Category: Freedom of Expression

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PPF condemns death threats to twelve journalists in Uganda

Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF), in a letter to Ruhakana Rugunda, Prime Minister of Uganda has expressed concern over the death threats to twelve journalists working in the Southern Buganda region.

PPF Secretary General Owais Aslam Ali has called on the Ugandan authorities to look into this matter and take immediate steps to provide security to the journalists threatened to kill. PPF also urged to hold the perpetrators threatening journalists.

According to Human Rights Network for Journalists- Uganda (HRNJ), a letter comprising names of twelve journalists was received at the South Buganda Journalists Association (SOBUJA) offices in Masaka, threatening to kill the journalists mentioned in the letter.

The names of journalists mentioned includes, Tomusange Kayinja, Kalanzi Jamiru, Male John and Ssozi Ssekimpi of the Central Broadcasting Services (CBS FM), Nsubuga Robert of BBS TV, Jacinta Bwanika of Bukedde, Mukasa Kipecu and Kabugu Norman of Kamunye, Dismas Buregeya of New Vision, Mutyaba Gertrude of Daily Monitor, Issa Aliga of NTV and Farisi Magembe of NBS Television.

The letter was written in Luganda language and the reasons for killing each journalist was also mentioned in the letter. However the letter didn’t specified when the planned killings would be effected.

One of the targeted journalist Nsubuga Robert told HRNJ-Uganda, that a brown envelope with a letter comprising names of targeted journalists was discovered at the entrance of the CBS FM Bureau office located at Laston Business Centre Building while another letter with the same threatening message was found at the entrance of the SOBUJA office located in Masaka Town, South Western Uganda.

Another mentioned journalist Dismas Buregeya stated, that a District Internal Security Office (ISO) team headed by Lieutenant Andrew Kandiho reached the office of SOBUJA, took the threatening letter and assured to carry out further investigations.

One of the mentioned journalist Tomusange Kayinja of CBS FM, was attacked by unidentified armed men, one month ago. As he returned home, the attackers opened fire on his car shattering the windscreen of his car.

 

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Promotion of democratic models urged to protect freedom of expression

KARACHI: A global commission has urged world leaders to take action to promote democratic models that protect the exercise of freedom of expression and opinion while respecting the principles of pluralism, freedom, dignity and tolerance, and the ideal of reason and knowledge.

According to a press release issued by the Ethical Journalism Network on Monday, a Declaration was adopted unanimously by members of the Information and Democracy Commission — that is chaired by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) secretary general Christophe Deloire and Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi — 70 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in Paris.

The commission consists of 25 prominent figures of 18 nationalities, including Nobel laureates Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz and Mario Vargas Llosa and the Sakharov Prize laureate, Hauwa Ibrahim. It also includes new technology specialists, lawyers, journalists and former heads of international organisations.

The other members are (listed alphabetically): Emily Bell, Yochaï Benkler, Teng Biao, Nighat Dad, Can Dündar, Primavera de Filippi, Mireille Delmas-Marty, Abdou Diouf, Francis Fukuyama, Ulkir Haagerup, Ann Marie Lipinski, Adam Michnik, Eli Pariser, Antoine Petit, Navi Pillay, Maria Ressa, Marina Walker, Aidan White and Mihaïl Zygar.

In a six-page document titled ‘International Declaration on Information and Democracy’, the commission set out democratic guarantees for the freedom, independence, pluralism and reliability of information at a time when the public space had been globalised, digitalised and destabilised.

The members appealed: “We urge leaders of good will on all continents to take action to promote democratic models and an open public debate in which citizens can take decisions on the basis of facts. The global information and communication space, which is a common good of humankind, must be protected in order to facilitate the exercise of freedom of expression and opinion while respecting the principles of pluralism, freedom, dignity and tolerance, and the ideal of reason and knowledge.”

To this end, the statement added, the commission asked for strong commitment to be expressed as early as Nov 11, during the Peace Forum, when dozens of political leaders would gather in Paris.

According to the press release, the commission’s mission statement— written by its two co-chairs — said the Declaration must “constitute a point of reference that will mobilise all those who are committed to defending a free and pluralistic public space, which is essential for democracy”.

It said that enshrining a “right to information”, understood as reliable information, was an innovation that established that human beings had a fundamental right to receive information that was freely gathered, processed and disseminated, according to the principles of commitment to truth, plurality of viewpoints and rational methods of establishing facts.

The commission called for the creation of an international group of experts whose mandate and funding should ensure its independence from both companies and governments. It should have the power to investigate practices in the information and communication space and their impact on its means, architectures and norms.

“Democratic accountability will require continuous expert participation that adequately balances global representation with rigorous evidence-based assessment of practices and conditions of knowledge production in the global information in the communication space,” the Declaration read.

Dawn

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Media coverage

THE Pakistani media’s tragic flaw is that rather than cover the story, it is too often part of the story. So it is again with regards to media coverage of last week’s TLP protests. All stakeholders — the government, the protesters, the public — had strong opinions on how the media should cover the mayhem. And as often happens, all stakeholders were disappointed.

