Mapping Media Freedom: Journalists barred from covering Theresa May event

11 May 2017 | Azerbaijan, Digital Freedom, Europe and Central Asia, France, Greece, Mapping Media Freedom, Netherlands, News and features, United Kingdom

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Mapping Media Freedom

Each week, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project verifies threats, violations and limitations faced by the media throughout the European Union and neighbouring countries. Here are five recent reports that give us cause for concern.

United Kingdom: Journalists prevented from covering Theresa May visit

2 May 2017 – Three journalists for Cornwall Live were shut in a room, prevented from filming and severely limited on what questions they could ask during British Prime Minister Theresa May’s visit to a factory in Cornwall called AP Diving.

A reporter from Cornwell Live who was live blogging the event wrote: “We’ve been told by the PM’s press team that we were not allowed to stand outside to see Theresa May arrive.”

He later added: “PM is here – but we’ve been shown the door. The prime minister is behind this door – but we can’t show you. Her press team has said print journalists are not allowed to see her visiting the company.”

The journalist then described conditions surrounding the interview with May: “We’ve been allowed to ask our questions to the prime minister (although we are forbidden to film or photograph her answering them).”

The Netherlands: Journalist faces rape threats following post on popular blog

7 May 2017 – Loes Reijmer, a journalist and columnist for De Volkskrant, has faced a storm of abuse after the popular right-wing blog Geenstijl published her photo with the text: “Would you do her?”

Thousands of readers responded in the comments section, many containing sexual comments and rape threats.

Reijmer had published several critical columns about the controversial weblog Geenstijl, a provocative online portal, owned by Telegraaf Media Group and is one of the most popular news sites in the Netherlands. Geenstijl has faced years of criticism for similar posts.

The attack on Reijmer led to a public call on advertisers to boycott Geenstijl and it’s affiliate video blog Dumpert. The dailies De Volkskrant and NRC published an open letter on 6 May 2017 signed by over a hundred women from media and entertainment calling big companies to pull out their advertisement because they “support humiliation of women”. Over the following days, many advertisers withdrew their adverts.

The Dutch Union for Journalists has condemned Geenstijl in a statement on their website: “The tarnish way in which journalists like Reijmer are being attacked by readers, this provocation by Geenstijl, is one of many cases of intimidation of journalists. In this case, it was sexual harassment, something that female journalists who have the guts to be critical are increasingly facing, which is unacceptable.”

Azerbaijan: Manager of independent online TV channel detained

2 May 2017 – Aziz Garashoglu, one of the managers of an online TV platform Kanal 13, was detained and then sentenced to 30 days in administrative detention.

Garashoglu was detained together with his wife Lamiya Charpanova who is an editor at the channel. Both were questioned for more than an hour.

Charpanova was released, while her husband was taken to Nasimi district court where he was sentenced to 30 days in administrative detention on charges of allegedly resisting the police.

Speaking to journalists after the hearing, lawyer Elchin Sadigov said Aziz was rounded up for his alleged resemblance to a man named Faig Cabbarov, who has been on the list of fugitives since 2015. But the lawyer also confirmed that after seeing the picture it was clear there was no resemblance.

Sadigov said he will be appealing the decision. Kanal 13 was founded in 2010 as an independent online television. One of the founders of the website lives in exile in Germany.

France: Vice journalist injured by police while covering May Day march

1 May 2017 – Videojournalist Henry Langston, who works for Vice UK, was hit by police officers and then injured by a piece of tear gas canister while reporting on a May Day march in Paris, Langston reported on Twitter and confirmed to Mapping Media Freedom.

The journalist said he was first hit across the knee with a baton by an officer.

Langston reported that the protest was “very violent on both sides” and that he and his crew were “following a group of anarchists” during the incident.

“Police officers were aiming flash-balls (a non-lethal hand-held weapon) at people’s heads, firing tear gas canisters directly at people. It seems to me they weren’t differentiating between protesters and journalists”.

“Later, the crowd was trapped against a wall. Police hit you [with batons] no matter who you were. Then they let people out and continued hitting them. I was wearing a helmet that said TV and they hit me anyway”, Langston continued.

An hour later Langston said he was hit in the leg by what he alleges “was a mechanism from a tear gas canister”. Langston was treated in hospital for injuries where he received stitches.

His cameraperson, freelancer Devin Yuceil, was also hit in the stomach with a piece of a flash grenade.

Greece: Masked assailants attack Kathimerini offices

24 April 2017 – A group of about 10 masked individuals barged into the offices of Greek daily Kathimerini in Thessaloniki, throwing paint and flyers.

According to a report published on the news website protagon.gr, the flyers had threats written on them, including: “good news is a stone on a journalist’s head”.

