March 2024 in Europe and Central Asia: A free expression round-up produced by IFEX's Regional Editor Cathal Sheerin, based on IFEX member reports and news from the region.
Restrictions on the right to protest in the UK; Kyrgyzstan passes “foreign agent” bill; over 1,500 civil society groups now dissolved in Belarus; EU Media Freedom Act adopted; and a better way to report on Israel and the Occupied Territories.
UK: Protest restricted, “extremism” definition broadened
In the UK, a general election is expected in “the second half” of 2024 and the current Conservative government looks like it will suffer a devastating defeat; until then, it appears to be committed to offering the electorate little more than an ugly mix of culture war nonsense and authoritarian posturing.
That authoritarianism has been on full display in recent months, triggered in part by the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that swept the UK after Israel began its bombardment of Gaza in October 2023.
Late February saw the government publish the Defending Democracy Policing Protocol, which, among other things, proposes new restrictions on how and where citizens can protest. Locations that the government wants to place out-of-bounds for protesters include: the Palace of Westminster (Parliament); outside constituency offices; town halls; and the venues of political events. In other words, places where political protests might have substantial impact.
Supported by various right wing tabloids, the government has for years been trying to delegitimise certain peaceful protests in the UK. Most recently, government ministers have made liberal use of terms such as “extremist”, “radical” and “hate mob” to publicly demonise pro-Palestinian/pro-ceasefire demonstrations.
This month, in response to these attempts to restrict and undermine the right to protest, ARTICLE 19 joined several civil society organisations in addressing a public letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, in which they called on the Conservative government to end its crackdown on free expression.
The organisations also highlighted their concerns over the government’s newly-unveiled definition of “extremism”. In contrast to the previous (2011) definition, which emphasised acts of violence, the new version’s focus is more ideological and thus broader in scope. Michael Gove, the influential government minister who presented the new definition (and who has long exhibited a troubling fixation on Muslims), named a handful of groups that would be assessed under it (with more to come): these included two far-right hate groups and three Muslim civil society organisations. Groups categorised as “extremist” will be blocked from government funding and meeting officials.
UK reporting on Gaza: The passive voice, and telling statistics
The Anglophone media’s use of the passive voice, with its concomitant tendency to avoid attribution of responsibility to the perpetrator, will be familiar to anyone who regularly consumes news about Israel and the Occupied Territories. It’s especially noticeable in headlines and opening paragraphs (which is often all that many of us read).
A recent example (from November 2023) – “Israelis marked a month since Hamas killed 1,400 people and kidnapped 240, starting a war in which 10,300 Palestinians are said to have died” – leaves the reader in no doubt about who killed the 1,400, but completely in the dark as to what killed those Palestinians; it also injects a note of doubt about the number of Palestinians actually killed.
If we, as advocates for free expression and critics of misinformation, want consumers of news to have a balanced, more-informed and accurate understanding of the facts after they encounter a piece of journalism, we need to address the way the media reports on Israel and the Occupied Territories.
A recent report from the UK does just that. In early March, the Centre for Media Monitoring (a project of the Muslim Council of Britain) published Media Bias Gaza 2023 – 24, an exhaustive analysis of the UK media’s depiction of Israel and the Palestinians in the four weeks that followed Hamas’s attack on Israelis on 7 October 2023.
The report examines over 176,000 TV news clips and more than 25,000 online news articles from a broad range of media outlets, and presents the results in sections addressing: framing the conflict; the representation of Palestinian and Israeli voices; how unverified claims or disinformation is treated; and the boosting of racism and Islamophobia.
Some of the most telling statistics:
- Between 7 October and 7 November, TV coverage referenced Israel’s “right to defend itself” five times more than the Palestinians’ right to do the same under international law.
- Israeli voices were three times more likely to be aired than Palestinian ones.
- Over 70% of the time that the words “atrocities”, “slaughter” and “massacre” were used in reporting, they were applied solely in the case of attacks against Israelis.
- In broadcast media, Israelis were described as the victims of attacks 11 times more than Palestinians.
- In 98,500 mentions of “Gaza”, the words “occupied Gaza” were mentioned only 28 times on broadcast TV.
The report also cites several shocking examples of where TV journalists failed to challenge prominent Israeli spokespersons’ use of dehumanising, racist language to describe Palestinians and Gazans (for example, referring to them as “inhuman” or “barbaric animals”), and many instances where representatives of the Israeli government went uncorrected when misrepresenting historical facts or making misleading statements about other details of the conflict. It highlights how some elements in the UK’s right-wing media have demonised pro-Palestinian protesters as anti-Semitic, “pro-Hamas” and terrorism-supporting, and used the ongoing conflict to promote Islamophobic tropes.
