05 Aug 24 | News and features, United Kingdom
Two UK photo-journalists have recently been arrested while covering an ecological protest and a pro-Palestine demonstration, in the latter case prior to the protest even taking place. The arrests, which come despite the police having been reprimanded for a similar series of ‘unlawful’ arrests of journalists covering protest actions in 2022, have raised fresh concerns over heavy-handed police tactics targeting the press.
“Police over-reach poses real harms to the perception of journalists’ roles, particularly in public order situations, and therefore poses real risks to their safety,” National Union of Journalists (NUJ) general secretary Michelle Stanistreet told Index. “Of particular concern… are instances where the UK Press Card Authority press card has been shown to officers and been dismissed, where journalists have been arrested and the equipment they rely upon for their livelihood seized.”
Guy Smallman, a veteran photojournalist and NUJ member whose coverage of protest activity appears throughout the UK press, was arrested on 25 June for aggravated trespass while standing on what he says was a public footpath, covering an ecological protest at a boating lake near former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Yorkshire residence. He has since been released on bail, with the police retaining £14,000 worth of camera equipment. He has not been charged.
“The police are using criminal powers which don’t apply to [journalists], vindictively harassing people like us for covering issues they find embarrassing,” Smallman said.
It’s not an isolated incident. Martin Pope, a British Association of Journalists (BAJ) member, spent 20 years working for the Daily Telegraph and has also contributed photography to The Guardian, The New Yorker and The Sunday Times. In April 2024, he was swept up in a pre-emptive arrest of protesters planning to target an arms company implicated in Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza.
“Police came flying into the house,” he said, referring to the home of one of the protesters, where they had all gathered prior to the demonstration. “I identified myself as a journalist, but it didn’t make any difference.”
As noted by both of the veteran photojournalists, who work as freelancers rather than being employed by a newspaper, their arrests suggest that lessons have not been learned following a controversy where police were forced to apologise for what they admitted were ‘unlawful’ and excessive arrests directed by senior officers, targeting journalists documenting Just Stop Oil protests, including LBC reporter Charlotte Lynch.
Pope was himself previously arrested at the end of 2023 and held for 18 hours, before being released without charge. Police wrongly asserted that he was directly involved in the Palestine Action protest he was covering as a journalist.
When asked for comment on Pope’s latest arrest, Avon and Somerset police said: “The arrests were made with the purpose of attempting to prevent criminality… We fully appreciate the important role journalists have in documenting and reporting real-time events. Officers receive training to ensure the media are able to carry out their work fairly and without hindrance.”
North Yorkshire police did not respond to requests for comment on Smallman’s arrest.
Both arrests point to a concerning new range of tactics being applied to journalists covering protest activity in the UK.
“It is right that journalists act on information shared by sources including on the location of protests and any suggestion that doing so could risk detention must be condemned and rejected by all who support and value a free press,” Stanistreet said.
Yet in both of the recent arrests, police cited the journalists’ foreknowledge of the time and place of the protests as evidence of direct implication in the protest activity.
“The police said: if you’ve got a tip-off, you’re obviously part of the [protest] team,” Pope said. His detention marks the first time a journalist has been detained during a wave of recent pre-emptive arrests, a tactic which London’s Metropolitan Police have declared they plan to use more frequently in response to ongoing protests over a range of hot-button political and social issues.
There are also particular concerns around the police’s disregard for both journalists’ press cards. When Pope attempted to identify himself as a journalist, he was told: “Maybe you’re just an activist with a press card.”
Pope said: “But I’m not trying to be anonymous – I don’t have a balaclava! I’m not at all secretive about what I’m doing.”
Smallman faced similar treatment, saying he identified himself as a journalist but was arrested regardless.
There’s a parallel with prior arrests. In 2022, photojournalist Tom Bowles tried to show officers his press card and was detained anyway. Despite subsequent apologies, Smallman reports that the arresting police in his case had “no idea what journalistic privilege was”.
A final issue of key concern highlighted by the NUJ is the confiscation of equipment from both journalists, preventing them from carrying out future work. Though the investigation into Pope was ultimately dropped he also spent months under restrictive bail conditions further prohibiting his ability to work and earn a living. The statement given by police notes that “items belonging to the journalist, including camera equipment, laptop and a mobile phone have been returned. No material stored on them was downloaded or recorded in evidence.”
