24 Aug 18 | Europe and Central Asia, European Union, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, News and features, Sweden
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An image from the website of the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats, who changed their logo from a National Front-esque torch to a flower in an effort to clean up their image.
Sweden baked in record temperatures this summer, matched only by the increasingly heated political climate as it gears up for an unprecedentedly bitter and divisive general election. Front page stories about raging wildfires and drought have given a poll boost to the Swedish Green Party as climate change has leapt up the agenda. For populist media critics, however, the attention given to the fires is part of a conspiracy to keep the Greens in government and to give the governing left-wing bloc a victory in September’s vote.
Edward Riedl, a conservative member of parliament for the opposition Moderate Party accused major newspapers of “agenda setting” by giving such prominent coverage to the environment, with one if his party colleagues calling out newspapers for being pro-Green.
The far right meanwhile maintains a longstanding animosity with Sweden’s established print and public service media, which they accuse of being a cosy cartel.
Marie Grusell, a media researcher at Gothenburg University, has compared the attacks to the ongoing deligitimisation of the press in the USA by the White House.
“It is a tactic to undermine journalism. I think this is beneath contempt,” she said in an interview with the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.
This bizarre challenging of factual environmental journalism takes place against a backdrop of an increasingly contentious news landscape, in which the fragmentation and polarisation of the Swedish political system has made it increasingly difficult to maintain the balance of the media.
Over the past decade – and in common with other European countries – Sweden has seen the emergence of a powerful populist and anti-immigration party, the Sweden Democrats. The Sweden Democrats have deployed a familiar cocktail of anti-media conspiracism, welfare nationalism and climate scepticism, as well as anti-feminist and anti-Islamic rhetoric, to move from a fringe group to a major parliamentary force with ambitions to form a government. Although they have their roots in the 1990s white power movement, the Sweden Democrats have tried to soften their image by shunning some of their more extreme members and, in 2006, changed their logo from a torch — similar to that once used by the British far-right National Front — to a cartoonish anemone hepatica, a flower in the buttercup family.
Public trust in the Swedish media is still holding up but has diminished among those drifting towards the Sweden Democrats. This section of voters have become resistant to large sections of the established media and have instead turned to social network news groups and fringe sites which claim to expose what is really happening in Swedish society, as well as foreign news sites from the USA and Russia. In an attempt to increase the amount of freely available objective media outlets, the daily Dagens Nyheter recently removed its paywall for the duration of the election campaign, but as with other established media, it may be too late for readers who have already moved on.
Increased extremism
The dangerous situation is compounded by movements operating at the political fringes who have targeted journalists. The Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR), a neo-Nazi white power group, regularly marches in shows of force, intimidating journalists, minority groups and other members of the public. In May Swedish security services raided the home or prominent NMR member Peter Holm and found a suitcase they believed had been adapted for assassinations, along with a hard drive containing details on two journalists.
NMR activists also marched at this year’s Almedalen politics festival, a high point of the political calendar where journalists, civic and business groups and politicians get together to discuss contemporary issues. The investigative anti-fascist magazine EXPO uncovered instructions for NMR activists to attend speeches by politicians and others and to shout “traitor to the people” at politicians, and confront journalists in public. At the previous year’s event, the TV journalist Jan Scherman was called a “disgusting Jew” by an NMR member while filming.
Officially there is no link between the Sweden Democrats and groups like the NMR, but several SD politicians have voiced support for the organisation in the past and the increased support for SD in opinion polls has seemingly emboldened NMR activists to take more direct action on the streets according to data compiled by EXPO.
An uncertain future climate
A glimpse into what might happen should Sweden elect a government that includes the far right is provided by Denmark, where the hardline Danish People’s Party have cut state support to public broadcasting and consistently attacked its content as being leftist and unpatriotic. If a Sweden Democrat supported government becomes a reality, journalists could find themselves pressed by an increasingly powerful and emboldened populist movement that sees journalists as scapegoats for deeper seated problems, and where objective reporting of social challenges such as the environment and integration are dismissed as politically correct opinion rather than society-wide issues of critical importance.
It now falls to the press to fight its corner as a foundational part of the country’s democracy. Sweden, long considered a uniquely stable and tolerant democracy, is about to find out whether it really is safe from anti-democratic populism.[/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:1535101855192-df766193-d628-5″ taxonomies=”9008, 507″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
15 Aug 18 | News and features
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During her time as director of the Manifesto Club, Josie Appleton has dealt with many Community Protection Notice and Public Space Protection Orders being served for non-criminal reasons.
