being burned in effigy, insulted and spat at, to being assaulted, sued and sent death and rape threats, since May 2014.
Also speaking on the panel were Deborah Bonetti, director of the Foreign Press Association, and Henrik Kaufholz, chair of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom. The panel was chaired by Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg.
“These threats are not far away. They are right here on our doorsteps, even in the UK,” said Ginsberg. Maroevic added: “We must put pressure on governments so that these threats and attacks don’t fade into obscurity.”
“What was traditionally a safe place for journalists, or what was perceived to be safe, is no longer as safe as we thought it was, and this goes for most western democracies,” said Bonetti. “I don’t think the journalist community has come to a Me Too movement yet.”
“If politicians think they will get votes by attacking the press, they will continue to attack the press,” said Kaufholz.
The report flags 19 deaths. Of the 445 verified physical assaults, Italy was the EU member state with the most (83), followed by Spain (38), France (36) and Germany (25). There were 437 verified incidents of arrest or detention and 697 verified incidents of intimidation. Among the member states, Italy’s journalists were intimidated most often, with 133 reports.
Paula Kennedy, assistant editor of MMF, said: “Mapping Media Freedom highlights the many dangers and problems faced by journalists in Europe as they try to do their job of holding power to account.”
Photographs by Leah Asmelash, Rosie Gilby and Joy Hyvarinen. Additional reporting by Leah Asmelash[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_media_grid grid_id=”vc_gid:1542043980941-e9bd3bc2-930e-5″ include=”103632,103633,103635,103631,103638,103639,103640,103641,103642,103643,103644,103645,103646,103647,103648,103649,103650,103651,103652,103653,103654″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1542043980959-aaffae18-ba56-7″ taxonomies=”6564″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
09 Nov 18 | News and features, Press Releases
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”103665″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]— New report surveys over 3,000 verified media freedom incidents in EU member states, candidates and potential candidates for entry.
— Journalists facing an array of threats: Burned in effigy. Insulted. Menaced. Spat at. Discredited by their nation’s leaders. Assaulted. Sued. Homes strafed with automatic weapons. Rape threats. Death threats. Assassinations.
— Key themes: National Security, Political Interference, Social Media/Online Harassment, Protests, Public Television
— Report covers May 2014 to 31 July 2018
Index on Censorship has released a new report detailing the state of media freedom in 35 European countries in the past four years. Threats include being burned in effigy, insulted, menaced, spat at, threatened with death and rape. There have been assassinations, lawsuits, and assaults.
The report Demonising the Media: Threats to Journalists in Europe, published today (November 9th) covers 3,000 incidents reported to and verified by the Mapping Media Freedom team, which includes a set of correspondents across the region.
“The huge number of reports outlines that threats to media freedom are occurring across the EU, not just in countries perceived to be on the fringes of the community. Demonising the Media details the key issues that we’ve identified: From national security legislation being used to silence investigative journalists to the undermining of the editorial independence of public broadcasters across the continent. All of this has taken place amid the toxic atmosphere journalists are confronting on a global scale,” said Index CEO Jodie Ginsberg.
KEY THREATS
The report flags 445 verified physical assaults across the region, with Italy as the EU member state with the most reports of physical assaults (83), followed by Spain (38), France (36) and Germany (25).
There were 437 verified incidents flagged as having included an arrest or detention as part of the narrative in the EU member states, candidate and potential candidate countries. Greece had 15 reports. It was followed by France (9), Germany (8), the Netherlands (7) and Latvia (6). In the candidate and potential candidate countries: FYROM (9), Serbia (8), Bosnia and Herzegovina (4) and Kosovo (4).
There were 697 verified incidents categorised as having intimidation as part of the narrative in the EU member states, candidate and potential candidate countries. Among the member states, Italy’s journalists were intimidated most often, with 133 reports. It was followed by Romania (47), Croatia (41), France (39) and Hungary (36). In candidate and potential candidate countries, Bosnia and Herzegovina had 47 reported incidents. It was followed by Serbia (40), FYROM (31), Turkey (31) and Montenegro (19).
The report includes analysis of specific threats in Austria, Hungary, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Montenegro.
KEY THEMES:
National Security and Counter-terrorism Legislation
Well-intentioned legislation that aims to protect the citizens and institutions of a country is, in the best-case scenario, often blind to journalism in the public interest. In the worst-case scenario, such laws are used deliberately to prevent the dissemination of information that is in the public interest. In 39 cases, reporters have been targeted for prosecution for publishing embarrassing leaked information that governments have asserted was not meant for public discussion. This is an acute issue that often involves the judicial and extrajudicial surveillance of journalists in an effort to ferret out the identities of whistleblowers.
