[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This article is part of Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist’s Project Exile series, which has published interviews with exiled journalists from around the world.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
Egyptian journalist Abdullah Elshamy
“I face probably a life sentence or maybe even worse. The idea of not being able to go back to your own country…is just heartbreaking.”
For a time, journalist Abdullah Elshamy was the face of resistance in Egypt.
After then-army chief Gen. Abdel Fatah el-Sissi led a coup, in July 2013, toppling the democratically-elected president Mohammed Morsi, major street protests against the military took place in Cairo.
Elshamy, who is originally from Beheira in the Nile Delta, was a correspondent working for Al Jazeera at the time. He had only recently returned to Egypt from an assignment in Nigeria to cover the unrest.
On Aug. 14 of that year, Elshamy was covering a sit-in near the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque when security forces began to open fire. More than 800 people were left dead at Rabaa and one other protest site in Cairo in what Human Rights Watch has called the “world’s largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history.”
Elshamy managed to avoid the bullets, but he and hundreds of others were arrested as crowds fled the area around the mosque. Elshamy was taken to prison and held without trial for months.
Losing hope, in January 2014 Elshamy decided to begin a hunger strike. Over the next several months, he would lose about 88 pounds (40 kg). His case garnered international headlines, especially after he managed to record a dire video from inside jail on the 106th day of his hunger strike and have it smuggled out. “If anything happens to my safety, I hold the Egyptian regime with the responsibility of that,” he said on the video.
Update: In September 2018 am Egyptian court sentenced Abdullah Elshamy in absentia to 15 years in prison.
Efforts by prison authorities to force-feed him and punish him by placing him in solitary confinement failed. In June 2014 Egyptian prosecutors decided to release him because of his declining health. Elshamy was met outside the prison by a throng of family members, supporters and the press.
“I have won,” he told the cameras. “And everybody who is a freedom fighter, either a journalist or anyone doing his work credibly and with honesty has won. This experience has changed my life.”
Elshamy soon moved to Qatar and resumed work for the Qatari-owned al-Jazeera, which Egyptian prosecutors brought charges against him in absentia, as well as against hundreds of others imprisoned after the 2013 demonstrations. A verdict in the trial is expected in the coming months.
Meanwhile, press freedom in Egypt has not improved under el-Sissi, who has been president since 2014. More than 35 journalists and bloggers are in prison in the country, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Now 29, Elshamy lives in Doha and hosts the monthly investigative show “Eyewitness” for Al Jazeera’s Arabic channel. Nearly four years after his release, Elshamy spoke with Global Journalist’s Taylor Campbell about his ordeal and the consequences of exile. Below, an edited version of their interview:
Global Journalist: What happened in the lead-up to your arrest?
Elshamy: Back in 2013 I was working as a reporter for al-Jazeera when the events started taking place in Egypt, the tensions between the president [Morsi] and the army. Just a few days before the military coup took place in Egypt on the 3rd of July 2013, I was asked by management to go from Nigeria where I was stationed, to Cairo, to be able to cover events.
I never had in my wildest dreams [thought] things would end up like that. I mean, I covered more serious and dangerous things. Before this I was in Libya during the [civil] war back in 2011 and I was also in Mali when the [2013] French intervention happened in the north of the country. So it was for me, probably just another round of demonstrations and things would cool down eventually and the politics would work out.
So I went there and I covered the events from both sides. Things went on for several weeks [after the coup] until the army and the police moved in on the demonstrations on the eastern side of Cairo.
On the 14th of August 2013, the army and the police were detaining everyone coming out of [the Rabaa al-Adawiya] area. I was among those arrested.
And from that point, from the 14th of August 2013 until the 18th of June 2014, I was put in detention without trial.
GJ: How did being a journalist affect your time in prison?
Elshamy: At the beginning, they didn’t know I was a journalist because I tried not to mention that. I feared there might be a severe response if they found out.
When the authorities [learned] I was a journalist it didn’t actually change much. It made them put more restrictions on my time in prison. They monitored the letters I got and the visits from my family. But at they put me among the demonstrators that were arrested on that day. They insisted I was a criminal, not a journalist.
