18 Apr 2019 | Magazine, News, Volume 48.01 Spring 2019
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Responding to violations of media freedom in Hungary has become a conundrum for the EU. With populist parties poised for large gains in the next European election, Sally Gimson explores in the spring 2019 issue of Index on Censorship magazine what the EU could do to uphold free speech in member countries” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][vc_column_text]
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán. Credit: EU2017EE Estonian Presidency / Flickr
Dutch MEP Judith Sargentini is enemy number one in the eyes of the Hungarian government. The Green politician incurred that government’s anger when she persuaded the European Parliament to the country losing voting rights.
She accused Hungary, among other democratic failings, of not ensuring a free and uncensored press. But since the vote last September, nothing has happened, except that the Hungarian government launched a campaign against her on state television – and she no longer feels safe to travel there.
“[The government] has been spreading so much hate against me, and if the government is spreading hate, what if there is a lunatic around? I’m not taking the risk,” she said.
“The Hungarian government spent 18 million euros on a publicity campaign against me, after I won the vote – with TV commercials and a full-page advertisement with my face on it.” The other vocal critic of Hungary, Belgian Liberal MEP and former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, as well as the philanthropist George Soros were targeted in the same campaign.
With the European elections coming up in May 2019, and the possibility of large gains by nationalist, populist parties, the question is what the EU can do to curb freedom of expression violations on its territory.
The problem according to Lutz Kinkel, managing director of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, is the EU has no specific competences over media freedom. No country can join the EU without guaranteeing freedom of expression as a basic human right under Article 49 of the Lisbon Treaty. Article 7 is triggered when there is “a clear risk” of a member state breaching EU values. Although this can lead to a country’s voting rights being taken away, to get to that point, all the other EU countries have to agree.
As Camino Mortera-Martinez, a senior research fellow at the think-tank Centre for European Reform in Brussels, said: “Article 7 is never going to work because it is so vague. [All the other] member states are never going to argue to punish another one by suspending voting rights.”
Historian Tim Snyder, author of The Road to Unfreedom, a book about how Russia works to spread disinformation within the West, told Index he thought Hungary should have been thrown out of the EU a long time ago. But, with Britain’s exit from the EU, it is difficult to start expelling countries now.
“The tricky thing about the European Union, and this goes not just for eastern Europe but everyone, is that there might be rules for how you get in, but once you are in the rules are a lot less clear,” he said.
[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left” color=”custom” size=”xl” align=”right” custom_color=”#dd3333″][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_custom_heading text=”It’s like joining a sorority with very strict rules for entering, but when you are there you can misbehave and it is covered up by the group” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]
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Hungary is the most prominent country in Europe to put restrictions on media freedom. Not only is public service media directly under government control, and critical journalists have been fired, but the government has also made sure that private media has either been driven out of business or taken over by a few oligarchs close to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The only independent media are very small operations, publishing almost exclusively on the internet.
Snyder told Index: “I think Europeans generally made the mistake of thinking that it doesn’t matter if we have one small country which is going the wrong way [and that] Hungary can’t possibly affect others. But the truth is – because it is easier to build authoritarianism than democracy – one bad example does ripple outwards and Hungary isn’t just Hungary and Orbán isn’t just Orbán; they represent a kind of mode of doing things which other people can look to, and individual leaders can say: ‘That’s possible’.”
This is borne out by Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project which tracked media freedom in 43 European countries and found patterns that showed countries following Hungary’s example including Poland.
Anita Kőműves is an investigative journalist in Hungary who works for non-profit investigative outlet Átlátszó.hu which won an Index award for digital activism in 2015. She says not only does Brussels do nothing to challenge Hungary’s undermining of the free press but people in the commission are persuaded it is not all that bad.
She said: “Orbán is walking a fine line with Brussels. He knows that he cannot go too far. Whatever happens here, it must be deniable and explainable. Orbán goes to Brussels, or sends one of his henchmen, and he explains everything away. He has bad things written about him every single day in Hungary and nobody is in jail, so everything is fine… everything is not fine. Freedom of speech, the fact that I can write anything I like on the internet and nobody puts me in jail, is not the same as freedom of media when you have a strong media sector which is independent of the government.”
