26 Jul 2016 | Europe and Central Asia, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features, Ukraine
Pavel Sheremet (Photo: Ukrainska Pravda)
The death of Pavel Sheremet on Wednesday 20 July is the latest and most egregious example of violence against journalists in Ukraine, according to verified incidents reported to Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project.
Sheremet was killed when the car he was driving exploded on the morning of 20 July in Kyiv. In a statement, Ukrainian police said that an explosive device detonated at 7.45am as Sheremet was driving to host a morning programme on Radio Vesti, where he had been working since 2015.
The car belonged to Sheremet’s partner, journalist Olena Prytula, who co-founded Ukrainska Pravda with murdered journalist Georgiy Gongadze.
Sheremet had been imprisoned by Belarusian authorities in 1997 for three months before being deported to Russia. Though stripped of his citizenship in 2010, he continued to report on Belarus on his personal website. He moved to the Ukrainian capital in 2011 to work for the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda.
A review of Mapping Media Freedom data from 1 January to 20 July found 41 attacks on journalists — including physical violence, injuries and seizure or damage to equipment and property of journalists — have taken place in Ukraine since the beginning of the year. The largest number of incidents – about one-third – occurred in Kyiv. More than half of these journalists were attacked by unknown assailants, while the names of perpetrators in a third of these incidents are known. In about one in three cases, the attacks were committed by representatives of local authorities.
While impunity remains a key issue in Ukraine contributing to violence against journalists, the situation is slowly beginning to change for the better compared to previous years. According to the Institute of Mass Information, a positive trend has been spotted since the beginning of the year: There has been a slight increase in the number of cases involving violation of the journalists’ rights submitted to courts. In particular, there were 11 such cases in 2015. Meanwhile, 12 such cases were submitted to court for the first quarter of 2016 alone.
Despite the improvement in prosecutions, journalists are continuing to be subject to violence and intimidation.
In June, a series of incidents occurred in Berdiansk in the Zaporizhzhia region.
On 10 June Volodymyr Holovaty, a journalist working for Yuh TV, and his cameraman, Anatoliy Kyrylenko, were physically assaulted at a recreation center in Berdiansk Spit. A group of people in camouflage set upon them without warning. The attackers swore, demanded that filming stop, took the camera, stole a data storage device and struck the journalist and the cameraman, who were taken to a hospital.
On 7 June, during a rally at the Berdiansk courthouse, an unknown person harassed cameraman Bohdan Ivanuschenko and journalist Volodymyr Dyominof, who both work for Yuh TV. In that incident the individual interfered with their filming of a report with obscene language and threatened the media professionals with physical violence.
In response, journalists staged a rally on 13 June to bring attention to the recent threats and assaults in the town and demand a stronger police response. The journalists wrote an open letter demanding prosecutors help protect the rights of media workers in the town.
In May physical attacks took place in Kherson, Kyiv, Mariupol, Mykolayiv, Kharkiv, Marhanet, Zaporizhzhia and Zirne.
In the Kyiv incident, photographer and cameraman Serhiy Morhunov, who covers the conflict in eastern Ukraine, was assaulted on 22 May by unknown assailants. The journalist suffered serious head injuries including a brain haemorrhage, fractured lower jaw and partial memory loss. The doctors described his condition as serious. Morhunov was not robbed during the attack.
In Zaporizhzhia Anatoliy Ostapenko, a journalist working for Hromadske TV, who reported on corruption allegedly involving regional officials, was assaulted by masked individuals on 24 May. The journalist was walking to work when he was cut off by a car with tinted windows and lacking a license plate. Three masked men exited the car, knocked Ostapenko to the ground and physically assaulted him. Ostapenko suffered numerous bruises.
On 25 May, in Kherson, Taras Burda, the husband of a member of the Suvorivsky district council, attacked Serhiy Nikitenko, a journalist for Most media and the representative of NGO Institute of Mass Information in the region, with a tablet computer during an altercation. Burda told IMI that the journalist had attacked him first.
Many attacks have been directed at the property or equipment of journalists. In the village of Lebedivka in the Odesa region, poachers threatened the crew of the Channel 7 investigative programme Normal. The individuals pierced the tires of the journalists’ car by laying spike strips and threw eggs at the vehicles. The incident occurred when the crew was filming a TV report about the activities of poachers in the Tuzla Coastal Lakes national reserve.
