16 Mar 2018
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The case of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who had for years worked to shine a light on corruption among politicians, businessmen and criminals in Malta, highlights the dire need for a free press. Between 2016 and 2017 Caruana Galizia linked the Maltese political elite to the Panama Papers, including the financial affairs of the prime minister, his wife and the leader of the country’s opposition party.
For her work, she paid with her life when a bomb exploded under her car on 16 October. She was not the only journalist to be murdered in Europe in 2017, nor were violations of media freedom confined to any one region.
Mapping Media Freedom has been recording threats to press freedom since 2014, highlighting the need for protection for journalists. The project monitors the media environment in 42 European and neighbouring countries. In 2017 1,089 reports of limitations to press freedom were verified by a network of correspondents, partners and other sources based in Europe, with a majority of violations coming from official or governmental bodies.
Six journalists were killed during 2017; 178 reports of assault or injury were made; 220 media workers were detained or arrested; 193 reports included criminal charges and lawsuits; there were 367 reports of intimidation, which includes psychological abuse, sexual harassment, trolling/cyberbullying and defamation; in 113 incidents media professionals had their property vandalised or confiscated; there were 178 instances of journalists or sources being blocked; and journalists’ work was altered or censored 68 times.
“While the number of incidents reported to Mapping Media Freedom decreased between 2016 and 2017, this should not be taken as an indication that the work environment for journalists has improved in the countries monitored by the platform,” Hannah Machlin, project manager of Mapping Media Freedom, said. “Media professionals still work under threat of death, assault, prison and harassment, while the law is being abused as a means to silence those who seek to tell the truth.”
ABOUT MAPPING MEDIA FREEDOM
Each report is fact-checked with local sources before becoming publicly available on Mapping Media Freedom. The number of reports per country relates to the number of incidents reported to the map. The data should not be taken as representing absolute numbers. For example, the number of reported incidents of censorship appears low given the number of other types of incidents reported on the map. This could be due to an increase in acts of intimidation and pressure that deter media workers from reporting such cases.
The platform – a joint undertaking with the European Federation of Journalists partially funded by the European Commission – covers 42 countries, including all EU member states, plus Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Turkey, along with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine (added in April 2015), and Azerbaijan (added in February 2016). The database uses Ushahidi, an open source software to map and categorise incidents.
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Six journalists were killed as a result of their reporting in 2017.
Q1: In Russia on 9 March, two unknown individuals approached Nikolai Andrushchenko, an investigative journalist for the weekly newspaper Novyi Petersburg, near his home in St. Petersburg and demanded that he surrender documents and materials from his ongoing investigation into abuses of power by police officers. After the journalist refused, he was physically assaulted by the assailants, who were not apprehended. Andrushchenko refused to file a complaint with the police. A second assault took place a few days later, after which he was found unconscious near his apartment. The journalist never regained consciousness and, following brain surgery, died in hospital as a result of his injuries on 19 April.
On 16 March, in Ulan-Ude, Russia, Yevgeny Khamaganov, the editor-in-chief of Asia-Russia Daily and The Site of the Buryat People died in unexplained circumstances. The cause of death is unclear and no official response has been made. According to local media, Khamaganov was taken to hospital on 10 March because of his diabetes, fell into a coma and died several days later. Some reports cited speculation that he was instead hospitalised after being beaten by unknown assailants. Khamaganov was known for articles critical of the Russian federal government’s policies.
Q2: In Minusinsk, Russia, journalist Dmitri Popkov, editor-in-chief and founder of local newspaper Ton-M, was shot five times and killed on 24 May. His body was found in a sauna in his backyard. Prior to his death, Popkov had told RFE/RL that his newspaper became “an obstacle” for local officials who are now “threatening and intimidating journalists”.
Q3: On 10 August Swedish freelance journalist Kim Wall boarded an experimental submarine in Copenhagen, Denmark, to profile the vessel’s Danish inventor. The following morning, the submarine sank under suspicious circumstances. Peter Madsen, the inventor, told police he had set Wall ashore before the incident. However, between August and October, Wall’s dismembered remains were found washed ashore. Madsen has been charged with the journalist’s murder and with sexual assault.
On 22 September Syrian journalists Orouba Barakat and her daughter Halla Barakat were found dead in their apartment in Istanbul, Turkey. The exact date of the murders is unknown. Orouba Barakat, a journalist, filmmaker and activist, was outspokenly critical of the Syrian regime. Her daughter was a reporter for Alekhbarya TV, news editor for the Orient and a former editor at Turkish state channel TRT World. The pair had received threats from groups associated with the Syrian government. Police reports said they were strangled and then stabbed. The murders are still being investigated by police.
Q4: Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed when the car she was driving exploded in Bidnija, near Mosta. Caruana Galizia had filed a police report 15 days earlier saying she was being threatened. The journalist had conducted a series of high-profile corruption investigations in Malta and was being sued in relation to her work.
One additional media worker was killed in 2017. On 29 April Saeed Karimian, an Iranian television executive, was shot and killed along with his partner in Istanbul, Turkey.
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Mapping Media Freedom documented 175 verified incidents of assault and injury, 109 of which occurred in just five countries: Russia (47), Spain (19), Ukraine (18), Italy (15) and France (10).
On 14 September Taras Khalyava, a local YouTube blogger, was assaulted by three unidentified people near his apartment in Dobropillye, Ukraine. The assailants knocked him to the ground, kicked him and beat him on the head with a steel rod. “I survived because I was wearing a bicycle helmet,” Khalyava told Novosti Donbassa. The blogger has said the attack was related to his work.
On 10 October, Drago Miljus, a Croatian journalist for the news website Index.hr, was pushed by a police officer, who then took his mobile phone and threw it into the sea. Another officer hit the journalist on the head, knocking him to the ground. The incident happened at a beach in Split, where Miljus was covering a story about a man who claimed to have a bomb.
On 23 October, a man broke into Echo Moskvy’s office in the centre of Moscow, Russia, and stabbed programme host Tatiana Felgengauer, who is also one of the editor-in-chief’s deputies, several times in the neck. Felgengauer was hospitalised in a critical condition and underwent several operations. The attacker was sent for psychiatric evaluation.
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A total of 216 journalists were arrested or detained in 2017, including 21 in Azerbaijan. On 5 July Afgan Mukhtarli was kidnapped from Georgia, where he had lived in self-imposed exile for three years, and taken to Azerbaijan. While in prison, he suffered serious health problems and lost a significant amount of weight. In January 2018 he was sentenced to six years in prison by an Azerbaijani court.
Mapping Media Freedom verified the arrest or detainment of 65 journalists in Russia throughout 2017. The majority of these took place during anti-corruption protests throughout the country organised by opposition figure Alexei Navalny in March and June.
By the close of 2017, 151 journalists were in prison in Turkey, making the country the largest jailer of journalists in the world. On 20 October police took five journalists working for the Kurdish Jin News and Mesopotamia agencies into custody: Jin News editor Sibel Yükler; Jin News reporters Duygu Erol and Habibe Eren; and Mezopotamya Agency reporters Diren Yurtsever and Selman Güzelyüz. Both agencies were launched in late September by staff from organisations shut down during Turkey’s state of emergency.
While only five media workers were arrested or detained in 2017 in the United Kingdom, one case stands out. On 7 December two Kurdish women and two 17-year-old boys were arrested at dawn by armed police in Alexandra Palace and in Crouch End, London. They were questioned about the sale and distribution of the Kurdish-language Yeni Ozgur Politika. All four were arrested on suspicion of funding terrorism, money laundering and fraud.
