2 Mar 2022 | News and features, Russia, Ukraine
John Sweeney reporting from Ukraine for Index
Rost used to be a hot air balloon pilot before the war but now he’s a grim figure in dark hoodie, carrying a rifle, his face knotted with pressure because he is guarding Kyiv’s TV tower from Russian attack. But there is only so much that the Ukrainians can do and the previous night, Tuesday 2 March, at 1800 hours four Russian missiles punched through, hitting the tower’s control building by its base and knocking Ukrainian TV off the airwaves. The moment curfew lifted at 0800 hours Wednesday morning, I thumbed a lift to the TV tower and was the first reporter inside the complex. The more Rost showed me, the darker it got.
The tower itself disappeared into the early morning fog, not obviously touched but the control building near-by had taken a direct hit. Windows were smashed to smithereens, frames hanging loose, rubble crunching underfoot. Rost explained what had happened in Russian, a language I studied at school and then forgot. I filmed what he said and put it up on Twitter and someone translated: “The rockets flew in….they were laser-guided, they have good equipment, they came towards the building, four rockets came this way, naturally the people died here because of the explosions and I’m showing the gentleman from Britain, losses are serious, the building is ruined.”
He took me round the front of the control building and he stooped to give me a present, an evil butterfly wing of shrapnel, fired from Russia without love. On the ground was a puddle of blood one metre wide, still brightly red in the cold, snow still on the ground. A worker had been killed in the blast, his corpse removed but no-one had yet got around to washing away the blood.
That was the easy bit. We went out of a guardhouse and across a wide street, stepping over electricity cables that had fallen onto the tarmac, to the far side where there was a row of shops, some burnt out, still smoking from the attack the previous evening. On the ground was the corpse of an elderly man and, closer to the shops, the bodies of a mother and child. Ambulance workers or perhaps people from the morgue had come and were placing blankets over the dead before putting them in a dark green van for their last long journey through Kyiv.
The Russian state is saying that it is not killing civilians. That is a lie. I saw evidence of that with my own eyes this morning.
Censorship has many forms but knocking a TV station off air by firing missiles at the transmitting tower is perhaps as subtle as Vladimir Putin gets these days. Less brutal but perhaps more effective in shoring up his grip in power is switching off the last two independent media stations in Moscow, Ekho Moskvy and TV Rain. The last brave reporters with some licence to hit the airwaves have been silenced.
Moscow is fast becoming the new Pyongyang, one of the airports still open to Russian air traffic. Putin’s war is a thing of evil but it’s possible to see that he had made a miscalculation, that he has hopelessly misread the courage of ordinary, extraordinary Ukrainians from their comic turned President down to the florists now making Molotov cocktails, that the West – for once – has got its act together, that the old man in the White House has far more fight in him than the Kremlin could possibly have imagined.
So switching off sources of information, rough and ready though they may be, will become crucial as things get darker for Putin’s regime. Here in Kyiv, that is not an academic question. If the Russians do arrive here in force, then any Ukrainian journalist with a strong voice will be in trouble. Foreign journalists with big media houses at their back – CNN, ABC, Reuters – will have some protection. As a freelance, for the moment, I have my orange beanie hat. Still, telling truth to the Kremlin is a necessity in the twenty first century and it’s only just become fashionable.
The truth is that Vladimir Putin’s military machine is killing civilians in a country at peace until he invaded it. And however much the censor’s pen and switch and missiles command silence, the truth must be told.
21 Jan 2022 | Afghanistan, China, Kazakhstan, Opinion, Russia, Ruth's blog, United Kingdom, United States
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson looks down at the podium during a media briefing in Downing Street. Photo: Justin Tallis/PA Wire/PA Images
It should surprise no-one that I am a political geek. I love politics. I love the cut and thrust of debate. I love the moments of high drama and the intrigue. Most of all I love the fact that genuine good can be done. That people’s lives can be made just a little easier by the power of our collective democracy.
