Tag: media freedom

Turkey’s ‘Disinformation’ Law Will Devastate Media Freedom, Experts Predict

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Turkish media experts said the country’s new disinformation law which is awaiting adoption in the Turkish parliament will be the last nail in the coffin of an independent media.

The so-called disinformation law will increase government control and censorship in media and social media platforms, Orhan Sener, head of the Journalists’ Union of Turkey’s academy, said.

“I do not believe that there are good intentions here. One must be very naïve to believe that the government is doing this to prevent misinformation. Their record is known, as is what they are capable is known,” he said.

Sener recalled that Turkey ranked in a lowly 149th place among 180 countries in terms of press freedom in Reporters’ Without Borders latest Press Freedom Index.

The draft law for the first time defines “spreading misinformation on purpose” as a crime.

It introduces penalties for anyone who “publicly disseminates false information regarding internal and external security, public order and the general welfare of the country, in a way that breaches the public peace, simply for the purpose of creating anxiety, fear or panic among the population”.

Baris Altintas, the chairperson of the Media and Law Studies Association, MLSA said: “The basic question legally is here how we define fake news and lies. According to this law, it is definitely not by any objective or scientific standards. It is clear that it [the law] is going to an abuse when and if it passes in October.”

According to the proposed law, people who spread misinformation can be jailed for one to three years. If a court rules that a person spreads misinformation as part of an illegal organisation, the jail sentence will increase by 50 per cent.

Journalists can also be charged under the new law if they use anonymous sources to hide the identity of a person spreading “misinformation”.

“Turkey is the worst example, but it is definitely [part of] a trend we can notice in our region or elsewhere,” Marija Ristic, regional director of Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, said, referencing the new law.

Ristic noted a recent example of this trend in India. “However, in our region, many countries are trying to impose similar although less restrictive laws,” Ristic said, underlining that Balkan countrie rank poorly in many surveys and rankings on media freedoms.

Turkish journalist and political scientist Sezin Oney said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government aims to use the new law in its favour before the next elections, as Erdogan’s popularity in election polls tumbles.

“In this grim autumn, as the economy gets worse, … they [authorities] may continue to lose more votes,” Oney said. He added that one of the new law’s targets will be economists and economy-related news reports.

“The new law will also target economists. If you say something or tweet about something about the official inflation statistics, it will be deemed a lie and there may be a court case against you,” Oney added.

On Thursday evening, during Balkan Insight’s Twitter space discussion, more bad news for media freedom in Turkey arrived, when access to Turkish language services of Deutsche Welle and Voice of America were blocked by a court decision following the Turkish government’s licence demands.

“Since Russia had denied licence to Deutsche Welle [in February], I was wondering when Turkey would follow,” Gurkan Ozturan, the coordinator of Media Freedom Rapid Response at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, said. “This is an incredibly illegitimate and horrible development,” Ozturan said.

Balkan Insight regularly organises Twitter space programmes to discuss trending issues in the Balkans. The full programme entitled “Censorship fear in Turkish media the new disinformation law” can be listened here.

Turkish Journalists Urge Govt to Drop Disinformation Law

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Thousands of protesters from journalists’ unions and NGOs gathered in Istanbul and other cities across the country on Tuesday to call on the government to drop the disinformation law which is due to be passed by the Turkish parliament soon.

“It is called the ‘Press Law’, but it has been prepared without being asked for by professional media organisations. There is no article in it to protect journalists or protect the news,” the journalists’ organisations including the Journalists’ Union of Turkey, the Turkish Journalists’ Association and the Press Council said in a statement.

“On the contrary, prison sentences, closures, censorship and heavy controls over internet media are coming,” the statement added.

The legislation was presented to Turkey’s parliament on May 27, aiming to increase government control over the internet, media and social media.

“We are describing this law as the heaviest censorship law in the history of Turkey which will completely destroy the freedom of the press and freedom of expression,” the media organisations said.

“A journalist who does not disclose his news source under the name of ‘fighting disinformation’ will be given a prison sentence. Prosecutors and judges will decide which news is ‘false’ and which news is ‘true’ in line with the vague regulation,” they warned.

The law was prepared by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP and its far-right partner, the Nationalist Movement Party, MHP.

The law, which is expected to pass soon, for the first time defines the crime of “spreading misinformation on purpose”.

It envisages punishment for anyone who “publicly disseminates false information regarding internal and external security, public order and the general welfare of the country, in a way that breaches the public peace, simply for the purpose of creating anxiety, fear or panic among the population”.

