In almost four months covering protests against France’s labour reform bill, a number of journalists in the country have faced intimidation, detention and injury. Others have had their equipment broken or been physically prevented from doing their job.
On 9 April, a group of protesters threatened journalists in Rennes. The following month, a journalist working for Le Figaro newspaper was hurt by a projectile, likely to have been thrown by a protester and aimed at the police.
Journalists have also been attacked with batons and one as hurt by a Flash-Ball gun. On 23 June, two independent journalists, including Gaspard Glanz from Teranis News, were detained for hours in a police van while on their way to cover a protest in Paris.
“I didn’t think this could happen in France,” Julie Lallouet-Geffroy, an administrator for Club de la Presse de Rennes et de Bretagne and journalist for Reporterre, told Index on Censorship.
Club de la Presse de Rennes et de Bretagne, a press club based in the city of Rennes, Brittany, has been particularly active in denouncing violence against journalists covering the local protests. After journalists were attacked in Rennes on 2 June, the group took the case to France’s constitutional ombudsman for citizens’ rights and met with the interior minister.
Lallouet-Geffroy told Index what happened when journalists were caught in the middle of the clash between police and protesters. “Police forces first hit an independent photographer, then they hit Vincent Feuray [a contributor to Libération],” she said. “He fell to the ground unconscious and remained unconscious for a few seconds.”
Lallouet-Geffroy said she was also shoved by police.
She told Index that meetings with journalists at the club resemble “group psychotherapy”: “Journalists often won’t talk about this type of incidents – they consider it’s just behind-the-scenes stuff. But soon you realise that journalists working for very established media outlets, such as AFP or France 3, who have a 12kg camera on the shoulder, are teargassed at point-blank range. What really struck me is the banalisation of such violence.”
Reporterre recently published a report on police violence against protesters, which includes a few pages on cases where journalists were targeted. “What’s disconcerting is this litany of violence in all French cities, with the same words and the same incidents reappearing while police forces are supposed to protect citizens,” said Lallouet-Geffroy.
The emergence of new journalists and new media outlets that occupy a grey zone between journalism and activism has been seen as disconcerting for some.
“There are young journalists who will go on the hotspots, taking risks that journalists who have a steady job won’t take,” Lallouet-Geffroy said. “Sometimes it feels like they are cannon fodder, particularly isolated, with no outlet to have their back if they get in trouble or if they are sued for libel. Some of the images they get are really valuable, though.”
The deteriorating relationships between French police and young people continues to be a problem. It was announced on 29 June in the National Assembly that a plan to issue written receipts to people stopped by police, which organisations fighting police violence have long campaigned for, would not be implemented. A popular chant among French protesters remains: “Tout le monde déteste la police” (“Everybody hates the police”).
Mapping Media Freedom
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Each week, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project verifies threats, violations and limitations faced by the media throughout the European Union and neighbouring countries. Here are five recent reports that give us cause for concern.
21 June, 2016 – Freelance journalist Kastus Zhukouski and cameraperson Alyaksei Atroshchankau who work for Poland-based Belsat TV, were detained in the town of Loyeu, in Homel region, Belsat channel reported.
The two media workers were filming a local brick factory for a story about poor economic conditions in Belarus.
“The police came, and brutally detained me and my colleague Alyaksei. We were taken to the police department, to the control room. They seized the equipment from our hands, broke it. I was knocked down to the floor, handcuffed, a man pressed a knee against my head. He called himself Deputy Chief Henadz Madzharski”, Kastus Zhukouski told BelaPAN.
The journalist also said he had high blood pressure. An ambulance was called and he was given an injection.
Zhukouski and Atroshchankau spent six hours at the police station. No police documents were drawn up despite threats to do so, the channel reported. It is unclear if the journalists have been charged with anything.
Szukouski and Atroshchankau filed requests to the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Belarus asking them to investigate actions of the police.
20 June, 2016 – Belgian justice minister Koen Geens announced his intention to double the length of a prison sentencing for divulging confidential information, in cases where professional confidentially is breached, newspaper La Libre Belgique reported.
