31 Jul 2012 | News and features, United Kingdom
Chilling free speech in the name of brands, rights and commercialisation is not what promoting the Olympic spirit is about, says Kirsty Hughes
This piece was originally published on Huffington Post UK
Friday’s opening of the Olympic Games, with the extraordinary spectacle created by Danny Boyle, ranging from the industrial revolution to the digital age, from children’s literature to the National Health Service, has received plaudits and praise along with some bemusement and criticism. It may be just as well though that it didn’t celebrate another British icon, the BBC.
The impact of the commercialisation of the Games, with lucrative sponsorship and rights deals, means another British virtue — freedom of speech — is rather less free than normal for the duration of London 2012. A particularly disturbing example of this is the BBC — which has said that due to rights restrictions various radio programmes, ranging from the prestigious Radio 4 Today news programme to the lighter Radio 2 Chris Evans’ Breakfast Show and Radio 5 Live, whether live or on iPlayer, may not be available to audiences abroad for the duration of the Games.
While the BBC World Service has a proud history of broadcasting into authoritarian regimes, faced with its lucrative rights deal for UK broadcasting of the Games, the BBC is blocking its own output from being available internationally. It has a helpfully succinct explanation of this on its own news site where it says: “The BBC’s agreement with the International Olympic Committee means we are not allowed to broadcast anything online outside the UK from the Olympic Park or Olympic venues. As a result this programme may need to be blanked for International listeners due to rights issues surrounding Olympic content in programmes.”
Perhaps conscious of quite how ludicrous this is, and damaging to the BBC’s own image and values, by Sunday the BBC had apparently carried out some damage-limitation negotiations with the International Olympic Committee so at least the Today programme could be restored to international listeners — though the announcement of this appears to be confined to a small blog update which states:
After discussion, the IOC and the BBC have agreed that there is no need to block our international streams of Radio 4 programmes with a wide news agenda. Radio 5 Live (apart from the news programme Up All Night) and 5 Live Olympics Extra will remain available only in the UK.
We knew that the Olympic commercial brands deals had put money ahead of free speech — Locog published months ago two lists of words that must not be combined at risk of legal action for breaching the brand/copyright rules. These include not combining the words “games”, “2012” or “twenty twelve” with, for example, “gold”, “silver” “medals”, “sponsor” or “summer”. But more examples keep coming in of the censorship effects, and the chilling of the right to peaceful protest.
Unauthorised YouTube videos of the Games are reportedly being taken down with alacrity. Meanwhile, a group of cyclists has been banned from cycling in Newham for the duration of the Games.
The Olympic charter celebrates a number of human rights, declaring that: “The practice of sport is a human right… Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.” The charter makes no commitment to that other key and universal human right — freedom of expression. But chilling and censoring free speech in the name of brands, rights and general commercialisation is surely not quite what promoting the Olympic spirit is all about.
Kirsty Hughes is Chief Executive of Index on Censorship
MORE ON LOCOG’S OLYMPIC CENSORSHIP AT INDEX’S FREE SPEECH BLOG
PLUS NATALIE HAYNES GETS TO GRIPS WITH THE RULES POLICING THE BRAND OF THE LONDON GAMES HERE
AND READ MORE ON SPORT AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN INDEX ON CENSORSHIP MAGAZINE’S SPORTS ISSUE
24 Jul 2012 | Middle East and North Africa, Tunisia
In an unexpected move on 4 July, the National Authority for Information and Communication Reform (INRIC) put an end to its activities. INRIC was created after the fall of the 23-year rule of Zeine el-Abidin Ben Ali last year to help reform the Tunisian media landscape by proposing a set of recommendations and legislation which would guarantee the Tunisian citizen’s right to a “free, pluralistic, and fair media”.
In a communiqué, INRIC said:
In the absence of practical steps reflecting a real political will which would build a free and independent media committed to international standards, the authority announces its rejection to continue serving as décor at a time when the media sector keeps moving backwards. Thus it [the authority] does not see the point of carrying on its missions.
The media freedom body has had some sharp disagreements with PM Hamdai Jebali’s interim government. On 2 November 2011 the former interim government of PM Beji Caid el Sebsi approved decree-laws drafted by INRIC which guarantee press, print and publishing freedom and the creation of an independent authority for audio-visual communications. These two laws have not yet been implemented.