There were I would say, focused attacks on me because when they found out I was a journalist at al-Jazeera, relations between Egypt and Qatar were not the best. I was harassed by the guards because they thought of me as a spy.
Nothing made sense at that point…I was not the only journalist in prison. One of my colleagues [Mahmoud Abu Zeid, better known as Shawkan], is a freelance photojournalist who was detained on the same day with me, and up until this day he is in prison.
Shawkan is a freelance photojournalist detained in Egypt since 14 August 2013, he was my cell mate and he doesn’t deserve death as the prosecution demanded. #MyPicForShawkanpic.twitter.com/PK9SvSpeRJ
GJ: Tell us about the hunger strike and how it led to your release.
Elshamy: The last week of January 2014 I decided I was going on a hunger strike, because I was in prison at that point for five months and nothing was happening in terms of my release. My lawyers gave several documents to prove I was [at the protest] doing my work. They’d requested I be released on bail.
When I decided that I was going on hunger strike, the prison authorities at the beginning…they made fun of the whole thing. But then when it was March and I was losing weight and my health was not the best, the Ministry of Interior thought that they would start to intimidate me into giving up on the whole thing.
It eventually came to the point where the prison’s manager, an assistant of the minister himself, came to see me and said: “This is not good. What are you doing? You are young, your health isn’t going to take it.”
Eventually, when they found out that I wasn’t giving up on the hunger strike, I was sent to a maximum security prison for the next five weeks before my release.
That was the hardest part of the whole prison experience because I only saw my family once in those five weeks. I was kept in a solitary confinement cell. I wasn’t allowed to see anyone. Even when I was given time to walk out of my cell, it was at the end of the day while all the other inmates in the ward were not present. It was psychological pressure. They thought maybe this would break me down.
GJ: How is life for you now?
Elshamy: Although I was released four years ago, I’m still being tried in absentia. I cannot go back to Egypt. I risk being arrested and it’s kind of a dead end for me at this point. As the trial approaches its end, I face probably a life sentence or maybe even worse. The idea of not being able to go back to your own country is just heartbreaking.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/tOxGaGKy6fo”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist is a website that features global press freedom and international news stories as well as a weekly radio program that airs on KBIA, mid-Missouri’s NPR affiliate, and partner stations in six other states. The website and radio show are produced jointly by professional staff and student journalists at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, the oldest school of journalism in the United States. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Don’t lose your voice. Stay informed.” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate, and monitor threats to free speech. We believe that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution – no matter what their views.
Join our mailing list (or follow us on Twitter or Facebook). We’ll send you our weekly newsletter, our monthly events update and periodic updates about our activities defending free speech. We won’t share, sell or transfer your personal information to anyone outside Index.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”6″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”2″ element_width=”12″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1542640554551-b7c870c1-3f87-6″ taxonomies=”22142″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Andy Burnham
Mayor of Greater Manchester
Manchester, UK [email protected]
31 May 2018
Dear Mayor Burnham,
The undersigned organisations are writing to you to request your support for the release of the award-winning Emirati human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor, sentenced this week to ten years in prison for his human rights activism. We believe that this will be facilitated by raising awareness of his case by naming a street after him in Manchester.
Ahmed Mansoor is a pro-democracy and human rights campaigner who has publicly expressed criticism of serious human rights violations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Mansoor was sentenced to ten years in prison by the State Security Court in Abu Dhabi on 29 May 2018 for “insulting the status and prestige of the UAE and its symbols”, including its leaders, as well as of “seeking to damage the relationship of the UAE with its neighbours by publishing false reports and information on social media.”
Mansoor is the 2015 Laureate of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, and a member of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) Advisory Board and Human Rights Watch’s Middle East Advisory Committee. Amnesty International considers him to be a prisoner of conscience, imprisoned solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression, who should be immediately and unconditionally released. There are concerns that Mansoor has been tortured in pre-trial detention that lasted more than one year.
