30 Mar 17 | Digital Freedom, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features
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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.
A mass detention of journalists took place in three Belarusian cities during Freedom Day marches. Freedom Day is an unofficial holiday in Belarus, which is celebrated on 25 March to commemorate the proclamation of the Belarusian People’s Republic in 1918.
The current regime does not recognise Freedom Day and often prevents opposition forces from celebrating it. This year the holiday events included a protest against a jobless tax that the authorities want to introduce. In Minsk 30 journalists were detained. Multiple journalists reported they were beaten by the police.
In Vitsebsk, Belsat TV journalists Volha Czajczyc and Andrus Kozel were violently detained as well as Artsiom Sizintsau, a journalist for Radio Ratsyya. Volha Czajczyc and Andrus Kozel were pushed into a police car. Riot policemen failed to give them the reason for their detention and seized their equipment. The journalists were driven to Kastrychnitski district police station then set free.
Freelance journalist Larysa Schyrakova, who contributes to Belsat TV, was also summoned to the police station on 25 March and detained after the rally. Police gave the journalist an official warning against contributing to Belsat TV, and two other reports – for failure to appear after being summoned and for illegal production of media products – were written on her. On 26 March, the local police filed four more reports on Shchyrakova’s being late; for the alleged mess near her flat; for failing to register as well as reports on illegal production of media products. Children’s officer Dzmitry Volkau threatened to take her son away
Website OVD-Info, which monitors human rights violations and political repression in Russia, came under DDOS-attack after it started covering detentions and violations during the mass protests that took place on Sunday 26 March in Russia, the website reported on Facebook. Visitors could not access the website and the staff experienced problems when publishing new reports.
According to OVD-Info, the attack began from 12 pm, 2 hours before the protests were to start. In Moscow, OVD-Info wrote that 1,030 people were detained during the protests. In Saint Petersburg, they wrote that around 140 participants were detained. Many detainees spent the night in police stations.
Journalist Gaspard Glanz, who regularly covers protests for independent website Taranis news, was assaulted by police officers posing as journalists on 19 March.
In a video published by StreetPress, two men who Glanz claimed had been posing as journalists spoke to him during an anti-racist march for justice and dignity in Paris.
Journalists for StreetPress and Le Monde informed Glanz that the two individuals were policemen posing as journalists.
When Glanz confronted the alleged police officers about their disguise, one of them started punching his camera before spitting on it, StreetPress reported. The incident took place in the presence of an Amnesty International observer.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”middle” el_class=”text_white” css=”.vc_custom_1490622992989{background-color: #d5473c !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
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A Turkish court issued an arrest warrant for journalist Ahmet Nesin, who failed to attend a court session, independent online news platform Dokuz8Haber reported.
Nesin, along with Reporters Sans Frontiers Turkey representative Erol Önderoğlu, academic Şebnem Korur Fincancı, was tried on 21 March because of his participation in a campaign showing solidarity with the now defunct Özgür Gündem newspaper.
The court issued a warrant to bring in Nesin, who was not present on the day of the trial, to force him to testify.
Nesin is accused of “openly inciting the public to commit a crime,” “praising a crime and a criminal” and “spreading propaganda for a terrorist organisation.” Prosecutors have asked for the journalist to be sent to jail for up to 14.5 years on different counts.
The solidarity campaign for Özgür Gündem began on 3 May last year, lasting until 7 August 2016. 52 of the 56 participants were subjected to legal investigations. Eleven of those cases were dropped and 38 individuals were taken to court on various terror-related charges.
During protests against corruption that took place on 26 March in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Makhachkala, police detained over 1,000 participants, including journalists.
Those detained included Echo of Moscow journalist Alexandr Pluschev, correspondent for Delovoy Peterburg Artyom Aleksandrov and journalists for Vedomosti business newspaper, Aleksandr Petrosyan and Nadezhda Zaitsev.
Guardian correspondent Alec Luhn who was covering the protest was detained for more than five hours after he took a picture of someone being detained, Luhn wrote on his Twitter page.
Luhn claimed that no officer could explain why he was detained.