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There were 192 cases of criminal charges or civil litigation reported to Mapping Media Freedom in 2017. In Italy, lawsuits demanding millions of euros in damages were filed throughout the year. In March Claudio Riva, former owner of the steelworks company Ilva, sued newspaper Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno for €2.2 million in damages, for publishing an article about pollution allegedly linked to the company’s operations in Taranto. Riva’s lawyers asked for €550,000 in compensation for each of the four damaged parties: Riva Forni Elettrici SPA, Claudio Riva, Fabio Arturo Riva and Nicola Riva. In October Il Locale News was sued for €1 million by Giancarlo Guarrera, an engineer and director of Airgest, the company that manages Trapani airport in Sicily. On 8 November 2016 Il Locale News featured an article on financial issues at Airgest.
In Spain, wealthy businessman Alvaro de Marichalar filed legal action against freelance journalist Sabina Urraca in March, demanding she pay €30,000 in damages for an article she wrote after accompanying him on a trip. In July Hermann Tertsch, a columnist for daily newspaper ABC, was ordered by a court in Zamora to pay €12,000 to Javier Iglesias for “unlawfully offending the honour” of his father Manuel. Javier Iglesias is the father of Pablo Iglesias, the leader of the left-wing Podemos party, the third largest party in the Spanish parliament.
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There were 112 legal measures taken against journalists in 2017. In the United Kingdom, the offshore company Appleby, which was at the heart of the Panama Papers scandal, launched breach of confidence proceedings against the Guardian and the BBC on 18 December, in an attempt to force them to disclose the documents used in the investigation. Appleby said the documents were stolen in a cyberattack and there was no public interest in the revealing of their contents.
In February the UK government proposed extending jail time for journalists who have obtained leaked official documents to up to 14 years. The major overhaul of the Official Secrets Act – to be replaced by an updated Espionage Act – would give courts the power to increase jail terms against journalists receiving such material. Should the law get approval, documents containing “sensitive information” about the economy could fall foul of national security laws for the first time. Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of Index on Censorship, said: “It is unthinkable that whistleblowers and those to whom they reveal their information should face jail for leaking and receiving information that is in the public interest.”
In November, after the US added several media outlets funded by the Russian state on a list of foreign agents, Russia adopted a new restrictive law against foreign media that allows such journalists and organisations to be recognised as foreign agents, which makes them subject to numerous additional checks and obliges them to mark their content as being produced by a foreign agent.
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There were 51 reports of job loss recorded on Mapping Media Freedom throughout 2017, more than half of which came from Russia (13), Poland (8) and Spain (5).
In Poland, Michał Fabisiak, a journalist for the public media outlet Polskie Radio, was fired for refusing to reveal the source of information for an article about an alleged internal survey in the Law and Justice (PiS) party, measuring support for potential PiS candidates in municipal elections in 2018.
Eleven days later, Barbara Burdzy, a Polish journalist for the public media outlet TVP Info, was dismissed after she published an article stating that the intelligence service, under the minister of defence Antoni Macierewicz, lied when claiming that deputy minister Jacek Kotas was not involved in property restoration in Warsaw.
On 14 December a documentary critical of Togo’s president was removed from the website of the French cable television channel Canal Plus and two employees of the channel were subsequently dismissed. Faure Gnassingbé, the president of Togo, is a friend of Vincent Bolloré, French businessman and chairman of Canal Plus’ parent company Vivendi. The documentary, entitled Let Go of the Throne, focused on ongoing protests against the country’s president. In November it was aired on Canal Afrique, a decision attributed to an employee who was later fired. François Deplanck, head of channels and content at Canal Plus International was also dismissed.
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Intimidation was widespread across Europe in 2017, with 275 incidents reported to the map. In the United Kingdom, the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg was assigned a security detail at the Labour party conference in late September following online threats and abuse. The journalist attracted anger from some Labour supporters for her coverage of the 2016 Labour leadership race and the party’s poor performance in local elections, while a petition for her to be fired received 35,000 signatures.
Kuenssberg — the first woman to lead political coverage at the public broadcaster — also reported that she had bolstered her security during the general election in June 2017 after receiving threats over her coverage of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
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There were 109 attacks on the property of journalists in 2017. On the morning of 26 November Yulia Zavialova, editor-in-chief of the Russian investigative website Bloknot Volgograd, known for its coverage of political and business corruption, asked her father to have the tires on her car checked. Thirty minutes later he rang her to say the brakes were completely out of service. Her brakes had been cut and her anti-lock braking system was damaged. Zavialova called the police but, according to the journalist, they did not properly investigate the scene, failing to take fingerprints or full details of the damage.
Supporters of the Italian far-right party Forza Nuova attacked the offices of the left-wing newspaper La Repubblica in Rome on 6 December. The party declared “war” on L’Espresso Group, the newspaper’s publisher, through a Facebook post. During the protest, Forza Nuova supporters threw flares at La Repubblica’s office while carrying a banner reading “Boycott L’Espresso and La Repubblica”. Members of the group read a statement denouncing journalists employed there.
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There were 169 confirmed cases of blocked access throughout Europe in 2017, in which journalists were expelled from a location or prevented from speaking to a source by way of obstruction. Many of these reports were connected to other violations, such as assault, damage to property and intimidation.
Throughout Europe, journalists were blocked from attending events by political parties, including the Labour Party’s annual conference in Brighton, United Kingdom, in September. Sussex police refused to grant Huck Magazine news editor Michael Segalov the security clearance he needed to attend. The journalist had applied for press accreditation three months prior but was informed on 19 September that it had been denied by police on security grounds. “Rather than provide reasons and rationale for our journalistic freedom being curtailed, the police said they would not divulge why they made their call,” Segalov wrote. The journalist has never been arrested, charged or convicted of a crime. Michael Walker, a journalist working for the left-wing Novara Media, was also barred by police from entering the conference.
On 25 October three journalists working for Echo TV in Hungary were banned from entering the country’s parliament. The parliament press office said the journalists had broken official rules multiple times by filming in areas closed to the media.
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In 2017 Mapping Media Freedom documented 81 cases in which journalists had their work censored or altered. On 15 October in the city of Uppsala, Sweden, local newspaper UNT and public broadcaster SVT identified what they saw as a concerted effort by press officers at the local council to control statements made by staff to journalists. Both complained that press officers were exerting pressure on staff to change statements that reflect badly on the council.
On 4 November the Spanish newspaper El País removed a column from its website that questioned and criticised allegations of sexual harassment in the film industry against the likes of Kevin Spacey, Harvey Weinstein and Roman Polanski.
On 19 December the Malta Independent, a Maltese newspaper and publishing house, announced it would remove some online content relating to a whistleblower at Pilatus Bank due to the threat of a multi-million euro lawsuit from the bank. Pilatus Bank first threatened the independent publishing house in mid-October, with lawsuits in the USA and United Kingdom.
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CASE STUDIES
2018 WATCH LIST
Index on Censorship is especially disturbed by the five countries on the map with over 60 violations in 2017. These are:
Russia (197)
During protests organised by Russian lawyer and activist Alexei Navalny in March and June, 1,000 people were arrested, including 19 journalists, in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Makhachkala, Petrozavodsk and Samara. At a rally in Moscow on 26 March, police detained RBC correspondent Timofey Dzyadko, Mediazona publisher Piotr Verzilov, Open Russia correspondent Sofiko Arifdzhanova, Public Television of Russia journalist Olga Orlova, Echo of Moscow journalist Alexandr Pluschev and Kommersant-FM reporter Pyotr Parkhomenko. At the same rally, Guardian correspondent Alec Luhn was detained after he took a photo of a protester being arrested. He spent more than five hours at a police station without an explanation of why he was detained. Luhn was eventually charged with participating in an unsanctioned rally, even though he showed officers his press accreditation. At least nine media workers were detained across Russia on 8 October during further protests organised by Navalny.
