A recently released report from a European Union group contains recommendations that would endanger media freedom, says Kirsty Hughes
A few days before the now-famous (and perhaps infamous) Japiur Literature festival, the only thing most people thought they knew was that Salman Rushdie’s potential visit was being blocked, this time by elements of the Indian People’s Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist group.
William Darampyle, author and organiser of the festival, took pains to clarify that the event this year would not court controversy like it did last year, telling Index that festival organisers “have an open door policy, and welcome everyone for a reasoned debate”. Rumours about Rushdie missing the event due to protests were untrue — he was busy promoting the film Midnight’s Children, a film adaptation of his 1980 novel by same name.
Darampyle also rejected reports that radical groups did not want Hari Kunzru and Amitav Kumar at the event. Last year, the two writers read extracts from Rushdie’s novel the Satanic Verses at the festival, after the novelist was forced to cancel his appearance after facing death threats from Islamists. Darampyle said that Kunzru and Kumar would not speak at the festival since neither of them have new work, rather than any kind of external pressure. There were also reports of factions of the RSS warning against inviting any Pakistani writers to the event.
All in all, the Jaipur Literature Festival seemed to have invited an almost predictable amount of controversy that comes with the organisers’ tireless efforts to allay any fears that freedom of expression were being scarified for the sake of fringe groups.
However, by the close of the festival, one of its producers was slapped with an arrest warrant while a panelist, noted sociologist Ashis Nandy has faced protests and has been threatened with arrest for making a statement that was misconstrued as an insult to India’s poorest — calling them the source of the country’s corruption. Nandy, who is a lifelong supporter of the rights of Dalits and so-called lower castes in India, explained that he was quoted out of context. His point was actually that members of India’s upper classes are less likely to be held accountable for corruption than the more impoverished members of India’s society.
Curiously, the statement was made on the morning of 26 January, and most festival attendees had no idea that the controversial remarks were made until they were met by a small crowd of 20-25 protesting the remarks as they left the venue.
What happened next has become an almost trademark series-of-events in India. The media picked up the out of context quote and ran with it. Police First Information Reports (FIR) had been lodged, with some senior leaders going as far as to suggest he be arrested under the National Security Act.
Nandy was then shamed publicly as media coverage of the scandal continued to increase — meaning that most of what anyone could read about the festival would be tied to this controversy. It had almost fallen by the wayside that 275 speakers discussed topics in 175 sessions ranging from literature to religion, from Kashmir to Somalia, from politics to, ironically, censorship. Despite this wide range of conversations and 200,000 attendants, the festival has been yet again overshadowed by the media giving airtime to fringe groups, leaving its conversations and debates out of the public discourse.
Although larger papers and channels in India allowed their coverage to be hijacked by the Nandy controversy, some bloggers and news sites were able to paint a more nuanced picture of the other discussions at the festival. As Rushdie put it at a separate event, the tragedy of India is that you are defined by “what you hate or are offended by” — and that tragedy is now at a boiling point. What should be the response to “offended” groups who call for boycotts of books, movies, talks, and even cartoons? Is it really an answer to simply cancel appearances under the threat of violence, or to limit freedom of expression to such a level that no one could possibly be offended? Or is it sticking to India’s secular and liberal roots — where every religion and culture has a place — and perhaps pushing media outlets to give as much weight to the progressive as they do to the regressive?
“We are living in a changing society. Our forefathers did not see the amount of changes in the last 3,000 years that we have seen in the last 10 years,” stated another Jaipur director, Namita Gokhale. In an editorial, the Hindu slammed what it called the “flourishing outrage industry,” which is a tool to acquire political capital, stating that it is “helped by a slew of laws that takes the feelings of easily offended individuals very seriously”. By “using the police to settle a scholarly argument”, India seems to have confirmed a liberal society’s worst fears — perhaps it is not so liberal after all.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets in three Suez Canal cities on Monday night, defying a night-time curfew and a month-long state of emergency declared by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi a day earlier.
“Down with Mohamed Morsi! No to the emergency law,”they chanted.
