01 Aug 17 | Mapping Media Freedom, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, News and features, Russia
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As thousands of people took to the streets across Russia on 12 June 2017 to protest corruption, journalists were among those detained by police, according to verified incidents reported to Mapping Media Freedom.
The Russia Day demonstrations followed calls from the Foundation Against Corruption, an NGO headed by political opposition leader Aleksei Navalny. Rallies took place across the country, with the largest gatherings taking place in Moscow and St Petersburg.
According to OVD-INFO, an independent police monitoring website, at least 1,769 people were detained in 31 cities throughout the day. Rights groups also registered serious human rights violations. The largest number of arrests took place in St Petersburg where roughly 700 people were detained. Around 200 of the detainees were minors who were released after their parents intervened. Russian authorities can hold individuals for 48 hours before they are arrested.
Another 150 demonstrators were sentenced to administrative arrest of up to 15 days in detention, and yet others received fines of between 10,500 and 15,000 rubles (€150 to €250).
Journalists were threatened and detained throughout the country.
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Index on Censorship monitors press freedom in Russia and 41 other European area nations.
As of 31/07/2017, there were 361 verified reports of media freedom violations associated with Russia in the Mapping Media Freedom database.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
My 30 hours in detention
As an independent journalist, I was one of the media professionals detained by police at the St Petersburg rally. I was taken to a police station and held with 40 other people for 30 hours before being fined 10,500 rubles (€150) for participating in an illegal demonstration. I am appealing the court’s decision.
— Andrey Kalikh, Mapping Media Freedom
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In Moscow, Andrey Poznaykov, a reporter for the Echo of Moscow radio station covering the demonstrations, was detained while he was taking a break on a cafe’s terrace. Though he showed officers his press card, he was taken to a police van and released soon after.
Other detainees in Moscow include: Novaya Gazeta photographer Evgeni Feldman, a correspondent for Open Russia Nikita Safronov, independent photographer Georgi Malets and independent journalist Denis Styazhkin. Aleksei Abanin, a photographer for the RTVi, wrote later that a police officer had threatened “to break my camera and break my face if I continue to photograph.”
Ignacio Ortega, a Moscow-based reporter for Spanish news agency EFE, was also detained while he was reporting from the anti-corruption rally. Officers held Ortega in a van with dozens of other individuals before bringing him and the others to a police station. Ortega was released after he identified himself at the station, EFE reported.
Blogger Yan Katelevski said that he was physically assaulted by police officers while being detained: “They dropped my press card, kicked me and hit me with batons, grabbed me by the throat, and beat me on my head while I was on a police bus”.
In Sochi, Andrey Kiselyov, a correspondent for Radio RFE/RL, was detained and issued him a warning to not commit any further legal violations.
In Makhachkala, Dagestan, Caucasian Knot journalist Patimat Makhmudova said that unknown people had broken her camera during the 12 June protests. Additionally, Bariyat Idrisova and Saida Vagabova, correspondents for the independent Dagestani news website Chernovik were assaulted and prevented from filming at the same anti-corruption rally, Chernovik reported.
In Saratov, an unknown person attempted to prevent filming by correspondents from the Open Channel, a local TV station. The unknown individual approached the TV crew, asked whether everything was OK and then tried to run away with the camera.
Among those who were detained were David Frenkel, a contributing photographer for Kommersant and Mediazona, and Ksenia Morozova, the journalist for local website Sobaka.ru, who were both covering the rally. Both journalists were detained despite showing their press cards.
Frenkel was soon released while Morozova was taken to the police station, where she was kept overnight before facing a trial for “public order disturbance”. After spending 35 hours in the police station, Morozova was brought to the court for trial. She was sentenced to 10 days administrative arrest and a fine of 15,000 rubles (€250). The court argued that Morozova had no “accreditation” to work at the protest.
The Russian Union of Journalists (UJ) released a statement condemning the harsh police actions taken at the anti-corruption rallies across the country. The UJ demanded the release of all detained journalists and sent an appeal to the Chief Police Department of the Ministry of Interior. The head of the journalists’ union Pavel Gusev stated in his interview that the police had disturbed journalists from accomplishing their professional duties.
The St. Petersburg Ombudsman Aleksandr Shyshlov also issued a press release condemning police actions during the rallies where “hundreds of people were detained, among them minors, media representatives, observers and passing civilians who did not commit any unlawful actions”.
