The morning after the airing of the last episode of the presenter and journalist Leonard Kërquki’s three-part documentary, Hunting The KLA, a photo-montage of his face riddled with bullet holes was posted to a 70,000 member Facebook group named Kosovo Liberation Army. Within minutes hundreds of death threats appeared in the comments section, many calling for him to be killed. Meanwhile, Kërquki’s private inbox filled up with similar threats on his life.
The commentators were not happy with the contents of the documentary produced by the tabloid newspaper Gazeta Express, of which Kërquki is editor-in-chief, and broadcast by TV-channel RTV Dukagjini. The documentary showed an investigation into crimes committed against the Kosovo Serb population by members of the KLA during the Kosovo war in the late 1990s.
The KLA was an ethnic-Albanian paramilitary organisation that fought for independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (which consisted of Serbia and Montenegro at the time) during the Kosovo War in 1998-99. The KLA fought against the Yugoslav army, which was led by strongman Slobodan Milosevic. The organisation received air cover from NATO jets and ground support from the Albanian military against Serbian forces for crimes Milosevic had committed against Kosovo Albanians in Kosovo. After the war the KLA was disbanded.
“The topic of our documentary is very sensitive in Kosovo,” Kërquki told Mapping Media Freedom, Index on Censorship’s project monitoring press freedom in 42 European nations. Many former KLA-members now hold high-profile positions in government, he explained.
Crimes committed by the KLA against Kosovo Serbs have often met with controversy since the war ended. But a newly established special court for Kosovo war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is now set to try crimes committed by the KLA against ethnic minorities and political opponents during the Kosovo war. The launch of the special court was the motive for Kërquki and his colleagues to produce Hunting the KLA.
“Any one of the people who will be investigated by this new court could be behind the hate campaign against me”, he said. It is not the first time Kërquki has been threatened for his reporting, but this time it was worse, he added.
The Journalist Association of Kosovo (AJK) stated the “hundreds of death threats” towards Kërquki and other crew members are unacceptable.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) mission in Kosovo have also condemned the threats, calling for Kërquki’s protection and a thorough investigation into and prosecution of those behind the threats. Reporters Without Borders urged the Kosovo authorities to act against the “public lynching” of Kërquki.
The Kërquki case is the latest in a series of intimidations, threats and physical attacks on Kosovo journalists. Two months earlier the national broadcaster Radio Television Kosovo (RTK) was attacked twice with explosives.
A week later, a hand grenade was thrown at the house of RTK’s director, Mentor Shala. The bomb exploded behind the house while he and his family were inside. No casualties were reported but Shala told local media that the explosion was so strong that it could be felt throughout the entire neighbourhood.
Responsibility for both attacks was claimed by an organisation called Rugovasit, a group of people from the Rugova mountains close to the border with Montenegro. Kosovo’s parliament was voting on a demarcation deal with Montenegro at the time of the attacks.
Rugovasit claimed that Kosovo would lose thousands of hectares of land to Montenegro if the deal went through. They blamed RTK for only reporting the government’s perspective on the case and claimed in a written statement that the attack was “only a warning”, stating “if he does not resign from RTK, his life is in danger”. In early September Kosovo’s parliament decided to indefinitely postpone the controversial border deal.
These recent events have seriously worried AJK. “This year is really bad for journalists in Kosovo,” AJK’s president Shkelqim Hysenaj told MMF.
AJK has documented 18 cases of threats and violations against media in 2016 so far. In 2015, the association reported 21 cases. “Last year we had a lot of threats, too, but this year we were shocked by the two bomb attacks,” Hysenaj said. “That worries us the most, and makes us conclude that the situation regarding press freedom is getting worse.”
AJK is concerned about the lack of action by the police and prosecution in all three of the cases. Two months after the bomb attacks on the public broadcaster no perpetrator has been arrested or prosecuted. According to the AJK, the death threats to Kërquki are not being investigated by the police.
“If the police and courts are not doing their jobs, the situation will not change,” Hysenaj said. “If nobody is held accountable for throwing a bomb at the house of a journalist or sending death threats to an editor-in-chief, people will keep intimidating journalists because they know they can get away with it.”
