31 Jul 2014 | Ireland, News, Pakistan, Religion and Culture
It was, apparently, the posting of a “blasphemous image” on Facebook that led an angry mob to burn down houses with children inside them.
It’s been suggested that it was a picture of the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest site, that provoked the mob in Gujranwala in Pakistan. They rallied last Sunday at Arafat colony, home of 17 families belonging to the Ahmadi sect. As police stood by, houses were looted and torched. At the end of the night, a woman in her 50s, Bushra Bibi, and her granddaughters Hira and Kainat, an eight-month-old baby, were dead. None of them had anything to do with the blasphemous Facebook post.
Was the image even blasphemous? In some ways, it doesn’t really matter. What matters was that it was posted by an Ahmadi, whose very existence is condemned by the Pakistani penal code.
Ahmadiyya emerged in India in the late 19th century. It is a small sect based on the belief that its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was, in fact, the Mahdi of Muslim tradition. This teaching is rejected by Orthodox Sunni Islam.
In Pakistan, this means that being a member of the Ahmadiyya sect is dangerous. The law says you cannot describe yourself as Muslim. You cannot exchange Muslim greetings. You cannot describe your call to prayer as a Muslim call to prayer. You cannot describe your place of worship as a Masjid.
Any Ahmadi who “any manner whatsoever outrages the religious feelings of Muslims” can be imprisoned for up to three years.
Ahmadis suffer disproportionately from Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, but they are not the only ones who suffer. Accusations of blasphemy are frequently levelled at members of other minorities and at mainstream Muslims too. Often, this is done out of sheer spite. Often it is done to settle scores.
As the New Statesman’s Samira Shackle has pointed out, amid the chaos and fear generated by the law, it’s often difficult to find out what people are actually supposed to have done, as media hesitate to repeat the alleged blasphemy lest they themselves be accused of the crime.
The fevered atmosphere created by the laws mean that to oppose them can be fatal. In Janury 2011, Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer was killed by his own bodyguard after he pledged to support a Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, who had been accused of the crime. Taseer’s assassin claimed that the governor had been an “apostate”. He was widely praised by the religious establishment. Three months later, Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti was killed, apparently because of his belief that the blasphemy law should be changed.
Meanwhile, an amendment proposed by Taseer’s colleague Sherry Rehman, which would have abolished the death penalty for blasphemy, was dropped. Rehman was posted to diplomatic service in the United States later that year, amid allegations that she herself had committed some kind of blasphemy.
The number of blasphemy cases is steadily rising, and Human Rights Watch recently claimed that 18 people are on death row after being found guilty of defaming the prophet Muhammad, though no one has as yet been executed.
The laws may seem archaic, but they are in fact utterly modern. While some of South Asia’s laws on religious offence date back to the Raj, the laws relating to the Ahmadi, and the law making insulting Muhammad a capital offence only emerged in the 1980s, as part of General Zia’s attempts to shore up his religious credentials.
The sad fact is this Pakistan’s new enthusiasm for blasphemy laws is not an international aberration. Nor is this a trend confined to confessional Islamic states.
Ireland’s 2009 Defamation Act introduced a 25,000 Euro fine for the publication of “blasphemous matter”. According to the Act , “a person publishes or utters blasphemous matter if—
(a) he or she publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion, and
(b) he or she intends, by the publication or utterance of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage.”
Note how similar the wording is to the Pakistani law forbidding Ahmadis from offending Muslims. The Pakistani government repaid the compliment when, along with other members of the Organisation of Islamic Conference, it attempted to force the UN to recognise “religious defamation” as a crime, lifting text from the Irish act. Pakistan claimed, grotesquely, that criminalising blasphemy was about preventing discrimination. Cast your eyes back once again to how its blasphemy provisions treat Ahmadis.
Across Europe, more and more blasphemy cases are emerging. In January of this year, a Greek man was sentenced to 10 months for setting up a Facebook page mocking an Orthodox cleric. In 2012, Polish singer Doda was fined for suggesting that the Bible read like it was written by someone drunk and “smoking some herbs”. The trial of Pussy Riot in Russia was heavy with talk of sacrilege.
We tend to believe that the world is moving inexorably toward a secular settlement. The unintended upshot of this prevalent belief is that organised religions, even in countries like Pakistan, get to portray themselves as weak people who need to be protected from extinction, even as they wield power of life and death over people.
