09 Feb 17 | Mapping Media Freedom, News and features, Youth Board
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To highlight the most pressing concerns for press freedom in Europe in 2017, members Index’s outgoing youth board review the year gone by with some of our Mapping Media Freedom correspondents.
Youth board member Sophia Smith Galer, from the UK, spoke to Ilcho Cvetanoski, Mapping Media Freedom correspondent for Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Macedonia.
According to Cvetanoski, a lot has improved in the region over the last 15 years. The era during which journalists were targeted and killed is long passed, but the media is still dogged by censorship and political divides. In fact, journalists are regularly threatened and vilified by political elites, often denounced as foreign mercenaries, spies and traitors. Cvetanoski reports that this has led to “physical threats, the atmosphere of impunity, media ownership and also verbal attacks amongst the journalists themselves”. He notes that techniques pressuring journalists have changed from “blatant physical assaults to more subtle ones”.
The breaking up of the former Yugoslavia has undoubtedly been a historical burden on Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. Cvetanoski describes this legacy as having left “deep scars in every aspect of the people’s lives, including the lives and the work of journalists”. Media workers are still remembered as having once been tools of the state. Nowadays, the opposite is happening; they’re being criticised by political elites as enemies of the state simply for scrutinising politicians’ behaviour.
It’s unsurprising that this has left many journalists in the region politicised, undermining professionalism and trust in the media. Conservative politicians court sympathisers in the media so that they can manipulate the angle and content of stories that are run. The fact that journalist salaries are low and that the economic situation is poor overall further imperils journalistic integrity in the face of bribes.
If the situation remains as it is – with limited and highly controlled sources for financing the media, a poor political culture and low media literacy among citizens – then Cvetanoski holds little hope for the future of press freedom in the region. News consumers aren’t equipped with the literacy levels to distinguish between professional versus sensational journalism, nor are the sources of media funding transparent or appropriate. “In this deadlock democracy, the first victims are the citizens who lack quality information to make decisions.”
Mapping Media Freedom is helping to change this. Making journalists feel less alone and offering a space for them to report threats to press freedom ensures that the hope for a free press throughout Europe is kept alive.
The youth board’s Constantin Eckner, from Germany, spoke with Zoltán Sipos, the MMF correspondent for Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.
As MMF illustrates, journalists in all three countries have to deal with constant pressure from authorities and various degrees of censorship. In 2016, 42 incidents were reported in Hungary, 21 in Romania and 7 in Bulgaria.
Index on Censorship’s regional correspondent Zoltán Sipos, who is also the founder and editor of Romania’s investigative outlet Átlátszó Erdély, points out that the Hungarian government and its allies within the country follow a sophisticated plan to neutralise critical media outlets. Several newspapers that struggled financially have been purchased by rich business people or media moguls in recent history. “Just like in regards to any other part of society, prime minister Viktor Orbán seeks for a centralisation of the media industry,” Sipos says.
Yet, instead of simply controlling the media, Orbán and the reigning party Fidesz intend to use established outlets and broadcasters to construct narratives in favour of their agendas. Only a handful of independent outlets remain in Hungary.
In November 2016, Class FM, Hungary’s most popular commercial radio channel, was taken off the air. The Media Council of Hungaryʼs National Media refused to renew its licence as Class FM was owned by Hungarian oligarch Lajos Simicska, whose outlets became very critical towards the government after a quarrel between him and Orbán.
The authorities in Romania and Bulgaria might not follow a well-wrought plan, but the situation for critical journalists is as severe. “The main problem is that most outlets can’t generate enough revenue from the market,” Sipos explains. “These outlets found themselves under constant pressure, as powerful business people are willing to purchase them and use them to promote their own political agendas.” Ultimately, this issue leads to the demise of independent reporting and weakens voices critical of the ruling parties and influential political players.
Sipos concludes that “these three countries have little to no tradition of independent journalism.” Although death threats towards, or even violence against journalists do not exist, the working conditions for critical reporters are difficult.
He recommends the investigative outlets Bivol.bg from Bulgaria, atlatszo.hu and Direkt36.hu from Hungary as well as RISE Project and Casa Jurnalistului from Romania as bastions of independent journalism. A few mainstream outlets that conduct critical reporting are 444.hu, index.hu, HotNews.ro and Digi24.
Layli Foroudi, a youth board member from the UK, interviewed Mitra Nazar, MMF correspondent for Serbia, Kosovo, Slovenia and the Netherlands.
A Dutch national based in Belgrade, Serbia and the Netherlands are Nazar’s natural beats, and she also monitors media freedom in the nearby Balkan states of Slovenia and Kosovo.
