16 Aug 2017 | Magazine, News and features, Volume 46.02 Summer 2017
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Yemeni journalist Abdulaziz Muhammad al-Sabri wears a sling after he was shot by a sniper in 2015
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Yemeni journalist Abdulaziz Muhammad al-Sabri details the dangers of reporting in his country. Interview by Laura Silvia Battaglia”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Abdulaziz Muhammad al-Sabri is smiling, despite everything. But he cannot fail to feel depressed when he sees the photos taken a few months ago, in which he is holding a telephoto lens or setting up a video camera on a tripod: “The Houthis confiscated these from me. They confiscated all my equipment. Even if I wanted to continue working, I wouldn’t be able to.”
Al-Sabri is a Yemeni journalist, filmmaker and cameraman, and a native of Taiz, the city that was briefly the bloodiest frontline in the country’s civil war. He has worked in the worst hotspots, supplying original material to international media like Reuters and Sky News. “I have always liked working in the field,” he said, “and I was really doing good work from the start of the 2011 revolution.”
But since the beginning of the war, the working environment for Yemeni journalists has progressively deteriorated. In the most recent case, veteran journalist Yahia Abdulraqeeb al-Jubaihi faced a trial behind closed doors and was sentenced to death after he published stories critical of Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Many journalists have disappeared or been detained, and media outlets closed, in the past few years.
“The media industry and those who work in Yemen are coming up against a war machine which slams every door in our faces, and which controls all the local and international media bureaus. Attacks and assaults against us have affected 80% of the people employed in these professions, without counting the journalists who have already been killed, and there have been around 160 cases of assaults, attacks and kidnappings. Many journalists have had to leave the country to save their lives. Like my very dear friend Hamdan al-Bukari, who was working for Al-Jazeera in Taiz.”
Al-Sabri wanted to tell his story to Index on Censorship without leaving out details “because there is nothing left for us to do here except to denounce what is going on, even if nobody is listening to us”. He spoke of systematic intimidation by the Houthi militias in his area against journalists in general, and in particular against those who work for the international media: “In Taiz they have even used us as human shields. Many colleagues have been taken to arms depots, which are under attack from the [Saudi-led, government-allied] coalition, so that once the military target has been hit, the coalition can be accused of killing journalists.”
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left” color=”custom” align=”right” custom_color=”#dd3333″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_custom_heading text=”In Taiz they have even used us as human shields” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
This sort of intimidation is one of the reasons why researching and reporting on the conflict is very difficult. “In Taiz and in the north, apart from those working for al-Masirah, the Houthis’ TV station, and the pro-Iranian channels, al-Manar and al-Alam, only a few other journalists are able to work from here, and those few, local and international, are putting their necks on the line,” said al-Sabri.
“You’re lucky if you can make it, otherwise you fall victim to a bullet from the militias, attacks, kidnappings. Foreigners are unable even to obtain visas because of the limitations imposed by [Abdrabbuh Mansour] Hadi’s government and the coalition. The official excuse is that the government ‘fears’ for their lives, since if they were kidnapped, imprisoned or died in a coalition bombardment, it would be the Yemeni government’s responsibility.”
Al-Sabri has personal experience of the violence against journalists in Yemen. In December 2015, he was wounded in the shoulder by a sniper who was aiming at his head. On another occasion, he was kidnapped, held at a secret location for 15 days, blindfolded, threatened with death and tortured.
The full article by Laura Silvia Battaglia is available with a print or online subscription.
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Award-winning journalist Laura Silvia Battaglia reports regularly from Yemen. Translated by Sue Copeland.
This article is published in full in the Summer 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine. Print copies of the magazine are available on Amazon, or you can find information about print or digital subscriptions here. Copies are also available at the BFI, the Serpentine Gallery, MagCulture, (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), and Home (Manchester). Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship continue its fight for free expression worldwide.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”From the Archives”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”80562″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306422014550963″][vc_custom_heading text=”The future of Yemeni journalists” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1177%2F0306422014550963|||”][vc_column_text]September 2014
The Yemeni government should not be the ones judging the objectivity of reporting, but there is hope for more freedom.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”80569″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306422016657007″][vc_custom_heading text=”Journalists face increasing threats” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1177%2F0306422016657007|||”][vc_column_text]June 2016
Rachael Jolley explains why journalists around the world, especially near the Middle East, are facing increasing threats.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”80562″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306422014548392″][vc_custom_heading text=”Journalists should ignore technology” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1177%2F0306422014548392|||”][vc_column_text]September 2014
Journalists in war zones may need to ignore technology and go back to old ways to avoiding surveillance, says Iona Craig.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”top”][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”100 Years On” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2017%2F06%2F100-years-on%2F|||”][vc_column_text]Through a range of in-depth reporting, interviews and illustrations, the summer 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine explores how the consequences of the 1917 Russian Revolution still affect freedoms today, in Russia and around the world.