Political Interference
This report identifies two key trends within this category. The first is direct interference in the operations of media outlets, either by politicians requesting editors or others involved in the production of news to alter or halt a story, or by replacing journalists critical of a particular political party or policy with ones more favourable to those in power.
Political interference has come from across the spectrum – from Podemos in Spain to the Front National in France, from Fidesz in Hungary to Labour and the Scottish National Party in the United Kingdom. The methods can take many forms, sometimes subtle (behind-the-scenes phone calls to an editor), sometimes overt (preventing a journalist affiliated with particular outlets from attending a press conference) – but the goal of controlling information flow remains the same.
The second form of interference is potentially more insidious: attempts to discredit media outlets by smearing journalists, news outlets, and in some cases an entire industry in order to sow doubt about the veracity of their reporting. This is having a damaging effect, particularly on the safety of journalists, who increasingly are seen as “fair game” by the broader public and subjected to both verbal and physical threats.
Social Media/Online Harassment
Social media has provided journalists with a wide avenue to share their information and interact with readers in a public yet intimate way. This has helped media professionals in reporting and allowed for constructive debates around current events, and can help improve the quality of information available to citizens overall. However, the other side of that bargain is the growing hostility toward journalists online. This takes many forms, from tweets of sexual harassment to death threats made via Facebook. This is a widespread and pernicious issue that journalists across the continent confront on a daily basis, and is fomented by the widely reported remarks of some politicians from member states. Women are most frequently the target of such attacks.
Protests
Journalists also face a number of risks offline. When protesters pour into the streets, journalists are necessarily among the first responders – an essential part of their professional duties. Traditionally present at demonstrations to document and interpret events, media workers – whether freelance or staff – are also among the first to be corralled, targeted and injured. A number of incidents documented at protests – as recorded by the Mapping Media Freedom project – provide insight into the multidimensional threats that journalists confront when called upon to report from the scene of demonstrations, whether small or large. These include a lack of understanding among some police forces about the role of media at such events.
Public Television
A significant but underreported trend during the period was the threat to public broadcasters. A number of national broadcasters were brought under closer government control. Taken together, these reports outline the importance of maintaining the editorial independence of these vital public services.
About Mapping Media Freedom
Mapping Media Freedom is an Index on Censorship project, partly funded by the European Commission, to investigate the full spectrum of threats to media freedom in the region – from the seemingly innocuous to the most serious infractions – in a near-real-time system that launched to the public on 24 May 2014.
Driven by Index on Censorship’s decades-long experience in monitoring censorship across the globe, Mapping Media Freedom set out to record the widest possible array of press freedom violations in an effort to understand the precursors to the retreat of media freedom in a country. The ambitious scope of the project called for a flexible methodology that draws on a network of regional correspondents, partner organisations and media sources. The project is fed by 25 correspondents who provide narrative-driven articles about the press freedom violations.
To date, the project has recorded more than 4,700 incidents covering 43 countries.The report is available online and in PDF format. More information is available here.
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08 Nov 18 | Index in the Press, News and features, religion & culture, Religion and Culture
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In October 2018 Ireland voted — with a significant majority — to amend article 40.6.1 of its constitution to remove the criminalisation of the “publication or utterance” of anything deemed blasphemous. All major political parties backed the reform and even the Catholic Church agreed the law was “largely obsolete”. Although no one had ever been convicted of blasphemy in Ireland, the potential €25,000 fine caused many to self-censor. The most worrying aspect of Ireland’s blasphemy legislation was that it was cited by the Organisation of Islamic States at the UN — led by Pakistan — as best practice. Under Pakistani law, blasphemy is punishable by death.
Index on Censorship welcomed the amendment article 40.6.1. Index’s assistant online editor, Ryan McChrystal, spoke to Voice of Islam about the vote.
[Update: This article has been amended to clarify details of the amendment to article 40.6.1]
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07 Nov 18 | Campaigns -- Featured, Counter Terrorism, Statements, United Kingdom
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The Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill is currently being debated in the House of Lords. Index is very concerned about the bill’s impacts on freedom of expression.
Index is disappointed by the lacklustre engagement by most peers in the debate and the unwillingness of the House of Lords to challenge the bill.
