13 Feb 19 | Magazine, News and features, Student Reading Lists
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Salman Rushdie. Credit: Fronteiras do Pensamento
On 14 February 1989 Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to execute author Salman Rushdie over the publication of The Satanic Verses, along with anyone else involved with the novel.
Published in the UK in 1988 by Viking Penguin, the book was met with widespread protest by those who accused Rushdie of blasphemy and unbelief. Death threats and a $6 million bounty on the author’s head saw him take on a 24-hour armed guard under the British government’s protection programme.
The book was soon banned in a number of countries, from Bangladesh to Venezuela, and many died in protests against its publication, including on 24 February when 12 people lost their lives in a riot in Bombay, India. Explosions went off across the UK, including at Liberty’s department store, which had a Penguin bookshop inside, and the Penguin store in York.
Book store chains including Barnes and Noble stopped selling the book, and copies were burned across the UK, first in Bolton where 7,000 Muslims gathered on 2 December 1988, then in Bradford in January 1989. In May 1989 between 15,000 to 20,000 people gathered in Parliament Square in London to burn Rushdie in effigy.
In October 1993, William Nygaard, the novel’s Norwegian publisher, was shot three times outside his home in Oslo and seriously injured.
Rushdie came out of hiding after nine years, but as recently as February 2016, money has been raised to add to the fatwa, reminding the author that for many the Ayatollah’s ruling still stands.
Here, 30 years on, Index on Censorship magazine highlights key articles from its archives from before, during and after the issue of the fatwa, including two from Rushdie himself.
Cuba today, the March 1989 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
World statement by the international committee for the defence of Salman Rushdie and his publishers
March 1989, vol. 18, issue 3
On 14 February the Ayatollah Khomeini called on all Muslims to seek out and execute Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses, and all those involved in its publication. We, the undersigned, insofar as we defend the right to freedom of opinion and expression as embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, declare that we also are involved in the publication. We are involved whether we approve the contents of the book or not. Nonetheless, we appreciate the distress the book has aroused and deeply regret the loss of life associated with the ensuing conflict.
Read the full article
Islam & human rights, the May 1989 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
Pandora’s box forced open
Amir Taheri
May 1989, vol. 18, issue 5
‘What Rushdie has done, as far as Muslim intellectuals are concerned, is to put their backs to the wall and force them to make the choice they have tried to avoid for so long’. Last year, when poor old Mr Manavi filled in his Penguin order form for 10 copies of Salman Rushdie’s third novel, The Satanic Verses, he could not have imagined that the book, described by its publishers as a reflection on the agonies of exile, would provoke one of the most bizarre diplomatic incidents in recent times. Mr Manavi had been selling Penguin books in Tehran for years. He had learned which authors to regard as safe and which ones to avoid at all costs.
Read the full article
Islam & human rights, the May 1989 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
Jihad for freedom
Wole Soyinka
May 1989, vol. 18, issue 5
This statement is not, of course, addressed to the Ayatollah Khomeini who, except for a handful of fanatics, is easily diagnosed as a sick and dangerous man who has long forgotten the fundamental tenets of Islam. It is useful to address oneself, at this point, only to the real Islamic faithful who, in their hearts, recognise the awful truth about their erratic Imam and the threat he poses not only to the continuing acceptance of Islam among people of all religions and faiths but to the universal brotherhood of man, no matter the differing colorations of their piety. Will Salman Rushdie die? He shall not. But if he does, let the fanatic defenders of Khomeini’s brand of Islam understand this: The work for which he is now threatened will become a household icon within even the remnant lifetime of the Ayatollah. Writers, cineastes, dramatists will disseminate its contents in every known medium and in some new ones as yet unthought of.