The report argues for balanced, more accurate, more informative reporting, and makes several recommendations to the UK media, including:
- The lives of Israeli citizens should not be prioritised over Palestinian civilians.
- The historical context of the Israel-Palestine conflict should be explained; those providing such context should not be accused of “justifying terrorism”.
- Media should not prioritise Israel’s “right to defend itself” over the Palestinians’ right to legally resist occupation under international law.
- When Palestinians are killed the perpetrator should be identified.
- Media outlets should challenge Israeli spokespersons when they use racist or dehumanising language about Palestinians.
- Where claims made by either Israelis or Palestinians are impossible to corroborate, media outlets should treat them with scepticism.
- Where a claim has been reported and later proved to be false, media outlets should clarify this on all their platforms and in all related subsequent reports.
- Pro-Palestinian protesters have a right to protest and should not be framed as extremist, anti-British or anti-western for doing so.
The report is well worth reading and reflecting on.
Belarus: Over 1,500 civil society organisations liquidated
In March, The Economic Court of Minsk ordered the liquidation of the news agency BelaPAN, which was declared “extremist” in 2021. Four BelaPAN journalists – Iryna Leushyna, Dzmitry Navazhylau, Andrei Aliaksandrau and Iryna Zlobina – are already behind bars, having been handed long prison sentences in 2022 on spurious charges ranging from high treason to tax evasion.
The liquidation of civil society organisations (CSOs) in Belarus has been relentless since President Lukashenka launched his “purge” of civil society in 2021. According to the Belarusian human rights group Lawtrend, by February 2024 “at least 1,563 institutionalized forms of CSOs, including civic associations, professional unions, political parties, foundations, non-governmental institutions, associations, and religious organizations had been dissolved by a court, otherwise de-registered, or opted for voluntary liquidation” since the 2020 elections.
The prosecution and sentencing of independent journalists also continued this month: on 21 March, videographer Andrei Tolchyn was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for “facilitating extremist activities” and defaming Lukashenka; on 22 March, freelancer Ihar Karnei was handed a three-year prison sentence for “participating in an extremist group”.
Early March saw the one-year anniversary of the sentencing of Viasna members Ales Bialiatski, Valiantsin Stefanovic and Uladzimir Labkovich to ten, nine and seven years of imprisonment respectively. Several international human rights groups, including ARTICLE 19, marked the anniversary by calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners in Belarus.
In mid-March, Human Rights Watch, the Belarusian Association of Journalists and several other rights organisations published an open letter to the ambassadors of member states of the UN Human Rights Council (UN HRC): the groups urged the UN HRC to renew the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Belarus and establish “a fully independent investigative mechanism to collect and preserve evidence of potential international crimes beyond the 2020 elections period, with a view to advancing accountability”.
Kyrgyzstan: Media bill withdrawn, “foreign agents” bill passed
There was good news and bad news from Kyrgyzstan in March. Mid-month, President Japarov withdrew from parliament a restrictive media bill that free press advocates said would give the authorities greater power to silence critical media by court order. Then, days later, a court in Bishkek annulled a decision by the Ministry of Culture to block the Russian language website of independent news outlet Kloop Media (the block was introduced after the authorities accused Kloop of spreading false information).
Kloop is currently appealing a liquidation order for carrying out activities “beyond the scope of its charter”.
Also mid-month, lawmakers passed the repressive “foreign agents” bill, which requires CSOs that receive funding from abroad – and which carry out activities deemed to be “political” – to register as “foreign agents”.
As well as having to deal with a new, onerous, administrative burden, CSOs could be suspended for six months and have their bank accounts frozen if they fail to declare themselves as “foreign agents”. The Committee to Protect Journalists and Human Rights Watch have called on President Japarov to veto the law.
In brief
On 26 March, the British High Court ruled that jailed Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange can appeal his extradition to the US if the US government fails to provide proper assurances that he will be able to rely on First Amendment rights, and that he will not be subjected to the death penalty. The US has until 16 April to provide such assurances. The next court hearing is scheduled for 20 May.
Media freedom groups, including several IFEX members, welcomed the adoption by the European Parliament of the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA). While describing the law as “an important step towards protecting and promoting media freedom and pluralism in the EU”, the groups called on member states to “go much further” in implementing the EMFA and establish “stronger safeguards” to protect journalists’ rights, “in particular from the use of intrusive surveillance and spyware”.
The Media Freedom Rapid Response partners published their Monitoring Report documenting violations of press freedom during 2023. In total, the year saw 1,117 attacks on press freedom recorded in EU member states and candidate countries. According to the report 602 alerts were recorded in the EU, where almost 33% of attacks were by private individuals, 17.9% by public officials, and 12.6% by police and state security. Worryingly, more than one fifth of all incidents in the EU involved some kind of physical attack.