While there has been little progress in the House of Lords when it comes to protecting freedom of expression in the bill, a proposed new amendment by Lord Anderson deserves support. The former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, together with Baroness Manningham-Buller and Lords Judge and Paddick, is proposing an annual review of the list of proscribed (terrorist) organisations.
There are currently 88 proscribed organisations, including 14 in Northern Ireland. Most have been proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000. Proscribing an organisation has severe consequences, including ones related to freedom of expression.
It is a crime to belong to – or claim that you belong to – a proscribed organisation, to invite support for a proscribed organisation or to wear clothes or carry or display articles in public in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that you are a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation.
The Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill aims to create new offences related to proscribed organisations with further restrictions on freedom of expression. For example, it would become an offence to make a statement that is “supportive” of a proscribed organisation if you do so in a way that is reckless as to whether another person is encouraged to support a proscribed organisation (Index opposes this clause).
However, the Home Office has told Lord Anderson that at least 14 proscribed organisations do not meet the conditions for proscription, because they are not “concerned in terrorism”.
An organisation that wishes to be deproscribed must apply to the Home Secretary. It is the only way for an organisation to be removed from the list. Three organisations have been deproscribed: the Peoples’ Mujaheddin of Iran in 2008, the International Sikh Youth Federation in 2016 and Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin in 2017. The high legal costs involved, especially if it involves appealing a decision to refuse deproscription, are likely to be a significant deterrent.
During debate on the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill Lord Anderson offered the case of the Irish women’s organisation Cumann na mBan as an example, pointing out that it was once aligned with the Irish Republican Army and remains proscribed despite no evidence that the organisation has been concerned in terrorism during this century at least.
Because of the far-reaching implications of proscription, including the restrictions related to freedom of expression, organisations that do not meet the conditions for proscription should not remain on the list.
The amendment proposed by Lord Anderson (amendment 59) would require the Secretary of State to review each proscribed organisation at least once every year, including determining if the organisation satisfies the conditions for proscription, publish each decision and report to Parliament.
Index urges members of the House of Lords to support this amendment.[/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:1541582801710-de97750c-50b3-5″ taxonomies=”27743″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
07 Nov 18 | Burma, Campaigns -- Featured, Statements
At the recent World Economic Conference in Hanoi, Viet Nam, Aung San Suu Kyi defended the 3 September conviction and sentencing of Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo and invited anyone who believes in the rule of law to point out why the judgment was problematic. 52 IFEX members and other groups have taken her up on this invitation.
Aung San Suu Kyi
State Counselor
Naypyidaw
Myanmar
Your Excellency,
Recently, at the World Economic Conference in Hanoi, Viet Nam, you defended the September 3 conviction and sentencing of Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo for violating the Official Secrets Act, and invited anyone who believes in the rule of law to point out why the judgment was problematic. As a concerned group of more than 50 human rights and free expression organizations from around the world, we would like to take this opportunity to respond to your invitation and to call for Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo’s immediate and unconditional release.
First and foremost, contrary to your comments, the case is a clear attempt to restrict freedom of expression and independent journalism in Myanmar. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested on December 12, 2017, in the course of doing their job as professional journalists: investigating military operations in northern Rakhine State. Specifically, the two men were investigating a massacre that took place in the village of Inn Din, during which 10 Rohingya men and boys were summarily executed by the security forces—a crime which the military later admitted to. This investigation—which came at a time when the Myanmar military and the civilian-led government rejected mounting reports of human rights violations in northern Rakhine State—was clearly in the public interest, and still is.
The law that was then used to prosecute them—the colonial-era Official Secrets Act—is one of a number of repressive laws that have been used to prosecute journalists and stymie media freedom. The Act is broadly worded, and grants wide powers to the government to determine what classifies as a “secret”—indeed, the entire Act goes well beyond the restrictions on the right to freedom of expression which are permitted under international human rights law on the grounds of national security.
Even within the terms of the Act itself, for a conviction under Section 3.1 (c), evidence should demonstrate that the accused had in their possession secret documents that “might be or is intended to be, directly or indirectly, useful to an enemy.” However, evidence and testimony presented during the pre-trial and trial hearings failed to demonstrate this was the case and instead established the following facts:
• The documents Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are accused of possessing are not secret, but contain information already in the public domain;
• There is no evidence of intent to turn documents over to an enemy or to harm the country;
• Police testimony regarding the circumstances of their arrest was contradictory;
• Moreover, a police whistleblower credibly testified that the two journalists had been framed: namely, that police were ordered by their superiors to invite Wa Lone to a meeting so he could be handed documents and then immediately arrested;
• Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were subject to ill-treatment after their initial arrest, including incommunicado detention for two weeks, hooding, and sleep deprivation.
