22 Jan 21 | Belarus, Media Freedom, Opinion, Ruth's blog
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Last week one of our former colleagues and correspondents – Andrei Aliaksandrau – was detained in Belarus. Our friend, colleague and human rights defender is now being arbitrarily held for defending the right to free expression.
Our team is anxious for news and, honestly, even though we report on and cover attacks on journalists every day and campaign for people to be released from prison, we still feel impotent about what we can do to help.
Andrei and his partner, Irina Zlobina, are expected to be charged with “education or other preparation of persons for participation in group actions that grossly violate public order, as well as financing or other material support of such activities”.
Under Lukashenko’s regime these charges could result in a two-year sentence. Two years in prison for supporting people’s peaceful right to assembly. Two years’ detention for demanding free and fair elections. Two years for standing up for free speech. Their lawyer has been forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement, so we are struggling to get information about their wellbeing and future legal sanctions.
As upset as we are, Andrei’s case wasn’t the most unsettling part of the week.
Andrei and Irina are just two of the 187 people that the Viasna human rights center identify as political prisoners – journalists, activists and citizens who have been arrested and detained by Lukashenko’s regime. Their collective ‘crimes’ are being brave enough to keep fighting against tyranny and to stand up for both what is right and their human rights.
Statistics can be shocking – 187 prisoners of conscience logged with the EU. But behind every statistic there is a person, a family, a story, a life. Andrei is a friend to many of the Index family so we know he was a Liverpool fan. We know that he likes malt whisky and when in London a visit to the Betsey Trotwood pub. We know he loves dogs. We know that because we know him.
And we know that Andrei wouldn’t want us to forget about the others that have also been arrested. He wouldn’t want us to stop exposing the actions of Lukashenko. He wouldn’t want us to be silent. So, for him, for Irina and the hundreds of other people currently detained in Belarus we will keep using our voices to fight for their freedom, while they cannot.
Index was established to be a voice for the persecuted – our friend is being persecuted and we will make sure his voice is heard – together.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”41669″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
15 Jan 21 | Belarus, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116010″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Dedicated and principled. Brave and committed. Optimistic and humorous. A fan of Liverpool FC and of pubs.
This is Andrei Aliaksandrau, a journalist who has been detained this week in Belarus on charges of “organisation and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order, or active participation in them”. A video of him making a “confession” of paying the fines of those who have been protesting at the rigged re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko has been released by the authorities in Belarus.
His arrest and forced confession have hit home hard at Index on Censorship, where he was on the staff for a number of years, leading a project looking at freedom of the media across the Caucasus, and writing regularly about Belarus and Ukraine. After he returned to Belarus, he also continued working for Index as a freelance contributor from the region.
Former Index on Censorship editor-in-chief Rachael Jolley says he is the sort of person who puts his life and soul into the cause of making people realise what is going on in Belarus.
“He feels really strongly about media freedom and feels the world doesn’t pay enough attention to what is going on there,” she says.
“He worked so hard to bring stories out of Belarus when most journalists would be too worried to cover them. He keeps covering stories when others have given up.”
Natasha Schmidt, editor of IranWire and who worked at Index for 13 years, most recently as deputy editor, says, “He is such an amazing journalist and a great colleague.”
She says, “Andrei is so knowledgeable about Belarus and the wider region, including Ukraine from where he produced a lot of reports in recent years.”
That Aliaksandrau is in Belarus at this time of huge popular protest comes as no surprise.
Jolley added, “A lot of people have come onto the streets of Belarus feeling there was a moment of hope that there might be change. Andrei would have been on the front line of this.”
Schmidt says, “Given what has been going on in Belarus, he would have thought if he wasn’t already there then it was time for him to go back and join in this important movement.”
She adds, “Andrei is one of those people who is brave without trying to be. He is very committed to his work and freedom of expression in the region.”
Sean Gallagher, who also worked alongside Aliaksandrau at Index, says his arrest is of great concern but not entirely unexpected.
“I hate to be fatalistic but it was only a matter of time before he was detained, given the nature of the regime,” he says.