Smallman, whose equipment was also confiscated, has already raised money through crowd-funding to replace his confiscated equipment, and promises to donate the new gear to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate once he receives his own equipment back from the police.
Pope and Smallman both said that arresting officers also demanded they hand over their phone passwords, raising further concerns over attempts to access confidential journalistic material. Smallman was threatened with a five-year jail sentence if he didn’t comply and hand over his passcodes, using a little-known and far-reaching police power. To Smallman, the police are “using criminal powers which don’t apply to [journalists], vindictively harassing us for covering stuff they find embarrassing”.
Stanistreet agrees, saying: “We have been vocal on the chilling effect caused by the targeting of journalists and continue to condemn the harm to media freedom where public interest journalism is impeded because of the wrongful use of police powers.”
In their most recent review of press freedoms in the UK, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) cited the 2022 arrests of journalists as demonstrating a continued “lack of pluralism” and “restrictive political climate” in the UK. The recent arrests add further weight to these concerns. What Smallman calls an attempted, “gradual erosion of any kind of [press] impartiality” by the UK police has not yet been halted by public, professional and union opposition to the harassment and detention of professional journalists. It is vital that journalists are allowed to report safely, without the risk of arrest weighing on their minds.
05 Jul 24 | News and features, United Kingdom
“The challenge in terms of free speech is quite profound, actually.” These were the words of the UK’s new prime minister, Keir Starmer, in an interview with Index back in 2013. At the time Starmer was head of the Crown Prosecution Service and in the interview discusses the challenges of balancing free speech rights on social media, very much debates we are still having today.
It was not a cameo for Starmer and Index. At the end of that year he was on a panel organised by Index on self-censorship in the arts. The following year he was again interviewed by Index, this time for the magazine under former editor Rachael Jolley, who met him at Doughty Street Chambers, which he helped found as a young human rights barrister. The pair discussed online regulation, alongside whistleblowing and the Human Rights Act. A year after this interview Starmer was a judge on Index’s Freedom of Expression Awards.
The author of several books including the Three Pillars of Liberty: Political Rights and Freedoms in the UK, and the man behind high profile cases like McLibel (where he acted for environmental activists against McDonald’s) and a 2005 case in which 400+ people in Uganda got off death row, Starmer has a decent record when it comes to human rights more generally. But of free speech particularly his views are more complicated. In the interview with Jolley, he said free speech was a qualified, rather than an absolute, right:
“I don’t accept the proposition that you can say what you like, when you like, without any limits at all. Having it as a qualified right under the convention, hence the Human Rights Act, seems to be a sensible approach where you can …assert the right and then it’s for whoever wants to restrict it to demonstrate why it should be restricted and then it’s got to be necessary and proportionate.”
That he qualifies the right to free speech might explain why Starmer has disappointed some people since being elected to the House of Commons in 2015, on both sides of the political spectrum. In the weeks leading up to yesterday’s election there were a flurry of stories lambasting him, and Labour more broadly, for their record. These articles often highlighted the fact that Labour was the party pushing “legal but harmful” in the Online Safety Bill (something Index campaigned successfully to be removed and which Labour has pledged to legislate for again once in power) and that Starmer hasn’t committed to repeal the Public Order Act, which places unprecedented restrictions on protests, making it easier to lock up activists.
The purpose of this newsletter is not to go deep into Starmer’s record – that would take too long and has been thoroughly covered by the British media. We also have time for someone who is thoughtful and considered, not least because free speech itself is not always free from complication. In the Jolley interview she wrote of him: “Sir Keir is one of those incredibly bright people, who has the ability to discuss complex ideas, and get to the guts of them, using down-to-earth language that makes it possible for non-lawyers to understand.”
Today is a new dawn in the UK after 14 years of the Conservatives in power, a party that introduced many restrictions on free speech and threatened to opt out of the European Convention on Human Rights. They leave behind a country divided and with many areas that need to be urgently addressed in terms of censorship. What’s clear though is that we can’t assume Starmer will be a champion of all things anti-censorship either.