Kosovo is ranked 90 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders. Political interference is still one of the biggest problems Kosovo’s media landscape is dealing with, Hysenaj explained. “The government and political parties have a huge influence on the media in this country,” he said.
RTK and its general director were the subjects of a controversy back in 2015 when employees openly accused director Mentor Shala of censorship and mismanagement after he fired a newsroom editor and a union president.
RTK is directly and fully financed by the state budget, Hysenaj added. “It makes them inevitably not independent.” Privately-owned media are also subject to biased reporting. “A big concern for us is that political parties are sponsoring online media platforms and the public is not aware who is paying for it.”
Meanwhile, Kërquki has continued working on documentaries with his team of reporters. The picture of his face riddled with bullet holes has been taken down from Facebook, but he is still receiving threats in his private inbox. He said he will not back down and continue work as normal. “The rest is the job of the police and the prosecutor’s office,” he concluded.
The Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Credit: Wikimedia
The undersigned organisations call on Turkey’s national assembly to end the recently extended state of emergency, and take immediate steps to repair the damage to freedom of expression and Turkish democracy since the defeat of the 15 July coup.
We respect the need for every government to assure the safety of its citizens, yet the measures taken under the state of emergency since July go far beyond what is necessary for public safety, and are destroying the vibrant political culture of open, diverse dialogue that distinguishes a democracy from a dictatorship.
In the three months since 15 July, over 100,000 people have been dismissed from their positions, most for supposed affiliation with the Gulenist movement. Over 25,000 have been arrested, over 2,000 educational establishments have been closed, and more than 150 media outlets have been shut down. Since the declaration of the state of emergency at least 98 journalists have been jailed, bringing the total number of imprisoned journalists in Turkey to 130, not counting those that have been detained and released without charge – making Turkey the world’s leading jailer of journalists.
As Reporters without Borders has documented, those who have worked with or for organisations sympathetic to the Gulenists are being treated as automatic members of the movement. Members of the movement, in turn, are treated as participants in the coup. In casting such a wide net in its crackdown, Turkey’s government is violating both internationally recognised human rights and universally understood principles of justice by ascribing guilt by association, not evidence, and punishing individuals for their thoughts and beliefs, not their actions.
The extension of the crackdown to Kurdish, Alevi and left-wing media uninvolved in the coup suggests that the state of emergency is being abused beyond its stated purpose and is used for harassing individuals and groups that are merely inconvenient to the government in power, not threats to the democratic system. Many are being detained and punished not for a threat they pose to the Turkish government, or to their fellow citizens, but because they disagree with the government’s actions or policy, or are part of or sympathetic to a minority group.
The survival of democracy requires strong tolerance for a broad spectrum of opinion and belief in public life, including those that majority opinion finds inconvenient. Suppressing the independent voice and participation of minorities in public discourse in the name of anti-terrorism is not only a subversion of their free expression rights – it feeds the discontent that grows into extremism. It will be a poor tribute to the peaceful and democratic spirit of 15 July if weakening democracy and strengthening extremism is the direction chosen by the Turkish people’s political representatives in its aftermath.
We call on the national assembly to take immediate steps to protect the right of all citizens to freedom of expression and belief. We believe the state of emergency must either be ended, or greatly narrowed in its scope. We therefore recommend that you:
Return police detention without legal review to the normal maximum four day period, and amend other provisions of the state of emergency to be compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;
Explicitly limit terrorism charges to individuals for whom clear evidence exists of acts of violence, intent to commit acts of violence, or advocating of acts of violence, and drop terrorism charges against all those, like Ayşe Çelik and her co-defendants, who have not committed such an act;
Refer cases of media affected by the recent shutdowns back to the judiciary, and permit them to re-open unless and until they are found guilty of a serious crime;
Set clear limits on the use of travel bans and passport confiscation, and end the extension of these measures to family members;
Renew respect for press credentials by state agents, and return confiscated credentials to press not found guilty of a crime.