On two occasions, the current government appointed heads of public media institutions without consulting any media bodies or syndicates. For INRIC, this was a blow to public media independence.
Index on Censorship spoke to Hichem Snoussi, a member of the dissolved INRIC, and representative of the freedom of expression organisation Article 19.
Index: Can you briefly summarise the most significant work results of INRIC?
Hichem Snoussi: Decree-law 41 on the right to access administrative documents, decree law 115 on press, printing and publishing freedoms, and decree-law 116 which stipulates that an independent authority for audio –visual broadcasting needs to be created, are among our major work results [unlike decree-laws 115 and 116, law 41 was implemented]. We also granted broadcasting licenses to 12 private radios and five private TV stations. In April, INRIC submitted a general report on the reality of the media landscape in Tunisia, and the need for keeping the reform process going.
INRIC does not want the executive branch to interfere with the media sector in general, and public media in particular, since the latter’s new mission should be scrutinising and questioning the government’s performance. This was a key point of disagreement between the government and INRIC.
Index: Last April, Rached Ghannouchi, leader of Ennahdha Movement, which heads the three-party coalition government, suggested the privatisation of public media institutions. There are those who have speculated that by privatising the public media sector, Ennahdha would seek to impose a certain editorial line which would serve its political interests. What was INRIC’s reaction to such a suggestion?
HS: We rejected the suggestion, because such proposal would only seek to put pressure on public TV journalists, and push them back to square one, the square of propaganda, and marketing for a certain point of view. When it was made clear that this silly proposal is not open to discussion, the government resorted to the appointment method. The government has succeeded in appointing heads of all public media institutions, in light of the non-implementation of the decree-law 116 stipulating that the appointment process is participatory and takes place according to measures set by skilled and competent figures [from the media sector].
Index: What role for the current government in the non-implementation of decree-laws 115 and 116?
The government abused its powers, and broke the law in an authoritarian manner by not implementing these decree-laws which gained the satisfaction of different international freedom of expression organisations like Article 19, the BBC and the Open Society. The government did not only stand in the way of implementing these decree-laws, but it went further by breaking law 115 by creating a committee for granting professional press cards. This committee is illegal because the government appointed Mr. Kazdaghli, who is in charge of media in the Prime Ministry’s office, as its president instead of a judge. [Chapter 8 of law 115 stipulates that an independent committee presided by a judge from the administrative court should take in charge granting journalists professional press cards.]
Index: During a press conference [on 6 July] Lotfi Zitoun, an advisor to the PM, said that the decision on whether or not to implement decree laws 115 and 116 lies in the hands of the National Constituent Assembly (NCA) [elected on 23 October 2011]. Is this a legitimate reason for not implementing the two laws?
HS: There is no doubt that the NCA as an elected institution reflecting the people’s democratic will has the right to examine decrees and valid laws. However, the NCA is supposed to amend and support democratic processes, within the framework of these legal texts. Deploying the majority pretext by the NCA as a way to thwart the establishment of a democratic path is a betrayal to the people’s will and the martyrs’ blood.
Index: The Islamist party Ennahdha (which controls more than 40 per cent of the parliamentary seats) has, in several occasions, called for the draft of a constitutional clause which would outlaw assaults on “the sacred”. In case the NCA passes such clause, to what extent would freedom of expression be threatened in Tunisia?
HS: In France, and Germany there is the Holocaust law which prohibits the denial of the Holocaust. If we are going to pass a law that condemns assaulting the “sacred”, we also need a law that criminalizes atheism accusations too. The “sacred” has to be defined in a very specific and detailed way. This definition cannot be expanded, so that it would not stand in the way of art and creativity. Today the debate on the “sacred” comes within an electoral propaganda, and aims at diverting the public debate from its direction. We do not need chains. We need freedom to face past wounds.
13 Jul 2012 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost
Indonesia’s Sampang District Court has sentenced a Shia cleric to two years’ imprisonment for blasphemy. Tajul Muluk was said to have caused “public anxiety” for his religious teachings. Witnesses said that the cleric encouraged Muslims to pray three rather than five times a day, that the Quran was no longer authentic and that followers need not make the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, considered one of the five pillars of Islam. Under Indonesian law, blasphemy carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
