Author: BIRD

How Editors and Journalists Can Use Hostwriter Tool to Collaborate

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Meanwhile, newsrooms are far less able to send reporters abroad for research and coverage, even at a time when the importance of cross-border reporting is at an all-time high.

With this dynamic in mind, Hostwriter has launched a new tool, COVID-19 Collaboration Wire. With support from nextMedia.Hamburg and in partnership with the European Journalism Centre, this tool aims to help editors easily commission journalists across borders. Read on to see how both journalists and editors can take advantage of this new feature.

How editors can use COVID-19 collaboration wire

To use COVID-19 Collaboration Wire, editors and news publishers do not need to join Hostwriter. (Although, of course, they are very welcome to do so!)

To find journalists to commission, editors can access editors.hostwriter.org and fill out the form on that page. They will need to indicate what kind of reporting or research they are looking for, in what country (if applicable) and how much they will pay for the commissioned work.

After they submit, they will get confirmation that their request was received. Within the next few days, they will receive contact from Hostwriter containing the top pitches for their request and the contact information for the vetted journalists. After Hostwriter’s “match-making” role is complete, the editors and journalists can take it from there.

How journalists can find commissions from COVID-19 collaboration wire

To find calls for pitches submitted through the COVID-19 Collaboration Wire, Hostwriter members need only sign into their Hostwriter.org account and go to our HostWIRE chatroom. There, calls for pitches will be posted with all necessary information about how to apply. After logging in to Hostwriter, click on “Collaboration”, then click on the board “Calls for Pitches”. Posts from the COVID-19 Collaboration Wire will contain #CovidWire in the subject line.

Not a Hostwriter member? It’s easy and free to join our network of 5,000+ journalists in 154 countries and gain access to HostWIRE, our journalism chatroom. Every day, they post new grants and fellowships, job opportunities, calls for pitches and more. In addition, you can use the board to get advice and find co-authors to work with. To register, click here: bitly.com/JoinHostwriter

Both Editors and Journalists can reach out to Hostwriter with any questions about how to use the COVID-19 Collaboration Wire. Simply write to wire@hostwriter.org.

This article was initially published at www.hostwriter.org.

Question Marks over Slovak Quarantine App Fuel Privacy Concern

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A lack of detail on a new smartphone app designed to help authorities in Slovakia track people in home quarantine is raising doubts about its compliance with data privacy rules and fuelling conspiracy theories.

With 28 confirmed deaths to date, Slovakia tops the chart of European countries with the lowest number of COVID-19 victims per capita, a source of pride for politicians and healthcare workers.

But the country is also one of the last in Central and Eastern Europe to introduce any kind of digital technology to help tackle the pandemic.

Last week, parliament passed a bill introducing an app to keep tabs on those in quarantine at home, after the country’s Constitutional Court halted development of a contact-tracing app that had triggered concern over the need for the mass collection of data.

The quarantine app was due to go live on May 18, but authorities postponed the launch saying more testing was needed.

Created by the Slovak IT firm Sygic, the app avoids the need for any mass collection of data, but a lack of detailed information, particularly regarding how the data will be stored and who will have access to it, has many Slovaks worried.

Data rights activists say that, while the government must do what it can to save lives, it must also be transparent in order to earn the trust of the people.

“We understand that this difficult time calls for quick and maybe non-traditional solutions, but we can’t forget the [need for] clear communication, which would dispel concerns about a possible abuse of private data,” said Andrea Cox, director of Digital Intelligence, which works to promote the protection of digital rights in Slovakia.

Last week, Slovak parliament passed a bill introducing an app to keep tabs on those in quarantine at home, after the country’s Constitutional Court halted development of a contact-tracing app that had triggered concern over the need for the mass collection of data. Photo: EPA-EFE/JUSTIN LANE

Constitution vs. public health

For the past two months, Slovaks returning to the country have had to go into state-run quarantine facilities where they are tested for the novel coronavirus and, if negative, allowed home.

But Slovakia’s government, led by Igor Matovic and his anti-establishment OLANO party, has faced widespread criticism over conditions at the facilities.

The government now says the new, voluntary app – based on face biometrics and movement data – will allow people to self-isolate at home if they would rather not enter a state-run facility.

The data will be monitored by the Slovak Public Health authority, which, under the new law, must destroy a person’s data as soon as the required quarantine period is over.

It is still not known, however, where the data that is collected will be stored and who will have access to it.

Introduction of the app follows a Constitutional Court ruling last week that suspended telecommunications legislation adopted in April and that cleared the way for the mass collection of data from smartphones, effectively slamming the brakes on development of a contact-tracing app. Judges ruled that the Telecommunications Act was not specific enough and left unclear how private data would be handled.

It lacked, they said, “necessary guarantees against the misuse of the processed private information” and means of independent oversight.

Matovic said he was confident the new home-quarantine technology would pass muster.

“I think the constitutional court decision cannot prevent us from making the quarantine stay more comfortable for people,” he told a press conference on May 14.

But data privacy advocates are unconvinced.