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left” color=”custom” size=”xl” align=”right” custom_color=”#dd3333″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_custom_heading text=”I think Europeans generally made the mistake of thinking that it doesn’t matter if we have one small country which is going the wrong way” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
The solution for Brussels, she argues, is not Article 7 but for the EU to use European competition law to challenge the monopoly on media ownership the government and government-backed companies have in Hungary.
Kinkel says that this would be a warning to other countries, such as Bulgaria and Romania, which are trying to control the media in similar ways and in the case of Bulgaria giving EU funds only to government-friendly media.
“Governments try to get hold of public service media: this is one step,” he said. “And the other step is to throw out investors and media they don’t like and to give media outlets to oligarchs who are government-friendly and so on and so on, and to start new campaigns against independent investigative journalists.”
In Poland, the European Commission invoked Article 7 because of the government’s threats to the independence of the judiciary. The government so far controls only the state media but, as journalist Bartosz Wieliński , head of foreign news at the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, points out, the government used that state media to hound the mayor of Gdańsk, Paweł Adamowicz, for months before he was assassinated in January this year.
Wieliński believes it was only after Britain voted to leave the EU that countries realised they would face little sanction if they chipped away at freedom of expression. Although the EU did not collapse as they expected, the initial disarray gave them an opportunity to test European mechanisms and find them wanting.
Maria Dahle is chief executive of the international Human Rights House Foundation. She believes financial sanctions could be the way to stop countries from crossing the line, as Poland and Hungary have.
“When allocating funding, it should be conditional,” she said. “If [member states] do violate the rule of law, it has to have consequences … and the consequences should be around financial support.”
But Mortera-Martinez warns if the EU starts punishing countries too much financially, it will encourage anti-EU feeling which could be counter-productive, leading to election wins for populist, nationalist parties. The effect of any populist gains in the May elections concerns Kinkel, also: “What is clear is that when the populist faction grows, they have the right to have their people on certain positions on committees and so on. And this will be a problem… especially for press and media freedom,” he said.
Back at the European Parliament, Sargentini is impatient. “It’s about political will, and the EU doesn’t have it at the moment,” she said. “It’s like joining a sorority [with] very strict rules for entering, but when you are there you can misbehave and it’s covered up by the group.”
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Sally Gimson is the deputy editor of Index on Censorship magazine.
Index on Censorship’s spring 2019 issue is entitled Is this all the local news? What happens if local journalism no longer holds power to account?
Look out for the new edition in bookshops, and don’t miss our Index on Censorship podcast, with special guests, on Soundcloud.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Is this all the local news?” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2018%2F12%2Fbirth-marriage-death%2F|||”][vc_column_text]The spring 2019 issue of Index on Censorship magazine asks Is this all the local news? What happens if local journalism no longer holds power to account?
With: Libby Purves, Julie Posetti and Mark Frary[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_single_image image=”105481″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2018/12/birth-marriage-death/”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
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SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This article has been updated on 18 April 2019 to reflect that the name of organisation Lutz Kinkel works for had been written incorrectly. The article read “European Centre for Press and Media Reform”, when it should have read “European Centre for Press and Media Freedom”.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
11 Jan 2019 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan Statements, Campaigns -- Featured, Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”104696″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]We 39 human rights organisations from 13 Human Rights Houses call for urgent action from the international community to ensure the life, health, and rights of imprisoned Azerbaijani photojournalist, video blogger, and human rights defender Mehman Huseynov. We are deeply concerned about his critical condition and his imprisonment, and the psychological pressure and new criminal charges pursued against him. We urge the international community to raise this case as a priority in communications with the Azerbaijani authorities and show public support for Mehman Huseynov.
Mehman Huseynov began a hunger strike on 26 December 2018 in protest against facing further criminal charges – charges that we and many others, including the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, consider to not be credible. Since 2012, Mehman Huseynov has been subject to a travel ban and without identification and official documentation, preventing him from accessing public services such as healthcare and education. He has also faced harassment and pressure, but actions against him have escalated dramatically in the past two years, beginning with reports that he was abducted and tortured in police custody on 9 January 2017.
