The global assault on press freedom is a threat to us all
With coronavirus having killed over 250,000 people around the globe and the expectation that many thousands more will die in the coming weeks, the contagion’s threat to press freedom may appear inconsequential. Think again. Recall instead how and why this pandemic spread across an unsuspecting world.
It was the lack of press freedom in China that enabled its political leaders to cover up the Wuhan outbreak for a considerable period. By keeping it secret for so long, the Chinese communist party denied the rest of the world the chance to prepare its defences. Sadly, a host of governments now dealing with Covid-19 have chosen to imitate China by quashing freedom of the press. They evidently find the truth too uncomfortable.
Hundreds of journalists seeking to inform citizens about the reality of their governments’ response to the crisis have been persecuted. They have been threatened, intimidated, arrested and beaten up. Newspapers have been banned. Websites have been blocked. Internet services have been jammed. Using the virus as a cover for clamping down on liberty, governments have given censorship a spurious legitimacy.
Many of them are, unsurprisingly, the usual suspects, such as assorted dictators and the nervous holders of office in fragile, immature democracies. Yet, as we shall see, the ruling elites in settled democracies cannot point to unblemished records over the past three months.
Before I chart some of the most blatant press freedom violations, it is important to grasp that offending governments have drawn on lessons taught by two countries that are supposed to be in direct conflict: the US and China. Together, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have provided political leaders elsewhere with a template for repression.
When the Chinese police force arrested Li Wenliang, the doctor who first warned his colleagues of coronavirus’s existence, he was accused of “spreading false rumours.” That would ring many a bell in the United States because Trump has made a fetish of labelling media output with which he disagrees “fake news.” Washington and Beijing may rage against each other but they share a malevolent ideology when dealing with journalism.
What follows is but a snapshot of hundreds of deplorable actions against media outlets and their journalists, often revealing instances of casual brutality. They reinforce a disturbing global trend of increasing antagonism towards those who work for mainstream media. In too many countries, the authorities now feel confident they can abuse journalists, even to extent of denying them the right to life, because offenders enjoy the shield of impunity.
Let’s begin with Russia — a serial killer of journalists — and its former satellite states. When Covid-19 arrived Vladimir Putin’s administration was quick to enact legislation which sought to prevent journalistic inquiries. A new law prohibits the spreading of supposed “false information” with punishments ranging from five-year prison terms to £20,000 fines. Media outlets found guilty of disseminating disinformation face fines up to £100,000.
On 15 April, Russia’s media control agency, Roskomnadzor, ordered the Moscow newspaper Novaya Gazeta to delete an article by investigative journalist Elena Milashina because she criticised the lack of preparedness for coronavirus at hospitals in the autonomous republic of Chechnya. In Azerbaijan, freelancer Natig Izbatov was arrested by security forces for reporting on the challenges faced by people during the Covid-19 quarantine. Two journalists, Ibrahim Vazirov and Mirsahib Rahiloghlu, were detained for similar reporting and placed under “administrative arrest” for 25 and 20 days respectively.
In Serbia, journalists were banned from attending daily Covid-19 press briefings by the health minister on the disputed grounds of the virus having entered “some newsrooms.” An online journalist, Ana Lalic, was detained overnight for “spreading panic” and damaging the reputation of a hospital by writing about its workers’ lack of personal protective equipment. There were reports of similar crackdowns in Romania and Moldova.
Many African countries with poor press freedom records added to their litany of authoritarianism and abuse of journalists. In Zimbabwe, freelance journalist Panashe Makufa was beaten up by the police and forced to delete video footage on his camera after filming a police operation to disperse people during the lockdown in Harare.
His experience was mirrored in incidents recorded by international press freedom watchdogs in Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, Somalia, Zambia, and Uganda, where a TV journalist was taken to hospital with serious injuries after being assaulted by police officers. In Sierra Leone, Fayia Amara Fayia, a reporter with the Standard Times, ended up in a wheelchair following an assault by a group of soldiers, who hit him with guns and kicked him, because he photographed a quarantine centre.