Religious persecution is real, and should be fought. Freedom of belief is a basic right. But blasphemy laws protect only power, and never people.
This article was posted on July 31, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
25 Apr 2014 | Americas, News, United States, Young Writers / Artists Programme
(Image: Bplanet/Shutterstock)
(a list poem)
Because if you’re an artist, you never know where you’ll go.
Because you need a personal identity number to send a package.
Because an IP address is not a perfect proxy for someone’s physical location, but it is close.
Because I do most of my research online.
Because there hasn’t been a proper rain in California in over three years, and this year may be the driest in the last half millenium.
Because the burning of fossil fuels is destroying our atmosphere.
Because persistent cookies are stored on the hard drive of a computer until they are manually deleted or until they expire, which can take months or years.
Because tracking cookies are commonly used as ways to compile long-term records of individuals’ browsing histories.
Because server farms require massive amounts of energy.
Because the friend who wanted to send the email “Photos from Taksim Square” couldn’t until she changed the subject to “Paris Vacation Photos”.
Because the line between “public” and “private” is tenuous at best.
Because the ACLU is doing its best.
Because a webcam’s images might be intercepted without a user’s consent.
Because a surveillance program code named “Optic Nerve” was revealed to have compiled and stored still images from Yahoo webcam chats in bulk in Great Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters’ databases with help from the United States’ National Security Agency, and to be using them for experiments in automated facial recognition.
Because it’s sketchy to be a Communist.
Because the Defending Dissent Foundation is all kinds of busy.
Because the U.S. army actively targeted nonviolent antiwar protestors in Washington in 2007.
Because I saw it on Dronstagram.
Because everything will or might end up on the internet.
Because the internet is a wormhole full of parasites.
Because I am trying to connect all of the dots.
Because free speech is a tinted mirror.
Because all mediated information is processed, edited, and altered.
Because Wally Shawn had to bring his play to Glenn Greenwald since the journalist who broke the story about Edward Snowden can’t return to the United States.
Because the author risked his freedom and physical security for the truth.
Because artistic solidarity is framed as criminal complicity.
Because how could I forget that language is always political?
Because Chelsea Manning is still being misgendered.
Because the personal is always political.
Because it’s not just the major political players.
Because of the metadata collection.
Because a local surveillance hub may start out combining video camera feeds with data from license plate readers, but once you have the platform running, police departments could plug in new features, such as social media scanners.
Because the Domain Awareness Center’s focus has been not on violent crime, but on political protests.
Because the collapse of the economy and the devastation of the environment are two sides of the same coin.
Because of the NSA’s presence at UN climate talks.
Because of the vested interests in the oil industry.
Because tell me something I don’t know.
Because my personal information is probably being used not just for advertising purposes.
Because despite Facebook’s rights and permissions policies, I still want to share with my friends.
Because Pussy Riot was imprisoned.
Because the Trans-Pacific Partnership would rewrite rules on intellectual property enforcement, giving corporations the right to sue national governments if they passed any law, regulation, or court ruling interfering with a corporation’s expected future profits.
Because I don’t know who is making money off of my information.
Because Abstract Expressionism was funded by the CIA.
Because of the time-honored tradition of governments keeping tabs on artists.
Because we don’t want jobs, we want to live.
This poem was posted on April 25, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
31 Mar 2014 | News, Russia
Punitive psychiatric treatment is returning to Russia. This is a throw back to Soviet times, with opposition activists condemned by a kangaroo court to bogus psychiatric treatment courses, with no chance of release until a doctor says so.
Mikhail Kosenko, 39, last week became the highest profile case when he lost his appeal case against enforced psychiatric treatment. As such he will be interned immediately at a state-owned medical facility in Moscow. At worst, his sentence could be for life, with no chance of parole, as his release depends on vaguely described criteria. His assessment will also be made by doctors whose political neutrality is not guaranteed.
In 2012, Kosenko was arrested by Moscow police after taking part in a peaceful protest against Putin in Bolotnoya Square. Charged with rioting, he spent much of the next twenty two months behind bars. When his sentence was read out in court last October, his sister Kseniya, told the BBC : “I have an awful feeling. There are really frightening stories about what goes on in these places.”
Kseniya describes her brother as “a very quiet, homely type of guy.” She confirms various inspecting doctors reporting that he’s very shy – “shunning any kind of violence.”
