01 Nov 23 | Israel, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Palestine
Following the brutal attacks on Israel by Hamas on 7 October, violations of free speech have occurred at such pace and scale that it has made keeping track a challenge. The situation was already difficult before that date: Israel was in the grip of a huge crisis, the country stalled by endless protests in response to the government’s attempts to neuter the Supreme Court, while Amnesty International identified “a general climate of repression” in Gaza Strip under Hamas. Since the war started, the right to freedom of expression has gone from bad to worse in both Israel and Palestine, and indeed around the world. Whilst a degree of deterioration was predictable – conflict is never the arena in which rights improve – the current state could hardly be foreseen.
Starting with media freedom, on 7 October itself, of the 1,400 people who were murdered by Hamas several were Israeli reporters on duty. Following the massacre, Israel’s response has resulted in the death of at least 5,000 (according to the latest UN figures from 23 October), again including a number of journalists. Although none of the journalists from either side of the divide were killed for what they had written, they lost their lives though their line of work, making the media landscape all the poorer.
Others have, however, been punished for their work. Journalists from outlets including the BBC, Al-Jazeera, RT Arabic and Al-Araby TV have all reported obstructions to their reporting by the Israeli military, police and others since the conflict began. On 12 October, a team of BBC Arabic reporters were dragged from their vehicle, searched and held at gunpoint by police in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, despite their vehicle being marked “TV” and the presentation of press cards, the BBC reported. On 26 October, Lama Khater, a freelance writer with Middle East Monitor and a political activist, was arrested by the IDF in the city of Hebron, West Bank, her husband Hazem Fakhoury told CPJ. Confrontational attacks have been coupled with subtle ones: On 9 October, for example, The Jerusalem Post reported that its website was down following a series of cyberattacks. The group Anonymous Sudan claimed responsibility for the attacks, reported Axios and Time magazine.
Media freedom could deteriorate further. On 16 October, Israel proposed new emergency regulations that would allow it to block broadcasts that harm “national morale”. Officials threatened to close Al-Jazeera’s local offices under the proposed rule and to stop the global news organisation from freely reporting on the war.
With the situation on the ground increasingly difficult and with limited media from Gaza itself, the internet more broadly, and social media specifically, is a lifeline. And yet getting information within and out of Gaza has become increasingly difficult. Internet services have been disrupted by the attacks, while Palestinians and their supporters allege that social media platforms, in particular Instagram, are “shadow-banning” their content. Instagram’s owner, Meta, has denied this, but they have admitted that they inserted the word “terrorist” automatically into translated bios of Palestinian users, something they apologised for on 19 October.
Social media giant X, which has had a tumultuous ride under owner Elon Musk over the last year to say the least, has also been flooded with misinformation, as we reported on 18 October. Images have been adopted from other conflicts, fake accounts created in a smorgasbord of lies intended to sow confusion, division and hate. At a time when it could be providing an essential role in the spread of crucial information, trust is low.
As those within Israel and Palestine struggle to access reliable news, international media outlets find themselves in the middle of claims of irresponsible reporting, such as jumping too fast to conclusions over who was behind the explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital, and accusations of bias. The latter can sometimes be unhelpful noise. To instantly shout “censorship” can be erroneous. There are a host of reasons why newspapers and broadcasters might run a story or interview a person (some being mundane, merely down to the availability of one person over another). Impartiality is not a prerequisite for outlets that are not funded by taxpayers. Nor does objectivity equate to equal weight for views. Still, with a conflict as complicated as that between Israel and Palestine, as longstanding, as heated and as volatile, a plurality of views and careful attention to how information is both interrogated and reported is crucial. It’s not clear that every outlet has adhered to these fundamental principles.
As for the actual red pen, one example of direct censorship came from Yale University’s campus newspaper, the Yale Daily News, which censored a pro-Israel opinion piece by removing references to Hamas atrocities. We suspect there are others. Alas the nature of censorship and self-censorship means we don’t always know about them.