Read the full article
South Africa after Apartheid, the April 1990 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
Reflections on an invalid fatwah
Amir Taheri
April 1990, vol. 19, issue 4
Broadly speaking, three predictions were made. The first was that Khomeini’s attempt at exporting terror might goad world public opinion into a keener understanding of Iran’s tragedy since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The fact that the Ayatollah had executed thousands of people, including many writers and poets since his seizure of power in Tehran had provoked only mild rebuke from Western governments and public opinion. With the fatwa against Rushdie, we thought the whole world would mobilise against the ayatollah, turning his regime into an international pariah. Nothing of the kind happened, of course, and only one country, Britain, closed its embassy in Tehran – and that because the mullahs decided to sever.diplomatic ties. In the past twelve months Federal Germany and France have increased their trade with the Islamic Republic to the tune of II and 19 per cent respectively. The EEC countries and Japan have, in the meantime, provided the Islamic Republic with loans exceeding £2,000 million. The stream of European and Japanese businessmen and diplomats visiting Tehran turned into a mini-flood after Khomeini’s death last June.
Read the full article
South Africa after Apartheid, the April 1990 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
Salman Rushdie and political expediency
Adel Darwish
April 1990, vol. 19, issue 4
When I reviewed Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses in September 1988, it never crossed my mind to make any reference to possible offence to Muslim readers, let alone to anticipate the unprecedented international crisis generated in the months that followed. I do not think I was naive – as an LBC radio reporter suggested when she interviewed me at the first public reading from The Satanic Verses in June 1989. On the contrary, I can claim more than many that I am able to understand what Mr Rushdie was trying to say in his book, and the way the crisis has developed. Like Mr Rushdie, I am a British writer, born to a Muslim family. Born in Egypt, I was educated and am employed in Britain, and have been preoccupied and engaged, mainly in the 1960s and 1970s, with the issues that Mr Rushdie has fought for and with which he seemed to be very much concerned in his book.
Read the full article
Azerbaijan, the February 1991 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
My decision
Salman Rushdie
February 1991, vol. 20, issue 2
A man’s spiritual choices are a matter of conscience, arrived at after deep. reflection and in the privacy of his heart. They are not easy matters to speak of publicly. I should like, however, to say something about my decision to affirm the two central tenets of Islam — the oneness of God and the genuineness of the prophecy of the Prophet Muhammad —and thus to enter into the body of Islam after a lifetime spent outside it. Although I come from a Muslim family background, I was never brought up as a believer, and was raised in an atmosphere of what is broadly known as secular humanism. I still have the deepest respect for these principles. However, as I think anyone who studies my work will accept, I have been engaging more and more with religious belief, its importance and power, ever since my first novel used the Sufi poem Conference of the Birds by Farid ud-din Attar as a model. The Satanic Verses itself, with its portrait of the conflicts between the material and spiritual worlds, is a mirror of the conflict within myself.
Read the full article
20th Anniversary: Reign of terror, the June 1992 issue of the Index on Censorship magazine.
Offending the high priests
Gunter Grass
June 1992, vol. 21, issue 6
When George Orwell returned from Spain in 1937, he brought with him the manuscript of Homage to Catalonia. It reflected the experiences he had gathered during the Civil War. At first, he was unable to find a publisher because a multitude of influential, left-wing intellectuals had no wish to acknowledge its shocking observations. They did not want to accept the Stalinist terror, the systematic liquidation of anarchists, Trotskyists and left-wing socialists. Orwell himself only narrowly escaped this terror. His stark accusations contradicted a world image of a flawless Soviet Union fighting against Fascism. Orwell’s report, this onslaught of terrible reality, tarnished the picture-book dream of Good and Evil. A year later, a bourgeois Western publisher brought out Homage to Catalonia; in the areas of Communist rule, Orwell’s works – among them the bitter Spanish truth – were banned for half a century. The minister responsible for state security= in the German Democratic Republic, right to its end, was Erich Mielke. During the Spanish Civil War, he was a member of the Communist cadre to whom purge through liquidation became commonplace. A fighter for Spain with an extraordinary capacity for survival.
