Are people in Israel getting the full story on Gaza?

3 Jun 2024 | Israel, News and features, Palestine

Israel’s decision to seize video equipment from AP journalists last week may have been swiftly reversed but the overall direction of travel for media freedom in Israel is negative.

Journalists inside Gaza are of course paying the highest price (yesterday preliminary investigations by CPJ showed at least 107 journalists and media workers were among the more than 37,000 killed since the Israel-Gaza war began) and it feels odd to speak of equipment seizures when so many of those covering the war in the Strip have paid with their lives. But this is not to compare, merely to illuminate.

The past few days have provided ample evidence of what many within Israel have long feared – that the offensive in Gaza is not being reported on fully in Israel itself. On Tuesday a video went viral of an Israeli woman responding with outrage at the wide gulf between news on Sunday’s bombing of a refugee camp in Rafah within Israeli media compared to major international news outlets. Yesterday, in an interview with Canadian broadcaster CBC, press freedom director for the Union of Journalists in Israel, Anat Saragusti, spoke more broadly of the reporting discrepancies since 7 October:

“The world sees a completely different war from the Israeli audience. This is very disturbing.”

Saragusti added that part of this is because the population is still processing the horrors of 7 October and with that comes a degree of self-censorship from those within the media. The other reason, she said, is that the IDF provides much of the material that appears in Israeli media and this is subject to review by military censors. While the military has always exerted control (Israeli law requires journalists to submit any article dealing with “security issues” to the military censor for review prior to publication), this pressure has intensified since the war, as the magazine +972 showed. Since 2011 +972 have released an annual report looking at the scale of bans by the military censor. In their latest report, released last week and published on our site with permission, they highlighted how in 2023 more than 600 articles by Israeli media outlets were barred, which was the most since their tracking began.

In a visually arresting move, Israeli paper Haaretz published an article on Wednesday with blacked out words and sentences. Highlighting such redactions is incidentally against the law and will no doubt add to the government’s wrath at Haaretz (late last year they threatened the left-leaning outlet with sanctions over their Gaza war coverage).

The government’s attempts to control the media landscape was already a problem prior to 7 October. Benjamin Netanyahu is known for his fractious relationship with the press and has made some very personal attacks throughout his career, such as this one from 2016, while Shlomo Kahri, the current communications minister, last year expressed a desire to shut down the country’s public broadcaster Kan. This week it was also revealed by Haaretz that two years ago investigative reporter Gur Megiddo was blocked from reporting on how then chief of Mossad had allegedly threatened then ICC prosecutor (the story finally saw daylight on Tuesday). Megiddo said he’d been summoned to meet two officials and threatened. It was “explained that if I published the story I would suffer the consequences and get to know the interrogation rooms of the Israeli security authorities from the inside,” said Megiddo.

Switching to the present, it feels unconscionable that Israelis, for whom the war is a lived reality not just a news story, are being served a light version of its conduct.

In the case of AP, their equipment was confiscated on the premise that it violated a new media law, passed by Israeli parliament in April, which allows the state to shut down foreign media outlets it deems a security threat. It was under this law that Israel also raided and closed Al Jazeera’s offices earlier this month and banned the company’s websites and broadcasts in the country.

Countries have a habit of passing censorious legislation in wartime, the justification being that some media control is important to protect the military. The issue is that such legislation is typically vague, open to abuse by those in power, and doesn’t always come with an expiry date to protect peacetime rights.

“A country like Israel, used to living through intense periods of crisis, is particularly vulnerable to calls for legislation that claims to protect national security by limiting free expression. Populist politicians are often happy to exploit the “rally around the flag” effect,” Daniella Peled, managing editor at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, told Index.

We voiced our concerns here in terms of Ukraine, which passed a media law within the first year of Russia’s full-scale invasion with very broad implications, and we have concerns with Israel too. But as these examples show, our concerns are far wider than just one law and one incidence of confiscated equipment.

Desperation mounts for Afghanistan’s persecuted journalists

9 Apr 2024 | Afghanistan, Asia and Pacific, News and features

“The situation has not changed, the Taliban didn’t change. They are not allowing journalists, especially women journalists, to work, and any output is censored by the Taliban.” These were the words of Afghan journalist Ali Bezhad, who spoke to Index for our Spring 2023 magazine issue after escaping the country and relocating to Germany. Since then a year has passed, but Bezhad’s words still ring true. Journalists in Afghanistan remain under constant threat of persecution by the Taliban, a situation which has been ongoing since the group regained power in 2021.

