Abstract
The Index awards bring attention to the dangers of reporting in the Maldives, while a new Index report reveals the precarious state of journalism in the USA,
Zaheena Rasheed, former editor of the Maldives Independent, delivers her speech after collecting her Index award in April
CREDIT: Elina Kansikas
Zaheena Rasheed said that on the eve of finding out about the nomination, Maldives Independent staff had been questioning if they “were making a difference”.
“The space for independent press in the Maldives was shrinking every day, but public apathy was growing,” she added.
Index associate producer Helen Galliano, who organised the awards gala, said of Rasheed’s speech: “It just showed how we are having an impact and how we’re making a difference for her, for all of them. That was really incredible to hear.”
The awards are part of a wider year-long fellowship programme. To launch the fellowship, the winners attended a week of workshops and meetings aimed at equipping them with skills to aid their work. For Galliano, a favourite moment came during a group lunch on the final day. The winners spoke of feeling loved, supported and rewarded.
Of the four winners, two were unable to attend due to their dissident status. Arts winner Wang Liming, a Chinese political cartoonist better known as Rebel Pepper (see page 101 for one of his cartoons), has been in exile in Japan since 2014, while winner of the campaigning category Ildar Dadin, recently released after a two-year prison stint for staging one-man protests in Russia, was unable to get a visa to travel. In a speech read by his wife Anastasia Zotova, who collected the award from human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger on his behalf, he said: “You can refuse to let these people silence me. Together, we can refuse to look away.”
The digital activism award went to Turkey Blocks, an organisation that tracks shutdowns of internet access in the country. Turkey Blocks’ success has seen its founder Alp Toker expand the project to track similar abuses elsewhere.
A photographer is confronted by a police officer while covering protests during Trump’s inauguration in January 2017
“Online censorship is increasingly used to mask more severe human rights violations, not just in Turkey but from China, Vietnam, Pakistan, India [and] Kashmir to Cameroon and Bahrain and all over the world,” Toker said at the awards. “As long as freedom of expression and digital rights are not safeguarded, our mission will continue.”
Away from the awards, Index turned its attention to the USA with the publication of a report called It’s Not Just Trump: US Media Freedom Fraying at the Edges. Using the methodology of its Mapping Media Freedom platform, which tracks violations of media freedom around Europe, Index researched more than 150 incidents, including border detainments, arrests and physical violence against journalists. Index’s Sean Gallagher, editor of the report, said its creation was motivated by a desire to officially log the frequent violations to the media that Index staff had been aware of during the 2016 presidential election. Gallagher was shocked by the number of journalists being arrested and charged while covering protests.
“When I started out in journalism in the USA in 1993, this wasn’t something that happened,” said Gallagher, who is from New York. “Sure, there were fringe cases you can point to, but not on the scale that we’re seeing now, where it’s routine for journalists who are going to cover a protest to be swept up by the police. That’s something that’s new.”
The report also found journalists were increasingly facing attacks from members of the public, with video journalists having their equipment stolen – sometimes at gunpoint – and being menaced by protesters accusing them of misrepresentation. In one case study, a documentary-maker working on a film in support of fracking was surrounded by protesters and had to be escorted away by police. In another case, a passer-by spat into a journalist’s camera lens.
Gallagher believes this is caused by the skewed consumption of social media and online news, which has led to people across the political spectrum to seeing their own point of view as the only legitimate one.
“I think that people have come to expect that their point of view is going to be represented and they’re unhappy when it’s not represented to their satisfaction.” He added: “Trump is not the main catalyst for it; Trump is capitalising on it, but it’s a trend that’s been there.”
The full report is available to read at indexoncensorship.org. Index will continue to monitor press freedom in the USA, teaming up with the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University for a collaborative project called US Press Freedom Tracker.
In another collaborative effort, Index marked World Press Freedom Day on 3 May by taking part in a vigil with other organisations outside the Turkish embassy in London to protest against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ongoing crackdown on the media. At the end of April, 163 journalists were in jail in Turkey, according to the Platform for Independent Journalism (P24). Ryan McChrystal, assistant online editor at Index, said: “Protesting is something that comes easily to us and so we often take that right for granted. But in Turkey, showing dissent is now a very dangerous thing to do. On World Press Freedom Day, we sent a message to the Turkish government that we are watching and their abuses of power have not gone unnoticed. More importantly, we gathered to send a message of solidarity to those imprisoned or persecuted.”
Index has supported censored writers in Turkey through Turkey Uncensored, an online project. It has published articles from a range of writers, including ousted Cumhuriyet editor Can Dündar.
At the end of May, Index went to Wales to take part in Hay Festival. Magazine editor Rachael Jolley spoke on a panel called The War on Women alongside journalist and author Christina Lamb, human rights lawyer Baroness Helena Kennedy and Baroness Joan Bakewell. Deputy editor Jemimah Steinfeld hosted a conversation with Canadian novelist Madeleine Thien, who was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize for her novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing. The two discussed censorship in China, past and present.
“Hay is basically a music festival for literature and literature can’t thrive without free speech. This makes Hay a natural partner for Index,” Steinfeld said of the ongoing relationship between the two organisations.
The cover of Index on Censorship’s report on US media freedom
CREDIT: Mobilus in Mobili/Flickr
