Slapped Down: Six journalists on the legal efforts to silence them

01 Dec 20

Slapped down: Six journalists on the legal efforts to silence them

01 Dec 20

Introduction

Strategic lawsuits against public participation (Slapps) are a form of legal harassment used to intimidate and ultimately silence those that speak out in the public interest. Index on Censorship’s research and analysis focuses specifically on Slapps against journalists, but activists, academics, and civil society organisations are also among those affected.

Slapps take many forms, but the most common is civil defamation. According to George Pring and Penelope Canan, American academics who coined the term Slapp in the 1990s, “accusations are just the window dressing”. This is because Slapps tend to lack legal merit and usually end up being dismissed once the facts of the case have been presented in court. This would be good news – but a judge’s decision is not the issue. The amount of time, energy, and money involved in even getting before a judge is vast and can be prohibitive, especially in cases where an individual (as opposed to an organisation) has to foot the bill for their own legal defence.

This means that just the threat of a Slapp can be intimidating enough for a journalist to feel that they should discontinue their research or reporting, or to remove their report from circulation if it has already been published. This is true even though the information is in the public interest and the journalist can prove that it is accurate.

In order to make the Slapp as intimidating as possible, journalists may be told they could be liable to pay vast amounts of money if they publish their story or if they refuse to remove the story if it has already been published. Financial gain, however, is never the aim of a Slapp. Most Slapp plaintiffs (the individuals who start the lawsuit) tend to be wealthy or powerful businesspeople or political figures. Disparity of power and resources is a hallmark of a Slapp.

Journalists facing Slapps are also more likely to be sued individually, even if they are employed with news organisations. This is done in an attempt to isolate them and deprive them of being automatically entitled to the support of their organisations.

In order to make the process as punishing as possible, plaintiffs may try to drag out the legal action. This is done in order to drain journalists of as much time, money, and energy as possible in the hope that they will give up on their reporting. Plaintiffs may also try to file multiple lawsuits in an attempt to ‘bury’ the journalist in litigation. In early 2017, one businessman filed nineteen defamation lawsuits against Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia all at once.

In some cases, plaintiffs may seek to bring cases in jurisdictions that are seen as more plaintiff-friendly. The UK is widely seen as one such jurisdiction. According to research conducted by the Foreign Policy Centre, most of the legal letters received by Europe-based journalists were sent by law firms in the journalists’ own countries (80%), but 31% had been sent by law firms in the UK.

How common are Slapps? The same survey found that 73% of investigative journalists in Europe had received legal communication as a result of information they had published. Most of these (71%) had come from corporations or other business entities. Research carried out by Index on Censorship suggests that they are becoming increasingly common.

Yet, because Slapps are usually communicated to journalists through legal letters marked ‘private and confidential’, they are rarely brought to light. This report is an attempt to bring the practice into the open. Six journalists from Finland, Estonia, Italy and Cyprus recount their experience of facing lawsuits after having published public interest investigations. (Note that these case studies bear the hallmarks of  Slapp cases but we make no comment on the bona fides or legal merits of the cases themselves.)

A cross-border investigation in Estonia and Finland

Estonian journalists Mihkel Kärmas and Anna Pihl work on Pealtnägija (Eyewitness), an investigative programme on the Estonian national broadcaster, ERR. “We’re like the Estonian 60 minutes, meaning that we do investigative stories but human interest stories also. We’re on every Wednesday for 45 minutes,” explained Kärmas.

In 2018, after having been contacted by two journalists in Finland, Kärmas and Pihl began working on a new investigation. One part of their investigation focused on the alleged criminal activities of individuals linked to a Finnish non-profit agency in Estonia, particularly the transfer of hundreds of thousands of euro from an Estonian shell company. These individuals are the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation in Finland. The case was also briefly investigated in Estonia before the materials were turned over the Finnish authorities. Another part of their investigation centred on the sale of a Tallinn property that had been owned by the Estonian Centre Party. One of the businessmen linked to the Youth Foundation was involved in the sale.

On 7 November 2018, ERR’s investigation was published in online articles and aired on Pealtnägija.

What happened after the investigation was published?

On 21 December 2018, the Friday before Christmas, the businessman who was allegedly linked to both the Estonian shell company and the sale of the Tallinn property filed a lawsuit against Kärmas, Pihl, and ERR claiming that the investigation had caused ‘injurious action’ and ‘spread false information’.

“We got very extensive court material where they had written up some 18 counts […] whereby we caused significant economic loss,” Kärmas told Index. “They write in their paper that the loss is up to 1 billion euros”.

“A lot of the material that we ended up publishing had already been published in Finland. It’s public knowledge in Finland, and actually a lot of it had been published in print here in Estonia,” Kärmas said. “But regardless of that, we ended up being sued.”

The lawsuit didn’t only name ERR as the defendant, it also named Kärmas and Pihl specifically. It was the first time that any of ERR’s employees were individually sued as a result of their reporting. “At the beginning I was kind of stressed – I was upset I would say,” Pihl said. “First of all I don’t have that kind of money, second of all it would mean that we can’t work as investigative journalists anymore.”

On 7 January 2019, Harju County Court ordered ERR to remove the investigation from its platforms. “It has been taken down and nobody can read it or watch it – both the written and video version. I think it’s concerning because it would be in the public interest that the story is up,” Pihl explained. “This businessman is under criminal investigation – it’s connected with a political party that’s in power, meaning that obviously the public should be able to Google it and go back to it. And also other journalists – if they write new stories – there is useful information for them.”

Support

“Fortunately our TV station was very helpful – they said that they will protect us and that we don’t need to be personally responsible, whatever happens,” said Pihl. “I think that’s the main thing that helped me to be kind of alright with this case is that the public broadcaster said that they are going to pay our court fees and whatever other costs are connected with this case.”

What if she didn’t have that support? “I think I would be very, very stressed because then I would actually think that we might just lose because I wouldn’t have the money to hire a proper lawyer or I would have to use all my savings. That shouldn’t be the case for a journalist because then I would be afraid to publish new stories against businessmen – or anybody basically.”

“In a way, we’re in a lucky position that our media organisation, by Estonian standards, is quite a large one, actually the largest one in Estonia, at least by some standards. We feel quite secure in that respect,” Kärmas said.

“But if you’re a freelancer or working for a smaller media organisation then it’s definitely a headache for instance just to cover the running legal costs. But if this becomes a norm that different parties start bringing legal cases against journalists in Estonia, then we definitely need to think about some sort of security for the journalists involved,” Kärmas said. “I can easily see that this [legal strategy] will make journalists wonder what type of stories they want to take up.”

Dragging it out

Despite nearly two years having passed since the lawsuit was filed, little progress has been made. According to Kärmas and Pihl, one of the delays was due to a motion that was filed to the court in September 2019 requesting that a video file of the broadcast be submitted. “They obviously had the video to prepare this lawsuit,” Kärmas said. “Although they had it, we were fully prepared to give it to them. There’s no obstruction from our part, but for some reason we haggled over this for months and months”.

According to Kärmas and Pihl, efforts were also made to prevent their employer from covering their legal fees. “This resulted in a short, separate litigation,” they said, during which ERR was forced to provide details of the contract Pihl and Kärmas had with their defence lawyers. “We were wondering what [they] would do with this information and in the end of July 2020 they sent a letter to the Parliament’s Culture Commission, the Finance Ministry, the Estonian Broadcasting’s governing body, and the State Audit Office asking whether they regard it appropriate use of public funds if the public broadcaster pays for our individual attorneys,” they said.

“From a personal, emotional point of view, it’s very annoying and very difficult. Each step in this litigation takes like three months,” Kärmas said. “So you refresh your memory about all the details, then you answer something, two or three months nothing happens, then there’s another turn, another letter and you have to read up on this again.”

