In the air above Natun Bazaar in Dhaka last Friday, a helicopter swept over protesters. Not to monitor or to film, but to shoot at them. This is according to on-the-ground BBC reporters, who described the area as resembling a war zone. There is some dispute as to whether the helicopters just fired tear gas, sound grenades and rubber bullets or whether live rounds were also used.
The freedom of expression implications of the recent violent situation in Bangladesh are numerous, and in some cases pretty obvious. For starters, many young people have been killed for taking part in street protests. Students who set out to raise their voices against a policy from the governing Awami League are facing police and military violence. They have now been put under curfew and police given shoot-on-sight orders. Emergency rooms are overwhelmed as more and more people have been swept up in the violence with around 200 people reported killed and thousands more injured. Two of those people who died were journalists, Hasan Mehedi from the Dhaka Times and ATM Turab from the newspaper Dainik Naya Diganta.
All the while, another popular weapon in every authoritarian’s arsenal has come into play: the classic internet blackout. A lot can happen when communications networks are closed down and Bangladesh has seen some particularly horrifying examples. The service has now been partially restored, but for five days people were left in the dark. We know from past experience that an internet and mobile shutdown means there’s no way to check loved ones are safe, no way to look at maps to get to safety and no way to call an ambulance. Journalists are unable to report on what is happening and misinformation is given the space to run wild. The excuse for internet shutdowns is always that they “quell violence”, but they make everyone’s lives more dangerous and mean the state can act without oversight or accountability
What is quite incredible is the narrative being set by the Awami League. A side note here: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been in power for four consecutive terms, and the latest election came with a side order of arrests of opposition figures. Bangladesh is also one of the most corrupt countries in the world and getting worse according to Transparency International.
Anyway, head to the Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) website, the national news agency of Bangladesh (read: propaganda outlet for the government) and the current story has a very different angle. In an article yesterday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina referred to the “anarchists who went on rampage for multiple days” and said she is “seeking justice from the masses”. Just two hours later, another article arrived — a government minster declared that “Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina would take responsibilities for the families of the people killed in recent nationwide mayhem”. He blamed the “arson terrorism” on the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, the county’s largest Islamist party.
Amid the sparse reports on the violence, there are few photos of the clashes. The Awami League gives a performance of compassion for dead students, while blaming their deaths on the BNP and Jamaat and not on government action
The leading English language newspaper in Bangladesh, The Daily Star, which is non-partisan, republished chunks from one of the BSS articles, with no additional context or comment, and then, perhaps bravely, published an opinion piece calling the excessive use of force against protesters “unconscionable” – published with a delay due to the internet shutdown. Another opinion article describes the protesters as rioters. Leading independent newspaper Prothom Alo has been covering the violence too, including comments from UN Secretary General spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric that people must be allowed to “protest peacefully, regardless of where they are protesting, without fear of arrest, injury or worse”.
There is independent media in Bangladesh. Just don’t look at the TV news channels, because you won’t find it there. But there are several problems. First, according to sources we’ve spoken with, a huge number of people are compromised, with connections either to the Awami League or the BNP. Secondly, journalists who criticise the ruling party put themselves in very real danger. They risk coming under fire from the Cyber Security Act, facing years in prison for publishing what’s deemed anti-Bangladesh propaganda. And they risk violent attacks from both Awami League supporters and religious fundamentalists. That cannot be a good recipe for media freedom. Third, ordinary people are afraid to speak out.
To that end, finding brave, independent journalists free from political influence is no mean feat. So, if you are in fact a young Bangladeshi journalist, blogger or videographer that is committed to fair reporting, we’d be pleased to make your acquaintance. Please get in touch.
Many South African universities remain closed as thousands of students protest proposed fee hikes in what is believed to be some of the largest demonstrations to hit the country since apartheid. So far, 29 South Africans have been charged with violent offences as police continue to use heavy-handed tactics. High treason is among the alleged offences of protesters. And a court is seeking to ban the hashtag #feesmustfall, trending across South Africa.
The demonstrations began last week at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and have since spread around the country. South African president Jacob Zuma is meeting with students today to discuss tuition fees. Student negotiations have led to the government offering to cap fees hikes at 6% rather than proposed 10%, but demonstrations continue.
A protest outside parliament buildings in Cape Town on Wednesday led to clashes with South African riot police, who fired stun grenades at demonstrators. As the South African minister of higher education, Blade Nzimande, tried to reason with the crowd, he was met with calls for his resignation and placards reading: “Fees must fall, education for all”.