Read the full article
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Russia’s choice, the November-December 1993 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
The Rushdie affair: Outrage in Oslo
Hakon Harket
November 1993, vol. 22, issue 10
The terrorist state of Iran must face the consequences of refusing to lift the fatwa that condemns Salman Rushdie, and those associated with his work, to death. When someone, in accordance with the express order of the fatwa, attempts to murder one of the damned, the obvious consequence is that Iran must be held responsible for the crime it has called for, at least until there is conclusive proof that no connection exists. The shooting of William Nygaard has reminded the Norwegian public of what the Rushdie affair is really about: life and death; the abuse of religion; the fiction of a free mind. This war of terror against freedom of speech is not one we can afford to lose. Since the nightmare clearly will not disappear of its own accord, it must be engaged head-on.
Read the full article
New censors, the March 1996 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
From Salman Rushdie
March 1996, vol. 25, issue 2
This statement is not, of course, addressed to the Ayatollah Khomeini who, except for a handful of fanatics, is easily diagnosed as a sick and dangerous man who has long forgotten the fundamental tenets of Islam. It is useful to address oneself, at this point, only to the real Islamic faithful who, in their hearts, recognise the awful truth about their erratic Imam and the threat he poses not only to the continuing acceptance of Islam among people of all religions and faiths but to the universal brotherhood of man, no matter the differing colorations of their piety. Will Salman Rushdie die? He shall not. But if he does, let the fanatic defenders of Khomeini’s brand of Islam understand this: The work for which he is now threatened will become a household icon within even the remnant lifetime of the Ayatollah. Writers, cineastes, dramatists will disseminate its contents in every known medium and in some new ones as yet unthought of.
Read the full article
Shadow of the Fatwa
Kenan Malik
December 2008, vol. 37, issue 4
The Satanic Verses was, Salman Rushdie said in an interview before publication, a novel about ‘migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death’. It was also a satire on Islam, ‘a serious attempt’, in his words, ‘to write about religion and revelation from the point of view of a secular person’. For some that was unacceptable, turning the novel into ‘an inferior piece of hate literature’ as the British-Muslim philosopher Shabbir Akhtar put it. Within a month, The Satanic Verses had been banned in Rushdie’s native India, after protests from Islamic radicals. By the end of the year, protesters had burnt a copy of the novel on the streets of Bolton, in northern England. And then, on 14 February 1989, came the event that transformed the Rushdie affair – Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa.’I inform all zealous Muslims of the world,’ proclaimed Iran’s spiritual leader, ‘that the author of the book entitled The Satanic Verses – which has been compiled, printed and published in opposition to Islam, the prophet and the Quran – and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its contents are sentenced to death.’
Read the full article
The right to publish
Peter Mayer
December 2008, vol. 37, issue 4
As publisher of The Satanic Verses, Peter Mayer was on the front line. He writes here for the first time about an unprecedented crisis:
Penguin published Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses six months before Ayatollah Khomeini issues his fatwa. When we decided to continue publishing the novel in the aftermath, extraordinary pressures were focused on our company, based on fears for the author’s life and for the lives of everyone at Penguin around the world. This extended from Penguin’s management to editorial, warehouse, transport, administrative staff, the personnel in our bookshops and many others. The long-term political implications of that early signal regarding free speech in culturally diverse societies were not yet apparent to many when the Ayatollah, speaking not only for Iran but, seemingly, for all of Islam, issued his religious proclaimation.
Read the full article
Emblem of darkness
Bernard-Henri Lévy
December 2008, vol. 37, issue 4
As publisher of The Satanic Verses, Peter Mayer was on the front line. He writes here for the first time about an unprecedented crisis:
Salman Rushdie was not yet the great man of letters that he has since become. He and I are, though, pretty much the same age. We share a passion for India and Pakistan, as well as the uncommon privilege of having known and written about Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Rushdie in Shame; I in Les Indes Rouges), the father of Benazir, former prime minister of Pakistan, executed ten years earlier in 1979 by General Zia. I had been watching from a distance, with infinite curiosity, the trajectory of this almost exact contemporary. One day, in February 1989, at the end of the afternoon, as I sat in a cafe in the South of France, in Saint Paul de Vence, with the French actor Yves Montand, sipping an orangeade, I heard the news: Ayatollah Khomeini, himself with only a few months to live, had just issued a fatwa, in which he condemned as an apostate the author of The Satanic Verses and invited all Muslims the world over to carry out the sentence, without delay.
