13 May 2014 | Campaigns, Statements
Rt Hon Theresa May MP
Home Secretary
Peel Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
Dear Home Secretary,
We are writing to ask that you launch an urgent investigation into why Cambridgeshire Police called on a Twitter user at home and demanded he remove a tweet about a political party– even though he had committed no crime.
We understand from Michael Abberton that police visited him without warning at home following a complaint from a UKIP councillor over a tweet in which Mr Abberton mocked the party. We believe that the actions of the police are a direct affront to freedom of speech, and represent a worrying trend in the UK towards freedom of speech on social media in particular.
The case of Mr Abberton is particularly disturbing because of the political involvement in the complaint. Free speech is vital in a functioning democracy and must be protected at all times, but its importance is often felt most keenly at election time. We believe that the actions of the Cambridgeshire Police set a troubling precedent.
We ask that you investigate this matter immediately and further call on you clarify to police all laws relating to free speech and to elections. That the police saw fit to take this complaint any further than the police station is troubling enough but two further aspects of this case also require address. The first is that the police visited Mr Abberton – who it was clear had committed no crime – at his home, without warning. No one should have to fear a knock on their door by police for simply exercising their legitimate right to speak freely.
Secondly, we understand that the police who visited Mr Abberton asked him not to tweet about their visit. Such behaviour would not look out of place in a totalitarian regime and is a further affront to free speech and expression in a country that has often led the way in condemning such behaviour elsewhere.
These questions need answers swiftly. We call for any investigation to include clear recommendations on how such incidents will be prevented in future and look forward to hearing from you on how you plan to deal with this matter.
Yours faithfully,
Jodie Ginsberg, Chief Executive
Index on Censorship
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30 Apr 2014 | News and features, Politics and Society, United Kingdom, Young Writers / Artists Programme
(Photo: Michael Preston / Demotix)
Ofcom’s decision to declare the UK Independence Party a ‘major party’ for the purposes of this month’s European elections has led to questions about who should be allowed to address the public. Behind the scenes, broadcasters have asked why their right to editorial freedom is restricted at all.
UKIP’s leader, Nigel Farage, responded: “This ruling does not cover the local elections, despite UKIP making a major breakthrough in the county elections last year. This strikes me as wrong.”
Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party – which Ofcom decided was not a major party – pointed out that, unlike UKIP, her party has an MP, and is also “part of the fourth-largest group in the European Parliament”.
Both sides pounced on the Liberal Democrats, whose dwindling position in the polls, they hinted, should see it demoted to minor party status.
The decision means commercial TV channels that show party election broadcasts must allow UKIP the same number of broadcasts as the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats. They will also be given equal weight in relevant news and current affairs programming. However, for content focusing on, or broadcasting solely to, Scotland, UKIP’s lower levels of support there mean it will remain a minor player.
This of course gives UKIP a certain level of legitimacy, and the scope to influence even more voters. For those campaigning against them, the move is grossly unfair.
The Green Party in particular feels hard done by. From the House of Lords to local councils it has representatives at every level, but Ofcom still claims it hasn’t achieved enough. Yet in its report the regulator said that it could not make UKIP a major party in Scotland without granting the same status to the Scottish Green Party, due to their comparable performance.
Ofcom has promised to review the list periodically, so things could change in future. But for now it believes the list represents political realities. UKIP’s focus on getting Britain out of Europe has helped it to do well at the past few European elections. In 2009 it came second in terms of vote share, up from third place in 2004, and this year a number of polls indicate that it could win. In more recent local elections UKIP has done well, achieving 19.9 per cent of the total vote in 2013. But this has leapt up from 4.6 per cent in 2009’s local elections, which for Ofcom is not consistent enough to justify extra coverage for its prospective councillors.
So it seems fair enough that UKIP counts as an important party for Britain in the European Parliament. The Greens are yet to win enough votes in enough elections for their inclusion to make sense. And the Liberal Democrats appear to be clinging on only because of their level of support in past general elections, which was also taken into account.
But the real question is why a list is necessary at all. After all a “regulated free press” sounds something like “freedom in moderation” – ultimately a nonsense. Ofcom’s control over which parties receive coverage puts a dampener on broadcasters’ right to freedom of expression and makes it more difficult for newer parties to break through.
Responding to a previous consultation on whether the list of major parties should be reviewed, Channel 4 said the regulator’s rules should “ensure that political messages are conveyed in a democracy… [but] such regulation should be as narrow as possible to restrict… any interference with the broadcaster’s right to editorial independence and its rights to freedom of expression”. Channel 5, meanwhile, said the concept of major parties did not have “continuing relevance at a time of increasing political flux and fragmentation within the electorate”.
Ofcom appears to be prioritising the need of the electorate to be informed. So it could be argued that, for the purposes of allocating party election broadcasts, the list is useful to prevent any channel from steadfastly omitting information on a party that is likely to appear on most voters’ ballot papers.
But in terms of news and current affairs programming, there seems little reason that broadcasters shouldn’t have the freedom to say what they please – particularly because newspapers are faced with no such restrictions.
As the dominance of mass media fades, and the internet provides access to alternative points of view, the restrictions on the news you receive through your TV will only become more obvious.
