April 2016 was the busiest month for Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom since the project began in May 2014, with a total of 87 violations against the media recorded. While MMF records violations from over 40 countries, the majority (55%) of last month’s violations came from just five countries.
These hotspots for attacks on the media will come as no surprise to anyone following the project in recent months.
In another instance, on 30 April, Hamza Aktan, news director of private Istanbul-based IMC TV, was arrested by anti-terror police. Aktan was escorted to the police station where he was interrogated for 12 hours and then released. The editor is being accused of spreading propaganda for a terrorist organisation and trying to build public opinion abroad against interests of Turkey for four public tweets.
UPDATE: Government-seized Zaman and Cihan forced to close
Index on Censorship’s latest quarterly report includes a case study on an Istanbul court appointing a group of trustees to take over the management of Zaman newspaper. Since the report, it has been announced that Zaman and Cihan News Agency, also government-seized, are to be permanently closed on 15 May. The decision comes the day after the European Commission recommendation of granting Turkey visa-free travel to the EU.
Russia: Big business throws its weight around
As the Panama Papers showed in April, investigative journalism is essential if misconduct and abuse by big business are to come to light. This makes a recent trend in Russia all the more worrying.
A total of 12 reports were filed in Russia last month, three of which related to journalists investigating business. On 12 April, when covering truckers protesting against the “illegal” actions of Omega, journalist Anton Siliverstov’s phone was stolen by Evgeni Rutkovski the director of the transport company. When he asked Rutkovski to comment on the protest, Siliverstov was forced from the office. The journalist said he would record the incident on his phone, at which point Rutkovski snatched the journalist’s device, refused to give it back and called security. Siliverstov hasn’t seen the phone since.
The month ened with state oil company Rosneft filing a judicial complaint against BiznessPress for an article which, the firm said, is “false and represents baseless fantasies of journalists or their so-called sources”.
Ukraine: TV journalists in the firing line
Ukraine continues to be unsafe for many media workers, with nine reports submitted to the project in April. Violations included five cases of intimidation, two attacks to property and several physical assaults. On 1 April, unidentified assailants set a local TV studio on fire with molotov cocktails. Studio equipment and furniture were destroyed. No one was injured.
Journalism is not a crime, but you’d be excused for thinking otherwise when observing recent events in Belarus. Seven reports were filed for Belarus last month, including two criminal charges resulting in fines, three arrests, and one journalist interrogated for doing his job.
Zhukouski has been fined seven times this year alone.
Macedonia: Anti-government protests turn sour
Six reports were submitted from Macedonia during April. The most worrying instances involved attacks to property (2) and a physical assault, leading to an injury.
April saw a wave of anti-government protests with thousands marching, mainly peacefully, through the capital city of Skopje. On 13 April four photographers and one journalist were injured by police during the anti-government demonstration. Two TV journalists were also injured by demonstrators on the day. On 14 April the offices of the Slobodna Makedonija radio station were pelted with stones by some anti-government demonstrators, causing the windows to break and other material damages.
Mapping Media Freedom Quarterly Report Index on Censorship has released its report for the first quarter of 2016 covering 1 January and 31 March 2016. During this time: Four journalists were killed; 43 incidents of physical assault were confirmed; and there were 87 verified reports of intimidation, which includes psychological abuse, sexual harassment, trolling/cyberbullying and defamation. Media professionals were detained in 27 incidents; 37 criminal charges and civil lawsuits were filed; and media professionals were blocked from covering a story in 62 verified incidents.
“Conflict in Turkey and eastern Ukraine along with the misuse of a broad range of legislation — from limiting public broadcasters to prosecuting journalists as terrorists — have had a negative effect on press freedom across the continent,” Hannah Machlin, Mapping Media Freedom project officer, said.
For over a decade the Belarus Free Theatre have performed underground in Minsk, with audiences subject to raids and arrests while, exiled from Belarus, the theatre’s directors plan their plays via Skype. But an online revolution has seen Belarus Free Theatre, and its new project the Ministry of Counterculture, bring their form of underground activism to the masses in 2015. Index on Censorship spoke to Belarus Free Theatre founder Natalia Kaliada and managing editor of the Ministry of Counterculture Georgie Weedon.
Seeing in their 10th anniversary in 2015, Belarus Free Theatre’s continued existence is in many ways a source of shame to EU and US politicians, the theatre’s founder Natalia Kalaida told Index. The underground theatre group was set up in 2005 by Kaliada and her husband Nikolai Khalezin, in response to censorship and oppression by the Belarusian regime.
The group immediately became a target for the authorities because of their criticism of Aleksandr Lukashenko, and plays touching on taboo subjects like mental health and sexuality. However, despite repeated arrests, brutal interrogations and harassment by the KGB (one of the few intelligence services to keep that sinister Cold War name) they continued to perform underground, using apartments, basements, cafés and forests as their stages.