Read the full article[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1623240200822-8c1bcd36-9835-10″ taxonomies=”8890″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
12 Nov 18 | Europe and Central Asia, Media Freedom, News and features
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“Today journalism has become one of the most dangerous professions in the world,” said Frane Maroevic, director of the Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, at a panel discussion for the launch of Demonising the media: Threats to journalists in Europe at the Foreign Press Association in London on Friday 9 November.
The report surveys over 3,000 verified media freedom incidents in EU member states, candidates and potential candidates for entry as reported to Mapping Media Freedom, a project, funded by the European Commission, to investigate the full spectrum of threats to media freedom. It details how journalists face an array of threats from being burned in effigy, insulted and spat at, to being assaulted, sued and sent death and rape threats, since May 2014.
Also speaking on the panel were Deborah Bonetti, director of the Foreign Press Association, and Henrik Kaufholz, chair of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom. The panel was chaired by Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg.
“These threats are not far away. They are right here on our doorsteps, even in the UK,” said Ginsberg. Maroevic added: “We must put pressure on governments so that these threats and attacks don’t fade into obscurity.”
“What was traditionally a safe place for journalists, or what was perceived to be safe, is no longer as safe as we thought it was, and this goes for most western democracies,” said Bonetti. “I don’t think the journalist community has come to a Me Too movement yet.”
“If politicians think they will get votes by attacking the press, they will continue to attack the press,” said Kaufholz.
The report flags 19 deaths. Of the 445 verified physical assaults, Italy was the EU member state with the most (83), followed by Spain (38), France (36) and Germany (25). There were 437 verified incidents of arrest or detention and 697 verified incidents of intimidation. Among the member states, Italy’s journalists were intimidated most often, with 133 reports.
Paula Kennedy, assistant editor of MMF, said: “Mapping Media Freedom highlights the many dangers and problems faced by journalists in Europe as they try to do their job of holding power to account.”
Photographs by Leah Asmelash, Rosie Gilby and Joy Hyvarinen. Additional reporting by Leah Asmelash[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_media_grid grid_id=”vc_gid:1542043980941-e9bd3bc2-930e-5″ include=”103632,103633,103635,103631,103638,103639,103640,103641,103642,103643,103644,103645,103646,103647,103648,103649,103650,103651,103652,103653,103654″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1542043980959-aaffae18-ba56-7″ taxonomies=”6564″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
09 Nov 18 | News and features, Press Releases
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”103665″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]— New report surveys over 3,000 verified media freedom incidents in EU member states, candidates and potential candidates for entry.
— Journalists facing an array of threats: Burned in effigy. Insulted. Menaced. Spat at. Discredited by their nation’s leaders. Assaulted. Sued. Homes strafed with automatic weapons. Rape threats. Death threats. Assassinations.
— Key themes: National Security, Political Interference, Social Media/Online Harassment, Protests, Public Television
— Report covers May 2014 to 31 July 2018
Index on Censorship has released a new report detailing the state of media freedom in 35 European countries in the past four years. Threats include being burned in effigy, insulted, menaced, spat at, threatened with death and rape. There have been assassinations, lawsuits, and assaults.
The report Demonising the Media: Threats to Journalists in Europe, published today (November 9th) covers 3,000 incidents reported to and verified by the Mapping Media Freedom team, which includes a set of correspondents across the region.
“The huge number of reports outlines that threats to media freedom are occurring across the EU, not just in countries perceived to be on the fringes of the community. Demonising the Media details the key issues that we’ve identified: From national security legislation being used to silence investigative journalists to the undermining of the editorial independence of public broadcasters across the continent. All of this has taken place amid the toxic atmosphere journalists are confronting on a global scale,” said Index CEO Jodie Ginsberg.
KEY THREATS
The report flags 445 verified physical assaults across the region, with Italy as the EU member state with the most reports of physical assaults (83), followed by Spain (38), France (36) and Germany (25).
