13 Feb 20 | News and features, Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”105876″ img_size=”large”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]14 February 2020 – Valentine’s Day – marks my last day at Index on Censorship after nearly six years at the helm. It feels apt, then, to share how passionate I am about – free speech and the organisation that has spent nearly 50 years defending it.
Let’s start with freedom of speech. When I started at Index, I have to confess I was an armchair enthusiast. I believed in freedom of speech, of course I did – or so I thought. After all, I was a journalist. I’d worked in countries like South Africa and Ireland that had experienced – in differing forms – decades of formal censorship and centuries of informal silencing.
But what I came to realise very quickly is that while support for free speech is easy in theory, in practice it is much, much harder.
What I love about Index is we never pretend otherwise. For us, the work we do is not about defending free speech in principle, but demonstrating how and why it is so important in reality. We don’t pretend we have all the answers instantly. In a world that expects immediate responses, the pressure to provide the answer at once is huge. But we have learned that sometimes we need to say: “Hmmm, we need to think about that one.”
We have wrestled with questions that stretched from whether or not social media platforms should show beheading videos to the question of the Northern Irish bakery asked to ice a cake with words with which they disagreed. We debated the point at which hateful speech amounts to incitement to violence. We tried to address the notion of words that cause harm.
Being thoughtful doesn’t always win you headlines but it’s crucial if you want to convince those who doubt your arguments. I love that Index thinks.
I love that Index has courage. We believe passionately that everyone should have the right to speak freely – and that includes defending the rights of those with whom we profoundly disagree – or whom others find shocking, disturbing and offensive. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would find myself defending the right of a Scottish YouTuber to teach his girlfriend’s dog to do a Nazi salute. Thankfully, we were not alone.
Sadly, those who defend freedom of expression often are. It was something we fought to counter when we spoke out in defence of Charlie Hebdo – and that experience – of sticking our heads above the parapet when many others would not was a formative experience for me as a relatively new Index CEO.
We are not the courageous ones, though. The courageous ones are those who speak out in the knowledge that they could face dire consequences for doing so.
Free speech is the Turkish playwright Meltem Arikan voicing the pain of exile and the delights of creating a new home in a new language. Free speech is artist Luis Manuel Alcantara, inviting repeated arrest for refusing to make government-sanctioned art in Cuba. Free speech is Zimbabwean activist Evan Mawarire calling for a compassionate government that protects its people. Free speech is journalists like Carole Cadwalladr, Caroline Muscat and Maria Ressa defying attempts to silence them. Free speech is Nabeel Rajab exposing torture in Bahrain’s jails – speech for which he himself was jailed. Free speech is a young Saudi woman appealing for asylum and finding her cause taken up by thousands around the world. Free speech is every one of our brilliant Index on Censorship fellows.
It is also speech that hurts. It is speech that is raw, shocking, offensive – that demeans and diminishes others. In my time at Index we have had to defend words and viewpoints that I abhor. In so doing we have been accused of sharing and condoning those views – of allowing them to become mainstream.
Defending that line is hard. But we do so because none of the examples we have seen of government bans or social media restrictions ends up achieving the outcome desired – one in which we are more tolerant of one another’s differences.
We believe there is an alternative to censorship. I am hugely proud that last year I was finally able to get off the ground a project close to my heart: our Free Speech Is For Me programme, which brought together activists in Britain and the United States to debate the value of free speech. Along the way, participants learned how better to listen to one another’s ideas. Some even changed their minds. One Brexit supporter told us they had even started reading The Guardian …
Words matter to us. I love that Index continues to produce a magazine that takes a global and long-term look at the issues we face and which publishes original work by leading writers. Where else could you read interviews with legends like Margaret Atwood or Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, writing by the likes of Elif Shafak, Xinran, or Ariel Dorfman?
I love that for an organisation with an impressive back catalogue, we nevertheless look forward. We are grappling with the thorny questions of regulating online speech and tough questions on hate speech and free speech in the workplace. I haven’t always got that right – but we have tried to learn how we can better be the change we want to see in the world.
