Erykah Badu peforming at the O2 Academy Brixton in 2011 (Image: SANPA Anne/Demotix)
R&B singer Erykah Badu has called off her planned performance for Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh at the 11th edition of the International Roots Festival. This comes after an intense online campaign by Gambian and foreign right groups against her decision to perform for African dictators.
According to Gambia’s pro-government Daily Observer newspaper, the national organising committee of Roots Festival in a press release said two Jamaican acts, Scratchylus and Empress Reggae, will replace Badu, adding that she could not make it due to “unforeseen circumstances”.
What’s On Gambia confirmed that Badu’s manager Paul J. Levanto disclosed to them in a short email that the artist is no longer performing in Gambia. The site also reported that Gambian rapper Gibou Bala Gaye alias Gee, wrote on his Facebook page that political activists are wasting their time trying to convince international artists to cancel their plans to perform at Gambia’s Independence Stadium.
“Going through my tweets and this BS about Erykah Badu not to come to Gambia is pissing me off. Only people saying issh are either on exile or did something here and can’t come back.” He added that: “People like me been waiting my whole life time for this, to actually watch Erykah Badu perform live because I’ve been a fan forever. Plus, it’s her work freaking respect that!”
The Grammy Award-winner was scheduled to perform at the week-long Gambian music festival that kicked off last Friday (9 May). According to the Washington Blade, Badu’s trip to Gambia was scheduled to take place less than a month after she sang at a lavish birthday party for Swazi King Msawti III. The Swazi Observer reported Badu gave Mswati a $100 bill with a “special stone that she said would uplift His Majesty’s spirits when he was feeling down” during the 24 April event at one of the monarch’s numerous palaces, continued the Blade article.
“Erykah Badu has the basic human right to speak and to sing wherever she wants, unfortunately that is not a right that ordinary Swazis or Gambians have,” Jeffrey Smith of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights told the Blade. “Freedom of expression, assembly, association, and freedom of the press are severely restricted in both of these countries.”
Badu is not the only musician who has faced criticism over plans to perform for leaders with questionable human rights records. According to observers, the Gambian dictatorship organises events like the Roots Festival, with the pretext of celebrating African heritage, but there is more to it than celebration. President Jammeh has in recent years invited scores of internationally renowned artists like Jamaine Jackson, Ousman Diallo alias Ouza, Thione Seck and Kumba Gawlo Seck, enticing them with millions of tax payers’ money to repair his tarnished image.
A recent Time article by Thor Halvorssen and Alex Gladstein of Human Rights Foundation states that: “If Badu bristles under criticism for entertaining King Mswati, she’ll really be frustrated by the world’s reaction when she performs at a concert this May sponsored by the dictator of The Gambia. After seizing power in 1994 military coup, Yahya Jammeh is best known for spending millions of dollars on private parties, for promising to inflict “the ultimate penalty” on homosexuals, for warning the UN that gays are “a threat to human existence”, for claiming that he can cure AIDS in three days, and for executing and disappearing hundreds of his critics. After her Swazi quagmire, perhaps Badu will reconsider her scheduled performance in The Gambia, where she would provide cover for yet another despot, this one a lot more murderous than King Mswati.”
Meanwhile, the Democratic Union of Gambian Activists (DUGA) has written an open letter to Jamaican reggae star Matabaruka, calling on him to disassociate himself from the festival organised by the Gambian leader. The human rights body says because of the revolutionary stance Jamaican have taken on issues affecting African people worldwide, it is necessary to inform Matabaruka of the repressive conditions in Gambia since Jammeh’s lift on to the “saddles of power”.
“During the struggle against apartheid, you, like the ‘stepping razor’, Peter Tosh and others took a principled stance without wavering. We believe that, once you become aware of the repressive conditions your Gambians brothers and sisters are subjected to, you will take the same stance as you did against apartheid. Our fight against tyranny in the Gambia must get the same attention as was given to ‘South Africa’ – Azania. The days of fighting in isolation are over; the struggle for African Liberation is one struggle. Touch one! Touch all!,” states the letter.
Made in Britain? Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) called for the immediate suspension of the use of excessive, indiscriminate and systematic use of tear gas against civilian protesters and densely populated Shia neighbourhoods in Bahrain (Image: Iman Redha/Demotix)
The Arab Spring has not stopped Britain from helping crush free expression and freedom of assembly by selling crowd control gear to authoritarian states including Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
Analysis of newly-published data on export licences approved by the UK government have revealed ministers backed over £4 million of tear gas, crowd control ammunition and CS hand grenade sales over the last two years to Saudi Arabia – one of the most repressive states in the world.
The British government also allowed crowd control ammunition to be sold to Malaysia and Oman, as well as tear gas to Hong Kong and Thailand.
It gave the green light to anti-riot and ballistic shields to four authoritarian regimes listed by the Economist Democratic Index: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Azerbaijan, as well as Saudi Arabia.
Its only refusal for an export licence in 2013 for equipment which could be used to suppress internal dissent was for an order of CS hand grenades and ‘tear gas/irritant ammunition’ to Turkey.
