21 Feb 2018 | News, Volume 46.04 Winter 2017
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Close down freedom of expression for those you don’t like and you turn them into freedom-of-expression heroes, writes Jodie Ginsberg
“][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
This year marks the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the two-day attack on Jews in Germany. Crystal Night – a glittering name for an evil event – was so dubbed because of the shards of glass that littered the streets after synagogues and Jewish-owned shops and buildings were attacked. Scores of people were killed and tens of thousands of Jews were subsequently incarcerated.
In the decades since the end of World War II, such mass demonstrations of fascism have been rare, but it is chilling to consider Kristallnacht in the light of the 60,000 neo-Nazis who marched openly through Warsaw in November 2017, or the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, USA, earlier in the year in which a counter-protester was killed.
As white supremacists become more visible, and vocal, demands have grown for those who espouse such views to be silenced. And as that happens, the band of people who champion freedom of speech for everyone – regardless of their views – diminishes. The far-right have stepped into that gap, with devastating consequences for free speech and for those who (genuinely) advocate it.
Let’s be clear about this: The far-right are not in favour of free speech. The far-right – the likes of Richard Spencer, who leads a US white supremacist think tank – are in favour of protecting the speech of their own interest group, not the speech of those who oppose them, nor those whose human rights – and very existence – they openly challenge.
But calls from their opponents for Spencer or controversial columnist Katie Hopkins to be silenced has allowed these individuals to set themselves up as the champions and protectors of free speech. And when the only public advocates for free speech are a bunch of neo-Nazis, who wants to defend free speech as a principle?
We must push back. Freedom of expression is a freedom that benefits everybody. The First Amendment is what allowed not only the Unite the Right movement to march in Charlottesville, but gave the thousands of opponents who turned out to vocally oppose the march the chance to do so publicly. Once you accept the principle that only certain voices can be heard, it can be applied to your voice just as easily.
The narrative that suggests publicising the views of the far-right leads directly to much wider violence is steeped in popular narratives, primarily around the Holocaust and the belief that the public airing of such views led directly to Kristallnacht and the subsequent horrors of Nazi Germany.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left” color=”custom” align=”right” custom_color=”#dd3333″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_custom_heading text=”Joseph Goebbels, Theodor Fritsch and Julius Streicher were all prosecuted for anti-Semitic speech” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
But as prominent Danish journalist and editor Flemming Rose has said, this is based on false assumptions. People argue that if only the Weimar government had clamped down on the National Socialists’ verbal persecution of the Jews in the years prior to Hitler’s rise to power, then the Holocaust would never have happened.
Rose, who famously published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in 2005 when he was culture editor of Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten, said:
“Contrary to what most people think, Weimar Germany did have hate-speech laws, and they were applied quite frequently. The assertion that Nazi propaganda played a significant role in mobilising anti-Jewish sentiment is, of course, irrefutable. But to claim that the Holocaust could have been prevented if only anti-Semitic speech and Nazi propaganda had been banned has little basis in reality. Leading Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels, Theodor Fritsch and Julius Streicher were all prosecuted for anti-Semitic speech.
“Pre-Hitler Germany had laws very much like the anti-hate laws of today, and they were enforced with some vigour.”
Trevor Phillips, founding chair, Equality and Human Rights Commission, said at the Battle of Ideas in London 2017: “What we have learnt in the last 150 years is that, ultimately, freedom of expression is the last and only defence of the minority in any society. When they have taken away everything else from you… the last thing they can take away is your voice. That was true about Sojourner Truth, it was true about the slaves in the Caribbean, it was true about the Jews in Europe. People can take everything away from you, what they cannot do, ultimately, unless physically, physically they obliterate you is take away your ability to express your pain, anger, frustration. So the defence of free speech on the grounds that it is somehow an offence to minorities simply flies in the face of every piece of human experience.”
Increasingly, though, I hear the argument that by allowing free speech we benefit only the powerful. That it is a tool that enriches only the privileged. That it is the armour which empowers the far-right and precedes violence, and that, therefore, we must curtail speech to protect those who are persecuted.
This ignores what a powerful and essential tool freedom of expression has been in freedom movements over the centuries: its role in the US civil rights movement of the 1960s or the drive for women’s rights, gay and lesbian rights and religious tolerance.