All journalists claim they showed their journalist IDs and accreditation to police, but that it did not help.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Click on the bubbles to view reports or double-click to zoom in on specific regions. The full site can be accessed at https://mappingmediafreedom.org/
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21 Mar 17 | Digital Freedom, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features
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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.
Five journalists were detained in Orsha on 12 March after covering a protest against a new law that would tax unemployed people labeled as “parasites”, Radio Svaboda reported.
Radio Svaboda’s Halina Abakunchyk, photographer for BelaPAN Andrei Shaulyuha and blogger Anastasia Pilyuhina were detained after the rally along with demonstrators and taken to Orsha district police department.
Freelance journalists working for TV channel Belsat, Alyaksandr Barazenka and Katsyaryna Bahvalava, went to the police station to get a comment from a detained opposition activist, only to be detained as well. Pending trial they spent the night in jail.
Abakunchyk and Bakhvalava were ordered to pay fines. Abakunchyk was accused of participating in an unsanctioned mass event under Aryicle 23.34 of the Code of Administrative Offences and fined approximately €280. Bakhvalava was accused of illegal production and distribution of media products and disobeying the police under Article 22.9 and Article 23.4 of the Code of Administrative Offences and fined approximately €340.
Up to 18 journalists and bloggers were arrested while covering the protests, IFJ reported.
Conservative MP Jean-François Mancel filed a proposed law to the National Assembly on 10 March which intends “to remove protection of the confidentiality of journalistic sources if protection of the public interest justifies it“.
The proposed law reads: “Contrary to what is generally said by journalists and their representatives, the systematic protection of sources’ confidentiality and the will to further reinforce it seriously compromises the respect of individual freedoms and the protection of civilians against acts of aggression from the media.”
Mancel accused journalists who have covered allegations of fraud involving conservative candidate François Fillon of going after the candidate unfairly, for instance on his Twitter account.
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Hakan Büyük, a Turkish-Dutch journalist for the newspaper Zaman Vandaag has been receiving death threats on Twitter, news portal Villamedia reported on 13 March.
The threats began after a diplomatic row between Turkey and The Netherlands led to violent pro-Erdogan protests in the streets of Rotterdam. Earlier, Dutch authorities banned a Turkish minister from campaigning for an upcoming Turkish referendum.
Büyük received at least ten threats in Turkish, one of which read: “We will not arrest you, you will be killed.” He has filed charges with the police.
Zaman Vandaag was founded by Gulen sympathisers, who are being blamed for the failed coup in Turkey in the summer of 2016.
Unidentified protesters assaulted and verbally harassed two different TV crews during a pro-opposition protest on 10 March in Skopje, news agency META reported.
Hristijan Banevski, a reporter for private broadcaster TV 24, was “firstly verbally attacked and then hit in the head with a stick holding a flag during the protest in Skopje”.
That same night, a TV Telma crew was verbally harassed while interviewing protesters. Without giving much detail, the channel reported that their journalists were cursed at.
Local journalists’ associations have called upon the Macedonian institutions to take appropriate measures and to come out in defence of the journalists, news agency META reported.
President of the Association of Journalists of Macedonia (ZNM), Naser Selmani, underlined that what is worrying is that public officials, including representatives of state institutions, participated in these coordinated attacks.
In the last four years, according to ZNM’s data, 44 attacks against journalists were reported in Macedonia. Out of these, 19 occurred in 2016.
Officers from the Russian Security Service (FSB) detained reporter Igor Zalyubovin and photographer Vladimir Yarotsky for the Moscow-based independent news magazine Snob on 7 March, the publication said in a statement. The journalists were in the apartment they rented to report on daily life in the city of Svetogorsk.
An article was planned as a response to Svetogorsk Mayor Sergey Davydov’s 1 March claim that there were no homosexuals in the city, and that it was a “city without sin,” according to press reports.
On 7 March, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a statement saying Russian security services should stop harassing and obstructing journalists and should allow them to work unimpeded.
