28 Aug 2024 | Asia and Pacific, India, News and features
On 1 April, less than a month before India went to the polls, a young YouTuber named Dhruv Rathee released a video calling India’s Hindu nationalist prime minister a dictator. Speaking in a loud, declamatory style, Rathee delivered fact after fact, laying out how Narendra Modi had tried to throttle Indian democracy. The video ended with an appeal to vote against the Prime Minister.
At the time of writing, Rathee’s harangue had garnered an incredible 37 million views on YouTube. This number does not capture the fact that many Indians would have viewed this video as a “forward” on WhatsApp. With an incredible 24.6 million subscribers, Rathee is the person Indians increasingly turn to when they want to consume current affairs. And he’s not the only one. Ravish Kumar, one of India’s most well-known journalists, now broadcasts on YouTube with nearly 12 million subscribers. These one-person YouTube channels frequently garner more views and subscribers than corporate-funded mainstream media channels.
For a decade now, India’s mainstream media has stopped doing the job it’s meant to do – holding the powerful to account. Using a mixture of carrot and stick, Modi has ensured his government has little to fear from traditional broadcasters or newspapers. The result: Indians are now increasingly turning to the internet for news and opinion. This trend is so significant that Modi is making increasingly desperate attempts to control what takes place online.
Throttling the press
As a wave of autocratic strongmen sweeps the world, arguably Modi leads the pack. The power he commands in India and the ideological changes he has made to the country have few parallels either globally or in India’s own history. The tactical keystone of this politics? Control over the country’s media.
In 2014, India’s Congress-led liberal coalition crashed to a defeat, bringing Modi to power. This loss was portended by loud television debates bashing the government over corruption, women’s safety and, most of all, so-called Muslim appeasement. Once he came to power, Modi had digested that hard political lesson and was determined to ensure that it would not happen to him.
This was relatively easy to do given the Indian media’s structure. Owned by large corporations who looked to curry favour with the government, India’s powerful national television channels bent over backwards for Modi. In 2022, NDTV, India’s last news network not seen to be pro-Modi was acquired: a billionaire who is not only seen as Modi’s close ally but one whose remarkable rise has been facilitated by his government. The change of NDTV’s ownership was like flipping a switch: the network simply stopped doing any critical reporting, leading to an exodus of its top journalists.
If not directly controlled through a proprietor, the Modi government can also influence media houses through ad spending. Oddly enough, the main source of advertising income for legacy media houses in India is the government. Previously, the Modi government has withheld ads from media houses seen as being critical of the government.
Carrot to stick
What happens if a media house does not bend to Modi? In that case, Indian law provides massive powers to the federal government to regulate and even ban television networks. In 2022 the Modi government peremptorily shut down a Malayalam-language news channel, MediaOne, citing “national security” as a reason. While the ban was later reversed by the Supreme Court, the action had a chilling effect on news networks, which simply cannot afford to be yanked off air overnight.
Starting in 2020, the Modi government employed even harsher provisions against a small, left-wing website called NewsClick. First, India’s severe money-laundering laws were deployed against the media outlet. Not satisfied, the government then charged it under India’s draconian terror legislation, which provides for long prison terms even before a court pronounces on the guilt of the accused. Newsclick’s founder, Prabir Purkayastha, found himself spending more than seven months in jail before the Supreme Court granted him bail.
Modi has not been shy of using similar tactics against the BBC. In 2023, the government launched income tax raids against the British broadcaster’s offices in Delhi after the network aired a documentary that was critical of Modi’s role as chief minister in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat.
All this creates a climate where outright violence against journalists is common. Since Modi took power 28 journalists have been killed. Reporters without Borders calls India “one of the world’s most dangerous countries for the media”.
Broadcast Bill
With the traditional media subdued, Modi is now swivelling his guns towards the internet. In 2023, the government released a new Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill looking to regulate television and OTT internet broadcasters. However, in 2024 a new draft significantly expanded the bill’s scope to include internet content creators, apparently driven by the critical role social media had played in the 2024 general election where Modi sustained considerable losses.Copies of this bill were circulated privately by the Modi government and then, just as abruptly, withdrawn.