“I realise that it’s going to take… I don’t know how many more years and we haven’t even had any hearings in the court,” Pihl said. “If the other party is angry enough, funded well enough, then they can really make your life difficult,” Kärmas said.

While the litigation continues, their investigation remains unavailable to viewers and readers. “The story is down from online meaning that every day they manage to postpone the case they win a day without the story being up. Even if in the end there would be a decision that we can put it up again. It means they would still win, because for such a long time it wasn’t available,” Pihl explained. The lawsuit is ongoing, pending a final decision from the court.

Finland

Freelance journalist Jarno Liski and his colleague Jyri Hänninen, who works for the Finnish national broadcaster YLE, began reporting on the Youth Foundation in mid-2016. “[The story] is highly significant,” Hänninen replied when asked about the case. “It’s one of the biggest financial crimes investigations in Finland.”

It was their reporting that prompted Finnish authorities to start investigating the financial affairs of senior members of the Youth Foundation in 2018. “There’s almost 20 people who are suspected of crimes and the financial harm that these guys have caused is at least 100 million euro,” Hänninen explained.

Liski and Hänninen contacted Pihl and Kärmas, after it came to light that an Estonian shell company had been used in the money transfers. “And we’ve been exchanging information every now and then and trying to help each other out,” Liski said.

Both Liski and Hänninen were shocked when they heard that the reports by their Estonian colleagues had to be removed as a result of a lawsuit. “I was shocked and I was highly surprised that it’s even legally possible in Estonia,” Hänninen said. “I don’t know how the legal system works in Estonia but I was really surprised when I heard about the court decision to censor [the story],” Liski said.

But neither was surprised that a lawsuit had been filed. The same businessman who is suing Pihl and Kärmas filed in Finland a criminal complaint for defamation against Hänninen and Liski in late 2018 for their reporting. In January 2019, the police and the district prosecutor issued its decision not to bring charges against the journalists. “I never had to be officially interviewed or anything,” Liski said.

Another businessman linked to the same investigations repeatedly tried to threaten Liski with legal action. “There was this one businessman who three or four times over two or three years contacted my editors or other superiors and made threats usually about civil lawsuits, where he would demand really big compensation – one million euro. But he never went through with those threats”.

“He was threatening that he would sue me, not the company, but me as a freelance journalist for one million euro for these stories that I’ve written,” Liski explained. “We basically laughed but the threat is real theoretically…”

“His lawyer sent a cease and desist letter to me but that never went anywhere. I think I answered something like ‘the stories are correct and if they are not then I will of course correct them if you tell me what I got wrong’ but that was left there. It’s been like two or three years since I last heard from them,” Liski said. “I’ve hoped and so far I’ve been right, that they don’t want to sue me because they don’t want the publicity. But in Estonia they did what they did and it’s still a mystery to me.”

As a freelance journalist, Liski feels that investigating and reporting on the affairs of wealthy and powerful people puts him in an especially precarious position. Despite reporting on the Youth Foundation story alongside Liski, Hänninen was not subject to the same level of intimidation. Why?

“It’s easier to target a freelance journalist than it is someone who is working – as in my case – for the Finnish national broadcasting company, which is really big with 3,000 employees, and lawyers, and all the other people who can help me out,” said Hänninen.

Liski believes that the news organisations that contract him would support him if he were sued as a freelancer. “But that wouldn’t really solve the problem,” he said. “Because the case would still require me to do so much work: to tell the lawyer what the case is about and write all sorts of answers and go to my archives and find all the documents – the evidence for the stories. And even if all the legal costs were covered, no one would still pay for the hours [it takes] to do that.”

“That would pretty much destroy my career in journalism if for one year I couldn’t write anything that someone could pay me [for],” Liski said.

Investigating a Libyan-owned company in Cyprus

In 2017, Cypriot journalist Stelios Orphanides was contacted by a whistle-blower about a Libyan-owned company in Limassol, Cyprus. “[They were] offering me information but it was a little bit too convoluted to write a daily report at the Cyprus Mail, where I used to work at the time,” Orphanides explained.

Orphanides started to receive documents from the whistle-blower and began working on an investigation with Sara Farolfi, an Italian investigative journalist who was a freelancer at the time. “It was an amazing amount of documentation that we had to go through, analyse, and make sense of,” Farolfi said.

“In March 2018 we got the go-ahead from the OCCRP [Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project] to investigate and so we started looking into it with the help of this whistle-blower and an American investigator/journalist who was familiar with Libya and who was offering us guidance to make sense of the thousands of pages of material we were forwarded,” Orphanides said. “This is how we came to investigate the story and report it. It took us about six months to work on this story”.

“[O]f course, what we focused on was a piece of the story. We decided to look into Cyprus because that’s where most of the stuff was coming from,” Farolfi said.

On 25 July 2018, Orphanides and Farolfi’s investigation – “Cyprus Records Sheds Light on Libya’s Hidden Millions” – was published on OCCRP’s website.

What happened after the investigation was published?

In August 2018, a lawsuit was filed against Orphanides and Farolfi by a lawyer peripherally connected to the story. That lawyer is named as a plaintiff, alongside four other individual lawyers from his law firm. The lawsuit alleges that Orphanides and Farolfi’s investigation defamed the lawyers, interfered with their professional gravitas and reputation, and exposed them to humiliation and contempt. It also alleges that Orphanides and Farolfi violated their human rights to a private and family life. The lawsuit demands compensation “either together and/or separately” from the journalists.

“It came as a shock,” Farolfi said. “From one side I was certain that we had made no mistake. But when you receive a piece of paper that says ‘you may be asked to pay 2 million euro’, then even if you feel strongly about what you’ve done, it’s scary. I felt shocked to be honest.”

Orphanides said he was less surprised when the lawsuit arrived, but was surprised at the way that it was served to him. “[U]sually when you get sued the court clerks simply give you a call and they say ‘we have this lawsuit and we would like to serve it to you’,” Orphanides explained. “But they didn’t call, or go to the office, instead [the court clerk] came to my place.”

Farolfi said that she didn’t received any notice that she was being sued. “I never received anything. They say they sent me an email, which I never received, and this is quite weird because as an investigative journalist I’m used to checking my spam inbox as well as the normal inbox. And also they had my email address because the publication was a lengthy process and, like always, we sent a request for comment. We sent this request from my email address and from Stelios’ one,” she explained.

According to Farolfi and Orphanides the would-be plaintiff had responded to their request for comment before the investigation was published. “And we included – if not the entire response – a very large portion, and the most significant parts of his response. We haven’t omitted anything of interest to the reader,” Orphanides said.

“Anyway, we were sent the lawsuit and it was personal despite the fact that we had published the investigation with OCCRP,” Farolfi said.

“It’s possible that another purpose of the lawsuit was to know who the whistle-blower that leaked this vast amount of material to us was. This is another aspect of the problem because we, as journalists, will need to protect the identity of this whistle-blower – not to make it public,” Farolfi said.

Orphanides also raised concerns around the plaintiff’s decision to buy the Cyprus Mail in early 2019. The whistle-blower first contacted Orphanides while he was working for the Cyprus Mail and many of the materials used in the investigation were sent to his Cyprus Mail address.

How did the lawsuits affect you and your work? 

“I was scared mainly because I was freelance,” Farolfi said. “We were very lucky because OCCRP immediately stood by us.” Both she and Orphanides have since been hired by the organisation. “We were immediately reassured even before being hired by OCCRP. [It] is one of the few organisations, as far as I know, that stands by freelance journalists with a lawsuit like this.”

“You feel pretty alone when you get sued, because you are actually alone. I mean I was with Stelios and we had an organisation behind our shoulders, but still you feel a little bit alone. And even more so as freelancers at the time, I think. Especially me – Stelios was not freelance but maybe he felt alone too I don’t know,” Farolfi said.

