16 May 2014 | News, Religion and Culture, Russia
In September last year Vladimir Putin spoke at the Valdai Conference, an autumnal landmark in the Russian political calendar. The theme was values and identity and Putin proposed a “return” to morality and spirituality, praising the Russian Orthodox Church, religious tradition and resistance to political correctness.
Fast forward to Spring 2014 – and Putin’s appeal to nostalgic morality has collided with the internet age. “Swearbots” are the latest deployment – an attempt to curtail Russian’s propensity for foul language online and save the bruised fingers of online censors, who have until recently been tasked with checking over five thousand websites “manually” for profanities each day.
But how does this square off with Russian “identity,” which Putin was so keen to discuss? Russians love swearing, as much as they love vodka or not smiling at strangers. Browsing this eyebrow raising online dictionary (optimised for non-Cyrillic readers), demonstrates quite how large the Russian profanity compendium is. As one commentator cheekily told the BBC “If they ban swearing in Russia, all technical progress will grind to a halt …Warehouses will close and the army will lose its combat readiness. For our Motherland, it will be the end.”
In an attempt to police this ocean of foul language, enter the swearbot. It’s a computer programme forecast to go live this autumn, enforcing laws passed last spring. It should automate the rooting out of blasphemous Russians, and take the pressure off the media watchdog Roskomandzor, who were wilting under the pressure of censoring so much filth.
According to a statement from Moscow’s Academy of Science the law applies to “obscene references to the male and female reproductive organs, copulation and women of loose morals, and all words derived from them.”
Although that seems fairly vague, it’s a step up from when the legislation was originally passed last April. At that point, there wasn’t a specific list of forbidden words. It took until December for the the Institute of Russian Language at the Russian Academy of Sciences to confirm four words they believed should be censored – roughly translated as “c*ck” “f*ck” “wh*re” and “c**t”.
Although it’s still not exactly clear which swear words the swearbot will be primed with, those four seem a good start.
The fines for those cussing too strongly come in at 3000 rubles ($85) for an individual, and over $500 for an organisation. The bill, having passed through the parliament’s Lower House, is expected to be fully ratified by July – at which point it will come into law.
The Kremlin also announced that public performances, including cinema, theatre and stand-up comedy, would be subject to the swearing restrictions. Again, fines are in places as well as a three month suspension of business activities for repeat offences.
A trade magazine for comics, Chortle, lamented the news – worrying that comics would feel limited.
Irish stand-up comedian Rory O’Hanlon told Chortle the new rules would “make it difficult, near impossible to perform,” adding that “on the other hand it may push comedy underground and make it more exciting.’
The private TVC TV channel found itself in controversial waters when it decided to beep out the word “hrenovina” (“bullshit”). Eldar Ryazanov called the decision “an act of idiocy”.
The Ministry of Culture is defending its new legislation. “The law is not aggressive; its only aim is to regulate this sphere, so that swearing will have its purpose,” a ministry spokesperson told the Moscow Times. “It will be up to the artistic director to decide what to do with swearing, whether to break the new law or not, we will not interfere in the process.”
With the arrival of the “swearbot” program some analysts say bloggers might be at risk, especially as a law that defines major blogs as mass media is speeding towards approval.
Bloggers are now required to register as publishing entities, in a process similar to registration for TV stations and newspapers. Commentators have warned this will have a chilling effect as bloggers will be licensed to publish, as well as having their addresses logged with the government.
This article was published on May 16, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
14 May 2014 | Middle East and North Africa, News, Yemen
American journalist Adam Baron in jail. He was deported from Yemen last week. (Image: @almuslimi/Twitter)
Working in Yemen as a journalist can often feel like being an involuntary character in a clichéd Hollywood drama — a hybrid of a John le Carré novel and a Johnny English-style parody.
In over three and half years living in Yemen I’ve gone on the run from government agencies on four occasions. Looking back months later you either laugh or shake your head in despair at the surreal madness of it all.
One occasion involved a more than six-hour drive across part of rural Yemen popular for US drone strikes, with a local journalist alongside me. Exhausted and relieved, our successful getaway ended just before dawn.
