11 Aug 20 | Covid 19 and freedom of expression, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114537″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Cartoonists are “the canaries in the coal mine” when it comes to media freedom. That, at least, is the view of multiple award-nominated Belgian cartoonist Steven Degryse, better known to his readers as Lectrr.
If so there is certainly something wrong in the mine. According to the Cartoonists Rights Network International, there have been more than twice the number of attacks against cartoonists between the months of March and May this year than there normally are, and the reason? It is a dangerous combination of restrictive legislation enacted because of the Covid pandemic, the rise of authoritarianism, frayed tempers, and offended individuals with powerful platforms.
Early on in the crisis, Lectrr’s cartoon of a Chinese flag with biohazard symbols instead of stars drew sharp criticism.
“I started to receive a lot of hate mail on my social media, most of it in Chinese, and a lot by fake accounts and manufactured texts. After a while I also received a death threat by one of the accounts,” said Lectrr.
While he did not feel pressured by the negative reactions, not all cartoonists share this sentiment. Australian cartoonist Badiucao received a death threat from a Twitter user following the publication of his Wuhan Diary; likewise, Mahmoud Abbas and his family’s location was shared on social media following the publication of his oil crisis cartoon that sparked a smear campaign against him as well as death threats.
Terry Anderson, executive director of Cartoonists Rights Network International, says that in countries where democracy is weak or entirely absent, legislation that is said to be in the name of monitoring false information about coronavirus is “actually being used to detain critics who…aren’t pleased with how the situation is being handled in their country”. Anderson said, “Authoritarianism, isolationism, and exceptionalism are pretexts by those who have an inclination to curtail freedoms…under the auspices of protecting public health, protecting from misinformation and disinformation, from fake news, and so on.”
Lectrr said there has been a rise in both violence and legislation that prohibits criticism of the government, or that the government deems seditious in countries “where we see the rise of autocratic leaders…[like] Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban, and Francken who constantly bash or criminalize journalists and cartoonists with their followers”.
This is something that the Index on Censorship has been acutely aware of. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, there have been more than 200 violations of media freedom which we have reported on an interactive map, in conjunction with our partners at Justice for Journalists Foundation.
For example, Brazilian president Bolsonaro suspended the deadline for when his government must respond to a request for access to information in an attempt to prevent the public from accessing government records; a study in Hungary found that public information on the coronavirus pandemic has been centralised and restricted in an attempt to control the pandemic’s narrative; and in the United States, the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and NYU Langone Health has ordered faculty doctors not to speak with reporters about Covid-19 without express approval from the Office of Communications and Marketing under threat of termination. These legislative and regulatory attacks on media freedom have affected journalists and cartoonists by preventing their access to pertinent information, and therefore curtailing criticism of respective governments. However, government regulation of media is not the only type of violence that cartoonists have had to endure.
With billions of people around the world in lockdown, media content has been at the forefront of everyone’s mind. People are constantly on the news—newspapers, social media, televised reports—and right along with the daily news is a critical cartoon.
Anderson said, “Because so many things in their common life are gone, people are consuming information in a much higher quantity, so when a news story breaks, everyone is paying attention. If there’s a cartoon that pisses people off, it’s going to piss off far more people far more quickly.”
Lectrr’s cartoon was one of many that upset powerful people.
In the early months of 2020, “there was a rash of diplomats specifying cartoons that they took umbrage with…when a diplomat, somebody with an enormous platform and prestige singles out an individual practitioner, it’s an open invitation to harassment,” said Anderson. “The majority are state actors: governments, police forces, and military.”
When cartoonists, who are often freelance artists, are targeted by someone as powerful as a diplomat, they become the eye of public dissent, and as a result, become victims of smear campaigns, death threats, and, in some cases, violent, physical attacks.
Usually, a cartoonist or journalist can be silenced in the EU with the “brutal intimidation…of lawyers. Cartoonists and journalists often don’t have the means to go into lengthy trials, so even when they are right…they often don’t stand a chance against powerful enemies,” according to Lectrr.
These kinds of defamation cases run “dry the resources of cartoonists,” he continued, but in the age of the coronavirus, the most effective way to silence a cartoonist seems to be by putting them in the centre of a storm of loyal, angry, low-patience supporters, bypassing the need to spend money on a trial, and instead using a sea of threats to intimidate and silence cartoonists.
This Covid-inspired attack on cartoonists has led some media outlets to conclude that cartoons and cartoonists are a problem, Anderson stated.
