22 Apr 20 | Covid 19 and freedom of expression, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”113291″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]The Indian state’s response to the coronavirus outbreak has seen an acceleration of violence against Muslims, further silencing of political dissent and attacks on press freedom. These trends are being tracked on the Index on Censorship global map monitoring media freedom violations during the coronavirus pandemic, put together by our staff, our contributors and readers as well as our partners at the Justice for Journalists Foundation.
One pattern to emerge is Prime Minister Narenda Modi’s determination to control the coronavirus narrative. Before the lockdown was announced, Modi met with the press to urge them to only publish “inspiring, positive stories” about the government’s handling of coronavirus. Many outlets have buckled under the pressure, fearful of being branded unpatriotic. As reported on the Index map, part of this was a campaign by Modi’s government for advertisers and businesses to cut support for independent news outlets. This has presented an enormous danger to the free press in India. If only pro-government media are allowed to flourish during one of the biggest global crises in recent years, those with the power to protect, or neglect, people’s health and well-being will not be held to account for their actions.
Journalists whose reporting does not follow the party line on coronavirus face harassment and detention by the state. For example, independent news website the Wire reported that Yogi Adityanath, a fundamentalist Hindu cleric and chief minister of India’s largest state Uttar Pradesh, attended a religious ceremony after the lockdown had been announced. This did not chime well with the presiding narrative that the Muslim community are to blame for the spread of the virus. There have been reports that Siddharth Varadarajan, founder-editor of the Wire, is now facing criminal proceedings for, among other things, “creating or promoting enmity between classes”.
Thousands of people, including jurists and academics, have signed a public statement condemning the state’s actions, calling legal action against Varadarajan an attack on press freedom. While this support is undoubtedly appreciated by Varadarajan, Modi’s attitude towards the press since he came to power in 2014, and continuing in the wake of coronavirus, means things do not bode well for him.
But these are not the only attacks tracked on our map. Journalists have also faced physical violence in the street while trying to report on the outbreak. Naveen Kumar from news website Aaj Tak was beaten by police in Delhi on his way to his office on 23rd March. On the same day Ravi Reddy, bureau chief at The Hindu, was attacked by three policemen in Hyderabad. Mendu Srinivas, political bureau chief at Andhra Jyothy, was also beaten by police in Hyderabad. Since 2014, there have been over 200 serious attacks on journalists.
We have also had reports of journalists being accused of spreading “fake news”. As with many allegations of fake news that we have tracked on the map, more often than not the charge is being used to silence people. At the same time, misinformation is being allowed to spread like wildfire. In a sadly predictable turn of events, rumours have spread online that the Muslim community is responsible for the virus’ spread.
As a result, Muslims have been physically attacked in the street and Sikh temples have warned people against buying milk from Muslim dairy farmers, claiming it is infected with coronavirus. Mohammed Haider, who runs a milk stall, told The New York Times: “People only need a small reason to beat us or lynch us.” The Indian Express, a widely read daily national newspaper, reported that hospitals were segregating Muslim and Hindu coronavirus patients, quoting a doctor as saying it was a government decision.
The events of the past year have shone a light on the mistreatment of Muslims in India. The repealing of Article 370 and the subsequent internet shutdown in Jammu and Kashmir from August, and the Citizenship Law in December, both discriminated against Muslims. Now the coronavirus outbreak has provided another excuse to demonise and discriminate Muslims in the country.
And this might highlight the biggest trend of all, namely that the coronavirus outbreak has exacerbated issues already bubbling beneath the surface since Modi came to power in 2014. In this environment, a free press has never felt more important.
If you know of any examples of violations against the media in India or elsewhere, please do report them to our map. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
02 Apr 20 | News and features, Turkey
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International Journalism Festival/Flickr
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]“In the Middle Ages people watched convicts getting quartered in public squares. Nowadays, on social media, they watch reporters as they live-tweet their ordeals: detention, physical attacks on the streets, losing their livelihoods,” said Turkish author and journalist Kaya Genç.
“For most Turks, watching journalists getting sacked or imprisoned or destroying each other’s careers became entertainment.”
Genç spoke to Index to answer questions posed by the Index youth advisory board about life as a journalist in Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his latest book, The Lion and the Nightingale: A Journey Through Modern Turkey.
The youth board are elected for six months, and meet once a month online over that period to discuss freedom of expression issues. They are based around the world.
