Last week, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal was convicted of producing “terrorist propaganda” in Turkey and sentenced to more than two years in prison.
Ayla Albayrak was charged over an August 2015 article in the newspaper, which detailed government efforts to quell unrest among the nation’s Kurdish separatists, “firing tear gas and live rounds in a bid to reassert control of several neighborhoods”.
Albayrak was in New York at the time the ruling was announced and was sentenced in absentia but her conviction forms part of a growing pattern of arrests, detentions, trials and convictions for journalists under national security laws – not just in Turkey, the world’s top jailer of journalists, but globally.
As security – rather than the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms – becomes the number one priority of governments worldwide, broadly-written security laws have been twisted to silence journalists.
It’s seen starkly in the data Index on Censorship records for a project monitoring media freedom in Europe: type the word “terror” into the search box of Mapping Media Freedom and more than 200 cases appear related to journalists targeted for their work under terror laws.
This includes everything from alleged public order offences in Catalonia to the “harming of national interests in Ukraine” to the hundreds of journalists jailed in Turkey following the failed coup.
This abusive phenomenon started small, as in the case of Turkey, with dismissive official rhetoric that was aimed at small segments — like Kurdish journalists — among the country’s press corps, but over time it expanded to extinguish whole newspapers or television networks that espouse critical viewpoints on government policy.
While Turkey has been an especially egregious example of the cynical and political exploitation of terror offenses, the trend toward criminalisation of journalism that makes governments uncomfortable is spreading.
Mónica Terribas, journalist for Catalunya Rádio
In Spain, the Spanish police association filed a lawsuit against Mónica Terribas, a journalist for Catalunya Rádio, accusing her of “favouring actions against public order for calling on citizens in the Catalonia region to report on police movements during the referendum on independence.
The association said information on police movements could help terrorists, drug dealers and other criminals.
Undermining state security is a growing refrain among countries seeking to clamp down on a disobedient media, particularly in countries like Russia. In December 2016, State Duma Deputy Vitaly Milonov urged Russia’s Prosecutor General to investigate independent Latvia-based media outlet Meduza’s on charges of “promoting extremism and terrorism” for an article published the day before.
The piece written by Ilya Azar entitled, When You Return, We Will Kill You, documents Chechens who are leaving continental Europe through Belarussian-Polish border and living in a rail station in Brest, a border city in Belarus. Deputy Milonov said he considers the article a provocation aimed at undermining unity of Russia and praising terrorists.
German journalist Deniz Yucel
In Turkey, reporting deemed critical of the government, the president or their associates is being equated with terrorism as seen in the case of German journalist Deniz Yucel who was detained in February this year.
Yucel, a dual Turkish-German national was working as a correspondent for the German newspaper Die Welt. He was arrested on charges of propaganda in support of a terrorist organization as well as inciting violence to the public and is currently awaiting trial, something that could take up to five years.
Ahmed Abba
Outside of the European region, journalists regularly fall foul of national security laws. In April, journalist Ahmed Abba was sentenced to 10 years behind bars by a military tribunal in Cameroon after being convicted of non-denunciation of terrorism and laundering of the proceeds of terrorist acts. Accompanying the decade-long sentence was a fine of over $90,000 dollars. Abba, a journalist for Radio France International, was detained in July of 2015. He was tortured and held in solitary confinement for three months.
The military court allegedly possessed evidence against Abba, who was barred from speaking with the media during his trial, which they found on his computer. Among the alleged evidence was contact information between Abba and the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram. Abba, who was in the area to report on the Boko Haram conflict, claimed he obtained the information that was discovered on his phone from various social media outlets with the intent of using them for his report.
Yemeni journalist Yahya Abduraqeeb al-Jubaihi
Yemeni journalist Yahya Abduraqeeb Al-Jubaihi was sentenced to death earlier this month for allegedly serving as an undercover spy for Saudi Arabian coalition forces. Al-Jubaihi, who has worked as a journalist for various Yemeni and Saudi Arabian newspapers, has been held in a political prison camp ever since he was abducted from his home in September 2016.
Al-Jubaihi is the first journalist to be sentenced to death in Yemen following a trial that many activists believe was politically motivated because of Al-Jubaihi’s columns criticising Houthis.