“There are not many people that understand why you – as a journalist – are undertaking that risk. I remember even chats with friends, slightly looking at me like ‘are you serious you got sued for [up to] two million euro and you are still willing to do this job?’,” Farolfi said. “I remember perfectly that I couldn’t sleep that night and I was thinking ‘Well, that’s a good point. To what extent am I willing to take risks?’.

For Orphanides, the lawsuit was the last straw. “When I got sued for that [OCCRP story] then I realised that I was asphyxiated. It’s not unrelated that a couple of months later, together with my wife, we left Cyprus,” said Orphanides, who now lives in Sarajevo.

Did either of them consider quitting investigative journalism? “I mean the opposite, it convinced me that I had to double down my efforts,” Orphanides said. “I concluded that more investigations were needed and at the same time, doing some investigations in Cyprus was too risky because you would get sued all the time.”

But Orphanides said he feels that his decision to fully focus on investigative journalism means that he will never be able to return to work as a journalist at a Cypriot media outlet. “We have entered a one-way street professionally,” he said. “From the moment that you have done some investigative reporting, you are excluded from the mainstream media market [in Cyprus].”

Like Orphanides, Farolfi also said she never seriously considered changing career. “But I told myself, this is not a job that can be done as a freelancer: ‘this is teaching you that you need to move to a different set-up because this is what I’m going to have to face for any other investigation that I will work on’.”

“There is such a disproportion of forces that unless you have someone behind you – an organisation – and even for an organisation it’s a tough gig,” Farolfi said. “For them to file a lawsuit against two journalists, it just costs nothing. It just costs nothing. They are no downsides. They just need to do what they do every day. They don’t need to allocate any special resources to it. So there is this asymmetry – disproportion of forces.”

Both Farolfi and Orphanides expressed concern over the amount of time they expected the lawsuit to take. “I don’t expect this case will come to the courts before 2025 or so. Maybe longer,” Orphanides said. “Will it be easy for me to remember all the facts in five years?”

“We are lucky to have an organisation behind us. But it’s definitely time-consuming, resource-consuming and stressful,” Farolfi said. “You have this uncertainty like a sword of Damocles over your head,” Orphanides said.

Advice to journalists facing a potential Slapp case

We asked the journalists what advice they would give to fellow journalists who might be facing similar legal threats and actions. They had two main pieces of advice:

Think about the risks in advance and prepare accordingly

“The first piece of advice – a rule if you do investigative journalism – when you publish something it has to be bulletproof,” Sara Farolfi said. “You should make every effort to get all the proof that you need to make your piece more solid. You would be surprised if you knew how long it takes us to get a story published. And it’s all worth it. Totally all worth the time.”

At the same time, she acknowledged that a lot of courage is needed to publish an investigation that involves wealthy or powerful people and to stand by your story once it has been published. “You need to have a thick skin to do this job, certainly,” she said.

“There’s always a risk when you go after these kind of people who have money and influence. It will, of course, take some courage,” Jarno Liski said. “It’s unwise what we do personally when you think about your own situation – there’s not much to win and you could end up in trouble. But it’s important and I encourage people to have more courage.”

“Try to cover your back anyway. As a freelancer, especially, I should have agreed in writing with the media outlets that I write for that they will have my back if we go to court or something like that,” he said. Pihl also advised journalists to speak to their media companies about whether they will support them if they personally face a lawsuit. “I think every journalist has to ask their company if this kind of case happens, if they are going to pay for them,” she said.

“When you’re doing these kinds of investigations on financial crimes and corruption, usually they’re people with a lot of money and a lot of power and they’re using that money and power to intimidate you,” Jyri Hänninen said. “Never stop what you’re doing. It’s always important to bring these out for the general public.”

Speak about the legal threats or lawsuits you may be facing

“At the beginning it’s scary but a court case doesn’t mean that it leads to something,” said Anna Pihl.  “Raising this issue is a very good starting point. If we talk more about this – if we raise our concerns about these kinds of cases to a wider audience then hopefully this trend will stop or at least it won’t increase even more.”

“If a journalist has done a crappy job and they are sued because of that then obviously the story should be corrected. But everyone who is working to a high standard shouldn’t be afraid,” she said. “You don’t have to be worried that you can’t write your stories if you’ve done everything correctly. If your work is of a high standard, in the end the journalist will win.”

Pihl also stressed the need for journalists to work together and to have a support network. “This kind of network is very important because if journalists come together they are stronger,” she said. “I don’t have to think ‘maybe if something happens I’m alone’.”

Stelios Orphanides also urged journalists to speak out. “Reporters should perhaps join these efforts that you are making as an organisation and demand that every country – in Europe at least where the rule of law is supposed to be applied – to press for changes to the legislation that would make it more difficult for such lawsuits to be filed against journalists,” he said.

“We need legislation to help us,” Liski said, “legislation and the way it is used is really important. We also have to be careful that we have protections for journalists so that they can write things about powerful people”.

Conclusion

Any effort to silence a journalist poses a threat to the public’s right to information, to rule of law, and ultimately to our democracies. Whether or not an accurate and newsworthy investigation is published shouldn’t depend on a journalist’s courage or their determination to serve the public interest above their own. Concrete action is urgently needed to support journalists and protect them from falling victim to legal harassment.

Anti-Slapp statutes exist in several states, including in Canada and the United States. Similar anti-Slapp legislation, in the form of an EU directive, would offer the most comprehensive protection not only to journalists but to activists, academics, and civil society organisations. Such a directive should provide for Slapps to be dismissed at an early stage of proceedings, for Slapp litigants to face financial penalties for abusing the law, and for Slapp victims to be given the means and support to defend themselves.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Anna Pihl, Mihkel Kärmas, Jarno Liski, Jyri Hänninen, Sara Farolfi, and Stelios Orphanides. Photo credits: Anh Nguyen/Unsplash (main image), PDPics/Pixabay (newspapers)[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”113711″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://postkodstiftelsen.se/en/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]This report has been supported by the Swedish Postcode Foundation. The foundation is a beneficiary to the Swedish Postcode Lottery and provides support to projects that foster positive social impact or search for long-term solutions to global challenges. Since 2007, the foundation has distributed over 1.5 billion SEK in support of more than 600 projects in Sweden and internationally.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_hoverbox image=”115716″ primary_title=”Are you facing a Slapp? Find out here” hover_title=”Are you facing a Slapp? Find out here” hover_background_color=”black” hover_btn_title=”Use our tool” hover_btn_color=”danger” hover_add_button=”true” hover_btn_link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fam-i-facing-a-slapps-lawsuit%2F” el_class=”text_white”][/vc_hoverbox][vc_empty_space][vc_hoverbox image=”115715″ primary_title=”Read our report, Breaking the Silence” hover_title=”REPORT: Breaking the Silence” hover_background_color=”black” hover_btn_title=”Read the report” hover_btn_color=”danger” hover_add_button=”true” hover_btn_link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fcampaigns%2Fbreaking_the_silence_report_slapps%2F” el_class=”text_white”][/vc_hoverbox][vc_empty_space][vc_hoverbox image=”115717″ primary_title=”Read our report, A gathering storm” hover_title=”REPORT: A gathering storm” hover_background_color=”black” hover_btn_title=”Read the report” hover_btn_color=”danger” hover_add_button=”true” hover_btn_link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fcampaigns%2Fthe-laws-being-used-to-silence-media%2F” el_class=”text_white”][/vc_hoverbox][vc_empty_space][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_empty_space][vc_hoverbox image=”115716″ primary_title=”Are you facing a Slapp? Find out here” hover_title=”Are you facing a Slapp? Find out here” hover_background_color=”black” hover_btn_title=”Use our tool” hover_btn_color=”danger” hover_add_button=”true” hover_btn_link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fam-i-facing-a-slapps-lawsuit%2F” el_class=”text_white”][/vc_hoverbox][vc_empty_space][vc_hoverbox image=”115715″ primary_title=”Read our report, Breaking the Silence” hover_title=”REPORT: Breaking the Silence” hover_background_color=”black” hover_btn_title=”Read the report” hover_btn_color=”danger” hover_add_button=”true” hover_btn_link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fcampaigns%2Fbreaking_the_silence_report_slapps%2F” el_class=”text_white”][/vc_hoverbox][vc_empty_space][vc_hoverbox image=”115717″ primary_title=”Read our report, A gathering storm” hover_title=”REPORT: A gathering storm” hover_background_color=”black” hover_btn_title=”Read the report” hover_btn_color=”danger” hover_add_button=”true” hover_btn_link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fcampaigns%2Fthe-laws-being-used-to-silence-media%2F” el_class=”text_white”][/vc_hoverbox][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The diagnosis: How Covid-19 spread an epidemic of attacks on media freedom

