14 Jan 14 | News and features, Russia
Fielding calls in the back of a London black cab, American journalist David Satter is a busy man.
Satter, who has reported on Soviet and Russian affairs for nearly four decades, was appointed an adviser to US government-funded Radio Liberty in May 2013. In September, he moved to Moscow. But at Christmas, he was informed he was no longer welcome in the country — the first time this has happened to an American reporter since the cold war.
Since Monday night, when the news of his expulsion from Russia broke, he’s been talking pretty much non stop, attempting to explain the manoeuvres which led to him being exiled from his Moscow home.
A statement issued by the Russian foreign ministry claims that Satter had violated Russian law by entering the country on 21 November, but not applying for a visa until 26 November.
Satter dismisses this as “nonsense”, saying he had been assured that a visa that had expired on 21 November would be renewed the following day, with no gap. As it happened, the visa was not renewed on time, “in order to create a pretext”, he tells Index.
To cut a short cut through a labyrinthine tale of bureaucracy: Satter says he left Russia in order to gain a new entry visa, which he could then exchange for a residency visa as an accredited correspondent for Radio Liberty.
He was repeatedly told this visa had been secured. Eventually, on 25 December, he was told that he had a number for a visa, but not the necessary invitation to accompany it. “Kafkaesque”, he calls it. The embassy official had never heard of this happening before. And, as Satter points out, he would not have been issued a number for a new visa in December if it had not been approved.
Eventually, he was told to speak to an official named as Alexei Gruby, who told him that “the competent organs” (code, Satter says, for the FSB) had decided that his presence in Russia was not desirable, language normally reserved for spies. “And now we see I have been barred for five years.”
“The point is, I urge you not to get caught up in their bureaucratic intrigues…the real reason was given to me, in Kiev, on 25 December.”
Is this just another example of FSB muscle flexing?
“Possibly. I’ve known them for a number of years, and I can’t always understand what they’re doing. Usually what they do is not very good…”
This is not Satter’s first brush with the Russian secret services. In a long career with the Financial Times, Radio Liberty and other outlets, he has experience of the KGB and its sucessor. “In 1979, they tried to expel me, accusing me of hooliganism. They once organised a provocation in one of the Baltic republics in which they posed as dissidents. I spent a couple of days with them, thinking I was with dissidents – I was really with the KGB. It’s a long history. It’s in my movie. We showed it in the Maidan [December’s anti-government protests in Ukraine]. Maybe they didn’t like that.”
Satter’s film, the Age of Delirium, is an account of the fall of the Soviet Union.
Is this expulsion a personal thing? Or a move against Radio Liberty? “It’s hard to say whether it’s me, or Radio Liberty, or both.”
Satter is concerned at leaving behind research materials and belongings in Moscow, saying it is likely his son, a London-based journalist, will have to go to Russia to collect them “unless they reverse their decision, which I hope they do”.
In spite of the recent amnesty that saw Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina released from prison, as well as opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the diagnosis for free speech in Russia is not good. Alyokhina dismissed her release as a “hoax”, designed to prove Putin’s power. Meanwhile, state broadcaster RIA Novosti has been dissolved and reimagined as “Rossia Segodnya” (“Russia Today” – no coincidence it bears the same name as the notorious English language propaganda station), with many fearing closer Kremlin control.
One Russian journalist I spoke to felt that, ahead of the Sochi games, the expulsion of Satter is a message to all journalists: no matter how experienced, well-known, and well-supported you are, you are still at the mercy of the authorities.
This article was posted on 14 Jan 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
13 Jan 14 | Europe and Central Asia, European Union, Politics and Society
This article is part of a series based on our report, Time to Step Up: The EU and freedom of expression
Collectively, the European Union of 28 member states has an important role to play in the promotion of freedom of expression in the world. Firstly, as the world’s largest economic trading block with 500 million people that accounts for about a quarter of total global economic output, it still has significant economic power. Secondly, it is one of the world’s largest “values block” with a collective commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and perhaps more significantly, the European Convention on Human Rights. The Convention is still one of the leading supranational human rights treaties, with the possibility of enforcement and redress. Finally, Europe accounts for two of the five seats on the UN Security Council (Britain and France), so has a crucial place in the global security framework. The EU itself has limited foreign policy and security powers (although these powers have been enhanced in recent years), leaving significant importance to the foreign policies of the member states. Where the EU acts with a common approach it has leverage to help promote and defend freedom of expression globally.
