Publicly backing the Russian invasion of Ukraine might be subject to custodial sentences of up to three years, Czechia’s Supreme State Attorney Igor Striz said in a statement on Saturday.
By the following day, Czech police were already investigating dozens of cases, local news site TN Nova reported. Czech police spokesman Ondrej Moravcik said: “We will carefully evaluate such actions and thoroughly analyse whether they represent such crimes.”
The Public Prosecutor’s Office appealed for Czech citizens to stay within the confines of the country’s constitutional and legal restrictions. Although freedom of expression is stipulated in the Czech constitution, meaning everyone has the right to express their views, it also has its limits just as in any democratic state.
This means that “under certain conditions”, anyone publicly supporting or praising the leaders of the Russian Federation regarding the country’s attack on Ukraine could face criminal charges, including at demonstrations or even online, Striz said.
Striz’s statement cited sections 365 and 405 of the Czech Criminal Code, which state that whoever publicly approves a crime or publicly praises the perpetrator can be imprisoned for up to a year, and that anyone who “publicly denies, questions, approves or seeks to justify Nazi, communist, or other genocide” can face a jail sentence of up to three years.
“We have recorded dozens of internet comments expressing approval for the Russian invasion and the activities of the Russian army. We are closely monitoring the online sphere and apologise for not responding to every sign in the posts,” Czech police tweeted.
A new report published by the Freedom of Expression Association in Turkey on Monday says that the Turkish government under Recep Tayyip Erdogan has increased its censorship over the years on internet and social media.
The report, entitled ‘Disabled Web 2020: Fahrenheit 5651, The Corrosive Effect of Censorship’, says that more than 467,000 websites have been banned in Turkey since 2006, with 58,809 website bans in 2020.
Since 2006, the Turkish authorities have also banned access to 150,000 URLs, 7,500 Twitter accounts, 12,000 YouTube videos, 8,000 Facebook posts and 6,800 Instagram posts, according to the report.
In 2020 alone, 15,832 news articles were ordered to be removed from media webpages, the majority of them critical of Erdogan’s government.
“The Turkish state’s complex internet censorship mechanism continues to be more active than ever before,” the report says.
The Freedom of Expression Association accuses the government of using measures to curb the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to increase censorship.
The report says that 764 different state institutions – ministries, directorates and the presidency and its branches, as well as courts – have banned access to webpages for various reasons.
However, according to the data collected by the Freedom of Expression Association, a relatively small proportion of the websites and URLs have been banned by the courts – around 35,000 since 2006.
According to the data that the Freedom of Expression Association obtained from the Interior Ministry, a total of 75,292 social media accounts were investigated in 2020 and legal action was taken against 32,000 of them.
The report also says that sanctions on the internet are “no longer limited to only access-blocking practices, there has been a significant increase in the number of news and content removed with the content removal sanction, and censorship has begun to be implemented more effectively”.
“The corrosive and destructive effect of censorship and control mechanisms will continue in the years to come,” the report concludes.
The rapid spread of the internet and growing use of social media in Albania has significantly affected the behaviour of existing or traditional media as well as native digital media. The emergence of online media outlets has dramatically changed the media landscape.
BIRN Albania’s latest report, “Internet Governance in Albania and Its Role In Media Freedom”, explores a number of topics where Internet governance and regulation intersect with online media, market conditions, financial regulations, access to information and data protection, and copyright and cyber-security.
The report aims to provide a clear overview of the rights and responsibility of online publications in the Internet environment and the governance of this environment by public institutions, while encouraging a multi-stakeholder debate with the goal of supporting and strengthening freedom of expression and the professional practice of journalism on the Internet.
Freedom of expression and media freedom under threat
Photo: Raphael Nogueira
Although there is no specific law on online media in Albania, constitutional principles on freedom of expression and freedom of the press do extend their rights and restrictions to online outlets, while the regulatory environment on Internet governance, both domestic and foreign, influences how these outlets operate and do business.
Newly proposed regulations and amendments on the subject met strong resistance from the journalistic community and rights organisations in Albania and abroad. These moves were also contested by the European Commission and the Council of Europe.