She has dealt with PSPOs for rough sleeping, begging, annoying dogs and even people moving rocks. In her view, these are cases that should be dealt with by the interested parties without the involvement local government or police.
“Once you give the state power, you do not defend victims, you make people victims of the state and that is what happening now,” she says.
The power that Appleton is referring to comes from the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which was introduced after a government white paper — Putting Victims First – More Effective Responses To Anti-Social Behaviour — found that “in some local areas, the focus is still too much on ‘management’ of individuals causing anti-social behaviour, rather than working quickly to stop problems causing serious harm to victims”. The government’s solution was to give local authorities a broad range of powers to limit people’s movements and expression in public places under the guise of stopping anti-social behaviour.
Photograph of pro-life protest distributed at Ealing Council meeting, 10 April 2018.
Two sections under the act have already been used to create orders that limit people’s freedom of expression: part two on Criminal Behaviour Orders and part four on community protection.
CBOs allow prosecutors to take an injunction against a person who has already been convicted of a crime. If the “court is satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, that the offender has engaged in behaviour that caused or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to any person,” then an order will prohibit certain activities, or require the offender to take specific actions.
In June, London’s Metropolitan Police sought and obtained a CBO preventing five members of 1011, a gang based in Ladbroke Grove, London, from making drill music, a style of rap known for its dark or violent lyrics. The order prohibits the individuals from making music videos about violence or other gang members, and from posting any songs without notifying the police in advance.
Although the court can consider evidence regarding CBOs, “it does not matter whether the evidence would have been admissible… evidence could include hearsay or bad character evidence”. This means that although violating a CBO can lead to a prison sentence up to five years, the burden of proof is lower than that required in other criminal cases brought before the court.
The other order under the act that has been used to limit freedom of expression is the Public Space Protection Order.
The PSPO is a replacement for three previous orders — Gating Orders, Designated Public Place Orders and Dog Control Orders — but it can be used for a broader range of incidents. It states that if activities carried out in an area have a “detrimental effect on the quality of life of those in the locality,” then local governments can take restrictive action.
Appleton believes one of the problems with the order is that it is so vague that the government can use it to prohibit any activity they disagree with or use it to target a specific group. “[I]s, or is likely to be” is repeated several times, meaning all that is needed is a suspicion that an action could cause harm.
While the law gives wide latitude to the local councils, it does require that there is a “particular regard to the rights of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly set out in articles 10 and 11” of the European Convention on Human Rights when deciding whether to create a PSPO.
Regardless, on 10 April Ealing Council in London passed a PSPO that restricted the actions of anti-abortion protesters around a Marie Stopes clinic. The PSPO was introduced to protect women entering the clinic. In a report written by Ealing’s Safer Community Team, it is reported that the protesters often talked to them and tried to hand them items such as rosaries, pamphlets and models of foetuses. Sometimes the pro-life groups were joined by pro-choice protesters which created a tense situation.
Photograph of pro-life protest distributed at Ealing Council meeting, 10 April 2018.
The PSPO created a buffer zone moving the protesters 100 metres away from the clinic, meaning they are too far away to talk to women entering the clinic.
The PSPO prohibits “protesting, namely engaging in any act of approval/disapproval or attempted act of approval/disapproval, with respect to issues related to abortion services, by any means. This includes but is not limited to graphic, verbal or written means, prayer or counselling”.
A report produced by the Ealing’s Safer Community Team states that they did take into account articles 8, 9, 10, 11 and 14 of ECHR, which include protections on religious belief, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. However, they ruled that it was necessary to interfere with these rights in order to protect visitors to the clinic under the Equality Act of 2010. It also found these women to be a protected group under article 8 of ECHR (the right to private and family life).
The report also states that despite the fact that the protesters haven’t done anything worthy of persecution, council members were advised that it was not “a reason to rule out the possibility that the activities are having the requisite detrimental effect”.
Clare Mulvany, a spokesperson for the pro-life group Be Here For Me, told Index on Censorship: “The Council is undoubtedly entitled to take steps to protect women entering abortion clinics from genuine harassment and intimidation. There is not any dispute about that. However, the difficulty here is that the buffer zone goes so far beyond what is reasonable or necessary to achieve that end.”
On PSPO, Putting Victims First states: “In keeping with the Government’s desire to devolve powers to local areas, the order would allow local authorities to make decisions without the burden of having to go through central Government.”
Photograph of pro-life protest distributed at Ealing Council meeting, 10 April 2018.