On 1 April, in the town of Konotop in the Sumy region, unknown persons threw Molotov cocktails at local TV studio. A similar incident occurred in Kyiv on April 22 when 15 unidentified people attacked the office of the Ukraine TV channel. They poured red paint in the channel’s lobby and left a print out reading “Blood will be spilled!”
In April, several assaults on journalists took place in Kyiv (journalists of 1+1 TV channel were attacked), and in the village of Lymanske in Odesa region.
Only one attack on journalists was recorded in February. However, it was a flagrant incident in the context of physical violence. In Kharkiv, representatives of the Hromadska Varta organisation attacked Stanislav Kolotilov and Lesya Kocherzhuk, journalists for the Kharkiv News portal. Kolotilov suffered a concussion and spinal injury. Kocherzhuk was burned on the hand with a cigarette. The journalists were investigating allegations of illegal construction connected to the Hromadska Varta.
Also in February, representatives of the Azov civil corps blocked the premises of the Inter TV channel. The blockade participants tried to enter the office, threw debris at it and painted the doors black.
In January, journalistic activity was obstructed in Zhytomyr during a conflict involving the Zhytomyrski Lasoshchi confectionery factory. Guards prevented reporters from Channel 5 and UA1 local online media outlet from filming. A microphone was snatched from Channel 5 journalist and a camera was damaged.
Also in January, assaults on journalists, as well as attacks on journalists’ property occurred in Ternopil, Kyiv, Mykolayiv and Odesa, as well as in the village of Dovzhanka in the Ternopil region and the town of Karlivka in the Poltava region.
On 11 January 2016, the windows of a car belonging to journalist Svitlana Kriukova were smashed by unknown perpetrators but nothing was stolen from the vehicle. Kriukova was writing a book on Hennadiy Korban, a politician and businessman said to be close to oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskiy. Korban was under investigation for alleged criminal offences including kidnapping and theft. The incident occurred when the Kriukova was visiting Korban at the hospital and she believes the damages are linked to her professional activities.
25 Jul 2016 | mobile, News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
Nazlı Ilıcak
A “ping” woke me in early hours of Monday morning. It was a message from a colleague reading: “Signs of a crackdown. Arrest warrant for Nazlı Ilıcak is issued, she is being searched.”
This was the witch hunt that many critical journalists who belong to the shrinking independent media dreaded for days.
Ilıcak is a 72-year-old veteran journalist. A fiercely defiant figure who belongs to the centre-right and liberal flank of the media, she had just lost her column in the liberal daily, Özgür Düşünce, which was forced to close last week under immense legal and financial pressure.
I rushed out of bed to contact lawyers pursuing the cases, like the one about Orhan Kemal Cengiz, an internationally respected columnist, lawyer and human rights activist, who was conditionally released on Sunday with a ban on travelling abroad.
Soon we had been informed about a list of 42 journalists who have all been targeted with arrest orders on the basis of being part of the “media leg of terrorist organisation FETO” and by implication part of the Gülen Movement.
Reminiscent of Thomas Hobbes’s aphorism, “homo homini lupus” (“man is wolf to man”), some well-placed journalists were busy – like a certain popular columnist with Hürriyet daily – joining the chorus in support for their arrest.
The manhunt was unleashed early and at the time of writing, at least 19 of them were either seized or had surrendered. Ilıcak’s whereabouts were unknown. Eleven of the journalists on the list are believed to be abroad.
The list is a curious one. For us veteran journalists it contains a blend of good colleagues and bold reporters, who were busy breaking story after story on corruption, abuses of power and the deterioration of Turkey’s democratic order.
Büşra Erdal, who wrote for the now-closed Zaman Daily, was one of the best reporters covering the judiciary and court cases; Cihan Acar was known for relentlessly scrutinising stories in the now shuttered Bugün daily and later in Özgür Düşünce. They were long targeted as Gülen sympathisers but what mattered for journalism was their contribution to it.
Another, Bülent Mumay, was recently fired from Hürriyet. Staunchly secular, he ran the internet edition of the large daily, and it was his endless questioning of the government via Twitter that, he says, led to his unemployment. Perhaps not so surprisingly, he was quick to post a photo of his press card on Facebook, issued by Turkish Journalists’ Association (TGC), saying: “This is the only organisation I belong to. I know of no other; I know of no other profession. I shall now go the prosecutor’s office to tell this.”
Another one was Fatih Yağmur, a brilliant young reporter who was the first to break the story in March 2014 of the Turkish Secret Service lorries that allegedly carried weaponry to Syrian jihadists months before daily the Cumhuriyet, whose editor Can Dündar was sentenced to five years and ten months in prison.
