Brexit
Deal
The UK and the
European Union have approved an agreement
on a trade deal after Brexit. The last-minute
deal allows Britain to continue trading with the EU and may avoid the
massive disruption to the economy and people’s lives expected if there
had been no deal. Exactly how the deal affects business, the economy and
individuals will only become clearer with time with constantly updated
reporting available here:
Associated
Press (AP) - https://apnews.com/hub/brexit
Financial
Times(FT) - https://www.ft.com/brexit
The
Guardian -https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum
BBC - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/uk_leaves_the_eu
Details
of the deal are here
and for some early analysis please see:
FT - https://www.ft.com/content/34dd4cbe-33ef-32f8-9aa2-904339e46bf0
AP - https://apnews.com/article/brexit-europe-global-trade-europe-e0e9914361f0f8975b7f49a834497c5d
Council
on Foreign Relations (U.S. based) - https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/whats-eu-uk-brexit-deal
For
questions about the deal itself and its impact please see:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/55252388
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-55261711
UK
Prime Minister Boris Johnson unsurprisingly heralded the Christmas
Eve deal as delivering on Brexit by taking back control of UK laws and
destiny. He said the deal will protect jobs, allow UK goods to be sold
without tariffs and quotas in the EU market, and allow companies to do even
more business with Europe. From January 1, the UK will be outside the
European customs union and single market, Johnson said, and British laws will
be made solely by the British parliament, interpreted by UK judges sitting in
UK courts, and no longer subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of
Justice – all demands of ardent Brexiteers. European Commission
President Ursula von der Leyen said the deal was fair and
balanced and Brussels would "continue cooperating with the UK in all
areas of mutual interest" such as climate change, transport and
security. She said agreement on the highly contentious but symbolic issue of
fishing rights guaranteed 5½ years of "full predictability for
our fishing communities".
Brexit
– January 2020
The United
Kingdom officially left the European Union at midnight Central European Time
on January 31, 2020. For a range of news coverage and what it meant please
see these links:
https://apnews.com/e48bf51838ced94e2d92adba189b4944
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51333314
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10858199/brexit-news-uk-live-eu-latest/
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2020/feb/01/brexit-britain-wakes-up-to-uncertain-future-after-uk-leaves-eu-live-news-and-updates
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/brexit/what-happens-after-brexit-day-uk-transition-period-when-leaving-eu-date-explained-1373410
https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/brexit-day-uk-leaves-eu-gbr-intl/index.html
https://www.foxnews.com/category/world/world-regions/europe/brexit
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/brexit-uk-officially-leaves-european-union-200131211418625.html
https://www.gov.uk/transition
https://www.gov.uk/staying-uk-eu-citizen
The
course of Brexit was set when UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson won his bet on
the future of Britain in a snap election on December 12 2019. Voters woke up
on Friday the 13th December 2019 to a thumping
Conservative majority, the resignations of both main opposition party
leaders – Labour’s
Jeremy Corbyn and the Liberal
Democrats’ Jo Swinson, and a resurgent Scottish
National Party seeking the independence of Scotland. Please also see here
for:
Election result
numbers
And
here for how Johnson’s Conservatives won:
https://www.ft.com/content/ab3692b0-2317-11ea-92da-f0c92e957a96
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/how-boris-johnson-became-britain-s-most-powerful-prime-minister-since-tony-blair-1.4120281
See here for more Brexit news
Coronavirus
The Present
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has again
announced tighter rules aimed at halting the spread of Covid-19 in
England. His nation-wide
television announcement came after mounting concern about continuing
rapid spread of the coronavirus and weeks of criticism about
delays and questionable handling of pupils’ return to school in
the new year. The measures on January 4 – along with similar rules in
Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, the other nations of the UK - were the
latest in a sequence of increasingly tighter restrictions through December
including adding London and much of the southeast to the highest Tier 4 level just
before Christmas and much of the rest of England right afterwards. They
came along with a burgeoning ray of hope across the world for the success of
the first anti-Covid vaccines – vaccines that the UK had successfully
pre-ordered and allowed it to be the first in the world to
start vaccinating people. Despite that success, the Johnson
government’s later decision to extend the time between two required
inoculations without proper testing raised serious
questions from two major drug regulators – the European
Medicines Agency (EMA) and the U.S. Federal
Drug Administration (FDA) - as well as the first
vaccine developer (Pfizer/BioNTech). The lockdown measures signalled the
end of the Johnson government’s attempts to loosen restrictions through
the holidays and came less than a week before Christmas. That U-turn came
after growing pressure for action from medical experts - in a rare
joint editorial in the British Medical Journal and the Health Service
Journal on December 15 and warnings
of problems from its own scientific advisors a month earlier, warnings echoed
by the Opposition Labour Party. The Prime Minister claimed he made the
decision because new scientific data showed a new strain of the virus was
spreading much faster than the previous one. England left
its second national lockdown and went back to a three-tiered
approach at the beginning of December amid familiar debate about the
balance between people’s health and their income. Amid hopes
for rapid approval and distribution of a new vaccine against coronavirus,
the government was hoping tough restrictions on most of England for the first
three weeks of December would allow some limited loosening over the Christmas
period between December 23 and 27. But putting most of the country into tier
2, the middle level, created multiple anomalies and was criticised as too
simplistic and broad – so much that Johnson had to mount a campaign to
persuade a significant minority of his own MPs to approve it in Parliament.
