27 Jun 23 | United Kingdom, Wales
“This government has implicitly and explicitly targeted minorities in other areas, like the Windrush scandal,” academic Michael Bankole told Index. “So, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was a deliberate effort to erect barriers for minority voters when it comes to elections.”
Bankole, a Royal Holloway university lecturer specialising in race and British politics, was speaking to Index following the introduction of voter ID for England’s local elections in May 2023. Following this the Electoral Commission, the independent body which oversees elections in the UK, said that at least 3% of people didn’t vote because they lacked the necessary ID, and 14,000 people were turned away from polling stations for the same reason.
With low levels of proven electoral fraud in the UK, including no proven cases of in-person voter impersonation last year, questions have been raised about the introduction. This includes a potential impact on the ability of sections of society, including non-white voters, to cast their democratic vote, which is ultimately one of the most effective ways to have your voice heard.
Historically, non-white people have less access to some official forms of ID which are required for voting. For example, data from the Department of Transport showed that in 2021, 58% of the black population and 64% of the Asian population held a driving licence, compared to 79% of the white population.
Instead of focusing on voter ID at elections though, Bankole believes the focus should have been on why non-white voters have historically voted less overall. He said: “If we care about democracy, we want all members to participate in it, so it’s important to investigate why these groups are less likely to participate and what can be done to address that. That should’ve been the fundamental issue for the government to investigate.”
Following on from Bankole’s comments, the Electoral Commission’s interim report in June 2023 showed that 82% of Black and minority ethnic respondents (BME) were unaware of the need for voter ID in the recent elections compared to 93% of white respondents.
Looking over the pond to the USA, where encroaching voter ID laws have been enacted in individual states since 2006, academic studies have had time to focus on the effects. A study from 2018 argued that minorities in the USA are less likely to have valid forms of ID, with being born outside the USA and lower levels of education, income and home ownership as negatively affecting the chances of having valid ID. These issues generally affect minority voters more than white voters in the USA, where, as of 2023, 36 states require some form of ID to vote.
While academic studies have had time to focus on the effects of voter ID laws across the USA over the years, it’s not the case for the recent English elections. However, Democracy Volunteers, a group campaigning to improve the quality of democratic elections in the UK, deployed observers to 118 of the 230 councils holding elections and found that out of the 1.2% of voters they recorded as turned away for having no valid ID, 53% of these were recorded as “non-white passing” (described as such by the observers). In the 2021 census 18.3% of the residents of England and Wales described their ethnic group as something other than white. One of the observations from Democracy Volunteers’ report was that on a number of occasions people with valid ID from Commonwealth countries, such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, were turned away for having invalid ID. If the information from the report is correct, there is an issue. Index reached out to Democracy Volunteers to discuss the findings but received no response.
There was also controversy regarding what forms of ID were accepted during the elections. The older person’s bus pass, the Freedom Pass and the London 60+ Oyster card were accepted as valid ID (the first two eligible from the age of 66, the latter 60). There was no equivalent valid ID available for younger people. Bankole believes this had a political purpose: “For young people with transport ID, it wasn’t allowed, whereas for older voters, who disproportionally vote for the Conservatives, it was. I think they were erecting barriers for people who don’t vote for them and targeting their base who do.”
To put figures into context, 64% of voters aged 65+ voted for the Conservative Party in the last general election.
Along with the above, just 20% of non-white votes were cast for the Conservative Party at the 2019 UK general election, which it won by a landslide. Index contacted the Electoral Commission to ask if the introduction of the voter ID laws for the English elections was a form of gerrymandering (as a former British government cabinet member suggested). Also, because the majority of BME votes were for either the Labour or Liberal Democrats parties in the last general election, if the ID introductions were a deliberate effort to erect barriers for minority voters.
As well as announcing their interim report mentioned above, the response was as follows: “In September, we will publish our full report on the May 2023 elections. This report will feature further data, including the reasons people were turned away, as well as turnout, postal voting and rejected ballots. It will also provide analysis of other aspects of the elections, including accessibility support that was provided for voters in polling stations…As we’re still collecting data there isn’t more we can say at this stage.”
The next UK general elections will be held by January 2025, with the London Mayoral elections to be held by May 2024. With general elections traditionally attracting a far higher turnout than local government elections, and the electorate in London being the most ethnically diverse in the UK, voter ID issues could affect a greater number of non-white voters in the future. Voter ID information, along with any changes, is something that Index will keep an eye on in the future as we believe any barriers put in place to vote should be as low as possible, to make sure freedom of speech and expression is protected.