Even as the exact status of the bill remains unclear – is this truly a withdrawal or a tactical retreat before the final charge? – the provisions in the 2024 draft version are a good pointer as to the scope of Modi’s ambitions when it comes to controlling India’s internet.
The 2024 draft bill, for example, demanded that content creators subject themselves to a draconian regulatory regime designed expressly to stifle free expression. The bill called for content creators to set up “content evaluation committees” which would need to approve the majority of content before it was broadcast (certain programmes such as news and current affairs programmes were exempt), appoint a grievance officer and join a government-approved “self-regulatory organisation” to address grievances as well as ensure compliance with the relevant codes that would be drafted by the government alone. A new Broadcast Advisory Council would have been created by the Indian government which would, in turn, sit above, these self-regulatory organisations.
The entire edifice is a marvel of Orwellian “red tape-ism”, not only bringing content creators under government regulation but making them pay for it themselves. This is significant since adherence to the relevant provisions in the bill would represent a significant, even crippling, cost for small outfits or individual content creators.
How successful has Modi been in his desire to curb free expression in India? While he has achieved a substantial number of his goals, it is credit to India’s democratic traditions that the country’s media has not bent in its entirety. While major media houses are unlikely to play their role as watchdog, independent media and even individual content creators have stepped in to do the job. In fact, the fierce criticism Modi faced when he released the draft of the Broadcast Bill is a fine example of how India’s democratic traditions are trying to push back against curbs to free speech. It is not insignificant that Modi withdrew the draft bill and has gone back to the drawing board on trying to control the internet.
22 Aug 2024 | Media Freedom, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Syria
Media freedom has been slowly dying in Syria since the Arab Spring, suffocated by a lack of regular funding and poor governance.
The rise of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party and Hafez al-Assad’s coup in 1970 led to state dominance over all its institutions, resulting in a media monopoly that supports the regime. State television and several official daily newspapers have controlled the media landscape for over 41 years.
A rare exception was the launch of the online news service Kulluna Shuraka (We Are All Partners) as a volunteer project in 2003. In 2006, the service expanded thanks to donations from Syrian figures, businessmen, and some grants.
The outbreak of popular protests in Syria in March 2011 resulted in a rare improvement in the country’s media landscape with a rash of alternative local newspapers such as Ain Al-Madina, Tamaddun, Kulluna Suriyun, Zaytun, Souriatna and Enab Baladi emerging, primarily funded by donations and financial support from international organisations.
The emergence of a range of non-state-controlled media and journalism sources allowed Syrians for the first time in decades to access news that the Assad regime sought to obscure and prevent from being broadcast.
That media freedom has been short-lived.
Over the past eight years, the Syrian media landscape has seen the closure of most of these independent media outlets due to a lack of funding – of those outlets listed above, only Enab Baladi continues to publish regularly, supported by many individual donations.
Kulluna Shuraka’s financial situation began to worsen in 2016, forcing the website to become volunteer-run again. The site ultimately closed in 2018, although its social media channels continue to be run by volunteers.
Ayman Abdel Nour, the former director of the Kulluna Shuraka website, points out that external funding entities in Europe, the USA and Canada usually provide support under explicit contracts, meaning that funding can often be withdrawn at short notice. In a conversation with the Monitoring Fund, Abdel Nour explained that some funders give just a month’s notice of funding ceasing and even just 24 hours in some cases. This has left many Syrian media outlets in difficult circumstances, with journalists suddenly finding themselves out of work despite ongoing financial commitments.
The newspaper Kulluna Suriyun which translates as We Are All Syrians faced a similar shortfall in funding. It was initially launched through individual donations and support from a fundraising entity of the same name. The funding stopped when this entity demanded that the newspaper act as its official spokesperson, according to journalist Hussein Bru, who managed it for several years. Later, Kulluna Suriyun received funding from a Danish organisation to cover printing costs and some expenses; this support was limited and focused on printing and salaries for some journalists in Turkey and Syria.
Bru noted that work continued for a long time with several colleagues working without payment. The highest fee he ever received was 450 euros. The newspaper ceased publication in 2018 due to a lack of financial support after it transitioned from a bi-monthly publication to a monthly magazine, a reality that many Syrian media outlets experienced as they faced similar challenges.
