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Index on Censorship signed a joint statement by issued after a ECPMF-EFJ-SEEMO-OBCT fact-finding mission to Macedonia, on 25th-28th April regarding rising violence against journalists in Macedonia:
We hereby express our deep concerns about the yesterday‘s violent attacks against journalists in the parliament of the Republic of Macedonia.
From the beginning of 2016 until yesterday at least 21 attacks against journalists in Macedonia have been registered by the Association of Journalists of Macedonia (ZNM), out of a total of several dozens within the last years. All this clearly demonstrates a rising trend in violence against journalists.
The state of media freedom in the country is very worrying. Attacks on journalists are a direct threat to democracy.
On invitation of ZNM and the Western Balkan´s Regional Platform for Advocating Media Freedom and Journalists Safety the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) conducted a fact-finding mission to Skopje from 25 to 28 April 2017. The delegation, including the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) and Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT) examined the increased violence against journalists in Macedonia and listened to their experiences.
During the mission, the international delegation so far conducted a total of 13 interviews with 15 representatives of several media outlets, NGO´s, the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services and the Media Ethics Council. Additionally, the delegation met the Minister of the Interior, Mr Agim Nuhiu.
According to our findings among the main reasons for the increased violence are the following:
The signees of this statement condemn any aggression on journalists in Macedonia.
We want to strongly urge the political parties and all related bodies and authorities to prevent further attacks and ensure a safe environment for journalism and freedom of expression. We call on the judiciary and all responsible authorities to stop the ongoing impunity.
We also call on all journalists to take their role as watchdogs seriously. We encourage them to report and file complaints if they are attacked, intimidated or harassed. They should stand in solidarity with their colleagues, cooperate and support each other.
We, as European media freedom and journalists organisations within the freedom of expression community, stand with our colleagues in Macedonia. We will further observe their situation and raise our voices to support them. There will be a full report on the fact-finding mission in May.
Skopje, 28 April 2017
Signing organisations:
This statement is endorsed by the following organisations:
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Each week, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project verifies threats, violations and limitations faced by the media throughout the European Union and neighbouring countries. Here are recent reports that give us cause for concern.
Nikolay Andruschenko, an investigative correspondent for weekly newspaper Novyi Petersburg died on 19 April after being subjected to two brutal assaults in March, Open Russia reported.
Alevtina Ageyeva, the director of Novyi Peterburg, told Mapping Media Freedom that on 9 March, two unknown individuals approached him near his house and demanded that he hand over documents and materials relating to an ongoing investigation into abuse of power by police officers.
When Andruschenko refused to cooperate, they hit him several times in the head and ran away. The journalist refused to file a complaint to the police.
The second assault took place a few days later. According to Ageyeva, she was called by the Mariinskaya hospital and told that Nikolay Andruschenko was in a critical state and being treated in the intensive care unit. He was found unconscious with a brain injury near his apartment.
Despite undergoing surgery he never recovered.
Although the local police have opened an investigation, Ageyeva doubts it will be conducted properly because of Andruschenko’s history of investigating cases of police corruption.
She is convinced that both assaults are related to Andruschenkov’s work as an investigative reporter.
Two reporters for Buzzfeed News, David Perrotin and Paul Aveline, were physically prevented filming a meeting with French presidential candidate Francois Fillon on 17 April.
The journalists were filming two people who had interrupted Fillon’s meeting by shouting “Give the money back!” and were detained by the police when members of the candidate’s security staff physically prevented them from filming.
Guards first grabbed David Perrotin, pulling him by the collar, physically threatened him and demanded that he delete his video. A fuard then grabbed Aveline’s phone to prevent him from filming the scene.
At this point, according to Buzzfeed, a member of Fillon team said: “Throw them out.” It was only when the two journalists said they would write an article on the incidents that the members of the security team stopped threatening them.
During the same meeting, journalist Hortense Gerard, who works for BFMTV, was spat on. She later tweeted a photo of her sleeve covered in spit.
Independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta has received “direct threats addressed to its journalists” following publications on harassment of gay people in Chechnya according to a statement they released.
It says: “On 1 April 2017, Novaya Gazeta wrote on mass detainment and torture of Chechen residents who were suspected of being homosexual. We know the names of three persons murdered and we know that the number of those who were killed is much higher.(…)”
The backlash in Chechnya has left the entire staff of the newspaper fearful, the Guardian reported.
According to official data, on 3 April around 15,000 people attended an urgent meeting of representatives from the republic’s Muslim communities in the central mosque in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.
During the meeting, Adam Shakhidov, an adviser to the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, publicly accused the editorial staff of Novaya Gazeta of defamation and called them “enemies of our religion and our motherland”. This was broadcast live by a local TV channel and led to aggressive comments on social media.
After the meeting, a resolution was accepted. The second paragraph states the following: “The centuries-old traditions of Chechen society, the dignity of Chechen men, and our faith have all been insulted, and we promise that those behind it will face reprisals, whoever they are and wherever they are.”
Novaya Gazeta has called on the Russian authorities to prevent the hate speech directed at journalists for doing their jobs. When Novaya Gazeta’s statement was published online, its website crashed and staff are convinced this was due to a DDoS attack.
The backlash was sparked by an 1 April story from reporter Elena Milashina and her colleague Irina Gordienko. In March, Milashina had discovered evidence that gay men were being detained, tortured and even killed in an anti-homosexual purge in Chechnya.
Milashina spoke to The Washington Post on Friday 14 April from an undisclosed location and said she was thinking of leaving the country because of safety concerns.
Unidentified assailants shot at journalists from investigative program Slidstvo.Info on 14 April. The journalists were filming the estate of oligarch Rinat Akhmetov around Kyiv, the Institute of Mass Information reported.
“Our reporters Maxim Opanasenko and Kirill Shapar were filming a new estate near Kyiv which belongs to Rinat Akhmetov,” Slidstvo.Info reported.
Unidentified individuals shot a meter and a half above the car where Slidstvo.Info journalists were seated, Maxim Opanasenko told IMI. “I didn’t see the gunman. We suspect this was intended to scare us because they saw our drone,” the journalist said.
He added that the journalists are planning to investigate who the shooters were. No journalists were injured according to the IMI report.
Journalist and publisher Kostas Vaxevanis was arrested following a libel lawsuit against him filed by Lina Nikolopoulou, who is married to Bank of Greece Governor Yiannis Stournaras, Naftemporiki newspaper reported.
On 9 April Vaxevanis published an article in the weekly newspaper Documento about Nikolopoulou, who he claimed had received up to €400,000 of state money for medical and pharmaceutical lobbying and conference work and Stournaras presence in these conferences as a lecturer.
Vaxevanis alleges that contracts for these services were awarded to Nikolopoulou without being offered for public tender.
“The Stournaras family is not struggling in a legal battle, as it pretends. Mr and Mrs Stournaras struggle for their survival. They are trying to cover the way they act and operate,” Vaxevanis wrote in a statement asking for support.
The party leading the Greek government, Syriza, issued a statement stressing that the lawsuit “directly challenges journalism and press freedom” and adding that “the report raises some critical questions about the public health area, which require serious and documented answers”.
Vaxevanis was released later the same day.
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François Fillon, presidential candidate for Les Républicains, and Marine Le Pen, the Front National candidate. Credit: Prachatai / Flickr
“No revelation on François Fillon for several minutes,” a headline from the French satirical website Le Gorafi read in March 2017. Although untrue, it captured well the spirit of a campaign marred by a steady flow of allegations of political corruption. Fillon, the presidential candidate for the conservative Les Républicains party, is one of many to face allegations. In response, he has attempted to discredit the press.
“We saw the campaigns upend and attacks on journalists have been used to try to reunite the voting base,” journalist Aurore Gorius, who has been covering the campaign for news website Les Jours, told Mapping Media Freedom.
