01 Apr 14 | Egypt, News and features, Politics and Society
Dr Bassem Youssef, the former heart surgeon and Egyptian TV presenter likened to Jon Stewart, has declared he is taking extended time off from journalism, after an anti-semitism and plagiarism row swept through Egypt.
Dr Youssef was named by Time Magazine as one of the “100 most influential people in the world.” He has over two and a half million followers on his Twitter account and his weekly TV show, Al Bernameg, attracts millions. A political satirist and comedian, he is heavily influenced by Stewart’s Daily Show in the US.
Youssef’s self-censorship comes after a very public humiliation. The Cairo Post reports that an article written for publication in last Tuesday’s edition of Al Shoroqu, concerning events in Ukraine was heavily plagiarised a similar article Ben Judah wrote for Politico about the same topic.
The article was entitled “Why Russia No Longer Fears the West,” and while Ben Judah is a recognised global expert on Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Youssef is a pop-politics TV presenter with clearly scant knowledge of tensions with Putin.
Youssef tweeted that he had cited Ben Judah’s work at the end of his piece, but that editors had not include this in the final version.
Judah was then targeted by hundreds of anti-semitic messages, including pictures of Nazi symbols.
“Isreal [sic] under my shoes holocaust b***h lol hitler b***h hahahaha if I were hitler I will burn u all,” said one Cairo-based user.
Another from Cairo – “Jews curse of God on Earth.”
Another from Mansoura wrote “I will f**k your family one by one.”
“I made a public statement to lessen the damage on him as I respect his work for freedom of the press” Judah told Index. “Everyone can make mistakes under journalistic stress.” He received no apology from Dr. Youssef, even after the anti-Semitic tweets started arriving.
“Regarding the Twitter rage : I am from a family of Holocaust survivors, so it did not surprise me such hatred of Jews exists.”
Judah believes that the majority of the abusers were “middle class English-speakers in Cairo.”
“The whole experience reveals the scale of racial hate in the Arab world towards Jews,” he added.
In 1945 there were eight hundred thousand Jews living across the Arab world. Today, there are fewer than eight thousand.
Like Christians in the Middle East, who have seen their numbers drop from 15% to 5% in the last hundred years, the last fifty years saw many Jews move to Europe, the US, or Israel. The beginning of the exodus correlates roughly with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, suggesting that Arabs persecutions of Jews has also been politically motivated.
Judah says he received hundreds of anti-Semitic messages, many of them referencing the state of Israel.
“u re a f****** israeli dog &put ur tongue in ur ass f*** u son of pimp,” was one, another “I want to tell you f*** you Israel: F*** u Israelis and all Jews,” as well as “Israel under my shoes holocaust bitch lol hitler bitch hahahaha if I were hitler I wud burn you all.”
Judah also observed that many of those tweeting abuse had been key players in the Arab Spring.
“Egyptians who were baying for my Zionist blood were not peasants but mostly middle-class English speakers. Many of them were women, the heroes of the Arab spring.”
The anti-Semitism was not uniform, according to Judah “a lot of big Egyptian bloggers did touchingly tweet their shame and apologies to make me feel a bit better”.
This article was published on April 1, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
31 Mar 14 | News and features, Russia
Punitive psychiatric treatment is returning to Russia. This is a throw back to Soviet times, with opposition activists condemned by a kangaroo court to bogus psychiatric treatment courses, with no chance of release until a doctor says so.
Mikhail Kosenko, 39, last week became the highest profile case when he lost his appeal case against enforced psychiatric treatment. As such he will be interned immediately at a state-owned medical facility in Moscow. At worst, his sentence could be for life, with no chance of parole, as his release depends on vaguely described criteria. His assessment will also be made by doctors whose political neutrality is not guaranteed.
In 2012, Kosenko was arrested by Moscow police after taking part in a peaceful protest against Putin in Bolotnoya Square. Charged with rioting, he spent much of the next twenty two months behind bars. When his sentence was read out in court last October, his sister Kseniya, told the BBC : “I have an awful feeling. There are really frightening stories about what goes on in these places.”
Kseniya describes her brother as “a very quiet, homely type of guy.” She confirms various inspecting doctors reporting that he’s very shy – “shunning any kind of violence.”
Kosenko did have a pre-existing psychiatric condition when he was arrested – slow on-set schizophrenia diagnosed in 2001. But after medication and good advice, the condition was very much under control. Kosenko had never shown any tendency to be violent, according to his doctors.
Tanya Lokshina, Russia Program Director and Senior Researcher at Human Rights Watch, opposes the ruling.
“Mikhail’s case simply reminds me of the Soviet Union,” Lokshina warns. She tells how punitive psychiatry was a tool that was rarely used, but always with devastating effect. “Back then the medications used were really heavy, they were designed to slow down movements and just keep you out of the way.”
