07 Aug 14 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, Turkey
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Photo: Philip Janek / Demotix)
Shortly before campaigning for Turkey’s upcoming presidential election was officially set to begin, the director of public broadcaster TRT threatened to cut coverage of candidate Selahattin Demirtas. The reason? Demirtas had publicly criticised TRT for bias towards one of the three men in the running — outgoing Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The case, reported by Index on Censorship’s media freedom mapping tool, is just one example of the challenges facing free expression in Turkey on eve of a vote that could alter its political system. When Turks go to the polls on Sunday, it will be in the country’s first direct presidential election. The consensus is that Erdogan will beat his opponents — Dermitas from the left wing People’s Democratic Party and Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, representing the centre-left Republican People’s Party and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party — comfortably; some predict after just one round. But what makes this election even more significant, is Erdogan’s declared intention to transform the presidency from a largely ceremonial role to a powerful office based on the US model. This would effectively allow him to remain in power despite being barred from re-election as prime minister by term limits.
Concerns have been raised about the impact of the state of free expression in Turkey on the election. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), in its capacity as an election observer, recently stated that “direct interference of media owners and political actors into editorial freedom results in a lack of independent and investigative journalism and leads to limited criticism towards the ruling party and the prime minister”. The interim report from its election observation mission published on 31 July, also highlighted shortcomings in the legal framework around impartiality of media coverage and the the country’s restrictive internet legislation.
This is at least in part backed up by Demirtas’ claims. According to research from Turkey’s broadcasting regulator, between 4 and 6 July, TRT gave 533 minutes worth of coverage to Erdogan, compared to 3.24 seconds for Ihsanoglu and 45 seconds to Demirtas. Erdogan has also been accused of blurring the lines between his role as prime minister and presidential candidate, and using resources and platforms exclusively available to him to rally support. The campaigns of Erdogan’s opponents “have been active, but with limited visibility”, as the OSCE put it.
Other recent media freedom cases go beyond questions of impartiality. Released just days before the election, a report by Bianet, a Turkish news site that monitors attacks on press freedom, showed that assaults on journalists is on the rise. As covered by Index, the research found that between April and June, there had been 54 attacks on journalists — between January and March, the figure was “at least” 40. The report also noted that 133 fines were handed out to various TV and radio institutions and continued impunity around attacks on the media. This follows the pattern of Turkey’s global press freedom ranking, which has deteriorated over the past years.
Internet freedom has also been dealt some blows in the lead-up to the election. The latest Twitter transparency report, published last week, showed that Turkey has submitted the highest number of content removal requests in the past six months — despite the fact that Twitter was banned in Turkey for two weeks in March and April. The social media platform has been used by many of the country’s 36 million internet users to have their say on political matters, most notably during last summer’s Gezi park protests — a topic Turkish playwright Meltem Arikan has written about extensively for Index.
More recently, Turkish social media was flooded with photos of grinning women, in protest at Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc declaring that women shouldn’t laugh out loud in public. While the bans on Twitter and later also YouTube were short-lived, authorities continue to keep close tabs on the internet. Twitter user @fuatavni, who has almost one million followers, was blocked in Turkey after criticising the government. Earlier in July, Erdogan filed a legal complaint against the editor of Today’s Zaman, Bulent Kenes, over what he claimed were insulting tweets. This comes in the wake of controversial legislation passed in February, which gives the government wide-reaching powers in regulating the internet.
More about Turkey from mediafreedom.ushahidi.com:
Newspaper Agos, film director threatened on Twitter
News crew told to leave public event attended by minister
Greek daily newspaper in Istanbul closes
Broadcaster threatens to stop covering presidential candidate
Prime Minister files legal complainst against newspaper editor
This article was published on August 7, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
29 Jul 14 | Asia and Pacific, News and features, Pakistan
(Image: Aleksandar Mijatovic/Shutterstock)
In March, Pakistani columnist Raza Rumi was injured in a gun attack that killed his driver. Weeks later, Hamid Mir, star journalist of Geo TV, Pakistan’s biggest TV station, was shot six times. Luckily, both survived, and managed to avoid becoming part of a bleak statistic: Since 1992, 30 journalists have been murdered in Pakistan; 28 with impunity.