At the end of January, Le Canard Enchaîné, a satirical weekly featuring investigative journalism, claimed Fillon’s wife Penelope had been paid to be her husband’s parliamentary assistant while there was no record of her doing any work. Other revelations include Fillon employing his underage children as parliamentary assistants, a €50,000 loan received by a businessman friend, a €13,000 gift of two suits given by a political adviser specialising in France-Africa relations and a second position held by his wife.
As soon as revelations emerged, Fillon began to discredit the outlets involved, including Envoyé Spécial, Mediapart and Le Canard Enchaîné. Recently, he claimed he knew exactly who had leaked information to Le Canard Enchaîné and threatened to sue “all of those who were at the origin” of the revelations.
Revelations of corruption also hit the Front National candidate Marine Le Pen’s chief of staff. In a similar fashion to Fillon, the party tried to discredit media outlets which broke the scandal. It also violently expelled journalists asking questions about the allegations of corruption during political meetings and blocked certain media outlets from attending altogether.
For Arnaud Mercier, a professor at Institut Français de la Presse at Pantheon-Assas University and head of the French-language version of The Conversation, “it’s not an exaggeration to talk of a trumpisation of Fillon’s campaign. Trump was an outsider and had a very aggressive attitude towards the media throughout his campaign whereas Fillon was the favourite and ended up being pushed to the side. That’s when he started adopting the same tactic.”
“The first abuses date from the 2012 Nicolas Sarkozy campaign. At the end of it, probably around the time Sarkozy realised he would lose, he radicalised his campaign,” Gorius said. Echoing Sarkozy’s attitude five years ago, Fillon and his political allies have elaborated a narrative claiming the media had fomented a plot against him, making it harder for journalists to cover the campaign. At a meeting in Poitiers on 9 February, former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin appeared to thank journalists, while the crowd booed them. A few moments later, Fillon lashed at the media, which he said was responsible for his difficulties. Party supporters followed in politicians’ steps, often more violently.
At the same meeting, Hugo Clément, a journalist for TV show Quotidien, interviewed a Fillon supporter who told him: “You’re not a journalist, you’re a shit digger. You partake in the enterprise of destruction. You want to exterminate. You were driving trains that took people to Auschwitz.” Around a month later, France Inter radio journalist Guillaume Meurice spoke to Fillon supporters during a meeting in Paris and recorded them denouncing a media plot against the conservative candidate. Meurice recorded a supporter saying: “The whole country is submitted to the gulag of the left and the media.”
“Right-wing voters think that all journalists are left-wing. Since I have been covering campaigns, this narrative keeps coming back. I’ve covered three François Fillon meetings and I have seen militants complaining to journalists, occasionally tackle them, telling them to be objective,” Gorius said. Journalists covering the conservative party have spoken up about high levels of aggression against them and difficulties to follow the candidate who travels with a handful of carefully selected journalists. On occasions, the attacks have taken a more personal or more violent turn. Mediapart co-founder Edwy Plenel wrote a short blog post to clear his daughter, who had been accused of holding a fake job by a far-right pro-Fillon website. On 6 April, Mediapart and Le Canard Enchaîné received a letter containing death threats and a bullet which had also been sent to magistrates. There were violent incidents in the weeks preceding the first turn.
Gorius and French Journalists’ Union spokesperson Vincent Lanier both pointed out that on previous presidential campaigns left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon has been known to have an uneasy relationship with the media, which he often claimed was biased against him. There was little of that this time, even if Mediapart recently pointed out that the candidate has refused the news website’s invitation to appear in one of their political show for a year, claiming it is linked to the fact he disliked some of their coverage.
