Last summer it was announced that the Faculty of History of the state university in Hrodna, a regional centre in the West of Belarus, ceased to exist. A school of historic science known since 1954 was united with the Faculty of Tourism and Communication. This was the final revenge the authorities took on historians who dared to present the past of their city and their nation in a way that differs from the “official line.”
In the beginning of 2013 a group of historians of Hrodna State University published a book about the history of their city. Andrei Charnikevich, one of the authors of the book, was fired from the university; his sacking wasn’t done according to proper legal procedures and took longer than Siamion Shapira, a local governor, wanted. It ended up with him sacking the rector of the university, Yauheni Rouba. The governor’s instruction to a newly appointed rector was to “pay attention” to other lecturers and professors who were considered “disloyal”; all of them named. Viachaslau Shved was the next historian fired. Ihar Kuzminich, who taught law at the same university and was on that list as well, submitted a resignation letter himself and wrote an open letter to the governor in protest at the campaign of persecution against academia in Hrodna.
That was not the first instance of “ideological clear-up” in Belarusian universities. In 1990s Aliaksandr Kazulin, then a rector of the Belarusian State University, the major university in the country, received similar instructions to prevent teachers and students from oppositional activities. The irony of history made Kozulin an oppositional candidate at the Presidential election of 2006 (and he received no support from his former university during the campaign), and later a political prisoner.
But Hrodna University has not really been a centre of political or civic movements. It has always been one of the best educational institutions in Belarus. It has been quite active in adopting and implementing European standards of higher education. The authorities did not think of its professors as “disloyal” – they liked to show the university to foreign delegations and experts as exemplary to boast of achievements of the Belarusian education system.
To understand what happened in Hrodna, one has to take into consideration peculiarities of the system of higher education and its management in Belarus. Formally, all universities report to the Ministry of Education. The current minister of education, Siarhei Maskevich, is a former rector of Hrodna University; he was the one who launched teaching innovations and consolidation of the financial situation of the university. Can a minister destroy what he himself started? In Belarus, he can.
Belarusian ministers are not independent; they just implement policies as instructed by the Presidential Administration. Just as governors, like Siamion Shapira, and down to university rectors – they are all appointed by the President of the country; all candidates for these positions are carefully chosen and checked by the KGB and other authority structures. Thus, every official in this “power vertical” depends on the head of the state. No one is elected; the institute of self-governance is destroyed as such, it is substituted on all levels by state governance. It is true with any area and sphere of activities, including education.
Universities in Belarus have no autonomy; thus, academic freedom is seriously compromised. In fact there has never been any. Even in the first half of 1990s, when universities were allowed to elect their rectors, they were financially reliant on state subsidies, so they were not independent. But even such a nominal formality as elections of rectors was eliminated. Rectors of private universities are appointed by the authorities as well. Any attempts to protest leads to disastrous effects. In 2004 the European Humanities University had to stop its operation in Belarus after its staff protested against the fact their rector had to be appointed by the country’s president. They refused even after the Ministry of Education suggested appointing Anatoly Mikhailov as the rector, the same person who was elected by the staff – it was a matter of principle, and the principle of academic freedom was the key. The EHU had to go in exile and restored its activity in 2005 in neighbouring Lithuania.
Appointed rectors can stay in their positions as long as they satisfy those who appointed them, i.e. the Presidential Administration. The way to satisfy those “employers” is not by defending academic freedoms and rights of professors and students; it is merely by obeying orders and staying “loyal” to state ideology.
Professor Rouba, a previous rector of Hrodna State University, did not reject an order to “clean up” his university – he was just not in a hurry to fulfil it. And this is how he irritated the authorities, thus losing his job as the head of the university. Because in the end it is not about an alleged “danger” any “disloyal” professor poses to the state – it is about the system that requires orders to be executed, promptly and carefully.