“It is unacceptable for apps that could affect the everyday life of Slovak citizens to not be communicated properly,” said Eliska Pirkova, Europe Policy Analyst at Access Now, an international data rights advocacy group, during an online discussion on May 15 about the erosion of data rights during the COVID-19 crisis in Slovakia.

“We all know that technologies have the power to discriminate and breach not just the right to privacy, but other rights too. This is what I see as a problem in Slovakia.”

Technology and public trust

Poor communication has created a vacuum in Slovakia filled by misinformation and conspiracy theories about a potential COVID-19 vaccine, the origin of the coronavirus and the threats to privacy proposed by new technology.

Marian Kotleba, leader of the neo-fascist People’s Party Our Slovakia, LSNS, that won eight per cent of votes in Slovakia’s February general election, has shared conspiracies about microchips being implanted into people against their will, while former Prime Minister Robert Fico, leader of SMER-SD, has accused Matovic’s government of planning to spy on people via their phone data.

According to survey conducted by the Slovak Academy of Sciences, a large majority of voters for both parties believe the coronavirus was created in a lab and deliberately disseminated, while just 40 per cent of Slovaks say they would get vaccinated against COVID-19 once a vaccine becomes available.

“Insufficient communication creates space for those who shout the loudest, although they often talk rubbish, from the absurdities about microchips and manipulations to the 5G networks,” Cox told the May 15 online discussion, referring to a conspiracy theory that 5G mobile technology helps spread the virus.

“We want to believe,” she said, “that in designing the latest technological solutions, the officials have kept in mind questions like digital exclusion or discrimination caused by the lack of internet access, or social oversight.”

Need for vigilance

As countries emerge from lockdown, the development of smartphone apps to combat the spread of COVID-19 is being watched with mounting concern by human rights organisations concerned at their potential for abuse.

“Some restrictions on people’s rights may be justifiable during a public health emergency, but people are being asked to sacrifice their privacy and turn over personal data for use by untested technologies,” Deborah Brown, senior digital rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, said last week.

“Containing the pandemic and reopening society are essential goals, but we can do this without pervasive surveillance.”

Erik Lastic, head of the political science department at the Comenius University in Bratislava, said the pandemic had only further underlined the failure of the Slovak state to keep pace with technology. For years, corruption and incompetence have stymied efforts to create an effective digital public administration system. 

“The last decade, at the least, has shown that the state is failing in the development of any information systems,” said Lastic, also taking part in the online discussion. “It would be very unrealistic to expect that the pandemic can suddenly change that.”

Lastic said it was “good” that legislation introduced to combat COVID-19 was limited to the end of 2020, but that the experience of some countries, particularly in sidestepping legal restraints in the fight against terrorism since the 9/11 attacks on the United States, showed the need for vigilance.

“It would be naïve to trust that the state would limit itself and that it wouldn’t use tools that had worked well for it once,” he said.

Hiljade.kamera.rs: Community Strikes Back Against Mass Surveillance

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Serbian citizens have launched the website hiljade.kamera.rs as a response to the deployment of state-of-the-art facial recognition surveillance technology in the streets of Belgrade. Information regarding these new cameras has been shrouded in secrecy, as the public was kept in the dark on all the most important aspects of this state-lead project.

War, especially in the past hundred years, has propelled the development of exceptional technology. After the Great War came the radio, decades after the Second World War brought us McLuhan’s “global village” and Moore’s law on historic trends. Warfare itself has changed too – from muddy trenches and mustard gas to drone strikes and malware. Some countries, more than others, have frequently been used as testing grounds for different kinds of battle.

Well into the 21st century, Serbia still does not have a strong privacy culture, which has been left in the shadows of past regimes and widespread surveillance. Even today, direct police and security agencies’ access to communications metadata stored by mobile and internet operators makes mass surveillance possible. 

As appearances matter most, control over the flow of information is a key component of power in the age of populism. We have recently seen various developments in this context – Twitter shutting down around 8,500 troll accounts pumping out support for the ruling Serbian Progressive Party and its leader and the country’s President Aleksandar Vucic. These trolls are also frequently used to attack political opponents and journalists, exposing the shady dealings of high ranking public officials. Reporters Without Borders and Freedom House have noted a deterioration in press freedom and democracy in the Balkan country.

However, a new threat to human rights and freedoms in Serbia has emerged. In early 2019, the Minister of Interior and the Police Director announced that Belgrade will receive “a thousand” smart surveillance cameras with face and license plate recognition capabilities, supplied by the Chinese tech giant – Huawei. Both the government in Serbia and China have been working on “technical and economic cooperation” since 2009, when they signed their first bilateral agreement. Several years later, a strategic partnership forged between Serbia’s Ministry of Interior and Huawei, paving the way to the implementation of the project “Safe Society in Serbia”. Over the past several months, new cameras have been widely installed throughout Belgrade.  

