04 Dec 13 | European Union, News and features, Ukraine
Protesters gather in Maidan Nezalezhnosti to register their disapproval of the government’s refusal to sign an association agreement with the European Union and its violent crackdown on peaceful demostrators. (Photo: Andrei Alaiksandrau / Index on Censorship)
Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the Independence Square in the centre of Kiev, leaves mixed impressions of courage and uncertainty. It has become a symbol of determination among ordinary Ukrainians to push for their rights and freedoms – but after the events of the last weekend it has also turned into a powerful reminder of how difficult and even bloody the fight can be.
Mass actions in Ukraine started on 21 November after it became clear that the country’s leaders were not going to sign a much anticipated association agreement with the European Union. The situation escalated after 29 November, when it was confirmed the agreement was not signed during the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius. Around 4 a.m. on 30 November riot police violently dispersed protesters from the Independence Square. Dozens of peaceful protesters and journalists were injured. The next day saw one of the largest mass street rallies in Ukrainian history, at least 200,000 people protested against the violent actions of the police. New clashes occurred; protesters and opposition parties called for the government to resign, but the vote of no confidence in the parliament failed. At the moment nobody has a clear answer what comes next.
There are a lot of young people among the protesters. Yuliya, a student of one of Kiev universities, says they are there to “defend their future.” “We want to live in a European country, and feel we are citizens that enjoy rights and freedoms,” she says. Several students said officials at their universities “promised troubles” to those who joined the protests. Some of the student demonstrators told Index that they were threatened with expulsion – but came out into the streets anyway.
Andrii is an employee of an IT firm from Lviv, a regional centres in western Ukraine. He and his friends traveled to Kiev to join the protest for several days during the last two weeks, despite the fact it is more than 500 km drive each way. “It is a crucial time for my country; I cannot just stay home when the fate of my nation is decided. The association agreement with the EU is a historical chance for Ukraine, the chance not to be missed,” he says.
“I went to Maidan, because I want to live in a European country; I want to walk even pavements, drive quality roads, enjoy quality public services for the high taxes I pay – and I don’t want to see my taxes go to pockets of president Yanukovich and his family. Directives of the EU establish quite high requirements for fighting corruption, this is why I support association with the European Union,” says Khrystyna, a lawyer from Kiev.
Roman Romanov, an expert on freedom of assembly with the International Renaissance Foundation, says he has never seen so many people in the streets of Ukraine.
“Now it is not only people who want the association agreement with the EU to be signed. People raise their voice against the police state and brutality against peaceful protesters; they understand that without them speaking out the rule of law will not be restored and justice will not be done,” Roman Romanov says.
Oksana Romaniuk, an executive director of the Institute of Mass Information, a Kiev-based freedom of expression organisation, also sees the difference in how society treats journalists.
“Fifty-one journalists were beaten by riot police in Ukraine between 29 November and 2 December. On the night of 30 November officers of Berkut, a riot police special force, specifically targeted journalists when they were dispersing the protest from the Independence Square. Now local businessmen offer their help to us – they buy first aid kits for journalists and offer money to cover medical treatment for injured reporters. And ordinary people suggest their help, too. I was really moved when a woman came up to me in a bus, as she heard I was ordering protecting helmets and vets for journalists. The lady gave me 200 hryvnias (around £15) and said ‘I have heard how journalists were beaten – please, take this money to help them’. I hope these are the signs that show society understands the importance of journalists’ work to inform people,” Oksana Romaniuk says.
“I did not know I live in a country where a bloody dispersal of a peaceful meeting can happen, where such inhuman brutality against unarmed people and journalists is possible. It is a disgrace for Ukrainian authorities,” she adds.
State officials of Ukraine promise they will make up for this “disgrace” and investigate the violent actions of the police. At the same time, president Yanukovich left for an official visit to China, despite the serious political crisis his country is in. The OSCE Parallel Civil Society conference called the situation in Ukraine “a human dimension crisis.”
“It looks like the authorities want to show they do not care about people that stay at Maidan. It is difficult to say what is going to happen next. I could not believe that happened in my country. Now I don’t see how this crisis is going to be resolved,” says an employee of a Kiev-based human rights organisation.
