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In discussing the scope of the recent Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, international human rights lawyer Alex Bailin QC called the powers created by the new legislation “breathtakingly broad.”
Joined by Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg, former Independent Reviewer on Terrorist Legislation Lord David Anderson, and ITV News journalist Rohit Kachroo, Bailin parsed the new legislation and reflected on the challenges faced by journalists, particularly those reporting on terrorism, when operating within its confines.
The Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 builds on previous counter-terrorism legislation like the Counter-Terrorism Act 2000, Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, and the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015. Though it does contain a much lobbied-for carveout for journalists and academics looking at terrorist material on the internet for research purposes, the new legislation expands the range of offenses faced by citizens for viewing or even “expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive of terrorism and being reckless as to whether the audience may thereby be encouraged,” Bailin noted. He continued that to him, “that does seem like thought crime.”
A key problem with the legislation, noted several panellists, was the definition of journalism itself. While all in attendance were grateful that a journalistic carveout to the new legislation exists, each noted that journalism is no longer practiced in such a way that it is easy to discern who is a journalist and who is not.
“Everyone can see that it makes sense to include in some circumstances bloggers or people who reach a big audience through their tweets,” said Lord Anderson. However, he noted that if people who use informal blogs or social media to whistleblow are included in the journalistic carveout, the carveout would essentially include all citizens who are capable of doing so–which would entail it including all citizens. “This diminishes the necessity of a special protection for journalists at all,” he concluded. Bailin brought up famous leaks like the Pentagon Papers or Julian Assange and Wikileaks as moments when the line between private citizens and journalists has become blurred, but when protection of leakers has been essential.
Even in the case of traditional journalism, the new law could be harmful. Whistleblowing organised crime is essential, said Ginsberg, but it puts journalists at risk if police become involved. “If you’re whistleblowing on organised crime and you think the journalist you’re speaking to is not protecting you,” she said, “you might choose to take out that journalist.”
Kachroo explained that journalists refusing to co-operate with law enforcement in order to protect their sources, which sometimes come from deep within organisations like al-Qaeda, does not mean that journalists are pro-terrorism or should be prosecuted as such. Rather, source protection ensures that journalists maintain relationships within crime organisations and not endanger the people who help to undercut them, which could be thwarted by police intervention.
“We’re not on the side of terrorists because we don’t take sides, but that works both ways. We’re not working hand in hand with the state and we cannot be seen to be working hand in hand with the state,” he said. With legislation like the Counter-terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, he said that “there’s a sense of being co-opted into the police’s work, unwillingly, because of the increased use of production orders.”
Not only does this endanger the lives of journalists, but it defeats the purpose of journalism itself. What is investigative journalism if not the quest to uncover corruption wherever it might appear, even and especially if in the government itself? “One of the key roles that journalism plays within a democracy is to expose wrongdoing,” Ginsberg explained. By the end of the discussion, it was unclear if, in the presence of increasingly powerful terrorist legislation, journalism will continue to be able to serve that purpose.[/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:1560431923506-48684960-a6ff-1″ taxonomies=”8996″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Key trends:
This report looks at 116 incidents that Index on Censorship’s Monitoring and Advocating for Media Freedom project classified as threats, limitations or violations of press freedom in Russia between 1 February 2019 and 30 April 2019: 43 in February, 43 in March and 30 in April. The total number of reports collected by project correspondents represents a slight increase over the same period last year, during which 101 incidents were recorded.
In 2018, physical assaults, legislative measures, fines, intimidation and loss of employment were the most pressing obstacles to press freedom as reported by Mapping Media Freedom. So far in 2019, we have seen a rise in the number of fines, intimidation and physical violence against journalists, with an addition of lawsuits and legal measures, blocked access, and detention of media workers.
Index on Censorship’s Monitoring and Advocating for Media Freedom project documents, analyses, and publicises threats, limitations and violations related to media freedom in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine, in order to identify possible opportunities for advancing media freedom in these countries. The project collects, analyses and publicises limitations, threats and violations that affect journalists as they do their job, and advocates for greater press freedom in these countries and raises alerts at the international level.
The project builds on Index on Censorship’s 4.5 years monitoring media freedom in 43 European countries, as part of Mapping Media Freedom platform.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Targeting of newsrooms” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”106949″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]
“You’re going to die, small fry”
At 8.30am on 1 April 2019, the Yekaterinburg regional office of Kommersant, a national daily newspaper in Russia, was found to have been vandalised. The newspaper primarily focuses on political and business affairs. Sergey Plakhotin, the general director of the regional office, said that the cleaner had arrived to find the door to the office open. Plakhotin’s office, the chief editor’s office and the senior accountant’s office had all been vandalised; computers were on the floor and hard drives were missing. On his desk, Plakhotin found a note: “you’re going to die small fry”. Plakhotin believes that the door was opened with a key.