This highly intrusive system has raised questions among citizens and human rights organisations, who have pointed to Serbia’s interesting history with surveillance cameras. Sometimes these devices have conveniently worked and their footage is somehow leaked to the public, and in some cases, they have not worked or recordings of key situations have gone missing, just as conveniently. Even though the Ministry was obliged by law to conduct a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) of the new smart surveillance system, it failed to fulfil the legal requirements, as warned by civil society organisations and the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection. 

The use of such technology to constantly surveil the movements of all citizens, who are now at risk of suddenly becoming potential criminals, has run counter to the fundamental principles of necessity and proportionality, as required by domestic and international data protection standards. In such circumstances, when there was no public debate whatsoever nor transparency, the only remaining option is a social response, as reflected in the newly launched website. 

“Hiljade kamera” (“Thousands of Cameras”) is a platform started by a community of individuals and organisations who advocate for the responsible use of surveillance technology. Their goals are citizen-led transparency and to hold officials accountable for their actions, by mapping cameras and speaking out about this topic to the public. The community has recently started tweeting out photos of cameras in Belgrade alongside the hashtag #hiljadekamera and encouraged others to do so as well.

The Interior Ministry has yet to publish a reworked and compliant Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) but the installation of cameras continues under sketchy legal circumstances.

Bojan Perkov is a researcher at SHARE Foundation. 


Croatia Accused of Slurring Watchdogs in Police Violence Dispute

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Human rights organisations have accused the Croatian Ministry of Interior of resorting to slurs, after it rejected media reports of police tagging migrants and refugees who attempted to enter Croatia from Bosnia with paint.

“As a diversion tactic, the crudely written response by the MUP [Interior Ministry] simply used slurs and unfounded allegations against the reporting organisations and journalists,” two watchdog organisations, No Name Kitchen, NNK, and Border Violence Monitoring Network, BVMN, said on Thursday in a joint press release.

“Instead of dealing with these grave allegations and initiating an investigation, the Croatian MUP has fallen back on its traditional stance of denying all existence of violent removals from its territory and ignoring the photographic evidence and witness accounts,” they said.

The latest report by the BVMN and NNK said EU border countries like Croatia were continuing their established practice of conducting illegal “pushbacks” of migrants and refugees trying to enter from Bosnia and Serbia – with the additional use of paint.

“A relatively new development in pushback practices is the tagging of groups with orange spray paint,” BVMN said, referring to two events at the beginning of May, when migrant groups attempted to enter Croatia from Bosnia.

After the case was reported in the international media, including the UK Guardian, Croatia denied the allegations on Wednesday, stating that the BWMN “regularly publishes accusations against the Croatian police and the Republic of Croatia, as well as all other countries on the Balkan migrant route”.

“The fabrication that migrants are marked [with a spray] in the sign of the cross because of their faith demonstrates the authors’ ignorance and a premeditated attack against Croatia without any knowledge of the basic facts,” the Interior Ministry said, adding that it had “immediately conducted an urgent investigation with the help of our police administrations”.

“It has been established that along the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina which has been indicated, the Croatian Police did not conduct any [such] activities towards migrants,” the ministry said.

The watchdog organisations meanwhile concluded that they will “continue to carry out their work as independent monitors, tracking and reporting on the unfolding situation at EU external borders”.

Hungarian Police Accused of Abusing Powers to Arrest Critics

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Police in Hungary on Wednesday at 6am detained an opposition politician, János Csóka-Szűcs, in Gyula, a small town in Békés County, the media outlet Magyar Narancs reported.

Csóka-Szűcs is the local leader of an opposition movement called the Kossuth Circle and a supporting member of the Momentum party.

Police raided his home and seized his mobile phone and computer, and he was detained and interrogated at the local police station.

Csóka-Szűcs was told that he was being questioned because of a Facebook post from April 20 that he published in a local group “Uncensored chatroom of Gyula,” which was suspected of fear-mongering.

He may face charges under a recent amendment to the criminal law that introduced punishments of one to five years in jail for spreading “falsehoods” or “distorted truth” deemed to obstruct the efforts to combat the pandemic.

This amendment was the part of the controversial Coronavirus Bill, which critics said gave almost “dictatorial” powers to the Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán.

In response to the arrest, the opposition Democratic Coalition said it was organising an “online demonstration”.

Katalin Cseh, an MEP from the Momentum movement, asked people on Twitter https://twitter.com/katka_cseh/status/1260528932392259587 to share the story of Csóka-Szűcs. She accused the police of abusing the law to detain critics of the Orbán-led government.

On April 20, when anti-government demonstrations were held in Budapest, and in the town of Gyula, Csóka-Szűcs shared a call for the demonstration, adding that “1,170 beds were emptied in Gyula as well” to deal with the pandemic.

His post referred to the country-wide anti-pandemic measure during which 60 per cent of all hospital beds were freed up to deal with COVID-19 patients.

In fact, in the local hospital, about 1,200 beds had been duly freed up. But, with this sentence, Csóka-Szűcs had allegedly “obstructed efforts to combat the pandemic”.

Csóka-Szűcs spent four hours in detention at the police station and had to walk home; police did not take him home despite the fact that he is disabled.