It was an echo of events only a month earlier when he announced his second national
lockdown on the last day of October after weeks of criticism over delays,
ineffective measures, questionable consultation, and unfairness. At the time
he said he had no choice and needed to save lives and protect the
effectiveness of England’s National Health System. But his action again
showed some of the same signs of confused
government messaging that beset Johnson’s previous measures. The
Labour opposition party said
it would back the measures which it and medical experts had called for,
albeit weeks earlier.
Mainly right-wing
critics including some of Johnson’s own Conservative Members of
Parliament questioned the need for any lockdown and business groups warned of
further economic damage. Johnson’s attempt only a month earlier to
balance the conflicting pressures of public health and the economy with
temporary and differing regional lockdowns had run into much criticism.
Mayors and other politicians in the Manchester and Liverpool areas of
England’s northwest claimed unfair
and unequal treatment by the central government. Perhaps most damaging
was the Johnson government’s refusal to continue free school meals to
the country’s neediest children in the half-term school holiday despite
a widely supported campaign
started by English football star Marcus Rashford.
Please see here for more
on the UK government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.
Not so hidden agendas
Amidst the confusion and
controversy brought by the coronavirus, Boris Johnson’s office has kept
pushing its key agendas such as revamping
the civil service – replacing a series
of key civil servants including the
top one – and pursuing a hard Brexit, including the appointment of controversial
former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott as a trade adviser.
And so far the government has faced little scrutiny of who’s
making money from it – a
question not unique to the UK – as well as questionable
practice in awarding multi-million pound contracts. But there remain a daunting
list of questions and decisions for the rest of the year and undoubtedly
further debate about its past decisions and competence.
Please see here for more
on reaction to the UK government’s management of the coronavirus
crisis.
Covid and the Media
The coronavirus pandemic has marked a worrying new wave of serious
threats and attacks on media freedom in Europe said the latest annual report
of the Council of Europe Platform to Promote the Protection of Journalism and
Safety of Journalists. In a report titled “Hands Off Press Freedom:
Attacks on Media in Europe must not become a New Normal” the fourteen
member press freedom organisations including the AEJ documented how several
Council of Europe member states have detained journalists for critical
reporting, vastly expanded surveillance, and passed new laws to punish
“fake news” even as they decide themselves what is allowable and
what is false without the oversight of appropriate independent bodies. The
report – available in full here
– said these threats risk a tipping point in the fight to preserve a
free media in Europe and aggravate an already gloomy outlook.
The AEJ has played an active part with other media freedom organisations to
highlight such attempts as detailed in this
report from William Horsley, AEJ media freedom representative and UK
chairman.
And in
a statement marking World Press Freedom Day on May 3, Council of Europe
Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić urged governments to
avoid misusing the COVID-19 situation to silence or hinder journalists.
Misuse of emergency measures
As many
governments introduced sweeping laws to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, the AEJ has joined other media
freedom groups in two urgent calls to European leaders to protect media
freedom. They have called for “determined actions” from the
Council of Europe, the 47-nation treaty-based human rights organisation, to
protect the free flow of information and journalists’ right to report
amid fears of a potentially dangerous slide towards authoritarianism and
police-state societies. In particular the open letter cites Hungary - where
the prime minister has open-ended powers to rule by decree and journalists
and others are subject to prison sentences for promoting alleged “false
information” or impeding government orders – as well as Slovenia
and the Czech Republic which have suspended usual press conferences open to
questions from journalists.
