South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) has received an overwhelming majority of media coverage ahead of the country’s fifth democratic election which is it expected to win. Media Monitoring Africa, a non-profit watchdog, revealed 39% of all reporting across 50 print, broadcast and online sources referred to the ANC, whether by name or by using a party source up to April 30.
Although the current government has the ability to control a significant part of the election message primarily through the state broadcaster, the SABC, the ANC’s share of the pre-poll media space has been helped by their competitors. The official opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA), and the next most media-prevalent party the Economic Freedom Front (EFF), have structured their campaigns on attacking Jacob Zuma’s party ahead of promoting their own aims, despite the ANC’s attempts to silence them.
While more than half the media coverage is dedicated to party campaigning and politics, the next highest covered topic is corruption, specifically Zuma’s homestead, Nkandla. The residence received a R246 million (£13.85 million) state-funded upgrade over two years which South Africa’s public protector Thuli Madonsela declared as an undue benefit to Zuma and his family in a report released six weeks before the elections.
Madonsela’s findings provided a springboard for the DA’s primary electioneering strategy. In late March, the party sent out a text message to more than 1.5 million people in the Gauteng province, where the country’s capital Pretoria and economic hub Johannesburg are located, which in part read: “The Nkandla report shows how Zuma stole your money… Vote DA on 7 May to beat corruption.”
The ANC launched an urgent court application to stop the message from being sent out. It took issue with the word “stole”, which Madonesela had not used it in her report and called the contents of the DA’s text a “deliberate lie”. Acting judge Mike Hellens ruled the DA’s actions as fair comment because he said their conclusion could have been made by a reasonable person.
That has not meant the DA has been successful in attacking the ANC on other platforms, specifically the SABC. A DA television advert was pulled off air after three showings on 8 and 9 April because the broadcaster said it would not screen messages which incited violence, contained false information, went against the Advertising Standards Authority’s guidelines which do not permit promotion of one product by attacking another or which contain a personal attack on any party member by another.
The 44-second commercial featured the DA’s Gauteng premier candidate Mmusi Maimane calling “Jacob Zuma’s ANC corrupt” and, when talking over a visual of a policeman aiming a firearm at civilians saying: “We have seen a police force killing our own people.” The latter is reference to the Marikana massacre in 2012 when police and striking workers were involved in a violent exchange which resulted in the deaths of 44 people.
At first ICASA overturned the SABC’s ban but when the South African police force approached them and said the images could endanger its officers, the ban was upheld. South Africa’s freedom of expression right, contained in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution, prohibits, amongst other things, incitement of violence.
The DA then launched a second television advert which began with Maimane saying the words, “They tried to silence us…” before going into a narrative about the changes the DA will enforce. The SABC refused to air this as well because of the opening line which it said was untrue since ICASA had upheld the initial ban. The DA called the decision “censorship, plain and simple”.
They are not alone in making that accusation. The EFF’s leader Julius Malema said the SABC were guilty of “suppressing democracy” because it banned one of his party’s adverts. The commercial in question also referred to “Nkandla corruption” and ended with Malema’s face on a poster which reads: “Destroy e-tolls physically.” E-tolls are the new electronic tolling system installed on highways in the Gauteng province which have caused public outrage because of their costs.
The SABC took issue with the call to commit vandalism, which it said was included in the limitation of the right to free speech. Malema defended the poster, arguing it conveyed the message that if the EFF came into power they would “destroy e-tolls physically because we can’t destroy them emotionally” ICASA sided with the SABC, agreeing that the message “could be perceived as condoning… unlawful acts”.
Despite what has been seen as the public broadcaster toeing the ruling party line, other outlets have been vocal against the ANC. Last Friday, the Mail and Guardian, a weekly paper which has traditionally supported the left-wing, published an editorial urging readers to dilute the ANC’s power by voting against it. “Never before has the M&G urged readers to oppose the ANC. But we do so now because the aim is to make the ANC more effective and responsive,” read their piece. But even that would have counted as coverage for the ruling party.
The shocking news of the death of democracy advocate and widely acclaimed Egyptian blogger, Bassem Sabry on April 29, hit me like a lightning bolt.
My short friendship with Bassem dates back to the early days of the January 25 uprising a little over three years ago when, without knowing me personally, Bassem had telephoned to congratulate me on quitting my job at Egypt’s state-run Nile TV in protest at the station’s biased coverage of the protests in Tahrir Square. Although we only met a couple of times after that conversation, I have since considered Bassem “a friend” mainly because of our shared aspirations for a better Egypt.
I learned of Bassem’s death from the flood of Twitter tributes to him from his friends, associates and fellow revolutionaries posted a couple of hours after he had passed away in what his family members describe as a “tragic accident.” Like many of his friends, I had hoped the Twitter eulogies were a sick joke. Unfortunately, they weren’t.
Bassem’s death was confirmed shortly afterward by news reports that said he had fallen to his death from a 10th floor balcony of his apartment after he reportedly “went into a diabetic coma”.
In an outpouring of love and grief, many of Bassem’s comrades in the struggle for a free and democratic Egypt — and some admirers who had never met him but who knew Bassem from his honest and insightful writings and commentaries on Egyptian politics, post-revolution — wrote moving eulogies to him on Twitter .
“Only the good die young but a great loss for those who still have hope for a better Egypt,” prominent human rights lawyer Ragia Omran said via her Twitter account.
“I never knew him but I knew his work. I saw the impact he had and his determination to make things better,” wrote Jeremy Walker, a journalist who has worked for the BBC World Service.
In other online tributes to Bassem, he was fittingly described as “an inspiration”, “a voice of reason”, “a true patriot” and “a champion of civil rights.” Highly respected for his reasoned analysis of regional politics for several international and local media outlets (including Al Monitor, Foreign Policy, the Huffington Post and the independent Egyptian daily Al Masry El Youm), Bassem’s ability to rise above the deeply divided political fray has earned him respect from across the political spectrum.
“I call on the youth of the revolution to pray for a companion and a noble person whom we lost,” exiled Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei said on Wednesday via his Twitter account. Bassem had briefly worked as a strategist for Al Dostour Party — the political party founded by ElBaradei after the January 2011 uprising. That however, did not stop him from criticizing the liberal politician’s “one foot inside, one foot outside” attitude vis-à-vis Egyptian politics, which Bassem deemed “frustrating to his supporters”.