Syrian journalist and activist Alaa Muhammad says the drying-up of funding forces institutions to reduce their staff dramatically which results in a large number of journalists being made redundant at one time, affecting organisations’ ability to produce high-quality journalistic reports with accurate information, even if operations continue and they do not close their doors.
Muhammad believes this is a source of anxiety for many, as they live in a state of financial instability and constant worry about the future, which impacts their performance and their capacity for innovation and development. “This loss of funding might push institutions to seek alternative funding sources, which could be tied to specific agendas, making them operate according to these agendas instead of leveraging their independence,” she says.
This also has a psychological impact, she continues, as journalists face immense pressure to fulfil their duties amid resource shortages and job instability, negatively affecting their mental health.
Many workers at the closed media outlets received no financial compensation when they were made redundant and were subject to arbitrary dismissal. Several confirmed to Index that there are outstanding salaries that remain unpaid.
Journalist Khaled Abdel Rahman, who worked for a respected Syrian media institution, recounted that upon the closure of the institution, he was denied payment exceeding $1600. Abdel Rahman says many of his colleagues share the same plight.
Media activist Anas previously worked for Al-Jisr TV, which broadcast from Turkey for many years. When the channel was closed, the team was informed in advance and compensated for their years of service, but this is a rare occurrence in the Syrian media landscape.
Syrian journalist Rodi Hassou has also seen a noticeable decline in the number and quality of independent media projects and is worried about the loss of these critical voices.
Hassou believes that these media outlets represented fundamental pillars of the Syrian revolution and channels of communication between the international community and Syrians.
“The cessation of funding was not merely a financial loss; it was also a loss of the voices that reflect the realities and analyses of the revolution, serving to document history for future generations,” he says.
The closure of Orient TV and the Kulluna Shuraka website signified the loss of important voices that conveyed the suffering of Syrians. He says, “These outlets witnessed and participated in narrating the story of the Syrian people’s struggle against oppression, courageously covering the events of the revolution from the very beginning. ”
Hassou considers the loss of these outlets as a turning point in the Syrian media landscape, where the voice of the Syrian people has become increasingly faint.
5 Aug 2024 | News and features, United Kingdom
Two UK photo-journalists have recently been arrested while covering an ecological protest and a pro-Palestine demonstration, in the latter case prior to the protest even taking place. The arrests, which come despite the police having been reprimanded for a similar series of ‘unlawful’ arrests of journalists covering protest actions in 2022, have raised fresh concerns over heavy-handed police tactics targeting the press.
“Police over-reach poses real harms to the perception of journalists’ roles, particularly in public order situations, and therefore poses real risks to their safety,” National Union of Journalists (NUJ) general secretary Michelle Stanistreet told Index. “Of particular concern… are instances where the UK Press Card Authority press card has been shown to officers and been dismissed, where journalists have been arrested and the equipment they rely upon for their livelihood seized.”
Guy Smallman, a veteran photojournalist and NUJ member whose coverage of protest activity appears throughout the UK press, was arrested on 25 June for aggravated trespass while standing on what he says was a public footpath, covering an ecological protest at a boating lake near former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Yorkshire residence. He has since been released on bail, with the police retaining £14,000 worth of camera equipment. He has not been charged.
“The police are using criminal powers which don’t apply to [journalists], vindictively harassing people like us for covering issues they find embarrassing,” Smallman said.
It’s not an isolated incident. Martin Pope, a British Association of Journalists (BAJ) member, spent 20 years working for the Daily Telegraph and has also contributed photography to The Guardian, The New Yorker and The Sunday Times. In April 2024, he was swept up in a pre-emptive arrest of protesters planning to target an arms company implicated in Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza.
“Police came flying into the house,” he said, referring to the home of one of the protesters, where they had all gathered prior to the demonstration. “I identified myself as a journalist, but it didn’t make any difference.”
As noted by both of the veteran photojournalists, who work as freelancers rather than being employed by a newspaper, their arrests suggest that lessons have not been learned following a controversy where police were forced to apologise for what they admitted were ‘unlawful’ and excessive arrests directed by senior officers, targeting journalists documenting Just Stop Oil protests, including LBC reporter Charlotte Lynch.