Hana Meihan Davis, from Hong Kong, asked how Erdogan managed to strip Turkey of journalistic freedom. Genç explained that divisions have existed between political sects in the media for decades, which the current ruling party was then able to take advantage of.
“When Islamists were in trouble in the 1990s secularists supported court cases against them; when secularists were locked up some liberals applauded; when Kurds were imprisoned most journalists looked the other way. Now as most of their colleagues are sacked or locked up conservatives act as if all is normal,” said Genç, who is also a contributing editor to Index on Censorship magazine.
Amid this sense of apathy Erdogan moved to create “a small army of loyalists in the media” as other news sites and newspapers were closed down.
Davis followed up her question, asking if people realised what was happening at the time? This is a question often asked when we look back with hindsight at the gradual erosion of freedoms. Were people like a frog who doesn’t realise the temperature of his water is slowly being increased to boiling? Genç said some journalists saw the dangers.
“Reporters and editors declared their independence, or found new patrons, and they are producing excellent work away from the influence of state power. I’m sure they were aware of what was happening while they worked at titles now tamed and indirectly owned by the government.”
The landscape for journalists in Turkey today is rocky terrain. There is an acute awareness of the censorship laws that can be imposed, coupled with a determination to provide much needed accurate reporting.
From the UK, Saffiyah Khalique asked about the laws around “public sensitivities”, which can result in imprisonment for up to a year for disrespecting the beliefs of religious groups, insulting Turkishness and other such “offences”. Genç said they are used within society to silence political dissenters.
“Twitter trolls who present themselves as pro-government journalists use these unclear laws to put their enemies behind bars. If an artist, piano player or actor says something critical about the government, they go through their timeline, find something they find insulting, and ask the public prosecutor to step in.”
Despite this possibility of prosecution being ever around the corner, Genç said he does not feel unsafe or threatened as a journalist in Turkey. “I feel free”, he answered to a question from Emily Boyle, a dual citizen of the UK and Switzerland
Recognising the value of objectivity appears to be Genç’s lifeline. When Indian national Samarth Mishra asked what is the most difficult part of being a journalist in Turkey, Genç said: “The hardest thing for a writer reporting from Turkey is to remain objective. You can’t be bitter about the government. Readers can benefit from the cold heart of a writer who does her best to be objective in her reporting.”
He said: “Our job, as writers, is to hold people with power to account, not to promote this or that political leader, defend this or that political ideology, propagate for this or that country … When a writer inhibits a space where nobody can accuse her of partisanship, believe me the effect of her writing will be much greater.”
The Lion and the Nightingale, Genç’s latest book, was published recently. It takes the reader on a journey through modern Turkey while exploring its history, via interviews he conducted on the road. Egil Sturk, from Sweden, asked Genç if there were any questions he was hesitant to ask his interviewees.
Genç said: “I am hesitant to ask questions about people’s religious beliefs and fiery ideological commitments. I prefer to give them enough space to articulate themselves where the bizarre, the eerie appears like a diamond in a mine. When people feel safe they tell you the most amazing things. Like an analyst you need to just sit there and listen.”
In answer to a question from Aliyah Orr (UK) about the emotional impact of the interviews he was conducting, Genç said:
“The prison chronicle of my friend and colleague Murat Çelikkan … had the strongest emotional effect on me. We used to work together, behind adjacent desks, and his experience in prison was empowering and unsettling. His account of imprisonment was rich with detail and you could see a great writer disappearing into the story’s characters and particulars of his story.”
Faye Gear from Canada asked what is different about today’s landscape in terms of freedom of expression. To tackle the suppression of free speech, Genç said people must think for themselves.
“I grew up idolising individual thinkers and writers: Susan Sontag, Jacques Derrida, Chantal Mouffe, VS Naipaul,” said Genç. “Nowadays we are invited to subscribe to what seems to be the most forward-thinking tribe and then follow its leaders by liking and retweeting their political snippets.”
In the face of an atmosphere of censorship, Genç remains defiant. In answer to a question from Satyabhama Rajoria, from India, about the struggles he faces as a journalist and author, Genç said: “There is of course always the anxiety that comes with publishing your writing, but that is healthy. Bullies, from the left and the right, may take your sentences out of context but that, too, is something one can deal with.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”112300″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”3″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1585828417099-e398f95f-d0bf-6″ taxonomies=”7355″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
27 Mar 20 | News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”112806″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Journalists beaten by batons in India; Brazil’s president lashing out at the media; a reporter arrested in Niger, all three stories tied together by a common thread – they dared to report on the coronavirus crisis.
