3 May 2024 | Iran, News and features, Press Releases
An urgent appeal has been filed with two United Nations Special Rapporteurs on behalf of the family of Toomaj Salehi, an Iranian rapper and activist who has been sentenced to death in Iran.
Mr Salehi has been repeatedly imprisoned for his art – his rap music and videos – which is critical of Iranian authorities. Despite being arrested and released in 2021 for his music, Mr Salehi continued to make music and post videos expressing his opposition to the Iranian regime. After the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022, following her arrest for allegedly improperly wearing her hijab, Mr Salehi took part in the protests calling for justice and released multiple rap songs and videos speaking out for women’s rights.
In October 2022, he was arrested for his involvement in the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement and protests triggered by Mahsa Amini’s death. He was sentenced to over six years’ imprisonment, but then released in November 2023 when Iran’s Supreme Court identified flaws in his sentence. Two weeks later, however, he was re-arrested after recording a video in which he spoke about having been tortured in prison. In January 2024, he was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment and began serving that sentence.
On 23 April 2024, Mr Salehi’s domestic lawyer in Iran was notified that Branch 1 of the Isfahan Revolutionary Court had sentenced Mr Salehi to death. His death sentence was handed down for crimes including “participating in rebelling against state”, “gathering and colluding against national security”, and “propaganda against state”. The charges were said to amount to “corruption on Earth” which is punishable by death under the Islamic Penal Code. The ruling also includes a two-year travel ban and a two-year ban on practising art.
The appeal window within Iran is very short: 20 days from 23 April 2024. There is profound concern that the Iranian authorities may move very quickly following any appeal by Salehi to implement the sentence, particularly given the documented increase in executions in Iran. An April 2024 report by Amnesty International found that the Iranian authorities had executed at least 853 people last year, the highest number for eight years, transforming Iranian prisons into sites of mass killings.
A team of international lawyers from Doughty Street Chambers is acting for Toomaj Salehi’s family and Index on Censorship. Last night, they filed an Urgent Appeal with the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions and the Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. They submit that Iran is in violation of its international legal obligations, failing to respect multiple rights of Mr Salehi’s, including his rights to life, to be free from torture, to a fair trial, and to freedom of expression.
Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, Jonathan Price, Sam Jacobs and Nikila Kaushik are instructed by Mr Salehi’s family and Index on Censorship, which is also supporting Mr Salehi and his family. Mr Salehi was Index on Censorship’s 2023 Freedom of Expression Art Award winner, recognising the importance of his work and his courage.
Mr Salehi’s cousin, Arezou Eghbali Babadi, welcomed the filing of the UN Urgent Appeal, and said: “The international community must stand in solidarity with Toomaj Salehi and all those who bravely speak out against injustice and oppression in Iran. Failure to act would not only imperil Toomaj’s life and well-being but would also embolden the Iranian regime to continue its harsh treatment of political prisoners which mostly meant to intimidate people and suppress dissent.”
Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, international counsel for Toomaj Salehi’s family and Index on Censorship, said: “Toomaj Salehi is a brilliant, brave, talented artist, who uses his music and his videos to stand up to the barbaric Iranian regime and to support the Iranian people’s struggle for human rights, democracy and freedom. The Iranian authorities have repeatedly tried to silence Toomaj. He has been unjustly imprisoned, prosecuted, beaten and tortured. Now, in a grotesque abuse of power, the Isfahan Revolutionary Court has sentenced Toomaj to death for his art – for his music and his words. This is flagrant flouting by Iran of its international legal obligations in its drive to quell any dissent, no matter how peaceful, and in its violent and lethal war against its own people.”
Nik Williams, Policy and Campaigns Officer at Index on Censorship, has said: “The death sentence given to Toomaj Salehi is a grotesque abuse of power by a regime that has criminalised dissent, art and expression. While Toomaj is one of thousands who have been persecuted following the tragic death of Mahsa Amini in police custody, his case symbolises the bravery of everyone who has spoken up. This is why Index is honoured to be working with his family and Doughty Street Chambers to try to secure his release. No one should be sentenced to death for their music or for standing as an ally to the courageous women who have been protesting since 2022.”
The Urgent Appeal asks that the UN Special Rapporteurs take exceptionally urgent action given the gravity of the situation and the imminent risk to Mr Salehi’s life.
Notes to Editors:
Any press queries for the international legal team should be directed to [email protected] or +442074041313.
Any press queries for Index on Censorship should be directed to Jemimah Steinfeld on [email protected].
