20 Jun 21 | Italy, Media Freedom, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Wales
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116924″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]In celebration of one of football’s biggest international tournaments, here is Index’s guide to the free speech Euros. Who comes out on top as the nation with the worst record on free speech?
It’s simple, the worst is ranked first.
We start today with Group A, which plays the deciding matches of the group stages today.
1st Turkey
Turkey’s record on free speech is appalling and has traditionally been so, but the crackdown has accelerated since the attempted – and failed – military coup of 2016.[1][2]
The Turkish government, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has attacked free speech through a combination of closing down academia and free thought and manipulating legislation to target free speech activists and the media. He has also ordered his government to take over newspapers to control their editorial lines, such as the case with the newspaper Zaman, taken over in 2014.[3]
Some Turkish scholars have been forced to inform on their colleagues[4] and Erdoğan also ordered the closing down of the prominent Şehir University in Istanbul in June 2020[5].
But it is manipulation of legislation that is arguably the arch-weapon of the Turkish government.
A recent development has seen the country use Law 3713, Article 314 of the Turkish Penal Code and Article 7 of the Anti-Terror Law to convict both human rights activists and journalists.
As of 15 June this year, a total of 12 separate cases of under Law 3173[6] have seen journalists currently facing prosecution, merely for being critical of Turkey’s security forces.
This misuse of the law has caused worldwide condemnation from the European Union, the United Nations and the Council of Europe, among many others[7].
Misuse of anti-terrorism legislation is a common tactic of oppressive regimes and is reflective of Turkey’s overall attitude towards freedom of speech.
Turkey also has a long history of detaining dissenting forces and is notorious for its dreadful prison conditions. Journalist Hatice Duman, for example, has been detained in the country since 2003[8]. She has been known to have been beaten in prison.[9]
Leading novelists have also been attacked. In 2014, the pro-government press accused two authors, Elif Shafak and Orhan Pamuk were accused of being recruited by Western powers to be critical of the government.[10]
Every dissenting voice against the government in Turkey is under scrutiny and authors, journalists and campaigners easily fall foul of the country’s disgraceful human rights record.
With a rank of 153rd on Reporters Without Borders’ 2021 World Press Freedom Index, it is also the worst-placed team in the tournament in this regard.
2nd Italy
Freedom of speech in Italy was enshrined in the 1948 constitution after the downfall of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in 1945. However, a combination of the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, oppressive legislation and violent threats to journalists means that its record is far from perfect.
Slapps (strategic lawsuits against public participation) are used by governments and big corporations as a form of intimidation against journalists and are common in Italy.
Investigative journalist Antonella Napoli told Index of the difficulty journalists such as her face due to Slapps. She herself is facing a long-running suit, which first arose in 1998. She will face her next hearing on the issue in 2022[11].
She said: “We investigative journalists are under the constant threat of litigation requires determination to continue our work. A pressure that few can endure.”
“When happen a similar case you feel gagged, tied, especially if you are a freelance journalist. If you get your hands on big news about a public figure with the tendency to sue, you’ll think twice. I have never stopped, but many give up because they fear consequences that they can’t afford.”
Italy bore the brunt of the early stages of the pandemic in Europe. Often, when governments experience nationwide crises, they use certain measures to implement restrictive legislation that cracks down on journalism and free speech, inadvertently or not.
The decree, known as the Cura Italia law, meant that typical tools for journalists, or any keen public citizen, such as Freedom of Information requests were hard to come by unless deemed absolutely necessary.
Aside from Covid-19 restrictions, Italy continues to have a problem with the mafia. There are currently 23 journalists under protection in the country.[12]
3rd Wales
Wales is very much subject to the mercy of Westminster when it comes to free speech
Arguably, the most concerning development is the Online Safety Bill (also known as ‘online harms’), currently in its white paper stage.
While there are, sadly, torrents of online abuse, this attempt to regulate speech online is concerning.
The draft bill contained language such as “legal but harmful” means there would be a discrepancy between what is illegal online, versus what would be legal offline and thus a lack of consistency in the law regarding free speech.
