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Romania: Radio station dismisses veteran journalist

28 Aug 15 | Mapping Media Freedom, mobile, News and features, Romania

Vasile Luca (Photo: Zoltan Sipos)

Vasile Luca, a veteran journalist working at Radio Cluj, a Romanian public radio station based in Cluj-Napoca, was fired in May 2015 as a result of a disciplinary committee hearing.

Two months before his termination, Luca, who had been with the station for 25 years, went public with internal documents showing that a station employee, Debreczeni Hajnalka, who was also the press secretary for the head of a political party, was not actually completing any work despite an unusually high salary. Luca filed a complaint at the public prosecutor’s office and, after media coverage, Hajnalka resigned from the station. The station refused to disclose what Hajnalka’s job title had been.

At the time of the resignation, Hajnalka said her role had been to coordinate media strategies, internal communication between public stations and media monitoring. She denied that she had broken any laws or acted inappropriately.

“The case of Debreczeni Hajnalka was surely not the sole reason for my dismissal”, Luca told Index during an interview. “However, after the Debreczeni scandal, there was a lot of pressure, and multiple phone calls were made because the party she works for, the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (DAHR), is very influential in the upper echelons of public radio”.

Luca had a long track record of conflicts with station management. He had previously documented illegalities and misuse of public funds at the radio station. In 2010, Luca was granted whistleblower status by Transparency International Romania after he gathered evidence that Florin Zaharescu, director of the station at the time, was embezzling funds.

Luca was subjected to his first disciplinary action in January 2015. Station management accused him of being the author of caricatures of the radio station’s directors. The images were found in the office he shared with six other journalists.

“When Ovidiu Miculescu, the general director of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company, was showing his solidarity with the murdered editors of Charlie Hebdo at the French Embassy, editor-in-chief at Radio Cluj, Bogdan Rosca, was trying to impose disciplinary actions against me for a couple of ironic quotes and some pictures of a bristly kitten”, the journalist said.

Along with the “bristly kitten”, the disciplinary committee also weighed a private letter the journalist had written to Vasile Dancu, a local politician and sociologist. In the letter, Luca criticised Dancu for supporting Rosca, his former student, calling him “incompetent”, “unprepared” and “resentful”.

The committee also considered a letter that Luca wrote to Miculescu that criticised Rosca’s managerial performance by citing research that showed that the radio station’s audience numbers plummeted after Rosca took over in February 2014.

As a result of the hearing, Luca’s salary was cut by 10 per cent for one month.

Immediately after the first disciplinary hearing, the editor-in-chief filed a complaint against Luca accusing him of collaborating with a privately-owned television station while he was on sick leave.

“My work ended well before I took a couple of months of sick leave. Even the disciplinary committee had to admit that I had management’s approval for a one-year collaboration with Argo TV which began in April 2013”, Luca said.

Months after the series of documentaries were shot and aired, the television station uploaded the documentary onto their website. The web publication date coincided with the period Luca was on leave. He also appeared on an Argo TV talk show during his leave.

“Luca had an appearance on television as an editor he could not account for”, Attila Szász, the head of the disciplinary committee told Index. “We did not recommend he be dismissed. The dismissal was the decision of the general director”.

According to Luca, the hearing of the disciplinary committee was unlawful because he was not granted the right to be represented by a lawyer. In a written request sent to the committee just before the hearing, Luca pointed out that the exact time and place of the hearing was not set and when they finally made the decision, his lawyer was unable to be present.

Luca said he did not receive copies of the medical records used as evidence against him and, he believes, that the process did not meet standards required by Romanian labour law. As a whistleblower, Luca said, there are legal requirements for transparency that were not met. For example, the time and location of the hearings were supposed to be publicised three days in advance and members of the press should have been granted access.

He has filed a legal complaint and a judge will decide whether he has grounds to challenge the disciplinary actions.

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This article was published at indexoncensorship.org on 28/8/2015

Podcast: Are religious freedom and free speech intertwined?

