7 Jul 2015 | Europe and Central Asia, Hungary, mobile, News and features
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, of ruling party Fidesz (Pic © European People’s Party/CreativeCommons/Flickr)
The Hungarian parliament has voted yes to plans to allow the government and other public authorities to charge a fee for the “human labour costs” of freedom of information (FOI) requests this week, as well as granting sweeping new powers to withhold information. It just needs the signature of President Janos Ader before it becomes law.
The bill, submitted by Minister of Justice László Trócsányi, was published on the government website just days before the vote, on 3 July, precluding any meaningful debate about the proposal. It is widely believed that through this initiative, governing party Fidesz is trying to put a lid on a number of scandals involving wasteful government spending, uncovered through FOI requests.
According to Transparency International, the bill “appears to be a misguided response by the Hungarian government to civil society’s earlier successful use of freedom of information tools to publicly expose government malpractice and questionable public spending”.
One provision of the bill allows public bodies to refuse to make certain data public for 10 years if deemed to have been used in decision-making processes, according to Index award-winning Hungarian investigative news platform Atlatszo.hu. As virtually any piece of information can be used to build public policies upon, this gives the government a powerful argument not to answer FOI requests.
The bill also allows government actors to charge fees for fulfilling FOI request. Until now, government actors could ask for the copying expenses of documents. From now on, they can ask the person filing the request to cover the “human labor costs” of the inquiry.
It is not yet clear how much members of the public will have to pay. “There will be a separate government decree in the future regarding the costs that can be charged for a FOI request,” Tibor Sepsi, a lawyer working for Atlatszo.hu, says.
Because the public has no means to verify whether these costs are well-grounded, and at some government agencies the salaries are known to be very high, the government might be in a discretionary position to ask prohibitive costs for answering the FOI requests, critics of the amendment say.
“The FOI requests usually ask for data that are already available somewhere in electronic format, therefore no government body can say that fulfilling a request involves gathering information,” says Tamás Bodoky, the editor-in-chief of Atlatszo.hu.
“It is unacceptable to plead for extraordinary workload and expenses when much of the requests refer to things that should be published in accordance with transparent pocket rules. This information should be readily available in the settlement of accounts and reports,” he adds.
The work of investigative journalists and watchdog NGOs is further complicated through another provision, regarding copyright. In some cases, the government will be able to refer to copyright issues and only give limited access to certain documents, without making them publicly available.
While the bill will make life harder for those making FOI requests, Sepsi also points out that the situation is not as bad as it may initially seem: “The government will have half a dozen of new ways to reject vexatious FOI requests, but on the implementation level, ordinary courts, the constitutional court or the Hungarian National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information Authority will have the power to keep things under reasonable control.”
Nevertheless, Hungarian and international NGOs working for the transparency of public spending and government decisions are protesting against the bill. An open letter, signed by the groups Atlatszo.hu, K-Monitor, Energiaklub Szakpolitikai Intézet and Transparency International Magyarország Alapítvány has been sent to the Minister of Justice Trócsányi, to the Hungarian National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information Authority, as well as the MPs whose votes decided the fate of the proposal.
“We believe the government would do the right thing if – instead of rolling back on transparency – it would increase the so-called proactive disclosure, meaning that it would publish the information regarding its functioning in electronic format, without a request. We can provide international examples where this can be achieved simply, without extraordinary costs. This would increase not only the transparency of public spending, but the number of FOI requests would also decrease significantly,” the letter argues.
After the vote, a group of 50 opposition MPs pledged to ask the constitutional court to review the 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/
|
This article was posted on 6 July 2015 at indexoncensorship.org
7 Jul 2015 | Asia and Pacific, Campaigns, Malaysia, mobile
Malaysian cartoonist Zunar is facing charges under a colonial era sedition act. (Photo: Sean Gallagher/Index on Censorship)
Persecuted Malaysian cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Haque, who is facing nine simultaneous charges under the country’s controversial Sedition Act, has had his case pushed back until 9 September.
The artist, known as Zunar, told supporters in an email that his case had been adjourned pending a ruling from the Federal Court in a separate case that challenges the constitutionality of the Sedition Act.
The current case sees Zunar facing 43 years in prison over a tweet criticising the recent jailing of a Malaysian opposition leader. He has been targeted numerous times for speaking out against the Malaysian government in his editorial cartoons. Zunar was investigated under the sedition act for the first time in 2010, much of his work has been banned, and he has been subjected to repeated raids, arrest and detainment.