On 20 March 2017, about a dozen Emirati security officers arrested him at his home in
Ajman in the early hours of the morning. The UAE’s official news agency, WAM, claimed that Mansoor had been arrested on the orders of the Public Prosecution for Cybercrimes,
detained pending further investigation, and that he was accused of using social media websites to: “publish false information and rumours;” “promote [a] sectarian and hate-incited agenda;” and “publish false and misleading information that harms national unity and social harmony and damages the country’s reputation.”
Human rights groups are banned in the UAE and people in the UAE who speak out about human rights abuses are at serious risk of arbitrary detention, imprisonment, and torture and other ill-treatment. Many such people are serving long prison terms or have felt they have no choice but to leave the country.
Before his arrest, Mansoor was the last remaining human rights defender in the UAE who had been in a position to criticise the authorities’ human rights record publicly.
As you are aware, Manchester City Council has developed close commercial links with senior figures in the UAE government, via its stake in the Manchester Life Development Company (MLDC), a joint venture ultimately controlled by the Abu Dhabi United Group for Investment and Development (ADUG). ADUG is owned and controlled by the Abu Dhabi Executive Affairs Authority, whose chair is Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the de facto ruler of the UAE. In addition, Manchester City FC is owned by the deputy Prime Minister of the UAE, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
While Abu Dhabi’s investments may have brought financial benefits to Manchester, this should not preclude criticism of human rights violations in UAE – violations which are starkly at odds with the values and principles that Greater Manchester celebrates as part of its heritage. In recent years, Senior members of Manchester City Council have celebrated Manchester’s long history of standing up for a range of rights-related causes, including the anti-slavery movement, votes for women, and pro-democracy demonstrations in Manchester in 1819. But they have apparently shied away from criticising human rights violations by the UAE and Abu Dhabi authorities with whom their commercial partners are linked.
We support the local residents who are part of the “Ahmed Mansoor Street” campaign, who argued it would be “a fitting honour to bestow upon an individual who embodies so many of the qualities that the city and the wider region celebrates as a key part of its history.”
As the first directly-elected Mayor of Greater Manchester you are in a unique position to show leadership on this issue. In your manifesto for the Mayoralty you referred to Greater Manchester as “the home of radical forward thinking” and expressed your desire to make it “a beacon of social justice for the country.” Your public support for a street named after Ahmed Mansoor, and calling for his immediate and unconditional release, would demonstrate your commitment to this heritage and these ideals.
Signed,
Adil Soz
Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
Amnesty International
Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI)
Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE)
Asociación Mundial de Radios Comunitarias América Latina y el Caribe (AMARC ALC)
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD)
Bytes For All
Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI)
CIVICUS
European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR)
FIDH, within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Freedom Forum, Nepal
Free Media Movement, Sri Lanka
Front Line Defenders
Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)
Human Rights Watch
Index on Censorship
International Press Centre, Nigeria
International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
Maharat Foundation
Martin Ennals Foundation
National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ)
Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA)
PEN Canada
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
South East Europe Media Organization
Syrian Centre For Media And Freedom Of Expression
Vigilance for Democracy and the Civic State, Tunisia
World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Note to supporters and media: The street-naming campaign event will take place on 01 June 2018 at 2pm on Thomas Street in the Northern Quarter.
Join us! Email your message or Tweet using the hashtag #FreeAhmed to the following:
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”La tecnología de fácil manejo está ayudando a los periodistas africanos en sus investigaciones, incluso con presupuestos limitados, informa Raymond Joseph
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En África, los drones se están utilizando en nuevos estilos de periodismo, Mavik/Flickr
En lo más profundo de la provincia de Mpumalanga, al extremo noreste de Sudáfrica, un periódico sin apenas recursos está utilizando una combinación de alta tecnología y sistemas más rudimentarios para mejorar las vidas de las comunidades a las que abastece. También ha introducido una forma de hacer periodismo pionera e innovadora, que no solo sitúa a sus lectores al centro de su cobertura, sino que también los involucra directamente en las operaciones de recopilación de noticias.
