16 Oct 2013 | Belarus, European Union, News and features
An old Belarusian joke suggests a simple way of improving one’s life. If you feel unhappy, just allow a goat in your house, live with it for some time, and then take the goat away. In principle, nothing changes – but you feel real relief and happiness! This is exactly the way the foreign policy of Belarus operates.
Close the Swedish embassy in Minsk, and then allow its re-opening. Arrest Vladislav Baumgertner, the CEO of the Russian potash giant Uralkaliy, and then set him free. In principle nothing changed, but each story ended with something like “an improvement in the situation” – or at least with an impression of such.
Last year EU-Belarus relations, already on the rocks, were further damaged by the infamous teddy-bear parachuting and subsequent diplomatic scandal with Sweden. In comparison with that period of “cold war” 2013 looks relatively moderate. For instance, the Belarusian foreign minister Uladzimir Makey was temporarily dropped from the EU travel ban list. Nonetheless, the overall temperature of relations is frosty.
Political prisoners remain jail in Belarus. The fact two of them were released recently had nothing to do with the authorities’ good will; it happened just because their prison terms expired. The decision to suspend the travel ban for Makey was also purely technical. The position of Foreign Minister from the very beginning wasn’t on the EU travel ban list in order to leave a channel for direct communication with Belarusian authorities. Makey, personally, is still on the black list and will not be allowed to enter the EU if he leaves his minister position.
NGOs and opposition excluded from talks?
Since the beginning of 2013 the number of contacts between the EU and the Belarusian Foreign Ministry has increased. EU diplomats call this process “consultations with the Belarusian government”. But it’s hard to say exactly what the content of these consultations is. It is known that the Belarusian side propose to re-organise the European Dialogue on Modernisation. This EU initiative would establish intergovernmental relations between the European Commission and the Belarusian authorities, including an annual meeting of presidents Lukashenka and Barroso. But they have also suggested excluding representatives of civil society and political opposition from the Dialogue.
According to Belarusian authorities’ rhetoric, any relations with the EU within the framework of the Dialogue on Modernisation or the Eastern Partnership should be built “on equal basis and should focus on mutually beneficial projects.” In translation from diplomatic to real language this is nothing but a request to lift all the conditions related to democracy, rule of law and human rights, and simply invest in Belarus’ economic and infrastructure development.
It comes as no surprise that the EU is not ready to fully support these proposals right now. That they’re ready to talk about it, however, does. The next phase of the European Dialogue on Modernisation is going to be limited to experts with a focus on the themes that only the Belarusian government is interested in. In fact, civil society has not been granted the status of full participants in the Dialogue – despite numerous statements and appeals about the vital necessity of this.
Opposition fractured, weakened and ineffectual
In 2014, the European Commission and the European External Action Service (EEAS) will change their staff, so they should be interested in showing some progress with regards to Belarus. In the absence of real progress, renewal of official contacts with the Belarusian authorities could be presented as an achievement.
It is not worth blaming the EU for such behaviour, though, all the while Belarusians themselves have not done much to change the situation. Neither autocrats or democrats have undertaken significant steps to resolve the current deadlock. The latter manage to disunite – without ever forming a real unity in the first place. Political opposition was formally divided into two parts; the “People’s Referendum” campaign and the “For free and fair elections” coalition. Real differences between the two are hard to explain. Both of them pray to the old God of “communication with ordinary people”. This is a noble task in any sense, but actions proposed are not significantly different from previous unsuccessful attempts to respond to the people’s needs. The oppositions’ slogans are not easy to understand even for their closest civil society allies. Sometimes it feels like these activities are implemented just for the sake of keeping political activists busy, gaining some media attention and getting some resources from donors in the process.
The main aim for the opposition forces is to remain on the political scene until the next presidential elections. Independent civil society organisations are also divided in different camps and have lost their positive dynamics of previous years; still they have much more potential than the weakened political opposition. As a result of disunity among democrats they cannot respond properly to the EU proposals or the challenges of the internal political situation. The EU is listening to the contradictory voices of various Belarusian activists without the possibility to coordinate with them on the main course of action.
Challenges in encouraging change
Thus, the EU policy faces a clear choice: either to wait for internal changes in Belarus or try to actively facilitate them. The recommendations of the European Parliament on the EU policy towards Belarus (the so-called Paleckis’ report), adopted on 12 September 2013, make step in the latter direction. The central idea of strengthening pro-European attitudes among different groups of actors from the civil society to open-minded civil servants via closer engagement in cooperation with the EU looks good. Civil society is seen as one of the key actors in political dialogue with the EU. It is also mentioned that “the National Platform of the Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership is an important and reliable partner and a unique communication channel to the Belarusian people for the EU”. Actions aiming at communicating European policies to the Belarusian citizens, expanding education programs, development of scientific cooperation are also recommended.