On the conservative side, there were stranger attacks. On 10 March, Les Républicains MP Jean-François Mancel presented a law proposal aimed at restricting the confidentiality of journalists’ sources. “The proposal has no chance whatsoever of being turned into a law, as this principle is a cornerstone of democracy – these are mere gesticulations,” legal journalist Marc Rees explained. But he said there had been more insidious threats to the principle of sources confidentiality. “France adopted a new antiterrorist legislation last year. The text includes protection for four professions – magistrates, lawyers, MPs and journalists – who cannot be submitted to surveillance while performing their mandate. Except that when a journalist is under surveillance it’s hard to know what falls within their mandate or doesn’t. This disposition clearly opened a gaping hole, which could be abused by whoever is to come to power,” Rees said.
In March, the French journalists’ union made a statement denouncing attacks against journalists. Lanier said they had received an incredible amount of abuse following this. “It’s clear something is broken. And it’s not new. There’s a lack of trust between the media and the public. There’s serious problems within the media. Direct broadcasting playing on a loop, experts who are not experts. This creates a situation where people don’t believe in the media. This time, among young journalists there’s an awareness that they have to be more thorough”, he said.
But this very uncertain campaign has prompted a massive interest with newspapers sale rising in February after the first revelations on Fillon started. According to Gorius: “10 million people were watching the first debate between candidates on TF1. That’s as much as for a huge football match. I feel there is enormous curiosity, as voters feel we are at a turning point. There’s also disappointment. The debate about ideas has failed to take place.” [/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:1492586488812-a75617ed-73cc-10″ taxonomies=”6564″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
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Each week, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project verifies threats, violations and limitations faced by the media throughout the European Union and neighbouring countries. Here are recent reports that give us cause for concern.
According to a document published on the state-run website of legal information, on 28 March, Vladimir Putin signed a new law that restricts coverage of court sessions. The law forbids taking photos and recording video during hearings, as well as any other form of recording without a judge’s permission. Streaming from pre-trial procedures is also forbidden.
If there is a recording of the hearing of any kind, a note regarding that fact along with the names of all media involved must be included in the minutes of said hearing. Prior to the law, journalists were not required to seek permission to film and take photos at open court hearings. The same applied for pre-trial live streaming.
The 2012 Resolution of the Supreme Court, which guaranteed journalists the right to publish live text updates, will not be changed by the new law.
On 3 April, press agency Beta reported that Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic was accused of controlling the mainstream media during his presidential election campaign. Critics are accusing the prime minister of rigging the elections by keeping a strong grip on the media in the country.
Vucic, who was elected President on Sunday, April 2nd, was also accused of orchestrating a smear campaign against his competitors. Nedim Sejdinovic, the president of the Independent Journalist Association of Vojvodina, said the elections were irregular due to a “media blackout”.
“When the government dominates the media with the lynching of political opponents, it has nothing to do with free elections and democracy,” said Sejdinovic. “But only with totalitarianism.”
On 30 March, a staff member for Ozgur Toplum magazine by the name of Fahrettin Kilic was formally arrested on charges of “membership of a terrorist organisation”, reported pro-Kurdish news agency Dihaber.
Kilic was detained on March 28th along with two other journalists who have since been released on probation terms. The charges were merely based on a photograph featuring Kilic in a regional Kurdish outfit, stated the report.
According to independent Azadliq Radio, The Azerbaijan Service for Radio Free Europe, publishing house E-Q was shut down following tax inspections on 1 April.
The director of the publishing house, Akif Guliyev, said the decision was made after a series of unsubstantiated tax inspections along with various other inspections as well. E-Q was known for publishing Azadliq newspaper, which it stopped printing in August of 2016.
Vladimir Stolyarov, the owner and editor of the infotainment website gagster.ru, was detained at his home on March 26th, reported Stolyarov’s brother on the website.
“Today, at around 4pm police officers came into my brother’s flat with a detention warrant,” said the editor’s brother. “They have accused him of extremism and detained him because he posted a link to the live stream of the protests and set up streaming on his website.”
Later that day, Vladimir Stolyarov was released, also made known on the website by his brother. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1491562871372-fe072c87-7117-6″ taxonomies=”6564″][/vc_column][/vc_row]