A lack of transparency across the secretive arms sector makes it difficult to establish which companies are providing the arms – or how the country in question intends to use them.
But the Geneva Convention forbids the military use of all gas weapons, meaning the UK government would have assumed the tear gas was for use against civilian protesters.
Brief explanatory notes included in the export licences data suggest all those mentioned above are primarily for use against domestic populations.
The notes typically state the licence is granted “for armed forces end use” or “for testing and evaluation by a government / military end user”.
The only exception is the note for a sizeable order of anti-protest equipment for Brazil, which makes clear the export licence is granted for “armed forces end users not involved in crowd control / public security”.
Further evidence has emerged that Britain’s leading arms firm, BAE, has signed a £360 million contract with an unnamed Middle Eastern country for the upgrade of armoured personnel carriers whose primary use is against protesters.
Industry insiders believe the improvements are being made in Saudi Arabia to a stockpile of the vehicles left in the country by the United States military.
BAE’s chairman Sir Roger Carr said contractual commitments prevented him from commenting at the defence giant’s annual general meeting in Farnborough yesterday.
He faced heckling and hissing from vocal critics in the audience who had infiltrated the two-hour question-and-answer session, but insisted BAE was “helping to preserve world peace” and that the company “are not undermining the broader international rules” of the arms trade.
Speaking afterwards, however, a member of BAE’s board suggested the “natural place for these decisions is with government” rather than the company.
“I’m not abrogating our moral responsibility,” he said, “but it’s right that the burden of these difficult decisions is on the government because, in the UK at least, this is an elected democracy.”
Britain’s parliament, at least, has proved reluctant to provide a critical voice on the UK’s arms trade.
Opponents had alleged Saudi Arabian troops which intervened to crush the Arab Spring in Bahrain had received British military training. A recent report from MPs accepted the Foreign Office’s rejection of British complicity, with ministers arguing none of the training had taken place “in a repressive way”.
The Commons’ foreign affairs committee did, however, call on the government to “adhere strictly to its existing policy to ensure that defence equipment sold by UK firms are not used for human rights abuses or internal repression”.
Its request for the government to provide further evidence that it is doing so in practice did not meet with a positive response.
Officials said the risk that export licence criteria might be broken is “factored into” the original decision to grant the licence.
The Foreign Office stated: “There are rigorous pre-licence checks and, for open licences, compliance audits at the exporters’ premises in the UK. We will continue to scrutinise carefully all arms sales to Saudi Arabia.”
Many believe the current export licence regime is not fit for purpose, however. In 2013 the UK approved military licences to a total of 31 authoritarian regimes including Russia, China, Qatar and Kuwait.
“BAE couldn’t sell the weapons they do to these countries without the support of the UK government,” Andrew Smith of the Campaign Against The Arms Trade said.
“The UK government can stop any of these exports at any time but is choosing not to because it’s putting arms company profits ahead of human rights.”
He suggested the government’s decision to exclude Bahrain from its list of ‘countries of concern’ on human rights was “politically motivated”.
And he warned arms sales went beyond small-scale arms and ammunition to include much bigger purchases like fighter jets.
“The reason the Saudis buy from Britain is not just because Britain is willing to sell arms,” Smith added, “but also because it comes with political support and the endorsement and silence of the British government.”
Last Tuesday “hacktivist journo” Barrett Brown pled guilty in a US court after a long-running battle with the FBI. He had reported on a high-profile Anonymous hack as well as posting provocative videos on YouTube baiting FBI officials.
At the hearing, the court reduced his sentence from 105 years to eight and a half years, with lawyers saying he could serve far less time.
Both Brown’s defence team and freedom of speech activists are now worried a precedent has been set in which reporters could be prosecuted for writing stories using hacked information.
“The implications are worrisome in the extreme,” said Kevin Gallagher, director of Free Barrett Brown Ltd.
“It must be noted that Brown’s lawyers worked painstakingly to avoid setting an undesirable precedent—one that would place other journalists at risk for dealing with hackers as sources.
“Yet the dangers of this novel legal construction are clear: journalists may be prosecuted for merely speaking to hackers and having knowledge of their breaches.”
Last month US prosecutors dropped 11 of the 17 charges against Brown, who faces three separate indictments. The abandoned claims all related to a breach of private intelligance contractor Stratfor carried out by Anonymous in 2011.
The ringleader of the Anonymous hackers, Jeremy Hammond, was sentenced to 10 years in prison last November.
Brown’s case was criticised by freedom of speech campaigners because it involved him hyperlinking to stolen Stratfor data which had already been made publicly available. Concerns revolved around how one of the core tenets of the internet – link sharing, could be impacted.
“The attempt to criminalize the act of providing links broke new ground in dangerous official absurdity,” said Norman Solomon, an American journalist associated with media watchdog Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.
No explanation was given by the FBI or prosecutors as to why the charges were suddenly dropped.
Once the gagging order was lifted it was revealed that Brown had in fact advised the Anonymous hackers to redact the data, even contacting the Stratfor CEO to tell him this.