In spite of the government’s attempts to shrink the space for professional journalism, freedom of expression and media are clearly defined in the Albanian constitution as well as in the international treaties and agreements that the country has ratified.
While Albania’s broadcast media and the press are controlled by a handful of powerful families, which have affiliated businesses in regulated markets, online media outlets are more diverse.
Many are start-ups owned by journalists, and allow more diverse viewpoints and reporting angles.
But, even though online media have become one of the main sources of information in Albania, Albanian legislation currently provides no definition of online media. Nor does the audio-visual media law or the e-commerce law.
Access to the internet is vital to free speech
Access to the Internet as a means of communication to exercise freedom of expression and information is guaranteed in Albania in the context of the domestic legal framework.
A survey conducted in 2019 on the use of information technology by families and individuals conducted by the Albanian National Institute of Statistics, INSTAT, showed that 82.2 per cent of all households now have access to the Internet, compared to 80.7 per cent a year earlier, and 66.4 per cent in 2016.
INSTAT found that 68.8 per cent of all individuals aged between 16 and 74 in Albania had used the Internet within three months of the survey being conducted, 87.1 per cent of whom used it daily.
Article 1, of the Law on Electronic Communications in Albania, no. 9918, of 19 May 2008, refers to net neutrality under the principles of the law – but it contains no specific provisions on how to enforce it.
Emerging from the same problematic principles that underpin net neutrality, The Electronic Communications law does not regulate zero rating; it is left to the companies to negotiate or offer such services.
One service previously excluded by data caps from ISPs in Albania has been Facebook Zero. The lack of clarity from the government regarding zero rating is concerning, as it is particularly relevant to journalism and media organisations.
Domain registration is linked to press freedom
Domain name management and administration is central to broader Internet governance, and directly affects press and media freedom within a country.
Domain registration in Albania for the ccTLD .al is regulated in the Electronic Communications law. It stipulates that domain names are registered “to serve the general interest of the public” and “to ensure especially the protection of intellectual property”. Web hosting companies are also mainly regulated by the the Electronic Communications law.
The main institution administering the .al ccTLD and its subdomains is AKEP. This maintains and updates a list of reserved and forbidden names and collects data and documents from the physical persons and legal entities that register.
The BIRN report states that blocking domain names is a key form of censorship imposed around the world, and is often used to prevent access to information and silence dissent.
Social media companies have unfair tax advantage
Online media in Albania operate on the same financial rules and tax regimes as other businesses registered in the country. No specific tax or financial rules, subsidies, or incentives are designed specifically for online media outlets.
Albania’s legal framework does not provide for any form of subsidies for journalism and the media, either for legacy or online media outlets.
Social media companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter, along with other online media not registered in Albania, should have a registered agent in the country and pay a tax rate similar to native online media outlets.
The BIRN report notes that the lack of taxation of their advertising products gives them de facto an unfair advantage to local online media outlets; these are taxed at the rate of 20 per cent.
Online media in Albania have often been the target of verbal abuse by politicians at the highest levels of power. Research conducted by BIRN also indicates that the biggest factors influencing the Albanian media’s editorial line are the political and economic interests of media owners, which in turn place pressure on many journalists to self-censor.
Thus, media outlet ownership transparency is important for the public to identify any political and economic bias that might influence the coverage of a certain topic or issue, as well as recognise conflicts of interest.
However, Albanian legislation does not provide any specific provision for the public disclosure of the ownership of media outlets.
Restrictions on freedom of expression online
Photo: Unsplash/Laura Lee Moreau
Although the Albanian constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights recognise fundamental rights to freedom of expression and freedom of the media, they also provide for proportional restrictions.
Defamation in Albania remains a criminal misdemeanour, punished by fines, while the main legal instrument against hate speech is the provision of several anti-hate crimes and misdemeanours in the criminal code. Hate speech is also addressed, albeit indirectly, in Albania’s anti-discrimination law.
In the context of the infringements, copyright violations are considered one of the biggest problems facing the online media, followed by the lack of quality information and financial difficulties.
Criteria and conditions for copyright protection are listed in the report. Despite the legal protection granted to audio and visual products via copyright, the country’s copyright law (Article 12.1) does not protect news and press information, both offline and online, which are simply informative in nature.