“Zunar is being prosecuted simply for exercising his right to express himself. We welcome the legal challenge to the Sedition Act; a tool the government uses to try and stifle and silence dissent from Zunar and other critics. But regardless of the outcome in that case, we reiterate our call on Malaysia to immediately drop all charges against Zunar and respect free expression,” said Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg.
You can support Zunar by signing this petition to call on the Malaysian government to drop all charges against him and renew its commitment to freedom of expression.
See cartoons by Zunar and other international artists on the theme of free expression drawn to commemorate our 15th Freedom of Expression awards.
3 Jul 2015 | mobile, News and features
A new handbook aims to provide journalists and bloggers worldwide with guidance on the international legal framework protecting their rights to freedom of expression.
Produced by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Reporters Without Borders, and law firm Paul Hastings, the Defence Handbook for Journalists and Bloggers focuses on how international legal principles apply to journalists’ work. It also includes previous decisions and recommendations made by international and regional bodies and courts on aspects of freedom of speech.
“Journalists around the world are more and more under threat and often become targets,” said Monique Villa, CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Terrorist groups, but also powerful lobbies and a number of governments are increasingly trying to censor the media, preventing opinion sharing and the release of vital information to the public. Now more than ever, journalists need to be brave, avoid self-censorship, and be aware that they can seek refuge in international law. This guide is a very powerful weapon.”
Index CEO spoke at the launch of the handbook (Photo: Thomson Reuters Foundation)
Index on Censorship chief executive Jodie Ginsberg spoke at the launch of the handbook, outlining the threats that Index has identified in its work mapping media freedom in the European Union and neighbouring countries. Since Index launched the project in mid-2014 more than 800 incidents have been reported to the map. Ginsberg described a climate of fear in which governments crack down increasingly on the media and free expression more generally, and cited a lack of awareness among some media professionals about the laws that protect them. “Uncertainty — when journalists don’t know their rights — leads to self-censorship,” she said.
Other speakers at the event in London included Christophe Deloire, secretary general of Reporters Without Borders; John Lloyd, senior research fellow at the Reuters Institute; Sylvie Kaufmann, editorial director and columnist at Le Monde; lawyer William Bourdon; and journalist Owen Bennett-Jones.
This article was posted on 3 July 2015 at indexoncensorship.org
25 Jun 2015 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, Europe and Central Asia, News and features
Rahim Haciyev, editor of Azerbaijani newspaper Azadliq, holds up a copy at the 2014 Index awards (Photo: Alex Brenner for Index on Censorship)
Index award-winning newspaper Azadliq, widely recognised as one of the last remaining independent news outlets operating inside the country, is facing imminent closure. This comes amid an ongoing crackdown on critical journalists and human rights activists in Azerbaijan, and as the country is hosting the inaugural European Games in the capital Baku.
A statement from the paper, quoted Thursday on news site Contact, outlined its “difficult financial situation”.
“If the problems are not resolved in the shortest possible time, the publication of the newspaper will be impossible,” it read.
“The closure of an independent media outlet like Azadliq, which Azerbaijani officials have suffocated over the past two years, flies in the face of repeated assurances from President Ilham Aliyev that his government respects press freedom. The fact that this financial crisis is occurring during the Baku European Games just underlines the shameful disregard that the Azerbaijani government has for freedom of expression,” said Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg.
Azadliq has long faced an uphill battle to stay in business. Thursday’s statement merely detailed the latest development in a serious financial crisis, brought about at the hands of Azerbaijani authorities.
In July 2014, Azadliq was forced to suspend print publication. Editor Rahim Haciyev told Index that the government-backed distributor had refused to pay out the some £52,000 it owed the paper, which meant it could not pay its printer.
The paper has also seen its finances squeezed through being banned from selling copies on tube stations and the streets of Baku, and being slapped with fines of some £52,000 following defamation suits in 2013. The paper was also evicted from its offices in 2006 and its journalists have been repeatedly targeted by authorities. Seymur Hezi, for instance, was in January sentenced to five years in prison for “aggravated hooliganism” — charges widely dismissed as trumped up and politically motivated.
Azadliq — meaning “freedom” in Azerbaijani — has appealed to the public for help to stay afloat, urging “those who defend the freedom of speech in Azerbaijan” to join in the campaign to save the paper.
This comes after the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) condemned “the crackdown on human rights in Azerbaijan”. In a resolution adopted on Wednesday 24 June, PACE called on authorities to “put an end to systemic repression of human rights defenders, the media and those critical of the
government”.
This article was posted on 25 June, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
