Leading bloggers Ahmed Douma, Ahmed Maher and Mohammed Adel are among those who are currently in prison
Earlier this month, two police officers were sentenced to ten years for the torture and manslaughter of blogger, Khaled Said. But this ruling does not mark change for Egypt’s political system. Instead, it is a token gesture set against a catalogue of abuse.
Three years on from the revolution, Egypt seems tired of turmoil and apathy is mounting. The youth movement, April 6, made the decision to boycott the recent referendum and the idea spread. Although the country’s younger generation makes up a quarter of the population, only a tiny minority turned up to vote. Their absence meant the new constitution was approved by more than 98%.
However political activist, Salma Said believes this low attendance was down to a different issue. “The youth didn’t participate because the youth are in jail”, she said via Twitter.
Her comment highlights the alarming increase of politically motivated arrests. There is a clear targeting of bloggers, journalists and activists. In Egypt, the price for dissent is high.
Leading bloggers Ahmed Douma, Ahmed Maher and Mohammed Adel are among those who are currently in prison. Sentenced to three years with hard labour and a fine of EGP 50,000, they were arrested for their defiance of a new law restricting protest.
Yet it seems their real crime is their criticism of authority, paired with online influence – collectively they have nearly 4 million followers on Twitter. In prison, the injustices continue. Earlier this month, they complained of being beaten by guards, which is not the first time they have suffered mistreatment in jail.
Their arrests are part of a crackdown on dissent – their imprisonment is an attempted gagging.
At the beginning of the year, Alaa Abdel Fattah became another high profile blogger to be arrested, along with his sister Mona Seif. Accused of torching the campaign headquarters of a former presidential candidate, the pair firmly protested their innocence but each received one year suspended sentence.
Mona Seif is vocal in her consistent criticism of the SCAF, the Egyptian military’s governing body. She works to expose the SCAF’s targeted arrests of protestors and their mistreatment of detainees. An ongoing part of her project involves asking those who have been released to record their experience and to document any injuries suffered in jail.
While Seif was released, Fattah was not. More accusations were brought against him, this time of inciting protest – a charge for which he spent 115 days behind bars without trial. He was eventually released late last month and is now awaiting trial on April 6. He showed his resolve on Twitter: “We will continue….”
Again, Fattah’s arrest seems to be punishment for his activity online. In 2005, he won the ‘Reporters without Borders’ prize for his hugely popular blog ‘Manalaa’, gaining international attention. He was one of the leading faces in 2011’s revolution and he is still a firm advocate of free expression.
The crackdown on government critics and pro-democracy campaigners has shaken Egypt’s internet generation, leaving them with a feeling of powerlessness. In a letter dated December 24, Alaa Abdel Fattah wrote to his sisters: “What adds to my frustration is that this imprisonment has no value. This is no struggle and there is no revolution”.
Award winning blogger, Sandmonkey shares Fattah’s beaten attitude in a post where he addresses the country’s older generations: “Our depression stems from our knowledge that you will not fix anything.”
As mainstream media returns to its pre-revolution ways by siding with the government, it seems the blogger’s role is more important than ever. Independent voices must be heard. But support is fading for revolutionaries as newspaper headlines and editorials brand them “anarchists” and “thugs”.
Many Egyptians seem happy to sacrifice certain freedoms for stability. With liberal commentators being squeezed out of political discourse and into prison, the public begin to believe that an authoritarian state is the only alternative to Islamic extremism.
For years, Egypt’s bloggers have been subject to savage beatings, intimidation and even sexual assault at the hands of the police. Today, it seems that little progress has been made despite the revolution. With many figures of hope in jail or exile, the future seems bleak. Fattah believes it’s as if they’ve waged “war on a whole generation.” But Egypt’s youth must not give up the fight.
World leaders must commit to keeping invasive surveillance systems and technologies out of the hands of dictators and oppressive regimes, said a new global coalition of human rights organizations as it launched today in Brussels.
The Coalition Against Unlawful Surveillance Exports (CAUSE) – which includes Amnesty International, Digitale Gesellschaft, FIDH, Human Rights Watch, the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, Privacy International, Reporters without Borders and Index on Censorship – aims to hold governments and private companies accountable for abuses linked to the US$5 billion and growing international trade in communication surveillance technologies. Governments are increasingly using spying software, equipment, and related tools to violate the right to privacy and a host of other human rights.
“These technologies enable regimes to crush dissent or criticism, chill free speech and destroy fundamental rights. The CAUSE coalition has documented cases where communication surveillance technologies have been used, not only to spy on people’s private lives, but also to assist governments to imprison and torture their critics,” said Ara Marcen Naval at Amnesty International.
“Through a growing body of evidence it’s clear to see how widely these surveillance technologies are used by repressive regimes to ride roughshod over individuals’ rights. The unchecked development, sale and export of these technologies is not justifiable. Governments must swiftly take action to prevent these technologies spreading into dangerous hands” said Kenneth Page at Privacy International.
In an open letter published today on the CAUSE website, the groups express alarm at the virtually unregulated global trade in communications surveillance equipment.
The website details the various communication surveillance technologies that have been made and supplied by private companies and also highlights the countries where these companies are based. It shows these technologies have been found in a range of countries such as Bahrain, Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, Nigeria, Morocco, Turkmenistan, UAE, and many more.
“Nobody is immune to the danger communication surveillance technologies poses to individual privacy and a host of other human rights. And those who watch today, will be watched tomorrow” sadi Karim Lahidji, FIDH President. “The CAUSE has been created to call for responsible regulation of the trade and to put an end to the abuses it enables” he added.
Although a number of governments are now beginning to discuss how to restrict this trade, concerns remain. Without sustained international pressure on governments to establish robust comprehensive controls on the trade based on international human rights standards, the burgeoning proliferation of this intrusive technology will continue – fuelling even further abuses.
“There is a unique opportunity for governments to address this problem now and to update their regulations to align with technological developments” said Tim Maurer at New America’s Open Technology Institute.
“More and more journalists, netizens and dissidents are ending up in prison after their online communications are intercepted. The adoption of a legal framework that protects online freedoms is essential, both as regards the overall issue of Internet surveillance and the particular problem of firms that export surveillance products,” said Grégoire Pouget at Reporters Without Borders.