If we want to counter the persistent and growing narrative that free speech only benefits the privileged, and the far-right, we must raise up those voices who argue the contrary.
Index works with hundreds of writers, artists and campaigners who have experienced persecution as the minority and whose freedom of expression has been repeatedly curtailed. Atheists in Bangladesh who face death for voicing their views in an increasingly hardline Muslim state; political opponents in Bahrain tortured and jailed for criticising the government; gays in Uganda hounded for expressing their sexuality.
These are the voices we need to raise when people celebrate the value of denying speech to those with whom they disagree.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Jodie Ginsberg is the CEO of Index on Censorship
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”From the Archives”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”89095″ img_size=”213×300″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306422013481709″][vc_custom_heading text=”What it means” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1177%2F0306422013481709|||”][vc_column_text]March 2013
Why does free expression matter? Journalists, artists and activists talk to Index about what free speech means to them.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”91052″ img_size=”213×300″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064227508532452″][vc_custom_heading text=”Striking a balance” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1080%2F03064229208535375|||”][vc_column_text]July 1992
Helen Darbishire believes protecting victims of bigotry from verbal abuse is more likely to drive prejudice underground than to stamp it out.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”89174″ img_size=”213×300″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064220802306838″][vc_custom_heading text=”Free speech for all” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1080%2F03064220802306838|||”][vc_column_text]August 2008
Aryeh Neier recalls landmark First Amendment case and believes hate speech will take place but will be countered in an effective form.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”top”][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”What price protest?” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2017%2F12%2Fwhat-price-protest%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In homage to the 50th anniversary of 1968, the year the world took to the streets, the winter 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine looks at all aspects related to protest.
With: Micah White, Ariel Dorfman, Robert McCrum[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”96747″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2017/12/what-price-protest/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1481888488328{padding-bottom: 50px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
Subscription options from £18 or just £1.49 in the App Store for a digital issue.
Every subscriber helps support Index on Censorship’s projects around the world.
SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
4 Aug 2017 | Germany, Mapping Media Freedom, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, News
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Journalists covering the G20 Summit in Hamburg in July were subject to assaults, intimidation and some lost their accreditation, according to verified incidents documented by Index on Censorship’s project Mapping Media Freedom.
Several journalists reported that they were assaulted by police while covering protests against the meeting, which included leaders of the 19 largest industrial nations in the world plus the EU. Leading up to the summit, freelance journalist Martin Eimermacher was assaulted while police were clearing a protest camp in Hamburg on 2 July, according to Netzpolitik and Jetzt.
Police had demolished protesters’ tents when Eimermacher tried to leave the area, telling police he felt unwell. He said that officers pushed him and several other journalists to the centre of a field. He showed his press card, which was slapped out of his hand by a police officer who then pepper sprayed him.
“In my opinion the most dangerous thing is that this sets an example within Germany and beyond, that such treatment of journalists is acceptable,” Mapping Media Freedom Germany correspondent Pascale Müller said. “There seemed to have been, on an individual level of police officers, a severe lack of understanding of the rights of the press and their role as an observer and part of a healthy democracy.”
On 7 July, ITN News journalist Flo Smith, his producer and cameraperson were all pepper sprayed by police. Photojournalist Henry Langston of Vice UK was struck by a police water cannon. RT UK published a video in which police assaulted and injured photojournalist Zino Peterk, who later had to go to the hospital for his injuries.
On 8 July, Spiegel Online photographer Chris Grodotzki said police assaulted him with pepper spray while he was covering protests in Schulterblatt. Taz reporter Martin Kaul sustained minor injuries when he was hit by protesters while live-streaming the demonstration, according to Deutschlandfunk. Müller noted that some attacks by protesters targeted journalists they perceived as right-wing, “but in some cases it seems that people were already so ‘high on violence’ that they hurt journalists regardless of their political affiliation.”[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_custom_heading text=”Media freedom is under threat worldwide. Journalists are threatened, jailed and even killed simply for doing their job.” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fcampaigns%2Fpress-regulation%2F|||”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Index on Censorship monitors press freedom in Germany and 41 other European area nations.
