21 Jul 2020 | News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114332″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Should President Andrzej Duda continue supporting all key policies of the United Right currently governing Poland, media freedom and the independence of journalists will likely be curtailed.
During his first term as the president of Poland, Duda, formally independent, proved his loyalty to the Law and Justice (PiS) party on numerous occasions. For example, in 2016 he signed a law that gave the government greater control over state broadcasters.
State broadcasters have since become a propaganda machine for the governing majority. Many reports on the general elections held in Poland in 2019 and on the presidential elections in 2020 highlighted their lack of pluralism. But at least privately-owned media has remained an alternative source of information for a significant part of the population in Poland. But even that is not safe.
Over the years, foreign-owned media has been criticised as being anti-Polish and these criticisms grew louder during the presidential campaign. Duda implied that Germans wanted to influence the outcome of the election after the popular German tabloid Fakt published a story saying that Duda had pardoned a man convicted of sexual abuse of his daughter. Duda also unleashed an attack against Philipp Fritz, Warsaw correspondent of German newspaper Die Welt, accusing him of promoting the opposition’s campaign.
“Today, ladies and gentlemen, we have yet another German attack during these elections,” Duda said.
These remarks by the president, as well as other comments by the government officials, have raised concerns among journalists in Poland that after Duda’s win, the governing majority will try limiting independent media and journalism. The concerns are that first state-owned companies will try to buy-out key TV, radio, print commercial media from foreign owners. Second, the profession of journalists, now free, might be regulated, opening up a possibility to activate disciplinary proceedings against journalists and limit who can be a journalist in Poland.
And our fears are already feeling justified; since Duda’s re-election top public servants and high-profile PiS politicians have announced plans to take on commercial media and independent journalists.
Who will protect journalists? As president of Poland Duda has the power to veto legislation and issue motions to the Constitutional Tribunal to verify if the adopted laws conform with the Constitution. But on many occasions he has shown his loyalty to PiS. Since they came to power in 2015, they have waged a campaign to take control of the judiciary in open defiance of the law. By May 2018 they had managed to gain direct control over the Constitutional Tribunal and the National Council of the Judiciary. A triumvirate has therefore formed between the government, the Constitutional Tribunal and the president, which has allowed fast-tracking key legislation and rubber stamping controversial policies targeted against judicial independence.
Duda’s victory in the presidential contest on 12 July 2020 opens up the possibility that this alliance continues. The next general election in Poland should happen no earlier than in 2023. The United Right camp has three more years to implement its desired policies.
I fear discouragement and the chilling effect on journalists the most. In Poland, as in many places elsewhere, the profession has become more precarious which in itself could be a discouragement for many young people interested in pursuing this sort of career. Add an increased political pressure, and people may start having doubts if it is all worth it.
We need independent, broad-minded, professional journalists more than ever. It’s the most critical time since 1989 and we need to improve standards of democratic debate. OKO.press is keeping up the good work and we hope to continue fulfilling our mission to offer in-depth journalism on topics of public interests to all of Poland, without a paywall. Hopefully we can continue well into the future, but it has never felt more in peril.
Anna Wójcik is a journalist at Polish investigative journalism and fact-checking website OKO Press. OKO are the 2020 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards Journalism Fellow. Read more about them here.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]
10 Jul 2020 | News and features, Student Reading Lists
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This week, 150 writers and academics signed an open letter expressing dismay at the current state of free and open debate. The list of signatories is like a Who’s Who of contributors to Index on Censorship magazine over the years. We have looked into our archives to dig out some of the articles we have published by some of the signatories.
Margaret Atwood defends fiction as a worthwhile use of free expression, Salman Rushdie decries total censorship in Pakistan, Noam Chomsky examines how atrocities are reported by those committing them, Nadine Strossman writing in 1995 paints a shockingly current picture of the USA today, and Eva Hoffman discusses her relationship with language as a Polish emigrant to Canada.
