Join notable free-thinkers from around the world for a weekend of discussions and debates on freedom of conscience and expression in the 21st century at a spectacular venue in central London during 22-23 July 2017.
On 24 July, an activist strategy meeting will be followed by body-painting in support of ex-Muslims, which will be open to the public.
The two-day conference will discuss censorship and blasphemy laws, freedom of and from religion, apostasy, the limits of religion’s role in society, LGBT and women’s rights, atheism, secular values and more.
Speakers from countries or the Diaspora as diverse as Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Canada, Egypt, France, India, Iran, Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan, Ireland, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, Tunisia, UK, Ukraine, US and Yemen will gather in London to defend freedom of conscience and expression and argue that freedoms are not western but universal.
The conference will highlight the voices of people on the frontlines of resistance – many of them persecuted and exiled – as well as address challenges faced by activists and freethinkers, elaborate on the links between democratic politics and free expression and conscience, promote secular and rights-based alternatives, and establish priorities for collective action.
Art and culture will be integral to the event as will lively debate with the dauntless use of the free word.
Confirmed Distinguished Speakers:
A C Grayling, Philosopher
Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, Egyptian Feminist Activist
Alya Al-Sultani, British-Iraqi Vocalist and Composer
Ani Zonneveld, Founder and President of Muslims for Progressive Values
Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker, Co-Presidents of the Freedom From Religion Foundation
Armin Navabi, Founder of Atheist Republic
Asher Fainman, President of Goldsmiths Atheist Society
Benjamin David, Editor-in-Chief of Conatus News
Bonya Ahmed, Activist, Writer and Blogger at Mukto-Mona
Cemal Knudsen Yucel, Co-Founder and Chair of Ex-Muslims of Norway
Chris Moos, Secular Activist
Damon Conlan and Neil Edwards, Magicians
Dave Silverman, President of American Atheists
Deeyah Khan, Filmmaker
Djemila Benhabib, Author and Activist
Elham Manea, Yemeni-born Author and Human Rights Campaigner
Fariborz Pooya, Bread and Roses TV Presenter and Editor
Fauzia Ilyas, Founder of Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan
Gina Khan, One Law for All Spokesperson
Gita Sahgal, Director of Centre for Secular Space
Gona Saed, Co-Founder of Kurdistan Secular Centre
Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, Award-winning Playwright
Halima Begum, Ex-Muslim Feminist Researcher and Blogger
Hassan Radwan, Agnostic Muslim Khutbahs blog
Houzan Mahmoud, Culture Project Co-Founder
Imad Iddine Habib, Founder of Council of Ex-Muslims of Morocco
Inna Shevchenko, FEMEN Leader
Iram Ramzan, Journalist and Founder of Sedaa
Ismail Mohamed, Egyptian Atheist and Founder of Black Ducks Talk Show
Jane Donnelly and Michael Nugent, Atheist Ireland’s Human Rights Officer and Chairperson
Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of Index on Censorship
Karima Bennoune, UN Special Rapporteur in the Field of Cultural Rights
Karrar D. Al Asfoor, Co-founder of Atheist Alliance Middle East and North Africa
Kate Smurthwaite, Comedian
Kenan Malik, Author and Broadcaster
London Humanist Choir
Maajid Nawaz, Founding Chairman of Quilliam Foundation
Marieme Helie Lucas, Algerian Sociologist and Founder of Secularism is a Women’s Issue
Mario Ramadan, Co-Founder of Freethought Lebanon
Maryam Namazie, Iranian-born Rights Activist, Writer and Conference Organiser
Nadia El Fani, Tunisian Filmmaker
Nasreen Rehman, Co-Founder and Chair of British Muslims for Secular Democracy
Nina Sankari, Polish Atheist Activist
Noura Embabi, Muslim-ish President
Peter Tatchell, Human Rights Campaigner
Pragna Patel, Director of Southall Black Sisters
Rana Ahmad, Head of the RDF Arab Atheist Community
Rayhana Sultan, ExMuslimBecause
Richard Dawkins, Author and Scientist (subject to availability)
Sadia Hameed, Spokesperson of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain
Sanal Edamaruku, Founder and President of Rationalist International
Sarah Haider, Co-Founder of Ex-Muslims of North America
Sarah Peace, Nigerian Artist and Director of Fireproof Library
Savin Bapir Tardy, Counselling Psychologist for The Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation
Shabana Rehman, Performance Artist and Human and Animal Rights Advocate
Shelley Segal, Singer/Songwriter
Tasneem Khalil, Swedish-Bangladeshi Journalist and Editor of Independent World Report
Teresa Gimenez Barbat, MEP, Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and Euromind
Victoria Gugenheim, Award-winning Body Artist
Waleed Al Husseini, Palestinian Writer and Founder of Council of Ex-Muslims of France
Yasmine Mohammed, Confessions of an ExMuslim
Yasmin Rehman, Women’s Rights Campaigner
Zehra Pala, President of Atheism Association of Turkey
Zineb El Rhazoui, Moroccan-born Columnist for Charlie Hebdo
The conference is sponsored by: Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe; Atheist International Alliance; Bread and Roses TV; Center for Inquiry; Centre for Secular Space; Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain; Culture Project; Euromind; Equal Rights Now; Fitnah; Freedom from Religion Foundation; National Secular Society; One Law for All; Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science; Southall Black Sisters; and Secularism is a Women’s Issue.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
This non-exhaustive study of threats to media freedom in the United States researched over 150 publicly reported incidents involving journalists. It uses the criteria developed for and employed by Mapping Media Freedom, Index on Censorship’s project launched in May 2014 that monitors the media landscape in 42 European and neighboring countries. This survey reviewed media freedom violations that occurred in the United States between June 30, 2016, and February 28, 2017.