The world of football recently took part in an online social media blackout, instigated in part by Welsh club Swansea City on 8 April[13], following horrific online racial abuse towards their players.
Swansea said: “we urge the UK Government to ensure its Online Safety Bill will bring in strong legislation to make social media companies more accountable for what happens on their platforms.”[14]
But the boycott was criticised with some, including Index, concerned about the ramifications pushing for the bill could have.
In 2020, Index’s CEO Ruth Smeeth explained what damage the legislation could cause: “The idea that we have something that is legal on the street but illegal on social media makes very little sense to me.”[15]
4th Switzerland
Switzerland has an encouraging record for a country that only gave women the vote in 1971.
They rank 10th on RSF’s World Press Freedom Index and have, generally speaking, a positive history regarding free speech and freedom of the press.
But a recent referendum may prove to be an alarming development.
Frequently, where there may be unrest or a crisis in a country, government’s use anti-terrorism laws to their own advantage. Voices can be silenced very quickly.
On 13 June, Switzerland voted to give the police detain people without charge or trial[16] under the Federal Law on Police Measures to Combat Terrorism.
Amnesty International Switzerland’s Campaign Director, Patrick Walder said the measures were “not the answer”.
“Whilst the desire among Swiss voters to prevent acts of terrorism is understandable, these new measures are not the answer,” he said. “They provide the police with sweeping and mostly unchecked powers to impose harsh sanctions against so-called ‘potential terrorist offenders’ and can also be used to target legitimate political protest.”
“Those wrongly suspected will have to prove that they will not be dangerous in the future and even children as young as 12 are at risk of being stigmatised and subjected to coercive measures by the police.”
56.58 per cent came out in support of the measures.[17]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW_c30hwXTM&ab_channel=Vox
[2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306422020917614
[3] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/03/turkey-fears-of-zaman-newspaper-takeover/
[4] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306422020917614
[5] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306422020981254
[6] https://rsf.org/en/news/turkey-using-terrorism-legislation-gag-and-jail-journalists
[7] https://stockholmcf.org/un-calls-on-turkey-to-stop-misuse-of-terrorism-law-to-detain-rights-defenders/
[8] https://cpj.org/data/people/hatice-duman/
[9] https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2021/01/the-desperate-situation-for-six-people-who-are-jailednotforgotten/
[10] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/12/pamuk-shafak-turkish-press-campaign
[11] https://www.balcanicaucaso.org/eng/Areas/Croatia/Croatia-and-Italy-the-chilling-effect-of-strategic-lawsuits-197339
[12] https://observatoryihr.org/iohr-tv/23-journalists-still-under-police-protection-in-italy/
[13] https://twitter.com/SwansOfficial/status/1380113189447286791?s=20
[14] https://www.swanseacity.com/news/swansea-city-join-social-media-boycott
[15] https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2020/09/index-ceo-ruth-smeeth-speaks-to-board-of-deputies-of-british-jews-about-censorship-concerns/
[16] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/freedom-of-expression–universal–but-not-absolute/46536654
[17] https://lenews.ch/2021/06/13/swiss-vote-in-favour-of-covid-laws-and-tougher-anti-terror-policing-13-june-2021/[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
30 Apr 21 | Football, News and features, United Kingdom
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The Premier League and a coalition of football governing bodies from across the United Kingdom are set to commence a social media blackout from 30 April to 3 May to raise awareness of online racist abuse, but the initiative has raised questions over its end goal.
Clubs, players and governing bodies have called for implementation of the contentious Online Harms Bill (also known as the Online Safety Bill), which will impose regulation on social media companies in order to ensure they remove hateful speech online. They hope the blackout will draw awareness and support of the issue.
The legislation has been criticised as the bill will introduce several key points that a number of free expression groups, including Index, believe to be regressive and will impact on people’s free speech online.
This includes the definition of terms such as “legal but harmful”, which will classify some speech as legal offline but illegal online, meaning there would be inconsistency within the UK system of law.
The Professional Footballers Association (PFA), however, are in strong support of the bill. In a statement they said they hoped social media companies would be held “more accountable”.
