Press release

15.12​.2017

RUSSIA

Kremlin tightens grip on Internet in run-up to presidential election

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns a new Russian offensive against the Internet in which the encrypted instant messaging app Telegram has been fined and threatened with blocking for not surrendering its decryption keys, the Open Russia news website has been blocked without any judicial proceedings, and Twitter and YouTube are again under threat.

This latest offensive by the Russian authorities comes as the country prepares to hold a presidential election next March.

On 12 December, a Moscow appeal court upheld a decision to fine Telegram 800,000 roubles (11,500 euros) for refusing to hand over its decryption keys to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). It was the latest stage in a battle that has dragged on all year. If Telegram does not comply, the authorities could start blocking the service on 28 December.

The authorities base their demand for the decryption keys on the draconian terrorism law that was adopted in 2016 in the face of unanimous protests from civil society. Telegram has built its reputation on respect for free speech and privacy, and says the demand constitutes an unwarranted violation of these principles.

Telegram also insists that it does not have access to the decryption keys, which are generated on the devices of each individual user. Agora, the human rights group that is representing Telegram in this case, wrote to the UN special rapporteur for freedom of expression, David Kaye, on 13 December asking him to intercede.

Meanwhile, also on 13 December, a Moscow administrative court rejected a complaint against the FSB that had been brought by well-known independent journalist Oleg Kashin arguing that the demand for Telegram's decryption keys threatens the confidentiality of journalists' sources. A similar complaint by fellow journalist Alexander Plyushchev was rejected in October.

Blocking, actual and threatened

The recently adopted law under which websites linked to "undesirable foreign organizations" can be blocked without reference to a judge has not taken long to have an effect. The independent news and information website Open Russia was blocked in Russia on 12 December, along with all the resources linked – closely or otherwise – to the 11 organisations so far deemed to be "undesirable."

Open Russia is linked to a political movement of the same name founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a Kremlin critic now living in exile, but there is no legal connection between them.

Not to be outdone, the telecommunication surveillance agency Roskomnadzor has embarked on a new wrangle with the international Internet giants, calling on Twitter, YouTube and others to delete Open Russia's accounts or risk having their services blocked within Russia. The Russian social network Odnoklassniki immediately complied.

Yesterday, Roskomnadzor ordered media outlets to delete all online links to the blocked websites on the grounds that they "help to disseminate illegal content." The outlets are likely to take the order seriously. The News Times website already received a formal warning in late November over three links to "illegal content" – pages containing swearwords.

"The Russian authorities have been constantly tightening their Internet legislation in recent years and this is the result – an unprecedented level of censorship," said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.

"These latest attacks on freedom of expression violate the Russian constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. We again call on the Russian authorities to repeal these draconian laws and to respect their international obligations."

Another incident is indicative of preparations for next March's election. Android users in Russia searching YouTube on 29 November suddenly encountered error messages in response to searches for opposition leader Alexei Navalny, independent media such as Novaya Gazeta, Dozhd, Meduza and Open Russia, and the blogger Dmitry Ivanov. But the searches worked if the names were misspelled or a VPN was used. YouTube's owner, Google, fixed the "problem" that evening without providing any explanation.

Russia is ranked 148th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index.

Still very free just a few years ago, the Russian Internet has been reined in since the crackdown on a wave of big demonstrations against electoral fraud in 2011 and 2012.

A few opposition demonstrations in 2017 have drawn large crowds of young people, suggesting that the Internet generation is less influenced than its elders by the propaganda on the big TV channels. President Vladimir Putin has just announced that he is running for a fourth term.

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

Another wave of trials of independent journalists in Azerbaijan

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

EU's Frans Timmermans backs call for UN special representative

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

RSF lodges ECHR complaint over German foreign intelligence agency’s mass surveillance

Who owns the media in France?

Published 08.12.2017

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is publishing a detailed report that highlights how French media ownership is now dangerously concentrated in the hands of a few billionaires who have constructed often very intricate and opaque share-holding arrangements.