Reports were submitted by a team of researchers. Each incident was then fact-checked by Index on Censorship against multiple sources.
Index on Censorship is a UK-based nonprofit that campaigns against censorship and promotes freedom of expression worldwide. Founded in 1972, Index has published some of the world’s leading writers and artists in its award-winning quarterly magazine, including Nadine Gordimer, Mario Vargas Llosa, Samuel Beckett and Kurt Vonnegut. Index promotes debate, monitors threats to free speech and supports individuals through its annual awards and fellowship program.
Acknowledgements
Author: Sally Gimson Editor: Sean Gallagher
Research: Hannah Machlin, Elise Thomas, Amanda James, Laura Stevens, Alex Gibson, Gary Dickson, Courtney Manning, Madeline Domenichella
Additional research/editing: Ryan McChrystal, Melody Patry, Atticus O’Brien-Pappalardo, Esther Egbeyemi, Samuele Volpe, Jemimah Steinfeld
Smears about the media made by US President Donald Trump have obscured a wider problem with press freedom in the United States: namely widespread and low-level animosity that feeds into the everyday working lives of the nation’s journalists, bloggers and media professionals. This study examines documented reports from across the country in the six months leading up to the presidential inauguration and the months after. It clearly shows that threats to US press freedom go well beyond the Oval Office.
“Animosity toward the press comes in many forms. Journalists are targeted in several ways: from social media trolling to harassment by law enforcement to over-the-top public criticism by those in the highest office. The negative atmosphere for journalists is damaging for the public and their right to information,” said Jodie Ginsberg, CEO at Index on Censorship, which documented the cases using an approach undertaken by the organization to monitor press freedom in Europe over the past three years.
The US study shows journalists have been on the receiving end of online and offline harassment, as well as being arrested and charged with criminal offenses just for doing their job.
Reporters traveling into the country have also been caught up in the move to tighten border security, a trend that began during President Barack Obama’s administration but gathered pace after the Trump inauguration on January 20, 2017. Without clear guidelines, journalists have found themselves at the mercy of Customs and Border Protection agents who have seized and searched their electronic devices.
The arrests and border searches come as states are introducing new legislation or interpreting older laws in ways likely to have a detrimental effect on reporting.
For citizen reporters and freelancers, who do not have the protection of media organizations, the climate was already hostile and is now becoming more so. As the experience of Gawker has shown, even large media websites can be driven out of business if they rile the rich and powerful.
“Attention on the media has focused on the very public spat between Donald Trump and major news outlets,” Melody Patry, head of advocacy at Index on Censorship, said. “But this survey shows that threats to media freedom are far more deep-rooted and affect local journalists, bloggers and investigative reporters across the country. This is a serious cause for concern in a country that prides itself on the First Amendment principles protecting a free press.”
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The arrest of journalists covering demonstrations poses one of the largest direct threats to the freedom of reporters performing their professional duties. Not only are they physically removed from the protests but they are also being charged with serious criminal offenses. Previously journalists may have been charged with misdemeanors – the most serious of which only carries a large fine or up to a year in prison. Now they are being charged with felonies, which can carry decades in jail.
“This trend towards treating reporters at protests as active participants is alarming. Although these charges are most often dropped, the continuing arrests could cause journalists to think twice about covering a demonstration or reporting on police abuses against participants,” Hannah Machlin, project officer for Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom, said.
This pattern did not begin with the election of Trump. These decisions were also taken during the Obama administration by local law enforcement agencies and state attorneys.
Six journalists who were covering protests at Trump’s inauguration were arrested in the capital and charged with felonies, the most severe punishment under Washington DC’s law against rioting.
They included two reporters, a documentary producer, a photojournalist, a live-streamer and a freelance reporter. However, charges against four of the journalists were dropped nine days later. Charges against videographer Shay Horse were dismissed on February 21. Only freelance reporter Aaron Cantu remains charged with felony rioting.
Other examples of reporters targeted during protests include those covering the Dakota Access Pipeline and Black Lives Matter demonstrations discussed in more detail below.
More incidents suggest law enforcement officers need training and directives to respect journalists’ rights to cover events – like the case of Chris Hayes, a Fox 2 St. Louis journalist, who on June 30, 2016, was handcuffed and shackled to a bench in Kinloch, Missouri. He was detained after objecting to being barred from a public meeting on uninsured and unregistered police cars, a story that Fox 2 had originally investigated. Hayes was issued a court summons for failure to comply and disorderly conduct.
North Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and associated protests
Several journalists and documentary filmmakers covering protests against the controversial oil pipeline project have been arrested and charged with felonies.
Among journalists arrested and charged were Amy Goodman, host of the news program Democracy Now! She was taken into custody on September 3, 2016, after she filmed private security guards employed by Dakota Access LLC using dogs and pepper spray to disperse the protests against construction work. Her video has been viewed over 14 million times on Facebook. At first Goodman was charged with a misdemeanor offense of criminal trespass, but that was escalated by the state attorney to a rioting felony. A district judge finally dismissed the charges in October.