“The present emergency situation represents a
critical threat both to public health and to the civil and political rights
of people across Europe,” said William Horsley, AEJ media freedom
representative and AEJ UK chairman. “Now is the time for free and independent
media and for all those who believe in basic democratic standards and open
government, to combine forces and to uphold the free flow of information and
the inalienable rights of everyone as guaranteed under the European
Convention on Human Rights.”
Please see the open letter
here to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, and the current
and next presidents of the Committee of Ministers, the organisation’s
executive decision-making body.
It follows an urgent warning against
misuse of emergency laws from the AEJ and partner organisations to the
presidents of the European Commission, the European Council, and European
Parliament. It emphasizes that the free flow of independent news is essential
both to maintain accurate information to the public and to ensure public
scrutiny and debate on emergency measures, and notes all such measures must
be necessary, proportionate, temporary and strictly time-limited, and subject
to regular scrutiny to ensure excessive powers do not undermine democratic
balances, including the free press.
The urgent letter supports
a joint statement from three global special rapporteurs on freedom of
expression with the UN, OSCE and the OAS and is signed by:
AEJ
ARTICLE 19
European Centre for Press and
Media Freedom (ECPMF)
European Federation of
Journalists
Free Press Unlimited (FPU)
Index on Censorship
International Federation of
Journalists
International Press Institute
(IPI)
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
The open letter is also
available here on the International Press Institute website.
Coronavirus coverage
There is a global
study showing a majority of the public around the world get their
information about coronavirus from mainstream media – yet journalists
are their least trusted source. Please see
this report in the UK Press Gazette and here
for more on coronavirus coverage in the UK.
The AEJ International site has interesting links to EU coverage of the
coronavirus story on its home page.
How personal
data could contribute to a cure
EU
response to Covid 19 – every government for itself
Virus cartoons
Five
decisions the EU should make
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Lunchtime meetings
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Covid-19
Impact
The
AEJ’s regular scheduled lunchtime meetings have had to be paused and have
been replaced by online meetings for the last few months.
Regent’s University – our regular host - has suspended many
physical meetings at their campus including those with the AEJ.
Updates for online events and Regent’s University will be available by
email and on this site.
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AEJ UK meetings usually start at 12:30 and are open to journalists,
academics and Europe specialists and guests. Pre-registration is necessary by
email to cas.jenkins@gmail.com. A fee of £25 is charged to cover
the cost of refreshments - £10 for under-25s and free admission may be
extended to students on a discretionary basis.
Reports on meetings are usually available on this website and our Facebook page.
For a list of our recent
lunchtime guests see Events.
AEJ UK meetings were kindly hosted at Europe House, the London home of the EU
Commission and European Parliament, for
many years. Please see their UK website
for EU events and information.
Recent AEJ UK guests
City of London
official confident of future after Brexit
Catherine McGuinness, chair of the influential policy and
resources committee of the City of London Corporation, says the City will
remain a great centre for global capital after Brexit – deal or no
deal. She spoke at a meeting with AEJ UK members, London's Foreign Press
Association and other specially invited journalists, on December 4 at a
delicate moment in UK-EU relations, just days away from a final deadline in
talks about a possible trade deal. While the City did want a UK-EU post
Brexit deal, she said the financial sector was already taking steps to ensure
and strengthen relations with the EU even as it accepted the nature of
London's relationship would change. McGuiness is also deputy chair of City
UK, the lobby group for UK-wide financial services. For more on the meeting
please see this report
by Peter Norman, AEJ meetings secretary and former economics editor of the
Financial Times, and this audio
record of the meeting.
Media freedom and the rule of law
Media freedom and the rule of law are inextricably
linked and both are necessary to enable people to assert their rights and
hold the powerful to account, says a leading UK human rights lawyer. Can
Yeginsu, one of 15 leading international lawyers appointed last year to the
High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom in a much-publicised bid
by the governments of the UK and Canada to counter what they termed a
“global assault on media freedom”, spoke to a meeting of AEJ UK
members and other international journalists on November 2. The panel was set
up as part of an international campaign to turn back the worsening trend of
attacks on press freedom worldwide and its core goal is to bring about a
better level of compliance by state authorities with the framework of
international legal protections for journalists that is recognised by most
governments in theory but often disregarded in practice. For more on his
presentation please see this
report from AEJ UK chairman William Horsley and this audio recording of the meeting.
And please see here for more information on the
work of the High Level Legal Panel.