How the European Union supports freedom of expression abroad
The European Union has a number of instruments and institutions at its disposal to promote freedom of expression in the wider world, including its place as an observer at international fora, its bilateral and regional agreements, the European External Action Service (EEAS) and geographic policies and instruments including the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the European Neighbouring and Partnership Instrument (ENPI). The EU places human rights in its trade and aid agreements with third party countries and has over 30 stand-alone human rights dialogues. The EU also provides financial support for freedom of expression through the European Development Fund (EDF), the Development Co-operation Instrument (DCI), the European Instrument for democracy and human rights (EIDHR) and the European Endowment for Democracy (EED). The EU now also has a Special Representative for Human Rights. Since 1999, the EU has published an annual report on human rights and democracy in the world. The latest report, adopted in June 2012, contains a special section on freedom of expression, including freedom of expression and “new media”. It recalls the EU’s commitment to “fight for the respect of freedom of expression and to guarantee that pluralism of the media is respected” and emphasises the EU’s support to free expression on the internet.
The European Union has two mechanisms to financially support freedom of expression globally: the European Instrument for democracy and human rights (EIDHR) and the European Endowment for Democracy (EED). The latter was specially created after the Arab Spring in order to resolve specific criticism of the EIDHR: that it didn’t support political parties, non-registered NGOs and trade unions and could not react quickly to events on the ground. The EED is funded by, but is autonomous from, the European Commission, with support from member states and Switzerland. The aims of the EED, to provide rapid and flexible funding for pro-democratic activists in authoritarian states and democratic transitions, is potentially a “paradigm shift” according to experts that will have to overcome a number of challenges, in particular a hesitation towards funding political parties and the most active and confrontational of human rights activists. The EU also engages with the UN on human rights issues at the Human Rights Council (HRC) and in the 3rd Committee of the General Assembly. The EU, as an observer along with its member states, is one of the more active defenders of freedom of expression in the HRC. Promoting and protecting freedom of expression was one of the EU’s priorities for the 67th Session of the UN General Assembly (September 2012-2013). The European Union was also instrumental in the adoption of a resolution on the “Safety of Journalists” (drafted by Austria) in September 2012. The European Union is most effective at the HRC where there is a clear consensus among member states within the Union . Where there is not, for instance on the issue of blasphemy laws, the Union has been less effective at promoting freedom of expression.
The EU and its neighbourhood
The EU has had mixed success in promoting freedom of expression in its near neighbourhood. Enlargement has clearly been one of the European Union’s most effective foreign policy tools. Enlargement has had a substantial impact both on the candidate countries’ transition to democracy and respect for human rights. With enlargement slowing, the leverage the EU has on its neighbourhood is under pressure. Alongside enlargement, the EU engages with a number of foreign policy strategies in its neighbourhood, including the Eastern Partnership and the partnership for democracy and shared prosperity with the southern Mediterranean. This section will look at the effectiveness of these policies and where the EU can have influence.
The EU and freedom of expression in its eastern neighbourhood
Europe’s eastern neighbourhood is home to some of the least free places for freedom of expression. The collapse of the former Soviet Union and the enlargement of the European Union has significantly improved human rights in eastern Europe. There is a marked difference between the leverage the European Union has on countries where enlargement is a real prospect and the wider eastern neighbourhood, where it is not, in particular for Russia and Central Asia. In these countries, the EU’s influence is more marginal. Enlargement has clearly had a substantial impact both on the candidate countries’ transition to democracy and their respect for human rights because since the Treaty of Amsterdam, respect for human rights has been a condition of accession to the EU. In 1997, the Copenhagen criteria were outlined in priorities that became “accession partnerships” adopted by the EU and which mapped out the criteria for admission to the EU. They related in particular, to freedom of expression issues that needed to be rectified. With the enlargement process slowing since the “big bang” in 2004, and countries such as Ukraine and Moldova having no realistic prospect of membership regardless of their human rights record, the influence of the EU is waning in the wider eastern neighbourhood.
After enlargement, the Eastern Partnership is the primary foreign policy tool of the European Union in this region. Launched in 2009, the initiative derives from the EU’s Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), which is specific about the importance of democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights. In this region, the partnership covers Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Freedom of expression has been raised consistently during human rights dialogues with these six states and in the accompanying Civil Society Forum. The Civil Society Forum has also been useful in helping to coordinate the EU’s efforts in supporting civil society in this region. Although it has never been the main aim of the Eastern Partnership to promote freedom of expression, it has had variable success in promoting this right with concrete but limited achievements in Belarus, the Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova; with a more ineffectual role being seen in Azerbaijan.