Last night it was peaceful at Maidan Nezalezhnosti. There was a concert with Ukrainian patriotic songs. People were sitting around fires in barrels; a dozen youngsters decided to warm themselves by playing football just beside a barricade. No police were seen anywhere.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” asked a young Ukrainian girl with a warm smile – she is just walking around Maidan with her boyfriend and a big thermos and offers a free hot drink she made at home to people who came out in a cold night to tell their government they choose a European future for their country. Will they be heard, remains a question.
This article was posted on 4 Dec 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
26 Nov 13 | Campaigns, European Union, United Nations
In a joint letter to Baroness Catherine Ashton, High Representative for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Index on Censorship has joined 66 human rights NGOs from European Union member States, States from the European Partnership and States in cooperation with the European Union stress that the intent to reduce OHCHR’s budget is a signal in the wrong direction. The programme budget for the biennium 2014-2015 for 2014-2015 already decreases the budget of OHCHR by a net 4.8%, whilst the promotion and protection of human rights represents only 3% of the overall UN budget.
Keeping in mind that within the overall UN budget, the share allocated to the promotion and protection of human rights represents approximately 3%, the intent to reduce OHCHR’s budget is a signal in the wrong direction. Soon the Human Rights Council will celebrate its 10 years of existence – we believe that all States and group of States aiming at promoting human rights should ambition to raise that share to at least 10% to celebrate the 10 years of existence of the Council, which will be made impossible if the European Union continues to pressure for more and more “across the board” cuts in the UN’s human rights budget.
20 years after the Office was established, does the European Union really want to a force contributing to undermining the sustainability of OHCHR, hence weakening the voice for human rights within the UN system?
Azerbaijan Human Rights House (on behalf of the following NGOs):
Association for Protection of Womens’ Rights
Azerbaijan Lawyers Association
Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan
Institute for Peace and Democracy
Legal Education Society
Women’s Association for Rational Development
Media Rights Institute
Public Union of Democracy and Human Rights Resource Centre
Society for Humanitarian Research
Barys Zvozskau Belarusian Human Rights House in exile, Vilnius
Human Rights House Belgrade (on behalf of the following NGOs):
Belgrade Centre for Human Rights
Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights
Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia
Policy Center
Human Rights House Kiev (on behalf of the following NGOs):
Association of Ukrainian Human Rights Monitors on Law Enforcement (Association UMDPL)
Center for Civil Liberties
Human Rights Information Center
Human Rights House Tbilisi (on behalf of the following NGOs):
Article 42 of the Constitution
Caucasian Centre for Human Rights and Conflict Studies
Georgian Centre for Psychosocial and Medical Rehabilitation of Torture Victims
Human Rights Centre
Media Centre
Union Sapari – Family without Violence
Human Rights House Oslo (on behalf of the following NGOs):
Human Rights House Foundation (HRHF)
Health and Human Rights Info
Norwegian Helsinki Committee
Human Rights House Voronezh (on behalf of the following NGOs):
Charitable Foundation
Civic Initiatives Development Centre
Confederation of Free Labor
For Ecological and Social Justice
Free University
Golos
Interregional Trade Union of Literary Men
Lawyers for labor rights
Memorial
Ms. Olga Gnezdilova
Soldiers Mothers of Russia
Voronezh Journalist Club
Voronezh-Chernozemie
Youth Human Rights Movement
Human Rights House Yerevan (on behalf of the following NGOs):
Armenian Helsinki Association
Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly – Vanadzor
Jurists against Torture
Guaranteeing Equal Opportunities
Shahkhatun
Socioscope
Women’s Resource Center
Human Rights House Zagreb (on behalf of the following NGOs):
Association for Promotion of Equal Opportunities for People with Disabilities
B.a.B.e. – Be active, Be emancipated
Centre for Peace Studies
Documenta – Centre for Dealing with the Past
GOLJP – Civic Committee for Human Rights
Svitanje – Association for Protection and Promotion of Mental Health
Russian Research Centre for Human Rights (on behalf of the following NGOs):
Human Rights Network Group
Independent Psychiatric Association of Russia
Moscow Centre for Prison Reform
Moscow Helsinki Group
Mother’s Right Foundation
Non-violence International
Right of the Child
Right to Live and Have Civil Dignity
Social Partnership FoundationUnion of the Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia
Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, Poland
Human Rights Club, Azerbaijan
Rafto Foundation, Norway
Human Rights House Foundation (HRHF)
Index on Censorship
19 Nov 13 | Europe and Central Asia, Macedonia, News and features
The government of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has been heavily criticised for the state of media freedom in Macedonia (Image Toni Arsovski/Demotix)
Media freedom in Macedonia has been deteriorating for some time. The latest case is the arrest of Zoran Bozinovski, the owner of website critical of the government, Burevesnik on espionage charges. Below, Tamara Causidis, President of the Trade Union of Macedonian Journalists and Media Workers and Dragan Sekulovski, the Executive Director of Association of Journalists of Macedonia, chronicles the challenges facing the free press, in their submission to the upcoming International Federation of Journalists conference in Kiev.