In a televised address to the nation on Sunday, the Islamist President announced the imposition of martial law in the restive cities of Port Said, Suez and Ismailia in a bid “to end the bloodshed and protect citizens.” The move came in response to four days of street violence that left more than 50 people dead and hundreds of others injured.
Egyptian police fire tear gas in Alexandria
The latest wave of unrest was sparked by nationwide anti-government protests on the eve of the second anniversary of the mass uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak, that began on 25 Jan 2011. Opposition activists on Friday reiterated the now-familiar revolutionary slogans of “bread, freedom and social justice” and “the people want the downfall of the regime”.
They demanded quicker reforms and called for amendments to the Islamist-tinged constitution passed in a popular referendum in December. The situation deteriorated further after 21 defendants charged with involvement in last February’s violence at Port Said football stadium — the worst football-related violence in the country’s history — were sentenced to death on Sunday. The verdict triggered angry riots and attacks on police stations in Port Said.
The army has been deployed in Port Said and Suez in a bid “to restore stability and protect vital installations,” a military spokesman said on Egyptian TV. “Those who defy the curfew or damage public property will be dealt with harshly,” he warned.
In Alexandria, Egypt’s second city, demonstrators meanwhile staged rallies to protest the return of the much-detested emergency law, which was used for decades by Mubarak to round up opponents, silence voices of dissent and stifle freedom of expression. The protesters accused President Morsi of using the same repressive tactics as his predecessor.
“Morsi is Mubarak,” they shouted, “Down with the rule of the (Muslim Brotherhood) Supreme Guide.”
In recent weeks, a government crackdown on journalists critical of President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood has fuelled concerns of restrictions on press freedoms gained after the January 2011 uprising. Several journalists have faced criminal investigations after being accused by Morsi’s Islamist supporters of “insulting the president”.
In December, a lawsuit was filed against Egypt’s answer to Jon Stewart of the Daily Show — satirist Bassem Youssef — for poking fun at the president on his weekly television programme Al Bernameg (The Programme) on Egyptian independent satellite channel CBC. Youssef appeared on the show hugging a pillow with the president’s picture on it — a gesture mocking Morsi’s repeated calls on Egyptians to “unify ranks and love one another”. While the court dismissed the charge, the case served as a reminder to journalists that the country’s controversial new constitution includes provisions forbidding insults.
Meanwhile the online editor-in-chief for state-sponsored newspaper Al Ahram, Hani Shukrallah, was forced into early retirement this month. Highly respected for his objectivity in covering the news, Shukrallah would not reveal the details surrounding his removal from the post, but some have suggested via Twitter that his dismissal was for not being pro-Muslim Brotherhood.
In December, Islamist protesters staged a sit-in outside the Media Production City calling for “the purging of the media” and accusing independent journalists and talk show hosts of vilifying the Islamist President.
In Cairo, security forces continued battling rock-throwing youths around Kasr-el-Nil, not far from Tahrir Square for a fifth consecutive day on Monday, disrupting traffic in the downtown area. The protesters hurled molotov cocktails at the police and set fire to a police armoured personnel carrier, in scenes reminiscent of “The Friday of Rage” on 28 January 2011.
Members of the 6 April youth movement that called for the mass uprising two years ago condemned the government’s slow response to the violence and warned that the state of emergency would further provoke Morsi’s opponents. They called for a political solution to address the root cause of the problem.
Emerging from talks with the president on Monday night, Ayman Nour, Head of the liberal Ghad Al Thawra Party said that the president had rejected the call for a national unity government but had agreed to amendments to the constitution including articles that opposition political parties say undermine women’s rights.
Rights groups denounced Morsi’s declaration of a state of emergency as “a backward step” that would allow police to resort to the heavy-handed tactics practiced under the ousted regime.
Heba Morayef of Human Rights Watch in Cairo lamented Morsi’s decision to re-impose martial law describing it as “a classic knee-jerk reaction that would pave the way for more abuse by the Ministry of Interior, causing more anger.”