According to the Belgium General Association of Journalists, the move is meant to include it amongst the category of offenses which allow specific investigative methods such as phone-tapping or electronic tracing.
A second proposed law is also worrying journalists, which would enable the intelligence service to scrape the protection of a professional journalist if he/she is not considered a real journalist.
Gaspard Glanz, from independent website Taranis News, which covers clashes that take place during protests closely, and Alexis Kraland, were detained by police forces.
Ganz tweeted about the conditions, writing: “There’s 12 of us in total in the van. It’s 40 degrees. No water, no air”.
On Periscope, the people in the truck can be seen saying why they were arrested, generally because they were wearing protective material meant to protect them against tear gas.
22 June, 2016 – A new anti-terrorism law has come into effect on 22 June after it was ratified by the Polish President Andrzej Duda, wiadomosci.gazeta.pl. The law was successfully passed by two parliamentary chambers of the Sejm earlier this month.
The law gives Poland’s intelligence agency, the ABW (Agencja Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego), the right to “order the blocking or demand that the electronic open source service administrator block access to information data”, thereby giving the agency the right to shut down online media outlets, including websites and television programmes, Kulisy24 reported.
Websites can be blocked for up to five days prior to obtaining permission by higher prosecution authorities, and up to 30 days if permission is granted, with the option to renew it for up to three months.
Authorisation for a temporary access ban can also now be granted by the minister of justice. The legislation does not grant power to the source administrator to appeal against such a decision.
Lawyer and expert on surveillance legislation, Prior Waglowski, told the website money.pl: “Blocking…has to occur under judicial supervision… which is not given here. These propositions are taken out of the blue”. He underlined that the definition of terrorism provided is very loose and is up to the discretion by effectively two persons.
Watchdog website Kulisy24criticised the legislation, writing that it is not known how blocking will be executed and that the ABW is not obliged to publish its blocking order.
The Polish NGO Fundacja Panoptykon started a petition against the law in late April and collected just short of 8,690 signatures by 20 June. Together with the NGO e-Państwo, it also published a protest letter addressed to the Polish president, which was shared by a number of media and NGOs, including the Helsinki Foundation of Human Rights.
In a developing incident reported to Mapping Media Freedom on 18 May 2016 Turkish judicial authorities have opened an investigation against five journalists and trade unionists for participating in a solidarity campaign with the Kurdish daily newspaper Özgür Gündem.
The journalists include Ertugrul Mavioglu, Faruk Eren, Ayse Düzkan, Mustafa Sönmez and Melda Onur.
The Co-Editorship-in-Chief campaign was launched by Özgür Gündem daily on 3 May, 2016 for World Press Freedom Day (#WPFD) where up to 16 journalists participated.
Requests have been filed for the journalists and trade unionists to testify for articles that are being considered “terrorist propaganda” and an “incitement to crime” which were published whilst they participated in the solidarity campaign.
“This is another dark day for media freedom in Turkey,” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. “Erol Önderoglu has fought tirelessly to defend persecuted journalists for the past 20 years. He is a leader in this field because of his honesty and integrity, which are recognised the world over. It says a lot about the decline in media freedom in Turkey that he is now also being targeted.”
UPDATE: On 25 May, 2016 – Journalist Erol Önderoglu has been added to list of journalists being investigated for “terrorist propaganda” for participating in the solidarity campaign with Özgür Gündem, The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) reports. EFJ demands that all criminal charges be dropped against him and the other journalists involved in this campaign.
UPDATE: 20 June, 2016 – A prosecutor has issued a warrant for the pre-trial arrest of ad interim editor-in-chief Özgür Gündem Şebnem Korur Fincancı, Bianet journalist and RSF representative Erol Önderoğlu and author Ahmet Nesin.
Surrounded by a jungle of tents and mud, the Good Chance Theatre was set up last year by British playwrights Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson. The refugee camp theatre has been derided by many, but for the thousands of migrants who have journeyed across the world to Calais, the small dome has been the first and only place into which they have been welcomed, and their voice valued.