This was the second arrest in Hungary for fear-mongering in two days. On Tuesday, a 64-year-old man was detained by police near Szerencs in Borsod county.

He was questioned over a Facebook post he published on 28 April in which he had criticized the government’s anti-pandemic measures, claiming it had deliberately lifted the curfew restrictions at the peak of the pandemic to cause mass infections. He also addressed “Our dear dictator, our dear leader”, saying: “You are a cruel tyrant, but remember, all dictators have failed so far.”

The man, called András, talked later to 444 media outlet about his interrogation.

According to a statement on 5 May, police in Hungary had initiated 83 proceedings on suspicion of fear-mongering and 26 on suspicion of threatening public danger since the pandemic started.

For more information on the state of digital rights and violation amid the pandemic, check BIRN’s digital rights monitoring database.

Freedom of Information Curbs Alarm Rights Activists in Hungary

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The Hungarian government’s decision to limit the application of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, is fueling fear among the opposition and civil society organisations that human rights face further curbs in the country.

Justified by the need to stop the spread of the coronavirus, the authorities can now use the personal data of citizens without clear regulations about when they can use it, and for what purpose.

Viktor Orban’s government has also additionally limited information access by extending the deadline for public institutions to provide requested data through FOI regulations from 15 to 45 days. The deadline can be prolonged for another 45 days meaning one could have to wait up to 90 days for answers – another step backwards in terms of media freedom.

The government says both decisions will be revoked once the state of the emergency, imposed on March 11, is lifted.

But rights groups and the opposition now fear a repeat of events in 2015. In that year, the Orban government introduced controversial “crisis” measures to stop an influx of migrants that are still in force today – despite the dramatic decline in the number of migrants and refugees coming to Hungary since then.

‘Crisis’ measures that risk becoming permanent


Attila Peterfalvi. Photo: Wikimedia commons/BudayLilla 

The government restricted data protection rights as stipulated by the GDPR and the Act on Freedom of information on May 4.

It imposed a state of emergency on 11 March and extended it indefinitely on March 31.

Under the state of emergency, the government has the authority to govern through decrees, while parliament is suspended.

The latest changes come after several international reports highlighted serious declines in the quality of Hungarian democracy and press freedom.

The Nations in Transit report, issued in May by the watchdog organisation Freedom House, notably ranked Hungary as the only non-democracy in the whole of the EU.

“Hungary’s decline has been the most precipitous ever tracked in Nations in Transit; it was one of the three democratic frontrunners as of 2005, but in 2020 it became the first country to descend by two regime categories and leave the group of democracies entirely,” the report said.

The Press Freedom Index released by the watchdog organisation Reporters Without Borders ranked Hungary in the lowest place for press freedom in the EU.

It said access to information was becoming ever more difficult for independent journalists, who are now banned from freely putting questions to politicians or from attending many events.

Now, not only do Hungarian institutions have 90 days instead of 30 to answer an FOI request, – triple the previous length – but requests related to privacy will remain unanswered until the state of emergency is lifted.

This may mean journalists waiting three months to get access to vital information. And, with so many things happening fast during the state of emergency, the risk is that the information will become irrelevant or outdated.

The government justified the much longer deadline to answer FOI requests by claiming that keeping to the 15-day deadline could “endanger the fulfilment of the [relevant institution’s] public tasks in relation to the emergency”, so the decree says.

When it comes to the suspended GDPR articles, they include: the right of access by the data subject; the right to erasure (the “right to be forgotten”); the right to restriction of processing; for information to be provided when personal data are collected from the data subject, or information to be provided when personal data have not been obtained from the data subject.

Important information on the way the authorities obtain personal data, its purpose, and how it is processed, protected, or shared with other authorities, will now only become available when the state of emergency ends.

The authorities insist concern about these changes is needless. In response to a query from BIRN, Attila Peterfalvi, chair of the National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, said the decree applies only to requests for data in relation to the battle against the coronavirus, and that the data controller will also have to prove why they wish to apply the special regulation.

Peterfalvi noted also that GDPR gives participating states the right to restrict its provisions. The decree doesn’t actually take away any rights, or the right to remedy, but only delays their execution until the end of the state of emergency, he stressed.

Officials also point out that they will lift the state of emergency when it is no longer needed.

But opposition politicians and rights groups are not persuaded. They recall that the “crisis” measures imposed to stop illegal migration in 2015 were prolonged again and again – and still remain effective – long after the number of migrants attempting to cross Hungary decreased drastically.

Worryingly broad legislation


Illustration. Photo : EPA-EFE/Zoltan Balogh

The 30-day GDPR deadline to answer COVID-19-related data subject requests will resume once the state of emergency ends. This means that, until then, if someone submits a request related to COVID-19, or lodges an objection against the processing of his personal data related to COVID-19, the data controller is not required to take any steps to erase the data, rectify the data, or restrict its processing.

Furthermore, the legislation does not define the exact categories of personal data or the type of data controllers that fall under it.

As a result, any data controller taking part in the fight against COVID-19, or processing COVID-19-related personal data, can interpret the new legal provisions widely and broaden its restrictions to apply to as much personal data as possible.