This year, Serbia has been the most intense of the four countries to cover. Serbian journalists have been subject to physical attacks and the government has maintained a smear campaign against independent media outlets in the country.
“This is a very organised campaign,” explains Nazar, “they’re being called foreign spies and foreign mercenaries.”
The “foreign spy” accusation has a real effect on the personal safety of journalists, whose pictures are often published alongside such accusations in the pro-government media. Nazar, who wrote a feature on the subject, says that this can cause such journalists to be branded as unpatriotic and anti-Serbian: “When the government accuses journalists of being “foreign spies”, it gives the impression that these independent journalists are against Serbia as a country.”
The ruling party of Serbia even went so far as to organise a touring exhibition called Uncensored Lies, where the work of independent media was parodied in an attempt to prove that the government does not censor, however, the exhibition also served to discredit these publications by calling the content “lies”.
“Can you imagine the ruling party organises an exhibition discrediting independent media,” says Nazar, shocked, “this is not indirect censorship, it is directly from the government.”
The media landscape in the Netherlands does not experience direct state-sponsored censorship, but there are other challenges. The Netherlands ranks 2nd in the 2016 RSF World Press Freedom Index, but Nazar has still reported a total of 49 incidents since the Mapping Media Freedom project started, from police aggression against journalists, to assaults on reporters during demonstrations, to broadcasters being denied access to public meetings.
For 2017, she is interested in looking into how the Dutch media deals with the rise of the far right and a growing anti-immigrant sentiment, especially in the upcoming elections which will see controversial far-right candidate Geert Wilders stand for office.
Last year, a Dutch tabloid De Telegraaf published an article about the arrival of refugees to the Netherlands with a sensational headline that generated a lot of debate in the Dutch media, which Nazar says is becoming increasingly politicised and polarised.
For Nazar, there is a line to be drawn with what legacy media outlets should and should not publish. “That line is representing and following the facts,” she says, “if you publish a headline that says there is a “migrant plague”, that is beyond facts – it is a political agenda.”
The youth board’s Ian Morse, from the USA, interviewed Vitalii Atanasov, the MMF correspondent for Ukraine.
In just the past two months in Ukraine, journalists have been assaulted, TV stations have been banned and governments on both sides of the country’s conflict with Russia have sought to limit public information and attack those who publicise.
Vitalii Atanasov is the correspondent who reported these incidents to the Mapping Media Freedom project. Drawing on sources from individual journalists to large NGOs, Atanasov monitors violations of media plurality and freedom in Ukraine for the project. To verify a story, he sometimes contacts media professionals directly, or crowdsources through social media, as he finds that all journalists publicise cases of violation of their rights, attacks, and incidents of violence.
“Some cases are complicated, and the information about them is very contradictory,” Atanasov tells Index. “So I’m trying to trace the background of the conflict that led to the violation of freedom of expression and media.”
Many of the violations that occur in Ukraine are either individual attacks on media workers by separatists in the east or Ukrainian officials attempting to control the media through regulation and licensing.
Of about a dozen and a half reports since he began working with MMF, Atanasov says many reports stick out, such as the “blatant” attempts of authorities to influence the work of major TV channels such as Inter and 1+1 channels. Most recently, Ukraine banned the independent Russian station Dozhd from broadcasting in Ukraine. While TV has recently been the target, problems with media freedom have come from almost everywhere.
“The sources of these threats can be very different,” Atanasov says, “for example, representatives of the authorities, the police, intelligence agencies, politicians, private businesses, third parties, criminals, and even ordinary citizens.”
Atanasov and MMF build off the work of other groups working in Ukraine, such as the Institute of Mass information, Human Rights Information Center, Detector Media, and Telekritika.ua.
Click on the bubbles to view reports or double-click to zoom in on specific regions. The full site can be accessed at https://mappingmediafreedom.org/
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29 Nov 16 | Campaigns, Campaigns -- Featured, Index Reports, Press Releases
An unprecedented series of crackdowns on media professionals and news outlets took place in Europe and neighbouring countries during the third quarter of 2016, recorded by Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project.
Between 1 July and 30 September MMF’s network of correspondents, partners and other sources submitted a total of 406 verified reports of threats to press freedom, a 19% rise from the second quarter of 2016.
An important factor in the rise in media violations was the attack on Turkey’s democratically-elected government on 15 July. Following the failed coup attempt, Turkish authorities forced more than 2,500 journalists out of their jobs, arrested and prosecuted 98 under trumped-up criminal charges, detained 133 and seized or shut down 133 media outlets. The post-coup environment in the country is explored in an extensive case study.