Journalists safeguard the public’s right to know
The growing number and influence of online media have certainly given journalists more space and freedom to express their views and report on different issues in ways that might not always be welcome in traditional media.
Journalists have the right to inform about news of public interest, preserving the essence of information, but they are also obliged to avoid references to personal data when possible. All actions taken by journalists should be shaped by the public interest.
The report lists two sets of special instructions and considerations (Protection of minors and court and crime reporting) for journalists on how to protect personal and sensitive data.
The most recent Code of Ethics for Journalists was drafted in 2018. This was done by the Albanian Media Institute, AMI, with the support of the project Reinforcing Judicial Expertise on Freedom of Expression and the Media in SouthEast Europe, JUFREX – a joint initiative led by the European Union and the Council of Europe.
According to a set of Ethical Guidelines for Online Journalism , online journalism must respect all professional code of ethics and the core values of journalism, irrespective of the forum or format it uses.
No clear rules for content removal
Recognising that content moderation and removal policies are widely debated – and divisive – on the global level, the report provides a non limited list of potential solutions that may contribute to a healthier online environment.
In Albania, no specific law explicitly regulates the filtering and blocking of illegal Internet content. However, the provisions of several laws regulate illegal Internet content. The Electronic Communications law empowers the AKEP to enforce its requirements.
There is no official or published list of what is considered illegal and/or harmful content, or of the competent authorities that can ask the ISPs to remove illegal content. For this reason, the key institutions mandated by law to order the removal of illegal content are listed below, based on the caseload developed by AKEP.
Judicial and law enforcement agencies can request the removal of illegal content based on the relevant articles in the criminal code. One of the most problematic requests from law enforcement agencies, passed on to ISPs through AKEP, was the blocking of the domain of the popular online media Jeta Osh Qef (Joq.al) following the deadly 26 November 2019 earthquake in Albania.
The report also mentions other relevant agencies and bodies dealing with content removal, such as the Audio-visual Media Authority, AMA, and the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection.
Progress in cybersecurity legislation
Albania has made significant progress in recent years in developing the ICT sector and the use of information technology, IT.
Albania ratified the Convention on Cybercrime – known as the Budapest Convention – on 25 April 2002, with Law no. 8888. Its criminal code is mainly in line with this important international instrument, containing several specific articles dedicated to fighting cybercrime.
Although not directly related to cybersecurity, the criminal code also details the consequences of engaging in various anti-social electronic and/or online activities.
Another important law governing cybersecurity is Law no. 2/2017, “On Cybersecurity”; the entity responsible for applying this law is the NAECCES.
The law’s main aim is to achieve a high level of cybersecurity within Albania by defining security measures, rights, and obligations, as well as mutual cooperation between entities operating in the field of cybersecurity.
Civic society groups in Montenegro have criticized the arrest on Thursday of an opposition Democratic Front activist for posting fake news about the President’s health.
On Thursday, authorities put Radovan Rakocevic from the town of Bijelo Polje in custody for 72 hours for the offence of spreading panic. Rakocevic had shared an article on Facebook from a Belgrade tabloid, Alo, which claimed that Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic had been infected with the coronavirus.
“The prosecutor believes that Rakocevic would be able to repeat the criminal offence if he was released and would continue to publish statements that would cause panic among citizens. So he was ordered into detention,” the prosecutor’s decision said.
While the Democratic Front called on the authorities to release Rakocevic, the head of the Civic Alliance, Boris Raonic, warned that the government cannot fight fake news with arrests. He said the authorities should be more transparent and inform the public about everything related to COVID-19.
He said a guest on the national public broadcaster had also “presented a conspiracy theory that could cause panic, but there was no reaction either from the prosecution or the [broadcasting] management. That gives us a new element to this story – selective justice,” Raonic told the daily newspaper Vijesti.
He was referring to a guest speaker on the public service prime time show “Corona stay home” who presented a theory that COVID-19 was a biological weapon. Economic analyst Predrag Drecun, considered to be close to ruling DPS party, has claimed the coronavirus was produced in the US by the Defense Ministry.
