29 May 14 | India, News and features, Politics and Society
Nitin Gadkari, a politician with a chequered, if not dubious record of integrity and probity, had a political opponent arrested for slander. (Photo: Amit Kumar/Demotix)
Once, President Lyndon Johnson was caught in the crossfire of an anti-Vietnam war protest. A placard was shoved in his face: “LBJ pull out, like your daddy should have done.” Sure, LBJ got the pun, as would have Anthony Weiner in our present times, but he remained unperturbed. Consider Lady Violet Bonham Carter’s biting repartee to an irresolute Sir Stafford Cripps, saying he “has a brilliant mind — until it is made up”.
Mordant wit is what makes politics and political debates sparkle with brilliance, besides deflating windbags and putting stuffed shirts in their place. Even if the “sourcasm” is discounted, plainspeak and no-holds barred verbal duels contribute in no small measure to ensuring accountability, for who isn’t mortally petrified of lacerating criticism?
Turns out that in India, folks with brittle egos and skeletons stacked up in their closets, can and will wield the law to clam a critic’s mouth shut, and even have them put in jail. And this is irrespective of resorting to some risqué puns.
Arvind Kejriwal, founder of the Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party, who is out on a limb to eradicate the scourge of corruption, realised this to his peril when Nitin Gadkari, a politician with a chequered, if not dubious record of integrity and probity, had him arrested for slander. Slander? No, Gadkari wasn’t invoking some law of the Middle Ages or the Victorian Era. He was merely invoking Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalise defamation, both in writing as well as verbal statements. Kejriwal called Gadkari “corrupt” because not very long ago, the latter did come under the scanner for alleged massive illegalities in his business dealings, but managed to wriggle out since no legal investigation or prosecution were launched.
These two provisions are so broad in scope that every insinuation, unless proved to have been made in “good faith”, can land someone in prison. Someone like Kejriwal, who was incarcerated for six days until he was let out on bail yesterday. Now how does one prove “good faith”, that too, “beyond reasonable doubt”, since that remains the standard of proof in criminal law? Worse, a person can be taken into custody even while this seemingly Herculean task is getting done.
As if criminalisation of libel isn’t bad enough, punishing “slander” grants almost instant impunity if one is strategic enough. Take Kejriwal’s example, again. In October and November last year, he addressed a press conference and read out from a list of charges against business tycoon Mukesh Ambani. The businessman lost no time in slapping legal notices against every television channel which broadcast the conference. Libel chill, without a shred of doubt, for all the channels went silent. Whether Ambani’s fleece is as white as snow isn’t the question; his dark deeds of pulverising criticism are, and deserve the most trenchant critique.
It is encouraging to note that already demands are being made for decriminalising libel, but unless slander is banished from the statute books, dangers would continue to lurk. The Law Commission of India has taken a laudatory and timely step by releasing a consultation paper which seeks to unshackle the media from apprehensions of libel chill. But what happens to individuals — political activists, or whistleblowers? A possible solution lies in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. wherein the Supreme Court of the United States extended the Sullivan privilege (named after the legendary NYT v. Sullivan case) — that only statements made with naked malice or reckless disregard for the truth shall be held as defamatory — available to media houses, to certain categories of individuals also. Those “seeking governmental office” and those who “occupy positions of such persuasive power and influence that they are deemed public figures for all purposes” were accorded protection. Recently, this has been adopted in international money laundering law of PEPs or Politically Exposed Persons. It includes, “individuals who are or have been entrusted domestically with prominent public functions, for example, heads of state or of government, senior politicians, senior government, judicial or military officials, senior executives of state-owned corporations, important political party officials”.
Back in 2011, the UNHRC (United Nations Human Rights Committee) issued a declaration condemning Philippines’ provisions of criminal libel as a violation of the ICCPR. One hopes India wouldn’t require such a slap on the wrists to amend the repugnant law which rewards dishonest claims of calumny.
This article was published on May 29, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
28 May 14 | Digital Freedom, News and features, Politics and Society, United States
Last week saw a flurry of legislative to-and-fro on the Hill as the US House of Representatives pondered the passage of legislation aimed at ending bulk-collection by the US National Security Agency. The USA Freedom Act, or HR. 3361, was passed on Thursday in a 303-121 vote, and was hailed by The New York Times as “a rare moment of bipartisan agreement between the White House and Congress on a major national security issue”. Congressman Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson (R-Pa.) tweeted that he was the proud cosponsor of a bill “that passed uniting and strengthening America by ending eavesdropping/online monitoring.”
It was perhaps inevitable that compromise between the intelligence and judiciary committees would see various blows against the bill in terms of scope and effect. When legislators want to posture about change while asserting the status quo, ambiguity proves their steadfast friend. After all, with the term “freedom” in the bill, something was bound to give.
Students of the bill would have noted that its main author, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wi.), was also behind HR. 3162, known more popularly as the USA Patriot Act. Most roads in the US surveillance establishment tend to lead to that roughly drafted and applied piece of legislation, a mechanism that gave the NSA the broadest, and most ineffective of mandates, in eavesdropping.
Then came salutatory remarks made about the bill from Rep. Mike Rogers[2], who extolled its virtues on the House floor even as he attacked the Obama administration for not being firm enough in holding against advocates of surveillance reform. There is a notable signature change between commending “a responsible legislative solution to address concerns about the bulk telephone metadata program” and being “held hostage by the actions of traitors who leak classified information that puts our troops in the field at risk or those who fear-monger and spread mistruth to further their misguided agenda.”
Even as Edward Snowden’s ghost hung heavy over the Hill like a moralising Banquo, Rogers was pointing a vengeful finger in his direction. There would, after all, have been no need for the USA Freedom Act, no need for this display of lawmaking, but for the actions of the intelligence sub-contractor. Privacy advocates would again raise their eyebrows at Rogers’s remarks about the now infamous Section 215 telephone metadata program under the Patriot Act, which had been “the subject of intense, and often inaccurate, criticism. The bulk telephone metadata program is legal, overseen, and effective at saving American lives.”
Such assertions are remarkable, more so for the fact that both the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and the internal White House review panel, found little evidence of effectiveness in the program. “Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act,” claimed the PCLOB, “does not provide an adequate basis to support this program.” Any data obtained was thin and obtained at unwarranted cost.
Critics of the bill such as Centre for Democracy and Technology President Nuala O’Connor expressed concern at the chipping moves. “This legislation was designed to prohibit bulk collection, but has been made so weak that it fails to adequately protect against mass, untargeted collection of Americans’ private information.” In O’Connor’s view, “The bill now offers only mild reform and goes against the overwhelming support for definitively ending bulk collection.”
Not so, claimed an anonymous House GOP aide. “The amended bill successfully addresses the concerns that were raised about NSA surveillance, ends bulk collections and increases transparency.” Victory in small steps would seem to have impressed the aide. “We view it as a victory for privacy, and while we would like to have had a stronger bill, we shouldn’t let the perfect being the enemy of the good.”