The European Parliament doesn’t propose significant changes in the current EU policy, but the EU needs to go much deeper into the Belarusian political situation to insure even these slight changes. The new way lies between facilitation of public dialogue between the Belarusian authorities and civil society on the one hand, and playing the engagement game with nomenklatura on the other hand.
This is not an easy task, it needs a lot of reflectivity, good understanding of the field, strong diplomacy and coordination between various actors’ – civil society organizations, political opposition forces, donor structures, EU member states, and international organizations like Council of Europe, OSCE, UN.
While playing this complicated game in some cases the EU will have to back one internal actor and its strategies against others. And this is what the EU is not ready to do. The overall approach demands to support all the actors who proclaim pro-democratic and pro-EU values. As a result the EU policy creates a plurality and centrifugal trends within the civil society and political opposition that is the main obstacle for consolidation among democrats. Attempts of strategic unification immediately run into charges of “monopolization” and “privatization” of civil society voice. The EU needs a strong internal counterpart in Belarus, which never appears without civil society consolidation, but it is not ready to let this consolidation happen. This vicious circle must be broken to proceed with the Belarus situation.
Of course, there is another way: impose travel ban on Minister Makey, then lift it – and, according to the famous “goat principle”, feel relief…
This article was originally published on 16 Oct 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
28 Aug 2013 | China, News and features
(Photo illustration: Shutterstock)
Bo Xilai, the ousted former Chinese politician, continues to capture headlines even as Chinese authorities begin a highly concerted campaign to stifle online expression, Vincent Chao reports.
The trial of Bo Xilai, the once promising leader of China’s most populous city, ended on Monday with revelations about murder, corruption and torrid details of a love-triangle – offering the public a rare glimpse into the lives of China’s richest and most powerful politicians.
But outside the spotlight, authorities have directed an increasingly hostile campaign to limit free expression, especially online. Over the past few weeks, a growing number of journalists, bloggers and activists have been arrested or detained on vague and obscure charges. And last week, an official forum warned of new limits to what internet users should and should not say on social media.
Crackdowns on free press are not uncommon in China. Setting the latest actions apart is the concerted action to stifle online ‘opinion leaders’, whose posts are widely shared and distributed on Weibo – the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. The actions follow increasingly sophisticated censorship strategies ensured to block access to information on either government corruption or calls for collective action.
Liu Hu, a reporter for the Guangzhou-based New Express, is the latest individual to be detained, after he openly accused a senior government official of negligence in an online posting. In the widely shared report published last month, he quoted various sources to call for an investigation as to whether Ma Zhengchi, a former Chongqing vice mayor, deliberately undersold a publicly-run enterprise costing the state up to £2.6 million.
Interrogated in his home on Friday before his detention, Beijing police have since accused him of ‘fabricating false rumors’ which his lawyer denies.
Meanwhile, Charles Xue, a billionaire investor known for his 12 million Weibo followers, was also detained by police on Friday on charges of soliciting a prostitute. Commonly known by his alias, Xue Manzi, the naturalized US citizen routinely posted popular reform-minded content as well as commenting on other issues such as air quality and food safety, which was then widely shared.
His detention has triggered questions of whether the charges are politically motivated, given that Chinese authorities have used similar tactics to discredit commentators that fail to toe the official line in the past. In a post that was later erased, Hu Xijin, the editor of the state-run Global Times said: ‘Cannot rule out the possibility that authorities are arresting Xue Manzi with a prostitute to give him a hard time.’
The latest attempts to silence online expression appear to stem from China’s secretive Document No. 9, a copy of which the New York Times acquired earlier this month. Issued by the central party office, and believed to reflect the views of newly instated President Xi Jinping, the memo directed local party groups to suppress ideas of ‘western-inspired’ notions of media independence and civic participation, ostensibly in attempt to solidify the party’s grip on power.
It claimed that dissidents ‘have stirred up trouble about disclosing officials’ assets, using the Internet to fight corruption, media controls and other sensitive topics, to provoke discontent with the party and government.’
Since the release of the document in April, authorities have stepped up online controls by using a combination of hard and soft pressure against popular bloggers – the tiny minority of Weibo users believed to be responsible for the creation of more than 80 percent of original content. Invited to last week’s forum, several popular bloggers were reminded that posts must ‘uphold the socialist system’ and ‘guard the national interest.’
Such ideas have naturally attracted detractors, especially amongst China’s new and growing class of intellectuals eager to push the boundaries of government regulation. But those calls are becoming fewer and further between, especially in recent weeks.
Charges were laid earlier this month against Zhou Lubao, an activist famously known for exposing the lavish lifestyle enjoyed by a mayor of a provincial city, which included a £21,000 watch. Having went on to analyze the watches of other prominent officials, Zhou’s Weibo account has since been deactivated amid police accusations that he ‘extorted money’ from the subjects of his disclosures.