Nader Bakkar, the spokesperson for the ultra-conservative Salafi Al Nour Party also expressed his condolences following Bassem’s death, describing him as “a moral person who loved his country”.
Bassem has also been hailed by analysts as a “voice of moderation and conciliation” — a title he deservingly earned for his repeated pleas for unity in the bitterly divided country. In an article published by Ahram Online on June 18, 2013 — just two weeks before Islamist President Mohamed Morsi was toppled by military-backed protests — Bassem had expressed his anxiety and frustration at the discord and deepening polarisation in Egypt. He wrote:
“It is utterly frustrating, disheartening and troubling to see where we are after more than two years of a revolution that was meant to end injustice, political exclusion and repression and hopefully unify most of the country around the dream of rebuilding a strong and vibrant nation. Instead, much of that injustice, exclusion and repression still exists. What’s worse, we’re more divided than ever as a people, and more exclusionary, while the voices of reconciliation and bridge-building are finding themselves more and more unpopular.”
In the same article, Bassem also expressed fear that the deep divisions in Egypt would lead to more blood-letting and violence in the months ahead.
“The fact that we are likely to see some violence and casualties on all sides fills me with dread,” he wrote, noting that clashes between Morsi supporters and opponents had already erupted in Fayoum and Menoufiya. Bassem’s fears were not unfounded: the country has since slipped into a spiral of violence and counter-violence with security forces using lethal force to disperse “anti-coup” protests and militants retaliating with attacks on military and security installations.
Meanwhile, an Arabic essay written by Bassem in October 2012 — around his 30th birthday — and which was published in the independent Al Masry El Youm, reflects his admirable traits of tolerance and compassion while demonstrating his strong urge to embrace all of humanity. In the essay titled Eleutheria, Bassem shared with readers the lessons that life had taught him. Many of those who have read the piece were amazed by the foresight and wisdom of someone so young. The essay was later translated into English and posted on his blog site, becoming one of the most read articles in 2012.
“I have met Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, the non-religious, the still-searching, and others. And I have met those of all skin colours. And I have found them to all be like myself. We became friends, and I became wealthier in spirit as a human being. And I learned that mankind was one, that coexistence was possible, that we must ostracise the hate-mongers amongst us. We can achieve with the pen and the word much more than what we can achieve with guns and loud angry rhetoric – and achieve that more rapidly ”
Unlike many Egyptian journalists who practice self-censorship in the current repressive climate of fear since the coup, Bassem had refused to be intimidated and had managed to remain neutral and objective throughout. He refused to take sides in the ongoing conflict between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood, designated as a terrorist organization in December. A few weeks ago when asked by a fellow journalist whose side he was on, he replied: “Nobody’s, I simply support my country.”
Close friends and secular activists describe him as “an optimist to a fault”. In recent months however, Bassem’s optimism had waned and he became increasingly frustrated with the political turmoil, violence and above all, with the military-backed government’s repressive policies. In a tribute to Bassem published in the independent news portal Mada Masr on Thursday, his friend H. A. Hellyer, a non-resident Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London and the Brookings Institution wrote: “Bassem at heart was a great optimist. However, and he was very reserved about this fact, he was deeply and terribly pained by the experience of particularly the last year. The pain he felt, as he saw Egyptian turn on Egyptian, troubled him tremendously. He lived to see the revolution that so many Egyptians of his generation wanted to be a part of — but he was also profoundly wounded to see the failure of Egyptians to live up to that revolution.”
Bassem himself had expressed his dismay at the turn of events in Egypt, post-revolution, blaming the messy transition on the lack of vision of the country’s political elite. In an article published by Ahram Online in June 2013, he lamented that “the political elites, on every side of the spectrum, have profoundly failed the nation in varying ways down the road through an astonishing alternation (or even, at times, a blend) of lack of vision, displays of ineptitude, an improper balance of idealism and pragmatism, inability to know when to lead the street and their political biases and when to defy them for a greater good if necessary, and more.”
I last met Bassem for dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Nile River in the affluent neighbourhood of Zamalek one week before his death. That evening, he did not drink and left his food untouched. I also noticed that he had lost his infectious vigour and enthusiasm; it was clear he had been weighed down by the news of daily killings and detentions of both secular activists and Muslim Brotherhood supporters, the targeting of journalists by security forces and the recent mass death sentences handed down to Morsi loyalists. We talked about the ongoing events and about the presidential elections scheduled for the end of this month. Bassem told me that he had joined leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahy’s presidential campaign. I was not surprised. After all, most young revolutionaries do not want to see Egypt return to oppressive military rule and Sabahy is the sole candidate contesting the presidential elections against Field Marshal Abdel Fattah El Sisi. Despite joining protests demanding the downfall of the Muslim Brotherhood regime in July 2013, many of them are waking up to the realization that their uprising has paved the way for the return of the old police state that existed under Hosni Mubarak. The jailing of prominent secular activists, the return of media censorship and the recent outlawing of the April 6 group — the movement that helped ignite the January 2011 mass protests — are all signs that the revolution has once again been stolen and that this is the counter-revolution, lament the young activists.
In a message posted on his Twitter account on March 24, 2013 Bassem had quizzed: “Why is it that all the good people die in this country?” He had posed the question in the wake of violent demonstrations against the Muslim Brotherhood and clashes between secular activists and Brotherhood supporters outside the Islamist group’s Cairo Headquarters. Earlier that same day, Morsi had warned he would take “necessary measures” against any politicians and Mubarak loyalists shown to be involved in the violence and rioting.
At the time, Bassem was probably unaware that his question was a premonition of his own death. It is a question that many of his young activist friends are echoing today.
“Why is it that all the good people die in this country?” Rest in Peace, Bassem. You will be sorely missed.
The campaign for media freedom in Gambia has lobbied the United Nations to take measures to address media freedom in the West African state. This comes amid a lingering struggle for freedom of expression and press freedom in the country, where over 110 journalists have gone into exile for fear of persecution.
Speaking at an event, journalist Omar Bah, author of the Africa Health on Earth, told delegates that journalism is the most dangerous profession in Gambia, adding there is the need for more awareness in the Gambian public to ensure divergent views for better democratic governance.
Bah, a survivor of torture who was presenting a paper on human rights, corruption, injustice and freedom of press, said: “We are way behind in terms of awareness due to censorship. If you write on a critical issue against the regime you are seen as inciting the people against the government.”
