February 2022 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.
Putin’s war on Ukraine, the independent press and access to information; a call to free Belarus’s more than 1,000 political prisoners; and a look ahead to International Women’s Day.
Don’t mention the war
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has already resulted in at least 660,000 refugees and indiscriminate bombing that Amnesty International said could constitute war crimes. So far, the United Nations has reported at least 406 civilian casualties, including 102 deaths. Two foreign journalists have also been shot (non-fatally) by unknown gunmen. In Russia, anti-war protests have seen more than 6,000 arrests and several examples of police brutality.
As in all wars, information is a battleground. Numerous statistics and claims that have circulated via social media (and sometimes gone on to appear in traditional media) have been, at best, unverified ; others have very clearly been acts of disinformation. Investigative journalism outfit, Bellingcat, began debunking dubious pro-Russian footage of alleged acts of provocation in eastern Ukraine in the days before Russia’s invasion. IFEX’s Ukrainian member, the Institute for Mass Information, has provided a list of online media outlets that are producing trustworthy reports.
In all this, President Putin has acted as the disinformer-in-chief. His public lies about a ‘genocide’ of Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine and about Russia’s need to ‘demilitarise’ her neighbour in order to feel safe, were presented as justifications for starting a war on 24 February.
Since then, his government has been trying to hide the truth of the invasion from Russian citizens. While pro-government media have either downplayed or denied the military action, independent press outlets have been threatened with legal action for reporting on Russia’s bombing raids. The media regulator has warned the press about using words such as “attack”, “invasion” or “war” and journalists have been detained for covering anti-war rallies. The authorities also began throttling access to Facebook and Twitter on 26 February.
In response to Putin’s attack on Ukraine, the international community has issued statements of public condemnation, demands that human rights be respected and protected, and far-reaching sanctions.
IFEX and IFEX members – including the Committee to Protect Journalists, the European Federation of Journalists, Freedom House, Free Press Unlimited, the International Federation of Journalists, the International Press Institute, Index on Censorship, PEN centres, Reporters Without Borders and many others – have called for the safety of journalists to be respected and for the rights to free expression, access to information and protest to be protected in both Ukraine and Russia.
On the day of the invasion, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media called on the Russian authorities to lift restrictions imposed on the media during the invasion; the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights called on Russia to end its military action, to adhere to international humanitarian and human rights law, and on Council of Europe member states to welcome Ukrainian refugees.
On 25 February, the Council of Europe suspended Russia’s rights of representation in the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly.
On 26 February, leaders from the EU, the USA and the UK announced that they would undertake measures to cripple Russia’s war machine. These include: the removal of select Russian banks from the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) messaging system that facilitates the flow of money around the world; the imposition of restrictive measures to prevent the Russian Central Bank from deploying its international reserves; limiting the sale of citizenship – so called ‘golden passports’ – that has been exploited by wealthy Russians to gain access to financial systems in other countries; setting up a task force to ensure the effective implementation of sanctions on sanctioned individuals; enhanced coordination in the battle against disinformation, including, an EU-ban on Russia Today, Sputnik and their subsidiaries (since the announcement, Facebook owner Meta has said it will block the pro-Kremlin media outlets from its platforms and Google Europe has said it will block YouTube channels associated with them).
On 28 February, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague announced that he would launch an investigation into possible war crimes or crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
Cultural and sporting entities have also taken decisions to sanction Russia. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has called on all International Sports Federations to “relocate or cancel their sports events currently planned in Russia or Belarus”; Formula 1 and the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile announced that the Russian Grand Prix would not take place; the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) stripped Russia of its role as host of this year’s Champions League Final; Manchester United Football Club ended its sponsorship deal with Russian airline Aeroflot; and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) banned Russia from participating in the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest. The list of cultural organisations and businesses cutting ties with Russia grows longer every day.
The EU and UK have also closed their airspace to Russia.
More than 1,000 political prisoners
February ended with Belarus facing further sanctions, this time for helping facilitate Russia’s attack on Ukraine. The month began with 37 OSCE states calling on Lukashenka’s government to free the more than 1,000 political prisoners who are languishing in jail.