Who owns the media in France? This apparently simple question is actually very complex, according to the findings of this survey, which was carried out for RSF by Julia Cagé, a specialist in media economics.

Using data gathered from December 2015 to August 2016, Cagé has compiled a list of all the shareholders in the news media together with the main economic sectors in which they are active.

These are the main characteristics of the French media landscape described in the report:

- The growing concentration of media ownership is not synonymous with clarity. This study shows that the media ownership structure in France is characterized by complexity and a lack of transparency.

- In France, 51% of the print and online media are controlled by companies from the financial and insurance services sector, which have created complex and opaque shareholding structures that make it hard to identify the final owner.

- The print and online media capital controlled by the financial and insurance services sector is almost three times what the actual “information and communication” sector controls, which is just 18%.

- Nowadays the media are usually owned by companies and rarely by individuals. The big “families” that long owned the media have gradually sold out to corporations in recent decades.

- The French state and its offshoots constitute only 1% of print and online media owners, but public ownership in the broadcast media is much higher - 43%.

- The survey calculates the layers or “ranks” of shared ownership between each media and its final owner and the complexity of its ownership structure, measured in terms of “nodes,” finding an average of 2.5 ranks and six nodes in each print or online media outlet. A large number of nodes may just reflect a diverse ownership, with a large number of very small shareholders, but it may reflect a deliberate complexity that makes it harder to identify the individual or company that is the final owner.

- The report points out that an order issued by the National Resistance Council in August 1944 made it compulsory for newspapers to publish the names of their owners and their owners’ professions in each issue. Unfortunately, this order was never enforced.

- The November 2016 law “aiming to strengthen media freedom, independence and pluralism” constitutes a significant step forward. Article 19 of this law says: “Every year, the publishing company must provide the publication’s readers or the online press service’s users with all relative information about the composition of its capital, in the event that 5% or more is owned any individual person or entity, and its governing bodies. It must identify each shareholder (whether a person or entity) and how many shares they hold.”

- This article is an important first step but it is not enough because media outlets are not required to identify the main business activities of their shareholders. As shareholding in the media is extremely fluid, the report calls for the creation of a detailed “map” of media share ownership that is updated in real time and is accessible to everyone, so that the public can always know exactly who owns the media.

The full report can be downloaded here.

Press release

07.12.2017

TURKEY

Nearly 70 journalists on trial in one week

In a new record for the persecution of the media in Turkey, a total of 68 journalists are due to appear in court in four different trials during the week of 4 to 11 December. A third of these journalists are already detained.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the baseless terrorism charges on which they are being tried and reiterates its call for their immediate release. All 68 are accused of supporting or belonging to a terrorist organisation and most of them are also accused of “trying to overthrow the government and constitutional order.”

Forty-four of them have already spent around 18 months in provisional detention. RSF’s Turkey representative, Erol Önderoğlu, is attending all the hearings, which are taking place in Istanbul and its suburbs.

“With the same extremely grave charges, the same abuse of provisional detention and the same contempt for due process, these four trials illustrate the scale of the criminalization of journalism in Turkey,” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.

“The judicial system is now just serving as a veneer to disguise the deliberate elimination of all dissent. We reiterate our call to the authorities to free imprisoned journalists at once and to abandon these political trials.”

The week-long judicial marathon began on 4 December with the resumption of the trial of 29 journalists charged with acting as the “media wing” of the Gülen Movement, which is accused by the government of being behind the July 2016 coup attempt.

Two of these journalists, Murat Aksoy and Atilla Taş, were released at the previous hearing but 20 of them, including Abdullah Kılıç, Habip Güler and Yakup Çetin, are still detained and the 4 December hearing ending with the decision to keep them in detention until the next one, scheduled for 6 February. They are facing a possible sentence of between ten years in prison and life without any parole.

The trial of six journalists in connection with revelations about President Erdoğan’s son-in-law, energy minister Berat Albayrak, resumed yesterday. Two of them, investigative reporter Tunca Öğreten and Mahir Kanaat of the left-wing daily BirGün, were finally freed under judicial control after nearly a year of provisional detention.