On 20 December photographers Andrey Zolotov and Denis Bochkarev, along with Maria Alyokhina, a member of punk collective Pussy Riot, were detained during a protest at the entrance of the FSB, the Russian federal security service. All three were taken to the nearest police station, where Alyokhina and Bochkaryov spent the night ahead of an administrative hearing.
Often referred to as the only independent radio station in Russia, Echo Moskvy was subjected to significant pressure and harassment throughout 2017, with Mapping Media Freedom verifying 15 reports against the station including one radio host stabbed, two journalists fleeing the country after threats, several detained and an American company forced to withdraw funding from the station.
Turkey
Although the number of violations reported to Mapping Media Freedom that took place in Turkey decreased between 2016 and 2017 — from 231 to 135 — the country remains the number one jailer of journalists in the world with 151 media workers behind bars by the end of 2017. In all, 65 journalists were jailed and sentenced on charges including the spreading of terrorist propaganda. At the trial of journalist Nedim Türfent, who reported on security operations in Turkey’s Kurdish majority provinces, at least a dozen people claimed they were tortured by police.
In November, Turkish journalists Ahmet Altan and Mehmet Altan’s defence attorneys were forced to leave the courtroom as their clients stood trial, accused of taking part in Turkey’s failed 2016 coup. Both brothers are prominent Turkish journalists, known for their critical reporting on president Erdogan’s regime. Without lawyers present, the court then ruled that the Altan brothers — along with four other journalists — would remain in pretrial detention. On 16 February 2018 they were sentenced to aggravated life sentences.
Belarus
A total of 92 violations of media freedom were recorded in Belarus throughout 2017, including the detainment of 101 journalists. In all, 30 journalists received criminal charges. A wave of detentions occurred on the Belarusian holiday Freedom Day on 25 March, when 36 journalists were placed in custody. Olga Morva, Philip Warwick, Andrey Dubinin, Valery Shchukin, Katsiaryna Bakhvalava, Ihar Ilyash and Volha Davydava said they were beaten by police while under arrest. Warwick, from the United Kingdom, said he was denied the right to contact his embassy after being handcuffed and hit in the face; he spent over six hours at the police station. The apartment of journalist Maryna Kastylyanchanka, who works with human rights organisations, was searched. She was later jailed for 15 days for disobeying police and participating in the unsanctioned mass protests.
Throughout the year, 69 fines were administered to journalists for violating Article 22.9 of Belarus’ Code of Administrative Offences on the illegal production and/or distribution of media content.
Ukraine
In all, 74 violations against the media in Ukraine were reported to Mapping Media Freedom in 2017. One of the most worrying trends included the treatment of foreign journalists or journalists working for Russian companies. Sixteen journalists were expelled from, or not allowed to enter the country, including some who worked for Russian state media outlets. There were three cases involving the abuse of Interpol warrants to arrest or detain foreign journalists in Ukraine by their countries of origin as a means of silencing critical voices. These were: Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Three journalists were arrested in territory controlled by self-proclaimed separatists in 2017, including Ukrainian blogger and writer Stanyslav Aseev, one of the few journalists contributing to western and independent media outlets in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko signed a National Security and Defence Council decree in May that banned a number of Russian social media sites such as VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, along with the search engine Yandex and email service Mail.ru.
“The lack of safety for journalists in Ukraine, whether direct attacks or obstruction, remains a problem, and the level of response by the authorities is telling because too often the perpetrators go unpunished,” Vitalii Atanasov, Mapping Media Freedom correspondent for Ukraine, said. “The murder of prominent journalist Pavel Sheremet in July 2016 has not yet been properly investigated, while media workers continue to face pressure from the authorities, politicians and other influential actors. It is important to emphasise to that while the Mapping Media Freedom reflects the most disturbing and characteristic cases, it does not claim to be complete.”
Spain
Between 2016 and 2017, media freedom violations in Spain increased from 56 to 66. Journalists experienced difficulties before, during and after the referendum on Catalan independence on 1 October. In July the daily newspaper La Vanguardia, based in Barcelona, refused to publish a column written by Gregorio Morán in which the journalist criticised the “corrupt” regional government of Catalonia. Morán also accused the Catalan media of receiving sums of public money, adding that it was therefore no surprise to see them supporting Catalan independence.
On the day of the referendum Mapping Media Freedom recorded five separate violations of media freedom. Journalists were among the many victims of violence by heavy-handed police deployed the Spanish government, who declared the referendum to be illegal. Xabi Barrena, a journalist for the newspaper El Periódico, was assaulted by Spanish national police while reporting on voters being evicted from a polling station in Barcelona. He was struck with a baton, knocked to the ground and kicked by police.
In the days following the referendum, media violations were widespread during the protests that swept parts of the country. On 2 October, for example, Ana Cuesta and José Yelámo, reporters for television La Sexta, were surrounded by protesters who chanted “Spanish press manipulators” and “assassins” during live coverage.
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TRENDS
Threats from the far-right
The far right has a record of violating freedom of the press throughout Europe, with 24 media violations across 13 countries involving far-right groups or activists in 2017.
Twelve attempts were made by the far-right to intimidate media workers. At the start of December, the Serbian journalist Marija Antic, a television host for the broadcaster N1, received death and rape threats on social media after interviewing a French-Serbian far-right activist. Antic had invited Arnaud Gouillon, who is known for his support for Serbs in Kosovo, to her talk show. During the interview, Antic asked him about his past involvement in the French far-right group Les Identitaires and about his connections with far-right Serbian groups after he attended some of their events. After the interview, Gouillon accused Antic of demonising him. Soon after, Antic received multiple threats on social media.
On six occasions, far-right groups attempted to defame journalists throughout Europe. This was the case on 15 March when Stina Blomgren, a Swedish journalist working for the state broadcaster SVT, was accused by the popular Swedish-Russian far-right blogger Egor Putilov of lying and creating fake reports about the risks Syrian migrants faced when trying to reach Sweden. Putilov claimed to have visited Egypt and uncovered inaccuracies in an article published by Blomgren in August.
In 2017 four reports made to Mapping Media Freedom involved violence from the far right and four involved attacks to property. These ranged from damages to camera equipment to an assault with a metal pipe.
Corruption
Corruption is a major issue in the EU and neighbouring countries, undermining democracy and putting people at risk. Journalists play a key role in uncovering and fighting corruption through their investigations and, as a result, put themselves in danger. In all, 67 cases of media workers facing difficulty in their reporting on corruption were recorded throughout 2017.
On 16 August, for instance, Parim Olluri, editor-in-chief of investigative website Insajderi, was physically assaulted by unknown individuals outside his home in Kosovo’s capital Pristina. Olluri believes the attack was linked to his work. A few days before the assault, Olluri had published an editorial about corruption allegations against former Kosovo Liberation Army commanders, after which he received a torrent of abuse and threats on social media.
On 16 October the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered when the car she was driving exploded. On 11 March Silvio Debono, owner of real estate investment company DB Group, filed 19 libel cases against her. Caruana Galizia published a number of articles on her blog discussing a business deal between the developer and Malta’s government to take over a tract of public land on which he had planned to build a Hard Rock Hotel and two towers of flats for sale. Caruana Galizia also conducted an investigation allegedly linking prime minister Joseph Muscat and his wife to the Panama Papers scandal.
Harassment of female journalists
Mapping Media Freedom logged 10 cases where women journalists reported they suffered sexual harassment throughout 2017, from politicians, anonymous sources and fellow journalists alike. In February the Swedish newspaper journalist Evelyn Schreiber was subjected to persistent death threats and threats of sexual violence after questioning local police officer a Peter Springare’s assertion that immigrants were responsible for a spike in violent crime in Örebro, Sweden. Within 24 hours of her report, Schreiber received over 200 emails containing threats.