Various members of the House disagreed. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) noted that the bill had received a severe pruning by the time it reached the House floor, having a change “that seems to open the door to bulk collection again.” Others connected with co-sponsoring initial versions of the bill, among them Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) also refused to vote for the compromise.
What, then, is the basis of the gripe? For one, the language “specific selection term”, which would cover what the NSA can intercept, is incorrigibly vague. The definition offers the unsatisfactory “term used to uniquely describe a person, entity or account.” What, in this sense, is an entity for the purpose of the legislation? The tip of the iceberg is already problematic enough without venturing down into the murkier depths of interpretation.
Even more troubling in the USA Freedom Act is what it leaves out. For one thing, telephony metadata is only a portion of the surveillance loot. Other collection programs are conspicuously absent, be it the already exposed PRISM program which covers online communications, Captivatedaudience, a program used to attain control of a computer’s microphone and record audio, Foggybottom – used to note a user’s browsing history on the net, and Gumfish, used to control a computer webcam. (These are the choice bits – others in the NSA arsenal persist, untrammelled.)
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments (FISA) Act, the provision outlining when the NSA may collect data from American citizens in various cases and how the incorrect or inadvertent collection of data is to be handled, is left untouched. On inspection, it seems the reformist resume of the Freedom Act is rather sparse.
Ambiguities, rather than perfections, end up being the enemy of the good. Laws that are poorly drafted tend to be more than mere nuisances – they can be dangerous in cultivating complacency before the effects of power. Well as it might that the USA Freedom Act has passed, signalling a political will to deal with bulk-collection of data. But in making that signal, Congress has also made it clear that compromise is one way of doing nothing, a form of sanctified inertia.
This article was posted on May 28, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
28 May 14 | News and features, Religion and Culture, Spain, Turkey
Last year, the exhibition Here Together Now was held at Matadero Madrid, Spain. Curated by Manuela Villa, it was realised with the support of the Turkish Embassy in Madrid, Turkish Airlines and ARCOmadrid. But in the exhibition booklet, the explanatory notes to artist İz Öztat’s work “A Selection from the Utopie Folder (Zişan, 1917-1919)” was censored upon the request of the Turkish Embassy in Madrid, and the expressions “Armenian genocide” and the date “1915” were taken out.The case shows how the Turkish state delimits artistic expression in the projects it supports, and how it silences the institutions it cooperates with.
After Turkey was chosen as the country of focus for the 2013 edition of the ARCOmadrid International Contemporary Art Fair, the designated curator Vasıf Kortun and assistant curator Lara Fresko started to work with the galleries that would join the fair. They helped in fostering connections between the Madrid arts institutions and artists in Turkey; as well as with the embassy officers in charge of the financial support of events such as Here Together Now, which would run as a parallel event to the main fair. The embassy indicated that it would support this exhibition with the generous sum of €250,000. However, it did not provide any written documentation guaranteeing this support, and outlining the mutual duties and responsibilities of the parties involved. Likewise, during the realisation of the project, there was no written communication between the embassy and Matadero Madrid, and all negotiations took place verbally, over the phone. It was in this manner that, from the very beginning, the state kept the exact conditions of its support ambiguous and created a tense situation for the organisers. Ultimately, this working practice gave the Embassy the possibility of denying the promised support, in the event that their request was not carried out.
This is not the first case of the Turkish state censoring an arts event it sponsors abroad. We frequently hear about such cases off the record, and at times through the media. One of the best-known cases of state intervention took place in Switzerland, during the 2007 Culturespaces Festival. Director Hüseyin Karabey’s film Gitmek – My Marlon and Brando, which had received support from the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, was taken out of the festival program at the very last minute, at the request of an officer from the General Directorate of Promotion Fund, on the pretext that “a Turkish girl cannot fall in love with a Kurdish boy” as was the case in the film. The officer threatened the festival organisers with withdrawal of sponsorship totaling €400,000 — much like the case of the Madrid exhibition. The festival director decided that they could not go ahead with the event without this support, ceded to the censorship request, and accepted to take the film out of the program. However, independent movie theaters in Switzerland criticised this decision and ended up screening the film independently of the festival.
Both examples show that the state controls the content of the projects it sponsors abroad, interferes with the organisations on arbitrary grounds, and violates artists’ rights by threatening the very institutions it collaborates with.
The administrative channel for the state’s support to events outside of Turkey is the Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s Promotion Fund Committee, established under law 3230 (10 June, 1985) with the aim of supporting activities that “promote Turkey’s history, language, culture and arts, touristic values and natural riches”. The Committee reports directly to the Prime Minister’s office, and is presided over either by the Prime Minister himself, the Vice Prime Minister or a minister designated by the PM. It has five more members: Deputy Undersecretaries from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, as well as the general managers of the Directorate General of Press and Information, and the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT). The objective of the fund is “to provide financial support to agencies set up to promote various aspects of Turkey domestically and overseas, to disseminate Turkish cultural heritage, to influence the international public opinion in the direction of our national interests, to support efforts of public diplomacy, and to render the state archive service more effective”.
The Committee convenes at least four times a year upon the invitation of its president to evaluate project applications. The only criterion in accepting a project is whether it complies with the objectives mentioned above. After the Committee carries out its evaluation, the projects are put into practice upon the approval of the PM. Representative offices of the Promotion Fund Committee monitor whether the projects are implemented in compliance with the principles of the fund. In the case of the Madrid exhibition, the Turkish Embassy assumed the role of representative office. In this respect, as per the relevant regulation, the embassy was in charge of controlling the project, signing protocols with project managers to outline mutual duties and responsibilities, making the necessary payments, and delivering the project report to the Committee. As such, the embassy’s avoidance of all written documentation is in breach of the principles and modus operandi established by its own regulations.
Overall, it can be said that the Promotion Fund Committee does not meet the criteria of transparency and accountability generally expected from a public agency. The dates when the committee convenes to evaluate the projects are not announced, and the committee members, annual budget, sponsorship priorities and selection criteria are not made public. The sums paid to projects sponsored and the content of the projects are not disclosed officially. In other words, there is no transparency about the distribution of the funds, or about the auditing procedures. Such structural problems make it even harder to reveal and question the state’s violation of the right to artistic expression.
Another important aspect of this case is that the state constantly tries to reproduce its dominant discourse based on the denial of past and ongoing human rights violations such as forced displacement, genocide, political murders, burning of villages, enforced disappearances, rape, and torture through security forces; and does its utmost to silence any expression which contests this discourse. The centenary of the Armenian genocide, 2015, is drawing near. As such, it becomes even more important to demand that the Turkish state be held accountable for this human rights violation.