There were 437 verified incidents flagged as having included an arrest or detention as part of the narrative in the EU member states, candidate and potential candidate countries. Greece had 15 reports. It was followed by France (9), Germany (8), the Netherlands (7) and Latvia (6). In the candidate and potential candidate countries: FYROM (9), Serbia (8), Bosnia and Herzegovina (4) and Kosovo (4).
There were 697 verified incidents categorised as having intimidation as part of the narrative in the EU member states, candidate and potential candidate countries. Among the member states, Italy’s journalists were intimidated most often, with 133 reports. It was followed by Romania (47), Croatia (41), France (39) and Hungary (36). In candidate and potential candidate countries, Bosnia and Herzegovina had 47 reported incidents. It was followed by Serbia (40), FYROM (31), Turkey (31) and Montenegro (19).
The report includes analysis of specific threats in Austria, Hungary, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Montenegro.
KEY THEMES:
National Security and Counter-terrorism Legislation
Well-intentioned legislation that aims to protect the citizens and institutions of a country is, in the best-case scenario, often blind to journalism in the public interest. In the worst-case scenario, such laws are used deliberately to prevent the dissemination of information that is in the public interest. In 39 cases, reporters have been targeted for prosecution for publishing embarrassing leaked information that governments have asserted was not meant for public discussion. This is an acute issue that often involves the judicial and extrajudicial surveillance of journalists in an effort to ferret out the identities of whistleblowers.
Political Interference
This report identifies two key trends within this category. The first is direct interference in the operations of media outlets, either by politicians requesting editors or others involved in the production of news to alter or halt a story, or by replacing journalists critical of a particular political party or policy with ones more favourable to those in power.
Political interference has come from across the spectrum – from Podemos in Spain to the Front National in France, from Fidesz in Hungary to Labour and the Scottish National Party in the United Kingdom. The methods can take many forms, sometimes subtle (behind-the-scenes phone calls to an editor), sometimes overt (preventing a journalist affiliated with particular outlets from attending a press conference) – but the goal of controlling information flow remains the same.
The second form of interference is potentially more insidious: attempts to discredit media outlets by smearing journalists, news outlets, and in some cases an entire industry in order to sow doubt about the veracity of their reporting. This is having a damaging effect, particularly on the safety of journalists, who increasingly are seen as “fair game” by the broader public and subjected to both verbal and physical threats.
Social Media/Online Harassment
Social media has provided journalists with a wide avenue to share their information and interact with readers in a public yet intimate way. This has helped media professionals in reporting and allowed for constructive debates around current events, and can help improve the quality of information available to citizens overall. However, the other side of that bargain is the growing hostility toward journalists online. This takes many forms, from tweets of sexual harassment to death threats made via Facebook. This is a widespread and pernicious issue that journalists across the continent confront on a daily basis, and is fomented by the widely reported remarks of some politicians from member states. Women are most frequently the target of such attacks.
Protests
Journalists also face a number of risks offline. When protesters pour into the streets, journalists are necessarily among the first responders – an essential part of their professional duties. Traditionally present at demonstrations to document and interpret events, media workers – whether freelance or staff – are also among the first to be corralled, targeted and injured. A number of incidents documented at protests – as recorded by the Mapping Media Freedom project – provide insight into the multidimensional threats that journalists confront when called upon to report from the scene of demonstrations, whether small or large. These include a lack of understanding among some police forces about the role of media at such events.
Public Television
A significant but underreported trend during the period was the threat to public broadcasters. A number of national broadcasters were brought under closer government control. Taken together, these reports outline the importance of maintaining the editorial independence of these vital public services.
About Mapping Media Freedom
Mapping Media Freedom is an Index on Censorship project, partly funded by the European Commission, to investigate the full spectrum of threats to media freedom in the region – from the seemingly innocuous to the most serious infractions – in a near-real-time system that launched to the public on 24 May 2014.
Driven by Index on Censorship’s decades-long experience in monitoring censorship across the globe, Mapping Media Freedom set out to record the widest possible array of press freedom violations in an effort to understand the precursors to the retreat of media freedom in a country. The ambitious scope of the project called for a flexible methodology that draws on a network of regional correspondents, partner organisations and media sources. The project is fed by 25 correspondents who provide narrative-driven articles about the press freedom violations.