“While football takes a stand, we urge the UK Government to ensure its Online Safety Bill will bring in strong legislation to make social media companies more accountable for what happens on their platforms, as discussed at the DCMS Online Abuse roundtable earlier this week,” they said. “We will not stop talking about this issue and will continue to work with the government in ensuring that the Online Safety Bill gives sufficient regulatory and supervisory powers to Ofcom. Social media companies need to be held accountable if they continue to fall short of their moral and social responsibilities to address this endemic problem.”
Index’s CEO Ruth Smeeth has questioned using the bill as a solution to targeting racism, as well as the use of a blackout.
“No one who has spent any time on social media could deny the fact that there is a real problem, with abuse, racism and misogyny,” she said. “The nature of social media platforms seems to bring out the worst in too many people and empower hate from every corner. The question is, though, how to fix it.”
“This is more than about what platforms allow on their sites, it’s about the culture that has been allowed to thrive online. We are all responsible for it, so we all need to work together to fix it as we can’t legislate for cultural change. I understand why the PFA wants to boycott social media platforms – but we saw only last year when others did the same because of antisemitism, boycotts deliver only temporary respite, the haters are still hating. We all deserve better.”
The blackout will see a period of silence on social media to symbolise clubs and governing bodies coming together against the serious issue of racism in football, though some believe the action to be counter-productive and may discourage those affected from speaking out, or removing a place for discourse where people can debate such issues.
Editor of football website These Football Times, Omar Saleem, released a statement explaining why they won’t be joining the blackout over the weekend saying clubs need to take “genuine action”, “not the weekend off”, but also called for social media companies to be held accountable.
“Silence is not the answer. I truly believe that. As a minority in football, that’s my opinion,” he said. “Racism cannot be fought by white-led social media teams suggesting we go silent for the weekend during some of the quietest times on those platforms.”
“Instead of silence, we need action. We need voices to speak louder than ever, programmes that educate and organise. We needed that societally post-George Floyd and we need it in football, too. We need clubs to take genuine action – not the weekend off.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also like to read” category_id=”581″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
14 Aug 14 | News and features, United Kingdom
Top flight football is back! Back! BACK! After an agonising entire month since the World Cup Final with nothing to sustain people but the made-up soccer tournaments designed to draw American crowds, and the Commonwealth Games, and the England India cricket tests, the people of Britain can relax, and fall trustingly into the loving arms of the Premiership.
Once more, it will be deemed legitimate to spend Saturday afternoons in a pub, watching other men watching football; once more we can spend Saturday nights complaining about Mark Lawrenson and Alan Shearer’s dull observations on Match of the Day; once more Arsenal will be a little disappointing.
I say “once more” but of course the football never really ends, it just sleeps for a few weeks every year. But now it is awake.
At this point, fans of leagues that are not the premiership will be pointing out that their leagues started last weekend, and they’re right.
And what was the main story from the (non-Premiership) Football League this week? The news that Millwall fans had upset their Leeds United rivals with a new chants about serial sexual abuser Jimmy Savile, a Leeds native. Not to exactly repeat it, but the chant essentially suggested that Leeds fans may be the offspring of Savile.
Milwall’s manager Ian Holloway criticised his own fans, saying: “Let’s stop and think about what [Savile] has actually done. That’s the most important thing and we don’t see that. ‘Oh, it is a bit of banter’. It isn’t funny, is it? I don’t think so.”
Now clearly, some Millwall fans did find this funny. Or they found the idea of offending Leeds fans funny. Because offending the opposition has for a long time, been part of going to football.
My home team, Cork City, who play in Ireland’s Airtricity League, have a pretty good relationship with Derry City. Derry, despite being based in Northern Ireland, play in the Republic’s league. Their fans are mostly nationalist rather than Unionist, and they are a widely respected group , admired for travelling long distances in large numbers to support their team, and making a lot of noise when they get there.
In spite of all this admiration, Cork fans greet Derry fans, who have literally travelled the length of the country, with the chant “What’s it like to have a Queen?” a dig at the fact that Derry fans live in the United Kingdom whether they like it or not.