Even before the COVID-19 outbreak became more severe in Montenegro, there had been arrests for spreading panic about it. On March 13, the Basic Court ordered 30 days in custody for Milivoje Brkovic for posting a message on Facebook that said state officials were hiding the real number of people suffering from the coronavirus in Montenegro. The country confirmed its first two cases on March 17.
On March 23, a Russian citizen was put in custody for posting on Instagram that more than a thousand people had caught COVID-19 in Montenegro. To date, Montenegro has confirmed 252 coronavirus infections, two of whom have died.
Singling out Hungary, Slovenia and the Czech Republic as especially worrying examples, ten human rights organisations including Index on Censorship and Reporters Without Borders have written to the Council of Europe and other official bodies, urging them to address the danger of governments misusing the coronavirus crisis to pursue authoritarian policies.
“Several governments across Europe are already using the pandemic to claim extraordinary powers that can undermine democratic institutions, including the free press,” the organisations said. “We believe that some Council of Europe Member States are at risk of derogating from the European Convention on Human Rights,” they noted.
Among the concerns expressed in the letter is an emergency law that aims to tackle false information by penalties of up to five years in jail, limits to press conferences introduced in several countries and an outright ban on them in Slovenia and the Czech Republic. “Such measures must not be allowed to restrict media scrutiny of governments,” the ten organisations say.
They say governments across the world have pushed the boundaries of what they are allowed to do during the COVID-19 crisis, adopting measures including the almost unchecked use of private data collected by mobile phone networks and, in some cases, use of facial recognition surveillance systems that were allegedly conceived before the crisis to tackle dissident activity.
“Our organisations are concerned about the effects of enhanced surveillance measures introduced to monitor the spread of the virus,” the letter said.
“While we recognise the potential benefits in terms of combating the spread of the virus, the use of surveillance must have proper oversight and be clearly limited to tackling the pandemic,” it added.
The letter has been signed by 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, the Free Press Unlimited, FPU, Index on Censorship, the International Federation of Journalists, IFJ, International Press Institute, IPI and Reporters Without Borders, RSF.
Rights groups warn that legislation submitted to the Hungarian parliament, giving the government of Viktor Orban unprecedented power of decree in the fight against COVID-19, would have a “chilling effect” on independent media in the country.
The ‘Bill on Protection against Coronavirus’ was submitted by Orban’s government with the justification that it must be free to act without consulting parliament to confront a virus that has so far, officially, infected at least 261 people in Hungary.
The bill submitted last week amends rules under a state of emergency to give the government the power to rule by decree and suspend any existing law. It would permanently amend the criminal law to introduce punishment of one to five years in prison for anyone convicted of spreading “falsehood” or “distorted truth” deemed to obstruct efforts to combat the pandemic.
No elections or referenda can be held for the duration of the state of emergency and only the government or a two-thirds majority in parliament can lift it. Orban’s right-wing Fidesz party holds such a supermajority.
The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, HCLU, an NGO,warned of a devastating effect on Hungarian media after years of Fidesz rule during which right groups say the government has dismantled media freedoms and pluralism.
“Once the legislation enters into force, it could have a chilling effect, and its timing and social context could lead to self-censorship among journalists,” the group said.
The way the bill is worded means someone could be prosecuted for ‘obstructing’ any number of government measures – from healthcare to education, border control and the economy – justified by the fight against COVID-19.
HCLU cautioned in particular that the term ‘distorted’ could be interpreted in a range of ways by the courts and “could be applicable even to someone who disputes the credibility of official statements.” Entire outlets face being shut down if police seize servers as evidence.
‘Dictatorial powers’
Media pluralism has been in decline for years in Hungary, with pro-government outlets now dominating the media landscape.
“Orban’s terrible track record on press freedom creates the suspicion that the law is aimed at the last remnants of an independent press in Hungary,”Kim Lane Scheppele, an expert on authoritarian regimes at Princeton University, wrote on March 21.
The bill would give Orban “dictatorial powers”, she wrote, and “end the appearance of constitutional and democratic government.”
On Monday, the opposition in parliament blocked a government move to pass the bill in an urgent procedure, but Fidesz is expected to push it through next week using its two-thirds supermajority.
A spokesman for the European Commission declined to comment on the bill directly, but noted that “all emergency measures should be temporary in nature and address a particular crisis situation.”