The authorities can see “disloyalty” in anything. Ihar Kuzminich, the law professor of Hrodna University, wrote a textbook on human rights for schools a couple of years ago. The mere topic of the textbook suggested the Ministry of Education could not approve it. The book was used during informal workshops and training sessions on human rights. But it was not the real reason for Kuzminich to end up on the “disloyalty black list” and eventually lose his job. It was because of the fairy tales he writes. Characters of his tales live in a modern city and fight for their rights. Such a metaphor appeared to be more dangerous for the regime than textbooks.
It might seem absurd, but this is a reality in Belarus. Monitoring, conducted by the Agency of Humanitarian Technologies, gives a lot of evidence of persecution for professional activities. We can talk about the employment ban in the system of education of the country. Hundreds of teachers and university professors were persecuted and lost their jobs in Belarus. Such instances cover almost every filed of learning, but most of cases are noted in humanities; the repressed academics are historians, economists, sociologists, pedagogues.
Last year Belarusian Ministry of Education attempted to join the Bologna Process that unites universities all throughout Europe, including post-Soviet region. The authorities decided to take this step as they have started to see the clear economic benefits from joining, through the export of educational services. Belarusian universities have been quite popular with foreign students, especially ones from China, Vietnam, Turkmenistan and some other, predominantly Asian countries. But recent years showed a decrease in interest in Belarusian higher education, because diplomas of Belarusian universities are not recognised in many countries. Joining the Bologna Process is supposed to solve this problem and attract more foreign students.
The Presidential Administration approved the idea, and the Ministry of Education launched the whole programme of bringing Belarusian standards of higher education in line with European ones – for the exception of two of them, namely autonomy of universities and academic freedoms. These two principles are considered by the Belarus Ministry of Education to be “insignificant”.
Infrastructural changes in Belarusian universities were quite vast and intensive; they look quite like European universities — “cheaper versions”, perhaps. But what is clear, is the absence of academic freedom and autonomy, which are the two fundamental features of a university. They distinguish it from other educational institutions, like technical schools, religious or military colleges and extension courses. Rectors got used to obeying orders; the academic community got used to abstaining from disagreeing.
A group of enthusiasts, professors, students, experts, public figures, decided to create a public Bologna Committee in Belarus. Its aim is to promote and protect academic freedoms and an idea of autonomy of universities in the country. The main paradox of the committee is that it promotes the values of the Bologna Process –- but in fact it impedes Belarus joining it, rather than fosters it. There is, however, no other way; a country that fights the dissent and suppressed free speech, and thus violates the main principles of the Bologna Process, cannot be accepted as a member of it.
There is a question if we can call Belarusian institutions of higher learning “universities” at all. A process of education seems to be going on there; this process resembles in a way the one in European universities. But it is an illusion to a great extent. Without a real academic freedom and independence there can be no university. Once this are restored Belarus will be ready to integrate into the European system of education – but not before.
We can partially blame gerrymandering for the current gridlock in the U.S. Congress. By shaping the electoral map to create politically safe spaces, we have generated a fractious body that often clashes rather than collaborates, limiting our chances of resolving the country’s toughest challenges. Unfortunately, revelations about the global reach of American security surveillance programs under the National Security Agency (NSA) are leading some to propose what amounts to gerrymandering for the internet in order to route around NSA spying. This will shackle the internet, inherently change its technical infrastructure, throttle innovation, and likely lead to far more dangerous privacy violations around the globe.
Nations are rightly upset that the communications of their citizens are swept up in the National Security Agency’s pervasive surveillance dragnet. There is no question the United States has overreached and violated human rights in its collection of communications information on innocent people around the globe; however, the solution to this problem should not, and truly cannot, be data localization mandates that restrict data storage and flow.
The calls for greater localization of data are not new, but the recent efforts of Brazil’s President, Dilma Rouseff, to protect Brazilians from NSA spying reflected the view of many countries suddenly faced with a new threat to the privacy of the communications of their citizens. Rouseff has been an advocate for internet freedom, so undoubtedly her proposal is well intentioned, though the potential unintended repercussions are alarming.
