11 Oct 24 | Brazil, Israel, Mexico, News and features, Newsletters, Palestine, United States
Hello, readers. This is Sarah Dawood here, the new editor of Index on Censorship. Every week, we bring the most pertinent global free speech stories to your inbox.
This week, headlines have been dominated by the ongoing devastation of the war in the Middle East, where the death toll is now more than 42,000 in Gaza, and more than 2,100 in Lebanon. Monday also marked a painful milestone for Israelis and Jewish people everywhere, as the first anniversary of Hamas’s attacks, which killed 1,200 people. You can read Jerusalem correspondent Ben Lynfield’s forensic analysis on the region’s risks to journalists and press freedom below.
Attention has also been on the destructive Hurricane Milton in Florida, which has killed at least 16 people. The climate event has resulted in human tragedy, physical damage and the distortion of truth, with false information and AI-generated images accumulating millions of views on social media, including a fabricated flooding of Disney World in Orlando. Such imagery has been seized upon by hostile states, far-right groups, and even US politicians to advance their own aims: Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti reposted the fake Disney World photos to its Telegram channel, whilst Republican members of Congress have proclaimed conspiracy theories of government-led “storm manufacturing”. This emphasises how crises can be manipulated and monopolised to stir up division.
But while disinformation can undermine democracy, so too can information blockades. This brings us to some important stories coming out of Latin America. In Brazil, the social media platform X is now back online after a shutdown in September. The platform was banned by a top judge during the country’s presidential election campaign, in an attempt to prevent the spread of misinformation. But as Mateus Netzel, the executive director of Brazil-based digital news platform Poder360 told Reuters, social media bans not only restrict public access to information, but can undermine journalists’ ability to gather and report on news. Elon Musk himself was using X to post about the development of the ban, but this was inaccessible to Brazilian journalists. “In theory, there are journalists and outlets who do not have access to that right now and this is a very important restriction because they need to report on this issue and they will have to rely on indirect sources,” said Netzel.
We also heard frightening news from Mexico, where a local politician was murdered and beheaded just days after being sworn in as city mayor of Chilpancingo. Whilst we don’t yet know the reason that Alejandro Arcos Catalán was killed, his murder is yet another example of journalists, politicians, and other public figures being routinely targeted by criminal gangs. Bar active war zones, Mexico has consistently been the most dangerous country in the world for journalists, topping Reporters Without Borders’ list in 2022.
Meanwhile, in El Salvador, climate activists are being silenced through false imprisonment. Five protesters, who fronted a 13-year grassroots campaign to ban metal mining due to its devastating environmental impacts are now facing life in prison for the alleged killing of an army informant in 1989. The charge has been condemned by the UN and international lawyers as baseless and politically motivated, and echoes heavy-handed prison sentences being handed to climate protesters globally, including in democratic countries. As Index’s Mackenzie Argent reported last month, human rights lawyers have called out the UK’s hypocrisy in claiming egalitarianism whilst disproportionately punishing environmental activists, pointing specifically to the sentencing of Just Stop Oil’s Roger Hallam to five years in prison in July. These two stories, although taking place 5,000 miles away from each other, underline how climate defenders are currently on the front line of attempts to be silenced.
22 Feb 24 | News and features, United Kingdom, United States
After passing the Public Order Bill last year in the UK, which increased the powers of the police to restrict people’s fundamental rights to peaceful protest, the government is looking to restrict protest rights further. The new Criminal Justice Bill is currently being considered by parliament and contains measures designed to clamp down on protesters climbing on national monuments, hiding their face or carrying flares.
In their announcement of the new measures, the Home Office declared that the right to protest is “no longer an excuse for certain public order offences”. Additionally, attorney general Victoria Prentis KC is leading an attempt to outlaw the ‘consent’ defence for climate protesters, which argues that defendants have a lawful excuse for their actions due to their honest belief that those affected by their actions would consent to the damage had they understood the dangers of the climate emergency. This attack on what is one of the last remaining lawful defences available to climate activists has been described by environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion as “concerning”.
“The government would rather curtail our right to protest, and waste valuable court time and public money, than do what everyone agrees is necessary to protect us from the worst climate impacts and cut people’s energy bills,” a spokesperson for the group told Index.
“When political parties keep prioritising narrow private interests ahead of the lives, homes and security of its citizens the solution is to put people in charge through an emergency citizens’ assembly on the climate and nature emergencies.”
This is particularly alarming given the rise in environmental activists facing potential legal action. Hundreds of such campaigners in the UK have received legal threats, leading to claims that states and private companies are using the threat of costly legal action to silence critics.