In recent years, since the increased input of the EEAS in the ENP, the policy has become more markedly political, with a greater emphasis on democratisation and human rights including freedom of expression after a slow start. In particular, freedom of expression was raised as a focus for the ENP after its review in 2010-2011. This is a welcome development, in marked contrast to the technical reports of previous years. This also echoes the increased political pressure from member states that have been more public in their condemnation of human rights violations, in particular regarding Belarus. Belarus is one Eastern Partnership country where the EU has exerted a limited amount of influence. The EU enhanced its pressure on the country after the post-presidential election clampdown beginning in December 2010, employing targeted sanctions and increasing support to civil society. This has arguably helped secure the release of some of the political prisoners the regime detained. Yet the lack of a strong sense of strategy and unity within the Union has hampered this new pressure to deliver more concrete results. Likewise, the EU’s position on Ukraine has been set back by internal divisions, even though the EU’s negotiations on the Association Agreement included specific reference to freedom of expression.
In Azerbaijan, the EU’s strategic oil and gas interests have blunted criticism of the country’s poor freedom of expression record. Azerbaijan holds over 89 political prisoners, significantly more than in Belarus, yet the EU’s institutions, individual member states and European politicians have failed to be vocal about these detentions, or other freedom of expression violations. In the EU’s wider neighbourhood outside the Eastern Partnership, the EU has taken a less strategic approach and accordingly has been less successful in either raising freedom of expression violations or helping to prevent them.
The European Union’s relationship with Russia has not been coherent on freedom of expression violations. While the institutions of the EU have criticised specific freedom of expression violations, such as the Pussy Riot sentencing, they were slow to criticise more sustained attacks on free speech such as the clampdown on civil society and the inspections of NGOs using the new Foreign Agents Law. The progress report of EU-Russia Dialogue for Modernisation fails to mention any specific freedom of expression violations in Russia. The EU has also limited its financial involvement in supporting freedom of expression in Russia, unlike in other post-Soviet states. The EU is not united on this criticism: individual European Union member states such as Sweden and the UK are more sustained in their criticisms of Russia’s free speech violations, whereas other member states such as Germany tend to be less critical. It is argued that Russia’s powerful economic interests have facilitated a significant lobbying operation including former politicians that works to reduce criticism of Russia’s freedom of expression violations.
In this region, the European Union’s protection of freedom of expression is weakest in Central Asia. While the EU has human rights dialogues with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, it has not acted strategically to protect freedom of expression in these countries. The EU dramatically reduced its leverage in Uzbekistan in 2009 by relaxing arms sanctions with little in return from the Uzbek authorities, who continue to fail to abide by international human rights standards. Arbitrary arrests, beatings and torture at the hands of the security services, as well as unfair trials of the regime’s critics are all commonplace. The European Parliament’s special rapporteur report of November 2012, took a tough stance on human rights in Kazakhstan, making partnership conditional on respect for Article 10 rights. But, this was undermined by High Representative Baroness Ashton’s visit to the country in November 2012, where she failed to raise human rights violations at all.
This lack of willingness to broach freedom of expression issues continued during Baroness Ashton’s first official visit to four of the five Central Asian republics: Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. In Kyrgyzstan she additionally attended an EU-Central Asia ministerial meeting, where the Turkmen government (one of the top five most restrictive countries in the world for freedom of expression) was represented. Baroness Ashton’s lack of vocal support for human rights was condemned by local NGOs and international watchdogs.
07 Jan 14 | News and features, Religion and Culture, Turkey
Meltem Arikan
In the days after the Gezi Park protests, Turkish playwright and author Meltem Arikan found herself at the centre of a government-led hate campaign that left her fearing for her life.
Arikan, now living in the United Kingdom, left Turkey because of the vicious and sustained campaign against her on social media and TV. She was subjected to a continuous barrage of brutal verbal abuse and rape and death threats. The attacks were fronted by Turkish politicians who accused her, and the people behind the production of her play Mi Minor, of being the architects of the Gezi Park demonstrations. The campaign was targeted and persecutory, “like a witch hunt in the 15th century” and members of the public were encouraged by politicians to create Twitter accounts and join the action against her.