Lo que está haciendo este periódico supone una lección para medios de comunicación más establecidos que buscan nuevas fuentes de ingresos no tradicionales, y los cuales, en la era del periódico digital y en red, lo están pasando mal para sobrevivir y no perder relevancia.
Ziwaphi, este periódico de carácter comunitario, se distribuye a comunidades en el distrito Nkomazi, situado en el epicentro de la pandemia de sida en Sudáfrica, donde hay poco acceso a la cobertura informativa. Uno de los mayores problemas de la zona son las corrientes contaminadas con aguas residuales. Las mujeres y niñas pasan horas cada día recogiendo agua de los ríos para beber, cocinar y lavar, pero a menudo estos ríos también se utilizan para el vertido de residuos humanos. Esto hace que en ocasiones se disparen los casos de E. coli, provocando diarreas. Y, cada pocos años, hay un brote de cólera.
Gracias a una subvención y a la asistencia técnica de African Media Initiative (AMI), punta de lanza de las iniciativas por arraigar el periodismo de datos en las redacciones africanas, Ziwaphi está colocando smartphones viejos, metidos en botellas de plástico transparente, en ríos de la zona. Los teléfonos funcionan como rudimentarios microscopios electrónicos, al utilizar sus cámaras para sacar fotos corrientes con flash. Después, se recogen estas fotografías, se magnifican y se comparan con imágenes de una base de datos existente para detectar niveles peligrosos de E. coli. Luego se envían los resultados a las residentes por SMS, informándolas de dónde es seguro recoger agua.
Cerrando el círculo, el periódico analiza los datos en tiempo real para detectar tendencias e incluso, con suerte, triangular las fuentes de contaminación.
Una vez al mes, Ziwaphi publica un análisis detallado basado en los resultados que se comparte con otros periódicos de la comunidad y con las emisoras de radio locales. Así esperan que la información pueda empoderar a la gente de la región y obligar al gobierno a abastecerla de agua limpia y servicios de saneamiento. Los lectores de Ziwaphi también ayudan a recolectar información por medio de una app móvil de avisos de ciudadanos, que complementa así los datos de los smartphones con relatos de testigos sobre los impactos de la polución y las posibles fuentes de contaminación.
«El total del proyecto solo costó 20.000 dólares, incluido un modesto salario para un reportero especializado en salud a tiempo completo durante un año», explica Justin Arenstein, encargado de estrategia para AMI. «Pero lo importante, desde un punto de vista de sostenibilidad mediática, es que Ziwaphi está utilizando el proyecto del agua para construir el esqueleto digital que necesitará para sobrevivir en el futuro próximo».
Hasta hace poco, África se encontraba a la zaga del resto del mundo en lo concerniente a internet por los altos costes de acceso. Hoy, el despliegue de nuevos cables submarinos está contribuyendo a abaratar el coste de la conectividad, especialmente en el este y el sur del continente. Esto ha dado pie a una nueva y emocionante era periodística, con una explosión de ideas e innovaciones que están produciendo herramientas para lo que se han venido a denominar «noticias útiles». Los medios tradicionales están intentando conectar cada vez más con la ciudadanía, involucrarla en la búsqueda de noticias y en los procesos de producción de contenido. El proyecto de los móviles en botellas es un ejemplo de lo que se puede conseguir con recursos limitados.
En Kenia, Radio Group, la tercera entidad mediática en tamaño, ha puesto en funcionamiento Star Health, el primero en una serie de kits de herramientas para ayudar a los lectores a comprobar fácilmente la reputación de los médicos y descubrir si alguna vez han sido declarados culpables de negligencia. Se dio un caso en el que un hombre que estaba ejerciendo como médico resultó ser veterinario.
La plataforma, que ha demostrado ser todo un éxito en un país en el que los doctores poco fiables son un problema extendido, también ayuda a los usuarios a localizar especialistas médicos en su centro de salud más cercano. Además, puede utilizarse para comprobar qué medicinas están cubiertas por el sistema nacional de salud. Es de destacar que los resultados de las consultas en Star Health se envían a través de un servicio Premium de SMS que genera un flujo de ingresos crucial en estos tiempos en los que los medios de comunicación se han visto obligados a diversificar modelos de financiación ajenos a la publicidad y, en algunos casos, a la venta de ejemplares.