Index is a small outfit, battling for funds against a million and one other worthy causes. When I started, someone told me we would never be able to compete against those raising money for life-saving healthcare. I don’t want to compete. But I believe more than ever – as we have seen with events recently in China – that life-saving healthcare depends on freedom of speech.
That is why I love this cause. And why I know Index will continue to defend it without fear or favour. And why your heartfelt Valentine vow should be to support it too.
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01 Oct 19 | Campaigns -- Featured, Middle East and North Africa, Statements
Saudi journalist, Global Opinions columnist for the Washington Post, and former editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel Jamal Khashoggi offers remarks during POMED’s “Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia: A Deeper Look”. March 21, 2018, Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), Washington, DC.
Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October, 2018, to obtain official documents in order to get married, but he did not make it out alive. He was brutally killed inside the consulate in what the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Agnes Callamard, called a “premeditated extrajudicial killing” for which the state of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is responsible.
Khashoggi was a well-known Saudi journalist and intellectual who, due to safety concerns and the inability to continue his work inside Saudi Arabia, decided to live in self-imposed exile in the United States. He was a firm promoter of freedom of speech and press freedom in the Arab world.
While he was no outright opponent of the Saudi royal family and did not call for regime change in the country, he criticised the arrest of human rights defenders and the reform plans of the crown prince. This alone may have been enough to seal his fate.
After more than two weeks of deception and denial about his death, on 19 October 2018 the Saudi authorities admitted that Khashoggi had been killed inside the consulate by a group of men connected to the authorities, but continued to deny any direct knowledge or responsibility for the crime. One year after his murder, the remains of Khashoggi’s body are still missing and have not been returned to his family.
The Saudi authorities implicated 11 individuals responsible for Khashoggi’s killing, some of whom face the death penalty. They are currently being tried in the Specialised Criminal Court, a jurisdiction notorious for violations of fair trial guarantees. The trial proceedings remain in large part secret, and criminal responsibility in the chain of command has not yet been established.
Khashoggi’s death sparked outrage and was widely condemned. In the days and weeks following his killing, the international community began to ask questions and to demand clarity. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued several press releases, while the UN Special Procedures on enforced disappearance, summary executions and freedom of expression issued a joint Urgent Appeal. Moreover, the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, stressed the need for a prompt, thorough and transparent investigation into the circumstances of Khashoggi’s death and full accountability for those responsible.
On 24 October 2018, the EU Parliament issued a resolution urging the Saudi authorities to disclose the whereabouts of Khashoggi’s remains. In addition to demanding an independent and impartial international investigation into the journalist’s death, the resolution also classified it as being part of a pattern of a widespread crackdown against prominent human rights defenders, women activists, lawyers, journalists, writers and bloggers, which has intensified since Mohammad bin Salman began consolidating control over the country’s security institutions.
It stated that the systematic practice of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings could amount to a crime against humanity. Lastly, it requested that the perpetrators of Khashoggi’s murder be identified and brought to justice, following a fair trial held in accordance with international standards before an impartial court and with international observers present.
On 5 November 2018, Saudi Arabia’s human rights record was examined by UN Member States as part of the third cycle of the Universal Periodic Review. The killing of Khashoggi was raised extensively during the review and featured heavily among the 258 recommendations the Saudi authorities received to improve the human rights situation in the country. At least 27 states raised concerns about Khashoggi’s extrajudicial killing, with many reiterating the need for a transparent, impartial, independent and effective investigation.
In January 2019, Callamard decided on her own initiative and under the terms of her mandate as UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions to open a special human rights investigation into Khashoggi’s killing.
On 7 March 2019, in a landmark initiative, a group of 36 UN Member States led by Iceland delivered a joint statement during the 40th session of the Human Rights Council expressing serious concern over the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia and condemning in the strongest possible terms the killing of Khashoggi. The statement reiterated the call for a prompt, independent, impartial and transparent investigation into his murder and stressed the need to protect journalists and to uphold the right to freedom of expression.