“We have seen the devastating impact these technologies have on the lives of individuals and the functioning of civil society groups. Inaction will further embolden blatantly irresponsible surveillance traders and security agencies, thus normalizing arbitrary state surveillance. We urge governments to come together and take responsible action fast,” said Wenzel Michalski at Human Rights Watch.
The technologies include malware that allows surreptitious data extraction from personal devices; tools that are used to intercept telecommunications traffic; spygear used to geolocate mobile phones; monitoring centres that allow authorities to track entire populations; anonymous listening and camera spying on computers and mobile phones; and devices used to tap undersea fibre optic cables to enable mass internet monitoring and filtering.
“As members of the CAUSE coalition, we’re calling on governments to take immediate action to stop the proliferation of this dangerous technology and ensure the trade is effectively controlled and made fully transparent and accountable” said Volker Tripp at Digitale Gesellschaft.
NGOs in CAUSE have researched how such technologies end up in the hands of security agencies with appalling human rights records, where they enable security agents to arbitrarily target journalists, protesters, civil society groups, political opponents and others.
Cases documented by coalition members have included:
• German surveillance technology being used to assist torture in Bahrain;
• Malware made in Italy helping the Moroccan and UAE authorities to clamp down on free speech and imprison critics;
• European companies exporting surveillance software to the government of Turkmenistan, a country notorious for violent repression of dissent.
• Surveillance technologies used internally in Ethiopia as well as to target the Ethiopian diaspora in Europe and the United States.
Imagine you wake up one day, start your day as usual; you go on the tube with the Metro at hand and read the news on your way to work. Today, however, you learn that the Serious Fraud Office and Metropolitan Police have detained 47 people, including officials from the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Westminster City Council, as well as the sons of four British ministers. They were all implicated together with real estate developers and the general manager of Bank of England and an Iranian businessman. Moreover, the minister of state for Europe became a potential suspect of bribery related to the Iranian businessman’s dealings in the country. The police confiscated some £10.5 million as money used for bribery during the investigation.
After all that you’ve learned, you start believing that there will be a great change in Britain. Everyone is excited to tell each other the new developments and they start waiting. Waiting…Waiting… After you witness the shoe boxes filled with millions of pounds found next to the money counters and money safes in the houses of the sons of the ministers and the general manager of Bank of England. And after the images of those shoe boxes and money safes start filling social media pages, and people all around Britain start leaving shoe boxes in front of the Bank of England, you start thinking that humour is the only way for the people to maintain their mental health. On social media, only this corruption and of course the shoe boxes, are discussed. The shoe box becomes a dangerous weapon, and when those carrying empty shoe boxes or those who leave them on the street or even those who sell them are arrested, you realise that for Britain, the shoe boxes are much more dangerous than a bribery scandal. For a moment, you wonder if there are any empty shoe boxes at your home, you hesitate to share it with anyone. Even if what’s been happening surprises you, you try to keep your cool. After all, as a nation you are known for your nonchalant attitude.
On 21 December, in total 91 people were detained in the investigation; 24 of them were arrested. You turn on Sky News with curiosity, and you hear that the investigation is part of a so called parallel government coup d’état planned by foreign powers trying to hinder Britain’s developing economy. You find it a little weird that the prosecutor leading this investigation, who is now accused by the government of planning a coup is the same one Prime Minister called a “hero” a few years back. But you don’t lose your resolve… You want to understand what is really happening.
Several newspapers report that a new investigation was expected on 25 December, possibly involving the prime minister’s sons, as well as certain Al- Qaeda affiliates from Saudi Arabia. The police officers in Scotland Yard, newly appointed by the government just a few days before, refuse to carry out the orders from this new investigation’s prosecutor. Similarly, the director of public prosecutions does not approve this new operation either. The man originally behind this second investigation, the prosecutor, is dismissed in the following hours of the same day and immediately a new one is assigned.
It was understood that a second wave of arrests was planned according to this second investigation, and a list was leaked to the press. At midnight on 7 January, a government decree was announced, which removed 350 police officers from their positions, including the chiefs of the units dealing with financial crimes, smuggling and organised crime. The influential leader of a social movement described these investigations as a purge of the country. The prime minister described the corruption investigation as a “judicial coup by the parallel government” by those jealous of his success — namely the secretive leader, backed by foreigners.
Since the beginning of the investigations, the Conservative Party government has been trying to exile both the police forces and the responsible prosecutors, thought to be related to the investigations. Unfortunately, those policemen and the prosecutors who replaced the previous “parallel government” policemen and prosecutors, were found to be also members of the parallel government by those in power. Then, they levelled accusations at these new officials and exiled them as well.
The Home Office and the Ministry of Justice changed the legal judgement regulations during the investigation period. The prime minister blamed the investigation on an international conspiracy and vowed revenge on the aforementioned group; here had been hostility between the prime minister and its leader. The prime minister also threatened the US ambassador to the UK with expulsion, because of his critical comments.
The home secretary and the chancellor of the exchequer, both of whose sons were arrested in the corruption operation, resigned together on the morning of the 25 December. That same afternoon, the secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs resigned from office and as a member of parliament. Four hundred and fifty policemen in the specialist crimes and operations department were exiled and journalists were banned from entering New Scotland Yard.
Three members of parliament resigned from the Conservative Party on 26 December because of the ongoing scandal. These three ex-members of the Conservative Party were each separately under investigation by the party’s disciplinary committee, accused of opposing the party’s own regulations. They all resigned before the committee reached a verdict.
To understand what’s happening, you now constantly follow social media. However, everything’s happening so fast and it’s so incomprehensible that you have to ask yourself: is this real? You calmly wait, expecting the resignation of the government. In fact, during this wait, you read Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” once again. It feels as though nothing’s happening in Britain, the news only written about on social media pages seems like it’s about a different country. When you get on the tube, you see that those who don’t use social media are clueless, and some who are aware believe that the prime minister has been set up despite all the evidence. It makes you wonder whether it’s the train moving really fast, as if it’s disappearing, or your mental health.
A voice recording said to be of a telephone conversation between the prime minister and his son, is at the centre of the latest political storm. In the conversation, the pair allegedly discusses how to hide large sums of money on the day the police raided houses as part of the corruption inquiry into the prime minister’s government.
