14 Aug 2011 | Uncategorized
Many of the modern issues that Index on Censorship tackles are what I call the shades of grey. From Wikileaks to privacy to hate speech and phone hacking, free expression comes hurtling against other rights or perceived rights. Rarely do absolutes prevail in this more complex and technological world.
It was therefore salutary for me to be reminded of the black and white which still confronts us: journalists and activists murdered, imprisoned or threatened for trying to hold the powerful to account and expose wrongdoing.
The British theatre group IceandFire transport audiences into the worlds of five crusading reporters and photo-journalists as they risk their lives for the sake of their stories. Several of these real-life cases have been followed and documented by Index. One of them, Lal Wickrematunge, Editor of the Sri Lankan newspaper Sunday Leader was reportedly threatened by his country’s president by telephone only a week ago. His brother, Lasantha, was murdered by the authorities in 2009.
The travails of Lydia Cacho, one of the world’s most fearless journalists, were movingly portrayed. Only six weeks ago Cacho says she received anonymous death threats for her continued campaign to expose corruption and criminality, particularly the role of senior politicians in sex offences and trafficking. From the work of a brave Israeli journalist working inside the West Bank, to an American defying the US military’s largely successful attempts to sanitise the Iraq war, the play brings home not just the bravery, but also the doubts and dilemmas faced by a small but determined group of reporters. The episode most familiar to me personally was the newsroom at Novaya Gazeta, for long a beacon of fearless journalism in a Russia where the attacks on free speech have remained constant over the past 20 years, long after the collapse of Communism.
Within 20 metres of leaving the theatre, in Hackney in east London, I came across three riot police vans. It was, at first glance, a shock. The officers were lounging around, eating Macdonalds. The city was still reeling from riots and looting. Yet amid all the gloom and self-doubt that has beset Britons, and only a month after the height of the phone-hacking scandal, it was worth remembering that, there are still many countries grappling with troubles on an altogether different scale.
John Kampfner is chief executive of Index on Censorship
30 Jun 2011 | Index Index, minipost
The Gaza Strip correspondent for France 24, Salama Atallah, has claimed that he was interrogated by Hamas security officials on 26 June. According to Atallah, threats, insults and beatings were used in an attempt to obtain further information about a Salafist group he had been reporting on in Gaza. Prior to this, Atallah had been questioned three times in the month of June and he has recently announced that he will undergo a fifth interrogation on 30 June.
21 Jun 2011 | Uncategorized
The US State Department has withdrawn an invitation to Palestinian Majed Badra to attend a government-sponsored international exchange program for political cartoonists after deciding that some of his work was “anti-Semitic.” (more…)
31 May 2011 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa
In post-revolutionary Egypt, freedom of expression is yet to be a given.
On 15 May, for instance, scores of protesters commemorating the Palestinian exodus of 1948 near the Israeli embassy were beaten and shot. At least 350 were injured and 160 arrested and transferred to military prisons. They were charged with “destruction of public property with the intention of attacking the embassy; creating mayhem; use of force against public servants (police and armed forces); endangering the public and public transportation means; joining a gang with the intention of harming social peace”.
Several of those detained have been released on probation, ranging from six to twelve months after being sentenced by a military court. Some remain in prison.
Since the end of Mubarek’s reign in February, there have been 5,600 such military trials sentencing civilians. That estimate is already couple of weeks old, said Human Rights Watch’s Heba Morayef. The number today is probably much higher.
The interim government claims its heavy-handedness is necessary to control saboteurs and criminals who have sought to take advantage of the lax security climate in the aftermath of the revolution as the police forces are replaced by an army untrained for urban policing tasks. In reality, army firepower has been directed, at times with fatal consequences, towards civilian protesters.
On 22 May, the army issued a statement accusing “some foreign elements claiming heroism and nationalism of issuing false statements developed by their sick imagination to incite against some members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) leadership and to create discord between the army and the people.” The communiqué goes on to warn that “those external elements” are sending their followers to infiltrate “the free revolutionary demonstrations” in order to instigate a clash between the people and the security forces — a declaration widely seen as a veiled threat.
But this was not much of a deterrent for Egyptians.
On 23 May, more than 370 bloggers defied a journalistic ban on broaching the subject of the army and heeded a call to write a post “evaluating the performance of the SCAF as the ruler of the country, with the aim of providing constructive criticism.” They criticized military trials for civilians, the emergency law, and the ruling junta’s failure to prosecute members of the old regime. On Twitter, the #NoSCAF hashtag was assuredly the most widely used all day, and served both as a repository for vocal objections and an increasingly loud call for action.
A massive protest scheduled last Friday, 27 May, was met with the most unexpected reaction from the army: the army issued its communiqué number 58 declaring that “the armed forces have decided not to be present in the protests locations to avoid such risks (of division between people and army), counting on the revolution youth who will take over the organising and defense” — that is, since you’re protesting our behaviour, we won’t be protecting you from any potential attack. The protest nevertheless went ahead as planned, peacefully; and the message would’ve hopefully reached the ears of the SCAF.