During the 41st session of the HRC, on 19 June 2019, Callamard presented her report, which concluded that the murder of Khashoggi was “overseen, planned and endorsed by high-level state officials of Saudi Arabia”. The Special Rapporteur found that both the investigations conducted by Saudi Arabia and Turkey failed to meet international standards and that the ongoing trial in Saudi Arabia of 11 suspects, while seemingly an important step towards accountability, also fails to meet international fair trial standards.
Callamard believes that the killing of Khashoggi constitutes an international crime over which states should claim universal jurisdiction. Asserting that her human rights inquiry is not a substitute for a criminal investigation or a court of law, the UN Special Rapporteur called on the Human Rights Council, the Security Council or the UN Secretary-General to demand a follow-up criminal investigation.
Most recently, on 23 September 2019, during the 42nd session of the HRC, Australia delivered a joint statement on behalf of 23 UN member states raising concerns over the persecution and intimidation of activists, the practice of enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention, and reports of torture and unfair trials as well as extrajudicial executions.
Furthermore, the statement called for an end to impunity over the murder of Khashoggi and highlighted the need for the truth to be established and accountability achieved. We deeply regret that a number of states that had joined the March 2019 statement have now decided to no longer support this immediate call for action. We would like to highlight that states still have the possibility to become co-signatories until 11 October 2019.
Additionally, during the course of the past year and as a response to Khashoggi’s murder as well as the war in Yemen, some governments have suspended weapon sales to Saudi Arabia.
While we welcome the appeals, pledges and measures taken by some states over the past year and consider them as steps in the right direction towards accountability for the murder of Khashoggi, more tangible actions must follow. There is an undeniable risk that with big events scheduled to take place in Saudi Arabia in 2020, such as the G20 summit and the famous Dakar Rally, state-to-state relations could normalise. We cannot stand by and allow the return of business as usual as this would mean that Khashoggi died in vain and that there is little hope for hundreds of other unlawfully disappeared, detained, tortured or executed activists whose cases failed to attract similar levels of international attention.
As Callamard rightly said during a side event at the 42nd session of the HRC: “While one year must feel like a lifetime to Khashoggi’s family and friends, in human justice time and the search for truth it is very brief. Thus we should not lose sight of what we are trying to achieve; we should not lose hope and courage that justice can be attained.”
In that spirit, the undersigned organisations renew their call for action, demanding the following:
We call on the international community, and in particular the UN, to:
- Take action to ensure that a further impartial, prompt, thorough, independent and effective criminal investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is opened;
- Ensure that all perpetrators of the crime, including those at the head of the chain of command, are identified and prosecuted in a fair and transparent trial without recourse to the death penalty;
- Establish an immediate moratorium on all arms sales and exports of surveillance technology to Saudi Arabia;
- Co-sign the joint statement led by Australia on behalf of 23 UN Member States by 11 October;
- Introduce and endorse a UN resolution establishing a monitoring mechanism over the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia; and
- Urge the authorities in Saudi Arabia to implement the recommendations below.
We call on the authorities in Saudi Arabia to:
- Return the remains of Khashoggi’s body to his family;
- Invite independent international experts to oversee investigations into his murder; cooperate in good faith with all UN mechanisms; and ensure that those responsible for his death are brought to justice;
- Immediately and unconditionally release all human rights defenders, writers, journalists and prisoners of conscience in Saudi Arabia whose detention is a result of their peaceful and legitimate work in the promotion and protection of fundamental human rights;
- Establish a moratorium on the death penalty, including as punishment for crimes related to the exercise of the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, and peaceful assembly;
- Guarantee in all circumstances that all human rights defenders and journalists in Saudi Arabia are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities and public reporting without fear of reprisals; and
- Ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and bring all national laws limiting the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association into compliance with international human rights standards.