Brown wrote in an email to Anonymous : “It occurred to me that it might be a good idea to tell Stratfor that you guys will consider making any reasonable redactions to emails that might endanger, say, activists living under dictatorships with whom they might have spoken… If they fail to cooperate, it will be on them if any claims are made about this yield endangering anyone”.
According to Gallagher one of Brown’s lawyers commented :”He was very critical of careless releases of data by hackers, but he made efforts to protect his sources; and that’s what he’s being charged for.”
The remaining charges constitute two felonies and one misdemeanour, with one charge of making an internet threat resting on aggressively presented YouTube videos that Brown posted of himself after he grew angry at the FBI’s treatment of his case. One clip was titled “Why I’m Going To Destroy FBI Agent Smith.” A description under the video called for tip-offs about the FBI agent to be sent to a specific email account. Brown pleaded guilty to the charge.
“Barrett expresses deep regret for what he did in making the threat, which he did impulsively at a time when he felt cornered and was unable to make rational decisions,” said one of the lawyers representing Brown, Ahmed Ghappour.
Brown was also prosecuted over obstructing the execution of a search warrant, and being an accessory to unauthorized access of a protected computer. He pleaded guilty to both these charges and will now face up to eight and a half years in prison.
Commenting on the final charge – Norman Solomon also told Index
“Journalists are now facing even more dangerous political terrain in the United States if they want to do real investigative reporting.”
“We should be greatly concerned that U.S. authorities have shown their determination to punish some journalists for putting together pieces of puzzles into coherent pictures.
He added, “In the context of internet journalism, a felony count against linking is akin to legal action against demonstrably thinking in unauthorized ways.”
Early last month, human rights lawyer Rashid Rehman from Multan in Punjab province, was threatened that he would not be present at the next hearing as he would not be alive. Those who threatened him — the complainant’s counsel, Zulfiqar Sindhu, and two others made their statements in front of the judge during the hearing of a blasphemy case — meant every word. The judge looked on stone-faced.
Sitting in his office with another lawyer and a client on 7 May, two men stormed into Rehman’s office, at around 8:30 pm, and opened fire. While he was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital, the other two, who sustained serious bullet wounds, survived.
Rehman was the regional coordinator for the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and was representing alleged blasphemer Junaid Hafeez, a lecturer at Multan’s Bahauddin Zakariya University. The latter had been accused by some students of making derogatory remarks against Prophet Muhammad in March last year.
The HRCP has, to date, lost six of its members. Five of them — Naeem Sabir (2011), Siddique Eido (2011), Zarteef Afridi (2011), Ahmed Jan Baloch (2013) and Rashid Rehman (2014) — were killed in the line of duty. The sixth victim, Malik Jarrar Hussain’s (2013) was victim of a sectarian killing. No one linked to the murders has been arrested.
Fear of backlash from the extremists is palpable and that is why, said Zohra Yusuf, chairperson of the HRCP, even in this particular case: “The accused could not find a lawyer for a year.”
“Rashid was threatened on his first appearance in court, held inside Multan District Prison, in front of the judge,” said Yusuf, speaking to Index. Due to security concerns the hearing was being held inside the prison, she said.
On returning from the hearing, Rehman had complained to the police and the district bar association in writing and had also copied it to all civil society organisations. He had also told The Express Tribune that he had been threatened by five people over 48 hours and warned to drop the case.
In a 10 April statement, the HRCP had brought the issue to the attention of the authorities. “But nothing was done,” said Yusuf.
“This is an extraordinary event in the sense that the murderers are well identified,” A.H. Nayyar, a well known educator and a peace activist based in Islamabad. While those who pulled the actual trigger may not be identifiable, he told Index, those who threatened Rehman were very clearly named by the deceased.
Clearly infuriated, Nayyar said that if the police and the government fail to provide justice then the matter should be taken to the civilized world. “We should move parliaments of other countries to take notice of it, to lodge protests with our government and even threaten to sever relations with Pakistan.”
Dawn reported that a pamphlet stating that Rashid Rahman met his fate because he tried to save a blasphemer was dished out by unidentified people in the chambers of lawyers in Multan. “We warn all the lawyers to think before defending such matters,” the pamphlet read.
“It’s been difficult for lawyers and judges to deal with blasphemy cases in the past as well but I am certain that they will be even more hesitant now to take up such cases and who can blame them?” pointed out Angelika Pathak, former South Asia researcher at Amnesty International. Saddened by Rehman’s death whom she had known for some time, she found him to be someone who “showed great courage in the face of threats and harassment”.
“We all know, not only the alleged perpetrators but anyone perceived to side with them, be they lawyers, their own families and friends, even members of their wider communities, have all been subjected to abuse — threats of violence, violence, even unlawful killing — by extremist elements while the state has turned a blind eye to it,” she told Index over an email exchange.
Pathak found impunity for false accusers of blasphemy and for perpetrators of violence as the single most significant factor contributing to the persistence to the abuse of the blasphemy laws of Pakistan.