“It’s a strange thing, just five years after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, to see so many places saying, ‘yeah, we’ll just do without—we won’t have cartoons.’”
Although a world without cartoons feels more imminent now during the clash of authoritarian leaders and a deadly virus, Lectrr warns that “where cartoonism [sic] is in decline, so is freedom of speech, or even democracy.”
What happens to a society when freedom of speech is regulated, or worse, eradicated, by governments? And how close are we to that edge?
Read more about Index on Censorship’s mapping media freedom during Covid-19 project. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You might also enjoy reading” category_id=”40456″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
13 Feb 20 | News and features, Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”105876″ img_size=”large”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]14 February 2020 – Valentine’s Day – marks my last day at Index on Censorship after nearly six years at the helm. It feels apt, then, to share how passionate I am about – free speech and the organisation that has spent nearly 50 years defending it.
Let’s start with freedom of speech. When I started at Index, I have to confess I was an armchair enthusiast. I believed in freedom of speech, of course I did – or so I thought. After all, I was a journalist. I’d worked in countries like South Africa and Ireland that had experienced – in differing forms – decades of formal censorship and centuries of informal silencing.
But what I came to realise very quickly is that while support for free speech is easy in theory, in practice it is much, much harder.
What I love about Index is we never pretend otherwise. For us, the work we do is not about defending free speech in principle, but demonstrating how and why it is so important in reality. We don’t pretend we have all the answers instantly. In a world that expects immediate responses, the pressure to provide the answer at once is huge. But we have learned that sometimes we need to say: “Hmmm, we need to think about that one.”
We have wrestled with questions that stretched from whether or not social media platforms should show beheading videos to the question of the Northern Irish bakery asked to ice a cake with words with which they disagreed. We debated the point at which hateful speech amounts to incitement to violence. We tried to address the notion of words that cause harm.
Being thoughtful doesn’t always win you headlines but it’s crucial if you want to convince those who doubt your arguments. I love that Index thinks.
I love that Index has courage. We believe passionately that everyone should have the right to speak freely – and that includes defending the rights of those with whom we profoundly disagree – or whom others find shocking, disturbing and offensive. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would find myself defending the right of a Scottish YouTuber to teach his girlfriend’s dog to do a Nazi salute. Thankfully, we were not alone.
Sadly, those who defend freedom of expression often are. It was something we fought to counter when we spoke out in defence of Charlie Hebdo – and that experience – of sticking our heads above the parapet when many others would not was a formative experience for me as a relatively new Index CEO.
We are not the courageous ones, though. The courageous ones are those who speak out in the knowledge that they could face dire consequences for doing so.
Free speech is the Turkish playwright Meltem Arikan voicing the pain of exile and the delights of creating a new home in a new language. Free speech is artist Luis Manuel Alcantara, inviting repeated arrest for refusing to make government-sanctioned art in Cuba. Free speech is Zimbabwean activist Evan Mawarire calling for a compassionate government that protects its people. Free speech is journalists like Carole Cadwalladr, Caroline Muscat and Maria Ressa defying attempts to silence them. Free speech is Nabeel Rajab exposing torture in Bahrain’s jails – speech for which he himself was jailed. Free speech is a young Saudi woman appealing for asylum and finding her cause taken up by thousands around the world. Free speech is every one of our brilliant Index on Censorship fellows.
It is also speech that hurts. It is speech that is raw, shocking, offensive – that demeans and diminishes others. In my time at Index we have had to defend words and viewpoints that I abhor. In so doing we have been accused of sharing and condoning those views – of allowing them to become mainstream.
Defending that line is hard. But we do so because none of the examples we have seen of government bans or social media restrictions ends up achieving the outcome desired – one in which we are more tolerant of one another’s differences.
We believe there is an alternative to censorship. I am hugely proud that last year I was finally able to get off the ground a project close to my heart: our Free Speech Is For Me programme, which brought together activists in Britain and the United States to debate the value of free speech. Along the way, participants learned how better to listen to one another’s ideas. Some even changed their minds. One Brexit supporter told us they had even started reading The Guardian …
Words matter to us. I love that Index continues to produce a magazine that takes a global and long-term look at the issues we face and which publishes original work by leading writers. Where else could you read interviews with legends like Margaret Atwood or Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, writing by the likes of Elif Shafak, Xinran, or Ariel Dorfman?
