21 Jan 2014 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features
A pro-democracy protest in Bahrain, where activists have been jailed for inciting protests through their online activities (Photo: Moh’d Saeed / Demotix)
One hundred and forty characters are all it takes.
Twitter users from Marrakech to Manama know—call for political reforms, joke about a sensitive topic, or expose government abuse and you could end up in jail. Following the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, authorities in Libya and Tunisia unblocked hundreds of websites and dismantled the state surveillance apparatus. But overall, internet freedom in the region has only declined in the three years since the Arab Spring as authoritarian leaders continue to crack down on any and all threats to their ever-tenuous legitimacy.
As the online world has become a fundamental part of Arab and Iranian societies, leaders are waking up to the “dangers” of social media and placing new restrictions on what can be read or posted online. This shift has been most marked in Bahrain, one of the most digitally-connected countries in the world. After a grassroots opposition group took to the streets to demand democratic reforms, authorities detained dozens of users for Twitter and Facebook posts deemed sympathetic to the cause. Similarly, several prominent activists were jailed on charges of inciting protests, belonging to a terrorist organization, or plotting to overthrow the government through their online activities.
Conditions in Egypt—where social media played a fundamental role in mobilising protesters and documenting police brutality—continued to decline over the past year. In only the first six months of Mohammad Morsi’s term, more citizens were prosecuted for “insulting the office of the president” than under Hosni Mubarak’s entire 30-year reign. Cases have now been brought against the same bloggers and activists that were instrumental in rallying the masses to protest against Mubarak (and later Morsi) in Tahrir Square, while countless others were tortured by Muslim Brotherhood thugs or state security forces.
Even in the moderate kingdoms of Morocco and Jordan, state officials are looking to extend their existing controls over newspapers and TV channels to the sphere of online media. Ali Anouzla, a website editor in Morocco, faces terrorism charges in the latest attempt by the state to silence him and his popular online newspaper, Lakome. Access to independent journalism is even worse in Jordan, where over 200 news sites have been blocked for failing to obtain a press license. The government instituted burdensome requirements in a bid to deter any views that counter the state-sponsored narrative.
If governments are beginning to pay attention, it is because online tools for social mobilisation and individual expression are having a profound impact. Social media accounts were set up for every candidate in Iran’s 2013 presidential elections, despite the fact that Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are all blocked within the country. In Saudi Arabia – which now boasts the highest Twitter and YouTube usage per capita of any country in the world – social media has been used to promote campaigns for women’s right to drive, to highlight the mistreatment of migrant workers, and to debate sensitive subjects such as child molestation. Citizen journalism was vital in documenting chemical weapons use in Syria, and a new online platform alerts local residents of incoming scud missiles. Nonetheless, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria rank as some of the least free countries in the world in terms of internet freedom according to Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net study.
Remarkably, the country that has made the most positive strides over the past three years, was once among the most repressive online environments in the region – Tunisia. Protest videos from the town of Sidi Bouzid led to an intense crackdown on online dissidents by the Ben Ali regime. Digital activists even enlisted the help of Anonymous, the hacktivist group, to rally international media attention, provide digital security tools, and bring down government websites. Since then, Tunisian authorities have ceased internet censorship, reformed the regulatory environment, and ceded control of the state-owned internet backbone. Tunisia is now the only country in the region to have joined intergovernmental group the Freedom Online Coalition.
So while the snowball effect of social media contributed to the overthrow of several despots, many of the region’s internet users conversely find themselves in more restrictive online environments than in January 2011. Authoritarian governments now know exactly what the face of revolution looks like and, over the past three years, have shown their commitment to counter the internet’s potential to empower citizens and mobilise opposition. Users in liberal democracies may joke about the insignificance of “liking” a post on Facebook or uploading a video to YouTube, but in a region where your social media activity can make you an enemy of the state, 140 characters can lead to serious repercussions.