“We started from just an idea, not having any support,” says Kaliada. But doing nothing was not an option, she says.
“When your friends are kidnapped, killed, thrown into jail, tortured, there is no way for you to just stay and observe. I don’t have such a luxury to be apolitical, and I don’t have time to spend doing entertainment theatre, it has to have a meaning behind it.”
Audience members in Belarus first have to search on social media for a phone number, name and the title of a show. They then call that number to leave their details, and when the theatre has a place to perform, receive a phone call or text message telling them to come to a meeting point, from where they taken to the performance.
“Usually we advise our audience to bring their passports, so if there is a police or KGB raid, people will have less time to spend in the police department while police are identifying them,” says Kaliada. “That’s why we always say our audience back in Belarus is the bravest audience in the world.”
“It’s a very big step for audience members, for us it’s clear what we do and it’s our choice, why we do this theatre, but it’s amazing to have such an audience – every time we get on Skype from London to say hello to our audience, we will ask how many are new, and it will be around 40 percent. Which is just amazing.”
Via Skype is now the only way Kalaida can greet her Belarusian audience. During a tour abroad in 2011, Kalaida and other members of the theatre learned that if they returned to Belarus they would be imprisoned.
This, however, did not stop Belarus Free Theatre. They now have London headquarters – at the Young Vic Theatre – and underground Minsk headquarters. They conceive of new projects and direct their actors in Minsk via Skype, where the company continues to perform in secret locations.
“We survive not because of support, unfortunately, of many different governments, but despite all difficulties that we’re facing on a daily basis,” says Kaliada. The group have now staged 27 productions in over 30 countries.
Having protested the Belarusian regime for over a decade, the theatre have now started to use their unique mix of art, performance and political protest to take on dictatorships and authoritarian regimes across the world, by teaching others their unique model of activism.
“The major point for us last year was to move from an idea of us talking about only Belarus, to start to frame the message that it’s not possible to talk only about one particular country or issue, because then you forget about global context,” Kaliada told Index.
The power of this was exemplified in a concert the theatre organised in 2015. Hosted in London but featuring Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian artists, as well as many well-known names from around the world, the event was watched online by over half a million people.
“It was that unique evening where you understand that it’s necessary for us to connect all those geopolitical doors and to explain to dictators and authoritarian regimes that, with the help of the internet, we could become even bigger than us physically present in Russia, Belarus or Ukraine,” Kalaida said.
“So we continue to say to those dictators, when we go underground, it’s more dangerous for you – because underground doesn’t have any boundaries.”
Belarus Free Theatre’s new project, the Ministry of Counterculture, also aims to harness the power of the internet, art and activism to effect social change.
Published in both English and Russian, the online platform was launched as part of the theatre’s 10 year anniversary, and the site features interviews, videos, photo stories, and news about art and activism around the world.
“It was launched to broadcast and engage with lots of issues – issues that the Belarus Free Theatre are engaged with, but also other issues too,” says Georgie Weedon, managing editor of the Ministry of Counterculture.” But part of the story of Ministry of Counterculture is to look forward. “The Belarus Free Theatre has achieved incredible things in the last 10 years, and we hope the Ministry of Counterculture will become part of the next 10 years and beyond.”
Pressure on Europe’s journalists as they do their jobs saw no let up during the fourth quarter of 2015, according to a survey of verified incidents of violations reported to Index on Censorship’s project Mapping Media Freedom.
Between 1 October and 31 December 2015, Mapping Media Freedom‘s network of 19 correspondents verified 232 reports that were submitted to the database. Each report is reviewed for factual accuracy and confirmed with local sources before an incident is publicly available on the map. The platform — a joint undertaking with the European Federation of Journalists and Reporters Without Borders and partially funded by the European Commission — covers 40 countries, including all EU member states, Albania, Belarus, Bosnia, Iceland, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway, Russia, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine. Since it was launched in May 2014, the map has recorded over 1,300 violations of media freedom.
During the fourth quarter of 2015: 518 media jobs were lost; two media workers reporting on the Syrian conflict were killed in Turkey; 40 reports of physical assaults on media professionals were confirmed; media workers were detained in 26 cases with criminal charges filed in 11 cases; media professionals were blocked from covering a story in 55 verified incidents; and journalists were subject to public denigration in 22 of the verified reports.
Russia’s media freedom has declined under the government of Vladimir Putin. The president and his allies have used a cloak of legislative legitimacy to target potential opposition to his rule. Mapping Media Freedom correspondents Ekaterina Buchneva and Andrey Kalikh explore what this means for two important sectors of the Russian media.