To date, the project has recorded more than 4,700 incidents covering 43 countries.The report is available online and in PDF format. More information is available here.
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01 Nov 18
[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content_no_spaces” full_height=”yes” columns_placement=”top” equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”top” css=”.vc_custom_1556530207240{background-image: url(https://mappingmediafreedom.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Protest_banner.jpg?id=100890) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: contain !important;}” el_id=”full”][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”top” css=”.vc_custom_1541500430648{background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}”][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Targeting the messenger: Journalists on the frontline of protests” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]When protesters pour into the streets, journalists are among the first responders. Traditionally present at demonstrations to document and reflect, they are also among the first to be corralled, targeted and injured.
Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project, which monitors violations against media professionals in 43 countries, provides an insight into the threats that journalists face.
Against a backdrop of nationalism, xenophobia, economic insecurity and anti-government sentiment, reporters have been targeted by demonstrators, counter-demonstrators and police. This report looks at 203 verified cases from the 35 countries in or affiliated with the European Union. There were 46 incidents in France, 33 in Spain, 32 in Germany and 15 in Romania.
The numbers reflect only what has been verified by Mapping Media Freedom. We have found that journalists under-report incidents they consider to be too minor, commonplace or part of the job, or where they fear reprisals. In some cases, project correspondents have identified incidents retrospectively as a result of comments on social media or reports appearing only after similar incidents have come to light.
Contexts vary but journalists face risks from protesters and the police, and from being stuck between the two. Thirteen of the 25 incidents reported in the first nine months of 2018 involved members of law enforcement.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”106459″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Widening the timeframe” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]The increase in incidents during protests is a good barometer of what is happening inside a country. They show what important protests are taking place, and what resistance journalists are encountering.
2016
Poland: censorship and restricted access cause resignations and protests
Protests and media violations intensified as a result of political polarisation. The ruling Law and Justice Party instituted legislation in 2015 that was seen as eroding government checks and balances. This prompted demonstrations. In March, two journalists resigned because they had been forbidden to report on protests on public television. In November, a public radio station was barred from reporting on protests happening in front of its offices. In December, there were big protests against restrictions placed on journalists reporting at parliament.
France: journalists covering anti-labour law reform protests repeatedly targeted by police
Police forces pushed and hit journalists with batons while dispersing a protest against a proposed labour law in Rennes, France, June 2016
Protests against proposed labour law reforms multiplied under the then socialist government of prime minister Manuel Valls. Nuit Debout, a grassroots movement, formed in Paris and spread to other cities. Incidents against journalists covering protests increased. Photographers and camera operators covering the protests were attacked and hindered in their work by police in March, April, May, June and September. In May, a photographer was banned from covering a protest, under state-of-emergency measures, and police forced a photographer to delete photos of the protester’s arrest. In June, two journalists were detained along with protesters and charged with “forming a gathering with the intention of committing an offence”. In October, a freelance journalist was banned from Calais after covering the dismantling of a migrant camp. “Since the state of emergency was declared [following the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks], there has been greater police pressure against demonstrators and against journalists. The police do not want journalists to witness what they do, that much is obvious,” Dominique Pradalié, of the National Union of French Journalists, told BuzzFeed.
Spain: the impact of legislation limiting protests
Since 2011, Spain has seen some of the biggest European protests against austerity, including the youth-led movement Los Indignados. Passed in 2015 as a response to this unrest by the then ruling conservative People’s Party, the public safety law included fines of up to €30,000 for disseminating images of police officers. In January 2016, a Spanish photojournalist was put on trial for assaulting police during a protest against austerity. He said he was convinced the charge was meant to deter photographers from covering protests and particularly police violence against protesters. In March, a journalist was fined for publishing photos of a woman arrested during a protest.
Across Europe: far-right protesters target journalists
In Latvia, in February, a journalist was assaulted while covering a demonstration against admitting any asylum seeker to the country. In Germany, also in February, a Leipzig-based news outlet announced its journalists would stop covering rallies held by Legida (the Leipzig branch of the anti-Islam Pegida movement) because it was becoming too dangerous.