So you’d assume that I would have relished the events of the UK Parliament this week. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to being completely obsessed with the minutiae of the debate around Partygate and the drama of the precarious position of the Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP as he seeks to survive the biggest political crisis of his premiership.
But I’m also angry. The British Government has been distracted for weeks, caught in a political crisis of their own making about whether or not the Prime Minister knowingly broke his own Covid-19 regulations. While the political establishment awaits a report from a senior civil servant to clarify what was, or wasn’t, happening behind the doors of Number 10, important issues are being sidelined or ignored and people are suffering.
This week the British Parliament held vital debates on the genocide of the Uighurs and the use of the British legal system to silence activists and journalists. Both debates passed broadly without comment or wider notice.
The Russian Federation is threatening the sovereign status of a democratic ally, Ukraine, on an hourly basis.
Biden has marked his first year in office.
52,581 people have died of Covid.
Protestors in Kazakhstan are being threatened with death if they continue to protest against the government, with 10,000 already arrested and 225 killed by the authorities.
23 million people in Afghanistan are experiencing extreme hunger as the Taliban starts attacking women activists.
These are some of the heartbreaking and terrifying realities which are happening around the world. These are the issues that should have dominated our news agenda this week, along with a cost of living crisis, a plan to deliver net zero and attacks on free expression around the world.
Index will continue to fight for these issues to be heard. For the voices of the persecuted to be recognised. While some of our leaders focus on domestic intrigue we’ll keep fighting for those that don’t have a voice.
6 Aug 2021 | Afghanistan, Belarus, Burma, China, Hong Kong, India, Opinion, Ruth's blog
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”117177″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]There are moments as you’re watching the news when it feels as if the world is becoming an increasingly horrible place, that totalitarianism is winning, and that violence is the acceptable norm. It’s all too easy to feel impotent as the horror becomes normalised and we move on from one devastating news cycle to the next.
This week alone, in the midst of the joy and heartbreak of the Olympics, we have seen the attempted forced removal of the Belarusian sprinter Krystina Timanovskaya from Tokyo by Lukashenko’s regime. Behind the headlines, the impact on her family has been obvious – her husband has fled to Ukraine and will seek asylum with Krystina in Poland and there have been reports that even her grandparents have been visited by KGB agents in Belarus.
This served as a stark reminder, if we needed one, that Lukashenko is an authoritarian dictator who will stop at nothing to retain power. And this is happening today – in Europe. Our own former member of staff Andrei Aliaksandrau and his partner Irina have been detained for 206 days; Andrei faces up to 15 years in prison for treason; his alleged “crime” – to pay the fines of the protestors.
In Afghanistan, reports of Taliban incursions are now a regular feature of every news bulletin, with former translators who supported NATO troops being murdered as soon as they are found and media freedom in Taliban-controlled areas now non-existent. Six journalists have been killed this year, targeted by extremists, and reporters are being forced into hiding to survive. As the Voice of America reported last month: “The day the Taliban entered Balkh district, 20 km west of Mazar e Sharif, the capital of Balkh province last month, local radio station Nawbahar shuttered its doors and most of its journalists went into hiding. Within days the station started broadcasting again, but the programming was different. Rather than the regular line-up, Nawbahar was playing Islamist anthems and shows produced by the Taliban.”
Last Sunday, Myanmar’s military leader, Gen Min Aung Hlaing, declared himself Prime Minister and denounced Aung San Suu Kyi as she faces charges of sedition. Since the military coup in February over 930 have been killed by the regime including 75 children and there seems to be no end in sight as the military continue to clamp down on any democratic activity and journalists and activists are forced to flee.
At the beginning of this week Steve Vines, a veteran journalist who had plied his trade in Hong Kong since 1987, fled after warnings that pro-Beijing forces were coming for him. The following day celebrated artist Kacey Wong left Hong Kong for Taiwan after his name appeared in a state-owned newspaper – which Wong viewed as a ‘wanted list’ by the CCP. Over a year since the introduction of the National Security Law in Hong Kong the ramifications are still being felt as dissent is crushed and people arrested for previously democratic acts, including Anthony Wong, a musician who was arrested this week for singing at an election rally in 2018. Dissent must be punished even if it was three years ago.