This article was posted on 21 January 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
15 Jan 2014 | Europe and Central Asia, European Union, Index Reports, News and features, Politics and Society
This article is part of a series based on our report, Time to Step Up: The EU and freedom of expression
Beyond its near neighbourhood, the EU works to promote freedom of expression in the wider world. To promote freedom of expression and other human rights, the EU has 30 ongoing human rights dialogues with supranational bodies, but also large economic powers such as China.
The EU and freedom of expression in China
The focus of the EU’s relationship with China has been primarily on economic development and trade cooperation. Within China some commentators believe that the tough public noises made by the institutions of the EU to the Chinese government raising concerns over human rights violations are a cynical ploy so that EU nations can continue to put financial interests first as they invest and develop trade with the country. It is certainly the case that the member states place different levels of importance on human rights in their bilateral relationships with China than they do in their relations with Italy, Portugal, Romania and Latvia. With China, member states are often slow to push the importance of human rights in their dialogue with the country. The institutions of the European Union, on the other hand, have formalised a human rights dialogue with China, albeit with little in the way of tangible results.
The EU has a Strategic Partnership with China. This partnership includes a political dialogue on human rights and freedom of the media on a reciprocal basis.[1] It is difficult to see how effective this dialogue is and whether in its present form it should continue. The EU-China human rights dialogue, now 14 years old, has delivered no tangible results.The EU-China Country Strategic Paper (CSP) 2007-2013 on the European Commission’s strategy, budget and priorities for spending aid in China only refers broadly to “human rights”. Neither human rights nor access to freedom of expression are EU priorities in the latest Multiannual Indicative Programme and no money is allocated to programmes to promote freedom of expression in China. The CSP also contains concerning statements such as the following:
“Despite these restrictions [to human rights], most people in China now enjoy greater freedom than at any other time in the past century, and their opportunities in society have increased in many ways.”[2]
Even though the dialogues have not been effective, the institutions of the EU have become more vocal on human rights violations in China in recent years. For instance, it included human rights defenders, including Ai Weiwei, at the EU Nobel Prize event in Beijing. The Chinese foreign ministry responded by throwing an early New Year’s banquet the same evening to reduce the number of attendees to the EU event. When Ai Weiwei was arrested in 2011, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton issued a statement in which she expressed her concerns at the deterioration of the human rights situation in China and called for the unconditional release of all political prisoners detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression.[3] The European Parliament has also recently been vocal in supporting human rights in China. In December 2012, it adopted a resolution in which MEPs denounced the repression of “the exercise of the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly, press freedom and the right to join a trade union” in China. They criticised new laws that facilitate “the control and censorship of the internet by Chinese authorities”, concluding that “there is therefore no longer any real limit on censorship or persecution”. Broadly, within human rights groups there are concerns that the situation regarding human rights in China is less on the agenda at international bodies such as the Human Rights Council[4] than it should be for a country with nearly 20% of the world’s population, feeding a perception that China seems “untouchable”. In a report on China and the International Human Rights System, Chatham House quotes a senior European diplomat in Geneva, who argues “no one would dare” table a resolution on China at the HRC with another diplomat, adding the Chinese government has “managed to dissuade states from action – now people don’t even raise it”. A small number of diplomats have expressed the view that more should be done to increase the focus on China in the Council, especially given the perceived ineffectiveness of the bilateral human rights dialogues. While EU member states have shied away from direct condemnation of China, they have raised freedom of expression abuses during HRC General Debates.
The Common Foreign and Security Policy and human rights dialogues
The EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) is the agreed foreign policy of the European Union. The Maastricht Treaty of 1993 allowed the EU to develop this policy, which is mandated through Article 21 of the Treaty of the European Union to protect the security of the EU, promote peace, international security and co-operation and to consolidate democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedom. Unlike most EU policies, the CFSP is subject to unanimous consensus, with majority voting only applying to the implementation of policies already agreed by all member states. As member states still value their own independent foreign policies, the CFSP remains relatively weak, and so a policy that effectively and unanimously protects and promotes rights is at best still a work in progress. The policies that are agreed as part of the Common Foreign and Security Policy therefore be useful in protecting and defending human rights if implemented with support. There are two key parts of the CFSP strategy to promote freedom of expression, the External Action Service guidelines on freedom of expression and the human rights dialogues. The latter has been of variable effectiveness, and so civil society has higher hopes for the effectiveness of the former.
