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#IndexDrawtheLine: Reforms needed in police handling of protests

10 Oct 2014 | Draw the Line, Youth Board

As protests continue to rock many countries, at times leading to use of excessive force including tear gas and rubber bullets by law enforcement officers against protesters, people have openly raised questions on police abuse. This month’s Draw the Line question focused on the excessive use of force during protests and the role police can play in striking the balance between keeping the peace and protecting free speech.

Being a witness to recent protests that turned ugly after use of batons, tear gas and rubber bullets against civilians protesting rigged elections in Pakistan, it was interesting to compare various responses on the #IndexDrawtheLine Twitter feed offered by participants from different parts of the world. An article shared by Fiona Bradley during the debate on Twitter discussed attempts made by Chinese authorities to censor use of police force against pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. The use of tear gas and counter protesters to disperse demonstrators has also changed the popular opinion regarding the city’s police that was once considered to be the best in region. On the other hand, an Amnesty International report revealed cases of excessive use of force by Brazil’s police throughout the protests that erupted before and during the Fifa World Cup this summer. This clearly depicts the extent to which police can be used by local authorites against civilians’ voicing their opinion publicly.

In an interview for the PBS Newshour, Margaret Huang, deputy executive director of campaigns and programs at Amnesty International’s US arm, raised an important point about the tactics deployed by the police in Ferguson, Missouri, during protests during there. “The police’s reaction might have been an overreaction. It may have actually been a violation of international standards for appropriate police response. If your purpose is to disperse people, tear gas is not a great tool for that,” Huang said. “It’s worth noting that tear gas is actually a weapon that’s not allowed to be used in warfare”, she said, “because it can be indiscriminate in who it targets. So the fact that police agencies in [the US] use it for crowd dispersal raises huge concerns about whether that’s a useful or appropriate response.”

Another important concern that has been raised is the increasing militarisation of police that is counter productive and looks more like an intimidating combat against foreign enemies in a war zone. In this case, should protesters have their own force to protect them in case the police start firing rubber bullets and tear gas on non-violent protesters or should there be appropriate training on dealing with such scenarios, keeping in mind the wide difference in domestic and military operations?

It is generally accepted that the state has an obligation to prevent injury and loss of life during public gatherings while maintaining public order to prevent social disruption and damage to property, according to the United Nations. Disgraceful police excesses will continue unabated during public gatherings unless authorities bring police tactics in line with basic human rights standards whether they belong to US, China or developing countries in south Asia and the Middle East.

A few participants from Pakistan offered the point that their country’s police cannot be trained on the lines of “protect and guard” instead of “us versus them” unless officials are appointed on merit without any political interference. But in the case of countries where political interference during recruitment isn’t the problem, one can not help but wonder about the steps required to make the police fall in line with defined international standards.

In the wake of G20 protests in London during the year 2009 that resulted in the death of news vendor Ian Thomilson, the Metropolitan Police came up with a 60 page report Adapt to Protest which advocated the need of major reforms required to deal with policing of protests. The report made a number of immediate recommendations that stressed facilitating peaceful protests, improving communication with the public/ protest groups through dialogue and moderating the impact of containment for proper access of food, water and other essentials. It acknowledged the dire need of giving importance to human rights during operational decisions and training that is needed to equip officers with tactics for effective policing and facilitating of protest activity. Such steps need to be introduced by law enforcement and then implemented independently which is not possible without the cooperation of political authorities and the public.

In this age of instant communication, people are bound to question images and videos of police abuse during mass protests accessible through internet and live television. The only way for police to strike the balance in maintaining peace and protecting civilians’ right to free speech and assembly is to start approaching it as a healthy expression of democracy instead of a menace that needs to be stifled and discouraged.