I love that for an organisation with an impressive back catalogue, we nevertheless look forward. We are grappling with the thorny questions of regulating online speech and tough questions on hate speech and free speech in the workplace. I haven’t always got that right – but we have tried to learn how we can better be the change we want to see in the world.
Index is a small outfit, battling for funds against a million and one other worthy causes. When I started, someone told me we would never be able to compete against those raising money for life-saving healthcare. I don’t want to compete. But I believe more than ever – as we have seen with events recently in China – that life-saving healthcare depends on freedom of speech.
That is why I love this cause. And why I know Index will continue to defend it without fear or favour. And why your heartfelt Valentine vow should be to support it too.
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01 May 19
[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content_no_spaces” full_height=”yes” css=”.vc_custom_1556705695442{background-image: url(https://www.indexoncensorship.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/investigative-journalism-cover-2480.png?id=104855) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: contain !important;}”][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Targeting the messenger: Investigative journalists under extreme pressure” font_container=”tag:h1|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_custom_heading text=”There is a distinct lack of awareness among decision makers about how bad the situation is for journalists reporting on corruption” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]What do criminals, corrupt corporations and crooked politicians have in common? They all fear investigative journalists, whose job is to expose wrongdoing and hypocrisy by holding the powerful to account.
From the groundbreaking UK-based Bellingcat and the well-regarded multi-national Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, to the uncovering of the Panama and Paradise Papers, the dogged reporting and dedication of investigative journalists is clear. Yet these success stories mask the encroaching pressures that threaten to undermine efforts to expose the corruption eating at the foundations of European democracy.
For their work, investigative reporters have come under threat from multiple sources with the shared aim of stopping information that’s in the public interest from coming to light. Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project, which monitors violations against media professionals throughout Europe, recorded 206 cases of investigative journalists in the 35 countries that are in or affiliated with the European Union (EU35) being targeted in their line of work between 1 May 2014 and 31 December 2018. An additional 77 reports from EU35 showed media workers other than investigative journalists being targeted for their role in reporting on corruption.
Under-financing and business models that don’t offer proper support are major problems for investigative journalism in general, but Mapping Media Freedom has also uncovered a litany of methods that have been employed as a direct means to censor journalists, including intimidation (96 instances), defamation (53), laws or court orders curtailing media outlets or workers (48), psychological abuse (35) and blocked access (48). Media workers were also physically attacked on 27 occasions and had their property attacked on 28. Civil lawsuits were taken against journalists on 27 occasions, and criminal charges were brought against journalists on 23.
The country with the largest share of reports was Italy (40), followed by Hungary (25), Serbia (24), France (19) and Turkey (18). “In these five years in Italy, investigative journalism has become increasingly risky, both for journalists themselves and for the media,” Alberto Spampinato, the director of Ossigeno per l’informazione, an Italian press freedom monitor, told Mapping Media Freedom.
Violations of media freedom regarding investigative journalists and those reporting on corruption reported to Mapping Media Freedom per annum went from a low in 2014 of 38, to a high of 75 in 2018 (2015: 51; 2016: 61; 2017: 58).
Mapping Media Freedom’s numbers reflect only what has been reported to the platform. We have found that journalists under-report incidents they consider minor, commonplace or part of the job, or where they fear reprisals. In some cases, Mapping Media Freedom correspondents have identified incidents retrospectively as a result of comments on social media or reports appearing only after similar incidents have come to light.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”106538″ img_size=”full”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-file-pdf-o” color=”black” background_style=”rounded” size=”xl” align=”right”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_custom_heading text=”A crisis for journalism” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]Anuška Delić, a Slovenian OCCRP editor who founded Oštro, a centre for investigative journalism in the Adriatic region, told Mapping Media Freedom that there was a distinct lack of awareness among international and national decision makers about how bad the situation was across Europe for journalists reporting on corruption. “It is usually independent media or journalism centres that are investigating corruption,” Delić said.
Delić pointed out that most corruption reporting did not take place in the mainstream media, except in France, Germany and Scandinavia, where journalism had a better standing. Independent and non-profit media outlets were among the most vulnerable to financial pressures and the target of frequent threats, whether in terms of staff safety or lawsuits. She warned that more EU member states – Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and, to an extent, Slovakia, Italy and Austria – were failing to live up to democratic standards. Delić said there had been a failure at the European Union level to realise freedom of the press did not actually exist in those nations: “How many journalists have to die before we realise something is wrong?”