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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/[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
17 Jul 17 | Digital Freedom, Mapping Media Freedom, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, News and features, Ukraine
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Ukrainian post control before separatist zone (Credit: Geoffrey Froment/Flickr)
Soon after the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, full-scale fighting began between Ukrainian troops and separatists supported by Russia in the east of Ukraine. During active fighting in 2014, it was relatively easy for journalists to access to territories controlled by separatists.
“Accreditation was given quickly and without delay,” a Ukrainian producer who worked with international TV channels said. The producer, who requested anonymity because of ongoing work in the area, admits the risk for journalists was high because of the chaotic situation on the frontline and many of them faced detention by separatist militants. “I, like many, was detained and placed in a basement, but, fortunately, it only lasted for several hours,” he added.
Anna Nemtsova, a correspondent for Newsweek magazine and The Daily Beast, told Mapping Media Freedom that in 2014 she was abducted twice – firstly in the Luhansk region and secondly in the city of Donetsk.
“These were classic abductions,” Nemtsova said. “In Luhansk region, near Krasny Luch, armed militia wearing masks took our cell phones away from us and drove us in an unknown direction. In Donetsk, it happened near the morgue, where, according to our information, the militia had brought some of the bodies of passengers of the downed Boeing MH-17. Both detentions lasted for a few hours.”
Soon the situation with journalists’ access to uncontrolled territories would change for the worse. In February 2015, the Minsk agreements were signed and a ceasefire was established. The ceasefire agreement prompted the authorities of the two self-proclaimed republics to start monitoring journalists’ reports from the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic.
“If they did not like the angle of coverage or some term, for example ‘separatist republics’, the name of a journalist was immediately added to the list of undesirable persons. The press service began to summon such journalists to ‘talks’ to express their dissatisfaction,” source who works as a local TV producer told MMF.
Nemtsova also faced similar difficulties. In summer 2015 she was told that the DPR press service did not like her reports and threatened to ban her, which later they said they did. “Their complaints were unreasonable, they were not about any errors in my report, but about the term ‘separatists’, which they claimed I used in my stories,” she said.
Thus, the monitoring of publications about the separatist zone in the media has led to the fact that from the summer of 2015 many journalists who tried to obtain accreditation from the self-proclaimed authorities began to receive refusals. Some reporters who managed to enter the territory of the self-proclaimed republics were detained and deported. On 16 June 2015, separatists from DPR captured Novaya Gazeta special correspondent Pavel Kanygin and handed him over to Russian security services (FSB). According to the journalist, they checked his documents and released him “in the middle of a field.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator color=”black” align=”align_left”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_custom_heading text=”Ukraine” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fmappingmediafreedom.org%2F|||”][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship monitors press freedom in Ukraine and 41 other European area countries.
As of 17/07/2017, there were 282 verified reports of violations connected to Ukraine in the Mapping Media Freedom database.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”94239″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://mappingmediafreedom.org/”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black” align=”align_left”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Over the past year, arbitrary refusals to enter the territory of the self-proclaimed republics have been quite frequent. In December 2016, Deutsche Welle’s correspondent Christian Trippe and his crew were barred from entering the territory of the self-proclaimed DPR. Journalists were trying to get to the territory controlled by DPR at a checkpoint near Marinka. Journalists had to wait an hour in a neutral zone between two fronts, while they were not allowed to return to the territory controlled by Ukrainian forces. The crew had received an authorisation from DPR press centre and had scheduled an interview with a spokesperson for the separatists. The journalists planned to visit Donetsk with Principal Deputy Chief Monitor Alexander Hug of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine. However, the militants did not let them through the checkpoint with the OSCE, citing the decision of DPR special services.
In 2016, the self-proclaimed authorities continued the practice of detentions and expulsions of journalists. In November, special forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic detained and expelled two journalists working for Russian TV channel Dozhd. Correspondents Sergei Polonsky and Vasiliy Yerzhenkov were detained by intelligence agencies on the evening of 25 November in Donetsk. Polonsky said that members of the self-proclaimed Ministry of State Security went to their apartment and took them to the main building of the ministry where they were interrogated. “Three employees of the Ministry of State Security were involved in the interrogation. They watched videos and deleted them. They also blocked Polonsky’s phone, broke Yerzhenkov’s phone and destroyed his notebook,” Dozhd reported. According to Dozhd, the journalists were not physically abused. “We experienced psychological abuse, but nothing more,” Polonsky said. Later, employees of the Ministry of State Security explained to the correspondents that their detention was a consequence of “false information” in the accreditation, which turned out to be a wrong phone number.
