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Surreptitious stalking, also known as spying, has been popular, not to forget lucrative, throughout history. Works of fiction and non-fiction on the subject continue to attract big audiences. There is a reality to spying, more sinister and, now, altogether digital.
Hungarian advocacy organization For Human Rights (TASZ) has initiated proceedings against six clients of the Pegasus software product at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), an Israeli court and the Hungarian Attorney General’s office, reported Hungarian media news portal Media1 hu (January 28). This follows an announcement earlier in the week that five reporters for Hungarian investigative news portal Direkt36 had filed a complaint against the Hungarian government with the ECHR. A sixth unidentified person also joined the filing. (See more about media in Hungary here)
Pegasus is spyware, produced by the Israeli cybersecurity company NOS, and it has been identified infecting telecommunications equipment and software in several countries. Targets appear to be journalists, rights activists, political opponents and individuals speaking out against corruption. The Pegasus product can only be purchased by governments. Several international and investigative news organizations produced details about abuse of the spyware in the Pegasus Project beginning in 2020, revealing more than 200 journalists affected. (See more about investigative reporting here)
TASZ began the legal process under remedies proscribed in the Hungarian National Security Act. To the European Commission and the ECHR a European Union (EU) citizen studying in Hungary was identified as being Pegasus compromised which, said TASZ, violating the right to free movement of people, penultimate to EU law. “Putting the secret services at the service of those in power instead of the nation is embarrassingly familiar in Central and Eastern Europe,” said the TASZ filing. “It is unacceptable for intelligence and defence work, which must necessarily be carried out in secret, to become a means of repressing citizens rather than protecting them."
Those familiar and comfortable with learning know that dictators have very thin skin. Everything said about them is personal. They want revenge. They have armies, tanks, missiles and judges.
Well-known Turkish TV news anchor and reporter Sedef Kabas is in jail, busted for “insulting the President.” That would be Recep Tayyip Erdogan. At the end of her Tele1 TV show (January 14), Ms Kabas recited a proverb that ended: “When cattle go into a palace, they don't become the king; the palace becomes a barn.” A week later she repeated the proverb on social media, changing “cattle” to “ox.” She was arrested and jailed within a few hours. A district judge rejected an appeal of the pre-trial detention, noted Bianet (January 27).
“This offense will not go unpunished,” said President Erdogan to TV channel NTV (January 26). “It is our duty to protect the respect of my function, of the presidency. It has nothing to do with freedom of expression.”
The arrest was not new or a one-off. Between 2014 and 2019 Turkish authorities instigated 128,872 investigations into “insulting the President,” resulting in 27,717 criminal prosecutions and 9,556 jail terms, reported independent media outlet Gazete Duvar (January 15). Offenders included journalists, authors, politicians and, even, kids. More than 900 charged were between 12 and 17 years. (See more about media in Turkey here)
“The unlawfulness that began with Sedef Kabas's detention at 2 o’clock in the morning on the charge of insulting the President unfortunately continues," said the Press Council in a statement. “Sedef Kabas should have been free pending trial on the offense charged, she was hastily arrested and she is still held in prison as the rightful appeal lodged with the legal grounds cited has been dismissed, which is contrary to both the domestic laws of Turkey and the international law."
Speaking of international law, President Erdogan cannot be pleased with a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in favor of journalist Deniz Yucel, formerly Die Welt correspondent in Istanbul, reported Deutsche Welle (January 25). Mr. Yucel had been incarcerated pending trial in Turkey on terrorism charges between 2017 and 2018. He was released and exited for Germany. The ECHR determined that Mr. Yucel’s rights were violated by the long incarceration with no plausible reasons to suspect him of committing an offence” and ordered the Turkish government to pay €12,300 in compensation.
Journalism has become a most dangerous profession. Irritating the powerful is often part of the job. And backlash often follows. Guns, knives and car bombs are brought out to assuage the angered. Funerals are held, protests organized, promises made, backs turned. Then there’s another murder.
Lourdes Maldonado López was shot dead last Sunday (January 23) in Tijuana, Mexico. She had been a broadcast reporter for more than four decades. Her killing was the third of a media worker in Mexico this year. Human rights advocate Article 19 counts 145 media workers murdered in Mexico since 2000, noted Reuters (January 26). “The year has begun with a bloodbath for the Mexican media,” said Reporters sans Frontieres Latin America director Emmanuel Colombié.
A few days before a court ruled in her favor against broadcast news network PSN owner Jaime Bonilla for unfair dismissal and outstanding pay. Sr Bonilla is also former governor of the Mexican state of Baja California, elected in November 2019 as a member to the Morena party of president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Sra Maldonado raised safety issues three years ago with President Lopez Obrador, saying she feared for her life. (See more about media in Mexico here)
Photojournalist Margarito Martínez Esquivel murdered outside his home in Tijuana less than a week earlier (January 17). He specialized in crime reporting for several media outlets. Founder of news ..portals Inforegio and La Noticia, Jose Luis Gamboa, was stabbed to death in Veracruz January 10. He was known as an investigative reporter. (See more about press freedom here)
Those found guilty of murdering a journalist could face up to 60 years in jail, proposed current Baja California (state) governor Marina del Pilar Ávila at a press conference, quoted San Diego Union Tribune (January 26). She also authorized a special prosecutor’s office to investigate crimes committed against journalists. Tijuana and San Diego, California bridge the border between Mexico and the United States.