Has criticising Israel become a punishable offence for the average person? A “McCarthyite backlash” against criticism of the country’s bombardment of Gaza has been claimed by civil rights groups in the USA, as people are fired, threatened with dismissal or blacklisted from future jobs, according to the Guardian. Take one example: Michael Eisen, editor of the scientific journal eLife, was forced out of his job after reposting an article from satirical magazine the Onion with the headline: “Dying Gazans Criticized for Not Using Last Words to Condemn Hamas”. In Germany, the journalist Michael Scott Moore noted that “the tendency in Berlin right now is to squelch as much criticism of Israel as possible”, citing the arrest of a Jewish Israeli protesting the war amongst others. In the UK, home secretary Suella Braverman suggested that waving Palestinian flags and using popular pro-Palestine slogans could be illegal and a ministerial aide was sacked from his government role following his letter to the prime minister calling for a ceasefire. In Switzerland, all demonstrations related to the conflict were banned in Zurich. In Australia, New South Wales authorities vowed to stop marches from proceeding. And in Israel, in one of the more unpleasant twists, the parents of hostages, who were protesting in Tel Aviv, were spat at and abused by supporters of current leader Benjamin Netanyahu. This in addition to police saying they’ve investigated and detained more than 100 people for their social media activity and, as we reported last week, activists being arrested in Jerusalem for putting up posters with the message: “Jews and Arabs, we will get through this together.”
Staying with Israel, human rights activists worry the detentions are due to the police adopting a wider interpretation than normal of what constitutes incitement to violence. A well-known singer and influencer, Dalal Abu Amneh, was held in police custody for two days. According to Abeer Baker, her lawyer, she was accused of “disruptive behaviour” by police officers, who said her posts could incite violence, in particular one featuring an image of the Palestinian flag with the Arabic motto: “There is no victor but God.” Baker said Abu Amneh was expressing a religious sentiment, while Israeli authorities interpreted the singer’s post as a call to arms for Palestinians. This example highlights a tension right now, the question of what defines hate speech and how we balance the rights for people to protest (be it online, in the streets or through petitions) versus the rights for people to live free from fear and persecution. Some of the banners and comments made at protests have been vile. They are clearly, irrefutably hate speech and given recent events – an Orthodox Jewish man assaulted in London, a mob storming Dagestan’s airport looking for people arriving from Israel, cemeteries and synagogues set alight in Tunisia and Austria, to name just a few – one could argue incitement. Still, it is clear that there has been huge overreach. Many who have been punished for what they’ve said have been peaceful, with views that – even if you disagree with them or find them uncomfortable – should be protected.
The above is far from an exhaustive list. It could go on and on. Consider Adania Shabli, the Palestinian writer whose event at Frankfurt Book Fair was called off. Consider the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen, whose appearance at 92NY, one of New York City’s leading cultural organisations, was pulled on the back of his criticism of Israel. Yet even this incomplete tally paints a grim picture. Free speech can be difficult and no more so than with Israel-Palestine, a conflict which is and always has been so deeply emotive and tribal. The knee-jerk response at present seems to be to silence. This is no solution. As George Orwell famously said, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” This applies as much to those in Israel as it does to those in Gaza and to all of us outside. There have already been enough victims and casualties – let’s ensure free speech is not another.
02 Oct 14 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, United Kingdom
Supporters of Scottish independence protested against alleged BBC bias ahead of the referendum on 18 September (Image: Mishka Burr/YouTube/Creative Commons)
Benito Mussolini wrote romantic fiction. Of course he did. Maudlin sentimentality is at the very heart of fascism, which is why we should be keeping a closer eye on Mrs Brown’s Boys.
The Cardinal’s Mistress (or to give it its typically grandiose full title: Claudia Particella, Lamante del Cardinale, Grande Romanzo dei Tempi del Cardinale Emanuel Madruzzo) was written in the first decade of the 20th century, when the future dictator was still playing with socialism before he came up with his big idea. It was originally published as a serial in La Vita Trentina, the weekly supplement of socialist newspaper Il Popolo.
