19 Aug 16 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, Mapping Media Freedom, mobile, News and features, Russia, Serbia, Turkey
Each week, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project verifies threats, violations and limitations faced by the media throughout the European Union and neighbouring countries. Here are five recent reports that give us cause for concern.
16 August, 2016 – IMC TV reporter Gulfem Karatas and cameraman Gokhan Cetin were assaulted and detained while covering the police raid on the daily Ozgur Gundem. Footage of the attack was shared via IMC TV Twitter account, showing police grabbing the camera and physically assaulting the reporter, who is heard screaming in the footage.
Karatas and Cetin were detained along with journalists Günay Aslan, Reyhan Hacıoğlu, Ender Öndeş, Doğan Güzel, Ersin Çaksu, Kemal Bozkurt, Sinan Balık, Önder Elaldı, Davut Uçar, Zana Kaya, Fırat Yeşilçınar and Mesut Karnak.
In an official statement IMC TV said: “During the live broadcast, the police prevented Gulfem Karatas and Gokhan Cetin from reporting and detained them violently along with at least 21 Ozgur Gundem employees. We condemn this unacceptable treatment to our colleagues who were on duty and ask for their immediate release.”
16 August, 2016 – Journalist Vladimir Zivanovic and photographer Boris Mirko, who work for the daily Serbian Telegraph were threatened and insulted while reporting on the illegal construction of an aqua park in the capital Belgrade.
The journalists were in an area of the city where former professional football player Nikola Mijailovic is building the controversial aqua park. Mijailovic approached the journalists and shouted a series of insults about them and their families. He reportedly told them that they should be put in a gas chamber together.
Mijailovic also reportedly tried to bribe them. The journalists have reported the threats to the police and Serbia’s Independent Association of Journalists has condemned the incident.
15 August, 2016 – A court in Baku ruled to uphold a travel ban against investigative reporter Khadija Ismayilova. “Binagadi Court told me because I have no husband, kids or property, I might not be able to return if I leave the country,” Ismayilova said following the hearing in Baku.
Ismayilova was released from prison on 25 May on a suspended three-and-a-half-year sentence.
Also read: Azerbaijan’s long assault on media freedom
16 August, 2016 – The eighth administrative court in Istanbul ordered the closure of the newspaper Ozgur Gundem on the grounds of “producing terrorist propaganda”.
The court order described the closure as “temporary” although no duration appears to be specified in the text of the decision.
Later that day, Ozgur Gundem’s offices were raided by the police.
According to P24, the 23 members of staff were taken into custody. They are: Editor-in-Chief Zana Kaya, journalists Zana Kaya, Günay Aksoy, Kemal Bozkurt, Reyhan Hacıoğlu, Önder Elaldı, Ender Önder, Sinan Balık, Fırat Yeşilçınar, İnan Kızılkaya, Özgür Paksoy (DİHA news agency) , Zeki Erden, Elif Aydoğmuş, Bilir Kaya, Ersin Çaksu, Mesut Kaynar (DİHA), Sevdiye Gürbüz, Amine Demirkıran, Baryram Balcı, Burcu Özkaya, Yılmaz Bozkurt (member of the press office of the Istanbu Medical Chamber), Gülfem Karataş (İMC), Gökhan Çetin (İMC) and Hüseyin Gündüz (Doğu Publishing House).
Also read: Turkey’s continuing crackdown on the press must end
11 August, 2016 – Dmitri Remisov, the Rostov-on-Don regional correspondent for Rosbalt news agency, told the agency that he was repeatedly assaulted by police officers while being questioned at the regional Center for Counteracting Extremism.
According to Remisov, he was asked to come to the CCE to answer questions related to a criminal case “on the preparation of a terrorist act” in Rostov, a city in south-west Russia.
He reported that two police officers asked him whether he knew certain individuals, where most of the people he was asked about were opposition activists.
“Then they asked me if I knew a certain Smyshlayev. I said that I didn’t remember such a person,” Remizov said.“One officer started saying I did know this person in 2009, after which he struck my head three times. Afterwards, he began threatening me, saying he could prosecute me under the criminal law or could have some Nazis punish me.”
After he was questioned another policeman threatened him with physical punishment, saying “we will meet [with you] once again”.
The Rosbalt correspondent received medical care after the questioning. He also filed a complaint against police officers, Rosbalt reported.