Analysts have expressed fears meanwhile, that the newly-declared state of emergency will plunge the country — battered by weeks of street violence — into deeper political and economic turmoil, and further polarising the already divided country. The emergence of the mysterious “Black Bloc”, a group that has vowed “to protect the goals of the revolution and rid the country of the fascist regime” has raised alarm. Islamists have so far exercised restraint and have stayed away from the protests, in order to avoid the kind of bloody confrontation witnessed in December outside of the presidential palace. They have warned warned however, that their patience is wearing thin, and that they are preparing for combat should the need arise. Such warnings have led some to even express fears of a collapse in Egyptian society. A scenario that would present Egypt’s powerful military with a fresh opportunity to return to power.
On 24 January, thousands of priceless manuscripts were destroyed in a fire started by Islamist militants leaving Mali. The South African — funded library had been torched by the rebel fighters after French and Malian troops closed in on their escape from the Saharan city of Timbuktu, burning it to the ground. The newly constructed Ahmed Baba Institute housed more than 20,000 scholarly manuscripts and contained fragile documents dating back to the 13th century. The city’s Mayor Halle Ousmane told the press today (28 January) that he was unable to share the extent of the damage to the building and that French and Malian troops were sealing the area today. A Tuareg-led rebellion captured the city from the government on 1 April, torching the home of a member of parliament and the office of the Mayor.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: State security forces have arrested several journalists in Iran ahead of June’s presidential election
The offices of five media publications were raided by Iran’s State Security Forces, it was reported on 27 January. At least ten arrests were made for “cooperating with anti-revolutionary media” after the offices of daily reformist newspapers Bahar, Arman, and Shargh were raided, as well as Aseman magazine headquarters and ILNA news agency offices. Staff were also filmed and documents were confiscated. The prosecutor’s office is expected to release a statement on the raids, alleged to have been a campaign of intimidation ahead of the June presidential elections. Journalists reported to have been arrested include Sassan Aghaei, Emili Amraee, Motahareh Shafiee, Pejman Mousavi, Nasrin Takhayori, Suleiman Mohammadi, Saba Azarpeik, Narges Joudaki, Pourya Alami, Akbar Montajebi and Milad Fadayi-Asl. The specific reason for arrest has yet to be made, but journalists are accused of cooperating with anti-revolutionary Persian language media forces outside of the country, many of whom are living in exile and facing threats from the government.
Twenty-two Nepalese journalists have fled their home in the western district of Dailekh following death threats from the government. The warning from the ruling Unified Communist Party of Nepal (UCPN) came following prime minister Baburam Bhattarai’s visit to Dailakh, where journalists assembled in protest against his decision to call off an investigation into the death of journalist Dekendra Raj Thapa. A colleague of the protestors, Thapa had been kidnapped and murdered four years ago, allegedly by five members of the UCPN. Authorities responded by warning the journalists they could face the same fate as Thapa if they did not disperse, and proceeded to raid the offices of newspaper Hamro Tesro Aankha. The daily publication was forced to cease printing indefinitely, along with weekly Sajha Pratibimba. The radio stations Dhruba Tara and Panchakoshi FM was also forced to stop broadcasting.
An Arabic language newspaper in Sudan was seized by Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) on 22 January. More than 14,000 copies of Al-Sudani were destroyed without a reason. The once independent newspaper was bought by a member of the ruling National Congress Party and now reports the political views of the owner. On 5 January, opposition leaders had met in Ugandan capital Kampala to discuss how to consolidate their power against the country’s government. Intelligence and security services then banned all media outlets from printing anything about the outcome of an agreement signed at the meeting. Last year saw the seizure of more than 20 newspapers, both pro-government and publications critical 0f authorities.
A tree-top anti-abortion protestor who describes himself as an “open-air preacher” has been banned from Washington DC after he attempted to shout down US President Barak Obama during his inauguration ceremony. Rives Grogan was arrested for disorderly conduct on 21 January by Washington police after he scaled a tree and shouted repeatedly over the president. Local judge Karen Howze ordered on 22 January that he be arrested should he step foot into the country’s capital before his court appearance on 25 February. Grogan, who said he has been arrested around 30 times in 19 years, said that he had never been banned from an entire city before, claiming the move violated his first amendment rights. Prosecutors said Grogan was arrested for breaking tree branches during his climb, endangering the lives of himself and others.