In another pipeline protest, documentary filmmaker Deia Schlosberg was detained while filming a demonstration on October 11, 2016, where climate change activists manually closed off the TransCanada Keystone Pipeline in Walhalla, North Dakota, which brings tar sands oil across the border from Canada. It was one of five similar demonstrations that day held by climate change activists as an act of solidarity with the campaign against the DAPL. Schlosberg was charged with three offenses which could have landed her in prison for 45 years: conspiracy to theft of property, conspiracy to theft of services and conspiracy to tampering with or damaging a public service. The charges were eventually suspended and will be formally dropped, but only if she commits no further crimes for six months. Schlosberg told The Guardian that she hasn’t covered a protest since October to avoid serious consequences were she to be arrested again, demonstrating the effect that such actions can have on journalism.
Though neither Grayzel nor Davis were on pipeline property, they were charged with second-degree burglary, criminal sabotage and assemblage of saboteurs, all felony cases which could lead to a 30-year prison sentence. The charges were ultimately dismissed, but Grayzel said the police still had her memory cards with footage on them, her phone and her notes.
The charges against other filmmakers, who also filmed activists on October 11, are still pending and they could still face prison sentences.
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TRACIE WILLIAMS
Tracie Williams is an experienced documentary photographer. She had been covering the main protest camp at Standing Rock for three weeks before she was arrested on February 23, 2017, during a police operation to evict protesters from the site. She says the police arrived at the camp with humvees, helicopters and automatic weapons. “I feared for the protesters’ safety and felt a duty to photograph their imminent arrests,” Williams said, recalling the photograph she made as members of the Morton County Sheriff’s Department advanced towards two men praying near the sacred fire with weapons aimed at them at point-blank range. Officers approached her from the side, without notice or warning, Williams said, and she was arrested while photographing the arrests. She was covering the protest for the National Press Photographers’ Association and told police she was a journalist, but they did not seem to care, she added.
Williams was handcuffed with zip ties and transported first to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department, where she, along with seven other women were held in chain-link cages in a drafty garage. They were asked to strip down to their base layers and all their belongings, including their jackets, were placed in clear plastic bags. They were then transferred to McLean County, where they were charged with “Obstruction of Gov. Function.” The plastic ties they used to handcuff her, she said, have caused her nerve damage. She now faces a class A misdemeanor charge, which carries a possible sentence of up to a year in prison and $3K in fines. All of her gear including her camera, phone, audio recorder and memory cards, were confiscated as evidence. Williams got the equipment back but not until she had harnessed help from two lawyers, several advocacy groups and a local senator. She is still facing charges in North Dakota.
Journalists at Black Lives Matter and similar demonstrations have been arrested by police, even though they clearly identified themselves as members of the press.
Kailath said of his experience: “I was transferred between six locations, searched naked, given an orange jumpsuit and a medical and mental health screening, and finally checked in to the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison. In the morning, we were given the local paper, The Advocate. It was only when an inmate paging through it looked up at me and said: ‘Hey, you’re in here!’ that I learned I was being charged with simple obstruction of a highway.” Within the week all charges against him had been dropped.
I was transferred between six locations, searched naked, given an orange jumpsuit and a medical and mental health screening, and finally checked in to the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison
Two black reporters were briefly handcuffed by police in Rochester, New York during similar protests over the shooting of black men. Carlet Cleare and Justin Carter of WHAM-TV were detained in the early hours of July 9, 2016, for a short time before being released with a public apology from the mayor and chief of police.
On November 9, 2016, two reporters, Jason Silverstein and EJ Fox, were arrested while covering protests outside Trump Tower in New York. Silverstein said in an article for the Daily News, New York that he was handcuffed with plastic ties by a police officer who accused him of blocking the sidewalk. He was charged with disorderly conduct and refusing an order to disperse. Fox said he was held from 9pm until 2am and considered himself lucky, but hoped that the behavior of the NYPD had not been affected by the Trump presidency.
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US border detentions
Many journalists have found themselves detained at the US border. Over the period covered by the survey, there were several reports of journalists being stopped by US Customs and Border Protection agents, detained and asked to hand over equipment and notes. Some of these incidents occurred before Trump was elected and before he signed an executive order for a travel ban. According to NBC News, data provided by the Department of Homeland Security shows that searches of all travelers’ phones by border agents has grown fivefold in just one year, from fewer than 5,000 in 2015 to nearly 25,000 in 2016. DHS officials told the network that 2017 would be a “blockbuster” year. Some 5,000 devices were searched in February 2017 alone, as many as in all of 2015.
Customs and Border Protection officials should respect the right of journalists to protect confidential information, and refrain from demanding access to people’s devices and passwords
In one incident, a Wall Street Journal Middle East correspondent and US citizen, Maria Abi-Habib, was detained on July 14, 2016, by border control officers at Los Angeles International Airport and asked for access to her two phones. She recounted in a Facebook post how she managed to hold them off by threatening to call WSJ lawyers because the phones were the property of her employer. Another journalist, Kim Badawi, was held at Miami International Airport for 10 hours when he flew in from Rio for Thanksgiving. A US citizen who works for Le Monde in Rio, Badawi was questioned by Customs and Border Protection agents about his passport stamps for Middle Eastern countries, his political views and his religious affiliation. His baggage was searched and he was forced to surrender the password of his phone so agents could go through all of his contacts, photos and messages, including confidential WhatsApp messages from Syrian refugees. Badawi wrote a first-person account of his experience for the Huffington Post.