Students pushed past parliament gates and made their way inside the grounds. There, they sat on the ground, blocking entry and exit.
There were similar scenes on Monday night when students occupied the Bremner building at the Univerity of Cape Town. Police showed up in riot gear and arrested many for various offences.
The hashtag #FeesMustFall is being used on social media for people to voice their opinions and follow the protests. Following a request from the management at the University of Cape Town, the South African High Court has reportedly issued an interdiction against the hashtag in an attempt to silence dissent. Jane Duncan, professor of journalism at the University of Johannesburg is quoted in HTXT.Africa, saying that the inclusion of the hashtag demonstrates a clear misunderstanding of how the internet works, and in “its ill-defined breadth” could make criminals of anyone who uses it.
How exactly the court intends to enforce a ban on a hashtag remains to be seen, but if true, it would have very serious implications for freedom of expression in South Africa.
A statement of solidarity with students in South Africa has been issued by the alumni of 24 schools, colleges and universities around the world, including King’s College London, as well as the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Harvard. Signatories are “outraged by the use of violence from police”.
“Each of us stands in solidarity with the students, staff and workers protesting in South Africa, at parliament, universities and institutions of higher education. They are making history on streets and campuses across the country,” the statement reads.
“No unarmed and non-violent group of students should be dispersed with stun grenades, tear gassed, pepper sprayed, or shot at. All should be equal before the law, and we condemn the targeting of black students by the police. We call for the immediate release of students who have been arrested or detained in the context of peaceful protest action.”
Additional research by Anna Gregory, a student at The Crossley Heath School, Halifax, England.
The massacre and arrest of thousands of pro-democracy movement members in June has been followed by a purge, the biggest clampdown on dissent since the Cultural Revolution in the sixties. According to official sources, the purge and purification policy embraces education and the media, literature and the arts, and economic policy. This hardening of Party policy was confirmed by Song Ping, the newly elected member of the Standing Committee of the Party’s Politburo, the supreme decision making body, on 22 August. After attacking ‘bourgeois liberalism’, which had many supporters among top party ranks, he said that the Party’s 47 million members were to undergo ‘elimination’ and ‘purification’.
Since July, universities and other higher education institutes throughout the country have undergone purges of staff and a change of policy on student admission and curriculum. The intake of first-year university students this year has been cut from 640,000 to 610,000. The intake of Beijing University (Beida), the most prestigious in the country and the ‘hotbed’ of student movement, was slashed from 1,900 to 800. Its president, the liberal mathematician Professor Ding Shisun, has been replaced by the orthodox marxist economist Wu Shuqing. Similar changes of university, heads have been reported elsewhere.
First-year students are now required to spend a year in factories or in the countryside to familiarise themselves with the lives and work of workers and peasants’ before going to university. First-year students at Beijing University have been singled out to undergo one year’s military training before commencing studies. Those already studying must attend political indoctrination classes, especially on the official version of the ‘turmoil’ and ‘counter-revolutionary rebellion’. Sensitive subjects such as history and social science have been neutralised.New graduates have been ordered to take humble jobs far from politically sensitive cities so as to disperse and punish those who were involved in the student demonstrations. The number of students sent abroad this year has been severely reduced and their vetting made more rigorous. The number of foreign scholars and students studying in China has been reduced. The plan for sending 23 Fulbright scholars to teach in Chinese universities has been cancelled altogether by the Chinese government, apparently out of fear of American influence on the university campuses. Many see all of this as a desperate attempt to ‘nip in the bud’ any potential student protest.
Journalists and those working in the press and media have also been systematically purged and vetted. Many of them, together with the strong foreign press corps, were responsible for reporting the pro-democracy movement to the Chinese people and those abroad last spring. For about one week in May (12-19) China was said to have had the freest press in its recent history. Many of the journalists also took part in the demonstrations, demanding press freedom and honest reporting. For instance, on 9 May, in Beijing alone, there were over a thousand journalists, mostly from New China News Agency (Xinhua), the People’s Daily and China Central Television (CCTV), among the student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.