Following this abduction, Mehman Huseynov reported that he was tortured – which is consistent with the findings of an examination by an independent team of medical doctors, sent from Front Line Defenders and the Georgian Centre of Psychological and Medical Rehabilitation for Torture. He was sentenced to two years in prison for defamation on 3 March 2017 for stating that he was tortured. We regret that he was imprisoned when he should have received support and his allegations of abduction and torture investigated. Still in prison, he now faces new criminal charges for alleged violence against a member of prison staff. We are particularly concerned about the credibility of this allegation, in context of previous arbitrary actions against Mehman Huseynov – and indications that since August 2018 he has been under psychological pressure in prison and the basis laid for further charges against him.
The actions taken against Mehman Huseynov appear to be politically motivated and strongly linked to his legitimate work raising awareness of human rights and issues related to corruption. These actions have led directly to his current severe condition, as with seemingly no access to justice and arbitrary restriction of his freedom, Mehman Huseynov saw no other option than to go on hunger strike on 26 December 2018. Further contributing to his condition, we note that while Mehman Huseynov was allowed to attend his late Mother’s funeral in August 2018, he was prevented from visiting her while she was alive and ill in hospital – on accusations that he has not participated in “corrective work”, namely the prison’s “social life”, “cultural events”, and “maintenance work.” These accusations also surfaced during Mehman Huseynov’s hearing on application for parole in August 2018. During the hearing, Mehman Huseynov told that he had been summoned by the prison administration and made to understand that he could be punished for explaining rights to other prisoners. He explained that he decided to stay apart from others for this reason. We worry that the decision by authorities to prevent Mehman Huseynov from visiting his dying mother has taken its toll on him.
Years of escalating pressure by authorities has forced an ambitious young man wanting to improve Azerbaijani society to now be in a critical condition in prison. This is a situation that has gone too far, for both Mehman Huseynov and for Azerbaijan.
With urgency, we call on the international community to raise the following with Azerbaijani authorities in support of Mehman Huseynov.
- Mehman Huseynov needs to be transferred to a civilian hospital to be examined by independent medical professionals – with treatment of his health taking utmost priority.
- His right to visits and meetings with his lawyers and family members must be respected, and the international community must be allowed to visit him. We caution against reports being disseminated by Azerbaijani officials with regard to a “monitoring group of NGOs” named the “National Preventive Group of the Azerbaijani Ombudsman” visiting Mehman Huseynov in prison. While this visit has taken place, we hold that these NGOs are not independent of the authorities.
- The prosecution service must drop the new criminal charges put forward under 317.2 of the Azerbaijan Criminal Code as they lack credibility.
- Mehman Huseynov must be released from prison at the latest when his sentence for defamation ends on 2 March 2019.
- The escalation against Mehman Huseynov has an aim, and that is to silence him. We are particularly worried that the next step for the authorities may be to take measures aimed at silencing Mehman Huseynov more permanently, pressuring him by offering to drop the charges against him in return for him leaving Azerbaijan for exile or signing that he will put an end to his legitimate work, as this has been the issue in previous cases. We fear such measures may be put to him under duress and while he may be in a diminished capacity to make decisions. He must not be forced to take such action, and he needs protection from the international community in this regard.
- Human rights lawyers in Azerbaijan must be protected and free to do their work without pressure, harassment or retaliation. As outlined in a June 2017 Human Rights Council resolution, lawyers must be able to “discharge their functions freely, independently and without any fear of reprisal”. This is not the case in Azerbaijan, where lawyers who take politically sensitive cases face threats and disbarment. The result is that only a handful of human rights lawyers remain licensed to practice from the Bar Association of Azerbaijan. One lawyer representing Mehman Huseynov was suspended from the Bar in 2018. We are deeply concerned the same actions may be taken in retaliation against the two lawyers continuing to represent Mehman Huseynov. They need protection from the international community.
We also ask members of the international community to:
- Visit Mehman Huseynov in prison to enquire and report directly on his condition, challenging the Azerbaijani authorities to ensure that such visits are possible.
- Show public support for Mehman Huseynov and publicly respond to the new charges.
The following member organisations from the network Human Rights Houses call for support from the international to ensure the life, health, and rights of Mehman Huseynov.