First, it’s important to consider the technical reasons why data location requirements are a really bad idea. The Internet developed in a widely organic manner, creating a network that allowed data to flow from all corners of the world – regardless of political boundaries, residing everywhere and nowhere at the same time. This has helped increase the resilience of the internet and it has promoted significant efficiencies in data flow. As is, the network routes around damage, and data can be wherever it best makes sense and take an optimal route for delivery.
Data localization mandates would turn the internet on its head. Instead of a unified internet, we would have a fractured internet that may or may not work seamlessly. We would instead see districts of communications that cater to specific needs and interests – essentially we would see Internet gerrymandering at its finest. Countries and regions would develop localized regulations and rules for the internet to benefit them in theory, and would certainly aim to disadvantage competitors. The potential for serious winners and losers is huge. Certainly the hope for an internet that promotes global equality would be lost.
Data localization may only be a first step. Countries seeking to keep data out of the United States or that want to exert more control over the internet may also mandate restrictions on how data flows and how it is routed. This is not far-fetched. Countries such as Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and China have already proposed this at last year’s World Conference on International Telecommunications.
As internet traffic begins to demand more bandwidth, especially as we witness more real-time multimedia applications, efficient routing is essential to advance new internet services. High capacity applications like Apple’s FaceTime may slow to the painful crawl reminiscent of the dial-up days of the internet.
This only begins to illustrate the challenges internet innovators would face, but big established players like Facebook, Google and Microsoft, would potentially have the resources to abide by localization mandates – of course, only if the business case supports working in particular locales. Some countries with local storage rules may be bypassed altogether. For small or emerging businesses, data localization requirements would be a greater challenge. It would build barriers to markets and shut off channels for innovation. Few emerging businesses could afford to locate servers in every new market, and if local data server requirements become ubiquitous, it will be businesses in emerging markets that are most disadvantaged. The reality for developing nations is that protectionist measures such as data localization will further isolate local business from the global market, depriving them of the advantages for growth that are provided by the borderless internet.
Most important though, is the potential for fundamental harm to human rights due to data localization mandates. We recognize that this is a difficult argument to accept in the wake of the revelations about NSA surveillance, but data localization requirements are a double-edged sword. It is important to remember that human rights and civil liberties groups have long been opposed to data localization requirements because if used inappropriately, such requirements can become powerful tools of control, intimidation and oppression.
When companies were under intense criticism for turning over the data of Chinese activists to China, internet freedom activists were united in theirs calls to keep user data out of the country. When Yahoo! entered the Vietnamese market, it placed its servers out of the country in order to better protect the rights of its Vietnamese users. And the dust up between the governments of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, India, and Indonesia, among others, demanding local servers for storage of BlackBerry messages in order to ensure legal accountability and meet national security concerns, was met with widespread condemnation. Now with democratic governments such as Brazil and some in Europe touting data localization as a response to American surveillance revelations, these oppressive regimes have new, albeit inadvertent, allies. While some countries will in fact store, use and protect data responsibly, the validation of data localization will unquestionably lead to many regimes abusing it to silence critics and spy on citizens. Beyond this, data server localization requirements are unlikely to prevent the NSA from accessing the data. U.S. companies and those with a U.S. presence will be compelled to meet NSA orders, and there appear to be NSA access points around the world.
Data localization is a proposed solution that is distracting from the important work needed to improve the Internet’s core infrastructural elements to make it more secure, resilient and accessible to all. This work includes expanding the number of routes, such as more undersea cables and fiber runs, and exchange points, so that much more of the world has convenient and fast Internet access. If less data is routed through the U.S., let it be for the right reason: that it makes the Internet stronger and more accessible for people worldwide. We also need to work to develop better Internet standards that provide usable privacy and security by default, and encourage broad adoption.
Protecting privacy rights in an era of transborder surveillance won’t be solved by ring fencing the Internet. It requires countries, including the U.S., to commit to the exceedingly tough work of coming to the negotiating table to work out agreements that set standards on surveillance practices and provide protections for the rights of privacy and free expression for people. Germany and France have just called for just such an agreement with the U.S. This is the right way forward.