“The post-coup situation for media freedom in Turkey is dire. The sheer number of journalists arrested, detained and charged is without precedent in Europe. At the same time the reports collected by the map are pointing to other areas of concern in Russia and Ukraine,” Hannah Machlin, Mapping Media Freedom project officer, said.
Key findings from the third quarter 2016 report:
- Four journalists were killed: Two in Ukraine, one in Russia and one in Turkey
“With nine out of every 10 murders of journalists never solved, the vicious cycle of impunity still prevails. It has to be broken. There can be no exception to the very basic rule that all attacks on journalists must be investigated quickly and thoroughly. We should never give up the fight for journalists’ safety and the struggle to end impunity for crimes committed against journalists,” Dunja Mijatović, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, said.
- 54 incidents of physical assault were reported
- 107 media professionals were arrested; 150 were detained and released
- 112 reports of intimidation, which includes psychological abuse, sexual harassment, trolling/cyberbullying and defamation, were made
“Reporters Without Borders is deeply concerned by the many cases of the use of violent intimidation tactics to silence journalists over the past few months. Acts of violence, and impunity for these acts, has a serious chilling effect on freedom of expression and freedom of information. The increasing use of violence to silence critical voices is part of a global trend of deteriorating press freedom, which must be addressed as a matter of urgent priority”, said Rebecca Vincent, UK Bureau Director for Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
- Journalistic work was censored or altered 29 times
- Media professionals were blocked from covering a story in 89 cases.
The report is available in web and pdf formats.
For more information, please contact Hannah Machlin, Mapping Media Freedom project officer at [email protected]
About Mapping Media Freedom
Mapping Media Freedom – a joint undertaking with the European Federation of Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, partially funded by the European Commission – covers 42 countries, including all EU member states, plus Bosnia, Iceland, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Turkey, Albania along with Ukraine, Belarus and Russia in (added in April 2015), and Azerbaijan (added in February 2016). The platform was launched in May 2014 and has recorded over 2,500 incidents threatening media freedom.
28 Oct 16 | Belgium, Europe and Central Asia, Kosovo, Latvia, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features, Russia
Each week, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project verifies threats, violations and limitations faced by the media throughout the European Union and neighbouring countries. Here are five recent reports that give us cause for concern.
Sergey Leleka, a columnist for the pro-government newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, suggested in an article on 24 October that independent journalists Anton Nosik and Sergei Parkhomenko should be “cured in gas chambers”.
According to Leleka, he wrote the article in reaction to jokes by Nosik and Parkhomenko about the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov which passed through the English Channel emitting thick black smoke.
After the journalists complained to KP, the media outlet deleted the offending paragraph. However, Leleka’s original post is still available on his Facebook page.
A number of Belgian media websites, including De Standaard, RTBF, Het Nieuwsblad, Gazet van Antwerpen and Het Belang van Limburg were subject to a co-ordinated DDoS attack on 24 October, which temporarily shut the sites down.
A group that calls itself the Syrian Cyber Army claimed responsibility.
“We have attacked the Belgian media outlets that support the terrible actions of their Air Force in Syria,” the group said in a message to the newspapers. It wanted to “shame the Belgian authorities, which killed dozens of civilians in the village of Hassajik near Aleppo on 18 October”.
Belgium’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office has launched an investigation.
Editor-in-chief of Gazeta Express, Leonard Kerquki, received death threats after the airing of his documentary which mentions war crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army.
The documentary, Hunting the KLA, aired in two parts and covers crimes and prosecutions from the war between Serbia and Kosovo at the end of the 1990s. The threats were made after the showing of the second part on 23 October.
The Journalist Association of Kosovo condemned the threats, as did the OSCE mission in Kosovo. “I condemn the threats and calls for violence against Kërquki. Freedom of expression must be upheld and respected in all circumstances,” said the head of Kosovo’s OSCE mission, Jan Braathu. “I call on rule of law authorities to investigate these threats immediately and bring the perpetrators to justice,” he said.
Ella Taranova, a senior producer for Russia Today, was detained by Latvian border guards on 21 October and later deported.
The incident occurred after Taranova was admitted to Latvia and to participate in a conference in a seaside suburb of Jurmala.
Taranova was blacklisted for being an employee of Russia Today, which the Latvian authorities see as a hostile propaganda organ of the Russian government. The head of Russia Today, Dmitry Kiselyov, is blacklisted from travelling to the European Union and other countries under EU sanctions imposed in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
After her detention, Taranova told journalists: “I did not engage in any political activities nor do I intend to.” She added that she was unaware that she had been blacklisted since 2014 and had attended several such conferences prior to 2014.