Human Rights House Azerbaijan (signed by these member NGOs):
- Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center
- Legal Education Society
- Women’s Association for Rational Development (WARD)
Barys Zvozskau Belarusian Human Rights House, Vilnius (signed by these member NGOs):
Human Rights House Belgrade (signed by these member NGOs):
- Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia
- Gradjanske (Civic Initiatives)
Educational Human Rights House Chernihiv (signed by these member NGOs):
- Ahalar
- Almenda
- Association of Ukrainian human rights monitors on Law Enforcement
- East-SOS
- Chernihiv public committee of human rights protection
- Human Rights Information Centre
- MART
- No Borders Project
- Postup
- Transcarpathian Public Center
- Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union
Human Rights House Crimea (signed by these member NGOs):
- Almenda
- Crimean Human Rights Group
- Human Rights Information Centre
- Regional Centre for Human Rights
Human Rights House Oslo (signed by these member NGOs):
- Den norske Burmakomité (The Norwegian Burma Committee)
- Fellesrådet for Afrika (The Norwegian Council for Africa)
- Health and Human Rights Info
- Human Rights House Foundation
- Kvinnefronten (The Women’s Front)
Human Rights House Tbilisi (signed by these member NGOs):
- Article 42 of the Constitution
- Georgian Centre for Psychosocial and Medical Rehabilitation of Torture Victims (GCRT)
- Human Rights Centre (HRIDC)
- Media Institute
- Sapari
Human Rights House Voronezh (signed by these member NGOs):
- Interregional Human Rights Group (Voronezh)
- Charitable Foundation “International Project – Youth Human Rights Movement”
Human Rights House Zagreb (signed by these member NGOs):
- Association for Promotion of Equal Opportunities (APEO)
- a.B.e. (Be active. Be emancipated.)
- Center for Peace Studies
- Croatian Platform for International Citizen Solidarity – CROSOL
- Documenta – Center for Dealing with the Past
Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, Poland
Index on Censorship, United Kingdom
Rafto Foundation for Human Rights, Norway
Russian Research Centre for Human Rights, Russia[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1547220388132-791b0ba5-0ebf-4″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
21 Dec 2018 | Croatia, Hungary, Macedonia, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, Montenegro, News, Poland, Serbia
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”104453″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Additional reporting by Ada Borowicz, Ilcho Cvetanoski, Lazara Marinković and Zoltán Sipos
Unpatriotic behaviour. Sedition. Being in the pay of shadowy external forces. Faking a neo-Nazi event. These are just a few of the charges that have recently been levelled against independent journalists by pro-government media outlets in several central and eastern European countries.
The opening volley in a sustained campaign of vilification directed at Serbia‘s independent media was fired by the state-owned weekly Ilustrovana Politika at the end of October, with an article that accused journalists who are critical of the government of being “traitors and collaborators with the enemies of Serbia”.
Two weeks later, Ilustrovana Politika followed up with another piece that accused the veteran journalist Ljiljana Smajlović – who has long been critical of the nationalistic legacy bequeathed on the country by its former leader Slobodan Milosević and co-founded the Commission Investigating the Murders of Journalists in Serbia – of complicity in the 1999 NATO bombing of Belgrade.
In mid-December, Ilustrovana Politika’s campaign of character assassination against Smajlović ratcheted up another level with a garish front page depicting her as a Madonna figure with two naked infants bearing the features of Veran Matić, the chairman of the commission, and US Ambassador to Serbia Kyle Scott.
Smajlović has no doubt over what lies behind this tidal wave of denigration, of which she has become the prime target.
History repeating itself?
Editor Slavko Ćuruvija was murdered in 1999.
The long-running trial of four ex-members of the Serbian intelligence service accused of the murder of Dnevni Telegraf editor Slavko Ćuruvija – shot dead in April 1999 a few days after the pro-government Politika Ekspres accused him of welcoming the NATO bombardment – is now in its final stages, and Smajlović is convinced that the current campaign against her is designed to influence the judges in the case.
“The attacks come from the same Milosevic-era editors who also targeted my colleague Ćuruvija as a traitor prior to his assassination,” she told Mapping Media Freedom. “What is also sinister is that they are published and printed by the same state-owned media company that targeted Slavko nearly twenty years ago.”
“The clear implication is that I am the same kind of traitor as he was. How will that affect the judges? Will they fear this is not a good time to hold state security chiefs to account?” she added.
While Smajlović admits that Ilustrovana Politika’s denunciation has made her feel insecure, she insists she is less concerned for her own safety than worried about the consequences for the outcome of the Ćuruvija trial. Quoting Marx’s dictum that “History repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce”, Smajlović said. “I hope this is the farce part.”