After the travel ban was imposed in January, more journalists found themselves detained. BBC journalist Ali Hamedani, a British citizen born in Iran, live tweeted his detention. He was held for two hours on January 29, 2017, and said he was subjected to “invasive checks” after he had flown into Chicago. Hamedani said he was forced to hand over his phone and its password. Sama Dizayee, a Washington-based Iraqi journalist who planned to fly to London in February 2017, told NPR she was afraid to travel because of her belief that she might not be allowed back in the country. Although she has a green card, she said, she had no certainty that her rights to live in the USA would be guaranteed if she left and tried to come back into the country. Meanwhile, senior CNN editor Mohammed Tawfeeq filed a lawsuit against the travel ban after being detained at Atlanta’s airport over the weekend of January 28 and 29, the days following Trump’s signing of the travel ban executive order. He is an Iraqi citizen with a US green card. The lawsuit argued that officials have used Trump’s executive order “to subject returning residents like Mr. Tawfeeq to inappropriate exercises of discretion with regard to their right to return to the United States, and to lengthy delays and interrogations at ports of entry”.
“Officials should respect the right of journalists to protect confidential information and refrain from demanding access to people’s devices, online accounts and passwords. Journalists must be aware of possible requests by border agents, which may compromise their security and that of their sources,” Mapping Media Freedom’s Machlin said.
[/vc_column_text][vc_separator color=”black” style=”dashed”][vc_row_inner css=”.vc_custom_1493046167981{background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}”][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1493047187785{margin-left: -117px !important;border-left-width: -117px !important;padding-left: -117px !important;}”][/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]CASE STUDY
ED OU
Ed Ou, an award-winning Canadian photojournalist, tried to cross the US-Canadian border to cover the Dakota Access Pipeline protests on October 1, 2016. He found himself detained for six hours, had his phone searched, his journal photocopied and was then refused entry. Border security was not interested in Ou’s concerns about protecting his sources. In a letter to Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security, American Civil Liberties Union attorney Hugh Handeyside wrote: “[W]e believe that CBP took advantage of Mr. Ou’s application for admission to engage in an opportunistic fishing expedition for sensitive and confidential information that Mr. Ou had gathered through his newsgathering activities in Turkey, Somalia, Iraq and elsewhere.”
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On October 18, 2016, in North Dakota, activists at the Sacred Stone Camp were accused of assaulting journalist Phelim McAleer, who was making a documentary called FrackNation in favor of fracking. His microphone was taken away and he was assaulted after he asked DAPL protesters about their use of fossil fuels. When McAleer and colleagues went back to their car, a group of about 30 individuals surrounded the vehicle and the journalists were forced to call the police for help.
During separate protests in north Baltimore on the evening of November 9, Fox45 reporter Keith Daniels and photographer Ruth Morton had to be moved to safety by police. An angry crowd had surrounded them and ordered them to leave the scene. The end of the encounter was broadcast live on Fox45. Daniels reported that this had never happened to him before. The crowd had told him they did not believe that he would put the “correct narrative” on his coverage.
“Journalist safety must be taken extremely seriously by law enforcement. Whether the perpetrators of violence are police officers or private citizens, violence against journalists, cases of robbery or harassment must be investigated vigorously and charges filed promptly to ensure that a culture of impunity is unable to take root,” Mapping Media Freedom’s Machlin said.
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DALTON BENNETT
Dalton Bennett, a video reporter for the Washington Post, has experience covering demonstrations all over the world, from Greece to the Arab Spring. He was filming demonstrators on inauguration day when he was pushed over and grabbed by a police officer. Most of the protesters were peaceful, he said, but a smaller group of black bloc protesters were causing trouble, which was unusual for Washington DC. At one point during the protest “all hell was breaking loose” and the police began using pepper spray and stun grenades before kettling the protesters.
“In the process of getting kettled, we’re filming it, which is what a video reporter is supposed to be doing, and a police officer felt that I was too close, and decided to get me away from the situation and so pushed me,” Bennett said. “My backpack was being grabbed and I was pushed by another guy and fell to the ground in the process. I wouldn’t say it was a concerted effort to prevent us from capturing the moment, there were a lot of journalists there. I think it was, more than anything, just a police officer, just authorities generally caught up in this ebb and flow of the demonstration. I mean I don’t think it was done out of malice, or to prevent us reporting. That being said, I don’t think it was necessary at all, it definitely wasn’t necessary, and the city itself has issued a report saying some of its tactics weren’t exactly kosher.”
Bennett doesn’t believe the right to film protests is under threat in the USA, but he said: “Inevitably as more and more protests happen across the country, this is a question which is going to continue to arise. I think the only solution is a greater awareness of both media organizations and police departments on the role that the media plays in covering these protests and better practice among media organizations, [understanding] how demonstrations work, how to keep safe covering the protest.”
However, current US libel laws have already led to one news organization, Gawker, closing after a lawsuit alleging the site had invaded the privacy of a celebrity.