The clampdown on the Chinese press and media started immediately after the imposition of Martial Law in Beijing on 20 May. A new working group was set up by the Propaganda Department of the Party’s Central Committee to supervise and impose stringent prior censorship on the press and media in Beijing. Troops took up position near the offices of the People’s Daily, Xinhua and CCTV to ensure that government directives were followed. However, because of the confusion and political uncertainty within the Party leadership at that time, a number of Chinese journalists continued to defy government directives. Most were later dismissed, arrested or shot when Party hardliners gained the upper hand in the political power struggle. After the massacre on 4 June, People’s Daily director Qian Liren and editor-in-chief Tan Wenrui were arrested. So were Mu Qing, editor of Xinhua and Dai Qing, the famous writer and reporter of the Guangming Daily, to name but a few.
Foreign journalists who ignored Martial Law were beaten up; some were detained and later expelled. The government then began to move against several Hong Kong newspapers and magazines which they controlled, but which were also sympathetic to the pro-democracy movement.
Li Zisong, the publisher of the Chinese daily Wen WeiPo, was dismissed. In protest at Li’s dismissal, more than 30 members of the newspaper’s editorial staff, including its deputy editor Ching Cheung, resigned. Other independent Hong Kong publications such as Ming Pao, the Express, the Hong Kong Economic Journal, the Mirror magazine, the Emancipation Monthly and the Nineties Monthly were accused of being ‘subversive’ and warned about their maladminstration and abuse of office.
However, human rights violations continue to occur in parts of the country where rebel armies opposed to the NRM continue to offer resistance.
The Report points out that no secrecy is made about arbitrary detention in areas designated as being under a state of emergency. According to the government’s own figures, 4,183 people were held in February 1988; by January 1989 the number had fallen to 2,925.
As usual, the state of the country’s press offers a useful indicator to the right of free expression. The Report catalogues instances of government harassment of newspapers and journalists by the NRM, as follows:
Sully Ndiwalana Kiwanuka, editor of Focus, a Muslim-owned paper, was charged with sedition following an article in the issue of 4 March 1986 which reported that the NRM was finding its operation ‘rough going’ (in the rebel territories). After publishing the article, Focus claimed that security officials were ‘haunting’ its office and ‘making it impossible for us to work’. Sully Kiwanuka was arrested on 14 March 1986, held for three days and charged with sedition. He was released on bail.
In June 1986 the government banned the Weekend Digest. A government press release stated that it had been ‘reluctantly compelled’ to ban the paper after a series of ‘concocted stories’. The paper had just published a story which claimed that the DP (opposition Democratic Party) was plotting with the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and Italy to overthrow the NRM. A few days later the co-editors, Jesse Mashate and Wilson Wandera, appeared in court charged with publishing a false rumour. They were released on bail.
Francis Odida, editor of the Sunday Review, has been a repeated target of government criticism. He was charged on two accounts of seditious publication and one of publishing false news because of articles published in November and December 1986. At the end of December 1987 he was again arrested and initially charged with sedition in respect of an article he had written and published in October 1987. Odida is himself believed to be a supporter of the Uganda People’s Congress of Milton Obote. At a second court appearance in January 1988 an additional and alternative charge of treason was added. Odida remained in custody for more than seven months.
Two other Sunday Review journalists, George Ongaya and Ben Kitara, were arrested on the same day as Francis Odida but have not so far been charged.
Four employees of The Telecast, an independent daily, including the editor, Tony Owana, were arrested by the army and briefly held for questioning on 10 December 1987. The arrests were prompted by two stories in its 9 December issue, one claiming that 27 people at an NRM political school had died of rabies, the other quoting a denial by a senior army officer that he was building himself a house in a Kampala suburb. The Telecast immediately published a front-page apology to the NRM for the rabies story, but charges of sedition and libel respectively are apparently still pending.
Antholy Ssekweyama, was arrested along with a number of prominent figures in October 1986 and charged with plotting to overthrow the government. The charges against him did not mention his activities as a newspaper editor. In March 1988 the High Court acquitted him and he was released from custody.’
On 29 December 1987 the paper’s acting deputy-in-chief, John Kakooza, was arrested by police on a charge of seditious publication. He was released on police bond. The charge apparently concerned three separate items that appeared in the weekly: a report which stated that opposition guerrillas controlled tracts of territory in the Teso region; a commentary on the political implications of a religious rebellion; and a line-drawing of Museveni which was deemed to be disrespectful. These instances apart, the press in Uganda remains in a far healthier state than at any time in the previous 20 years.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”What Price Protest?”][vc_column_text]Thewinter 2017 Index on Censorship magazine explores 1968 – the year the world took to the streets – to discover whether our rights to protest are endangered today.
With: Ariel Dorfman, Anuradha Roy, Micah White
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