None of the six is now detained but they are still facing possible 15-year jail sentences on charges of cooperating with a group of hackers and divulging state secrets in order to assist various terrorist organizations by “creating a negative perception of the authorities.” The next hearing has been set for 3 April.

The trial of 30 former journalists and employees of the daily newspaper Zaman will resume tomorrow. Twenty-one of them, including Şahin Alpay, Ahmet Turan Alkan and Ali Bulaç, are in provisional detention. The case against them is largely based on the mere fact that they worked for Zaman, which was regarded as sympathetic to the Gülen Movement and was dissolved by decree in July 2016. Each of them is facing the possibility of three life sentences.

The well-known journalists Ahmet Altan, Mehmet Altan and Nazlı Ilıcak, whose trial on similar charges will resume on 11 December, are all in provisional detention. Their criticism of the government is alleged to have “prepared the way” for the coup attempt, which Ahmet Altan is also accused of supporting by means of “subliminal messages.”

The four lawyers who defend the Altan brothers were expelled from the courtroom during the last hearing. The prosecutor is due to present his summing-up at the hearing on 11 December.

The already worrying media situation in Turkey has become critical under the state of emergency proclaimed after the July 2016 coup attempt. Around 150 media outlets have been closed, mass trials are being held and the country now holds the world record for the number of journalists detained. Turkey is ranked 155th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index.

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

More forced displacement of journalists seen in Mexico

REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

Russia: Investigative reporter must be acquitted on appeal, RSF says

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

EU must not back down on control of digital weapon exports

Published 01.12.2017

Reporters Without Borders – known internationally as Reporters sans frontières (RSF) – hails the European Parliament international trade committee’s approval last week of a proposal for reinforcing controls on dual-use surveillance technology exports. If implemented, it would help to prevent authoritarian regimes from spying on journalists and arresting them. RSF urges MEPs to adopt this proposal when it goes before a full session of the European Parliament in January, and to resist the siren calls from the lucrative surveillance industry’s lobbyists.

Does the committee’s vote mean the European Union will finally stop turning a blind eye to the export of digital weapons? The legislative revision currently under way could make it harder for European companies to export software to authoritarian regimes that use it to spy on journalists.

“The challenge now is not to relinquish anything in the proposal already approved by the parliamentary committee,” Elodie Vialle, the head of RSF’s Journalism and Technology Desk, said. “MEPs must not yield to the siren calls of lobbyists orchestrated by the companies that sell surveillance technology. This is a unique chance to show that business stops where respect for human rights starts, including respect for the freedom to inform.”

Invisible but real weapons

The goal is to limit the export of software that allows these regimes to intercept phone calls, hack into computers and decipher passwords. Such technology is called “dual use” because it has both civilian and military applications. In the same way that nuclear energy can be used to generate electricity and make bombs.

Several European Union countries, including Italy and France, are involved. The French company Amesys, for example, sold an online communications interception system called Eagle to Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya in 2007. The United Kingdom has also always been lenient on surveillance technology exports to authoritarian regimes.

Media exposure of these exports has been embarrassing for Europe’s democracies. The issue was discussed and – to cries of “Never again!” – the EU has since 2014 included surveillance technology in the dual-use exports that are supposed to be controlled.

Business as usual for the time being

But no account had been taken of the ingenuity of the surveillance technology companies, which the relevant agencies and authorities have done little to curb. Amesys set up operations under the name of AMESys in Dubai where it has continued business as usual including involvement with Field Marshall el-Sisi’s regime in Egypt.

As the crackdown on journalists intensified in Turkey in early 2017, the UK’s department for international trade granted a license for the sale of communications interception software to the Turkish authorities.

Aware that the promotion of European digital start-up growth does not justify the sale of digital weapons, the European Commission published a proposal for new dual-use technology legislation in September 2016 that would update and harmonize the existing regulations.

