27 Apr 12 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
A prominent Honduran TV presenter was murdered on Monday morning. Noel Alexander Valladares, host of popular show El Tecolote (“The Owl”) on Maya TV, based in Tegucigalpa, was shot as he left the station. Eyewitnesses report that four men jumped out of a white van and opened fire on the journalist and his companions. Valladares was accompanied by his uncle and bodyguard, who were also killed in the attack, and his wife and co-presenter was seriously injured. Valladares is the third journalist to be killed in Honduras this year.
27 Apr 12 | Sub-Saharan Africa
“The press in Sudan is going through the most intense crackdown,” said Adil Color, a writer and editor at Al-Midan newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP). “If we publish an issue [of the newspaper] that is critical and includes topics the government is uncomfortable with — such as the conflicts in Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan — they punish us by confiscating our next issue.”
Al-Midan’s print run has been confiscated on four different occasions in the last month, most recently on 24 April, but the newspaper remains defiant. For many years it has had to be distributed underground when the SCP was a banned in Sudan. The tabloid’s byline now reads “daily newspaper, but temporarily published on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday”.
In a recent contribution to the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Blog, a Sudanese journalist and activist, Abdelgadir Mohamed Abdelgadir, claimed that the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) confiscates independent newspapers as a way of censoring the press.
This strategy, believes Abdelgadir “focuses on economic impoverishment — leaving newspapers more vulnerable than ever.” Most newspapers in Sudan generate income from newspaper sales and advertisements, but independent newspapers that publish daring reports like Al-Midan and Al-Ayam depend on selling the few thousand copies they print, being unable to afford large print runs.
“Al-Midan does not get any advertisements from government companies like other newspapers, and private companies fear repercussions, so they also do not approach us for advertising,” said Color.
The “vulnerability” referred to in CPJ’s blogpost is best seen when editor-in-chiefs are pressured into making decisions for the benefit of the newspaper and the dozens of employees . When the Al-Jareeda newspaper was confiscated on 27 and 29 March because it wouldn’t stop publishing the daily columns by Zuhair Al-Siraj, a Canada-based Sudanese columnist who is critical of the government in his writings, the financial losses forced the newspaper’s management to cancel the column.
“Newspapers are not really given a choice, they can continue publishing as long as they do not allow certain journalists to write,” said Salih Mahmoud, a lawyer who is part of the newly-established Sudanese Council to Defend Rights (SCDR).
Starting this Tuesday, another writer, Heydar Al-Mokashy, will not be able to write for a week.
Mahmoud points out that the topics the state considers red lines are usually national issues that touch upon the future of the country. The booby-trapped subjects include: the wars in Blue Nile, Southern Kordofan and Darfur, and human-rights abuses but the list of banned topics grows every day.
Alawia Mukhtar, a journalist at the Al-Sahafa newspaper was moved from the patch she used to cover, South Sudan, after the paper’s management began receiving text messages from the NISS demanding it remove and/or halt the publication of any news about South Sudan.
“I cannot write about South Sudan because I can’t publish the opinions of sources from there, ” says a frustrated Mukhtar, who claims she has been accused of being part of the banned political party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North Sudan Faction, (SPLM-N) because her writings introduced her to many SPLM-N sources.
Recently, the speaker of parliament and a well-known Sudanese official both said that any journalist who interviews a source from a rebel movement is betraying his nation. Sudan’s Vice-President, Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, has spoken about a fifth column that is under scrutiny in light of the current clashes between Sudan and South Sudan, accused of spreading rumours that there is a lack of petroleum and other needs as war looms. Mukhtar thinks they are referring to journalists and that this is a direct threat.
From her perspective, Muktar feels trapped in a world where a text message sent to her boss, the editor-in-chief, can deem a story she worked on for hours “unpublishable”, but at least she is still able to see her byline in print.
Mujahid Abdullah has worked as a journalist since he graduated from university. From 2005, he was published in four different newspapers and was a well-known name until he was banned from writing in all print newspapers in Sudan. Abdullah says: “The ban came about 20 days ago, I feel like I was confiscated along with my pen, I’m waiting to be returned to the newsstand.”
Abdullah’s last job was writing for Alwan, a newspaper that was suspended for about 2 months from January to March this year. “I feel like my civil and constitutional rights and my right to make a living were taken away from me,” he adds.
The decision to ban him from writing was delivered orally, as are many NISS decisions. When newspapers are forced to kill stories or an edition is confiscated the message is normally delivered by an NISS officer talking directly to the editor-in-chief or in a short and succinct phone call.
In theory, the NISS does not have the power to confiscate newspapers, or to ban a newspapers and journalist or in fact, carry out any act against the press. If it believes that a certain journalist of newspaper is impacting national security, the security apparatus should file a complaint at the Press and Publications Council, the only body responsible for all print media.