As the protests gained momentum, the de facto media blackout was observed. Those who value press freedom find blackouts discomfiting; they are after all a form of censorship. They invite the kind of outrage that rightfully followed the decision to ban TV broadcasts and block social media outlets during the Faizabad episode in 2017.

But absolutism falters when people incite murder, violence, civil disobedience. Even those who abhor censorship concede that broadcasting trouble spurs more trouble. Excessive media coverage of provocative statements and protests can lead to even more widespread unrest. In this case, media regulation would have also prevented coverage of some protest leaders’ incendiary statements.There is little sympathy for the media’s dilemmas.

But what about accountability to the public? Such a blackout means that citizens remain uninformed about the nature, scale and location of protests, impacting free movement and public safety. Moreover, there is now scant public record of a three-day period of nationwide vandalism. Citizens seeking compensation for loss of property will sadly find no evidence to back their claims in media reports.

In such sensitive situations, the media’s knee-jerk response is to follow the government’s lead. But what are outlets to do when the government’s communications on a tense situation are more inept than those of the agitators? Consider how the PTI’s federal and public representatives offered contradictory statements on negotiations, while the TLP spokespeople emerged as more accurate sources of information.

These conundrums left the media in the crosshairs of a conflicted public. Some wanted the media to block anti-state voices; others derided the media for failing to cover the protest leaders’ statements, deeming it part of a wider conspiracy. Still others took matters into their own hands, with Pakistani Twitter users rallying the social media platform to ban Khadim Hussain Rizvi’s handle.

Of course, there is little sympathy for the media’s dilemmas. The industry is still accused of irresponsible coverage and debate and, because of this, of being complicit in the targeting of some political personalities. Social media users were also quick to point out that channels that last week refused to air TLP statements were happy to echo the party’s rallying cry and glorify its leadership during the Faizabad sit-in and in the run-up to elections as part of a wider effort to undermine the PML-N.

The media’s about-turns on the party, Aasia Bibi and the blasphemy laws more broadly have several drivers. A main one is the fear factor — media personnel know that few other issues can spark death threats and mob violence as rapidly, and prefer to err on the side of caution.

Another driver is the fact that the industry, ultimately, also comprises several individuals whose reports reflect their ideological positions. The Supreme Court verdict in the Aasia Bibi case has been divisive, and emotions run high on both sides. The media is not isolated from the society on which it reports, and reflects the same schisms as the public.

These drivers explain why the debate has been around how the media covered the protests, and not the verdict itself. Few have asked why the media didn’t explain the verdict’s legal argumentation or defend its constitutionality. In today’s Pakistan, no one even expects this of the fourth estate. There is no place for such wishful, naive thinking.

It is worth noting that good ol’ fashioned responsible journalism — the type that strives towards objectivity and impartiality, that is fact-checked and proportionate to the news value of the development, that adheres to existing media regulation — would have saved the media from its dilemmas. It is possible to cover protests in a way that does not contribute to mayhem, and that holds all stakeholders accountable. But we already know that our media does not do responsible journalism.

And we also know that our media is beholden to higher powers. Its vagaries are those of the state institutions that dictate its coverage. The failings of reportage are ultimately a reflection of the failings of state policies.

And so it is that the major story emanating from last week’s protests was about protesters stealing bananas from a child’s cart. This is what media coverage looks like when the fourth estate cannot engage in the politics and ideology inherent to a story. With hints of civil unrest in the air, with extremists pitted against all state institutions, all we get is a bunch of bananas.

Dawn

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PFUJ vows to protect freedom of press

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (Afzal Butt group) on Saturday described Nov 3, 2007 as the darkest day in the country’s history and said on that day former military ruler retired Gen Pervez Musharraf had imposed a state of emergency in violation of the Constitution.

In a statement, PFUJ president Afzal Butt and secretary general Ayub Jan Sirhindi recalled that restrictions were imposed on the electronic media and the judges who refused to take the unconstitutional oath had been detained. The PFUJ launched a movement against those measures. Protest camps set up by the journalists remained in place for several months and due to this struggle TV channels were restored.

“This exemplary struggle is the beacon of light in our history,” Mr Butt said, adding PFUJ was still confronting unannounced censorship and black laws imposed on the press.

The leaders expressed their commitment that the journalists would continue their struggle until the press became completely independent.

The PFUJ said that even today efforts were being made to introduce Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority to impose restriction on the press.

“We will not accept any such law that is intended to gain government control on the press,” Mr Butt said.

“Like the past, PFUJ will not hesitate to offer any sacrifice for freedom of the press,” he said.

Dawn

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‘Self-censorship flourishes in environment of fear and intimidation’

The two-day School of Tomorrow event ‘A World of Tomorrow Reimagined’ kicked off at a hotel on Saturday.

The session titled “Freedom of Expression: Where Do We Draw the Line?” was moderated by journalist Mehmal Sarfaraz and had artist Salima Hashmi, Nida Mushtaq of Feminist Collective and senior journalist Ghazi Salahuddin as panelists.