The Gambian writer said that in July 2013, the government directed the Public Utility Regulatory Authority to ban the use of free internet phone services using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Bah called this action a violation of press freedom. He added that the government said anyone using VoIP phone service was depriving the country of revenue from international and national calls and was therefore committing an economic crime. It subsequently stepped back from the ban but imposed stiff charges on internet cafes for use of VoIP.
He said the government pushed through legislation to impose sanctions on government officials and other individuals who give stories to Gambian online news outlets outside the country, with a penalty of a 15 year jail term or a fine of more than £47,000 for miscreants.
“I cannot imagine 110 journalists going into exile in small a country like Gambia, this shows how serious it is,” he stated. The figure is based on research conducted by the DOHA Centre for Media Freedom through the Dakar based inter-African Network for Women, Media, Gender Equality and Development, in collaboration with the International Federation of Journalists and the Gambian Press Union.
Bah also gave a vivid recollection of the 1999 media commission bill, the media amendment bill in 2004, the killings of Deyda Hydara, former co-proprietor and managing editor of the Point Newspaper, and Omar Barrow, former Sud FM Banjul reporter and Red Cross Volunteer, as well as the disappearance of former daily reporter Chief Ebrima Manneh, and torture of Musa Saidykhan.
“Media freedom has become worse in the Gambia, where there is too much arbitrary arrest, torture, killing and interference in the work of journalists, therefore, there is a need for a more global awareness on the issue to ensure that we have a free and vibrant media,” he concluded.
Julia Farrington travelled to Northern Ireland to participate in the 2014 Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival in Belfast. While there she saw four plays that deal with the Troubles as head of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams, was questioned by police.
A new mural of Adams appeared on the Falls Road in West Belfast what seemed like only a matter of hours after he was taken into custody. Officially launched by Martin McGuiness to a crowd of thousands of Sinn Féin supporters on Saturday, and it was subsequently paint-bombed. The murals, far from being memorials to past struggles, are alive and kicking.
Across town in east Belfast, I went to Bobby “Beano” Niblock’s new play — Tartan at the Skainos Centre — passing the contentious murals of balaclava wearing Ulster Volunteer Force gunmen on the way. Niblock is a rare bird in Northern Ireland as loyalist voices continue to be massively under-represented in the theatre there. The play, though heavily laced with humour and raucously re-enacted 1970s hits, had a very dark message. It tells of betrayal within the loyalist community, as TC, the teenage leader of the Tartan street gang, is mentored, manipulated and ultimately murdered by older members of the community. The level of violence in Tartan completely chilled me; the young men graduating from what were seen as boys toys — crowbars, mallets and axes — to petrol bombs, guns and the crowning awe of a machine gun.
This play of street violence and male rite of passage, was the flip side of Flesh & Blood — three plays written, produced, directed and designed by women I had seen the previous day in a run through a week before they open at the Grand Opera House. I was invited by one of the playwrights, Jo Egan, whose play Sweeties revolves around the true story of a seemingly unperturbed victim of paedophilia and the devastation it causes her complicit friend. The other two plays were by comic genius Brenda Murphy and first time playwright and former leader of the Progressive Unionist Party, Dawn Purvis. All three tell stories centre on the experience of women and girls, firmly rooted in the domestic setting of home, street and neighbourhood; in the case of Sweeties, trapped by agoraphobia in a front room, or Dawn Purvis’ play through the eyes of a young girl, watching and commenting on life on her street, with the Troubles forming the backdrop. Brenda Murphy’s play was a deeply moving portrait of her mother’s struggle to bring up six illegitimate children who she had with a married man who lived around the corner.
Those three plays were so good to see. Women playwrights are strangely under-represented all over this country, when you compare to a much more equal landscape in fiction, biography and other written forms. But hearing those voices, the reality and humour of women in Belfast, a city which I found to be so acutely male dominated, was brilliant. I laughed and cried, and came away deeply affected by the lives I had seen on stage, the courage, compassion and humour of women left to deal with the fallout of male violence.
But in all cases the stage here is seeing untold stories, and in some cases unwelcome stories, coming to the surface; retelling, unearthing, revealing complex, individual stories that are hidden within the expression of communal identity of the murals.
A London protest calling for the release of jailed Al Jazeera journalists in Egypt (Image: Index on Censorship)
Press freedom is at a decade low. Considering just a handful of the events of the past year — from Russian crackdowns on independent media and imprisoned journalists in Egypt, to press in Ukraine being attacked with impunity and government reactions to reporting on mass surveillance in the UK — it is not surprising that Freedom House have come to this conclusion in the latest edition of their annual press freedom report. This serves as a stark reminder that press freedom is a right we need to work continuously and tirelessly to promote, uphold and protect — both to ensure the safety of journalists and to safeguard our collective right to information and ability to hold those in power to account. On the eve of World Press Freedom day, we look back at some of the threats faced by the world’s press in the last 12 months.
1) Journalism is not terrorism…
National security has been used as an excuse to crack down on the press this year. “Freedom of information is too often sacrificed to an overly broad and abusive interpretation of national security needs, marking a disturbing retreat from democratic practices,” say Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in their recently released 2014 Press Freedom Index.
Journalists have faced terrorism and national security-related accusations in places known for their somewhat chequered relationship with press freedom, including Ethiopia and Egypt. However, the US and the UK, which have long prided themselves on respecting and protecting civil liberties, have also come under criticism for using such tactics — especially in connection to the ongoing revelations of government-sponsored mass surveillance.
American authorities have gone after former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, tapped the phones of Associated Press staff, and demanded that journalists, like James Risen, reveal their sources. British authorities, meanwhile, detained David Miranda under the country’s Terrorism Act. Miranda is the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who broke the mass surveillance story. Authorities also raided the offices of the Guardian — a paper heavily involved in reporting in the Snowden leaks.
2) …but governments still like putting journalists in prison
The Al Jazeera journalists detained in Egypt on terrorism-related charges was one of the biggest stories on attacks on press freedom this year. However, Mohamed Fahmy, Baher Mohamed, Peter Greste and their colleagues are far from the only journalists who will spend World Press Freedom Day behind bars. The latest prison census from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) put the number of journalists in jail for doing their job at 211 — their second highest figure on record.