Laying the blame
In Serbia and other central and eastern European countries, the assignment of responsibility for historic causes of resentment and the potential of these to further divide a polarised public often form the background to attacks on independent journalists by their state-approved colleagues.
The thorny topic of Poland’s relations with Germany during the last century recently gave pro-government media in Poland a chance to accuse independent media of being insufficiently patriotic and even of falsifying facts.
Journalist Bartosz Wieliński was targeted by the head of TVP Info’s news site.
In November, after Bartosz Wieliński, a journalist with the independent daily Gazeta Wyborcza, gave a critical account of a speech made by the Polish ambassador to Berlin at a conference devoted to the centenary of Poland’s independence, the head of the state broadcaster’s news website, TVP Info, accused him of lying and of putting the interests of Germany before those of his own country.
Only a few days before this attack, two media outlets that support Poland’s ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party accused the independent US-owned channel TVN of fabricating the evidence on which a report about the resurgence of neo-Nazism in Poland was based.
Since it came to power in 2015, PiS – which has been accused by its critics of tolerating organisations that espouse far-right ideologies – has put pressure on independent media outlets, many of which are foreign-owned, as part of its campaign to “re-polonise” the media, and now appears to be using the public broadcaster and other tame outlets as accessories in this drive.
Willing accomplices
In Hungary, where the government led by Viktor Orbán has succeeded in imposing tight control on all but a few determinedly independent media outlets, a number of loyal publications are available for the purposes of vilification.
2015 Freedom of Expression Journalism Award winner Tamás Bodoky, founder of Atlatszo.hu
In September, a whole raft of pro-government media outlets vied with each other to depict Tamás Bodoky, the editor-in-chief of the investigative journalism platform Átlátszó and winner of the 2015 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award for Journalism, as a “Soros hireling”. Bodoky became the target of a co-ordinated smear campaign after he posted on Facebook a picture of himself taken in Brussels with Dutch Green MEP Judith Sargentini, whose report on the Fidesz government’s infringement of core EU values had formed the basis for the European parliament’s censure motion against Hungary a few weeks earlier.
Another Hungarian journalist, András Dezső, who works for the independent news website Index.hu, also recently came under attack from pro-government media outlets after a Budapest court let him off with a reprimand over a case in which he was alleged to have made unauthorised use of personal information. In an article published before April’s general election, Dezső had cast doubt on the account of a woman who declared on Hungarian TV that she felt safer in Budapest than in Stockholm because of the lower level of immigration in Hungary. The airing of the interview by the public broadcaster was seen as providing support for Fidesz’s anti-immigration stance and aiding its election victory.
A criminal charge was issued against Dezső for “misuse of personal data”, and after he received what was described in the Hungarian media as “the mildest possible punishment”, two pro-government news websites, 888.hu and Origo.hu, accused him of deliberately propagating fake news and seeking to mislead his readers.
Why do they do it?
What motivates those journalists who smear their colleagues who seek to hold power to account?
There does not appear to be a simple answer to this question. While some may vilify fellow journalists to order purely for financial gain (or because of a desire for job security, government-sponsored media outlets generally being on a more secure financial footing than their independent counterparts), some appear to approach the task with at least a measure of conviction.
Ilcho Cvetanoski, who reports on Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Montenegro for Mapping Media Freedom and has observed many smear campaigns over the years, believes that financial and ideological motivating factors are often inextricably intertwined. He points out that two decades on from the armed conflicts in the region, Balkans societies are still deeply divided along ideological and ethnic lines, and many people still find it extremely difficult to accept the right of others to see things differently. Cvetanoski notes that there are many “true believers” who are genuinely convinced that they have a duty to defend their country from the “other” – a group in which they tend to lump critical journalists along with mercenaries, spies and traitors.
Lazara Marinković, who covers Serbia for Mapping Media Freedom, believes that the main motivation there is a need to be on the winning side and to please those in power. “Often they actually enjoy doing it, either for ideological reasons or because they feel more powerful when they are on the side of the ruling party,” she told Mapping Media Freedom. Marinković noted that the majority of Serbian tabloids and TV stations that conduct smear campaigns against independent journalists are owned by businessmen who have close links to President Aleksandar Vučić’s national conservative Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). Vučić began his political career during the Milosević era, when he served as Minister of Information.