This has not gone unnoticed at Index. In February this year, we received an email from another Afghan journalist who feared for their life and safety (and in March, a similar one via Signal). M. Yousufi told Index of her experience of being targeted by the Taliban for her work and having to regularly change location. She said that in recent years, several of her family and friends have been “arrested, tortured or killed”.

“I have continuously been active against the ideas of the Taliban and other extremist groups, and therefore my activities are considered to promote prostitution and blasphemy,” she explained. “My work and activities have been completely censored.”

Yousufi describes her journalism as being focussed on women’s and minority rights, freedom of speech, social justice and the crimes of the Taliban.

“I have dedicated my whole life to freedom of speech to be the voice of the people of society, especially the oppressed women of Afghanistan,” she said.

Having previously been arrested and detained overnight by the Taliban, as well as being subjected to violence and harassment, she said it is no longer possible for her to continue working in the media.

“The increasing restrictions and threats from the Taliban and other extremist groups and Islamic fundamentalists stopped my activity,” she said.

This is not an isolated incident. Over the past year, calls for action have been routinely made to address the situation facing media workers in Afghanistan. In June 2023, an expert panel hosted by Index’s Editor-at-large Martin Bright saw Zahra Joya, an exiled Afghan journalist and founder of Rukhshana Media, and Zehra Zaidi, a lawyer and advocate for Action for Afghanistan, discussing the plight of journalists in the state and urging the UK to do more.

In October 2023, freelance journalist Mortaza Behboudi spoke out for the first time about his experience of spending nine months in an Afghan prison after being charged with spying and assisting border crossings.

“I felt as though I’d been kidnapped,” he told Reporters Without Borders (RSF). “There was no trial, nothing, no future. I was harassed all the time. They used to hit me.”

The Afghanistan Journalists Centre (AFJC) has documented the alarming rise in attacks on journalists since the Taliban took over power. In their 2023 Annual Report on Media Freedom in Afghanistan, the organisation found that over the last year, media workers in Afghanistan have encountered significant obstacles and infringements on their rights, limiting their capacity to function effectively, and recorded 75 incidents of journalists being detained or threatened in this time. Press freedom under the Taliban is clearly heavily restricted across the board, but although all journalists face threats to their safety, women are at much greater risk. In April 2023, we spoke to the editor-in-chief of the Zan Times, Zahra Nader, who explained that the laws preventing women from reporting effectively are not always specific to female journalists, but are a result of the intersection of being both female and a journalist.

This was further demonstrated in February this year with the Taliban’s warning that if women did not adhere to certain guidelines regarding their appearance while working in media then they may issue a complete ban on women working in the industry. RSF responded to this by detailing their alarm at the “worrying increase in the restrictions imposed on journalists, with authoritarian directives on women journalists’ dress, restrictions on women’s access to the audiovisual media and a ban on filming or photographing Taliban officials”.

Cries for help continue to be made. Last month, during the 68th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women – an annual meeting for UN states to discuss gender equality – four Afghan women journalists were interviewed by International Media Support (IMS). One of the interviewees, who remained anonymous for safety reasons, said: “After three difficult and unjust years [under the Taliban], I have become a fighting girl, a photographer trying to showcase the beauty of Afghan girls, and a journalist trying to be the voice of thousands of girls.”

Afghan journalist and women’s rights activist Faranaz Forotan also spoke at the event. “In Afghanistan, being a female journalist is an endless act of bravery,” she told the committee.

“Women journalists have changed the narrative of journalism in Afghanistan and today, with the least resources, they strive to preserve and nurture freedom of expression in Afghanistan.”

These examples all point to a situation which is growing steadily more precarious, as journalists in Afghanistan are targeted and brutally silenced for their work. A year on from Index’s call for action, the only change we’ve seen is for the worse.

Evan Gershkovich: We must be as loud as possible

27 Mar 2024 | News and features, Russia

This Friday, 29 March, marks the one-year anniversary of Russia’s arrest and unlawful detention of my colleague, Evan Gershkovich, of The Wall Street Journal. That’s one year that Evan has been deprived of his basic rights and confined to a cell 23 hours a day, held on a charge of espionage which he, the US government and the Journal vehemently deny. One year that his parents and his sister have been deprived of their son and brother.  And one year since a mass chilling effect descended on the foreign press corps in Russia because of this brazen assault on the freedom of the press.