19 May 23 | FEATURED: Katie Dancey-Downs, News and features, Thailand, Turkey
One poll remains deadlocked while another has seen the population vote for a change of direction
It’s been a long two decades of dwindling freedoms in Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But his control is teetering on a ledge. The election couldn’t have come at a worse time for Erdogan, with his questionable response to the earthquakes and soaring inflation winning him a fresh batch of critics. Last Sunday Turkey headed to the polls. And the winner was… nobody. With neither former Index Tyrant of the Year Erdogan nor opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu reaching the 50% threshold needed to win the presidency, it’s back to the voting booths again.
In the week before the election, PEN Norway’s Turkey adviser shared a stack of interviews with Index, which made for sombre bedtime reading. Eleven representatives from the country’s major political parties discussed the state of free expression — or lack thereof — which Jemimah Steinfeld wrote about.
In one interview, Zeynep Esmeray Özadikti, who is a candidate for MP from Turkey’s Worker Party, wrote about the silencing of the LGBTQ+ community, hoping that if she as a trans woman is elected, it will be an important step: “In Turkey, the LGBTI+ community cannot use their freedom of expression in any way and are criminalised. Rainbow-themed products are banned, rainbow flags are seized in protests, Pride parades and indoor meetings are banned. Associations and organisations working for LGBTI+ rights are targeted and threatened.”
We could fill a whole magazine with stories about Turkey’s rocky relationship with free expression, starting with the repression of LGBTQ+ rights and Kurdish communities, and moving onto the scores of journalists who have been locked up. In our latest issue, our Turkey contributing editor Kaya Genç took a deep dive into one example of a newsroom going against the propaganda-led mainstream, Medyascope. If you want up-to-the-minute news on what’s going on in Turkey, their website is a good place to start (thank goodness for Google translate for those of us who haven’t yet set our Duolingo to Turkish).
In the run-up to the election, Turkish youth have been scouring YouTube for information that doesn’t come with a side-helping of propaganda, and the Turkish government has pulled out all the stops in silencing journalists reporting on the earthquakes, rather than focusing on… well… disaster relief. They haven’t shied away from blocking social media platforms either.
What happens next is important. If Erdogan wins, what will such a close call do to the state of Turkey’s freedoms? The first-round vote landed at 49.51% for Erdogan and 44.88% for Kılıçdaroğlu, and let’s remember who’s got the media on their side. The second round of voting is set for 28 May, and while Index would absolutely never ever back a specific candidate, we are hoping to see democracy prevail over autocracy.
Further east, and another country is undergoing a seismic change at the hands of an election held last Sunday. Where Turkey is in political limbo, Thailand is out the other side. Or is it? The country has had a military-backed government since the 2014 coup, but Sunday’s vote sent Thailand spinning off in a new direction, with the progressive Move Forward Party’s Pita Limjaroenrat likely to take the driving seat of a coalition. The party is breaking Thailand’s big taboo with plans to reform the monarchy, which is all the more poignant considering the democracy protests that started in 2020, when demonstrators asked for exactly that to happen. Under the current lese-majeste law, criticising the monarchy usually comes with a stint behind bars of up to 15 years. Thais asked for democracy. They asked for progression. They asked for the right to insult the king without spending over a decade in jail. And if all goes smoothly from here, that’s exactly what they’ll get.
But it is a big “if”. Not only will the House of Representatives (members of which were given their places through Sunday’s election) vote on who will be prime minister, so too will members of the Senate, who were selected by the military. And that’s where the story of Thailand’s democracy could come unstuck.
11 May 23 | FEATURED: Jemimah Steinfield, News and features, Turkey
The country’s human rights landscape has disintegrated since Erdogan took over in 2003
Turkish citizens are heading to the polls this Sunday to vote in the most fiercely contested election in years. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who came to power in 2003, is fighting for his political survival amid economic turmoil and wrath over the handling of the February earthquakes. He is being challenged by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, a retired bureaucrat who is backed by a six-party National Alliance.
One month before the elections PEN Norway’s Turkey adviser travelled to Istanbul to interview 11 representatives of the major political parties (including Erdogan’s) and question them on issues surrounding free expression in Turkey.
The interviews, which they shared with Index, are a sobering look at how Turkey’s human rights landscape has disintegrated in that time (with the exception of Bülent Turan, from Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, who goes as far as denying that any journalist is in prison because of their work). The testimonies are tied together by common threads – what attacks have happened and how they have happened (very much over time, not linked to just one single moment or one single piece of legislation). The rule of law comes up time and again. “There is no rule of law in Turkey anymore and the independence of the judiciary has been destroyed,” Dr. Canan Kaftancıoğlu, the Istanbul regional chair of the Republican People’s Party, says bluntly.