And then there is Kashmir… On 5 August 2019, Narendra Modi’s government stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its special status for limited autonomy. Since that time residents inside Kashmir have lived under various levels of restrictions. Over 1,000 people are still believed to be in prison, detained since the initial lockdown began, including children. Reportedly 19 civilians have died so far this year caught in clashes between the Indian Army and militants. And on the ground journalists are struggling to report as access to communications fluctuates.
Violence and silence are the recurring themes.
Belarus, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Kashmir. These are just five places I have chosen to highlight this week. Appallingly, I could have chosen any of more than a dozen.
It would be easy to try and avoid these acts of violence. To turn off the news, to move onto the next article in the paper and push these awful events to the back of our mind. But we have a responsibility to know. To speak up. To stand with the oppressed.
Behind every story, every statistic, there is a person, a family, a friend, who is scared, who is grieving and in so many cases are inspiring us daily as they stand firm against the regimes that seek to silence them. Index stands with them and as ever we shine a spotlight on their stories – so that we can all bear witness.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”41669″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
5 Aug 2021 | Belarus, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”117172″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]In the months since the disputed re-election of Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, the freedom of the press in Belarus has come under increasing attack.
The country’s journalism union, the Belarusian Association of Journalists (Baj.by), has documented more than 500 detentions, hundreds of arrests and fines, and dozens of criminal cases and prison sentences directed against reporters, editors and media managers, including our former colleague Andrei Aliaksandrau.
Almost every independent news and socio-political outlet from the local to the national level has experienced police pressure, searches and confiscations of their professional equipment. Many have been forced to stop publishing or to flee the country in order to work from exile.
In July 2021, the state launched a new wave of repression against independent media outlets and organisations.
Over ten days, security forces carried out more than 70 searches of editorial offices and private homes of employees of national and regional media. As a result, dozens more journalists, editors and media managers joined their colleagues already in custody.
Now BAJ itself is in Lukashenko’s sights.
BAJ is a voluntary, nongovernmental, nonpartisan association that includes more than 1,300 media professionals from across the country. It assists members in realising and developing their professional journalistic activities. Throughout its 25 years of existence, BAJ has also been a leader in promoting freedom of expression and defending media rights.
The organisation has been internationally recognised for its work. In 2004, the European Parliament awarded BAJ with the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, the EU’s highest human rights tribute. In 2011, it received the Atlantic Council’s Freedom Award. In 2020, the organisation was the first recipient of the Canada-UK Media Freedom Award, which recognises individuals and organisations advocating for media freedom.
Over the past year, BAJ has focused on defending and assisting its members whose professional and human rights have been violated by the state’s searches, detentions, beatings, legal and criminal persecution, arrests and prison terms. So it is not surprising that the authorities have launched a repressive campaign targeting BAJ itself.
In June, BAJ was forced to hand over thousands of documents about its activities.
The following month, authorities conducted another search of the office even without the presence of the association’s representatives. It is unknown in respect of which criminal case it was searched nor what was taken from there. They have also sealed the office, meaning employees cannot work there anymore and there is no access to statutory documents.
Now the country’s Supreme Court issued an order for the organisation to be liquidated. This is the same situation which almost 50 other public organisations of Belarus have faced, which have been of benefit for decades to Belarusian society, journalism, the writing community and many other areas.
BAJ’s closure – if the courts agree to the liquidation – will cause serious damage to the Belarusian journalistic community.
Firstly, there will be no legal organisation left in the country that can protect the rights of journalists.
Secondly, the association’s educational hub for journalists will disappear, and many BAJ educational programmes will have to be closed.
Finally, the only legal and recognised institution of journalistic ethical self-government will be destroyed – the BAJ Ethics Commission. In recent years, this was the only body in Belarus that effectively considered issues related to ethics in the media.