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The media business in Macedonia has been increasingly under attack over the past few years. The EU and the US State Department, as well as renowned non-governmental organisations like Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders, have all called attention to the decline of media freedom in the country. The challenges most often highlighted include imprisoned journalists, restrictive draft media laws, the government’s large advertising share, the lack of transparent ownership, and the polarisation of the media along lines of political and business affiliation. In light of this, freedom of the media and freedom of speech have been marginalised.
Macedonia has almost 200 media outlets, but unfortunately, that does not make the situation better. They all compete in a small, distorted market, covering just over 2 million citizens, where they cannot survive financially unless they align their interests with the governing parties and politically connected, large businesses. Apart from state media, the vast majority of the country’s press is in private hands. However, the government come out top among the 50 biggest advertisers in the country in 2012. The latest European Commission report raised this as a serious concern, and the DG Enlargement report of June says that at least 1% of the annual national budget (20 million Euros) is invested in media outlets through government campaigns and advertising. This highlights the authorities’ huge influence in the media sphere. Bearing in mind that there are no criteria for how to distribute these funds, “governmental friendly” media outlets are favoured over others. Professionals are fired and people with personal integrity are replaced by obedient mouthpieces, while a huge number of journalists are living in professional insecurity. Behind the veil of “economic reasons”, critical media is vanishing.
One of the most striking example of the situation Macedonian media finds itself in, took place on 24 December last year. Journalists reporting on the parliamentary session were expelled from Parliament by security forces without any reasonable explanation. The Association of Journalists of Macedonia (AJM) used all national legal measures to fight this, but so far no public official has been held liable for this breach of Article 16 of the constitution, which guarantees citizens the right to objective information. The next step would be submission of an appeal to the Court in Strasbourg.
In April the government announced a draft media law, now in its final stages within Parliament, which has the potential to further negatively affect media independence and freedom of expression. International and local organisations are concerned about the same issues regarding the bill – the intention to have one regulator for all types of media and the powerful role of this regulator, the issues concerning political independence, sustainable financing and high and disproportionate fines for the media, as well as the messy attempt to adopt definition of a journalist. The main Council of Europe, OSCE and AJM recommendations have not been accepted. In fact, the latest version of the law was updated with amendments which makes the text even more restrictive the before. For instance, it envisaged that authorities to decide which national association of journalists is legitimate, and will have the right to nominate a member to the council of the regulator and the public broadcaster.
In October 2013 Macedonia became the only country in south-east Europe with imprisoned journalists. Tomislav Kezarovski, from the daily Nova Makedonija, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for in 2008 revealing the identity of a protected witness in a murder trial. The witness recently testified that he had given false evidence against the accused killers. The Trade Union of Macedonian Journalists and Media Workers (SSNM) and AJM organised two protests in front of court in Skopje, raising the issue in the international community, but despite this Kezarovski was sentenced on October 21.
It should also be noted that at the time, he was investigating the mysterious death of prominent journalist Nikola Mladenov, founder of the weekly Fokus and one of the biggest activists for press freedom in the country. AJM is taking daily initiatives to raise the visibility of this case, to try to convince authorities that this sends terrifying message to all journalists and endangers freedom of press even more.