This article was published on 10 October 2014 at indexoncensorship.org

The future of journalism: Latest issue, autumn 2014

1 Oct 2014 | Magazine, Volume 43.03 Autumn 2014

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”The explosion of social media, the rise of citizen reporters, the dangers of freelancing in a war zone, the invention of new technology: journalism is clearly going through its biggest changes in history. But will the public know more or less as a result?”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

This is the question we explore in great depth in the latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine. Contributors include Iona Craig (2014 winner of the Martha Gellhorn Prize for her reporting in Yemen); Index award nominee Dina Meza and the BBC’s Samira Ahmed. We also have an exclusive, new short story by acclaimed novelist, playwright and author Ariel Dorfman.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”59980″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]

And Australia’s race commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane, speaks out on how the right to be a bigot should not override the right to be free from the effects of bigotry.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”SPECIAL REPORT: THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM” css=”.vc_custom_1483551011369{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]

Back to the future: Iona Craig on journalists trying to stay safe in war zones

Digital detectives: Ray Joseph on the new technology helping Africa’s journalists investigate

Re-writing the future: Five young journalists talk on their hopes and fears for the profession – from Yemen, India, South Africa, Germany and the Czech Republic

Attack on ambition: Dina Meza on a Honduran generation ground down by fear

Stripsearch cartoon: Martin Rowson envisages an investigative reporter meeting Deep Throat

Generation why: Ian Hargreaves asks on how the powerful may or may not be held to account in the future

Making waves: Helen Womack reports from Russia on the radio station standing up for free media

Switched on and off: US journalist Debora Halpern Wenger on TV’s power shift from news producers to news consumers

TV news will reinvent itself (again): Taylor Walker interviews a veteran TV reporter on the changes ahead

Right to reply: Samira Ahmed on how the BBC tackles viewers’ criticism

Readers as editors: Stephen Pritchard on how news ombundsmen create transparency

Lobby matters: Political reporter Ian Dunt on the push/pull of journalists and politicians inside Britain’s corridors of power

Funding news freedom: Glenda Nevill looks at innovative ways to pay for reporting

Print running: Will Gore on how newspapers innovate for new audiences

Paper chase: Luis Carlos Díaz on overcoming Venezuela’s newsprint shortage

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”IN FOCUS” css=”.vc_custom_1481731813613{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]

Free thinking? Australia’s race commissioner Tim Soutphommasane on bigotry

Guarding the guards: Jemimiah Steinfeld on China’s human rights lawyers becoming targets

Taking down the critics: Irene Caselli investigates allegations that Ecuador’s government is silencing social media users

Maid equal in Brazil: Claire Rigby on the Twitter feed giving voice to abuse of domestic workers in Brazil

Home truths in the Gulf: Georgia Lewis on how UAE maids fear speaking out on maltreatment

Text messaging: Indian school books are getting “Hinduised”, reports Siddarth Narrain from India

We have to fight for what we want: our editor, Rachael Jolley, interviews the OSCE’s Dunja Mijatovic on 20 years championing free speech

Decoding defamation: Lesley Phippen’s need-to-know guide for journalists

A hard act to follow: Tamsin Allen gives a lawyer’s take on Britain’s libel reforms

Walls divide: Jemimah Steinfeld speaks to Chinese author Xiaolu Guo about a life of censorship

Taking a pop: Steven Borowiec profiles controversial South Korean artist Lee Ha

Mapping media threats: Melody Patry and Milana Knezevic look at rising attacks on journalists in the Balkans

Holed up in Harare: Index’s contributing editor Natasha Joseph reports from southern Africa on the dangers of reporting in Zimbabwe

Burma’s “new” media face threats and attack: Burma-born author Wendy Law-Yone looks at news in the run up to the impending elections

Head to head: Sascha Feuchert and Charlotte Knobloch debate whether Mein Kampf should be published

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”CULTURE” css=”.vc_custom_1481731777861{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]

Political framing: Kaya Genç interviews radical Turkish artist, Kutlug Ataman

Action drama: Julia Farrington on Belarus Free Theatre and the upcoming Belarus election

Casting away: Ariel Dorfman, a new short story by the acclaimed human rights writer

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”COLUMNS” css=”.vc_custom_1481732124093{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]

Index around the world: Alice Kirkland gives a news update on Index’s global projects

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”END NOTE” css=”.vc_custom_1481880278935{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]

From the factory floor: Vicky Baker on listening to the world’s garment workers via new technology

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”SUBSCRIBE” css=”.vc_custom_1481736449684{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship magazine was started in 1972 and remains the only global magazine dedicated to free expression. Past contributors include Samuel Beckett, Gabriel García Marquéz, Nadine Gordimer, Arthur Miller, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, and many more.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”76572″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]In print or online. Order a print edition here or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions.