Of course, you immediately listen to the recording and don’t know what’s worse — what is being discussed or the pathetic state the prime minister’s son is in. Even though a report from a US sound company was used to try and prove that the recordings were fake, the same company, whose name was revealed later, claimed that they prepared no such report. Still, even though the money discussed is billions of dollars, you are overcome with grief and overwhelmed by the sound of the prime minister’s son’s voice as he says “daddy”…
You think this is the final straw. After this, the government will definitely resign. But there is no movement. It’s as if Beckett has taken control, writing the fate of Britain but this time it’s called “Waiting for Resignation.” We all wait. While waiting, we feel sorry for the Prime Minister’s son. After the empty shoe boxes, you understand how dangerous the word “daddy” can be.
During all this, the fact that you are slowly losing your cool results in an identity crisis. You realise your talent for handling all situations with edgy, British humour is inadequate, which bothers you. But then you see the jokes on Facebook and Twitter, you see the cartoons depicting the situation and you feel relief that your country’s talent for humour has exponentially grown over the course of this huge scandal.
After the release of the first recording, you no longer have time to stop by at a pub for a drink, go to a football game or anything else… You feel like you’re in the middle of a ping-pong game between the new recordings and the perception the government is trying to impose against them. When you read tweets that say “can you hold the agenda for two minutes, I have to use the bathroom” a smile creeps up from your demoralised heart and you realise it’s right.
After the tapes, the world doesn’t end, the government doesn’t resign, the parliamentary questions asked by the opposition are left unanswered in parliament, where the attempts at projecting an illusion of normalcy fails; iPads and punches flying, adding some liveliness.
Suddenly you realise that most Brits are addicted to the prime minister’s tapes. The anxiety surrounding the country when there is no tape that day featuring the prime minister or the ministers worries you.
In the meantime, when you listen to a recording of a conversation between the prime minister and someone from Sky News, you finally believe that this is it. Because you learn that the prime minister personally interferes with the news. Soon after, you find out that the prime minister calls not just Sky News but also Channel 4 and ITV to scold the directors of these media outlets. It doesn’t surprise you to learn the next day that newspapers run the headlines by him, before publishing anything. You don’t know what’s more shocking, the talent of the prime minister or the surrender of the media. You are constantly conflicted because even after all this, there is nothing. When the prime minister makes an announcement saying “of course I’ll interfere” you begin doubting yourself. You think that maybe you and people like you are the weird ones… You seriously start questioning what is normal and not.
But the news cycle doesn’t give you any time to continue doubting yourself. So you think, maybe you should just fly to the North Pole for a while. Maybe if you get away far enough, you can see things more clearly but you can’t. Because now the ping-pong game is over and you are living life on the back of a galloping horse… So nauseating.
Now, social media channels determine the order of the day so the prime minister has to find a way to control it. It’s not surprising that a new internet law is prepared so quickly. You are still so sure that in a democratic country like the United Kingdom, such a controversial law — allowing the government to shut down any internet site without the approval of a court — would never pass in parliament. You can’t imagine it any other way. If it does, you want to believe the Queen would use her power to veto it. However, you are disappointed once again. The law is passed and approved. The Queen makes a statement: “I know that some clauses in this bill are against the law, but I believe the parliament will amend those in time.” In order to make sure your ears aren’t deceiving you, that you understand what’s been said, you listen to the statement over and over again. When you finally realise that you understood right the first time, you are reminded of the “Matrix” movie and think “is someone making everyone take the blue pill?” If you take the blue pill, you believe the illusion, anything that’s absurd becomes normal; if you take the red pill you will think all that was normal is actually absurd…
You secretly question your friends in the pharmaceutical business while you still wait for something to happen… Slowly you start having headaches, because you can’t sleep anymore. You are getting annoyed at listening to yet another fury-induced berating of the crowd by the prime minister. Always angry, always provocative… On the other hand you still wonder “is this the side effect of the blue pill?”
While you try to maintain a healthy mind, the prime minister, once again furious, yells out: “Enough with this Twitter, I will ban all of it” and you think “no way!” But it has been months since you actually saw that line you thought wouldn’t be crossed because there was “no way…”
You start missing the tapes one by one, because there is no way you can keep up, even if the days had more hours. After showering that morning, you reluctantly open your computer to peruse Twitter; you are met with the message: “The access to the site you are trying to open has been blocked.” Now you have to learn the new jargon, understand what DNS is and download new applications, like you have the time. You find it normal that the number of users in the UK increase after the Twitter ban. After you read the tweet by the Queen saying “I hope the ban will be lifted soon” your suspicions are confirmed: everyone took the blue pill.
When the reactions to the ban pour in from within the UK and outside, the prime minister becomes bolder and claims: “The whole world will see how strong we are. We brought Twitter to its knees.” You just don’t understand. Understanding, comprehending, thinking and analysing… Your brain short circuits from all the pressure and all you can do is just laugh.
You are not surprised that YouTube is also banned. There are no longer any straws left, the camel’s back has been broken for months… There is no more waiting… You rip the pages of “Waiting for Godot.” Whoever it may be, you cannot explain away the power-hungry. You cannot blame the blue pill anymore. You feel exhausted and empty.
You understand how far a mind so warped can go for power, and as a result of ever growing anger. This time you focus on the elections, five days away. This time you know you will definitely vote. Your mind is divided. One side says “this is really the end. The Prime Minister will not stay in power after this. His votes will decrease this time.” The other side starts “if he gets more than 40 % of the vote…” You don’t even want to think about it. This election is very important for the future of the whole country… When you go on Twitter, you see “this is not just an election it’s an IQ test” and all you can do is smile.
After months of such tension, what do you feel when you see that the prime minister’s party has received over 43% of the votes?
The idea, or perhaps ideal, of innocence plays a complex part in our society: We value it, but still have a very strong sense of its limited use. In a five-year old, innocence is a delight; in a 25-year old an annoyance; in a 45-year old? A tragedy.
This is no bad thing; central to our modern conception of children’s rights is the notion that they are blameless: An innocent child cannot be held responsible for, say, the actions of a sexual abuser. An innocent child does not have the faculty to enter into a contract to sell their labour: An innocent child cannot start a physical fight with a grown-up parent.