27 Oct 20

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Introduction

When the world first heard of a novel, flu-like virus emerging from the city of Wuhan in China, the team at Index immediately took an interest.

We could not have known how the world would be locked down in an unprecedented effort to control the spread of the virus – few could have predicted that. But what was clear even early on was that the news coming out of Wuhan was not the whole story. Once again, Chinese heavy-handed censorship was visible in underplaying the severity of the outbreak.

By the middle of February, we realised that this was no ordinary health crisis and that dramatic, global efforts would be necessary, including restrictions on individual freedoms – something which we do not accept lightly as an organisation.

“That was a worrying signal,” said mapping project leader and Index associate editor Mark Frary. “Index’s experience in the nearly 50 years since it was founded is that moments of crisis are often used by governments to roll back on freedom of speech and the freedom of the media to report on what is happening. The public’s right to know can be severely reduced with little democratic process.”

Index has tracked this history, and has many examples published in our archive which covers the years 1972 to today. Even in February Index was already being alerted to attacks and violations against the media in the current coronavirus related crisis, as well as other alarming news pertaining to privacy and freedoms.

We knew from bitter experience that once these freedoms are eroded, they are hard to get back. We therefore saw raising awareness of any attacks during the Covid-19 pandemic as of paramount importance. We knew it would require a global response.

As a result, we began work on an interactive map to track attacks on media freedoms, the introduction of new legislation or changes to existing laws that threatened to stop journalists from doing their jobs and social media restrictions that threatened the free reporting of information.

Working with our partners at the Justice for Journalists Foundation, we asked our teams, our network of activists and our readers to report from around the world on cases where journalists were being silenced under the cover of Covid-19.

Since then we have investigated hundreds of individual incidents, ranging from efforts by governments to restrict access to only approved journalists to physical attacks on reporters. We have investigated the disappearance of those reporting on social media and cases where journalists have been fined large sums for reporting what their governments have called ‘fake news’ but is, in reality, no such thing.

This report, eight months on from the launch of the Disease Control project, summarises what we and our partners have found in various regions of the world in the period from February to mid-September. More incidents have come to light since and we will continue to report on these attacks.

The purpose of this is not just to report on those incidents but to make sure that restrictive legislation is rolled back when the pandemic is over and that those who have reported on this crisis are not unfairly targeted or worse.

Map trends

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China

At the epicentre of the global pandemic that paralysed world economies was a country ranked the fourth worst in the world for media freedom.

At 177th place, China is by far the world’s worst in terms of major economies. The outbreak of coronavirus has done little to change the situation for its journalists and has only exacerbated the dire situation.

Reporters Sans Frontières described the situation: “President Xi Jinping has succeeded in imposing a social model in China based on control of news and information and online surveillance of its citizens.”

The group reports that more than 100 bloggers and journalists are currently detained.

Media restrictions can often be difficult to report on due to the severity of those media restrictions, but Index were still able to record a total of nine separate incidents in the country.

The Chinese government did its best to keep reports from the affected areas to a minimum. Businessman Fang Bin and journalist Chen Quishi gained thousands of views from videos they streamed in Wuhan. One video, posted by Fang, appeared to show a number of corpses piled into a van. Fang has been missing since February but the South China Morning Post revealed that Chen is alive and now living with his parents under surveillance.

Western journalists have been expelled due to how their papers have reported on the crisis. February saw three reporters from the Wall Street Journal forced to leave the country.

In March, China responded to the “unreasonable oppression” of its own journalists in the USA by expelling “at least” 13 journalists.

Social media in the country is heavily restricted. Pandemic related words were censored as soon as news of the virus came to light when a number of medical professionals including the late Dr Li Wenliang warned people of it.

The so-called “internet police” keep a watchful eye on China’s already heavily censored online world. Those pulled in for questioning for relatively innocuous, but critical, online posts are forced to sign a statement pledging loyalty to the ruling communist party.

A New York Times article described the policing: “Officers arrive with an unexpected rap at the door of online critics. They drag off offenders for hours of interrogation. They force their targets to sign loyalty pledges and recant remarks deemed politically unacceptable, even if those words were made in the relative privacy of a group chat.”

Resistance to such restrictions have been plentiful. Chinese magazine Ren Wu published an interview with a Wuhan doctor and whistle-blower who was critical of the situation. The online post was reportedly removed within hours, but the story remained circulating through other means. Some sites posted the interview backwards, while others used a form of code to bypass censors.

China’s clampdown on reporting has drawn criticism from those within and outside China for hindering attempts to control the virus. In February, RSF condemned censorship in China as harmful to fighting the virus.

The head of RSF’s East Asia desk Cédric Alviani said: “Censorship is clearly counter-productive in the fight against an epidemic and can only aggravate it or even help turn it into a pandemic.

“Only complete transparency will enable China to minimize the spread of false rumours and convince the population to follow the health and safety instructions recommended for curbing the epidemic.”

In response, a campaign of trying to defer blame and place it on the heads of Western powers quickly began. Chinese diplomat Lijian Zhao has been using Twitter to post ‘evidence’ that the virus originated in the USA.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”115359″ img_size=”full” el_id=”Asia_and_Australasia”][vc_column_text]

Asia and Australasia

Asia and Australasia (excluding China) recorded a total of 30 separate incidents of restrictions of journalists and media freedom. Due to their relative proximity to China, where the coronavirus originated, countries such as India, Cambodia and Myanmar  were expected to introduce opportunistic and more restrictive laws to silence journalists and other forms of expression.

We reported on seven attacks on journalists in the region, five of which were in India.

In May, Index reported Indian journalists’ experiences of “unprecedented levels of censorship in the country”.

Anuradha Sharma’s article for Index spoke of the “stressed” relationship between journalists and state officials.

Sharma said: “Government interaction with the press is stressed. Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi, in keeping with his record, has not organised a single press conference on the issue. Harsha Vardhan, a health minister, has interacted infrequently with the press, while the daily press briefings are conducted by a senior bureaucrat in the health department, Lav Agarwal.”

You can read Sharma’s full report here.

Reports of journalists being assaulted have been frequent. March saw journalist Naveen Kumar beaten by police during routine checks on cars during a traffic jam.

After the incident, Kumar wrote: “I cannot describe it in words how outrageous, how scary and how painful it is. It seems like this shock has sat on my chest like a rock and will kill me.”

The political situation under the Modi regime is ever more constricting. Party allegiances can often lead to further violence such as in the case of Tripura-based journalist Parashar Biswas.

Biswas was attacked by a number of unidentified men in September. The men were said to be members the country’s ruling party Bharatiya Janata.

Recently, as Modi’s grip on media freedom tightens, the Indian Prime Minister froze the accounts of human rights group Amnesty International.