After spending 13 years working for Delo, Slovenia’s largest newspaper, Delić said she had to leave her position after a new editor-in-chief, “who wanted only to do PR for the owner”, took charge. This change of editorial direction left Slovenia with a lack of outlets where journalists could report on corruption, and exacerbated the low level of funding for investigative centres such as Oštro, which aims to carry out the investigative role that mainstream media used to fulfil.
Independent media outlets that engage in investigative journalism are also under pressure in Malta, independent political blogger Manuel Delia told Mapping Media Freedom. “A big chunk of the media is owned by political parties. We have a two-party system and a heavily polarised society,” he said.
Delia said that since 1990, Malta’s two big political parties – the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party – have each owned newspapers and television stations, giving “two contradictory visions of reality”. Maltese people, he said, assumed that journalists in the island nation represented and spoke for political interests. “This makes independent journalism really difficult.”
Bulgaria’s media, according to Bivol investigative journalist Atanas Tchobanov, operates in a toxic environment, with most outlets controlled by the Bulgarian government or business interests closely aligned with the country’s politicians. Mediapool journalist Polina Paunova agrees, saying that the Bulgarian media has either been bought by businessman Delyan Peevski, who is also a National Assembly member, or is “under his covert influence”.
Media concentration has become a growing issue for journalists across EU35, notably in Hungary.
Serbia is one of the worst countries in EU35 for freedom for investigative journalists. “Even if there are good media and investigative journalists, for example BIRN, KRIK, CINS, Insajder and others, the situation is very bad,” Chiara Sighele, project director for the Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa, told Mapping Media Freedom. “You have the big power of the mainstream tabloids and mainstream TV programmes, and it’s hard to challenge this power with investigative stories.”
“We have to consider the cost of investigative journalism, in a country where national television and most of the media are completely controlled through the advertising market by the political party in power,” Sighele added.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Dark new trend” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”100187″ img_size=”full”][vc_single_image image=”98320″ img_size=”full”][vc_single_image image=”103114″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]The assassination of independent Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in a car bomb on 16 October 2017 marked a dark new trend emerging in the EU35: the murder of three investigative journalists in less than 12 months. Caruana Galizia’s death was followed by the murder of Slovakian journalist Ján Kuciak and his partner Martina Kušnírová on 26 February 2018, and the rape and murder of Bulgarian journalist Viktoria Marinova on 6 October 2018. Authorities say Marinova’s death is not connected to her being a journalist, a claim some colleagues have disputed.
There is a marked contrast in the reactions to the deaths of Caruana Galizia and Kuciak in Malta and Slovakia. In Slovakia, Kuciak’s death acted as a tipping point, prompting mass protests and causing politicians to resign. The culture minister stepped down following the murder and later left the ruling party.
“Kuciak’s death changed everything, and it feels that until the next presidential elections, in March 2019, we’re going to be in limbo,” said Slovak journalist Michaela Terenzani, editor-in-chief of The Slovak Spectator. She added that the widespread coverage of the murder, coupled with the public outrage, have created an atmosphere that has encouraged more journalists to dig into allegations of corruption.
“After Kuciak’s killing, the atmosphere was one of co-operation between journalists who published joint investigative reports,” Terenzani added. “They have kept reporting on new scandals linked to the government.”
In Malta, Caruana Galizia’s death was received differently. Delia said: “Our culture minister had been marching in Paris after the Charlie Hebdo murders but after Caruana Galizia was murdered he went to Dubai to sell passports. The government was intent on demonstrating it was business as usual.”
Delia thinks the country is so polarised that only a small part of the Maltese population has been impacted by the journalist’s death.
Impunity is a major problem in the murder of journalists, and not just for those who carry out the crime. Times of Maltajournalist Ivan Camilleri told Mapping Media Freedom: “I think there was a genuine effort to solve [Caruana Galizia’s] murder. I don’t think there was a genuine effort to find who commissioned it.”
Regarding Marinova’s murder, Tchobanov recently told OCCRP that corruption was rife within the police and the judicial system in Bulgaria, pointing at inconsistencies within the current state of the investigation. “If [evidence] disappears, it can also appear to promote a version the authorities like. They have been lying to cover sensitive affairs. Why should we trust their words now?”