They are, unsurprisingly, most damning of Erdogan himself. The lawyer Bahadır Erdem, vice chair of the Iyi Party, one of the most important components of the National Alliance, says Turkey is being ruled by “a one-man regime” and this “system has pushed our country into dire straits”.
But the interviews also strike a note of optimism, a sense that all is not lost. Strong grassroots organisations still exist, as lawyer Züleyha Gülüm, MP for the People’s Democratic Party, points out. And these grassroots organisations, combined with an alliance that has come together around a commitment to improve rights, mean that Turkey’s fate could all change this weekend. Bülent Kaya, legal affairs chairman of the Saadet Party, said that if the National Alliance is successful “everyone will breathe a sigh of relief”. Erdem said: “Once we amend the constitution, an independent judiciary will follow. The press will be independent. We will fully implement the freedom of opinion of individuals. People will be completely free both in social media and as an author in the works they create and write, as an artist in the films they shoot, in the works of art they act in, in the works of art they create. This is the sine qua non of democracy. It’s as natural as breathing.”
Below we share one of the interviews in full, a powerful testimony from Zeynep Esmeray Özadikti, a trans woman who is candidate for MP from Turkey’s Worker Party. She outlines the immense struggles faced by those who are LGBTQI and by women.
31 Mar 23 | News and features, Nigeria
On 25 February, Punch Newspaper journalist Gbenga Oloniniran stood near the Governor of Rivers State’s residence in Southern Nigeria, covering the recent presidential election. As policemen gathered and arrested young people at a polling station, Oloniniran brought out his camera, taking snapshots of the incident. Instantly, the policemen left the youths, pounced on Oloniniran, snatched his camera, and bundled him away in a van. They denied him the right to cover the elections.
This was not an isolated incident. At least 14 journalists and media workers covering the presidential election were detained, intimidated or attacked by security forces, political groups or citizens. During the state elections held on 18 and 19 March, at least 28 more journalists suffered the same treatment, with many more cases likely going unreported.
“They threatened me, and that was under the rain, and I was shivering,” Bolanle Olabimtan, a journalist at The Cable, told Index after she was attacked in Delta State. She was punched, and had the photos deleted from her phone.
Haruna Mohammed Salisu, CEO of WikkiTimes, was arrested while covering a protest during the presidential elections. He was detained and charged with inciting disturbance of public peace. He claims he had his phone taken, was interrogated by security personnel and was then assaulted by violent supporters of the governor.
“My experience in detention serves as a stark reminder of how vulnerable journalists are in Nigeria,” he wrote in WikkiTimes.
On March 18 unidentified men attacked an Arise TV crew consisting of reporter Oba Adeoye, cameraman Opeyemi Adenihun and driver Yusuf Hassan. Adenihun suffered facial injuries and their drone was seized. Meanwhile in Ogun State, Adejoke Adeleye, a News Agency of Nigeria reporter, was attacked by a mob when filming at a voting station. Five people, including one masked person wielding an axe, chased the group of journalists that included Adeleye, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. In Lagos, 10 people hit reporter Amarachi Amushie and camera operator Aliu Adeshina from the privately-owned broadcaster Africa Independent Television, as they reported at a polling station. Security agencies issued threats. They harassed Adesola Ikulajolu, a freelance investigative reporter, deleting the image folder in his phone.
Nigeria is ranked at 129 out of 180 nations in the 2022 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders, with this latest assault on press freedom demonstrating part of the reason for the ranking.
After the attacks, Dupe Fehintola, Chairman of a branch of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, made a statement saying: “We condemn these attacks on journalists.”
During the elections, members of the Nigerian media investigated potential links between political parties and violent attackers, who threatened voters unless they proved they were casting their ballots in favour of the ruling All Progressives Party.
Adebola Ajayi, a journalist at People’s Gazette, experienced that violence first hand, saying: “I was attacked by political thugs at a polling unit in Orile-Oshodi ward in Lagos.”
This violence may have contributed to the fact that 71% of voters abstained from the elections. The election winner, APC’s Ahmed Tinubu, received only 8.8 million votes, while challengers Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party gathered 6.9 million and Peter Obi of the Labour Party received 6.1 million, in a country of 93 million registered voters and a population of over 200 million.
Evidence gathered by the media – including assaults on electoral officials and an incident where attackers destroyed ballot boxes with axes – showed that violence marked the elections. The pressure on journalists as they faced this violence themselves prevented them from covering the elections fairly.
Nearly two weeks after the end of the state and presidential elections, the media remains shaken.
“We strongly condemn these unacceptable attacks, which constitutes both the violation of fundamental human rights of the affected journalists and media worker and a major assault on press freedom,” Melody Akinjiyan, the spokesman of the International Press Center, Lagos, told Index.