According to the proposed law, people who spread misinformation can be jailed for one to three years. If a court decides that a person spread misinformation as part of an illegal organisation, the jail sentence will be increased by 50 per cent.

Journalists can also be charged under the new law if they use anonymous sources to hide the identity of a person who is spreading misinformation.

Albanian Journalists Gagged Over Organised Crime Case Leaks

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Newsrooms in Albania received a gagging order on Thursday to stop publishing information about a major criminal case involving several organised crime groups, after the testimonies of two collaborators of justice that helped prosecutors issue some 32 arrest orders last month were leaked.

Prosecutors Doloreza Musabelliu, Altin Dumani and Behar Dibra underlined “the importance of the statements given by those two citizens and the fact that we are in the preliminary intensive investigation phase, and many investigative acts are being carried out,” as the reason for the gagging order.

“The statements of these citizens have proven value and are extremely important for the investigation. Due to this importance, and the need to have these statements covered by secrecy, it is necessary to order the protection of secrecy up to the conclusion of the preliminary investigations,” the prosecutors said.

Over the last few weeks, Albanian media have published dozens of news items about the statements of the two collaborators concerning several criminals suspected of murders and other crimes.

Albania’s penal code foresees jail sentences of up to three years for the publication of secret information by third parties, such as journalists. It also foresees jail sentences of up to six years when such secret information relates to protected witnesses.

This is not the first time that prosecutors in Albania issued gagging orders to the media. In 2019, after leaks exposed electoral crime and corruption, prosecutors issued a similar order.

But this was ignored by the media and was largely seen as an attempt to hide official failures to investigate political crimes.

Albania’s authorities organized a mass operation against organized crime on 19 May, following the statements of the collaborators. However, the most notorious bosses of the underworld weren’t found or seized, and remain on the run.

Bulgarian TV Crew Attacked in Serbia Working on Pollution Story

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

A TV crew of the “Traces Remain” investigative show of Bulgarian National Television, BNT, were attacked on Tuesday, June 14, on a road in front of the Podvirovi mine near Bosilegrad in southeast Serbia, Safejournalists organization reported on Wednesday.

The journalists came to Serbia to do a story about environmental pollution in the border area in the municipality of Bosilegrad.

Safejournalists said in a press release that when the journalists and activists approached the mine, about 50 meters from the entrance a minibus blocked their way, so they had to continue on foot.

“At that moment, six or seven people, including the director of the mine, attacked the crew, first by throwing rocks at them and then by punching,” it said.

Miodrag Vukajlovic, the mine director from Bosil metal company, was identified as one of the attackers, along with his chief of security, BNT said.

BNT reported that the Consul General of Bulgaria in Nis, Dimitar Canev, came to the site and, with his help, a report was submitted to the police in Bosilegrad.

The TV crew included journalist Bogdana Lazarova, cameramen Dimitar Slavov and Nikolai Andreev and technician Robert Vecov. Green activists from Sofia Dimitar Kumanov and Valentin Janev, Branko Mitov and Dimitar Dimitrov from Bosilegrad were also present.

Montenegrin Journalist to Be Retried Again for Drug Trafficking

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The Montenegrin Supreme Court said on Thursday that prominent investigative journalist Jovo Martinovic, who was convicted of drug trafficking in a case that has sparked criticism from the EU, should be retried for a second time.

“The decision has been made and at the beginning of next week, [the case] will be returned to the lower court,” the Supreme Court told daily newspaper Vijesti.

In the second-instance verdict in the case in October 2020, Montenegrin Higher Court found Martinovic guilty of mediation in drug trafficking and sentenced to a year in prison.

Martinovic said he will continue to try to prove his innocence.

“Unfortunately, in Montenegro, it is not up to the prosecutor to prove guilt, but up to journalists to prove their innocence. This retrial could be good for media freedom and I will continue to fight,” Martinovic told BIRN.

He was arrested in October 2015 alongside 17 others from Montenegro in a joint police operation conducted with Croatian police. He spent almost a year-and-a-half in custody before being released in January 2017 ahead of the trial.

He was convicted in the first-instance ruling in January 2019 of drug trafficking and membership of a criminal organisation but the Appeals Court overturned the verdict and ordered the first retrial.

The journalist always insisted he had made contacts with alleged drug traffickers only as part of his legitimate reporting work.

Martinovic made contacts with two of the 17 suspects arrested in 2015: Dusko Martinovic – no relation to the journalist – and Namik Selmanovic.

