2 Jul 2013 | Volume 42.02 Summer 2013
The current issue of Index on Censorship magazine features a special report on the shifting world power balance and the implications for freedom of expression.
“The multipolar world can be one where universal human rights and freedom of expression are kept firmly on the agenda, and increasingly respected, if these democracies hold themselves and each other to account — and are held to account — at home and internationally,” write Index CEO Kirsty Hughes and London School of Economics professor Saul Estrin.
The issue also looks at press freedom in Italy, Burma, Mexico, Columbia and India as well as violence against journalists and arrests of those who expose uncomfortable truths. “Worldwide, on average only one in ten cases of murders of journalists ends in a conviction,” says Guy Berger, author of an article on the threats and dangers journalists encounter around the world. Instead of being reassured that the rule of law will be upheld, “the take-away lesson for everyone is: journalists can be killed with impunity”.
From the current issue
Global view: Who has freedom of expression? | The multipolar challenge to free expression | Censorship: The problem child of Burma’s dictatorship | News in monochrome: Journalism in India
Also in this issue:
- John Lloyd on how party politics have skewed Italian journalism
- Yavuz Baydar says Turkey’s media moguls must defend free speech
- Htoo Lwin Myo tells what was it is like to work as a writer in Burma
- Bharat Bhushan on “paid-for” news and the absence of marginal voices in the Indian media
- Lawrence Freedman and Benedict Wilkinson on the opportunities — and limits — of online activism
- A new play from Turkmenistani writer-in-exile Farid Tukhbatullin, whose wit offers a glimpse of life inside one of the world’s most closed and repressive countries.
- Find out more here | Subscribe now
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27 Jun 2013 | Africa
When three journalists were invited to accompany a military official to a town supposedly recaptured from rebels, they did not expect to end up caught in crossfire. One journalist is being targeted after an anonymous and more honest account of the incident appeared online. Reem Abbas reports
Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) chief of staff Esmat Abdelrahman
Charges have been brought against journalist Khaled Ahmed for allegedly writing a report critical of the Sudanese military.
Ahmed was one of three journalists that accompanied Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) chief of staff Esmat Abdelrahman on a visit to Abu Karshola, a neglected town in the embattled state of South Kordofan — where there has been a war between the government and rebels from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – North Sudan Faction (SPLM-N) since June 2011. The visit was organised to celebrate the town’s “liberation” from rebels.
Both SAF and the media were blocked from Abu Karshola between late April and late May. The town was occupied by the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), a coalition of rebel groups (including SPLM-N), which has fought the Sudanese government in different parts of the country since 2011. While the group contends that its departure in May was a “tactical” move, the government has asserted that it regained control of the town.
On 31 May three journalists flew over Abu Karshola in a military plane. Rather than finding a “liberated” town, Ahmed told Index that what he actually saw was a war-zone. During their visit, they were caught in crossfire as they toured the army force’s front lines. A few bullets came too close to Ahmed, and soon after he and the other journalists were taken back to the army base for safety.
“A military plane was called on for our aid, it was shot down by the SRF, we were three journalists stuck in a battlefield,” said Ahmed.
While rebels claimed to have downed the plane, official reports said that the plane crashed due to mechanical failure.
The journalists eventually returned safely to Khartoum. Ahmed’s report was published in Al-Sudani, the pro-government newspaper he works for. However, another more realistic account was published and circulated online by someone named Khaled — and that version has been attributed to Ahmed.
The report gave a version of events left out of the SAF’s spokesperson’s official statements. It painted a picture of an exhausted and confused army that actually isn’t in control of a ghost-town that the government claims it controls.
On 4 June security forces arrested Ahmed, as the report included eye-witness details drawn from the trip, and was penned by someone that shares his first name.
“I reserve the right to remain silent — I can’t answer”, said Ahmed when asked about whether or not he wrote the more honest account.
“I was told that I am detained due to a complaint filed by the army, I was interrogated for two days and asked about whether I wrote the article. I denied it, but they told me that I will be charged,” said Ahmed.
Ahmed is now facing four charges: harming the morale of the armed forces, sharing military information, tarnishing the reputation of the Chief of Staff, as well as electronic publishing (as per the new electronics crimes laws). He also said that his email and Facebook page were hacked.
The Electronic Crimes Police, which deals with crimes online, held Ahmed for a day. The law, (passed in 2007), means that journalists publishing online, as well as individuals discussing “sensitive” issues on social media websites could be detained, fined, and tried. He faces up to five years in jail as well as a fine.
Sudan will soon begin to implement its new electronic crimes laws, and Ahmed could become the first journalist to be tried under those laws. Another journalist, Wael Taha, was taken to court by a lawyer who claimed that he published false information about her under a penname, but the case was dismissed for insufficient evidence.
Just ten days after Ahmed’s detention, Dr. Nafie Ali Nafie, a presidential aide, told the legislative council of Khartoum state that the Sudanese army cannot curb the SRF, and that it needs support and mobilisation from the public.
Ahmed was released on bail on 7 June, but he was summoned twice for interrogation since.
Reem Abbas is a Sudanese freelance journalist. She has been published in Inter-Press Service (IPS), IRIN news, the Women International Perspective, (the WIP), Menassat and daily Sudanese newspapers. She tweets at @ReemShawkat
20 Jun 2013 | Americas
Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, promised in London yesterday that tackling crime and drug-related violence is a priority for his six-month-old government. While improving safety is important, Peña Nieto must also remember that protecting journalists and human rights workers must go beyond words, says Sara Yasin
Enrique Peña Nieto, President of Mexico giving a speech at an awards ceremony in 2012
Speaking at Chatham House, a foreign relations think tank, Peña Nieto delivered a lecture outlining his general aims for addressing Mexico’s economic problems.