Within hours, police detained an unemployed 46-year old local man, who has been charged with “intentional damage to property”, which is punishable by up to five years in jail.
According to law enforcement, the suspect pleaded guilty, saying that he had committed the vandalism while under the influence of alcohol. He also told police that he had “personal motives” that were not in connection with Kommersant’s journalistic work. The individual was released but was barred from traveling.
However, Kommersant journalists didn’t rule out a possibility that the attack could be a retaliation for their award-winning new book Gang Catchers: The Meeting Point, which details the fight against organised crime in Yekaterinburg. Platokhin told Echo Moskvy radio that he wasn’t convinced about the connection to criminal syndicates, as the newsroom didn’t have any ongoing conflicts, and cited the time of year, namely vesennye obostreniye (“spring fever”) was likely to blame.
“Justifying Terrorism”
On 13 February 2019, police in Pskov raided the office of the local weekly newspaper, Pskovskaya Gubernia. Police confiscated a hard drive containing the next issue of the paper and, as a result, editors were forced to delay publication.
Editor-in-chief, Denis Kamalyagin, said that the raid was most likely a response to the newspaper’s support of journalist and previous contributor, Svetlana Prokopyeva. Prokopyeva is currently under investigation for allegedly “justifying terrorism” (a criminal offense in Russia) on her radio show. In October 2018, she discussed the causes of an explosion in the Federal Security Services office in Arkhangelsk.
Grani
On 25 March 2019, the opposition news outlet Grani was targeted. The glass doors of their office in Novocheboksarsk were smashed. The vandal has not been found and a motive has not been established. Random and seemingly baseless attacks create tension in newsrooms and feed the overarching atmosphere of hostility toward journalists in the country.
On 26 March 2019, a office block in Perm, which houses five different media outlets owned by holding company Mestnoye Vremya, had its electricity supply cut. Sources close to the owner of the facility, who is also head of the local branch of the ruling political party United Russia, said that he disliked a programme that had criticised his work that had aired on the Echo Moskvy affiliate owned by Mestnoye Vremya. However, the “official” account held that the electricity cut was related to rent arrears. Mestnoye Vremya partially paid the debt in April to avoid immediate eviction. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Restrictive laws” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”106950″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]
On 18 March 2019 Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a set of controversial bills that criminalises spreading “fake news” and bans online shows of “disrespect” against the government, its officials, society, and state symbols.
Fake news
Federal law from 18.03.2019 № 30-FZ on revision of the Federal law on information, information technologies and protection of information
For publishing “fake information of public value” private individuals could now face fines ranging from 30,000 ($462) to 100,000 rubles ($1,538), government officials – from 60,000 ($923) to 200,000 ($3,077) rubles, judicial entities – from 200,000 to 500,000 rubles ($7,695). Last-minute editions to the bill allowed registered mass media to promptly delete any material that was found to be “fake news” to avoid fines.
Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, pointed to harsh regulations toward fake news being enacted around the world, including Europe, in justification of why the legislation was introduced and signed by the president. He was referring to the laws compelling social media companies to remove hate speech and other illegal content in France and Germany. In April 2019, the UK government released a white paper that proposed a regulatory framework to address “online harms”, including disinformation.
Prior to Putin’s approval of the law, Mikhail Fedotov, chairman of the Russian Human Rights Council, asked Putin to send the legislation back for revisions and stated the use of the term “fake news” implied that the state possessed the knowledge of “absolute truth”, whereas truth is always relative.
Journalists also criticised the legislation. “It looks like in its current form the law is aimed at protecting the elites rather than protecting society. It becomes an instrument of pressure on the media”, RBC editorial board co-manager Elizaveta Golikova told Vedomosti newspaper. Golikova added that the lack of definition for “fake news” meant that it was inevitable that meaningful information and important news would be removed from the web.
On his radio programme on 16 March, Alexey Venediktov, editor-in-chief of Echo Moskvy, addressed the issue: “The main catch with these laws […] is that the decision will be made by one person – the prosecutor. It’s an extrajudicial decision… which will start ruining business for those who do it. It’s a zone for lawlessness and corruption. Because if I’d like to shut down our competitors at Mayak radio, I’d just pay a bribe. And the prosecutor will shut them down. And then they’ll struggle for two years to reopen”.
