16 Mar 2020 | Awards, Fellowship 2020, News
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”112645″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This year’s three nominees in the digital activism category of Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression awards work in different areas of the online landscape but all are doing important work.
First up we have the Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, or 7amleh, a non-profit organisation focused on protecting the human rights of Palestinians in the online space.
The organisation’s research has shown that two thirds of Palestinian youth are afraid to voice their political opinions online.
Israel routinely uses Palestinians’ private information from social media in its surveillance, leading many young Palestinians to self-censor after seeing family, friends and journalists arrested.
7amleh’s work protecting online safety and digital rights, advocacy and research has been crucial. It has campaigned with NGOs for amendments to the Palestinian Authority’s Cybercrimes Law, the development of the first Arabic Digital Security Manual and digital training being implemented into the Palestinian education system.
Our second nominee is eQualitie, an international group of digital activists whose mission is to promote and defend fundamental freedoms and human rights, including the free flow of information online.
Based in Montreal, eQualitie develop technologies to prevent cyber attacks, work to circumvent internet censorship and secure online communication. Additionally, they launch critical investigations to find the source of attacks and expose them.
As well as advocating free expression online, eQualitie have also delivered security training to over 3,000 journalists, activists and members of the public in over 40 countries. They have defended over 400 organisations from cyber attacks, including Black Lives Matter, and more than a million people use their protected websites every day.
Founded in 2010, our third nominee – HarassMap – allows victims and witnesses of sexual harassment in Egypt to pinpoint on a map exactly where their harassment occurred and also gives them access to a community of people who can help them.
The organisation has collected reports of more than 1,500 incidents of harassment and these are used to put an end to stereotypes that blame the harassed, make people understand that sexual harassment is a crime that has serious consequences, build campaigns to change perceptions and equip volunteers and partners with information that they use to create zero-tolerance attitudes and behaviour in schools, universities, workplaces, and on the streets.
It is based on the idea that if more people start taking action when sexual harassment happens in their presence, they can end what they call “an epidemic”.
HarassMap’s work saw Cairo University become the first in the Middle East to implement an anti-sexual harassment strategy. HarassMap has also partnered with Uber on sexual harassment policy and training.
The winner of the digital activism category will be announced at our awards event at the May Fair Hotel in London on 30 April. Digital activism is one of the four categories that will be recognised at the awards, alongside campaigning, journalism and the arts.
Our 2019 winner in this category was Fundación Karisma.
The winner of the 2020 journalism award will be chosen by a panel of judges which includes Ruth Ibegbuna, founder of multi award-winning youth leadership charity Reclaim and now director of Roots — an initiative aimed at bringing together people from different walks of life.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
22 Aug 2019 | Media Freedom, News, Pakistan
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”108681″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Since its liberalisation in 2002, the media landscape of Pakistan has been one of the most vibrant and varied in South Asia. Pakistan is home to both long-running traditional newspapers like Dawn and many homegrown television and social media news coverage channels.
However, in the run-up to the 2018 elections, interference and censorship by the military establishment dramatically increased. Journalists have faced harassment and interference, pressure on media owners is common, and the government has taken to jamming the signals and interrupting the distribution of news it dislikes. At the same time, the media faces a growing lack of trust from the Pakistani public, and economic pressures have contributed to what some observers are calling an internal “crisis.”
Index on Censorship’s Sophia Paley spoke with a Pakistani journalist based in Lahore, who agreed to give his own impressions of censorship in Pakistan. He insisted on anonymity, explaining that he feared reprisals from the military. Below is their interview, edited for brevity and clarity:
Index on Censorship: During the run up to the 2018 presidential elections, the government of Pakistan intimidated the media into employing an unprecedented level of self-censorship. How does this new form of censorship differ from the old, more traditional form, and which do you think is worse for Pakistan?