There were 11 arrests due to reporting on Covid-19.

Freedom of expression online was increasingly restricted and Cambodia’s alarming crackdown on ‘fake news’ was of considerable concern. According to Human Rights Watch, 30 people were arrested or detained for spreading false information from January to April, including journalists.

Journalist and director of TVFB news Sovann Rithy was charged with incitement to commit felony after publishing quotes from Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on his Facebook page.

Hun Sen is known for his tight control of the media, so restrictions come as no surprise. Examples of other people warned included a 14-year-old girl, forced to make a public apology after posting on Facebook that three students at her school had contracted the virus.

Ros Sokhet, publisher of the Khmer Nation newspaper, was arrested in June for similarly critical online posts.

Legislative changes were fewer for the region, but this is perhaps more reflective of government’s handling a crisis that were already restrictive towards their citizens.

Malaysia, for example, has heard repeated calls for developments in its human rights and particularly for improvements to freedom of expression, according to Amnesty International. The Sedition Act and the Communications and Multimedia Act mean that only some criticism of the government is tolerated.

In July, Al Jazeera broadcasted a documentary made by Australian journalists about “undocumented” people living through the pandemic.

The documentary brought to light the treatment of migrant workers and the Malaysian authorities using the tight lockdown restrictions of the pandemic to arrest migrants.

Ranking 140^th on the World Press Freedom Index, Thailand is already known for its lack of media freedom. An emergency decree brought in in March empowered authorities to instruct journalists to “correct” reports about the pandemic.

CPJ’s Southeast Asia representative said: “Thai authorities should not use the Covid-19 emergency situation as a pretext to censor or restrict journalists or media organisations.”

Oceania recorded three of the 30 total incidents. Most notably, New Zealand banned magazines and community newspapers as a “non-essential service”. The motion was questionable due to local communities’ reliance on locally sourced news.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”115369″ img_size=”full” el_id=”Former_Soviet_Union”][vc_column_text]

Former Soviet Union

Overall in the FSU countries, the Covid-19 pandemic became a convenient and widely used pretext for the authorities to further clamp down on critical reporting. The tactics of silencing independent media workers varied from country to country, but some common trends are visible.

In the group of dictatorships that deny the existence of Covid-19 in their states, such as Tajikistan and Belarus, media workers who wrote about the real state of affairs in hospitals, morgues, universities and shops were attacked and their publications suppressed. Turkmenistan falls into the same category of countries, however, JFJ received no reporting from the ground about attacks against independent media.

Autocracies that admit the existence of Covid-19, such as Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, but also Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, have been widely prosecuting journalists for not following the variety of freshly introduced rules and regulations and spreading “fake news”. Fines, interrogations, administrative protocols, detentions, arrest and even lengthy prison sentences have been characteristic methods of suppressing independent reporting there.

In Ukraine, a country known for repeated physical hostility against journalists and a weak judiciary, in more than a half of registered incidents journalists were beaten up, detained and their equipment was seized or damaged by members of the public.

Media workers from Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Kyrgyzstan, although silenced, threatened, summoned for questioning and deprived of access to information, were the least affected by the Covid-19 clampdown on media freedom out of the rest of the FSU countries.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Russia

In absolute figures, Russia is the record-setter in the number of Covid-19-related attacks against journalists, with 102 cases registered over the last six months.

Astonishingly, all three of the registered physical attacks were conducted in Russian orthodox churches in different locations during crowded Easter services. In two cases journalists were beaten and forcefully removed from the churches by priests and in the third instance by a celebrity actor turned religious fanatic, says our partner JFJ.

There were 15 cases of non-physical attacks with media workers verbally harassed, insulted, threatened and forced to delete or correct their publications under the pretext of them distributing “fake news”, “deliberately false information” or being involved in “extremist activity”. The perpetrators of such attacks were varied and included state TV propagandists, the police, local administrations, the State Duma committee for investigating the interference of foreign states, regional prosecutors, the FSB and the general prosecutor’s office.

The most widely used method of harassing the media workers in Russia is initiating administrative or even criminal proceedings against them. JFJ’s experts registered 50 incidents when administrative protocols and fines were issued to the media workers and outlets for distribution of fake news.

At the start of the pandemic, a new Article 207 of the Criminal Code on fake news about coronavirus was swiftly introduced and used to initiate at least 15 criminal cases against media workers. Under the pretext of investigating fake news about deaths, conditions in hospitals and the actual spread of the disease the police often illegally pressured journalists and bloggers to reveal their sources.

Some regions went further. For example, in Bryansk a criminal case was opened against Alexander Chernov on abuse of media freedom under Article 13.15, following his article questioning the effective measures taken by operational headquarters on coronavirus. And in Dagestan, Steven Derix of Handelsblat and his Russian film crew were detained while filming and charged with the violation of both the self-isolation regime and regime of counter-terrorism operation.

Using the pretext of pandemics, the police clamped down on the last legal method of protest available to the Russians – individual protests. Journalists who were either reporting on those or taking part in individual pickets themselves were routinely issued fines. JFJ registered a total of 18 cases where journalists received official warnings or fines for violating the rules of holding a protest, breaching the social distancing or self-isolation.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_id=”Executive_summary”]

Most affected countries in the FSU

Kazakhstan saw 26 Covid-19-related attacks against media workers registered. This country swiftly introduced a state of emergency and issued numerous penalties, warnings and fines to media workers for violating it. The same pretext was used to deny journalists’ access to locations and information to cover the pandemic. For example, the annual parliamentary meeting to hear the government’s budget report was conducted behind closed doors – an unprecedented move. The meeting was not broadcast online either, with no official explanation provided.

At least five journalists and bloggers were summoned for lengthy and exhausting “talks” and interrogations following their critical publications on the subject for “dissemination of deliberately false information during the state of emergency”. Six media workers were detained and arrested for 10 to 60 days for violating the state of emergency. For example, civil activist Alnur Ilyashev was sentenced to three years of imprisonment and banned for five years on public activities for his Facebook post criticising the policies of the ruling party Nur Otan in regard to the pandemic.

Fourteen attacks were registered in Azerbaijan which gives this country the same risk coefficient as in Kazakhstan – 0.14 (attacks per 100’000). The authorities of these two countries treat their independent media in a very similar way: in Azerbaijan seven journalists were detained and arrested for up to a month for violating quarantine rules. For example, Ibrahim Vazirov was arrested after refusing to delete online reports about Covid-19, and given 25 days in prison for disobeying “a lawful request by the police”. Five more media workers were detained for violating the quarantine rules, fined and released.

Elchin Ismaillu, a newspaper reporter with Azadlyg, who had already been serving a prison sentence, was put into solitary confinement for five days after criticising the penal colony’s measures against the spread of Covid-19.

In Belarus, where authorities deny the existence of Covid-19 cases in the country, attacks against journalists who covered the pandemics looked somewhat schizophrenic.

On one hand, several media outlets received official letters from the Ministry of Information requesting that published stories detailing the spread of the pandemic in Belarus be deleted. The mirror site of the forbidden news media website Charter 97 that reported on deaths from Covid-19 in the country was blocked entirely. Some bloggers, like Olga Zhuravskaya, who brought her son to test for the disease and recorded the process in her blog, were fined for hooliganism. Journalists Larissa Shirokova and Andrei Tolchin, who reported about the first death and dozens of hospitalisations, were fined for producing media content without a licence and its illegal dissemination. Media-Polesie agency was fined for “sharing prohibited content” that was “damaging to the national interests of the Republic of Belarus”.

Even journalists from the Russian official broadcaster Channel 1 covering the pandemic in Belarus had their accreditations cancelled for “spreading information that did not correspond to reality”.