After a long discussion and postponing a vote twice, the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade (INTA) voted on 23 November in favour of amendments to the proposal that would tighten the controls on surveillance technology exports.

RSF hails its proposed legal requirement on companies to exercise “due diligence,” meaning they would have to ensure that their exported software would not be used to violate human rights. RSF also welcomes its insistence on more transparency, including the provision of more detailed information about the nature of the technology being exported.

RSF nonetheless reminds MEPs that more clarity is needed about the verification process to which surveillance technology companies must submit.

Right to know

The European Parliament is due to vote on the proposed new legislation between 14 and 18 January. European citizens also have a right to know if their countries are selling digital weapons to dictatorships. RSF will follow the European Parliament’s negotiations closely in the coming weeks.

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

Egypt: Sinai specialist Ismail Alexandrani completes second year in pre-trial detention

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reiterates its call for the immediate and unconditional release of Ismail Al Sayed Mohamed Omar Toufic, a respected Egyptian journalist and researcher who was arrested by the Egyptian authorities exactly two years ago on 29 November.

Better known as Ismail Alexandrani, a pen-name he chose in honour of his home town, the northern city of Alexandria, he is a respected freelance investigative reporter, political scientist and sociologist specializing in the Sinai Peninsula’s Jihadi movements.

Arrested at Hurghada airport, in the Red Sea Governorate, on his return from Berlin on 29 November 2015, Alexandrani has been held provisionally ever since. RSF urges the authorities to free him and drop all charges against him. RSF also calls for the release of all journalists who are unjustly detained in Egypt.

“The Egyptian authorities must allow local journalists to investigate subjects of public interest even when the authorities regard these subjects as sensitive,” said Alexandra El Khazen, the head of RSF’s Middle East desk. “Detaining a journalist provisionally for two years can only be regarded as an excessive punishment. We call on the authorities to explain the grounds that supposedly justify repeatedly prolonging his pre-trial detention.”

Alain Gresh, a French journalist who has met Alexandrani several times and as the editor of the online newspaper Orient XXI and as a journalist at the monthly Le Monde Diplomatique, for which Alexandrani wrote, said: “It was undoubtedly his articles about the Sinai for the international media that prompted his arrest.”

The editor of Orient XXI said: “He was a rigorous reporter and extremely well informed, especially about the Sinai where he had many contacts, while the Egyptian authorities tried and still try to prevent any serious reporting emerging from the region.”

Alexandrani’s detention has been systematically renewed every 45 days for the past two years, reaching the legal limit for provisional detention in Egypt. He is held on suspicion of publishing false information and belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood but the charges are not definitive because judicial proceedings have not yet been formally initiated against him.

“Everyone who knows him has been struck by the inanity of these accusations,” said Youssef el Chazli, a political scientist and PhD student, who points out that Alexandrani’s tens of thousands of Facebook follows are fully aware of “his intellectual and political aversion to Islamist movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Nominated for the RSF Press Freedom Prize in 2016, Alexandrani was an associate researcher at the Arab Reform Initiative in Paris and a guest lecturer at the Wilson Centre in Washington. He also wrote for MadaMasr, Safir Arabi, Al Jazeera English and the Forum for Arab and International Relations.

At least 16 journalists are currently detained in connection with their work in Egypt, which is ranked 161st out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index.

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

Press release

27.11​.2017

RUSSIA

Murder attempt against Volgograd website editor

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for a full and impartial investigation into an attempt to murder Yulia Zavyalova, the editor of an independent news website in the southwestern city of Volgograd, where someone sabotaged the brakes of her car on the night of 25 November.

“The sabotaging of Yulia Zavyalova’s car sends an unacceptable intimidatory message to her and her colleagues in Volgograd,” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. “The police and the prosecutor's office must do everything possible to identify those responsible for this act, which could have had tragic consequences.”

According to Zavyalova, the sabotaging of her car must have been linked to her journalistic work. The police announced that they have requested a “forensic report” on the damage done to her brakes.