In Bahrain, award-winning photographerAhmed Humaidan was sentenced in March to ten years in prison. In Uzebekistan, Muhammad Bekjanov, editor of opposition paper Erk, is serving a 19-year sentence — which was increased from 15 in 2012, just as he was due to be released. In Turkey, after waiting seven years, Fusün Erdoğan, former general manager of radio station Özgür Radyo, was last November sentenced to life in jail. Just last Friday, Ethiopian authorities arrested prominent political journalist Tesfalem Waldyes and six bloggers and activists.
3) New media is under attack…
As more journalism is being conducted online, blogs, social and other new media are increasingly being targeted in the suppression of press freedom. Almost half of the world’s jailed journalists work for online outlets, according to the CPJ. China — with its massive censorship apparatus — has continued censoring microblogging site Sina Weibo, while also turning its attention to relative newcomer WeChat. In March, it closed down several popular accounts, including that of investigative journalist Luo Changping.
Meanwhile, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has publicly all but declared war on social media, at one point calling it the “worst menace to society”. Twitter played a big role in last summer’s Gezi Park protests, used by journalists and other protesters alike. Only days ago, Turkish journalist Önder Aytaç was jailed, essentially, because of the letter “k” in a Tweet.
Meanwhile Russia has seen a big crackdown on online news outlets, while legislation recently passed in the Duma is targeting blogs and social media.
4) …and independent media continues to struggle
Only one in seven people in the world live in countries with free press. In many parts of the world, mainstream media is either under tight control by the government itself or headed up media moguls with links to those in power, with dissenting voices within news organisation often being pushed out. Brazil, for instance, has been labelled “the country of 30 Berlusconis” because regional media is “weakened by their subordination to the centres of power in the country’s individual states”. At the start of the year, RIA Novosti — known for on occasion challenging Russian authorities — was liquidated and replaced by the more Kremlin-friendly Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today), while in Montenegro, has seen efforts by the government to cut funding to critical media. This is not even mentioning countries like North Korea and Uzbekistan, languishing near the bottom of press freedom ratings, where independent journalism is all but non-existent.
5) Attacks on journalists often go unpunished
A staggering fact about the attacks on journalists around the world, is how many happen with impunity. Since 1992, 600 journalists have been killed. Most of the perpetrators of those crimes have not been brought to justice. Attacks can be orchestrated by authorities or by non-state actors, but the lack of adequate responses by those in power “fuels the cycle of violence against news providers,” says RSF. In Mexico, a country notorious for violence against the press, three journalists were murdered in 2013. By last October, the state public prosecutor’s office had yet to announce any progress in the cases of Daniel Martínez Bazaldúa, Mario Ricardo Chávez Jorge and Alberto López Bello, or disclose whether they are linked to their work. Pakistan is also an increasingly dangerous place to work as a journalist. Twenty seven of the 28 journalists killed in the past 11 years in connection with their work have been killed with impunity. Syria, with its ongoing, devastating war, is the deadliest place in the world to be a journalist, while some of the attacks on press during the conflict in Ukraine, have also taken place without perpetrators being held accountable. That attacks in the country appear to be accelerating, CPJ say is “a direct result of the impunity with which previous attacks have taken place”.
Chinese fans of American TV have been dealt a serious blow after some of their favorite shows were removed from the country’s main video streaming websites. On Saturday, The Big Bang Theory, The Good Wife, NCIS and The Practice all disappeared from the sites of Sohu TV, iQiyi and Youku. Immediately after, fans took to online forums to voice their disapproval. Netizens lashed out at the government, referring to China as “West North Korea,” a phrase that was quickly blocked from online searches.
No one knows exactly why the government has ordered the shows offline. Others, such as House of Cards and Breaking Bad, both of which have gained huge followings in China and present darker material, remain unscathed. Speculating in the state-controlled newspaper Global Times, leading film critic Tan Fei argued that “the machetes the monitoring departments waved to the U.S. dramas are not only aimed at protecting teenagers’ physical and mental health but, on a deeper level, are aimed at protecting our weak domestic film industry.”
Of Fei’s last point, it’s worth noting that until recently, the main video providers have been free to broadcast shows without the hurdle of obtaining official approval. China’s TV stations, by contrast, are heavily restricted when it comes to content. Poorly acted soap operas and over-the-top dramas about corrupt emperors and the Sino-Japanese War are the mainstay of these channels. As a result, viewers have fled to the more free and entertaining realms of online TV.
In order to lure people back, state-owned television channels have started to broadcast some of the same shows as Chinese streaming platforms, albeit censored versions. China’s national TV broadcaster CCTV will soon air The Big Bang Theory and has recently introduced a dubbed version of Game of Thrones to its paid channel.
Li Bingwen, who has worked for Chinese state media and is now at a western publication, watches a range of popular US shows, including the ones that have been removed. For Li, who tells Index that Chinese TV shows make him “doze off”, the latest government move is “cynical.”
“Forcing video web sites like Youku.com to remove The Big Bang Theory from their play lists is the most cynical act by Chinese censors ever. Banning speech for ideological reasons is evil but understandable. Taking a show off the site of a private company just so a state-owned broadcaster can air it is the new height of hypocrisy.”
Commerce doesn’t explain the move entirely though. The development comes as the government is tightening control of all areas online, particular the areas that attract the most attention, which these shows do.
“There’s been a tendency for the government to treat different forms of communication differently when it comes to censorship, being most restrictive about the media that reach the broadest spectrum of people,” explained Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a prominent academic and author of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs To Know.
“The internet was seen for a time as having less broad a reach than film and television, so you were given more latitude for what you said online as opposed to in a television show. Now, of course, streaming content and growing numbers of people who go online regularly blurs that distinction,” he added.
While people of all ages within China watch these shows, it is the youth who tune in the most, and are therefore the most affected. On top of making up the biggest proportion of online users, the under-30 demographic are particularly drawn to the themes of the shows, and disillusioned by those themes presented on Chinese TV. For example, the story of science geeks trying to find their way in the world post graduation, as is illustrated in The Big Bang Theory, resonates with millions of young Chinese. With the job market in China becoming fiercely competitive and living costs soaring across major cities, graduates are now finding their dreams scuppered, much like the characters of this show.
Today’s Chinese youth also see US and UK shows as windows to foreign cultures, and more importantly, as exercises in English. For many of these people then, who might be politically apathetic, or at least profess to be so, the recent attack will be a first direct taste of censorship.
“Moves like this, which limit access to works of western popular culture, are particularly significant for Chinese youth,” Wasserstrom said.