«Estas herramientas no reemplazan al periodismo tradicional, sino que mejoran el reportaje periodístico al ayudar a los lectores, por ejemplo, a descubrir cómo una noticia nacional sobre médicos estafadores les afecta personalmente», indica Arenstein. Las noticias han de ser personales y prácticas, y deberían convertirse en parte importante de las estrategias de transformación digital de los medios de comunicación, subraya.
La realidad del periodismo hoy día es que, aunque los medios de difusión no cuenten con el público masivo de los medios tradicionales, cualquier persona con un smartphone o conocimientos digitales básicos puede convertirse en «editor».
En Nigeria, por ejemplo, la comunidad online Sahara tiene más de un millón de seguidores en redes sociales, muchos más que muchas entidades tradicionales. El reto en un futuro será para las redacciones, que habrán de aprovechar estas redes comunitarias sin perder de vista el hecho de que la voz de la ciudadanía ha de seguir siendo central.
Un proyecto pionero en la aislada región nigeriana del Delta ha visto trabajar a los medios convencionales junto a una red ya existente de información ciudadana, Naija Voices, en la introducción de drones a control remoto con cámaras incorporadas que detecten y vigilen posibles vertidos de crudo destructivos del medio ambiente. El plan es distribuir las grabaciones a los principales canales de televisión y a periódicos colaboradores en Lagos y Abuja. Esto facilitará a la prensa un alcance sin precedentes a partes del país que hasta ahora han sido prácticamente inaccesibles.
Los drones de alas fijas son relativamente baratos y fáciles de manejar, pero también se estrellan de vez en cuando. «Conseguir partes nuevas, como las alas o piezas del fuselaje, sería caro y llevaría mucho tiempo, así que estamos experimentando con impresoras 3D para generar piezas in situ y según las necesitemos», explica Arenstein.
Este experimento de información ciudadana parte de la labor de AfricaSkyCam, que lleva un año experimentando con drones en Kenia como parte de «la primera cámara aérea para una sala de redacción africana». SkyCam usa drones y globos equipados con cámaras para ayudar a los medios que no pueden permitirse helicópteros a cubrir noticias de última hora en situaciones peligrosas o ubicaciones de difícil acceso.
En Sudáfrica, el Oxpeckers Center for Investigative Environmental Reporting está utilizando «geo-periodismo» y otras técnicas de mapping para amplificar el alcance de su labor periodística y analizar noticias como la caza furtiva de rinocerontes y la caza de leones en recintos cerrados —se crían leones mansos para que adinerados cazadores de trofeos les disparen—. Las investigaciones ayudan a desvelar tendencias o vínculos con sindicatos del crimen, y a la cobertura de Oxpeckers Center se ha atribuido el fomento de una reciente prohibición de la caza en recintos cerrados en Botswana. También han contribuido a la redacción de leyes sobre el comercio de productos del rinoceronte y otras especies salvajes en China y Mozambique.
Pero lo cierto es que las redacciones africanas con pocos recursos no suelen contar con la tecnología ni los conocimientos digitales para construir nuevas herramientas online.
Es por ello por lo que el programa de innovación digital de AMI —e iniciativas similares por parte de Google, la fundación Bill & Melinda Gates y benefactores de menor envergadura como Indigo Trust— están construyendo sistemas de apoyo externo para ayudar a las redacciones de estos medios a dar el salto a un futuro digital.
Estos donantes también se están centrando en introducir los nuevos enfoques del periodismo de datos en medios tradicionales. Están ayudando a los periodistas a utilizar información digital de acceso público, proveniente de fuentes como censos o presupuestos del gobierno, para construir herramientas que asistan a la ciudadanía en la toma de decisiones más informadas sobre problemas que que les afectan a diario.
Entre quienes están ayudando a impulsar este enfoque desde las nuevas tecnologías está Code for Africa, una red de laboratorios tecnológicos municipales para países de todo el continente que tienen como objetivo fomentar la innovación y trabajar con medios y redes de periodismo ciudadano, de modo que puedan superar la brecha digital.