The Athens Union of Journalists (ESIEA) published a press release on Monday, following the attack: “The board of ESIEA expresses its support to the colleagues and all the employees of the newspaper and notes that such actions, wherever they come from, will not weaken the morale of journalists for [providing] objective information but the state must do its duty.”

The press released emphasised that journalists and their unions do not give in to blackmails and intimidation attempts pursued by “dark circles”.

All the Greek political parties condemned the attack. The government-leading Syriza said in a statement that acts against the freedom of the press “have no place in the political confrontation,” while the main opposition party, New Democracy expressed its “unequivocal condemnation of the attack by anarchists”.[/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_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1494498939864-9d0448a9-e2e1-3″ taxonomies=”6564″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Greece: Move to regulate broadcast market draws objection

29 Mar 2016 | Europe and Central Asia, European Union, Greece, Mapping Media Freedom, mobile, News and features

greece-mmf

As the Greek government prepares to open a public consultation on the tender for new broadcast licenses, the country’s private TV owners have escalated their criticisms of a controversial new media law passed on 11 February.

The law aims to regulate the country’s media market and includes a competitive bidding process for limited private broadcast licenses. Nikos Pappas, the minister responsible for its implementation, announcedat a Syriza party meeting on 23 March his intention to launch the open international bid after the public consultation.

The changes will not affect the country’s public broadcaster ERT.

Panos Kyriakopoulos, president of the Association of Private TV Stations of National Range (EITISEE), criticised the government’s move, pointing out that the industry group was only invited to discuss the proposed legislation late in the process, when the draft bill had already been approved by a parliament committee. He added that EITISEE would appeal to the Greek Council of State and has already contacted the relevant EU agencies.

While broadcast television licensing has not been harmonised at an EU level, the changes to the Greek broadcast regime are being driven by the financial bailout. Under the rescue package, a European Commission spokesperson confirmed that Greece had committed to launch an international tender for broadcasting licenses.

From the Syriza-led government’s point of view, the new licensing process will bring order to broadcasting environment and fight corruption. Political opponents see the licensing regime as an attempt to take full control over the country’s media.

“We want financially viable media, because if this is not the case, they end up with financial holes and large loans, putting pressure on the political system to intervene in banks,” said Pappas.

Kyriakopoulos claims that whatever is being said about EITISEE member’s finances is “lies”.

“Our members do not have a euro of arrears to the state budget, the social security funds and the banks,” Kyriakopoulos told Index on Censorship. “Moreover, no loan does belong to the category of red loans.”

However, not everyone agrees with Kyriakopoulos.

“In our country the private TV channels have dominated the media environment for 25 years without ever having been given licenses and under a provisional legal status. Regulation is not only necessary but it’s a precondition for the smooth functioning of the market,” said Matina Papachristoudi, a journalist with the magazines Digital TV Info and Hot Doc, and a blogger at mediatvnews.gr.

For its part, EITISEE said that after the transition from analog to the digital age, the licensing framework has changed as in other European countries. “The TV channels do not have frequencies anymore,” Kyriakopoulos said. “It’s the network provider which has been given the frequencies, and this is Digea, following an international tender.”

According to Papachristoudi, non-authorised stations are “clients” of Digea, a digital network operator.

The main fight between the government and the Greek private TV is over the number of licences to be sold. Currently, eight national TV channels are operating in Greece. The new law allows for only four. Based on research from the University Institute of Florence, the government maintains that only four channels are viable.

“This is unprecedented for a democratic state where the open market is established,” Kyriakopoulos said. “The government cannot impose how many licences will be allowed within a sector, based on a revenue approach; the open market regulates this.”

“The issue will be judged in the supreme court, to which the channel owners will appeal,” Papachristoudi said. “Personally, I think it is not a restriction on freedom of expression, but an attempt to control the broadcasting landscape under new conditions.”

Most controversially, the government has decided to conduct the international bidding process itself, rather than have the National Council for Radio and Television (NCRTV), Greece’s independent regulatory authority, run the tender. NCRTV is designated by the Greek constitution as the body responsible for such a process.

Kyriakopoulos said this “abolishes the independence of the press” and accused the government of creating a “kind of oligopoly with few stations”, which are easily “manageable” and “better controlled … either through the distribution of state advertising or by threatening to pull their licences, if they do not obey the requirements imposed”.

The government opted to oversee the process due to a deadlock with the major opposition party in parliament over the appointment of NCRTV board members. The Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, accused the dominant opposition party of wanting to “cancel the contest”.

“Mr. Mitsotakis is a hostage to the various interests and the TV contractors and denies the consensual establishment of the NCRTV,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement. “His aim is to cancel the contest, and those who had for so many years a free use of public frequencies, not to pay anything.”

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/