Print and broadcast media
By Ekaterina Buchneva, Mapping Media Correspondent
Under Russia’s law on mass media amended in autumn 2014, foreign owners are restricted to 20% of shares in media organisations in the country. Its authors said that the legislation would halt the West’s “cold information war”. The law has triggered major changes in the Russian media market and, as critics warned when the law was passed, was used to replace international investors with locals loyal to the Kremlin.
The Russian edition of Forbes magazine, formerly owned by German media conglomerate Axel Springer and known for its independent editorial policy, was sold to businessman Alexey Fedotov, who immediately said that the publication was “too focused on politics” and should cover more business news. In January 2016, the magazine named Nikolay Uskov as its new editor-in-chief. Uslov, a former editor-in-chief of the Russian edition of GQ, has never worked in business journalism.
Finland’s Sonoma Independent Media, America’s Dow Jones and the UK’s Pearson also had to sell their shares in Vedomosti, the main business newspaper known for its critical opinion pieces. Now the paper’s new — and only — owner is Demian Kudryavtsev, a business partner of oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who died in 2013, and a former chief executive of major Russian publishing house Kommersant. Kudryavtsev also purchased The Moscow Times, the country’s only English-language daily. Some journalists were concerned about the origin of the money Kudryavtsev used in the deal and suggested that there was another buyer behind him.
The media ownership law also affected a number of glossy magazines, which, as one of the law’s author said, “squeeze articles favorable to the West and the fifth column in between news about cars and glamorous watches”, and entertainment television channels. CTC Media sold 75% of its shares to loyal to the Kremlin oligarch Alisher Usmanov, who also owns the Kommersant publishing house.
The Russian broadcasters of CNN, Cartoon Network and Boomerang, as well as 11 television channels of Discovery group, came under the control of Media Alliance, 80% of which belongs to National Media Group. The president of NMG, which also owns a number of Russian media organisations, including RenTV, Channel Five, Izvestia newspaper and 25% of Сhannel One, is Kirill Kovalchuk, a nephew of Putin’s old friend Yuri Kovalchuk.
Tightening control over foreign publishers
In addition, in December 2015, another bill with new amendments to the “law about mass media” was introduced into the Russian State Duma. It contains more limitations for media organisations, some of them refer to foreign publishers.
The bill suggests new legal background — violation of anti-extremism legislation — for denying or revoking distribution permit for foreign publishers. Among the ones that now have such permits are Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, China Daily, European Weekly, GQ, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Tatler, Vogue, and some papers from CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries, including Expert.Ukraine magazine.
“The problem is vagueness and inconsistency of the anti-extremism legislation itself and the practice of its implementation by the Russian authorities,” says Damir Gainutdinov, lawyer of Inter-regional Association of Human Rights Organisations “Agora”.
“It is primarily about Article 1 of the Federal Law on Countering Extremist Activity, which gives a definition of extremism, extremist materials, etc. In practice, this definition is used not only for hate crimes but also, for example, criticism of the Russian authorities. Condemnation of the Crimea annexation is recognised as calls for infringement of the territorial integrity of Russia, as it was in the case of Rafis Kashapov (Tatar activist from Tatarstan, who was convinced in September 2015 to three years in jail for posting informational materials criticising Crimea annexation), and criticism of the United Russia is recognised as the incitement of hatred to a social group, as it was in the case of prohibition of video clips by Navalny (a few activists were found guilty of distribution of extremist materials for posting a video by opposition leader Alexey Navalny titled ‘Let’s recall manifest-2002 to crooks and thieves’, on social media). Therefore, any unenthusiastic article published by foreign media may be recognised as a violation of anti-extremist legislation. Another thing is that this applies only to the print media. Since February 2014, it works much easier with websites; they can be just blocked by orders of the general prosecutor office.”
According to the bill, the foreign publishers also will have to pay a fee for issuing a distribution permit. The authors explained that it would “eliminate the unfair advantage of the founders of foreign publications that provides them with more favorable business conditions”.
Another bill, that was already approved by the State Duma, requires Russian media organisations to inform Roskomnadzor (The Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications) about foreign funding, including funding from foreign states, international organisations and Russian NGOs that were considered “foreign agents”. The minimum amount of money that should be declared is 15,000 roubles (less than $200). Penalties for not notifying Roskomnadzor will be fines of 30-50,000 roubles (about $400-600) for officials and the amount of money received for companies. A repeated violation will be punished with a fine of 80,000 roubles (about $1,000) and triples amount of money received.
This bill resembles the one adopted in June 2012 by the Russian State Duma, requiring NGOs to register as “foreign agents”, says Damir Gainutdinov. “First, it is a simple registration and then more and more new burdens will be introduced, for example, state bodies will deny accreditation of such media organisations, officials will be banned from giving them interviews and answering their questions … An additional mandatory audit and special checks of staff could be introduced, who knows what else.”