Governments failing on climate crisis…
says eminent
UK climate scientist, Prof. Sir Robert Watson. Joining the AEJ UK via Zoom
from Washington on September 3, Professor Watson talked frankly and
passionately about the “crisis” of human-induced climate change -
he said governments are not reacting; young people are rightly concerned;
greenhouse gases are increasing despite the Paris Agreement; all the hottest
years on record have been in this century. And this means the threats to human
life include drier weather in arid areas threatening water and food security,
more floods in wet regions and rising sea levels threatening coastal
communities. Sir Robert was chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (1997 – 2002), is emeritus professor at the Tyndall
Centre for climate research at the University of East Anglia, and is
currently leading a major international assessment of the links between
Climate Change, Biodiversity Loss, Land Degradation and Food and Water
Security, and how they will affect human well being. Please see this full report from AEJ
member and former BBC editor and manager Rick Thompson – and this audio record of the
meeting.
A view from Europe
The AEJ UK held its second virtual
meeting of the coronavirus lockdown on July 3 with Danuta Huebner MEP, a
member of Poland's centre-right Civic Platform and the European People's
Party in the European Parliament, who served previously as an EU Commissioner
and Polish Minister for Europe. Professor Huebner drew on her experiences of
high-level involvement with Polish and European politics over the past two
decades to answer a host of topical questions - the uncertain outlook for
democracy and the rule of law in her native Poland, the impact of the
Covid-19 pandemic on Europe, likely EU-UK relations post-Brexit, and the EU's
relationship with China at a time of unstable leadership in the US.
Please see
this report from former FT correspondent Peter Norman on the wide-ranging
discussion with 28 UK and Irish AEJ members who joined the call.
America in trouble
Veteran American
journalist and columnist Llewellyn King was the online guest from Washington
for the AEJ-UK’s first online Zoom meeting on June 4. The wave of angry
protests and riots that erupted across America following the police killing
of George Floyd in Minneapolis are a “bellow of rage” against the
Trump administration, he said, and the U.S. “has never been on such a
precipitous slope since the Civil War.” The honorary AEJ member and
host and producer of the weekly PBS program “White House Chronicle” was joined by
20 AEJ online participants. For more on his analysis please read Peter Norman’s
account of the AEJ’s “Letter from America with Llewellyn
King” event and on King’s
own website.
China
and Asia
China will bounce back from the coronavirus disruption,
probably without any major long-term geopolitical impact. But, says Asia and China scholar
Jeff Kingston, the consequences for President Xi Jinping might be less clear.
Kingston - writer, columnist and Director of Asian Studies at Temple
University Tokyo – briefed an AEJ UK meeting on March 9 2020 on
China’s relationships in Asia. Please see this report on the meeting
from former FT correspondent Peter Norman and this audio recording.
UK cyber security
How is
the UK dealing with threats to cyber security and defending against them? As
Brexit looms and debate continues about potential cyber threats such as the
involvement of China’s Huawei in 5G telecommunications and Russian or
other state interference in democratic processes in the UK and elsewhere,
Nicola Hudson, Director of Policy and Communications at the National Cyber
Security Centre (NCSC), explained the role of her young agency. She told the
AEJ on February 20
2020 the NCSC, formed only 3 years ago, functions in two very different
worlds:
– as an operational division of GCHQ, the UK's signals intelligence
agency
- and at a public level seeking ways of raising awareness of fast growing
cyber threats and devising innovative ways of developing the population's
cyber security skills for the future.
For more on her presentation please see this report from
former FT correspondent Peter Norman and this audio recording.
London
central to UK future relations with EU?
Rory Stewart, former Conservative MP, cabinet minister, and former
contender for Conservative party leader, says London could have a "very,
very central" part to play in Britain's future relations with the
European Union. Stewart was an independent candidate for London mayor in
elections scheduled for May 7 2020 but withdrew after they were postponed for
a year. He told an AEJ UK meeting on January 29 that London’s
connections and contributions are crucial to the success of the rest of the UK
and it could act as a bridge between Britain and the EU over the next 10 to
15 years in areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics and
nanotechnology while still learning from policies in other European cities.
For more on his argument and following discussion please see this report from former FT
correspondent Peter Norman and this
audio recording of the meeting.
See here
for more AEJ UK guest speakers
AEJ Media Freedom Project
The
AEJ works to protect freedom of expression and independent journalism by
bringing issues to the attention of governments and advising
inter-governmental organisations on behalf of our members. The AEJ's Media
Freedom Representative and Vice President is William Horsley, a former BBC foreign
correspondent and the current chairman of the UK section.