It’s impossible know exactly what treatments are now in store for Kosenko. But whatever is to come, it will only end if Kosenko dies, renounces his politics, or wins a final case of appeal at the Supreme Court. This is his last chance, but it could be some time. Lokshina remembers that when Pussy Riot took an appeal case to the Supreme Court, they had to wait a year before their case was heard. In the meantime, Kosenko’s treatment will continue.
The only medical evaluation the court heard was conducted by the Serbsky Institute in Moscow. Their crebility was disputed by medical experts, including the head of Russia’s Independent Psychiatric Association, when they noted that the assessment had completely omitted any reference to Kosenko’s successful ten years of self-medication, with no history of violence. Serbsky Insitute is also owned and operated by the state. The judge threw out a petition to have a second medical assessment.
Lokshina tells me there have been a few cases recently – but this is by far the worst. Amnesty International call it “an abhorrent return to Soviet-era practices.” The weeping sister of Kosenko told the BBC she felt “physically sick” when she heard that her brother had been found guilty.
Putin is turning to medieval, desperate measures as he balances himself on a rattling economy, a tonne of debt and a country that is too big to govern. Those with the bitterest memories, like Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states, fear a renewed bid to expand borders permanently, especially looking at adventures into Crimea.
But Putin is smarter. He must distract the population from a certain amount of oligarch asset-stripping and poor management, which has become epidemic under his reign. But he also must not overstretch or overspend. Enter the Roman strategy of “bread and circuses,” minus the bread.
Putin’s inaugural circus took place during the Georgia invasion in 2008, and according to Mark Adomanis remembering the war in Forbes magazine “bathed Russia in a warm patriotic glow.” Putin’s ratings took a generous bump as a result.
But Admonanis predicted, just two months ago, that Putin’s ratings would have dipped by the end of this year. The economy was weak and Sochi had been a slightly uncomfortable experience for anyone even remotely Russian.
Sadly Adomanis, nor anyone outside Putin’s inner circle, could not reasonably have predicted Putin’s subsequent gamble in Crimea.
The incursion has seen approval ratings leap from sixty five to eighty percent almost over-night. That is an extraordinary success.
Yet while Crimea has been a successful though highly irritating move, Putin’s political future is still at risk. The balance of world media commentary has been unapproving. The lies he is telling about dangerous neo-Nazi gangs have been proved as untruths, journalists have exposed the role of vicious nationalist thugs (on the Russian side), and Putin’s cheeky disregard for international law condemned. His domestic woes also go on regardless – senior officials within the Kremlin admit that the capital outflows and fall in the stockmarket are far greater than they had forecast. There certainly isn’t any capacity for “bread.”
Facing criticism at home and abroad – Putin turns to censorship and propaganda to secure himself domestically and reap political reward out of Crimea. Any oppositionist media has been bloodily censored. Reports of self-censorship are leaking out from the remaining clutch of titles.
There are three varieties of public criticism which particularly irk Putin. First, a human rights group can get hold of and successfully publicise a story (Kosenko). Second, a one-off event focuses the world on Russia (Sochi). The third is that Russian activists go out onto the streets (again Kosenko’s case, see also Pussy Riot).
In each scenario, Putin potentially loses. But he’s developed mitigation strategies. The first is to denounce foreign criticism as biased and baseless. The second is to claim it’s-a-great-big-Western-plot-we’re-the-victims-don’t-worry-Putin-here-will-rescue-you. The third is to allow some freedom of speech, but only as an opposition release valve. The fourth is to treat protesters like animals.
Street-marches are targeted by violent thugs, who act with suspicious impunity. But it’s the judiciary, and their shoddy self-discipline, who play the more important role. There were serious judicial errors in Kosenko’s case. Other victims have seen key witnesses prevented from giving testimony. Or biased “expert opinions.” Or paid goons threatening the families of the accused.
Putin’s actions abroad might bring back memories of Communist Russia, but Putin probably doesn’t see it this way. Putin needs the circuses of Georgia and Crimea, even if he can’t afford bread back home. He has also applied a blanket of censorship on the media.
Now Putin is turning to psychiatric institutions in a bid to remain in power.
This article was published on March 31, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
28 Mar 14 | News and features, Politics and Society, Religion and Culture, United Kingdom, Young Writers / Artists Programme
(Illustration: Shutterstock)
“The media tells you what to think!”
That’s a basic criticism of Western journalism, whether it’s of the “CNN controls your mind” or “Left Liberal Elites have monopolised the agenda” variety. Most people reject this, rightly, as a straw-man. We pride ourselves on our ability to sift information, reject weak arguments and come to our own points of view.
A more worrying criticism is that the news directs what you think about. Decisions to give Story X prominence and headlines, and to bury or spike Story Y, mean most of us can only encounter X. Newsworthy stories become obscure if drowned out by others or omitted entirely. We’re denied investigation or campaigning on vital issues because nobody knows they exist.