I was most interested in what Peña Nieto had to say about security: He listed lowering violence as a priority for his administration, and he has previously stated that he ambitiously aims to halve Mexico’s murder rate by the end of his six-year term.
When asked about human rights violations, Peña Nieto said that his administration’s “commitment is clear”, and even claimed that the country has already seen a reduction in violations during his six months in office.
In April this year, the Mexican government approved legislation broadening the jurisdiction of the country’s federal authorities, in order to prosecute crimes against freedom of expression.
Peña Nieto’s rosy overtures of peace and safety yesterday most certainly aren’t enough, as speaking out in Mexico comes at a price: In the first 100 days of the new president’s time in office, there have been 56 attacks against journalists, and 36 against human rights defenders, as well as one assassination. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 28 journalists have been slain between 1992 and 2013.
It might be too soon to really evaluate the new legislation, but journalist Anabel Hernandez says that Peña Nieto “has no interest in either solving the murders of journalists or protecting them while they continue working in the country.”
Hernandez, well-known for exposing government corruption, was warned in 2010 of a high-level police officer’s plot to murder her. She has received 24-hour protection from armed guards ever since, but it looks like that will be changing soon. Hernandez told Vice Magazine that she received a letter from Mexico City’s government in April notifying her that she would no longer be allowed an armed escort, and that her protection will now be transferred to federal police — the same officers that she says have been threatening her and her sources.
The journalist reached out to the Secretary of Interior after receiving the letter, in order to press them to take her safety seriously. Hernandez has been “physically targeted in the past two years”, and her family members have also faced threats. The new programme only offers her a “panic button” which she says “does nothing to aid in the pursuit of the attackers.”
She also said that the programme “is being used simply to put on a show for the outside world. It’s a means to save face internationally. Keeping up international relations is more important than addressing freedom of expression.”
Local activists are currently pushing on the administration to stress the importance of human rights defenders and journalists, and take adequate measures to protect them.
Sara Yasin is an Editorial Assistant at Index. She tweets from @missyasin
3 Jun 2013 | Digital Freedom, Middle East and North Africa
The Jordanian government began blocking over 200 websites on Sunday for failing to obtain licenses under a strict set of new guidelines, Ruth Michaelson reports.
Four amendments to the country’s press and publications law gave the government the power to censor sites that fail to comply, close outlet offices and hold the site owners responsible for posted comments. The changes to the law, which were introduced in 2012, sparked a backlash that saw 1,000 Jordanian sites stage a blackout on 29 Aug 2012. Undeterred, the government implemented the changes.
According to press reports, 281 sites have so far been targeted. The pro-government Jordan Times quoted Fayez Shawabkeh of the Press and Publications Department (PPD) as saying that his department was responsible for compiling the list of “unlicensed” sites, which was forwarded to the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC). In turn, the TRC pressured the country’s service providers to begin implementing the blocks.
It became immediately clear on Sunday that the block included many sites that fall outside the category of what Jordan Times described as “local broadcasters”. The website arabianbusiness.com reports that “some of the more prominent pages that have apparently been blocked by the government include Qatari news portal Al Jazeera, Time Out magazine, erotic publication Penthouse and the site of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan.”
Al Jazeera is among the sites being blocked in Jordan for failure to obtain a license.
The amended press and publications law requires websites to obtain licenses similar to the rules that require printers to register, without regard to the differences between the mediums.
A rundown of the law on the website tamimi.com states that: “Jordan’s amendments to the press and publications law mean that owners of electronic publications, irrespective of where their offices are located, must take care when allowing their websites to be viewed in Jordan. While the amendments only contain four changes to the press and publications law, under the new legislative regime electronic publications that contain news, press reports, press releases and comments have an additional obligation to register, obtain a license and actively monitor the content of the publication in order to ensure that they are in compliance with the laws in Jordan.”
Therefore, the amendment is not simply regulating Jordanian sites, but any site available to view in Jordan- essentially requiring the entire Internet to comply with what appears to be a rather opaque and poorly defined category of regulations. In order to stay within the law, any site that wishes to be viewed in Jordan has to obtain a license and police the content of the site, irrespective of where it is in the world. The Jordanian government has “stressed that the law is aimed to organize the sector and provide legal guarantees against slander and unlawful material” according to AmmonNews. Given the flexible and rather expansive language of law, there also appears to be few guarantees or safeguards that the government won’t block a site arbitrarily or simply amend the law to block sites that it wishes to target.
The stated framework of this law also raises questions as to whether sites like Al Jazeera, Penthouse, Time Out or the Muslim Brotherhood would ever be able to obtain licenses to be viewed in Jordan. Last year, the country’s parliament considered a law that would have banned the Muslim Brotherhood from participating in the then upcoming election, on the basis of banning “religious parties” and Al Jazeera has sometimes been regarded as the fuel of anti-government protests across the Middle East. Penthouse would undoubtedly fall foul of public decency laws. It is unclear precisely what threat Time Out poses.
It is also unclear at present whether the Jordanian authorities will continue to ignore to the intense pressure from press freedom and civil society groups such as the Jordanian Centre for Defending the Freedom of Journalists, who described the law as “storm[ing] the freedom of electronic media”. Yet on the same day that the new law went into affect, King Abdullah launched his “Democratic Empowerment Programme”, dubbed Demoqrati, which according to The Jordan Times “is founded on development-boosting values such as the rule of the law, rejection of violence, acceptance of others, dialogue and accountability. It is also meant to stimulate civil society institutions to play their role as a key supporter of citizens and issues of concern to the public.” It appears that the Kingdom is yet to regulate irony.