Dusko Martinovic, the main suspect in the case, was also a convicted member of a gang of jewel thieves known as the Pink Panthers. Operating in the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, they are believed to have stolen hundreds of millions of euros’ worth of jewellery. Journalist Martinovic worked with Dusko Martinovic on a series of TV shows about the robbers produced by Vice media group.

He worked alongside Selmanovic when a French production company, CAPA Presse, hired them to contribute to research on a documentary about weapons smuggling.

Dusko Martinovic was sentenced to six years and three months in prison in January 2019. Selmanovic has turned state’s evidence.

The European Commission’s report last year about Montenegro’s progress towards membership warned that the conviction of the journalist raises concerns about reporters’ ability to perform their duties professionally and without fear of legal repercussions in the country.

Albanian Police Stop Photographer Filming Riots for ‘Damaging Country’s Image’

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

An Albanian journalist said police stopped him from working on Tuesday evening as scores of violent fans from Dutch football club Feyenoord clashed with the police.

“I was photographing [the violence] when police officers stopped me, saying, it wasn’t allowed because it would damage the image of the country,” Shkullaku, an experienced photo reporter, told BIRN. “They demanded to delete the photos,” he added.

His protests, including the fact that he is accredited to UEFA and had his badge clearly visible, didn’t help.

“I had to call police spokesperson Gent Mullai to complain so that he clarified matters with the police. However, they still obliged me to delete some of the photos, claiming their faces were visible,” Shkullaku added.

Mullai, the police spokesperson, told BIRN he was unaware whether an investigation has been opened in the matter. He said that the police were currently too busy to respond to further questions.

A spokesperson from the Agency for Police Supervision told BIRN they had started verification but said the journalist needed also to contact them to denounce the event.

This is not the first time that police in Albania have manhandled journalists on duty in the last two years. Albania has slipped down the rankings in the latest Media Freedom Index of Reporters Without Borders, which cited various cases of police violence against journalists covering protests as one reason for the drop.

Serbian Journalists Highlight Unresolved Case of Murdered Reporter

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The Journalists’ Association of Serbia, UNS asked the International Federation of Journalists on Tuesday to adopt a resolution at its upcoming assembly to call on the Serbian authorities to ensure that the murderers of reporter Milan Pantic are finally found and punished.

In the draft resolution, UNS emphasised that 21 years on, an investigation by the police and the prosecutor’s office in the city of Jagodina has not brought the killers of Pantic to justice or identified those who ordered the murder.

Pantic, who was a correspondent for the newspaper Vecernje Novosti, was beaten to death on June 11, 2001 in Jagodina. During his long career as a journalist, he mainly wrote about high-level corruption cases in the town.

UNS expressed concern that the authorities do not appear to have taken action after information about the case was uncovered by Serbia’s Commission for the Investigation of the Murders of Journalists.

“We are concerned because the findings of the Commission to Investigate the Murders of Journalists have been submitted to Serbian official bodies and after that that there has been no progress,” says the draft UNS resolution.

Veran Matic, who co-founded the iconic Belgrade radio station B92 and is the chairman of the commission created in 2012 to investigate a string of unresolved murders of journalists, said last year that he has traced Pantic’s killing to his coverage of the privatisation of the Novi Popovac cement factory in the town of Paracin.

Matic said that what Pantic wrote “and what he would have written” about the sale had cost him his life.

“If I could, I would gladly tell you the names of all actors, but I still hope that a solution will be found for the case to be resolved,” Matic said in 2021 ahead of the 20th anniversary of Pantic’s death.

Pantic died eight months after the ousting of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, when a disparate coalition of reformers, nationalists and opportunists was wrestling with the legacy of a decade of war, sanctions and organised crime.

The annual assembly of the International Federation of Journalists will be held in Oman from May 31 to June 3 this year, and UNS will be represented by its board member Miljan Vitomirovic.

Media Freedom Remains Major Concern in Balkans, Watchdog Says

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Reporters Without Borders’ 2022 World Press Freedom Index, published on Tuesday, says that over the past year there has been a large increase in “polarisation amplified by information chaos” – a phenomenon that has also affected the troubled media environment in the Balkans.

The international watchdog organisation says the information chaos is a result of “a globalised and unregulated online information space that encourages fake news and propaganda”.

In the Balkans, the situation declined significantly in several countries including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Greece, according to Reporters Without Borders’ ranking system of 180 states worldwide.

