25 Jun 15 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, Europe and Central Asia, News and features
Rahim Haciyev, editor of Azerbaijani newspaper Azadliq, holds up a copy at the 2014 Index awards (Photo: Alex Brenner for Index on Censorship)
Index award-winning newspaper Azadliq, widely recognised as one of the last remaining independent news outlets operating inside the country, is facing imminent closure. This comes amid an ongoing crackdown on critical journalists and human rights activists in Azerbaijan, and as the country is hosting the inaugural European Games in the capital Baku.
A statement from the paper, quoted Thursday on news site Contact, outlined its “difficult financial situation”.
“If the problems are not resolved in the shortest possible time, the publication of the newspaper will be impossible,” it read.
“The closure of an independent media outlet like Azadliq, which Azerbaijani officials have suffocated over the past two years, flies in the face of repeated assurances from President Ilham Aliyev that his government respects press freedom. The fact that this financial crisis is occurring during the Baku European Games just underlines the shameful disregard that the Azerbaijani government has for freedom of expression,” said Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg.
Azadliq has long faced an uphill battle to stay in business. Thursday’s statement merely detailed the latest development in a serious financial crisis, brought about at the hands of Azerbaijani authorities.
In July 2014, Azadliq was forced to suspend print publication. Editor Rahim Haciyev told Index that the government-backed distributor had refused to pay out the some £52,000 it owed the paper, which meant it could not pay its printer.
The paper has also seen its finances squeezed through being banned from selling copies on tube stations and the streets of Baku, and being slapped with fines of some £52,000 following defamation suits in 2013. The paper was also evicted from its offices in 2006 and its journalists have been repeatedly targeted by authorities. Seymur Hezi, for instance, was in January sentenced to five years in prison for “aggravated hooliganism” — charges widely dismissed as trumped up and politically motivated.
Azadliq — meaning “freedom” in Azerbaijani — has appealed to the public for help to stay afloat, urging “those who defend the freedom of speech in Azerbaijan” to join in the campaign to save the paper.
This comes after the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) condemned “the crackdown on human rights in Azerbaijan”. In a resolution adopted on Wednesday 24 June, PACE called on authorities to “put an end to systemic repression of human rights defenders, the media and those critical of the
government”.
This article was posted on 25 June, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
24 Jun 15 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, Poland
Journalist Lukasz Masiak, founder of news site NaszaMlawa.pl, was murdered on 14 June 2015. (Photo: NaszaMlawa.pl)
Journalist Lukasz Masiak, founder of news site NaszaMlawa.pl, was attacked and killed in Poland on 14 June 2015. Masiak, who had been subject to numerous threats believed to be connected to his work, died of traumatic brain injury after being assaulted, according to TVN24.
Launched in 2010, NaszaMlawa.pl covers Mlawa, a town of about 30,000 in the north central part of Poland. Masiak’s site reported on several controversial issues, including the dealings of local businessmen, drug use involving participants of the local mixed martial arts league, incidents involving Roma citizens in the area and the botched investigation into the death of a young woman. He received death threats following the latter story.
The attack on 31-year-old Masiak took place in the bathroom of a local establishment at about 2am on 14 June. Police have issued an international arrest warrant for Bartosz Nowicki, a 29-year-old mixed martial arts fighter. Two people who were earlier detained have now been released. Police consider them witnesses to the incident.
Masiak had previously received threats over the phone and through the mail, local media reported. In December 2014, he was sent his own obituary. In January 2014, he was the victim of a physical assault in near his home, in which he said he had also been tear gassed.
“It certainly was not a robbery.” Masiak said at the time. “It was a person who was waiting for me. For sure it was about posting reports on the portal.”
Though the journalist had reported incidents to the police, there had been no arrests by the time of his murder.
Alicja Śledziona, police spokesperson for the region of Mazowieckie, said that the department had received two complaints from the journalist. Masiak had told the department that the January and December 2014 incidents could have been related to his reporting, including one about a traffic accident. She said both cases were treated very seriously, but investigators were unable to tie the incidents to individuals.