Most criminal charges against media professionals have been related to journalists caught up in protests, which we have detailed above.
However, there is another worrying case of a publisher from Blue Ridge, Georgia, and his attorney, who were arrested on June 24, 2016, for requesting public records. They were charged with three felonies – identity fraud, attempted identity fraud and making a false statement on an open records request – which carries up to 20 years in prison. Fannin Focus publisher, Mark Thomason, said he was held for two days before being granted bail, but only after a $10,000 bond had been posted. An outcry in the national press led to the charges being dismissed three weeks later. Thomason and attorney Russell Stookey were charged in part because they requested copies of checks written on the operating accounts of the judge’s office, which were “cashed illegally”. Chief Judge Brenda Weaver, who presides in the three-county Appalachian Judicial Circuit, had urged the district attorney to seek an indictment. Weaver, who was in control of one of those accounts, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution she pushed for the case because “I don’t react well when my honesty is questioned.” She was eventually forced to resign.
“US libel law has long been a model for the rest of the world. Lowering the burden of proof or otherwise loosening restrictions on lawsuits would pose a serious threat to press freedom in the country. At the same time, the misuse of the criminal justice system to silence journalists is a common occurrence in some European countries. This is not something that journalists in the USA should be exposed to,” Index’s Patry said.
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What laws are passed and how the law is interpreted can have an impact on journalists’ ability to report. Even when laws are not intended to restrict access to public information, they can be used to do so.
For instance, the so-called Marsy’s Law, which protects victims’ rights, has been enacted by some states. Although not its original intention, the law is being used by police forces in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to justify withholding all information about crime locations, car accidents and crash victims in the area from journalists, according to a report in the Argus Leader on December 4, 2016. Journalists and others argue the law states that information should only be withheld “on request of the victim” and so a blanket ban on information is not justified. Similar laws have now been passed in North Dakota and Montana.
“Even well-intentioned laws can have a deleterious effect on journalists. In the case of Utah, the proposed legislation could penalize reporters doing investigative pieces around animal welfare and food safety. Even the Humane Society of the United States has expressed reservations about the draft bill,” Index’s Patry said.
The other pattern that is emerging concerns journalists who, all over the country, are being asked to hand over unpublished documents they have used in investigations, potentially compromising key sources. State “shield” laws should give legal protections for journalists, but this principle is being increasingly challenged. In Nashville, Tennessee, television reporter Phil Williams, who reported on the district attorney Glen Funk, was told by a judge on February 2, 2017, to hand over key documents. To add further pressure Funk has filed a $200 million defamation suit against the journalist and his employer, News Channel 5. The channel has condemned the actions as “an attempt by an elected public official to silence and intimidate a journalist and news organization that has accurately reported on questionable conduct and judgment by that official”.
“Politically independent public broadcasters are a vital segment of the media landscape at a time of increased propaganda. We’ve documented a series of moves by European governments to nationalize the public media in ways that make it more likely to toe the ruling party’s line,” Index’s Ginsberg said.
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There is little information about works censored during the period we examined. This may well be because journalists tend not to report these kinds of incidents out of fear of negative repercussions for their career or because the pressure is more subtle. The case study below, however, is taken from a New York Times article from February 17, 2017.
On university campuses, there were more published examples of censored works. A report entitled Threats to the Independence of Student Media, published in October 2016 by the American Association of University Professors and others, explains how “college and university officials threatened retaliation against students and [media] advisers not only for coverage critical of the administration but also for otherwise frivolous coverage that the administrators believed placed the institution in an unflattering light.” The document details particular cases, including when “California’s Southwest College mounted a campaign of intimidation and bullying of student journalists – including freezing the newspaper’s printing budget, cutting the adviser’s salary and even threatening staff members with arrest – as part of an effort to conceal high-level wrongdoing.” There are many other examples given in the report of censorship and intimidation on campus, and of media advisers who have lost their jobs or been demoted as a result of not exercising enough censorship.
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RICK CASEY
Rick Casey is the host of a show called Texas Week for San Antonio television station KLRM. At the end of every show he presents a short commentary. On this occasion, Republican representative from Texas, Lamar Smith, was on his agenda for giving a speech on January 24, 2017, about the unfair way he believed the media covered Trump. Smith suggested the only way of getting the truth was from the president himself. Casey was so outraged that he ended his commentary: “Smith’s proposal is quite innovative for America. We’ve never really tried getting all our news from our top elected official. It has been tried elsewhere, however. North Korea comes to mind.” Some 40 minutes before the show, the president of the station, Arthur Rojas Emerson, called Casey to tell him the commentary had been pulled. Emerson said he was worried that the commentary could affect the financing of the station, which is publicly funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It was also the case, as The New York Times reported, that Emerson had left journalism for several years to work in advertising and Smith had been a client. After the affair was publicized in a local newspaper column, another prominent local journalist took Casey’s censored commentary up with the PBS board and Emerson finally agreed to run the clip. He admitted to the Times it was a “mistake”, but he only had 20 minutes to make a decision. Casey is 70 years old and said that he was more ready to push back because of his age. He said he didn’t know whether he would have acted differently at 45, when it could have affected his career.
Blocking access to events, places and – more crucially – information is a way of government, lawmakers and others preventing journalists in the USA from covering their activities.