On 7 May Loes Reijmer, a journalist and columnist for the Dutch daily newspaper De Volkskrant, faced abuse after the popular right-wing blog GeenStijl published a photo of her with the text: “Would you do her?” Thousands of readers responded in the comments section, many containing sexual references and rape threats. Reijmer had published several articles critical of GeenStijl, which is owned by Telegraaf Media Group and is one of the top 10 most popular news sites in the Netherlands.
On 30 November, Dzenan Selimbegovic, a deputy secretary general of the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, used offensive language to describe Sanele Prašović Gadžo, a journalist for the public broadcaster BHT, and Arijana Saračević-Helać, a journalist for the public broadcaster FTV, in a Facebook post. The comments followed a trailer aired on BHT for Gadžo’s interview with Saračević-Helać on her talk show.
Commercial interference
In 2017 Index on Censorship added the “commercial interference” category to Mapping Media Freedom to monitor actions that use money and/or financial pressure to influence editorial decisions of a media or news outlet. One of the most concerning issues highlighted was the lack of plurality in media ownership in Ireland and the impact this can have on the public’s right to information.
Broadcasting in the country is dominated by just two organisations, RTÉ and Communicorp. Semi-state RTÉ services are the most popular on television and radio, while businessman Denis O’Brien’s Communicorp owns the largest commercial news radio stations – Newstalk and Today FM, among others. There is currently a lack of imperative for reform on the issue of the concentration of media ownership by the Irish government, leaving journalists open to further pressure and self-censorship to suit commercial interests, according to the National Union of Journalists.
Across Europe commercial interference in the media is proving to be a growing problem. On 6 December in Nantes, France, for example, managers of McDonald’s restaurants were asked to remove a page from local newspaper Ouest France that contained an article about litigation between the fast food restaurant chain and two of its workers, who had campaigned for union representation.
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CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Mapping Media Freedom’s annual report highlights issues affecting the state of press freedom throughout Europe in 2017. Index on Censorship urges that the following steps be taken.
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All journalists, media workers and others arrested for exercising their right to freedom of expression must be immediately and unconditionally released. We make this plea directly to the Turkish government in particular, which has become the largest jailer of journalists not just among the countries monitored by Mapping Media Freedom, but the entire world.
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Laws designed to impinge on the work of journalists must be reconsidered, whether amended or abolished. This includes defamation laws, hate speech laws and terror and security-related legislation. Lawmakers should also ensure that new or revised laws do not encroach on the work of journalists.
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Governments must respect the right of journalists to protect confidential information and sources. This is vital, especially in cases involving whistleblowing in the public interest.
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Harassment and crimes against journalists must be properly investigated and those responsible should be prosecuted to prevent the further proliferation of impunity.
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Governments should do more to ensure the protection of media workers who are women.
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We monitor threats to press freedom, produce an award-winning magazine and publish work by censored writers.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1521129253575{background-image: url(https://www.indexoncensorship.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/MMF_2017_map-standalone.jpg?id=98665) !important;}”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row]
12 Feb 2018 | Global Journalist, Media Freedom, News, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This article is part of Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist’s Project Exile series, which has published interviews with exiled journalists from around the world.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”97954″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]In hindsight, there were many clues that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government was making preparations to eliminate Turkey’s independent media even before it launched a massive crackdown in July 2016. But perhaps the biggest tip-off was the March 2016 police raid and seizure of Zaman, Turkey’s largest daily newspaper.
At the time, Abdullah Bozkurt was bureau chief in the capital Ankara for the paper’s English-language edition, Today’s Zaman. On March 4 of that year, Bozkurt found himself struggling to put out the newspaper’s final edition – even as he watched on live television as police in riot gear fired tear gas and water cannons on protesters and stormed Zaman’s headquarters 220 miles (350 km) to the west in Istanbul.
Shortly before court-appointed trustees seized control of the newspaper’s computer system, Bozkurt wrote the headline for the last cover of Today’s Zaman. “Shameful Day for Free Press in Turkey,” it read. “Zaman Media Group Seized.”
Zaman had been in Erdogan’s crosshairs for some time for its sympathies with the Gülen movement, an opposition group affiliated with a U.S.-based Islamic cleric that Erdogan has branded a “terrorist” organization. It had particularly angered the government for its aggressive coverage of a 2013 corruption investigation that led to the arrests of three sons of ministers in then-prime minister Erdogan’s government, Bozkurt says.
“Initially, they started calling in public rallies [for people] not to purchase our newspaper,” says Bozkurt, in an interview with Global Journalist. “Amazingly, at the time our circulation went up because we were one of the few media outlets in Turkey that were still covering the corruption investigation…later they started putting pressure on advertisers. That didn’t work out either because our circulation was quite high.”
After Zaman’s closure, Bozkurt briefly opened his own news agency. A few weeks later, on July 15, 2016, a faction of the military attempted to overthrow Erdogan. The coup was put down in a matter of hours. But in its aftermath, Erdogan unleashed a nationwide purge.
Over 100,000 government workers were fired and 47,000 people were jailed on suspicion of terrorism, according to a tally by Human Rights Watch. An additional 150 journalists and media workers were also jailed, giving Turkey the highest number of jailed journalists in the world. Many others fled the country.
Bozkurt was among those who chose to flee rather than face arrest. Ten days after the failed coup, he left for Sweden. The day after he left, the offices of his fledgling news agency were raided by police. Police later searched the home of Bozkurt’s 79-year-old mother and detained her for a day. Bozkurt’s wife and three children later followed him.
In Sweden, Bozkurt received threats via social media and a Wild West-style ‘wanted photo’ of him was published by pro-Erdogan newspapers and the state-run news agency. The government has brought anti-state charges against 30 of his former Zaman colleagues, seeking as much as three life sentences in jail.
Bozkurt, 47, now writes regular columns for the news site Turkishminute.com and works at the Stockholm Center for Freedom, a rights group focused on Turkey. He spoke with Global Journalist’s Denitsa Tsekova about his last weeks in Turkey and his exile. Below, an edited version of their interview:
Bozkurt: I was based in the capital, Ankara, but our newspaper’s headquarters was in Istanbul. The storming of our newspaper happened in Istanbul, we were watching on TV. We were on the phone talking to our colleagues in Istanbul, trying to find what’s going on, what we can do. The police were coming into our Istanbul’s newsrooms, ransacking the place, and shutting the internet service. It was up to me and my colleagues in the Ankara office to write the stories. We were actually printing the last edition of Zaman from Ankara. I was the one who drew the headline in the English edition and we managed to get out the last free edition. In the Turkish edition, we managed to finish and print the first one, but the second and the third edition couldn’t make it to the printing place. It was interrupted by the police and the government caretakers who took over the company.
GJ: There were protests after the closure of Zaman. What happened?
Bozkurt: It was on the day when the takeover judgment by the court was publicized. We didn’t call our readers to come and protest.
We knew it might be very dangerous because the government uses very harsh measures often rubber bullets, pepper spray and pressurized water against peaceful protesters. We didn’t want to put them on the risk.
Around 400 people showed up and they were beaten and targeted brutally by the police who stormed the building.
GJ: What was the last article you wrote for Today’s Zaman?
Bozkurt: It was about prisons. When I wrote that article I didn’t know the government was taking over the company, it was written a day before.
I talked to many people in the government and some from the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture. Something was very, very off because the government planned to build a lot of prisons in Turkey under the disguise of a modernization plan.
However, when you look at the numbers, it didn’t really match. We didn’t need that many new prisons in Turkey, but the government was making a projection that the prison population would increase.
When the European officials asked the justice ministry on what basis were they making this projection, they did not have a response.