Journalist Narzullo Akhunjonov
Increasingly, governments are turning to Interpol to target journalists under terror laws. Turkey has filed an application to seek an Interpol arrest warrant for Can Dündar, demanding the journalist’s extradition. In September, Uzbek journalist Narzullo Okhunjonov was detained by authorities in Ukraine following an Interpol red notice.
Uzbek authorities have issued an international arrest warrant on fraud charges against Okhunjonov, who had been living in exile in Turkey since 2013 in order to avoid politically motivated persecution for his reporting.
And governments are also using terror laws to spy on journalists. In 2014, the UK police admitted it used powers under terror legislation to obtain the phone records of Tom Newton Dunn, editor of The Sun newspaper, to investigate the source of a leak in a political scandal. Police powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which circumvents another law that requires police to have approval from a judge to get disclosure of journalistic material.
No laughing matter
The Sun editor Tom Newton Dunn
Even jokes can land journalists in trouble under terror laws. Last year, French police searched the office of community Radio Canut in Lyon and seized the recording of a radio programme, after two presenters were accused of “incitement to terrorism”.
Presenters had been talking about the protests by police officers that had recently been taking place in France. One presenter said: “This is a call to people who people who killed themselves or are feeling suicidal and to all kamikazes” and to “blow themselves up in the middle of the crowd”.
One of the presenters was put under judicial supervision and was forbidden to host the radio programme until he appeared in court.
Radio Canut journalist Olivier Combi explained that the comment was ironic: “Obviously, Radio Canut is not calling for the murder of police officers, as it was sometimes said in the press”, he said. “Things have to be put back in context: the words in question are a 30 seconds joke-like exchange between two voluntary radio hosts…Nothing serious, but no media outlet took the trouble to call us, they all used the version of the police.”
Fighting back to protect sources
Two Russian journalists — Oleg Kashin and Alexander Plushev — are pushing back, Meduza reported. Kashin and Plushev filed the lawsuit challenging Russia’s Federal Security Service’s demands that instant messaging apps turn over encryption keys for users’ private communications, which is being driven by Russia’s anti-terror legislation. The court rejected the suit with the judge reportedly found that the government’s demands do not infringe on Plushev’s civil rights.
The journalists had contended that the FSB’s demand violated their right to confidential conversations with sources. Kashin said that in his work as a journalist he had come to rely on apps such as Telegram to conduct interviews with politicians.
Human rights organisation Agora is representing Telegram in a separate case against the FSB, which has fined the app company for failing to comply with its demands.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”96229″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2017/10/turkish-injustice-scores-journalists-rights-defenders-go-trial/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
About 90 journalists, writers and human rights defenders will appear before courts in the coming days[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”96183″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2017/10/interpol-the-abuse-red-notices-is-bad-news-for-critical-journalists/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Since August, at least six journalists have been targeted across Europe by international arrest warrants issued by Turkey, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Mapping Media Freedom” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-times-circle” color=”black” background_style=”rounded” size=”xl” align=”right”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]
Since 24 May 2014, Mapping Media Freedom’s team of correspondents and partners have recorded and verified 3,597 violations against journalists and media outlets.
Index campaigns to protect journalists and media freedom. You can help us by submitting reports to Mapping Media Freedom.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Don’t lose your voice. Stay informed.” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate, and monitor threats to free speech. We believe that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution – no matter what their views.
Join our mailing list (or follow us on Twitter or Facebook) and we’ll send you our weekly newsletter about our activities defending free speech. We won’t share your personal information with anyone outside Index.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
David Sheen at Israel’s State Archives in Jerusalem (Credit: Rotem Malenky)
Israeli-Canadian journalist David Sheen, a former editor at Haaretz who regularly reports on racism against Africans within Israel, is the subject of a defamation lawsuit by former Israeli general Israel Ziv demanding $200,000. The case falls under what is known as a strategic lawsuit against public participation – or SLAPP.
“Ziv claims that I have defamed him by reporting on his activities and by referring to him in my tweets as an ‘arch-racist’, a ‘racist ringleader’, and a ‘war crimes whitewasher,’” Sheen said in an email to Index. “I contend that these are my opinions and that they are based on reported facts.”