As a first step to end the abuse of these laws, she said the parliament should consider some safeguards, including making the deliberately false accusation of blasphemy a criminal offence.
But more importantly, Pathak pointed out that Pakistan should consider abolishing these laws as they are “too vaguely formulated, lack a clear reference to criminal intent and are in conflict with Pakistan’s international commitments undertaken when ratifying the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).”
Ratifying the ICCPR, Pathak pointed out, meant the obligation to bring “domestic law into conformity with the international legal standards”, something she emphasised remained “conspicuously missing” in Pakistan, not only with regard to the blasphemy laws but a whole range of other laws as well.
The India media is the subject of the news yet again. This time though, the private news channels — the usual suspects – are only reporting the news. Instead, the latest war of words among politicians has thrown the public service broadcaster, Doordarshan, into the limelight.
Narendra Modi, prime ministerial candidate for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was interviewed by Doordarshan, and it appears that comments he made about a friendship with a senior member of the ruling Indian National Congress were edited out of the final interview. The news broke on social media, and immediately the channel was accused of censoring the statements that might make Congress seem too chummy with their sworn opposition.
The CEO of Doordarshan, Jawhar Sircar, in a letter to the board of Prasar Bharti, the autonomous body that runs the channel, made it very clear that the public broadcaster does indeed suffer from government interference. Reportedly, Sircar wrote in his letter that there has been a lost opportunity to convince a “young minister to break this long traditional linkage between the ministry and the News Division, which has continued unabated long after Prasar Bharati was born and assigned its distinct role in 1997”. This is a direct reference to the current Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Manish Tewari. In the same report, carried by the Economic Times, a member of the Congress have rubbished this claim, saying that Sircar is “merely currying favour with the new dispensation as he had never raised the issue of autonomy earlier”.
Narendra Modi interview isn’t the first time Sircar has brought up the question of autonomy for the broadcaster. Sircar’s personal website carried news items relating to “freeing Prasar Bharti from government control”, papers that suggest DD could follow the BBC’s annual license fee model, as well as older news items about how the channel, under the Congress-led UPA government has previously neglected to give Narendra Modi the kind of airtime the private channels have accorded. For his part, Minister Tewari has made a statement that “autonomy of Prasar Bharti is guaranteed by an act of Parliament. I&B ministry has an arms length relationship with Prasar Bharti”.
One can be sure the complaints about airtime will be flipped around if another party forms the government. Therefore, politics aside, the basic question needs to be addressed: despite an autonomous status, does the government in fact wield undue influence over Prasar Bharti (which includes radio as well)?
The current structure of the public broadcaster stands as such: the Prasar Bharti is an autonomous body that answers to the Parliament of India through the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. All of its staff are officers recruited through the Union Public Service Commission, and are transferred to their positions at Prasar Bharti after having served in other government departments. There is belief that this might be the reason for the “government” mindset shown in the two directorates under the body; All India Radio or Akashvani, and Doordarshan, the television broadcaster. In fact, till 1997, both had been directly under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, but had been given this separation to be able to function in a “fair, objective and creative manner”.
The government had appointed a committee under Sam Pitroda, a man who is credited for helping Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi bring the telecom revolution to India in the 1980s, to present a report on the function of Prasar Bharti. The report batted for more autonomy for the broadcaster, but went further and suggested that it also be open to use private sources of funding and monetizing its assets. In an event to release the report, Pitroda said that the broadcaster must “look at public interest and not just government interest”. Along with input on technology, human resource and content, the two volume report (which had the current CEO as a member) also delves into government and organisation. The suggestions include transferring complete ownership and management of assets to Prasar Bharti to make the organisation administratively and financially autonomous of the government, and setting up a regulatory body to ensure public accountability of all content on their radio and television networks, while acknowledging that the state does have a distinct requirement to “broadcast messages and accomplishments of public interest which can be met by using existing public and private broadcaster infrastructure”.
The report was submitted to the government in February 2014, and is “under consideration”. It will be up to the next government, to be formed in mid-May, to take action, especially in light of the recent controversy.
Not all are convinced of real change taking place on the ground. In editorial a few months before the report was released, the Pioneer suggested that “the Government supports the idea of an autonomous public broadcaster, in practice it has never been able to let go. Unless this fundamental dichotomy is resolved —either the Government gives up control or relinquishes the autonomy idea — the Government will continue to have a complicated relationship with Prasar Bharati, no matter how many expert committees it sets up. In the meantime, the tax-payer-funded broadcaster will continue to drain the exchequer and be of even less use to the public.” Others, such as media analyst Sevanti Ninan of The Hoot even questioned the genuine interest the government has in reforming the broadcaster by initiating the Pitroda expert committee, asking: “I don’t know why they are undertaking this just before the elections time because if there are radical recommendations there is no time to implement them.” In an article on the subject she addresses the crucial question of attracting talent, writing that “to attract the best personnel the salary/ package should be linked with the market compensation. The tenure of full time members should be for a period of five years and for the Independent Directors for a period of three years. So, no more pegging salaries at a level that only attracts applications from former government personnel. The CEO of Prasar Bharati so far, in its 16 years of existence, has always been a former IAS officer.” There are also serious updates needed in technology upgradation, content and presentation of the news.