In Poland, the divisions in society and the consequent lack of tolerance in political culture have been blamed for the increasing polarisation of the media. Michal Głowacki, a professor of media studies at Warsaw University, told Mapping Media Freedom that journalists take their cue from politicians in failing to show respect for fellow journalists associated with the “other side”. “They even use the same language as politicians,” Głowacki notes.
This is a view echoed by Hungarian journalist Anita Kőműves, a colleague of Bodoky’s at Átlátszó. Kőműves, however, insists that while journalists who work for independent media outlets strive to uphold the principles of journalistic ethics, the same cannot be said of those employed by pro-government outlets. “Some of those serving the government at propaganda outlets think that the two ‘sides’ of the Hungarian media are equally biased and that they are not acting any differently from their counterparts in the independent media sphere. However, this is not true: pro-government propaganda outlets do not adhere to even the basic rules of journalism,” she told Mapping Media Freedom.[/vc_column_text][vc_raw_html]JTNDaWZyYW1lJTIwd2lkdGglM0QlMjI3MDAlMjIlMjBoZWlnaHQlM0QlMjI0MDAlMjIlMjBzcmMlM0QlMjJodHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRm1hcHBpbmdtZWRpYWZyZWVkb20udXNoYWhpZGkuaW8lMkZ2aWV3cyUyRm1hcCUyMiUyMGZyYW1lYm9yZGVyJTNEJTIyMCUyMiUyMGFsbG93ZnVsbHNjcmVlbiUzRSUzQyUyRmlmcmFtZSUzRQ==[/vc_raw_html][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1545385969139-cb42990e-b3e2-3″ taxonomies=”9044″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
1 Nov 2018
[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content_no_spaces” full_height=”yes” columns_placement=”top” equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”top” css=”.vc_custom_1556530207240{background-image: url(https://mappingmediafreedom.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Protest_banner.jpg?id=100890) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: contain !important;}” el_id=”full”][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”top” css=”.vc_custom_1541500430648{background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}”][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Targeting the messenger: Journalists on the frontline of protests” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]When protesters pour into the streets, journalists are among the first responders. Traditionally present at demonstrations to document and reflect, they are also among the first to be corralled, targeted and injured.
Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project, which monitors violations against media professionals in 43 countries, provides an insight into the threats that journalists face.
Against a backdrop of nationalism, xenophobia, economic insecurity and anti-government sentiment, reporters have been targeted by demonstrators, counter-demonstrators and police. This report looks at 203 verified cases from the 35 countries in or affiliated with the European Union. There were 46 incidents in France, 33 in Spain, 32 in Germany and 15 in Romania.
The numbers reflect only what has been verified by Mapping Media Freedom. We have found that journalists under-report incidents they consider to be too minor, commonplace or part of the job, or where they fear reprisals. In some cases, project correspondents have identified incidents retrospectively as a result of comments on social media or reports appearing only after similar incidents have come to light.
Contexts vary but journalists face risks from protesters and the police, and from being stuck between the two. Thirteen of the 25 incidents reported in the first nine months of 2018 involved members of law enforcement.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”106459″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Widening the timeframe” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]The increase in incidents during protests is a good barometer of what is happening inside a country. They show what important protests are taking place, and what resistance journalists are encountering.
2016
Poland: censorship and restricted access cause resignations and protests
Protests and media violations intensified as a result of political polarisation. The ruling Law and Justice Party instituted legislation in 2015 that was seen as eroding government checks and balances. This prompted demonstrations. In March, two journalists resigned because they had been forbidden to report on protests on public television. In November, a public radio station was barred from reporting on protests happening in front of its offices. In December, there were big protests against restrictions placed on journalists reporting at parliament.
France: journalists covering anti-labour law reform protests repeatedly targeted by police
Police forces pushed and hit journalists with batons while dispersing a protest against a proposed labour law in Rennes, France, June 2016
Protests against proposed labour law reforms multiplied under the then socialist government of prime minister Manuel Valls. Nuit Debout, a grassroots movement, formed in Paris and spread to other cities. Incidents against journalists covering protests increased. Photographers and camera operators covering the protests were attacked and hindered in their work by police in March, April, May, June and September. In May, a photographer was banned from covering a protest, under state-of-emergency measures, and police forced a photographer to delete photos of the protester’s arrest. In June, two journalists were detained along with protesters and charged with “forming a gathering with the intention of committing an offence”. In October, a freelance journalist was banned from Calais after covering the dismantling of a migrant camp. “Since the state of emergency was declared [following the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks], there has been greater police pressure against demonstrators and against journalists. The police do not want journalists to witness what they do, that much is obvious,” Dominique Pradalié, of the National Union of French Journalists, told BuzzFeed.