16 Aug 16 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, Europe and Central Asia, Mapping Media Freedom, mobile, News and features
Azadliq journalist Seymur Hezi was arrested in August 2014. He was subsequently convicted of aggravated hooliganism and sentenced to five years in prison.
Azerbaijan has never had a strong record on press freedom. Since independence, the country’s journalists have been mistreated, while independent and opposition newspapers faced constant libel charges and other harassment from local law enforcement or criminal elements.
Journalists and outlets that support government policies are left alone to fill their pages with praise, while those who take a more critical approach are punished. Official court documents detail how journalists have been sent to prison on trumped-up charges of hooliganism, extortion, trafficking, and instigating mass protests and violence.
In practice, however, targeted journalists reported on official corruption, criticised extravagant government spending or documented illegal evictions. While the country’s leaders and key decision makers pay lip service to media freedom, the government continues to hunt down journalists, activists and human rights defenders.
Periodic waves of arrests have created a sense of fear that has suffocated the country’s journalists. Independent media — like Index award-winning Azadliq — have been pushed into bankruptcy through the withholding of funds and spurious libel litigation. Even media organisations based outside the country — like meydan.tv — have been subject to harassment and punitive investigations. Azerbaijan’s small but remaining mass of independent voices is shrinking.
The timeline, beginning in 2003, includes journalists and bloggers who have been arrested and sentenced on bogus charges.
TimelineJS Embed
08 Jul 16 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, Europe and Central Asia, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features, Russia, Turkey, United Kingdom
Click on the dots for more information on the incidents.
Each week, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project verifies threats, violations and limitations faced by the media throughout the European Union and neighbouring countries. Here are five recent reports that give us cause for concern.
Turkey: DIHA reporter arrested in Batman
4 July 2016: Dicle News Agency reporter Serife Oruc was sent to court on the charges of being “member of an illegal organisation”, news website Bianet reported. Oruc was arrested with two other men who were in the same car with Oruc, Emrullah Oruc and Muzaffar Tunc.
All three were transferred to a prison in Batman.
UK: Journalist claims Telegraph censored article critical of Theresa May
2 July 2016: The Daily Telegraph pulled a comment piece critical of Theresa May as May fought to become the leader of the Conservatives.
The piece was published on 1 July in the news section of the Telegraph but was subsequently taken down from the website. It was entitled “Theresa May is a great self-promoter but a terrible Home Secretary”.
“Daily Telegraph pulled my comment piece on Theresa May ministerial record after contact from her people #censorship”, journalist Jonathan Foreman tweeted on 2 July.
The journalist authorised Media Guido to republish the piece and it can be read on their website.
Russia: Free Word NGO declared a “foreign agent”
1 July 2016: The Pskov office of the Russian justice ministry declared Svobodnoye Slovo (Free Word), an NGO which publishes the independent newspaper Pskovskaya gubernia, a “foreign agent”.
The decision was made after an assessment of the organisation was conducted by the Pskov regional justice ministry department. It established that the organisation “receives money and property from another NGO which receives money and property from foreign sources”.
In addition, the statement said the NGO is running “political activities” because the newspaper is covering political issues.
Independent regional Pskovskaya Gubernia became well-known after a series of articles revealing Russian casualties in eastern Ukraine in the beginning of the Donbass conflict in the summer of 2014.
Azerbaijan: Editor sentenced to three months in jail for extortion
1 July 2016: Fikrat Faramazoglu, editor-in-chief of jam.az, a website that documents cases and arrests related to the ministry of national security, was arrested last Friday. He has been given a three-month sentence after being accused of extorting money by threats.
Faramazoglu’s wife said a group of three unidentified men showed up at their home, confiscating his laptop. Documents and even CDs from his children’s weddings were confiscated without any warrant. The three men informed Faramazoglu’s wife that her husband had been arrested.
Russia: Police detains Meduza freelancer covering death of children in Karelia
30 June 2016: Police detained Danil Alexandrov, a freelance journalist for Meduza news website working in Republic of Karelia reporting on the death of 14 children in a boating accident on Syamozero Lake. He was accused of working “without a license“.
Alexandrov was detained on his way out of the Essoilsky village administration building, where he spoke to the head of the town. The police reportedly approached Alexandrov and threatened to confiscate all his equipment unless he signed aan administrative offence report. He signed the document.
