Abstract
Russia may still be nursing its diplomatic hangover following the high-profile campaigning against its record on gay rights during the Sochi Winter Olympics, but it continues to flex its muscles across its old sphere of influence. Index has been keeping a close eye on how this is having a direct impact on freedom of expression across the post-Soviet landscape, and beyond, as in the case of Syria. Our work in Belarus continues, and, in November 2013, Index travelled to Minsk to meet with journalists and media workers there. Russia’s influence there is clear. It is a significant backer of President Lukashenko’s dictatorship, both financially and diplomatically, viewing Belarus as not just a helpful ally to the Kremlin, but also regarding the country as as Russia’s “back yard”. Over the last year, there has been very little change in the situation for free expression in the country. All the old methods of state repression continue: independent newspapers find it difficult to find distributors, journalists are refused entry to press conferences or, in the worse cases, beaten or tortured. There is no independent television and any news that is inconvenient for the regime is suppressed. There is much to fear, and the most fierce media critics of the Belarusian government have been forced to take sanctuary online, where news services offer the people of Belarus an alternative to the dominant narrative delivered by the powerful state media.
Whether the European Union is such a bastion of freedom of expression is, of course, another issue. Index’s policy paper, Time to Step Up: The EU and Freedom of Expression (visit indexoncensorship.org to download), questioned whether the Union really honours and puts in to practice the European values it claims to uphold. The report reveals that it still falls short of its principles. This isn’t simply an academic question, as the EU’s failure to protect whistleblowers like Edward Snowden or its failure to intervene to protect media under siege in Italy and Hungary has demonstrated. Index received strong support for the report, showing there is widespread recognition that more needs to be done. Whether this happens quickly enough, as the cries for freedom in Ukraine, Russia and in post-Arab spring nations become louder, remains to be seen.
Index continued to shine a spotlight on other major democracies like India, where online freedom is not what it should be. Index’s paper on the country, Digital freedom under threat?, highlighted these shortfalls, which include provisions in the 2000 Information Technology Act (IT Act), as well as amendments pertaining to offence and national security incorporated into the act following the 2008 attacks in Mumbai. These regulations are having a direct impact on internet use, culminating in ever-increasing arrests and prosecutions of citizens who post content deemed to be “grossly harmful”, “harassing”, or “blasphemous”. Censorship of online speech and social media usage is particularly troubling when it affects legitimate political comment or harmless content. Eventually, the rules India’s government makes for its online users will affect the nearly one in six people on earth who live in the country. They are also useful pointers to where the future of internet governance could go, for as India emerges as a global power, where it places itself in these debates will shape free speech online.
In the UK, our speech is now freer thanks to the enactment of the 2013 Defamation Act, which came into force in England and Wales on 1 January 2014. Index’s hard work over four years as part of the Libel Reform Campaign led to this new legislation being passed, and it’s a great way for the organisation to begin 2014. But the work is not over yet. Northern Ireland’s First Minister Peter Robinson and his Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) colleagues are set against any reform of the law, which matches the old unreformed law of England and Wales prior to the new Defamation Act. The DUP are yet to accept that when the United Nations Human Rights Council says a country has a problem with its laws, it is probably worth taking action. Index and its partner the Northern Ireland Law Commission will look at this in more detail in 2014. Hopefully the people of the province won’t have to wait long for their right to freedom of expression to be strengthened.
If we stop tolerating the cranks, the misfits and the offensive, then we fail to challenge our own prejudices and the strength of our own arguments
This is my last column, as I’m off to pastures new. An important lesson I’ve learned at Index is that freedom of expression is too important a value to leave to politicians (whether elected or unelected), especially when it comes to determining its boundaries. If these boundaries are set by those who shout the loudest, then the quietest voices will fade away; if it’s left to only mainstream views, then dissenting opinions don’t stand a chance. If we stop tolerating the cranks, the misfits and the offensive, then we fail to challenge our own prejudices and the strength of our own arguments. Free speech tests everyone – and everything. That’s why promoting this right is such a pleasurable, if endless, challenge.