This was not the first time that the government had tried to silence her. Arikan’s 2004 novel Stop Hurting my Flesh tells the story of women’s lives that have been left devastated by experiences of sexual abuse and incest. The novel was banned by the government accusing it of “destroying the Turkish family order, offending the Namus (honour) of the society, arousing sexual desire in the readers and disturbing the order of society by inducing fear within women, by using a feminist approach.”
Arikan was interviewed by Index on Censorship Head of Arts Julia Farrington.
Index: How did censorship of your novel affect you?
Arikan: When you experience censorship or a ban you don’t feel fully comfortable about the things you produce. You always have the feeling of “what’s going to come out of this now?” I have already discovered that when my work connects with real lives, I get into trouble.
When they banned my novel, I felt so furious, pure fury. Really. And after that I started a lot of campaigns. Before my novel if you said the word “incest” on TV you would be fined. But the act of incest itself was not punished at all. And you couldn’t open a case on incest because there was no law against incest. They only had child abuse but they are totally different things. My campaigns contributed to the word being accepted, and the law has changed as a result of these campaigns. Later I was awarded the ‘Freedom of Thought and Speech Award’ by the Turkish Publishers Association. But none of this stopped my fury. And then I understood that people are actually comfortable with the way things are. And that when I try to talk about something uncomfortable, people think that I am paranoid, or exaggerating so I stopped. And I started to focus on the world as a whole through social media.
Index: What started your interest in social media?
Arikan: When Wikileaks published the data cables, it shook the male dominated world order. Seeing that world leaders were powerless to stop Wikileaks from fearlessly publishing data cables, excited me very much. Turkish press did not pay enough attention to what was happening around the world. That’s why I started to follow the developments from world press and social media. I started using my Facebook and Twitter accounts more, to inform the people in my country about the happenings. I was not interested in social media as much before, but afterwards I spent most of my time sharing information. I got quite obsessed. People even wrote tweets to me to say ‘have some sleep, you need to sleep’ because I wanted to be awake when people started tweeting in US due to the time difference.
Index: How did this time spent on social media influence the writing of Mi Minor?
Arikan: For two years in social media around the time of Arab revolutions, and the Occupy movement, I felt, received and perceived what was happening around the world. I witnessed how social media gave a platform for people to share their personal stories or give information by using Twitter, broadcasting with their mobile phones using Ustream, live-stream when traditional media was silent. After I got involved in social media I didn’t care about individual countries anymore because I came to realize that interactions on social media happen regardless of the borders of distances, languages, nations, religions or ideologies, and this inspired me to create a play. It was all about the situations and events happening all around the world. Later I shared the script of Mi Minor with people from various countries. A friend from US read my play and said, this is just like US. Then during the rehearsals a friend said that it resembles Korea and another said that it was just like Turkmenistan. This was exactly what I wanted, that it was perceived by people from different countries as their own country.
As a writer it was important to be able to understand what kind of a change was happening and seeing the free flow of information and how people’s perception was changing. During that time I realised we are in a transition period from analogue to the digital world. And I was interested to see how the perception was changing, especially to see where young people’s perception was heading and how it affected the relationship between people and government.
As a woman and writer not just using the social media, but becoming aware of the kind of impact it has had, and using it to develop an art piece to make others aware of the transition we are in – all this has changed my life completely.
Index: In what ways is Mi Minor a ‘social media’ play?
Arikan: Mi Minor was a play that was set in a country called Pinima: freedom in a box deMOCKracy. During the play the audience could choose to play the President’s deMOCKracy game of the or support the Pianist’s rebellion against the system. The Pianist starts reporting all the things that are happening in Pinima through Twitter, which starts a Role Playing Game (RPG) with the audience. Mi Minor was staged as a play where an actual and social media oriented RPG was integrated with the actual performance. It was the first play of its kind in the world.
It was written to be located and performed anywhere in the world and everywhere the show would be live streamed online through Ustream and online audience would influence the action as much as the real live audience.
The actual audience could stand along side the actors, they could use their smart phones during the play to tweet, take photos and share them online in order to show the world what was happening in the fictional country Pinima. At the same time the online audience would do the same by following everything from the Pianist’s Ustream in English, which she starts from the beginning of the play. This created another platform for the actual audience and the online audience to interact with the hashtag #miminor on Twitter. In every performance there were digital actors who would be ready in front of their computers as well as the actual actors. Together they would make the play happen. On every level, the audience was made to make a choice as to which side they were going to be in Mi Minor?