Code for South Africa (C4SA) está ayudando a todos, desde el periódico Ziwaphi —con sede en un barrio marginal producto del apartheid— y su proyecto de alertas de cólera, hasta medios nacionales de comunicación, como el Mail & Guardian o el City Press.
«Los medios saben que están en crisis. Ven amenazado su modelo de negocio basado en la publicidad a medida que su público se pasa a internet, pero la innovación digital sigue siendo difícil de vender», afirma Adi Eyal, director de C4SA. «El progreso es horriblemente lento porque muchos dueños de medios africanos se muestran indecisos a la hora de invertir sin antes saber cómo generarán ingresos estos nuevos modelos.
»A consecuencia de ello, la mayoría de lo que las redacciones sudafricanas llaman periodismo de datos de producción propia, en realidad, no es más que visualización. Están creando muy poca información útil y prácticamente nada en lo que se refiere a herramientas informativas que la gente pueda usar en la toma de decisiones. La inversión en un solo proyecto es significativa, así que es importante que las herramientas que se están elaborando sean duraderas, para que las redacciones puedan utilizarlas para informar sobre problemas y la gente pueda actuar».
El progreso será extremadamente lento, pero aun así los cimientos se van colocando poco a poco, a medida que los «rizomas» —conjuntos de datos de todas partes de África— se recolectan y cotejan en el portal African Open Data, para que sean utilizados tanto por periodistas de redacción como por gente que sepa programar. Tener estos datos supone la posibilidad de crear aplicaciones y herramientas que servirán para construir comunidades y generar ingresos.
C4SA también está construyendo la infraestructura «invisible» de soporte para ayudar a las redacciones a construir nuevas herramientas de forma rápida y barata. Esto incluye el apoyo a iniciativas como OpenAfrica, que ayuda a las redacciones a digitalizar y extraer datos de documentos fuente. C4SA también ha construido una serie de interfaces de programación de aplicaciones (API) de lectura mecánica ricas en datos que los periodistas pueden incorporar fácilmente a sus apps de móvil o páginas web. Las API accionan herramientas como WaziMap, que utiliza censos, elecciones y otros datos para ayudar a los periodistas a investigar a fondo las estructuras de las comunidades a nivel de distritos locales. Cada uno de estos recursos es una herramienta no solo para los medios, sino también para activistas ciudadanos y vigilantes del interés público, afirman Arenstein.
En una columna reciente sobre el futuro de los periódicos, Ferial Haffajee, editor de City Press, un periódico dominical sudafricano que está pasando por dificultades para reinventarse en la era digital, escribía: «Nada es lo que era. Casi nada es lo que parece. Tenemos un futuro, y es muy seductor». Y solo hace falta ver los smartphones en botellas y los drones impresos en 3D para entender que este futuro se está convirtiendo, redacción a redacción, proyecto a proyecto, en realidad.
Raymond Joseph es un periodista independiente con base en Ciudad del Cabo. Está en el consejo de Big Issue Sudáfrica y tuitea en @rayjoe
This article originally appeared in the autumn 2014 issue of Index on Censorship magazine
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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”99700″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Fifty-three Commonwealth heads of government are meeting for a summit in London this week. Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the UK Minister of State for the Commonwealth, lauded it as a unique network of 53 states with a responsibility to exert global influence based on a shared commitment to democracy, the rule of law and good governance as enshrined in the Commonwealth Charter of 2013.
But the record of Commonwealth countries concerning the rising number of killings of journalists — whose work holds a mirror up to the societies they live in – points to a dismal failure by the authorities in some member states to protect the lives of journalists targeted for their work. UN statistics also show that in all but a few cases the killers are shielded from facing justice by a climate of judicial impunity. Where is the rule of law in that?
In the five years from the start of 2013 to the end of 2017 as many as 57 journalists in Commonwealth countries were killed in the course of their work, according to UNESCO, the UN’s agency with a mandate to promote freedom of expression.