16 Nov 2022 | News and features, United Kingdom
Irene Khan
UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, by email.
CC – Dr. Ana Brian Nougrères, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy, by email.
15.11.22
Re: Concerning developments for human rights online in the UK
Dear Ms Khan,
We are writing to you regarding the UK Government’s Online Safety Bill; legislation which we believe will fundamentally undermine the rights to freedom of expression, privacy and other human rights online in the UK.
We note that in March 2022 you wrote to the UK Government expressing concerns about this Bill (OL GBR 5/2022). In your correspondence you stated:
“I believe the proposed Bill, as currently drafted, contains some key provisions that could undermine its overall objective as well as international human rights principles.”
Regrettably, since this correspondence, the legislation has in no way been materially improved to protect human rights. This is despite the fact that it has now been laid before Parliament and has been subjected to considerable revisions. We therefore urge you to use your mandates to provide recommendations to the UK Government to amend the following concerning aspects of the Bill:
The Bill will lead to the restriction of speech considered “legal but harmful”.
We are particularly concerned over the provisions of the Bill which will place pressure on the largest platforms to restrict content the government has designated to be “harmful” (clause 13). In your correspondence to the UK Government of 14 March 2022 you said of this obligation:
“The duty of care placed upon online providers to protect users of their services against legal but harmful content uses vague terms that are open to broad interpretation, such as “reasonably identify”, “material risk”, “significant adverse physical or psychological impact”, “ordinary sensibilities”, and so risks undue removal of content.”
Despite further revisions to the legislation, the Bill continues to place an obligation on online intermediaries to address content which is “legal but harmful”. Where speech of this nature was given a definition in the draft Bill, no such definition exists in the full Bill. An indicative list of possible categories of harmful content was issued by the government in June this year.1 However, this list is not legally binding and cannot be considered sufficiently precise to meet the legality requirement under international human rights standards. Rather, the power to designate speech which is “legal but harmful” lies within the power of the Secretary of State, which creates scope for political censorship and seriousl compromises the independence of the regulatory framework.
As you noted in your letter, the Bill provides little detail of the obligations regarding harmful content and providers could be required to make subjective assessments of its potential impact. Consequentially, forms of speech which are permitted in the offline world and are protected under international human rights law would be censored online, creating two different standards of permissible speech.
The Bill will mean online platforms, not courts, enforcing UK law
In your letter to the UK Government of 14 March 2022, you noted your concerns about the obligations the Online Safety Bill places on platforms to perform functions – namely the duty to remove illegal content – which should be the preserve of law enforcement bodies and independent courts. You stated:
“I am concerned that this obligation delegates to private companies a responsibility that should be exercised by law enforcement, particularly for offences where the boundary between offensive but legal and illegal conduct may be difficult to discern, such as hate crime.”
The Bill continues to require online platforms to determine whether the speech of people in the UK is legal or not and then remove it if they believe it is illegal, undermining the rule of law (clause 9). Online platforms will inevitably turn to machines, not trained people, which are unable to make such nuanced and difficult legal assessments. As a further development of this obligation, platforms will now have a duty under clause 9 of the Bill to “prevent” content (and not only limit its visibility as required under the draft Bill) that they “reasonably consider” could be what the Government describe as “priority illegal content”. Such priority content is defined in Schedules 5,6, and 7 of the Bill, as a list of criminal offences. The list includes provisions from public order and anti-terror legislation which would set the legal limits of legitimate expression. We are concerned that the new language in clause 9 could push platforms to use “upload filters” and risks collateral censorship on a large scale.
Private actors should not be tasked with making such decisions over the legality of people’s behaviour. This is the role of transparent, independent and accountable public authorities such as courts. However, the Bill does nothing to ensure that the police and courts are properly resourced to prosecute, convict, and sentence those who break the law online, depriving victims of justice.
The Bill compromises end-to-end encryption of private messages
In your letter of 14 March, you noted the importance of the right to privacy as a right which also reinforces protection of the right to freedom of expression. You stated:
“I am concerned that the inclusion of direct private messaging within the scope of the Bill could impact negatively on encryption, security and privacy. I have similar concerns regarding Ofcom’s ability to compel a service to use technology to detect child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) and terrorism content on private and public channels and CSEA content on private communication channels”.
The latest version of the Bill continues to bring encrypted chat services into scope via a definition of content as anything that is “communicated publicly or privately”. The obligations on services mandated by the Bill could be imposed on providers of encrypted messaging services via an enforcement power handed to the regulator, Ofcom, without any further judicial or administrative oversight. This would allow Ofcom to mandate that a service use government-“accredited technology” to surveil private channels, even if they are protected by end-to-end encryption (clause 104).