“I remember clearly talking to him about how we should communicate and whether he should continue to use Gmail or whether we should move to an encrypted platform. His response was ‘Gmail is fine because using encryption raises a flag’”.
“He was well aware he was being watched,” says Gallagher, “but knowing that he has been detained just for telling the truth, that pisses me off.”
Aliaksandrau is devoted to his work but he also has a life outside work. All of his former colleagues mention his love of British pubs. He was a regular at the Betsey Trotwood pub in Farringdon in London when Index was based at the Free Word Centre and has a particular passion for a good malt whisky, taking trips to various distilleries in Scotland during his time in the country.
They also reflected on his easy-going nature.
“As a colleague, he was very easy to spend time with and has a great sense of humour. He was a good person to have around, he was so relaxed and would have a laugh and ease any tension in office politics,” said Schmidt.
Andrei is also a keen supporter of Liverpool FC and has a love of nature.
Despite his detention and enforced confession, former editor Jolley says Aliaksandrau is an “optimist”.
“He always felt there would be change and would do everything he could to make it change. He strongly believes Belarus will one day have a free society,” says Jolley.
That time cannot come soon enough. Aliaksandrau – no Andrei – must be released.
Schmidt speaks for us all when she says: “We all hope we can see him soon and hear he is safe.”
Index has sent letters to the foreign secretary Dominic Raab and Belarussian ambassador to the UK Maxim Yermalovich calling for Andrei’s release.
Please sign this petition to call on the Belarusian authorities to release Andrei and his girlfriend Irina. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”172″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
18 Dec 20 | Iran, Media Freedom, Middle East and North Africa, Opinion, Ruth's blog
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”115908″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Yesterday, for the first time, the team at Index suspended its normal social media engagement. We stopped highlighting each attack on free speech around the world. We stopped giving comment on emerging events. Instead for 24 hours, we tweeted, on the hour, every hour, about one man – Ruhollah Zam.
We did this because Ruhollah’s story exemplifies why Index on Censorship exists. And because we are heartbroken at his death.
Ruhollah was executed by his government, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
His “crime” was to be journalist and a human rights activist – running an alternative news channel which criticised the Government. A brave and honourable endeavour.
Ruhollah’s “crime” was to exercise his rights as stated in Article 19 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. For the record, Iran was an original signatory to the UN DHR. When they signed the declaration in 1948 they committed to a world where all of us have basic human rights. On Saturday, they ignored this commitment.
Ruhollah was killed by his government. He was hanged. He was silenced.
Please take a few minutes today to read about Ruhollah’s life – as with all of us he was more than his job title. He was a son, a husband and a father. His life touched literally hundreds of thousands of people because of his activism. His death must reach millions.
The Iranian execution of Ruhollah Zam is a stark reminder of why Index was launched nearly 50 years ago. We were established to shine a light on repressive regimes, to ensure that attacks on free expression were documented and to provide a home for the writings of dissidents when they couldn’t publish in the countries of their birth.
Ruhollah Zam embodied the fight for free expression and a free press. It’s now down to us to live up to his legacy and make sure that journalists, activists, artists, academics and writers know that they have a home and that someone is making sure that their voices are heard – even when they are incarcerated.
Ruhollah Zam, 27 July 1978 – 12 December 2020
May His Memory Be A Blessing
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16 Dec 20 | Iran, Iraq, Media Freedom, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
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On Saturday 12 December, the founder of the Telegram news channel Amadnews, Ruhollah Zam, was hanged in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.
Zam was born in Shahr-e-Rey, just outside Tehran, in 1978. He first came to prominence in 2009 after the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he was jailed for voicing his opposition.
In 2011, after his release from prison, Zam, together with his wife and young daughter Niaz fled the country and were granted asylum in France, living initially in Paris before moving to a small town near Toulouse after he received threats.
Two and a half years ago, Zam co-founded the Amadnews channel on Telegram, which is hugely popular in Iran – it has 50 million users there and was reported at one point to account for 60% of the country’s entire internet usage.