In India, the government sought to introduce censorship by urging the country’s supreme court to issue an order that media outlets should not report on Covid-19 without ascertaining “the factual position” from the government. The court rejected the request, but officials in various states tried other routes to suppress news about coronavirus. The chief minister of Maharashtra banned the distribution of newspapers on the fallacious grounds that it could spread the virus.
India was also one of the first countries to use the contagion as an excuse to restrict online access to its citizens. In company with Egypt, Iran and Ethiopia it prevented the normal operation of the internet, effectively obstructing or denying news websites the capability to report on behalf of their audiences.
Three south-east Asian countries, under the guise of crisis measures linked to the pandemic, passed laws that give their rulers censorship powers. Vietnam’s autocratic regime can now fine social media users for publishing or sharing what it deems to be “fake news”. Cambodia’s emergency legislation allows its government to monitor communications, control media output, and prohibit the distribution of any information which could generate public fear or damage national security. In Indonesia, journalists face an 18-month sentence if they are found responsible for publishing not only incorrect information about Covid-19 but also “hostile information about the president and government.”
Governments in several Middle Eastern countries, where journalism is barely tolerated anyway, decided to tighten their grip still further. Iraq suspended the licence of the Reuters news agency for a story claiming the number of Covid-19 cases in the country was higher than officially reported. The United Arab Emirates introduced a series of fines should journalists publish medical information that contradicts official statements. In Jordan, security forces arrested a TV company’s owner and its news director for airing a segment in which people from the poor districts of the capital, Amman, criticised the nature of the Covid-19 lockdown. They were both detained for 14 days.
Then there is Turkey, which had the dubious distinction for four years of being the world’s leading jailer of journalists, a title regained by China last year. It added to its prison population by arresting the veteran Turkish journalist Hakan Aygun for posting an item on social media that belittled the campaign by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to raise funds for Covid-19 victims. Days later, the country’s broadcasting regulator banned Fox TV from airing its prime time news show for three consecutive days because a presenter had the temerity to criticise the state’s coronavirus policies.
Within Europe, there is not much doubt about press freedom’s greatest menace. Step forward Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary. In a country where he and his oligarch cronies control some 80 per cent of the print and broadcasting outlets, he was not prepared to allow any criticism of his handling of the pandemic by independent media which, according to him, were guilty of publishing disinformation.
So, at the end of March, he oversaw the passing of a special “coronavirus” law which allowed him rule by decree for an indefinite period. Anyone found guilty of publishing what his government holds to be “fake news” faces a prison sentences of up to five years. The law runs counter to the European Union’s ethos and contravenes the rights guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights.
The pattern is clear. Unprincipled governments without any regard for press freedom before the outbreak coronavirus have used it as a way of constraining press freedom still further. Nor should we overlook the fact that in democratic states in the European Union, where freedom of the press is often taken for granted, specific Covid-19 pandemic measures have challenged journalists’ ability to work freely.
According to a paper published in late April by the International Press Institute (IPI), its researchers found examples of excessive regulation in EU countries, including unnecessary restrictions on information and inappropriate surveillance of journalists. Even worse, perhaps, are reports of public antagonism towards reporters and photographers, who report being verbally and physically attacked.
An open letter issued on Monday by the British Press Photographers’ Association — on World Press Freedom Day — called for people to respect the work of photojournalists. It told of its members having been assaulted and threatened while on coronavirus assignments. Rightly, IPI’s deputy director, Scott Griffen, says: “Attacks on the media should not become the new normal.”
It is bleakly ironic that media workers engaged in a struggle with the authorities on the grounds that the public has a right to know should be subject to hostility from the public they seek to inform. Have they been overly influenced by the anti-press sentiments of political leaders such as Trump? Or is it that people like press freedom in theory but find it unacceptable in practice? Whatever the case, freedom of the press surely needs reassessment in a post-pandemic world.