Signed,
Initiative for Freedom of Expression – Turkey
Afghanistan Journalists Center
Albanian Media Institute
Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain
ARTICLE 19
Association for Civil Rights
Bytes for All
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
Center for Independent Journalism – Hungary
Center for Independent Journalism – Romania
Freedom Forum
Freedom House
Free Media Movement
Human Rights Network for Journalists – Uganda
Index on Censorship
International Press Centre
Journaliste en danger
Maharat Foundation
Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance
Media Institute of Southern Africa
Media Watch
Norwegian PEN
Observatorio Latinoamericano para la Libertad de Expresión – OLA
OpenMedia
Pakistan Press Foundation
PEN American Center
PEN Canada
PEN International
Reporters Without Borders
Trinidad and Tobago’s Publishers and Broadcasters Association
Vigilance pour la Démocratie et l’État Civique
World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters – AMARC Anatolian Heritage Foundation
Association of European Journalists
Centre for Freedom of Expression at Ryerson University
English PEN
SEEMO
PEN Germany
Wales PEN Cymru
Violence against journalists in Europe increased in the second quarter of 2016, reports submitted to Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom platform show, as a government crackdown in Turkey intensified and protests turned violent in countries from France to Finland.
“Europe is considered one of the safest places for journalists in the world. However, increasing concerns about national security in the region – coupled with creeping authoritarianism – is making it an increasingly difficult place for the media to operate freely and safely,” said Hannah Machlin, project officer for Mapping Media Freedom. “And the threats are not just coming from the usual suspects: 12 incidents of injuries to journalists occurred in France and in a number of these cases journalists appear to have been directly targeted by police.”
Between 1 April and 30 June 2016, Mapping Media Freedom’s network of 18 correspondents and other journalists submitted a total of 341 violations of press freedom to the database, a 13% rise over the first quarter of 2016.
Key findings from the Q2 report
Two journalists were killed. Mohammed Zahir al-Shergat died as a result of gunshot wounds in the city of Gaziantep, Turkey; journalist and radio host Luka Popov from northern Serbia was found dead in his home in Srpski Krstur
60 incidents of physical assault were confirmed
45 criminal charges and civil lawsuits were filed
Media professionals were detained in 41 incidents
80 verified reports of intimidation, which includes psychological abuse, sexual harassment, trolling/cyberbullying and defamation were recorded
Work was censored or altered 15 times
Media professionals were blocked from covering a story in 73 incidents
“The fight for the abolition of prison sentences for offences committed through the press is unfortunately still relevant in Europe and neighboring countries,” Christophe Deloire, Reporters Without Borders secretary general said. “In a climate of growing fear and suspicion, judicial persecution of journalists takes more and more diversified forms. The Turkish authorities continue to invoke the anti-terrorism law, the protection of state secrets or insults to the head of state to prosecute and imprison more journalists.”
“Journalists are beaten, intimidated, imprisoned and killed in the pursuit of telling a story, exposing the truth and informing the public. These courageous men and women are the vanguard for free speech, freedom of expression and, ultimately, a free and democratic society. We need to come together and fight for journalists’ safety and end impunity for crimes committed against journalists,” said Dunja Mijatović, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media.
For more information, please contact Hannah Machlin, Mapping Media Freedom project officer at [email protected]
About Mapping Media Freedom
Mapping Media Freedom – a joint undertaking with the European Federation of Journalists and Reporters Without Borders and partially funded by the European Commission – covers 42 countries with a network of correspondents, including all EU member states, plus Albania, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia, Iceland, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine and Vatican City. In September 2015 the platform expanded to monitor Russia, Ukraine and Belarus and in February 2016 into Azerbaijan. Each report is fact checked with local sources before becoming available on the interactive map. Since launching in May 2014, the map has recorded over 2,000 incidents threatening media freedom.
Nazeeha Saeed has been arbitrarily curtailed by Bahrain’s Information Affairs Authority.
We, the undersigned, express our deep concern with the Bahraini Public Prosecution’s decision to chargeNazeeha Saeed, correspondent for Radio Monte Carlo Doualiya and France24, with unlawfully working for international media. We consider this an undue reprisal against her as a journalist and call on Bahrain’s authorities to respect fully the right of journalists to practice their profession freely.