In summary, we believe that that Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo should never have been arrested in the first place, let alone prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned. Their trial, which was already manifestly unfair, was made more so by the repeated failure to uphold key tenets of the rule of law and to build a convincing evidence-based case against these journalists.
We therefore call on the Myanmar authorities to immediately and unconditionally release these two men, and reject the convictions against them. We further urge your government to work towards the swift review and amendment of all laws that can be used to unlawfully restrict the right to freedom of expression, so as to bring them into line with international human rights law and standards.
Yours respectfully,
PEN America
Adil Soz – International Foundation for Protection of Freedom of Speech
Afghanistan Journalists Center (AFJC)
Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC)
Albanian Media Institute
Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
ARTICLE 19
Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE)
Bytes for All (B4A)
Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR)
Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI)
Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR)
Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ)
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
Freedom Forum
Fundamedios – Andean Foundation for Media Observation and Study
Globe International Center
Human Rights Watch (HRW)
Independent Journalism Center (IJC)
Index on Censorship
Initiative for Freedom of Expression – Turkey
International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)
International Press Institute (IPI)
Mediacentar Sarajevo
Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance
Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)
Media Rights Agenda (MRA)
Mizzima News
Norwegian PEN
OpenMedia
Pakistan Press Foundation
PEN Canada
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA)
South East Europe Media Organisation
Vigilance for Democracy and the Civic State
World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers
Amnesty International
Athan – Freedom of Expression Activist Organization
Burma Campaign UK
Civil Rights Defenders
CSW
English PEN
Equality Myanmar
Free Expression Myanmar
Myanmar Media Lawyers’ Network
Norwegian Myanmar Committee
PEN Myanmar
Society for Threatened Peoples – Germany
South East Asian Journalist Unions (SEAJU)
The Swedish Burma Committee
06 Nov 18 | About Index, News and features
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Rachael Jolley, editor of Index on Censorship magazine gave the following speech at Eurozine’s 29th European Meeting of Cultural Journals. This year, the meeting was entitled ‘Mind the gap: Illiberal democracy and the crisis of representation’. Panels discussed the rise of the populist right as result of a failure of institutional politics and the role of the liberal media in the dynamics of polarisation.
As you know, we British are very fond of tea. Today, I am going to look at three Ts:
- Transparency
- Trust
- And why terms and conditions apply.
The over-arching questions here are what is the democracy we want and what is the technology we want to achieve that?
In other words, how can we make it happen?
Long, long ago sometime in the 1990s I went to the BT Lab in Ipswich where they were developing the house of the future, where the washing machine talked to you and you could talk to everything. Then the lab guys said, it will be great, we’ll know what you are wanting to buy and when it’s on sale or you are out of it someone will phone you and tell you.
Ugh, that sounds creepy, I said. No, they said, it will be great.
And so it came to pass, only it wasn’t the phone that called but social media and the internet that knew what I wanted and the phone call was a pop-up ad. And I still think it is creepy.
Because the only person I want to know whether I am out of milk, or I want to buy a new bed, is ME.
One friend even told me that Google knew he had Multiple Sclerosis before he did. As ads for the MS Society keep popping up when he was online, and after a while he began to wonder why.
Right now Google is hoovering up our data, who we email, what we search for, what we want to buy. Not just Google, but Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and entertainment companies like Netflix and the BBC line up a list of programmes they know we want to watch even though we haven’t even heard of them yet.
They are offering to take decisions away from us, by letting them do it. It’s tough out there, so may we choose you a book, a film, a life, a friend who agrees with you, and pretty soon you won’t realise other choices have been taken away.
But actually in many ways this is nothing new. In 2006-10 I worked for a think tank that was pretty close to the government of the time, and it was well known that when Number 10 wanted to know what people were thinking, buying, feeling, —– a societal snapshot if you will —– they talked to the supermarkets, because back then the supermarkets were seen as the leaders in data collection. They knew if more people were buying rom coms, spending less on the weekly shop or stocking up on tins because they thought there might be a crisis.
Back then, and now, supermarkets were gathering data from loyalty cards, then Google, Facebook and others realised we would give loads of information about ourselves to them for free, if they created something we wanted. So they did.
