The Monitoring and Advocating for Media Freedom project documents, analyses, and publicises threats, limitations and violations related to media freedom and safety of journalists in Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine, (as well as Belarus, which is not in the Council of Europe), in order to identify possible opportunities for advancing media freedom in these countries.
As part of the project, Index on Censorship submits and co-sponsors alerts on violations, including physical attacks on journalists and threats to media freedom, to the Council of Europe’s platform. When a member state is mentioned in an alert, the state is asked to log any remedial action they have taken in the platform. The platform’s objective is to put pressure on Council of Europe states to act in accordance with international human rights law and media standards.
Turkey, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, and Russia look likely to be among Europe’s most flagrant offenders of media freedom again in 2019: despite accounting for just 8.5% of the Council of Europe member states, they account for 36% of the alerts filed on the platform so far this year.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”98654″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]Turkey remains the world’s largest imprisoner of journalists. Arrested journalists continue to be detained on charges of membership of or creating propaganda for a terrorist organisation. Three of the fourteen staff of the newspaper Özgürlükçü Demokrasi who were arrested in 2018 and charged with “membership in a terrorist organisation and terrorist propaganda” remain in detention in Istanbul.The next hearing in their trial is scheduled for 28 June 2019.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”107324″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]Despite President Aliyev’s pardoning of more than 400 people earlier this year, journalists among them, severe obstacles remain to press freedom in Azerbaijan. Travel bans remain one of the most common instruments with which to silence critical voices in the country, despite being in violation of Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own”), which Azerbaijan ratified in 1992.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”98655″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]Last month investigative reporter Vadym Komarov was beaten into a coma in the Ukrainian city of Cherkasy. He was found with severe head injuries and was taken to hospital where he underwent brain surgery. He frequently wrote about corruption, administrative incompetence, prison conditions, and illegal construction. According to the most recent reports, police have not yet identified the attacker, but are treating the incident as premeditated attempted murder.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”98652″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]Along with Ukraine, Russia is among the Council of Europe states where journalists endure the highest rate of physical violence. Earlier this month, unknown assailants attacked the well-known blogger Vadim Kharchenko after he went to meet a potential source. Kharchenko is known for reporting on and investigating alleged police abuse of power. As noted in its recently published report, Index on Censorship recorded 116 violations of press freedom in Russia between 1 February 2019 and 30 April 2019. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]
The UK has responded to an official alert to the Council of Europe’s platform to protect journalism, which was filed by Index on Censorship and co-submitted by the Association of European Journalists on 25 April 2019. The alert highlights the risks to media freedom in proposals in the government’s recently released online harms white paper.
The UK response is a copy of a letter from Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright to Ian Murray of the Society of Editors, who had raised concerns that the proposals, designed to combat support for terrorism, child abuse and other harms on the internet, would also impinge on press freedom.
The letter from Jeremy Wright states that journalistic or editorial content will not be affected by the proposed regulatory framework. However, it is very difficult to see how this could be avoided.
The proposals in the white paper cover companies of all sizes (including non-profit organisations). For example, a blog and comments would be included under the remit of a proposed online content regulator.
The letter futher states that the future “ …regulator will not be responsible for policing truth and accuracy online”. However, a new legal duty of care would cover a very broad range of “harms”, for example disinformation and violent content. In combination with substantial fines and potentially even personal criminal liability for senior managers it would create a very strong incentive for platforms to remove content proactively – including news stories that might be deemed ‘harmful’ by the regulator although their contents is not illegal.
Other proposals in the white paper may also have damaging impacts on media freedom, such as potential ISP blocking (making a platform inaccessible in or from the UK). The draft provisions for ensuring protection of users’ rights online, particularly freedom of expression, rights to privacy and the public interest are now sketchy and inadequate, but they need to be robust, detailed and provided for in law.
Index and AEJ look forward to a more comprehensive UK state reply to the Council of Europe, which explains unequivocally and in concrete detail how proposals in the white paper will be made compatible with the UK’s obligations to safeguard journalism and media freedom.