In Britain this is not what we typically mean by ‘censorship’, not the recourse of despots or prudes. Nevertheless, self-censorship with market and readership in mind denies all but the most devout news-addict important stories. And without the news we can’t have comment pieces, columns, Twitter debates and opinion blogs.
Consider the EuroMaidan protests in Kiev through spring. Coverage gave the impression of a pro-EU crowd led by a heavyweight champion, with a worrying fringe of violent nationalists – Svoboda and Right Sector. This followed the ‘mainstream-extremist’ simplification presented in Egypt, Syria and Libya. Other crucial groups were ignored: LGBT activists set up the protest’s hotlines, feminists ran the makeshift hospitals, Afghan war veterans defended them.
The world’s focus on Kiev and Crimea drove other issues from the spotlight. The Syrian civil war has hardly featured recently, but that conflict has far more casualties, worse upheaval and more immediate consequences for Britain. Refugees are currently en route to claim asylum – this is the last we heard. Similarly, the Philippines dominated the winter’s news after Typhoon Haiyan. Now it’s forgotten in favour of flight MH370 despite the catastrophic ongoing humanitarian crisis, again with more lives at stake.
The Arab Spring is itself a good example of one narrative deafening public consciousness. How many of us knew that at the same time as protests ignited Yemen and Syria in July 2011, Malaysia’s government gassed peaceful crowds and arrested 1,400 protesters after tens of thousands marched for electoral reform? It’s tempting to wonder whether greater coverage, and greater international pressure, could have supported the democratic reforms demanded.
Closer to home, consider the brief uproar caused by the 2013 UK policing bill, drafted to outlaw ‘annoyance and nuisance’ and give police arbitrary powers to ban groups from protest areas. Although the drafts were publicly available, and campaign groups voiced outrage swiftly, left-wing papers took notice only after the bill had passed the Commons. The bill was softened, not by popular pressure or national debate, but by a few conscientious Lords.
Readers could forgive the media for prioritising other stories if they are more pressing. When headlines are crowded by non-events, however, this seems a poor excuse. The British news spectrum was recently obsessed with Labour politicians Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt, who worked for the National Council for Civil Liberties (now ‘Liberty’) in the 1970s. That council granted affiliate status to the now-banned Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE). The Daily Mail made a huge splash about its PIE investigation in February, despite uncovering no new information. That paper alone had reported the same story in 1983, 2009, 2012 and 2013. Eventually the BBC, online world and print media all covered the controversy, meaning more worthy issues lost precedence.
Madeleine McCann has dominated countless front pages, reporters chewing over the barest scraps of Portuguese police leaks. No real progress has been made for years. Pundits admit the story retains prominence largely because the McCanns are photogenic, and similar stories would have fallen off the agenda. There are hundreds of similar unsolved child disappearances, just from the UK. Drug scares, MMR vaccine hysteria, celeb gossip and royal gaffes (not to mention Diana conspiracies) complete the non-story roster.
If this seems regrettable but harmless, consider sexual violence. Teacher-child abuse, violent assaults and gang attacks deserve coverage, but their sheer news monopoly perpetuates the public’s false idea of ‘real rape’. Most sexual abuse is between couples or acquaintances: campaigners have shown the myth that ‘real rape’ must involve a violent stranger impedes both prosecution and victim support.
There is no silver bullet, just as no one news organisation can really be blamed for censorship by omission. Few people want or need constant updates on upheaval in South Sudan or Somalia – but we could be reminded they’re happening at all. Editors will always reflect on what is vogue, what will sell, and a diverse free press ensures a broad range of stories. Perhaps the rise of online citizen-reporting can bridge the gap. Nevertheless, the danger of noteworthy events falling into obscurity should niggle at the back of the mind – for those who know enough to think about it.
This article was posted on March 28, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
11 Mar 14 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, Russia
RIA Novosti newsroom (Image: Jürg Vollmer/maiak.info Reusse/Wikimedia Commons)
“I just got fired,” a RIA Novosti journalist told Index a few days ago. On 9 December 2013, a surprise decree by president Putin ordered the closure of the state-owned, 73-year-old RIA — one of Russia’s most established news services. It’s liquidation has now kicked in, and it will be replaced by a new agency named Rossiya Segodnya (“Russia Today”), headed by Dmitry Kiselyov, who made his name as an abrasive Kremlin-loyal television personality. Employees have had to choose between staying at the replacement agency or sign redundancy contracts. Most journalists at RIA’s well-respected English service are leaving. They have no intention of taking orders from Kiselyov, who is famous for his homophobic and anti-Western rants. He once said, on TV, that “fining gays is not sufficient — they should not be allowed to give blood, or sperm and in case of a car accident, their hearts should be burnt or buried as useless”.
