08 Mar 21 | News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116379″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]I was a teenage journalism student when I first discovered the magnificent Nellie Bly.
It was my first week at university in Northern Ireland and my tutor handed each person in our class a list of suggested books to read for the upcoming term.
When scouring the shelves of the campus library, I stumbled across ‘Cupcakes and Kalashnikovs’, a book which, 15 years later, I still pick up and flick through when I need a dose of inspiration.
Put together by the wonderful Eleanor Mills and Kira Cochrane, it is one of the first detailed collections of groundbreaking and history-making journalism by women over the last 100 years.
It includes powerful pieces such as Martha Gellhorn’s ‘Dachau’; Audre Lorde’s haunting ‘That Summer I left Childhood was White’ and the late Ruth Picardie’s deeply emotive, and last ever, Observer column, ‘Before I Say Goodbye’.
It was in this breathtaking anthology that I found Nellie, a fierce female who trailblazed her way through newspaper journalism and paved the way for female investigative reporters around the world.
Born Elizabeth Jane Cochrane in 1864, she began her career after her parents’ deaths by writing a letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Dispatch.
That letter – signed simply ‘Lonely Orphan Girl’ – piqued George Madden so much, he immediately hired her.
It was Madden who suggested she change her name to Nellie Bly, taken from a popular Stephen Foster song at that time, and the rest, they say, is history.
From the moment she entered journalism, Nellie refused to conform.
Instead of writing about society gatherings and parties, a genre many women journalists were pigeonholed at that time, she sunk her teeth into social issues affecting women, from divorce laws to factory working conditions.
When working for the New York World in 1888, she feigned insanity to be committed into an asylum where she lived side by side with vulnerable women to expose the horrific, rat-infested and abusive conditions they were incarcerated in.
Her fearless piece, ‘Ten Days in a Madhouse’ led to the City of New York spending an extra $1,000,000 per annum on the care of those with serious mental health issues. She risked her freedom and her welfare for the truth.
She saw it as a small price to pay to highlight injustice, particularly for women who at that time didn’t even have the right to vote.
It’s been over 100 years since Nellie Bly penned her last article, but the bravery, tenacity, and resilience she showed back then still inspires me today.
In her own words: “I said I could and I would. And I did.”
Timeless.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
08 Mar 21 | China, Cuba, Hong Kong, Media Freedom, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Saudi Arabia, Turkey
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116366″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]West Wing writer Aaron Sorkin has taken another foray into the world of American politics with The Trial of the Chicago 7, starring Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne and Mark Rylance. The film delves into the trial of seven activists arrested for inciting violence during clashes with police that resulted from protests against the Vietnam War at the 1968 Democratic National Convention; it is a reminder of the importance of a fair trial.
Similar in tone, then, to BAFTA’s best film nominee The Mauritanian (pictured above) and the story of Mohamedou Ould Salahi.
Salahi was imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay due to perceived connections with terrorist group al-Qaeda for more than 14 years without charge until his eventual release in 2016.
In 2005, Salahi wrote a memoir that was eventually published in 2015 with numerous redactions and is the basis of the film.
Forty prisoners still remain at the camp and most have not been charged or tried with any crime. Despite this, as the film shows, legal challenges are deliberately stifled for political purposes.
President Joe Biden has committed to close the camp by the time he leaves office.
There are several recent documentaries that celebrate the crucial work of investigative journalists.
Collective is remarkable film about corruption and political cover-up at the heart of Romanian institutions.
In 2015, a fire broke out at Colectiv night club in Bucharest, resulting in the deaths of 64 people. Hospitals were overwhelmed by the casualties and the deaths of 13 of the victims were attributed to bacterial infections that arose from being treated with watered down disinfectant used to save money. The story would have been forgotten had it not been for the tireless work of a daily sports newspaper. The ordeal exposed corruption and corner-cutting that fuelled anger on the streets of Romania. Protests eventually led to the resignation of Prime Minister Victor Ponta.