“Effective criminal justice can never be about giving more power with fewer checks and balances. It doesn’t work like that,” Appleton said. “The restrictions that exist for a very good reason, they guide authority down fair and rational lines of enforcement. Once you create a free for all you do not have better justice, you have complete chaos and that is what we have now.”
Under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act, interested parties only have six weeks to make an appeal to the High Court when a new PSPO is created and the appeal can only be made under the basis that the council did not have the authority to make the order or that they did not follow all the requirements when making the order. In addition, it can be enforced with on the spot fines, meaning people don’t have an opportunity to defend themselves in court.
Alina Dulgheriu, a pro-life advocate who says she was helped by protesters when she was pregnant, decided to fight the Ealing PSPO in the High Court. She believes the PSPO “is anti-choice because it removes the chance for women to get information about other help available to them”.
She lost the case in High Court and now has a Gofundme account to raise money for an appeal.
Appleton, who identified herself as pro-choice, said: “I think it is important that people who support free speech but who disagree with the protesters oppose these PSPOs because they’re making the point that it’s not about what you think about abortion, it’s what you think about freedom that counts and these PSPOs are a restriction on assembly and expression of view in a public place.”
Although both Mulvaney and Appleton recognise the problems with the act, their respective organisations don’t have the resources to effectively campaign against it.[/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:1534340349208-7fb1dab2-6b19-5″ taxonomies=”26321, 8883″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
10 Aug 18 | Campaigns -- Featured, Statements
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On 6 August 2018, Bangladeshi photojournalist Shahidul Alam was arrested and detained for allegedly “making provocative comments”, and “giving false information” to media, contrary to the Information Communications Technology Act (ICT Act). He remains in detention. Since being taken into custody, Alam has been denied access to his lawyers, and was reportedly beaten and is in poor health. Authorities initially agreed that Alam would be taken to hospital for medical assistance, but after a brief visit on 8 August he has been returned to detention. We, the undersigned civil society organisations, call for Shahidul Alam’s immediate and unconditional release, that all allegations against him be dropped, and that he receive proper medical care.
63-year old Alam was arrested at his home in Dhaka on the evening of 5 August 2018 and brought into police custody a few hours after he posted a video on Facebook and participated in an interview with Al Jazeera about the ongoing road safety protests in Dhaka, where more than 40 journalists and media workers have been injured by groups of armed men.
Alam is accused of violations under Section 57 of the Information Communications Technology Act. However, journalists and rights activists have consistently raised concerns that the law is incompatible with international human rights standards, including Bangladesh’s international obligations under Article 19 of the ICCPR, due to its broad powers to restrict online expression. It has been widely applied against journalists and ordinary citizens who have been arrested, prosecuted and jailed solely for their expression.
On 9 August, a petition by Alam’s lawyers was heard at the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh demanding they have access to Alam, that he be brought before the court and seeking a court order that he is not subjected to ill-treatment while in custody. The High Court ordered the Home Secretary of the Government of Bangladesh to “arrange medical treatment” for Alam in accordance with Section 2(6) of the Torture and Custodial Death Prevention Act 2013, to make a full medical assessment for ill-treatment, and to report to the court by 13 August 2018.
ARTICLE 19 and the undersigned national and international human rights organisations call for Shahidul Alam’s immediate and unconditional release, and that all allegations against him be dropped as they represent a blatant violation of his right to freedom of expression. We further urge the Ministry of Home Affairs to immediately comply with the court’s order and grant Alam proper medical assistance without delay.
We remain deeply concerned by the use of laws such as the ICT Act in Bangladesh to legally harass journalists and media workers and violate the right to freedom of expression, and call for its urgent repeal.
Signed
ARTICLE 19
Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK)
Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF)
Bandhu Social Welfare Society (BSWF)
Bangladesh Adivasi Forum
Bangladesh Dalit and Excluded Rights Movements (BDERM)
Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council (BHBCUC)
Bangladesh Mahila Parishad (BMP)
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
German Section of Amnesty International
Sramik Nirapotta Forum (SNF)
Boys of Bangladesh (BOB)
Friends Association for Integrated Revolution (FAIR)
International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX)
Index on Censorship
Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF)
National Alliance of Disabled Peoples Organizations
Nijera Kori
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
Steps Towards Development
Transparency International, Bangladesh (TIB)
Nagorik Uddyog
Open Society Foundations Program on Independent Journalism
Jagriti Prokashoni[/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:1533911170502-46b50a00-93a8-2″ taxonomies=”99″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