2017
Romania: journalists targeted by government officials and police during mass protests
In January, days after Sorin Grindeanu’s government took office, protests against proposed changes to the penal code erupted. In a country beset by widespread corruption, the changes would have reduced the penalties for misuse-of-office offences. By 5 February, there were more than 500,000 people protesting – the biggest protests since the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu. On 2 February, the government identified individual journalists accused of instigating the protests. On the same day, a German journalist covering the protests was assaulted by police and detained. Police tried to delete the footage he had filmed. On 5 February, a journalist was put under criminal investigation for filming the protests with a drone.
France: police target journalists reporting on police violence and tactics during protests
Journalists covering public gatherings during the presidential campaign encountered difficulties. Conservative candidate François Fillon, who saw his chances of being elected disappear after reports of an alleged corruption case, blamed the media, contributing to a deterioration of working conditions for journalists covering the campaign. “L’affaire Théo” put police violence in the spotlight after officers were accused of assaulting a young man named Théodore Luhaka. A journalist was hit by unknown assailants while covering such a protest in February. Another said he was hit by police after he reported they had used live ammunition. In March, during a protest, a journalist confronted what he claimed were police officers posing as journalists, and one of them punched his camera.
G20 in Germany: violence and revoked accreditations
In total, 100,000 protesters attended G20 summit protests in July in Hamburg. More than 15,000 police were deployed. Journalists were repeatedly assaulted by protesters and police, who used pepper spray and water cannon. One police officer told a journalist: “Your press card is worth nothing.” On 8 July, 32 journalists had their accreditation removed by police.
Poland: polarisation of the media impacts journalists
After the government gained control of public broadcasters, protesters started treating their journalists badly during protests, accusing them of being government mouthpieces (in July and December). Meanwhile, the government kept targeting independent media outlets. A year after the big December 2016 protests, a private media outlet was threatened with a huge fine for reporting on them.
2018
France: protests continue, journalists hurt by police
There were two important moments: the evacuation by police of a large protest camp in opposition to a new airport in Notre-Dame-des-Landes in April, and a surge of protests against Edouard Philippe’s government. Both, but particularly the evacuation, led to journalists sustaining serious injuries at the hands of the police. In Martinique, a police officer threatened a journalist covering a protest accusing the government of neglecting this overseas region.
Spain: journalists targeted during Catalonia protests
Protests for and against independence continued. Journalists encountered difficulties with aggression coming from both sides.
Romania: journalists targeted during mass protests
At mass anti-government protests in August, journalists were prevented from doing their job by police. They often had to stop reporting, as it became too dangerous.
Across Europe: far-right protesters target journalists
In Greece, journalists covering rallies in protest at the renaming of Macedonia were repeatedly threatened by nationalist demonstrators.
In September, far-right and neo-Nazi protests took place in Chemnitz and other German cities. The protests started after two immigrants were arrested in connection with the murder of a Cuban-German man. Journalists faced widespread intimidation and assaults by far-right protesters.
On 20 June, five Belgian journalists covering a protest at the construction site of a detention centre for migrant families in Brussels were detained just before a live broadcast for public broadcaster RTBF. Their cameras were taken away but one of the journalists used his watch as a phone and reported from the police van. They were released after two hours.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Is violence against journalists during protests getting worse?” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]Our monitoring tools have been in place for only a few years so we can’t be certain about long-term trends, but several factors have exacerbated the situation:
Our monitoring tools have been in place for only a few years so we can’t be certain about long-term trends, but several factors have exacerbated the situation:
- Defamation and discrediting of journalists coming from politicians have increased.
- This is mirrored by a lack of trust from the public, which can be rooted in some real problems with inaccurate and insensitive coverage.
- Images quickly go viral, which means police and protesters can react badly when they are photographed and filmed.
- Anti-terror legislation has restrained civil freedoms and made it easier to detain people for longer.