Encryption tools have become vital for individuals to communicate securely. This is particularly true for human rights defenders, journalists, whistleblowers, victims of domestic abuse or individuals from marginalised groups. Undermining these individuals’ ability to communicate privately and securely would threaten both their safety and their right to freedom of expression.
Your other concerns regarding a media exemption; the lack of any quality standards required for the internal complaints mechanisms; the scale of fines that could be imposed on providers; the inadequate requirement on providers to “have regard” to freedom of expression; and the excessive powers granted by the Bill to the Secretary of State; have also not been addressed.
We believe an intervention from you on the legislation would be timely. The Bill has nearly completed its passage through the House of Commons and will soon enter the House of Lords for further consideration. However, in recent weeks, the Bill has been paused for further review.
We urge you to issue a statement or communicate your concerns with the Government, recalling their long-standing obligations in international and domestic law, and their recent pledges to defend freedom of expression in the UK and abroad.
Yours sincerely,
Mark Johnson – Big Brother Watch
Barbora Bukovská – ARTICLE 19
Sam Grant – Liberty
Dr Monica Horten – Open Rights Group
Daniel Pryor – Adam Smith Institute
Ruth Smeeth – Index on Censorship
2 Sep 2022 | BannedByBeijing, China, News and features
Detainees at a re-education camp in Xinjiang. Photo WeChat/Xinjiang Juridical Administration
“Serious human rights violations” have been committed in Xinjiang and the arbitrary and discriminatory detention of Uyghurs “may constitute…crimes against humanity” according to a controversial UN report that the Chinese government has been trying to quash.
The report also concludes that allegations of patterns of torture or ill-treatment, including forced medical treatment and adverse conditions of detention, as well as allegations of individual incidents of sexual and gender-based violence are “credible”.
What is also abundantly clear is that the report does not make mention of the word “genocide”, something that has left many campaigners unsatisfied.
The UN report goes so far as to push any mention of “suspicious deaths” occurring inside Xinjiang’s re-education centres into a footnote, saying that despite being presented with allegations on these by interviewees it had “not been possible to verify [them] to the requisite standard”. Restricting the ability of the UN to verify claims of human rights abuses is an effective method by which states, such as China, can effectively game the UN’s investigative process. By ensuring the body cannot access the evidence it needs, China can ostensibly shape what the UN can say without exerting any overt control or interference.
Last month it was revealed that the Chinese mission to the UN was lobbying to prevent the release of the report into human rights abuses in Xinjiang. The publication of the report, first commissioned in 2018, had been repeatedly delayed after having been completed in September 2021. Under tremendous pressure from other UN member states, the report was finally made available on 31 August in the last minutes of UN High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet’s term.
The release of the report has not been welcomed by the Chinese government. In its response to its publication, China’s mission to the UN said: “Based on the disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China forces and out of presumption of guilt, the so-called ‘assessment’ distorts China’s laws and policies, wantonly smears and slanders China, and interferes in China’s internal affairs”.
The attempt to block the report’s publication may come as a shock to some but this incident is only the most recent attempt by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to silence Uyghurs both within and outside China and to discredit those who try to shine a light on their treatment. In the past, the UN has abdicated from its duty to challenge this global campaign against the Uyghurs. The publication of the report is a notable improvement on the UN’s poor track record. But the controversy surrounding the report’s release has left few critics of the UN optimistic about the ability of the organisation to defend Uyghurs in the future.
Michelle Bachelet meets Chinese president Xi Jinping in 2014, photo: Gobierno de Chile
The release of the Xinjiang report reflects a significant departure from the UN’s traditional soft-touch approach to managing its relationship with China. For example, earlier in 2022 Michelle Bachelet became the first UN High Commissioner to visit China in 17 years. While Bachelet praised China’s progress in labour standards and gender rights, she mentioned only in passing the treatment of Uyghurs, which according to credible reports, includes mass enslavement and systemic rape. Bachelet later admitted that her access to Uyghurs was severely restricted, ostensibly because of COVID-19 regulations, but to many her relative silence appeared to validate the Chinese government’s narrative surrounding events in Xinjiang. After her visit, The Global Times, a Chinese newspaper known for inevitably toeing the government line, ran an opinion piece praising Bachelet for changing her perspective on Xinjiang. The piece celebrated Bachelet’s adoption of CCP terminology – highlighting her use of “the term ‘Vocational Education and Training Centre’ instead of the so-called ‘re-education camp’” – and attributed her much-publicised decision not to run for a second term as High Commissioner to pressure she faced after speaking out in favour of China’s counter-terrorism measures.