17 Jun 15 | Events, Magazine, mobile

Index hosted a debate at the Leeds Big Bookend festival (Photo: Steve Evans)

Does freedom of religion and freedom of speech come as a package or can you pick and choose? Do those suggesting freedom of expression should be “civilised” and that we should be wary of causing offence to people’s religious sensibilities have a point? Or are there too many people who are easily offended? Are our attempts to be polite actually significant obstructions to the discussion of important issues? These were just some of the questions tackled at “The new civility: are religious freedom and freedom of speech intertwined?” the 10 June event organised as part of the Leeds Big Bookend festival.

Chaired by Index on Censorship magazine editor Rachael Jolley, the panel was made up of assistant features editor at the Yorkshire Evening post Chris Bond, local imam Qari Muhammad Asim MBE and author Anthony Clavane.

In the past, people who have argued for greater religious freedom have also fought for greater freedom of speech, but the debate looked to address the idea that this connection has become somewhat lost. It sprang from the Spring 2015 issue of Index on Censorship, where writers from across the world, including Elif Safak and Ariel Dorfman, provided thoughtful analysis of the aftermath of Charlie Hebdo killings.

The debate threw up some fascinating themes and the panel were observed and questioned by an enthusiastic audience at Waterstones, Leeds. A full recording of the event in the form of a podcast can be listened to below.

The new civility: are religious freedom and freedom of speech intertwined? by Tttdebates on Mixcloud

#IndexDrawtheLine: Youth Advisory Board round-up

08 Jun 15 | mobile, Youth Board

Over the past few months, the Index on Censorship Youth Advisory Board has been coming together to ask difficult, yet essential questions; attempting to spark and promote thought provoking debates and engage the general public in societal issues and conflicts that affect us all.

The topics we have explored in #IndexDrawTheLine can be found below. You can follow the links to see the youth board’s full coverage.

Our opening question looked at the ways in which we can balance religious freedom and religious extremism and how it is one of the major challenges facing society.

Following the Charlie Hebdo killings in January, we looked at the freedom to offend, and how the protection of offence is vital for free expression.

The sharing of graphic content on social media was the basis of our next question, which asked how much is too much? We explored the freedom to share it and also t he freedom to not have graphic content forced upon us.

Returning to the issue of extremism for our penultimate discussion, we looked at whether or not it has a place on campus, arguing that: “Universities should be places where young people have the freedom to learn, debate and use their knowledge to challenge guest speakers.”

For our final #IndexDrawtheLine topic, we looked at where governments should draw the line on every day surveillance, and finding the balance between the protection of people and the infringement on their privacy.

But the conversation doesn’t stop there. We have to keep encouraging open debate and a level of transparency in a world full of censorship. It is imperative as new threats to free speech arise each day, and old threats recur. It is the responsibility of all of us to provide a voice for the voiceless, represented and unrepresented alike.

To join in future discussions, follow the #IndexDrawtheLine hashtag on Twitter.

This article was posted on 8 June 2015 at indexoncensorship.org

29 June: Legal protections for journalists worldwide? (Partner event)

04 Jun 15 | Events

Photo: Thomson Reuters Foundation

Six months after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, journalists face more threats than ever before, from harassment to imprisonment to murder – since the beginning of the year, 50 journalists have been killed.

While some countries, like Norway, have scrapped blasphemy laws to strongly assert freedom of speech, others such as the UK are increasing state surveillance and censorship to “protect citizens from violence”. How can international law protect journalists in this challenging and unique context? Is it possible to strike a balance between security concerns and freedom of expression? Is the right to free speech an absolute one?

Join the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Reporters Without Borders and Paul Hastings LLP for a panel debate featuring:

John Lloyd, Reuters Institute and Financial Times
Prof Timothy Garton Ash, Oxford University
Sylvie Kauffmann, Le Monde
William Bourdon, Paris Bar and Association Sherpa
Jodie Ginsberg, Index on Censorship

When: Monday 29 June, 6:00pm (followed by drinks reception & canapés)
Where: Edelman, London, SW1E 6QT (Map/directions)
Tickets: Free, book here

#FreeSpeechDebate

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