Reviewing an English translation of the work in 1928, Dorothy Parker, who admits to er, struggling with the book, dreamed of a scene “in which I tell Mussolini ‘And what’s more, you can’t even write a book that anyone could read. You old Duce you,’” before deadpanning, “You can see for yourself how flat that would leave him.”
It’s unclear whether or not Mussolini was left flat, or even read Parker’s New Yorker magazine review. But it’s possible to imagine that the negative review haunted him to the very end, that Il Duce spent his last days still pondering whether to write an angry letter to the New Yorker, pointing out that since Parker had admitted that she HADN’T EVEN FINISHED THE BOOK, it was a SERIOUS LAPSE of journalistic and critical standards to even run the review, and a sign of how a ONCE GREAT publication had been given over to cheap jibes and sarcasm instead of proper discussion of literary works [and so on, ad lamppostium].
One can imagine his supporters on Twitter, furiously @-ing the poor Parker: “Call yourself a journalist? #NewYorkerBias”, “MSM once again Misreprasents #IlDuce. #NoSurprise (@medialens)”, “So apparently this ‘Parker’ woman is actually a ROTHSCHILD? #BoycottNewYorker”, and so on and on and on and on and wearily on.
You know the kind of thing, because we see it every week now. The dull, thudding obsession with the idea that the media, or a section of the media is involved in some enormous conspiracy against you and your views, and subsequently the belief that that is the only reason not everyone shares your views.
The Scottish independence referendum was a case in point. Yes supporters became curiously obsessed with the BBC’s Nick Robinson and his apparent conservative sympathies. Now, Robinson, like many BBC hacks before him, (Andrew Marr? Socialist Organiser; Paul Mason? Workers’ Power; Jennie Bond? Class War), was politically active in his youth, rising to be president of the equal parts hilarious and horrendous Oxford University Conservative Association. This, plus a terse exchange between Robinson and Scottish Nationalist leader Alex Salmond over a media conference question Robinson felt Salmond had not answered properly, led to hundreds of nationalists converging on BBC Scotland’s headquarters claiming the BBC was biased against them and demanding, well, something.
This was bad enough, but they were egged on by Salmond himself, who said he thought there was “real public concern in terms of some of the nature and balance of the coverage”.
Calls for “balance” are almost always, in fact, calls for more-of-my-side and less-of-the-opposition. This was beautifully demonstrated by the number of complaints logged against the BBC in August about the most recent Israel-Palestine conflict. That month, 938 people complained that the BBC’s coverage was too favourable to the Palestinians, while 813 felt it the corporation was too favourable to the Israeli side. (Incidentally, in the same month over 350 people complained that the BBC had been too pro-independence in its broadcast of a Scottish referendum debate.)
The most embarrassing spectacle of the entire referendum came the days after the vote, when the nationalists had lost. The SNP sulkily decided they would bar right-wing, pro-union newspapers from the morning media conference. Salmond allegedly then tried to handpick which reporter from The Guardian would be allowed attend. The Guardian, doubly affronted by the ban on their press pack colleagues and Salmond’s demands upon it, rightly told Salmond they would skip the conference altogether.
The SNP are far from the only people to think they can demand good coverage and prevent dissent. Mark Ferguson, of the left-wing, trade-union-supported website Labour List, was recently informed that he would not be given a press pass for the Conservative party conference in Birmingham. It was only after other journalists raised their objections via Twitter that the Conservative party relented. It’s probably true to say that the Labour blogger’s coverage would not be the most pro-Tory, but that’s really not the point.
Meanwhile, in the wide world of sport, Newcastle United’s controversial owner owner Mike Ashley has decided that the Daily Telegraph’s Luke Edwards (and anyone else from the Telegraph, for that matter) will not be allowed near the club’s ground again, after Edwards reported rumours that Ashley may be seeking to sell the club.
There is an argument that Ashley generates enough bad publicity for himself without the assistance of apparently hostile journalists (Ashley recently caused confusion after telling a reporter with The i newspaper that club manager Alan Pardew would be “finished” and “dead” if Newcastle lost their next game), but that doesn’t make the move any less thin-skinned and censorious.