The man arrested in relation with Marinova’s murder said he regretted killing her and didn’t remember exactly what had happened. Paunova had a different perspective. “Because of the polarisation of the Bulgarian society at the beginning of Marinova’s case, some of the citizens declared that she was a victim of her work and another part categorically denied that it was possible. That’s why the impression of something hidden was created. Most evidence suggests that the brutal death of Marinova has no connection with her job. But the court will be the judge of this.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_custom_heading text=”Physical assaults” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]In the incidents surveyed for this report, Mapping Media Freedom recorded 28 incidents in which investigative journalists or those media workers reporting on corruption were physically assaulted across 12 countries. Italy was the country with the most reports of physical assaults (6), followed by Croatia (5) and Kosovo (4).
“Threats of aggression and violent acts against investigative journalists seem to be more and more common,” Mehmet Koksal, project officer for the European Federation of Journalists, the European regional organisation of the International Federation of Journalists, the global union federation of journalists’ trade unions, told Mapping Media Freedom.
On 23 March 2017 freelance journalist Stefano Andreone was beaten by three men in a bar in Cardito, in the province of Naples, Italy. Federazione Nazionale Stampa Italiana, the unitary trade union of the Italian journalists, linked the violence to a website Andreone created and manages, which published allegations of corruption on exhumations in the local cemetery. Andreone had to receive emergency care in the hospital of Frattamaggiore.
“With its continuous monitoring Ossigeno keeps the focus on threats and reprisals against journalists,” Spampinato said. “This attention is already in itself a system of protection for reporters.”[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Threats and intimidation” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]“The Council of Europe study on self-censorship among journalists has shown that the main form of pressure is ‘psychological violence’, which is mainly visible by intimidation used by public authorities which has a clear chilling effects on media freedom. We are convinced that many investigative journalists are the target of this type of bullying,” Koksal said.
Between 1 May 2014 and 31 December 2018, Mapping Media Freedom recorded 34 instances of psychological abuse, including verbal harassment, offline bullying, and 96 instances of intimidation, where a media worker is menaced as a result of their work.
Such violations are a major problem in Bulgaria. “Pressure we face ranges from calls demanding we change an article to physical threats,” Tchobanov said. He added that staffers had been subjected to death threats, which they reported to authorities, international organisations and local unions, but “nobody is protecting us”.
The threats against Bivol are wide ranging, from when staffers were informed in June 2015 that an attack was being planned against them to December 2016 when journalist Dimitar Stoyanov received threats both in the run-up to and after publishing several major investigative reports about alleged embezzlement of public funds with links between Bulgarian government officials and criminal groups. “The worst is when they threaten to ‘remove you’,” Tchobanov said, referring to implied death threats. Paradoxically, the staff at Bivol have used these incidents to reinvigorate their investigations, engaging in a new strategy that Tchobanov jokingly calls “publish or perish”.
“The future is very uncertain,” Spampinato told Mapping Media Freedom. Although there have been threats to remove protection from Italian investigative journalist Roberto Saviano — who has received death threats for his reporting of the Italian mafia — following an argument with Italy’s interior minister, Matteo Salvini, thankfully no such action has been taken so far, Spampinato added. “The Italian protection system remains the best among all the known systems.”[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Legal measures” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]For journalists reporting on corruption, the threat of legal action is a very serious one, which impacts what one is able to write, particularly for investigative centres with limited resources. Rubino, who recently worked on the CumEx file investigation into a tax fraud scheme discovered in 2017, said: “There are many things we weren’t able to report because there was no ongoing criminal investigation, only an administrative one, and we didn’t want to be sued because that’s automatically thousands of euros spent in legal fees.”
“Reporting on the use of European funds in Bulgaria is important, and it’s important to do it across borders,” said Tchobanov. “We are trying to find patterns and to push the authorities to investigate. The Bulgarian prosecution office is currently investigating only 0.04 per cent of the €5 billion which has been allocated by the European Commission to Bulgaria.”
Delia spoke of a similar pattern in Malta. “Although there are revelations in the press, they have no effect. This increases the vulnerability of journalists who are then portrayed as obsessive crusaders.” In Malta, repeated defamation lawsuits were filed against Caruana Galizia, who had pursued corrupt businesses and politicians as part of her investigative work, prior to her murder. On 21 February 2017 Maltese government minister Chris Cardona and his policy aide Joseph Gerada posted public messages on Twitter taunting reporter Mario Frendo about court action they planned to take against him.