“When people in China go online, as when people in other places do this, they often do so in search not of news but of entertainment and other kinds of non-political things, such as information about restaurants. Being suddenly unable to access a favorite television show is both annoying and a reminder of the prevalence of the government’s ability to exert control over many different aspects of life, when it wants to.”
The battle is not over yet. In the wake of the ban, people have started exploring alternative methods to access the shows. Committed viewers like Li can still gain access to the programmes. Li is boycotting CCTV and says he will explore unsanctioned methods to access the shows.
“If you are really serious, you can find them, maybe on someone’s virtual hard drive that they make accessible to everyone. A friend for example goes to a place to download tons of shows shortly after they air in the US. He is very discreet about that place and he is helping me now.”
Less tech savvy fans will have to await the airing of The Big Bang Theory on Chinese TV and hope it’s not too sanitised. Wang Meimei, another fervent Big Bang fan who Index spoke to, says she’s not holding her breath. She’ll tune in anyway.
“I want to see how much they will ruin a good drama,” explains the 26-year-old curtly.
Striker Diego Costa during the first leg of Atlético Madrid’s Champions League semi-final against Chelsea (Image: Gonzalez Fuentes Oscar/Demotix)
Atlético Madrid are the toast of world football fans at the moment. They’re having possibly their greatest season ever, qualifying for the Champions’ League Final and looking set to break the Barcelona/Real Madrid duopoly over Spain’s La Liga.
Sports fans love nothing more than an underdog story, and the Atlético one feels just right. Always the less glamorous team in the Spanish capital, they’re finally having their time in the sun. Only a complete killjoy would rain on the parade of super striker Diego Costa and his team mates.
So here I go.
Atlético’s shirts bear the advertising slogan “Azerbaijan: Land of Fire”. They are sponsored by the government of Ilham Aliyev, a man who combines the callousness of the classic dictator with the appearance and language of an aspiring sales executive who’s read one too many management manuals. His Twitter page bears the fascinatingly banal phrase: “We turn initiatives into reality.” I have absolutely no idea what that means (suggestions in the comments, please). Whatever it does mean, he’s clearly quite pleased with it, as it pops up regularly on his website.
The deal (sorry, “strategic agreement”) with Atlético came about in December 2012, and was renewed in March 2014.
The explanatory blurb on the Atlético website is packed with more nonsense of the “initiatives into reality” variety.
Atlético is not a football club, it is a “sports entity”.
“The link between Azerbaijan and Atlético Madrid,” we are told, “is much more than a traditional commercial sponsorship associated with a shirt sponsorship, because it has atremendous value, as the tool to achieve important goals, through actions of a different nature, sports, commercial, communication, marketing and corporate social responsibility for the benefit of all parties.”
This is almost poetic in its nonsense; in fact the “actions of a different nature, sports, commercial, communication, marketing and corporate social responsibility for the benefit of all parties” brings to mind no less literary masterpiece than Lucky’s monologue in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot: “…the practice of sports such as tennis football running cycling swimming flying floating riding gliding conating camogie skating tennis of all kinds…”
All this would merely be amusing if Aliyev was, say, head of a fleet car dealership in Runcorn. Unfortunately, he’s not. He’s the autocratic head of a regime bloated on oil and gas revenue that is engaged in an enormous whitewashing exercise composed of equal parts propaganda and censorship.
The propaganda part can be quite amusing: the Knightsbride nightclub called Baku, after Azerbaijan’s capital; the glossy magazine, also called Baku; the shiny skyscrapers; the on-message Eurovision Song Contest entry (Start A Fire, sung by Dilara Kazimova).
The censorship bit is rather less fun, as a search on the Index on Censorship website will quickly reveal.
There is the case of journalist Khadija Islamova, harassed and blackmailed by the authorities; Index on Censorship award winning newspaper Azadliq, threatened with financial ruin deliberately brought about by state agencies; Idrak Abbasov, brutally assaulted for daring to report on demolitions of houses by the state oil company. There is also Rafiq Tagi, a murdered columnist whose killer has never been brought to justice; dissident “Donkey bloggers” Adnan Hajizade Emin Milli, imprisoned for hooliganism after going to the police to report that they had been assaulted; reporter Eynulla Fatullayev, jailed for four years, and hit with false drug charges; critical journalist Elmar Huseynov, murdered in 2005.
Are these victims of Atlético Madrid? No, it would be unfair to say that. For a start, Atlético are not the only club to benefit from shirt sponsorship from dubious regimes; Barcelona, with their smug “més que un club” image, ditched UNICEF from their jerseys to sign a deal with Qatar, a country that locks up poets, for God’s sake. No one blames Lionel Messi for the fate of Mohammed al-Ajami.
Nonetheless, Azerbaijan’s deal with Atlético is one side of Aliyev and his cronies’ colossal image management exercise; and the imprisonment of critical reporters, bloggers and activists is the other. They cannot be separated entirely.
We should enjoy the football and praise the players, but we owe it to brave determined Azerbaijainis to ask some tough questions of Atlético’s officials, even as they celebrate.
India was among the few governments that did not sign the NETmundial outcome statement. But why does it seem that the world’s largest democracy is not putting its weight behind a “bottom-up, open, and participatory” multistakeholder process?
In his address to the NETmundial gathering, Vinay Kwatra, the official Indian representative said, “We recognize the important role that various stakeholders play in the cyber domain, and welcome involvement of all legitimate stakeholders in the deliberative and decision making process. Internet is used for transactions of core economic, civil and defence assets at national level and in the process, countries are placing their core national security interests in this medium. Now with such expansive coverage of States’ activities through the internet, the role of the governments in the Internet governance, of course in close collaboration and consultation with other stakeholders is an imperative.”
The message was clear. The internet has a large role to play in India’s national policy goals, and to that end, a global internet governance ecosystem has to be managed, at the international level, by multilateral mechanisms.
India has over 200 million Internet users — with about 52 million subscriptions — over 900 million mobile telephone subscribers. These numbers are only going to grow. Kwatra, continuing his address, added that, “On our part, however, we would have liked to some of important principles and ideas, highlighted by us and many other countries reflected in the draft outcome document… (we) look forward to constructively engaging with other delegations in collectively contribute to making the Internet open, dynamic and secure, and its governance balanced between rights and responsibilities of all its stakeholders.” (sic)
Kwatra was speaking, of course, at NETmundial, dubbed the “world cup of internet governance.” Held in Sao Paolo, Brazil, on April 23-24, 2014, the conference was announced by Brazil President Dilma Rousseff. The entire chain of events can be traced back to the revelations by Edward Snowden that the US’s National Security Agency had been spying on its own citizens and other countries alike, including the personal communication of President Rousseff. In a heated statement at the UN General Assembly in September 2013, she called for the UN to oversee a new global legal system to govern the internet. She said such multilateral mechanisms should guarantee the “freedom of expression, privacy of the individual and respect for human rights” and the “neutrality of the network, guided only by technical and ethical criteria, rendering it inadmissible to restrict it for political, commercial, religious or any other purposes.