Journalist: The censorship was enforced by the Pakistani military. Some military officers ran Whatsapp groups and social media campaigns urging people not to vote for Nawaz Sharif’s PMLN and Bilawal Bhutto’s PPP as well. At the same time, Pakistan’s superior judiciary, led by the then Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, clamped down on media coverage during the trial of Nawaz Sharif. I believe that judges in Pakistan are often blackmailed by the military, and the military is used to getting favourable decisions.
Prior to the election, Ahmed Noorani and Matiullah Jan were attacked, and several other (critical) journalists were threatened with death by ISI. News stories questioning the military and judiciary from dozens of journalists were pulled. The current censorship is done in the name of Prime Minister Imran Khan, but it is widely believed that he is only a spokesman for the military.
Index: CPJ and RSF have reported that the number of attacks on journalists is decreasing, but the prevalence of harassment and censorship is nonetheless increasing. Why have we seen a shift away from lethal to nonlethal attacks, and what does it mean?
J: This is true. Physical attacks have dropped because physical elimination is dangerous and causes blame to be directly assigned to the military. The censorship is now forced through media owners. The Pakistani military has perfected this art. They directly call media owners and tell them to stop their employees from tweeting anything critical of the army. If tweets and posts are not deleted, the military will force TV channels off of cable within minutes. Geo News, Abb Tak, Channel 24 have all faced shutdowns across Pakistan in recent months after their aired critical shows or gave coverage to Maryam Nawaz and Asif Ali Zardari. There is a rule in the news rooms that you cannot criticise the military, Imran Khan, or the IMF, and you should fully support the economic policies of the government for a “new Pakistan”.
Several journalists have lost their jobs, and several others’ jobs are in danger. Talat Hussain had to leave his job at Geo because he was critical of the military. Murtaza Solani, Nadeem Nusrat, and Shahzeb Jilani all lost their jobs. Cyril Ameida cannot write his column in Dawn, and he was even charged with treason. Babar Sattar, Ammar Masood and several other leading columnists cannot write anything that goes against the approved narrative.
Any TV channel that doesn’t oblige gets its revenue pulled by the advertising agencies. The calls are made directly by the military. The government gives the most revenue to the channels it favours, so there is an economic squeeze around the media by the government and military combined.
Index: Dawn (one of the most respected and popular Pakistani newspapers) recently published an article asserting that the future of Pakistani media must be digital. However, as Dawn acknowledges, there are obstacles involved in shifting from something like TV to digital print media considering Pakistan’s relatively lower internet penetration and literacy rates. Do you believe that digital media is a viable solution to the current economic crisis in the Pakistani media?
J: The future is digital, but in Pakistan that will take a long time to happen due to poverty and illiteracy. Millions in rural areas have never had access to the internet and their only source of information is state-owned media and the propaganda it churns out. Whatsapp has helped to some extent, but again, due to poor internet connection and other issues, it will take decades. In urban areas, there has been progress to some extent. Several journalists, hounded out of jobs by the military, have set up their own Youtube accounts. They are using Twitter and Facebook to air their views. That’s the only medium they are left with because outlets owned by regular media owners are not allowed to accommodate their views.
Recently, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) mused about potentially banning social media sites carrying “blasphemous content”. The actual objective is to have social media sites on the Chinese and Arab model, where criticism will not be entertained and only the state narrative will be propagated.
Index: There is a lack of trust or goodwill between rival Pakistanti journalists, opposing TV networks, and even factions within media workers’ unions. Do you consider this a problem? What effect, if any, does this have on those journalists, and the Pakistani media industry more broadly?
J: This is a huge problem. Some TV anchors churn out whatever is told to them by the military and its media managers. TV stations attack other media houses, accusing them of treason, being anti-Islam and being foreign agents. Pakistan’s ARY TV called rival channel Geo an agent of India, the CIA and Mossad (the Israeli intelligence agency), and ran a campaign against Geo for over a year in 2014. Geo sued ARY TV in London and won the defamation case, which cost ARY about £3 million. Subsequently, Ofcom forced ARY to shut down in the UK.