However, other states such as Montenegro, North Macedonia, Moldova, Bulgaria, Kosovo and Serbia rose in the watchdog’s rankings – although it continued to highlight shortcomings in all Balkan countries.

According to Reporters Without Borders, press freedom in Greece suffered serious setbacks over the past year, with journalists regularly prevented from being able to properly cover issues from migration to COVID-19.

The assassination of veteran Greek crime reporter Giorgos Karaivaz in April 2021 remains unsolved despite the government’s promise of a quick investigation.

Last year Greece ranked 70 out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders report and this year it has been ranked 108, a fall of 38 places.

Albania fell 20 places in the Reporters Without Borders index, from 83 last year to 103. The report says that the editorial independence in the while journalists are being targeted by organised crime groups and even by police violence, and the state is failing to protect them.

Meanwhile, private media outlets are owned by businessmen who have links with politicians.

Bosnia and Herzegovina also fell in the rankings from 58 in 2021 to 67. The report says that the media operates in a relatively favourable legal environment but in an extremely unfavourable political and economic situation.

“Journalists do not feel protected while doing their work. There are large differences in media freedom and the quality of journalism across the country,” the report adds.

Romania fell by eight places to 56 in the ranking from 48. “Romania can boast of a diverse, relatively pluralistic media landscape that produces hard-hitting public interest investigations. Pressure from owners, lack of transparency in financing or market difficulties, however, hamper the reliability of the information,” the report says.

Several countries rose in the rankings even though problems persisted.

North Macedonia ranked 57, up from 90. But Reporters Without Borders notes that although journalists in the country do not work in a hostile environment, the “widespread misinformation and the lack of professionalism”, contribute to a decrease in trust in the media, which puts journalists at risk from threats and attacks.

“The overall environment remains favourable to press freedom and allows for critical reporting, although transparency of institutions is rather poor,” it adds.

Montenegro was ranked 63 out of 180 in 2022 compared with 104 the previous year.

The report notes that the country’s constitution and laws guarantee freedom of speech and expression, but press freedom continues to be threatened by political interference, unpunished attacks on journalists and economic pressures.

“After [former ruling party] DPS’s first loss of power in 2020, government pressure and attacks on journalists have somewhat weakened. However, there is a fear that foreign owners of certain channels will influence the editorial policies in the interest of other governments or their local political favourites,” the report says.

Moldova advanced from 89 in 2021 to 40 this year. However, the report cautions: “Moldova’s media are diverse but extremely polarised, like the country itself, which is marked by political instability and excessive influence by oligarchs.”

Photo illustration: Pixabay / AndyLeungHK

Bulgaria also scored an improvement from last year, climbing to 91 places from 112, but Reporters Without Borders says that the few independent voices in the country’s media work under constant pressure.

“Intimidation from politicians as well as administrative and judicial pressures against publishers and journalists are a common practice,” the report says.

The report says that Kosovo scored an improvement on last year, climbing to 61 from 78, but highlights that although the media market is diverse, its development is limited by its small size and strict separation along ethnic lines.

Despite improvements, the report says that Kosovo journalists “have been increasingly targeted by SLAPPs [Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation] initiated by business groups and politicians”.

It also says that investigative reporters covering organized crime and corruption are regularly threatened.

However, it adds: “Online news portals include strong brands such as BIRN or Kosovo 2.0, the latter being one of the few media outlets publishing in both Albanian and Serbian.”

Serbia ranked 79 on this year’s Reporters Without Borders index, up from 93 last year. In a highly polarised political climate, according to the watchdog, “journalists are regularly subjected to political attacks instigated by members of the ruling elite that are amplified by certain national TV networks”.

“Neither politicians nor institutions, including the Regulatory Authority of Electronic Media (REM), composed mostly of individuals appointed by the government, have been willing to remedy the situation,” the report says

“In addition, journalists critical of the ruling party have restricted access to interviews with government representatives and to public information,” it adds.

It notes that many attacks on journalists remain unresolved, highlighting the case of the 1999 assassination of Slavko Curuvija, which is still waiting for a final court verdict.

Croatia also scored an improvement compared with 2021, jumping from 56 to 48 but the report cautions that “the government is failing to protect journalists against legal attempts to muzzle them, and against organised crime. The government itself represents a threat to press freedom.”

The report says that authoritarianism is gaining ground in Turkey, challenging media pluralism.

“With 90 per cent of the national media now under government control, the public has turned, during the past five years, to critical or independent media outlets of various political persuasions to learn about the impact of the economic and political crisis on the country,” it explains.