In hindsight, I could understand it was because they were preparing a new mass prosecution in Turkey and they needed more prisons to put these people away. Even the prisons we have now are not enough; people are living in very crowded cells. After the coup, the government even granted amnesty for some 40,000 convicted felons… just to make space for the political prisoners and journalists.
GJ: How did you decide to leave?
Bozkurt: I actually hung around for a while after the failed coup, because I thought eventually things will settle down, and I wasn’t planning to move out of Turkey at all.
[Ten days] after the coup, the government issued an arrest warrant against 42 journalists on a single day. I realized this is going to get worse, and I said it’s time for me to move out of Turkey.
It was a rash decision, I didn’t even know to which country I would go, so I had to go to Germany first and then to Sweden.
My mother was getting old, she has some health issues and I wanted to be there for her. But it wasn’t up to me. Sweden was a stopover for me, I wasn’t planning on staying permanently.
The day after I left Turkey, the police raided my office in Ankara, so it was the right decision. If I was there I would have been detained and dragged to jail.
GJ: Were you getting threats?
Bozkurt: I was getting threats all the time. If you are a critical and independent journalist, you will get them. That’s the price you pay for it. Sometimes you try to be vigilant, you try to be careful and you just ignore that kind of threats or pressure from the government or pro-government circles.
But after the massive crackdown after the coup attempt, I thought it’s no longer safe for me. I moved out alone, I didn’t even take my family, because I thought they will stay in Turkey and I can hang around abroad and then come back to Turkey. That was my plan.
After a while, the Turkish government started going after the family members of the journalists. Bülent Korucu was a chief editor of a national daily [Yarına Bakıs], which was also shut down by the government, and he was facing an arrest warrant. The police couldn’t find him and they arrested his wife, Hacer Korucu. She stayed in prison for a month on account of her husband. At that moment, I thought my family is no longer safe either, so I decided to extract them out of the country.
GJ: Was your family directly threatened?
Bozkurt: When I moved out of Turkey I kept writing about what’s going on in Turkey. I guess they felt uncomfortable with my writings.
It was part of the intimidation campaign to go after family members, including my mother. She is a 79-year-old, she lives alone but sometimes my sister helps her out. Police raided her home in my hometown of Bandirma in December 2016, searched the house and placed her in detention for a day. She was questioned about me.
Why does she deserve that? They want me to shut up, to be silent even though I feel safe abroad.
GJ: What will happen if you go back to Turkey?
Bozkurt: Of course I will get arrested. They even posted a “wanted” picture of me, and it was run in the pro-government dailies and in the state news agency. It’s like in the old Western movies: there is a picture of me and where I live. I have no prediction when I can go back to Turkey. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/tOxGaGKy6fo”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist is a website that features global press freedom and international news stories as well as a weekly radio program that airs on KBIA, mid-Missouri’s NPR affiliate, and partner stations in six other states. The website and radio show are produced jointly by professional staff and student journalists at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, the oldest school of journalism in the United States. [/vc_column_text][/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][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”6″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”2″ element_width=”12″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1517591299623-14a913d2-eca2-3″ taxonomies=”22142″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
25 Jan 2018 | News, Volume 46.04 Winter 2017
[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content_no_spaces” full_height=”yes” css_animation=”fadeIn” css=”.vc_custom_1516891729158{background: #ffffff url(https://www.indexoncensorship.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/6MD4OKVXIG5JX3NEIA2M_prvw_63818-1024x683ss-1.jpg?id=97759) !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/6″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”After Gothenburg and Frankfurt book fairs faced tension over who was allowed to attend, we asked four leading thinkers, Peter Englund, Ola Larsmo, Jean-Paul Marthoz, Tobias Voss, to debate the issue” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:left|color:%23000000″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/6″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
WORDS APART
In the first of a series of pieces on where the line is drawn on freedom of speech at book fairs, DOMINIC HINDE interviews PETER ENGLUND, a former member of the Swedish Academy’s Nobel committee
Peter Englund is a familiar face around the world, even if many outside Sweden would struggle to place him straight away. For seven years, the award-winning author and former permanent secretary to the Swedish Academy was a fixture on TV screens, emerging each autumn to announce the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.The Nobel committee has attracted criticism for some of its choices over the years, but Englund, who retired from the post in 2015, said its decisions were never politically charged, and that the Swedish tradition of open dialogue had always been a core principle.
“When I was permanent secretary I used to say that you could never win the Nobel Prize because of your political view, but that it was quite possible to win in spite of your political attitude. The Swedish Academy is also extremely conscious of the extraordinary importance of freedom of expression, not least because it is a basic requirement if writers and researchers are going to be able to work properly.”
Englund is a long-time supporter of free speech causes around the world and, in his own work, has written extensively about totalitarianism in Europe under both communist and fascist regimes. He recently joined the debate closer to home on the competing demands of freedom of speech and growing right-wing movements in Sweden.
The past decade has seen the emergence of far-right populism in the traditionally liberal and open Nordic state. The Sweden Democrats party – who grew from the fringe white power movement in the 1990s – have made significant inroads in parliament and an alternative far-right media has blossomed. More extreme neo-Nazi groups have ridden on the coat tails of the Sweden Democrats and asserted their right to protest in the name of free speech, claiming Sweden is a country in decline, where the mainstream media ignores crime and immigration issues. Englund and some of his fellow writers have increasingly found themselves dubbed an elite of “cultural Marxists” by far- right activists. There is even a Swedish word – åsiktskorridor – which specifically refers to the narrow corridor of opinion extremists assert is allowed by the political establishment.
“I think it is important that we quite simply refuse to recognise this description of the situation. It is an important part of the populist right’s tactics to whip up ‘culture wars’ over more-or-less fictional symbolic questions, and you have to avoid letting yourself get dragged in,” said Englund.
Confronted with the openly anti-democratic and xenophobic politics which is emerging, many on the Swedish left and centre-right have begun to grapple with how Sweden, which has the oldest press freedom laws in the world, can reconcile its commitment to free speech and diversity with such views. In September 2017, the debate came to a head when Nya Tider (New Times), a populist right-wing newspaper, which has been accused of publishing fake news, was booked to appear at the annual Gothenburg Book Fair.
The fair is Sweden’s biggest cultural and journalistic event, but several well-known journalists and writers who would usually be there chose to stay away in protest at Nya Tider’s attendance. Some argued that Sweden’s tradition of a free press meant even the far-right were entitled to have their opinions heard, but Englund and others decided not to take part.
“I chose not to participate because it meant that I would have to appear on the same stage – broadly speaking – as these right-wing extremists, homophobes, conspiracy theorists, anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers and Putin supporters, and that would have helped to normalise their views,” argued Englund.
He believes that freedom of expression does not mean automatically welcoming extremists to all platforms, and that the Swedish commitment to an open society does not entail encouraging participation by extremist voices.
“Another important tactic for the populist right is to make themselves mainstream, and that is not something I want to contribute to” he explained. “For me [The Gothenburg controversy] was not a question of freedom of expression. That freedom remains intact. Nobody has tried to stop their paper being printed or attacked their journalists. On top of that, freedom of expression does not mean that you can be allowed to say anything at all, and does not mean that you have an absolute right to take part in any kind of forum.”
Events in Gothenburg reflected a wider disagreement in Swedish society about how best to counter populist politics and where the line between freedom of expression and extremism sits. Englund acknowledges that opponents of the far-right have not always got this right. The country goes to the polls in less than a year and the Sweden Democrats have ambitions to play a role in government, meaning the question may soon become more pressing than ever.
“In Sweden there have been attempts to deal with the far-right question through a combination of shutting them out and through triangulation,” he said. “Shutting them out means refusing to co-operate with them. Triangulation is not about accepting their description of the situation, or their proposed methods for dealing with it, but about understanding that among their voters there is a frustration, and even a fear, which does somehow need to be addressed, and which you can neither ignore nor tweet to death with smart sarcastic posts.