These days, at least three channels are dedicated to attacking everyone from the media and opposition who doesn’t agree with Imran Khan’s policies. Declarations of treachery, treason and blasphemy are used as a political tool by these channels on behalf of Imran Khan’s government and the military. Those with dissenting opinions are called agents of anti-Pakistani sentiment, anti-Islam forces generally, India, America, Israel, you name it. Only a few anchors are considered neutral; most of the rest are aligned with the ruling PTI. The media industry is completely divided and the middle space has shrunk. There are several media unions and they are not on the same page. It’s a gloomy scenario.
Index: One thing that seems to have united these factions is their opposition to the consolidation and expansion of government regulation of the media under a proposed Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority (PMRA). Do you see the government attempting to push through the opposition and revive this plan, or attempt something similar to it in the future? If so, how might they do so?
J: The media houses and unions and journalists are divided on this. Anchors and journalists linked with the military support more regulation and setting up courts, whose aim is to create a wedge between journalists and owners, and further tighten control of media houses through selecting judges who will do the bidding of the military. This plan of regulating the media is the brainchild of the military, which is obsessed with the concept of “fifth generation warfare” and believes every aspect of the narrative should be controlled through every means possible. (The PMRA) is happening, and the military will get it enforced come what may, as it needs a civilian façade for its martial law scheme. [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Additional reporting by Zofeen Ebrahim.[/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1566474313248-04d0aaec-685c-8″ taxonomies=”8996″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
1 May 2019
[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content_no_spaces” full_height=”yes” css=”.vc_custom_1556706810688{background-image: url(https://www.indexoncensorship.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/index-report-online-harassment-cover-banner.png?id=104886) !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: Journalists face an onslaught of online harassment” font_container=”tag:h1|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_custom_heading text=”Mapping Media Freedom correspondents and other journalists discuss their experiences with harassment in the digital realm that has become so commonplace that it is underreported and underestimated.” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]
“This reporter should be raped.”
This was the response from online trolls to Polish journalist Ada Borowicz after she published the story of an attack on a woman in Italy. Borowicz’s ‘crime’, apparently, was to have published the report without referring to the fact the attackers were alleged to have been migrants. Writing on Facebook Paweł Kukiz, a member of parliament and the leader of the right-wing populist movement Kukiz’15, described Borowicz’s reporting as “scandalous”.
Borowicz, who is also Mapping Media Freedom’s correspondent for Poland, was suspended from duties, and recalled from the assignment. Though her management did not give any explanation, she was told by a colleague that she was being punished on account of Kukiz’s Facebook post. The online threats followed.
When her contract with the government-controlled TVP Info was due to be renewed, an extension was not forthcoming.
Borowicz told Mapping Media Freedom that the story “was supposed to serve as an excuse not to welcome migrants. When my editors realised I wasn’t using harsh words against migrants they weren’t happy. A politician criticised me and then I was surprised to realise how aggressive internet users could be”.
Borowicz’s experience is all too familiar to many journalists, particularly women, throughout the 35 nations that are either European Union members or candidates for entry to the EU. Some 176 cases of online harassment were reported by Mapping Media Freedom correspondents between May 2014 and September 2018 – or one a week. These reports represent just a sliver of the threats against employment, of physical and sexual violence, and of death. Women journalists face malicious threats and are subjected to an extra layer of harassment invoking their gender in a sexually threatening and degrading way. The harassment is often the result of “dog-piling” – as in Borowicz’s case – or the product of an ongoing campaign by a determined troll.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”106541″ 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=”Tip of the iceberg” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]The cases in this report represent only the tip of the iceberg. Mapping Media Freedom correspondents – and investigations into online harassment published by Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists – have repeatedly told us that journalists don’t report all the harassment they receive on social media to their unions or the police, which means the number of publicised incidents far from reflects the true magnitude of the problem.
