Index on Censorship, other international press freedom organisations and local Bahraini groups are among fifteen campaigners who today raised alarm over the suspension of Bahrain‘s only independent newspaper, Al Wasat, which has been barred from publishing for four days now. The nine rights groups which today wrote letters addressed to ten countries including the UK, state Bahrain is “effectively silencing the media in Bahrain and violating the right to freedom of expression.”
We are writing to urge your government to call on Bahrain to end the arbitrary suspension of Al Wasat newspaper. The Ministry of Information Affairs suspended Al Wasat, the only independent newspaper in Bahrain, on 4 June 2017, effectively silencing the media in Bahrain and violating the right to freedom of expression. The newspaper’s suspension comes after an escalation of reprisals against civil society, and the killing of five protesters by Bahraini police in May.
Al Wasat’s suspension is the latest in a recent spate of reprisals against independent media and civil society actors, including journalists, writers, and human rights defenders. In this context, journalists in Bahrain have expressed to NGOs serious concerns that the newspaper will not be allowed to resume publication.
The Bahrain News Agency reported “The Ministry of Information Affairs suspended Al Wasat newspaper until further notice following its recurrent violation of the law and spreading what would stir divisions within the community and undermine the Kingdom of Bahrain’s relations with other countries.” This accusation relates to an editorial about ongoing protests in Al-Hoceima, Morocco. Prior to the suspension of Al Wasat, Bahrain was already counted among the 20 most restrictive countries for press globally, with Reporters Without Borders ranking Bahrain as 164 out of 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index.
Bahrain’s print media consists of five major Arabic-language daily newspapers. Of these, four are strongly pro-government and are owned by figures associated with the government. Al Wasat is the exception. Established in 2002 during a period of reforms, Al Wasat takes a critical editorial line and is financially independent of the state. Its editor Mansoor Al-Jamri is winner of the CPJ International Press Freedom Award in 2011 and winner of the Peace Through Media Award 2012.
It is not the first time that Al Wasat has been suspended. In January 2017, the newspaper was barred for two days from publishing online, though the print version was allowed, following a front-page story on the executions of three individuals. All three individuals were torture victims who had been sentenced to death following unfair trials. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said it was “appalled” by the executions. In August 2015, the newspaper was shut down for two days, allegedly because they did not refer to Bahraini casualties in Yemen as “martyrs”. In April 2011, in the middle of the March-June 2011 State of Emergency, the government suspended Al Wasat for one day. Karim Al-Fakhrawi, a co-founder of Al Wasat, was arrested on 2 April 2011 and tortured to death in police custody.
The suspension of Al Wasat muzzles the media, unduly restricting the right to freedom of expression and opinion. As the only independent newspaper in Bahrain, its suspension removes a key voice for public discourse and denies the public the right to access information and diverse views. In the context of current, severe human rights violations occurring in Bahrain, calls for the resumption of the only independent newspaper and the respect for freedom of expression and opinion urgently need to be heard and acted on. We, the undersigned, urge your government to publicly call on the Government of Bahrain to allow Al Wasat to resume publication immediately.
Yours sincerely,
Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain
ARTICLE 19
Bahrain Center for Human Rights
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy
Committee to Protect Journalists
English PEN
European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights
French PEN Club
Gulf Center for Human Rights
Index on Censorship
Norwegian PEN
PEN International
Project on Middle East Democracy
Reporters Without Borders
Signing as an individual:
Dr. David Andrew Weinberg
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1496910031018-0b3e663a-8fff-7″ taxonomies=”716″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
The Sejm of the Republic of Poland, the lower house of the Polish parliament.
Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) has had a lot to celebrate in recent months. Just three days after the country’s 98th Independence Day, PiS celebrated one year in office on 14 November. The party, which has a majority in the Sejm, has had a largely free hand in making the “good changes” it had promised in its infamous electoral slogan.
These changes have included making the Polish constitutional court “submissive”, dismissing hundreds of journalists from the newly patriotic national – but no longer public – media, introducing limitations to the right to assembly and extending the state’s power of surveillance.
Far from incorporating these and other recommendations of Poland’s highest court into the surveillance reform, PiS allowed for all broadband lines to be tapped into directly without judicial oversight or the possibility for internet service providers to request more details as to the reasons for such activities.