Football has form on this. Sir Alex Ferguson may have been the greatest manager of the modern era, but he was also so petty as to refuse to talk to the BBC for seven years after he objected to a documentary about his son aired by the national broadcaster.
Perhaps this tetchiness is what’s needed to get ahead, but it feels increasingly like a retreat from argument, and a retreat from the idea of open debate and a robust public sphere. We won’t accept arguments counter to our own, and if those arguments prove more popular than ours, it is not because ours may need rethinking. No, it is because the world is biased against us. We’re either being silenced by the metropolitan liberals, or censored by the public school Tory elites. Our public conversation is in danger of becoming a public whinge.
Correction 15:40, 2 October: An earlier version of this article stated that Paul Mason was in Workers’ Hammer.
This article was published on Thursday 2 October at indexoncensorship.org
12 Aug 14 | Israel, News and features, Palestine, Politics and Society
Khaled Hamad was killed while reporting on the Gaza conflict.
News coverage of the ongoing Gaza conflict would be infinitely poorer without local journalists, but it’s clear that international media needs to show their commitment by providing Palestinian reporters and fixers with extra support.
Images of bloodied press vests have become a dark motif of the latest Gaza war. One of the most striking came from 22-year-old photographer Rami Rayan, killed during the shelling of a market in the Shujayah district on the 30 July. The same attack also killed journalist Sameh al-Aryan, aged 26. Before this came the pictures of Khaled Hamed, pulled from the rubble of Shujayah with his broken video camera at his side on the 20 July. In total, 13 Palestinian journalists have been killed in over a month of fighting, according to the International Federation of Journalists.
An earlier statement by the IFJ also listed the names of seven journalists who had been injured when they were struck by shrapnel, with six of these injuries occurring while the journalists were in the field. The seventh was injured when her house was destroyed by an Israeli bombardment.
A journalist’s bullet-proof vest does more than just physically protect the wearer – the “PRESS” marking it is designed to show that they are never a legitimate target. This should stand apart from even the high civilian death toll of this war. Marking oneself as a journalist is to appeal to the so-called “rules of engagement”, that attacking journalists or anywhere where there may be journalists, is a breach of a code that has, until now, lasted since journalists first took to the battlefields to report.
In Gaza, this code has sadly long since worn thin. Hamid Shehab was killed when his parked car was struck by a rocket outside his house on the 9 July. According to the IFJ, his car was “clearly marked as a press vehicle”.
There is no doubt that covering this war has taken its toll on every journalist that has operated in Gaza since fighting began on the 8 July. But sadly, the body count suggests that the dangers for Palestinian media workers covering their homeland in a time of crisis, and those for international journalists who enter to cover the war, are distinctly different. Palestinian media workers include those working for international or local outlets, as well as those working as fixers for international media. The role of a fixer is one that is often overlooked – especially in terms of safety.
In a statement on the 6 August, the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO) stated that they had issued accreditation to 705 journalists from over 42 countries. This is not necessarily the number of journalists who entered Gaza to cover the war, but a GPO card is needed to do so. If even half of this number succeeded to enter and leave Gaza without coming to any harm, they still compare favourably to the numbers of Palestinian media workers who have been harmed.
The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) have taken a certain amount of care to protect international journalists operating on the ground in Gaza, at one point relocating them to two hotels in the strip in order to provide a level of protection during a period of particularly heavy shelling. Although fixers or other Palestinian media workers were free to shelter alongside the international press in the lobby of these hotels, the journey alone may have proved lethal. Add to this that Gazan journalists are unlikely to choose to leave their families at home to suffer heavy shelling while they themselves enjoy this nominal protection.
Even with the IDF awareness of media workers the offices of Al Aqsa TV and Radio, Wattan Radio and the National Media agency were destroyed, and workers at Al Jazeera’s office in Gaza city were forced to evacuate following “warning shots” fired at the building. This occurred days after Al Jazeera was threatened by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who stated at a press conference on 21 July that the foreign ministry was taking steps to investigate the network, with “the intent of not allowing it to broadcast anymore from Israel”.