In the U.S., we must reform our surveillance laws, adopt a warrant requirement for stored email and other digital data, and implement a consumer privacy law. The standards for government access to online data in all countries must likewise be raised. These measures are of course much more difficult in the short run that than data localization requirements, but they are forward-looking, long-term solutions that can advance a free and open internet that benefits us all.
Joseph Lorenzo Hall, Chief Technologist at Center for Democracy and Technology, co-authored this piece with Leslie Harris.
State control of the press is hot topic. On Wednesday, Queen Elizabeth signed off a Royal Charter which gives politicians a hand in newspaper regulation. This come after David Cameron criticised the Guardian’s reporting on mass surveillance, saying “If they don’t demonstrate some social responsibility it will be very difficult for government to stand back and not to act”.
But what does state control of the press really look like? Here are 10 countries where the government keeps a tight grip on newspapers.
The tiny gulf kingdom in 2002 passed a very restrictive press law. While it was scaled back somewhat in 2008, it still stipulates that journalists can be imprisoned up to five years for criticising the king or Islam, calling for a change of government and undermining state security. Journalists can be fined heavily for publishing and circulating unlicensed publications, among other things. Newspapers can also be suspended and have their licenses revoked if its ‘policies contravene the national interest.’
In 2009 the country known as Europe’s last dictatorship passed the Law on Mass Media, which placed online media under state regulation. It demanded registration of all online media, as well as re-registration of existing outlets. The state has the power to suspend and close both non-registered and registered media, and media with a foreign capital share of more than a third can’t get a registration at all. Foreign publications require special permits to be distributed, and foreign correspondents need official accreditation.
The country has a General Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television and an army official censors dedicated to keeping the media in check. Through vaguely worded regulation, they ensure that the media promotes and toes the party line and stays clear of controversial topics like Tibet. A number of journalists have also been imprisoned under legislation on “revealing state secrets” and “inciting subversion.”
In 2011 President Rafael Correa won a national referendum to, among other things, create a “government controlled media oversight body”. In July this year a law was passed giving the state editorial control and the power to impose sanctions on media, in order to stop the press “smearing people’s names”. It also restricted the number of licences will be given to private media to a third.
All media in the country is state owned, as President Isaias Afwerki has said independent media is incompatible with Eritrean culture. Reporting that challenge the authorities are strictly prohibited. Despite this, the 1996 Press Proclamation Law is still in place. It stipulates that all journalists and newspapers be licensed and subject to pre-publication approval.
Hungary’s restrictive press legislation came into force in 2011. The country’s media outlets are forced to register with the National Media and Infocommunications Authority, which has the power to revoke publication licences. The Media Council, appointed by a parliament dominated by the ruling Fidesz party, can also close media outlets and impose heavy fines.
Britain isn’t the only country to tighten control of the press through royal means. In 2011 King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia amended the media law by royal decree. Any reports deemed to contradict Sharia Law, criticise the government, the grand mufti or the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, or threaten state security, public order or national interest, are banned. Publishing this could lead to fines and closures.
The Law on Mass Media demands any outlet has to receive a registration certificate before being allowed to publish. The media is banned from “forcible changing of the existing constitutional order”, and journalists can be punished for “interference in internal affairs” and “insulting the dignity of citizens”. Foreign journalists have to be accredited with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The 1999 Law on Media bans journalists from “inciting the people to rebel against the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and damage the unification of the people”. A 2006 decree also put in place fines for journalists that deny “revolutionary achievements” and spread “harmful” information. Journalists can also be forced to pay damages to those “harmed by press articles”, regardless of whether the article in question is accurate or not.
The country’s Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act gives the government direct regulatory power over the press through the Media and Information Council. All media outlets and journalists have to register with an obtain accreditation from the MIC. The country also has a number of privacy and security laws that double up as press regulation, The Official Secrets Act and the Public Order and Security Act.
Madras Cafe is a Bollywood film, a fictional feature based on real events – in this case, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Tigers) role in the assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, on his comeback trail. (The LTTE assassinated former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, on his comeback trail, later saying it was “a blunder”.)