By the time we reach majority, we are supposed to be able to negotiate our way through the world. We probably retain some of that innocence well beyond the age of 18, but society has to draw a line somewhere.
There is a downside to this right and justified urge to uphold the immaculate status of the child; it comes in the form of the ever-returning moral panic.
This week, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Tom Winsor, in his assessment of the “state of policing” in England and Wales for 2012/2013, warned of the dangers of smartphones and their capability for warping young minds.
“Modern technology,” Winsor notes ”provides new and more effective ways for children to be abused, pursued and drawn into crime. Moreover, violence and sexually explicit material available to children on smartphones and other devices desensitise them and distort and confuse their perceptions of normal behaviour.”
The first part is most likely true, at least the “new” part, though I would be wary of the idea that new technologies are somehow more “effective” for child abusers. The majority of incidents of abuse are perpetrated by people already close to children, not strangers.
But the second assertion, on “desensitisation”, is as old as the hills, and fits into a pattern of moral panics that has been present for decades. Elsewhere, Winsor cites the many causes of crime, which include:
“social dysfunctionality, families in crisis, the failings of parents and communities, the disintegration of deference and respect for authority, the fears of teachers, alcohol, drugs, a misplaced and unjustified desire or determination to exert power over others, envy, greed, materialism and the corrosive effects of readily-available hard-core pornography and the suppression of instincts of revulsion to violence through the conditioning effect of exposure to distasteful and extreme computer games and films.”
This list introduces the great friend of the moral panic, declinism (a concept explored by Index on Censorship chair David Aaronovitch in a BBC documentary); British society has been in decline, roughly since the Suez crisis, or the time the first Teddy Boy swung his first bicycle chain in anger.
British young people are in danger of corruption, now more than ever; “now” being any given moment in the past 60 years. Bill Haley, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Suzi Quatro, Space Invaders, “snuff movies”, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Chucky from Child’s Play, Mortal Kombat, Manhunt, Grand Theft Auto, “Skins parties”… all have presented a clear corrupting influence on young people.
And yet, civilisation has survived. In fact, as Martha Gill points out in the Daily Telegraph, today’s young folk are remarkably pure and well-behaved.
The country has not, in fact, gone to the dogs. More to the point, there was never an age of innocence, either for young people or for the nation.
In the years 1947/1948, which many on both the right and left might consider halcyon days for Britain, now-national-treasure Richard Attenborough played a teen killer in two consecutive films – Pinky in the adaptation of Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock, and Percy Moon in Dulcimer Street, the adaptation of Norman Collins’s London Belongs To Me.
Both are young men with wild ideas (though naive Percy cannot come anywhere near the badness and vindictiveness of Greene’s monstrous, tortured Pinky). To use Winsor’s language, both display, to varying degrees, those dread traits “materialism” and “a misplaced and unjustified desire or determination to exert power over others”. Their creators clearly find sympathy in them, but clearly are working from a template of a corrupted modern youngster. Notably, in Dulcimer Street, Percy is an avid reader of the new, American (read “alien to old England), detective and thriller comics.
The combination of declinism and moral panic reached its acme in spring of 1993, after two 10-year old boys took a two-year old toddler from a Bootle shopping centre to a railway sidings, where they tortured and killed him.
The murder of James Bulger by Jon Venables and Robert Thomson was as inexplicable as it was horrific. But proved, for those looking for the evidence, that British society had reached a devastating new low, Moral panic-ers soon found out why: The, silly, schlocky horror movie “Child’s Play 3” was the culprit. Apparently one of the boys’ parents had rented the film. That was it, in spite of their being scant evidence the boys had even seen the film. In fact, as Professor Stan Cohen noted in his updated version of Folk Devils and Moral Panics, “a senior Merseyside Police Inspector revealed that checks on the family homes and rental lists showed that neither Child’s Play nor anything like it had been viewed.”
The pattern has repeated since, most particularly in erroneous reports in 2004 that the videogame Manhunt had influenced a teenager who killed a friend, in spite of police insistence that the game had nothing to do with it.
Declinism is insidious in that it gives young people and their culture (pop music, games) a raw deal. Moral panics, while they should be resisted, are at least understandable. But to be genuine in our efforts to protect young people and their innocence, we should remain rational, rather than merely seeking out the latest scapegoat. More often than not, it turns out that the kids are all right after all.
Kurdish broadcaster Roj TV has lost another battle in its long and controversial fight to stay on air. Denmark’s Supreme Court last month ruled to uphold the ban on the Kurdish-language broadcaster, which had been transmitting programs from Denmark to Europe and the Middle East since 2004. Roj TV’s former director, Imdat Yilmaz has announced plans to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
The broadcaster had long been a sore spot in relations between Denmark and Turkey, with the latter viewing the broadcaster as a mouthpiece for the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) – which is considered a terrorist organisation by the US and EU. However Kurds – a minority group making up between 10 and 23 per cent of the Turkish population – have long felt the heavy hand of the Turkish state on their language and culture.
Since the station’s launch, Turkey’s radio and TV authority – the ominously named Radio and Television Supreme Council – made a number of formal complaints to Denmark against the broadcaster. These had, until 2010, been dismissed by Denmark’s Radio and Television Board on the basis that “contested clips do not contain, in the opinion of the Board, incitement to hatred due to race, nationality, etc. In more than one clip, democracy, democratic solutions, democratic revolution and the like are even mentioned.”
But in 2010, Danish authorities did bring criminal charges against Roj TV – on the grounds that it was promoting terrorism. Roj TV was then convicted in 2012 by the Copenhagen City Court.
But controversially, Denmark’s decision to prosecute Roj TV on these charges was detailed in a leaked official document. The diplomatic document appearing to describe a deal struck between Turkish authorities and the then Danish Prime Minister – offering the closure of Roj TV in exchange for Turkey supporting the appointment of the then Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to NATO secretary general in 2009.
The document refers to the Danish Radio and Television Board’s failure to find incitement to hatred or violence in Roj TV’s content, and so urges for Danish authorities to “think creatively about ways to disrupt or close the station, should criminal prosecution prove unachievable in the short term.”
Also mentioned is the need for “…some new evidence or approach that can shield them against charges of trading principle for the former prime minister’s career.”