To visit Svetogorsk requires either a Schengen visa to enter via Finland, an invitation from a local resident, or a special permit from the FSB, according to 2014 legislation. Snob’s editor-in-chief, Yegor Mostovshikov, told the news website Meduza today that his outlet did not apply for a permit from the FSB “because it takes up to 30 days to get it.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Click on the bubbles to view reports or double-click to zoom in on specific regions. The full site can be accessed at https://mappingmediafreedom.org/
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14 Mar 17 | Digital Freedom, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features
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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.
The Madrid Journalists Association (APM) received a petition from a group of journalists they had experienced a “systemised campaign of personal and network harassment” from the left-wing Podemos party.
According to a press release from APM, the reporters said they had been harassed and pressured by the Podemos, led by Pablo Iglesias, for over a year. The press release also said that the harassment came in the form of threatening phone calls, emails, and messages or comments on social media such as Twitter. APM believes that the harassment is an attempt by Podemos officials to improve their reputation and image by eliminating any media criticism of the party.
Elvi Fundo, the news editor for the online publication Citynews.al and Radio Best, was attacked in Tirana on the morning of 8 March. The reporter was on his way to his office in the city when he was violently assaulted by two unknown assailants and suffered from injuries which landed him in the hospital.
Fundo, who is known for publishing investigations into corruption and conflict of interests, told the Balkan Insight that he does not believe the attacks had political connotations. Instead, Fundo said, he believes the attack was “the work of criminals financed by corrupt media clans tied to drug-trafficking.” Both journalists and politicians, including the Albanian Union of Journalists and Prime Minister Edi Rama, have condemned the attack as a threat to media and press freedom.
Journalists and politicians, including the Albanian Union of Journalists and Prime Minister Edi Rama, have condemned the attack as a threat to media and press freedom. Although the police have launched an investigation into the assault, the identity and motive of the assailants are still unknown.
Reporter Igor Zalyubovin and photographer Vladimir Yarotsky were arrested and detained by officers of the Russian Security Service (FSB) in Svetogorsk on 7 March. The journalists, who work for Snob, a Moscow-based independent news magazine, were taken to a detention centre and charged with crossing into a border zone without permission.
Zalyubovin and Yarotsky had rented an apartment in Svetogorsk, a town of about 15,000 outside the border of Finald, to use while reporting on Mayor Sergey Davydov’s claim that it is a “city without sin” because there are no homosexual residents. A 2014 law requires journalists to have specific permission from the FSB to work in the border zone, however, according to Snob’s editor-in-chief, they did not apply for a permit due to time constraints.
The Committee to Protect Journalists denounced the incident and said that this is the second time that journalists were detained and forced to leave Svetogorsk for border zone violations while doing follow-up reporting on the Mayor’s comments. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”middle” css=”.vc_custom_1489421829923{background-color: #d5473c !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}” el_class=”text_white”][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
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Nu Ener, a news editor for the Yeni Asya daily, said was arrested by police on charges of association and membership to the FETO/PDY terrorist organisation.
According to a report published in Yeni Asya, Ener was originally detained following a police raid on her home on 3 March. Three days later, the 4th Criminal Judicature of Peace found that she was guilty of membership to the terrorist organisation which has ties to Fethullah Gulen, the Muslim preacher whom the Turkish government blames for the failed coup this past July. Ener was specifically accused of using Bylock, a mobile communications application, to help organise the coup attempt.
Ener, who remains incarcerated in the Bakirkoy Prison for women, is one out of 155 journalists currently imprisoned in Turkey.
The circulation of Pras Press, a new satirical newspaper by Bulgaria’s “Society of Rude Cartoonists,” was blocked by the State Distribution Company on 5 March. The newspaper, which is known as the Bulgarian version of ‘Charlie Hebdo,’ first went on sale on 1 March, but since distribution ceased, only one tenth of the printed copies has been sold.
Journalist Ivan Bakalov said that he believes MP Delyan Peevski is behind the incident although he is not one of the listed owners of the State Distribution Company. Bakalov and his colleagues believe that the mocking of political elites in Pras Press likely contributed to the circulation block.