Yağmur was soon after fired from Radikal daily, a part of Doğan Media Group, without any specific explanation.
The Platform for Independent Journalism (P24), of which I am a co-founder, has awarded Yağmur with the European Union Investigative Journalism Award last year. He was proud to be recognised after the humiliation of being left unemployed for doing his job properly.
Soon after the manhunt began, Fatih tweeted: “I hear that arrest order was issued on me. It was obviously not enough to punish me with unemployment. I am now shutting down my telephone etc. I shall not surrender until the Emergency Rule is over.”
We also found out that Ercan Gün, news editor of Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox TV, was on the list. His friends said he was on his way to Istanbul to surrender. Gün tweeted: “I trust the law, even if under Emergency Rule.”
With the traffic of those hunted, it was apparent that they believed a certain motive behind the arrests. Ufuk Şanlı, who had earlier worked with Zaman and after (the now a staunch pro-AKP daily) Sabah, tweeted: “I understand that the arrests were issued about journalists who covered and commented about the graft probes (about Erdoğan and the AKP top echelons) in 17-25 December. Thus, my name too.”
He added: “I’ve been a journalist for 15 years, and unemployed for 10 months. I want everybody to know that I have not been in anything but journalism all this time. I believe in democracy, and please pay attention to anything else [said].”
Indeed, the curious mix about the list is telling: instead of a core of columnists, keen reporters, which is the backbone of journalism, stand out. So, informing part of our profession is automatically dealt another severe blow.
This is now the time to raise the SOS flag to all our good colleagues in democratic countries. Unless given clearly articulated assurances about media freedom, the ongoing crackdown will remain a fact. The entire journalist community and international organisations should be acting with a maximum focus on the developments.
All the independent journalists of Turkey who fear the worst, I’m afraid, are justified to do so.
The 42 journalists targetted with arrest orders are: Abdullah Abdulkadiroğlu, Abdullah Kılıç, Ahmet Dönmez, Ali Akkuş, Arda Akın, Nazlı Ilıcak, Bayram Kaya, Bilal Şahin, Bülent Ceyhan, Bülent Mumay, Bünyamin Köseli, Cemal Azmi Kalyoncu, Cevheri Güven, Cihan Acar, Cuma Ulus, Emre Soncan, Ercan Gün, Erkan Akkuş, Ertuğrul Erbaş, Fatih Akalan, Fatih Yağmur, Habib Güler, Hanım Büşra Erdal, Haşim Söylemez, Hüseyin Aydın, İbrahim Balta, Kamil Maman, Kerim Gün, Levent Kenes, Mahmut Hazar, Mehmet Gündem, Metin Yıkar, Muhammet Fatih Uğur, Mustafa Erkan Acar, Mürsel Genç, Selahattin Sevi, Seyit Kılıç, Turan Görüryılmaz, Ufuk Şanlı, Ufuk Emin Köroğlu, Yakup Sağlam, Yakup Çetin.
But it was not just the press that have reason to fear the aftermath of the coup.
The number of arrests nationawide has approached 15,000 while 70,000 people have been purged within the state apparatus and academia. According to Erdogan’s statement late Saturday night, out of 125 generals arrested, 119 have been detained. The number of lower ranked officers and soldiers rounded up stands at 8,363.
Out of the 2,101 judges and prosecutors arrested, 1,559 are in detention as well as 1,485 police officers and 52 top local governors. Fifteen universities, 35 hospitals, 104 foundations, 1,125 NGOs and 19 trade unions have been shut down, based on the allegations that they all belong to a “parallel structure”, namely the Gülen Movement.
The largest union of judges and prosecutors, YARSAV, whose inclination is left and secular, has been shut down indefinitely. The country’s largest charity group, Kimse Yok Mu, which has a vast network of hospitals and orphanages across Africa and Asia, has also been closed.
All this official data speaks for itself, exposing the magnitude of the “counter wave”.
It raises huge questions for any decent journalist. We would be led to believe that Turkey’s arrested generals – a third of the country’s 347 – are Gülenists. But this doesn’t look at all convincing among political circles in the US capital, according to Hürriyet’s Washington correspondent Tolga Tanış.
What’s perhaps more worrisome is that given the coup attempt, the arrests and the incredible implosion, Turkey’s defence system is in huge crisis, leaving the country very vulnerable to hostile activity, in particular by IS units.
