14 Mar 2017 | Digital Freedom, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features
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Each week, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project verifies threats, violations and limitations faced by the media throughout the European Union and neighbouring countries. Here are recent reports that give us cause for concern.
The Madrid Journalists Association (APM) received a petition from a group of journalists they had experienced a “systemised campaign of personal and network harassment” from the left-wing Podemos party.
According to a press release from APM, the reporters said they had been harassed and pressured by the Podemos, led by Pablo Iglesias, for over a year. The press release also said that the harassment came in the form of threatening phone calls, emails, and messages or comments on social media such as Twitter. APM believes that the harassment is an attempt by Podemos officials to improve their reputation and image by eliminating any media criticism of the party.
Elvi Fundo, the news editor for the online publication Citynews.al and Radio Best, was attacked in Tirana on the morning of 8 March. The reporter was on his way to his office in the city when he was violently assaulted by two unknown assailants and suffered from injuries which landed him in the hospital.
Fundo, who is known for publishing investigations into corruption and conflict of interests, told the Balkan Insight that he does not believe the attacks had political connotations. Instead, Fundo said, he believes the attack was “the work of criminals financed by corrupt media clans tied to drug-trafficking.” Both journalists and politicians, including the Albanian Union of Journalists and Prime Minister Edi Rama, have condemned the attack as a threat to media and press freedom.
Journalists and politicians, including the Albanian Union of Journalists and Prime Minister Edi Rama, have condemned the attack as a threat to media and press freedom. Although the police have launched an investigation into the assault, the identity and motive of the assailants are still unknown.
Reporter Igor Zalyubovin and photographer Vladimir Yarotsky were arrested and detained by officers of the Russian Security Service (FSB) in Svetogorsk on 7 March. The journalists, who work for Snob, a Moscow-based independent news magazine, were taken to a detention centre and charged with crossing into a border zone without permission.
Zalyubovin and Yarotsky had rented an apartment in Svetogorsk, a town of about 15,000 outside the border of Finald, to use while reporting on Mayor Sergey Davydov’s claim that it is a “city without sin” because there are no homosexual residents. A 2014 law requires journalists to have specific permission from the FSB to work in the border zone, however, according to Snob’s editor-in-chief, they did not apply for a permit due to time constraints.
The Committee to Protect Journalists denounced the incident and said that this is the second time that journalists were detained and forced to leave Svetogorsk for border zone violations while doing follow-up reporting on the Mayor’s comments. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”middle” css=”.vc_custom_1489421829923{background-color: #d5473c !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}” el_class=”text_white”][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
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Nu Ener, a news editor for the Yeni Asya daily, said was arrested by police on charges of association and membership to the FETO/PDY terrorist organisation.
According to a report published in Yeni Asya, Ener was originally detained following a police raid on her home on 3 March. Three days later, the 4th Criminal Judicature of Peace found that she was guilty of membership to the terrorist organisation which has ties to Fethullah Gulen, the Muslim preacher whom the Turkish government blames for the failed coup this past July. Ener was specifically accused of using Bylock, a mobile communications application, to help organise the coup attempt.
Ener, who remains incarcerated in the Bakirkoy Prison for women, is one out of 155 journalists currently imprisoned in Turkey.
The circulation of Pras Press, a new satirical newspaper by Bulgaria’s “Society of Rude Cartoonists,” was blocked by the State Distribution Company on 5 March. The newspaper, which is known as the Bulgarian version of ‘Charlie Hebdo,’ first went on sale on 1 March, but since distribution ceased, only one tenth of the printed copies has been sold.
Journalist Ivan Bakalov said that he believes MP Delyan Peevski is behind the incident although he is not one of the listed owners of the State Distribution Company. Bakalov and his colleagues believe that the mocking of political elites in Pras Press likely contributed to the circulation block.
Despite Bulgaria’s low ranking of 113 in the 2016 Press Freedom Ranking of Reporters without Borders, the journalists of Pras Press have pledged to bring their case to the Commission for Protection of Competition, the state prosecution, caretaker government, and President Rumen Radev in hopes to resume circulation.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Click on the bubbles to view reports or double-click to zoom in on specific regions. The full site can be accessed at https://mappingmediafreedom.org/
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17 Feb 2017 | Awards, China, Digital Freedom, Fellowship, Fellowship 2016, News and features
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GreatFire are the 2016 Digital Activism Fellow
The 2016 Digital Activism Fellow GreatFire is a collective of anonymous individuals using technology to combat China’s draconian internet censorship regime. Charlie Smith answers questions about recent developments of China’s Great Firewall.
Index: The Chinese government warned in December that its controls on the internet are necessary to prevent foreign powers from “destabilising the state”. Would Great Fire be considered to be associated with such powers? What would be the consequences of this?
Smith: I don’t think the Chinese authorities fully understand how the internet works. They have this great image in their mind of creating “cyber sovereignty” but this is an impossible task. The internet by nature is international. Information is exchanged across borders. So, yes, foreign powers are destabilising China’s internet every minute. In the opinion of the Chinese authorities, I guess this happens every time somebody says “Xi Jinping is a totalitarian despot” or shares a photo of the great leader with his pants too high.