This article was originally published on April 30, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
29 Apr 2014 | News and features, Religion and Culture, United Kingdom, Young Writers / Artists Programme
“Three men walk into a bar.” It’s the set-up for most of the jokes I remember. They’re the kind of jokes that the drunk great-uncle tells at Christmas whilst you titter awkwardly into your fruit cake: often racist, often sexist and always offensive.
Let me tell you a joke.
A girl walks into a bar. She’s tall and blonde, with a privately-funded white smile. My male friend sitting next to me proceeds to ogle her.
“Fit,” he proclaims, “fit as.”
Another male friend laughs. “Don’t even bother going there, mate,” he says, nodding towards the girl. “She’s CU.”
The first friend looks back at the girl and then down at his drink ruefully. “CU,” he says, the two syllables hammer blows in the final nail of the coffin. CU. Two letters, spelling out abrupt endings to chat-up attempts, awkward pauses between strangers during Fresher’s Week; two letters deemed sufficient to define and dismiss a person in a heartbeat. CU: The Christian Union Society. It isn’t a particularly funny punch line.
I’m not a religious person. I think of myself as an agnostic, happily perched on the fence swinging my legs and waving to those either side of me. However, as a chorister in York Minster cathedral from the age of eight to thirteen, I grew up with a healthy respect for religion. Each day I was surrounded by people who had dedicated their lives to God. Although you may question it or disagree with it, it’s hard not to wonder at faith that strong.
Naively, when I arrived at university last September, I believed that other students would also hold a similar view. I imagined students having heated debates- over politics, religion, music, life- before sharing a beer, respecting the each other’s right to an opinion. Instead, university proved a Pandora’s Box of religious stereotypes. Sitting in a friend’s room during Fresher’s, when our conversation turned towards a boy we both knew to be in the CU society, the friend shook her head.
“I don’t understand them,” she said, “They’re all just brainwashed.”
At most universities, there are a number of faith-based societies, ranging from J-Soc (the Jewish Society) and ISoc (the Islamic society) to MethAng (the Methodist and Anglican society). There are certain stigmas and stereotypes attached to all of them, in the exact same way ‘the rugby lad’ has become a typecast. However, it is the CU which seems to be under the most scrutiny by students.
Right from my first week I was aware that being in CU somehow marked you out. Membership rendered you a lesser student, automatically barring you from sex, alcohol and nights out- the ‘key’ components of the university experience. I’m far from the only student aware of these stereotypes. Robin, a student at Canterbury Christ Church, says “Some people might not think they’re ‘cool’ if they join a certain religious group. They may feel alienated from other students.”Georgie, a student at Warwick, agrees. “There is a stigma, but more so about Christians than any other religion. Stereotypical faith member as far as I can tell tends to be female, and really smiley and keen to talk about their religion.”
American teen-culture has done much to establish and enforce this perception. In films like Easy-A and television shows such as Glee, religious- and specifically Christian- High School clubs and cliques are portrayed as self-righteous, its members ‘Bible-bashers’. The focus is often on student celibacy. One scene in Glee shows a meeting of the ‘Celibacy Club’. The club is portrayed as absurd; at the mention of the word ‘contraception’ its president Quinn shouts “Don’t you dare mention the C-word!” The female members are also shown as teases: “Remember the power-motto girls: ‘It’s all about the teasing and not about the pleasing.’” As shown by my friend in the bar, this latter stereotype has been particularly successful in its journey across the pond.
Examining the various stereotypes surrounding CUs, I became curious as to what its members thought of them. Jessie, a first-year CU member at Exeter, says she finds people’s preconceptions hard to cope with. “Telling people you’re a Christian when you come to uni, before people know you, is terrifying ,” she explains, “people do tend to form an opinion about you that you’re a ‘bible basher’ or a ‘goodie goodie’ type person and I know I struggled, and still do struggle with that!” Another anonymous member told me “I think there is definitely some stigma. People are always shocked to learn that some CU people enjoy drinking and going out, for example.”
Some university CUs are actively trying to combat these assumptions. ‘Text A Toastie’ is a popular scheme aimed at getting CU members and non-members in dialogue; students are invited to text a question about Christianity with the promise that a member of CU will arrive at your door with a free toastie and answer to your question. Some students are less than impressed by the scheme. Robin says “I personally think it’s a shame that for some people to feel comfortable speaking about religious issues there has to be food involved.” However, what it does succeed in proving is that Christians are not a clique from a teen-movie, but a group open to discussion and debate. Today university students are lucky enough to have religious freedom and the facilities to express it.
Now we have another goal: freedom from stereotype.
This article was originally published on April 29, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
24 Apr 2014 | Ireland, News and features, Politics and Society, Turkey, United Kingdom
Armenian protesters in Lyons accused Turkey of supporting Islamic rebels in an attack on Kessab, an Armenian majority town located in Syria, on the Turkish border. (Image: Benjamin Larderet/Demotix)
It is, as Zhou Enlai might have said, probably too early to tell how significant Tayyip Erdogan’s comments alluding to the Armenian genocide will be.