Press freedom in Europe is more fragile now than at any time since the end of the Cold War. That is the alarming conclusion of a report launched today by the 12 partner organisations of the Council of Europe platform to promote the protection of journalism and safety of journalists.
The report, “Democracy at Risk”, analyses media freedom violations raised to the Platform in 2018. It provides a stark picture of the worsening environment for the media across Europe, in which journalists increasingly face obstruction, hostility and violence as they investigate and report on behalf of the public.
The 12 Platform partners – international journalists’ and media organisations as well as freedom of expression advocacy groups – reported 140 serious media freedom violations (“alerts”) in 32 Council of Europe member states in 2018. This review of the alerts reveals a picture sharply at odds with the guarantees enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights. Impunity for crimes against journalists is becoming a “new normal”. Legal protections for critical, investigative reporting have been weakened offline and online. The space for the press to hold government authorities and the powerful to account has shrunk.
Last year the murders of Ján Kuciak and fiancée Martina Kušnírová in Slovakia and Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, were among 35 alerts for attacks on journalists’ physical safety and integrity. Alerts about serious threats to journalists’ lives doubled and were accompanied by a strong surge in verbal abuse and public stigmatisation of the media and individual journalists in Council of Europe member states.
“Urgent actions backed by a determined show of political will by Council of Europe member states are now required to improve the dire conditions for media freedom and to provide reliable protections for journalists in law and practice”, the report warns.
The purpose of the Platform, based on a 2015 agreement between the Council of Europe and the partner organisations, is to prompt an early dialogue with member states and hasten remedies for violations and shortcomings in the protections for free and independent journalism.
The Platform partners call on states that impose the harshest restrictions on journalists’ activities’ and freedom of expression to:
Restore rule of law safeguards and drop charges against journalists and release them as a step towards restoring a safe and enabling environment for independent media;
Remove extremism and other laws criminalising media and end arbitrary exercise of powers by the executive and regulators; and
Take the necessary steps to put in place a structure of media regulation and ownership which safeguards media plurality and freedom.
In addition, the Platform partners call on all states to reply fully and in good faith to all alerts and to take effective measures in law and practice to remedy the threats to the safety of individual journalists and media.
The Council of Europe Platform was launched in April 2015 to provide information which may serve as a basis for dialogue with member states about possible protective or remedial action. While many member states responded to alerts in 2018, five states declined to respond to any alerts, including those reporting very serious media freedom violations.
The 12 Platform partners are: the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the Association of European Journalists (AEJ), Article 19, Reporters without Borders (RSF), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Index on Censorship, the International Press Institute (IPI), the International News Safety Institute (INSI), Rory Peck Trust, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and PEN International.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1549970814170-cd3c7b7a-5d5e-10″ taxonomies=”208″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship has filed an official notification with the Council of Europe raising concerns about the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill’s impacts on media freedom in the UK.
Index believes that the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill would undermine media freedom and damage journalism if it is enacted in its current form.
The bill would criminalise watching online content likely to be useful for terrorism, even if viewed with no terrorist intent. The offence would carry a prison sentence of up to 15 years. It would make the work of investigative journalists very difficult.
The bill would criminalise publishing (for example, by posting online) images of clothing or an article such as a flag in a way that aroused “reasonable suspicion” that the person doing it was a member or supporter of a proscribed (terrorist) organisation.
The bill would introduce new border security measures that would not allow journalists to protect sources and confidential materials.
The bill will be considered in the House of Lords on 9 October.
Joy Hyvarinen, head of advocacy said: “Index considers this bill to be a threat to media freedom in the UK, which is why we have alerted the Council of Europe. It is extremely important to tackle terrorism, but doing it by undermining media freedom is not the right way. Journalists must be free to do their work”.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1537888523395-496f859a-3b84-3″ taxonomies=”27743″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