A tentative ceasefire is currently allowing some respite on the ground in Gaza. But many of the journalists who have left the strip have said that this is not the last war they expect to cover there. Sadly, this is also not the first time that attacks on media outlets have been part of wider attacks on Gaza.
The deaths of Palestinian journalists was also a feature of the 2012 war, when three journalists were killed. One of the most hotly-debated points of this latest bout of destruction has been what constitutes a “legitimate target”. There is one lesson that must stand apart from this discussion: no journalist should ever be included in that category.
The following are statements from fixers and journalists who have been involved in covering Gaza.
In the case of Gaza, nobody is safe. As a fixer I am more exposed to dangers because of continuous movement to the “hot zones”. Last Friday, during the ceasefire, I was 100m away from the front line with the Israeli army in Beit Hanoun. I don’t have equipment for protecting myself like a flak jacket or helmet – my movement from my house to the hotels [where journalists stay] adds more risk. We depend on marking our car with words like TV, hoping that the Israelis will avoid us. What normally privileges foreign journalists over local ones is their financial capabilities.”
— Amjed Tantish is from Beit Lahia, in the north Gaza strip.
Moving around under constant shelling, I wasn’t sure if I would make it back home. I couldn’t get a bulletproof vest, as they are so expensive and I’m a freelancer – I can’t afford it. But also, there is no one who would volunteer to bring one into Gaza from Jerusalem for me. Working without it is risky though. Another danger to Palestinians is that they can be accused of being pro-Israeli. Internationals can come and go, but Palestinians will point fingers at me if I write something they don’t like. I wish that there was an organization that was protecting Palestinian journalists – but as a freelancer, I am responsible for my life. International outlets should take into account that the dangers faced by the local journalists they hire may be quite different – but that should apply to all conflict zones, not just Gaza.”
— Abeer Ayyoub, freelance journalist, Gaza City.
I am usually lucky to find an available flak jacket. Usually I don’t wear protective gear- I would like to buy some, but they are expensive and hard to get during wartime. Instead, I try and assess whether the situation is safe enough to be in, and if it seems too dangerous, I leave. I call ahead to people in the area to see if it’s safe, to find out what the safest route is and to coordinate with people on the ground. For sure, I could get killed. I feel like I could lose everything sometimes. But it’s my work, it’s what I do to get the message out to the world. Some of the people I work with appreciate the work and the risk, but 80 percent don’t care about the risks we take. Most people don’t know about what we do for them. They don’t think about us dying for a picture they sell for $50.”
— Mohammed Rajab, a fixer based in Gaza City.
Danger in this war is everywhere- nowhere is safe. You could survive the hardest hit places, and die in places you think are the safest. I thought that heading to church to do story on displaced families is safe. The next day, it was bombed. Palestinian journalists face different dangers to international journalists – there is a form of discrimination among Gaza-based news agencies. Local staff don’t dare to speak out on this, but if there is a bulletproof car, then international staff have priority to drive it. International journalists are protected by insurance and an affiliation to international and national journalists unions. This gives them protection and insurances if something goes wrong. In Gaza, if a journalist is killed, media outlets cannot care less about their families. Some news agencies know Palestinian journalists well enough in crises, but after the war ends, they dump them. It’s hard for journalists to make themselves indispensible. The outlets I have freelanced for do understand the limitations – but I’ve heard of others that seem to think you could get close enough to danger to hold a rocket in your hands, i.e. get exclusive shots. A friend of mine was injured and his outlet dumped him to find someone new, exactly like you do with car spare parts.”
— Mohammed Omer, a freelance journalist based in Rafah
Israeli forces will open fire on Palestinians, but not internationals. Internationals are just less likely to be shot at – I make sure I wear a bulletproof vest and a helmet, and make sure that I’m clearly marked as press. We need this protective gear. The vest and helmet cost me $1000- and there is no compensation for hazards, even when I work for international media outlets. If you are a Palestinian national that means no insurance either. Foreign journalists at least have the chance of getting their media outlets to cover their life insurance or provide compensation.”