Don’t tell us what to write – Margaret Atwood
Writing for a special edition of Index on Censorship in 2010, which marked 50 years of the Pen Writers in Prison Committee, Margaret Atwood upheld the importance of being free to write unfettered by expectations or demands. Atwood explored the impulse of journalists to reveal the truth, writing: “You can take the guts out of the investigative journalists, both figuratively and literally, but so far no one has been able to completely suppress the human urge that’s at least as old as the Book of Job: the need to tell.” She also examined attitudes towards fiction. Being a self-described fiction writer and poet, Atwood talked about how fiction writers often write with intentions to make a certain impact, perhaps to better their readers or the world at large, but placing this as a caveat for fiction to be considered worthwhile,”is to fall into the very same kind of thinking that leads to censorship.” Click here to read the full article.
Last chance? Salman Rushdie
Writers and Apartheid, the June 1983 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
Is there dark humour to be found in an oppressive regime’s censorship? Salman Rushdie opened his piece, first published in Index in 1983 and republished in 2012 in the 40 year anniversary special issue, by examining this question through his first encounters with the censorship of films as a child. Censorship, he wrote, became less of an abstract source of the absurd when he began to experience it as a personal reality. On returning to Karachi, Pakistan after studying at Cambridge, Rushdie’s attempts at expression and creativity were curtailed by censors, at one point being told “ ‘the word pork may not be spoken on Pakistan television.’” He wrote of the total censorship enacted by the Pakistani government who, unlike the Indian government, had a firm and terrifying grip over journalists. What are the effects of such censorship? Rushdie questioned. “Where there is no debate, it is hard to go on remembering, every day, that there is a suppressed side to every argument. It becomes almost impossible to conceive of what the suppressed things might be.” Click here to read the full article.
Confronting the Monster – Noam Chomsky
Squeeze on democracy, the spring 2002 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
Writing in early 2002, arguably of the most pivotal points in recent US history, Noam Chomsky examined the coverage, or lack thereof, of the reaction and aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and uses this example to dissect the notions of “them” and “us” in reporting on atrocities. The bombing campaign carried out by the US army on Afghanistan in October 2001, Chomsky wrote, left millions of Afghan civilians starving. Appeals to the US for an end to the bombing from UN bodies were rejected, and this was “virtually unreported”, as was a warning of humanitarian catastrophe from the Food and Agricultural organisation. Chomsky explained that the erasure of one’s own crimes against humanity is not a uniquely American phenomenon writing: “Only those entirely ignorant of modern history will find any of this surprising.” In the early 1990s, Chomsky wrote, the British government removed from the Public Record Office all files concerning the use of poisonous gas against “uncivilised tribes”. He summed up “the powerful determine what counts as history, what passes through the filters is the terrorism of the weak against the strong and their clients.” Click here to read the full article.
Diverting Tactics – Nadine Strossman
Rewriting history, the May 1995 issue of Index on Censorship magazine
Despite having been written in 1995 Nadine Strossman’s article examining attacks on The Bill of Rights, freedom of expression, and the groups in US society these attacks have the harshest impact on, feels startlingly current. Strossman wrote that the government proposals to criminalise desacration of the US flag would amount to “punishing the political protest that should be the most protected form of expression in a democratic society”. The violent dispersal of the ongoing protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd is a chilling reminder of the assault on freedom of expression in the USA today. Strossman highlighted how the rights of non-white groups are being specifically targeted through the disparagement of affirmative action programmes, which displays “the diminished national commitment to racial justice”. This is another topic, it perhaps goes without saying, that is an issue in present-day America. Strossman dissected the actions of politicians as quick fixes for societal problems. Click here to read the full article.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Words between worlds – Eva Hoffman and Raja Shehadeh
Eva Hoffman, author of Lost in Translation, spoke to then-editor Judith Vidal-Hall about her experience of emigrating from Poland to Canada as a child and developing a new relationship with language. As her native Polish became surplus to requirement, and English loomed as an unknown quantity, “I discovered to what extent language and culture constructs us really. To what extent it informs not only our larger assumptions and ideologies about the world”. Hoffman told Vidal-Hall how, having absorbed English as a second language, she found it to be beneficial as a writer; it gave her a vantage point of two cultures, two worlds. When asked why she started to write, Hoffman explained that through her words she might connect with people who had shared similar experiences: “I had some hope that perhaps I was trying to talk about things that had some meaning for other immigrants as well, that perhaps there was a kind of broader meaning to it”. Click here to read the full article.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You might also want to read” category_id=”7273″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
9 Jul 2020 | Campaigns - new test
from Turkey to Poland, Brazil to Kashmir, the most stark has been the appalling attack on human rights in Hong Kong. The Chinese government has dealt a fatal blow to the “one country, two systems” pledge. In the hours that followed the government enacting its new National Security Law for Hong Kong, hundreds of people deleted their social media accounts for fear of arrest. Pro-democracy campaigners have shut up shop in the fear of life imprisonment and journalists on the ground are under huge pressure to curtail their reports.