Ádam Remport, data protection expert at the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, an NGO, told BIRN that he believes the decree suspends fundamental rights, which the GDPR does not allow for.

The wording of the decree is too general and its reasoning too weak, he adds.

Remport said the GDPR is very strict about when member countries can suspend its application.

He notes that the GDPR says a restriction may only be imposed if it “respects the essence of the fundamental rights and freedoms”, and if this restriction “is a necessary and proportionate measure in a democratic society”.

Remport says the total suspension of certain rights does not fit into this category. He adds that while the decree indicates the purpose of the legislation, all the other reasoning is missing.

“The decree should list explicitly to which data and data controller it applies. It should at least justify why there is no such list,” he said.

In its current form, he added, the decree is too wide-ranging and can be applied to anything, from healthcare to the economy.

The GDPR also demands the right to an effective remedy, a right which cannot be suspended, he said. “According to the European Convention on Human Rights, and the GDPR, a remedy is real if it provides an effective judicial remedy.

“The wording of the decree doesn’t contradict this directly, as in theory one can still appeal. But until the state of emergency ends, nobody can go to court,” he pointed out.

“Nobody knows when the emergency will end, so we can’t call this an effective remedy; it is not a real remedy,” he concluded.

FOI rights undermined for years


Illustration. Photo: Pxfuel

As state communication become more centralized in Hungary – and effectively censored during the COVID-19 emergency, according to one NGO report, FOI requests have become ever more important as tools for journalists to extract relevant information about state operations.

Miklos Ligeti, legal director of Transparency International Hungary, told BIRN that the government in Budapest has been undermining this right for years.

“The Hungarian government has continuously restricted access to public data since 2013. From this point of view, the new decree is not a novelty,” he said.

The only guaranteed way to gain access to public data was via the courts, Ligeti added. “Now the time one has to wait before going to court has been prolonged,” he continued.

According to Transparency International, the decree goes against the constitution, as the right to freedom of information it refers to implies fast and timely access – while waiting months for an answer is anything but.

Since 2013, according to the government, FOI requests can be rejected if they are too “comprehensive”, as over-detailed questions are deemed a “misuse” of FIOA rights.

To decide what question is too detailed is, again, up to the data owner. The next restriction, which followed in 2015, allowed data owners to bill the information requester for “reimbursement of expenses”, if replying to the request involves “a disproportionate amount of work” for the relevant institution.

Tamas Bodoky, founder and editor-in-chief of Átlátszó, an investigative portal, told BIRN that the new moves were yet another attempt to restrict the FOI law.

“This is the third time the Orbán government is restricting FOI. This tendency, and the suspension of the GDPR Articles are the real concern – not that we might have to wait longer to get information,” Bodoky said.

Bodoky notes that if institutions demand reimbursement for work, “it is usually around 5,000 to -20,000 forints [14 to 60 euros]. To pay this money is not a problem for a lawyer or an editorial. But the intention behind this is to prevent citizens from using this tool to control power”.

His investigative portal has developed a tool through which users can send FOI requests to any public body.

According to him, data owners rarely demand “unreasonable” sums of money for reimbursement. If they do, or the info request is denied, “one can go to court. But that takes time and costs money, and people cannot afford it”.

Fortunately, he adds, judges usually favour making data public. But sometimes, despite a court judgment, data owners still withhold the data. “In that case, we remain without means, as public prosecutors will do nothing to enforce the verdict,” Bodoky warned.

Átlátszó uses FOI requests a lot for its investigations, and has faced various other methods by which state institutions hide information.

“Once the cabinet office of the Prime Minister sent us documents that were photocopied so many times – or maybe digitally blurred – that they were barely readable,” Bodoky recalled. “This shows clearly what the Hungarian government thinks about freedom of information,” he adds.

Miklós Ligeti says the broad implications of the latest moves are more concerning than their exact detail.

“If we look at the big picture, we see that the lack of reliable data makes rational public conversation impossible,” he warned. “Once there is no information, citizens cannot make responsible political decisions,” he concluded.

Erdogan’s Turkey Targets Remaining Media Critics

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Already one of the biggest jailers of journalists in the world, Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now turning the screws on the handful of independent media outlets left as the government seeks to silence criticism of its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, media watchdogs and experts say.

Since a failed coup in mid-2016, authorities under Erdogan have closed 70 newspapers, 20 magazines, 34 radio stations and 33 television channels, accusing them of ties to ‘terrorism’ and the man they allege masterminded the abortive putsch, US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

A handful of independent outlets remain, but they too now face fresh pressure over their coverage of Turkey’s efforts to tackle the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus and its impact on the country’s already shaky economy.

The state broadcasting regulator, Radio and Television Supreme Council, RTUK, recently fined several TV channels over their coverage of the government’s COVID-19 strategy, including FOX TV, broadcaster of Turkey’s most watched television news show anchored by Fatih Portakal.

On April 7, the regulator banned Portakal’s show for three days, accusing him of bias.