The External Action Service freedom of expression guidelines
As part of its 2012 Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy, the EU is working on new guidelines for online and offline freedom of expression, due by the end of 2013. These guidelines could provide the basis for more active external policies and perhaps encourage a more strategic approach to the promotion of human rights in light of the criticism made of the human rights dialogues.
The guidelines will be of particular use when the EU makes human rights impact assessments of third countries and in determining conditionality on trade and aid with non-EU states. A draft of the guidelines has been published, but as these guidelines will be a Common Foreign and Security Policy document, there will be no full and open consultation for civil society to comment on the draft. This is unfortunate and somewhat ironic given the guidelines’ focus on free expression. The Council should open this process to wider debate and discussion.
The draft guidelines place too much emphasis on the rights of the media and not enough emphasis on the role of ordinary citizens and their ability to exercise the right to free speech. It is important the guidelines deal with a number of pressing international threats to freedom of expression, including state surveillance, the impact of criminal defamation, restrictions on the registration of associations and public protest and impunity against human right defenders. Although externally facing, the freedom of expression guidelines may also be useful in indirectly establishing benchmarks for internal EU policies. It would clearly undermine the impact of the guidelines on third parties if the domestic policies of EU member states contradict the EU’s external guidelines.
Human rights dialogues
Another one of the key processes for the EU to raise concerns over states’ infringement of the right to freedom of expression as part of the CFSP are the human rights dialogues. The guidelines on the dialogues make explicit reference to the promotion of freedom of expression. The EU runs 30 human rights dialogues across the globe, with the key dialogues taking place in China (as above), Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia and Belarus. It also has a dialogues with the African Union, all enlargement candidate countries (Croatia, the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia and Turkey), as well as consultations with Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the United States and Russia. The dialogue with Iran was suspended in 2006. Beyond this, there are also “local dialogues” at a lower level, with the Heads of EU missions, with Cambodia, Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Israel, Jordan, Laos, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority, Sri Lanka, Tunisia and Vietnam. In November 2008, the Council decided to initiate and enhance the EU human rights dialogues with a number of Latin American countries.
It is argued that because too many of the dialogues are held behind closed doors, with little civil society participation with only low-level EU officials, it has allowed the dialogues to lose their importance as a tool. Others contend that the dialogues allow the leaders of EU member states and Commissioners to silo human rights solely into the dialogues, giving them the opportunity to engage with authoritarian regimes on trade without raising specific human rights objections.
While in China and Central Asia the EU’s human rights dialogues have had little impact, elsewhere the dialogues are more welcome. The EU and Brazil established a Strategic Partnership in 2007. Within this framework, a Joint Action Plan (JAP) covering the period 2012-2014 was endorsed by the EU and Brazil, in which they both committed to “promoting human rights and democracy and upholding international justice”. To this end, Brazil and the EU hold regular human rights consultations that assess the main challenges concerning respect for human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law; advance human rights and democracy policy priorities and identify and coordinate policy positions on relevant issues in international fora. While at present, freedom of expression has not been prioritised as a key human rights challenge in this dialogue, the dialogues are seen by both partners as of mutual benefit. It is notable that in the EU-Brazil dialogue both partners come to the dialogues with different human rights concerns, but as democracies. With criticism of the effectiveness and openness of the dialogues, the EU should look again at how the dialogues fit into the overall strategy of the Union and its member states in the promotion of human rights with third countries and assess whether the dialogues can be improved.
[1] It covers both press freedom for the Chinese media in Europe and also press freedom for European media in China.
