22 Jan 14 | Greece, News and features, Religion and Culture
(Photo illustration: Shutterstock)
A Greek man felt the wrath of his country’s outdated blasphemy laws after satirising a Greek Orthodox monk on a Facebook page he created. The administrator of the social networking page, Filippos Loizos, 28, was handed a 10 month prison sentence after he used a play on words to compare the late Father Paisios to a traditional pasta-based dish. His arrest in 2012 saw online communities erupt as thousands of Greeks took to social networks to protest his detention.
According to the Atheist Union of Greece, the popularity of Loizos’ Facebook page following his satirical remark angered right wing and religious groups in the country. Golden Dawn, the now banned Greek neo-fascist party, took advantage of the uproar by raising a question in parliament about Loizos and his violations of two Greek laws covering blasphemy and insulting religion. Ultimately Loizos was arrested.
Loizos’ case is not the first of its kind. The Union has now called upon the Commissioner for Human Rights for the Council of Europe, Nils Muižnieks, to repeal Articles 198 and 199 of the Greek Penal Code.
Article 198 punishes any public and malicious blasphemy against God with a maximum of two years imprisonment, three months’ for the public “manifest of a lack of respect for the divinity”. Article 199 covers a broader religious spectrum and offers two years’ jail time for “one who publically and maliciously and by any means blasphemes the Greek Orthodox Church or any other religion tolerable in Greece”.
In a letter sent to Commissioner Muižnieks the Union remarked: “The insult of religion, on the other hand does not harm any citizen, as does the case of insulting people. Only the followers of religions deserve respect and may be offended—not the religion itself—and criticism and/or satire of a religious belief is not identical to insulting persons having this belief.”
They claimed that any disturbance caused by Loizos’ page has been done so by the uncontrolled reactions of angry, religious fanatics who are merely using the Penal Code articles as an excuse to be disruptive. According to the European Court of Human Rights, case Handyside vs the United Kingdom, 1976 (and in many instances since) freedom of expression is a fundamental right in a free society and includes the right to criticize ideas, even when the criticism bothers holders of those ideas.
Loizos has appealed the ruling.
This article was posted on 22 January 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
20 Jan 14 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Palestine
The logo of the Al Qassam Brigade, the armed wing of Hamas
Last week, Hamas’ militant wing the Iz Al Din al Qassam Brigades announced via their website that their primary English-language Twitter account, @alqassamBrigade had been suspended. The group said : “The Qassam Brigades confirmed that they did not violate Twitter’s terms of service ever … Twitter still not sending Al Qassam any justifications for the suspension.”
When asked by Index why the account was suspended, a spokesperson from Twitter responded: “”We do not comment on individual accounts, for privacy and security reasons.”
Twitter’s decision to suspend the account becomes evermore confusing beyond this first glance. If the goal is to prevent Al Qassam from using Twitter, it’s ineffective, as their secondary English-language account as well as a primary Arabic account are both still active- not to mention the ease with which a new account can be created. It’s difficult to see what closing the account achieved other than giving a group that, by definition feeds off exclusion from the mainstream, fuel for pariah status.
Moreover, the timing of the decision appears to be somewhat out of the blue. If Twitter was truly concerned about inflammatory remarks, then they would have suspended the account back in November 2012, when Al Qassam and the Israeli Defence Force used Twitter to bait one another during the last Gaza war. This period set a new bar in terms of direct and hostile communication via Twitter, not just between Al Qassam and the IDF but also by their supporters. Objectionable though some of it may have been, Twitter never interfered with the fray.
Nonetheless, this particular corner of the Internet is constantly caught between the need that websites such as Twitter act as a transmitter of free speech, and the extreme pressure that it is subjected to by interest groups. On the 20 November 2012, “Christians for a United Israel” filed a petition with Twitter to close Al Qassam’s account, on the grounds that it counted as “material support” for an internationally recognised terrorist group, Hamas.
But as David Cole pointed out in a piece for the Daily Beast’s Open Zion blog at the time, the terms of what constitutes this “material support” are so broad as to be almost meaningless – and Gaza is filled with so many international products that it could be argued that Coca Cola, ExxonMobil and a large number of Israeli products that are regularly exported to Gaza are also supporting Gaza’s ruling Hamas party. Twitter is simply a conduit – as Cole points out, “Twitter is for all practical purposes a ‘common carrier’, providing its service to all comers. Would we hold a telephone company responsible for allowing a gang to use its phone lines to plan a crime, or the Postal Service responsible for delivering a package of drugs?”