Map of Cennet/Cinnet (Paradise/Possessed Island). Zişan, 1915-1917. Ink on paper, 20×27 cm. Dedicated to the Public Domain
Siyah Bant is a research platform that documents and reports on cases of censorship in arts across Turkey, and shares these with the local and international public. In the context of this work, we wanted to investigate the censorship that occurred at Here Together Now. In accordance with the Right to Information Act, we asked the Turkish Embassy in Madrid and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, to explain the legal basis of the censorship they imposed on the booklet. In response, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism indicated that Matadero Madrid and curator Manuela Villa were the only authorities in charge of selecting the artists who would participate in the workshops of ARCOmadrid, designating the content of the works to be produced during the workshops, and preparing all printed matter in connection to the event. We were unable to obtain an official statement from curator Manuela Villa, despite several inquiries. Finally, we conducted an interview the artist İz Öztat to understand how the censorship took place, and how she experienced the process.
How did you come to be involved in the exhibition?
I was invited by Manuela Villa, curator of Matadero Madrid, after meeting her in Istanbul. Matadero planned for a residency program and an exhibition project titled Here Together Now to take place concurrently with the 2013 edition of the ARCOmadrid Art Fair that had a section consisting of invited galleries from Turkey. By the time I signed the contract with Matadero Madrid, I knew that the project was partially supported by the Turkish Embassy in Madrid and Turkish Airlines.
Here Together Now was a process that allocated the resources with an emphasis on living and working together. Cristina Anglada (writer), Theo Firmo, Sibel Horada, HUSOS (a collective of architects), Pedagogias Invisibles (art mediation collective), Diego del Pozo Barrius, Dilek Winchester and I had six weeks together, during which we figured out common concerns, negotiated our relationship to the institution’s public, designed the working and exhibition space, collaborated and produced our works.
Can you tell us about the nature of contract with the institution and if there were any limitations indicated as to the nature of your work?
We signed a very detailed contract with Matadero Madrid that laid out the responsibilities of the institution and the artist in relation to the production and authorship of new work but there were no limitations outlined in the contract. I took it for granted that the artist has freedom of expression and institutions do not interfere in the produced content.
The institution was extremely supportive of the project. They were engaged in our discussions and ready to help once we started producing the work.
Could you talk a bit about the work that you prepared for Matadero Madrid?
The work shown in the Here Together Now exhibition was part of an ongoing process, in which I imagine ways to conjure a suppressed past. Since 2010, I have been engaged in an untimely collaboration with Zişan (1894-1970), who is a recently discovered historical figure, a channeled spirit and an alter ego. By inventing an anarchic lineage with a marginalized Ottoman woman, I try to recognize a haunting past and rework it to be able to imagine otherwise. For the exhibition at Matadero Madrid, I produced and exhibited “A Selection from Zişan’s Utopie Folder (1917-1919)” accompanied by works from the “Posthumous Production Series”, in which I depart from Zişan’s work to open a path towards the future in our collaboration. The exhibited work was complemented by a publication with three interviews, which situates the work and builds a discourse around it.
Which aspect of the work was censored? How did the process of censorship occur, and what kind of dilemmas did you face in this process?
Manuela Villa, the curator, met with me in the exhibition space one evening a few days prior to the opening. Officials from the Turkish Embassy had threatened to withdraw their financial support, if the demanded changes were not made. I had to make a decision on the spot and accepted the censorship in the booklet, but not in the publication complementing the work. The exhibition booklet was reprinted and the sentence was changed to “Zişan, born in Istanbul in 1894, is a marginal woman of Armenian descent, who embarks on a European quest.”
As I said before, there was an emphasis on the community we built together during the residency at Matadero and I didn’t want to make a decision alone that would put the whole project at risk. Because of the time constraints, we were only able to meet with the other artists after the opening to discuss the precarious condition that we were all in. The institution didn’t have any signed documents from the Embassy committing to the sponsorship. Everything was communicated verbally and there was no written documentation. I was not able to reach out for a support network to resist the situation, not least due to the immediacy the decision required.
The exhibition booklet that was presented to the embassy was altered but the publication accompanying your work remained unchanged. How did the curator and other artists react to your refusal to change the publication?
I could not stand my ground with regard the exhibition booklet because it concerned everybody in the project. Yet, I was able to take full responsibility of my own work. We were informed that officials from the embassy will visit the show prior to the opening and I was ready to withdraw the work, if there was any interference. Everybody was supportive of my decision.
What happened on the day of the opening? Did you feel the need to prepare yourself?
In the end, none of the officials from the embassy came to the opening or the exhibition. There was no confrontation regarding the work. There might be a few reasons for this that I can think of. Maybe, they felt entitled to interfere with the content of the exhibition booklet because it had the logo of the embassy and could dismiss my publication since it only had the logo of Matadero Madrid. It was not of benefit for the embassy to confront me in a situation that would have made the case public.
As Siyah Bant we inquired both with the curator and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in order to understand how this censoring motion played out. Given that the ministry rejects any responsibility and instead assigns all responsibility to the curator, and that the curator was acting under the duress of loosing all funding last minute, where does this leave you as the artist? How do you make sense of what happened to your work?
Since I accepted the censorship, my only option was making the situation public after the fact. I have been working in cooperation with Siyah Bant since I got back from Madrid. It took a few months to receive an official response from the embassy, which denied all responsibility. We wanted to make the case public after receiving a statement from the curator or the institution. I was unable to receive such a statement, and Siyah Bant is working on that now.
I see it as an experience, in which I was able to test and see the boundaries of government support that is allocated to arts and culture for promoting the country. If you decide to accept this support and challenge official policies, a system of censorship starts to operate.
Next year marks the centenary of the Armenian genocide which will inevitably bring about numerous artistic and cultural reflections on the subject. Given the current climate in Turkey, how confident are you that artistic freedom of expression will be respected?
We are going through a period, in which it is impossible to make predictions about what can happen even the next day. I can only hope that genocide denial at state level comes to an end. I am sure that artists will articulate their own ways of recognising the Armenian Genocide and confronting its denial. You are probably more prepared than I am to predict and know what kinds of mechanisms are at work to limit the production and dissemination of such work.
What would be your recommendations to other artists taking part in cultural events that are supported by the Turkish government?
Based on my experience, I think that artists and art institutions need to act in solidarity in these situations. If there is funding from the Turkish state, the institutions and artists involved need to be aware that the state monitors the content. The various institutions that distribute state funding do not provide written documents about their commitments and communicate their demands mostly in person or by phone. Demanding written documentation at every step is necessary. Artists who are considering to take parts in projects that receive state funding, can demand from the art institutions to be more transparent about the budget and its workings so that they can be prepared to make alternative plans if the state funding does not come through as promised.
If I encountered the same case of censorship now, I would not feel obliged to make a decision immediately and in isolation. I would consult the rest of the group and demand the involvement of the institution.