“History is fairly instructive on this. A necessary step for those sorts of movements to come to power – and this happened in both Italy and Germany – was that already established power structures had to invite them in, operating under the serious misconception that they could then be tamed. Those countries that were able to avoid fascism in the 1930s did it not least by showing resistance instead.”
That means being prepared to challenge those from all sides who threaten democratic principles, he believes.“We should, of course, be wary of the threat from the extreme right – the past tells us that – in the same way we have to keep an eye out for what is happening on the extreme left. I believe in democracy in Europe, but to avoid it meeting the same fate as the Weimar Republic, it has to be belligerent.”
Dominic Hinde is a journalist
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WHY I ATTENDED GOTHENBURG
Award-winning Swedish author OLA LARSMO explains why he went to the Gothenburg Book Fair
One of the important freedom of expression debates in Sweden has been running for about a year now and concerns the annual Gothenburg Book Fair. When it was announced that the extreme right-wing publication Nya Tider was allowed to rent a space at the 2017 Fair, some 200 Swedish writers wrote in a joint statement that they would not attend. This sparked a heated debate. What about defending the rights of people to spread deplorable or even dangerous opinions? What happens if you don’t?
I decided to attend the fair – along with other writers who stated that they would not be run out of the place by extremists. But I have great respect for those who chose not to. We are all trying to defend society against what must be considered a rising tide of fascism. But how to do that, and at the same time defend freedom of speech?
On 7 April 2017, a man hijacked a truck in central Stockholm and drove down a pedestrian street, targeting everyone in his way. Five people were killed. The suspect later said he was acting as a supporter of Isis. The response from ordinary people was massive. Beside the mountain of flowers in central Stockholm, it was obvious that everybody was determined to counteract the intimidation of terror by going on with life as normally as they could, because the trust between ordinary citizens is what makes an open society possible.
This was very much at the back of my mind when I decided to go to the fair. We also managed to organise a number of seminars and events that addressed the threat hate speech poses to freedom of speech. It felt like an opportunity to point to the elephant in the middle of the room.
Nya Tider is not “banned” – in fact they receive a tax- financed grant of about $358,167 – the same as other papers with the same circulation. The question was whether the fair had an obligation to open its space to a paper associated with the extreme right. Since the fair is a private enterprise, many felt that they were within their rights to choose their exhibitors freely.
During the last few years, Swedish writers, journalists and politicians have been facing a rising wave of death threats and hate speech. Solid research shows that these threats emanate mostly from right-wing extremists and, to a lesser degree, from radical Islamists.
They target publicists with the purpose of driving them to self-censorship.
So how, then, should society deal with these threats with- out lowering the ceiling for freedom of speech? That this threat is real became obvious as a demonstration of several hundred neo-Nazis tried to reach the fair on the Saturday, but were stopped by the Gothenburg police. The attendance that day shrank to half the ordinary numbers.Writers are a specific target for these extremists, and the 200 writers stated openly that they did not want to share the floor with a paper associated with that political agenda.Personally I feel that those of us committed to defending freedom of speech have to use all powers to counter the double threat we are now facing: that of intimidation through hate speech and, on the other hand, stronger legislation that threatens to smother what it is supposed to defend. We can’t close our eyes to either.
Ola Larsmo is a long-time president of Swedish PEN
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MAKING IT FAIR
No serious book fair could exclude or censor a legal publication, argues Frankfurt’s vice president of international affairs TOBIAS VOSS
The Frankfurt Book Fair is a commercial enterprise. Yet the “commodity” we trade in is a very distinctive one: books convey ideas and, among other things, ideas significantly shapes social discourse, whether aesthetic, moral or political in nature. In this respect, it is necessary to regularly question the limiting of “critical” or “problematic” content. All book fairs thrive on the diversity of content presented by participants. In this regard, book fairs that strive to meet this objective are, therefore, a demonstration of the diversity of opinion and discourse. No serious international book fair that aims to represent the market and diversity of opinion is in a position to exclude or censor market players.
This approach – tolerating at times extremely problematic positions – must then also apply to titles that are perceived as an affront, as offensive or downright repugnant, by segments of the public.
The only exception for such a ban or exclusion is existing legislation. Only if a title is forbidden by law in Germany, then we feel it is right to ban this title or even the actual fair participant, from the exhibition.
Our book fair respects the separation of powers as an essential organisational principle for guaranteeing democratic freedoms, the associated institutions and the decisions and measures established under it. Whenever existing laws are violated at Frankfurt, we, as the organiser, will take action against this infringement through the department of public prosecution and the police.
A functioning democracy must tolerate dissent (as it has, after all, done successfully in Germany for decades), and must accept that the freedom of expression also applies to segments of the public that question – and at times even wish to do away with – the established legal order. The fair does not see it as its duty to establish its own political, moral or aesthetic criteria for permitting or forbidding things.
In keeping with its principles, the Frankfurt is committed to freedom of expression, freedom of publication, dialogue as a means of fair communication and respect for the democratic separation of powers and the decisions and measures that have been established to ensure it. The fair demonstrates this position in a wide variety of ways – through international involvement, by supporting the “Cities of Refuge” project and by curating well over 200 discussion events at our event and at book fairs abroad.
Tobias Voss is vice president, international affairs, of the Frankfurt Book Fair
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Crowds gather outside the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s largest book trade-fair, Marc Jacquemin/Frankfurt Book Fair
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TALK THE TALK
Banning organisations with which you disagree means you don’t have the chance to argue your case, says JEAN-PAUL MARTHOZ
The recent Gothenburg and Frankfurt book fairs have again been riven with controversies around the presence of far-right publishers. From a progressive perspective, banning the far-right seems the appropriate thing to do. The rationale is clear: the barbarians are at the gates and no one has ever said that democracies should offer their foes the rope with which to hang them.
From a liberal point of view, however, things are not so easy. Liberal democracies are, by definition, committed to providing space to ideas that radically question their most essential values – and even threaten their very existence.
There should be freedom for the enemies of freedom. As long as far-right publishers are not legally banned, and don’t exhibit books that clearly flout the law, there are few arguments against them which would pass Voltaire’s test on freedom of expression.
While the far-right has been associated with the most thuggish forms of censorship, its leaders have been effective in denouncing the progressives’ “fear of the truth”. Free speech for me, but not for thee?
By principle, liberals should not concede one of their most iconic values to the far- right, even if the latter has opportunistically hijacked free speech in order to provide a veneer of respectability to hate speech.
Banning can be seen as a confession of weakness or an admission that liberal arguments are not convincing enough to be – nor capable of being – expressed in a way which might distract potential far-right sympathisers from extremist organisations.
In fact, any attempt to get the far-right out of the public arena only reinforces one of its core recruiting arguments: “patriots” are victims of a conspiracy in a “rigged system” run by a cosmopolitan and hypocritical liberal establishment.
Responding to the far-right is all the more crucial today, since it has the capacity to get around its exclusion and reach a wide audience through the internet and social networks. The only way to reduce its influence is to produce counter-arguments and alter- native discourse and disseminate them widely beyond the converted.
Banning an organisation, or censoring its ideas, too often exempts it from the rigorous and imaginative thinking which is the only effective way to push back and win the battle of ideas.