The other curious element about this timing is that the suspension comes at a time when jihadist accounts are proliferating on Twitter, in Arabic and in English. Jihadist individuals and groups within Syria have increasingly taken to social media as a way to spread a message about their beliefs and intentions as part of Syria’s civil war. Individual members of Jabhat Al Nusra and increasingly ISIS have used Twitter as a means of provoking one another off the battlefield. While this may not be the official accounts of each group tweeting, it is not so different in content from anything that Al Qassam have tweeted recently. If Twitter were truly concerned about the content of Al Qassam’s account, then they would have been forced to close far more than just the one.
Terrorist groups using different forms of media to transmit their message to a wider public is nothing new. Complaining that Twitter helps terrorists talk to the public sounds as outdated as complaining that Al Jazeera broadcasted statements by Osama bin Laden: in this sense, the medium is not the message.
To consider the alternative for a moment: Gaza is not a haven for free media. Journalists of any nationality that operate on the ground there do so under heavy restrictions from a variety of parties. Beyond the day to day restrictions on their movement, speech and work, talking directly to the Al Qassam Brigades is almost impossible. Social media, while potentially a tool for propaganda, is one of the few ways that the wider public is able to know what is happening inside Al Qassam Brigades and Hamas. Cutting off this line further maligns part of a regime that uses this seclusion to its political advantage within Gaza, and allows Hamas to further clamp down on free speech within the Strip. In short: the content may be a strange development on Twitter, but its absence potentially has tangible effects for people on the ground.
This article was posted on 20 January 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
16 Jan 14 | India, News and features, Politics and Society, Religion and Culture
It is almost impossible to believe, but the government of India’s largest and most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, has been accused of taking the country’s most popular (and shrillest) English news channel, Times Now, off the air following a wave of critical reporting. The so-called ban also extended to another channel, India News. The move led to a widespread backlash, and both channels have been restored. The Samajwadi Party government led by Akhilesh Yadav claims it was a technical glitch and not a targeted strike against its critics.
While the background causes for the ban were slowly built up over time, the immediate one was Times Now’s dogged coverage of a star-studded Bollywood event that cost “crores”, thrown by the Uttar Pradesh government – a festival called “Saifai Mahotsav.” This came at a time when victims of a riot in the town of Muzzafarnagar have been left in the bitter cold to fend for themselves in relief camps. Juxtaposing images of the young Chief Minister watching nubile Bollywood starlets gyrate to the latest hit songs with images of a little child shivering in relief camps, the channels demanded to know, among other things, why the event was taking place and where the money was coming from. The brutal Muzzafarnagar riots, which took place in late August 2013 between Hindus and Muslims in the community, ended with over 1800 Muslim families being displaced from their homes. The Indian media has routinely been reporting on the problems of resettlement, the cold, the dismal conditions of the camps and the victims’ complaints of foul play by officials there. Given this background, the glamorous Saifai festival became a rallying point for TV channels. They also started reporting that five ministers from the Uttar Pradesh government were on a foreign junket while riot victims were still suffering. The criticism against the government was loud and unforgiving, and in some cases, unrelenting.
Soon the editors of both Times Now and India News received reports that their channels were blocked across many cities and towns of Uttar Pradesh. As it stands, it seems the ban was applicable to those still watching cable and was not implemented over Direct-to-Home satellite systems. According to the Indian media, cable operators unofficially admitted that they were being pressurised by the government. The president of the Cable Service Consumer Protection Committee, Ambika Prasad Ojha told the Times of India that “the telecast of Times Now and India News has been stopped across UP because the CM got offended by their negative coverage of the Saifai Mahotsav.” Online media channel Newslaundry reported that they were unable to find any official communication ordering a ban.
In light of the increased criticism, the Uttar Pradesh government has defended itself saying that, “the [Samajwadi] party respects media freedom and that there must be some technical error and nothing else.” The Chief Minister gave an interview explaining that the festival is to boost tourism and industry in the state and has been portrayed in a bad light by the channels, and took offence to much of the language used in their reports. Party spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia singled out the word “debauchery” that Times Now’s main anchor had used to describe the festival. In the same interview, the Chief Minister talked about an interview he gave a year ago that was vetoed by the sales and marketing department of the channel, hinting that incessant coverage of the timing of the festival was not due to its newsworthiness, but to gain viewers. He even complained that the channels did not mention that the same Bollywood stars who attended Saifai Mahotsavalso, also visited sick children in hospitals.