The Dozhd crew were accredited to work in Donetsk by the Security Service of Ukraine and by the Ministry of information of DPR. Journalists entered the DPR border on 24 November from Russia to interview Alexey Khodakovsky, former secretary of DPR’s Security Council. Previously, the self-proclaimed Ministry of State Security of DPR said the cause of the journalists’ expulsion was “biased” and “provocative” coverage of the situation in the DPR.
Local journalists and bloggers often find it even more risky to work in the separatist territories. In 2014, many journalists were forced to leave the territory, and are now working elsewhere in Ukraine. Over the past year, a number of arrests by separatists have been reported. The latest one is an incident with blogger and writer Stanyslav Aseev who disappeared in Donetsk. The blogger was reportedly detained by militants of the self-proclaimed DPR. Aseev uses the alias Stanislav Vasin and contributes to a number of news outlets including Radio Liberty Donbass Realities project, Ukrayinska Pravda, Ukrainian week and Dzerkalo Tyzhnya. He also runs a prominent blog via Facebook.
Donbass Realities project editor-in-chief Tetyana Jakubowicz said their contact with Aseev was lost on 2 June. That day, Aseev filed the latest report from territories held by separatists for Radio Liberty. Aseev’s relatives and friends confirmed that they also lost contact with the blogger. They questioned the self-proclaimed Ministry of Public Security of the DPR, but didn’t receive any answers. The journalist’s mother found evidence that his flat was broken into in Donetsk and noticed that some of his belongings were missing, including a laptop. On 12 July, Amnesty International reported that it learned that Aseev was being held by the de-facto “ministry of state security”.
Recently, several bloggers have been arrested in the self-proclaimed LPR. In October 2016 Vladislav Ovcharenko, a 19-year old blogger, who runs the Twitter account Luhansk Junta, was detained by separatists. Later, armed representatives of the self-proclaimed Ministry of the State Security raided his parents’ apartment, taking his mother’s computer. In December 2016, Facebook blogger Gennadiy Benytskiy was arrested in Luhansk. The blogger, who is known for his pro-Ukraine views, was accused of distributing of “extremist materials” online.
Journalists take risks even when they get accreditation from the separatist authorities. A leak by the website Myrotvorets in May 2016 led to the personal data of more than 5,000 journalists becoming available online. The link to the leak was published by some Ukrainian politicians, calling journalists who received accreditation “traitors.” Some of the journalists then received threats.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
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/[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
19 Jun 17 | News and features, Volume 46.02 Summer 2017 Extras
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In the Summer 2017 issue of Index on Censorship, our special report looks at how the consequences of the Russian Revolution have affected freedom of speech around the world, 100 years later.
On this podcast, the British Library’s Susan Reed explains why 1917 is such a pivotal event in 20th century history, before North Korea expert BG Muhn discusses the unique, Soviet-inspired socialist realism art produced by one of the last remaining communist dictatorships, while the Uzbek writer Hamid Ismailov, in exile since 1992, muses on his government’s Soviet hangover and disdain for his work. Plus, Margaret Atwood gives her thoughts on the growing trend in Western countries of scientists being prevented from communicating inconvenient data to the public.
You can read Atwood’s full interview in the magazine, along with pieces by Muhn and Ismailov.
Print copies of the magazine are available on Amazon, or you can take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions. Copies are also available at the BFI, the Serpentine Gallery, MagCulture, (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester) and on Amazon. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship continue its fight for free expression worldwide.
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16 Jun 17 | Digital Freedom, Mapping Media Freedom, News and features
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Protesters in St. Petersburg demonstrated against corruption in Russia (Photo: Andrey Kalikh)
Over the last seven days protests, lawsuits, and self-proclaimed governments have stopped journalists from doing their jobs in countries covered by Index on Censorship’s project Mapping Media Freedom.
Project Manager Hannah Machlin explains why incidents in Russia and Albania are particularly alarming.
“It’s appalling that around 1500 individuals were arrested — including journalists — at the anti-corruption rallies across Russia on Monday,” Machlin said.