During the film, lead investigator for the paper Catalin Tolontan says of the situation: “When the press bows down to authorities, the authorities will mistreat the citizens.”
Collective is an insight into how teams of journalists break such stories
Athlete A is another testament to the power of investigative journalism.
Over recent years, numerous scandals have revealed the toxic atmospheres of some elite sports teams. None more so, perhaps, than the sexual abuse of US gymnasts shown in Athlete A. The Indianapolis Star helped uncover victims’ stories of sexual abuse by USA team gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, who was found to have assaulted at least 265 girls over a period of two decades. The film’s title refers to Maggie Nichols, the gymnast who reported her experiences in 2015, only to be dropped from the 2016 Olympics team shortly after.
Collective and Athlete A highlight the lengths governments and organisations will go to keep quiet such scandals.
More extreme examples can lead to deaths, such as the brutal killing of Jamal Khashoggi, investigated in The Dissident.
Khashoggi was a US-based journalist and columnist for the Washington Post and was murdered inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. The CIA eventually determined the killing was premeditated and ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
After its release in January 2020, producer Thor Halvorssen alleged there were attempts by “Saudi-backed trolls” to reduce its score on film-rating sites IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes to below 70 per cent.
“The moment you drop under 70 per cent, your film is essentially dead,” Halvorsson told Variety at the time. “People who follow individual critics will watch it; but the regular public will not.”
Public pressure that arises as a result of the revelations of the press are important, democratic displays of dissent. Their value is emphasised when authorities try to take away such expression.
Protests over a proposed extradition law allowing people in Hong Kong to be sent for trial in mainland China began in 2019. The law was met with such hostility by people in Hong Kong, that China eventually brought in the controversial National Security Law, criminalising any act of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with external forces.
The citizens of Hong Kong have suffered under the law, as have the press. On 6 January, 53 pro-democracy activists were arrested by Chinese authorities.
Do Not Split – which takes its name from a Cantonese phrase which translates loosely as “Do not split, do not divide, do not snitch on others” – follows the course of the early protests up to the imposition of the law that now threatens freedom in Hong Kong.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”581″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
12 Feb 21 | Opinion, Ruth's blog, Saudi Arabia
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]One thousand and one days.
Twenty-four thousand and twenty-four hours.
One million, four hundred and forty-one thousand, four hundred and forty minutes.
It’s almost impossible to imagine. Sitting in a cell, in horrendous conditions, knowing that as a woman you are especially vulnerable in a Saudi jail – a target for abuse and harassment. Whippings and electric shocks are a regular part of your day-to-day life. Your family are barred from visiting for months at a time and every move you make is being monitored and reported on. You’re battered and bruised.
Every time you show dissent another charge added to your ‘crimes’. And that’s before accounting for the fear of contracting Covid, of knowing that your health and wellbeing is the last thing in the world your captors care about.
But that’s been the life that Loujain al-Hathloul has had for nearly three years, detained in a high security prison in Saudi Arabia. Her ‘crime’ was to be a women’s rights advocate. Campaigning for a woman’s right to drive a car. Her bravery in these cruelest of environments is nothing more than inspirational. Which is why so many of you sent her a message at the end of 2020 – to give her strength.
She and her family refused to back down. She has led a hunger strike. She has refused to plead guilty. She has remained resolute. She is a heroine. And she is finally at home.
But this won’t be the end of story. She faces huge restrictions on her civil liberties including a five-year travel ban. Less than 48 hours after her release we don’t know how she is going to be treated by the Saudi Government but we do know that she will refuse to be silenced.
There are too many activists still imprisoned in Saudi for demanding their basic human rights. Too many women being held as political prisoners. Too many activists who just want to build a fairer society. Loujain’s release gives everyone hope, just a little. Hope that the future may be different, hope that you really can make a difference.