- In some countries, police are using heavy-handed tactics and heavier weapons, with little accountability as to how they are used.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Blurred lines” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]Recent protests have seen aspiring journalists cutting their teeth while covering social movements. This is what happened to Remy Buisine, who became well-known for his coverage of Nuit Debout in 2016 but tweeted an image of his first press card only in April 2018.
This can result in blurred lines between journalism and activism, with young citizen journalists taking risks to cover protests while not benefiting from the protection that more established journalists enjoy.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Worst offenders” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]
Serious injuries
France has seen several waves of serious protests over the past few years, beginning with the mobilisation against the labour law reform in 2016. After a number of incidents in which journalists suffered violence and serious injuries at the hands of police, Reporters Without Borders referred 10 cases to France’s human rights ombudsman.
Spring 2018 saw another spike in incidents in which journalists were severely injured. On 3 April, during a protest in Paris, a police officer struck a journalist on the head with a baton. The journalist said he had been deliberately targeted and pressed charges. On 11 April, three journalists were hurt by stun grenades while covering the evacuation of Notre-Dame-des-Landes. On 15 April, a photographer covering the evacuation for Liberation was injured by a stun grenade. On 14 April, a freelance journalist was hurt by a teargas canister thrown by the police. Her hand was injured but, more worryingly, she said an officer had fired teargas directly at her face. She was wearing protective glasses and clothing and was not hurt, but the impact left a black mark on her glasses. On 19 April, a photographer was seriously wounded by a stun grenade thrown by police as he was covering an anti-government protest in Paris. Also on 19 April, police threw a stun grenade at a journalist covering anti-government protests and broke her collarbone.
On 22 May, a photographer and a videographer were detained for 48 hours and charged with unauthorised entry after covering the occupation of a school in Paris by protesters. The photographer was wearing a helmet with “Photographer” on it. He told the police repeatedly that he was a journalist. He faces trial on 19 June, charged with “entering a school without authorisation with the intention of breaching the peace [a law passed as part of an anti-terror package] and gathering together with the intention of committing a misdemeanour”.
In July, a scandal erupted when Le Monde reported that Alexandre Benalla, a deputy chief of staff to President Emmanuel Macron, had assaulted protesters while posing as a police officer during the May Day demonstration in Paris. On 2 October, Alexis Kraland, a reporter who had been filming police actions during that demonstration, said he had been summoned for an interview “for participating to a violent protest”. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Dangerous protests
Hendrik Zörner, of the German Federation of Journalists, spoke to Mapping Media Freedom about attacks against journalists covering the disturbances in Chemnitz. “It has become very dangerous for journalists to attend demonstrations. We’ve seen journalists being victims of far-right hate and that’s not OK, because journalists are there to report and [are] not a political party.”
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Intentional targeting
Zoltan Sipos, Mapping Media Freedom’s Romania correspondent, said: “Journalists are definitely getting targeted during protests. A recent case, on 10 August 2018, saw around 10 journalists come forward and say the police had beaten them up and arrested them. Because they were standing in different places, it felt [as though] the police had orders to arrest them, but there’s no proof of this.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
About this report
This report looks at 203 verified cases from the 35 countries in or affiliated with the European Union. There were 46 incidents in France, 33 in Spain, 32 in Germany and 15 in Romania.
Mapping Media Freedom identifies threats, violations and limitations faced by media workers in 43 countries — throughout European Union member states, candidates for entry and neighbouring countries. The project is co-funded by the European Commission and managed by Index on Censorship as part of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF).
Index on Censorship is a UK-based nonprofit that campaigns against censorship and promotes freedom of expression worldwide. Founded in 1972, Index has published some of the world’s leading writers and artists in its award-winning quarterly magazine, including Nadine Gordimer, Mario Vargas Llosa, Samuel Beckett and Kurt Vonnegut. Index promotes debate, monitors threats to free speech and supports individuals through its annual awards and fellowship program.
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Acknowledgements
Author: Valeria Costa-Kostritsky
Editor: Sean Gallagher
Research/editing:
Sean Gallagher, Paula Kennedy, Adam Aiken
Illustrations: Eva Bee
Design: Matthew Hasteley, Ryan McChrystal
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