UPDATE: Journalist Roberto Toledo became the latest assassination in Mexico, the fourth this year and a one month record. He was shot dead outside the offices of news portal Monitor Michoacán in Zitácuaro, Michoacán State, reported Spanish daily El Pais (January 31). There were three assailants. "Exposing corruptions of corrupt governments, corrupt officials and politicians led today to the death of one of our comrades," said Monitor Michoacán director Armando Linares. “They shot him in a ruinous way.”
Sr. Toledo and the publication, generally, had been receiving threats for a year, said Mexican news portal Publimetro (January 31). Inexplicably, government spokesperson Jesús Ramírez said Sr Toledo was “not a journalist,” though the publication pointed to two bylined articles from November about the corruption case, which involves a local prosecutor. "We are not armed, we have no weapons, our only defense is a pen, a pen, a notebook,” said Sr. Linares.
Last August the Mexican government sued several gun manufacturers for “facilitating the trafficking of weapons to drug cartels,” reported Reuters (February 1). The gun makers asked a US Federal court on Boston to dismiss the charges.
Independent journalist organizations are facing mounting pressures. Put a dozen journalists together in the same place talking about censorship and press freedom makes dictators and authoritarian rulers very nervous. So they become “enemies” and the secret police are called out.
The Kashmir Press Club (KPC) is located in Srinagar, Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) district, in a modest Council-owned building. Since 2018 the KPC has been a gathering place for about 300 independent journalists, many regularly filing stories from the small desks. The KPC is locked and shuttered. The website is down.
The local government “put on hold” the KPC’s legal registration earlier this month, reported The Indian Express (January 18), then “moved to take control of the premises.” The KPC had applied for a new registration last May. An ad-hoc group of “journalists” - accompanied by “armed personnel” - took control of the building and announced themselves the club’s administrators, reported The Citizen (January 25). The ringleader, apparently, was Times of India reporter Saleem Pandit, considered close to the government, whose KPC membership was revoked in November 2019 for bringing the KPC in “disrepute” for reporting that another newspaper had hired “jihadi journalists.” (See more about journalism here)
There has been considerable finger-pointing by journalists in Kashmir and India, more broadly. "The shutting down of the club is the latest act in a sequence of disturbing events,” said the Editors Guild of India. Ten journalist associations in the Kashmir Valley formed a protesting coalition. “Sometimes I wonder if it is worth it to be a journalist in Kashmir,” said freelance journalist Aakash Hassan, who contributes to several foreign media outlets, quoted by the AP (January 23). “But I know, silence doesn’t help.” (See more about press/media freedom here)
“We call on Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha to immediately restore the KPC’s licence and order its reopening,” said Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF) Asia-Pacific desk chief Daniel Bastard in a statement (January 19). “The society’s closure is clearly the outcome of a coup hatched at great length by the local government, which follows Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s orders. This undeclared coup is an Indian government insult to all the journalists trying to do their job in the Kashmir Valley, which is steadily being transformed into a black hole for news and information.” RSF ranks press freedom in India at 142nd, below Afghanistan.
One bright financial light for online news publishers is subscriptions. For those residing in territories controlled by authoritarian regimes advertising is often shunted toward outlets favorable to those governments. Subscription contributions have been a viable alternative.
Last October online investigative platform Republic was added to the now infamous list of “foreign agents” by the Justice Ministry of the Russian Federation. Republic, formerly Slon, has been published by Moscow Digital Media LLC since 2010. The Justice Ministry has now provided details for adding it to the great list, which imposes a variety of restrictions, reported Lenizdat (January 20). (See more about investigative reporting here)
Republic, said the Justice Ministry, accepted “foreign funding” in the form of subscriptions from embassies and foreign news media bureaus. In addition the Justice Ministry found that the publication cited materials published by other “foreign media agents,” including Voice of America and Current Time/Radio Liberty, part of RFE/RL, US funded Caucasus.Realities (Kavkaz.Realii), VTimes, now closed online news portal founded by former Vedomosti reporters, well-known news portal Meduza, exiled to Latvia, and several prominent government-critical journalists. Republic has ceased selling subscriptions to anybody and has indicated it would challenge the decision. (See more about media in the Russian Federation here)
Also in October the Justice Ministry added investigative portal Bellingcat, based in the Netherlands, to the “foreign agents” list. “Bellingcat has filed a formal appeal with the Russian courts over the recognition of us as foreign agents,” said its statement noted by IMI (January 17) “Our entry to the register of foreign agents violates Russian and international law, is discriminatory and contrary to the principles of freedom of speech and common sense.” If Russian courts do not reverse the decision, added the statement, Bellingcat would “seize the European Court of Human Rights.” Bellingcat provided forensic evidence about Russian military involvement in the shooting down of flight MH17 to the International Criminal Court.
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