Disrespect of the government
The second new restrictive law bans online shows of “disrespect” against the government, its officials, society, and state symbols. To qualify as disrespectful an article, comment or post “…must not only show obvious disrespect and be made in an inappropriate form, but also insult human dignity and public morality” according to the law. The publication of such material could lead to snowballing fines: 30,000 -100,000 rubles for the first offense, up to 200,000 rubles or 15 days detention for the second, and after that 300,000 rubles ($4,615) fine or arrest.
This law was used for the first time on 2 April 2019. The general prosecutor’s office supposedly gave directions to the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, also known as Roskomnadzor, to force five Yaroslavl-based media outlets remove articles on graffiti that allegedly insulted President Putin. The graffiti (“Putin pidor”) suggested in an explicit form that Russian president was gay. Roskomnadzor called it preventive work.
Yaroslavl website Yarkub received an email demanding that they delete the article about the grafiti by midnight. Yarkub’s editor-in-chief later received a phone call from Roskomnadzor’s regional department. Yarkub saw the situation as an act of censorship. Another email from Roskomnadzor clarified that the article had to be deleted due to the new law about “disrespecting authorities” that came into force on 29 March, TJournal website reported.
Olga Prokhorova, the editor of another Yaroslavl-based media outlet, 76.ru, received five calls from Roskomnadzor with requests to delete a similar article about the graffiti. She was told by the officials that they were pressured “from far above” to prosecute media that published articles on the subject. However, the general prosecutor’s office denied any involvement, Interfax reported.
TJournal named five outlets that ended up deleting materials covering the graffiti: Echo Moskvy Yaroslavl, Yaroslavskiy Region, PRO Gorod, Pervyi Yaroslavskiy and Moskovskiy Komsomolets in Yaroslavl.
Another bill, approved by the Russian Duma in the first out of three readings on 2 April, includes potential fines for “unsanctioned” distribution of foreign press. Since 2017 foreign press distributors in Russia have had to seek official permission from state media regulator Roskomnadzor. The new bill classifies a violation of the law as an administrative offence, introduces fines of up to 30,000 rubles ($462) and decrees that the printed material will be seized.
It is not yet clear whether the bill would only address mass distribution or could be used to punish individuals who order a foreign magazine from abroad or bring one into the country on their return. The bill is reminiscent of the Soviet censoring mechanism, where most foreign press and literature was banned, and the limited quantities entering the country ended up in restricted sections of Russian state libraries – for official use only.
Reaction
The Russian president’s Human Rights Council published a resolution in which it called the laws “an obviously disproportionate restriction of freedom of speech and opinion”, and stated they “form a ground for arbitrary persecution of citizens and organizations”.
OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Harlem Désir said in a statement: “These laws allow for broader restrictions and the censorship of online journalism and online speech. The definitions of allegedly offensive content are vaguely worded and will impact freedom of expression”.
Despite the criticism and concerns about threats to freedom of speech raised by journalists, activists and the Human Rights Council, both laws passed. When asked about the laws, the Kremlin spokesperson said neither could be classified as “censorship.” [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Bomb threats” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”106951″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]In early February, the staff of the news outlet Gazeta.ru became victims of the “telephone terrorism” they had been covering. An anonymous, and ultimately a hoax, bomb threat forced the evacuation of the news outlet’s offices. Staff were unable to update the website or prepare articles for publication. Gazeta’s journalists said that the targeting of their organisation was tied into a national trend: in early 2019, more than 2 million people were forced to flee anonymous threats of explosives planted in shopping malls, railway stations and offices.
On 15 February 2019, Russkoye Radio, one of the biggest radio networks in Russia , and Zvezda TV were both forced to evacuate their offices . Staffers had to wait for bomb sniffing dogs and police to give them the all-clear before they could return to work. On that same day over 5,000 people at 10 different Moscow-based businesses were forced to leave their offices because of threats.
In mid-March state broadcaster VGTRK was the target. Twenty employees working in a film studio had to leave the premises because of an anonymous bomb threat received by email.
In none of the cases were any traces of explosives discovered, and the callers were not identified. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Terrorism charges” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”106954″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Svetlana Prokopieva, a Pskov bureau reporter for Echo Moskvy, was detained — and the radio station fined — on charges related to justifying terrorism in her show. During one of the programs she discussed the causes of an explosion in the Federal Security Services office in Arkhangelsk in October 2018.