Kosenko did have a pre-existing psychiatric condition when he was arrested – slow on-set schizophrenia diagnosed in 2001. But after medication and good advice, the condition was very much under control. Kosenko had never shown any tendency to be violent, according to his doctors.
Tanya Lokshina, Russia Program Director and Senior Researcher at Human Rights Watch, opposes the ruling.
“Mikhail’s case simply reminds me of the Soviet Union,” Lokshina warns. She tells how punitive psychiatry was a tool that was rarely used, but always with devastating effect. “Back then the medications used were really heavy, they were designed to slow down movements and just keep you out of the way.”
It’s impossible know exactly what treatments are now in store for Kosenko. But whatever is to come, it will only end if Kosenko dies, renounces his politics, or wins a final case of appeal at the Supreme Court. This is his last chance, but it could be some time. Lokshina remembers that when Pussy Riot took an appeal case to the Supreme Court, they had to wait a year before their case was heard. In the meantime, Kosenko’s treatment will continue.
The only medical evaluation the court heard was conducted by the Serbsky Institute in Moscow. Their crebility was disputed by medical experts, including the head of Russia’s Independent Psychiatric Association, when they noted that the assessment had completely omitted any reference to Kosenko’s successful ten years of self-medication, with no history of violence. Serbsky Insitute is also owned and operated by the state. The judge threw out a petition to have a second medical assessment.
Lokshina tells me there have been a few cases recently – but this is by far the worst. Amnesty International call it “an abhorrent return to Soviet-era practices.” The weeping sister of Kosenko told the BBC she felt “physically sick” when she heard that her brother had been found guilty.
Putin is turning to medieval, desperate measures as he balances himself on a rattling economy, a tonne of debt and a country that is too big to govern. Those with the bitterest memories, like Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states, fear a renewed bid to expand borders permanently, especially looking at adventures into Crimea.
But Putin is smarter. He must distract the population from a certain amount of oligarch asset-stripping and poor management, which has become epidemic under his reign. But he also must not overstretch or overspend. Enter the Roman strategy of “bread and circuses,” minus the bread.
Putin’s inaugural circus took place during the Georgia invasion in 2008, and according to Mark Adomanis remembering the war in Forbes magazine “bathed Russia in a warm patriotic glow.” Putin’s ratings took a generous bump as a result.
But Admonanis predicted, just two months ago, that Putin’s ratings would have dipped by the end of this year. The economy was weak and Sochi had been a slightly uncomfortable experience for anyone even remotely Russian.
Sadly Adomanis, nor anyone outside Putin’s inner circle, could not reasonably have predicted Putin’s subsequent gamble in Crimea.
The incursion has seen approval ratings leap from sixty five to eighty percent almost over-night. That is an extraordinary success.
Yet while Crimea has been a successful though highly irritating move, Putin’s political future is still at risk. The balance of world media commentary has been unapproving. The lies he is telling about dangerous neo-Nazi gangs have been proved as untruths, journalists have exposed the role of vicious nationalist thugs (on the Russian side), and Putin’s cheeky disregard for international law condemned. His domestic woes also go on regardless – senior officials within the Kremlin admit that the capital outflows and fall in the stockmarket are far greater than they had forecast. There certainly isn’t any capacity for “bread.”
Facing criticism at home and abroad – Putin turns to censorship and propaganda to secure himself domestically and reap political reward out of Crimea. Any oppositionist media has been bloodily censored. Reports of self-censorship are leaking out from the remaining clutch of titles.
There are three varieties of public criticism which particularly irk Putin. First, a human rights group can get hold of and successfully publicise a story (Kosenko). Second, a one-off event focuses the world on Russia (Sochi). The third is that Russian activists go out onto the streets (again Kosenko’s case, see also Pussy Riot).
In each scenario, Putin potentially loses. But he’s developed mitigation strategies. The first is to denounce foreign criticism as biased and baseless. The second is to claim it’s-a-great-big-Western-plot-we’re-the-victims-don’t-worry-Putin-here-will-rescue-you. The third is to allow some freedom of speech, but only as an opposition release valve. The fourth is to treat protesters like animals.
Street-marches are targeted by violent thugs, who act with suspicious impunity. But it’s the judiciary, and their shoddy self-discipline, who play the more important role. There were serious judicial errors in Kosenko’s case. Other victims have seen key witnesses prevented from giving testimony. Or biased “expert opinions.” Or paid goons threatening the families of the accused.