But her website, Bloknot Volgograda, reported that the incident has so far been categorized as no more than a case of “damage to another person’s property.”

One of the region’s most popular news websites, Bloknot Volgograda, is critical of the local authorities and often provides investigative reporting on corruption cases. Impunity for violence against journalists is a recurrent problem in Russia, which is ranked 148th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index.

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

Press release

22.11.2017

INTERNATIONAL

RSF hails new UN resolution on journalists’ safety

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) welcomes a new UN General Assembly resolution on the safety of journalists and the issue of impunity for crimes of violence against them. RSF submitted recommendations for the resolution and urged states to approve it.

The resolution on the safety of journalists and the issue of impunity was adopted on 20 November by the General Assembly’s Third Committee, which is responsible for social, cultural, and humanitarian issues.

The resolution’s central focus is on the “specific risks faced by women journalists in the exercise of their work,” including in the online sphere, and on the need to “effectively tackle gender-based discrimination, including violence, inequality and gender-based stereotypes.”

The arbitrary detention and mistreatment of journalists, and the challenges they face in the “digital age,” are also mentioned in the resolution, in accordance with RSF’s requests.

It urges member states “to do their utmost to prevent violence, threats and attacks against journalists and media” and “to bring perpetrators, including those who command, conspire to commit, aid and abet or cover up such crimes, to justice.” The resolution also calls on states to assume their responsibilities and to develop concrete mechanisms for protecting journalists.

“We hail this new UN General Assembly resolution, the fourth on the safety of journalists since 2012,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. “It reflects a growing recognition of the need for action to reduce abuses against journalists and to combat impunity, begun in the UN Plan of Action in 2012, and it consolidates international law. We now hope for swift and concrete implementation of these principles.”

The resolution is due to be definitively adopted in mid-December and many states have already expressed their support.

International awareness

The resolution also welcomes the recent decision to “mobilize a network of focal points throughout the United Nations system to propose specific steps to intensify efforts to enhance the safety of journalists and media workers” and urges the UN’s various branches to actively cooperate in this initiative.

The mobilization of this network of focal points was announced by UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres on 2 November.

RSF had called for the creation of such focal points within the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and the Department of Political Affairs (DPA), within UN agencies such as UNDP and UN Women, and within peacekeeping operations in the field, so that the response to violence against journalists could be quicker and more systematic.

In August, Guterres put Ana-Maria Menéndez, his senior adviser on policy, in charge of following cases involving the safety of journalists. The creation of this direct and permanent communication channel makes it possible to refer urgent cases to the secretary-general’s office and seek his intervention. It already facilitated promotion of the decision to appoint focal points within UN agencies and departments.

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

RSF calls for renewed efforts for John Cantlie’s release after five years of captivity

Published 22.11.17

Five years since British journalist John Cantlie was kidnapped in Syria, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the international community - in particular, the British government - to renew efforts to secure his immediate release.

On 22 November 2012, the former Sunday Times reporter was kidnapped near the Turkish border in northern Syria, along with US journalist James Foley, who was later beheaded by the Islamic State (IS) in 2014. Cantlie has been used by the IS in 12 propaganda videos since being taken into captivity.

“Today marks five long years that John Cantlie has been held in captivity by the Islamic State - five years deprived of his liberty, exploited, and used for propaganda purposes. We urge all relevant authorities to do their utmost to ensure that John and his family do not have to endure another day of this hell, and that he is immediately brought home safely”, said RSF’s UK Bureau Director, Rebecca Vincent.

The last video in which Cantlie appeared, in December 2016, showed him looking pale and emaciated, indicating a dramatic physical change since his previous appearance in a video in July 2016. The December video showed him on the streets of Mosul for eight minutes, commenting on the destruction of the city’s bridges and interviewing residents. Previous videos had been filmed in Syrian and Iraqi cities including Aleppo, Kobani, and Raqqa, as well as Mosul.