Then, of course, there is the widespread confusion over key institutions such as schools and hospitals being shut down. There is no clarity about the fate of the students and patients.
The emergency rule has sent chills deep into the intellectual and traditionally dissenting elite of Turkey. So far, there has been absolutely no assurance from Erdogan or prime minister Binali Yıldırım that the freedom and rights of those in the media, academia, civil society organisations and political opposition groups will be respected.
On the contrary, an arrest order was issued for 19 local journalists in Ankara. A young reporter with ETHA news agency, Ezgi Özer, was arrested in Dersim province. The rector of Dicle University in Diyarbakır, Ayşegül Jale Saraç was detained as well.
Not so surprisingly, then, there is a widespread mistrust and fear spreading now into the intellectual community in Turkey about what they see as an indiscriminate crackdown.
As my colleague Can Dündar put it in the Guardian on Friday: “‘Fine, we are rid of a military coup, but who is to shelter us from a police state? Fine, we sent the military back to their barracks, but how are we to save a politics lodged in the mosques?”
“And the question goes to a Europe preoccupied with its own troubles: will you turn a blind eye yet again and co-operate because ‘Erdogan holds the keys to the refugees’? Or will you be ashamed of the outcome of your support, and stand with modern Turkey?” Dündar added.
I agree with him and let me add a key point: if this oppressive trend continues with full force members of the media, academia, and civil society, as well as the young and secular who feel victimised and desperate due to the vicious cultural struggle that has been going on for years, will have no choice but emigrate. Europe and the West should brace themselves for this scenario.
Turkey is cracking under its incurable divisions.
A version of this article was originally posted to Suddeutsche Zeitung. It is published here with permission of the author.
Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.
25 Jul 2016 | Bahrain, Bahrain Statements, Campaigns, Campaigns -- Featured, mobile
Bahraini human rights defender Nabeel Rajab (Photo: The Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy)
This is the tweet that Index on Censorship shared on 14 March 2015 when Nabeel Rajab, the Bahraini human rights campaigner, was challenging a six-month suspended sentence for “denigrating government institutions” for comments about the role of prisons as incubators of extremism. It is also one of the tweets now being used in evidence against Nabeel in a new case the government has brought against him. The latest case charges Nabeel, president of the award-winning Bahrain Center for Human Rights, with “publishing and broadcasting false news that undermines the prestige of the state”.
Nabeel’s attempts to assert his right and the rights of others to free expression are being systematically – and brutally – thwarted by a government that acts with the continued support of allies such as the UK. The King of Bahrain sat next to Queen Elizabeth at her 90th birthday party in March: how much clearer indication could the UK possibly give of its support for a country that continues to torture citizens who disagree with the regime? A country that this weekend ordered the 15-day detention of a poet, and which last year stripped 72 people of their citizenship – including journalists and bloggers – for simply voicing their criticism of the current regime. A country that uses a retweet of solidarity from a UK-based organisation as evidence that Nabeel broadcasts “false news and articles”.
It is not false to suggest Nabeel – and many others – are subjected to continued judicial harassment. Nabeel spent two years in jail between 2012 and 2014 on spurious charges including writing offensive tweets and taking part in illegal protests. He left the country shortly afterwards to raise international awareness of the country’s plight and days after his return was again arrested. Though charged and later pardoned, he remained subject to a travel ban and now faces jail once more.
I met Nabeel during his visit to the UK in August 2014. I had been in my job for just two months and was keen to know how organisations like ours could support individuals like Nabeel, who was awarded the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award in 2012. The meeting remains one of the defining moments of my time at Index: one that has helped to guide my thinking over the past 24 months. “Be there,” was Nabeel’s message. Be there not just when high-profile cases flare up and the eye of the media flickers over a country. Be there when a person fades from the world’s gaze. Be there to remind others that the person still matters.
Nabeel’s comments informed our decision last year to redevelop our Freedom of Expression Awards as a fellowship – offering more sustained support to winners and reaffirming our commitment to be there for the long haul. In recognition of this influence, Nabeel was one of our judges for this year’s awards. Because of the travel ban, imposed after last year’s conviction, he could not join us in person, but he was very much present.