It’s certainly calculated to offend, but that is the point of that much-vilified concept, “banter”. It’s part of the contest, complementing the action on the pitch (sometimes bettering it during dull games).
Football banter (or, in modern usage, “bants” or even “#bantz”), can range from the strange to the self-deprecating to the plain awful. When tiny Barnsley FC had a brief glimpse of top-division glory in the 96-97 season, they would sing “Barnsley – it’s just like watching Brazil” (it wasn’t). Fans of lower league Gillingham became famous in the late 90s for a slightly lewd song involving celery, that had absolutely nothing to do with football or Gillingham.
Chelsea fans, or anyone who’s ever been on a District Line underground train on the day of a Chelsea home game, will know the interminable tale of the man (men) who went to mow a meadow.
That’s the more innocent end of things.
Inevitably, things do not stay so innocent.
There’s references to incidents’ in rival clubs’ histories (“who’s that lying on the runway…” referring to the 1958 Munich Air Disaster that killed several Manchester United players), there’s the digs at perceived poverty (“In your Liverpool slums” or, as used happen in the 1980s, fans from southern English teams chanting “Unemployed, unemployed, unemployed” at Northerners. There’s the historical rivalries (Rangers fans singing “The Famine’s Over, Why Don’t You Go Home” at Celtic’s Irish-identifying supporters).
Personal abuse towards players, particularly those regarded as turncoats, can turn vicious: racist, homophobic, and ableist in nature. Rangers goalkeeper Andy Goram, having admitted to mental illness, was subjected to the chant “There’s only two Andy Gorams”. One chant directed at England defender Sol Campbell, who moved from Tottenham Hotspur to north London rivals Arsenal, managed to pack pretty much every modern taboo into three lines.
In the countries of Europe, South America and Africa where it is the majority participation sport, its supporters are not especially worried about upholding the image of the game. Supporters of minority sports will be aware of the constant feeling that one has to talk up your pastime not just as more entertaining, but more edifying than other sports in order to justify your devotion. Hence constant appeals to the spirit of cricket, and the inherent sportsmanship of rugby union (at least when players aren’t gouging each others eyes out).
Football doesn’t have this problem. It doesn’t have to convince anyone of anything. It has the most fans, therefore it is the best sport. Even in countries such as Ireland where actual match attendances are low, the omnipresence of English (and increasingly Spanish) football means fans don’t feel obliged to impress anyone. With that assurance comes a certain cockiness: to adapt the popular chant: “We are football, we’ll do what we want”. Or perhaps “[Everyone] likes us, [so] we don’t [have to] care”.
The game is played to different rules in the soccer stands.
The question is what, if anything, should be done about this. The Scottish government’s attempt to silence sectarian singing at Rangers vs Celtic “Old Firm” games, the Sectarianism At Football Act, ended up in the ludicrous situation of a Partick Thistle fan being arrested for singing a song lampooning the Catholic vs Protestant posturing of the two big Glasgow clubs (“Fuck your Pope and Fuck Your Queen”). The law has been derided as “mince” by one senior sheriff, and the opposition Labour party has vowed to scrap it should they win the next Scottish election.
Meanwhile, south of the border, attempts to stop footballer supporters using the word “Yid” ran into trouble due to the fact that fans of Tottenham – a club with strong Jewish self-identification – quite liked using the word, having re-appropriated the term. It did not help that the campaign was led by writer David Baddiel, himself Jewish, but more importantly in that argument, a Chelsea fan.
Must anything be done at all? I think (and I speak only for myself) that it is reasonable for footballers to be able to go about their working life – i.e. the 90 minutes on the pitch, without being subjected to racial or homophobic abuse, certainly not from players and not from fans either.
But this is only a call to, at most, uphold the law as it stands. Football clubs are private entities that can make their own rules, but they should be wary of cracking down on the songs, the slights, and yes, the top, classic, legendary banter that make football what it is.
As for the idea of specific football laws, as in Scotland? As the song goes: No, nay, never.