But even if the authorities were able to establish what they think is “cyber sovereignty”, they would quickly find that many Chinese also like saying nasty things about Xi Dada.
Index: Why do you think the latest crackdown on VPNs, requiring government registration for all VPNs based in China, is not as serious as it has been made out to be? Do you think it will make any difference to the way circumvention tools operate?
Smith: It is normal that the authorities ask that telecoms companies check to see who is using their services. There are a lot of cheap domestic VPN providers – some of whom probably do not have the interests of Chinese consumers at heart. It’s a good thing if they go out of business. Consumers will choose other solutions – other circumvention tools, foreign VPNs – and in the process learn more about how circumvention works in China. Educating the market at this stage will be very very valuable.
I think this is also one of the first times that the authorities have said that VPNs serve a purpose. If they continue with this line of messaging, they are actually saying that using a VPN is legal, not illegal. Companies are the main drivers here. If companies have problems accessing the resources that they need to run their businesses, the government will hear about it.
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[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]Index: You wrote pessimistically on your blog of Google’s attempts to end censorship, and mentioned that yourselves and other companies could have far more success with access to Google’s resources. How optimistic do you feel about reaching those goals if Google continues to drag its feet?
Smith: If Google continues to sit back and do nothing except take credit for working hard to “end online censorship everywhere” we will still reach our goals. We could get there faster if we worked with Google, but they are not essential to the solution. The only explanation for Google’s inaction in fighting censorship is that they want to “re-enter” the China market by self-censoring Google Play. This would not affect our day-to-day operations too much, but it would really signal the beginning of the end in terms of working in partnership with the Chinese authorities on censorship. Google would join Apple, LinkedIn, Microsoft and many others as a bad actor, leaving only one path forward for new entrants to the China market – self-censorship.
Index: There has been talk of Chinese tech companies poaching talent from the US en masse amid President Trump’s crackdown on foreign labour and uncertainty around his stance towards Silicon Valley. Do you think this would give extra momentum to the anti-censorship movement in China?
Smith: Good question – never thought of that before.
Yes, I think this would greatly help the anti-censorship movement. There is a lot of Chinese talent overseas. It will be hard for them to come back to China and suddenly have to do without the social media and networks that they have established overseas. That shared frustration will lead them to find a better solution than just a VPN.
Index: How has your VPN monitoring service been progressing? Have numbers/uptake improved?
Smith: I think Circumvention Central has shown that VPNs are quite volatile in China. What works today may not work as well tomorrow, which you can see in our data. I think we’ve seen Chinese internet users gravitate to made-in-China solutions, like Shadowsocks.
Index: Should we be worried about China launching international state-run media through CCTV? How would it be comparable to the impact of Russia Today, for example?
Smith: China has deep pockets and is really only getting started in terms of establishing their media footprint overseas. They can afford to lose as much money as is needed to get these operations up and running and then to keep them running. But at the moment, the actual content is so poor, it’s laughable. RT seems to at least have professionals working both in front and behind the cameras. I don’t think CCTV quite has the human resources aspect of this down pat yet, but in time, they will compete for talent. However, by the time they are really ready to challenge other media outlets, I believe that foreign governments will likely place obstacles in CCTV’s path if China has not reciprocated by loosening her own media restrictions.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1487260544112-fa906890-8334-4″ taxonomies=”8199″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
20 Dec 2016 | Mapping Media Freedom, News and features
Each week, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project verifies threats, violations and limitations faced by the media throughout the European Union and neighbouring countries. Here are four recent reports that give us cause for concern.
11/12/2016 — A photographer for Kommersant newspaper was attacked by anti-LGBT protesters and then harassed by the police. David Frenkel was in St. Petersburg observing an LGBT rights protest and a counter-protest with demonstrators said to belong to the ultra-conservative People’s Liberation Movement (NOD).
Frenkel was attacked by a NOD protester who hit his camera and kicked him. The photographer requested help from nearby police officers but they ignored him. He then phoned the police who arrived at the scene but did not protect him. Instead, the counter-protesters claimed the journalists were disrupting their protest and the officers took Frenkel to the police station along with the demonstrator who attacked him.
Frenkel was accused at the police station of “disrespecting the state and the police”. An officer refused to process his assault complaint against the demonstrator and threatened to report him as mentally ill.
Doctors arrived in an ambulance shortly after, attempting to remove the journalist, which he resisted. The doctors then took the bag containing Frenkel’s camera to which he said, “You have to kill me before you take this bag,” when the doctors replied, “No problem”.
As Frenkel screamed and called for help, surrounding officers took videos of him and laughed. The doctors removed him from the room so he was no longer under surveillance cameras when one started strangling him and the other began tying his hands in a tourniquet.
Frenkel said in a Facebook post, “While doing this, doctors, police officers, and the NOD representative were laughing about me being Jewish; they mocked something about Seder and circumcision…”
Frenkel was released a short time later. Kommersant filed a complaint with the Russian Investigative Committee, demanding an investigation.