Yet even if BAJ is forced to close, it will not disappear.
The support of the international community for BAJ is strong. Journalists and numerous human rights organisations around the world have offered their support to BAJ and its members at this difficult time. BAJ also has outstanding support from the International and European Federation of Journalists, who oppose the liquidation, and have said that if it is closed, the association will remain a member of their organisations.
If the liquidation of the BAJ legal entity is confirmed, the headquarters will make a final decision on how it will work in the future. If it is impossible to continue in Belarus, BAJ will consider working abroad.
BAJ continues the fight. It has already appealed the Ministry of Justice’s liquidation order and the court will consider this on the morning of 11 August.
However, the justice system no longer works properly any more in Belarus. In any other democratic country, the court’s decision would be in favour of the BAJ.
The most important thing, according to BAJ chairman Andrei Bastunec, is that the organisation will continue its work.
“BAJ is not only a legal entity, but an association of like-minded people who see their mission as expanding the space of freedom of speech in Belarus,” he said.
Bastunec says the official registration of the organisation provided, by and large, one advantage: it simplified communication with government agencies. But when the authorities announced its ‘sweep’, advance communication was reduced to zero.
“As strange as it may sound, the deprivation of the BAJ’s legal status by the court will have almost no effect on Belarusian journalism and journalists. Many of them have been forced to go abroad, but continue to work there successfully. The BAJ will continue its work regardless of the court verdict,” he said.
Despite the threat to its existence in Belarus, active members of BAJ are defiant. Many say they will continue working in Belarus as long as possible until the authorities force them to leave the country.
“There is an administrative, bureaucratic reality from which the BAJ can be erased, but there is also a life where the organisation will continue to carry out its mission. The biggest threat to Belarusian journalism is not the deprivation of BAJ registration, but the wave of repression.”
Bastunec says the BAJ team welcomes the solidarity offered by those in the country and abroad.
“It must be understood that the Belarusian authorities today have entered into a fierce confrontation with the ‘collective West’, as they now call the democratic world.”
Yet even if forced to work outside Belarus, BAJ and its members may not be safe. The recent suspicious death of Vitaly Shishov in Ukraine and the attempt to force Belarusian athlete Krystina Timanovskaya to return home after speaking out against her coaches at the Olympics show that Lukahsenko’s tentacles have a very long reach.
Chronology of the repressive campaign against BAJ
9 June The Ministry of Justice launches a major audit of BAJ’s activities.
21 June BAJ receives an official request requiring the organisation to provide thousands of administrative and financial documents on its activities, including lists of its members, covering the last three years. The documents were demanded the same day but the Ministry of Justice later extended the deadline to 1 July. Despite the short time frame, BAJ submitted all the requested documents, with the exception of those seized from the BAJ office during a search by security forces in February 2021.
14 July In the absence of BAJ representatives, security forces raided, searched and sealed BAJ’s office.
15 July BAJ receives an official warning from the Ministry of Justice on the grounds that its regional branches in Brest and Maladzechna had allegedly carried out their activities without having legal addresses. However, this is not true. Nevertheless, the Ministry of Justice considered the failure of BAJ to submit all of the required audit documents, as well as the absence of legal addresses of the regional branches, to be a violation of the country’s legislation and BAJ’s charter. The Ministry demanded that the alleged violations be rectified by the next day.
16 July BAJ informs the Ministry of Justice that the organisation’s office had been sealed by the state and that its representatives had no access to its documents. BAJ therefore requested more time to fulfill the Ministry’s demands after gaining access to its premises.
21 July The Ministry of Justice reports via its social networks that it had already submitted a claim for the liquidation of BAJ to the Supreme Court, allegedly due to the organisation’s failure to rectify the violations and the official warning for repeated violations of the law.
9 August Conversation of the parties in the civil case brought by the Supreme Court on the BAJ appeal against the written warning issued by the Ministry of Justice on 15 July.
11 August Supreme Court will hear the liquidation order against BAJ.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”172″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