With: Andrei Arkhangelsky, BG Muhn, Nina Khrushcheva[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”91220″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2017/06/100-years-on/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1481888488328{padding-bottom: 50px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
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4 Aug 2017 | Germany, Mapping Media Freedom, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, News and features
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Journalists covering the G20 Summit in Hamburg in July were subject to assaults, intimidation and some lost their accreditation, according to verified incidents documented by Index on Censorship’s project Mapping Media Freedom.
Several journalists reported that they were assaulted by police while covering protests against the meeting, which included leaders of the 19 largest industrial nations in the world plus the EU. Leading up to the summit, freelance journalist Martin Eimermacher was assaulted while police were clearing a protest camp in Hamburg on 2 July, according to Netzpolitik and Jetzt.
Police had demolished protesters’ tents when Eimermacher tried to leave the area, telling police he felt unwell. He said that officers pushed him and several other journalists to the centre of a field. He showed his press card, which was slapped out of his hand by a police officer who then pepper sprayed him.
“In my opinion the most dangerous thing is that this sets an example within Germany and beyond, that such treatment of journalists is acceptable,” Mapping Media Freedom Germany correspondent Pascale Müller said. “There seemed to have been, on an individual level of police officers, a severe lack of understanding of the rights of the press and their role as an observer and part of a healthy democracy.”
On 7 July, ITN News journalist Flo Smith, his producer and cameraperson were all pepper sprayed by police. Photojournalist Henry Langston of Vice UK was struck by a police water cannon. RT UK published a video in which police assaulted and injured photojournalist Zino Peterk, who later had to go to the hospital for his injuries.
On 8 July, Spiegel Online photographer Chris Grodotzki said police assaulted him with pepper spray while he was covering protests in Schulterblatt. Taz reporter Martin Kaul sustained minor injuries when he was hit by protesters while live-streaming the demonstration, according to Deutschlandfunk. Müller noted that some attacks by protesters targeted journalists they perceived as right-wing, “but in some cases it seems that people were already so ‘high on violence’ that they hurt journalists regardless of their political affiliation.”[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_custom_heading text=”Media freedom is under threat worldwide. Journalists are threatened, jailed and even killed simply for doing their job.” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fcampaigns%2Fpress-regulation%2F|||”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Index on Censorship monitors press freedom in Germany and 41 other European area nations.
As of 4/8/2017, there were 101 verified incidents associated with Germany in the Mapping Media Freedom database.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship campaigns against laws that stifle journalists’ work. We also publish an award-winning magazine featuring work by and about censored journalists. Support our work today.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][vc_column_text]“Many journalists who covered the protest directly and that I have spoken to were emotionally and physically affected even a week after” Müller said. The press freedom violations were widely condemned, but according to Müller “The most shocking revelation came after the protests, when Sueddeutsche Zeitung revealed that the BKA had monitored selected journalists during their summit coverage over the past 10 years. This was very disturbing and lead to a certain level of insecurity within the profession. “
Other journalists reported the use of intimidation tactics by police. In the Schanze neighbourhood, Frank Schneider, a reporter for Bild, tweeted that police told journalists to “leave or you’ll go to the hospital”. F-Mag journalist Wiebke Harms reported on Twitter that police in Schanze told her: “Your press card is worth nothing.” Freelance journalist Reuben Neugebauer was told “now press freedom is over”.
Thirty-two journalists had their accreditation revoked by federal police on 7 and 8 July. German government spokesperson Steffen Seibert cited ‘security concerns’ as the rationale for the loss of access to the summit.
Journalists who lost accreditation include the photographer Björn Kietzmann, Rafael Heygster (Weser Kurier), photographer for Junge Welt, Willi Effenberger Alfred Denzinger (Beobachter News), photographer Chris Grodotzki (Spiegel Online), Adil Yigit (Avrupa Postasi), editor Elsa Koester (Neues Deutschland) and freelance photographer Po Ming Cheung.
When trying to enter a press area, Grodotzki and Yigit were told by police that their accreditation was no longer valid. Photographers Björn Kietzmann for Weser Kurier and Rafael Heygster were also not allowed to enter the press area.
Müller does not think that this treatment will intimidate journalists into stepping back from events like this in the future. “Quite the opposite, I think that many journalists and their outlets are quite resilient against such types of violence or blocked access. G20 brought press freedom issues to the forefront in Germany and made journalists even more aware of their role as critical observers, even in the middle of such violent tension and intimidation attempts.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1501833910854-5bf94268-20d1-5″ taxonomies=”77″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
2 Aug 2017 | Mapping Media Freedom, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, News and features
Journalists continue to face unprecedented pressure in Europe as reports submitted to Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom platform in the first quarter of 2017 demonstrate. Media professionals—primarily in Turkey, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine—were arrested at an alarming rate, more than a fourfold increase over the fourth quarter of 2016.