As of 4/8/2017, there were 101 verified incidents associated with Germany in the Mapping Media Freedom database.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship campaigns against laws that stifle journalists’ work. We also publish an award-winning magazine featuring work by and about censored journalists. Support our work today.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][vc_column_text]“Many journalists who covered the protest directly and that I have spoken to were emotionally and physically affected even a week after” Müller said. The press freedom violations were widely condemned, but according to Müller “The most shocking revelation came after the protests, when Sueddeutsche Zeitung revealed that the BKA had monitored selected journalists during their summit coverage over the past 10 years. This was very disturbing and lead to a certain level of insecurity within the profession. “
Other journalists reported the use of intimidation tactics by police. In the Schanze neighbourhood, Frank Schneider, a reporter for Bild, tweeted that police told journalists to “leave or you’ll go to the hospital”. F-Mag journalist Wiebke Harms reported on Twitter that police in Schanze told her: “Your press card is worth nothing.” Freelance journalist Reuben Neugebauer was told “now press freedom is over”.
Thirty-two journalists had their accreditation revoked by federal police on 7 and 8 July. German government spokesperson Steffen Seibert cited ‘security concerns’ as the rationale for the loss of access to the summit.
Journalists who lost accreditation include the photographer Björn Kietzmann, Rafael Heygster (Weser Kurier), photographer for Junge Welt, Willi Effenberger Alfred Denzinger (Beobachter News), photographer Chris Grodotzki (Spiegel Online), Adil Yigit (Avrupa Postasi), editor Elsa Koester (Neues Deutschland) and freelance photographer Po Ming Cheung.
When trying to enter a press area, Grodotzki and Yigit were told by police that their accreditation was no longer valid. Photographers Björn Kietzmann for Weser Kurier and Rafael Heygster were also not allowed to enter the press area.
Müller does not think that this treatment will intimidate journalists into stepping back from events like this in the future. “Quite the opposite, I think that many journalists and their outlets are quite resilient against such types of violence or blocked access. G20 brought press freedom issues to the forefront in Germany and made journalists even more aware of their role as critical observers, even in the middle of such violent tension and intimidation attempts.”[/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:1501833910854-5bf94268-20d1-5″ taxonomies=”77″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
15 Jun 2017 | Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Increasingly, governments are devolving responsibility for determining what constitutes unacceptable content to private companies.
Legislation approved by the German cabinet in April 2017 threatens fines on companies that fail to take down content that might contravene some 24 current provisions of the German Criminal Code, including offences as varied as “defamation of the state and its symbols”, “anti-constitutional defamation of constitutional organs” and “defamation of religions, religious and ideological associations.”
The measure effectively outsources decisions on the balance between freedom of expression and other legally protected rights to private companies and so threatens open and democratic discourse at the heart of the one of the world’s largest, most stable democracies.
The idea that the threats we face are in some way more acute than those that have gone before — and therefore necessitate a restriction of hard-won freedoms — is not new.
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety,” argued US founding father Benjamin Franklin, showing the conflict goes back centuries.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Don’t lose your voice. Stay informed.” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate, and monitor threats to free speech. We believe that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution – no matter what their views.
Join our mailing list (or follow us on Twitter or Facebook) and we’ll send you our weekly newsletter about our activities defending free speech. We won’t share your personal information with anyone outside Index.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/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:1513167493075-fe4186d8-a3f4-4″ taxonomies=”16928″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
7 Nov 2016 | Europe and Central Asia, Germany, Mapping Media Freedom, News
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
What is worse: intelligence services gathering data without any legal basis or secret services operating within a legal framework that allows them to obtain vast amounts of personal information? This is the key question regarding Germany’s surveillance apparatus, as a new law regarding its foreign intelligence agency, the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), was passed through parliament on Friday 21 October.
Following the 2013 uncovering of the mass-scale surveillance by America’s National Security Agency, including details of the tapping of German chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone, there was a sense in German public debate that secret services were out of control. In early 2014, a parliamentary committee was established in the national chamber of the Bundestag to investigate the scale of surveillance activities of foreign intelligence in Germany. Attention soon shifted to the role of the BND, after former NSA employee Thomas Drake called the agency “an addendum appendix of the NSA” in his testimony to the committee in July of that year.