Since the AEJ Media
Freedom Survey in 2007 (Goodbye to Freedom?), the AEJ has published Europe-wide
surveys and reports that reveal the erosion of press freedom through physical
assaults, wrongful imprisonment, oppressive laws, and unacceptable political
and commercial pressures.
The AEJ is an observer at the Council of Europe. Since 2 April 2015, it has been one of the
eight partners in the Council's online platform
for early warning of and rapid response to attacks on the
media. For more information, see Media
Freedom.
The AEJ actively
supports the ongoing efforts of UNESCO, the UN Agency with a mandate to safeguard media
freedom, to implement the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity. The AEJ
Media Freedom Representative authored the OSCE's Safety of Journalists Guidebook setting out the obligations of participating states to protect
the security of journalists, including those using the Internet.
Our campaigns and activities can also be tracked on the Media
Freedom and News pages of the international AEJ website, www.aej.org
AEJ and the Council of Europe
The
AEJ takes part in the policy work of the Council of Europe (CoE) on key issues of media freedom as a participant in the steering committee on
Media and Information Society and the Platform
to Promote the Protection of Journalism
and the Safety of Journalists. It works on
behalf of its members across Europe to hold the CoE and its 47 member states to
their commitments on media freedom and freedom of expression.
To
read further, please go to Media
Freedom.
Media visits to the European Parliament
The EP's London Office has a
small budget to offset some of the travel and hotel costs incurred by
journalists when visiting the European Parliament. Only a limited number can
be helped in this way, so you must first be invited by the UK Office before
seeking reimbursement (see EP website).
Briefings
A selection of AEJ-related writings and activities
AEJ
member Rick Thompson’s new book Park Life has just been published
– a diary in praise of urban parks, detailing a year of the wildlife in
his local park by the Avon and tangential thoughts about legends, folklore,
science, climate change, and the health benefits of regular contact with
nature. Park Life is available from many booksellers including The
Book Depository, Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles and all leading online
booksellers.
AEJ
member Charles Jenkins, former Western Europe editor of the Economist
Intelligence Unit, blogs on Europe at https://eupriorities.ideasoneurope.eu/
Firdevs
Robinson’s writing is now accessible on FirdevsTalkTurkey.com
William Horsley blogs on the Centre
for Freedom of the Media website.
Long-time AEJ member – and journalist, author and politician –
Jonathan Fryer is the Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman for London. Please
see his blog here.
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News
Belarus standoff
The Association
of European Journalists has called
for the release of Belarusian journalist Andrei Aliaksandrau and eight
others held in jail in connection with their reporting of public protests
against the government. Aliaksandrau, detained since January 12, is a
long-time associate of the AEJ, was a deputy chairman of the Belarusian
Association of Journalists from 2009 to 2012, and is the founder and chief
editor of the news website Belarus Journal. Last November the Belarus
Association of Journalists was awarded the prestigious Media Freedom Award
from the Global Media Freedom Coalition, now made up of over 40 countries,
that was established in 2019 by the UK and Canada. The award citation
recognised the BAJ for its commitment to covering human rights and election
fraud in the face of violence and threats. The AEJ previously called for a
strong, concerted international response against violent suppression of free
media in Belarus, saying on September 3 that the Belarusian
authorities’ violent suppression of free media, targeted attacks
against journalists, and the denial of accreditations and deportations of
large numbers of journalists were aimed at preventing journalists from
reporting on legitimate protests against alleged election fraud and other
government abuses.
Hundreds of journalists have
been arrested in Belarus in a harsh
crackdown by the government of President Alexander Lukashenko on mass protests
that have
continued weekly for five months against August elections widely
considered as rigged. The European Union has not recognised the legality of
the elections, saying they were “not free and fair” and an
investigation supported by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe found massive and systemic violations of basic rights before and after
the poll. On January 18 the International
Ice Hockey Federation stripped Belarus of its right to co-host this year’s
world championships, a slap to avid hockey fan Lukashenko. For some time Lukashenko
has been stuck in an ongoing power standoff with opposition protesters. His
state media said on December 31 he will hold
a referendum on his suggested constitutional reforms and has called
a congress of his supporters in February. At the same time reports
surfaced that neighbouring Russia plans to launch
a pro-Russia party in the Belarus borderland between it and the EU. Russia
has kept a low profile amid much reporting about its plans – ranging from
speculation about losing
patience with Lukashenko through opposition
hopes for support from new U.S. President Joe Biden, along with earlier analysis
of Vladimir Putin’s options from the Washington-based Council
on Foreign Relations, the Washington Post-owned Foreign
Policy, and even from inside Russia in the Moscow-based English language Moscow
Times.