“Mapping Media Freedom has documented a growing list of incidents from across Europe and neighboring countries where journalists have been barred from reporting in the public interest. Though this survey looked at a small number of cases in the context of the American media market, we expect there were many more cases during the same period that were not reported by the media or located by our researchers,” Mapping Media Freedom’s Machlin said.
Reporters have recently been blocked from covering the airport protests over the travel ban in January 2017. Time journalist Charlotte Alter tweeted early on January 28, 2017, that reporters were asked to move from terminal 4 of JFK airport in New York because it was a “private space”.
“Having access to this information is important for journalists, because without knowing what cases are being scheduled, they cannot cover them. And without general access, plaintiff’s lawyers are then able to leak cases to friendly news outlets,” Machlin said.
“Imposing expensive fees to fulfill public records requests can deter investigative journalism, especially for publications already struggling for funding in a shifting media landscape,” Machlin said.
“Picking media outlets friendly to the country’s government is a tactic often deployed in illiberal democracies or by political parties on the far-right, like France’s Front National or Germany’s AfD. In the context of Mapping Media Freedom, the Trump administration and staffers have repeatedly and routinely threatened press freedom before and after the election,” Machlin said.
Intimidation is probably the most widely reported form of violation against press and media freedom. It takes various forms of offline and online harassment, including defamation, psychological abuse and sexual harassment.
“As we have seen increasingly in Europe, groundless, derogatory and corrosive comments by a country’s leaders – specifically in Hungary, Russia and the Balkans – have a tendency to permeate into law enforcement and local administrations, and undermine trust in media coverage among the general public. In addition, the use of pro-government media outlets to target journalists further undermines press freedom in some European countries. Though it remains to be seen whether this trend will continue at an alarming rate in the United States, it is certainly something for press freedom organizations to be alert to,” Index’s Patry said.
Much of the most prominent intimidation has come from both Trump and his aides during the presidential campaign, after his election and after his inauguration. This intimidation and harassment has also been mirrored by people who appear to be his supporters.
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During Trump’s election campaign, journalists were routinely jeered and intimidated.
His campaign rallies frequently became places where the media and journalists in general were accused of being part of a broad conspiracy against him and his supporters. During a weekend in mid-August 2016 when his poll numbers were dropping, Trump went on the offensive against media bias. On Friday August 12, at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, Trump called journalists the “lowest form of humanity”. At a rally the following day in Fairfield, Connecticut, he declared: “I am not running against crooked Hillary Clinton, I’m running against the crooked media.” On Sunday August 14, he issued a series of tweets including claims that the biased media was affecting his poll ratings and that The New York Times wrote fiction.
In October 2016, when reporters uncovered stories about Trump’s abusive behavior towards women, his public attacks on the “mainstream media” intensified.
After Trump’s election, intimidation of the media changed, in part because he was making the comments personally, often through Twitter, while holding the office of president. Trump devoted a whole press conference on February 17 to berating the media as “the enemy of the people”, a phrase news organizations reported is more commonly associated with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and other dictators throughout history. Since his election, Trump’s official spokespeople, most notably Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway, have been brought more prominently into the frame. Both have repeatedly attacked journalists and defended lies told by the president. Conway has gone so far as to say in an interview with Fox News on January 27, 2017, that it was “dangerous for democracy” for journalists to accuse Donald Trump of lying.
Other Trump administration staffers have also threatened journalists. In February 2017, reporter April Ryan accused Trump staffer Omarosa Manigault of physically intimidating her. Ryan, a onetime friend of Manigault’s, also said the communications official made verbal threats, including the assertion that Ryan was among several journalists on whom Trump officials had collected “dossiers of negative information”.
“Collecting ‘dossiers’ about journalists is the type of tactic practiced in countries like Azerbaijan, which routinely targets anyone trying to hold the regime to account. The US executive branch should not be seeking to emulate the behaviors of some of the world’s most authoritarian regimes,” Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg said.
“Alternative facts”, or the more frequently used “fake news”, have been the catchphrases of the Trump administration to describe news stories they do not like, or that challenge statements they have made. Trump also uses the phrase generally to discredit news organizations and claim they never report the truth. In one instance, Trump accused CNN on Twitter of cutting off Senator Bernie Sanders (D) because he was exposing the fact they reported fake news. Sanders was in fact doing the opposite, joking about Trump’s tendency to dismiss any negative reports as “fake news”.
In a series of tweets from his personal account, Trump has called some of the USA’s major news organizations “failing” and purveyors of “fake news”, including the Washington Post, The New York Times, NBC news, CNN and ABC.
The other way that Trump and people speaking on his behalf have tried to intimidate the media is to call for the sacking of individual journalists. The most prominent calls have come from members of congress and Trump aides.
On January 31, Rosa Brooks, a professor of law at Georgetown University, wrote in Foreign Policy magazine about threats Trump poses to the US Constitution, and what would happen if he arbitrarily decided to carry out some form of military action. Two days later she was accused by Trump-friendly Infowars of inciting a military coup. Although Brooks said that she had concerns about the way executive power was used under Obama, the intimidation she has received – including death threats – for suggesting the dangers under Trump, went far beyond anything that had happened before. She wrote: “Here’s the other thing that’s different now: The alt-right has long occupied the internet’s darker corners, but with the elevation of Bannon to the Trump White House and National Security Council, it’s now occupying the White House itself.”