Pope was himself previously arrested at the end of 2023 and held for 18 hours, before being released without charge. Police wrongly asserted that he was directly involved in the Palestine Action protest he was covering as a journalist.
When asked for comment on Pope’s latest arrest, Avon and Somerset police said: “The arrests were made with the purpose of attempting to prevent criminality… We fully appreciate the important role journalists have in documenting and reporting real-time events. Officers receive training to ensure the media are able to carry out their work fairly and without hindrance.”
North Yorkshire police did not respond to requests for comment on Smallman’s arrest.
Both arrests point to a concerning new range of tactics being applied to journalists covering protest activity in the UK.
“It is right that journalists act on information shared by sources including on the location of protests and any suggestion that doing so could risk detention must be condemned and rejected by all who support and value a free press,” Stanistreet said.
Yet in both of the recent arrests, police cited the journalists’ foreknowledge of the time and place of the protests as evidence of direct implication in the protest activity.
“The police said: if you’ve got a tip-off, you’re obviously part of the [protest] team,” Pope said. His detention marks the first time a journalist has been detained during a wave of recent pre-emptive arrests, a tactic which London’s Metropolitan Police have declared they plan to use more frequently in response to ongoing protests over a range of hot-button political and social issues.
There are also particular concerns around the police’s disregard for both journalists’ press cards. When Pope attempted to identify himself as a journalist, he was told: “Maybe you’re just an activist with a press card.”
Pope said: “But I’m not trying to be anonymous – I don’t have a balaclava! I’m not at all secretive about what I’m doing.”
Smallman faced similar treatment, saying he identified himself as a journalist but was arrested regardless.
There’s a parallel with prior arrests. In 2022, photojournalist Tom Bowles tried to show officers his press card and was detained anyway. Despite subsequent apologies, Smallman reports that the arresting police in his case had “no idea what journalistic privilege was”.
A final issue of key concern highlighted by the NUJ is the confiscation of equipment from both journalists, preventing them from carrying out future work. Though the investigation into Pope was ultimately dropped he also spent months under restrictive bail conditions further prohibiting his ability to work and earn a living. The statement given by police notes that “items belonging to the journalist, including camera equipment, laptop and a mobile phone have been returned. No material stored on them was downloaded or recorded in evidence.”
Smallman, whose equipment was also confiscated, has already raised money through crowd-funding to replace his confiscated equipment, and promises to donate the new gear to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate once he receives his own equipment back from the police.
Pope and Smallman both said that arresting officers also demanded they hand over their phone passwords, raising further concerns over attempts to access confidential journalistic material. Smallman was threatened with a five-year jail sentence if he didn’t comply and hand over his passcodes, using a little-known and far-reaching police power. To Smallman, the police are “using criminal powers which don’t apply to [journalists], vindictively harassing us for covering stuff they find embarrassing”.
Stanistreet agrees, saying: “We have been vocal on the chilling effect caused by the targeting of journalists and continue to condemn the harm to media freedom where public interest journalism is impeded because of the wrongful use of police powers.”
In their most recent review of press freedoms in the UK, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) cited the 2022 arrests of journalists as demonstrating a continued “lack of pluralism” and “restrictive political climate” in the UK. The recent arrests add further weight to these concerns. What Smallman calls an attempted, “gradual erosion of any kind of [press] impartiality” by the UK police has not yet been halted by public, professional and union opposition to the harassment and detention of professional journalists. It is vital that journalists are allowed to report safely, without the risk of arrest weighing on their minds.
19 Jul 2024 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Syria
On a summer evening in June 2000, the Syrian official television channel interrupted its regular broadcast and announced the death of the country’s then President Hafez al-Assad.
The screen turned black, declaring a 40-day official mourning period, during which television viewers were subjected to programmes about the accomplishments and heroism of the deceased president.
News was all but suppressed for weeks. Added to that, it later became clear that the president had been dead for some time before it was even reported on TV.
