24 Sep 13 | Campaigns, Press Releases
Nearly 40 free speech groups from across the world are calling on the European Union to take a stand against mass surveillance by the US and other governments. The groups have joined a petition organised by Index on Censorship, which has already been signed by over 3,000 people. Celebrities, artists, activists and politicians who have supported the petition include writer and actor Stephen Fry, activists Bianca Jagger and Peter Tatchell, writer AL Kennedy, artist Anish Kapoor, blogger Cory Doctorow and Icelandic politician Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir.
Actor and writer Stephen Fry said:
‘Privacy and freedom from state intrusion is important for everyone. You can’t just scream “terrorism” and use it as an excuse for Orwellian snooping.’
Chief Executive of Index on Censorship Kirsty Hughes said:
‘A few of Europe’s leaders have voiced their concerns about the NSA’s activities but none have acted. We are demanding all EU leaders condemn mass surveillance and commit to joint action stop it. People from around the world are signing this petition because mass surveillance invades their privacy and threatens their right to free speech.’
As well as calling for Europe’s leaders to put on the record their opposition to mass surveillance, the petition demands that mass surveillance is on the agenda at the next European Council Summit in October.
The petition is at: http://chn.ge/1c2L7Ty and is being promoted on social media with the hashtag #dontspyonme
The petition is supported by Index on Censorship, Amnesty International, English PEN, Article 19, Privacy International, Open Rights Group, Liberty UK, Reporters Without Borders, European Federation of Journalists, International Federation of Journalists, PEN International, PEN Canada, PEN Portugal, Electronic Frontier Foundation, PEN Emergency Fund, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, National Union of Somali Journalists, Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, Catalan PEN, Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) – Malaysia, Belarusian Human Rights House, South East European Network for Professionalization of Media, International Partnership for Human Rights, Russian PEN Centre, Association of European Journalists, Foundation for the Development of Democratic Initiatives – Poland, Independent Journalism Center – Moldova, Alliance of Independent Journalists – Indonesia, PEN Quebec, Fundacja Panoptykon – Poland, International Media Support, Human Rights Monitoring Institute – Lithuania, Warsaw Branch, Association of Polish Journalists, The Steering Committee of the Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership, South African Centre of PEN International, Estonian Human Rights Centre, Vikes Foundation, Finland
For further information, please contact [email protected]
06 Sep 13 | News and features, Politics and Society, Religion and Culture, United Kingdom
Pavan Amara
of London’s Camden New Journal has an astonishing story of a head teacher who reported a former pupil to the police, apparently because he student was becoming “more and more enchanted by anti-establishment ways of thinking”.
Jacques Szemalikowski, head at the Hampstead School in North London, said he was worried that A-Level student Kinnan Zaloom, 19, was “developing into an anarchist” and that he was duty bound to report the teenager to the police for “extremism”. Szemalikowski also contacted Glasgow University, where Zaloom had applied to study, to warn them of his dangerous tendencies.
Szemalikowski told the CNJ:
I must do something. In the last year he has become more and more enchanted by anti-establishment ways of thinking and has even said that there is an inherent risk that every government is corrupt.
Zaloom set up a satirical blog called Hampstead Trash in February of this year. The blog has frequently criticised the way the school is run. Zaloom no longer writes for the blog, having finished school this summer, but it is kept up by current students. It is blocked on the school’s computers.
An editorial posted on the blog last night said in response to the head’s comments to the CNJ said:
You called us dangerous. You called Kinnan “a developing anarchist”. Regardless of Kinnan’s political views and whether he believes in it or not, agreeing with anarchism is not illegal. And we aren’t dangerous. We have never threatened to attack or harm anything or anyone. The only danger is to your ego. We aren’t a paramilitary, we aren’t fighting a dictator who will gas those who don’t agree. All we do is post a few jokes at the school’s expense, often about students and their habits, not at the staff themselves; then occasionally we criticise your and your SLT’s decisions, like the change from 8:40 to 8:35, or giving Sixth-formers late detentions.
Zaloom, who has been banned from the school grounds, told the CNJ: “[W]hat worries me is if I had been a year younger they said they would have expelled me halfway through my A-levels, and that means they would have been prepared to ruin my education because they didn’t like my thoughts.”
Szemalikowski confirmed that he would have excluded Zaloom in that circumstance.
If there’s one consolation to this story, it’s that the police have not been in touch with Zaloom to follow up on Szemalikowski allegations of anarchist extremism.
But it does raise serious questions; if Szemalikowski idea of dangerous anarchism is the notion that governments might be corrupt, how much thought policing is he willing to engage in. Will the young people of Hampstead, home of some of history’s greatest radicals, from Shelley, to Freud to Michael Foot, be allowed think for themselves anymore?
(HT @BrianWhelanHack)
29 Aug 13 | Volume 42.03 Autumn 2013
The autumn issue of Index on Censorship magazine brings together articles from writers including Amartya Sen, Philip Pullman, Jonathan Dimbleby and Peter Kellner, and covers India, China, Brazil, South Africa, Honduras, Colombia, Afghanistan and Mali. Under discussion are development and free speech; ignored voices; digital media; reporters under fire in South America. Get your copy of the current issue of Index on Censorship magazine, available now, by subscribing here or downloading the iPad app.