Copies are also available at the BFI, the Serpentine Gallery, MagCulture, (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester), Calton Books (Glasgow) and on Amazon. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship continue its fight for free expression worldwide.

SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Current issue: Seeing the future of journalism – will the public know more?

16 Sep 2014 | Magazine, Volume 43.03 Autumn 2014

Index on Censorship autumn magazine

In the autumn issue of Index on Censorship magazine, don’t miss: Burmese-born author Wendy Law-Yone on the challenges the Burma’s media face in the run-up to the next election; TV journalist Samira Ahmed on how television channels should respond to viewers’ complaints; award-winning foreign correspondent Iona Craig reports from Yemen on threats to journalism in conflict zones; plus a brand new short story from playwright and author Ariel Dorfman.

While debates on the future of the media tend to focus solely on new technology and downward financial pressures, we ask: will the public end up knowing more or less? Will citizen journalists bring us in-depth investigations? Will crowd fact-checking take over from journalists doing research? Who will hold power to account? The subject is tackled from all angles, from our writers from across the globe.

Also writing for this issue are Australia’s race commissioner Tim Soutphommasane; human rights lawyer Tamsin Allen on defamation; and novelist Kaya Genc. From South Korea Steven Borowiec talks to controversial artist Lee Ha, and in London political editor Ian Dunt walks the corridors of political power in the UK’s Houses of Parliament and asks if journalists there get too close to government.

Padraig Reidy: Football banter will always need its edge

14 Aug 2014 | News and features, United Kingdom

(Photo: Following Millwall FC)

Top flight football is back! Back! BACK! After an agonising entire month since the World Cup Final with nothing to sustain people but the made-up soccer tournaments designed to draw American crowds, and the Commonwealth Games, and the England India cricket tests, the people of Britain can relax, and fall trustingly into the loving arms of the Premiership.

Once more, it will be deemed legitimate to spend Saturday afternoons in a pub, watching other men watching football; once more we can spend Saturday nights complaining about Mark Lawrenson and Alan Shearer’s dull observations on Match of the Day; once more Arsenal will be a little disappointing.

I say “once more” but of course the football never really ends, it just sleeps for a few weeks every year. But now it is awake.

At this point, fans of leagues that are not the premiership will be pointing out that their leagues started last weekend, and they’re right.

And what was the main story from the (non-Premiership) Football League this week? The news that Millwall fans had upset their Leeds United rivals with a new chants about serial sexual abuser Jimmy Savile, a Leeds native. Not to exactly repeat it, but the chant essentially suggested that Leeds fans may be the offspring of Savile.

Milwall’s manager Ian Holloway criticised his own fans, saying: “Let’s stop and think about what [Savile] has actually done. That’s the most important thing and we don’t see that. ‘Oh, it is a bit of banter’. It isn’t funny, is it? I don’t think so.”

Now clearly, some Millwall fans did find this funny. Or they found the idea of offending Leeds fans funny. Because offending the opposition has for a long time, been part of going to football.

My home team, Cork City, who play in Ireland’s Airtricity League, have a pretty good relationship with Derry City. Derry, despite being based in Northern Ireland, play in the Republic’s league. Their fans are mostly nationalist rather than Unionist, and they are a widely respected group , admired for travelling long distances in large numbers to support their team, and making a lot of noise when they get there.

In spite of all this admiration, Cork fans greet Derry fans, who have literally travelled the length of the country, with the chant “What’s it like to have a Queen?” a dig at the fact that Derry fans live in the United Kingdom whether they like it or not.