Finally, many colleagues in the media cannot rely on any of the basic rights guaranteed by the Labour Law. They are working without contracts, insurance, paid vacation, overtime hours and sick leave, and minimum wage is not regulated. There aren’t any internal rules or statutes defining the rights and obligations of owners, editors and journalists, and there are instances of both direct and indirect bans for organising into workers unions. The journalists themselves are barely educated about what a union is and how they can organise through it. In the face of fierce criticism from AJM, the government has developed the Macedonian journalists association, designed not only to diminish critics and open confrontation but also to impose artificial support for the proposed media laws.
This text is drafted based on a draft report on the media situation in Macedonia by Tamara Causidis, President of the Trade Union of Macedonian Journalists and Media Workers and Dragan Sekulovski, Executive Director of Association of Journalists of Macedonia. It will be published at the upcoming conference organised by the International Federation of Journalists in Kiev.
This article was originally published on 19 Nov 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
05 Nov 13 | Belarus, News and features
The status quo between the European Union and Belarus remains in place. The EU Council prolonged its present sanctions against Belarusian officials last week.
On 29 October 2013 the Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union extended its restrictive measures against Belarus for one more year.
“This is because not all political prisoners have been released, no released prisoner has been rehabilitated, and the respect for human rights, the rule of law and democratic principles has not improved in Belarus,” the press service of the EU Council reported.
The EU reiterated its policy of “critical engagement” with the Belarusian government. At the same time, it updated the list of persons and companies, subjected to the EU sanctions. Thirteen people and five enterprises — all belonging to a Belarusian businessman Vladimir Peftiev — were excluded from the list.
Two more officials were added to the ban list in return: Aliaksandr Kakunin and Yury Trutko, who are the chief officers of Babruysk Correctional Institution No. 2, a prison where Ales Bialiatski, a famous Belarusian human rights defender, is serving a 4.5 year term.
At the moment the EU ban list contains the names of 232 Belarusian officials, including President Alexander Lukashenko, who were involved in human rights violations. They are banned from travelling in the EU; all their possible assets in the European Union must be frozen. The EU ban list also includes 25 companies owned by Yury Chizh and Anatoly Ternavsky, who are sometimes called “the bagmen of the regime.”
The decision of the EU to exclude from the “black list” 13 people, who no longer occupy their positions within the authorities of the country, was criticised by some representatives of Belarusian civil society.
“The reason they were included in the list was their participation to certain extent in human rights violations. For instance, there are several judges who passed politically motivated sentences to civil activists, involved in peaceful protests against the election fraud on 19 December 2010. Despite the fact they left their jobs, none of them has publically announced he or she regrets what they did and they are sorry. The reason why those 13 people were on the list is still there,” Uladzimir Labkovich, an activist of the Human Rights Centre Viasna, told Naviny.by.
Andrei Yahorau, the director of the Centre for European Transformation, thinks there is nothing new in principle in the EU Council decision.
“The reasons for the restrictive measures are still there, so it is natural the EU went on with them. But the changes in the ‘black list’ are purely technical. The issue with the list is not the changes themselves, but the closed way of compiling the list and making these changes. As there are no clearly defined criteria for inclusion to or exclusion from the ban list, such decisions give way to questions and unnecessary speculations,” Andrei Yahorau told Index.
The authorities of Belarus expressed a restrained approval to the EU decision. The Foreign Ministry welcomed shortening of the ban list, but stated the overall approach is still “anti-productive” and insists all sanction must be lifted. There is no change in attitudes towards the issues of human rights of the Belarusian government. For instance, on the day of the EU decision several journalists were detained in Minsk. The official delegation of Belarus confirmed once again at the session of the UN General Assembly in New York this week the authorities of the country do not recognise the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus, Miklós Haraszti, and are not going to cooperate with him.
The situation seems to be kept dead-locked, and Andrei Yahorau suggests Belarusian civil society “cannot blame the EU for the fact the situation in Belarus is not changing.” Despite the fact the European Union still lacks a clear and effective strategy towards the country, Yahorau believes “if no changes happen inside of Belarus itself, we should not expect anything from Europe.”
This article was originally posted on 5 Nov 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