Nabeel is due to stand trial on 5 September — after yet another delay announced on 2 August — over his twitter comments (and, by extension, ours). The kind of comments made every day in the United Kingdom, United States, France, Germany and elsewhere to hold governments to account or simply to vent anger: tweets about conditions in jail, about judicial processes, about the state of the country. In these countries, such comments are – and should be – considered part of the democratic process. In Bahrain, a country that the UK government repeatedly insists is on the “right path” to democracy, such comments land you in jail, solitary confinement, threatened with violence.
And when Bahrain starts using the support of international organisations like ours as evidence with which to condemn human rights activists, it is incumbent on governments like the UK to speak publicly. These governments need to be there, not just for the regimes they support, but in defence of the human rights they themselves claim to uphold and also for the people whose rights are being denied.
25 Jul 2016 | Africa, Asia and Pacific, Burkina Faso, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen
Winners of the 2016 Freedom of Expression Awards: from left, Farieha Aziz of Bolo Bhi (campaigning), Serge Bambara — aka “Smockey” (Music in Exile), Murad Subay (arts), Zaina Erhaim (journalism). GreatFire (digital activism), not pictured, is an anonymous collective. Photo: Sean Gallagher for Index on Censorship
In the short three months since the Index on Censorship Awards, the 2016 fellows have been busy doing important work in their respective fields to further their cause and for stronger freedom of expression around the world.
GreatFire / Digital activism
GreatFire, the anonymous group of individuals who work towards circumventing China’s Great Firewall, has just launched a groundbreaking new site to test virtual private networks within the country.
“Stable circumvention is a difficult thing to find in China so this new site a way for people to see what’s working and what’s not working,” said co-founder Charlie Smith.
But why are VPNs needed in China in the first place? “The list is very long: the firewall harms innovation while scholars in China have criticised the government for their internet controls, saying it’s harming their scholarly work, which is absolutely true,” said Smith. “Foreign companies are also complaining that internet censorship is hurting their day-to-day business, which means less investment in China, which means less jobs for Chinese people.”
Even recent Chinese history is skewed by the firewall. The anniversary of Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 last month went mostly unnoticed. “There was nothing to be seen about it on the internet in China,” Smith said. “This is a major event in Chinese history that’s basically been erased.”
Going forward, Smith is optimistic for growth within GreatFire, and has hopes the new VPN service will reach 100 million Chinese people. “However, we always feel that foreign businesses and governments could do more,” he said. “We don’t see this as a long game or diplomacy; we want change now and so I feel positive about what we are doing but we have less optimism when it comes to efforts outside of our organisation.”
Winning the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award for Digital Activism has certainly helped morale. “With the way we operate in anonymity, sometimes we feel a little lonely, so it’s nice to know that there are people out there paying attention,” Smith said.
Murad Subay / Arts
During his time in London for the Index awards, Yemeni artist Murad Subay painted a mural in Hoxton, which was the first time he had worked outside of his home country. “It was a great opportunity to tell people what’s going on in Yemen, because the world isn’t paying attention,” he explained to Index.
Since going home, Subay has continued to work with Ruins, his campaign with other artists to paint the walls of Yemen. “We launched in 2011, and have continued to paint ever since.”
Last month, artists from Ruins, including Subay, painted a number of murals in front of the Central Bank of Yemen to represent the country’s economic collapse.
In his acceptance speech at the Index Awards, Subay dedicated his award to the “unknown” people of Yemen, “who struggle to survive”. There has been little change in the situation since in the subsequent months as Yemenis continue to suffer war, oppression, destruction, thirst and — with increasing food prices — hunger.
“The war will continue for a long time and I believe it may even be a decade for the turmoil in Yemen to subside,” Subay says. “Yemen has always been poor, but the situation has gotten significantly worse in the last few years.”
Subay considers himself to be one of the lucky ones as he has access to water and electricity. “But there are many millions of people without these things and they need humanitarian assistance,” he says. “They are sick of what is going on in Yemen, but I do have hope — you have to have hope here.”
The Index award has also helped Subay maintain this hope. As has the inclusion of his work in university courses around the world, from John Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, and King Juan Carlos University in Madrid, Spain.
Subay’s wife has this month travelled to America to study at Stanford University. He hopes to join her and study fine art. “Since 2001 I have not had any education, and this is not enough,” he explains. “I have ideas in my head that I can’t put into practice because i don’t have the knowledge but a course would help with this.”
Zaina Erhaim / Journalism
Syrian journalist and documentary filmmaker Zaina Erhaim has been based in Turkey since leaving London after the Index Awards in April as travelling back to Syria isn’t currently possible. “We don’t have permission to cross back and forth from the Turkish authorities,” she told Index. “The border is completely closed.”
