Coronavirus
The
Present
England has reversed course on opening up from its first Covid
19 lockdown and imposed new national lockdown measures. After weeks of criticism
over delays, ineffective measures, questionable consultation, and unfairness,
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced
his latest lockdown on the last day of October. He said he had no choice and
needed to save lives and protect the effectiveness of England’s National Health
System. But his latest action showed some of the same signs of confused
government messaging that have beset Johnson’s previous measures. The Labour
opposition party has said
it will back the latest 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.
It was on September 24 that Johnson first moved away from opening up and announced
new restrictions. He promised stricter enforcement as cases rose, more
people were admitted to hospital, and the reproduction rate of infection
increased. And the UK’s finance minister Rishi Sunak extended and revised
financial support for workers and businesses that was due to end in
October. Johnson indicated his new restrictions could last up to six months.
His new measures came as he faced growing
pressures inside his Conservative party over both restrictions and the
arbitrary use of emergency powers without Parliamentary scrutiny – as well as
disquiet about breaching
international law over Brexit that also prompted high profile human
rights lawyer Amal
Clooney to resign as the UK's special envoy on media freedom. The Johnson
government’s balancing
of conflicting pressures to reduce restrictions or make them even
stronger seems to have reflected public
opinion about what was needed. But the resurgence of the coronavirus
epidemic was a blow to his hopes for an emergence from lockdown and a quick
economic recovery – hopes that took shape stutteringly and slowly only a few
weeks earlier. Most schools reopened and students returned in the first week
of September – with a
few reports of problems and despite much debate
and concern about both safety and education. And there were also glimmers
of a return to work. At the time they were welcome signs for the government
as Johnson had pushed hard for both to support an economic recovery. His
government has been beset by a series of mistakes and embarrassing policy u-turns over
the past six months that have eroded trust, virtually erased
his party’s lead in public opinion polling and even dropped his approval
rating below Opposition leader Keir Starmer’s in some
polls - although he may
have kept it in key former opposition Labour areas he won in the December
election. All of this has worried
some of his own members of Parliament about retaining their voters’
support.
Perhaps the biggest break in public trust came in late May after the Guardian
and Daily Mirror newspapers revealed that Johnson’s key adviser Dominic
Cummings broke the government’s own lockdown rules – a revelation that
prompted a clamour
for his dismissal and calamitous
poll numbers for the prime minister. But Cummings was so important to
Johnson that he refused to drop him, mounted a robust defence, and managed to
keep Cummings in his job – but not stifle the criticism.
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.
At first, in early March, the government had wide support for many emergency
measures and its lockdown policies but soon faced criticism of how well they
were delivered - on hospital equipment, personal protective equipment for
health care workers, nursing and care homes, and testing and prevention. And
it continued
to face questions about the timing and effect of post-lockdown measures,
a questionable
virus testing and tracing system that was still
not working effectively five months after it started, and future
protection of the public. Key scientists, health
system administrators, medical groups, and education
organizations have all raised criticisms of government actions. And
belatedly so did the main opposition Labour party, after it elected its
new leader Keir Starmer in early April. He has persisted in asking
pointed questions in what‘s seen as an effective
forensic style. Until his election, journalists carried much of the
responsibility for scrutinising the UK government in the first three months
of the year as opposition parties struggled to come to terms with the
Conservative government’s surprise sweep of seats in December's election
muting much opposition scrutiny, first of Brexit and then of the virus
crisis, as they were overwhelmed by a combination of the election result,
government manoeuvring, and the complexity of both major issues. Starmer won election
as Labour leader at the same time as Prime Minister Boris Johnson himself
recovered from a
week in hospital including 3 days in intensive care with the Covid-19
virus, and the Queen made a rare
unscheduled speech to the British public –only her 5th in 67
years - and issued another
rare message at Easter. Boris Johnson was admitted
to hospital after more than 10 days in home isolation because of
suspected Covid-19 symptoms and was moved to intensive care a day later. His officials insisted he was still
in charge of the government with journalists largely wondering how the prime
minister was ill enough to be in hospital but well enough to run the country.