In January 2017, Sheen wrote an article for the Electronic Intifada, an independent news website focusing on Palestine, entitled Netanyahu Openly Boasts of Israel’s War on Africans, in which he refers to Ziv as one of ten Israeli “ringleaders in Israel’s war on Africans”.
The mentions of Ziv in Sheen’s article refer to an investigation by Israel’s Channel 2 TV in 2016 that made public conversations between Ziv, now the owner of security consultancy company Global CST, and his associates during which they discussed a campaign with the objective to “whitewash the reputation” of the “cruel president” of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, “and to fortify his regime”. This followed a report by the United Nations that Kiir had allowed soldiers under his command to commit “a multitude of horrendous human rights violations,” including raping women and children en masse “in lieu of wages”. Ideas floated during Ziv’s meeting include that Kiir could blame these crimes on indigenous African tribal culture or that he could make a speech at the UN flanked by the victims.
Channel 2 TV and other news organisations that reported on this story are not facing legal action from Ziv, but Sheen, an independent journalist, is.
“While large news organisations employ teams of lawyers who can fend off SLAPP suits and legal harassment, independent journalists such as myself don’t, so we present a tempting target,” Sheen told Index. “But more than this: the mainstream media reports of Ziv’s efforts to aid the president of South Sudan were in the Hebrew language, which is only spoken by 0.1% of the world population.”
Sheen’s report was in English, the third most-spoken language in the world. “So even though my report was published by a small independent outlet, it has the potential of being read by many more people, and that is something that Ziv clearly wishes to prevent,” he said.
Sheen added that, in general terms, reporting on Israeli mistreatment of Africans is sometimes met with more resistance than reporting on Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians. “There is already a well-established ‘both sides’ narrative that can be utilised to try to explain away the latter. Israel’s defenders can say that Jews and Arabs have been battling for a hundred years, so Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians is just another round of tit for tat fighting.” he said. “They can’t use this narrative in regards to Israeli mistreatment of Africans because there is no recent – or ancient – history of conflict between Jews and African peoples. Unable to neuter criticism of the maltreatment of Africans, Israel’s defenders hope to silence reports about it.”
Sheen added that the libel lawsuit against him sends a clear warning to his fellow journalists that “in Israel, free speech is far from free, and powerful people can make critical speech extremely expensive for you, so don’t do it”.
“The case against David Sheen appears to be politically motivated,” said Melody Patry, head of advocacy at Index on Censorship. “No journalist should be prosecuted for exercising their freedom of speech.”
In recent years a number of lawsuits, many successful, have been made against journalists by officials in Israel, including a $464,000 2016 libel case against reporter Sharon Shpurer for a Facebook post disparaging an Israeli developer who is a convicted human trafficker. In July 2017, a journalist who claimed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was kicked out of his car by his wife was ordered to pay $32,500 in damages to the couple for libel.
“As it is, most Israeli media outlets serve as semi-stenographers of the Israeli army, repeating its press releases as though they were objective fact,” Sheen told Index. “The additional danger of crippling legal fees and fines will further disincentivise telling truth to power and leave Israeli society with increasingly impoverished fourth and fifth estates. Obviously, those who will suffer most as a result will be the country’s oppressed populations.”
In August 2017, the Israeli government announced proposals to ban Al Jazeera from operating in the country, echoing similar moves by Saudi Arabia and others who demanded that Qatar shutter the network and other media outlets as part of a list of demands to end a diplomatic crisis. The Israeli Government Press Office seemed intent on revoking the press credentials of Al Jazeera reporter Elias Karram but decided against this on 30 August. However, this was only after Karram provided a statement saying he does not support terrorism. The head of the GPO has said the body will “keep track of the network’s reports in Israel, in Arabic and in English, and will not hesitate to reach the necessary conclusions after consulting with legal and security officials”.
“Without question, freedom of the press is steadily decreasing in Israel,” Sheen told Index. “Sadly, many Israeli citizens seem to support it: in a 2015 article I wrote for Alternet, I noted that nearly half of Israelis believe that harsh public criticism of the government should be against the law.”
During a pre-trial session on 18 September, the dates for the case against Sheen will be set.
Supporters of Sheen have set up a petition to support the journalist.[/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:1504615911945-5d3d3e69-6e05-2″ taxonomies=”180, 449″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship condemns the decision by the government of Israel to ban Al Jazeera from operating in the country.