“This is hell,” admits Joe Robertson, co-founder of the Good Chance theatre, on a tour of the camp. “It’s been raining all night. It will rain all day. A lot of people’s houses would have flooded over in the middle of the night. That’s if they weren’t blown down by the winds yesterday.” Scabies and measles are becoming commonplace for residents of the camp, he tells us, coupled with an almost constant fear of bulldozers, police and teargas.
“But,” adds Joe Murphy, the second half of the Good Chance duo, “it is made better by the resilience of the people who find themselves here. It’s that energy that the theatre relies on in order to be a place of hope.”
After a visit to the camp that was meant to last a couple of days, the Joes soon returned and, funded by a crowdfunding campaign the theatre was built in late September. The idea gained backing from theatre heavyweights including the Young Vic’s David Lan, Vicky Featherstone and the Royal Court Theatre, and Natalia Kaliada, artistic director of the Belarus Free Theatre.
But the theatre, a white geodesic dome now covered in graffiti and hung with paintings, is not theirs the Joes maintain – it was built by the residents themselves. “We brought the dome over, but 50 people built it with us, from the community. Since then, maybe a thousand people a week use this space. We have had hundreds of volunteers and amazing artists from the UK, and the whole world – visiting companies and organisations who have dedicated time, resources, money, advice. So many people have come together to fill this dome with joy and expression amid the chaos and the horrors of this place.”
And this applies to their awards nomination too, they say. “I think a nomination is a nomination for not even the theatre. It’s a nomination for a community that has happened in and around the theatre. I suppose it’s a nomination for the ability of people from many, many different countries to get on, to make together, and to make do in a situation that is hellish.”
And the residents of the camp have clearly come to rely on the theatre and its founders, in a huge way. The Joes can’t walk more than a few metres without being called over for a chat and a hug from one of the hundreds in the camp who visit their theatre.
When asked what place he thought the theatre had in a refugee camp, one resident replied: “It simply means to me, for us refugees, reminding ourselves what we have been survived from. The minors, instead of drawing the beautiful dreams, they are drawing their cruel lives and hungry days.” A recent census counted 291 children living in the camp unaccompanied, with the Joes campaigning for authorities to safely register them, and help process their UK residency claims.
The capacity of art and self-expression to help process trauma is one of the driving forces of the theatre for Joe and Joe. “There was one chap, actually an actor from Iraq, he provided the voice of Tom and Jerry, I think in the Kurdish TV version.”
“One day he started to work on a physical piece that was telling the story of his journey. With his eyes closed, he was sort of walking around the room on this journey. He would narrate the journey. We were suddenly on the boat with 50 or more people. His sister was on the boat who was pregnant, and her son, his two year old nephew. They were halfway across the Aegean and the boat’s engine cut out. So they were in the middle of the sea. We were sort of performing this with him and helping him. He was putting us in different places.
“He jumped out of the boat with five other men. And they took out their belts, which we did, and then he attached the belt to his body and then attached the belt to somewhere on the boat or a rope from the boat. And these six men swam this boat with all their families on it and 50 other people. Swimming this boat across the Aegean. It was just the most awful story and the most terrifying story. We felt the terror of that experience while we were performing it.”
As well as offering a space for camp residents to stage their own performances, Good Chance puts on a schedule of painting, workshops, music, dance, acting and games. In the evening, the space hosts communal events, which bring all of the camp’s many nationalities together. The theatre has had poetry slams, stand-up comedy, acoustic sets, theatre performances, rap battles and film nights. But they also provide one of the only safe spaces in the camp. “If teargas gets used and people here are on the end of it, a lot of people come to the theatre,” says Joe. “They come because they know that it’s a place that doesn’t associate itself with violence.”
But the violence in the camp is only set to increase. After a recent eviction notice, the refugees in have found themselves once again forced to flee, this time at the hands of the French police – and their water cannons and teargas.
“This is one of the only projects that has ever been nominated for an Index on Censorship award based on a democracy, which is a strange thing to think about really,” said Joe Murphy.
The Joes remain determined however, staying in Calais as the violent eviction happens around them and their theatre. And beyond Calais, their plan is to bring a Good Chance to refugees across Europe and the world. “There are so many people moving at the moment, so many people whose homes are in tents, whose lives are temporary and who are trying to get to other places. And we have something that can help those people, we think.”
