08 Nov 13 | News and features, Russia
The United Nations got together yesterday to adopt a resolution calling for a world truce during the Winter Olympics kicking off in Sochi, Russia in exactly three months. This has become a tradition over the past 20 years — a symbolic gesture in the months leading up to the games. For the first time, however, it called upon the host country to “promote social inclusion without discrimination of any kind.”
Obviously a thinly veiled reference to the overtly anti-LGBT legislation Russia passed back in June. The vaguely worded ban on “gay propaganda” aimed at minors has sparked outrage across the world, with some activists calling for a boycott of the games.
But have no fear — Sochi Games chief Dmitry Chernyshenko, present at the UN, reminded us all that President Putin has repeated “three times” that there will be “no discrimination”.
THREE TIMES, YOU GUYS.
While you will forgive me for reserving my judgment on that particular guarantee for now, it is worth noting what was not mentioned in the resolution and what we were not given any assurance about. The right to freedom expression — or rather lack thereof — stands at the core of this issue. Since the law came into power, LGBT protesters have been attacked and arrested. Authorities have warned that spectators and athletes can be fined for “gay propaganda”, like displaying rainbow flags.
I don’t know about you, but to me that seems to fly in the face of the the universal human right to freedom of expression and assembly. But maybe it was simply an oversight, and this is next on the agenda. In which case, I’ve got a few suggestions on where to start.
For one, there are currently 28 Greenpeace activists and two journalists under arrest in Russia. They were staging a peaceful protest by a Gazprom oil rig on September 18, when their ship was boarded by Russian security forces. They are currently detained in a prison in St Petersburg. Initially held on piracy charges with a potential 15 year sentence, they have now been downgraded to hooliganism. This could still mean up to seven year in jail. Again, that’s for a peaceful protest.
Then there’s the case of the TV crew from the Norway’s Olympic broadcaster TV2. While filming a recent report in Sochi, they were taken into custody, interrogated, harassed and denied contact with the Norwegian embassy. The journalists were also told that they were now ‘blacklisted’. Not very encouraging to hear if you’re a critical foreign reporter heading to Sochi in February, never mind a member Russia’s perpetually repressed independent press.
And of course, you can’t talk about freedom of expression in Russia without mentioning Pussy Riot. Two members of the feminist punk group have been in prison since February 2012. The latest news was the apparent disappearance of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova as she was moved between prisons. This came after the Guardian published an open letter where she detailed the horrible conditions they were being held under. It soon emerged that she might be, like in some sort of Soviet nightmare, sent to Siberia.
One of the fundamental principles of the Olympics deals with “preserving human dignity”, and there is no doubt that freedom of expression is a pretty big part of that. Rather than listening to Putin’s empty promises, we should be measuring up Russia’s commitment to “human dignity” where it counts.
This article was originally posted on 7 Nov 2013 at PolicyMic.com
05 Nov 13 | Digital Freedom, News and features, United Kingdom
(Photo: David von Blohn / Demotix)
German and British MPs last night called for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to be granted asylum in Germany.
Addressing a meeting called to support the Guardian newspaper in the face of threats from the British government, Conservative MP David Davis said that safeguards for whistleblowers were the only way to protect civilians from an overreaching surveillance and security apparatus, adding that “If whistleblowers can look forward to a life in Germany rather than a life in Moscow, I think that would improve things for everybody.”
German Green Party MP Konstantin Von Notz had earlier said that his country “needed to grant political asylum to Edward Snowden.”
The issue of surveillance has been hotly debated in Germany since it was revealed that the United States’ National Security Agency had been monitoring Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone.
But speakers at the London meeting, convened by Observer and Vanity Fair journalist Henry Porter, expressed concern that a similar debate was not taking place in the United Kingdom.
Conservative MP Rory Stewart suggested that parliament’s intelligence and security committee should be openly elected and led by an opposition MP, thereby encouraging greater scrutiny of the security services’ actions.
“You are never going to have a government backbencher chairing a committee that is going to criticise the government properly,” said Stewart, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and a former diplomat.
Addressing Prime Minister David Cameron’s suggestion that measures would need to be taken to prevent the Guardian from publishing further revelations about surveillance by US and UK authorities, Davis said that no government in any other country where the stories had been published had attacked newspapers in the way the UK government had attacked the Guardian. He said “the only reason [the government] is doing this is out of embarrassment.”
The meeting, held at the Royal Institute for British Architects, heard from English PEN director Jo Glanville, who criticised David Cameron’s dismissal of civil liberties concerns about surveillance as “la-di-da” and “airy-fairy”. Davis echoed that sentiment, saying he delighted in being called “la-di-da” by old Etonian Cameron.
31 Oct 13 | News and features, Russia
A Russian court pulled the license of Rosbalt Information Agency after warnings over the use of “obscene” videos in its reports.
Roskomnadzor, the Federal Service for Oversight of Communications and Information Technologies, filed an action against Rosbalt after it issued two warnings to the agency. The reason for the warnings were articles by Rosbalt that contained two YouTube videos, including a music video by Pussy Riot, a well-known Russian punk band. According to officials, the videos contained obscene words and expressions.
Russian law suggests a mass media outlet can be closed down for “numerous warnings for violations”; usage of obscene words has been such a violation in Russia since a relevant law was adopted in April 2013.
“We have several grounds to appeal against this decision to the Supreme Court,” says Rosbalt’s lawyer Dmitry Firsov, who called today’s decision “unprecedented.”
For instance, the decision to withdraw the agency’s license was made despite the fact Rosbalt had appealed against both warnings, and there have been no court rulings on any of the cases yet. Besides, the YouTube videos were removed by the agency from their articles immediately after the warnings.
Nikolay Ulyanov, the editor-in-chief of Rosbalt, was previously fined 20,000 roubles (around £400) for the presence of obscene words in the YouTube videos. Rosbalt is going to appeal against that fine as well.
03 Oct 13 | News and features
Natalya Gorbanevskaya (b 1936) was active in the Russian dissident movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. That movement provided the impetus and inspiration for the founding of Index on Censorship. After facing severe oppression in Russia, including being deemed committed to a psychiatric hosptial (a common punishment for dissidents), Gorbanevskaya fled to Paris, where she now lives.
Index published 14 of her poems, smuggled out of the Soviet Union, in our very first issue in 1972. This is one of them.
Turn the sky over,
lower it into the sea,
the silent into the voiceless.
Help the sea to rise,
lift the sea into the sky,
sea-blue into sky-blue,
height and depth
bring into balance.
Balance yourself and the world,
the world and the ladybird,
the wavelet and the wave
that drags you under to the bottom.
And go down to the bottom, softly
banging the moist doors behind you.
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