Mohamad Mansour, editor-in-chief of the al Arabi al Qadeem website and a former employee of Syrian television said: “We must remember the state of confusion and caution that prevailed at that time. Media workers hesitated until they received orders to announce the death; I even remember one department head at the television channel presenting a film about animals, leading to his dismissal as the authorities considered it an insult to Assad.”
Delaying the announcement of disasters, misfortunes, and deaths had been the standard approach by the Syrian regime for decades, but when Assad’s son Bashar replaced his father that changed: the rapid dissemination of news, even about people in government inner circles, became the norm.
And now, it’s changing again. Controlling when and how news is released is increasingly becoming the norm and some are suggesting this is an ominous sign of growing Russian influence in state affairs.
The latest sign of this was when the president’s closest adviser, Mrs Luna Al-Shibil, was involved in a car accident. She died from her injuries a few days later. While the Syrian independent media waited only a few hours to announce the accident involving Al-Shibil, it was days later before her death was officially confirmed by the government.
Journalist and activist Mostafa Al-Nuaimi believes that the Syrian regime today is resorting to a policy of denial just as it did in the past.
He told Index, “With the presence of social media and the presence of international intersections and multiple decision-making circles within its state, it sometimes has to disclose information that does not align with the mentality with which it governs the country. ”
Al-Nuaimi, who has closely followed the Arab Spring revolutions, believes that this all heralds a new phase of “eliminations” within the regime’s institutions is coming, driven by foreign influence.
He said the regime’s tactics in dealing with these eliminations will not change. “This is through denial in the first phase, followed by disseminating information through parallel media outlets, and then the official announcement through official media outlets. This is what happened with Luna Al-Shibil.”
As rumours circulate about the cause of Al-Shibil’s death, Al-Nuaimi says there were “claims she was sending information about the issue of the Iranian militias in Syria and its implications on the Syrian regime, and based on that, she was removed and completely dismissed.”
Syrian journalist Ahmad Primo, director of the Verify fact-checking platform, said, “I do not want to delve into the cause of death or illness because that is a separate discussion, especially since the regime has a long history in this regard.”
Primo did not notice any particular delay in announcing her death, regardless of its causes.
Primo said, “the announcement was quick, even if indirect, through the Presidency’s account on X.” However, no such announcement was made on official state television.
Announcements about the health of the President’s wife Asma also seem to have changed, perhaps to take the focus away from the eliminations. London-born Asma was diagnosed with leukaemia in May this year, following a successful recovery from breast cancer discovered in 2018.
Primo said, “The regime’s media machinery has taken a direct announcement approach since the start of military intervention [in Ukraine], especially given Russia’s involvement in all [Syrian] state details”.
He added: “I will not delve into the topic of conspiracy but I believe the regime seeks to gain credibility for what it publishes by pre-empting other media outlets.”
There is also the matter of the news that is never announced. Primo says that there is a lot of news about senior figures that is not officially announced but only becomes known to the media through leaks.
After nine years of Russian military intervention in Syria, observers believe that President Putin has achieved a large part of his goals. He has an effective strategic and military presence on the shores of the Mediterranean (huge Russian military bases have been built there), and President Bashar al-Assad has become a supporter of his war in Ukraine even if that support is only in the media.
In a recent television interview, the Syrian president expressed his confidence that Russia would “emerge victorious” from the conflict in Ukraine and would once again “unite the two brotherly peoples”.
Egyptian journalist Hossam Al-Wakeel, editor-in-chief of fact-checking website Tafnied, said: “The official discourse is a fundamental means by which governments deliver information and form perceptions and concepts among the public and the different parties associated with the state.”
He added: “The official discourse must be responsible and transparent, but reality often does not align with this for many governments.”
He continued: “In the Syrian case…this pattern, if it has changed, should be linked to the political process managed by the regime at present, and the evolving nature of its relations and negotiations with the international community and with Russia.”
The delay or otherwise in making announcements by the regime is about political management and appeasing allies.
“There are potential gains [to be had] from accelerating the announcement of crises or disasters,” says Al-Wakeel, who says that Bashar al-Assad will be considering the internal situation as well as changes in the level of international engagement with the Syrian issue in light of the war in Ukraine and the war in Palestine to explore how best to take advantage.
As Russia consolidates its military grip on the country, its grip on the media appears to be tightening too.