The Turkish prime minister seems to have broken one of his country’s great taboos. In a statement translated into nine languages, the AK leader said: “It is with this hope and belief that we wish that the Armenians who lost their lives in the context of the early 20th century rest in peace, and we convey our condolences to their grandchildren.”
“Having experienced events which had inhumane consequences — such as relocation — during the First World War, should not prevent Turks and Armenians from establishing compassion and mutually humane attitudes among towards [sic] one another.”
According to Anadolu, Turkey’s state news agency, Erdogan also commented: “In Turkey, expressing different opinions and thoughts freely on the events of 1915 is the requirement of a pluralistic society as well as of a culture of democracy and modernity.”
This is not, you will have noticed, an apology. Offering condolence is not at all the same as expressing remorse. Though some would say it is not Erdogan’s duty to express remorse; he is the prime minister of the modern republic of Turkey, not the Ottoman Empire under which the alleged slaughter of over 1.5 million Armenian Christians in 1915 took place.
And some are utterly contemptuous of Erdogan’s statement: Reuters quotes the Armenian National Committee of America describing the statement as an “escalation” of Turkey’s “denial of truth and obstruction of justice”.
But let us assume that a) Erdogan is in a position to speak for Turkey past as well as present, and b) there is, at the kernel of this, an attempt at reconciliation with Armenia and the Armenian diaspora.
The very mention of the events are significant against the backdrop of the Turkish Penal Code’s controversial Article 301, which forbids insulting “the Turkish nation”. That law has in the past, effectively barred discussion of the genocide, and created a environment where simply identifying as Armenian within Turkey was seen as a provocative act.
The most famous victim of this culture was Hrant Dink, the editor of Agos who was assassinated in January 2007.
Dink saw himself as Turkish-Armenian, and his newspaper was bilingual. He was a firm believer in the potential for dialogue in bringing some reconciliation between Turks and Armenians. He also believed such dialogue could only take place in an atmosphere free of censorship, to the extent that he vowed that he would be the first person to break a proposed French law making denial of the Armenian genocide a crime (a cheap political trick aimed at both currying favour with the Armenian community in France and creating a barrier for Turkey’s proposed entry into the EU).
Ultimately, Dink believed that progress could only be made if we were able to talk freely and access historical debate without impediment or fear.
History, like science, is a process rather than a dogma. And like science, one’s interpretations of history can vary based on both the evidence available and the prevailing mood.
For a long time after the creation of the Irish state, for example, the teaching of history in schools was simple. I recall one primary school history text which seemed to consist entirely of tales of the terrible things foreigners had done to the Irish: first the Vikings, then the Normans, and finally the English. The book finished pretty much where the 1919 War of Independence began. The last page featured the words of the national anthem and a picture of the national flag.
Sympathetic portrayals of English people, and British soldiers in particular, were thin on the ground — Frank O’Connor’s tragic short story Guests of the Nation being one of the very few.
Since the late 1990s peace process, both fictional and historical perspectives on Ireland’s relationship with Britain have changed. Some of the novels of Sebastian Barry, for example, attempt to tell stories of people who were neglected and even vilified in nationalist, Catholic, post-independence Ireland. Part of the plot of Paul Murray’s Skippy Dies has a Catholic school history teacher attempting to get his pupils interested in Irish soldiers who fought for Britain in World War I. Meanwhile, a recent book by nationalist historian Tim Pat Coogan, attempting to paint the Irish potato famine as deliberate genocide rather than cruel neglect, was given short shrift, in spite of the fact that this would have been a mainstream view until relatively recently — one must only listen to the sickly sentimental lyrics of rugby anthem The Fields of Athenry, penned in the 1970s, to understand the appeal of that victim status to the Irish imagination. Wrongs were certainly done in Ireland, but the relationship between the two nations was a hell of a lot more complex than the oppressor/oppressed line that was spun for so many years.
There was no official sanction on differing views of Anglo-Irish relations, but politics permeated the debate. Likewise with the recent intervention of British education secretary Michael Gove on the issue of how World War I is taught in schools. Gove claimed that the idea of a pointless war in which a moribund (figuratively) ruling class led moribund (literally) working class boys to their graves was a modern lefty invention. He was wrong, in that that view had been common even in the 1920s, but his opponents were equally adamant in their insistence that there could only be one view of World War I. None of this discussion was accompanied by new evidence on either side.
At the extreme end of this hyper-politicisation of history are the Holocaust denial laws of many European countries, and laws on glorification of the Soviet era in former Eastern bloc.
In his cult memoir Fuhrer-Ex, East German former neo-nazi Ingo Hasslebach described how, growing up in the DDR, with its overwhelming anti-fascist narrative, nazi posturing was the ultimate rebellion. In the modern era, France’s prohibition on nazi revisionism has led some young north African immigrants, alienated from the French nation state, to see anti-semitism and the quasi-nazi quenelle gesture as the ultimate “fuck you” to the authorities.
Taboos about discussing events of the past breed bad history and bad politics. For the sake of Turkey, and the rest of us, Erdogan should be held to his words on the necessity of free speaking and free thinking.
This article was originally posted on 24 April 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
