The Independent and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism are winning deserved praise for their exposé of lobbyists Bell Pottinger this morning.
Bureau journalists, posing as agents of the Uzbekistan government, recorded senior Bell Pottinger executives boasting of their access to government and media. Bell Pottinger has previously worked for regimes with dubious human rights records including the governments of Sri Lanka and Belarus. An excellent piece of work by all accounts, and the Independent and The Bureau promise more to follow.
Bell Pottinger has responded angrily. The Times reports that Lord Bell (chair of Bell Pottinger’s parent company Chime Communications) has taken the matter to the Press Complaints Commission, describing the covert recording as “unethical“.
It would be easy to dismiss this with a wry “Well he would, wouldn’t he?“, but as the Leveson Inquiry goes on, there appears to be more and more unease with the shadier methods of journalism, which include covert recording, and Lord Bell may be attempting to tap into this feeling.
It’s clear that being recorded without one’s knowledge isn’t very nice. But it’s also clear that the Bureau’s investigation is in the public interest, and this should be enough to justify it. Amid the furore over phone hacking, surveillance, blagging and the rest, we should be very careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The murkier methods of the press have their place.
To mark the inaugural International Day to End Impunity on 23 November, join Index in demanding justice for journalists’ murdered in the line of duty
Freedom of Expression Organisations Call for Justice on International Day to End Impunity
London, November 23, 2011
Today Index on Censorship, Article 19, the Committee to Protect Journalists and English PEN join dozens of freedom of expression organisations around the world to mark the inaugural International Day to End Impunity.
In the past 10 years, more than 500 journalists have been killed. In nine out of 10 cases, the murderers have gone free. Many others targeted for exercising their right to freedom of expression — artists, writers, musicians, activists — join their ranks.
On this day two years ago the single deadliest event for the media took place when 30 journalists and two support workers were brutally killed in Ampatuan, Maguindanao province, The Philippines. The journalists were part of a convoy accompanying supporters of a local politician filing candidacy papers for provincial governor. In total the “Maguindanao Massacre” as it has come to be known, claimed 58 victims. Not one of more than a hundred individuals suspected of involvement in the atrocity has been convicted yet.
We join those in the Philippines not only in honouring their slain colleagues, friends and family members, but demanding justice for them and hundreds more in Russia, Belarus, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Colombia, Iraq and Somalia and other countries where killings of journalists and free expression activists have repeatedly gone unpunished. Above all we demand an end to the cycle violence and impunity.
This year alone at least 17 journalists were murdered for their work. These include Pakistani journalist Saleem Shahzad, whose body was found May 31 showing signs of torture. They include Mexican journalist and social media activist Maria Elizabeth Macías Castro Macías, whose killers left a computer keyboard and a note with the journalist’s body saying she had been killed for writing on social media websites. These heinous acts not only silence the messenger, but are intended to intimidate all others from bringing news and sharing critical voices with the public.
We call on governments around the world to investigate and prosecute these crimes and bring an end to impunity.
Article 19 English PEN
Committee to Protect Journalists Index on Censorship
23 November marks the anniversary of the 2009 Ampatuan massacre, in which 34 journalists were murdered in an election-related killing in the Philippines, making it the single deadliest incident for journalists in recent history.
Many of the modern issues that Index on Censorship tackles are what I call the shades of grey. From Wikileaks to privacy to hate speech and phone hacking, free expression comes hurtling against other rights or perceived rights. Rarely do absolutes prevail in this more complex and technological world.
It was therefore salutary for me to be reminded of the black and white which still confronts us: journalists and activists murdered, imprisoned or threatened for trying to hold the powerful to account and expose wrongdoing.
The British theatre group IceandFire transport audiences into the worlds of five crusading reporters and photo-journalists as they risk their lives for the sake of their stories. Several of these real-life cases have been followed and documented by Index. One of them, Lal Wickrematunge, Editor of the Sri Lankan newspaper Sunday Leader was reportedly threatened by his country’s president by telephone only a week ago. His brother, Lasantha, was murdered by the authorities in 2009.
The travails of Lydia Cacho, one of the world’s most fearless journalists, were movingly portrayed. Only six weeks ago Cacho says she received anonymous death threats for her continued campaign to expose corruption and criminality, particularly the role of senior politicians in sex offences and trafficking. From the work of a brave Israeli journalist working inside the West Bank, to an American defying the US military’s largely successful attempts to sanitise the Iraq war, the play brings home not just the bravery, but also the doubts and dilemmas faced by a small but determined group of reporters. The episode most familiar to me personally was the newsroom at Novaya Gazeta, for long a beacon of fearless journalism in a Russia where the attacks on free speech have remained constant over the past 20 years, long after the collapse of Communism.
Within 20 metres of leaving the theatre, in Hackney in east London, I came across three riot police vans. It was, at first glance, a shock. The officers were lounging around, eating Macdonalds. The city was still reeling from riots and looting. Yet amid all the gloom and self-doubt that has beset Britons, and only a month after the height of the phone-hacking scandal, it was worth remembering that, there are still many countries grappling with troubles on an altogether different scale.
John Kampfner is chief executive of Index on Censorship
To mark World Refugee Day, English Pen, Index on Censorship and the Committee to Protect Journalists will hold a panel discussion examining the plight of journalists and writers living in exile.
Yousef Azizi Banitorof, Iranian journalist and human rights activist Sarata Jabbi-Dibba, First Vice-President of the Gambia Press Union Uvindu Kurukulasuriya, Sri Lankan journalist and press freedom activist Elisabeth Witchel, Campaign Consultant, Committee to Protect Journalists
Chaired by Rohan Jayasekera, Associate Editor at Index on Censorship
Monday 20 June 2011, 6.30pm Free Word Centre, 60 Farringdon Road, London, EC1R 3GA
Elisabeth Witchel, Campaign Consultant at the Committee to Protect Journalists, will be joined by three writers living in exile in the UK: Iranian journalist and human rights activist Yousef Azizi Banitorof, Sri Lankan journalist and press freedom activist Uvindu Kurukulasuriya, and the first Vice-President of the Gambia Press Union Sarata Jabbi-Dibba. Together they will explore the reasons behind the choice or coercion faced by those who leave their homelands, and the main challenges once in exile.
This event marks the release of the Committee to Protect Journalists 2011 Journalists in Exile survey and aims to provide context and more in-depth discussion on the points raised therein. The survey highlights which countries around the world have driven the most journalists into exile and why, as well as looking at the broader impacts on media coverage in those countries. It also underscores some of the challenges of going into exile, such as obtaining visas, negotiating what is often a very complex asylum process, and the fact that many journalists in exile have great difficulty in continuing their work in journalism.
The discussion will be followed by a wine reception in the main hall. It is open to the public but space is limited. Email ewitchel[at]cpj.org to reserve your place.