Another was, in hindsight, rather more comical. As Yemen’s uprising intensified in April 2011, district security chief came knocking on the door in the middle of the night. He was looking for journalists and demanded copies of foreigners’ passports. It was a few weeks after soldiers had stormed the house of three foreign journalists who were then deported. The young, clandestine-revolutionary who guarded the apartment block where American journalist Jeb Boone and I were temporarily staying, managed to put the official off until the next day.
Under the cover of darkness we each packed a small rucksack of essentials: cameras, notebooks, and a change of clothes, while planning our escape to a friend’s house which had been left empty following the evacuation of the majority of the ex-pat community due to deteriorating security in Sana’a. As we made our furtive escape, creeping out of the gate in the early hours of the morning we walked straight into a truck full of soldiers parked outside the next-door neighbour’s gate. George Smiley wept.
The third almost ended in disaster. After writing a piece in January last year for The Times on Saudi Arabia’s involvement in America’s covert war in Yemen, on advice, I once again temporarily relocated in Sana’a amid fear of reprisals for my reporting. A couple of weeks after returning to my Old City home the taxi I was travelling in was ambushed outside the Ministry of Defence. A bullet smashed through the window next to my head, hissed through the hair of my driver but miraculously left both of us unharmed. Since then I have probably become the only woman in the world to convert their United Nude shoe bag into a gunshot trauma kit which I’ve since carried with me at all times.
But, as foreign journalists we have little if anything to fear. The worst that’s likely to happen to us, as American journalist Adam Baron found out during his deportation last week, is a 10-hour spell in jail wondering if we’re going to be given a few minutes to pack before being kicked out of the country we call home, without the possibility to return.
While we — the handful of foreign journalists based in Yemen — might have anxious moments once or twice a year, our Yemeni colleagues are constantly under threat. Yemen remains amongst the bottom 15 countries out of 180 in the world for press freedom. A Human Rights Watch report last September concluded that freedom of expression since President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi took power in February 2012 has increased, but along with it, intimidation and violence against journalists has also risen. Yemen’s Freedom Foundation recorded 282 attacks and threats against journalists and media workers in 2013.
While Adam waited anxiously in jail last Tuesday, passport and phone confiscated, unease spread. Officials indicated that “other foreign journalists were next” my name was also mentioned. Not knowing if they’re coming to get you today, tomorrow, or at all, means that despite the relatively benign consequences, you are gripped with an almost unbearable sense of apprehension. Preparing for the worst I informed my editor at The Times in London and started to pack.
Three days later, still waiting, the madness felt like it was closing in. As the sunset over Sana’a on Friday evening one friend called to tell of gunfire and explosions next to his house. Meanwhile I sat in the protective darkness of my stairwell whispering into my phone as I heard the distant voices of two men banging on my front gate. Was this it? Was this the moment I would be forced to leave? My phone — on silent in case it was heard by those outside — lit up. Another friend had just narrowly avoided driving straight into a running gun battle in the south of the city. I tiptoed down the stairs in the dark and silently slid the two deadbolts across the large wooden door of the ancient Yemeni tower-house that is my home.
The irony is that while the ex-pat community goes into week two of lockdown in Sana’a and Western embassies close to the public due the increasing threat from al-Qaeda attacks, the most persistent threat to journalists on a daily basis is from the government and its intelligence agencies, not so-called militants.
After Adam was deported last week, for the first time, I decided not to run as I have too many times in the past. Without stopping and challenging what the government has done means the persecution of journalists will continue unabated.
There are just a small handful of foreign reporters based full-time in Yemen. Adam and I were the only ones accredited in a country where the government makes it almost impossible to live permanently as a foreign journalist with the correct paper work. Deporting unregistered journalists means no complaints can be made when individuals are thrown out.
As a legally operating reporter I had firm ground to stand on to support Adam and raise questions about why the government has chosen this moment to target him, and possibly me. Was this a personal vendetta against him? Or, was this a concerted effort by the state to remove witnesses? Those who may witness the consequences of a US-backed war currently being waged in the most significant military crackdown against al-Qaeda every carried out in Yemen.
