19 Feb 14 | Campaigns, United Kingdom
David Miranda (Image: Elza Fiúza/Agência Brasil/Wikimedia Commons)
Index on Censorship today expressed disappointment at the High Court’s dismissal of David Miranda’s application for a judicial review of the use of anti-terror laws to detain him at Heathrow Airport.
“This ruling represents a dangerous elision of terrorist activity and legitimate journalistic practice,” said Kirsty Hughes, Chief Executive of Index on Censorship. “We must hope that it will not stand as precedent, as it could seriously endanger journalists working in the public interest.”
Mr Miranda, the spouse of journalist Glenn Greenwald, was stopped and searched under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 on 18 August 2013. He had been carrying encrypted files and documents originating from Edward Snowden’s leak of information on the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance programme.
A coalition of media and free speech organisations, including Index on Censorship, argued that it is inappropriate to use terror laws against someone such as Miranda, who was engaged in journalistic activity in transporting the documents intended to be used as source material for news stories in the public interest.
But the High Court today ruled that the use of the Terrorism Act did not infringe David Miranda’s right to free speech, or the rights of journalists to protect sources and materials. In his judgment, Lord Justice Laws ruled that the Schedule 7 detention of Miranda had been proportionate and did not “offend” his right to free speech under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Read the full judgment here
This article was published on 19 February 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
06 Feb 14 | Digital Freedom, Iran, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
The idea of blogging and social media in Iran was once likely to invoke images of the 2009 Green Movement, where these platforms played a part in regular people standing up to a repressive, conservative regime, calling for reforms and demanding civil liberties. These days, it may be more linked with the country’s political elites, who really seem to have taken to communicating through Twitter and Facebook — sites now blocked for most of the population.
But while it was perhaps always expected that tech-savvy, reformist activists would find ways around the social media censorship, it may come as a surprise that some of Iran’s most conservative do the same.
A new report by Small Media sheds light on the Arzeshi, a hardline, conservative faction of online activists, devoted to the principles of the 1979 revolution and the supreme leader. The report found that the Arzeshi work around online restrictions, appearing on banned sites. In particular, the report looks at blogs and Google+, and analyses the activity of 75 Arzeshi accounts on Twitter — a site that, bar a technical glitch last September, has been blocked in Iran since 2009.
However, while the government claims to have a huge number of online supporters, the report tells a different story. Far from being an active, viral network, “the vast majority” of Arzeshi sites “were poorly-connected, hardly-read, and contained unoriginal content pasted from other sites.”
James Marchant, Small Media’s Research Manager, said: “This report is the first piece of in-depth research to illustrate the reality of Iran’s secretive community of online conservative activists. It shows that contrary to all government claims, the Arzeshi community is actually very fragmented and inward-looking – it is a long way from the energetic activist army touted by senior Iranian officials.”
This article was originally published on 6 February 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
23 Jan 14 | Iran, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
During the World Economic Forum currently taking place in Davos, Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani dropped some major news — he doesn’t write his own social media messages.
While there has been some confusion in the past about who actually runs his accounts (English and Persian), this confirmation from the man himself may come as a blow to his hundreds of thousands of followers. Since bursting onto the Twitter scene, the 140-characters-or-less long messages — from (later denied) holiday greetings…
…to (later deleted) details of chats with colleagues…
— have been known to cause a stir. Indeed, large parts of Iran’s political elite seem to have taken to social media, as accounts were “set up for every candidate” in last year’s presidential election. Even Ayatollah Khamenei appears to have his own Facebook page.
Meanwhile, most Iranians don’t have the same privilege. Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are all blocked in the country. The crackdown on social media came in the wake of the massive 2009 protests known as the Green Revolution. But Rouhani — or rather, his Twitter team — told the site’s founder back in October that “efforts” were being made to allow citizens to “access all info globally”.
Maybe today’s comments were part of these efforts? Maybe all the citizens of Iran have to do to access social media freely, is become friends with a high-ranking politician?
06 Nov 13 | About Index, Campaigns, Press Releases
Index on Censorship supports today’s court challenge to the use of counter-terrorism powers to detain David Miranda at Heathrow airport in August. Index is a member of a coalition of free speech and media organisations that has made a written submission in support of Miranda’s hearing.
Online Editor Sean Gallagher said:
‘The Terrorism Act should be used to counter terrorism not to undermine investigative journalism into stories that are in the public interest, such as the ongoing revelations about mass surveillance by The Guardian and David Miranda’s partner, Glenn Greenwald. Misusing counter terrorism laws in this way is an attack on the free expression rights of journalists and their sources.’
The judicial review case will decide if it was lawful to use Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act to detain Miranda and take confidential materials from him.
Written Submissions of the Coalition of Media and Free Speech Organisatons