Bachelet appeared to accept at face value claims that the re-education camps had “been dismantled” and appeared overly optimistic about “China’s stated aim of ensuring quality developed closely linked to developing the rule of law and respect for human rights”. While she expressed some half-hearted concern about the “lack of judicial oversight” in Xinjiang and mentioned Uyghurs she had met before her trip to China who had lost contact with their relatives, her condemnation of the treatment and mass detention of Uyghurs across the region was decidedly muted. Instead she praised China’s “tremendous achievements” in labour and gender rights, an insult to the victims of slave labour and sexual abuse in the camps. She concluded that “there is important work being done to advance gender equality, the rights of LGBTQI people or people with disabilities and all the people among other [groups]”.
China’s mission to the UN now says that the content of the report “is “entirely contradictory to the formal statement issued by [Bachelet]” following her visit. Just like the Global Times, China’s mission is falsely pointing to Bachelet’s Xinjiang trip as an exoneration of the CCP.
Bachelet herself emphasised that her visit “was not an investigation”, which begs the question why it happened in the first place. All her soft touch approach achieved was to grant the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) a significant PR win.
UN whistleblower Emma Reilly
To understand why UN officials like Bachelet have traditionally been so cautious about criticising China, Index spoke to Emma Reilly (left), an Irish former human rights officer at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Reilly was fired in 2021 after blowing the whistle in 2017, revealing how the UN had for years been passing the names of Uyghurs set to testify before the UN to the Chinese government. Reilly explained to Index that Eric Tistounet from the OHCHR told concerned staff that “not giving them over would further Chinese distrust of the UN”.
One of the names on the list was Dolkun Isa who now resides in Germany. After the UN passed over his name to the Chinese authorities, his remaining family members who still resided in Xinjiang received a visit from the police. His parents later died in a re-education camp in circumstances that are still unclear. Reilly told Index that another person the UN exposed without their knowledge died upon their return to Xinjiang.
After the UN issued a medical report about Reilly, the Swiss police visited Reilly’s house and prevented her from attending a meeting about the issue she had exposed. In doing so, the UN effectively transformed the Swiss police into a tool of CCP censorship.
A tribunal was initiated to investigate Reilly’s case with the assistance of Rowan Downing QC, a former President of the UN Dispute Tribunal and an international war crimes judge. When it became clear that Downing’s ruling would not be favourable towards the UN, he was removed from his position. Downing compared this move to a coup.
Reilly told Index that the UN’s general reluctance to criticise the CCP is based on the misguided assumption that significant concessions need to be made to maintain a friendly relationship with the Chinese government. According to Reilly, it is commonly believed at the UN that increased engagement with the Chinese government will lead it to internalise global norms of human rights. But the opposite appears to be the case. In fact, the Chinese government has proven itself to be a powerful norm maker of its own as it becomes increasingly assertive in the UN.
Rosemary Foot’s book “China, the UN and Human Protection” seeks to explain the paradox of a China that is significantly more prominent in the UN system yet increasingly resistant to many of its central tenets. Most significantly, the Chinese government has sought to bolster the importance of sovereignty and undermine the universal nature of human rights.
For example, China had only used its security council veto power six times before the outbreak of the Syrian civil war. It then used it seven times to block resolutions condemning the Assad regime. The Chinese government believes that the treatment of Syrians, Uyghurs and other groups should be treated as “internal affairs” and economic growth should be seen as the principal means of improving human rights. As Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, recently wrote, “if Beijing had its way, human rights would be reduced to a measurement of growth in gross domestic product”.
In her discussion with Index, Reilly expressed dismay that her case had received the most attention from right-leaning outlets sceptical of the UN project. Other outlets tended to focus on the treatment of whistleblowers rather than the behaviour she was uncovering and the necessity of systemic reform. Like many other UN whistleblowers, Reilly remains committed to the UN project and wants it changed, not abandoned.
Disempowering the UN (like the Trump administration tried to do by making significant cuts after its recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was rejected) will only empower the Chinese government to fill the vacuum. But the typical relationship the UN has had with the Chinese government swings the pendulum too far in the opposite direction. The UN must not allow itself to become a tool for China to censor its opponents but starving the UN of funds, undermining its mandate, and expecting it to reform is not a tenable solution that protects universal rights and targeted groups, including Uyghurs both in China and elsewhere.