One of the reasons journalists don’t report online harassment is they get used to it and end up seeing it as being part of the job. Ilcho Cvetanoski, an Mapping Media Freedom Balkans correspondent, said: “One continues to report and report incidents to the police. And then at some point one stops reporting them, because it’s easy to end up thinking online harassment is normal.”[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_custom_heading text=”A wave of abuse” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]Journalists also occasionally feel it’s not safe to speak up about the harassment they have suffered online, fearing it could make things worse and spark a backlash, leading to yet more abuse. Adrien Sénécat, a journalist at Les Décodeurs, Le Monde’s fact-checking section, which engages with readers and verifies stories that have gone viral, says the problem of online harassment is something that concerns him and his team directly. He has thought about reporting incidents – particularly libellous videos – to the police “but feared a Streisand effect so [I] didn’t”.
The online harassment of journalists can take the form of a wave of abuse directed at them. Sénécat likens it to aggressive school bullying. “When you write a story touching certain groups, it prompts very violent reactions which are not limited to the comments of the article but extend to your Twitter mentions, your direct messages, your emails,” he said. “And it can go further – in public forums, for instance. I did a story on bullying in schools, and this [continual] wave of notifications reminded me of how kids would be receiving bullying messages until four in the morning.”
Online harassment can also extend to real life, such as when information about a journalist’s address is published online – “doxing” – and the threats move offline.
Journalists describe feeling surprised at and being unprepared for the violence directed at them, and at the pack mentality of abusive internet users.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_custom_heading text=”Targeting women” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]
A recent report by Amnesty International confirms women are particularly at risk of being insulted and intimidated on Twitter, and tend to be specifically targeted with an additional layer of violence if they are from a minority group. Women who have a public profile, such as politicians and journalists, suffer insults and threats, with private photos being leaked and published online.
In 2014, the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) reported that two thirds of women polled in an international survey said they had been victims of online harassment.
In 2016, stolen nude photos of Vonny Leclerc (formerly Moyes), a journalist for Scottish newspaper The National, were posted online. She refused to be shamed, and tweeted: “This is the reality of being a female journalist right now. People like you try to use our own bodies against us. All the time.” She then published a nude photo of herself, saying nudity was not an object of shame for her.
Borowicz said: “As a woman, you are always a double target, since you are targeted as a professional and as a woman.”
Meanwhile, Lazara Marinkovic, Mapping Media Freedom’s correspondent in Serbia, said: “For women journalists, people always use the same low blows, based on looks, calling [them whores].”[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Toxic environments” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]When describing the media landscape in countries where there are large numbers of online harassment cases against journalists, our correspondents talk about toxic and polarised environments and of media landscapes largely controlled by governments (such as those in Poland and Serbia).
Marinkovic said: “Calling journalists, NGO workers or whoever is speaking critically about the government, traitors is a very common thing in Serbia. There is a very toxic environment in the media and on social media. There is a mob media mentality. I feel it’s getting much worse.”
She added: “Our ruling party has paid an army of bots to comment. Even the so-called democratic parties hire people to support their agenda online. They usually write positive comments [under pro-government articles] or follow a signal after a politician attacks a member of the opposition.”
Several of the cases on our database started with politicians abusing journalists online before continuing with media outlets running smear campaigns against them, and internet users perpetuating the abuse.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Impunity” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]Cvetanoski believes a sense of impunity is one of the main reasons online harassment is happening.
“It’s quite easy to harass someone online. People think it’s a safe way to threaten someone,” he said. For example, in August 2018, a satirical comedian on Croatian TV received a death threat on Facebook, and was told “I know where and when you travel” and “You will get one in the back of the head, too, I swear”. When the police discovered that the harasser was a man from Split, the suspect confessed and said sorry, but he also expressed surprised that the police had managed to find him.
Journalists wanting to report online harassment often struggle with a lack of support or preparedness from online platforms, online publications and the police.
Sénécat points at Twitter’s failure to take action. “There’s a problem with Twitter, which doesn’t consider threats are threats unless people are saying ‘I am going to kill you’,” he said.