The
Future
There has
of course been much thoughtful examination about the medium and long term
impact of Covid-19 – among others, these series on BBC Radio 4: Fallout
and The Briefing Room,
Chatham House on democracy
in Europe, an Asian perspective on the
future of globalization, The Telegraph’s next
100 days in the UK. How will this pandemic change our societies, our
economies, our relationships, and our attitudes? And of course it’s raising
questions about the EU – particularly
from Italy - along with the more general impact on international
relationships and multinational organizations. AEJ UK secretary Charles
Jenkins has
this look at the EU – the good and the bad.
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
Brexit
Musings on “mad Brexit
disease”
It’s a sad day for Europe but a chance to reform the EU writes AEJ President and
Austrian journalist Otmar Lahodynsky. He describes the UK’s exit from the EU
as “slamming shut a door which is unlikely to re-open for at least a decade”
- but it does allow the EU to shape its future without constant opposition
from London.
And David Haworth, long-time correspondent in Brussels and a founding member
and former president of the British section of AEJ, has these reflections on
“mad Brexit disease” and the long and winding road of the UK to Europe and
back.
Done?
The United Kingdom has officially left the European Union
- at midnight Central European Time on January 31. For a range of news
coverage and what it means 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
Brexit and Quebec separatism
Nick Hopkinson, AEJ member and a former director of Wilton Park, the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office policy forum, finds some striking parallels between
the long campaign for independence in his native Quebec and Brexit in the UK.
And in this article
– first published in February 2020 in The
New European - he argues the Quebec experience can provide some insights
into how the Brexit process may unfold in the United Kingdom.
Gambling on the future
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson won his bet on the future
of Britain in a snap election on December 12. Voters woke up on Friday the 13th
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. Johnson’s
Conservatives won the biggest Conservative majority – 80 seats - since
Margaret Thatcher in 1987 despite taking less than 44% of the national vote
and a mandate to deliver its simple election message of “Get Brexit Done”.
But their promise to leave the EU on January 31 followed by EU
trade negotiations with a deadline in December is only one of a raft of
questions facing the government – some
fairly obvious from the election campaign but others with deeper and
longer-term significance as outlined
here by Trisha de
Borchgrave, artist and daughter of prominent long-time U.S. journalist Arnaud
de Borchgrave. This includes the possible fragmentation of the United
Kingdom as Scotland’s First Minister Nicola
Sturgeon seeks a new referendum on independence and leads the SNP as the
third largest party in the UK Parliament with 48 seats - all but eight of
Scotland’s 56 seats. On the other hand, rumblings about increasing support
for a united Ireland leaving the UK may be on hold as Northern
Ireland’s voters seem to be supporting middle-ground politicians.
Meanwhile the Labour party faces a wrenching period of soul
searching and infighting
over both their leadership and political direction and the Liberal
Democrats look for their fifth leader in less than 10 years.
Please also see here for:
Election result
numbers
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
European Parliament
lookahead
Just days before British voters gave Boris Johnson's Conservatives a
green light to exit the European Union, delegates to the AEJ’s 2019 Congress
in Paris were treated to an assessment of the impact of the new European
Parliament from its Secretary-General, Klaus Welle. At Jean Monnet House
outside Paris – a complex devoted to the life and work of one of the fathers
of the EU – Mr. Welle analysed the May
2019 European Parliament elections held at the height of talks with the UK
about Brexit and after open resistance to EU policies on migration and the
rule of law in the four Visegrad states of central Europe. He said the
election results were mixed: fragmentation of the vote into more separate
party groupings meant that at
least three party groupings will be required to pass legislation. But he also
claimed the new parliament has increased democratic legitimacy because the elections reversed a
long-term downward trend in voter turnout. For more on this presentation please see this
report from Charles Jenkins, AEJ UK member and former Western
Europe editor of the Economist Intelligence Unit.
And AEJ UK member and former RTE journalist Brian O’Connell has this report on the
prospective agendas of the newly-elected political groupings, with Brexit
colouring debate but by no means dominating it.