Erhaim is with her daughter in Turkey, while her husband Mahmoud remains in Aleppo.
“The situation in Aleppo is very bad,” she said. “A recent Channel 4 report by a friend of mine shows that the bombing has intensified, and the number of killings is in the tens per day, which hasn’t been the case for some weeks; it’s terrible.”
The main hospital in Aleppo was bombed twice in June. “Sadly this is becoming such a common thing that we don’t talk about it anymore,” Erhaim added.
She has largely given up on following coverage of the war in Syria through US or UK-based media outlets. “It is such a wasted effort and it’s so disappointing,” she explained. “I follow a couple of journalists based in the region who are actually trying to report human-side stories, but since I was in London for the awards, I haven’t followed the mainstream western media.”
Erhaim has put her own documentary making on hold for now while she launches a new project with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting this month to teach activists filmmaking skills. “We are going to be helping five citizen journalists to do their own short films, which we will then help them publicise,” she said.
Documentary filmmaking is something she would like to return to in future, “but at the moment it is not feasible with the situation in Syria and the projects we are now working on”.
Bolo Bhi / Campaigning
The last time Index spoke to Farieha Aziz, director of Bolo Bhi, the Pakistani non-profit, all-female NGO fighting for internet access, digital security and privacy, the country’s lower legislative chamber had just passed the cyber crimes bill.
The danger of the bill is that it would permit the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to manage, remove or block content on the internet. “It’s part of a regressive trend we are seeing the world over: there is shrinking space for openness, a lot of privacy intrusion and limits to free speech,” Aziz told Index.
Thankfully, when the bill went to the Pakistani senate — which is the upper house — it was rejected as it stood. “Before this, we had approached senators to again get an affirmation as they’d given earlier saying that they were not going to pass it in its current form,” Aziz added.
Bolo Bhi’s advice to Pakistani politicians largely pointed back to analysis the group had published online, which went through various sections of the bill and highlighting what was problematic and what needed to be done.
This further encouraged those senators who were against the bill to get the word out to their parties to attend the session to ensure it didn’t pass. “It’s a good thing to see they’ve felt a sense of urgency, which we’ve desperately needed,” Aziz said.
“The strength of the campaign throughout has actually been that we’ve been able to band together, whether as civil society organisations, human rights organisations, industry organisations, but also those in the legislature,” Aziz added. “We’ve been together at different forums, we’ve been constantly engaging, sharing ideas and essentially that’s how we want policy making in general, not just on one bill, to take place.”
The campaign to defeat the bill goes on. A recent public petition (18 July) set up by Bolo Bhi to the senate’s Standing Committee on IT and Telecom requested the body to “hold more consultations until all sections of the bill have been thoroughly discussed and reviewed, and also hold a public hearing where technical and legal experts, as well as other concerned citizens, can present their point of view, so that the final version of the bill is one that is effective in curbing crime and also protects existing rights as guaranteed under the Constitution of Pakistan”.
A vote on an amended version of the bill is due to take place this week in the senate.
Smockey / Music in Exile Fellow
Burkinabe rapper and activist Smockey became the inaugural Music in Exile Fellow at the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards, and last month his campaigning group Le Balai Citoyen (The Citizen’s Broom) won an Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience Award.
“This was was given to us for our efforts in the promotion of human rights and democracy in our country,” said Smockey. The award was also given to Y en a marre (Senegal) and Et Lucha (Democratic Republic of the Congo).
“We are trying to create a kind of synergy between all social-movements in Africa because we are living in the same continent and so anything that affects the others will affect us also,” Smockey added.
Le Balai Citoyen has recently been working on programmes for young people and women. “We will also meet the new mayor of the capital to understand all the problems of urbanism,” Smockey added.
While his activism has been getting international recognition, he remains focused on making music with upcoming concerts in Belgium, Switzerland and Germany, and he is currently writing the music for an upcoming album. A major setback has seen Smockey’s acclaimed Studio Abazon destroyed by a fire early in the morning of 19 July. According to press reports the studio is a complete loss. The cause is under investigation.
Despite this, Smockey is still planning to organise a new music festival in Burkina Faso. “We want to create a festival of free expression in arts,” Smockey said. “And we are confident that it will change a lot of things here.”
He is thankful for the exposure the Index Awards have given him over the last number of months. “It was a great honour to receive this award, especially because it came from an English country,” he said. “My people are proud of this award.”