Putin’s actions abroad might bring back memories of Communist Russia, but Putin probably doesn’t see it this way. Putin needs the circuses of Georgia and Crimea, even if he can’t afford bread back home. He has also applied a blanket of censorship on the media.
Now Putin is turning to psychiatric institutions in a bid to remain in power.
This article was published on March 31, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
26 Feb 2014 | Europe and Central Asia, News, Russia
1. The fifth ring malfunction
(Image: Jaroslav Francisko/Demotix)
The lighting rig which proudly illuminated one less Olympic ring than it should have caused considerable embarrassment for the Russian organisers of the opening ceremony, as Sochi 2014 opened its gates to the athletes. Known as the “stubborn snowflake” Russian viewers at home were greeted with footage from the Opening Ceremony rehearsal, so they were none the wiser. The Russians later showed their funny side by only featuring four rings in the Closing Ceremony performance.
2. Pussy Riot getting whipped in the face
(Image: Sky News/YouTube)
While pre-emptive arrests meant many activists were unable to protest at all, five members of the punk group Pussy Riot and their cameraman were attacked by Cossack security patrols as they performed under a sign advertising the Winter Olympics.
Footage showed Cossack security staff whipping band members, pulling off their ski masks, and throwing them to the ground.
Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Kozak dismissed the attacks: “The girls came here specifically to provoke this conflict,” he explained. “They had been searching for it for some time and finally they had this conflict with local inhabitants.”
While the international media covered the face-whipping incident in fairly minute detail, Russian press clippings about the arrest are hard to come by. Pussy Riot’s previous stunt in Moscow’s main cathedral, which landed them with a jail sentences and heavy fines, have already been scrubbed from the internet.
3. Justin Kripps’ website
(Image: @justinkripps/Twitter)
Russian fans hoping to keep updated by the Canadian bobsleigher’s website were disappointed, as Russian censorship authorities blocked access to it. It’s still unclear why, but it may be linked to a risque photo Kripps tweeted a month prior to the Games. The snap featured his burly four-man bobsled team in their underwear at a weigh in. The photo went viral, in particular within the gay community.
4. Almost every story about corruption, gay-bashing, forcible evictions and the environment
(Image: Heather Blockey/Demotix)
While the run-up to Sochi might have been dominated by negative stories in the Western media, with tales of homophobia, corruption and environmental destruction, local journalists had to be a lot more cautious when reporting the “true” face of Sochi. Strict surveillance measures were imposed on all journalists’ emails, social media and internet use – to keep any negative stories from breaking.
“It seems to me that some of these surveillance measures were conscientiously made public … to send a message,” commented investigative journalist and security services expert Andrei Soldatov while at the Games.
Self-censorship, he says, has become a “big problem” among local reporters and investigative journalists – who often felt scared to report on the wider political context of Putin’s games. “There are some fears that Sochi was a test ground … these kind of measures may be made commonplace in other parts of Russia,” he added.
BONUS: And…Russians accuse US of censorship and malicious media bias
(Image: Screenshot)
Censorship during NBC’s coverage of the Opening Ceremony included missing out a live performance by girlband t.A.T.u, omitting a Russian police choir performing Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky,” deleting Communist-themed vignettes, and failing to air a congratulatory speech by IOC chief Thomas Bach, praising the Russians. Russian media whooped with glee when the hashtag #NBCFail started trending on Twitter in response to the censorship.
American magazine The Nation published a rare honest analysis of the American media’s vitriol against Russia, noting that even before the Games began, the Washington Times had written off the venues as a “Soviet-style dystopia” and warned in a headline, “TERRORISM AND TENSION, NOT SPORTS AND JOY.”
Provocative BuzzFeed headlines like “Photographic Proof That Sochi Is A Godforsaken Hellscape Right Now” and the Twitter account @SochiProblems, provoked outrage in Russia. One Russian netizen took such offence with @SochiProblems that he travelled to London and created his own photo tour of the city “in Sochi style”. “The Other Side of London, where the guided tours don’t go” is a depressing trip through some of London’s worst outer districts. The results (translated from Russian) make for sombre viewing, tinged with humour.
The infamous double toilet in Sochi also has a doppelganger in London, as one Russian Instagram user, living in the capital, proved. The side-by-side facilities, identical to the toilets which athletes had endlessly mocked in the Olympic village, were installed in a typical upmarket hipster cocktail bar.
This article was posted on 25 February 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