We created a promotional website for Pinima that introduces you to the politics, geography and culture of this small fantasy state. I chose a lot of silly rules from other countries. I researched ridiculous laws around the world, and selected some of them, exaggerated and changed them and put them in the play.
Examples of laws and regulations from Mi Minor: There will no longer be treble sounds and the key of E on the pianos. A masterpiece of design, these brand new pianos will be down to a size that they could be carried in the pockets; President hasn’t slept for 48 hours and he listened to the telephones of people whom he randomly chose. The President declared that this shall be done by him once a week. In his declaration, he underlined that in every country; the telephones are being listened to, however they do it behind closed doors. It’s never announced to the public whose telephones are listened to. Whereas in our country what the President is doing, in the name of democracy and transparency, should be set as an example to the whole world; The president has decided that only two parties will participate in the elections. He is the presidential candidate for both parties; To protect the solidarity and morality of the family, all curtains in homes must be kept closed while having sex at home. Having sex in cars and other conveyances will be a criminal act. Also from today, bar owners are obliged to provide soup to their customers. Bars that fail to provide soup are hereby prohibited from selling alcoholic beverages; From now on, peacocks will have priority on the roads. To awaken a sleeping polar bear to take its photograph is strictly forbidden, plus, those who disturb frogs and rabbits will be fined.
Index: The play has been translated into English but not yet published. Can you give us an idea of the story?
Arikan: I really didn’t want to tell a story. With Mi Minor I wanted to create a situation in which people, anywhere in the world, could see what they do when they were given the opportunity to change something – do they get involved or do they keep quiet?
Index: And when you performed it in Istanbul what did the audience do?
Arikan: At the beginning, during the first couple of performances the audience mainly kept back. Later, there were some very active women and young people, high school and university students, who would be against the system in Pinima during the performances. In each play there were also those who chose to support the system and showed their respect and love to the President of Pinima. Audience who are used to conventional theatre chose to sit in the stalls and watch the action. They didn’t get so involved as the others. I must say, that those who are not aware of the digital world couldn’t get properly involved with the play but those who are aware of it enjoyed every minute of the play and took action using their imaginations.
Index: How did the online audience behave, interact? Did the anonymity and separation made the online audience more or less radical?
Arikan: Using the digital media tools gave the both digital and actual audience another platform to express themselves about what they perceive or experience in the Pinima world during the play. And as far as I observed, the anonymity and separations made them more radical all around the world.
Index: Some pro-government media have claimed that the play was designed as a rehearsal for the demonstrations in Gezi Park.
Arikan: When I read the accusations on some pro-government newspapers and later watched how it was taken to an extreme level on TV programs, I was shocked. In my play my intention was to criticise the patriarchy and perception of the analogue world all around the world. Even though all the countries in the world are being ruled by different leaders, even though it seems like every country has a different system of its own, I believe there is only one domination that exists and that is the Patriarchy.
When I was researching for Mi Minor [in 2011] I did everything I could so that the play wasn’t associated with Turkey, or the particular situation of Turkish politics, or any other actual country. It was a fictional dystopia. Mi Minor is an absurd play and it is too worrying to see how absurdity can be accused of being responsible for the reality of what happened in Gezi Park.
And the most interestingly worrying is that these accusations are still on-going. I wrote an absurd play and now my life has become more absurd then my play.
Index: One of the icons of the Gezi Park demonstrations was a woman in a red dress and the pianist in the Mi Minor wears a red dress. And someone took a piano into the Taksim Square. Is this a coincidence?
Arikan: One of the icons of Gezi Park demonstrations being the woman in red dress and the revolutionary pianist with red dress in my play Mi Minor is a coincidence. When I was writing the play, I was criticized by many for choosing to put a piano at the Pinima square. When they said it would be ridiculous to have a piano at the square, an instrument such as guitar or violin would be much better; I strongly stood against it and refused to change it. During the Gezi Park demonstrations I was surprised to see a piano being brought to the Taksim Square on TV. But then months later I was literally shocked when I saw the picture of another piano in the middle of the protests in Ukraine.
On the other hand Oscar Wilde says, “…life imitates art far more than art imitates life.”
As a woman writer, for three years I tried to understand the transition period from analogue to the digital world and I wrote many articles about this subject. After writing articles about this transition period to digital world, I decided to write a play to convey my vision to society as well. Today I’m seeing how one after the other my predictions in my articles and in my play are coming to life.