I haven’t seen the film because UK cinema chains Cineworld, Odeon and Vue, won’t let me. Apparently in response to protests from the local Tamil community, Cineworld issued an anodyne statement, saying: “Our policy is to show a wide range of films for different audiences. However, following customer feedback and working with the film distributors, we have decided to not show Madras Café. We apologise for any inconvenience.”
Customer feedback? Press reports suggested that some Tamils had complained that the film was anti-Tamil. The Facebook page of the Tamil Youth Organisation UK has been full of agitation against the film, but I was curious about the basis of the chain’s decision, so I asked them what kind of feedback they had received. Was it in writing or a phone call? Had the customers giving such feedback seen the film? (How, considering that the film was being released simultaneously worldwide on 23 August?) I also asked if it was normal practice for Cineworld to see customer feedback before showing each film. I’m not sure if Cineworld had shown any of the following films, so I wanted to know if they had sought prior customer feedback from any of the communities that may have been offended by films like “Borat” (Kazakhs), “LOC Kargil,” “Gadar: A Love Story”, or “Zero Dark Thirty” (Pakistanis), “Bruno” (gay people), “Waltz With Bashir” (Israelis), or the many American films critical of US foreign policy and Vietnam war? If not, why not? A Cineworld official sent me, again, the press release about customer feedback.
True, protests in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu has also led to the film being withdrawn from most cities there. Ransacking and attacking theatres is not unusual in India. But this is Britain. I wanted to know if there had been a violent threat, and if so, did the theatre seek police protection. But we didn’t reach that far.
Have we learned nothing? A quarter century ago, Muslims in Bradford burned copies of Salman Rushdie’s novel, The Satanic Verses because the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa on the novelist. At that time, some in Britain didn’t want anything to do with the problem. Outraged by the intellectual acquiescence of some, Hanif Kureishi wrote the fine novel, The Black Album ridiculing the fundamentalists and the fair-weather free speech defenders.
At that time of The Satanic Verses protests, while some bookshops caved in to pressure, as Rushdie has noted later, many brave booksellers insisted on displaying the novel and selling it, reinforcing freedom of expression, and keeping the idea of unfettered imagination alive.
That was then. It is different now.
In 2004, when Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti wrote a play, Behzti (Dishonour) which dealt with rape and abuse in a gurdwara (the Sikh place of worship), the Birmingham Repertory stopped performances because some members of the local Sikh community threatened violence. Later, “Behzti” could have readings in London, and Bhatti even wrote another play in 2010 – “Behud” (Beyond Belief) – which examined the state of censorship and artistic freedom in Britain.
And now? Madras Cafe can’t be shown, and much of the British media has ignored the story, except industry publications. That reflects the underlying paternalism of the media towards the politics within Britain’s minorities. Like female genital mutation, which was initially considered a quaint ritual among immigrants, and forced marriage, which was confused with arranged marriages among Britain’s Asians, intolerance by young hotheads is seen as a cultural characteristic of specific immigrant groups, and being good multicultural people, we should all accept that. Rights – of equality, of expression – are seen as the privileged majority’s heirloom. Since loud individuals within a minority don’t want it, why impose “our” values on them?
But those values are universal, not western. Madras Cafe may be a terrible film – who knows? – but that should be for the viewers and audiences to decide. The aggrieved Tamils have no obligation to see it; indeed, they have the right to picket peacefully outside theatres. They also have the right to tell their story and broaden our understanding of the Sri Lankan conflict, so that the British leaders who go to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet in Sri Lanka in November know the kind of hosts whose hands they will shake.
The Sri Lankan story is complex, with neither the government nor the LTTE coming out looking good. The many victims of that conflict – Sinhala and Tamil alike – deserve better. Madras Cafe won’t tell that story – that was never its aim. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be shown.
Cinema chains need to rise to the challenge, and screen the film, with police protection, if necessary. Far more is at stake than a Bollywood blockbuster’s box office returns.