Spain: the impact of legislation limiting protests
Since 2011, Spain has seen some of the biggest European protests against austerity, including the youth-led movement Los Indignados. Passed in 2015 as a response to this unrest by the then ruling conservative People’s Party, the public safety law included fines of up to €30,000 for disseminating images of police officers. In January 2016, a Spanish photojournalist was put on trial for assaulting police during a protest against austerity. He said he was convinced the charge was meant to deter photographers from covering protests and particularly police violence against protesters. In March, a journalist was fined for publishing photos of a woman arrested during a protest.
Across Europe: far-right protesters target journalists
In Latvia, in February, a journalist was assaulted while covering a demonstration against admitting any asylum seeker to the country. In Germany, also in February, a Leipzig-based news outlet announced its journalists would stop covering rallies held by Legida (the Leipzig branch of the anti-Islam Pegida movement) because it was becoming too dangerous.
2017
Romania: journalists targeted by government officials and police during mass protests
In January, days after Sorin Grindeanu’s government took office, protests against proposed changes to the penal code erupted. In a country beset by widespread corruption, the changes would have reduced the penalties for misuse-of-office offences. By 5 February, there were more than 500,000 people protesting – the biggest protests since the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu. On 2 February, the government identified individual journalists accused of instigating the protests. On the same day, a German journalist covering the protests was assaulted by police and detained. Police tried to delete the footage he had filmed. On 5 February, a journalist was put under criminal investigation for filming the protests with a drone.
France: police target journalists reporting on police violence and tactics during protests
Journalists covering public gatherings during the presidential campaign encountered difficulties. Conservative candidate François Fillon, who saw his chances of being elected disappear after reports of an alleged corruption case, blamed the media, contributing to a deterioration of working conditions for journalists covering the campaign. “L’affaire Théo” put police violence in the spotlight after officers were accused of assaulting a young man named Théodore Luhaka. A journalist was hit by unknown assailants while covering such a protest in February. Another said he was hit by police after he reported they had used live ammunition. In March, during a protest, a journalist confronted what he claimed were police officers posing as journalists, and one of them punched his camera.
G20 in Germany: violence and revoked accreditations
In total, 100,000 protesters attended G20 summit protests in July in Hamburg. More than 15,000 police were deployed. Journalists were repeatedly assaulted by protesters and police, who used pepper spray and water cannon. One police officer told a journalist: “Your press card is worth nothing.” On 8 July, 32 journalists had their accreditation removed by police.
Poland: polarisation of the media impacts journalists
After the government gained control of public broadcasters, protesters started treating their journalists badly during protests, accusing them of being government mouthpieces (in July and December). Meanwhile, the government kept targeting independent media outlets. A year after the big December 2016 protests, a private media outlet was threatened with a huge fine for reporting on them.
2018
France: protests continue, journalists hurt by police
There were two important moments: the evacuation by police of a large protest camp in opposition to a new airport in Notre-Dame-des-Landes in April, and a surge of protests against Edouard Philippe’s government. Both, but particularly the evacuation, led to journalists sustaining serious injuries at the hands of the police. In Martinique, a police officer threatened a journalist covering a protest accusing the government of neglecting this overseas region.
Spain: journalists targeted during Catalonia protests
Protests for and against independence continued. Journalists encountered difficulties with aggression coming from both sides.
Romania: journalists targeted during mass protests
At mass anti-government protests in August, journalists were prevented from doing their job by police. They often had to stop reporting, as it became too dangerous.
Across Europe: far-right protesters target journalists
In Greece, journalists covering rallies in protest at the renaming of Macedonia were repeatedly threatened by nationalist demonstrators.
In September, far-right and neo-Nazi protests took place in Chemnitz and other German cities. The protests started after two immigrants were arrested in connection with the murder of a Cuban-German man. Journalists faced widespread intimidation and assaults by far-right protesters.