Most were killed to stop them from publishing reports into abuses of power, crime or corruption, often linked to public figures or law-enforcement officials. Among the recent shocking murders of journalists are those of editor and journalist Gauri Lankesh, shot outside her home in Bangalore, India last September, and Daphne Caruana Galizia, Malta’s best-known investigative journalist, killed in a car bombing one month later.
Yes, Commonwealth countries like India have pioneered some of the world’s most liberal Right to Information laws, and all member states are publicly committed to democratic standards including the separation of powers, independent courts and the rule of law.
Yet Commonwealth governments have evaded the chorus of demands for them to take determined actions to confront the pattern of violent assaults and other arbitrary actions aimed at silencing journalists and news media whose role is to inform the public. The London summit is the right time for them to put this on their agenda.
Luckily the Commonwealth has vigorous civil society organisations which already monitor cases of violence and intimidation against journalists and others who document abuses of civil and political rights. The Commonwealth Charter gives a mandate for strong action – despite the reluctance of some member states — by acknowledging the ‘surge in popular demands for democracy and human rights’.
UNESCO’s figures give this revealing breakdown of the 57 killings of journalists in Commonwealth countries in the five years up to the end of 2017: Pakistan 23, India 18, Bangladesh 8, Nigeria 3, and one each in Kenya, Malta, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
Even more troubling, perhaps, is the picture that emerges from UNESCO’s records on the lack of effective judicial follow-ups in countries where journalists have been killed. The figures are based on states’ replies, made on a voluntary basis, to requests for information made by the Director-General of UNESCO after every verified killing.
The latest official report published by the Director-General of UNESCOrecorded state authorities’ responses to killings of journalists during the ten-year period from 2006 to 2015. In that decade 104 journalists were killed in eight Commonwealth (including 9 journalists killed during Sri Lanka’s civil war up to 2009). Those statistics — based on information supplied by the governments concerned — fail to record a single case in which the perpetrators were brought to justice. Not one.
The figures are incomplete because too many states routinely fail to send back information about prosecutions, despite persistent requests from the Director-General of UNESCO. Further research shows that a handful of journalists’ killings in Commonwealth states have led to successful prosecutions – for example, in the cases of TV journalist Wali Khan Babar, killed in Pakistan in 2013, and Gautam Das, a Bangladeshi crime reporter killed in 2005.
A first step towards building confidence would be for all Commonwealth states to pledge to open investigations into the scores of unresolved cases and report any progress to the UN.
Journalists are only one of many categories of people who may face violence or persecution in Commonwealth countries, with all their diversity and ethnic and political tensions. But half a dozen United Nations resolutions adopted since 2012 have recognised that journalists face special dangers because of their work and deserve protection in order to counter corruption and abuses of democratic rights.
In advance of the London summit a coalition of grassroots Commonwealth professional organisations has come together to urge government leaders at the summit to face up to this stain on the organisation’s record. The Commonwealth Journalists Association joins the Commonwealth’s impressive networks of lawyers, legal educators, parliamentarians, academics and human rights advocates in putting forward a balanced and practical set of Commonwealth Principles on Freedom of Expression and the Role of the Media in Good Governance.
The Principles are written guidelines for democratic rules of engagement, so to speak, between the media and the parliament, judiciary and executive. The Principles will not be legally binding as Commonwealth states have made clear that would be anathema to them. But can at least serve as a manual of good practice to move the countries of the Commonwealth towards ending the scourge of impunity and fulfilling their public commitment to protect the media’s right to report on public affairs.
The heads of government meeting in London’s royal palaces this week should realise that if the Commonwealth cannot be part of the solution it may well be part of the problem.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-share-alt” color=”black” background_style=”rounded” size=”xl” align=”right”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]The Commonwealth Principles on freedom of expression and the role of the media in good governancewas published on April 11. The signatory organisations are the CJA, the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Commonwealth Lawyers Association, Commonwealth Legal Education Association, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and Commonwealth Parliamentary Association UK.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1523956946253-7cccb26e-7266-2″ taxonomies=”8996″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