We will be sending him our action points to restore free speech in the UK and I hope to meet him soon to press Index’s case. While we believe that our prior relationship with him and his background in human rights law means he’ll be open to us and our campaigns, we won’t be afraid to criticise him when he and the Labour government get it wrong. At the same time, we will remember to praise him when he gets it right.
Welcome to Number 10 Keir! We wish you all the best.
25 Jun 24 | News and features, United Kingdom
Political parties in the UK are now in the final stages of campaigning as they approach the general election on 4 July 2024. During the circus of the campaigning season, important issues can and have slipped through the cracks. We, the undersigned, want to ensure that the next government, whoever it may be, will stand firmly on the side of free expression.
Back in January, Rishi Sunak laid out key targets he wished to deliver before the end of his term, with varying degrees of success. In this spirit, we have compiled our own manifesto outlining key issues relating to free speech that we would like the next UK government to address. They are:
Enact Anti-SLAPP Legislation
Strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, are a means for those with money to abuse the legal system by threatening critics with costly lawsuits in order to intimidate them into abandoning their position. They have become a silencing tactic in recent years, with journalists in particular being targeted, alongside environmental defenders, writers and sexual violence survivors.
Particularly worrying is the current trend of SLAPPs becoming more common throughout Europe. Over 820 cases were registered by Case, the Anti-SLAPP Coalition, in 2023, 161 of which were lawsuits filed in 2022, a significant jump compared to the 135 filed in 2021. Such lawsuits are a stain on our free speech and media freedom credentials. Many journalists live in fear of them. In addition to the lawsuits we know about there are likely scores of articles that never make it to print because newsrooms fear the potential legal ramifications, articles that could serve the public interest.
Prior to the election being called, a private members bill, called the Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation Bill, had been put forward by MP Wayne David in an attempt to address the issue. Although the bill itself contained significant flaws and was weaker than many had hoped, it was at least a promising starting point from which to address the problem. However, with the announcement of the general election, the bill is dead.
We call upon the next government to take up the mantle against SLAPPs and to push forward with another, stronger bill that takes a much firmer approach to resolve the problem.
Protect the right to protest
The UK has seen a number of concerning attacks being made on protest rights in recent years. Legislation such as the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the 2023 Public Order Act have given the police and government sweeping powers to restrict protest, a move criticised by rights groups such as Amnesty International.
In May 2024, former Home Secretary Suella Braverman was ruled by a high court to have acted unlawfully by making it easier to criminalise peaceful protests. Various groups conducting peaceful protests have suffered as a result, such as environmental activists being handed lengthy prison sentences and pro-Palestine protesters being arrested.
Index has previously spoken out against the increasingly authoritarian approach to protesting in the UK and the worrying climate this creates for those wishing to peacefully exercise their right to free assembly and free expression. We would like to see the next government address the issues raised by repealing these alarming pieces of legislation, ensuring that peaceful protesters are no longer restricted in such fashion, and releasing and/or compensating those who have already been punished.
Take a stand against transnational repression
Transnational repression refers to the various ways that authoritarian governments, such as Russia, China, Iran, Rwanda and Saudi Arabia, reach across borders in order to silence dissent, using a range of tactics including online smear campaigns, threats and physical violence. Awareness of transnational repression has increased in recent years but so too has the phenomenon, not least in the UK.
The most famous example is probably the poisoning of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in 2018. Other examples include high-profile Hong Kong activists, Iranian journalists and Saudi comedians being assaulted on UK soil. Even on a less violent level, there are too many reports of students being spied on and university courses changed in acts of appeasement.
In November 2022 the UK government formed the Defending Democracy Taskforce, which is meant to be reviewing the UK’s approach to transnational repression. Late last year the taskforce announced it would be taking a more active role in coordinating electoral security, which is welcome given several hacks that have been traced back to China. But as for the broader issue of protecting dissidents overseas, and indeed those who challenge authoritarian regimes, there is little movement.
Index, for example, has worked extensively to highlight the dangers of transnational repression and we ask the next government to take a more proactive approach to tackle it by both protecting those within the state and sanctioning foreign states who utilise such tactics.