The answers to those questions were partly answered by the manager of immigration who pulled me aside at Sana’a airport on Monday morning when I chose to leave Yemen of my own accord. I realised I’d had enough of the constant cycle of farcical drama, instigated by the state, that comes with living as a journalist in Yemen over three and a half years. I wanted it to stop. To take back control.
Despite the fact that my journalist visa is valid until February 2015, the immigration official began with “you can’t come back…” and ended with “it’s OK, you are allowed to leave now”. For the latter at least I was grateful.
The foreign media may not be welcome in Yemen, but if they are quietly trying to remove us then the greatest threat to be faced will be to domestic reporters. Over a snack of traditional sweet kataif pancakes and chilled apricot juice on my last day in Sana’a on Sunday, I sat with a Yemeni friend and fellow journalist. He acknowledge the need to step back from the madness. “The national security, they get to you,” he said tapping a finger against the side of his head. “You need to go home for some quiet time,” he added. “I got my quiet time…in prison.”
This article was posted on May 14, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
13 May 2014 | Asia and Pacific, News, North Korea
Gymnasts at Arirang festival in Pyongyang, North Korea (Image: Roman Kalyakin/Demotix)
Jang Jin-sung, formerly poet laureate for North Korea, is one of its highest-ranking defectors and most vocal critics. A meteoric career that saw him also become chief propagandist in the United Front Department, engaging in counter-intelligence and psychological warfare against South Korea, he was also one of Kim Jong Il’s inner circle — a dreamlike life of privilege shattered when he found the bodies of famine victims lying in the streets of his home town. Facing almost certain death for the crime of mislaying a prohibited text, he dramatically escaped to China in 2004 and defected to South Korea. Based on his insights from working in the elite, he argues that the official narrative of North Korea being run under the absolutist genius of the Kim dynasty and the Korean Workers Party, is a lie. Power was not harmoniously transferred upon Kim Il Sung’s death in 1994 to his son, Kim Jong Il — instead Kim Jong Il had long before usurped his father with the support of the clandestine Organisation and Guidance Department (OGD), while Kim Il Sung spent his last years under virtual house arrest, bamboozled by his own cult, created by his son. Kim Jong Il directed the OGD under his reign and he legitimised “every single policy and proposal, surveillance purge, execution, song and poem”, but upon his death in 2011, however, the bequest of leadership upon his son Kim Jong Un was solely symbolic; the OGD took charge. That year, Jang set up New Focus International to give insight and analysis to North Korea. This week he talked about the OGD as “the single most powerful entity in North Korea” to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea. His words were translated by NFI’s international editor, Shirley Lee, and the talk was chaired by Lord David Alton.
The OGD is “the entity that controls everything. This is where all roads end, all chains of command, and all power structures go,” Jang said. “The real power structure, nothing has changed since Kim Jong Il’s time. The OGD is still just as it is, the same men are in the same positions of power.” Yet the OGD is so secret and compartmentalised a structure, it’s only fully comprehended by the most senior leaders, and known to “less than a dozen” of the approximate 26,000 refugees out of North Korea. That lack of knowledge has meant that traditionally, outside observers omitted the OGD’s existence, basing their views on diplomatic notes, refugee testimonies and political theories which Pyongyang has successfully fed into with propaganda about the Kims’ omnipotence, to obscure its power structures. Hence, many observers interpreted the purge of Kim Jong Un’s uncle Jang Song Thaek as the new leader getting rid of his old guard to make his own power network, whereas it was really the OGD liquidating a rival. South Korea has also connived to keep a lid on knowledge of the OGD. When Hwang Jong Op, the international secretary of the Korean Workers’ Party and principal author of the state philosophy of Juche, defected and sought to tell of the OGD, the South’s then Sunshine Policy “was based on a policy of engagement that sought not to provoke the North Korean regime, [so] they actually silenced his testimony from appearing,” said Jang.