In addition, two other prominent bloggers have also since been detained for ‘spreading false rumors’ online.
The hardline approach against online expression comes amid some disappointment by earlier supporters of Xi, who was initially believed to be a supporter of gradual social and political reform. But it could also represent efforts to manage commentary as Xi consolidates power following Beijing’s once-a-decade leadership change and the Bo Xilai affair, its biggest political scandal in decades.
What’s more clear is that authorities are gaining a clearer definition of what the internet, now accessed by almost 600 million Chinese users, should – and should not – be used for. Both the high-profile detentions of Hu and Xue, announced by police on Weibo, appear to be designed to send a message that whistleblowing and political discussion have no place online, despite state-run media being initially supportive of such efforts.
A state-run People’s Daily editorial, for example, on Monday remarked that it wanted the internet to become a more ‘orderly’ place, where users were held ‘responsible for their remarks.’ The Global Times added that ‘the internet needs moral regulations’ with authorities handling prior cases ‘too softly, which has allowed rumor mongering to spiral out of control.’
These details come despite their own efforts by Chinese authorities to expand their use of social media as a medium of communication, as seen during the Bo Xilai trial.
For a major corruption case, the media frenzy was near unprecedented. Even official media, typically silent on major corruption cases, have lauded the ‘open and transparent’ trial, reported hour by hour on an official Weibo account, which it claims symbolizes more public scrutiny and an important guarantee of a fair trial.
This article was originally published on 28 Aug, 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
21 Aug 2013 | Digital Freedom, News and features, Vietnam
(Photo: Shutterstock)
It has been around a year since Vietnam did something to maintain the title – Enemy of the Internet – that it shares with eight others that include Uzbekistan, Iran and China. Whilst the communist nation has locked up more bloggers so far this year than throughout all of 2012 it is now revisiting last year’s widely derided, and unrealistic, internet draft decree.
The reworked Decree 72, due to come into force September 1, has caused friction as it essentially prohibits people from posting links to news stories, or sections of news articles, on social media sites such as Facebook or the equally popular, locally produced Zing Me.
Pro-democracy websites or those covering religion, politics or human rights have long been blocked. In 2010, Facebook was blocked. A leaked draft regulation requiring ISPs to block the social networking site circulated at the time. The draft was purported to have come from the government, but its veracity was not confirmed. However, access to Facebook quickly became difficult.
A lack of clear mandate from the government and a low-level block meant that people simply fiddled with the DNS settings and claimed the block was down to technical error, not political will. No one took it seriously and the social media site advertised for local staff even when the block was fully in place.
Professor Carl Thayer at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra says that 2009 saw organisation of disparate groups – Catholics, anti-China factions, environmentalists and democracy activists – using Facebook as a rallying area for their shared opposition to Chinese-run bauxite mines in the Central Highlands, an ecologically and politically sensitive area.
However 72 also has something in common with an earlier blog regulation requiring citizens to stick to the personal, and not political themes. As the internet took off in the early- and mid-2000s Yahoo! chat and its blog platform Yahoo! 360 became hugely popular. By 2008 bloggers numbered in the millions. Most writers followed the government’s instructions, though there were scandals that invloved sex bloggers. The Yahoo! blogs also became useful as an alternate news and information source given the state control of media and blocks on sites related to politics, human rights or religion.
At the end of 2008 new blogging regulations limited writings to personal topics. As with Decree 72 posting links to aleady-banned sites was prohibited. The regulation was aimed only at blogs hosted within Vietnam.
“We have issued the circular aiming to create a legal framework to guide bloggers on what can they do and what they can’t do,” said Do Quy Doan, Deputy Minister of Information and Communication, told dpa at the time. The government in fact approached Yahoo! and Google for assistance.
Despite the furore at the time, not much ever came of the regulation, especially since it was designed more as a “guiding document” according to Doan and thus had limited legal use.
In 2010 part of another regulation was aimed at internet service providers and internet cafes. One point required all public computers — those in net cafes popular with teen gamers or hotel foyers — to install Green Dam, a software programme that monitors internet usage.
Unfriendly though it might have been to the idea of internet freedom, it was an ineffective piecemeal approach that quickly fell by the wayside. Those who own internet cafes, which can be found even in one horse towns and are used mostly by boy gamers, have long required background and family checks in order to open.
However Decree 72 goes further, requiring social media users to abstain from posting any news links, even to articles published by state media.
The government has made the point that this new decree is not about restricting freedom of speech but rather aimed at protecting intellectual property. Whilst news sites and blogs repost many news articles without attribution and plagiarism can be a problem in Vietnam it is not Facebook users who are the prime suspects or problem. Website Bao Moi is one of the big aggregators of news in Vietnam and it is not a social media platform.