Wojciech Klicki from the Polish anti-surveillance foundation Fundacja Panoptykon which is run by lawyer activists, told Mapping Media Freedom that the “most important issue has always been the lack of an institution that would check whether intelligence services are acting in accordance with the law” and that was only made worse through the surveillance act.
The anti-terrorism act which came into effect in late June enables unchecked surveillance of foreign nationals once the ABW — Poland’s internal security agency — establishes their possible ties to terrorism. It also allows for websites to be blocked for five days without prior judicial consent and up to 30 days thereafter, should they be deemed to disseminate terrorist content.
Klicki said: “This has enormous implications for media freedom. Fundamentally, the laws do not offer a precise delineation as to what constitutes a ‘connection to an event of terrorist character’. Such a connection may be an article reporting on an event. And the definition is very broad, not only including obvious events like a bomb attack but other common crimes, which were committed with the aim to direct public authorities towards a certain decision, for example through bribery.”
Klicki noted that a five-day ban of a website can mean its demise in times of fast data, as such an incident is likely to result in a withdrawal of advertisers.
As part of its campaign against the law, Fundacja Panoptykon set up a petition and took part in a public consultation specifically for NGOs and activists with the governmental human rights representative Adam Bodnar. Indeed, Polish authorities are hard-pressed to justify the severity of the law due to the country’s very low terrorist threat – in April, the British Foreign Office, stressed the danger of driving a car in Poland while emphasising the terrorist threat there was negligible compared to the European average. Aside from a “tiny tweak of the definition for the ‘event of terrorist character’” as Klicki noted, the law was enacted within two months of its announcement in late April, and ratified by the president, Andrzej Duda, on 22 June.
Of course, journalists can’t be immune from surveillance by their own country or foreign secret services and Polish journalists have had their fair share of encounters with their domestic Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA). The Gazeta Wyborcza journalist Bogdan Wróblewski won a case against the Bureau in 2013 which consequently had to apologise to him for tapping his telecommunication billings. The CBA’s reason for its ambitious investigation, it emerged during the trial, was to uncover Wróblewski’s and several other regime-critical journalists’ sources. The events took place under the former PiS government term.
Klicki assesses that the recent anti-terrorism laws only exacerbate the problem, especially for foreign journalists. Due to the changes, “journalists can have huge trouble to manage to adhere to their professional confidentiality in Poland”. Asked how Polish journalists make sure they are able to protect their sources, Klicki says they were “now becoming aware of how necessary it is to increase their know-how in the realm of secure communication”, by attending workshops on anonymity, which are offered by his foundation. There is also more information on secure communication online specifically for fixers.
The human rights representative Bodnar submitted the anti-terrorism law to the constitutional tribunal. However, the tribunal has effectively lost its status as an institution of checks and balances though the numerous legislative changes over the past year. Former judge of the tribunal, Andrzej Zoll, commented: “This is the end of a democratic rule of law.”
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship has for the past four decades published the work of censored writers and artists. Now we face the possibility of censorship thanks to a UK government law that means — as a publisher that refuses to sign up to a regulator approved by a state-created body — we could end up paying both sides in a legal dispute even if we ultimately win the case. The law, Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, as it stands is a danger to a free press.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner content_placement=”top”][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-times-circle” color=”black” background_style=”rounded” align=”right”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]
Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act is a direct threat to press freedom in the UK and must be scrapped.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]This part of the act, created as a response to the Leveson Inquiry into phone hacking, has been on the statute for three years but was not enacted because — until earlier this year — there was no approved regulator of which publishers could be part. That changed when Impress, a regulator to which so far only small local media publishers have signed up, was approved in October by the Press Recognition Panel (PRP). The PRP was established through an arcane state mechanism called a Royal Charter following the Leveson Inquiry. Having an approved regulator means Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act could now be brought into force and that we and many other small publishers could face crippling costs in any dispute, threatening investigative journalism or those who challenge the powerful or the wealthy.
Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act is a direct threat to press freedom in the UK and must be scrapped. The government is currently consulting the public on section 40.
Index has warned consistently of the dangers from the Crime and Courts Act.
1. Under s.40, or the “cost provisions”, in relevant media-related court cases, newspapers which are members of a recognised self-regulator are exempt from paying their opponents’ legal costs, even if they lost a case. The presumption would also mean that newspapers outside a recognised self-regulator must pay their own and their opponents’ legal costs, even if they win a case. The s.40 incentive is based on the fact that recognised self-regulators have to have a low cost arbitration scheme that replaces the need for court action.