Some of the most virulent harassment cases have been against conservatives like Kelly who did not support Trump. On October 26, 2016, David French, who writes for the conservative publication National Review, told National Public Radio program Fresh Air how he was targeted. He wrote an article about the alt-right movement being white nationalist in its tone and tenor and found himself and his wife bombarded with hateful tweets and messages, including an image of his seven-year-old child, who was adopted from Ethiopia, in a gas chamber. He said it was his linking of Trump and the alt-right that specifically led to his family being subjected to anti-Semitic, racist and pornographic abuse.
French received anti-Semitic abuse despite not being Jewish. The abuse against Jewish journalists has been more systematic.
[/vc_column_text][vc_separator color=”black” style=”dashed”][vc_column_text]CASE STUDY
ANTI-SEMITISM
In October 2016, the Anti-Defamation League published a report entitled The Anti-Semitic Targeting of Journalists During the 2016 Presidential Campaign. One of its key findings was that 800 journalists received anti-Semitic tweets with an estimated reach of 45 million. The top 10 most targeted journalists (all of whom were Jewish) received 83% of those anti-Semitic tweets. The report found the abuse got worse as the presidential campaign intensified in the period between January and July 2016. The words most frequently used in anti-Semitic tweets directed at journalists included “kike”, “Israel” and “Zionist”. A majority of tweets (60%) were in reply to tweets by journalists. Writer and former Breitbart reporter Ben Shapiro, who was on the receiving end of vast amounts of abuse for launching the #NeverTrump campaign, told ADL: “It’s amazing what’s been unleashed. I honestly didn’t realize they were out there. It’s every day, every single day.” Despite Shapiro’s efforts to shield his family from the abuse, his wife and child were targeted as well. “When my child was born there were lots of anti-Semitic responses talking about cockroaches.”
Though our review of incidents represents just a short period of time, it points to areas that journalists and law enforcement, as well as the country’s political establishment, need to improve
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Frontline police services – as well as journalists – should be clear on the rights of protesters and those covering demonstrations, rallies and other public events and receive regular training in this area. It is also vital that journalists are aware of these rights when covering such events.
Police forces must adhere to Freedom of Information laws. All levels of government should work to minimize fees associated with FOI requests.
Customs and Border Protection officials should respect the rights of journalists to protect confidential information and cease immediately the invasive examination of people’s online activity at the border.
States need to enact strong shield laws to protect journalists from having to reveal sources. This is vital especially in cases involving whistleblowing in the public interest.
State lawmakers need to ensure that that new or revised legislation does not encroach on the First Amendment rights of journalists. Where necessary, laws should have a public interest clause that could be used by journalists.
Harassment and crimes against journalists that go beyond protections offered by the First Amendment – whether online or off – must be investigated and prosecuted vigorously to prevent the establishment of a culture of impunity.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”89947″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Join Index on Censorship, English PEN, Amnesty International UK, Reporters Sans Frontières, PEN International and the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation for our vigil outside the Turkish Embassy in London, in protest over the detention of journalists and writers in Turkey. The London protest is one of several taking place at Turkish embassies around the world on 3 May, World Press Freedom Day.
Turkey is currently the world’s biggest jailer of journalists: one third of all imprisoned journalists in the world are being held in Turkish prisons, the vast majority waiting to be brought to trial. Meanwhile, more than 160 media outlets have been closed.
Let us know if you’re coming and invite your friends via the Facebook event page and please share details of the vigil on Twitter with the hashtag #FreeTurkeyMedia
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_cta h2=”TAKE ACTION” h2_font_container=”color:%23dd3333″ h2_use_theme_fonts=”yes” shape=”square” use_custom_fonts_h2=”true”]Show your support on social media
We are asking fellow journalists, writers, and supporters of freedom of expression to show their support for the many journalists and writers currently imprisoned and on trial in Turkey. Please follow @FreeTurkeyMedia on Twitter and show your support by tweeting a photo with a sign reading #FreeTurkeyMedia #GazetecilikSuçDeğildir
Write to the authorities
You can send a letter via Amnesty’s website to Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdağ calling for the release of our imprisoned colleagues.
Please also write to the Turkish authorities
Calling for all detained writers and journalists to have access to lawyers and to be released if they are not to be charged with a recognisably criminal offence and tried promptly in accordance with international fair trial standards;
Calling on the authorities not to use the state of emergency to crack down on peaceful dissent, civil society, media and education.
Süleyman Soylu Minister of Interior Affairs Ministry of Interior Affairs T.C. İçişleri Bakanlığı, Bakanlıklar / Ankara, Republic of Turkey Tel: (+90 312) 422 40 00 E-mail: [email protected]
Binali Yıldırım Prime Minister Çankaya Mah. Ziaur Rahman Cad. Çankaya / Ankara Tel: (+90 312) 403 50 00 Fax: (+90 312) 422 10 00[/vc_cta][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”89946″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”89875″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]A few days before the 2 April 2017 Serbian presidential elections, a picture was posted on Twitter that caused an unexpected storm.
The picture, taken three days before the vote, which was widely expected to be won by the current prime minister Aleksandar Vucic, showed a copy of each daily newspaper from that day laid out on a table. Yet every paper looked the same. Each was wrapped in a blue, red and white election campaign poster of Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).