[2] China Strategy Paper 2007-2013, Annexes, ‘the political situation’, p. 11
[3] “I urge China to release all of those who have been detained for exercising their universally recognised right to freedom of expression.”
[4] Interview with European diplomat, February 2013.
14 Jan 2014 | Europe and Central Asia, European Union, News and features, Politics and Society
This article is part of a series based on our report, Time to Step Up: The EU and freedom of expression
In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the EU shifted its neighbourhood policy in the southern neighbourhood. In response to the revolutions and social movements in the region, the EU shifted the focus of its neighbourhood policy from economic development towards human rights. On 8 May 2011, the EU High Representative and the European Commission issued a joint communication proposing “A partnership for democracy and shared prosperity with the southern Mediterranean“.
The EU now emphasises the “three Ms”: money, market access and mobility, with the first “M” addressing the EU’s commitment to financially support transition to democracy and civil society. The strategy also heralded the creation of the Civil Society Facility for the neighbourhood (covering both the southern and eastern neighbourhoods), with an overall budget of €26.4 million for 2011 to strengthen civil society. In parallel, the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) deployed a number of operations in the region to protect and promote freedom of expression, often without the consent of the host country.
The apparent efforts to promote freedom of expression in the southern neighbourhood after the Arab Spring are in stark contrast to the multilateral partnerships that the EU actually established, often with the now overthrown dictatorships. The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EUROMED), also known as the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) and formerly known as the Barcelona Process, was re-launched in 2008 as a multilateral partnership between the EU member states and 15 Mediterranean partner countries in the EU’s southern neighbourhood. Of the UfM’s six key initiatives launched prior to the Arab Spring, none related to the promotion of human rights. EU member states that border the Mediterranean Sea, in particular Italy, Spain and France, emphasised cooperation on migration, energy supplies and help with counter-terrorism, while adopting a relatively passive approach toward democracy and human rights.
Critics contend the UfM was overly concerned with regional security and economic partnership at the expense of human rights, including the right to freedom of expression. For example, in spring 2010, the EU began negotiations with Tunisia on advanced status within the European Neighbourhood Policy, with clear economic benefits for the country, even though, at the same time, the Ben Ali regime was clamping down on freedom of expression. Ben Ali’s government even introduced a draconian NGO law during the period of the advanced status talks, in an attempt to prevent Tunisian activists from lobbying the EU to be tougher on human rights issues. As a result, even with the new “three Ms” strategy, the EU and its member states suffer from a legacy credibility problem in the region and are often seen as former allies of repressive regimes.
The EU has continued to lack unity on the use of conditionality to enhance political and human rights reform. Germany, Finland and the Netherlands have generally been more supportive of this reform, whereas Italy and Portugal are less keen on penalising countries for failing to introduce reform. According to a survey of over 700 experts initiated by the European Commission, both the UfM and the EU have failed to deliver the expectations of key regional actors, 93% of those interviewed called on the EU to have a greater role in the region. The survey indicated that Turkey was perceived as the most active country in the region on the promotion of human rights, ahead of the US, followed by all EU countries combined.
In its near neighbourhood, the EU has had mixed levels of success in promoting freedom of expression. Enlargement continues to be the most effective tool at the EU’s disposal in incentivising countries to improve their domestic situation for freedom of expression. With enlargement slowing, this leverage may diminish and other levels have become important. Therefore, it is arguable that the Eastern Partnership and southern neighbourhood policy are test cases for how effective the EU can be beyond enlargement. Yet, with key regional actors in both the eastern and southern neighbourhoods all too aware of the EU’s failings, and with expectations high as to what the EU can achieve, ensuring these policies are strategic and sustained in their demands for freedom of expression is essential.
2 Jan 2014 | News and features, Politics and Society
Activists are continually harassed and punished for standing up and speaking out about social and political issues they feel are unjust in their country. Here are five activists whose government didn’t quite like what they had to say.