“And so now, we feel our duty is to find those people. Because if they’re anything like the hundreds and thousands of people we’ve met here, they are important people, they are important voices, and we’ve got to hear them because it will make us so much better.”
Freedom of the press has always been a pretty reliable litmus test for the state of any democracy. However, as Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project shows, countries that are seen as traditionally open, with constitutions protecting freedom of expression, are currently rife with violations against the media.
“It is extremely troubling that media workers have been physically and sexually assaulted, arrested and denied access to key reporting areas in countries with strong democratic institutions,” Hannah Machlin, Index’s Mapping Media Freedom project officer, said. “We hope governments take action to prevent these types of violations from occurring at such a frightening rate.”
So far this year, Mapping Media Freedom has verified 61 media violations. Here are just five examples from the last fortnight that highlight some of the failures of these democracies to live up to their own standards.
1. Germany: Belgian TV reporter assaulted live on air
Just weeks after hundreds of women were sexually assaulted on the streets of Cologne, a journalist, Esmeralda Labye, was sexually assaulted while reporting from the Cologne carnival for Belgian TV station RTBF on 4 February. One man grabbed her breast and another kissed her neck while she was live on air.
“Two or three men gathered behind me and attempted to make themselves the centre of my attention,” Labye told The Guardian. “I was focusing on the broadcast, and then I felt a kiss on my neck.”
Writing for RTBF online, Labye condemned the “wretched and cowardly men” who assaulted her and complained of the increasing difficulty for female journalists to do their job without being harassed.
2. France: Proposed law will increase role of government’s media watchdog
On 4 February, plans to increase the role of the CSA — the French broadcast watchdog whose members are chosen by the government — as a guarantor of the independence of the media were discussed in the French National Assembly.
The French journalists’ union SNJ criticized the planned bill, written by a Parti Socialiste MP, stressing that the CSA is not independent from political influence. They wrote: “The CSA has no responsibility and legitimacy on matters related to the control of information or journalists. It should have none!”
3. Greece: Violent attack against journalist during anti-austerity demonstration
Protests against the Greek government’s plan to change its pension policy as part of the country’s third international bailout brought an estimated 40,000 people onto the streets of Athens and other cities, including journalists. On 4 February, Dimitris Perros, a journalist from the local radio station Athens 9,84, was violently attacked by unknown assailants while covering the demonstration. He was transported to the hospital with major injuries.
Newspapers reported that the attack was denounced in statements from across the political spectrum including Syriza,PASOK and the Greek Communist Party and the Journalist’s Union of the Athens Daily Newspapers. “The strangers who approached him asked him first if he is a journalist and when he answered affirmatively they started beating him with planks, while the police looked on,” the union stressed in an announcement.
4. The Netherlands: Journalists denied access to meeting on housing asylum seekers under “extremist” ban
On 28 January, several journalists were denied access to a citizens’ meeting about the possible creation of a new asylum seeker centre in the village of Luttelgeest, according to newspaper reports. An emergency regulation was issued to refuse journalists access to the meeting. The mayor also banned journalists from travelling within a radius of five kilometres of the village.
The Dutch Association of Journalists, the NVJ, condemned the measure saying that it was not the first time journalists have been banned. “It has happened many times now,” NVJ secretary Thomas Bruning said. “If journalists are denied access, they are obstructed from doing their job. This is alarming and should not happen in a democracy.”
5. Poland: Government uses defamation law to stop media critics
Even Europe’s youngest democracies are fighting off attacks on media freedom.
As Index on Censorship has previously reported, there is a growing trend in Poland of the government using defamation actions to stop criticism in the media. The most recent example, on 3 February, saw Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party, PiS, file a libel suit against the largest daily newspaper in the country, Gazeta Wyborcza about an opinion piece it disliked.
The article argued that PiS and Poland’s president Andrej Duda have behaved like a “mafia state” for pardoning former anti-corruption official Mariusz Kaminski, for abuse of power. Duda issued the pardon before Kaminski had exhausted the appeals process, a point that the author of the piece, Wojciech Czuchnowski, criticised in his opinion piece.