10/12/2016 — Taulant Balla, MP for the ruling socialist party in Albania, has suggested changes to the country’s electoral code would would force registration for all online media outlets and give permission to the government to ban all unregistered outlets.
The outlets would have to register under a Media Monitoring Board, which is a temporary body created by the Central Electoral Commission to monitor the TV time allocated to candidates during a campaign. If these outlets were to fall under “electoral propaganda” during elections, then they would be forced to close down.
The proposal states that, “State authorities take measures to close during the election campaign unregistered web outlets who distribute electoral propaganda, carry out polls disregarding the electoral code or go beyond limits of information and are deemed electoral propaganda.”
12/12/2016 — A representative of the British Journalists Union, Alexander McDonald, was denied a visa to enter Turkey to cover the court cases of Evensrel reporters.
McDonald received an email saying his visa was denied but was given no reason. Without the visa, McDonald will not be able to cover the cases against journalists Cemil Ugur and Halil Ibrahim Polat. Since McDonald has been denied, the journalists have been released. They were originally detained for “armed terrorist propaganda” and “membership of an armed terrorist organisation”.
12/12/2016 — Several non-state news outlets reported interruptions to their services and have noticed them occurring for the past several weeks. Since 28 November access to the websites for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America was blocked repeatedly.
Meydan.tv and another news outlet based in Berlin experienced the same problems between 28 November and 2 December.
Click on the bubbles to view reports or double-click to zoom in on specific regions. The full site can be accessed at https://mappingmediafreedom.org/
2 Dec 2016 | Mapping Media Freedom
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Each week, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project verifies threats, violations and limitations faced by the media throughout the European Union and neighbouring countries. Here are five recent reports that give us cause for concern.
Hatice Kamer (Photo: BBC)
Hatice Kamer, also known as Khajijan Farqin, is a freelance journalist for BBC Turk and Voice of America. She was detained in Diyarbakir on 26 November while reporting on a landslide that killed at least ten workers in a copper mine.
Kamer was taken into custody in Siirt province at a police checkpoint; reasons for her detention remain unclear. Due to the state of emergency declared in Turkey, even the journalist’s attorney was unable to contact her.
On 27 November Kamer was released after spending a night in jail. She was told she would face charges of supporting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) through her reporting. The journalist states there is no evidence of supporting the outlawed party through her work.
Dutch-American journalist Kevin Roberson, owner of the online news portal Roberson Report, was attacked at an anti-Black Pete demonstration in Utrecht.
Black Pete is a character in Dutch folklore said to be a servant to Saint Nicholas. The character is often portrayed by a white person in blackface and has become subject to controversy in the Netherlands, many claiming the inclusion of the character in Sinterklaas traditions is racist.
At the event, a group of Black Pete defenders emerged, identifying themselves as members of the alt-right movement Nederlandese Volks-Unie (NVU).
One of the members attacked Roberson from behind, hitting him on the head and neck then running away. Roberson posted the video online. The journalist told Mapping Media Freedom that he is fearing for his safety. “My home address is circulating in right-wing social media groups,” Roberson stated, “I don’t feel safe anymore.”
Roberson is pressing charges against the attacker.
On 25 November, Russian TV channel Dozhd reported that two of its correspondents, Sergei Polonsky and Vasiliy Yerzhenkov, were detained by intelligence agencies in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.
Dozhd reported that, “Three employees of the Ministry of State Security were involved in the interrogation. They watched videos and deleted them. They also blocked Polonsky’s phone, broke Yerzhenkov’s phone and destroyed his notebook.”
Polonsky stated that they did not receive physical abuse, only psychological. The reporters were told that the reason for their detention was “false information” in their accreditation, but Polonsky proved that the information was correct.
Yerzhenkov and Polonsky were in the region to interview Alexey Khodakovsky after receiving permission from the Security Service of Ukraine and the ministry of the Donetsk People’s Republic.
The two reporters are now banned from entering the area after giving “biased” and “provocative” reports on Donetsk.
At a rally for the main Macedonian opposition party, the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), a TV journalist and cameraperson for the Macedonian TV channel MTV 1 were insulted by party supporters.
In Tetovo, this was not the first time an incident like this occurred. “We would like to emphasise that this is not the first time our journalists have been insulted during an SDSM rally,” an MTV 1 report stated, “Our journalists are being blocked from fulfilling their professional duties.”
The reporters were harassed, insulted and spat on as they attempted to report from the rally. The SDSM condemned the incident, saying they were against any negative treatment of the media regardless of its beliefs.
A film crew for REN TV in Moscow was assaulted after investigating fraud at a candle company. According to the clients, the company was offering candle-making lessons which clients would pay for, but the company would take the money and leave the clients without lessons.
While speaking to the director of the company, the crew was attacked by him after he blocked one of the cameramen and pushed reporter Dariya Ermakova to the ground. The incident was caught on video by one of the other cameramen.
Ermakova filed a report to the police who are currently investigating. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Click on the bubbles to view reports or double-click to zoom in on specific regions. The full site can be accessed at https://mappingmediafreedom.org/
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