On 20 June, five Belgian journalists covering a protest at the construction site of a detention centre for migrant families in Brussels were detained just before a live broadcast for public broadcaster RTBF. Their cameras were taken away but one of the journalists used his watch as a phone and reported from the police van. They were released after two hours.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Is violence against journalists during protests getting worse?” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]Our monitoring tools have been in place for only a few years so we can’t be certain about long-term trends, but several factors have exacerbated the situation:
Our monitoring tools have been in place for only a few years so we can’t be certain about long-term trends, but several factors have exacerbated the situation:
- Defamation and discrediting of journalists coming from politicians have increased.
- This is mirrored by a lack of trust from the public, which can be rooted in some real problems with inaccurate and insensitive coverage.
- Images quickly go viral, which means police and protesters can react badly when they are photographed and filmed.
- Anti-terror legislation has restrained civil freedoms and made it easier to detain people for longer.
- In some countries, police are using heavy-handed tactics and heavier weapons, with little accountability as to how they are used.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Blurred lines” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]Recent protests have seen aspiring journalists cutting their teeth while covering social movements. This is what happened to Remy Buisine, who became well-known for his coverage of Nuit Debout in 2016 but tweeted an image of his first press card only in April 2018.
This can result in blurred lines between journalism and activism, with young citizen journalists taking risks to cover protests while not benefiting from the protection that more established journalists enjoy.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Worst offenders” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]
Serious injuries
France has seen several waves of serious protests over the past few years, beginning with the mobilisation against the labour law reform in 2016. After a number of incidents in which journalists suffered violence and serious injuries at the hands of police, Reporters Without Borders referred 10 cases to France’s human rights ombudsman.
Spring 2018 saw another spike in incidents in which journalists were severely injured. On 3 April, during a protest in Paris, a police officer struck a journalist on the head with a baton. The journalist said he had been deliberately targeted and pressed charges. On 11 April, three journalists were hurt by stun grenades while covering the evacuation of Notre-Dame-des-Landes. On 15 April, a photographer covering the evacuation for Liberation was injured by a stun grenade. On 14 April, a freelance journalist was hurt by a teargas canister thrown by the police. Her hand was injured but, more worryingly, she said an officer had fired teargas directly at her face. She was wearing protective glasses and clothing and was not hurt, but the impact left a black mark on her glasses. On 19 April, a photographer was seriously wounded by a stun grenade thrown by police as he was covering an anti-government protest in Paris. Also on 19 April, police threw a stun grenade at a journalist covering anti-government protests and broke her collarbone.
On 22 May, a photographer and a videographer were detained for 48 hours and charged with unauthorised entry after covering the occupation of a school in Paris by protesters. The photographer was wearing a helmet with “Photographer” on it. He told the police repeatedly that he was a journalist. He faces trial on 19 June, charged with “entering a school without authorisation with the intention of breaching the peace [a law passed as part of an anti-terror package] and gathering together with the intention of committing a misdemeanour”.
In July, a scandal erupted when Le Monde reported that Alexandre Benalla, a deputy chief of staff to President Emmanuel Macron, had assaulted protesters while posing as a police officer during the May Day demonstration in Paris. On 2 October, Alexis Kraland, a reporter who had been filming police actions during that demonstration, said he had been summoned for an interview “for participating to a violent protest”. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Dangerous protests
Hendrik Zörner, of the German Federation of Journalists, spoke to Mapping Media Freedom about attacks against journalists covering the disturbances in Chemnitz. “It has become very dangerous for journalists to attend demonstrations. We’ve seen journalists being victims of far-right hate and that’s not OK, because journalists are there to report and [are] not a political party.”
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Intentional targeting
Zoltan Sipos, Mapping Media Freedom’s Romania correspondent, said: “Journalists are definitely getting targeted during protests. A recent case, on 10 August 2018, saw around 10 journalists come forward and say the police had beaten them up and arrested them. Because they were standing in different places, it felt [as though] the police had orders to arrest them, but there’s no proof of this.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
About this report
This report looks at 203 verified cases from the 35 countries in or affiliated with the European Union. There were 46 incidents in France, 33 in Spain, 32 in Germany and 15 in Romania.
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
Editor: Sean Gallagher
Research/editing:
Sean Gallagher, Paula Kennedy, Adam Aiken
Illustrations: Eva Bee
Design: Matthew Hasteley, Ryan McChrystal
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