“Democracy cannot work without free and independent media,” said the spokesman, Christian Wigand. “In times of crisis it is more important than ever that journalists can do their job properly, precisely so to avoid disinformation.”
The European Parliament also expressed concern.
Any extraordinary measures during a pandemic “should always ensure that fundamental rights, rule of law and democratic principles are protected,” Juan Fernando López Aguilar, chair of the parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee,said in a statement.
Aguilar called on the Commission to look at whether the bill “complies with the values enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union and to remind member states of their responsibility to respect and protect these common values.”
In a letter to Orban, Council of Europe Secretary General Marija Pejcinovic Buric said that an indefinite and uncontrolled state of emergency “cannot guarantee that the basic principles of democracy will be observed and that the emergency measures restricting fundamental human rights are strictly proportionate to the threat which they are supposed to counter.”
“…democratic debate in national parliaments, in the media and the internet, as well as access to official information and documents are essential elements of any free and democratic order and of particular importance in crisis situations to maintain trust and confidence within society,” she wrote.
Montenegro’s state prosecution on Tuesday ordered civic activist Vesko Pejak to be put into custody for 72 hours for causing panic and disorder over a Facebook post predicting “war in Montenegro” – and for claiming that officials were provoking citizens who opposed the recently adopted law on religion.
The law has angered the largest faith group in the country, the Serbian Orthodox Church, and tens of thousands of people have been marching twice weekly in the streets in protest against it.
The Serbian Church, SPC, says it is designed to strip it of its property and land, which the government denies. Opposition political movements are also regular participants in the anti-government rallies.
The Center for Investigative Reporting in Montenegro, CIN-CG, said that by arresting people solely for their thoughts, the government threatened freedom of thought and expression, which is one of the cornerstones of democracy.
“We appeal to all actors in the public arena to take the greatest responsibility regard to the situation and not to exacerbate tensions,” the CIN-CG press release said.
“We urge the authorities to release Pejak and to no longer stifle freedom of speech and freedom of movement,” a member of the Alternative movement, Nikola Bezmarevic, told the media.
The main opposition group, the pro-Serbian Democratic Front also condemned the arrest.
The government has been clamping down hard lately on activists spreading “panic” on social media.
On January 24 police detained a well-known pro-Russian journalist, Igor Damjanovic, over his conversation on Facebook with another person who then filed a case against him. Damjanovic claimed the real reason for his detention was not his verbal exchange on Facebook but his long record of anti-NATO activism, which has irked the government.
On January 23 in a separate case concerning Facebook comments, police arrested Milija Goranovic from Niksic for allegedly insulting the country’s police chief, Veselin Veljovic. Media reports said Goranovic was fined 500 euros for telling Veljovic “not to talk rubbish” below a statement of the police director on Facebook.
One day after Goranovic was arrested, the US ambassador to Montenegro, Judy Rising Renke, reminded the government on twitter that freedom of speech was fundamental to democracy. “This really worries me. Public figures are routinely criticized and even insulted – it’s part of the job. I know. However, at the end of the day, we must defend the right to free speech,” she posted.
Two editors of local news websites, IN4S and Borba, Gojko Raicevic and Drazen Zivkovic, were detained on January 12 on suspicion of causing panic and public disorder. This was in connection with reports of an explosion at the Villa Gorica, a building in Podgorica used by the government for receptions. After they published their stories, some regional media republished the alleged information. The police later denied that any explosion had occurred and said that a minor electrical failure had occurred at the villa, which was soon repaired. They said Raicevic and Zivkovic were arrested for publishing information that had alarmed the public without checking the facts.
On January 5, the editor-in-chief of the Fos media website, Andjela Djikanovic was placed in detention for 72 hours for “causing panic and disorder” after claiming in an article that the government might call on security forces in neighbouring Kosovo to help quell Serbian Church supporters’ protests over the new legislation on religion.
The government has defended its tough response, however, saying it is coming under a systemic and organized attack. On January 14, the Culture Ministry said that the country had become the target of an organised “disinformation campaign” since it adopted the new law on religion. Authorities say they are the victims of a coordinated campaign to spread fake news, organised by a number of media outlets in the country and the region that are spreading religious and national hatred and violence.
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