See here for more Brexit news
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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 all events and
gatherings 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
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
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 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
AEJ again condemns attacks on journalists in
Nagorno-Karabakh
The
Association of European Journalists has joined 10 other international media
organizations on the Council of Europe Journalists’ Platform to
raise concern for the safety of journalists in the ongoing armed conflict
over Nagorno Karabakh. It is the second warning issued by the AEJ in recent
weeks. On October 2 the AEJ
condemned all acts of violence targeting journalists and other media
workers in the renewed
armed conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno Karabakh. 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 statements note that civilians including journalists are
fully entitled to protection under humanitarian law related to armed
conflicts and articulated in UN Security Council Resolution 1738. Fighting
flared at the end of September after months of rising tension over the
disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, internationally recognized as part of
Azerbaijan but governed by ethnic Armenians who claim a separate state.
Armenia said on October 2 it was ready
to work towards a ceasefire although both Azerbaijan and Armenia earlier defied calls
for a ceasefire. There are concerns the conflict risks a wider war
in the Caucacus. The AEJ says targeting journalists and associated personnel
in armed conflict amounts to a war crime and urges all sides in the conflict
to fulfil their obligations and refrain from all violations of international
law. The AEJ statement comes after reports from AEJ Armenia about Azerbaijani
bombardments which have caused injuries to Armenian and foreign journalists
covering the fighting. On October 1 two French journalists for Le
Monde newspaper received injuries in artillery fire. Correspondent Allan
Kaval underwent surgery. Armenia TV camereman Aram Grigorian and 24news.am correspondent Sevak
Vardumian were also injured. Dmitry Yelovsky of the Russian Dozhd TV channel
was also caught up in the bombardment but managed to escape. The AEJ called
for an immediate halt to such acts against media professionals and urged
Azerbaijani authorities to enable safe access to international media and to
stop restricting internet access and disrupting social media platforms. The
AEJ full statement is available
here and continuing coverage of the dispute is available at Hetq Online,
published by the Armenian Association of Investigative Journalists
NGO.
Belarus standoff
President Alexander Lukashenko and opposition protesters calling for new
elections seem stuck in an ongoing power standoff. The opposition called
for a general strike in the last week of October but there were mixed
signs of its success or failure. And by the end of the week President
Lukashenko partially closed
the country’s land borders and revamped his security forces team. Please
see more on Belarus.
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 has 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 says 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 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 this year have 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.
How journalists handle political pressure and threats
A new book co-authored by AEJ UK chairman William Horsley explores the
extraordinary experiences, persecution and courageous work of 20 frontline
journalists across Europe. 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.
Belarus – the future
The
AEJ has called for a strong, concerted international response against
violent suppression of free media in Belarus. On September 3 AEJ media
freedom representative William Horsley and AEJ president Otmar Lahodynsky
condemned the Belarusian authorities’ violent suppression of free media,
targeted attacks against journalists, and the denial of accreditations and
deportations of large numbers of journalists. The AEJ said those and other
arbitrary actions have been taken to prevent journalists from reporting on
legitimate protests against alleged election fraud and other government
abuses. AEJ president Otmar Lahodynsky also has this look at EU relations
with Belarus.
Meanwhile Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko arranged
a surprise swearing in for a new term as president, sparking further
protest demonstrations. He also got a
major loan offer from Russian president Vladimir Putin a day after
protesters took to the streets to oppose it and faced criticism at the UN
human rights council.
Mass demonstrations
have continued in Belarus to protest against elections on August 9 widely
considered as rigged and Lukashenko’s subsequent crackdown.
The media – both outside and inside Belarus – have played
a key role in the struggle for the immediate future of the land between Russia
and the EU – as detailed here below.
Geopolitically, the EU, neighbouring Baltic states, President Alexander
Lukashenko, and the Belarus opposition have all moved since mid-August to
position themselves for influence.
·
The EU on August 19 agreed
on sanctions against Lukashenko’s government and backed widespread
internal protests against elections widely considered as rigged 10 days
earlier.
·
Baltic states have actually imposed their own
sanctions.