— Yousef Al-Helou, a journalist who covered the two previous wars in Gaza, currently in London
This article was published on August 12, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
20 Jan 14 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Palestine
The logo of the Al Qassam Brigade, the armed wing of Hamas
Last week, Hamas’ militant wing the Iz Al Din al Qassam Brigades announced via their website that their primary English-language Twitter account, @alqassamBrigade had been suspended. The group said : “The Qassam Brigades confirmed that they did not violate Twitter’s terms of service ever … Twitter still not sending Al Qassam any justifications for the suspension.”
When asked by Index why the account was suspended, a spokesperson from Twitter responded: “”We do not comment on individual accounts, for privacy and security reasons.”
Twitter’s decision to suspend the account becomes evermore confusing beyond this first glance. If the goal is to prevent Al Qassam from using Twitter, it’s ineffective, as their secondary English-language account as well as a primary Arabic account are both still active- not to mention the ease with which a new account can be created. It’s difficult to see what closing the account achieved other than giving a group that, by definition feeds off exclusion from the mainstream, fuel for pariah status.
Moreover, the timing of the decision appears to be somewhat out of the blue. If Twitter was truly concerned about inflammatory remarks, then they would have suspended the account back in November 2012, when Al Qassam and the Israeli Defence Force used Twitter to bait one another during the last Gaza war. This period set a new bar in terms of direct and hostile communication via Twitter, not just between Al Qassam and the IDF but also by their supporters. Objectionable though some of it may have been, Twitter never interfered with the fray.
Nonetheless, this particular corner of the Internet is constantly caught between the need that websites such as Twitter act as a transmitter of free speech, and the extreme pressure that it is subjected to by interest groups. On the 20 November 2012, “Christians for a United Israel” filed a petition with Twitter to close Al Qassam’s account, on the grounds that it counted as “material support” for an internationally recognised terrorist group, Hamas.
But as David Cole pointed out in a piece for the Daily Beast’s Open Zion blog at the time, the terms of what constitutes this “material support” are so broad as to be almost meaningless – and Gaza is filled with so many international products that it could be argued that Coca Cola, ExxonMobil and a large number of Israeli products that are regularly exported to Gaza are also supporting Gaza’s ruling Hamas party. Twitter is simply a conduit – as Cole points out, “Twitter is for all practical purposes a ‘common carrier’, providing its service to all comers. Would we hold a telephone company responsible for allowing a gang to use its phone lines to plan a crime, or the Postal Service responsible for delivering a package of drugs?”
The other curious element about this timing is that the suspension comes at a time when jihadist accounts are proliferating on Twitter, in Arabic and in English. Jihadist individuals and groups within Syria have increasingly taken to social media as a way to spread a message about their beliefs and intentions as part of Syria’s civil war. Individual members of Jabhat Al Nusra and increasingly ISIS have used Twitter as a means of provoking one another off the battlefield. While this may not be the official accounts of each group tweeting, it is not so different in content from anything that Al Qassam have tweeted recently. If Twitter were truly concerned about the content of Al Qassam’s account, then they would have been forced to close far more than just the one.
Terrorist groups using different forms of media to transmit their message to a wider public is nothing new. Complaining that Twitter helps terrorists talk to the public sounds as outdated as complaining that Al Jazeera broadcasted statements by Osama bin Laden: in this sense, the medium is not the message.
To consider the alternative for a moment: Gaza is not a haven for free media. Journalists of any nationality that operate on the ground there do so under heavy restrictions from a variety of parties. Beyond the day to day restrictions on their movement, speech and work, talking directly to the Al Qassam Brigades is almost impossible. Social media, while potentially a tool for propaganda, is one of the few ways that the wider public is able to know what is happening inside Al Qassam Brigades and Hamas. Cutting off this line further maligns part of a regime that uses this seclusion to its political advantage within Gaza, and allows Hamas to further clamp down on free speech within the Strip. In short: the content may be a strange development on Twitter, but its absence potentially has tangible effects for people on the ground.
This article was posted on 20 January 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