Soon, after a brief consultation with Fadi Chehade in October 2013, the head of ICANN — Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers – an organization thatcoordinates the Internet’s global domain name system, the dates of NETmundial was announced. And to add expectation to the event, in March 2014, the the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced its intent to transition key internet domain name functions to the global multistakeholder community. It clarified that it would not hand over ICANN to any government-led body. Suddenly, NETmundial gained weight as it was to be the next international forum where the future of internet governance was to be debated – and now one of the organizations government a part of the internet was in play. A far cry from what President Rousseff had suggested in the UN General Assembly, instead of talking about an international legal regime to govern cyberspace, the focus of the meeting turned to multistakeholderism as the way forward in the sphere of internet governance.
The draft outcome statement and the subsequent final outcome state released after the two-day conference is a result of 180 input documents and 1300 comments from over 47 countries, and the work of the 1229 delegates from 97 countries who attended NETmundial. India had an official delegation as well as civil society participants who attended the meeting. In fact, an Indian academic was chosen to co-chair the organizing committee for civil society for the event. Remote participations hubs were set up in cities around the country, including Gurgaon, Chennai and Bangalore. Within the Indian contingent too, as with any large country, there are divergent views on the governance framework to be taken for the internet, with those who support the governments view for multilateralism at the international level and multistakeholderism at home, and those who oppose the official view and encourage an international multistakeholder regime.
The final statement – though non-binding – has squarely put its weight behind multistakeholderism. It talks about protecting the ‘rights that people have offline, must be protected online… in accordance with international human rights legal obligations.’ It also champions cultural and linguist diversity, which was part of India’s official submission to NETmundial. However, when the document starts to tilt towards governance structure is where it diverges from the official Indian position, with language such as – “internet governance institutions and processes should be inclusive and open to all interested stakeholders. Processes, including decision making, should be bottom-up, enabling the full involvement of all stakeholders, in a way that does not disadvantage any category of stakeholder.”
In the crucial area of cyber jurisdiction, it says, ‘It is necessary to strengthen international cooperation on topics such as jurisdiction and law enforcement assistance to promote cybersecurity and prevent cybercrime. Discussions about those frameworks should be held in a multistakeholder manner.’ On surveillance, the most controversial topic from 2013 which prompted the Netmundial meeting in the first place, the document says, ‘Mass and arbitrary surveillance undermines trust in the Internet and trust in the Internet governance ecosystem. Collection and processing of personal data by state and non-state actors should be conducted in accordance with international human rights law. More dialogue is needed on this topic at the international level using forums like the Human Rights Council and IGF aiming to develop a common understanding on all the related aspects.’
The reaction to Netmundial has been varied, depending on whom you ask. There are those who have hailed it as a first positive step towards a multistakeholder process, and are encouraged to find that participants found more things to agree on than disagree. The US called it a “huge success”. The European Commission felt Netmundial put it on the “right track.” Many big businesses released statements indicating they were pleased at the outcome. The civil society group at Netmundial expressed ‘deep disappointment’ that the outcome statement did not address key concerns like surveillance and net neutrality. Others commentators hailed it a big success for big business as it was able to ‘grab the ball on three important points: intellectual property; net neutrality; and intermediary liability’.
In a sense, India’s refusal to sign the outcome statement, and instead take back to its stakeholders seems to be completely aligned with its stated view of the internet. If, as documentation suggests, the internet is being viewed by India as not merely an open, free, global commons that should remain untouched by any major governmental control, but instead a resource that needs to reflect the values of an ‘equinet’ – a platform for commerce, e-governance, national security mechanism to be achieved through fair playing rules established by a ‘globally acceptable legal regime’ and a ‘new cyber jurisprudence’, then there is a long battle ahead. The official Indian argument does not need to be viewed through the lens that presupposes it wishes to inflict censorship in the manner that an authoritarian government might. The argument must be weighed on the merits of this line of thought – that for Indian netizens, business, and even state surveillance to survive, it must be the government who reflects the national interest in international platforms, after having consulted stakeholders back home.
It certainly seems that the weight and development of a billion people sits heavy on the shoulders of the Indian government. The question is: does it need to lead them to the world wide web, or can they find it themselves?
“ICANN’s mission is stewardship and operational stability, not the defence of its existence or the preservation of the status quo.”
Stuart Lynn, ICANN President, Feb 2002
There has been much debate this month among internet circles about the future of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Much of this was discussed at the NETmundial meeting in Sao Paolo, a suitable venue given Brazil’s desire to throw its weight behind reforming such bodies as ICANN. Reforms are on the cards, but no one seems to be clear what exactly these will do to the way the internet is used. Sentiments of doom and gloom mix with utopian forecasts of freedom.
The NETmundial Multistakeolder Statement doesn’t reveal much, other than paying lip service to various principles (freedom of expression and association, privacy) and charting the roughest of roadmaps for future directions on Internet governance. Aspiration, be it in terms of transparency, accountability and collaboration, is key.
ICANN was incorporated in California on September 18, 1998. Its creation was heralded as a loosening of the grip by US authorities on the operational side of the Internet, tasking a company to take over administrative duties. ICANN plays a leading role in dealing with the distribution of IP addresses and the management of the Domain Name System (DNS).
As far back as February 2002, the organisation’s president, Stuart Lynn, saw the need for reforms of the body. Reforms had to “replace ICANN’s unstable institutional foundations with an effective public-private ownership, rooted in the private sector but with the active backing and participation of national governments.” Tensions of management are fundamental – keeping an eye on “high-level elements of the Internet’s naming and address allocation systems” while avoiding intrusions that would stifle “creativity and innovation”. That tension has never been resolved.
On Mar 14, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), based in the US Department of Commerce, announced that its grip on ICANN would be loosened. “The timing is right to start the transition process,” claimed Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, Lawrence E. Strickling. “We look forward to ICANN convening stakeholders across the global Internet community to craft an appropriate transition plan.”