This article was posted on May 28 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
27 May 14 | About Index, Campaigns, European Union, Press Releases
Index on Censorship and Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso are launching mediafreedom.ushahidi.com to track media violations in Europe.
Index on Censorship, (London, United Kingdom) and Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, (Rovereto, Italy) have launched mediafreedom.ushahidi.com, a website that will enable the reporting and mapping of media freedom violations across the 28 EU countries plus candidate countries. The platform will collect and map out crowd-sourced information from media professionals and citizen journalists across Europe over the course of a year.
Based in London, Index on Censorship is an international organisation that promotes and defends the right to freedom of expression. Since its founding in 1972, Index has used a unique combination of journalism, campaigning and advocacy to defend freedom of expression for those facing censorship and repression, including journalists, writers, social media users, bloggers, artists, politicians, scientists, academics, activists and citizens.
“Index believes that free expression is the foundation of a free society and this website will enable journalists to report incidences of violations as soon as they happen. By mapping these reports online, the entire system will act as an advocacy, research and response tool, highlighting that violations on media freedom still occur in Europe.” explained Melody Patry, Index on Censorship senior advocacy officer.
Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso (OBC) has been reporting on the socio-political and cultural developments of South-East Europe since 2000. Through the online platform, OBC will monitor and document media freedom violations in 11 countries, among which Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Romania, Serbia and others, and collect the needs of journalists under threat.
“We aim at improving the working conditions of media professionals and citizen journalists in Italy, South-East Europe and Turkey and ultimately at enhancing the quality of European democracy,” said Luisa Chiodi, scientific director of OBC.
This new website is part of a European Commission grant project under the EU’s Digital Agenda (DG Connect). In light of remaining violations to media freedom and plurality in Europe, and longer-term challenges in the digital age, the DG Connect launched a call for proposals to address the issue.
The successful candidates- the International Press Institute, Index on Censorship, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso together with SEEMO, Ossigeno per l’Informazione and Dr Siapera, as well as the European University Institute in cooperation with the Central European University– will spend the next year working on four projects, under the title European Centre for Press and Media Freedom.
For more information on the projects and the website, please read EU project to explore media freedom and pluralism or contact Melody Patry, [email protected], +44 (0) 207 260 2671 or OBC, [email protected].
27 May 14 | About Index, European Union, News and features, Politics and Society
(Photo: Anatolii Stepanov / Demotix)
Free speech has always been a concern to the EU, with flaws in the world of press freedom and pluralism in Europe still apparent today. In an attempt to raise awareness to these problems, both on an institutional scale and publicly, DG Connect, tasked with undertaking the EU’s Digital Agenda, launched a call for proposal for funding for a new project to allow NGOs and civil society platforms to research and develop tools to tackle this problem.
The successful candidates- the International Press Institute, Index on Censorship, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso and the European University Institute in cooperation with the Central European University– will spend the next year working on the project, under the title European Centre for Press and Media Freedom.
“It is true that we regularly receive concerns about media freedom and pluralism that come from citizens, NGOs and the European Parliament,” Lorena Boix Alonso, Head of Unit for converging media and content at DG Connect told Index.
The Vice President of the European Commission, Neelie Kroes, began implementing action on this topic in 2011 with the creation of a high level group on media freedom and pluralism, but there are still violations in the world of European media freedom that need to be dealt with. These projects will be useful to raise awareness, according to Boix Alonso, to something which many people have little knowledge on.
Index on Censorship
In 2013, an Index on Censorship report showed that, despite all EU member states’ commitment to free expression, the way these common values were put into practice varied from country to country, with violations regularly occurring.
Building on this report, the DG Connect-funded project will enable Index to implement real-time mapping of violations to media freedom on a website that covers 28 EU countries and five candidate countries. Working with regional correspondents, specialist digital tools will be used to capture reports via web and mobile applications, for which workshop training will be provided. Index led events across Europe will discuss the contemporary challenges currently facing media professionals, allowing them to share good practices, while learning how to use the tools.
“Index believes that free expression is the foundation of a free society. Enabling journalists to report on matters without the threat of censorship or violations against them means promoting the right to freedom of expression and information, which is a fundamental and necessary condition for the promotion and protection of all human rights in a democratic society,” explained Melody Patry, Index on Censorship Senior Advocacy Officer.
The DG Connect grant demonstrates the current focus of the EU on the needs of journalists and citizens who face these violations to media freedom and plurality, according to Patry, as well as longer term challenges in the digital age.
Click here to visit the mediafreedom.ushahidi.com website
The Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom
For some, the need to safeguard media freedom is at the forefront of the work they do. The Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF) is one such organisation and, in collaboration with the Centre for Media and Communication Studies (CMCS) at the Central European University, will continue to do so with funding from DG Connect for their project Strengthening Journalism in Europe: Tools, Networking, Training.
“The role of journalists is to both serve as guardians of government power and to enable the public to make informed decisions about key social and political issues that affect their daily lives,” the CMPF and CMCS told Index.
“The ability of journalists to freely report on issues without censorship is therefore critical- it’s the cornerstone of the checks and balances that make democracies work.”
The collaborative project will develop legal support, resources and tools for reporters, editors and media outlets to help them defend themselves in cases of legal threat, as well as raising awareness to ongoing violations to free expression and how these “impact the foundation on which democratic systems are based.” NGOs and policy makers will also benefit from this EU-funded scheme.
The International Press Institute
For over 60 years the International Press Institute (IPI) has been defending press freedom around the world, working to improve press legislation, influencing the release of imprisoned journalists and ensuring the media can carry out its work without restrictions.
London may have earned the title over recent years of libel capital of the world but what restrictions are placed on European journalists through defamation laws? This question forms the base of the IPI project, analysing existing laws and practices relating to defamation on both a civil and criminal nature; comparing this to international and European standards; and looking to the extent of which these affect the profession of journalism in all 28 EU countries and five candidate states.
After initial research, workshops will be hosted in four countries where the IPI believes they will have the greatest impact on the ground in countries where press freedom is limited by defamation to teach journalists which defamation laws affect their work, what the legitimate limits to press freedom are and what goes beyond what is internationally accepted.
According to the IPI the EU currently has no strong standards with regards to defamation and the threat to press freedom, a fact the led to their project proposal. “We hope that at one point the work we are doing will lead to a discussion within the EU about the need to develop these standards,” Barbara Trionfi, IPI Press Freedom Manager, explained to Index. “The defence of press freedom is a fight anywhere and it does not stop even in western Europe. It is still a major problem.”
Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso
“We aim at improving the working conditions of media professionals and citizen journalists in Italy, South-East Europe and Turkey and ultimately at enhancing the quality of democracy,” Francesca Vanoni, Project Manager at Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso (OBC) told Index.
OBC has been reporting on the socio-political and cultural developments of south-east Europe since 2000 and through their DG Connect funded project will monitor and document media freedom violations in nine countries, including Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania and Serbia.