Given the UN’s poor track record of endangering critics of the CCP, does the release of the Xinjiang report suggest the arrival of the kind of systemic reform that Reilly and others have called for?
Critics are sceptical that this recent development (while welcome) reflects a newly assertive United Nations. The next step would be for an independent investigation to be conducted into events in Xinjiang. Calls for such an investigation have also come from within the UN system after 50 UN human rights experts urged the Human Rights Council in 2020 to establish an independent UN mandate to monitor and report on human rights violations in China. According to the OHCHR’s own statement on this recommendation “unlike over 120 States, the Government of China has not issued a standing invitation to UN independent experts to conduct official visits.” However, two years later and progress has been glacial. Considering that the release of a report took almost three years once it was completed and was only possible after overwhelming pressure from other member states, any next step looks like an insurmountable challenge requiring consistent international solidarity and pressure at a time of growing international tension. The Chinese government cannot exert total influence over the UN to silence all of its critics but as demonstrated by the delays of the Xinjiang report, the UN process remains too easy for human rights abusers to impede.
Reilly remains critical of the UN. Now that the UN has officially recognised in its report that the CCP carries out “reprisals against Uyghur and other predominately Muslim minorities abroad in connection with their advocacy, and their family members in [Xinjiang]”, their continued smear campaign against her and refusal to condemn the policy she exposed is an increasingly untenable position.
There is also the question of how permanent the UN’s apparent change of strategy will be. It is notable that Bachelet only felt capable of releasing the report upon her departure from office when she would not have to face the consequences of her decision. Perhaps that now Bachelet is gone, her brief experiment with explicitly calling out the CCP’s human rights abuses will be replaced with business as usual.
Meanwhile, the global campaign to target Uyghurs both within and outside China continues
. Earlier this year, Index published a landmark report examining how the CCP has externalised its censorship and intimidation of Uyghurs even to those who have managed to escape to Europe in search of freedom and security. As highlighted by Reilly’s brave decision to blow the whistle, the CCP will use every mechanism and lever at its disposal to enforce its propaganda and target its perceived adversaries. Even though they now reside in Europe, Uyghurs continue to receive threats as do their families still living in Xinjiang. This report highlighted the lengths the CCP would go to strengthen its narrative and censor those brave enough to speak out, irrespective of where they are. It also revealed the inadequate response of European states to respond to this threat. Without a robust response, the CCP is emboldened to continue exporting its message to other countries and through international bodies like the UN. If the UN has only just reached the stage of officially recognising that this years long campaign is actually taking place, let alone taking active measures to stop it, who can Uyghurs rely on?
[Index made repeated requests to the United Nations for comment on this article but no replies were received at time of publication.]
To learn more about the censorship of Uyghurs in Europe, read Index’s Banned by Beijing report “China’s Long Arm”: https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2022/02/landmark-report-shines-light-on-chinese-long-arm-repression-of-ex-pat-uyghurs/
6 Aug 2021 | Canada, Eritrea, Hong Kong, Netherlands, News and features, Philippines, Syria, Volume 50.02 Summer 2021, Volume 50.02 Summer 2021 Extras
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”117182″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]
The number of journalists killed while doing their work rose in 2020. It’s no wonder, then, that a team of internationally acclaimed lawyers are advising governments to introduce emergency visas for reporters who have to flee for their lives when work becomes too dangerous.
The High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, a group of lawyers led by Amal Clooney and former president of the UK Supreme Court Lord Neuberger, has called for these visas to be made available quickly. The panel advises a coalition of 47 countries on how to prevent the erosion of media freedom, and how to hold to account those who harm journalists.
At the launch of the panel’s report, Clooney said the current options open to journalists in danger were “almost without exception too lengthy to provide real protection”. She added: “I would describe the bottom line as too few countries offer ‘humanitarian’ visas that could apply to journalists in danger as a result of their work.”
The report that includes these recommendations was written by barrister Can Yeğinsu. It has been formally endorsed by the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights special rapporteur for freedom of expression, and the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute.
As highlighted by the recent release of an International Federation of Journalists report showing 65 journalists and media workers were killed in 2020 – up 17 from 2019 – and 200 were jailed for their work, the issue is incredibly urgent.
Index has spoken to journalists who know what it is like to work in dangerous situations about why emergency visas are vital, and to the lawyer leading the charge to create them.