Please see more on Belarus.
Silicon
Valley and “media freedom”
Honorary AEJ
member and veteran American journalist and columnist Llewellyn King raises
some serious questions about the power of digital media giants and free
speech in the wake of actions to shut down U.S. President Donald
Trump’s accounts on Twitter and Facebook. What if these companies get
politically activated in the future, he asks, while acknowledging that
President Trump deserves censure and the digital companies’ actions may
not be wrong at a time of crisis. Quoting journalist and essayist H.L. Mencken
in 1940 - “freedom of the press is limited to those who own one”
- King says the current exercise of censor authority should alarm all
free-speech advocates and is power that exceeds anything ever seen in media.
For more on his call for a re-examination of current law and a larger
discussion on all the issues of free speech on social media please see his
column on the White
House Chronicle and InsideSources.
Journalism
in the age of Covid
There has been
concern for most of the last year about growing pressures on journalists and
politicians of all stripes using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to
control reporting and suppress information. For an update on this – reported here on the AEJ UK website earlier this year
– please see
this update and round up from Brussels Morning.
Quicker
justice for journalists
The AEJ has formally endorsed
an authoritative legal report calling for an international task force to
ensure effective investigations into violent attacks and abuses against journalists.
The report
by 15 leading international lawyers calls for creation of a new
International Investigative Task Force to ensure effective investigations
into violent attacks and abuses against journalists. It was launched on
November 25 by the independent High Level Legal Panel supporting the Global
Media Freedom Coalition made up of some 40 UN member states. The task force
of forensic and legal experts is intended to act with strong political
backing with a mandate to strengthen existing UN mechanisms to bring to
justice perpetrators of acts such as the assassination of Maltese journalist
Daphne Caruana Galizia in a car bomb attack in 2017, and the murder of Saudi
journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
How
journalists handle political pressure and threats
AEJ UK chairman
William Horsley has addressed
the Council of Europe committee on media and information society about the
extraordinary experiences, persecution and courageous work of 20 frontline
journalists across Europe detailed in a new book he has co-authored. Along
with co-author Marilyn Clark, associate professor of psychology at the University
of Malta, the writers hope to provide a new rationale and impetus for
protecting journalists more effectively from physical and legal attacks,
exclusion and online harassment, and the impact of climates of impunity when
journalists are attacked or murdered. The book “A
Mission to Inform: Journalists at risk speak out” was launched
on October 14 coinciding with the third anniversary of the death of
Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. It includes the last
interview she gave, available
here – only 10 days before she was killed while reporting on
corruption issues. On the anniversary of her death on October 16 2017, the AEJ added its voice to 19
other organisations supporting journalists, international free expression,
anti-corruption, and civic participation in demanding an end to impunity from
prosecution for the attack.
The new book is based on “in-depth interviews with 20 journalists from
18 different countries selected for their experience and skill in reporting
in the public interest and exposing injustice and abuses. Each … shared
their insights into the realities of doing cutting-edge journalism to bring
the truth to light; they spoke about their first-hand experience of threats,
hostility and intimidation, surveillance and cyberattacks, and about
self-censorship, resilience and coping strategies, as well as about what they
portray as routine failures by state authorities to give journalists the
protection they need to fulfil their public watchdog role.” It is published
by the Council of Europe and the foreword by the COE’s Director
General of Human Rights and Rule of Law notes that journalists across member
states face various forms of pressure and intimidation meant to silence and
hinder their ‘mission to inform’ - “worrying given that
democratic societies can only function if media actors can report on matters
of public interest without interference and without fear”. The COE notes that the book is a
follow up to a study in 2017 involving nearly 1000 questionnaires answered by
journalists which revealed grave statistics concerning the risks they faced.
“A Mission to Inform: Journalists at risk speak out” is aimed at
analysing how journalists responded to pressures exerted on them and what
solutions they found to overcome fear and continue being able to fulfil their
public watchdog mission.
Peace in Nagorno-Karabakh?
