16 Sep 22 | Belarus, Brazil, China, Iran, North Korea, Opinion, Russia, Ruth's blog, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, United Kingdom
The United Kingdom is in a period of national mourning, marking the passing of our head of state, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Global media has been transfixed, reporting on the minutiae of every aspect of the ascension of the new monarch and the commemoration of our former head of state. While the pageantry has been consuming, the constitutional process addictive (yes I am an addict) and the public grief tangible – the traditions and formalities have also highlighted challenges in British and global society – especially with regards to freedom of expression.
We have witnessed people being arrested for protesting against the monarchy. While the protests could be considered distasteful – I certainly think they are – that doesn’t mean that they are illegal and that the police should move against them. Public protest is a legitimate campaigning tool and is protected in British law. As ever, no one has the right not to be offended. And protest is, by its very nature, disruptive, challenging and typically at odds with the status quo. It is therefore all the more important that the right to peacefully protest is protected.
While I was appalled to see the arrests, I have been heartened in recent days at the almost universal condemnation of the actions of the police and the statements of support for freedom of expression and protest in the UK, from across the political system.
What this chapter has confirmed is that democracies, great and small, need to be constantly vigilant against threats to our core human rights which can so easily be undermined. This week our right to freedom of expression and the right to protest was threatened and the immediate response was a universal defence. Something we should cherish and celebrate because it won’t be long before we need to utilise our collective rights to free speech – again.
Which brings me onto the need to protest and what that can look like, even on the bleakest of days. On Monday, the largest state funeral of my lifetime is being held in London. Over 2,000 dignitaries are expected to attend the funeral of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, in Westminster Abbey. The heads of state of Russia, Belarus, Afghanistan, Syria, Venezuela and Myanmar were not invited given current diplomatic “tensions”. While I completely welcome their exclusion from the global club of acceptability, it does highlight who was deemed acceptable to invite.
Representatives from China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, North Korea and Sri Lanka will all be in attendance, all of whom have shown a complete disregard for some of the core human rights that so many of us hold dear. Can you imagine the conversation between Bolsonaro and Erdogan? Or the ambassador to Iran and the vice president of China?
While I truly believe that no one should picket a funeral – the very idea is abhorrent to me – that doesn’t mean that there are no other ways of protesting against the actions of repressive regimes and their leadership, who will be in the UK in the coming days. In fact the British Parliament has shown us the way – by banning representatives of the Chinese Communist Party from attending the lying in state of Her Majesty – as a protest at the sanctions currently imposed on British parliamentarians for their exposure of the acts of genocide happening against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang province. This was absolutely the right thing to do and I applaud the Speaker of the House of Commons, Rt Hon Lindsay Hoyle MP, for taking such a stance.
Effective protest needs to be imaginative, relevant and take people with you – highlighting the core values that we share and why others are a threat to them. It can be private or public. It can tell a story or mark a moment. But ultimately successful protests can lead to real change. Even if it takes decades. Which is why we will defend, cherish and promote the right to protest and the right to freedom of expression in every corner of the planet, as a real vehicle for delivering progressive change.
20 Jan 12 | Uncategorized
As the March 2012 Iranian parliamentary elections edge closer, authorities have begun to crack down on press freedom. In a new wave of arrests over recent weeks, at least three prominent journalists have been detained.
Blogger and women’s rights activist Parastou Dokouhaki was arrested in Tehran on Sunday, after security agents raided her home, confiscated her computer and personal effects, and detained her. It is believed that the journalist, who used to work for a reformist feminist magazine which was shut down in 2008, has been charged with “propaganda against the state.”
Dokouhaki, a media studies graduate from London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, is well known in Iran for her blog Zan-Nehvesht, and has, in the past, been an active campaigner.
Dokouhaki has recently been working as a researcher, having taken a step back from politics to deal with the death of her father.
Her former teacher, Annabelle Sreberny, Professor of Global Media and Communications at SOAS explained that Dokouhaki had been focusing on her future studies, and considering undertaking a PhD. Sreberny said:
“She was not politically active. But of course one of the problems with the Islamic republic is that almost anything can be deemed political on a whim.”
Sreberny added that, though Dokouhaki is charged with “propaganda against the state,” it is unclear why she was targeted, suggesting that “political game playing” had led to a degree of randomness with regards to political arrests.
Sreberny was unsure if these recent arrests were related to a new crackdown in the run up to the elections: “You could say that the campaign of fear has been active since the 2009 election, and this is just part of that long and hard period. There’s been a campaign of fear and an atmosphere of fear since Ahmadinejad was elected, and since the 2009 elections, so this is a long and difficult period for Iranians. I think this is just the continuation of that, but whether it’s becoming more extreme or not is a judgement call.”
Speaking of imprisoned journalists, bloggers, film-makers and photographers Sreberny added: “Iran is a regime which will clamp down on all forms of legitimate free speech if it feels nervous and anxious about its status and of course at the moment it does. They are tools caught up in a much bigger political conflict between different parts of the regime and I think there’s a great deal of randomness here. Almost any blogger, journalist or woman who’s ever held a pamphlet could be accused of this terribly open, vague, and almost impossible to prove charge.”
Freelance journalist and blogger Marzieh Rasouli, who writes mainly on music and literature for art and cultural publications, was arrested on Tuesday, but reasons for her arrest remain unclear.
Mehrad Vaezinejad, a Middle East affairs analyst, and close friend of Rasouli, explained that she had little interest in politics, and had recently had her passport returned, after it was confiscated for no apparent reason, last year. Vaezinejad believes the arrest may be a preventative measure:
“This is part of a broader campaign, getting closer to the parliamentary elections in March. Both Mazier and Parastou have popular blogs, and they have many, many friends and networks that the authorities are afraid of. It could be these arrests are mostly a pre-emptive action, not that these people have done anything, but maybe to make them afraid, to make sure that they wouldn’t do anything at all in the coming months.”
Vaezinejad believes the authorities sense a political crisis is in the making: “That’s why I think they are acting pre-emptively, and creating a campaign of fear, if you can call it so, so that people who might, even if they are not active now, have the potential to become involved later on, they want to neutralise them.”
Vaezinejad suggested that both Rasouli and Dokouhaki may have been arrested because they had friends outside Iran who worked for media organisations such as Radio Free Europe and the BBC, “the kind of media that the republic considers to be enemies, or mouthpieces for enemies.”
On Wednesday, photo-journalist Sahamedin Bourghani was also arrested, and added to the list of a dozen journalists who have been sent to prison in Iran in recent weeks.
Last week Reporters Without Borders raised concerns over the situation of Iranian journalists in a letter to UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay. The letter called for her immediate intervention on behalf of Iran’s persecuted media activists.
In December, Iranian military, police and security forces announced their “readiness” to deal with unrest on election day.
Thanks to Women Living Under Muslim Laws for their assistance with this piece