While the young Chief Minister might feel persecuted for holding an annual festival – riot or no riot – the cable operators admissions have heavily hinted that there has been behind-the-scenes muzzling of the media. That coupled with the fact that two very vocal critics were taken off the air in the wake of heightened negative coverage does not bode well for neither the Uttar Pradesh government’s lip service to media freedom, nor media freedom in India on the whole. The incident has taken place without anyone going to an industry association with a formal complaint or a formal order for a short-term ban (as happens from time to time in India when channels break rules). The Information and Broadcasting Minister, Manish Tewari, made a statement saying that, “I think it is extremely unwarranted, it is extremely uncalled for and if at all any channel has been taken off the air for malicious reasons or a malafide reason, it is extremely uncalled for that freedom of speech and expression is trampled upon in this manner.” Tellingly, the Minister had just finished a speech in which he had said that in broadcasting, if content is king then distribution is God.
Ultimately, unless it can be proven that cable operators stopped the transmission of Times Now and India News on purpose, the story will remain mired in allegations. However, the public sentiment on social media seems to agree that the channels were unfairly targeted. What this exposes is the lack of rules when in face-offs between politicians (or perhaps, ruling politicians) and the media. Earlier reports on the Congress government have centred on requests to Google to take down posts that criticised it, as well as cases of social media users being arrested for comments critical of politicians. In this case, it seems, instead of either ignoring the criticism, or filing a formal complaint, the state government simply bullied cable operators into taking the channels off air. For a country that prides itself on a diverse and robust media environment, it is yet another in a long list of warning signs that press freedom is certainly not to be taken for granted and need to be protected at all costs.
This article was published on 16 Jan 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
15 Jan 14 | Europe and Central Asia, European Union, Index Reports, News and features, Politics and Society
This article is part of a series based on our report, Time to Step Up: The EU and freedom of expression
Beyond its near neighbourhood, the EU works to promote freedom of expression in the wider world. To promote freedom of expression and other human rights, the EU has 30 ongoing human rights dialogues with supranational bodies, but also large economic powers such as China.
The EU and freedom of expression in China
The focus of the EU’s relationship with China has been primarily on economic development and trade cooperation. Within China some commentators believe that the tough public noises made by the institutions of the EU to the Chinese government raising concerns over human rights violations are a cynical ploy so that EU nations can continue to put financial interests first as they invest and develop trade with the country. It is certainly the case that the member states place different levels of importance on human rights in their bilateral relationships with China than they do in their relations with Italy, Portugal, Romania and Latvia. With China, member states are often slow to push the importance of human rights in their dialogue with the country. The institutions of the European Union, on the other hand, have formalised a human rights dialogue with China, albeit with little in the way of tangible results.
The EU has a Strategic Partnership with China. This partnership includes a political dialogue on human rights and freedom of the media on a reciprocal basis.[1] It is difficult to see how effective this dialogue is and whether in its present form it should continue. The EU-China human rights dialogue, now 14 years old, has delivered no tangible results.The EU-China Country Strategic Paper (CSP) 2007-2013 on the European Commission’s strategy, budget and priorities for spending aid in China only refers broadly to “human rights”. Neither human rights nor access to freedom of expression are EU priorities in the latest Multiannual Indicative Programme and no money is allocated to programmes to promote freedom of expression in China. The CSP also contains concerning statements such as the following:
“Despite these restrictions [to human rights], most people in China now enjoy greater freedom than at any other time in the past century, and their opportunities in society have increased in many ways.”[2]
Even though the dialogues have not been effective, the institutions of the EU have become more vocal on human rights violations in China in recent years. For instance, it included human rights defenders, including Ai Weiwei, at the EU Nobel Prize event in Beijing. The Chinese foreign ministry responded by throwing an early New Year’s banquet the same evening to reduce the number of attendees to the EU event. When Ai Weiwei was arrested in 2011, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton issued a statement in which she expressed her concerns at the deterioration of the human rights situation in China and called for the unconditional release of all political prisoners detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression.[3] The European Parliament has also recently been vocal in supporting human rights in China. In December 2012, it adopted a resolution in which MEPs denounced the repression of “the exercise of the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly, press freedom and the right to join a trade union” in China. They criticised new laws that facilitate “the control and censorship of the internet by Chinese authorities”, concluding that “there is therefore no longer any real limit on censorship or persecution”. Broadly, within human rights groups there are concerns that the situation regarding human rights in China is less on the agenda at international bodies such as the Human Rights Council[4] than it should be for a country with nearly 20% of the world’s population, feeding a perception that China seems “untouchable”. In a report on China and the International Human Rights System, Chatham House quotes a senior European diplomat in Geneva, who argues “no one would dare” table a resolution on China at the HRC with another diplomat, adding the Chinese government has “managed to dissuade states from action – now people don’t even raise it”. A small number of diplomats have expressed the view that more should be done to increase the focus on China in the Council, especially given the perceived ineffectiveness of the bilateral human rights dialogues. While EU member states have shied away from direct condemnation of China, they have raised freedom of expression abuses during HRC General Debates.