Support journalists in exile and in the UK
In May 2024, the BBC reported that the number of BBC World Service journalists working in exile is estimated to have nearly doubled since 2020, in part due to crackdowns in countries such as Russia, Afghanistan and Ethiopia. Similarly, in 2023 Reporters Without Borders (RSF) provided financial assistance to 460 journalists in exile – nearly twice as many as in 2022 – after being inundated with requests from journalists who had been threatened for their work.
As the number of media workers forced to flee their home country grows, the need for the international community to step in and help intensifies. The UK has an obligation to support and protect journalists in this situation by prioritising press freedom in their foreign policy objectives and calling for accountability for those countries who violate it.
For a journalist facing the distressing and difficult reality of living in exile, one of the most useful pieces of aid is a visa. By holding a visa they can live without fear of being sent back to a country where they face persecution, and can continue their work. We call upon the next government to ensure that journalists from abroad who are living in exile are able to obtain emergency visas in order to be kept safe from authoritarian regimes.
At the same time we’d like to go one step further; the next government should place attacks on the media high on the list of their foreign policy priorities, calling for true accountability for those violating press freedom. Ideally emergency visas shouldn’t be necessary as journalists everywhere are protected and we ask the next government to lead the way in upholding and defending media freedom.
In the process the government must show it respects media freedom in the UK. Stories like “Braverman criticised for shutting out Guardian and BBC from Rwanda trip” must become a thing of the past and some of the sections of the 2023 National Security Act should be repealed given their concerning implications for both journalists and whistleblowers.
Don’t go soft on authoritarian regimes
Over the years, the UK has had a habit of welcoming leaders from authoritarian states and overlooking their poor records on human rights. This was a common theme when David Cameron was prime minister, for example. He welcomed, among others, Egyptian President General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi less than two years after 800 unarmed protesters were killed at Rabaa al-Adawiya square in Cairo and Chinese leader Xi Jinping just days after the arrest of bookseller Gui Minhai.
The tradition has continued since. Under current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak the UK has developed a unique relationship with Rwanda, with the state being at the centre of the Conservative’s policy on asylum seekers. It was recently revealed that Rwanda’s top diplomat in the UK oversaw the use of the international justice system to target critics of the regime overseas in a clear example of transnational repression.
Indeed Cameron, in his new role as foreign secretary, went to Saudi Arabia in April for the World Economic Forum and did not press them on their poor human rights record, which amongst other issues sees many punished under draconian blasphemy laws or, in the case of Salma al-Shehab, for simple retweets. Meanwhile senior British government officials last month congratulated the newly appointed head of the Ugandan army, a man accused of abusing critics and of torture. The list could go on.
The next government would do well to choose its friends wisely, rather than helping authoritarian rulers maintain their grip on power and improve their international status.
Reform the Online Safety Act
The aim of the Online Safety Act – to protect children and adults online – is a commendable one. However, there are elements of the bill that are problematic when it comes to the protection of free speech, particularly those relating to encryption. One section of the act seemingly requires service providers to search for illegal content online by breaking end-to-end encryption, which threatens both privacy and cyber-security, as well as leaving the door open for government interference and surveillance.
Encryption is vital to ensure people can express themselves online safely, especially when they’re living under a repressive regime. Not only does the Online Safety Act put the privacy of online users at risk in the UK, the problematic language used in the bill can also be co-opted by other countries with more sinister intentions.
The next UK government needs to address the issues that have been raised by the bill’s passing by reforming and re-wording the legislation.
Advocate for a global limit on commercial surveillance
Another growing threat to free speech both globally and in the UK is the rise in spyware. This problem has worsened as technology has advanced, with highly sophisticated surveillance software – such as the infamous hacking software Pegasus – becoming readily available to governments around the world.
Pervasive surveillance clearly encroaches on people’s right to privacy and data protection and is a threat to free speech more broadly. People can be put off political participation, or even just from expressing their opinion freely, if they think they are being spied upon by the state. Spyware also often targets individuals like journalists, politicians and activists as a means of repression and intimidation.
We call upon the UK government to support the implementation of a global moratorium on commercial spyware until proper safeguards are put in place to deal with these threats. Controls and guardrails must be enforced globally to ensure that any surveillance tools comply with human rights.
Preserve academic freedom
Threats to academic freedom are widely viewed to be more of a problem in the USA than the UK. That said there have been worrying signs here which ought to be addressed before the problem escalates.