Offering practical support to threatened journalists, the project will raise public awareness of the European dimension on media freedom and pluralism, stimulating an active role of the EU with regard to media pluralism in both member states and candidate countries. This will be implemented, among other means, through social media campaigns, a crowd-sourcing platform, an international conference for the exchange of best practices and transnational public debates.
The idea behind the project was to help build a European transnational public sphere in order to strengthen the EU itself. The ethics and professionalism of media workers is crucial, according to Vanoni. A democratic environment is built upon the contribution of all parts involved: “The protection of media freedom is fundamental for the European democracy and it cannot be left aside of the main political priorities.
“Being part of a wider political community that tackles shared problems with shared solutions offers stronger protection in case pluralism is threatened,” explained Vanoni.
To make a report, please visit http://mediafreedom.ushahidi.com
This article was published on May 20, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
27 May 14 | News and features, Politics and Society, Ukraine
Petro Poroshenko at a polling station (Photo: Oleksandr Ratushniak/Demotix)
Petro Poroshenko has won the Ukrainian presidential election in the first round, as preliminary results and exit polls show he received over 50% of votes. A billionaire, sometimes dubbed “the Chocolate Oligarch” (his main asset is Roshen, the largest confectionery manufacturer in Ukraine) gained his popularity during the Euromaidan protests in November 2013 – February 2014. Many in Ukraine consider Poroshenko to be a controversial figure as the head of the country; he represents a revolutionary, pro-European, but still old, oligarch-driven elite, and a system the Euromaidan protests were aimed against. Yet, the huge support he received shows Ukrainians are tired of the period of uncertainty, and united to give their country a new legitimate leader who can deal with unrest in the south-east regions, where pro-Russian militants continue their attempts to destabilise the situation.
Poroshenko’s first-round victory is a sign of national agreement, but is hardly a final remedy for all the problems Ukraine faces, both externally — like the military threat from Russia, including the occupation of Crimea — and internally. The latter applies not only to economic difficulties, but also to the necessity of extensive reforms that deal with the whole system of interrelations between the state and the society, ensuring real rule of law and putting end to corruption and human rights abuses.
Events in Ukraine over the last six months have made the country one of the most dangerous places for journalists in the world. According to the Institute of Mass Information, there have been 218 cases of physical attacks against reporters in Ukraine in 2014. Viacheslav Veremiy, a reporter for Ukrainian Vesti newspaper, was shot during events on Maidan on 19 February. Vasily Sergiyenko, a journalist and a civic activist, was tortured and then killed in Cherkassy in April. The death toll continued to rise even on the eve of the election, as Andrea Rocchelli, an Italian photo reporter, and his interpreter Andrei Mironov, a Russian human rights activist and a Soviet-era political prisoner, were killed on 24 May near Slovyansk, in the Donetsk region.
“It is still difficult to say if the free speech situation will improve after the election, especially in the east of Ukraine. It will depend on effectiveness of work of the new president and development of relations with Russia,” Tetiana Pechonchyk, the head of the Human Rights Information Centre, told Index on Censorship.
But it is not only the areas of military conflict that are dangerous for journalists. Sergiyenko’s murder and the case of Evgen Polozhiy, the editor of Panirama newspaper from Sumy, who was severely beaten, show reporters’ work is becoming increasingly risky business in Ukraine.
“There were quite a number of journalistic investigations before the Euromaidan, but they led to no official reaction or criminal cases about corruption revealed. Now that the society has changed, corrupt officials and criminals are especially afraid of critical reporting as they can lose their positions or even go to prison; they choose different methods to silence investigative journalists,” Pechonchyk says.
Another important aspect of a media reality around events in Ukraine is the massive information war, launched by Russia. The aim is to show a distorted picture of a modern Ukraine as a state where right-wing extremists and “fascists” seized power, in spite of the fact that the leader of the notorious “Right Sector” organisation got less than 1% of votes during the presidential election. They also aim at perplexing the foreign audience by mixing the terms “Russian-speaking” and “Russian”, for instance to justify invasion of Crimea or actions of pro-Russian militants in Donetsk region.
“That’s what you expect Russia to do — blow the country over with lots of stereotypes, lies and myths. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian government lost this information war. But what is great is that civil society, bloggers, ordinary young people on Facebook confronted Putin’s lies with their activity and creativity, with websites that disprove Russian TV channels’ propaganda or fake news,” says Michael Andersen, a journalist who made a documentary for Al Jazeera about typical stereotypes around Ukraine and Ukrainians.
The latter still have a long way to go to ensure the Maidan changes a lot more than just the name of the president and the faces of the governmental officials. Civil society and the media have a vital role to play on this path to future reforms.
This article was published on May 27, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
27 May 14 | News and features, Politics and Society, Singapore
Roy Ngerng has received a letters from lawyers representing Singapore’s prime minister.
A Singaporean blogger has had to take down another four blog posts and a YouTube video after receiving another letter from the lawyer of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
Roy Ngerng first received a letter from lawyer Davinder Singh on behalf of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last week demanding that he take down and apologise for one blog post that had drawn parallels between Lee’s position as chairman of a sovereign wealth fund and the management of Singapore’s state pension fund and an ongoing trial into the misappropriation of funds by a megachurch.
Lee’s lawyer said that alleging that the he had misappropriated funds “constitutes a very serious libel”. On top of asking Ngerng to apologise, Lee also wanted to claim costs and damages.
Ngerng apologised for the article on Friday morning, admitting that the allegation was “false and completely without foundation”. He asked that Lee waive his demand for damages.
In response, Lee’s lawyers set a Monday evening deadline for Ngerng to respond with an offer of damages. If not, legal proceedings would be taken against him.
On Monday morning, another letter was received, taking issue with four blog posts and a video. Three of the blog posts raised questions over the way the state pension fund is managed, whereas the last blog post and video contained Ngerng’s response to Lee’s demand for damages.
Two of the articles had been published long before the first lawyer’s letter had arrived, one in July 2012 and one in May 2013.
“It is now clear from your client’s latest posts that your client’s apology and undertaking was not and never meant to be genuine,” Davinder Singh wrote to Ngerng’s lawyer M Ravi. He went on to say that Ngerng had “opportunistically” used the episode to “raise his public profile, garner support and sympathy, and renew his attack against our client”. This, Singh asserted, meant that Lee would be entitled to “aggravated damages”.
But Lee would be prepared not to claim these aggravated damages if Ngerng took down the four blog posts and video by Monday evening. Ngerng still has to make an offer of damages for the initial blog post that sparked this whole dispute.
In response, Ngerng’s lawyer M Ravi said that Ngerng would comply with Lee’s demand and take down the posts. He also asked that the deadline for an offer of damages be extended to Wednesday evening.