The Common Foreign and Security Policy and human rights dialogues
The EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) is the agreed foreign policy of the European Union. The Maastricht Treaty of 1993 allowed the EU to develop this policy, which is mandated through Article 21 of the Treaty of the European Union to protect the security of the EU, promote peace, international security and co-operation and to consolidate democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedom. Unlike most EU policies, the CFSP is subject to unanimous consensus, with majority voting only applying to the implementation of policies already agreed by all member states. As member states still value their own independent foreign policies, the CFSP remains relatively weak, and so a policy that effectively and unanimously protects and promotes rights is at best still a work in progress. The policies that are agreed as part of the Common Foreign and Security Policy therefore be useful in protecting and defending human rights if implemented with support. There are two key parts of the CFSP strategy to promote freedom of expression, the External Action Service guidelines on freedom of expression and the human rights dialogues. The latter has been of variable effectiveness, and so civil society has higher hopes for the effectiveness of the former.
The External Action Service freedom of expression guidelines
As part of its 2012 Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy, the EU is working on new guidelines for online and offline freedom of expression, due by the end of 2013. These guidelines could provide the basis for more active external policies and perhaps encourage a more strategic approach to the promotion of human rights in light of the criticism made of the human rights dialogues.
The guidelines will be of particular use when the EU makes human rights impact assessments of third countries and in determining conditionality on trade and aid with non-EU states. A draft of the guidelines has been published, but as these guidelines will be a Common Foreign and Security Policy document, there will be no full and open consultation for civil society to comment on the draft. This is unfortunate and somewhat ironic given the guidelines’ focus on free expression. The Council should open this process to wider debate and discussion.
The draft guidelines place too much emphasis on the rights of the media and not enough emphasis on the role of ordinary citizens and their ability to exercise the right to free speech. It is important the guidelines deal with a number of pressing international threats to freedom of expression, including state surveillance, the impact of criminal defamation, restrictions on the registration of associations and public protest and impunity against human right defenders. Although externally facing, the freedom of expression guidelines may also be useful in indirectly establishing benchmarks for internal EU policies. It would clearly undermine the impact of the guidelines on third parties if the domestic policies of EU member states contradict the EU’s external guidelines.
Human rights dialogues
Another one of the key processes for the EU to raise concerns over states’ infringement of the right to freedom of expression as part of the CFSP are the human rights dialogues. The guidelines on the dialogues make explicit reference to the promotion of freedom of expression. The EU runs 30 human rights dialogues across the globe, with the key dialogues taking place in China (as above), Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia and Belarus. It also has a dialogues with the African Union, all enlargement candidate countries (Croatia, the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia and Turkey), as well as consultations with Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the United States and Russia. The dialogue with Iran was suspended in 2006. Beyond this, there are also “local dialogues” at a lower level, with the Heads of EU missions, with Cambodia, Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Israel, Jordan, Laos, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority, Sri Lanka, Tunisia and Vietnam. In November 2008, the Council decided to initiate and enhance the EU human rights dialogues with a number of Latin American countries.
It is argued that because too many of the dialogues are held behind closed doors, with little civil society participation with only low-level EU officials, it has allowed the dialogues to lose their importance as a tool. Others contend that the dialogues allow the leaders of EU member states and Commissioners to silo human rights solely into the dialogues, giving them the opportunity to engage with authoritarian regimes on trade without raising specific human rights objections.
While in China and Central Asia the EU’s human rights dialogues have had little impact, elsewhere the dialogues are more welcome. The EU and Brazil established a Strategic Partnership in 2007. Within this framework, a Joint Action Plan (JAP) covering the period 2012-2014 was endorsed by the EU and Brazil, in which they both committed to “promoting human rights and democracy and upholding international justice”. To this end, Brazil and the EU hold regular human rights consultations that assess the main challenges concerning respect for human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law; advance human rights and democracy policy priorities and identify and coordinate policy positions on relevant issues in international fora. While at present, freedom of expression has not been prioritised as a key human rights challenge in this dialogue, the dialogues are seen by both partners as of mutual benefit. It is notable that in the EU-Brazil dialogue both partners come to the dialogues with different human rights concerns, but as democracies. With criticism of the effectiveness and openness of the dialogues, the EU should look again at how the dialogues fit into the overall strategy of the Union and its member states in the promotion of human rights with third countries and assess whether the dialogues can be improved.
[1] It covers both press freedom for the Chinese media in Europe and also press freedom for European media in China.
[2] China Strategy Paper 2007-2013, Annexes, ‘the political situation’, p. 11
[3] “I urge China to release all of those who have been detained for exercising their universally recognised right to freedom of expression.”
[4] Interview with European diplomat, February 2013.