Defining the concept of freedom of expression, Hashmi said that for her firstly it was about the independence to imagine.

“When it comes to artistic freedom, it is the freedom to imagine and create and share the fruits of that creation with the rest of the world. I feel the right to show and disseminate is very important. However, not just here, in every part of the world, there are some cultural lines which are drawn and an artist challenges those very lines which are the comfort zone of a society,” she said.

She added that cultural freedoms were also tied with socioeconomic rights of the individual. Speaking about her initiative, she said Fearless Collective brings art to the streets.

“We take the narratives of non-cis people to the streets using their stories and their imagery. We do think about the colours we would use as well as the image we would be putting across the wall if it’d be acceptable by the people or not so the freedom to imagine is indeed very important,” she said.

She also pointed out that despite having the content to showcase, events often showed videos which were made by the Global North, which also hinted at the limitations to portray the art.

Salahuddin said that it was an irony for a journalist to speak about the freedom of expression owing to the times we were living in. Referring to the past when he worked as a journalist during dictator Zia ul Haq’s times, he said those were tough times for the media, but now it was one of the worst times for journalists in Pakistan.

“There are restrictions from the state, owners, establishment or the religious extremists and one can try to write between the lines, but still the oppressive measures are very visible.

“Also, when it comes to cultural freedom we need to understand that the freedom of expression is deeply rooted in the freedom of thought for everyone. We have a moral, cultural and intellectual deprivation which affects and curtains the freedom,” he said.

Speaking about the restriction on satire, Nida Mushtaq was of the opinion that despite being called a security state, it was the insecurity of leaders who got offended by humour and felt that their egos had been bruised. She added that in artwork, she and other artists used affirmative words instead of being preachy about the subject and tried to infuse poetry as well.

Speaking about the current media scenario again, Salahuddin said he was highlighting the worsening condition because previously journalists knew about the restrictions.

“Earlier, we knew the rules of the game but now we know nothing. Also previously, we were taken to jails and were treated like political prisoners, whilst now people just go missing or get threatening phone calls. Due to this, journalists are self-censoring and self-censorship flourishes in an environment of fear and intimidation,” he said.

He also felt that the editorial control was being compromised and the owners were getting more powerful despite the role of publisher and editor being adversarial.

The News

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PPF condemns assault on reporter in Ghana

Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) in a letter to Nana Akufo-Addo, President the Republic of Ghana has expressed concern over the attack on Kwesi Parker Wilson, reporter of Accra-based Joy FM on October 29.

PPF Secretary General Owais Aslam Ali in his letter has called on the authorities to immediately investigate the matter and hold the guard responsible for assaulting journalist.

According to Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), the security guard of Ghana’s ex-President, John Mahama assaulted Parker during the coverage of campaign team of the ex-president, who is pursuing his party’s directive as flag-bearer in Ghana’s 2020 presidential elections.

Soon after the ex-President finished interacting with students of the Pentecost University in Accra as a part of his campaign, the journalist made his way towards the president to get an interview. He was, however stopped by the security guard of John Mahama. When Parker complained against the rude behavior of security guard towards him, he was than repetitively pushed. The guard slapped journalist and shouted that you are challenging my authority.

Journalists from Multimedia Group have faced various incidents of attack while in the line of duty. Five journalists from the Multimedia were victims of assault since March, 2018.

Latif Iddris of Joy News was assaulted by police officers on March 27, while covering an incident at the Police Headquarters in Accra. In another incident, Ohemaa Sakyiwaa, a reporter of Adom FM of the Multimedia group was assaulted by a supporter of Ghana’s ruling New Patriotic Party at the party’s headquarters.

A group of supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Ghana’s main opposition party on August 16 assaulted Jonathan Adjei, a cameraman of Joy News. The incident happened while the cameraman was covering the commissioning of a polyclinic at Sunkwa, a town in the Central region of Ghana.

In another incident occurred on September 12, Karen Dodoo of Joy News was brutalized by the workers of gold dealership firm, Menzgold. They seized two cellphones and the microphone of journalist.

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PPF concerned over assault on freelance journalist in Harare

Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF), in a letter to Emmerson Mnangagwa, President of Zimbabwe has expressed concern over the assault and detention of a freelance journalist Philemon Jambaya on October 29.

PPF Secretary General Owais Aslam Ali condemned the continued attacks on journalists and called on the authorities to immediately hold those officers involved in assaulting and detaining Philemon Jambaya. PPF also urged to provide security to the journalists and media workers in the line of duty.

According to Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) officers arrested Jambaya during a police operation jointly conducted by ZRP and Harare municipality in Harare’s Copacabana area. During the operation vendors working in the area were also arrested.

Officers accused Jambaya of being a phone dealer and taking pictures of the operation. The officers also beaten journalist despite showing his passport and press card. Police detained Jambaya and moved him to Harare Central Police Station. Later in the evening he was released after intervention of MISA Zimbabwe lawyer Christopher Mhike. Jambaya will lodge a complaint after receiving medical treatment.

MISA further added that, in the past two months, Jambaya is the seventh journalist to be the victims of harassment, assault and detention.