Evan’s detention is a singular outrage but also part of a much broader pattern. Last year and this year have been brutal for the safety of journalists working to get the facts from dangerous places across the globe, as chronicled by the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and others.

Even within Russia, Evan is not alone: Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was seized by Russian authorities on a trip to visit her mother and has been in prison since October. Paul Whelan, of course, has been detained there for five years.

After Evan’s arrest, many news outlets withdrew to cover Russia from Berlin, Warsaw and elsewhere given that Vladimir Putin’s regime has made what you and I understand to be fair and independent reporting effectively a crime.

So we are deprived of fact-based news from a country that is central in defining the future for the USA and other democracies. If we don’t stand up and protest against the silencing of the media on such a vital story, when will we decide the time is right to be loud?

We have been making noise for a year now, to ensure we are drawing as much attention as possible to Evan’s predicament and this broader outrage. We did so in part because journalists run at the story. But we also did so because, in the very early days after Evan’s arrest, we received advice from a trusted source that there will be times to be loud and times to be quiet and this was a time to be loud. Put another way, until there is reason to be quiet – which might suggest a sensitive breakthrough is near at hand – be loud.

We also didn’t have a choice. There may be times when quiet diplomacy can be effective to resolve such hostage issues. In our case, the Russian government had publicly accused our innocent colleague of spying, a message we had to counter as forcefully and as quickly as we could.

In that, as in so many other things over the course of the past year, we were greatly aided by outside help.

The White House, the State Department and the US Senate Intelligence Committee immediately made clear Evan – an accredited reporter in Russia – is not a spy. And in the days, weeks and months that followed, we have benefitted hugely from the interest and support of other news organisations, the international community of journalists and well-wishers the world over to keep awareness of Evan’s situation high.

We know that The Wall Street Journal won’t directly negotiate his release – that is the responsibility of governments. But we are convinced keeping Evan in the spotlight will help set the stage for successful negotiations at the right time. We hope that time is very soon.

Within the Journal, we have learned that being loud is a companywide effort. I don’t think there is a department at Dow Jones & Co., the Journal’s parent, that hasn’t in some way been involved.

The company’s leadership, legal team, the newsroom and communications department would be obvious. Less so, maybe, the marketing team, which we rely on to create ads that we and other newspapers have run on milestones such as 100 days of Evan’s incarceration. Or the advertising department, which has used barter ads to push Evan’s cause on social media. Or government affairs, which has launched a campaign of awareness on Capitol Hill in Washington. Or technology and circulation, which have built a page outside of our paywall on WSJ.com so readers can learn about Evan free of charge. Or our Standards team, which ensures that our advocacy work and our news reporting are kept appropriately apart. Or our individual reporters, who have taken it upon themselves to organise runs, swims, read-a-thons and letter-writing campaigns to highlight Evan’s work and interests.

Yet we also realise all this has yet to pay the one dividend that matters: Evan’s safe return.

So on his one-year anniversary we also ask that you take the time to think of Evan, to talk about him, to amplify stories about him with the hashtag #IStandWithEvan, to explore his work at WSJ.com/evan, and to dig in with us so that the light we shine on Evan and the broader cause of press freedom is brighter than ever.

The deadly challenges of reporting on Sudan’s “forgotten war”

15 Feb 2024 | News and features, Sudan

Described by The Economist as “The Forgotten War”, the current conflict in Sudan may have escaped the notice of the average news consumer. Beyond headlines of rushed evacuations shortly after the hostility erupted in April 2023 and mastheads warning of an “Afghanistan repeat”, the situation in the north-eastern African nation has rapidly receded from view. Google searches reflect a similar trend: a brief spike in interest when the war began, declining within a couple of weeks and plateauing since. But has the war been “forgotten” or “underreported”?

Reporting on Sudan has been a complex challenge for decades. During the reign of President Omar El-Bashir (1989-2019) Sudan was one of the most difficult media environments in the world, with journalists facing censorship, harassment and imprisonment on a routine basis. The Revolution of 2018/2019 introduced a period of hopeful respite, with the re-establishment of an independent journalist’s union having over a thousand members, hundreds of whom voted for the Syndicate’s formation. However, many of these gains have been lost in the months since April 2023.