At around 6am on 21 October, Russian Investigative Committee (SKR) officers entered and searched the apartment of Ksenia Babich, journalist and spokesperson for human rights international organisation Russian Justice Initiative.
According to Shelepin, SKR officers confiscated a notebook, phones and memory cards.
Babich was also asked to go to the SKR for questioning, Ilia Shelepin, a journalist and Babich’s acquaintance, wrote on Facebook. Babich believes the search is related to the case of Artyom Skoropadski, a press secretary of the Ukrainian organisation Pravyi Sektorwhich, which is banned in Russia.
02 Sep 16 | Albania, Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, Europe and Central Asia, Kosovo, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features, Russia, Turkey
Each week, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project verifies threats, violations and limitations faced by the media throughout the European Union and neighbouring countries. Here are five recent reports that give us cause for concern.
30 August 2016 – The home of veteran journalist and Index contributor Yavuz Baydar was raided by the police, the journalist reported via Twitter.
The raid came shortly after detention warrants were issued for 35 people including 27 journalists. As of 30 August, of the 27 journalists sought nine have been detained in Turkey while 18 other journalists are reportedly abroad.
Also read by Baydar: Turkey: Losing the rule of law
28 August 2016 – At around 10pm an unidentified individual threw a hand grenade at the house of Mentor Shala, the director of Kosovo’s public broadcaster RTK.
Shala and his family were inside at the time. No casualties were reported but according to the RTK director the explosion was strong and that it had shocked the whole neighbourhood.
Kosovo’s police are investigating the case, which is the second attack on national broadcaster RTK within a week. On 22 August 2016 an explosive device was thrown at the broadcaster’s headquarters.
President Hashim Thaci has condemned the attack. “Criminal attacks against media executives and their families threaten the privacy and freedom of speech, and at the same time seriously damage the image of Kosovo,” he told RTK.
Both attacks were claimed by a group called Rugovasit, which said in a written statement to RTK that the attack was “only a warning”.
Rugovasit blames RTK journalist Mentor Shala for only reporting the government’s perspective. “If he does not resign from RTK, his life is in danger,” they said.
27 August 2016 – Journalist and founder of news agency Novy Region, Alexander Shchetinin, was found dead in his apartment in Kiev.
The National Police confirmed in a statement that “a man with a gunshot wound to the head was discovered on the balcony”. He reportedly died between 8-9.30pm.
Police found cartridges, a gun and a letter at the scene. “The doors to the apartment were closed, the interior looks intact,” police reported.
“Until all the facts are established, until the examination and forensic examination is complete, we are investigating it as a murder,” said Kiev police chief Andrey Kryschenko. “The main lines of enquiry are suicide and connections with his professional activities.”
The Russian-born journalist had lived in the Ukrainian capital since 2005. He was often critical of the Russian government. In 2014, he refused Russian citizenship, later joined the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine.
20 August 2016 – Faeces was poured onto the prominent Russian journalist Yulia Latynina, who works for independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta and hosts a programme called Kod Dostupa at radio station Echo of Moscow.
According to Latynina, the incident took place close to the radio’s office at Novy Arbat in central Moscow. An unidentified individual in a motorcycle helmet perpetrated the attack, while his accomplice was waiting for him at a motorcycle nearby. The unidentified individuals fled the scene.
Latynina told Echo of Moscow that it was the 14th or the 15th time she has been attacked. She believes the assailants had been following her for a long time as they seemed to know her daily commute and where she parks her car.
Latynina also believes the incident is connected to her Novaya Gazeta investigations into billionaire Evgeny Prigozhin, who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to Latynina’s investigations, Prigozhin has orchestrated mass trolling on opposition activists in Saint Petersburg.
22 August 2016 – A prosecutor has asked for a three-month prison sentence for Faig Amirli, the director of the newspaper Azadliq, Radio Free Europe’s Azerbaijan Service.
Amirli’s lawyer declared that his client is being charged for spreading national and religious hatred, along with promoting religious sects and disturbing public order by performing religious activities.
Amirli was detained by a group of unidentified individuals on 20 August. At the time, his whereabouts were unknown while his house was searched by the representatives of Grave Crimes Unit.
Police claim they found literature related to Fethullah Gülen, the alleged orchestrator of the attempted coup in Turkey, in Amirli’s car.
His arrest is considered part of a new crackdown in Azerbaijan ahead of the September’s constitutional referendum.
Also read: Azadliq: “We are working under the dual threat of government harassment and financial insecurity”