While the German government began the process to reform the legal framework of the BND, the governmentally-appointed officer for data protection and freedom of information took a closer look at the work of the service’s telecommunications unit in the southern town of Bad Aiblingen.
What it found was remarkable: across 60 pages, the expert report from March 2016 listed legal breaches by the BND. Although the intelligence service had been “repeatedly and heavily obstructing my work”, the officer was able to gain a picture full enough to pinpoint 18 “serious transgressions” and submit 12 official complaints, which, according to the investigative tech-blog Netzpolitik.org, is a record unrivalled by any governmental office in Germany to receive at one point in time.
Netzpolitik.org also made public the “top secret” labelled report in September.
Surveillance-critical civil society in the country may have been hopeful to see the intelligence service face consequences for past transgressions and future limitations for its activities. They were in for a surprise, though, as the BND law put forward in June this year proposed to legalise all surveillance activities that had thus far been taking place and further expand their scope additionally. The new law allows the foreign secret service thus-far illicit in-country surveillance.
In theory, any German-to-German communication would have to be excluded from surveillance, but two independent reports by experts, including one by Chaos Computer Club, found that online traffic does not carry a clearly discernible nationality. The constitutionally stipulated freedom of privacy of communication suddenly appears less convincing. It also follows that any non-EU national is not considered bearer of fundamental rights enjoyed, on paper, by anyone living in Germany, as all electronic communication including at least one foreign-based party can now be analysed and stored for up to six months, including all metadata. This will include foreign journalists and the sources they are in contact with. The previous 20%-rule, whereby the BND was limited to only intercept and analyse so much of the traffic available, was lifted altogether. The extended competencies were not left without a new and grand mission: surveillance can now take place to reap “insights into foreign and security policy [which] may be of relevance”.
Senior investigative journalist David Crawford spoke to Index on Censorship about an opportunity missed in the sense that the “legislative process had not been used as a forum what intelligence services should do but…to legalise practices that were already going on”. A “silent consensus” across the grand coalition seemed to exist and it appears that policy-makers close to the intelligence services had successfully dominated the reform process and delivered a law tailor-made for the BND.
Although the result may be unsatisfactory Crawford said that, in the German context, it was generally “positive to write down the rules of behaviour” for a practice that have been ongoing for decades and employed by more resourceful intelligence services worldwide. While especially the aspect of information sharing between foreign secret services appears worrying to Crawford, the investigative journalist points out that this professional group never had any “real protection, they are treated like any citizen” under German law. Thus, he emphasised that no journalist should pass the responsibility for safeguarding his or her sources to the state law or EU regulations: “It is up to the person to get the training they need, to put a lot of thought into how they can do this without somebody getting hurt”.
While extensive electronic surveillance by multiple states has to be reckoned with, regardless of a legal basis for the practices, the journalist should employ the right kinds of “tricks of the trade” to make sure that any whistleblower who helped uncover a story will, under no circumstances, suffer: “a lot of the time it is just going out meeting people, not using the phone, not even using the mail…I figure out a way to meet them, knocking on people’s doors or meeting them in a supermarket or somewhere, where you are unlikely to be monitored and they would feel a lot more comfortable talking…Use less technology, use a pencil, cite documents rather than announcing you have a whistleblower.”
According to Crawford, the lack of investigative journalism in general and the unawareness of some journalists engaging in serious investigative projects may be at the root of a sloppiness with the more time-consuming methods that the job requires in a reality of surveillance.
However, civil society activists maintained a responsibility of ethics reflected in legislation and protested with petitions and a solemn vigil on the evening prior to the final vote. As the law was being passed on the morning of Friday 21 October, the former liberal justice minister Sabine Leutheuser-Schnarrenberger announced constitutional charges against it. Meanwhile, the German intelligence service has other legal cases pending against it: the worldwide largest data transmission exchange business based in Frankfurt, DE-CIX, is seeking to get a “judicial review for the practices of telecommunication surveillance” for its customers. Another lawsuit filed by the German branch of Reporters Without Borders in June last year is based on the office for data’s annual report for 2014 and is seeking to defend all journalists and their sources against the transgression of the privacy of communication as an attack on press freedom.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”3″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1478541493543-29b41d55-076a-3″ taxonomies=”6564″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