Michel Forst, the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, has previously expressed concerns over the UK’s increasing intolerance of environmental protests, calling the new laws “regressive” and warning of the “chilling effect” they will have on free expression. This statement came in the aftermath of the infamous case of Just Stop Oil campaigners Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker, who made history last year when they were handed the longest sentences for a peaceful climate protest in living memory. Both have been jailed for more than two and a half years after scaling a bridge on the Dartford Crossing, forcing its closure and causing gridlock for the traffic below.
The current ongoing conflict in the Middle East has increased concerns over protester safety. Since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war, weekly marches have taken place in the UK and have become a source of contention in the free expression world. Suella Braverman, for example, stated that waving a Palestinian flag “may not be legitimate” and encouraged a “strong police presence” in response. There have been hundreds of arrests during pro-Palestine protests since the conflict broke out, raising questions over the line between incitement and free speech. In December, nine people were arrested in London after displaying a pro-Palestine banner. Five people were arrested the month before for taking part in a peaceful sit-in at King’s Cross station after refusing to comply with an order to disperse.
This pattern of increasing police powers to clamp down on peaceful protest demonstrates a worrying break from usual democratic principles, which could have serious consequences for free expression in the state.
Anti-protest laws are not just gaining traction in the UK. Similar incidents have occurred in the USA, marking a worrying trend. Earlier this month, freelance journalist Reed Dunlea was arrested while covering pro-Palestine protests in New York. He was officially charged, confusingly, with resisting arrest, but no reason has been given as to why he was being arrested in the first place, particularly as his press pass and media equipment was on full display.
Freelance photographer Stephanie Keith told Index that she saw Dunlea’s arrest in progress as she was covering the protests, but that it wasn’t clear what he was arrested for.
“I was across the street documenting an earlier arrest when I saw a number of NYPD [officers] slamming a fairly large man onto the ground,” she said.
Keith has been covering the recent pro-Palestine protests in the USA and said she has noticed attitudes towards protesters changing in the last few months.
“The NYPD have been much more intolerant of the Palestinian protest in the last two months,” she said. “Protesters used to be able to march in the streets and now if anyone sets foot in the streets, they are arrested.
“The police have a very different attitude towards the protesters now than they did at the end of last year.”
This incident was one of many to have occurred under New York Mayor Eric Adams, a pro-police candidate. During his term, misconduct complaints against the NYPD have risen to their highest levels in more than a decade.
Outside of New York, the police forces of other US cities have also displayed an increasingly hostile attitude towards protesters. Following the racial justice protests of 2020 that broke out after the murder of George Floyd, at least 19 US cities were made to pay settlements totalling more than $80m to protesters who sustained injuries as a result of law enforcement action.
If such a trend continues, the UK and US will have serious questions to answer over their treatment of protesters. One of the most fundamental concepts of any functioning democracy is the right to peacefully protest. The charge sheet of both the UK and the US is not looking good and we must make sure we don’t look the other way.
16 Jun 23 | Brazil, News and features, United Kingdom
The temperature is rising, and not just for former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The heat has increased in the UK in more literal ways, leading the National Grid to fire up a coal power plant to create enough energy to power all our air-con units. The irony of this is lost on no-one, particularly environmental campaigners.
No, we haven’t gone off on an environmental tangent. There are plenty of free speech issues stemming from the climate crisis, as we have reported many times in the past. Yesterday morning some of the very people who are protesting dirty energy were dealt another blow. After Home Secretary Suella Braverman gave further clarification that “serious disruption” included slow walking protests that block roads, the amendments to the Public Order Act, which further lowers the “serious disruption” threshold, came into effect. The Home Office said: “While the right to peaceful protest remains a cornerstone of our democracy, causing traffic to halt, delaying people getting to work and distracting the police from fighting crime will not be tolerated.”
Disruptive environmental groups have been targeted in government legislation before (à la the Public Order Bill policy paper’s specific reference to Extinction Rebellion), and this latest example is no different. Braverman said: “The public are sick of Just Stop Oil’s selfish and self-defeating actions, which achieve nothing towards their cause.”
Human rights barrister Adam Wagner, commissioned by Friends of the Earth, gave his legal opinion on the matter, highlighting “serious implications for the right to freedom of speech and protest”. He said there will be a chilling effect on people who want to attend protests, “because people who are deciding whether to organise or attend a protest would not be able to predict with sufficient certainty whether the police are likely to impose conditions”. Human rights group Liberty, meanwhile, is launching a legal action over the legislation, which they describe as being “brought in by the back door”.
Groups like Just Stop Oil do indeed divide opinion. But they cannot be used as an excuse to further erode public assembly and protest rights. Imagine a future controlled by the very worst of governments — now imagine how they could use this law.