The killing has been met with widespread condemnation from press unions and media freedom organisations.
“Media workers in Europe are facing an increased level of violence as they do their jobs. We call on the European Union and governments across the continent to mount a concerted effort to protect press freedom and the lives of media workers by aggressively pursuing threats of violence against journalists,” said Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg.
“Index has been tracking threats to journalists across Europe for more than a year, through our Mapping Media Freedom project, and have noted a worrying trend of violence towards the sector. Around the world, there have been 54 murders of journalists so far this year. It shouldn’t have to take another death to make protecting journalists a priority at the highest levels of government,” Ginsberg added.
The crime was condemned by the Press Freedom Monitoring Centre of the Association of Polish Journalists. The body wrote to Polish Interior Minister Teresy Piotrowskiej, criticising the failure of state authorities to provide him with “elementary security”.
Mogens Blicher Bjerregård, president of the European Federation of Journalists, shared his organisation’s condolences with Masiak’s family and demanded an “effective investigation in order to find and prosecute the responsible perpetrators for this horrible crime”. EFJ, along with Reporters Without Borders, is partnered with Index on the Mapping Media Freedom project.
Dunja Mijatović, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, strongly condemned the killing and expressed her condolences to Masiak’s family and colleagues. “This is a tragedy and a horrific reminder of the dangers journalists face around the world,” Mijatović said. “Journalists are increasingly targeted because of their profession and what they say and write, and this trend has to stop.”
Mapping Media Freedom
Click on the bubbles to view reports or double-click to zoom in on specific regions. The full site can be accessed at https://mappingmediafreedom.org/
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This was posted on 24 June 2015 at indexoncensorship.org
04 Jun 15 | Events
Photo: Thomson Reuters Foundation
Six months after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, journalists face more threats than ever before, from harassment to imprisonment to murder – since the beginning of the year, 50 journalists have been killed.
While some countries, like Norway, have scrapped blasphemy laws to strongly assert freedom of speech, others such as the UK are increasing state surveillance and censorship to “protect citizens from violence”. How can international law protect journalists in this challenging and unique context? Is it possible to strike a balance between security concerns and freedom of expression? Is the right to free speech an absolute one?
Join the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Reporters Without Borders and Paul Hastings LLP for a panel debate featuring:
- John Lloyd, Reuters Institute and Financial Times
- Prof Timothy Garton Ash, Oxford University
- Sylvie Kauffmann, Le Monde
- William Bourdon, Paris Bar and Association Sherpa
- Jodie Ginsberg, Index on Censorship
When: Monday 29 June, 6:00pm (followed by drinks reception & canapés)
Where: Edelman, London, SW1E 6QT (Map/directions)
Tickets: Free, book here
#FreeSpeechDebate
04 Jun 15 | Europe and Central Asia, Ireland, mobile, News and features
“Where would we be in Ireland if four million people had to make public all their banking relationships?” tycoon Denis O’Brien asked in an Irish Times opinion piece last week. It is a more interesting question than I suspect O’Brien meant it to be. The Irish economy suffered heavily from the nods, winks, strokes carried on behind closed doors throughout the 90s and 2000s, and perhaps a little more transparency, a touch more daylight shed on banking matters, would have been for the good.
O’Brien, owner of a large central plain of Ireland’s media landscape, was writing for one of the newspapers he didn’t own amidst a controversy surrounding his own private banking relationships, specifically his relationship with the state-owned Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC).
Independent TD Catherine Murphy had made allegations in the parliamentary chamber regarding the interest rate Mr O’Brien had been given on a €500m loan from IBRC. The loan related to the purchase of Siteserv, a major recycling firm.
O’Brien, on learning about Murphy’s remarks, apparently while breakfasting in Haiti, was incensed by what he saw as a blatant breach of privacy, and immediately instructed his lawyers to seek an injunction on the reporting of the Dáil speech, which they duly won. “It was one of those nanosecond decisions,” O’Brien wrote, in an article brimming with indignation. Those who criticised the injunction were engaged in nothing less that a witch hunt: “I have never experienced the level of abuse, venom and hatred resulting from taking a stand to protect privacy in relation to my financial affairs.” He then signed off, oddly: “I will always be proud to be Irish, optimistic and a republican with a small ‘r’.” Good to know, Denis.