At the same time, under the pretext of “the epidemiological situation in the country”, several journalists from independent outlets, including Radio Liberty, were refused access to official Parliamentary meetings, and the accreditation of BelaPan was withdrawn.

Vasili Matskevich, journalist and a member of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, tragically died in April aged just 46 from what was officially acknowledged as pneumonia.

Ukraine saw 35 incidents of Covid-19-related attacks against media workers. This country upheld its position as having the most dangerous environment for journalists with 23 recorded incidents of physical violence. Journalists were beaten up and their equipment and recordings destroyed while they were gathering evidence on how various businesses, churches and other premises were complying with the quarantine rules. One example is the violent attack on the camera crew of Espresso.TV near a cafe. After the correspondent Ilia Eulash went on the air, an unidentified man ran up to the camera crew, grabbed the camera and threw it into the river. Another reporter, Dina Zelenskaya, started to film the unfolding attack on her mobile phone. The man ran up to her, knocked Zelenskaya to the ground and grabbed her hair. Then he ripped her phone out and threw it into the river.

Bogdan Kutepov of Hromadske.ua was beaten up by the police in Kyiv’s Mariinsky Park while he was broadcasting a rally by entrepreneurs demanding the government terminate the lockdown. That was the only registered physical attack by the authorities.

There were nine incidents of police preventing journalists access to court hearings, city councils and other official buildings and events under the pretext of quarantine and social distancing measures. In two cases, security guards and orthodox priests blocked camera crews trying to film quarantine measures relating to church buildings.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_id=”Defamation_law”]

Least affected countries in the FSU

Moldova remained largely unaffected by repressive Covid-19 restrictions, with just one case of harassment and insult registered against Diana Gatcan from Ziarul de Garda newspaper.

In Georgia, out of seven recorded incidents, two were physical attacks against journalists aimed at preventing them from reporting on the pandemic. Blogger Giorgi Chartoliani was attacked at a protest against lockdown measures in Mestia, Svanetia, and journalist Gocha Barnovy attacked during his interview with Rustavi-2 TV about the lack of protective measures in Georgian orthodox churches during Easter services.

Two freelance journalists – Khatuna Samnidze and Nino Chelidze – were summoned for interrogation by the Georgian State Security Services for their Facebook posts on mortality rates and statistics of Covid-19 cases in Georgia.

Armenia, with its population of 3 million, seems to have the highest risk coefficient per 100’000 – 0.67. However, all 20 recorded incidents related to police letters to media outlets requesting removal of a Covid-19 related story that contained criticism of government policies. In many of these cases the media refused to abide without any consequences.

In Tajikistan, the authoritarian state where monitoring of attacks against media is severely constrained, the authorities deny the existence of Covid-19 cases. Independent journalists and media who reported objective facts about the medical and economic impact of the pandemics were silenced by police “for sowing panic”. The Radio Liberty-Radio Ozodi website was blocked, and media workers who had expressed critical opinions received death threats and insults via phone and social media. Our experts registered five incidents.

In Uzbekistan, with just 11 recorded incidents, the authorities widely used new Covid-related restrictions to suppress independent reporting. Several media workers were fined for not wearing a mask, five bloggers were sentenced to between seven and 15 days in prison for “violating quarantine rules”, and there were two failed and one successful attempt to forcefully quarantine independent journalists without any legal basis. All of the attacked media workers are known for their objective reporting on the economic toll of the pandemic and criticising government policies in relation to Covid-19.

In Kyrgyzstan the government swiftly introduced a state of emergency and only provided the state-owned broadcaster KTK with access to information. It refused to accredit other journalists, nor did it share official information with any independent reporters. This was done under the pretext of health considerations, in direct contradiction of the country’s legislation.

At the same time, the tragic death of Kyrgyz journalist and human rights activist Azimzhon Askarov, who was serving his 11th year in prison, is widely considered to result from infection with Covid-19 and a lack of medical help in prison.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”115353″ img_size=”full” el_id=”North_America”][vc_column_text]

North America

In North America, Index verified a total of 15 incidents, most common of which were attacks on journalists. All verified instances were in the United States.

Media freedom has been under attack in the US under President Donald Trump and trust in journalists has fallen.

The US press freedom tracker has logged 201 journalists attacked, 58 equipment damages, 63 journalists arrested and 10 occasions where equipment was searched or seized in this year alone.

The tracker is run by Freedom of the Press Foundation and the Committee to Protect Journalists in collaboration with other media freedom groups including Index.

A catalyst for attacks on journalists in the country has been the Black Lives Matter protests after the killing of George Floyd. Since the protests began, over 825 reported aggressions towards journalists during protests have been registered.

With specific focus on the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump has regularly attacked journalists as a cover for his own poor handling of the crisis and eight of the 15 incidents were such attacks.

A typical incident was on 19 May when CBS’ Paula Reid asked Donald Trump why there seemed to be no plan to get 36 million unemployed Americans back in to work. The president replied: “Oh, I think we have announced a plan. We are opening up our country — just a rude person, you are. We are opening up our country, and we’re opening it up very fast.

“The plan is each state is opening and it is opening up very effectively, and when you see the numbers I think even you will be impressed, which is pretty hard to impress you.”

In June Index joined with 71 other press freedom organisations to write to the president to condemn recent attacks on the media and express concerns over an apparent lack of commitment to hold up the values of the First Amendment.

The letter stated: “Press freedom in the United States is critical to people around the world. Thousands of foreign correspondents are based in Washington D.C. and throughout the U.S., where they are tasked with telling the story of America to their publics back home. The ability of journalists to work freely in the U.S. creates a more enlightened global citizenry.”

“Instead of condemning journalists and the media, we urge you to commend and celebrate them as the embodiment of the First Amendment, which is the envy of so many countries around the world.”

Canada has avoided clamping down on the media during the crisis.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”115355″ img_size=”full” el_id=”Central_and_South_America”][vc_column_text]

Central and South America

Our map for Central and South America recorded a total of 17 incidents during the Covid-19 pandemic. The most common incident was detention or arrest.

Similar to incidents across the border in the USA, journalists were targeted during protests. In Chile during 1 May demonstrations, 15 journalists were rounded up and arrested as part of a police plan to break up demonstrations.

Police claimed the crowd was broken up only due to restrictions of large gatherings of over 50 people due to the pandemic. Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia claimed such scenes had “not been common since the Pinochet dictatorship”.

There were also reports of excessive force by police to break up a peaceful protest in Ecuador. A number of protesters were beaten and journalists were also attacked, according to HRW.

Changes to legislation in the region have also been common. The pandemic has provided governments in the region with the perfect opportunity to introduce controversial and restrictive legislation, such as the extraordinary measures applied in Bolivia.

The decree, announced in April, mean journalists in the country could face up to 10 years in prison should they prove to be “individuals who misinform or cause uncertainty to the population”.

The law was removed a month later.

Freedom of Information requests – also known as access to information laws – are vital to upholding democracies and holding authorities accountable at both the state and local level. In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro issued a measure that ensured information requests no longer had to adhere to a deadline. The move essentially ensured that, in attempts to access public information, the government was no longer accountable.

The incident furthered concern over the Bolsonaro government and its approach to media freedom.

Wagner Rosário, current minister of transparency, supervision and control, said that authorities and relevant ministerial departments would be unable to respond to questions due to being “completely involved in the fight against the coronavirus”.

Despite this, Bolsonaro has been dismissive of the virus, claiming it as a ‘little flu’ – claims which have heightened suspicion of the media.

Similar to the fake news claims of President Donald Trump, Bolsonaro blamed media “hysteria” and a “shameless campaign against the head of state”.

“The people will soon see that they were tricked by [a] large part of the media when it comes to coronavirus,” he said.

Bolsonaro has a track record of attacking the media. By the end of August, Brazil’s National Journalists’ Federation had recorded 116 incidents where the president attacked journalists.