Rasmussen, who is now NATO secretary general, has denied agreeing to shut the station.
Roj TV have admitted maintaining contacts with to the PKK, but deny they are a mouthpiece for the organisation, or that they received funding from it. The station’s former general manager, Manouchehr Tahsili Zonoozi, has previously commented: “We are an independent Kurdish broadcaster. Our job is to be journalists.”
Last month’s decision by Denmark’s Supreme Court marks a line of increasingly punitive rulings against the broadcaster. The legal battle started with just a fine in the Copenhagen City Court in 2012 – the court found no legal basis to follow the prosecution’s recommendation that the station’s broadcasting license be revoked.
Now that the ruling has been upheld by Denmark’s Supreme Court, the station plans to take the case to the ECHR, with Roj TV’s former director Imdat Yilmaz telling Danish newspaper Arbejderen that he hopes “instead of connecting Roj TV to ‘terrorism,’ the court may relate it to ‘freedom of speech”.
Kurdish-language programmes were banned in Turkey until 2002 and, until 2008, Kurdish-language programs were restricted to 45 minutes per day. TRT 6, Turkey’s first Kurdish-language station and part of the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, was launched in 2008 and broadcasts Kurdish programmes that promote the Turkish state and counter PKK.
A view into South Korea from North Korea (Image: Johannes Barre/iGEL/Wikimedia Commons)
North Korea hit global headlines again last week. This was in part because of the UN resolution condemning the catastrophic, ongoing abuses against its people, in the wake of a 400-page report chronicling the country’s countless human rights violations. However, as much attention, if not more, was devoted to the curious case of state-imposed hairstyles. Again it seemed the world’s focus was fixed on the bizarre end of the spectrum of outrageous stories coming out of the hermit kingdom. But while reports of haircuts, hysterical grieving masses, Dennis Rodman and killer dogs — true or not — have spread like wildfire across social media, Kim Young-Il has gone about his work of fighting for the often forgotten rights of North Korean defectors.
Kim escaped North Korea himself in 1996. Forced to join the army as a teenager, he soon discovered that the military, like the rest of the country, suffered from malnourishment. North Korea experienced devastating famine throughout the 1990s, in no small part down to mismanagement by authorities. Together with his parents, he made the gruelling journey to China, where they stayed for four-and-a-half years as illegal immigrants. “I had every job you can imagine,” he says. Finally, tired of living in constant fear of deportation, they made their way to South Korea. Kim went to university, where he says frequent questions from fellow students writing on North Korea, made him think about his heritage. After graduating he set up the non-governmental organisation PSCORE to help those who, like he did, make the difficult decision to escape.
The risks of defecting are huge. Many are put off even trying by widespread rumours backed up by state propaganda, of defectors being interrogated and killed by South Korean authorities. The country’s near complete lack of freedom of expression makes such stories difficult to debunk. Simply getting out of North Korea is no guarantee of freedom either. Many defectors have to go through China, the regime’s powerful ally, which operates a strict returns policy for defectors. Returnees face a multitude of possible punishments, from forced labour to execution. “If China changes their stance, that wholly changes the situation,” Kim says. At present, however, there is little to suggest they will. For those managing to avoid return, the threat to family left behind looms large. Kim’s sister-in-law is a political prisoner today for speaking on the phone to his wife.
Kim’s reasoning was that he’d rather face these dangers than the prospect of starving to death in his home country. It appears many agree. Nobody knows the exact number of defectors, as many keep quiet about it due to dangers posed to loved ones. What is certain is that it has shot up because of the devastating effects of the famine. This has also changed the demographic of defectors. While it used to be an option utilised mainly by relatively high-level North Koreans, today people from all sections of society are making big sacrifices in hope of a better life abroad.
Part of the reason could also be that in the some 60 years since its establishment, life in the Democratic Republic has shown no signs of improving. Kim tells of a complex and rigid class system, explaining that records of your grandparents’ position and occupation are used to determine your standing in society. The state decides who can be a doctor and who can be a farmer. Women have some possibilities for upward social mobility through marriage, but on the whole, your path in life is determined almost entirely by factors outside your control. That is, with one notable exception: “It’s difficult to move up, but very simple to drop down.”
This system, reassuring many North Koreans that there is always someone worse off than you, has played its part in deterring popular dissent and large-scale social uprising, Kim explains. That, and the crippling fear of a brutal regime acting with impunity. Asked whether any noticeable changes came with the change of leader, Kim said that any hope of the country opening up when Kim Jong-un took power following the death of his father, was quickly extinguished. The issue of South Korean pop culture is striking example. Kim Jong-un and his family are big consumers of their neighbours’ booming entertainment industry, while the official line is that it’s strictly prohibited. Kim says a man as recently found to be selling CDs with South Korean films and music. He was publicly executed to set an example for others.
So many head for China and hope. In China is where PSCORE’s work starts. Kim travels over several times a year to meet defectors and bring them to South Korea. Finding them isn’t always easy, and when he does, many are afraid to speak. “We don’t ask questions immediately. We try to identify with them first,” he explains, mindful of the rumours and propaganda they have been subjected to in the north. Many have gruelling journeys behind them. Nam Bada, PSCORE’s General Secretary, showed Index pictures of a girl’s feet, disfigured by frostbite. She lost her shoes travelling on foot in the snow. Others have used brokers; locals living in the border areas, charging to help defectors cross. The brokers are “just interested in profit, not human rights” says Kim, and estimates the price is currently between $2000-6000. The practise puts defectors, especially female ones, at risk of human trafficking. PSCORE have helped a number of women from being sold by brokers.
Once they reach South Korea, they’re interrogated by authorities. “90% of South Korea’s information about North Korea comes from defectors,” Kim explains. After that, they’re enrolled in a basic, three-month education programme, and then more or less left to their own devices. The transition from arguably the most closed society in the world, to one of the most open ones can be difficult. Kim highlight language as a big hurdle. North Korean has been completely shielded from outside influence for decades, while South Korean has been free to develop. And while there is no discrimination against defectors legally and on paper, Kim says they are often discriminated against.