Despite showing their press credentials, five journalists were detained including Index’s Mapping Media Freedom correspondent, Andrey Kalikh.
Machlin said, “Our previous reports and our monitoring of wave of anti-corruption rallies indicate that the trend of arresting journalists for doing their job will not abate.”
Machlin said the situation in Albania is also worrying because “a judge, who is in a position of influence, is now attempting to silence journalists who were investigating criminal investigations into him and his family.” She explained, “investigative reporters are consistently targeted when uncovering corruption of state officials and we must call on government institutions to allow journalists to freely report.”
Russia: Five journalists detained including one Mapping Media Freedom correspondent
12 June, 2017 – An anti-corruption rallies proved to be a dangerous place for journalists on 12 June. The rallies were called by opposition figure Alexei Nalvalny in a long-term attempt to overthrow Vladimir Putin.
At a rally in Moscow, reporter Ignacio Ortega for a Spanish news agency, EFE, in Moscow was arrested while reporting on the event. After identifying himself with his press card at the station, he was released.
Photographer David Frenkel, contributor to Kommersant and Mediazona, and Ksenia Morozova, a journalist for Sobaka.ru a local website, were both detained despite showing their press cards while covering the anti-corruption rally in St. Petersburg. Frenkel was soon released but Morozova was held overnight before a trial for “public order disturbance.”
Reporter Andrey Poznaykov of Echo of Moscow radio station went to a café for a break where he was detained by policemen even after showing his press card. In his blog, he said he was detained for covering the anti-corruption rally in Moscow. Poznaykov was released shortly after being taken to a police van.
Mapping Media Freedom correspondent, Andrey Kaikh, was detained at an anti-corruption rally in St. Petersburg. From a police bus he wrote he was amongst 40 others at a peaceful demonstration. So far, about 300 protesters have been detained in St. Petersburg. Kaikh was fined 150 Euros and released him at the end of the day on 13 June.
Albania: Four journalists and two media outlets sued by judge for reporting
9 June, 2017 – A court of appeals judge in Tirana sued four journalists and two media outlets for their coverage of his criminal investigations and his family’s declared assets. Judge Gjin Gjoni says the reporting causing reputational damage and pain.
The charges were filed against Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) along with their journalist Besar Likmeta and Aleksandra Bogdani and Shqiptarja newspaper, along with their journalists Adriatic Doci and Elton Qyno.
The judge and his wife are asking for 7 million Lek (54, 000 EUR) in compensation from Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN in Tirana and two of their journalists; They are asking for 4 million Lek (30,000 EUR) from Shqiptarja newspaper and two from their journalists.
BIRN Albania, Adriatik Doci and the Union of Albanian Journalists have all spoken out about the lawsuit.
Ukraine: Journalist disappears in self-proclaimed DPR territory
2 June, 2017 – Ukrainian blogger and writer Stanyslav Aseev disappeared in territory controlled by the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. Aseev was reportedly detained by militants of the self-proclaimed DPR.
Aseev uses the alias Stanislav Vasin and contributes to a number of news outlets including Radio Liberty Donbas Realities project, Ukrayinska Pravda, Ukrainian week, Dzerkalo Tyzhnya. He also runs a prominent blog via Facebook.
Radio Liberty Donbass realities project editor-in-chief Tetyana Jakubowicz said their contact with Aseev had been lost on 2 June. That day Aseev’s latest report from territories held by separatists for Radio Liberty.
The journalist’s mother said his flat was broken into and noticed several of his belongings were missing including his laptop.
Fiona Frazer, the Head of the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said that the mission was searching for Aseev, Radio Liberty reported.
“We are trying to understand exactly what was happening to him. We are still trying to gain access there to understand where he is “, Frazer said. She added that, as in other cases, “when militants detain people, responsibility for this is placed on those who control the territory”.
France: Labour minister files complaint over Libération article
9 June, 2017 – New French labour minister Muriel Pénicaud filed a complaint against an unknown person for theft, breach of professional confidentiality and possession of confidential information following the publication of an article in the Libération newspaper about the government’s labour reform projects, Libération reported.
“They were mad with anger,” a source at the Labour Ministry told Libération, about the reaction to the story. “They reacted with such violence that they terrorised all of the affected department.”
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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/[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content_no_spaces” content_placement=”middle”][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”91122″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2017/05/stand-up-for-satire/”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