Malta’s investigative journalists have also been ostracised and vilified. Politicians and businesses use lawsuits, public relations and innuendo to ridicule and sow doubt about reportage, as highlighted in the summer 2018 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
Tchobanov cited audits by tax authorities, something that repeatedly happened to Serbian newspaper Juzne Vesti, as a tactic employed by politicians to retaliate against news outlets. In Bulgaria, authorities froze the assets of Ivo Prokopiev, who publishes the newspapers Capital and Dnevnik. “All the power of the state is used against free media publishers,” Paunova told Mapping Media Freedom.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Arrest and detention” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]Between May 2014 and December 2018, Mapping Media Freedom recorded 17 instances of arrest or detention against investigative journalists. At 7am on 31 August 2018, armed police in boiler suits arrived at the home of Belfast-based award-winning journalist Barry McCaffrey with a search warrant. McCaffrey is the reporter behind Alex Gibney’s 2017 documentary about the 1994 Loughinisland pub massacre during the Northern Irish Troubles, No Stone Unturned. At the same time, around 30 armed police arrived at the home of Trevor Birney, the producer of No Stone Unturned, and confiscated items, including a broken pink phone.
Both men were arrested. The journalists were told that “on October 4th, 2017, the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland reported the theft of two ‘secret’ documents from their offices”. The arrests, they were told, were in connection with suspicion of theft, the handling of stolen goods, the unlawful disclosure of information and the unlawful obtainment of personal data. It later transpired that the Ombudsman for Northern Ireland had made no such complaint about the work of the journalists.
“The Loughinisland massacre was one of the most traumatic events in the history of the Troubles. The investigative work of Birney, McCaffrey and Fine Point Productions was a textbook example of public interest journalism, raising fundamental investigations into the police investigation, proving police collusion and taking risks within a dangerous environment, legally and otherwise, by naming suspects,” Séamus Dooley, assistant general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, a trade union for journalists in the UK and Ireland, told Mapping Media Freedom. “The arrests, the disproportionate use of police power and the flawed legal process serve to undermine the work of the journalists involved and, importantly as a deterrent to other journalists.”
“Given the legacy of the Troubles there are a number of journalists and film production companies who may be deterred by the legal barriers now confronting Barry and Trevor,” Dooley added. “The abuse of process and the use of judicial procedures by the PSNI in these circumstances shows that in Northern Ireland there is a grave lack of respect for journalists or journalism.”[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Access to information” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]Investigative journalists working across EU35 highlight the difficulties in accessing information. Camilleri routinely uses Freedom of Information requests. “There are clearly attempts from the government to make matters take longer,” he said. “The government is not friendly with the independent media at all. The office of the PM employs five to six people, all former Labour employees, who are supposed to answer the media but don’t. They act as gatekeepers. I send questions. They never answer.”
In January 2016 a journalist was prohibited from entering the Maltese Lands Authority offices where he was planning to check records for an investigation into allegations of corruption against the government agency.
Tchobanov told Mapping Media Freedom: “The main difficulty is access to information. Bulgarian and European authorities are very secretive.” Bivol journalists have requested details on Bulgarian officials in receipt of EU funds only to receive incomplete and some incorrect data, which left them unable to properly track the money. Tchobanov added that the publication has to “fight with Bulgarian and Brussels authorities” to get information, often to no avail.
Dragging their feet on FOI requests isn’t the only tactic Bulgarian authorities use to throw up barriers to investigations into corruption. In December 2016 Bivol journalist Dimitar Stoyanov received threats after reporting on alleged corruption, embezzlement of public funds and links between Bulgarian officials and criminals. In September 2018two journalists were arrested after filming people burning documents in a field while conducting an investigation into alleged fraud involving EU funds.
“Investigative journalists [in Serbia] are facing difficulties despite a very good law on access to information: the major institutions do not give them access to the most relevant documents,” Sighele said. “The main problem in Serbia is the current regime leaded by the president Aleksandar Vučić, who is trying to silence the non-aligned media and to minimize the role of the investigative journalism.”[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Denigration of journalists” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]Journalists are at risk of slander from politicians in Malta and Bulgaria especially and, to a lesser extent, in Slovakia. In Malta, Delia said he had been portrayed “as a traitor by the Labour party press”.
Official willingness to discredit and defame journalists is a Europe-wide phenomenon, but one that is especially acute for independent media outlets that specialise in investigative journalism into official corruption. Politicians at all levels of national and local governments have used their platform to smear journalists and their outlets to undermine often embarrassing revelations. In Bulgaria, this trend has seen journalists, journalist groups and unions labeled foreign agents, manipulators and, in the case of the Association of European Journalists — Bulgaria, “scum” and “paid urinals”.