It’s against this backdrop PSCORE are providing education to defectors and helping them adjust to their new lives. Kim compares the process to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: “At first, people are just glad to be fed, but later they want more.” They also continue to campaign against North Korean human rights violations, which the aforementioned UN report described as “systematic, widespread and gross” and in many instances constituting crimes against humanity. Something to keep in mind the next time North Korea is in the news because of haircuts.
After two years of wrangling, the Brazilian chamber of deputies finally approved the General Internet Framework last week.
The movement that resulted in bill 2126/11 – referred to as Marco Civil da Internet or simply Marco Civil – began in 2007. The Marco Civil was drafted in 2009 by the ministry of justice in partnership with the Center for Technology and Society of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, and with the direct participation of civil society. After extensive public consultation, with over 2,300 contributions, the bill was sent to congress in 2011 and recommended to the president. It outlines the duties and prohibitions on the use of the web, as well as structures the ways in which the courts can request records for user communications and network access.
While the bill has passed the bicameral congress’ lower house, it now needs to be approved by the senate, which will vote this month. If passed, the bill will need presidential approval to become law. It is widely expected that the bill will clear both these hurdles. The process is made all the more urgent as Brazil is set to host Net Mundial – a global forum exploring the future of internet governance — at the end of the month.
Marco Civil was drafted with three key issues in mind: Net neutrality, user privacy and freedom of expression. Under the bill, internet service providers are barred from interfering with connection speeds or content. Civil society strongly backed the framework around net neutrality.
Altogether, five amendments were made to the final text. The main change was the removal of a section of Article 12 whereby the presidency could require, by decree, connection providers to “install or use structures for storage, management and dissemination of data (data centers) in national dominion”, taking its billing into account.
This point was included last year at the request of the government after president Dilma Rousseff voiced complaints about spying by the National Security Agency (NSA). The revised Article 12 provides that Brazilian law will take effect on all companies providing services in the country, including foreign ones.
Another important change was made in the first subparagraph of Article 9, which deals with exceptions to net neutrality, such as discrimination or degradation of services or performance. Such cases were to be resolved by presidential decree. The revised amendment states that cases of exception will follow determinations from the constitution and guidelines of the Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações (telecommunications national agency – Anatel) and the Comitê Gestor da Internet (internet managing committee – CGI).
While the current wording of the bill shows social and political maturity, and seeks to put Brazil on another level in terms of freedoms of expression, it has its blind spots. These includes the storage of user data by ISPs for one year for investigation purposes, which is damaging to privacy. The text can still be changed.
Historic session
The historic vote was watched by a huge television audience, as the sessions of the Chamber of Deputies featuring 400 congressional representatives argued over the bill was broadcast live. Social media lit up, with #MarcoCivil trending on Twitter.
The question is whether in addition to being a massive victory for the government the piece will not end up being used for electioneering in the 2014 elections.
On Twitter, Rousseff said that “the Civil Landmark is a tool of free expression, privacy of the individual and respect for human rights”. She also said that “the approval of the Internet Civil Landmark by the Chamber of Deputies is a victory for all of Brazilian society”. She added that “the project shows the pioneering role of Brazil in a moment that the world debates the security, the privacy and the plurality in the network”.
Representatives said the text was a “parameter to the world”, “a reference in terms of freedom of expression” and “the most democratic process of voting on a bill in Brazil”. British physicist and creator of the web Tim Berners-Lee was quoted in plenary requesting the approval of the Marco Civil. The Brazilian press, which had criticised the original text, only reported the approval of the bill, and published some praise.
Despite the hoopla, Brazilian society remians divided over it. Most people have no idea about what the bill is intended to do. While there are some who support the regulation, others say that Marco Civil is a form of government control of the internet. Others still, just shrug.
A political drama
The approval of the Marco Civil was not an easy vote, as it may have seemed at first glance. The political will for the project to be brought up for a vote was stitched together through political and personal effort by Rousseff. Bill 2126/11, authored by the executive branch, served as political leverage for the PMDB, part of the governing coalition, and threatened to derail the project.
At the height of the crisis, PMDB came close to a break as a government ally, which would have drawn support away from the president. The so-called “block of disgruntled” was dissatisfied with Rousseff’s ministerial reshuffle in early March and required appointments in important ministries. The party also threatened to boycott Marco Civil by voting en masse against the proposal − which would mean fiasco. The tension between the PMDB and Rousseff also came close to derailing coalition alliances ahead of this year’s elections.
Rousseff did not relent even and made a joke about the situation. In Chile, where she participated in the inauguration ceremony of president Michelle Bachelet, she said: “PMDB only gives me joy”, when asked about whether her weight loss had to do with her concern about the crisis in the governing coalition. The statement did not sit well with PMDB, but pleased the vice-president Michel Temer, a member of the party: “It really only gives joy to the government, supporting and helping the government.” The message was explicit: As a Brazilian saying goes, “one hand washes the other and both wash the face”.
After several closed-door meetings tempers were soothed paving the way for the support and the approval of the Marco Civil project. The terms negotiated between the parties are not yet known. What is certain is that the deal has the power to soften a partisan war.
Until last week, Marco Civil had frozen the Chamber of Deputies’ agenda since 2013. The text approved on the night of 25 March was substitutive, with several changes from the last version that was submitted in February. These deleted changes caused controversy, especially because they were seen to serve business interests.
The content of the final version, filled with handwritten addendums, was a draft during the vote. The deputies voted blindly, having no access to the final text and relying on word of the rapporteur, Congressman Alessandro Molon (PT, Workers Party). They voted based solely on the version being manipulated live, with last minute modifications. They voted thanks to agreements in the audience and the theatre of the plenary, and more on the political line than on the legal framework that Marco Civil represented. This is why they voted as a majority. One deputy commented: “This is not the House of knowledge, but of convincing.”
Espionage
In an exclusive report broadcast by the TV show “Fantástico” on TV Globo Network, on the evening of 1 September, it was reported that the Brazilian government and Petrobras had been targeted by the NSA spying. The information was based on documents revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden to Glenn Greenwald and Globo Network’s journalist Sonia Bridi. According to the report, Rousseff, her advisors and diplomats were also being monitored. All of these revelations visibly irritated the president − who had previously sent the draft of Marco Civil to Congress – and she demanded urgency in putting the bill on the agenda.