Amadnews became popular for its criticism of Iran’s leaders and informed descriptions on the 2017 protests, which started as a protest against the economic policies of the government before developing into wider protests against Iran’s leaders. Twenty-five people died during the nationwide protests.
The channel grew quickly to have a million subscribers but at the end of 2017 Telegram shut it down saying the channel had called for armed uprisings. The channel reappeared under a new same, Sedaiemardom (voice of the people), just a few months later.
The story of how he even came to be in Iran again is mysterious.
In 2019, it is believed that he was lured to Iraq from his exile in France to meet the grand Ayatollah Sistani, the spiritual leader of the Iraqi Shia Muslims. While there, he was captured by agents of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps which issued a statement saying he had been detained “in a complicated operation”.
The statement said: “Despite being under the guidance of the French intelligence service and the support of the US and Zionist intelligence services…, and being guarded round the clock by various means and covers, he fell into a trap laid by… the IRGC’s Intelligence Organization.”
He was thrown into Evin prison and tortured for months and forced to make televised confessions of his ‘crimes’.
In June this year, Zam was tried in front of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran, presided over by Judge Abolqasem Salav and convicted on 13 counts of “spreading corruption on earth”. He was sentenced to death.
Despite going to appeal, on 8 December, the supreme court announced it had upheld the death sentence.
Zam’s father, the moderate cleric Mohammad Ali Zam, has revealed on Instagram what happened after the sentence was confirmed.
Last Friday, he was telephoned by an Iranian intelligence agent who said he could come and visit his son in the notorious Evin prison but not to tell him that the sentence for execution had been confirmed. His father reports that during the visit the family started to cry and the agent was afraid that Ruhollah might find out why and told him.
“Don’t worry Ruhollah. These are happy tears from visiting you. Even if the execution is confirmed, the process would take a while to be carried out and we will inform you of the whole process.”
On Saturday 12 December at 8am French time, his eldest daughter Niaz received a WhatsApp call from a number she didn’t recognise. It was her father.
They talked about her studies and getting her diploma but after five minutes the call had to end and her father said goodbye. There was a finality in his tone and Niaz knew this would be the last time they would speak.
Just a few hours later, Zam was paraded in front of television cameras and hanged.
There has been widespread condemnation of his execution.
United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement, “The international community must continue to hold the regime accountable for its unconscionable actions…The Iranian people deserve a free and diverse media, not censorship, arrests, and the execution of journalists.”
The European Union said it “condemns this act in the strongest terms and recalls once again its irrevocable opposition to the use of capital punishment under any circumstances. It is also imperative for the Iranian authorities to uphold the due process rights of accused individuals and to cease the practice of using televised confessions to establish and promote their guilt.”
Masih Alinejad, author of The Wind in My Hair: My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran and who had campaigned to prevent the execution of young Iranian wrestler Navid Afkari, told Index, “By killing Zam, the Islamic Republic has shown that it is not interested in diplomacy. It is ironic that Zam was named after Rohallah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, an evil system that is not willing to tolerate dissent from journalists. Zam was a media pioneer who created the most influential news channel in recent memory.”
Javaid Rehman, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran and Agnes Callamard, UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said: “The conviction and execution of Mr Zam are unconscionable. The reports of his arrest, his treatment in detention, and the process of his trial, as well as the reasons for his targeting by the Iranian authorities, are a serious violation of Iran’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, including the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the right to life.
“It is clear that Ruhollah Zam was executed for expressing opinions and providing information on AmadNews that dissented from the official views of the Iranian Government.”
Index on Censorship’s CEO Ruth Smeeth has written a letter to the UN Secretary General condemning Zam’s murder.
She wrote: “Press freedom is a pillar of democracy. When journalists are targeted, all of society pays the price. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees the right to freedom of opinion and expression to all…As a journalist, as a human rights activist, as a global citizen Ruhollah Zam should have been protected by the state of his birth, not murdered by them.”
Ruhollah Zam is survived by his wife Mahsa Razani and their two daughters.
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