This article was posted on May 27, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
27 May 14 | Egypt, News and features
Egyptians began voting in a new presidential election which ex-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who ousted the elected Islamist leader, is expected to easily win amid calls for stability and economic recovery. (Photo: Mohamed Krit / Demotix)
“El Sisi will not reside in the Presidential Palace but will instead be a roving President.”
Surprisingly — or perhaps not so surprising — the headline in the independent Al Masry El Youm newspaper was published Sunday, a day before Egyptians headed to polling stations to vote in their second presidential elections since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak three years ago. Egyptians had not yet cast their ballots but the country’s media had already declared former army chief Field Marshall Abdel Fattah El Sisi the winner in the presidential race. In an election that analysts have described as “lacking in suspense” and the outcome of which was “a foregone conclusion,” El Sisi, who is running against rival leftist candidate Hamdeen Sabahy, is widely expected to emerge as the victor, cementing the military’s grip on power.
In the weeks leading up to the vote, Egyptian media had reverted to Mubarak-era policies, persistently lionising El Sisi (and the military) while demonising his opponents. Government critics and dissenters of all stripes have meanwhile, been branded “terrorists” and “traitors,” in a trend reminiscent of the early days of the January 2011 mass uprising when the pro-democracy activists in Cairo’s Tahrir Square were described by state-controlled media outlets as “thugs” and “foreign agents.” Since the toppling of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi on July 3 ,2013 by military backed protests, the airwaves have been saturated with a constant stream of patriotic songs set to images of cheering crowds and of El Sisi in military uniform.
In the wake of the July 3 military takeover of the country however, the propaganda narrative has not been limited to the state-run Maspero media network, for decades the mouthpiece of various successive regimes. In the current repressive climate, many of the privately-owned media outlets are now also in lockstep with the country’s military-backed authorities. After Islamist channels were forcibly silenced last summer, there has just been one narrative in Egyptian media: the official narrative. Observers lament the reversal of one of the most important gains of the January 2011 revolution: a freer press. Some analysts explain the rallying of the media around the military’s nationalistic flag as a “natural reaction” to the looming “threat of terrorism.”
“Perhaps the media is simply doing what the media anywhere has a tendency to do in times of war or crisis, which is to let nationalism trump professionalism,” explained the Guardian’s Rachel Shabi in an article published several weeks after the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood President. She also suggested that the private media outlets may be “getting their own back at the Brotherhood — which , after all, harassed opposition media while in power. ”
Other analysts believe journalists are practicing self censorship for fear of being accused of treachery. “They believe that this is a fight that transcends politics, and is a battle for Egypt’s survival,” British-Egyptian journalist Sarah Carr told the Guardian. “Anyone attempting to counter this official narrative is accused of being a traitor.”
Meanwhile, the low turnout on Monday, the first day of voting in the presidential election, prompted frantic appeals by TV talk show hosts and commentators to voters to cast their ballots.
“We are in a state of war. The low turnout gives the West and traitors inside the country a signal to pursue their conspiracies against Egypt. The country will face serious problems and may even transcend into a fragmented state like Syria or Libya”, journalist Mostafa Bakri warned Monday evening in an interview broadcast on the privately-owned El Thawra Channel.
“Those who boycott the elections are giving the kiss of life to terrorism.They are traitors,” he added, exhorting all “patriots” to participate in the election.
On his show El Qahira El Youm broadcast on the Saudi-owned Orbit satellite network, popular talk show host Amr Adeeb urged business owners to inspect the fingers of their employees for traces of ink to make sure they voted. “Tomorrow is not a public holiday for leisure,” he told viewers shortly after the Prime Minister declared Tuesday a holiday ” in compliance with the will of the people.”
On the privately-owned CBC channel, presenter Lamis El Hadidi used another tactic to persuade citizens to vote. Directing her message to Egypt’s Coptic Christians and playing on their fear of Islamists, she reminded the country’s minority Christian community of the torching of churches under Islamist rule. Her comments provoked an outcry on social media networks from young activists who perceived her remarks as “incitement to hatred ” and “serving to fuel sedition” in an already deeply polarised country.
“She is clearly suffering from amnesia. El Hadidi ‘forgot’ to mention the Maspiro massacre of Coptic Christians ,” retorted activist Nahed el Tantawy in a Facebook post, in reference to the violent dispersal by the military of a Christian protest rally outside the State TV building in October 2011.
The independent Al Masry El Yom meanwhile reminded citizens of the warning issued by the country’s Supreme Electoral Commission that those boycotting the vote would be fined 500 LE for abstaining.
Despite the calls for a big turnout by the country’s largely pro-military media, there was no sign of an early morning rush to polling stations as booths opened on Tuesday, the final day of the two-day vote. A judge at a polling station in Cairo’s affluent residential neighbourhood of Maadi blamed the markedly low turnout on the smeltering summer heat.
“People prefer to stay indoors in this hot weather,” he told Index.
Analysts however, believe that “apathy” and “fear of violence” are keeping voters away from the ballot box. Many of the country’s secular youths who helped mobilise the public for the 2011 mass protests demanding bread, freedom and social justice, are frustrated by what they see as “a return of the oppressive police state” they helped dismantle three years ago. Since last summer’s coup, a brutal security clampdown on Muslim Brotherhood supporters and liberal activists alike, has prompted a noticeable youth disengagement from politics. More than 1,400 protesters have since been killed by security forces while thousands of opposition figures languish in prisons on what rights activists perceive as “trumped up” charges. An April court ruling outlawing the April 6 movement — a pro-democracy group that was a driving force behind the January 2011 uprising — on charges of “espionage” and “damaging the country’s image abroad” is seen as a manifestation of the current climate of repression as are the rulings sentencing hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death for their role in protests.
El Sisi has already made it clear that the crackdown on free expression will continue, should he become president. In a recent televised interview broadcast as part of his election campaign, he said “freedom of speech undermines national security,” adding that the role of the press was to “forge unity.”
It is little wonder that many sceptical , pro-reform activists perceive the return of the military regime as being part of a counter-revolutionary plan. “The interim military-backed authorities and their supporters in the media have spared no effort in their attempts to distort truths and disfigure the revolution,” they lament. ” Sadly, their efforts have so far been successful.”
This article was published on May 27, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
27 May 14 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, Politics and Society
(Image: Aziz Karimov)
An Azerbaijani journalist and blogger has been sentenced to five and a half years imprisonment after publishing posts deemed critical of the authorities on Facebook. Abdul Abilov, who runs the Facebook page “Stop sycophants!” was charged with illegal possession, storage, manufacturing or sale of drugs at the Baku Serious Crimes Court. The social media page was closed down shortly after his arrest.
Emin Huseynov, chairman of the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS), is deeply concerned by the sentencing of journalists and bloggers in Azerbaijan, especially as the country has recently been handed chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers for the Council of Europe, a post Azerbaijan will hold for the next six months.