“When we asked the Press and Publication Council about our case, they said the NISS does not tell us when they carry out such things,” says Adil Color.
Reem Abbas is a Sudanese freelance journalist. She has been published in Inter-Press Service (IPS), IRIN news, the Women International Perspective, (the WIP), Menassat and daily Sudanese newspapers. She tweets at @ReemShawkat
26 Apr 12 | Azerbaijan News, Europe and Central Asia, Index Reports, News and features
Last week Azerbaijani journalist and Index award-winner Idrak Abbasov was brutally assaulted. As members of the international press apply for visas to cover the Eurovision Song Contest, local journalists continue to face attacks and intimidation. Celia Davies reports
The first photos of Idrak Abbasov were met with confusion and fear. The well-known Azerbaijani journalist was lying unconscious on the ground, his right eye swollen and black, his face bloodied. He was still wearing his luminous yellow press jacket. Later photos showed him in hospital, where he lay unconscious for close to six hours.
Abbasov is still in hospital, suffering two broken ribs, three fractured ribs, cranial trauma, and damage to his right eye. One week on from his attack, his vision is blurred and the full extent of his head trauma remains unknown. He will not be discharged for at least another two weeks.
Less than a month ago, Abbasov was in London, collecting the Index on Censorship award for investigative journalism. Reflecting on the increasing restrictions on Azerbaijan’s struggling independent media, Idrak acknowledged that “For the sake of this right [to the truth] we accept that our lives are in danger, as are the lives of our families”.
On his return to Baku, he continued his work, heading out on 18 April to film the second round of demolition work in a residential area close to one of Baku’s numerous oilfields. Behind the demolition is the powerful state oil company SOCAR, which says the housing is illegal; the residents say they bought the land in good faith. When Abbasov began filming, SOCAR employees violently assaulted him. According to eyewitnesses the police looked on.
The other journalists at the demolitions, including Gunay Musayeva of Yeni Musavat newspaper and two cameramen for local media freedom NGO the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS), have spoken about the chaos at the scene. Musayeva was also attacked by guards but did not require hospitalisation; the taxi the cameramen arrived in had its windscreen broken, but the men inside were unhurt.
Abbasov was visited in hospital yesterday (25 April) by a group of SOCAR officials, who told him they would be leading an investigation into the incident – the Binagady Police Department has also launched a criminal case based on charges of hooliganism, to which Abbasov objects. “This wasn’t hooliganism; this is an Article 163 case, obstruction of the lawful activities of a journalist.”
A statement issued by the local EU delegation in response to Abbasov’s assault declared the incident “yet another example of unacceptable pressure [to which] journalists in Azerbaijan are exposed”.
This brutal attack comes as members of the international press are applying for visas to come to Baku for the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest in May. The Azerbaijani Prime Minister has promised Eurovision organisers that international journalists will be free to carry out their work; the day before the SOCAR incident, President Ilham Aliyev himself declared to the Cabinet of Ministers that freedom of expression in Azerbaijan is guaranteed.
The day after the incident, the Ministry of Internal Affairs released a statement reporting that “200-250 residents of the settlement beat and injured [SOCAR] employees”, naming Abbasov as “a local resident”. The Azerbaijani Human Rights Ombudsman also visited him in hospital, and has called for a full and objective investigation. In a separate press release, the Presidential Administration condemned the violence, but deemed it unrelated to Abbasov’s professional activity. The Department Chief there supported statements by SOCAR claiming that the journalists had not been wearing press jackets – in the face of photo evidence to the contrary – and finished with a warning to media representatives: “journalists covering such actions must wear special clothes, [and] must not interfere in the process.”
Amidst these competing versions of events, the president’s confident assurances remain largely at odds with an often hostile reality, and international journalists are advised to be vigilant about their personal security, as well as the safety of any local staff – fixers, drivers, and so on – with whom they are working.
When asked, Abbasov said that his attack should not deter the international media from covering the event. Emin Huseynov, Chairman of IRFS, one of Abbasov’s employers, echoed his advice:
Write about Eurovision. But be aware there is a darker, sadder story behind the shiny buildings and expensive shops that will continue when the singing is over.
With seven journalists already in jail and the dust only just settling following the high profile attempted blackmail of leading investigative reporter Khadija Ismayilova, independent media outlets and NGOs are starting to worry about what will happen after Eurovision, once Azerbaijan is no longer under the international spotlight. Many fear that there will be a backlash against all those who have spoken out against human rights and free expression violations – and that once Eurovision is over, Azerbaijan will drop off the international agenda.
Celia Davies is Program Development Manager at the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety in Baku, Azerbaijan