For the moment, Doordarshan is thinking about probing into the matter of the edited Narendra Modi interview. But the larger problem cannot be solved on a case-to-case basis. Since 1996, Pitroda’s would be the fourth panel the government has created to look into this issue of Prasar Bharti. It would well be worth the effort for a new government to give the public service broadcaster to the public.
Eurovision contestant Teo, in the music video for this year’s Belarusian entry Cheesecake (Image: Yury Dobrov/YouTube)
If you want a Eurovision of the future, imagine a faux-dubstep bassline dropping on a human falsetto, forever. That was how it felt watching YouTube footage of this year’s entrants in the continent’s greatest song-and-dance-spectacle.
The Eurovision Song Contest, born of the same hope for the future and fear of the past as the European Union, is approaching its 50th year. And strangely, it’s doing quite well. In spite of fears that the competition would end up as an annual carve up between former Soviet states, recent years have in fact seen a fairly equal spread of winners throughout the member states of the European Broadcasting Union (who do not actually have to be in Europe; a fact often missed by anti-Zionists who somehow see a conspiracy in the fact that Israel is a regular entrant in the competition is that channels in countries such as Libya, Jordan and Morocco are also members of the EBU, and technically could enter if they wish. Morocco did, in 1980). Since 2000, the spread of winners between Western Europe, the former Soviet states, and the Balkans and Turkey have been pretty much even.
While some of the geopolitics will always be with us — Turkey and Azerbaijan united in their hatred of Armenia, Cyprus and Greece douze-pointsing each other at every opportunity — the once-derided contest has in fact functioned as a genuine competition. Year in, year out, the best song in the competition tends to win, while the laziest entrants, not taking the event seriously as a songwriting competition (yes, we’re looking at you, Britain), tend to fall behind and then complain that Europe doesn’t “get” pop music.
The best songs and singers triumph, by and large. But Eurovision still does have a political edge.
Take Tuesday’s semi-final in Copenhagen. Russia’s entry, Shine, performed by the Tolmachevy Sisters and described by Popbitch as sounding like “almost every Eurovision song you’ve ever imagined” contained some unintentionally ominous lines:
Living on the edge / closer to the crime / cross the line a step at a time
Add an “a” to the end of that “crime”, and you’ve got the Kremlin’s current foreign policy neatly summed up in a single stanza.
I am not suggesting that the Tolmachevys were sent out to justify Putin’s expansionism. Nonetheless, the Copenhagen crowd were keen that Russia should know what the world thought of its foreign policy and domestic human rights record: as it was announced that Russia had made Saturday’s grand final, the arena erupted in jeering. The dedicated Eurovision fan is clearly not just a poppet living in a fantasy world of camp. They are engaged with the world, and particularly the regressive policies of countries such as Russia, Azerbaijan and Belarus, perhaps more so than your average European.
When Sweden’s Loreen won the competition in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, in 2012, she pledged to meet the country’s human rights activists. That same year, BBC commentator “Doctor Eurovision” (he actually is a doctor of Eurovision) made explicit references to Belarus’s disgraceful dictatorship, rather than simply giggle at the funny eastern Europeans.
This raises an interesting question about how we engage with dubious regimes.
Before the Baku Eurovision in 2012, there was some discussion over whether democratic countries should boycott the competition, sending a message to Aliyev’s regime.
“No,” Azerbaijani civil rights activists told Index on Censorship. “Let the world come and see Azerbaijan.” They felt that for most of the world, most of the time, they are citizens of a far away country of whom we know nothing. They wanted to take their chance while the world was looking. I think they got it right. As discussed last week, Azerbaijan is engaged in a massive international PR campaign, but to most people in the world since that Eurovision and the attention it raised for the country’s opposition, it has not been able to entirely disguise its atrocious record on free speech and other rights.
On Friday, the International Ice Hockey Federation’s world championship will open in Belarus. Though there was some discussion of boycotting that event, it has died down. Nonetheless, journalists from Europe and North America will be covering the event, and fans will travel too.
Belarus’s macho dictator Alexander Lukashenko is a keen ice hockey fan, and will be aiming to sweep up the glory of hosting a major international sporting event, not long after the country hosted the world track cycling championships in 2013.
Ice hockey fans and sports journalists are generally not the type of people who go in for Eurovision. But maybe they should try to take a leaf out of the Song Contest supporters book. Have a look at the country around them, learn a little about the politics, and spread the word about the side the dictators don’t want us to see.
Autocrats try to use these international competitions to control the world’s view of them. We should beat them at their own games.
Authorities in Belarus have been targeting human rights activists ahead of this weekend’s start of the International Ice Hockey Federation’s world championship in Minsk.
At least 17 political and civic activists were detained between 26 April and 6 May to prevent the organising of protests during the championship, which begins on 9 May. Another five are either in detention or being sought for questioning by police. All have been accused of minor hooliganism and sentenced to administrative detention of up to 25 days.