John M. Eger, Director of the Creative Economy Initiative at San Diego State University, was enthusiastic. “The US Government’s decision to end oversight of [ICANN] represents an opportunity for US leadership creating global ‘e-government’ systems to solve international law enforcement and terrorism problems, develop global education and environmental initiatives, and in turn, start using the Internet as a platform for advancing a new foreign-policy agenda.”
Eger’s overview is counter-intuitive – to shape internet governance, to seize the day, as it were, in such areas, one has to liberalise such bodies as ICANN and lessen the grip. Technology can be better managed and directed if the big holders release the creation. The Internet can become both a tool of open governance if the Obama administration embraces a “multistakeholder model”. “Letting go of ICANN gives the US momentum to more aggressively breathe life into the thousand[sic] of applications, which more truly internationalise its usefulness to nations, and to the world community.”
Eger’s observations are problematic on one direct level. US leadership in such areas has tended towards bullying and cajoling negotiating partners in accepting a supposedly universal premise in implementing its own specific policies. Nothing demonstrates that more acutely than the current secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement talks. Ostensibly geared to accelerate trade liberalisation, the leaked chapters of the document suggest that Washington is keen to impress strict, even draconian intellectual property provisions on potential signatories. What can’t be done through Congress can be smuggled in via international treaty.
The suggested relinquishing of control by the US Department of Commerce has not been deemed a wise gesture on the part of such individuals as Sweden’s minister for foreign affairs, Carl Bildt. In relinquishing such control, internet governance would be altered, allowing other states to throw their hats in the ring. Bildt is convinced that widening such involvement on ICANN is not “the way to go.”
Bildt’s concern is paternalistic. Opening such doors will let in rather unsavoury characters keen on over-regulation. “Net freedom is as fundamental as freedom of information and freedom of speech in our societies.” Despite extolling such virtues, he has proven rather enthusiastic about dousing the flames over the NSA revelations of blanket surveillance, arguing that the Swedish FRA is, in fact, a defender of online freedoms. Visions of governance tend to vary.
Bildt also chairs the Chatham House and Centre for International Governance and Innovation Inquiry, created to examine the Snowden legacy and state censorship of the Internet. In a statement in January, the inquiry partners emphasised that “a number of authoritarian states are waging a campaign to exert greater state control over critical internet resources.” They are far from the only ones.
The short of it is that governments are compulsive meddlers. As attractive as the rhetoric of liberty and freedom might be, intrusive governance is still regarded as acceptable. The Brazilian Minister of Communications, Paulo Bernardo, considers virtual crimes and cybersecurity as vital areas of government policy. He did concede that “protocol standards and domain names registration can be perfectly controlled by the technical community.”
The language of Nikolai Nikiforov, Russian representative at NETmundial, proved more muscular. “Being subject to international laws, states act as grantors of rights and freedoms for citizens, play a role in the economy, security and stability of internet infrastructure, and undertaken measures to prevent, detect and deter illegal actions in the global network.”
Staff at Newtownabbey’s Theatre on the Mill return promotional posters to hoardings after the local council overturned a ban on the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s The Bible (Abridged). Image Conor Macauley/Twitter
Do we have the right to not be offended?
Newtownabbey council said “yes” when they cancelled what they labelled a blasphemous play, The Bible: The Complete Word of God (Abridged), due to be performed by the Reduced Shakespeare Company (RSC) earlier this year. Members of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), a political party with roots in the Free Presbyterian Church, called for the show to be axed fearing it would offend and mock Christian beliefs.
The story went global as accusations of censorship were hurled at the Northern Irish council. Twitter exploded with satirical cartoons of the DUP, petitions against the ban and the hashtag #thoushaltnotlaugh. Days later, the decision was reversed.
Some members of the public agreed with the move to cancel The Bible, but they represented a minority. Many argued that the DUP’s original decision amounted to censorship and asked what qualified them to act as censor. Fear of a public backlash from offended parties might motivate councils and theatres to make these kinds of decisions, but who has the right to judge who is and who isn’t entitled to free speech?
Under threat of a ban, The RSC, however, didn’t feel that their free speech had been limited; the real victims were the people of Newtownabbey who had their freedom of choice taken away from them. In a post show talk after the opening night, the company told the audience, ‘You were excited because you were allowed to go and see the show you wanted to see.’ If people felt the show would offend them, they had the choice to stay at home or see the show and make their own judgement. The DUP’s original decision would have eliminated this choice and sent a message that the public are unable to think for themselves.
In the RSC’s podcast, Austin Tichenor described how the first two performances of the show, ‘were cancelled over complaints about the production by people who had never seen it or read it.’ The DUP and some members of the Christian community jumped to the conclusion that The Bible was poking fun at Christianity. As it so happens, the RSC’s production The Bible is not intended to cause offence or mock Christianity, but is a celebration of the religious text. Tichenor tweeted, “Our script celebrates the Bible. I disagree with how many churches interpret it, but have never once called for them to be censored” and later added, “Honestly, NI folks are going to finally see BIBLE (abridged) and go, ‘THIS is what all the fuss was about?’’
With the knowledge that the play is a comedy about the Bible, some individuals presumed that the content must be offensive and blasphemous. Whether it is or isn’t offensive is not the point – everyone is entitled to their view, it doesn’t matter whether they’re right. It just so happens that on this occasion a fuss was made for no reason. The events in Newtownabbey just go to show how easily theatre can be suppressed and how individuals can take it upon themselves to save others from the burden of being offended.
Theatre censorship in the UK was abolished in 1968, after a history of “offensive” material being suppressed and censored. Although officially British theatre is not censored, this doesn’t stop pressure from groups and individuals when contentious issues are raised in plays, in this case a religious group. Are religious leaders too ready to appoint themselves as censors? With the case of Newtownabbey, religion and politics became one voice, distorting whether this was a political matter or a case of religious opinion.
Religions are based on sets of ideas and so mustn’t be above scrutiny. For these groups to develop, attract more members and function within society, their ideologies must be debated and discussed. The best practise perhaps is not for religious groups to suppress criticism, but to embrace and respond to it. The very nature of religion is that leaders will advise their followers how to act and lead their lives, but going so far as to ban a play crosses the line into censorship.