It was our choice. We chose free email, when paid was an option. Other alternatives were, and are available. We choose a search engine that tracks our data. We chose to add our date of birth, photos, and holiday details to Facebook. Handing it over without question.
Do you remember reading one of those terms and conditions apply documents for the first time, and realising you were giving an app the opportunity to read your emails and look at your photos? I do. But people happily signed up and got stuff for free. And the deal was on.
And why is this a democratic issue? The thing is in a democracy we had and have a responsibility to make decisions, as well as to be informed and to be represented.
And in democracies we need to decide more, rather than have decisions thrust upon us. In giving away our data we didn’t realise that all that information would be collated into huge data banks, where people could work out things, like this person with a car is far more likely to vote for Trump than this person who uses public transport. And from there, all those people with cars would be targeted with messages before the US election. And all this data analysis about what people did with their lives would be used to target people with messages in the run up to the Brexit referendum.
Transparency in a democracy means what the impact of our decisions are. I also want to know what the government is doing on my behalf. And I want transparency from companies operating in my country that may have impact on my democracy. I want to trust that the political system is working, and that is not being driven by shadowy figures and ideas that are hidden from view.
So transparency of who we ALLOW to access our data, and having a personal contract with companies saying what they can and can’t do MUST be part of our future democracies.
We also need more transparency about what political parties in an election period are saying to voters. In previous decades we knew what arguments were being made to different parts of the electorate because we saw the billboards or the TV ads or the newspapers advertising, or the interviews.
But what we are seeing increasingly used in the run up to elections is hidden messages, hidden politicking.
The electoral bodies need to catch up with those digital leaps and make some changes to what is allowed in election periods. I am going to argue that each campaign — needs to lodge one example of each message/campaign with them, whether they are on Facebook or on the side of the road, so those that don’t receive them know about them, and are able to discuss and debate whether there is any truth or value in them. In the UK the Electoral Commission needs to make changes so parties can not use hidden tactics. There will be hurdles and opposition, but a system needs to work, in the same way, we used to be able to see an ad, we should then be able to access at least on the Electoral Commission, for instance, each major campaign that a party is running, giving others the chance to fact check or oppose it.
Because a democracy should be a noisy, open society where there is disagreement and argument and there is space to do so.
Transparency breeds more trust, and that’s something that politicians and political systems need in order to operate. If no one believes in the system then it fails.
Democracy must supply its own terms and conditions, ones that create structure for rights and responsibilities, both for its citizens and for corporations operating within it.
These include paying tax, living within the laws of the land, and supporting its essential freedoms.
We do not want to hand over the right to choose what we are allowed to see or read or hear to unelected Silicon Valley corporations. We should not be happy with governments that try to do just that, and suggest that massive California-based companies should be selecting news or views for us. We should make those choices ourselves.
At Index, we have already heard of videos being taken down showing Rohinga Muslims being persecuted, after pressure from the Burmese government — what this does is attempts to undermine evidence gathering by human rights organisations. We hear of numerous issues where the Chinese government attempts to stop its citizens from having access to books and articles and news items on the internet, often by pressurising digital media from publishing them. These are governments pressurising social media and digital companies to censor or restrict access, but in other nations governments seem to want to hand over those decisions to social media, rather than reviewing the law and going through a democratic process.
And back to those terms and conditions that come with apps and other tools, sometimes these run to as many as 30,000 words — the size of a small book — that is not a document designed for people to read or understand. Simple, straightforward contracts need to replace this culture of hidden meanings, designed to mystify and mislead.
We should know what we are signing up for, with our new era of democracy and the technology that goes with it.
We need tech that works to help us be informed, be curious, to connect, and of course we should remember that these tools do exist for good, but they can also be misused to surveil and suppress.[/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:1541429193469-bf25f4e9-3ba3-6″ taxonomies=”5641″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
05 Nov 18 | Index in the Press, News and features
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Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg appeared on the BBC’s Moral Maze on 3 November 2018 to discuss whether hateful views lead to physical violence.
“I would defend peoples’ right to express extreme views; I certainly wouldn’t defend their right to directly incite violence. What I am concerned about is this removal of agency, this idea that simply because we hear something extreme that we will go out and commit hateful and extremist acts. Given the amount of hateful extremist content that we see from all sides at the moment, I’m actually quite surprised that we’re not seeing more if there is such a direct link.”[/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:1541421898458-14920b58-f53a-5″ taxonomies=”6323″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