Such “preventive arrests” are common in Belarus. One of the activists, Pavel Vinahradau, who is known for his numerous detentions, opted to leave Minsk until the end of the championship. He had previously been summoned by the police: “They made it clear that either I go to Berezino (a small town 100 km outside Minsk) till 3 June, or I go to Akrestsina (a detention centre in Minsk). I choose Berezino,” Vinahradau wrote on Facebook.
A website called Totalitizator asks its visitors make predictions about which activists will be detained next, for how many days and on what charges. For people who follow political news in Belarus it is not difficult to make a choice.
Potential foreign “troublemakers” are also being kept away from the tournament. On Wednesday, Martin Uggla, a human rights activist from Sweden, was denied entry to Belarus when he was detained at Minsk-2 National Airport. According to temporary visa-free travel requirements, hockey supporters with valid game tickets do not require visa. Despite the fact Martin had one, border guards told him he was being prohibited from entering the country.
Belarus’ president Alexander Lukashenko is known for his love for hockey – and his unfulfilled desire of a real international profile. Consistent tensions with the Western democracies and an unwillingness to ease his authoritarian grip has deprived Lukashenko’s international relations of impact. Fifty-six of the president’s last 100 international visits were to Russia and Kazakhstan, though he has travelled to Turkmenistan, Venezuela, China and Cuba, as well.
The ice hockey championship in Minsk is set to become Lukashenko’s marquee performance on the world stage. That is why the government is rounding up activist voices. Lukashenko wants to present a calm, hospitable and prosperous country led by a wise and caring leader. The picturesque façade cannot hide the problems afflicting Belarus: An unsustainable economy hooked on huge Russian subsidies and a dismal human rights record.
Belarus remains the only country in Europe that still imposes the death penalty. On 18 April, 23-year-old Pavel Sialiun was, according to reports, executed. Sialiun’s case is still under review by the UN Human Rights Committee.
Nine political prisoners are still in jail in Belarus, including well-known human rights defender Ales Bialiatski, and former presidential candidate Mikalay Statkevich. A recent report by FIDH says they are in a critical situation. Many dissidents suffer regular restrictions to “their means of support, quality of food and medical assistance”, including being deprived of meetings with relatives and subject to limits on correspondence.
“Politically motivated persecution of civil society representatives and of the opposition is a general trend, and the limitations on political and civil rights of Belarusian citizens are pervading, both in national legislation and in practice,” says another statement by 12 human rights groups that represent the ice hockey championship participating countries.
But people who raise these issues are not welcome in Minsk these days. Even foreign journalists who are accredited for the championship are obliged to receive a separate accreditation at the Belarusian Foreign Ministry if they wish to cover issues other than hockey while in Belarus.
But many in the country fear the real issues to cover will appear after the championship is over on 25 May.
“Putin invaded the Crimea four days after the Sochi Olympics. Let’s see if Lukashenko will be that quick with another clampdown on civil society. But I am sure he will settle all accounts with us after the championship,” a leader of one Belarusian NGOs told Index in Minsk last week.
Next year, the country will vote in the presidential election. So there is more ice to come in Belarus after international hockey is gone.
An earlier version of this article specifically stated that both Ales Bialiatski and Mikalay Statkevich have been deprived of meetings with relatives and subject to limits on correspondence. While this may have been true in the past, we have not been able to confirm that this is currently happening to the pair.
This week eight young Azerbaijani activists were sentenced to between six and eight years in jail. The members of the N!DA Youth Movement, which works for democracy and social change, were convicted for possession of drugs and explosives, and for intending to “cause public disorder”. The charges are widely believed to be trumped up, and the trials have been criticised by foreign observers over “irregularities” and “shortcomings”, including inconsistencies in testimonies and mishandling of evidence.
This is just the latest addition to a long list of human rights abuses by authorities in the oil rich country. As the repression has largely been allowed to take place away from international attention, this is a good moment to remember a few things about Azerbaijan, especially as the country prepares to take over a six month chairmanship of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers.
1) The six are far from the only political prisoners in Azerbaijan
(Image: Aziz Karimov)
According to the latest figures, there are 142 political prisoners in Azerbaijan today. These include human rights defenders, youth activists, and a large number of religious activists, among others. There are currently 17 people serving life sentences. Ahead of the country’s presidential election last October, candidate Ilgar Mammadov was arrested. In March, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for “organizing mass disturbances” and “resisting the police”. Meanwhile, President Ilham Aliyev insists that there are no political prisoners in Azerbaijan.
2) You may escape imprisonment, but you could still face violence and intimidation
(Image: Aziz Karimov)
Attacks, threats and intimidation are regular occurrences for political opponents, activists and press in Azerbaijan. Following protests in the capital Baku as Aliyev secured his third consecutive term in power last October, demonstrators were beaten and detained by police. Police also raided the offices of independent Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre (EMDSC) which reported irregularities in the election. In 2012, reporter Idrak Abbasov was brutally beaten when filming the demolition of a house by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, allegedly by employees of the company and police. The same year, fellow journalist Khadija Ismayilova, known for covering corruption among the country’s powerful elite, was blackmailed with intimate images of her and her boyfriend. She continues to face intimidation today. These abuses are often allowed to happen with impunity.