When I was writing Mi Minor, I have recognised that the younger generation who are widely perceived to be wasting their time in front of their computers and therefore apolitical, could, if given a platform to express themselves, become political and resist a the oppressions of the analogue system together as women and men. That’s why I created the characters in the play called The Teenagers who joined the pianist in the revolution. During the performances I have witnessed that young people, high school and university students were the most active members of the audience. When I look at what happened during the Gezi Park demonstrations I can clearly see how right I was. Unlike everyone else, I had no difficulty understanding the behaviour of these digital teenagers and young adults who were peacefully resisting the authorities out on the streets and parks as well as social media without any attempt of violence, without any leadership.
Even before writing my play in one of my articles I said,
“…We are in a transition from analogue to the digital world. During this transition the common problematic of all sides of the world, from East to the West, from South to the North, is the concept and perception of freedom in societies.
The West is still being dominated with the data and foundations of the analogue world. The transition from analogue to the digital world does not just involve the technological developments but also involves the change in the perception of people. Even though, the West says, “yes” to this transition on technological developments, -just like the East- it says “no” in terms of social and psychological developments of this transition…”
Also, at the time I wrote this article, the news about Snowden hadn’t been leaked and the global debates about surveillance hadn’t started yet.
So my question that I would like to see debated: Would you be potentially guilty if you can foresee what could happen in the world?
This article was posted on 7 Jan 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
12 Dec 13 | Digital Freedom Reports, Europe and Central Asia, European Union, Index Reports, News and features, Politics and Society
As Ukraine experiences ongoing protests over lack of European integration, Index’ new report looks at the EU’s relationship with freedom of expression (Photo: Anatolii Stepanov / Demotix)
Index on Censorship’s policy paper, Time to Step Up: The EU and freedom of expression, looks at freedom of expression both within the European Union’s 28 member states, which with over 500 million people account for about a quarter of total global economic output, but also how this union defends freedom of expression in the wider world. States that are members of the European Union are supposed to share “European values”, which include a commitment to freedom of expression. However, the way these common values are put into practice vary: some of the world’s best places for free expression are within the European Union – Finland, Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden – while other countries such as Italy, Hungary, Greece and Romania lag behind new and emerging global democracies.
This paper explores freedom of expression, both at the EU level on how the Commission and institutions of the EU protect this important right, but also across the member states. Firstly, the paper will explore where the EU and its member states protect freedom of expression internally and where more needs to be done. The second section will look at how the EU projects and defends freedom of expression to partner countries and institutions. The paper will explore the institutions and instruments used by the EU and its member states to protect this fundamental right and how they have developed in recent years, as well as the impact of these institutions and instruments.
Outwardly, a commitment to freedom of expression is one of the principle characteristics of the European Union. Every European Union member state has ratified the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR); the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and has committed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To complement this, the Treaty of Lisbon has made the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights legally binding which means that the EU institutions and member states (if they act within the scope of the EU law) must act in compliance with the rights and principles of the Charter. The EU has also said it will accede to the ECHR. Yet, even with these commitments and this powerful framework for defending freedom of expression, has the EU in practice upheld freedom of expression evenly across the European Union and outside with third parties, and is it doing enough to protect this universal right?
Within the European Commission, there has been considerable analysis about what should be done when member states fail to abide by “European values”, Commission President Barroso raised this in his State of the Union address in September 2012, explicitly calling for “a better developed set of instruments” to deal with threats to these perceived values and the rights that accompany them. With threats to freedom of expression increasing, it is essential that this is taken up by the Commission sooner rather than later.
To date, most EU member states have failed to repeal criminal sanctions for defamation, with only Croatia, Cyprus, Ireland and the UK having done so. The parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe called on states to repeal criminal sanctions for libel in 2007, since then little action has been taken by EU member states. There also remain significant issues in the field of privacy law and freedom of information across the EU.
While the European Commission has in the past tended to view its competencies in the field of media regulation as limited, due to the introduction of the Charter of Fundamental Rights into EU primary law, the Commission is looking at a possible enhancement of its role in this area.
With media plurality limited across Europe and in fact potentially threatened by the convergence of media across media both online and off (and the internet being the most concentrated media market), the Commission must take an early view on whether it wishes to intervene more fully in this field to uphold the values the EU has outlined. Political threats against media workers are too commonplace and risks to whistleblowers have increased as demonstrated by the lack of support given by EU member states to whistleblower Edward Snowden. That the EU and its member states have so clearly failed one of the most significant whistleblowers of our era is indicative of the scale of the challenge to freedom of expression within the European Union.