“Today’s harsh conviction shows once again the extraordinary measures that authorities are willing to take to crush criticism of their repressive policies, inconsistent with the country’s chairmanship of the Council of Europe,” Huseynov said in a statement. The IRFS has also called on the Council to “immediately appoint a special rapporteur on political prisoners in Azerbaijan” to analyse the situation in the country as well as raising the issue to the Parliamentary Assembly.
Abilov joins the eight journalist and seven bloggers and online activists already serving time in jail in the country for politically-motivated convictions, including the recent sentencing of the independent newspaper website editor Parviz Hashimli. And it’s not just journalists who are coming under fire from the authorities. Early May saw the sentencing of eight young activists on charges of attending to “cause public disorder”.
This article was posted on May 27, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
27 May 14 | India, News and features, Politics and Society, Religion and Culture
The Vagina Monologues performed in Mumbai in 2013 (Photo: BBC News)
“If Chennai doesn’t have vaginas, it is full of a#*holes!” quipped Mahabanu Mody Kotwal in the opening act of The Vagina Monologues when it was staged in Mumbai. The veteran theatre actor and director had good reason for using the pun. In December 2010, when the play was to be staged in the city for the first time, the Police Commissioner played spoilsport at the eleventh hour and declined permission. Earlier this year, a play on the Partition of India wasn’t allowed to be staged in Bangalore, and yes, Chennai. In both cases, it was the police which called the shots in the cancellations. Theatre’s subversive and liberating potential is renowned, and governments the world over have never held themselves back from wielding the censor’s bludgeon, but in India, it is the police which has been vested with remarkably sweeping powers to crack down on theatrical performances.
However, Chennai’s travails might well be over because in January this year, the Supreme Court struck down those provisions of the legislation – The Tamil Nadu Dramatic Performances Act, 1964 which permitted the cops to be the sole arbiters of “suitable” drama in the first place.
The roots of this legislation go back to the days when India was under British rule and the colonial administration remained constantly paranoid about “the natives” being up to mischief. Their fears were precipitated in 1876, when a Bengali play “Neel Darpan” (A Mirror to Indigo) was staged in Calcutta and got a rousing response, even from many Englishmen. The play narrated how farmers in Bengal and other provinces were being forced to cultivate indigo, and if they refused, were meted out the most terrible of punishments. This made the livid rulers who termed the play “scurrilous”, enact a law “to empower the government to prohibit certain dramatic performances”. The stated object of this law was to “prohibit Native plays that are scandalous, defamatory, seditious, obscene, or otherwise prejudicial to public interest”. Of course, “otherwise prejudicial to public interest” was left undefined, further empowering the censors.
It was hoped that independence would free drama from the shackles of this repressive law, but the reverse happened. Different states in India brought in their own legislations to control theatre, and most of them tightened the grip more than the British ever did.
For instance, the present legislation was geared towards proscribing “objectionable” plays and pantomimes. Section 2 (1) defined “objectionable” as anything which was likely to:
be seditious
(i) incite any person to commit murder, sabotage or any offence involving violence; or
(ii) seduce any member of any of the armed forces of the Union or of the police forces from his allegiance or his duty, or prejudice the recruiting of persons to serve in any such force or prejudice the discipline of any such force;
(iii) incite any section of the citizens of India to acts of violence against any other section of the citizens of India;
(iv) is deliberately intended to outrage the religious feelings of any class of the citizens of India by insulting or blaspheming or profaning the religion or the religious beliefs of that class;
(v) is grossly indecent, or is scurrilous or obscene or intended for blackmail; and includes any indecent or obscene dance.”
Thus, one is left in no doubt that the only form of ‘non-objectionable’ theatre would be bland, pantomimes extolling the virtues of mythology and religion; even then, one could never be sure, because religious sentiments in India are nothing short of a communal tinderbox.
If these antediluvian definitions weren’t enough, the police could act against the producer, director, troupe, and even the person who either owned or let out the premises where the play was to be staged. And there lurked the gravest danger- carte blanche powers of pre-censorship. Scripts of plays were to be submitted to the police for approval, and even though an opportunity of hearing was provided before the final call could be taken, it was hollow formality because the history of the legislation’s implementation proves that permission was granted only when the director or the playwright agreed to some of the mandated excisions.
In fact, the government was so unwilling to relinquish control that it told the Court of its willingness to appoint an officer to “guide the police commissioner in the cultural nuances” since literary sensibilities aren’t usually policemen’s forte!
The Supreme Court has broken the police’s stranglehold in Tamil Nadu; the time is ripe for challenging similar laws proscribing dramatic performances in other states and restoring to theatre the freedom it always deserved.
This article was posted May 27, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
23 May 14 | Counter Terrorism, Digital Freedom, Guest Post, News and features
Censorship is central to the current debate on how to counter extremism online. With fears intensifying over the potential impact of returning foreign fighters and potential ‘lone wolf’ terrorists, governments are increasingly targeting the Internet as a source of radicalisation. However, using negative measures such as censorship only attack the symptom rather than the array of its causes. Findings from our recent Quilliam report show that censorship initiatives not only prove ineffective in tackling extremism, but are potentially counter-productive.
Governments still rely largely on negative measures (such as filtering, blocking and censoring) when tackling extremist content on the Internet. Yet censorship has never been the solution and nor will it be. The debate around what content is legal and illegal online, and how authorities should deal with it, is sensitive and has brought up a range of questions in the last ten years as the Internet has expanded, changing the way we communicate, educate and socialise.
Across Europe, filtering Internet traffic with a view to blocking access to unwanted content has generated discussions of free speech and the legality of censorship. While some filtering is currently nation-specific (France and Germany filter and block content that is related to Nazism or Holocaust denial), other filtering trends are EU-level initiatives (such as the filtering and attempted eradication of Child Sexual Abuse Imagery – CSAI). Although no one is likely to argue for the continuation of CSAI-related content, there is a much broader debate to be had around the subject of what to do with so-called ‘extremist content’.
British and French governments have set up online portals in recent years allowing the public to anonymously report potentially illegal websites and materials. The UK’s Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU), for example, runs an official portal allowing individuals to submit ‘online terrorist material’ which is subsequently reviewed and flagged to Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The CTIRU has, thus far, removed over 29,000 pieces of illegal terrorist propaganda in the last three years.
While this number might sound high to some, it pales in comparison to the amount of illegal content online, which continues to grow exponentially. Furthermore, it is more or less impossible to calculate the true quantity of content that might fall under specific guidelines of illegality, and it is even more difficult to try and quantify content that might be deemed ‘extremist’.
Even if this were a possible route for eliminating unwanted content, the fact of the matter is that the most potent forms of online extremism are not taking place on static websites or platforms (the principal platforms that filtering initiatives target). It shouldn’t come as a surprise that, following mainstream social trends, extremist organisations and their supporters are most effective and active on social media platforms, which are more difficult to target through filtering systems as well as being more temporal, so that once a conversation has been had, or a video shared, filtering does little to obstruct the message being disseminated.