Last week also was the anniversary of the deaths of British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, who were killed while reporting in Brazil’s Javari Valley in the Amazon last year. There were memorials across the world. At an event at Rich Mix in London, people not only remembered their lives, they also shone a light on the threats that Indigenous people continue to face in the Javari Valley, as they stand in defence of the rainforest.
Back in autumn 2021 our special report examined the silencing of the planet’s Indigenous peoples. We reported on how environmental defenders in Ecuador were criminalised, threatened and attacked and Australia’s history of selective listening when it comes to First Nations voices. Indigenous communities are just as at risk now as they were then — and as they have been for centuries.
As the mercury levels keep going up globally and defenders of the planet keep raising their voices, we have not forgotten about the threats they face, and the importance of their voices being heard.
14 Dec 22 | Australia, News and features, The climate crisis
Ever since environmental activist Deanna “Violet” Coco was handed down a 15-month sentence earlier in December, protesters in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, have rallied in solidarity and to voice their dismay. On Tuesday this week, Coco walked free from prison. The temporary reprieve came as her bail appeal was approved, while she awaits an appeal on her sentence.
In April, Coco and a handful of other protesters from Fireproof/|Floodproof Australia blocked one lane of traffic on Sydney Harbour Bridge, holding aloft a flare to signal the climate emergency. Her sentence is the first of its kind under new laws in New South Wales.
For Suelette Dreyfus, executive director at Australia-based organisation Blueprint for Free Speech, Coco’s recent release must not divert attention from the serious penalties being given to environmental protesters, and the impact on freedom of expression.
“New South Wales has been targeting environmental protesters in the past year especially,” Dreyfus said. “That includes a Conservative state government and a streak in the media that is quite anti-environmentalist.”
She describes the penalties environmental activists typically faced in the past compared to today. What could once have been a fine for a few hundred Australian dollars, has become the threat of a lengthy prison sentence. This comes after NSW introduced the Roads and Crimes Legislation Amendment Act 2022 in April, meaning protesters could be fined up to AU$22,000 or be imprisoned for up to two years for trespassing on a major road and causing damage or disruption, or for damaging or disrupting a major facility.
Alongside this, a new police unit was created to disrupt environmental protest, called Strike Force Guard.
Dreyfus called this “an extreme power that’s been given to both police and the judiciary, to silence environmental protesters”.
When Coco’s sentence was handed down, NSW premier Dominic Perrottet described it as “pleasing to see”.
“It seems to be a strange thing to want to put a peaceful young woman exercising her right to freedom of expression in prison for two years, and feel self-satisfied about it,” Dreyfus told Index.
Coco is not alone in facing the sharp end of NSW’s new laws. In April, fellow Fireproof Australia activist Andrew George interrupted a National Rugby League match by running onto the pitch with a flare, and was handed down a three-month jail sentence, which he later appealed and won. In September, Blockade Australia activist Mali Cooper was cleared of charges against them, after they blocked the Sydney Harbour Tunnel in an attempt to force systemic change after witnessing the Lismore floods. They had faced the threat of two years in prison and $22,000 in fines.
Dreyfus referred to this landscape for environmental protest as a New South Wales phenomenon, but she said there is evidence that it’s leaching to other states. Victoria and Tasmania introduced similar laws this year.
“I think that the New South Wales government is actually weaponising the law against environmental protest in that state by going for the most serious charges they think they can, rather than charges that are commensurate with the very often very minor disruption that the protesters may cause,” Dreyfus said.
“We’re not talking about people who have burned down the Sydney Opera House here. We’re talking about people who have marched peacefully, and may have marched some bit of time in the road,” she said. “It’s really a minor offence, and it’s being treated like a major offence. So, it’s definitely chilling freedom of expression. It’s not a spring chill. It’s a full-on disturbing kind of winter hail.”
She said people are not attending ordinary protests in the same way as before, referring to demonstrations of around 100 people marching along a road, where some might step off the pavement and disrupt traffic. Coco’s sentencing, she said, has dampened participation.
However, she does not believe people will be silenced in this harsh landscape: “Most protesters of that nature are resourceful. So they will find another way to express what they think is important.”
The unintended consequence of the way NSW is dealing with this issue, she said, is that they are ultimately giving a bigger microphone to the protesters. Where before, disruptive protests were encouraging people to talk about environmental issues, now people are talking about environmental issues, freedom of expression and law reform. She calls that a killer combination for positive change.
“It will be up to the civil society community to make the most of that,” she said. “That’s something that they have to decide how they’re going to embrace.”