2. Please provide the evidence that supports your view (max 250 words)
As a small, independent magazine publisher that is a “relevant publisher” of news-related material as per the definition provided in section 41 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 and that is not subject to any of the exemptions listed in Schedule 15, Index on Censorship faces the prospect of having to pay the costs for both sides if a claim is brought against us – even in a case we are ultimately successful in winning. This could potentially bankrupt the organisation, effectively silencing a magazine that has for the past 44 years dedicated its existence to the publishing of work by, and information about, censored writers and artists worldwide.
3. To what extent will full commencement incentivise publishers to join a recognised self-regulator? Please use evidence in your answer. (max 250 words)
Index on Censorship will not sign up to a regulator that has to be approved by a state-appointed body. Freedom of the press – including total freedom from any state involvement in regulation of the press – is the bedrock of a free and democratic society. Section 40 stands in direct opposition to this principle. Introducing punitive statutory penalties is not an incentive – it is a threat. Forcing publishers to join a recognised regulator or face the threat of punitive costs makes a mockery of the notion that the self-regulator is in any way voluntary.
We urge everyone to write to their MP and to Secretary of State Karen Bradley requesting its immediate repeal or to respond to the online consultation.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”Press Regulation” category_id=”8996″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
25 November: The Finnish prime minister, Juha Sipilä, pressured the national broadcasting company Yle by claiming they had published false information about him and acted unprofessionally.
Three journalists as Yle, who have chosen to remain anonymous, told Suomen Kuvalehti that at least two Sipilä stories were censored after receiving the emails. The Office of Parliamentary Ombudsman is investigating complaints that the prime minister has limited press freedom.
29 November: A motion to stop the sale of the Daily Mail, the Sun and the Daily Express at a Plymouth University shop was passed by the Plymouth University Student Union Executive Council.
The University of Plymouth Students’ Union-run shop will no longer carry these news outlets. “Whilst we believe that freedom of expression and speech are inalienable human rights… a number of British tabloids are known to express hateful views,” the union stated.
According to the union, the publications “demonise certain groups in society, such as immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, disabled people, the LGBTIQA+ community, Muslims, Black and Asian communities.”
The union further explained: “UPSU is a safe space in which any abusive language or behaviour is not tolerated. UPSU opposes hatred, discrimination…Because of these very values that we hold and we are proud of, we believe that it is unethical for us to profit out of the sale of hateful, non-factual and anti-scientific media platforms.”
These newspapers will not be banned from Plymouth University, students will still be able to access them online or from alternative stores.
30 November: A former presenter for the now closed pro-Kurdish outlet Özgür Gün TV, Müjgan Ekin, was abducted on 24 October, and there is still no news of her whereabouts.
While on her way to a friend’s house, Ekin was dragged into a police car by individuals who posed as police officers. There were multiple eyewitness accounts of the incident. The police officers told Ekin’s family that she was detained for being a suspected suicide bomber.
According the the Human Rights Association there doesn’t seem to be any official report of Ekin’s suspected detention.
There is a history of disappearances in Turkey’s Kurdish provinces: these disappearances peaked in the 1990s when Turkey’s security forces allegedly carried out extrajudicial executions.
1 December: István Tiborcz, the son-in-law for the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has requested through his lawyer that news outlet 444.hu takes down a video of him and to issue him a written apology because they used the footage without his consent.
Hír TV originally aired the video on 28 November. It was filmed from a distance and shows a Hír TV reporter speaking to Tiborcz on the street, asking him questions about his role in a company involved in real estate. Tiborcz responds with: “Why do you care?” He then proceeds to tell the reporter she is beautiful, and asks if she is married.
2 December: Dozhd cameraperson, Sergey Petrov, was detained on 2 December while investigating property illegally built on a nature preserve in the northern Caucasus.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, Putin’s personal chef, allegedly owns the property. While working on a report covering the property, Petrov and several environmental activists were detained in Kabardinka village by private security guards in a wooded area. According to Petrov’s wife, Irina Kovalenko, they were not trespassing on Prigozhin’s property.
The security guards deleted the information Petrov had gathered on his flash drive. Afterwards, Petrov and the activists were taken to the police station to give an explanation. They were later released.