Loujain – we’re so pleased you are home with your family. Now we need to guarantee your freedom and that of the other women still sitting in cells across Saudi Arabia.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”41669″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
19 Jan 21 | News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116064″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]When prompted to accept the privacy terms on a website do you just accept, or do you take time to manage your settings?
“If you’re like me, you end up rage-quitting the settings halfway through and you end up just clicking ‘accept’ because you’re frustrated, and you just wanted the chocolate brownie recipe,” confessed Rebecca Rumbul, a privacy rights campaigner with the Privacy Collective.
It’s a split-second decision but it can determine whether or not third-party cookies will sit on your browser indefinitely, tracking you as you browse from page to page. Third-party cookies don’t offer you or your device any functional assistance. They are there to collect information about you, primarily for marketing purposes.
“They create this horrifically complex massive profile that has a scary number of data points on you,” explained Rumbul. “And that’s a concern because I don’t know how that information is going to be used against me, used to put things in front of me, or used to decide things for me.”
Not only are many of these cookies unnecessary and invasive, but Rumbul and the Privacy Collective say that they are in breach of European data protection law (GDPR). That’s why they are now taking legal action against two of the largest players in the ad-tech space: Oracle and Salesforce.
“It’s absolutely the case that we believe these companies have been misusing personal data and misusing the way they collect information and process it,” Rumbul said. “We’re not saying they are necessarily the absolute worst offenders. The reason for going for them is because they are so huge, and their cookies are so widely placed that it affects a lot a lot of people and these organisations are the highest value players so they can afford to fight this and to pay compensation if we win.”
The legal action is being taken in the UK (England and Wales) and in the Netherlands. “The cases are fundamentally the same – they hinge on the same legal points,” explained Rumbul, who is the representative claimant for the London lawsuit. “I’m able to be the representative claimant because I’m careless enough to have these cookies on my system. I still click on the ‘accept all’ automatically before thinking about it.”
As a representative action, the lawsuit is being taken on behalf of everyone in England and Wales who has been affected by Salesforce’s and Oracle’s tracking cookies. If the lawsuit is successful, the Privacy Collective will divide the compensation among those affected. “What we’re roughly calculating is that every single person that was affected should get around €500,” Rumbul said, who will get her €500 the same as everyone else. “It’s not going to be very much money on an individual basis, but hopefully the hit to the wallets of these organisations will send ripples through the ad-tech industry.”
Raising awareness for the lawsuit is therefore crucially important, not only so people might eventually be able to apply for their share of the compensation, but so that they have an opportunity to show their support for the case. “We would love more people to engage with the issue, but in terms of a quick win, getting people to click the ‘like to support’ button on our website would be great,” Rumbul said
The Privacy Collective will need to demonstrate that, by and large, people are unaware that they are losing control of their data by accepting these tracking cookies. “Under GDPR you’re supposed to be able to consent and that consent is supposed to be informed,” explained Rumbul. “You cannot exercise your legal rights if you’ve lost control of your own information.”
“Loss of control is a real harm in itself and in violation of the GDPR, and loss of control of your personal data essentially leaves you vulnerable to a multitude of other harms,” Rumbul explained, giving the example of the harm that a barrage of adverts for baby products might cause to a woman who has just suffered a miscarriage. “Or the loss of control of my data, for instance, may result in me paying higher premiums for car insurance,” she said.
These cookies also have the potential to curtail other rights, given that privacy is a gateway for other civil liberties, especially freedom of expression. “The more people become aware of how much of their own data is being hoovered up, the more careful they feel like they have to be about what they do online and how restrictive the online environment becomes. Freedom of expression is very, very difficult when you have literally no idea what people are doing with your data.”
That’s why Index on Censorship is among the organisations supporting The Privacy Collective’s legal actions. Online privacy must be guaranteed in order for freedom of expression to thrive.
Individual internet users are also invited to support simply by clicking the ‘like to support’ button on The Privacy Collective’s website or by contacting The Privacy Collective: [email protected].[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