In 2020 El Salvador implemented legislative changes similar to those in Brazil, wherein the Salvadoran government sought to restrict access to public information.

Current president of El Salvador Nayib Bukele has faced criticism of his presidency; some claiming him to be an autocrat after storming the legislative assembly with troops in February to demand further loans.

In neighbouring Honduras, President Juan Orlando Hernández brought in a seven-day state of emergency, revoking a number of articles of the Honduran constitution. Article 72 of the enshrined text provides protections to journalists as well as the right to free expression without censorship. This article was also revoked when the declaration took place in March.

Much of the region is continuing to face concerning developments (not just during the pandemic) regarding limitations to media freedom. The pandemic has provided ample opportunity to different governments, already facing criticism for their handling of the coronavirus crisis, as well as other public issues of importance. Often the work is undermined by states insistence journalists do not help uphold democracy.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”115373″ img_size=”full” el_id=”North_Africa”][vc_column_text]

North Africa

North African governments have taken advantage of the pandemic to pass laws inhibiting freedom of expression; arrest local bloggers, journalists, and protesters; and silence foreign media.

We identified three trends in the region: the use of emergency powers to pass “fake news” bans; the crackdown on local bloggers, journalists and protesters; and the targeting of foreign press.

In April, the government in Algeria criminalised the dissemination of fake news, its stated aim being to limit the spread of false and detrimental information regarding coronavirus. Following the “false news” ban, L’Avant-Garde, Le Matin D’Algérie and DZvid all reported that their news sites had been made inaccessible from Algeria. The three outlets had all recently reported on anti-government protests and Covid-19’s development in the area.

According to Sayadi, while Egypt is the “tsar” of website blocking, Algeria has only ever shut down the internet to silence protesters and journalists. Sayadi expressed concern over this development in Algeria’s media suppression tactics: “As a civil society activist who has been working on Algeria for four years now, it’s… very strange to see [what] the Algerian government is doing.”

Also in April, Egypt’s general prosecution declared in April that disseminating false information about Covid-19 could lead to jail sentences of up to five years and fines of up to EGP 20,000.

A “fake news” law was proposed in Tunisia in March and then withdrawn in the face of public outcry. Sayadi, based in Tunisia, commented on this legislative attempt’s implications: “Tunisia… is known to be the example in the MENA countries of democracy and freedom of speech… We don’t have any websites blocked and we don’t have anything censored. But at the same time… the government is trying to get on [top] of everything that was a little bit freed by the revolution.”

Mohamed Ali Bouchiba, Secretary General of the Tunisian lawyers association Bloggers Without Chains, commented on the arrest of his client, Anis Mabrouki: “During the Covid-19 period, [Mabrouki] wrote a post talking especially about the abuses of local authorities regarding the distribution of resources like flour and oil… All he did is that he tried to show people what was happening, to peacefully criticise things that were not acceptable. Things that touch the humanity of the people who we leave outside in the sun; all this for nothing but a little food during the very delicate period of Covid-19 self-confinement.”

Blogger Emna Charqui was also arrested in Tunisia after making a satirical post about hand-washing’s importance during Covid-19. For jokingly using Koran-like language, she was sentenced to six months in prison for “inciting hatred of religion”.

Algerian journalist Merzoug Touati, having recently posted an interview with a medical professional about the state of the pandemic in Algeria, was arrested while reporting on anti-government protests. Among other things, he was charged with endangering lives by disregarding lockdown restrictions. Moroccan journalist Abdel Fattah Bouchikhi was arrested and sentenced for defamation after making an online post criticising the corrupt and unequal distribution of transport permits that authorise movement in Morocco during lockdown.

Protesters Ahdaf Soueif, Laila Soueif, Mona Seif and Rabab El-Mahdi were arrested for condemning the coronavirus exposure risks that Egyptian prisons present to detainees. They additionally called for the release of bloggers and activists like Alaa Abd El Fattah.

After quoting Canadian case projections for Egypt instead of Egypt’s official figures, Guardian correspondent Ruth Michaelson’s press credentials were revoked by the State Information Service.

The ministry of culture, youth, and sports’ communications in Morocco called the foreign press’s use of independently gathered Covid-19 data “professional misconduct” and stressed the need for journalists to meet the field’s code of ethics going forward.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”115357″ img_size=”full” el_id=”Sub-Saharan_Africa”][vc_column_text]

Sub-Saharan Africa

Thirty-four incidents were recorded on our media freedom map in sub-Saharan Africa during the pandemic and journalists being arrested or detained was common, with 10 incidents reported.

An alarming trend appeared in Zimbabwe. Two journalists were arrested in May for “breaking lockdown rules” when attempting to interview members of the government’s opposition who had sustained injuries at the hands of those suspected to be security agents.

At the time, Paidamoyo Saurombe, a Zimbabwean human rights lawyer, told VOA news: “It is disturbing. Why would you arrest someone who is going to work? You never know. It becomes scary that if you are arrested while going to work, what else will happen?”

The two journalists, Frank Chikowore and Samuel Takawira, were eventually discharged and acquitted, but actions towards journalism in the country remain worrying, such as in the case of Hopewell Chin’ono. Chin’ono brought to light a case of procurement fraud within the country’s health ministry. He was subsequently arrested for inciting violence and has since been granted bail.

Chin’ono, 49, told the Daily Maverick: “My arrest was meant to put the fear of God into other journalists – a warning that this is what happens if you tarnish the image of the president. I am worried about journalists: there is a history of abductions, there is fear.”

Under the current president Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria has slipped to 115th in the World Press Freedom Index. Buhari’s government also implemented legislative changes in April, decreeing that all journalists should carry identity cards.

In April, there were 12 arbitrary arrests at the Adamawa State Secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Journalists.

Further arrests were made in Niger, Liberia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.

Africa, compared to the rest of the world, has been less severely affected by the pandemic; the current death toll for the whole of the continent is now nearing 36,000. However, this has not stopped the implementation of Covid-19 specific legislation aimed at reporters.

Ghana introduced the Imposition of Restrictions Act, enforcing strict measures including the government’s ability to intercept communication. Breaking this act could see punishments of heavy fines and up to 10 years in prison. The law was introduced despite Ghana already having legislation in place to enforce stricter measures in the country during times of crisis.

The crackdown in South Africa on the spreading of misinformation also sets a troubling precedent. The legislation, which criminalises malicious disinformation regarding Covid-19 related information, caused concerns that the censorship law could lead to a limited amount of access for the public to necessary information.

South Africa’s government has also clamped down upon the spreading of information by medical experts. In an effort to “reduce the noise”, new rules stopped information getting into the public sphere through non-government sources, causing frustration among journalists unable to report using expert opinion.

Additional cases of reporters being unable to report occurred in Somalia, Tanzania, Zambia and Madagascar, where Reporters Sans Frontières condemned an act of sabotage to a television channel.

The President of Madagascar, Andry Rajoelinam, was the subject of criticism by an opponent over his government’s management of the crisis. Broadcast channel Real TV planned to retransmit the heavily critical interview but one of its transmitters was sabotaged.

Other stations had received formal warnings regarding their own coverage, deemed unhelpful to the government.

Elsewhere, Liberia fell foul of condemnation from a US official in May. Assistant secretary of state for African affairs Tibor Nagy accused the West African country of media suppression. The previous month saw threats from Syrenius Cephus, Liberia’s solicitor general, to take away equipment and close down media organisations for spreading misinformation.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”115364″ img_size=”full” el_id=”Northern_Europe”][vc_column_text]

Northern Europe

Media freedom is not usually an issue in northern Europe. The top four countries in RSF’s World Press Freedom Index are all in the region and the lowest ranking country in the continent’s northern half is the United Kingdom.