Furthermore, the blocking or censoring of material is also ineffective in ensuring that the same unwanted content will not reappear. Websites can change domain names, content can be re-posted, and the discourse around a given subject can take place elsewhere. However, even if we could find a way to rid the web of unwanted content we deem as extremist, the question remains as to whether or not we should.
While government portals such as the CTIRU site provide an outlet for the public to alert officials about material they believe to be illegal, there is significant dispute over what can be deemed extremist and worthy of filtering. The adoption of an agreed definition of extremism continues to be deeply problematic.
Terrorism, and terrorist-related content, is grounded in a well-defined legal structure that is articulated through the UK’s Terrorism Acts, as well as those of other countries. As such, any material which promotes terrorism, encourages individuals to enact violence against others and/or supports a terrorist organisation is deemed illegal in the UK, whether on-, or offline. However, ‘extremist material’ is a much contentious subject matter, remaining, ultimately, in the realm of ideas. We should not look to expand the already broad definition of terrorism to include extremism, and must recognise that the two phenomena, though related, are distinct, and, as such, require distinct responses.
Governments should continue to target content that falls squarely within their legal guidelines, even if the negative measures imposed will never fully abolish illegal content. Engagement with, and access to, extremist online content also informs the work of counter-extremist organisations that can use this information to develop counter-speech. Online counter-extremism should be civil society-led as the internet is in the realm of self-regulation; we should contest this ungoverned space rather than attempt to censor it.
Some groups have already established online platforms to develop counter-speech and counter-extremist content; such platforms include websites like Islam against Extremism, Radical Middle Way and the YouTube channel set up by the Against Violence Extremism network. However, movements like these need far more support and constant updating. We need to encourage counter-extremism practitioners, community groups and local actors to contest online space and promote the same positive messages online as they do offline. This is already being done to an extent, by the likes of the US State Department’s Twitter account, @thinkagain_DOS, which directly challenges terrorist narratives online; Abdullah X, an online graphic novel that aims to make counter-extremism more fashionable than jihadism; the Google Ideas-run AVE Network, which acts as a resource to help us learn from the mistakes of former extremists; and finally, us at Quilliam, an organisation that works to hone the arguments with which to refute extremist ideologies, challenges their Manichean narratives and promotes pluralism within British Islam as an antidote to extremism.
These are just four ways that have been identified, but there are undoubtedly many more. Using such methods, we can effectively inhibit the capability of extremist narratives to monopolise online platforms which are, now more than ever, the defining spaces of public debate and expression.
This article was posted on May 23, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
23 May 14 | China, News and features
(Photo: Yo Hibino/Wikimedia Commons)
“Keep quiet and carry on” is the slogan that can best describe China’s take on the approaching 25th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
This is the yearly Tiananmen anniversary crackdown, and people within China know what to expect; slower internet, blocked search terms, more military personnel in public and the arrest of high profile individuals. But this year’s crackdown appears particularly thorough, either a reaction to dissent being higher than usual or a perception that it is in light of the milestone anniversary.
The Chinese government has already jailed scores of lawyers, activists and intellectuals, sending a chilling message to any other would-be agitators. Of the most widely reported was the arrest of Pu Zhiqiang, a prominent human rights lawyer who helped organise the 1989 protests. His detention came three days after he joined a private panel discussion on the massacre. Around 15 people were at the event, five of whom have since been detained. Then there was the airing of confessions on state media by journalist Gao Yu and citizen journalist Xiang Nanfu this May, which echoes Maoist propaganda tactics.
As we get closer to 4 June actions against freedom of expression will grow. Yvonne Shen, who is Asia News Digest Editor at Freedom House, an NGO committed to tracking violations to free expression, says the Chinese government “step up their censorship efforts in the days surrounding that date”. Within a week the organisation anticipate spikes in suspicious activity online. They are keeping a close eye on social platform WeChat in particular, given its current popularity.
“There was a leaked document dated 31 May, 2011, from the Beijing Municipal Government, that suggested the authorities had launched a ‘wartime coordination mechanism’ that required all units to report suspicious information during the “sensitive period,” Shen tells Index of the government’s usual tactic.
China forbids open discussion of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, in which soldiers fired on crowds of unarmed pro-democracy protesters, killing hundreds if not thousands (no official death toll has ever been released). On top of arrests, an army of censors work overtime to ensure mentions of the event are quickly removed. Sites are blocked and words that allude to or directly reference it vanish.
The private realms of emails and direct messages are also monitored, as Louisa Lim, author of upcoming book The People’s Republic of Amnesia, Tiananmen Revisited, describes: “I wrote my book on a brand-new laptop that had never been online. Every night I locked it in a safe in my apartment. I never mentioned the book on the phone or in e-mail, at home or in the office — both located in the same Beijing diplomatic compound, which I assumed was bugged.”
Chinese journalists are trained “not to ever touch Tiananmen with a 10 foot pole,” Beijing-based journalist Eric Fish tells Index. He too perceives a recent shift: “The atmosphere for Chinese journalists has tightened quite a bit in general since Xi Jinping came to power. It feels like they’ve clamped down a lot more than normal in the lead-up to this anniversary.”
As Fish says, the detentions form part of a broader crackdown on free speech. When Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, there were hopes he would relax censorship. These hopes were quickly dashed. Index recently reported on a ban of seemingly innocent US TV shows, which shows just how pervasive the attack has been.
Even foreign journalists, who are usually granted more leeway, have experienced “a big uptick in pressure over the past two years,” says Fish, a reference to several prominent cases of journalist visas being revoked.
This is a fact Steven Levine has had to accept. “I anticipate being refused a Chinese visa the next time I apply to visit China as this is one way in which the Chinese authorities punish foreigners who criticise their human rights practices,” explains the retired professor of Chinese history and politics, who coordinates the Tiananmen Initiative Project — an individual effort aimed at focussing attention on the Tiananmen Movement and government crackdown.
Levine’s project has already been banned from the Chinese online world; within days of launching last November, the site had been blocked. Levine will not be deterred and continues to correspond with Chinese individuals inside the country, as well as with exiled Chinese who were either leaders or active in the 1989 movement. For him, being refused a visa is a price worth paying. It’s a different story for those inside of China, who take a much bigger gamble.
That said many have come up with creative ways to circumvent censorship. For example, prominent writer Murong Xuecun avoided the censors by using the politically neutral word “tractors” instead of the highly provocative “tanks”. And while “4th June” is blocked, the new code of “May 35th” has filled its place — a count of that month’s 31 days plus four in June.
It’s a game of cat and mouse. Ultimately, the cat is winning, but the mice aren’t going down without a fight.
This article was posted on May 23, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