“A free and open media landscape is necessary for the proper functioning of a democratic society. The silencing of Al Jazeera’s networks — whether English or Arabic — is a detriment to the public’s right to information,” Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of Index on Censorship, said.
The revoking of the press cards belonging to the network’s reporters is a clear violation of press freedom and the right to freedom of expression.
Israel’s decision echoes the move by Saudi Arabia and its allies, who demanded that Qatar shutter the network and other media outlets as part of a list of demands to end a diplomatic crisis.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1502111795096-e5480c80-f680-8″ taxonomies=”449″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Index on Censorship welcomes UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson’s interest in human rights. The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s 2016 Annual Human Rights Report, released on Thursday 20 July, highlights the UK’s work to promote human rights around the world and sets out a list of 30 “Human Rights Priority Countries”, including Bahrain, Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
In the report preface, Johnson writes: “Human rights are not inimical to development and prosperity; the opposite is true. Freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom to practice whatever religion you want and live your life as you please, provided you do no harm, are the essential features of a dynamic and open society.”
Index agrees wholeheartedly and acknowledges that the report features many valiant efforts, including, for the first time, a section dedicated to modern slavery – a top priority for the UK government.
But the report – issued on “take out the trash” day, the last of the parliamentary sessions before a seven-week recess – does not, as it claims, seem to aspire to the “passionate advocacy” of Charles James Fox, the British Whig statesman and anti-slavery campaigner.
Instead, Johnson offers a watered-down endorsement of human rights and his department’s understanding of advocacy is seriously flawed. To borrow the foreign secretary’s own words, this is “unthinkable for anyone inspired by the example of Charles James Fox”.
Take Bahrain, for example. While the report does go some way to criticising a handful of the country’s human rights violations, this is not done not in nearly strong enough terms, and you’d be forgiven for thinking these violations are blips in an otherwise rosy picture. This is, after all, a country which has only “restricted some civil liberties”.
“There was a mixed picture on human rights in Bahrain in 2016,” the discussion of the Persian Gulf kingdom begins. “Compared with the region, Bahrain remains progressive in women’s rights, political representation, labour rights, religious tolerance and institutional accountability.”
Firstly, this is a faulty comparison. Looking at the region as a whole serves only to make Bahrain look better than it actually is. Bahrain may have 15% representation of women in parliament, as the report highlights, but this cannot be described as progressive. As of 2014, the government of Saudi Arabia, not known for its feminism, was made up of 19.9% women.
In April 2016, a royal decree that increased the rights of women in Bahrain only passed through parliament scrutiny on a technicality. In March of that year, Bahrain detained human rights activist and blogger Zainab al-Khawaja along with her one-year-old son. She was released in May but fled the country out of fear of re-arrest.
While the report does go on to criticise the dissolving of the country’s main Shia opposition party, Al Wefaq, it remains a mystery why the report would first highlight political representation and religious tolerance as positives in Bahrain.
The country certainly does not have enough institutional accountability, and this is not something it should be commended on.
Even the brief mention of Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, sentenced to two-years in prison just for speaking to journalists 10 days before the government’s report was released, only refers to Index award-winner as having been arrested. The sheer scale of Rajab’s case is not accounted for.
On 3 February a coalition of 21 groups and individuals, including Index on Censorship, urged Johnson to call for Rajab’s release. In the time since, the US state department has called for Rajab’s release and condemned his sentencing. The UK government so far has only “voiced its concern” in the weakest possible terms, and as yet has not acknowledged Rajab’s sentencing.
When Theresa May became prime minister of the UK, Bahrain was one of the first countries she visited. As new documents reveal, UK contractors visited the country 28 times in 12 months amid Bahrain’s ongoing human rights crackdown. In all, “UK government contractors have spent more than 650 days in Bahrain training prison guards, including officers at the notorious Jau prison where death-row inmates are held and allegedly tortured,” the Middle East Eye reported earlier this month.
The UK government appears to be in no position to heap praise on Bahrain for strengthening the rule of law, justice reform, its independent human rights institutions, prisoners’ rights and improvements at Jau.
Many more issues in the Annual Human Rights Report must be scrutinised when MPs return in September. If the Bahrain section is anything to go by, the report should be found to fall far short of being “passionate” about human rights.