It notes that all possible means are being used to undermine critics in the Turkish media and the future looks gloomy with new elections coming next year.

However, Turkey scored better than in 2021 in the watchdog’s rankings, climbing slightly from 153 to 149.

Turkey Threatens to Jail Journalists Reporting Critically on Companies

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP, has submitted a new bill to parliament criminalizing critical news reports about companies.

According to the proposed law, journalists may be jailed for up to three years as well as face fines for having “deliberately created a report that could damage the reputation, trust and wealth of the company through the media”.

“Turkey’s ranking in press freedom and freedom of expression indexes has been showing a steady decline for years. Unfortunately, with steps taken like the most recent preparation to penalise journalists’ work citing the alleged protection of commercial images, it will take yet another hit,” Gurkan Ozturan, Media Freedom Rapid Response Coordinator at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, ECPMF, told BIRN.

“Journalists and journalism cannot be punished [for such reports]; it is not a crime,” he added.

Ozturan said the bill proposes to stiffen the protection of commercial entities by empowering them to lead strategic lawsuits against public participation, often known as SLAPPs, which are used increasingly to silence and target journalists.

According to the proposed law, the law will be applicable even if the name of the relevant company is not mentioned in the news report.

If private or public harm is done to the company as a result of the news report, the penalty may be increased further by one-sixth.

“While in the European Union, which the Turkish government aspires to be part of, there are steps to create protection for media freedom and journalists against such acts, Turkey seems to be heading in the opposite direction,” Ozurtan said.

“Also, as part of the same bill, there is provisionally going to be a reduction in the punishment for tax evasion,” Ozturan noted, saying the proposed law does not seem compatible either with the rules of the free market or with the principles of media freedom.

Erdogan’s government has been accused before of favouring certain private companies by delivering them large public tenders, multibillion construction projects and tax reductions.

The opposition says the new draft law clearly aims to protect those companies.

Turkey was ranked in 153th place out of 180 countries in 2021 in the latest press freedom index of the watchdog organisation Reporters Without Borders, RSF, which classifies the Turkish government’s control over media outlets as high.

According a recent report published by Association of Journalists, 241 journalists were put on trial and 115 physically attacked in Turkey in 2021.

Five Journalists Killed in First Month of Ukraine War

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

A month after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine, at least five media workers are among hundreds of civilians who have been killed so far, raising fears that journalists are being intentionally targeted for attack.

Oksana Baulina, a Russian journalist working for independent news site The Insider, was the most recent to be killed earlier this week.

Baulina, who formerly worked for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption organisation before leaving Russia, “died under fire in Kyiv”, The Insider said on Wednesday. “She was filming the destruction after Russian troops shelled the Podil district of the capital,” it added.

Media freedom campaign group Reporters Without Borders last week called on the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, who is probing war crimes in Ukraine, to also investigate crimes committed against journalists by Russian forces.

“At least eight journalists or media crews have been deliberately targeted by Russian forces or have been the victims of indiscriminate bombardment,” Reporters Without Borders said.

On March 1, Ukrainian camera operator Yevhenii Sakun was killed during a Russian strike on a television tower in Kyiv – one of a series of allegedly deliberate strikes on radio and TV towers since the start of the war, aimed at silencing Ukrainian media.

US journalist and film-maker Brent Renaud died on March 13 when the car in which he was travelling with his colleagues came under fire in the town of Irpin.

The following day, Franco-Irish camera operator Pierre Zakrzewski and Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra Kuvshynova, who were both reporting the war for Fox News, were killed when their car was hit by gunfire in Horenka, a village some 20 miles from Kyiv.

Reporters Without Borders has said that a TV crew from Britain’s Sky News, a Czech team from the Voxpot media outlet, a Swiss journalist and an Al Araby TV crew have also been intentionally targeted in attacks.

Several other journalists have gone missing or have been detained by Russian forces since the war began, including Viktoria Roshchina, a reporter for Ukraine’s Hromadske TV, who was released on Monday after ten days in captivity.

“Multiple journalists have gone missing or been detained under murky circumstances since the war began, and these incidents only serve to harass the press and stifle independent reporting,” said Gulnoza Said, Europe and Central Asia programme coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Two Associated Press journalists in the besieged port city of Mariupol have described how managed to escape what they believed was a targeted attempt by Russian soldiers to detain them because of their graphic reporting of Moscow’s sustained assault on civilian areas, including the killing of children.

“They had a list of names, including ours,” wrote AP journalist Mstyslav Chernov after he and his colleague managed to flee.

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