Actually, that last statement is worth looking at: in spite of it all, in spite of all the slings and arrows, in spite of the insufferability of this stupid, petty, greasy-till fumbling little country, O’Brien will not abandon Ireland. He is proud, he is optimistic, he is a republican, but not too republican. We are lucky to have him.
This language was echoed by his spokesman James Morrissey, who told RTE’s Keelin Shanley that, frankly we were lucky to have O’Brien. “I think it’s important to mention, and it would be a celebratory fact if it was an IDA-backed [state-assisted] company, but Denis O’Brien employs in and around 10,000 people both directly and indirectly in this country and he’s entitled to invest and he’s entitled to have his leading bid for a company accepted.”
In Ireland, you see, wealth and employment are articles of faith, and they should not be questioned lest they melt into air.
I am not even going to attempt to get into the exact details of O’Brien’s finances. The injunction on reporting was “clarified” earlier this week, and as a result, you can now read articles such as this one on The Journal, which was removed after the injunction was initially granted, reporting on Murphy’s speech.
No, these are not the business pages and others will report on the ins and outs better than I. What concerns us here are two factors: parliamentary privilege, and the public interest.
First of all, parliamentary privilege: that is, the right to speak without hindrance in parliament, and the right for the press to report what is said in parliament.
While O’Brien’s spokesman Morrissey may have dismissed the Dáil as a “talking club”, it’s absolutely crucial to a democracy that elected representatives can make their representations fearlessly. Lord knows it doesn’t happen enough, but we should be encouraging it.
Almost six years ago in Britain, in an important moment for the free press, democracy and justice, The Guardian took on metals and energy company Trafigura when it attempted to stifle reporting of an internal document on a waste spill. On that occasion, Carter-Ruck attempted to stop the papers from reporting a parliamentary question from Paul Farrelly MP on the issue. Trafigura and its lawyers backed down on their injunction just hours before The Guardian was due to appeal. It was an important moment, not just in upholding the principle of parliamentary privilege, but also in proving its worth (it should be noted that some idiotic things can also be done under the mantle of parliamentary privilege, but the good rather outweighs the bad).
Returning to present-day Ireland, here’s the transcript where O’Brien’s spokesman called the nation’s parliament a “talking club”:
Shanley: [W]hat relevance is it how many people [O’ Brien] employs in this country? I mean we’re talking here about press freedom. We’re talking about somebody with huge power, who owns half of the media and is preventing the other half from reporting…”
Morrissey: “No I think you’re missing my point. I was just saying when [opposition parliamentarian] Billy Kelleher talks about powerful people. A powerful person has the same rights as a person who’s not powerful and that is a democratic right to their good name and reputation and not to have it sullied in the Dáil. And I think, to be brutally blunt about it, the Dáil is a bit of a talking club. They want their own rules for themselves and I think, to be fair, it’s important that people stand up for democracy inside the Dáil, as well as outside the Dáil because that’s the basis on which they get elected.”
Note here that democracy is whatever you want it to be at that particular time: and the things you do not want can be undemocratic. Note the spokesman for the nation’s wealthiest person making an appeal to the common man against the political class. O’Brien, his spokesman is saying, is an ordinary man with the same rights as the rest of us.
But here’s the question of public interest: is he? Clearly, he has more money than us. And because of that, he has more influence than us. O’Brien, he of the 10,000 jobs, is very, very important. There is, it would appear to me, an obvious difference between him getting a €500m loan from a state bank, and you or I getting a €50,000 small business loan. O’Brien cannot be in the same breath this great important job creator and media mogul, and just a humble man who can enjoy absolute privacy.
The price, perhaps of the privilege O’Brien enjoys with his fortune is our privilege to know what he’s doing with it.
This column was posted on 4 June 2015 at indexoncensorship.org