3) Independent and critical media are under threat
(Image: Alex Brenner for Index on Censorship)
Azerbaijan’s critical press have long been subjected to an array of attacks. Independent news outlets face economic sanctions, and are often barred from distribution networks. Some 70% of distribution is controlled by the government. Most of the nine national TV channels are either directly owned by the state or controlled by the authorities. Journalists also fall victim to legal threats. In the first six months of 2013, 36 defamation suits were brought against media outlets or journalists, four of which were criminal defamation suits. One victim of this hugely restrictive media environment is leading independent paper and Index Award winner Azadliq. The paper has been hit with£52,000 worth of fines following defamation suits, state-owned press distribution company Gasid has not been transferring payments that reflect the paper’s sales. Azadliq claims Gasid owe them some £44,000.
4) Authorities are on an ongoing PR mission
(Image: Zeljko Joksimovic/Wikimedia Commons)
While the situation inside the country shifts between bad and worse, authorities have focused their attentions on a wide-reaching international PR campaign. Ahead of hosting the Eurovision Song Contest, authorities ordered urban renewal that saw houses demolished and families evicted. Vast sums have in recent years been poured into the radical regeneration and beautification of Baku, and there’s more to come. There is also the posh London bar Baku, owned by the Aliyevs; the glossy, internationally distributed Baku magazine, edited by first daughter Leyla and co-published by Conde Nast; and the sponsorship deal with Champions League finalists Atlético Madrid. Next year, Baku will again play host to a prestigious international event — the inaugural European Games.
5) They are about to take charge of one of Europe’s most important human rights bodies
(Image: Sandro Weltin/Council of Europe)
“The Committee of Ministers supervises the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights the Council of Europe…The Committee of Ministers’ essential function is to ensure that member states comply with the judgments and certain decisions of the European Court of Human Rights,” the Council of Europe declare on their website. Next week Azerbaijan will assume the chairmanship of this very Committee of Ministers. But one could say that COE is only sticking to form in its relationship with the country. Only last year, a majority in its Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) voted down a resolution on the existence of political prisoners in Azerbaijan.
The world’s first museum dedicated to the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square opened in Hong Kong last Saturday to mark the 25 year anniversary. Named the June 4 Memorial Museum, it hopes to educate the millions of mainland tourists who visit Hong Kong each year.
The violent suppression of student protests in Tiananmen Square remains a taboo topic in mainland China, banned from official discourse. Beijing considers the weeks of peaceful protest by students and workers a “counter-revolutionary” revolt and defends its decision to send in the army. To this day no official numbers of the death toll have been released and many young Chinese in particular are unaware of its occurrence.
Index visited the museum a few days after its launch. Located in the busy district of Tsim Sha Tsui, the bustling side streets of Hong Kong’s main Korean centre, the museum sits on the fifth floor of a commercial building. Inconspicuously sandwiched in the throngs of bars and Korean fried chicken joints, discretion is key. It’s easy to walk past the museum if you don’t know what you are looking for and signs of its existence are only given at the floor directory located by the elevator.
A curator at the museum tells Index that since its opening the museum has received around 300 visitors per day, with an even split between mainlanders and Hong Kong residents. At the time of our visit, there were mostly Hong Kong residents in attendance, with a sprinkling of mainland visitors. It’s also packed. Despite being a normal weekday and an hour before closing time, a queue weaves out the door. The sense of eagerness to discover something is palpable amongst the patrons.
The space is modest – 800 square feet in total – with both people and information meticulously squeezed in. School children browse through books and pamphlets found on a bookshelf. Some pose for pictures with a Goddess of Democracy statue located by the entrance. The statue is a replica of one created by the protesters in the days before the crackdown.
Copies of newspaper clippings, photos, videos and an interactive feature on the configuration of the protestors at Tiananmen Square, which went on for a month, are all on display. The centrepiece is a video of the Tiananmen Mothers, a group of activists personally affected by the protests, some of whom lost children or relatives in the crackdown. Testimonies given in the clips go through the agony of losing a university-aged child, and the subsequent upset of being forced to lie about the way their children died. They have been forbidden by the government, then and now, to reveal the truth.
One young woman, a tourist from mainland China, is visibly in tears as she watches the documentary. Others are less moved and some attendees have criticised the museum for not being sombre enough. A couple, also from the mainland, fiddle with the interactive feature found in the centre of the museum before the man, seemingly bored, says he wants to leave.
That visitors are here however, is a feat in and of itself. While free speech is protected in Hong Kong in theory under the One Country Two Systems agreement, closer ties to the Chinese mainland in recent years have led to incursions on free speech, as Index recently reported. In the weeks leading up to the museum’s unveiling many were sceptical about whether it would open at all. Occupants of the same building called for its closure, citing safety concerns. The museum’s backers believe Communist Party officials were behind these efforts. In another incident, Yang Jianli, a US-based activist who participated in the protests in 1989, was refused entry to Hong Kong to attend the opening ceremony. The launch was greeted by more protests from pro-China demonstrators.