This article was posted on August 14, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
01 May 14 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, Europe and Central Asia, News and features
Striker Diego Costa during the first leg of Atlético Madrid’s Champions League semi-final against Chelsea (Image: Gonzalez Fuentes Oscar/Demotix)
Atlético Madrid are the toast of world football fans at the moment. They’re having possibly their greatest season ever, qualifying for the Champions’ League Final and looking set to break the Barcelona/Real Madrid duopoly over Spain’s La Liga.
Sports fans love nothing more than an underdog story, and the Atlético one feels just right. Always the less glamorous team in the Spanish capital, they’re finally having their time in the sun. Only a complete killjoy would rain on the parade of super striker Diego Costa and his team mates.
So here I go.
Atlético’s shirts bear the advertising slogan “Azerbaijan: Land of Fire”. They are sponsored by the government of Ilham Aliyev, a man who combines the callousness of the classic dictator with the appearance and language of an aspiring sales executive who’s read one too many management manuals. His Twitter page bears the fascinatingly banal phrase: “We turn initiatives into reality.” I have absolutely no idea what that means (suggestions in the comments, please). Whatever it does mean, he’s clearly quite pleased with it, as it pops up regularly on his website.
The deal (sorry, “strategic agreement”) with Atlético came about in December 2012, and was renewed in March 2014.
The explanatory blurb on the Atlético website is packed with more nonsense of the “initiatives into reality” variety.
Atlético is not a football club, it is a “sports entity”.
“The link between Azerbaijan and Atlético Madrid,” we are told, “is much more than a traditional commercial sponsorship associated with a shirt sponsorship, because it has atremendous value, as the tool to achieve important goals, through actions of a different nature, sports, commercial, communication, marketing and corporate social responsibility for the benefit of all parties.”
This is almost poetic in its nonsense; in fact the “actions of a different nature, sports, commercial, communication, marketing and corporate social responsibility for the benefit of all parties” brings to mind no less literary masterpiece than Lucky’s monologue in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot: “…the practice of sports such as tennis football running cycling swimming flying floating riding gliding conating camogie skating tennis of all kinds…”
All this would merely be amusing if Aliyev was, say, head of a fleet car dealership in Runcorn. Unfortunately, he’s not. He’s the autocratic head of a regime bloated on oil and gas revenue that is engaged in an enormous whitewashing exercise composed of equal parts propaganda and censorship.
The propaganda part can be quite amusing: the Knightsbride nightclub called Baku, after Azerbaijan’s capital; the glossy magazine, also called Baku; the shiny skyscrapers; the on-message Eurovision Song Contest entry (Start A Fire, sung by Dilara Kazimova).
The censorship bit is rather less fun, as a search on the Index on Censorship website will quickly reveal.
There is the case of journalist Khadija Islamova, harassed and blackmailed by the authorities; Index on Censorship award winning newspaper Azadliq, threatened with financial ruin deliberately brought about by state agencies; Idrak Abbasov, brutally assaulted for daring to report on demolitions of houses by the state oil company. There is also Rafiq Tagi, a murdered columnist whose killer has never been brought to justice; dissident “Donkey bloggers” Adnan Hajizade Emin Milli, imprisoned for hooliganism after going to the police to report that they had been assaulted; reporter Eynulla Fatullayev, jailed for four years, and hit with false drug charges; critical journalist Elmar Huseynov, murdered in 2005.
Are these victims of Atlético Madrid? No, it would be unfair to say that. For a start, Atlético are not the only club to benefit from shirt sponsorship from dubious regimes; Barcelona, with their smug “més que un club” image, ditched UNICEF from their jerseys to sign a deal with Qatar, a country that locks up poets, for God’s sake. No one blames Lionel Messi for the fate of Mohammed al-Ajami.
Nonetheless, Azerbaijan’s deal with Atlético is one side of Aliyev and his cronies’ colossal image management exercise; and the imprisonment of critical reporters, bloggers and activists is the other. They cannot be separated entirely.
We should enjoy the football and praise the players, but we owe it to brave determined Azerbaijainis to ask some tough questions of Atlético’s officials, even as they celebrate.
This article was posted on May 1, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