Against this backdrop, a group of experts on Pakistan and its media came together, under the auspices of the Commonwealth Journalists Association and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London to discuss the threats facing the country’s journalists. In a discussion chaired by BBC presenter Owen Bennett Jones, former High Commissioner of Pakistan Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Kiran Hassan of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, BBC Urdu Service Editor Aamer Ahmed Khan, New York Times Pakistan Bureau Chief Declan Walsh and renowned journalist and author Babar Ayaz tried to answer the question, How safe is it to be a journalist in Pakistan?
Censorship in Pakistan used to be straightforward, explained Khan. Certain topics were simply off limits. Today, the situation is more complicated and more confusing. Threats to journalists and press freedom take many different shapes, and come from many different sources, including the government, extremists like the Taliban, the intelligence service ISI and powerful media owners.
There are currently 84 different cases against Geo TV, of which 53 are over blasphemy. You cannot defend yourself against that, said Khan. Ayaz raised a similar point when arguing that extremists are the biggest threat to the media. The government might put a person in jail, but these extremist groups will kill for their beliefs, Ayaz said.
While Geo TV and ISI have long been fighting behind closed doors, the case of Hamid Mir created an “open battlefield”, explained Walsh, who was expelled from Pakistan in May 2013. The station aired reports linking the security services to the attack.
Walsh also brought up the ownership issue within the Pakistani television landscape, which he says has gone from “zero to 100” in the past few years. The country today boasts some 90 TV stations. Editorial control remains with media owners, according to Hassan.
But even journalists themselves did not escape criticism. Sections of the media are responsible for the current situation through irresponsible reporting, said Hasan. Quite a few were “playing with fire” by earlier glorifying the Taliban as peacemakers, he explained. Khan also highlighted corruption within the media as a “novel form of censorship”. However, as Khan pointed out, it is difficult for the Pakistani media to be responsible, without enabling them to be responsible. Most of the information that effects people’s lives is under strict control by authorities, he said.
Hassan, however, argued that there has been some progress. Journalists, and by extension the threats they face, are more visible and garner more attention today. She also pointed out that despite part closures, all Pakistan’s TV stations are still running. There was some talk of the role of media regulation in improving the situation, and Hassan said she had hopes for Pembra, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regularity Authority.
Yet, the overall conclusion was that Pakistan is not a safe place to be a journalist — illustrated well by Walsh explaining how, for the first time since he’s covered Pakistan, The New York Times recently had to use a pseudonym to protect their reporter on the ground.
Hasan summed it up: “The establishment doesn’t want the media to be as free as it can be.”
This article was published on July 29, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
11 Jul 14 | Africa, News and features
(Photo: Zone 9/Facebook)
“We blog because we care!” This is the slogan and rallying cry of Zone 9, a group of young Ethiopians writing about social and political issues in their country. For over two months however, blogging has been out of the question for most of them. In late April, six members of the group – which takes its name from an area of Addis Ababa’s notorious Kaliti prison, where several journalists are jailed – were arrested and have been detained since.
Befeqadu Hailu, Abel Wabela, Atnaf Berahane, Natnael Feleke, Mahlet Fantahun, Zelalem Kibret – all between the age of 25 and 32 – have been accused of “working with foreign organisations” and “receiving finance to incite public violence through social media”, but have yet to be formally charged. Journalists Edom Kassaye, Tesfalem Weldeyes and Asemamaw Hailegiorgis were also arrested for their alleged links to Zone 9. Tomorrow, several of them are due in court again.
The story of the case so far, as covered by the blog Justice Matters, makes for worrying reading. The group were initially taken to Maekelawi detention centre, where according to Human Rights Watch, political prisoners have been tortured. They have been prevented from communicating with lawyers and family members. Hearings have predominantly served to extend the police’s investigation period. Police have also appeared to move away from accusing them of conspiring with foreign organisations and towards a terrorism charge, under which other journalists have been sentenced.