It’s certainly calculated to offend, but that is the point of that much-vilified concept, “banter”. It’s part of the contest, complementing the action on the pitch (sometimes bettering it during dull games).

Football banter (or, in modern usage, “bants” or even “#bantz”), can range from the strange to the self-deprecating to the plain awful. When tiny Barnsley FC had a brief glimpse of top-division glory in the 96-97 season, they would sing “Barnsley – it’s just like watching Brazil” (it wasn’t). Fans of lower league Gillingham became famous in the late 90s for a slightly lewd song involving celery, that had absolutely nothing to do with football or Gillingham.

Chelsea fans, or anyone who’s ever been on a District Line underground train on the day of a Chelsea home game, will know the interminable tale of the man (men) who went to mow a meadow.

That’s the more innocent end of things.

Inevitably, things do not stay so innocent.

There’s references to incidents’ in rival clubs’ histories (“who’s that lying on the runway…” referring to the 1958 Munich Air Disaster that killed several Manchester United players), there’s the digs at perceived poverty (“In your Liverpool slums” or, as used happen in the 1980s, fans from southern English teams chanting “Unemployed, unemployed, unemployed” at Northerners. There’s the historical rivalries (Rangers fans singing “The Famine’s Over, Why Don’t You Go Home” at Celtic’s Irish-identifying supporters).

Personal abuse towards players, particularly those regarded as turncoats, can turn vicious: racist, homophobic, and ableist in nature. Rangers goalkeeper Andy Goram, having admitted to mental illness, was subjected to the chant “There’s only two Andy Gorams”. One chant directed at England defender Sol Campbell, who moved from Tottenham Hotspur to north London rivals Arsenal, managed to pack pretty much every modern taboo into three lines.

In the countries of Europe, South America and Africa where it is the majority participation sport, its supporters are not especially worried about upholding the image of the game. Supporters of minority sports will be aware of the constant feeling that one has to talk up your pastime not just as more entertaining, but more edifying than other sports in order to justify your devotion. Hence constant appeals to the spirit of cricket, and the inherent sportsmanship of rugby union (at least when players aren’t gouging each others eyes out).

Football doesn’t have this problem. It doesn’t have to convince anyone of anything. It has the most fans, therefore it is the best sport. Even in countries such as Ireland where actual match attendances are low, the omnipresence of English (and increasingly Spanish) football means fans don’t feel obliged to impress anyone. With that assurance comes a certain cockiness: to adapt the popular chant: “We are football, we’ll do what we want”. Or perhaps “[Everyone] likes us, [so] we don’t [have to] care”.

The game is played to different rules in the soccer stands.

The question is what, if anything, should be done about this. The Scottish government’s attempt to silence sectarian singing at Rangers vs Celtic “Old Firm” games, the Sectarianism At Football Act, ended up in the ludicrous situation of a Partick Thistle fan being arrested for singing a song lampooning the Catholic vs Protestant posturing of the two big Glasgow clubs (“Fuck your Pope and Fuck Your Queen”). The law has been derided as “mince” by one senior sheriff, and the opposition Labour party has vowed to scrap it should they win the next Scottish election.

Meanwhile, south of the border, attempts to stop footballer supporters using the word “Yid” ran into trouble due to the fact that fans of Tottenham – a club with strong Jewish self-identification – quite liked using the word, having re-appropriated the term. It did not help that the campaign was led by writer David Baddiel, himself Jewish, but more importantly in that argument, a Chelsea fan.

Must anything be done at all? I think (and I speak only for myself) that it is reasonable for footballers to be able to go about their working life – i.e. the 90 minutes on the pitch, without being subjected to racial or homophobic abuse, certainly not from players and not from fans either.

But this is only a call to, at most, uphold the law as it stands. Football clubs are private entities that can make their own rules, but they should be wary of cracking down on the songs, the slights, and yes, the top, classic, legendary banter that make football what it is.

As for the idea of specific football laws, as in Scotland? As the song goes: No, nay, never.

This article was posted on August 14, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org

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