Following the December 2016 video, in July 2017 there were unsubstantiated reports in the Iraqi media that Cantlie had been killed in the Mosul airstrikes. In October, a French IS fighter told French magazine Paris Match that he had seen Cantlie “seven or eight months ago” in a prison in Raqqa, claiming that Cantlie had been speaking to prisoners about jail conditions.

Cantlie remains one of around 22 journalists and media contributors currently believed to be held hostage by IS. Despite the fact that IS is losing ground in Iraq and Syria, there has been no information about the fate of these journalists. RSF calls on local and international authorities to redouble their efforts to find them all and bring them home safely.

Ranked 158th and 177th respectively in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index, Iraq and Syria are among the world’s deadliest countries for journalists.

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

Press release

16​.11​.2017

RUSSIA/US

Russia retaliates after RT made to register as “foreign agent” in US

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is alarmed by Russia’s quid-pro-quo response to the US government’s decision to make the Kremlin-funded TV channel RT register as a “foreign agent” in order to continue broadcasting in the United States.

Just two days after RT had to register as a “foreign agent” in Washington, the Duma (the Russian parliament’s lower house) yesterday hastily passed a law allowing the Russian authorities to declare any foreign media outlet to be a “foreign agent.”

The only criteria specified are foreign funding or being registered in another country. This will give the authorities enormous leeway when interpreting the law, which now only needs to be rubber-stamped by the upper house and signed by President Vladimir Putin in order to take effect.

“The law’s extremely vague provisions open the way to selective, arbitrary and highly political application and, at a time of unprecedented pressure on the media, are liable to make it even harder for Russian citizens to get access to freely reported news,” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.

“We condemn this eye-for-an-eye response, as media freedom will be its only victim. It is highly regrettable that the US authorities started this. Combatting propaganda is one of our era’s imperatives but it is not the job of governments to define what is legitimate journalism.”

Under the law adopted yesterday, the draconian provisions that have applied to foreign-funded NGOs since 2012 will be extended to foreign media, which will have to put the ignominious “foreign agent” label on everything they publish or broadcast, and will have to provide a detailed accounting of their financial situation.

NGOs that do not comply with the 2012 legislation are exposed to astronomic fines that have forced dozens to close. Used as a heavy weapon against civil society, its victims have included Russia’s leading media-support NGOs.

Nonetheless, the provisions that are about to be applied to foreign media outlets are even vaguer. Unlike those that apply to NGOs, they will not be conditioned on any “political activity” criteria.

According to legislators, the justice ministry will decide on a case-by-case basis how the law is applied. At this stage, one can only speculate as to its first targets, which could include such leading public broadcasters as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the BBC and Deutsche Welle. Russian exile media may also be targeted.

In Washington, it was T&R Productions LLC, the company that produces RT’s programming in the United States, that filed an application on 13 November to be added to the US justice department’s register of foreign agents.

Russia is ranked 148th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index.

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

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TURKEY

Independent press on trial this week in Turkey

A total of 26 employees of the opposition newspapers Cumhuriyet and Özgür Gündem are being prosecuted in two emblematic trials that resume today in Istanbul, while a news agency reporter is due to appear in court tomorrow at the other end of the country, in the far eastern city of Hakkari.

All three trials are examples of how Turkey’s judicial system is being used to punish media that criticize the government.

As these trials slowly advance, the periods that the defendants are spending in provisional detention get longer. Cumhuriyet editor Murat Sabuncu will complete his 366th day in detention as an Istanbul court today resumes trying him and 16 other members of the newspaper’s staff.

Cumhuriyet investigative reporter Ahmet Şık, executive board president Akın Atalay and accountant Emre İper are also among those still detained. After long periods in detention, eight Cumhuriyet employees were gradually released in the course of previous hearings.

The 17 defendants are facing the possibility of up to 43 years in prison for criticizing the authorities and for supposedly “defending” what are regarded in Turkey as three terrorist organizations: the Gülen Movement, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and a small far-left group, the DHKP/C.

The very different ideologies of these three movements have always been criticized by Cumhuriyet, which was awarded RSF’s Press Freedom Prize in 2015. The evidence being used by the prosecution is nonetheless based above all on the newspaper’s articles, interviews and comments and what its employees posted on social networks.