This open environment has not, however, stopped the media and journalism coming under attack during the Covid-19 pandemic, underlining how we are living in unprecedented times.

In the UK, the focus from the government was on tightly controlling the news agenda. Early in the pandemic some doctors and medical staff working at the frontline were told they were not allowed to speak with the media about the shortage of personal protection equipment in particular.

One local news reporter faced criticism from government ministers after an exclusive about housing the homeless during the crisis. One seasoned lobby journalist was told they could not ask tough questions at the government’s high profile and highly managed daily press briefings.

Scotland also appeared on our map for attempts to restrict freedom of information requests during the crisis, leading Neil Mackay, a writer at large for The Herald, to say: “In what should be a badge of shame for the SNP, the Index on Censorship named Scotland alongside Brazil in a report on the erosion of FoI globally during coronavirus.”

This was not an isolated incident in Europe either. In Belgium, Alexandre Penasse, the editor-in-chief of Kairos, was banned from press conferences by the Belgian federal government after the prime minister refused to answer his question and accused him of provocation.

Control was also the issue in France where a local journalism union forced the government to remove a website that attempted to debunk misinformation around Covid-19. The union said the government should not set itself up as an arbiter of the truth around the virus.

During the pandemic, cartoonists in northern Europe have become a focus for criticism for their work.

Satirical cartoonists are often the target for criticism from the rich and powerful but these attacks increased during Covid-19. Cartoonists Rights Network International said there had been more than twice the number of attacks against cartoonists between the months of March and May this year than there normally are.

CRNI executive director Terry Anderson said: “Because so many things in their common life are gone, people are consuming information in a much higher quantity, so when a news story breaks, everyone is paying attention. If there’s a cartoon that pisses people off, it’s going to piss off far more people far more quickly.”

Cartoonists in Belgium, Denmark and Sweden came under fire for their work relating to Covid-19, including Stephen Degryse, better known as Lectrr. His cartoon of a Chinese flag with biohazard symbols instead of stars drew sharp criticism.

“I started to receive a lot of hate mail on my social media, most of it in Chinese, and a lot by fake accounts and manufactured texts. After a while I also received a death threat by one of the accounts,” he said.

Sadly, journalists have also become a target for people angry about lockdown restrictions. An incident took place in the Hague in the Netherlands where photographer Pierre Crom was attacked by market vendors. In Germany, a camera crew from TV broadcaster ZDF were attacked while filming a satirical “hygiene demonstration” for the channel’s Heute Show.

Inevitably, the Covid pandemic has required restrictions on some freedoms, such as the freedom of movement between the countries of Europe. However, it is clear that even beyond the restrictions designed to stop the spread of Covid, many European countries have not been immune from introducing other measures that have the consequence of stopping reporters from doing their jobs.

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Eastern Europe

Some parts of Eastern Europe have a growing problem with media freedom.

Turkey has been clamping down throughout President Recep Tayyib Erdogan’s rule and this was accelerated after the failed coup in 2016.

Things have been getting worse during Covid-19 in the country. Several broadcasters and journalists who have tried to share the truth about Covid-19 have been attacked. Television channel KRT was fined for questioning the state response to the pandemic, while Tugay Can, a journalist with the Izmir Gazete, was questioned by the police after writing about new cases in the city. In Kocaeli, two executives from the Ses newspaper were detained after it published a story on two local coronavirus deaths; it has since promised to publish only official stories.

Meanwhile, the country has been debating the introduction of rules that would require social media users to register to use these platforms.

Over in Hungary, Viktor Orban has been challenging Erdogan for the title of the most repressive leader using Covid-19 as an excuse.

Orban quickly moved to take what some called dictatorial control of the country during the early stages of the pandemic, allowing him to rule by decree. The country’s civil liberties union criticised the centralisation and restriction of news around the pandemic and said the government restrictions had been particularly detrimental to independent media.

Meanwhile, Hungarian cartoonist Gábor Pápai was threatened with a lawsuit by the Christian Democrat party after producing a caricature of  the country’s chief medical officer at its public health department. The cartoon shows Cecilia Müller facing Jesus crucified on his cross and pronouncing: “His underlying condition caused dependence”.

Bosnia’s Republika Srpska banned publishing “false news and allegations that cause panic and severely disrupt public order and peace or prevent the implementation of measures by institutions exercising public authority”, for example.

In Serbia, Nova.rs online journalist Ana Lalic was arrested after publishing a story on Vojvodina Clinical Center. She was later released but the complaint was not withdrawn and her equipment was seized.

In April, a group of TV reporters in Bosnia and Herzegovina were detained by police while reporting on citizens attending a Covid-19 isolation clinic in the country. Their phones were taken and their footage deleted.

The FoI restrictions introduced elsewhere in the world, such as in Scotland and Brazil, were also introduced in eastern Europe, notably in Romania where response times were doubled.

In Poland, LPP issued a lawsuit claiming damages of 3 million Polish złoty (nearly €1 million) against Newsweek Poland and journalists Wojciech Cieśla and Julia Dauksza following the publication of an article, reporting that the Polish clothing company had bought a supply of several hundred thousand protective masks and sent them to their workers in China in order to maintain production continuity.

Meanwhile, a Polish public radio station was accused of censoring a chart-topping song because it is widely believed to criticise Poland’s ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczyński, who had visited a cemetery during the crisis despite a ban on this activity.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”115372″ img_size=”full” el_id=”Southern_Europe”][vc_column_text]

Southern Europe

A common theme in Southern Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic has been attacks on journalists by the public.

A journalist and photographer from Il Tirreno newspaper in Italy were attacked on 23 March after going to interview a newsagent for an article on the coronavirus measures.

According to Il Tirreno, the newsagent “insulted them in front of customers, then came out of the kiosk holding the iron rod used to raise and lower the shutter, threatening them to use it against them”.

In another incident, a photographer in Turin was attacked and his camera memory card stolen after trying to report on markets that were operating illegally during the crisis.

In Kosovo, journalists Nebih Maxhuni and Diamant Bajra and cameraman Arsim Rexhepi were attacked while reporting on the pandemic. The head of the OSCE said it was important “that people remain calm in these difficult times and that journalists are allowed to work without fear of violence”.

Elsewhere state control was the issue.

In Spain, the desire by the government to keep control of questioning during official press conferences boiled over, as it has done in other parts of Europe. Over 400 Spanish journalists signed an open letter asking the government to revise the policy which means questions are sent to the press secretary, who can chose to ask them, or not, impacting on journalists’ ability to hold power to account.

Slovenia’s government communication office (Ukom) has announced that regular statements will now be made directly through Television Slovenia and the presence of media representatives is no longer possible. The Journalists Association of Slovenia says the measure is “disproportionate and restrictive”.

Slovenian investigative journalist Blaž Zgaga has been subject to death threats and a smear campaign since submitting a request for information to the government about its management of the coronavirus crisis.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Acknowledgments

Photo credits: Etienne Godiard/Unsplash (main image), Andreas Schneemayer (Beijing), Rhiannon (India), Thierry Ehrmann (Putin graffiti, Russia/CC BY 2.0), Luis Valiente (Niagara falls), Gil Prata (Brazilian police), Monica Volpin (Marrakesh), Jozua Douglas (Ghana), Dimitris Vetsikas (Copenhagen), Alexey Mikhaylov (Hungary), c1n3ma (Madrid)[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”115408″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.jfj.fund”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]This report has been supported by the London-based Justice for Journalists Foundation. The foundation was created in August 2018 by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, founder of the Open Russia pro-democracy movement, an Amnesty International-recognised prisoner of conscience, and Putin’s most prominent critic, together with his former business partner, philanthropist and member of the Free Russia Forum’s standing committee Leonid Nevzlin.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”smartslider_area_1″][/vc_column][/vc_row]