List of signatories:
ALQST
Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain
Amnesty International
Article 19
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy
CIVICUS
English PEN
European Center for Democracy and Human Rights
European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights
Gulf Center for Human Rights
IFEX
Index on Censorship
International Service for Human Rights
MENA Rights Group
No Peace Without Justice
PEN America
Rights Realisation Centre
Vigilance for Democracy and the Civic State
World Organisation Against Torture
22 Jul 19 | Bahrain, News and features
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Ebtisam Al-Saegh
“My main objective is to tell about the truth and whatever is going on on the ground,” said Ebtisam Al-Saegh, a Bahraini human rights activist, through Jawad Fairooz, a former Bahraini MP and the executive director of the organization SALAM for Democracy and Human Rights, who served as her translator. “This objective is what made me targeted.”
Al-Saegh’s story unfolds like a cautionary tale. A networking officer for SALAM and a member of the Bahrain Human Rights Observatory, Al Saegh first came under suspicion in November 2016, for a series of posts she made on Twitter. This was nothing out of the ordinary: Al Saegh said she could “give many examples of activists who use Twitter to express their views and opinions and have been targeted, some of them have been sentenced 1-3 years.” She was questioned by Bahrain’s Public Prosecution Office, accused of inciting hatred against the Bahraini regime and threatening public safety and security. She was questioned again before leaving the country in January 2017, and detained for seven hours at an airport in March 2017.
In May 2017, Al-Saegh was detained by Bahrain’s National Security Agency. While being interrogated, Al-Saegh was beaten, sexually assaulted, and physically and psychologically tortured. She bravely described humiliating and inhumane treatment at the hands of the Bahraini police, who even prevented her husband from bringing her personal clothing and food at night during the fast month of Ramadan, during which she was detained.
In July 2017, Al-Saegh’s family home was ransacked and she was detained yet again. Without a warrant, police confiscated every mobile phone in her home and took valuable items like cash and personal jewelry. She was again interrogated, tortured and sexualy assaulted. She recalls her abusers telling her, “We have enough reasons to keep you under custody, and you will be sentenced with between 10 to 15 years, and no one will defend you. No human rights groups, even the human rights council cannot defend you or you will never be released and there will never be any mercy for you.”
She was brought to Isa Town Women’s Prison, where fellow inmates reported that she looked visibly injured. For two months, she recalls being placed in solitary confinement and forbidden from interacting with fellow inmates. After a month-long hunger strike, she was finally permitted to interact with other inmates — at first, only non-Bahrainis, but she was eventually fully reintegrated into the prison.
She was also allowed to see her family, and document some of the conditions of her imprisonment. She remembers that as a result of horrifying treatment at the hands of the Bahraini authorities, her son had developed psychological problems. She was released pending trial for terrorism-related offenses. She was imprisoned for a total of four months, and suspects that media coverage and advocacy by international human rights organizations sped up her release, which was far sooner than the release of many of her friends and colleagues who remain incarcerated for similar reasons. Upon her release, she attempted to reclaim the property that had been stolen by Bahraini authorities. The authorities denied ever taking certain valuables, including jewelry, but forced her to sign a form declaring that all confiscated property had been returned.
“The detained and interrogated me so many times, and the accusation they’ve given is that I am fabricating stories or that I am threatening the civil peace within society,” Al Saegh said. “My crime was that I wanted to implement the mechanism of international human rights… and the principles of human rights within society.”
Bahrain was once the gold standard for media freedom among Gulf countries, permitting a relatively free press and government criticism from independent media. Yet following Arab Spring-inspired protests in 2011, King Haman bin Isa Al Khalifa began cracking down on dissidents, specifically targeting those who spoke out against Islam or the current regime. The conditions for media freedom worsened in July 2016 when, according to Freedom House, “[Bahrain’s] information minister issued new regulations requiring newspapers to obtain annual, renewable licenses to publish online. It also prohibited live streaming video, as well as video clips longer than 120 seconds in length.”
Ever since a series of protests for Shi’a Muslim equality in 2007 became violent — Bahrain’s ruling family is Sunni though the country’s religious majority is Shi’a — police violence, poor prison conditions and the torture of detainees have escalated. A report by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry in 2011 recorded several individuals killed under torture after abuse during detention. According to Al-Saegh, “The king issued a royal decree sentencing any activist that is retweeting or trying to follow any of the bloggers or Twitter activists who are writing anything against the policy of the government. The punishment for such actions can be up to five years.”