Jean-Paul Marthoz is a Belgian journalist and essayist. He is the author of The Media and Terrorism (2017, Unesco)
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”From the Archives”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”93959″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064228408533808″][vc_custom_heading text=”Book fair detention” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1080%2F03064228408533808|||”][vc_column_text]December 1984
An excerpt from Mindblast, a book by Dambudzo Marechera, which was due to be launched at the Second Zimbabwe Book Fair.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”94784″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064227508532452″][vc_custom_heading text=”Sweden: Limits of press freedom” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1080%2F03064227508532452|||”][vc_column_text]September 1975
Blaine Stothard reports on the Swedish Watergate and potential limits on press freedom.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”90797″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064229808536482″][vc_custom_heading text=”White noise: separatist rock” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1080%2F03064229808536482|||”][vc_column_text]November 1998
Neo-Nazi groups are recruiting throughout the developed world; leading the drive are their high energy, punk-derived anthems of hate. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”top”][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”What price protest?” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2017%2F12%2Fwhat-price-protest%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In homage to the 50th anniversary of 1968, the year the world took to the streets, the winter 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine looks at all aspects related to protest.
With: Micah White, Ariel Dorfman, Robert McCrum[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”96747″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2017/12/what-price-protest/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1481888488328{padding-bottom: 50px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
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20 Dec 2017 | Mapping Media Freedom, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, News
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This year saw 1,035 media freedom violations reported to Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom, a project that monitors media freedom in 42 countries, including all EU member states. To highlight the most pressing concerns for press freedom in Europe, Index’s MMF correspondents discuss the violations that stood out most.
Russia / 197 verified reports in 2017
“In November Russia adopted a new restrictive law against foreign media. It allows recognising foreign media as foreign agents, which makes them subjects of numerous additional checks and obliges them to mark the content as produced by a foreign agent. The vague and ambiguous wording means it applies to many outlets – from established media to email newsletters. Which media will be recognised as foreign agents will be decided by Russian Ministry of justice. However, US media such as Voice of America or Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty have already received warnings about possible restrictions on their work in Russia.” — Ekaterina Buchneva
Turkey / 132 verified reports in 2017
“Although 155 journalists are currently imprisoned in Turkey — almost all of them on trumped-up charges — the trial of journalist Nedim Türfent, who reported on security operations in Turkey’s Kurdish regions, is by far the worst violation as open experiences of torture at the hands of police officers were recounted by at least a dozen people in the case. This violation shows that torture is making a comeback in Turkey.” — Barış Altıntaş
More on Nedim Türfent’s case.
Belarus / 92 verified reports in 2017
“The mass detention of journalists on Freedom Day in March was indicative of the Belarusian authorities’ campaign launched in 2017 on preventing journalists from performing their professional duties. The situation was provoked by mass protests across Belarus against introducing presidential decree on “social parasites”, which imposes a tax on the unemployed amid increasing economic crisis. The authorities have shown their real attitude to freedom of speech through real hunting on independent journalists and bloggers that are blocked from access to information, detained, jailed, and fined.” — Volha Siakovich
Spain / 66 verified reports in 2017
“The referendum on the independence of Catalonia, north-east of Spain, provoked an avalanche of incidents against reporters. On 1 October 2017, on the day of referendum considered illegal by the Spanish Constitutional Court, various journalists were assaulted during police intervention in polling stations. Spanish public television RTVE was biased in favour of Spanish unity while Catalan public television TV3 was biased in favour of the independence. In the aftermath of the referendum, many reporters on the ground suffered insults and assaults usually during street rallies. Unionist protesters used to insult and assault Catalan media. Catalunya Radio glass door was smashed and TV3 car window broken. Catalan protesters chanted “Spanish press manipulators” during Spanish televisions live coverage and Crònica Global website headquarters vandalised with spray paints and posters. The Catalan political question brought a wave of intimidation against journalists, never seen in such numbers and scale in recent years.” — Miho Dobrasin
Italy / 57 verified reports in 2017
“In 2017 Italian journalists experienced a high level of conflict with the judiciary. Journalists are constantly possible targets of law enforcement raids, also in breaching the privacy of journalists’ sources. In July, Il Fatto Quotidiano journalist Marco Lillo’s house was searched because he published a scoop concerning the investigation on people close to Matteo Renzi, prime minister at time time, for a case of corruption at the most important contracting authority in Italy: Consip. Last but not least, Il Sole 24 Ore journalist Nicola Borzi had seized his computer and archives by the law enforcement because he revealed a “secret of State”, without any formal charge against the journalist. These events show how hard is making scoops in Italy. Moreover, journalists are constantly targeted with lawsuits, frequently used as threats against freelancers. Nowadays the big unsolved issue for Italian journalism is at court.” — Lorenzo Bagnoli
France / 54 verified reports in 2017
“In February, presidential candidate Fillon smeared media outlets who covered alleged corruption case. This was an important moment in the treatment of the media in France. When accused of corruption, conservative presidential candidate François Fillon refused to step down and chose to attack the media and journalists. Journalists covering his campaign saw their working conditions deteriorate and had supporters insulting and attacking them.” — Valeria Costa-Kostritsky
Azerbaijan / 47 reports in 2017
“While there on-going violations of press freedom in Azerbaijan such as the jailing of journalists, office raids, bogus charges and other forms of persecution of journalists, I chose the blocking of opposition and independent news websites in March because it is a sign of further deterioration of media freedom in Azerbaijan. If before there were deliberate slowdowns or DDoS attacks, changes in legislation give full authority to the government institutions wanting to shut down or limit access to the flow of independent and alternative news.” — Arzu Geybullayeva
Croatia / 33 verified reports in 2017
“In September, around 20 members of the Autochthonous Croatian Party of Rights (A-HSP), a far-right political party, which is led by Drazen Keleminec, burned a copy of weekly newspaper Novosti, regional broadcaster N1 reported. This is another example where nationalistic and conservative narratives are endangering media freedom. In this particular case a right-wing political party is targeting the others, in this case the others is an ethnically and linguistically minority weekly, describing them as enemies of the state. The widespread narrative that has resulted in several severe media freedom infringements in this EU country.” — Ilcho Cvetanoski
Macedonia / 27 verified reports in 2017
“During the April’s storming of the Assembly building in the capital Skopje, 23 media workers were physically assaulted, threatened or barred from reporting at the scene. This case perfectly exemplifies what happens when political elites intentionally demonize and dehumanize media workers that are critically observing theirs work by describing them as traitors and foreign mercenaries. In the eyes of the common people, they instantly became a legitimate target. This is a widespread trend in Southeast Europe.” — Ilcho Cvetanoski
Bosnia and Herzegovina / 21 verified reports in 2017
“The case of Dragan Bursac is one of the many cases in Southeast Europe where journalists/media workers are threatened/attacked for challenging the mainstream nationalistic narrative. Namely, he was critical on the fact that a military leader, accused of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), is celebrated as a hero by the politicians and media.” — Ilcho Cvetanoski
Germany / 20 verified reports in 2017
“It is extremely concerning that journalists were assaulted and intimidated when reporting on protests in Hamburg. Journalists are there to do their job and it is important that they are able to tell the world what is happening at protests such as the ones in Hamburg.” – Joy Hyvarinen
Hungary / 20 verified reports in 2017
“There is an important change of tactics regarding censorship and defaming independent media in Hungary: instead of attacking the outlets critical to the government, the vast pro-government media started smearing individual journalists, trying to intimidate and discredit the few critical voices who are left in Hungary.” — Zoltan Sipos
Romania / 16 verified reports in 2017
“The national news agency AGERPRES might lose its independence after a draft law enabling the political majority to dismiss the director-general was passed by the chamber of deputies in Romania. If passed in the senate as well, such a provision would have the same impact as on the management of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation (SRR) and the Romanian National Television Corporation (SRTV): following each election, the SRR and SRTV administration boards can be dismissed before the end of their mandates to reflect the new political forces.” — Zoltan Sipos