Syrian journalist Zaina Erhaim, who has worked for the BBC Arabic Service, has reported on her country’s civil war. She believes part of the problem for journalists forced to flee because of their work is that many immigration systems are not set up to be reactive to those kinds of situations, “because the procedures for visas and immigration is so strict, and so slow and bureaucratic”.
Erhaim, who grew up in Idlib in Syria’s north-west, went on to report from rebel-held areas during the civil war, and she also trained citizen journalists.
The journalist, who won an Index award in 2016, has been threatened with death and harassed online. She moved to Turkey for her own safety and has spoken about not feeling safe to report on Syria at times, even from overseas, because of the threats.
She believes that until emergency visas are available quickly to those in urgent need, things will not change. “Until someone is finally able to act, journalists will either be in hiding, scared, assassinated or already imprisoned,” she said.
“Many journalists don’t even need to emigrate when they’re being targeted or feel threatened. Some just need some peace for three or four months to put their mind together, and think what they’ve been through and decide whether they should come back or find another solution.”
Erhaim, who currently lives in the UK, said it was also important to think about journalists’ families.
Eritrean journalist Abraham Zere is living in exile in the USA after fleeing his country. He feels the visa proposal would offer journalists in challenging political situations some sense of hope. “It’s so very important for local journalists to [be able to] flee their country from repressive regimes.”
Eritrea is regularly labelled the worst country in the world for journalists, taking bottom position in RSF’s World Press Freedom Index 2021, below North Korea. The RSF report highlights that 11 journalists are currently imprisoned in Eritrea without access to lawyers.
Zere said: “Until I left the country, for the last three years I was always prepared to be arrested. As a result of that constant fear, I abandoned writing. But if I were able to secure such a visa, I would have some sense of security.”
Ryan Ho Kilpatrick is a journalist formerly based in Hong Kong who has recently moved to Taiwan. He has worked as an editor for the Hong Kong Free Press, as well as for the South China Morning Post, Time and The Wall Street Journal.
“I wasn’t facing any immediate threats of violence, harassment, that sort of thing, [but] the environment for the journalists in Hong Kong was becoming a lot darker and a lot more dire, and [it was] a lot more difficult to operate there,” he said.
He added that although his need to move wasn’t because of threats, it had illustrated how difficult a relocation like that could be. “I tried applying from Hong Kong. I couldn’t get a visa there. I then had to go halfway around the world to Canada to apply for a completely different visa there to get to Taiwan.”
He feels the panel’s recommendation is much needed. “Obviously, journalists around the world are facing politically motivated harassment or prosecution, or even violence or death. And [with] the framework as it is now, journalists don’t really fit very neatly in it.”
As far as the current situation for journalists in Hong Kong is concerned, he said: “It became a lot more dangerous reporting on protests in Hong Kong. It’s immediate physical threats and facing tear gas, police and street clashes every day. The introduction of the national security law last year has made reporting a lot more difficult. Virtually overnight, sources are reluctant to speak to you, even previously very vocal people, activists and lawyers.”
In the few months since the panel launched its report and recommendations, no country has announced it will lead the way by offering emergency visas, but there are some promising signs from the likes of Canada, Germany and the Netherlands. [The Dutch House of Representatives passed a vote on facilitating the issuance of emergency visas for journalists at the end of June.]
Report author Yeğinsu, who is part of the international legal team representing Rappler journalist Maria Ressa in the Philippines, is positive about the response, and believes that the new US president Joe Biden is giving global leadership on this issue. He said: “It is always the few that need to lead. It’ll be interesting to see who does that.”
However, he pointed out that journalists have become less safe in the months since the report’s publication, with governments introducing laws during the pandemic that are being used aggressively against journalists.
Yeğinsu said the “recommendations are geared to really respond to instances where there’s a safety issue… so where the journalist is just looking for safe refuge”. This could cover a few options, such as a temporary stay or respite before a journalist returns home.
The report puts into context how these emergency visas could be incorporated into immigration systems such as those in the USA, Canada, the EU and the UK, at low cost and without the need for massive changes.
One encouraging sign came when former Canadian attorney-general Irwin Cotler said that “the Canadian government welcomes this report and is acting upon it”, while the UK foreign minister Lord Ahmad said his government “will take this particular report very seriously”. If they do not, the number of journalists killed and jailed while doing their jobs is likely to rise.
[This week, 20 UK media organisations issued an open letter calling for emergency visas for reporters in Afghanistan who have been targeted by the Taliban. Ruchi Kumar recently wrote for Index about the threats against journalists in Afghanistan from the Taliban.] [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