Meanwhile, referring to Serbia, Marinkovic said: “We have this prosecution office for online harassment. You can report, but they have so many cases and so many other priorities. When people report something they have to bring printed copies of the threats. It’s hard to picture how they operate.”[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Silencing journalists?” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]Online harassment can be effective in silencing journalists. When asked whether online harassment has impacted his work and that of his colleagues, Sénécat said: “We get intimidated by these communities. I notice it among my colleagues and me. Either you start battling with these trolls, antagonising them and answering them, [even though] this is not a rational discussion that can be resolved by a conversation, or you get intimidated, scared of writing about certain topics.
“For instance, if you write about Ulcan [a Franco-Israeli Zionist activist who repeatedly targets journalists whose views he disagrees with], you’ll be scared he’ll end up calling your family, causing your dad to have a heart attack, and you’re aware that writing about certain topics will mean you receive a lot of insults in your inbox.”
Across Europe, journalists are aware that reporting on certain topics is likely to spark online (and possibly offline) harassment against them. These sensitive themes include corruption (such as the mishandling of European funds in Bulgaria, which sparked harassment against investigative website Bivol), organised crime, women’s issues, toxic masculinity and online abuse (journalists reporting on trolling are often targeted), LGBT issues, the migrant crisis (in Greece, journalists reporting on the issue have been repeatedly targeted by supporters of the far-right Golden Dawn party), histories of conflicts (such as the 1990s Balkans war), and the far-right.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Nadia Daam – a turning point in France” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]
Nadia Daam
The Nadia Daam case in France was seen as a turning point for online harassment cases. It showed that what is illegal offline is also illegal online.
In November 2017 Daam was subjected to an online harassment campaign after a broadcast on Europe 1 radio in which she discussed online forum Blabla 18-25. The users of the forum had flooded a phone number created by two activists keen to fight sexual harassment. Daam called the forum the “internet’s bin of non-recyclable trash”.
Following the broadcast, Daam was targeted on social media – particularly on Twitter. Libération reported that this abuse included pornographic insults, death threats and threats to her child. Her email address was used to subscribe her to pornographic and paedophile websites. There was also an overnight attempt to break into her house.
Daam published the threats she had received on her Twitter account. Two days later, Europe 1 announced she was suing. After a trial in July 2018, two men were given six-month suspended jail sentences and fined €6,000 for threatening Daam online. A third person threatened her and was given a six-month suspended sentence.
“A trial is already a victory,” the journalist said. “Online harassment is not bound to stop tomorrow but the message this trial is sending is we are able to track down the abusers.”[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Adrien Sénécat – establishing boundaries for online presence” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]
Adrien Sénécat
Adrien Sénécat is adamant that more needs to be done to prepare journalists on how to avoid online harassment.
“This could be talked about in journalism schools. It could be something that outlets tell you when you start a job with them. I always tell students in journalism school to be careful about what can be found about them online,” he said.
After suffering online harassment, he changed his behaviour, reducing his online presence and protecting his private life.
“I’ve deactivated notifications on Twitter,” he said. “Notifications are bad. There’s an accumulation effect. Doing this takes a weight off. You start taking some distance from Twitter and feeling better.”
He also reduced the information on him available online: “I’ve made sure my phone number was unlisted [and] that my address couldn’t be found online. I don’t put photos of my son on Facebook. I’ve changed a lot of things in my behaviour.”
It has also led him to reconsider his priorities as a journalist, which he says are not about building up a public profile on social media and becoming a celebrity but writing stories that start a debate on his publication’s website. He said: “We should start a better conversation about this. Our editors consider we need to write stories but don’t necessarily need to be on Twitter a lot. Twitter is not the space that’s the most important. Spending too much time on it distorts your perspective. Twitter is a space that has been colonised by hordes of malevolent internet users. For me, spending more than one hour on Twitter a day is harmful.”[/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 162 incidents involving investigative journalists from the 35 countries in or affiliated with the European Union between 1 May 2014 and 30 September 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
AUTHOR Valeria Costa-Kostritsky
EDITING Adam Aiken, Sean Gallagher, Ryan McChrystal 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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