Despite Bulgaria’s low ranking of 113 in the 2016 Press Freedom Ranking of Reporters without Borders, the journalists of Pras Press have pledged to bring their case to the Commission for Protection of Competition, the state prosecution, caretaker government, and President Rumen Radev in hopes to resume circulation.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Click on the bubbles to view reports or double-click to zoom in on specific regions. The full site can be accessed at https://mappingmediafreedom.org/
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07 Mar 17 | Digital Freedom, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features
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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.
The German foreign intelligence services, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), has allegedly been wiretapping over 50 journalists and editorial departments of major international news organisations.
The report, published in the weekly magazine Der Spiegel, revealed that the BND has been monitoring phone numbers and emails of journalists from organisations such as BBC and the New York Times since 1991.
Although journalists in Germany are protected by constitutional rights including the right to source confidentiality and witness-refusal, the German parliament recently passed a law in October 2016 which legally allows the government to target and surveil foreign journalists.
DJV, the German journalist union, issued a press release in which the BND informed the union that they were only looking at “operational aspects” of its work that would be “exclusively against Federal Government or against the competent bodies of the German Bundestag”.
Eleven Russian law enforcement officials including three FSB officers, an investigator, and four police officers, raided the Moscow apartment of Zoya Svetova, an activist and journalist for Open Russia and the New Times.
Lawyers Marina Andreyeva and Anna Stavitskaya reported via a Facebook post that Svetova’s computers, memory cards, and other devices were searched in connection to an investigation and criminal case against Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an exiled businessman whom Svetova has been linked to. Khodorkovsky, a known foe of the Kremlin, served 10 years in prison following a trial for financial charges before being pardoned by President Vladimir Putin.
According to the lawyers and Svetova’s colleagues at Radio Free Europe, documents collected during the search are still being processed as of 28 February.
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Mehman Huseynov, a popular video blogger, was sentenced to two years in prison for defamation charges by the Surakhani district court.
Huseynov was detained on 9 January in Baku for allegedly violating administrative rules for sharing videos which claimed to expose corruption among Azerbaijani officials. He was held for five days and the court fined him 200AZN (€100) for disobeying the police upon arrest. Huseynov was convicted of lying about being tortured while in detention, claiming that police officials places a bag over his head and repeatedly assaulted him.
Huseynov is known as an investigative journalist who focuses on uncovering corruption among Azerbaijani government officials and has been monitored by authorities for several years. Huseynov is also the first person to be arrested on slander charges in Azerbaijan.
Radio Vesti, the largest national professional radio channel in Ukraine, has lost its broadcasting license in the capital Kyiv as well as the Kharkiv city area as a result of a ruling by the National Radio and TV Council.
According to Ukrinform, the National Council Deputy Chairman Juliana Feschuk said that Radio Vesti failed to comply with two warnings to change its program concept and failure to comply with quotas for Ukranian language broadcasts. The law requires 50 per cent of broadcasts to be in Ukranian but Radio Vesti reportedly had 49.22 per cent. The term of the license ended on 13 February.
Marina Bakumenko, the head of Radio Vesti’s legal department, said that the company has filed an appeal through the Frankivsk district court of Lviv.
The National Union of Journalists in Ukraine said that approximately 90 per cent of the staff and 100 employees could lose their jobs as a result of the decision.
Journalist Aleksandar Todevski and cameraperson Vladimir Zhelcheski of Alon, a news website, were allegedly assaulted by protesters during a pro-opposition protest in Skopje. The two were taken to the hospital and a camera was damaged as a result of the assault.
Reports by various news outlets including private national broadcaster Telma and the news website SDK.mk, unidentified protesters beat and kicked the Todevski and Zhekcheski during a protest in front of the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia. Protesters were rallying in support of the former ruling party VMRO-DPMNE in opposition to the formation of a new coalition government.
Although the assailants were photographed by other media crews, police have reportedly not looked into an investigation. Journalist associations in Macedonia, including OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic, condemned the incident, saying that recent attacks on journalists are constantly being overlooked by authorities.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Click on the bubbles to view reports or double-click to zoom in on specific regions. The full site can be accessed at https://mappingmediafreedom.org/
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