Omsk journalist Viktor Korb fled Russia on 25 February 2019, becoming one of the dozens of journalists who have left Russia for fear of being prosecuted or because of threats to their lives. He was charged with “propaganda of terrorism” after publishing the last word of a blogger jailed for “calls to terrorism”, put under travel ban, and is now on the wanted list.
On 27 April 2019, armed police officers broke into an apartment in Makhachkala belonging to the parents of Alexandr Gorbunov, who was earlier named by RBC news outlet as author of a popular anonymous Telegram channel called Stalingulag. The channel is known for outspoken, often slangy criticism of the authorities. According to the channel, Gorbunov’s mother was interrogated for six hours.
According to Stalingulag, police wanted Gorbunov on suspicion of “phone terrorism”, related to a series of phone calls with bomb threats that turned out to be fake but caused mass evacuations in Moscow. “How original, before they used to just plant drugs”, the author commented in his Telegram channel, referring to a known tactic of criminal case fabrication against activists.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Press Freedom Violations in Russia” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]
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Censorship
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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”106589″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Every Saturday, for the past five months, thousands of people have gathered on the streets of Serbian capital Belgrade to voice their dissent against President Aleksandar Vučić’s authoritarian tendencies and increasing control over the country’s media.
“Initially the protests were named ‘Stop the Bloody Shirts’,” Serbian journalist Lazara Marinkovic said. “And this was a reaction to an incident that happened in one city in Serbia, where Borko Stefanaović, an opposition leader, was physically beaten.”
Stefanaović, who was attacked last November in Kruševac, is the president of the political party Serbian Left and a founder of opposition coalition Alliance for Serbia. His assault, in which a masked group of assailants armed with bats and steel bars beat him, led to a rally in Belgrade.
“These people were saying that the beating happened as a result of political violence that the opposition is exposed to,” continued Marinkovic. “After one or two weeks, our president vucic had a reaction to those protests. He said ‘even if five million people were on the streets, (he) wouldn’t concede to their demands.’”
This sparked the formation of protests dubbed “one in five million” – a name lifted directly from Vučić’s comment. Though it remains uncertain whether the ongoing rallies will bring about change, Mitra Nazar, a Balkans correspondent for Dutch public broadcaster NOS, says it is “important” for protesters to demonstrate their unhappiness with Vučić.
“At this moment it’s about showing presence in the street more than actually having the feeling that they could change something,” said Nazar, who currently lives in Belgrade.
“I don’t think anybody in these protests believes that this could turn around now, but they do see this as part of a bigger movement that could eventually grow into something substantial, that could challenge the ruling party at elections.”
The demonstrations are the biggest since the fall of former President Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 – though lack of coverage in mainstream Serbian media would suggest otherwise. With Vučić pushing for Serbia to join the European Union, his grip on the media has tightened in efforts to appear stable to Brussels.
“Vučić wants to be the person that brings Serbia into the EU,” continued Nazar, “and in Brussels Vučić is still seen as a leader who can guarantee stability in the Balkans, and someone who’s willing to negotiate about a solution for the frozen conflict in Kosovo.
“His critics say the EU does not pressure Vučić enough on topics like media freedom, whilst they see his control over the media getting stronger.”
The country’s public broadcaster RTS has been targeted by demonstrators who are critical of the outlet’s coverage of the protests. The opposition says that, although reporting is completely neutral, it fails to ask why such a huge amount of people gather outside its headquarters in Belgrade every week.
“They are being biased,” added Marinkovic. “There was an incident when people who were demonstrating went inside the (RTS) building.
“They say that they didn’t go inside violently but some violence did happen because there was a lot of police who started kicking them out. Many people will agree that if these people do something violent, or vandalise something, it would be immediately used against them.
“They are trapped in a way they cannot really radicalise their protest. Nobody listens, nobody cares. It’s just like an echo chamber basically.”[/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1556799282299-4d20cd01-70c2-7″ taxonomies=”7370, 113″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
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In this special edition of the Index on Censorship podcast, we celebrate the winners of the Freedom of Expression Awards 2019. Mimi Mefo, a leading voice in exposing the mistreatment of Cameroonian journalists, talks about press freedom in her country; Ritu Gairola, from Cartoonists Rights Network International, discusses why it is effective for cartoonists to use humour to convey political messages; Carolina Botero, from Fundación Karisma, reveals the online threats we should all know about; and Zehra Dogan*, a Kurdish painter and journalist, opens up about finding the courage to continue her work during her imprisonment.
Afterwards, we catch up with Terry Anderson, deputy executive director of CRNI, to learn more about threats to cartoonists worldwide.
The podcast can also be found on iTunes.
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