Nazeeha Saeed is an award-winning journalist and correspondent for Radio Monte Carlo Doualiya and France24. She has previously reported on the protest movement in 2011, and has reported on the mounting dissent against the Bahraini government for the last several years.
On Sunday 17 July 2016, the Public Prosecution summoned Nazeeha Saeed for interrogation based on a legal complaint from the Information Affairs Authority (IAA). The prosecution charged her under article 88 of Law 47/2002, which regulates the press, printing and publication. Article 88 states that no Bahraini can work for foreign media outlets without first obtaining a license from the Information Affairs Authority (IAA), which must be renewed annually.
Prior to the expiration of her license, Nazeeha Saeed applied for a new one at the end of March 2016, at which point, the IAA refused a renewal. This is the first time she has received such a rejection. Following this, Saeed continued to work as a correspondent for France24 and Radio Monte Carlo Doualiya. She now faces trial in the civil courts and a fine of up to 1000 Bahraini Dinars (USD $2650) if found guilty.
This is not the first time Nazeeha Saeed has been subjected to harassment by the Bahraini authorities. In May 2011, during a state of emergency imposed in response to Arab Spring protests, police summoned Saeed to the station and detained her there. For her coverage of events in Bahrain – Nazeeha Saeed witnessed police killing a man at a protest and rejected the government narrative of events – police allegedly subjected her to hours of torture, ill-treatment and humiliation, which only ended when she signed a document placed before her. She was not allowed to read it. Despite complaining to the Ministry of Interior and the new Special Investigations Unit, the body under the Public Prosecution charged with investigating claims of torture and abuse, in November 2015 the authorities decided against prosecuting the responsible officers on the basis of there being insufficient evidence.
In June 2016, Bahrain’s authorities placed Nazeeha Saeed on a travel ban, preventing her from leaving the country. The ban was applied without informing Saeed, who only discovered it after she was refused boarding on her flight. The police officer at the airport was unable to explain the reason for this travel ban, and officials from the immigration department, the public prosecution and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), told the journalist that they were not even aware of its existence. Saeed is one of approximately twenty individuals known to have been banned from travel in Bahrain since the beginning of June 2016. Other journalists working for international media face similar threats and have also reported facing increased pressure from the government in the last year, making their work difficult. RSF and the Committee to Protect Journalists both list Bahrain as one of the leading jailers of journalists in the world. One of them, Sayed Ahmed Al-Mousawi, was stripped of his citizenship by a court in November 2015.
As organisations concerned with the right to freedom of expression, we call on the Government of Bahrain to end the reprisals against Nazeeha Saeed, lift her travel ban and drop the charges against her. We also call on the authorities to stop arbitrarily withholding license renewals and to allow journalists to report with full freedom of expression as protected under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Signed,
Adil Soz, International Foundation for Protection of Freedom of Speech
ACAT
Albanian Media Institute
Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain
ARTICLE 19
Bahrain Center for Human Rights
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy
Bahrain Press Association
Bytes for All
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
Cartoonists Rights Network International
Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility
Committee to Protect Journalists
Egyptian Organization for Human Rights
English PEN
European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights
Foro de Periodismo Argentino
Freedom Forum
Freedom House
Free Media Movement
Front Line Defenders
Gulf Centre for Human Rights
Hisham Al Miraat, Founder, Moroccan Digital Rights Association
Human Rights Network for Journalists – Uganda
Independent Journalism Center – Moldova
Index on Censorship
Institute for the Studies on Free Flow of Information
Instituto de Prensa y Libertad de Expresión – IPLEX
International Press Institute
Justice Human Rights Organization
Maharat Foundation
Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance
Media Watch
Norwegian PEN
Pacific Islands News Association
Pakistan Press Foundation
Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms – MADA
PEN American Center
PEN Canada
PEN International
Reporters Without Borders
Social Media Exchange – SMEX
Vigilance pour la Démocratie et l’État Civique
The commentators were not happy with the contents of the documentary produced by the tabloid newspaper Gazeta Express, of which Kërquki is editor-in-chief, and broadcast by TV-channel RTV Dukagjini. The documentary showed an investigation into crimes committed against the Kosovo Serb population by members of the KLA during the Kosovo war in the late 1990s.