Six weeks of fighting
between Azerbaijan and Armenia have ended in the bitterly disputed territory
of Nagorno-Karabakh with a
peace agreement brokered by Russia. Russian peacekeepers arrived at the
end of November as thousands of Armenian refugees left and there is some
scepticism about how long peace will last.
Fighting
flared at the end of September after months of rising tension over the
disputed territory, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but
governed by ethnic Armenians who claim a separate state. The Association of
European Journalists joined 10 other international media organizations on the
Council of Europe Journalists’ Platform to
raise concern for the safety of journalists in the conflict. It was the
second warning issued by the AEJ. On October 2 the AEJ condemned all acts of
violence targeting journalists and other media workers in the renewed
armed conflict. The statements reinforced a call
from the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights to protect human
rights and ensure accurate and comprehensive reporting in such a volatile
conflict. The AEJ statement is available
here and coverage of the dispute is available at Hetq Online,
published by the
Armenian Association of Investigative Journalists NGO. For more please see here.
AEJ joins call for the U.S.
government to drop plan for shorter journalists visas
The AEJ has
joined 24 global media organisations to support a European Broadcasting
Union (EBU) appeal to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to not
shorten the length of visas for foreign journalists. The joint statement says
the proposed changes would put media freedom at risk and jeopardise the work
of foreign media to provide accurate, unbiased news reporting for global
audiences from the USA. U.S. Homeland Security has proposed shorter visas -
240 days, with a possible extension of a maximum of another 240 days.
Currently many foreign news organizations appoint correspondents for a number
of years (commonly 2-5 years), allowing time for individual journalists to
better understand the country and therefore better report on it to the rest
of the world.
Freedom of expression under
growing threat in Turkey
The AEJ joined 10 other
international media freedom, journalism and human rights groups to warn of a growing
crisis for freedom of expression in Turkey. The group coalition said the
situation is getting worse amid growing state capture of media, the lack of
independence of regulatory institutions, and a new social media law designed to
clamp down on the remaining spaces for free comment. The coalition
highlighted the continued jailing and prosecution of journalists as well as
ongoing concerns over the safety of journalists and judicial independence.
The warning came after a four-day mission to Turkey in early October for
hybrid online/offline meetings in Istanbul and Ankara with journalists, civil
society, members of parliament, the judiciary and other authorities to assess
the newest threats to independent journalism, which in 2020 included
detentions and criminal investigations of journalists who reported on the
country’s management of the Covid-19 pandemic. It was led by the
International Press Institute(IPI) and included representatives from ARTICLE
19, the Association of European Journalists (AEJ), the Committee to Protect
Journalists (CPJ), the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF),
the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), Human Rights Watch (HRW),
Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa (OBC Transeuropa), PEN
International, Reporters without Borders (RSF) and the South East Europe
Media Organisation (SEEMO). Please find the whole
statement here.
Growing dangers to media freedom
in Bulgaria
The AEJ Bulgaria is highly critical
of growing dangers to media freedom in Bulgaria in its annual media
freedom survey. It highlights dangerous trends arising from external
pressures on free and independent media from political and business forces,
national and local government, and advertisers. And it says stagnation is a
fitting description for the current state of the media environment in Bulgaria
in 2020 - a snapshot from the replies of the respondents is almost identical
to that in 2015. Nearly one out of two Bulgarian journalists described the
situation in the media industry as “poor” or “very
poor”, with a mere 3% of respondents describing it as
“excellent”. Please see the full report Journalism Without Masks,
2020 Annual Survey Of Media in Bulgaria here
on the AEJ Bulgaria website.
AEJ
journalist wins Pulitzer Prize
Bulgarian journalist Boryana Dzambazova, a member of the AEJ Bulgaria
management board, has won a 2020 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting
for a New York Times investigation into actions of the Russian secret
services. Please see
here for more.
AEJ actions on media freedom
The AEJ has played
an active part with other media freedom organisations throughout 2020 to
highlight attempts by some European states to use the covid pandemic as a
pretext to suppress independent media voices. And in a number of cases forced
governments to reverse their actions or take account of public criticism of
attempts to constrain media freedom. A report on these actions is available here from
William Horsley, AEJ media freedom representative and UK chairman.
Continuing struggles for media freedom worldwide
The struggle to
maintain and preserve media freedom continues around the world.
In Hungary the AEJ is among 16 groups which have urged the EU Competition
Commissioner Margrethe Vestager to take action in response to complaints
that the Hungarian government has violated EU state aid rules on abuse of
state advertising and aid to public broadcaster to undermine media pluralism.