In spite of the very real threat of arrest, however, thousands of people have taken to the streets to demand their human rights to free association, to free speech and to a life lived without fear of tyranny. Their actions, their bravery and their determination should inspire us all and I’d urge you to read the words of our correspondent from Hong Kong, Tammy Lai-Ming Ho. Events in Hong Kong need to generate more than just a hashtag – we need action from our governments. And we all must stand with Hong Kong.
As events developed in Hong Kong other national leaders were also moving against their populations. On Monday, the Ethiopian musician and activist Haacaaluu Hundeessaa was murdered. Hundeessaa’s music provided the living soundtrack to the protest movement that led to the former prime minister’s resignation. In the hours that followed Hundeessaa’s murder 80 people were killed and the government deployed the military in order to restrict protest and limit access to Hundeessaa’s funeral. They have also switched off access to the internet (again) to stop people telling their stories.
It is easy for us to miss the people behind these events. And in a world where oppression is becoming all too common, sustaining our anger to support one cause when the next outrage is reported can be difficult. But we cannot and will not abandon those who have shown such bravery in the face of brute force and institutional power.
Index was created to be “a voice for the persecuted” and with you we will keep being exactly that. Providing a platform for the voiceless and shining a light on repressive regimes wherever they may be
3 Jul 2020 | China, Ethiopia, Hong Kong, News and features, Opinion
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114148″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Following the news this week has been harrowing. Beyond the ongoing awful deaths from Covid-19 and the daily redundancy notices we also now have some governments turning against their citizens. Free speech around the world, or rather the restrictions on it, have dominated nearly every news cycle and behind each report there have been inspiring personal stories of immense bravery in standing up against repression.
While there have been government orchestrated or sanctioned attacks on free speech across the globe, from Turkey to Poland, Brazil to Kashmir, the most stark has been the appalling attack on human rights in Hong Kong. The Chinese government has dealt a fatal blow to the “one country, two systems” pledge. In the hours that followed the government enacting its new National Security Law for Hong Kong, hundreds of people deleted their social media accounts for fear of arrest. Pro-democracy campaigners have shut up shop in the fear of life imprisonment and journalists on the ground are under huge pressure to curtail their reports.
In spite of the very real threat of arrest, however, thousands of people have taken to the streets to demand their human rights to free association, to free speech and to a life lived without fear of tyranny. Their actions, their bravery and their determination should inspire us all and I’d urge you to read the words of our correspondent from Hong Kong, Tammy Lai-Ming Ho. Events in Hong Kong need to generate more than just a hashtag – we need action from our governments. And we all must stand with Hong Kong.
As events developed in Hong Kong other national leaders were also moving against their populations. On Monday, the Ethiopian musician and activist Haacaaluu Hundeessaa was murdered. Hundeessaa’s music provided the living soundtrack to the protest movement that led to the former prime minister’s resignation. In the hours that followed Hundeessaa’s murder 80 people were killed and the government deployed the military in order to restrict protest and limit access to Hundeessaa’s funeral. They have also switched off access to the internet (again) to stop people telling their stories.
It is easy for us to miss the people behind these events. And in a world where oppression is becoming all too common, sustaining our anger to support one cause when the next outrage is reported can be difficult. But we cannot and will not abandon those who have shown such bravery in the face of brute force and institutional power.
Index was created to be “a voice for the persecuted” and with you we will keep being exactly that. Providing a platform for the voiceless and shining a light on repressive regimes wherever they may be.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”Essential reading” full_width_heading=”true” category_id=”581″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