The number of reports of university events and speakers being cancelled has grown in recent years. This was supposedly the motivation behind the government’s introduction of a free speech tsar in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, which came into effect in 2023 and has been criticised by some for being “lip service” to free speech issues.
The tsar, Arif Ahmed, said at the time of his appointment that he would remain politically neutral in his efforts to combat attacks to free speech on campus. We can only hope he is true to his word. The current government has tried to interfere in universities, such as threatening to regulate certain academic approaches (in 2020 the then-equalities minister Kemi Badendoch condemned critical race theory – an academic field focussed on discussions of white privilege and structural racism – and the government declared itself “unequivocally against” the concept, for example).
Another threat is aforementioned – that of transnational repression – with students reporting growing fears of surveillance on campus, especially Chinese students. When you add in increasing fears around book banning in school libraries, there is a clear argument that free speech in education needs close attention in order to truly preserve academic freedom. But this must not come from a party-political position. Politics must not enter the classroom or lecture hall.
Support British nationals overseas
There are several British nationals overseas who are currently in prison, serving time for no crime at all. They are people who have been committed to free expression, human rights and democracy and for this they have lost their own freedom. Three of the most prominent are Jimmy Lai, a media mogul who is in jail in Hong Kong, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a writer and activist who has been in and out of prison in Egypt for a decade now, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a journalist and activist who has been behind bars since 2022.
The UK government has demonstrated a lack of commitment to help free these three men and we urge the next government to reverse this trend. The unjust imprisonments of them, and others like them, must be a priority and must then act as a blueprint for future action if other British nationals find themselves at the mercy of authoritarian regimes.
Signed:
Index on Censorship
Article 19
Humanists UK
13 Jun 24 | News and features, United Kingdom
Index on Censorship is looking for a passionate and dynamic individual to join our team as a Communications and Events Manager. The role will sit at the heart of the organisation and will be instrumental in running external communications across our social media channels, liaising with media to secure coverage and organising our events.
Requirements:
The ideal candidate will be confident in their ability to foster partnerships and will have strong writing skills, with a keen eye for detail. They’ll buzz with enthusiasm and will be passionate about world news and the global rights landscape.
Ideally they’ll have done a marketing, communications, journalism or events role in a mission-driven organisation or in publishing/the media. They will have strong planning and organisational skills, the ability to work effectively with people at different levels of seniority and from different backgrounds and will have a passion for free expression. A non-tribal outlook is essential: Index is non-partisan and its only “cause” is that of promoting free expression.
Key Responsibilities:
- Social media management: Coordinate and execute our social media strategy to position Index as the go-to for information and analysis on the global free speech landscape
- Event organisation: Curate and coordinate events, including venue and speaker bookings. Lead on our annual Freedom of Expression awards as part of this
- PR and communication: Develop and implement strategies to promote Index to existing and new audiences and manage media relationships
- Content development: Produce and promote content in line with the organisation’s main work streams and priorities
Qualifications / Experience:
- A track record of managing social media in a professional setting
- Experience of liaising with media to secure coverage
- Demonstrated experience in event planning
- Ability to work independently and take initiative in identifying and pursuing opportunities
- Experience of writing across multi-platforms
- Knowledge of website backends, SEO and other digital tools is not essential but preferred
- Knowledge of a second language and/or expertise on another area of the world is a bonus
This is a full time role. The starting salary is £35,000-38,000 dependent on experience. The role is remote but regular travel to London will be expected.
Please send a cover letter and CV to [email protected] by Monday 8 July. Interviews will take place in early to mid July.
About Index:
Index on Censorship is Britain’s leading organisation that reports on and campaigns for free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate and monitor threats to free speech. At the organisation’s heart and in circulation since 1972 is an award-winning quarterly magazine that has featured some of the world’s best-known writers. In addition to the magazine is a website, a weekly newsletter and a campaigning and events programme. Together they make Index what it is today – the go-to for information on the global free speech landscape.
Index is a small and ambitious organisation that values diversity. We are committed to equal opportunities and welcome all applicants regardless of ethnic origin, national origin, gender, gender identity, race, colour, religious beliefs, disability, sexual orientation, age or marital status.