Al-Saegh’s experience is devastatingly common. Fairooz also mentioned torture and sexual abuse during his own imprisonment, and both he and Al-Saegh mentioned the case of Nabeel Rajab, another prominent Bahraini human rights activist who was sentenced to five years in prison in February 2018.
Even speaking out about experiences being tortured by Bahraini authorities can make activists like Al-Saegh and Fairooz vulnerable to more abuse. “Part of the reason for recording this story… is to encourage the rest to talk about it,” said Fairooz. “We want the act to be shameful not for the victims, but to be shameful for the torturers. By bringing up these stories, we encourage the victims to be healed.”
Al-Saegh believes that speaking out is worth the risk of losing even more than she already has. “I don’t think about any material things that have been taken away from me, no jewelry, no other items,” she said. “I think about justice and justice for the rest of the victims. Without that, I will not be ready to compromise at all.” [/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1562944045425-143d4185-08a4-1″ taxonomies=”716″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
03 Jul 19 | Campaigns -- Featured, Moldova, Statements
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In the last month, the number of cases of assaults against journalists in the Republic of Moldova has been staggering and follows a troubling trend of harassment in recent years
Media and free expression NGOs around the globe condemn the assaults, intimidations and violent actions taken against at least 16 journalists during the protests and surrounding events of 7-9 June 2019 organized at Chisinau by the Democratic Party of Moldova. Over the three-day period, several media outlets published video materials broadcasting assaults against their reporters while they were in the field to document the events and inform citizens.
In one example, TV 8 reporter, Sergiu Niculita, and a cameraman were assaulted, their camera obstructed, and their microphone struck; a protester also extinguished a cigarette on the microphone sponge and damaged it. Another reporter from UNIMEDIA was assaulted and intimidated by the bodyguard of top democratic leaders, and members of the State Protection and Guarding Service when she attempted to ask the leaders of the Democratic Party questions. These are two examples of several attacks that took place during the aforementioned timeframe. Following these incidents, both Reporters without Borders and the OSCE Media Freedom Representative issued condemnations and called for action.
These intimidation tactics are part of a broader trend of harassment towards journalists over the last two years. As noted in the Independent Journalist Center (IJC)’s 2018, Moldovan Press Status Index, verbal assaults and threats against journalists continue to increase around the country, often met with a weak response, or complete lack thereof, from law enforcement bodies (pg. 50).
Our position on such attacks is unequivocal: We strongly condemn any form of verbal assault or violence against journalists.
We remind those involved that any violent behaviour against the media is a serious breach of the rights of journalists enshrined in Moldovan law. Article 20 of Moldova’s Law on Press states that journalists are guaranteed the freedom to receive and share information through media, to make audiovisual recordings, to take pictures, and to attend rallies, demonstrations and all other kind of public manifestations.
According to Article 180 of the Criminal Code, intimidation of the media or journalists in can be subject to criminal liability. The State also guarantees the defense of honor and dignity of a journalist and protects his or her health, life and property through Article 20(3) of the Law on Press.
We, the undersigned, therefore urge the international community, including international press outlets, local embassies in the Republic of Moldova, and relevant international institutions to take note of the cases attached below, and call on them to demand that authorities ensure the safety and security of journalists in the country, while investigating instances of aggression towards them.
ActiveWatch – Media Monitoring Agency
Adil Soz – International Foundation for Protection of Freedom of Speech
Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
ARTICLE 19
Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI)
Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR)
Center for Media Studies & Peace Building (CEMESP)
Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ)
Free Media Movement
Independent Journalism Center (IJC)
Index on Censorship
Initiative for Freedom of Expression – Turkey
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)
Media Rights Agenda (MRA)
Mediacentar Sarajevo
Pacific Islands News Association (PINA)
Pakistan Press Foundation
PEN America
PEN International
Public Association “Journalists”
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
South East Europe Media Organisation
South East European Network for Professionalization of Media (SEENPM)
Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM)
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