The EU and its member states have made a number of positive commitments to protect online freedom, including the EU’s positioning at WCIT, the freedom of expression guidelines and the No-Disconnect strategy helping the EU to strengthen its external polices around promoting digital freedom. These commitments have challenged top-down internet governance models, supported the multistakeholder approach, protected human rights defenders who use the internet and social media in their work, limited takedown requests, filters and others forms of censorship. But for the EU to have a strong and coherent impact at the global level, it now needs to develop a clear and comprehensive digital freedom strategy. For too long, the EU has been slow to prioritise digital rights, placing the emphasis on digital competitiveness instead. It has also been the case that positive external initiatives have been undermined by contradictory internal policies, or a contradiction of fundamental values, at the EU and member state level. The revelations made by Edward Snowden show that EU member states are violating universal human rights through mass surveillance.
The Union must ensure that member states are called upon to address their adherence to fundamental principles at the next European Council meeting. The European Council should also address concerns that external government surveillance efforts like the US National Security Agency’s Prism programme are undermining EU citizens’ rights to privacy and free expression. A comprehensive overarching digital freedom strategy would help ensure coherent EU policies and priorities on freedom of expression and further strengthen the EU’s influence on crucial debates around global internet governance and digital freedom. With the next two years of ITU negotiations crucial, it’s important the EU takes this strategy forward urgently.
While the European Commission has in the past tended to view its competencies in the field of media regulation as limited, due to the introduction of the Charter of Fundamental Rights into EU primary law, the Commission is looking at a possible enhancement of its role in this area.
With media plurality limited across Europe and in fact potentially threatened by the convergence of media across media both online and off (and the internet being the most concentrated media market), the Commission must take an early view on whether it wishes to intervene more fully in this field to uphold the values the EU has outlined.
Political threats against media workers are too commonplace and risks to whistleblowers have increased as demonstrated by the lack of support given by EU member states to whistleblower Edward Snowden. That the EU and its member states have so clearly failed one of the most significant whistleblowers of our era is indicative of the scale of the challenge to freedom of expression within the European Union.
Where the EU acts with a common approach among the member states, it has significant leverage to help promote and defend freedom of expression globally. To develop a more common approach, since the Lisbon Treaty, the EU has enhanced its set of policies, instruments and institutions to promote human rights externally, with new resources to do so. Enlargement has proved the most effective tool to promote freedom of expression with, on the whole, significant improvements in the adherence to the principles of freedom of expression in countries that have joined the EU or where enlargement is a real prospect. That this respect for human rights is a condition of accession to the EU shows that conditionality can be effective. Whereas the eastern neighbourhood has benefitted from the real prospect of accession (for some countries), in its southern neighbourhood, the EU has failed to promote freedom of expression by placing security interests first and also by failing to react quickly enough to the transitions in its southern neighbourhood following the events of the Arab Spring. The new strategy for this region is welcome and may better protect freedom of expression, but with Egypt in crisis, the EU may have acted too late. The EU must assess the effectiveness of some of its foreign policy instruments, in particular the dialogues for particular countries such as China.
The freedom of expression guidelines provide an excellent opportunity to reassess the criteria for how the EU engages with third party countries. Strong freedom of expression guidelines will allow the EU to better benchmark the effectiveness of its human rights dialogues. The guidelines will also reemphasise the importance of the EU, ensuring that the right to freedom of expression is protected within the EU and its member states. Otherwise, the ability of the EU to influence external partners will be limited.
Headline recommendations
• After recent revelations about mass state surveillance the EU must develop a roadmap that puts in place strong safeguards to ensure narrow targeted surveillance with oversight not mass population surveillance and must also recommit to protect whistle-blowers
• The European Commission needs to put in place controls so that EU directives cannot be used for the retention of data that makes mass population surveillance feasible
• The EU has expanded its powers to deal with human rights violations, but is reluctant to use these powers even during a crisis within a member state. The EU must establish clear red lines where it will act collectively to protect freedom of expression in a member state
• Defamation should be decriminalised across the EU
• The EU must not act to encourage the statutory regulation of the print media but instead promote tough independent regulation
• Politicians from across the EU must stop directly interfering in the workings of the independent media
• The EU suffers from a serious credibility gap in its near neighbourhood – the realpolitik of the past that neglected human rights must be replaced with a coherent, unified Union position on how to promote human rights
Recommendations
- The EU has expanded its powers to deal with human rights violations, but is reluctant to use these powers even during a crisis within a member state. The EU must establish clear red lines where it will act collectively to protect freedom of expression in a member state
- The EU should cut funding for member states that cross the red lines and breach their human rights commitments
Libel, privacy and insult
- Defamation should be decriminalised in line with the recommendations of the Council of Europe parliamentary assembly, and the UN and OSCE’s special rapporteurs on freedom of expression.