As the world’s attention turns to fighting the pandemic, many of the world’s leaders want to fight the media at the same time. If anything, they’re taking this opportunity with the world being distracted to ramp up efforts to silence journalists.
This is why Index has launched a map in which we document what is going on around the world. The map is a partnership with Justice for Journalists Foundation who, together with our expertise running other mapping projects, will contribute by expanding cooperation with their existing regional partners in central Asia.
While we are aware some restrictions to movement and assembly are necessary at present and that these will invariably effect how journalists to do their jobs, we expect all restrictions to be lifted once the epidemic is under control, and are tracking those restrictions and attacks to media that go far beyond what could be considered reasonable and justified.
Already the response has been incredible, though deeply unsettling too. We’ve had alerts from across the globe, from the USA through to Brazil, from countries with poor records on freedom of expression to ones with higher standards. In one day alone we mapped nine new incidents. Nine. A sad reality of the world we live in today is that media violations are far from rare, but nine in a day is pretty astonishing.
At present China leads in terms of media attacks, which isn’t surprising given the duel facts of it being the country of coronavirus origin and one of the most censored media environments in the world. China’s bid to control news of the outbreak has seen a ramping up of media censorship, as Index reported at the time. Perhaps the most troubling of all stories to emerge was last month when three Wall Street Journal reporters were kicked out of the country following the newspaper publishing an opinion piece in which China was referred to as the sick man of Asia. Foreign media presence has been drained further since then. Last week China expelled more than 13 journalists from the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times and banned them from working in Hong Kong and Macau too.
If that wasn’t bad enough the Chinese government is expecting other countries to sing to their tune. When Dutch cartoonist Maarten Wolterink posted a cartoon showing a Chinese plane with a coronavirus clinging to its tailplane on 24 January, the Chinese ambassador in The Netherlands voiced his disapproval and an expectation that Dutch cartoonists would be censured if they “insulted” China. Similarly, in Denmark on 27 January a cartoon by Niels Bo Bojesen appeared in Jyllands-Posten that portrayed coronavirus particles taking the place of the stars on China’s national flag. The Chinese embassy in Copenhagen demanded a public apology. Fortunately, Danish politicians didn’t capitulate. They were vocal in their defence of the paper and the general principle of free expression.
But it’s not just China that is censoring information on the outbreak and kicking journalists out. Just yesterday news emerged that Egyptian authorities have forced Guardian journalist and former Index employee Ruth Michaelson to leave the country after she reported on a scientific study saying Egypt likely has more coronavirus cases than the official numbers. Michaelson, who has lived in and reported from Egypt since 2014, has now come to the end of the road for reporting in the country, all because of something she wrote about coronavirus.
Perhaps most alarming are the violations happening in countries that until now we have regarded as relatively free. In South Africa, for example, the government has stopped epidemiologists, virologists, infectious disease specialists and other experts from commenting on Covid-19. All requests for comment must be directed to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. At a time when knowledge is crucial, when the internet is being flooded with disinformation, blocking access to those who are experts in the field is dangerous to say the least.
Similarly, in Slovenia the investigative journalist Blaž Zgaga has been subject to death threats and a smear campaign since submitting a request for information to the government about its management of the coronavirus crisis. Zgaga is now living in a state of fear. This in a country that ranked 34 out of 180 countries in the RSF world press freedom index 2019. Is Slovenia about to turn its back on media freedom?
All of these examples show why the map is critical. We need to let it be known to people and politicians that we are watching and that we are documenting. We need to increase awareness around the world about the current state of press freedom during the coronavirus crisis, as well as to raise awareness more broadly about the importance of media freedom and the challenges that journalists face. We need to rally behind and help journalists as much as we can during this incredibly difficult period. And, moving forward, we need to improve media freedom globally. After all, the tools used against journalists right now didn’t just emerge overnight – they’ve been finessed, tailored and expanded over the years.
These are unprecedented times and in moments of crisis our freedoms have a tendency to slide away from us. But these are also times when good, honest, trusty-worthy journalism is more important than ever. We intend to hold those in power to account and to aid those at the forefront of reporting on the coronavirus crisis.
For more information on the map and/or to report an attack, please click here.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]