United Kingdom / 17 verified reports in 2017
“In the United Kingdom, after the Grenfell tower fire, which claimed 71 deaths, Kensington and Chelsea council tried to ban journalists from attending their first council meeting. Five media organisations had to challenge this legally to gain access. This was a very important case illustrating how difficult it was to gain access and to expect accountability from the organisation which ran the council block.” — Valeria Costa-Kostritsky
Sweden / 15 verified reports in 2017
“The systematic campaign to smear and misrepresent journalists by Granskning Sverige was symptomatic of a wider attack on the legitimacy of liberal and left media by Sweden’s far-right movement, but the campaign detailed by the reporters at the Eskilstuna-kuriren newspaper was orchestrated and unlike anything seen before in the country.” — Dominic Hinde
Greece / 13 verified reports in 2017
“In February 2017, two journalists were harassed by far-right wing protesters, preventing refugee children from attending classes. This is very important, because it shows that although Greece’s economic and refugee crisis seem to have calmed down in the last year, the support for far-right wing organisations doesn’t show any sign of shrinking. This also concerns journalists in Greece, whose safety is in danger every day.” — Christina Vasilaki
The Netherlands / 12 verified reports in 2017
“The Netherlands is considered to be one of the countries where media freedom is widely protected. However, cases like the rape threats levelled at a journalist in May show that media workers are subjected to all sorts of threats. In this case it were rape threats by a popular right-wing weblog. This creates an atmosphere in which it’s conceived normal to use comments and social media to discredit and threaten a journalist. It also highlights the dangers and risks that female journalists face.” — Mitra Nazar
Bulgaria / 11 verified reports in 2017
“In November, it became known that members of an organised crime group from Vratsa planned to murder Zov News website publisher Georgi Ezekiev. The increase of violent incidents and serious threats towards journalists in 2017 is alarming in Bulgaria, a country that already has the worst press freedom status in the European Union.” — Zoltan Sipos
Serbia / 11 verified reports in 2017
“Serbia’s free media had a dark year with many incidents, threats and violence coming towards them. In May, journalists were assaulted during clashes at the presidential inauguration. This is just one of many cases, but it clearly demonstrates just how critical the state of the media is because they happened during the presidential inauguration. The assaults were committed by supporters of the government with a lot of police around. The impunity these assaulters meet is worrying for the lack of condemnation by authorities and the message they clearly want to send to critical journalists.” — Mitra Nazar
Malta / 8 verified reports in 2017
“The most worrying incident regards the murder of anti-corruption, investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. While this murder gripped the attention of international media and European authorities including the European Commission and Parliament, it is still shocking for every journalist that in a democratic, EU country, journalists’ lives could be in danger because they are doing their job, exposing high-level corruption in political, business and criminal elites.” — Christina Vasilaki
Kosovo / 6 verified reports in 2017|
“Kosovo’s media have been shaken up by two attacks on Insajderi investigative journalists. Insajderi is home to the best investigative journalists in the country, covering corruption and crime topics that nobody else dares to touch. Journalist Parim Olluri was beaten up outside his home in Pristina on 16 August. He needed medical assistance in a hospital. Nobody has been held responsible for the attack. Two months later, his colleague Vehbi Kajtazi was hit on the head in a cafe in downtown Pristina on 13 October. One person was arrested on the spot. We are talking about two violent incidents to Insajderi journalists within a period of three months. This shows that Kosovo’s journalists continue to face violence, even in very public places like cafe’s and neighbourhoods they live. For this reason there are just a few brave journalists who dare to touch sensitive topics, which is a worrying sign for the future of journalism and truth finding in the youngest country in Europe.” — Mitra Nazar
Montenegro / 6 verified reports in 2017
“Attack on journalist’s property is one of most common ways of intimidation. This is not only case for Montenegro, but also for all other countries in the region. What is striking is that intentional setting on fire of journalist’s vehicles is one of most common ways of limitation of media freedom in Montenegro. In recent years there have been several burnt vehicle in this small EU candidate country.” — Ilcho Cvetanoski
Portugal / 5 verified reports in 2017
“Similarly to what’s happening in other countries, Portugal has seen a rise of questioning towards journalism, those who work in the media industry and their work. Besides motivating a new and stimulating debate between journalists and their readers/viewers/listeners, this has also opened the gates to instances of abuse, cyberbullying and slander. The most significant example of that is that of Público’s journalist Margarida Gomes, whose work ethic was put in question by Facebook groups and public officials, who both used false information regarding her personal life to denigrate her work.” — João de Almeida Dias
Latvia / 3 verified reports in 2017
“In Latvia it was a quiet year for press freedom. However, the sudden and swift dismissal of Sigita Roķe, the head of public service Latvian Radio for alleged economic irregularities was seen as a pretext for dismissing her for efforts to disengage the radio from sponsorship agreements with the city of Ventspils, whose politically influential mayor has is on trial for money laundering and corruption. The dismissal raised questions about the political neutrality of Latvia’s media watchdog, the National Electronic Mass Media Council.” — Juris Kaza
Ireland / 3 verified reports in 2017
“Compared to the long list of countries in Europe where it is getting progressively dangerous for reporters to do their work, the situation in Ireland is relatively benign. There are renewed concerns over source protection, and the strict libel regime. However, the most serious concern is regarding media ownership. Index on Censorship published a detailed report on this in August 2017. One significant media takeover – Independent News and Media buying up Celtic Media – fell through after the Government ordered a statutory investigation following objections.” — Flor Mac Carthy
Estonia / 3 verified reports in 2017
“In March, journalists for Estonia’s largest daily in circulation Postimees, sent a letter to the owners and managers to complain about interference with editorial freedom. This event is a disturbing example of the interference attempts from media owners and advertisement department that had grown to the level that journalists of a daily, that prides itself with a long history and high-quality content, had to resort to an unprecedented united protest letter to fight it. Interference in journalistic decision making and content from outside or inside sources is in general the worrisome threat.” — Helle Tiikmaa
Belgium / 2 verified reports in 2017
“In Belgium, a journalist who had published a story on surveillance in Bruxelles’ metro was interrogated on her sources by the police, in clear breach of the principle of sources confidentiality. The case also reminds us of the risk for journalists covering surveillance.” — Valeria Costa-Kostritsky
Denmark / 2 verified reports in 2017
“The killing of Kim Wall by the inventor and entrepreneur Peter Madsen was a headline news event around the world. Stabbed to death and dumped at sea whilst interviewing Madsen on board his home-built submarine, her body was recovered after an extensive marine search. Although not typical of any wider trend, her murder was so brutal it raised significant questions about the safety and ethics of female freelancers working alone without support or safeguards.” — Dominic Hinde
Finland / 2 verified reports in 2017
“In March the Finnish government introduced restrictive changes to the functioning of the public broadcasting company Yle, which entailed putting the state-owned company more firmly under politicians’ decision-making power. The proposal was driven by the True Finns, a nationalist party that have repeatedly complained about Yle’s liberal views and non-sceptical approach to ‘multicultural Finland’. In the official briefing, stated the following: “The proposal is to strengthen the role of the Administrative Council so that they can decide on Yle’s journalistic strategy and regulate the permanent expert consultation process”. The council referred is mainly composed of politicians. — Katariina Salomäki
Iceland / 1 verified report in 2017
“Iceland has been rocked by political scandals and collapsing governments twice in the space of a year. In October it came to light that the prime minister had used financial confidentiality legislation to stop the investigative newspaper Stundin from publishing details of his offshore financial dealings in the run-up to the 2008 financial crash. Iceand’s main newspaper Morgunbladid is controlled by another former Prime Minister, also a member of the powerful Icelandic independence party, and Stundin has consistently sought to expose the Icelandic financial and political elite where other titles have remained silent.” — Dominic Hinde[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Mapping Media Freedom” use_theme_fonts=”yes” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fmappingmediafreedom.org%2F%23%2F|||”][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 more than 3,700 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_separator color=”black”][/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.
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