A report from China is one of many which looks at groups of people around the world who are ignored, censored or supressed by their governments, and whose voices are not heard or are ignored:
As millions of people move from the countryside to Chinese cities they end up as “invisible members of society”. The article by Jemimah Steinfeld and Hannah Leung looks at the use of hukou, a household registration document, to control society, but also to keep rural migrants as second class citizens, who have little access to state benefits and education as well as poorly paid jobs. Most are afraid to criticise the system because of their status.
Hukou are registered to the place where they are born, restricting those rights if anyone choosing to move around the country. Shanghai, for instance, now has 10 million residents who have moved from the country, and cannot access the same services as official residents.
Also in the issue:
Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen writes on democracy, the media and free speech
Reports on violent attacks against journalists in Honduras and Colombia
Free to read now:
• Nic Dawes: Mandela’s legacy “too easily dismissed”
• Pullman v. Casserly: The future of copyright
Click here to subscribe, or download the app here
27 Aug 13 | Index Reports, Mexico, News and features
(Photo illustration: Shutterstock)
Mexico was transformed in 2000, when the National Action Party, PAN, was elected to power, ending a 70 year control by the Institutionally Revolutionary Party, PRI.
During the PRI years, self censorship was rampant in the country, as the government imposed a heavy handed control of the national media. PAN candidates ruled for the next 12 years, from 2000 to 2012. But the PRI returned to power last December, due to electorate fatigue with former President Felipe Calderon’s war on drugs.
The country has faced increasing challenges from organized crime gangs that were targeted during the Calderon government and it has had serious impacts on press freedoms in the Mexican provinces, where most media recoiled from reporting on organized crime-related violence.
In the move to control organized crime groups, the Mexican government has increased its surveillance capacity. It has also engaged in human rights violations, which according to international organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, have only exacerbated the security situation.
There is little media regulation and zero artistic censorship. But in the name of protecting the state from organized crime, the government has introduced various edicts and laws that could affect the rights of citizens.
In March 2012, the Mexican Congress approved new legislation that gave police more access to online information. Also between 2011 and 2012, the Secretariat of National Defense, which controls the Mexican Armed Forces, purchased advanced domestic surveillance equipment. The new equipment includes mobile phone and online communications software that can be openly used to monitor Mexican citizens.
In 2012, the government of the State of Veracruz introduced a public nuisance law that sends to jail any social media member who uses Twitter or Facebook to warn fellow citizens about violence. The law was set in place because two Twitter users warned state residents of shootouts that turned out to be false alarms, but had the city of Veracruz traumatized by the alleged reports. The problem remains that bloggers, and social media users have become alternative sources of information because the traditional media in at least half of the territory of Mexico are afraid of reporting on drug related violence.
Drug traffickers also retaliated against social media users. They killed at least two bloggers in the northern state of Taumalipas and also two Twitter users, whose bodies were never identified and were found hanging from a bridge overpass. Two websites that made a name for themselves by running stories and reports on drug trafficking activities around the country were forced to shut down because of direct attacks.
Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have been extremely useful sources of information in Mexico. Abuses of authority against indigenous people or by children of the powerful and well-connected have been exposed in videos that turn viral in the web and have helped to right wrongs that would have gone unnoticed otherwise.
Several laws have been passed that are supposed to help people affected by the war on drugs. There is a General Victims law that was approved by Congress by which is still not implemented. Similarly, Congress approved a federal protection mechanism for human rights defenders and journalists, but the law has been criticized by freedom of the press organizations, as having few resources and focus.
Mexico declared federal defamation laws illegal in 2007, however, about a dozen states still have those on the books. At the federal level, a person can still sue an author for moral damage. At least two critical book writers, who have written books accusing government officials of corruption, have been hit with lawsuits in the last two years.
Media ownership remains potent in Mexico. Several dozen national newspapers are published daily, and many more digital news outlets have opened in the last two years.
What was not opened until June 2013 was broadcast media. Only two news outlets were for long able to transmit television signals nationally through open television channels. They were Televisa and Television Azteca, which are owned by two of Mexico’s wealthiest citizens. However, with a new Telecommunications law that was approved by Congress in June 2013, Mexico will be able to have two more open signal channels. Another wealthy Mexican, Carlos Slim, who owns an internet-based television network called Uno Noticias will probably benefit from the new law. The new legislation will also promote the installation of a broadband Internet network nationwide.
There are 41 million Mexicans who use the internet, according to the Mexican Association of Internet. The states with the highest number of internet users are in Mexico City, State of Mexico and State of Jalisco. The average daily use of the web ranges from four hours to nine minutes. More than 90 percent of all Mexicans using the internet also use social media.
Artistic Freedom
Artists have enjoyed unprecedented freedom to be creative in Mexico. The only problem lies with the commercial theatre network, which tends to not keep Mexican made movies long enough in exhibition. One movie that is critical of the legal system in Mexico City and the tradition by local police of grabbing innocent people and accusing them of murder and other crimes, Presumed Guilty, has faced serious challenges because of what appears to be an alleged concerted campaign by a Mexico City legal group that has stopped the film from showing in the country because of multiple lawsuits brought on by people who are shown on the film, and who never signed an agreement to appear in the movie.
This article was originally published on 27 Aug, 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