Whereupon while “every single person seen as the second, third, fourth most powerful man, has been purged or destroyed … every single powerful member of the OGD has remained”. They will stay in power as the OGD is in effect North Korea’s “human resources department, it appoints everyone”. The vetting of appointees is based on trust, and loyalty secured by cadres knowing any perception of disloyalty will imprison them, their parents and their children. “No-one is exempt from this… because no matter how big you are, if you do something wrong, you are sending your family to prison camp to rot away for the rest of their lives, never to be seen again.” As Lee put it, “you’re not going to kill your own family to change that”. Jang himself has tried many times to contact his parents in North Korea, but has never succeeded. “You can’t begin to think about what his parents may be suffering but that just makes him stronger,” said Lee.
The OGD appoints all generals and makes all military orders, with the military’s autonomy compromised like everything else by the OGD’s all-pervasive surveillance structure. Party committees of spies are installed across all sectors from diplomacy to tourism, down to each and every apartment block — “the OGD has eyes and ears everywhere”. It is backed by the OGD’s secret police and system of prison camps that the group developed into a weapon of mass terror while it usurped Kim Il Sung. He was prevented from seeing friends or family by his OGD-appointed bodyguards, a corps now numbering 100,000. He “died as a scarecrow, he was nothing,” said Lee.
As well as these physical means of control, the state seeks to monopolise all information flows and uses incredible psychological and emotional force to ensure its citizens’ loyalty. “In North Korea the only politically correct faith to have is in the cult of the Kims,” said Jang, while religious organisations like the Chosun Association or Buddhist association are run by the UFD, and Christians end up in prison camps. “The only narrative that matters is of the righteous sovereignty of the state.”
Yet for all the surface illusion of power, the nuclear weapons, the police and prison system, “it is a country that’s ruined inside, it’s a collapsed state. They do not control the price of an egg, and that is a huge deal”. Black markets have almost entirely supplanted the government monopoly of provision of goods, ranging from clothing to food, which collapsed in the mid-1990s as millions perished in the famine. This has created two classes, those loyal to the party because of their stake in the status quo; and the market class of people who were abandoned by the state and survive on the black market. Critically, this means that for promotions, status, power or material wealth, “the currency has converted from loyalty to money,” said Jang, “and that has broken the cult of North Korea for everyone”.
Economic “reforms” are really state efforts to try control the black markets, which have at times suffered violent crackdowns, for having become “a black hole that sucked in the control mechanisms of the state”. Equally, however, the regime cannot survive without them, as “the market feeds the people”. The country is also suffering from criminal activities actually sanctioned by the regime, namely counterfeit dollar bills, meth amphetamine production and computer hacking. “It’s not the world that’s suffering, the country is being destroyed by the regime’s own creations,” as government computers are hacked and fake bills and drugs run through society. Refugee statements say meth amphetamine abuse has become “just part of the ordinary life”.
Meanwhile the markets live off information. “The price of rice, the price of your life rises and falls in terms of knowing outside world information…ordinary people know it’s an advantage to listen to the outside world [information],” and Jang endorses the set up of a BBC Korea service to broadcast into North Korea. “The only way to break the dictatorship of force is by breaking that emotional monopoly over the people… There is no more effective tool that the world can do than to acknowledge that the North Korean people have the right to another narrative than that the party supplies.”
“More important is that no one in the North today believes it will last for ever,” but “the one thing that is stopping them from acting is there is no other way. Everyone is trying to do it the regime’s way”. This extends from efforts to deal with Pyongyang’s nuclear bomb program, which fail because international frameworks don’t apply to North Korea — “the only way the world can resolve the nuclear problem is seeing the regime transform. You can’t do it within their demands” — to the country’s appalling human rights record. “Those who think putting human rights on the agenda would jeopardise engagement and dialogue are wrong. North Korea is more desperate for dialogue at the state level than the West is. They [the North Korean state] need that to sustain what is happening right now.” Putting human rights atop all agendas would mean “there is nowhere left for the North Korean leadership to stand”.