In the other trial resuming today in Istanbul, the defendants are nine employees of Özgür Gündem, a pro-Kurdish daily that was closed by decree in August 2016. They include the well-known novelist Aslı Erdoğan, the linguist Necmiye Alpay and publisher Zana Bilir Kaya. All three were released on 29 December 2016.

They also included editor İnan Kızılkaya and reporter Kemal Sancılı, who are still in provisional detention. All are facing possible life imprisonment on charges of “membership of a terrorist organization” and “endangering the integrity of the state.”

Reporter still held, despite lack of witnesses

Nedim Türfent, the reporter whose trial resumes tomorrow in the eastern city of Hakkari, has been held since 12 May 2016 on charges of “membership of a terrorist organization” and “terrorist propaganda.” DİHA, the pro-Kurdish news agency he worked for, was shut down for allegedly acting as a PKK “press service.”

When the first hearing in his trial was held in June, more than a year after his arrest, 12 of the 13 prosecution witnesses retracted their statements, saying they had been extracted under torture. Another witnesses said he did not recognize Türfent at the second hearing in August. The judges nonetheless maintained his provisional detention order.

“The systematic recourse to provisional detention speaks to the political exploitation of Turkey’s judicial system to punish and gag critical journalists,” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. “Turkey, a member of the Council of Europe, must urgently end this arbitrary form of detention.”

RSF at European Court

The use of provisional detention is meant to be exceptional and justified by specific dangers, and its systematic abuse by the Turkish judicial system is tantamount to a form of political revenge. In the absence of any effective legal recourse, the lawyers of a growing number of detained journalists are referring their cases to the European Court of Human Rights, whose decisions are binding on the Turkish authorities.

On 26 October, RSF and 12 other international human rights NGOs made a joint written submission to the European Court in support of ten of these petitions: those of Cumhuriyet’s administrators and those of Murat Aksoy, Şahin Alpay, Ahmet and Mehmet Altan, Ali Bulaç, Nazlı Ilıcak, Ahmet Şık, Deniz Yücel and Atilla Taş.

Nils Muiznieks, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, also made written submission to the court in support of these cases at the start of October.

The already worrying media situation in Turkey has become critical under the state of emergency that was proclaimed after a failed coup attempt in July 2016. Around 150 media outlets have been closed, mass trials are being held, and more than 100 journalists are currently in prison, a world record.

Turkey is ranked 155th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index.

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

Press release

​Published 23​.10​.2017

EU / ​INTERNATIONAL

In Malta, RSF urges EU to back campaign for journalists’ safety

In an address to thousands of people who gathered yesterday in Malta to demand justice for slain Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urged the European Union to press for the creation of a special UN representative for the safety of journalists.

RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire’s appeal for a commitment to journalists’ safety by EU institutions and member states came just two days ahead of a European Parliament debate in Strasbourg on press freedom and the protection of media personnel.

Tomorrow’s European Parliament debate will begin with a minute’s silence for Caruana Galizia, a journalist who specialized in investigating corruption and organized crime. She was killed by a car bomb in Malta on 16 October.

“As the shockwaves from Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder continue to be felt throughout Europe and beyond, we call on EU member states and institutions to make a concrete contribution to improving enforcement of international law on the protection of journalists by requesting the creation of the position of special representative of the UN secretary-general for the safety of journalists,” Deloire told yesterday’s rally in Malta.

“We need an international commitment to reducing violence against journalists and to combatting the outrageous impunity for these crimes that still prevails today,” Deloire added.

French President Emmanuel Macron backed the #ProtectJournalists campaign call when he addressed the UN General Assembly on 19 September. The call has also been formally endorsed by dozens of other governments around the world, from Afghanistan to Spain, and from Sweden to Uruguay.

Just a few days ago, the Sri Lankan government announced that it was joining the #ProtectJournalists campaign, which RSF launched in 2015 and which is supported by more than 130 media outlets, NGOs and labour unions.