Those flouting the new law could be more liable for fines than criminal prosecution. Bloggers are more often charged under Article 88 of the penal code, which relates to “conducting propaganda against the state” and can carry a three to 12 year sentence. Prosecuting those who share links or repost from news sites would strain the court and prison systems and fines are easier to issue, argue some.
Vietnam, which often seems to follow China’s security policy, is second only to the nation in the number of dissidents it has detained — 40 in 2013 to date, according to Human Rights Watch.
Vietnam’s government may be an Reporters Without Borders ‘Enemy of the Internet’ but the populace has embraced it, with over a third of the 90-plus million population online. Without government supporting the infrastructure for such growth it could never have happened. Engagement in the ‘knowledge era’ has always been seen as key and broadband was installed up and down the narrow country years ago.
With greater engagement in the world have come issues the government hasn’t been fully equipped to deal with and the internet is the now the main forum for criticism. Whilst the number of genuinely committed political bloggers may be small, the potential not just for critics to organise online but for citizens to share politically compromising material — such as footage of 3000 security police beating and trying to evict farmers from their village to make way for a multi-million dollar development — is huge.
Decree 72 will be largely unenforceable, outside of making the odd example, but it is more realistic than a draft decree on the internet tabled last year that would have required large companies like Google, Yahoo and Facebook to actually host servers within the country and possibly hand user information over to authorities, if asked. ISPs also would have been responsible for content posted on their sites and users would have been required to sign up for accounts with their real names.
The tabled regulation was seen by the foreign business community as a block to further economic growth and global integration. Even decree 72, which is a watered down iteration is expected to “stifle innovation”, according to the Asia Internet Coalition. What may stifle innovation more however is a full and official block of Google and Facebook. According to persistent rumours this will pave the way for local sites or the Russian-owned Coc Coc, which have servers within Vietnam and are more likely to be amenable to government strictures.
As David Brown, who writes regularly on Vietnam’s affairs, pointed out recently in the Asian Sentinel, Vietnam has plenty of ways to deter or stop the more determined political bloggers, such as imprisoning them for tax evasion as in the case of Dieu Cay. However there is the possibility that this may curtail the spread of information by ordinary citizen bloggers with no strong political commitment.
Professor Carl Thayer at the Australian Defense Force Academy in Canberra has said,
“The Decree will have a chilling effect on ordinary bloggers. It is unlikely to prevent more determined internet activists from continuing to post blogs.”
Most recently the government has been discussing policy regarding free chat apps like Viber or Whatsapp. Cell phones have long had huge market penetration and smart phones have been hugely popular in recent years also. Though the word ‘ban’ has been used in state media reports it is apparently linked to revenue losses for local teclos. There is little further information though how, why and when have not been made clear.
This article was originally published on 21 Aug 2013 at indexoncensorship.org.
14 Aug 2013 | Belarus, Digital Freedom
Andrei Karelin
A theatre playwright and a former worker from the Minsk Automobile Plant were found guilty of using offensive language online in Belarus.
Andrei Karelin, a playwright, was sentenced to an administrative fine of 10 million Belarusian roubles (about £725) for two comments he had made on a forum of a popular Belarusian internet portal TUT.by. The comments reflected his negative attitude toward Belarusian police.
According to Karelin, he had to call the police when he was attacked and beaten in Minsk on 18 May this year, but said he did not receive proper assistance, and was offended by officers instead. Among other words he chose to describe the officers on the forum were “bastards” and “boors”. He also said they were “fat and imposing” and concluded that “all normal citizens hate” the police.
A district court in Minsk had two hearings on the case (on 11 July and 26 July) and sentenced Karelin to fines for “insulting an officer on duty”, despite the fact the allegedly insulted officers admitted at court they had not seen his online comments themselves.
The playwright denies his guilt saying he did not insult anyone, but merely expressed his indignation at lack of professionalism of Belarusian police officers. He started a website to crowd-fund the fines he calls “enormous” as they are equal to 3 months of his salary.
Another Belarusian, Ruslan Mirzoev, got 7 days of administrative arrest for videos he posted. He became popular last year after he started posting online videos about daily life of workers of Minsk Automobile Plant (MAZ), one of the biggest enterprises in Belarus. Mirzoev was finally fired from the plant in July 2013, but he continued production of his videos.
Ruslan started his own video project, Chronicles of a District («Хроники района»), on YouTube, and made two videos about drug addicts, a prostitute and alcoholics, who live in Kurasoushchyna, the district of Minsk where he lives. On 9 August he was detained and sentenced to seven days of administrative arrest for using obscene words in those videos.
This article was originally published on 14 Aug 2013 at indexoncensorship.org. Index on Censorship: The voice of free expression.