Security is one of the primary issues. The simple act of asking questions, or holding a camera, places a target on your back. “Revealing oneself as a journalist is perilous,” said one respondent in a recent survey, a concern echoed widely in the journalistic community. A Unesco supported poll, conducted by NGO Media in Cooperation and Transition in November 2023, revealed more than half of the respondents had experienced physical (53%) and digital (51%) threats. In September 2023, Sudanese Journalists’ Syndicate reported 249 violations against journalists, including murder, in the four months since the outbreak of the war. This number did not include detentions of the team of the Sudan National Broadcasting Corporation, Hala96 FM, Alhurra Channel and RT in Khartoum, due to lack of available data.

Threats are not confined to the reporters themselves, with many journalists’ families also the victims of attacks. In a recent investigation, the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism documented the story of Manal Ali, kidnapped and tortured for her independent reporting into rape incidents in Darfur.

“They had a list…and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were searching for us by name. They destroyed my house completely,” Manal told the ARIJ. While being held by the RSF, she was severely beaten, tortured and threatened. “We killed some of your family members, and we will torture you by letting you see the rest of your family being killed,” she was told. “Then, killing you will become easy.”

In addition to the critical security situation, even accessing basic utilities presents challenges. The availability of electricity, reliable internet connections and telecom networks cannot be taken for granted, which makes reporting almost impossible. Many journalists have fled to neighbouring countries like Chad, Egypt and Eritrea. For those who stayed, only 23% receive a paycheck, typically under $100 a month.

This is a “sector faced with an existential crisis” said Tawfik Jelassi, Unesco's assistant director-general for communication and information.

In a twisted metaphor, at the outset of the conflict, the premises of the national Radio and Television Corporation were taken over by the RSF and turned into military barracks. Numerous media outlets have closed, and international journalists are having their entry visas into the nation denied. For journalists from the Sudanese diaspora, or with residency in Sudan, entry still requires clearance either from the Sudanese Armed Forces or the RSF, depending on the area in question. This is both difficult to achieve and comes with no guarantee of safety, due to the febrile nature of the conflict.

The high risk for journalists in Sudan has led to a dearth of professional reporting from the ground. In this environment it’s unsurprising that self-censorship is flourishing. Those journalists who remain in the country report either practising self-censorship or dealing with direct requests to modify, delete or publish specific content. It is even becoming challenging to report facts without being seen as “taking a side”.

At the same time as the war has dragged on, journalists who might have ordinarily been reserved about their political inclinations feel like they do have to take a position.

“This war is being framed as a war about the very existence of the Sudanese state,” said veteran journalist Isma’il Kushkush.

It is becoming difficult to find nuanced positions, and the concept of objectivity itself is being challenged by readers. In a conflict that is dividing the nation, even the journalists are being polarised. For citizen journalists, this challenge is even more pronounced, with readers and social media users frequently attacking those sharing news as supporting one of the warring parties.

There are reports of efforts to establish new platforms in Sudan to bolster and enrich the media ecosystem. One such example is the US-based Sudan Broadcasting Corporation, involving Luqman Ahmed, the former head of Sudan Radio and TV Corporation. The SBC joins Radio Dabanga and Sudan Tribune as news sources on Sudan based outside the direct reach of the state. But although a handful of Arabic-language satellite news channels, including Al Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, continue to report from the ground, the challenges to communicating the events of Sudan’s war to the world are extreme.

“People want to know who is the good guy and who is the bad guy,” said Kushkush. The problem is the complexity of Sudan’s situation eludes a simple narrative. And, in a global context where numerous other conflicts are live and pressing - including Gaza and Ukraine - there is only so far attention spans and resources can stretch.

Still, that can’t be an excuse. In 2023, Sudan topped the International Rescue Committee’s Emergency Watchlist, analysing countries “most likely to experience a deteriorating humanitarian crisis”. This month, the Clingendael Institute reported that looming famine means most likely “seven million people will face catastrophic levels of hunger by June 2024…and a half million people will die.”

At the end of the day, whatever the complexities, “it’s a human story” as Kushkush said. “The tragedy of displacement and death.”

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