“They hinted that it might be necessary to confiscate ‘evidence of my journalistic activities’,” Alexandrov told Meduza, adding that the police insisted the publication was a foreign media outlet and had to be accredited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Foreign Ministry’s rules on accreditation discuss full-time staff members of foreign media outlets but do not comment on freelancers. Alexandrov’s court case is scheduled for 6 July. He faces a maximum penalty of 1,000 rubles (€14) for working “without a license”.
17 Jun 16 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, Europe and Central Asia, European Union, France, Italy, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features, Russia, Turkey
Click on the dots for more information on the incidents.
Each week, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project verifies threats, violations and limitations faced by the media throughout the European Union and neighbouring countries. Here are five recent reports that give us cause for concern.
A Baku prosecutor asked for an 8.5-year sentence for Rovshan and Rufat Zahidov, relatives of Azadliq (Radio Liberty) newspaper editor-in-chief Ganimat Zahid on charges of drug possession, the media outlet reported. Rufat and Rovshan Zahidovs were arrested in July 2015 and accused of the possession and sale of drugs. The hearing of the case began in February 2016. Ganimat Zahid lives in exile and runs Azerbaijan Hour online TV channel. Zahid served 28 months of a four- year sentence in retaliation for his critical journalism wrote CPJ following Zahid’s release in 2010. Zahid was convicted under articles 127.2.3 (hooliganism with intentional infliction of minor bodily harm) and 221 (hooliganism).
Police forces pushed, shoved and hit journalists with batons while dispersing a protest against the proposed labour law in Rennes, France 3 reported. The police charged the crowd from their cars, using tear gas against protesters and hitting them with batons, France 3 reported. Bruno Van Wassenhove, a France 3 reporter, explained journalists who had been criticising the violence of the assault were pushed to the side by the police officers and hit intermittently with batons. Rennes Press Club has firmly criticised the attacks against journalists perpetrated by the police. “Journalists were not targets but ‘they were hit by batons'”, the Club wrote on twitter, quoting an article of newspaper Le Parisien.
Editor Pasquale Clemente was sentenced to two years in prison and fined €1,500 on libel charges (Art. 13 of the press law n.47 /48) in the criminal court of Nola in Naples, Ossigeno reported. Clemente is the former editor-in-chief of the Gazzetta di Caserta and currently editor-in-chief of Roma newspaper. On 22 July, 2010, Pasquale Giuliano, a former judge and senator at the time, sued the journalist for an article published on 30 April, 2010 edited by Clemente. In that article, Clemente criticises the politician: “A province like ours – he writes – can not afford to blow up the first Provincial Council …. A shame ratified by threats from the courtroom of two parliamentary politicians like Coronella and Giuliano, who had nothing to do with anything”.
Journalists Aleksandr Valov and Dmitry Saltykovsky along with a film crew for US channel HBO were detained while working near the southern Russian city of Sochi. The Russian journalists and the six-person TV crew were reportedly investigating claims of misuse of real estate properties constructed during the 2014 Winter Olympic Games which were held in Sochi. The US citizens were released after seven hours, while the two Russian journalists were detained further and transported to the FSB headquarters in Sochi. Initially, law enforcement claimed they were operating in a near-border zone without “necessary permits.” Valov’s lawyer reports that a court in Adler charged him with “organising a public event in a near-border zone.” Valov is set to remain in jail for five days. Dmitry Saltykovsky, who worked as an interpreter for the HBO crew, was released, but fined 1,000 rubles ($15), according to the journalists’ lawyer, Alexander Popov, on Twitter. Aleksandr Valov is the editor-in-chief of Blog Sochi.
Syrian independent journalist Ahmed Abd al-Qader survived second murder attempt in Urfa, where he is based. Exiled Syrian news outlet, Eye on Homeland, said, Ahmed Abd al-Qader was attacked while out shopping by two gunmen riding a motorbike, RSF reported. Injured in the head, he was taken to a hospital in Urfa and is now placed in intensive care and is reportedly in stable condition. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State according to ABC news. In March of 2016, Ahmed Abd al-Qader survived a first attempt at his life when two men ambushed his residence in Urfa. His brother Ibrahim Abdelqader was murdered in Urfa on 30 October 2015 together with a friend, Fares Hammadi, which the Islamic State also claimed responsibility for. In April, another Syrian journalist Mohammed Zahir al-Shergat died as a result of gunshot wounds in Turkish city of Gaziantep. Shergat was shot when walking on a street by members of the IS, who have since confirmed their responsibility of the attack.