These OSCE states also asked the Belarusian authorities to: publish their full response to the Vienna Mechanism invocation; invite the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) to monitor any criminal or administrative trials deemed of interest by the OSCE; and agree to an independent expert inquiry into reports of arbitrary detentions and the targeting of opposition figures.
Mid-month, IFEX joined other rights organisations in urging the UN Human Rights Council to renew the mandate of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’s examination of the human rights situation in Belarus.
February also saw the International Day of Solidarity with Belarus, which this year focused on independent Belarusian media. The Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) offered recommendations on how to show solidarity with the more than 30 journalists currently in jail and support independent press outlets. Free Press Unlimited called on the Media Freedom Coalition to renew its attention on “the dire situation” faced by independent media in the country.
Two overviews of 2021 – a year that saw a huge ramping up of pressure on civil society in Belarus – were published this month. BAJ’s report recorded 146 raids on journalists’ homes and offices during the year, with 13 media groups labelled “extremist” and 32 media workers still in jail at the end of December. PEN Belarus documented 1,455 violations of the cultural rights and human rights of cultural figures in 2021, more than 2.5 times the number recorded the previous year.
Looking ahead to International Women’s Day
As International Women’s Day (8 March) approaches, it’s important to highlight the essential role that women’s civil society organisations are playing in fighting for and protecting human rights in Europe and Central Asia – often at high risk to themselves.
Nasiliu.net (“No to Violence”) is one of those organisations. Launched in Russia in 2016, it works to “break the silence about domestic violence and make the problem visible”. Its efforts are invaluable.
February 2022 saw the fifth anniversary of Russia’s decriminalisation of domestic violence. Since then, victims have only been able to file criminal charges against their abusers if it is at least the abuser’s second offence (first time offenders get away with small administrative fines).
One immediate effect of the legislative change was that it deterred women from reporting cases of domestic violence: in 2016, for example, 49,765 reports were made; in 2017, there were just 25,667. The truth is that decriminalisation has actually coincided with a rise in cases of domestic violence in Russia: a national domestic abuse helpline took 7,000 more calls in 2017 than in 2016.
However, at the state level, there is no serious discussion of domestic violence. “Officially, there is no such problem in Russia”, says Nasiliu.net’s deputy director, Diana Barsegyan, in a recent Meduza interview.
According to Barsegyan, the decriminalisation of domestic violence, the lack of official discussion about it, and the complete dearth of accurate statistics mean that police officers and medical workers have little understanding of what domestic violence is, while victims don’t know where to turn for protection or how to secure their rights.
Nasiliu.net’s work attempts to address this. It involves arranging emergency refuge for victims, assisting them in recovering from trauma, organising legal assistance and – importantly – providing victims and the wider public with access to reliable information about the problem (via video campaigns, billboards, workshops etc). Nasiliu.net is also the only group of its kind in Moscow that works with abusers who want to give up violence.
But battling domestic violence isn’t Nasiliu.net’s only challenge.
Like many civil society organisations in Russia, it has to contend with harassment by the authorities. In 2020, it was declared a ‘foreign agent’, a label that places onerous administrative restrictions on an organisation, reduces its funding options, leaves it vulnerable to large fines, and undermines it in the public mind. This followed Nasiliu.net’s support for a bill to recriminalise domestic violence, which the government considered ‘political activity’. The following year, Nasiliu.net was fined approximately US$12,000 for infringements of the ‘foreign agent’ law. It has also said that the ‘foreign agent’ label has made other groups more reticent about partnering with it.
In brief
In Turkey, Güngör Arslan, owner and editor of murder of a local newspaper Ses Kocaeli, died after he was shot in front of his office on 19 February. The police arrested two suspects.
The closed-door trial of jailed civil society leader Alexei Navalny began in Russia on 13 February. He faces dubious embezzlement charges and up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
The EU will launch an investigation into the Pegasus spyware scandal. An increasing number of opposition politicians in Poland are discovering that they have been targeted by the spyware.
In Kyrgyzstan, independent news site Kaktus.media is under investigation on accusations of “war propaganda” after it re-posted an article from a Tajik news website about a recent armed clash at the disputed border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. A conviction could result in a fine or up to five years in prison.