“During the first quarter of 2017, the MMF database registered several trends that we find to be acute challenges to media freedom. Some European governments have clearly interfered with media pluralism. Others have harassed, detained and intimidated journalists. All of these actions debase and devalue the work of the press and undermine a basic foundation of democracy,” Hannah Machlin, project manager at Mapping Media Freedom, said.
During Q1, authorities in multiple countries shut down critical and independent media outlets and intimidated reporters who asked challenging questions. Turkey continues to be the largest jailer of journalists in the world with a total of 148 journalists in prison by the end of March according to the Platform for Independent Journalists P24, a Turkey-based MMF partner, which monitors the number of arrests in the country.
Even reporters in countries often thought to respect freedom of the press, such as Sweden, France and Germany, faced obstacles to performing their professional duties. They were abused by the leaders of extreme populist movements and their supporters, who encouraged a distrust of “mainstream media”; and blocked by nervous politicians who were seeing, particularly in France, the old political certainties swept away.
Between 1 January and 31 March 2017, Mapping Media Freedom’s network of correspondents and other journalists submitted a total of 299 violations of press freedom to the database.
The full report can be found online at Mapping Media Freedom or in PDF format.
27 Jun 2017 | Mapping Media Freedom, News and features, Turkey
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Brothers Ahmet Altan and Mehmet Altan. Credit: CEFTUS
Throughout June, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project has recorded a number of violations in Turkey, which is now the biggest jailer of journalists in the world.
Turkish journalists charged with sending “subliminal messages”
The first hearing of the ongoing trial of Turkish journalists for involvement in last year’s coup took place on Monday 19 June. Political commentators and brothers Ahmet Altan and Mehmet Altan are accused of offences against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Turkish government including “attempting to overthrow the Government of Turkey” and using “subliminal messaging” to encourage the coup.
The Altan brothers have been in pretrial detention for 11 months. Ahmet is a well-known journalist in Turkey and has worked as a reporter and editor at several newspapers. He has previously been charged with “denigrating Turkishness” after writing about the Armenian genocide. Mehmet is a professor at Istanbul University who has called on Turkey to improve its human rights record.
The hearing was delayed, and the judge spent several hours reading a long summary of the indictment, according to Index’s head of advocacy Melody Patry, who formed part of an international delegation of observers to the trial.
In his defence statement, Ahmet called the indictment against him “untruthful and nonsensical”. He described the charges and refuted them, explaining his lack of connection to instigating the coup. “I take you through all these things in such detail because I want everyone to see the recklessness with which this prosecutor and his like have darkened people’s lives, how they have abused their power,” he said. “I want all this to be documented for the day the law wakes up.”
Ahmet quoted portions of the indictment against him, including an excerpt in which he questioned the case of Can Dundar, another Turkish journalist who was convicted of espionage for publishing evidence of Turkey sending arms to Syria. Ahmet maintains that Turkish people had a right to know about these events. “Perhaps the prosecutor is giving a not at all ‘subliminal’ message to Turkey that whoever defends the rule of law will be thrown in jail,” he said.
According to Patry, this case is significant because of the potential three life sentences the journalists face as the first instance of journalists prosecuted for being complicit in the coup.
On 1 June, Turkish police detained eight people for using the chat software ByLock, the software the authorities in Turkey suspect was used by the group that plotted the 15 July coup attempt.
Former regional bureau chief of the Cihan news agency, referred to only as KA in news reports, was among those arrested.
İlker Yücel, the editor-in-chief of Aydınlık newspaper, was taken into custody and arrested on 2 June. The arrest was related to a 2014 story in Aydınlık which was found insulting to Berat Albayrak, Turkey’s Energy Minister and the son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The newspaper failed to print a correction or pay a TL 100,000 fine,
He was released on 4 June.
A court received an indictment for two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for 13 journalists on 6 June. The charge from Istanbul’s Chief Prosecutor lists Gökçe Fırat Çulhaoğlu, Yakup Çetin, Bünyamin Köseli, Cihan Acar, Abdullah Kılıç, Oğuz Usluer, Atilla Taş, Hüseyin Aydın, Murat Aksoy, Mustafa Erkan, Seyit Kılıç, Yetkin Yıldız and Ali Akkuş as suspects.
The 13 journalists are charged with “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order” and “attempting to overthrow the government of the Republic of Turkey,” in connection with the 15 July coup attempt. They previously stood trial for “membership of a terrorist organisation” but were released 31 March. All but one of them were rearrested on the new charges.
The managing editor of the newspaper Evrensel, Çağrı Sarı, and former copyrights owner of the newspaper Arif Koşar each received five-month prison sentences on 6 June. They were convicted of “Denigrating the Turkish Nation, the State of the Republic of Turkey, the Agencies and Institutions of the State.” The charges were regarding a story published in Evrensel on Nusaybin.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Mapping Media Freedom
Click on the bubbles to view reports or double-click to zoom in on specific regions. The full site can be accessed at https://mappingmediafreedom.org/[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”91878″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