The bill about foreign funding could affect a number of media platforms – from Colta.ru that cover art and culture to Mediazonа that highlights problems of the Russian justice and the penal system.
Limitations for founders of media organisations
Another block of amendments introduces a new restriction for media founders. It suggests that those, who have unspent or unexpunged convictions for crimes against the constitutional order, public security and public safety, can not found a media organisation.
Those crimes include a number of criminal articles – from hooliganism and repeated violation of rules of organising or holding rallies and demonstrations to espionage and treason. But the most tricky ones are incitement of hatred and abasement of human dignity (Article 282 of the Criminal Code of Russia), public calls for extremism (Article 280) and public calls for infringement of the territorial integrity of Russia (Article 280.1), says Damir Gainutdinov. “These articles are used for persecution of dissenters. In absolute numbers, there are not many cases like this against journalists, but such practice is developing gradually – Stomaknih, Yushkov, Kashapov”.
However, these limitations could not prevent dissenters from taking part in media management at different positions. For example, Pussy Riot members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina, who were convinced for hooliganism, founded Mediazona platform, but as Tolokonnikova told RBC newspaper, they were not officially registered as founders as they had foreseen possible legal problems.
In 2012, the anti-extremism law was amended to empower Roskomnadzor, the state media and communication watchdog, to launch the United Register of Banned Websites. The modifications also enabled the agency to add websites that have “extremist content” without judicial approval. Once a site is added to the list, Russia’s internet services providers are obliged to block it. Within days of the changes, several independent media outlets and political opposition sites websites and blogs — Grani.ru, Ej.ru, Alexei Navalny’s blog — were blacklisted in the country.
On 30 December 2015 a district court in the Siberian city of Tomsk sentenced blogger Vadim Tyumentsev to five years in prison for two videos he posted on his YouTube page.
In the first video, the blogger criticised the local government’s decision to raise the cost of fares on the city’s public transport. In the second video, he said that authorities help refugees from eastern Ukraine more than they help local residents.
The court recognised both of Tyumentcev’s videos as “having extremist character”. Ekaterina Galyautdinova, the presiding judge, gave Tyumentsev a sentence even longer than the prosecutor had pursued. She also banned Tyumentsev from posting online for three years.
The Tyumentcev case is far from the first time that a blogger has been subjected to a prosecution. In 2007, Savva Terentyev, a blogger from the Siberian city of Syktyvkar, was sentenced to a large fine for “offending a social group” – in this case, the local police force – by writing about bad behaviour and human rights abuses committed by officers. In 2012, Maxim Efimov, a blogger from Petrozavodsk, Republic of Karelia, faced prosecution after he posted an article under the headline.
In 2012, Maxim Efimov, a blogger from Petrozavodsk, Republic of Karelia, faced prosecution after he posted an article under the headline “Karelia is tired of priests”, in which he criticised the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church. Efimov left Russia and was subsequently granted political asylum in Estonia.
That same year the Prosecutor General Office blocked the website and blog of Alexei Navalny, blogger and opposition leader, for allegedly calling “for mass disorders”. Navalny was sentenced to the administrative detention for 15 days and faced other accusations related to his political activities.
“Bloggers law”
In August 2014, the Russian State Duma adopted a number of amendments to communication legislation. The so-called “bloggers law” required sites with more than 3,000 visitors a day to register with Roskomnadzor and observe the same rules as much larger media outlets.
Under the amendments, all site owners and social media users are required to disclose their names and email address on their websites. Owners and users must keep all the information published on the web including personal data for at least six months and immediately submit to the law enforcement bodies on demand.
Moreover, Roskomnadzor received the right to request personal information from all site owners and users.
Most recently, as of 1 January 2016, the “bloggers law” requires all websites and social media platforms to keep all personal data of Russian users on servers within Russian territory. Failing to do this means Roskomnadzor can block the site or service. Companies can either comply or cease doing business in Russia.
According to the Roskomnadzor spokesman Vladimir Ampelonski, some foreign companies submitted to the requirement and brought their servers to Russia. However, some companies — Google, Facebook and Apple — have defied implementing this change. Facebook representatives met with the authority’s deputy chief, Aleksandr Zharov. At the meeting the company said it will not observe the law because it is “economically disadvantageous”, the Vedomosti newspaper reported.
Empowering the FSB
After Putin’s re-election in 2012, Russian security service FSB’s powers were considerably expanded. Articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on high treason, espionage and disclosure of state secrets were widened and made ever more vague by introducing language on cooperation with any “foreign organisation, or their representatives in hostile activities to the detriment of the external security of the Russian Federation”.
The FSB has further tried to make investigative journalism more by lobbying members of the State Duma to pass a draft law limiting access to information on commercial real estate transactions. If passed, the law would make it impossible to uncover cases of illicit enrichment by government officials.