Zone 9 have been active since May 2012 and this is not the first time the group has attracted the attention of the authorities. According to their Facebook page, their mission is to provide an “alternative independent narration of the socio-political conditions in Ethiopia and thereby foster public discourse that will result in emergence of ideas for the betterment of the Nation”. They have organised online campaigns, including #EthiopianDream, encouraging their fellow citizens to share messages “question[ing] themselves and discuss[ing] their dream for the country”.
Their work has proved unpopular with the government of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, who came to power following the death of long-time leader Meles Zenawi in 2012. The country’s leadership has continuously come under international criticism for its abysmal record on free expression and other human rights.
The majority of media is state-controlled or sympathetic to the government, with critical news outlets and journalists routinely targeted. Ethiopia is the world’s third worst jailer of the press, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The sweeping anti-terrorism legislation put in place in 2009 is often utilised to crack down on oppositional voices. Journalist Eskinder Nega publicly questioned the law and its implementation, only to be convicted to 18 years in prison under it in 2012.
Beyond crackdowns on press freedom, the country’s Muslim community has been hounded by the government, opposition protests are regularly banned, and foreign NGOs are not allowed to work on political and human rights issues.
Zone 9 was set up against this backdrop, and the group soon discovered the, too, were seen as a threat. The blog has been blocked and members have faced harassed at the hands of security services. Last September they took what would end up being a seven-month hiatus from publishing, due to the pressures connected to running the site. The six were arrested only days after announcing that they were to resume blogging.
Despite the fact that internet penetration in Ethiopia currently stands at around 1 per cent, authorities seems very aware of the web’s potential as a platform for free expression and, in turn, dissent. Paul Brown of BBC Monitoring believes the Zone 9 arrests “suggest that the government is taking online activism seriously – probably because elections are due next year.” There have even been reports of the government “training” internet users to post attacks on those who criticise authorities online and to post messages of support for the regime.
Zone 9 co-founder Endalkachew H/Michael recently spoke to CPJ from New York; he left Ethiopia to study in the US shortly before his colleagues were arrested. He says the government are trying to control the flow of information. “There is no plurality of voices in government and media. And they want to control that because there is a sort of plurality on the internet. If you go into the Ethiopian social media sphere, you see all kinds of comments about the government and opposition groups,” he explains.
The government, meanwhile, has denied any wrongdoing, saying the arrests are not connected to journalism but “serious criminal activity”.
“We don’t crack down on journalism or freedom of speech. But if someone tries to use his or her profession to engage in criminal activities, then there is a distinction there,” Getachew Reda, an adviser to the prime minister told Reuters.
But the story has drawn widespread condemnation, from international human rights organisations to news outlets to diplomats, with even US Secretary of State John Kerry calling it a “serious issue”. The hashtag #FreeZone9Bloggers has in the past few weeks accumulated outrage and solidarity from across the world. Endalkachew H/Michael says this attention in important. “I want the public to remain focused on this issue. The government is trying to make the public forget the human rights violations and journalists’ poor situation in Ethiopia.”
UPDATE 12 JUNE
According to Endalkachew H/Michael, following today’s hearing the case has been referred to a federal high court. The accused were reportedly not present for the hearing.
This article was posted on July 11, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
26 Jun 14 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, News and features
The Baku Court of Grave Crimes announced the verdict for the NIDA movement activists in May 2014. The human rights defenders Rashadat Akhundov, Zaur Gurbanly and Ilkin Rustamzadeh to 8 years’ imprisonment, Rashad Hasanov and Mamed Azizov – to 7.5 years. Protesters were detained and victimised by police. (Photo: Aziz Karimov / Demotix)
In a bleakly comic turn at the beginning of Ilham Aliyev’s address to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe this week, Assembly president Anne Brasseur asked press photographers to leave the chamber and reminded those present that they were not permitted to vocalise their approval or disapproval during the Azerbaijani dictator’s stand. It appeared that Brasseur hadn’t quite meant what she said, as in the end photographers at the front of the room were merely required to move their tripods to ensure everyone in the room could see Aliyev as he spoke.