Raif Badawi- Saudi blogger punished after calling for ‘day of liberalism’
It would seem absurd to most people that “liking” a Facebook page could land you in jail. However, that was one of the crimes charged against Raif Badawi after he “liked” an Arab Christian page on the social networking site. The young co-founder of the Liberal Saudi Network, a website that has since been shut down, was arrested in June 2012 for “insulting Islam through electronic channels”, including insulting Islam and portraying disobedience.
In January, a court had refused to hear apostasy charges against Badawi, concluding that there was no case. Apostasy carries the death sentence in Saudi Arabia. He has since been sentenced to 600 lashes and seven years in jail.
Eskinder Nega- Ethiopian blogger
Eskinder Nega is a well-known name in Ethiopia whose journalism has been recognised by major organisations globally; he is currently serving 18 years in jail for supposedly violating the country’s anti-terrorism legislation.
Nega was arrested in September 2011 after publishing, somewhat ironically, an article criticising his government’s detainment of journalists as suspected terrorists, in particular the arrest of Ethiopian actor and government critic Debebe Eshetu . Along with 23 others, he was then convicted of having links with US-based opposition group Ginbot Seven, an organisation Ethiopia had recently added to its list of terrorists.
This is not the first time Nega has been imprisoned for speaking out in defense human rights. Meles Zenawi’s government handed him a total of eight sentences over the past decade. He is also not the only journalist to face prosecution under the Ethiopian government. According to the Amnesty Annual Report 2013 a number of journalists and political opposition members were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on terrorism charges for calling for reform, criticizing the government, or for links with peaceful protest movements. Much of the evidence used against these individuals consisted of examples of them exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association.
Shi Tao- Stung by Yahoo in China
2013 was a good year for Shi Tao; the Chinese reporter was finally released after documents leaked by Yahoo to his government saw him spend the past eight and a half years behind bars.
Tao sent details of a government memo about restrictions on news coverage of the Tiananmen Square massacre anniversary to a human rights forum in the United States. He was subsequently arrested in 2004 and sentenced the following year charged with disclosing state secrets.
Reporters Without Borders said the branch of Yahoo in Hong Kong assisted the Chinese government in linking Shi Tao’s email account to the message containing the information he had sent abroad. Yahoo was heavily criticised at the time by human rights activists and U.S. legislators with Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo, publicly apologising to Shi Tao’s family.
Tao was released 15 months before the end of us 10 year restriction. It is unclear why his early release occurred.
Ngo Hao- Vietnamese blogger
You’re never too old to go to prison as 65-year-old activist Ngo Hao found out after he was handed 15 year sentence earlier this year on charges of attempting to overthrow the Vietnamese government. Accused of writing and circulating false and defamatory information about his government and its leaders, Hao was arrested in February. Further accusations included a peaceful attempt to instil an Arab Spring-style revolution and of working with dissident group Bloc 8406.
Reporters Without Borders criticised Hao’s trial for a lack of his right to a fair defence and the unwillingness to allow any family members to attend the hearing asides from his son.
Just weeks before an appeal court in the south of the country also sentenced two bloggers, Nguyen Phuong Uyen and Dinh Nguyen Kha. This takes the estimated total of bloggers behind bars in Vietnam to 36.
Jabeur Mejri- Tunisian blogger seven and a half years for posting on Facebook
After the 2011 Arab Spring many Tunisian bloggers were able to express themselves freely; a stark contrast to the censorship, arrest and jail they had come to expect under the rule of former President Ben Ali. One such blogger was Jabeur Mejri who, in March 2012, posted a cartoon of the Prophet Mohamed on his Facebook page, a post that sentenced the blogger to over seven years in jail for “attacking sacred values through actions or words” and “undermining public morals”.
The rise of ‘opinion trials’ has become a concern to many with Mejri being the first person sent to jail under the procedure. Lina Ben Mhenni told Amnesty International: “You can go to jail for a word or an idea. ‘Opinion trials’ have become part of our daily lives. As in many other countries, Tunisia’s taboo topics are religion and politics. You can’t criticize the government in general or the Islamists in particular.”