Earlier it raised an alarm
against the destruction of Hungary’s independent Index news portal. It
has expressed support for Szabolcs Dull who was dismissed as editor in chief
and for all the Index journalists who resigned, accusing the government of
political interference. The sudden sacking came after allies of prime
minister Viktor Orban took a controlling interest in the ownership of the
online Index news website, Hungary’s leading source of independent news
and political comment.
In
Bulgaria the AEJ has condemned unprovoked violence against a reporter for
Radio Free Europe by security guards and delegates at a national conference
of the ruling party.
And in The Philippines, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and
other NGOs have opened a petition calling for the Philippine government
to drop all charges and cases against Maria Ressa, the award-winning
journalist and editor of Rappler, and to end pressure on independent media in
the Philippines. Maria Ressa was awarded the UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize
for her courageous work and journalistic leadership. President Duterte has
declared that journalists are “not exempt from assassination” and
his government has sought to close down leading independent media and
imprison respected journalists, including Ressa, who with her colleague
Reynaldo Santos Jr was convicted on “cyber libel” charges.
Fake news updates
Two key characters in the ongoing fake news
saga of the last few years now face forms of justice. In the UK, Alexander
Nix the former head of Cambridge Analytica has
been banned from running any limited liability company for seven years.
And in the USA, right-wing promoter and former Trump chief strategist Steve
Bannon has been charged
with fraud. The Cambridge Analytica story first looked like a plotline
straight out of the U.S. TV series Homeland – allegations of an illegal
data grab used to manipulate national votes in both the U.S. presidential
election and the UK referendum on leaving the European Union. But it was life
once again imitating art – sparked by an investigative report published in mid-March 2018 by The Observer newspaper
and shared with the UK’s Channel 4 television and the New York Times.
For more please see here.
Justice for Daphne?
It was 1000 days since the assassination
of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. And justice was
yet to be served as more disturbing revelations of state corruption and
impunity underscored the weaknesses in Malta’s rule of law, and the
entrenched impunity for both the murder of Caruana Galizia and the high-level
abuses of power she investigated. Marking this shocking landmark the AEJ
joined 12 other media freedom organisations on July 12 in again calling for
justice. For more please see
https://www.aej.org/page.asp?p_id=737.
Malta has a new
prime minister and the country’s police chief has
resigned in the ongoing scandal but there remained many questions. Aljazeera
has this report and AEJ UK member and former BBC journalist Firdevs
Robinson has
this look at breaks in the story. On Nov. 20 2019 one of the
country’s richest men, gambling and property entrepreneur Yorgen
Fenech, was arrested and in court two weeks later accused
of being the brains behind the killing. He’s denied the charges and
blamed allies of the prime minister. Two of them resigned and in the face of major
street protests Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said he
would resign. His government spent two years stonewalling any genuine
investigation and far longer rejecting accusations
of widespread money laundering, political corruption and cronyism.
Media Freedom in the Commonwealth?
”It’s never been so bad, ” says the publisher
of Africa Today. Nigerian journalist Kayode Soyinka thus summed up the wide
consensus that emerged from a media freedom panel discussion during the
Taking Stock of the Commonwealth day-long global webinar on 24 June. The
event was organised by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies as a
“virtual tour of the Commonwealth and its challenges” and took
place on the exact date when the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
(CHOGM) had been due to open in Rwanda. The biennial summit was postponed
because of the Covid-19 pandemic. For more please see
this report from AEJ UK chairman and international media freedom
representative William Horsley.
Attacks on media risk a New Normal
The 2020
annual media freedom report warns that attacks on press freedom in Europe
risk creating a new normal as the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated a growing
pattern of intimidation to silence journalists on the continent. These
attacks underscore the report’s
urgent wake-up call for Council of Europe member states to act quickly
and resolutely to end the assault against press freedom, so that journalists
and other media actors can report without fear. The 14 international media
freedom groups and journalists’ organisations –the AEJ, Article 19,
Committee to Protect Journalists, EBU, EFJ/IFJ, European Centre for Press and
Media Freedom, Free Press Unlimited, Index on Censorship, INSI, IPI, PEN
International, Reporters Without Borders, Rory Peck Trust – warn
of a growing pattern of intimidation to silence journalists on the continent
through attacks, intimidation, media ‘capture’ and sweeping
emergency laws that are open to abuse and severely restrict the media’s
ability to hold state power to account.
See here
for more news
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