If FOX TV is fined once more for the same reason, it risks losing its licence. The broadcaster has appealed the decision but there has been no official response.

Erdogan has also weighed in personally, suing Portakal for spreading lies and manipulating the public. The anchor faces a potential prison sentence of three years.

“Some media and politicians are more dangerous than the virus,” Erdogan said on April 13. “They attack and criticise the government instead of supporting it in these difficult days, but our country will get rid of media and political viruses very soon.”

Critics of the government say it fears for its political future after losing a number of key Turkish cities to the opposition in local elections last year, with the economic crisis worsening since the onset of the pandemic.

Gokhan Durmus, General Secretary of the Journalists’ Union of Turkey, TGS, said the saga over Portakal and FOX was symptomatic of the government’s treatment of the press.

“The pressure and investigations against the media increased during the pandemic,” Durmus told BIRN. “In particular, media institutions and journalists who question or criticise government measures face a serious threat from the government via fines, legal investigations and blackmail.”

Government fears for its future – expert


A Turkish policeman with face mask blocks the main road during curfew in Istanbul, Turkey, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/TOLGA BOZOGLU

With some 139,000 confirmed cases and 3,786 deaths as of May 11, Turkey has been hit hard by the pandemic, piling pressure on a government already struggling on the economic and political front.

Media watchdog Reporters without Borders ranks Turkey 154th out of 180 countries in terms of media freedom, characterising the country as “not free” on its Press Freedom Index.

According to this year’s Turkish Press Freedom Report, published on May 3, 85 journalists are in Turkish prisons and 103 journalists arrested and awaiting trial.

The report says that, between April 2019 and April 2020, RTUK applied administrative sanctions against television broadcasters in 20 cases and halted the broadcasting of 16 channels.

It also said that over 80 per cent of Turkish journalists believe they suffer from censorship and more than 78 per cent say they self-censor.

Mehmet Onur Cevik, an expert on Turkish media and politics at the University of Ghent in Belgium, said Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP, already control 90 per cent of the media in Turkey.

“However,” he said, “the government left a small floor to a certain degree of independent and critical media as well as opposition parties.”

The AKP uses the existence of a small number of independent media outlets, as well as democratic elections, “to prove its political legitimacy against accusations of being authoritarian and oppressing its critics,” Cevik said.

“However, now things have changed because the economic crisis has deepened following the COVID-19 pandemic and people speak more about the government’s wrongdoings.”

The ruling party has gone on the offensive, he told BIRN, “since for the first time they fear for their political future. They fear that even news about the worsening economy can trigger a tsunami.”

Intolerance of criticism


A group of workers disinfect the Turkish Parliament General Assembly to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus in Ankara, Turkey, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/STR

RTUK and Turkey’s Press Ad Agency, BIK, which controls state advertising spending, are state institutions originally established to protect journalists, regulate their work and make sure media across the board are on a secure financial footing.

“However, in the last two years, these institutions started to do what the government wants and they turned into the government’s hammer,” said Durmus.

“Journalists face continuous legal investigations and the penalties from Turkish state institutions such as RTUK and intensified in recent years. Just during the pandemic, 13 journalists have been detained because of their coverage.”

“The government does not want to hear anything that differs from its own opinion,” said Durmus. “With these recent penalties and continuous pressure, the government indirectly told journalists that they will be fined if they say anything critical about the government’s policies.”

After years of economic crisis, the government has been caught short on firepower to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and is trading political blows with opposition-run cities.

In what critics say is a blatant bid to control the narrative, the government announced new legislation on May 7 concerning ‘manipulation’ of financial markets and targeting allegedly “deceptive” news about the economy.

It has also tabled to parliament a new law on digital rights, to the alarm of rights groups which say it will increase government control over social media platforms and potentially force some to quit the country.

“The AKP had never been so uncomfortable with independent media, social media and the opposition, because it feels that its rule is being threatened,” said Cevik.

“So they target the media, opposition and whoever thinks differently, even at the cost of losing legitimacy.”

Pandemic Measures Further Restrict Turkey’s Beleaguered Civil Society

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Already under unprecedented pressure since a failed 2016 coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, civil society groups in Turkey say their ability to draw attention to human rights violations has been further curtailed by government restrictions on public gatherings and events to tackle the spread of COVID-19.

Four days after registering its first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus, on March 15 Turkey banned all public events and subsequently halted all travel between the country’s major cities and imposed movement restrictions on those under the age of 20 or over the age of 65.

Non-governmental organisations, like much of the rest of society, have moved almost all activity online; while some organisations say this has resulted in an increase in output, most say restrictions on travel and scrutiny of state institutions have hurt their work.

With almost 40 branches across the country, Human Rights Association, IHD, general secretary Osman Isci told BIRN: “We had to cancel all our events, inter-city travel and press conference, which were crucial for our work and for spreading awareness about human rights violations across the country.”

“There has been a significant decrease in reports on human rights violations because of the restrictions,” he said.