·
Lukashenko moved tanks to his western borders with
the EU’s Baltic states and ordered his interior ministry to stop the protests.
·
Opposition figurehead Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya – in
refuge in neighbouring Lithuania – announced a council to coordinate
the transfer of power.
Beneath
the political moves and rhetoric there were some signs and much analysis
about possible mediated solutions. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Lukashenko
should be part of talks for a political settlement and Lukashenko himself
had said earlier he could
hold new elections and consider changes to the constitution. There was of
course much foreign reporting and analysis – here for example in the UK’s Financial
Times, the Washington
Post, the Christian
Science Monitor, London’s The
Guardian, and Hong Kong’s South
China Morning Post. And analysis of 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.
It is Russia that holds the key cards and it’s playing those
close to the chest. First it warned
EU countries not to interfere and earlier agreed
to Lukashenko’s request for help. Vladimir Putin’s reactions have mostly
seemed low key
as his government has some
difficult choices. He already faces internal
problems from opposition politicians and protests
in his own far east. There has of course been the poisoning
of Alexei Navalny, Putin’s biggest
critic, released by Russia and flown urgently from Russia to Germany for
treatment. Germany
said he was poisoned by a Novichok chemical agent – the same poison used
on former Russian agent Sergei Skripal in the UK – and Russia needs to answer
questions. President
Lukashenko said he had intercepted German phone calls proving the Navalny
poisoning claim is fake. In the meantime Russia was reinforcing
close ties with Belarus and potentially seeking
economic benefits it has pursued for some time. The United States is apparently
on the sidelines, leaving neighbouring
Baltic states, the EU, and the Belarus opposition
calling for action but constrained in their ability to take it. Inside
Belarus protests
have continued regularly as Lukashenko has tried to reassert his power,
apparently retaining the support of police and security forces and at least
some state enterprises and workers, reimposing a crackdown on
protesters, questioning and imprisoning
members of the Coordination Council set up by opposition activists in an
attempt to negotiate a transition of power, and pressuring local
and foreign reporters.
Belarus – the media
The AEJ
said on one day alone - August 27 - 47 local and foreign journalists were
reportedly detained for several hours and forcibly taken away in police buses
to a Ministry of the Interior building, preventing them from covering
peaceful protests that took place that day in the centre of Minsk. On August
31 the Belarussian Association of Journalists reported nine new cases of the
detention of journalists, raising the total number of cases of violent
attacks and detentions of journalists since 9 August to 141. About 20
journalists working for foreign news outlets including the BBC, Reuters, AP
and AFP, ARD, Deutsche Welle and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, have had
their accreditation cancelled and been deported. After two journalists
working for the BBC’s Russian Service were barred and deported the BBC
condemned ‘in the strongest possible terms this stifling of independent
journalism’. The AEJ condemned the use by Belarus authorities of violent
force, beatings and other assaults against dozens of journalists, both in
public or in places of police detention, and numerous reported cases of
brutal sexual assault, torture and beatings against protesters who were arrested
and detained.
But
perhaps television
screens across Belarus best made the point on the morning of Monday
August 17 –an empty news studio greeted viewers on the country’s main channel
Belarus One. 300 of the state tv channel’s 2000 workers went on strike
against besieged Lukashenko. They were not the first journalists to protest
as others
inside Belarus had previously taken a stand. And some independent media
such as www.tut.by reported on the growing street
protests and Lukashenko’s crackdown. In the first days particularly, how
Belarusians got their information despite an internet blackout and no obvious
leader is a fascinating story of today’s digital media detailed
here by Wired magazine. At the same time, interestingly, the Russian state news agency Tass
stayed relatively neutral in its coverage and Russian media in general reported
the story widely. In the west there were growing calls for action because
of human rights and media freedom violations. The EU’s move towards sanctions
came after calls
from Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF) and EU
Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen. RSF said it was “appalled by the
unprecedented scale of the crackdown” on journalists and called on the EU to
condemn the repression and sanction those responsible. Amnesty
International similarly protested against the arrests and Latvian-based Meduza
which reports on Russia and the former Soviet Union detailed many of
them.
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 are now facing 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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