“Stop looking at the regime as the agent of positive transformation,” said Jang, and engage with those with no stake in the status quo. Meanwhile, China, as the North’s sole supporter, is key to its survival and to brook any change. “China supports North Korea because it’s more convenient to support it than not,” said Jang, adding that Kim Jong Il hated China more than anybody “because he was at their mercy”, while Beijing’s anger at Jang Song Thaek’s execution was because it was “like the nightmare of Kim Jong Il would continue”. On Wednesday China warned North Korea against carrying out another nuclear test. And while China has yet to host Kim Jong Un, it has already welcomed South Korea’s President Park with open arms. Repeatedly reaffirming North Korea’s human rights record, damningly detailed by the United Nations’ Commission of Inquiry Into Human Rights in the DPRK in March, to the Chinese government may pressure them into giving up the forceful repatriation of North Korea refugees, which leads to prison or death, according to Lord Alton. “The scariest thing for China is to start to get moral blame for what’s going on in North Korea. So it will want to be seen to be doing the right thing.” On that, Jang said any retribution befalling the regime for human rights abuses, “the OGD will blame will Kim Jong Un alone”.
Again it’s an issue of perception. “In North Korea, I thought change could not come because the regime was so powerful. When I came to South Korea I learned that North Korea was not transformed because the South Koreans didn’t know it could.” Indeed, “the only thing holding North Korea back from transforming is that the world isn’t ready for it.”
The talk was organised with help from the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea. Jang’s book Dear Leader (UK Random House, US, Simon & Schuster) is out now.
This article was posted on May 13, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
12 May 2014 | News, Palestine, Politics and Society, Religion and Culture
Three days ago a picture appeared on my Twitter timeline. A Palestinian woman was watering flowers inside dozens of hand grenades lined up in her little garden, surrounded by barbed-wire fences.
I froze. For minutes the picture and I looked at each other. No picture had affected me this way for a long time.
Creating life with the tools of death, in the middle of a war, in a place where every day children, women and men of all ages are being killed mercilessly, where the sound of the bombs has drowned out the songs of the birds, where pain is as intense as the oxygen in the air.
While discussions go on about where freedom of speech and expression start and end, or where you draw the line… a single picture transfixes me.
I’ve always asserted in my articles that we are in a transition from the analogue to digital world and during this transition of transformation, women will have an important role and we will not be free unless we transcend the thought patterns forcibly imposed upon us. And now, this picture in front of me, as if it was silently saying everything my words fail to express.
Planting new life in spite of ideologies, religions, borders, emotions, pain, violence, death, hatred, ruthlessness…
Silently responding by creating life from death to the sound of bombs, cries of pain, screams of fossilized politics.
At the centre of violence having the wisdom to grow flowers. At the centre of violence being able to protect the love, compassion and creativity within her. At the centre of violence, could there be any greater freedom than responding to death with life?
While thoughts and feelings are manipulated everyday with the words, concepts, ideals and hatred forcibly imposed on us, where do freedom of speech and freedom of expression start and where do they end?
I believe, in the analogue world in accordance with the traditions of patriarchy, either you become a supporter or opponent of the dominant ideology of the society we live in. And yet, in the end, isn’t it obvious that both supporters and opponents are trapped in the same loop and are forced to accept that power is only gained through violence?
To become “Man”, men are obliged not only to find their power but prove it too while women are obliged to watch them fighting it out, forced to obey their rules stuck in their endless power games. As a result, women can never protect themselves or their children. Violence continues to give birth to violence… the life given by women is brutally destroyed.
No matter how much societies have developed economically, in general, women believe that the more they can be in compliance with the patriarchal system the more they can succeed. However, they cannot stop the violence, war and hatred.
On the other hand, in this picture, one Palestinian woman expresses herself clearly even though nobody hears her thoughts, even though she is not screaming or fighting… freedom of speech grows amongst the hand grenades.
During the transition period to the digital world, those who express themselves free from the coding of the dominant system and those who defend the freedom of speech, come together through social media… in the flower garden of the Palestinian woman.
This article was published on May 12, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