- Insult laws that criminalise insult to national symbols should be repealed
Freedom of information
- To better protect freedom of information, all EU member states should sign up to the Council of Europe Convention on Access to Official Documents
- Not all EU institutions, offices, bodies and agencies are acting on their freedom of information commitments. More must be done by the Commission to protect freedom of information
Media freedom & plurality
- The EU must revisit its competencies in the area of media regulation in order to prevent the most egregious breaches of the right to freedom of expression in particular the situations that arose in Italy and Hungary
- The EU must argue against statutory regulation of the print media and argue for independent self-regulation where media bandwidth is no longer limited by spectrum and other considerations
- Member states must not allow political interference or considerations of “political balance” into the workings of the media, where this happens the EU should be considered competent to act to protect media freedom and pluralism at a state level
- The EU is not doing enough to protect whistleblowers. National states must do more to protect journalists from threats of violence and intimidation
Digital
- The Commission must prepare a roadmap for collective action against mass state surveillance
- The EU is right to argue against top-down state control over internet governance it must find more natural allies for this position globally
- The Commission should proceed with a Directive that sets out the criteria takedown requests must meet and outline a process that protects anonymous whistle-blowers and intermediaries from vexatious claims
The EU and freedom of expression in the world
- The EU suffers from a credibility issue in its southern neighbourhood. To repair its standing in the wider world, the EU and its member states must not downgrade the importance of human rights in any bilateral or multilateral relationship
- The EU’s EEAS Freedom of Expression guidelines are welcome. To be effective, they need to focus on the right to freedom of expression for ordinary citizens and not just media actors
- The guidelines need to become the focus for negotiations with external countries, rather than the under-achieving human rights dialogues
- With criticism of the effectiveness of the human rights dialogues, the EU should look again at how the dialogues fit into the overall strategy of the Union and its member states
The European Union contains some of the world’s strongest defenders of freedom of expression, but also a significant number of member states who fail to meet their European and international commitments. To deal with this, in recent years, the European Union’s member states have made new commitments to better protect freedom of expression. The new competency of the European Court of Justice to uphold the values enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights will provide a welcome alternative forum to the increasingly deluged European Court of Human Rights. This could have significant implications for freedom of expression within the EU. Internally within the EU there is still much that could be done to improve freedom of expression. It is welcome that that the EU and its member states have made a number of positive commitments to protect online freedom, with new action on vexatious takedown notices and coordinated action to protect the multistakeholder model of internet governance. Increasing Commission concern over media plurality may also be positive in the future.
Yet there are a number of areas where the EU must do more. The decriminalisation of defamation across Europe should be a focal point for European action in line with the Council of Europe’s recommendations. National insult laws should be repealed. The Commission should not intervene to increase its powers over national media regulators, but should act where it has clear competencies, in particular to prevent media monopolies and to help deal with conflict of interests between politicians and state broadcasters. Most importantly, discussions of mass population surveillance at the European Council in October must be followed by a roadmap outlining how the EU will collectively take action on this issue. Without internal reform to strengthen protections for freedom of expression, the EU will not enjoy the leverage it should to promote freedom of expression externally to partner countries. While the External Action Service freedom of expression guidelines are welcome, they must be impressed upon member countries as a benchmark for reform.
Externally, the EU has failed to deliver on the significant leverage it could have as the world’s largest trading block. Where the EU has acted in concert, with clear aims and objectives for partner countries, such as during the process of enlargement, it has had a big impact on improving and protecting freedom of expression. Elsewhere, the EU has fallen short, particularly in its southern neighbourhood and in its relationship with China, where the EU has continued human rights dialogues that have failed to be effective.
New commitments and new instruments post-Lisbon may better protect freedom of expression in the EU and externally. Yet, as the Snowden revelations show, the EU and its member states must do significantly more to deliver upon the commitments that have been agreed.
Full report PDF: Time to Step Up: The EU and freedom of expression
This article was posted on 12 Dec 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