“It was a shock,” said Slavica Lekic, the newly appointed president of the Independent Journalist Association of Serbia (NUNS), from his office in Belgrade. “With this, Aleksandar Vucic clearly demonstrated that he can control over everything in this country.”
The mass advertising on the front page of the nation’s newspapers was for many a step too far; proof of how powerful Vucic and his party had become, and of the financial control they exert over Serbia’s media. Vucic won the election by a landslide, but the picture’s effect lingered. It was an important reason why, on the day after Vucic’ huge victory, tens of thousands of young Serbs took to the streets across the country to protest.
The protesters, at first mainly students, organised themselves on social media using the hashtag #protivdiktature, which means “against dictatorship”. Thousands have been protesting on a daily basis ever since. They’re worried about the state of democracy and media freedom in the country where the president-elect is consolidating his power over all institutions, leaving little room for critical voices.
Media freedom has declined since SNS came to power in 2012, and deteriorated further after Vucic became Prime Minister in 2014, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Journalists increasingly face economic and editorial pressure as well as threats and intimidation when they are critical of the government. Independent media are often the subject of smear campaigns by pro-government media outlets and TV stations, targeting them as foreign mercenaries and enemies of the state.
Lekic points out that most of Serbia’s mainstream media, including private media, are indirectly controlled by the government. There are strong ties between the government and the business community, giving both a huge leverage over advertising budgets, he explains. “When Vucic came to power he arrested the richest businessman in Serbia, Miroslav Miskovic,” says Lekic.“That act frightened all the other businesses, which are now doing whatever they can to please him.”
Even before the vote, there were opposition complaints about the uneven nature of the media’s coverage of the campaign. According to a report by the Bureau for Social Research, who monitored the campaign, Vucic appeared on television more than all the other candidates combined, and was usually portrayed in a positive light.
“He directly controls the most popular TV station, TV Pink, and the most read newspaper, Informer,” says Lekic. “The other media are subject to self-censorship due to the pressure of advertisers connected to the government.” Lekic is convinced that Vucic’s move from prime minister to president will lead to even more difficulties for Serbia’s independent media. “This is definitely the end of freedom in journalism in Serbia,” he says.
Aside from a few online voices, the only critical newspaper is the daily Danas, which means “Today” in Serbian. The paper was founded in 1997 during the repressive regime of strongman Slobodan Milosevic but grew to become a free voice in Serbia. But today Danas is struggling to stay alive. Like many across the world, business has been tough over the past few years. But it became a lot tougher when nearly every single advertiser pulled out, all within a few months.
“The problem is that nobody dares to advertise in a paper that reports critically on the government and the prime minister,” Lekic explained. “Vucic and his people have targeted Danas as a hostile newspaper.”
Protesters have been holding Danas papers in the air, using it as a symbol of the lack of media freedom. They’ve urged Serbs to buy Danas and stop them from going out of business. Danas is being sold during the protests, and people are queuing to get a copy from street sellers.
“The campaign to save our paper is working,” says Milos Mitrovic, a journalist at Danas. “Sales are actually going up. People are taking selfies with Danas and sending them to us. It’s incredible.”
There have even been reports of companies donating to the paper, but urging them not to print any adverts as they would rather stay anonymous.
Every evening the protesters march through the city, passing the building of the state broadcaster RTS, blaming the station for not covering the protests on TV. “At first they were not showing it at all,” said one protester in Belgrade. “Now they are downplaying the numbers or saying that we are paid by foreign powers.”
But even recognising the protests is progress. “There is more coverage of the protests in international press than in Serbian media,” says Stevan Dojcinovic, editor-in-chief for the investigative journalism network KRIK, nominees for the 2017 Freedom of Expression Award for journalism. His collective has investigated many cases of corruption and misuse of power by the Vucic government. Dojcinovic points out that their investigations are also widely ignored by Serbia’s mainstream media. “RTS didn’t publish anything on the interview we did with the wife of Belgrade’s mayor, Sinisa Mali,” he said. In that interview, Mali revealed examples of corruption in which her ex-husband was directly involved.
Meanwhile, Vucic, who enjoys support from both the European Union and Russia, has calmly addressed the protesters during a press conference. “We are a democratic country and everybody has the right to be pleased or displeased with the election outcome,” he said. “Those who have time to protest can protest as long as they keep it peaceful.”
Lekic has only recently been appointed as president of NUNS but is clear on what the big issues facing independent media in Serbia are. “We don’t have institutionalised censorship in the classical sense but we do have frightened and underpaid journalists who think they have to be obedient to be able to keep their jobs,” he says. “This is how self-censorship kicks in and we have to change that.”
In fact, Lekic has already had his fair share of threats and intimidation. He was the subject of smear campaigns by TV Pink and Informer. He’s been labelled a foreign spy more times than he can remember. “I’ve been a journalist for 37 years but only in the last decade I’ve got used to being a target,” he says. His biggest worry is the effect it has on his family. “My daughter of twelve once called me from school, she was crying because a boy in her class had told her that her dad is a criminal,” he says. “He’d heard so on TV.” [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1493107922412-e3b33cbb-00e3-9″ taxonomies=”113″][/vc_column][/vc_row]