In July 2018 Tchobanov was insulted on Facebook by a Bulgarian MEP Nikolay Barekov, who was under investigation by Bivol. In 2015 Bivol was the target of a smear campaign in mainstream media outlets that appeared to be prompted by investigations into alleged draining of cash from a Bulgarian bank through offshore companies, and abuse of European Union funds, which implicated several bankers and politicians, including the media mogul and lawmaker Peevski.
Terenzani said Slovakia has seen incidents of politicians denigrating journalists. “The leader of the ruling party is saying horrible things about journalists constantly. Everything we know about the murder [of Ján Kuciak] suggests that politicians are responsible at some level, because of the atmosphere they have created.”[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”What should be done?” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]Mapping Media Freedom’s report into the targeting of investigative journalism highlights issues affecting the accurate reporting of issues that are in the public interest to know. What should be done to reverse this dangerous trend and to make investigative journalism safer?
Index on Censorship first and foremost recommends that all charges against investigative journalists who have been arrested, imprisoned or who are facing legal action must be dropped. Laws designed to impinge on the work of investigative journalists must be reconsidered, and stronger provisions put in place so the right to access to information is respected.
“It is necessary to change some legislation but the political will to do it is lacking,” Spampinato told Mapping Media Freedom. “It is also necessary that journalists and publishers join forces to tackle problems together and reduce the most frequent risks.”
“States should facilitate the work of investigative journalists by strengthening legal protections: decriminalisation of defamation; legal protection of journalistic sources; laws guaranteeing access to public data; transparency laws; legal protection of whistleblowers,” Koksal told Mapping Media Freedom “It is the responsibility of states to guarantee an environment that favours the work of investigative journalists.”
Koksal added that the public, either through public or financial support, can play a big role in improving conditions for investigative journalists. “Journalism is a public good and should be considered as an act on behalf of the public’s right to access information,” he said.
According to NUJ’s Dooley and Koksal, membership of a trade union or professional association feel better supported when facing pressure. “It is the duty of journalists’ organisations to provide effective support, which starts with the public reporting of threats and the provision of concrete support (legal aid, financial assistance, etc.) to investigative journalists under threat,” Koksal added.
The NUJ has been working alongside investigative journalists who face difficulty in the UK and Ireland, such as Birney and McCaffrey, as well as showing solidarity with journalists facing difficulty elsewhere, including Bulgaria and Turkey, which Dooley said are countries of “profound concern”.
Finally, governments must respect the right of journalists to protect confidential information and sources. This is vital, especially in cases involving whistleblowing in the public interest.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
About this report
This report is part of a series based on data submitted to Mapping Media Freedom. This report reviewed 283 incidents involving investigative journalists from the 35 countries in or affiliated with the European Union between 1 May 2014 and 31 December 2018.
Mapping Media Freedom identifies threats, violations and limitations faced by media workers in 43 countries — throughout European Union member states, candidates for entry and neighbouring countries. The project is co-funded by the European Commission and managed by Index on Censorship as part of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF).
Index on Censorship is a UK-based nonprofit that campaigns against censorship and promotes freedom of expression worldwide. Founded in 1972, Index has published some of the world’s leading writers and artists in its award-winning quarterly magazine, including Nadine Gordimer, Mario Vargas Llosa, Samuel Beckett and Kurt Vonnegut. Index promotes debate, monitors threats to free speech and supports individuals through its annual awards and fellowship program.
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Acknowledgements
AUTHORS Valeria Costa-Kostritsky and Ryan McChrystal
EDITING Adam Aiken, Sean Gallagher and Jodie Ginsberg with contributions by Joy Hyvarinen, Paula Kennedy and Mapping Media Freedom correspondents: João de Almeida Dias, Adriana Borowicz, Ilcho Cvetanoski, Jonas Elvander, Amanda Ferguson, Dominic Hinde, Investigative Reporting Project Italy, Linas Jegelevicius, Juris Kaza, David Kraft, Lazara Marinkovic, Fatjona Mejdini, Mitra Nazar, Silvia Nortes, Platform for Independent Journalism (P24), Katariina Salomaki, Zoltan Sipos, Michaela Terenzani, Pavel Theiner, Helle Tiikmaa, Christina Vasilaki, Lisa Weinberger
DESIGN Matthew Hasteley
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