Aliyev’s speech was given to mark the Azerbaijan’s taking up of the chair of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers last month. And what a speech it was!
The man who promises to “turn initiatives into reality” (still no idea) told of Azerbaijan’s enormous progress in all fields, not just oil fields. He spoke of the country’s “very positive atmosphere” and listed the country’s great freedoms: freedom of political activity, freedom of expression, freedom of media… Azerbaijan was proud of these freedoms, he said. Azerbaijan knew that an uncensored internet and independent newspapers were important for democracy.
It was a lovely speech, and also one that contained barely a word of truth beyond the conjunctions. Aliyev may as well have praised the nation’s Quidditch team for defeating Ravenclaw on penalties at the World Cup. He could have told us about his new motorcar, and his adventures with Ratty, Mole and Badger, and been more believable.
Watching Aliyev, the only time one got the sense he even believed what he was saying himself was when discussing the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, and even then he was only drily insisting that the regions “geographical toponyms” (place names?) were Azeri in origin: All Your Geographical Toponyms Are Belong To Us, so to speak.
The truth about Azerbaijan is quite different from the picture painted by its president this week. As Human Rights Watch pointed out ahead of the Council of Europe speech, “In the past two years, Azerbaijani authorities have brought or threatened unfounded criminal charges against at least 40 political activists, journalists, bloggers, and human rights defenders, most of whom are behind bars.” Search for Azerbaijan stories on Index, and you will find more details of those arrests and abuses.
And this isn’t exactly obscure knowledge. People know three things about Azerbaijan: it has a lot of gas and oil; it takes Eurovision very seriously; and it has a poor human rights record. After his speech, Aliyev was confronted by Michael McNamara of the CoE socialist group, who quoted Amnesty’s statistic that there are currently 19 political prisoners in Azerbaijan. Not so, said Aliyev. There are no political prisoners in Azerbaijan. The people who came up with these statistics were lying. There was a programme of “deliberate provocation” against Azerbaijan — though it was unspecified who was leading this programme.
Aliyev swore that this plot to undermine Azerbaijan would fail.
The Azerbaijani president is not alone in his capability for bare-faced falsehood. It’s a specific strain of Soviet and post-Soviet behaviour, learned from the Communist Party and the KGB. If the leader says something, it is true, no matter what the evidence to the contrary. There are no political prisoners in Azerbaijan, says Aliyev, and we encourage a free media because it is important to our democracy; Ukraine has been taken over by fascists, says Vladimir Putin, and Russia has no choice but to fight them. There is no point in putting on a play about depression in Belarus, an Alexander Lukashenko apparatchik tells the Belarus Free Theatre, because there is no such thing as depression in Belarus.
“So what?” you may say. “Politicians and institutions lie.” And you’d be right. But this is a form of lying that goes far beyond “I was perfectly within my rights to claim those expenses”/”I did not have sex with that woman”. Political lies in functioning democracies tend to have to do with cover ups of personal or institutional failings. In an authoritarian society, with power utterly concentrated to the leader and his cadre, there is no such thing as an isolated failure. As a result, every aspect of life must be spun. All triumphs belong to the leader, all criticisms are propaganda, all failures sabotage. When there is no balance of power, is there really an objective truth? When, for example, the dictator Lukashenko told a journalist that journalist Irina Khalip, under house arrest, could leave Belarus any time she wanted, was that actually true? Was it true the moment he said it? Did it become true after he said it? And did it remain true?
This state of things raises a question for those of us seeking to better the lot of people living under regimes such as Belarus and Azerbaijan: can we pounce on the moments when autocrats declare as fact something we know to be untrue, cling on until they actually make it true? Or does this merely confirm the idea that truth is whatever their whim makes it?
This article was posted on June 26, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