In late September, speaking at the opening of the 68th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York, Rousseff advocated the establishment of a multilateral framework for international civil governance and of internet usage. She argued that the actions of United States’ espionage in Brazil had wounded international laws and defied the principles that govern the relationship between the countries.
The social media experience which came across as a liberating tool for women, was often equated with a living room where one could voice opinions in public sphere. However, of late, a series of incidents have sounded a note of caution against the euphoria around social media. It has been compared to a street where women are abused, threatened, ogled at, rebuked, only virtually.
The situation plugs American academic Lawrence Lessig’s contention, “Cyberspace is something we build. Who knows how much of the real world is socially constructed? But, one thing is certain, cyberspace is socially constructed.”
While the online abuse faced by British activist Caroline Criado Perez, who led a successful campaign to have a woman on the £10 note first grabbed the news headlines, the scene in India isn’t too different. Even with a limited penetration of the internet, sexist abuse has become a tool to muzzle voices of independent women.
Things seem to have heated even more in the run up to poll season in India, where female Twitter users have increasingly become a subject of sexist abuse.
The abuse over political tweets isn’t a new phenomenon however; it has significantly gone up.
When Kavita Krishnan, feminist activist and political commentator recently opposed the induction of controversial chief of a right-wing outfit, who led an attack on women in a pub, she drew a barrage of abuse. Responses were replete with sexist comments and death threats. Additionally, there were many others who endorsed rape threats directed at her.
Krishnan, a Communist Party politbureau member, is also quick to point out that online abuse grows more vicious when she voices her political opinions. Threats directed at her have ranged from sexual assault to mutilation of genitals. Furthermore, anonymity granted to users on social media platforms has drawn threats directed at her mother too.
Female Twitter users are not always abused through words, morphed photographs with captions are also circulated by users online.
When actor, activist Gul Panag, who has been an assertive voice on Twitter recently threw herself into the political ring by contesting on a Common Man Party ticket, many users began posting her morphed photographs in lingerie with strategically placed accessories.
However, in an encouraging trend, trolls were soon outweighed by users who voiced support for her.
Female journalists, who express opinions on political issues, international affairs, among other topics considered anathema to the right wing, are also subjected to scathing Twitter attacks.
Sagarika Ghose, a senior Indian journalist who coined the term “Internet Hindus” writes, “As a television journalist, I get a daily dose of abuse on Twitter, an exercise in character-building endurance. Some examples: “Bitch, you deserve to be stripped and raped publicly.” “why u r not covering Assam riots?”, she writes.
Condescension is also evident in responses journalists receive which question their professional integrity. In Ghose’s case, the responses underlined how topics often considered anathema to the Hindu right, ended up pointing fingers at her journalistic integrity, accusing her of trivialising events.
With the poll bugle being sounded in country, female politicians active on Twitter have been subjected to scornful tweets, often threatening their family members. For instance, Priyanka Chaturvedi, a Congress party spokesperson tweeted, “Ladies you attack me is fine, bring on the love I say but don’t cross the crass line by dragging my parents/kids into this. Thanks. (sic)”
The reason for misogynistic abuse has little to do with what women talk about, rather it is the idea of a vocal and independent woman reclaiming online space which makes users abusive. Additionally, if a woman is vocal in opposing what may seem offensive to the right-wing, she becomes the target. Even opposing misogynistic values in seemingly innocuous statements draws in vicious abuse.
In December 2013, a researcher on caste and gender Arpita Phukan Biswas was subjected to rape threats when she protested against Indian singer Palash Sen’s misogynistic remarks at a cultural festival.
She initially let it go but as threats grew worse, she began tweeting about her harrowing experience and wrote a post on Facebook.
While many branded her Feminazi, others discussed how she should be made to shut up by rape and beating as she wasn’t having enough.
Politics, religion, feminism and sexuality are among the topics which strike more attention, deduces Anja Kovacs who heads the Internet Democracy Project, which recently did a study on women and verbal online abuse in India.
The study further notes that many online users expect women to be servile while others believe they have the right to discipline women through coercive measures resulting in blatant misogyny at play.
Kovacs rightly draws the metaphor of street for the internet.
“Internet is just like a street. Like women face sexual harassment on street, they do on the internet as well. Misogyny is evident in verbal online abuse on platforms like Twitter,” she says.
While sexism has been used as a tool to attack women on public spaces and muzzle their voices, it is time users come to each others’ rescue to reclaim spaces. Despite similarities between street and the internet, the weapons on the latter with both men and women are the same– the keyboard. The best way to counter avalanche of vicious sexist abuse is by witticism.
Kovacs believes setting up a strong online community of support is a way to counter abusive twitter users. “Being called ‘bitch, slut, whore’ is misogyny at play. And it cannot be eradicated and countered by legal measures”.
Similarly, a prolific Twitter user Vidyut Kale (@vidyut) makes it a point to never block anyone who trolls her. In fact, she believes in rolling up her sleeves and taking on the trolls. As a result, many trolls have ended up blocking her.
Perhaps, it is time we take a few steps back from the euphoria surrounding the liberating nature of the internet and critically examine social media spaces where virtual reality mirrors the real ugly one. There is a need to look at social media spaces as regions upholding patriarchal and misogynistic values and address challenges thereof.
Dr Bassem Youssef, the former heart surgeon and Egyptian TV presenter likened to Jon Stewart, has declared he is taking extended time off from journalism, after an anti-semitism and plagiarism row swept through Egypt.
Dr Youssef was named by Time Magazine as one of the “100 most influential people in the world.” He has over two and a half million followers on his Twitter account and his weekly TV show, Al Bernameg, attracts millions. A political satirist and comedian, he is heavily influenced by Stewart’s Daily Show in the US.
Youssef’s self-censorship comes after a very public humiliation. The Cairo Post reports that an article written for publication in last Tuesday’s edition of Al Shoroqu, concerning events in Ukraine was heavily plagiarised a similar article Ben Judah wrote for Politico about the same topic.
The article was entitled “Why Russia No Longer Fears the West,” and while Ben Judah is a recognised global expert on Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Youssef is a pop-politics TV presenter with clearly scant knowledge of tensions with Putin.
Youssef tweeted that he had cited Ben Judah’s work at the end of his piece, but that editors had not include this in the final version.
Judah was then targeted by hundreds of anti-semitic messages, including pictures of Nazi symbols.