With 60 offices abroad, RIA was a vast media empire presenting a wide range of information. In April 2013, over 9 million internet users visited its website, which made it the 11th most popular European news website. Christopher Boian, who directed RIA’s foreign language news website and helped make it more dynamic and more respected, told Index: “This was a big state-owned media outlet. It was unique. It seemed to reflect a maturity about the Russian media. We were not anti-Putin or pro-Putin but just trying to look objectively at what was going on.”
Rossiya Segodnya will share its editor in chief with the Kremlin-funded TV news channel RT. It is unlikely to strive for objectivity. In his first speech at RIA’s office, Kiselyov declared: “[Russia’s] post-Soviet journalism is unlike Western journalism in that it does not reproduce values, it produces them.” And added: “Objectivity is a myth which is proposed and imposed on us. Imagine a young man puts his hand on the shoulder of a girl, and in the best case, says ‘you know, I have long wanted to tell you that I regard you objectively.’ Is that what she is expecting? Not likely. In the same way our country — Russia — needs our love.”
In January, Dozhd, a popular independent TV channel which came to prominence for its coverage of anti-government protests in late 2011, was dropped by satellite and cable operators after it caused outrage publishing a poll asking readers whether Leningrad should have been surrendered to the Nazis in order to save hundreds of thousands of lives. Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov declared that the “station had crossed all the limits of what can be tolerated” and that the question posed by the survey was an offence “much more serious from the point of view of morality and ethics”. The channel has now lost around 80 per cent of its audience and, as a result, most of its advertisers. It’s facing imminent closure.
“The situation does not look promising. Things seem to have been orchestrated, as five independent operators dropped us in a matter of weeks, but we can’t prove they have been,” Pavel Lobkov, a veteran journalist who was dismissed from federal channel NTV in 2012 — for what he alleges were political reasons — and found a new home in Dozhd, tells Index. “When it comes to the press, the threat is not direct anymore. The strategy is now more refined. It’s like chess”, he adds.
In February, Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow), one of Russia’s few independent broadcasters, majority-owned by Gazprom-Media — the media arm of the gigantic conglomerate that is one of the bases of Kremlin power — encountered difficulties. Its head was dismissed and replaced by an editor from state media, after a reshuffling of the board of directors tilted the balance in favour of pro-government people. Alexei Venediktov, Ekho’s long-standing editor, has just been reelected by the journalists at the station, though his position still needs to be approved by the board.
“As soon as Putin became president, he moved against the media and made sure national TV was under control – which proved to be a very effective tool,” Maria Lipman, chair of the Carnegie Moscow Centre’s Society and Regions Program, told Index. Financial and legal leverage was used to shut down media outlets that were seen as potential threats. In 2000, the independent TV channel NTV — which had been critical of the war in Chechnya — was acquired by Gazprom-Media, its owner forced to flee the country and its editorial line changed. “What remained were oases of non governmental media. The government was permissive because there was no political opposition. You could make noise, but no one would pick it up,” Lipman adds.
According to her, a new crackdown began in 2012 with the return of Putin to power in the wake of big protests. A series of dismissals took place and a few publications closed down — always explained by economic factors. “Gradually there was a sense that the realm of free expression was shrinking, that there were fewer jobs to be found and more self censorship,” she says.
The recent years have seen an unprecedented increase in the concentration of media ownership, with huge media properties accumulating in the hands of a few Kremlin loyalists. These include Yuri Kovalchuk, a member of Putin’s close circle dubbed “Russia’s Murdoch”, who owns the National Media Group, or Alisher Usmanov, Russia’s richest man (who fired the editor of Kommersant Vlast in 2011 for having published pictures with anti-Putin slogans in an issue alleging election fraud). Usmanov recently acquired control over VKontakte, Russia’s largest social network, whose founder has left Russia. Lobkov tells me he believes the Kremlin’s next target will be the internet. In January, parliament passed a law giving the state powers to close blacklisted websites.
“The Kremlin has been sophisticated enough not to go against individuals or editors. Its favourite tool is to exert its influence through media owners,” Lipman says, pointing out that not every case of pressure against a media outlet necessarily comes from the government, as there are “competitions, personal scores, a combination of factors.” Dozhd owners say their troubles started after they reported on the expensive properties owned by certain Kremlin officials.
“Following recent events in Ukraine, the propaganda on national media has been extremely intense. State media has presented the picture of a fascist coup inspired by the west. For anyone interested there is no shortage of information on the web. When the crisis subsides it remains to be seen whether the outlets that have covered it in a different fashion will be punished,” Lipman says.
Last week, Izvestia newspaper reported that a United Russia party deputy is readying legislation that would, among other things, make it a crime to “allow publications of false anti-Russian information.” The tightening of control over the Russian media is likely to continue.
This article was posted on March 11, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