With the knowledge that some religious groups are ready and willing to suppress supposedly blasphemous theatre, is there a culture of self-censorship within playwrights? What of the plays that were imagined, but never existed for fear of causing offence? The events at Newtownabbey have shown a religious group attempting and failing to act as censor when the public voiced their own opinions. What this story has shown, is that whilst there may be threats to our freedom of speech, our right to reject and protest against these decisions is still very much in place and evidently extremely effective.
In January, Index summarised the U.S. State Department’s “Countries of Particular Concern” — those that severely violate religious freedom rights within their borders. This list has remained static since 2006 and includes Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan. These countries not only suppress religious expression, they systematically torture and detain people who cross political and social red lines around faith.
Today the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent watchdog panel created by Congress to review international religious freedom conditions, released its 15th annual report recommending that the State Department double its list of worst offenders to include Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Vietnam and Syria.
Here’s a roundup of the systematic, ongoing and egregious religious freedom violations unfolding in each.
1. Egypt
The promise of religious freedom that came with a revised constitution and ousted Islamist president last year has yet to transpire. An increasing number of dissident Sunnis, Coptic Christians, Shiite Muslims, atheists and other religious minorities are being arrested for “ridiculing or insulting heavenly religions or inciting sectarian strife” under the country’s blasphemy law. Attacks against these groups are seldom investigated. Freedom of belief is theoretically “absolute” in the new constitution approved in January, but only for Muslims, Christians and Jews. Baha’is are considered apostates, denied state identity cards and banned from engaging in public religious activities, as are Jehovah’s Witnesses. Egyptian courts sentenced 529 Islamist supporters to death in March and another 683 in April, though most of the March sentences have been commuted to life in prison. Courts also recently upheld the five-year prison sentence of writer Karam Saber, who allegedly committed blasphemy in his work.
2. Iraq
Iraq’s constitution guarantees religious freedom, but the government has largely failed to prevent religiously-motivated sectarian attacks. About two-thirds of Iraqi residents identify as Shiite and one-third as Sunni. Christians, Yezidis, Sabean-Mandaeans and other faith groups are dwindling as these minorities and atheists flee the country amid discrimination, persecution and fear. Baha’is, long considered apostates, are banned, as are followers of Wahhabism. Sunni-Shia tensions have been exacerbated recently by the crisis in neighboring Syria and extremist attacks against religious pilgrims on religious holidays. A proposed personal status law favoring Shiism is expected to deepen divisions if passed and has been heavily criticized for allowing girls to marry as young as nine.
3. Nigeria
Nigeria is roughly divided north-south between Islam and Christianity with a sprinkling of indigenous faiths throughout. Sectarian tensions along these geographic lines are further complicated by ethnic, political and economic divisions. Laws in Nigeria protect religious freedom, but rule of law is severely lacking. As a result, the government has failed to stop Islamist group Boko Haram from terrorizing and methodically slaughtering Christians and Muslim critics. An estimated 16,000 people have been killed and many houses of worship destroyed in the past 15 years as a result of violence between Christians and Muslims. The vast majority of these crimes have gone unpunished. Christians in Muslim-majority northern states regularly complain of discrimination in the spheres of education, employment, land ownership and media.
4. Pakistan
Pakistan’s record on religious freedom is dismal. Harsh anti-blasphemy laws are regularly evoked to settle personal and communal scores. Although no one has been executed for blasphemy in the past 25 years, dozens charged with the crime have fallen victim to vigilantism with impunity. Violent extremists from among Pakistan’s Taliban and Sunni Muslim majority regularly target the country’s many religious minorities, which include Shiites, Sufis, Christians, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Baha’is. Ahmadis are considered heretics and are prevented from identifying as Muslim, as the case of British Ahmadi Masud Ahmad made all too clear in recent months. Ahmadis are politically disenfranchised and Hindu marriages are not state-recognized. Laws must be consistent with Islam, the state religion, and freedom of expression is constitutionally “subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of the glory of Islam,” fostering a culture of self-censorship.
5. Tajikistan
Religious freedom has rapidly deteriorated since Tajikistan’s 2009 religion law severely curtailed free exercise. Muslims, who represent 90 percent of the population, are heavily monitored and restricted in terms of education, dress, pilgrimage participation, imam selection and sermon content. All religious groups must register with the government. Proselytizing and private religious education are forbidden, minors are banned from participating in most religious activities and Muslim women face many restrictions on communal worship. Jehovah’s Witnesses have been banned from the country since 2007 for their conscientious objection to military service, as have several other religious groups. Hundreds of unregistered mosques have been closed in recent years, and “inappropriate” religious texts are regularly confiscated.
6. Turkmenistan
The religious freedom situation in Turkmenistan is similar to that of Tajikistan but worse due to the country’s extraordinary political isolation and government repression. Turkmenistan’s constitution guarantees religious freedom, but many laws, most notably the 2003 religion law, contradict these provisions. All religious organizations must register with the government and remain subject to raids and harassment even if approved. Shiite Muslim groups, Protestant groups and Jehovah’s Witnesses have all had their registration applications denied in recent years. Private worship is forbidden and foreign travel for pilgrimages and religious education are greatly restricted. The government hires and fires clergy, censors religious texts, and fines and imprisons believers for their convictions.
7. Vietnam
Vietnam’s government uses vague national security laws to suppress religious freedom and freedom of expression as a means of maintaining its authority and control. A 2005 decree warns that “abuse” of religious freedom “to undermine the country’s peace, independence, and unity” is illegal and that religious activities must not “negatively affect the cultural traditions of the nation.” Religious diversity is high in Vietnam, with half the population claiming some form of Buddhism and the rest identifying as Catholic, Hoa Hao, Cao Dai, Protestant, Muslim or with other small faith and non-religious communities. Religious groups that register with the government are allowed to grow but are closely monitored by specialized police forces, who employ violence and intimidation to repress unregistered groups.
8. Syria
The ongoing Syrian crisis is now being fought along sectarian lines, greatly diminishing religious freedom in the country. President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, aligned with Hezbollah and Shabiha, have targeted Syria’s majority-Sunni Muslim population with religiously-divisive rhetoric and attacks. Extremist groups on the other side, including al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), have targeted Christians and Alawites in their fight for an Islamic state devoid of religious tolerance or diversity. Many Syrians choose their allegiances based on their families’ faith in order to survive. It’s important to note that all human rights, not just religious freedom, are suffering in Syria and in neighboring refugee camps. In quieter times, proselytizing, conversion from Islam and some interfaith marriages are restricted, and all religious groups must officially register with the government.
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