“Isreal [sic] under my shoes holocaust b***h lol hitler b***h hahahaha if I were hitler I will burn u all,” said one Cairo-based user.
Another from Cairo – “Jews curse of God on Earth.”
Another from Mansoura wrote “I will f**k your family one by one.”
“I made a public statement to lessen the damage on him as I respect his work for freedom of the press” Judah told Index. “Everyone can make mistakes under journalistic stress.” He received no apology from Dr. Youssef, even after the anti-Semitic tweets started arriving.
“Regarding the Twitter rage : I am from a family of Holocaust survivors, so it did not surprise me such hatred of Jews exists.”
Judah believes that the majority of the abusers were “middle class English-speakers in Cairo.”
“The whole experience reveals the scale of racial hate in the Arab world towards Jews,” he added.
In 1945 there were eight hundred thousand Jews living across the Arab world. Today, there are fewer than eight thousand.
Like Christians in the Middle East, who have seen their numbers drop from 15% to 5% in the last hundred years, the last fifty years saw many Jews move to Europe, the US, or Israel. The beginning of the exodus correlates roughly with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, suggesting that Arabs persecutions of Jews has also been politically motivated.
Judah says he received hundreds of anti-Semitic messages, many of them referencing the state of Israel.
“u re a f****** israeli dog &put ur tongue in ur ass f*** u son of pimp,” was one, another “I want to tell you f*** you Israel: F*** u Israelis and all Jews,” as well as “Israel under my shoes holocaust bitch lol hitler bitch hahahaha if I were hitler I wud burn you all.”
Judah also observed that many of those tweeting abuse had been key players in the Arab Spring.
“Egyptians who were baying for my Zionist blood were not peasants but mostly middle-class English speakers. Many of them were women, the heroes of the Arab spring.”
The anti-Semitism was not uniform, according to Judah “a lot of big Egyptian bloggers did touchingly tweet their shame and apologies to make me feel a bit better”.
Reforms can be a deceptive thing. They can be particularly deceptive when covering the intelligence community, which is notoriously resistant to legislative meddling it tends to find intrusive.
Last week, Congress and the White House were a flurry with proposals to alter the nature of bulk collecting of calls and communications of American citizens under the Patriot Act. In a statement released through the American Civil Liberties Union, Snowden went so far as to see this as “turning point”. “I believed that if the NSA’s unconstitutional mass surveillance of Americans was known, it would not survive the scrutiny of the courts, the Congress, and the people.”
Three plans are on the table – the USA Freedom Act (otherwise known as the Leahy-Sensenbrenner bill), the more conservative House Intelligence Committee Bill (the Ruppersberger-Rogers bill), and the President’s own proposal. The latter has yet to mutate into the language of legislation, but is by the far the most important one to date. For that reason, it deserves greatest scrutiny.
All the proposals, in some measure, deal with the operation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The provision facilitates current bulk collection and remains a creature of the post-September 11 2001 era, when the Bush administration extended the surveillance state with knee-jerk enthusiasm. Defenders of the provision argue that metadata gathered under the program remains vital in identifying links between terrorist cells inside the United States. Privacy advocates remain unconvinced by the inefficiency of a program that has been affirmed.
President Obama’s proposal involves allowing phone companies to retain their databases of records in standardised, interoperable format. The reason behind this is to allow government officials quick and easy access to the material when required. The focus on storage will shift from government agencies – a main bone of contention for privacy advocates – to telephony companies. There is an additional oversight measure – the NSA would, in obtaining access, have to seek an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. In turn, the FISC would have to be satisfied that the records pertained to a person connected with a terrorist organisation.
The enthusiasm for the changes last week was certainly evident, suggesting the administration had struck a delicate balance between privacy and security. In Obama’s own words, “I am confident that this approach can provide our intelligence and law enforcement professionals the information that they need to keep us safe while addressing the legitimate privacy concerns that have been raised.”
Reuters stated that the Obama administration had “announced details of its plan to end the government’s vast bulk collection of data about phone calls made in the United States”. Even more cautious observers, such as Jameel Jafeer, suggested that this was “an acknowledgment that a program that was endorsed in secret by all three branches of government, and that was in place for about a decade, has not survived public scrutiny.”
For all that enthusiasm, Jafeer would also suggest that various operational matters needed clearing up. What would, for instance, be the governing standard of suspicion the FISC would use in its judicial deliberations? There is every suggestion that the reforms are driving down the standard of suspicion required in various cases – from “probable cause” to “reasonable suspicion”. For that reason, it would be difficult to see refusals to government petitions except on rare occasions. The FISC will continue being a formalised rubber stamp.
A looming question here is what constitutes a “phone record” for the purposes of Obama’s reforms. Phone records obtained by national security letter statutes and the pen register would need to be incorporated into the reforms – to not do so would render any changes futile..
There is a striking addition to the NSA’s powers that will take place if Obama’s current proposals go through in their current form. The NSA would only be losing authority to collect and hold telephone calling records for up to five years from landlines. Telephony companies will be expected to hold records for up to 18 months. More than adequate compensation is being offered to the NSA’s apparent trimming of data access. The compromise has come in the form of collecting cell phone data, a considerable expansion of power given that the NSA claims that only 30 per cent of all call data of the country is being tapped into.
This in itself is a curious suggestion, given that the NSA is already gathering up to 5 billion records a day on the location of cell phones around the globe. Presumably, local coverage in the US of cell phone data has been skimpy, at least relative to land lines.
It should come as little surprise that the agency’s chief, the retiring Gen. Keith Alexander, was enthusiastic for a solution that would, in effect, enhance NSA coverage while having metadata from landlines restricted. His lobbying of Congress has been particularly frenetic, given that the collection authority of the agency will expire in 18 months. The drafters have been busy, and Obama has been dismissive of suggestions by such NSA critics as Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy to let the program lapse into oblivion. In that, the President has the support of the House Intelligence Committee members, Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Dutch Ruppersberger, whose “End Bulk Collection Act” replicates the spirit of Obama’s proposals.
For that reason, privacy advocates can only count the latest measures, notably those of the Obama administration, as refined efforts to enhance surveillance rather than roll back metadata collection. The principle remains only the practice is being tweaked and effectively granted a legal varnish.
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