Over in a small area by the exit, memorabilia is sold. USB memory drives are also available upon enquiry containing information and images related to the killings. Museum founders hope visitors will smuggle these over the border into mainland China, and in so doing force the Communist government to admit its crimes. They might be an overly optimistic aim, but at least the June 4 museum is confronting China’s recent past in an honest, open way.
The reforms to the intelligence community that have been advocated by US President Barack Obama are not being taken well in some circles. This is not necessarily because all members of that covert fraternity object to them. There has been, in fact, a general understanding that something had to be done in light of Edward Snowden’s revelations regarding dragnet surveillance. A fundamental feature of Obama’s reform agenda centres on a greater oversight role regarding surveillance applications assessed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).
Former FISC Presiding Judge John Bates has given, in a fashion, support for proposals that would allow the appointment of a public advocate or lawyers acting in an amicus curiae role. Their role suggests, in spirit at least, a modest attempt to open an otherwise secret court process to scrutiny over surveillance applications, providing direction on privacy and specific legal points. “I think it could have some good elements if done correctly,” suggested the judge before a gathering at George Washington University Law School last Friday.
Reading between the lines, however, the judge is not glowing at the prospect of an increased work load, one affected without little benefit. For one, he claims that an outside advocate is, for the most part, needless in standard court deliberations (pen registers, trap-and-trace orders and individualised search warrants) under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. Furthermore, surveillance applications tended to be prosaic matters with specific individuals in mind, using such standards as probable cause that would only affect the privacy interests of an individual or set of individuals. Amicus advocates would busy the court without any benefit, they being, for the most part, unqualified to deal with the technical matters at hand.
Where such a “friend” of the court might have some bearing would be on concerns over bulk-collection of data, though the judge was again shaving much relevance over the move. Was this reform a genuine attempt to alter practice, or simply one designed to pacify “public perception”? Those on the FISC are more troubled than pleased.
Many of the concerns made by Judge Bates were outlined in his January 13 letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence. It is worth reading carefully, given the role Bates has played as chief judicial officer over FISC matters. A vigorous, conceptual tussle between secret deliberations and transparency is undertaken, much of it fundamental over the role of the court in “oversight” matters.
If workloads were to increase, then this should be “accompanied by a commensurate increase in resources.” Adding a number of administrative subpoena-type cases in excess of 20,000 “would fundamentally transform the nature of the FISC to the detriment of its current responsibilities.” But even such an increase of work would not necessarily be remedied by the mere addition of personnel and resources. It would “prove disruptive to the Courts’ ability to perform their duties, including responsibilities under FISA and the Constitution to ensure that the privacy interests of United States citizens and others are adequately protected.”
Like it or not, Judge Bates suggests that the secrecy function of the FISC should continue. In this, the judge slips into his paternalistic voice, suggesting that publishing Court decisions for public consumption would limit rather than “enhance the public’s understanding of FISA implementation”. Unless classified information is provided with those decisions, confusion was bound to happen.
A real bruiser comes in his detailed observations over what role the public advocate would actually play in FISA proceedings. First and foremost, there will be no constructive adversarial role to speak of, as the advocate will be “unable to communicate with the target or conduct an independent investigation”. Privacy protection will not be assured by involvement of the advocate in “run-of-the-mill FISA matters” and might “undermine the Courts’ ability to receive complete and accurate information on the matters before them.”
Much of the concern stems from who has the authority over appointments. A court appointed advocate might well be more palatable for judges, but it will hardly satisfy the privacy reformists, who wish to open the FISC door to some form of public accountability. But according to Judge Bates, a “standing advocate with independent authority to intervene at will could actually be counterproductive” while a court appointee may well maximise assistance while minimising disruption. He also fears the “constitutional” implications of the move.
Some of Bates’ concerns on the public advocate may be uncalled for. They are already considered in the Leahy/Sensenbrenner and Blumenthal bills. Both make the point that the special advocate only appear in set cases, and never in those touching on individualised search warrants. They would only deal with novel matters affecting subjects of surveillance targeting persons outside the United States (FISA, s. 702) and American subjects under s. 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act.
Judge Bates’ overview suggests that some reforms to the hearing and granting of surveillance applications are not only modest but cosmetic, in so far as they hope to improve privacy protections. The impact will be to actually hamper judicial oversight, rather than improve it. The adversarial element that would improve representation would actually be absent, despite the presence of the public advocate, making the reform one of bluff rather than effect. No change, however, would have been intolerable.
Speaking to a gathering of national security lawyers organised by the American Bar Association, Judge Bates had a prediction. “My guess is nothing will happen legislatively until after the mid-term elections – if then.” There will be congressional disagreements about matters of form and substance. If care is not taken, enacted reforms may well be the bunting without the product.
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On the eve of World Press Freedom Day, Index on Censorship’s Melody Patry was a guest on Al Jazeera’s Inside Story, speaking about threats to journalists around the world.
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