Civil society sidelined


Third anniversary of the failed coup attempt at the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, Turkey, 2019. Photo: EPA-EFE/ERDEM SAHIN

Enes Ozkan, the editor-in-chief of Daktilo84, a non-governmental academic platform bringing together academics and experts, said the restrictions had increased output.

“Now, everyone has to stay home and this made everyone more accessible,” he said. “We started to increase our webinars, writings and other online events because of the increasing demand as well as accessibility of our members,” Ozkan told BIRN.

Already working largely online, Daktilo84 was less affected, he said, “but organisations that focus on psychical events suffer the most.”

Social Democracy Foundation, SODEV, for example, said staff members were now working from home and board meetings were held online. All regular events and conferences were cancelled, said director Murat Uner.

“We can continue our work somehow but we hope that this situation will end soon,” he said.

Uner said SODEV had received notice from the Turkish Interior Ministry that even all online events had been banned as part of the government’s measures against the pandemic. Uproar among civil society groups forced a U-turn, with the government saying it the order had been the result of a mistake.

Isci of IHD said it was indicative of the government’s approach to civil society, particularly since Erdogan put down a coup in 2016 that he blamed on U.S.-based cleric and former ally Fethullah Gulen. Gulen denied any involvement, but the government nevertheless launched a crackdown on his followers as well as large parts of the public sector, security forces, media and civil society.

“When any extraordinary situation such as the COVID-19 pandemic occurs, civil society organisations become more vulnerable and fragile because of security-oriented policies,” Isci told BIRN.

“In order to overcome the difficulties which civil society organisations face the government should respect the requirements of civil society,” he said.

Isci complained that the government had made no effort to involve civil society groups in the fight against the coronavirus.

Like other “authoritarian governments”, he said, Turkey’s has pursued legislation that creates “a suitable atmosphere to close the space for civil society movement,” for example by restricting access to parliament and prisons and excluding medical unions from crisis-management efforts.

Post-putsch crackdown


A man with a face mask in Istanbul, Turkey, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/TOLGA BOZOGLU

Since the failed coup, 1,767 associations, foundations and labour unions have been closed down by the government and hundreds of others had to cease activities citing government pressure.

Ozkan said civil society groups in Turkey were seriously dwindling in number.

“Most of the remaining civil society organisations are embedded to the state or they are countrymen associations which are simply nothing more than meeting points for people living in large cities who are from same village or town,” he said.

“If you are critical, very vocal and influential, the government wants to control and to shape you via audits and fines,” Ozkan told BIRN. “If you have funding from abroad the situation becomes worse.”

Isci said the government had framed much of political life in terms of security, creating a deeply polarised “us and them” atmosphere. “You face certain problems if you are critical,” he said. “This is why we see that so many civil society organisations have been closed down.”

Security placed above freedom


Illustration. Photo: EPA-EFE/CLEMENS BILAN

With the COVID-19 pandemic, Ozkan compared the response of the Turkish government to that of Viktor Orban’s Hungary, Donald Trump’s US administration and Poland under the Law and Justice Party of Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Freedom becomes subordinated to security, he said.

“Authoritarian regimes use everything to become more authoritarian; they try to use everything for their favour and the coronavirus crisis is a perfect example of that,” he said. “Autocrats use the pandemic to maximise their power.”

“There should be a balance between security and freedoms. However, everyone now focuses on staying home safe and fulfilling their main needs. When freedoms come in second place, this provides more space for authoritarian regimes.”

On April 13, before parliament voted a new package of laws including greater government control over media, civil society, academia and social media, Erdogan declared, “Some media and politicians are more dangerous than the virus. They attack and criticise the government instead of supporting it in these hard days, but our country will get rid of media and political viruses very soon.”

The law on social media, which would further restrict digital rights, was eventually postponed to make way for COVID-19-related legislation.

Ozkan said such laws were made possible by a situation in which people are ready to trade away rights and freedoms for greater safety.

“And civil society organisations are excluded from all the process,” he said. “What we say is not heard, we are not involved in decision-making processes and the government never listens us.”

Facebook Takes Axe to Pages Showing ‘Inauthentic Behaviour’

Posted on by BIRD

Facebook’s April 2020 Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour Report, published on May 5, said a total of eight networks of accounts, Pages and Groups were removed in the last month for violating the social media giant’s policy against foreign and domestic interference. 

The report said that these influence operations were “coordinated efforts to manipulate public debate for a strategic goal where fake accounts are central to the operation”.

The media giant said it was working to stop coordinated inauthentic behaviour in the context of domestic and non-state campaigns as well as behaviours acting on behalf of a foreign or government actor.

Two of the removed networks, originating from Russia and Iran, were focused on international issues and were trying to interfere in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary and Serbia, the report said.

As for Russia, Facebook removed 46 Pages, 91 Facebook accounts, 2 Groups, and 1 Instagram account “for violating the policy against​ ​foreign interference​ which is​ ​coordinated inauthentic behaviour​ on behalf of a foreign entity”. 

It said this activity originated not only from Russia but from the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine and the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula. The people behind it posted in Russian, English, German, Spanish, French, Hungarian, Serbian, Georgian, Indonesian and Farsi, focusing on a wide range of regions around the world.

“The individuals behind this activity relied on a combination of authentic, duplicate and fake accounts – many of which had been previously detected and disabled by our automated systems. 

“They used fake accounts to post their content and manage Groups and Pages posing as independent news entities in the regions they targeted,” the report said, adding that the networks posted ​about geopolitical and local news including topics such as the military conflict in Ukraine, the Syrian civil war, the annexation of Crimea, NATO, US elections, and more recently the coronavirus pandemic​. ​

Facebook’s investigation linked the activity to people in Russia and Donbass as well as to two media organizations in Crimea, NewsFront and SouthFront. 

Following the report, SouthFront dismissed the claims that it offered misleading coverage concerning the coronavirus pandemic and said it does not operate from Crimea, calling it all “blatant lies”.

A total of $3,150 was spent for ads on Facebook and Instagram and was paid for primarily in US dollars, Russian rubles, and Euros, the report added.

Facebook also removed 118 Pages, 389 Facebook accounts, 27 Groups, and 6 Instagram accounts originating from Iran. 

This activity was focused on a wide range of countries globally, including Algeria, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Egypt, Ghana, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, the United States, Britain and Zimbabwe.

These accounts, the report said, “sometimes repurposed Iranian state media content and posted primarily in Arabic, Bengali, Bosnian, and English about geopolitical and local news relevant to each region including topics like the civil war in Syria, the Arab Spring protests, the tensions between Libya and Turkey, criticism of Saudi involvement in the Middle East and Africa, Al Qaeda’s actions in Africa, the Occupy movement in the US, criticism of US policies in the Middle East and the 2012 US elections.”

As for the people behind the coordinated activity, the Facebook investigation found links to the state Iranian Broadcasting Corporation. 

The remaining six networks of accounts, Pages and Groups​ that were also taken down were based in the US, Georgia, Myanmar and Mauritania, and were targeting domestic audiences in their home countries. 

In total, Facebook removed 732 accounts, 793 Pages, 200 groups and 162 Instagram accounts. The report said they were also sharing misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic.

“All of the networks we took down … in April were created before the COVID-19 pandemic began, however, we’ve seen people behind these campaigns opportunistically use coronavirus-related posts among many other topics to build an audience and drive people to their Pages or off-platform sites. 

“The majority of the networks we took down this month were still trying to grow their audience, or had a large portion of engagement on their Pages generated by their own accounts,” the report noted.

COVID-19 Worsening Environment for Media Freedom, Report Warns

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Journalists across Eastern Europe, the Balkans but, increasingly also in Western Europe, faced a new level of threats, harassment and risk of imprisonment during 2019, according to the Council of Europe Platform to Promote the Protection of Journalism and Safety of Journalists, in a report presented on Wednesday by 14 organisations partnered in the platform.

The report, “Attacks on media in Europe Must Not Become the New Normal”, states that about 140 alerts were filed with the platform during 2019, including 103 from Turkey, 21 from Serbia and 11 from Albania.

A disputed media law in Albania proposed by Prime Minister Edi Rama last year, the closure of the last remaining critical TV shows and the harassment of journalists by pro-government media resulted in Albania getting a separate chapter in the report, meaning also that Albania was added to the list of countries of special concern.

Sarah Clarke, from Article 19, said the report noted SLAPP cases as a major concern. These Strategic Litigations Against Public Participation are lawsuits against journalists or activists in which plaintiffs use their financial power to drag critics into lengthy court processes that then encourage others in the media to practise self-censorship.

“There has been an elevated threat from the political level and juridical harassment against journalists. We included SLAPPS as a concern for the first time,” Clarke said.

Meanwhile, the new coronavirus pandemic has caused a whole new set of concerns, said Scott Griffen, from the International Press Institute. He said there had been a systemic attempt by several governments to control the narrative of the pandemic, referring to Hungary and other states.

“Hungary has criminalized the distribution of ‘distorted facts’”, Griffen said, adding that this could amount to a “criminalization of journalism”. Turkey, Azerbaijan and Serbia have also seen arrests for reports on the spread of the new coronavirus that annoyed the authorities.

Ricardo Gutierrez, General Secretary of European Federation of Journalists, said the collapse of advertising revenues in the media across Europe due to COVID-19 had left thousands of journalists unemployed and left tens of thousands of freelancers without any real income. “COVID-19 is causing a global collapse of press freedom,” Gutierrez warned.

William Horsley, from the Association of European Journalists, said media ownership was another worrying issue. Standards were deteriorating across the continent, he said, urging EU member states to “be particularly strict over its standards”.

“There is an increasing shift of media ownership toward governments and governments partners, the so-called oligarchs,” Horsley noted.

Bulgaria was singled out as a country where the media has been captured by oligarchs. “A major share of the country’s newspaper distribution business is under the control of a single conglomerate, owned by a politician. Independent journalists and media outlets are regularly subject to intimidation in person and online,” the report noted. Meanwhile, out of 135 journalists currently jailed or under detention, 91 of these are in Turkey.

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