After RSF, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) met with UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres in February, he decided to set up a special channel of communication with these media freedom organizations.

The channel is intended to enable direct and permanent communication between them and the UN in cases of emergencies involving the safety of journalists. In August, Guterres named his political adviser, Ana-Maria Menendez, as the “focal point” for urgent cases.

More information is available here on the #ProtectJournalists campaign, including the list of more than 130 media outlets and NGOs that support the initiative.

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

Press release

​Published 18​.10​.2017

​UKRAINE / ​AZERBAIJAN

Ukraine arrests second journalist on Interpol red notice

Fikret Huseynli, a journalist of Azerbaijani origin living in exile in the Netherlands, this week became the second foreign journalist to be arrested at a Kiev airport on the basis of an Interpol red notice in the past month. He follows Uzbek journalist Narzullo Akhunzhonov, who was arrested on arrival from Turkey on 20 September.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urges the Ukrainian authorities to free Huseynli at once and calls for an urgent reform of Interpol, whose red notice system is often abused by repressive governments in order to pursue dissidents after they have fled abroad.

Huseynli was about to board a flight to Düsseldorf at Boryspil International Airport on 14 October when he was arrested under a red notice issued by Interpol at the Azerbaijani government’s request. It accused him of “crossing a border illegally” and “fraud.”

Following his arrest, a Kiev court ordered him held for 18 days pending examination of his appeal.

The fact that Huseynli was arrested when he left, and not when he arrived, would seem to reflect the political reasons behind the red notice’s accusations. His arrest appears to have been encouraged by Azerbaijani officials who were at the airport as he was about to leave and who wanted to take advantage of his visit to Ukraine to detain him.

“Ukraine must not abet the attempts of regimes such as Azerbaijan’s to extend their persecution beyond their borders,” RSF said. “We call for Fikret Huseynli’s immediate release, as he would face politically-motivated charges. This latest case underlines the urgent need to reform Interpol’s red notice system in order to quickly end the pursuit of dissidents after they flee into exile.”

Huseynli fled Azerbaijan in 2008 after being persecuted in various ways. He was badly injured in an attack by masked men in 2006, when he worked for the opposition newspaper Azadlig. After fleeing the country, he obtained political asylum in the Netherlands and now works for Turan TV, an Azerbaijani opposition TV channel based outside the country.

The number of Interpol red notices has grown almost five-fold in the past decade, from 2,804 in 2006 to 12,878 in 2016, prompting criticism from civil society groups that has finally received some attention.

Interpol began reinforcing its appeal mechanism in 2015 but much remains to be done, both as regards putting the reforms into practice and providing better filtering of requests from repressive states.

This was stressed in an April 2017 resolution by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which called on Interpol “to continue improving its red notice procedure in order to prevent and redress abuses even more effectively.”

Azerbaijan is ranked 162nd out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index. After eliminating the last vestiges of an independent press in the past three years, its authorities are now trying to extend their reach beyond its borders.

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

Malta: Call for full investigation into Maltese blogger’s murder

Published 17.10.2017

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appalled by yesterday’s car bomb murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, a Maltese journalist and blogger whose allegations about government corruption led to early elections last June. RSF calls for a full and independent investigation into her death.

Caruana Galizia was killed when a bomb placed under her car exploded as she drove away from her home in Bidnija, in the north of the island of Malta.

A specialist in investigating corruption, she had dedicated many blog posts to linking associates of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to offshore accounts exposed by the Panama Papers.

She also accused the prime minister’s wife, Michelle Muscat, of opening an account in Panama to receive bribes paid by Azerbaijan in exchange for permission for an Azeri bank to operate in Malta.

“We are outraged by Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder and offer our heartfelt condolences to her family and colleagues,” said Pauline Adès-Mével, the head of RSF’s EU-Balkans desk. “We had condemned previous attacks on this investigative journalist, whose bank accounts were also blocked as a result of her revelations.

“RSF urges the Maltese authorities to shed all possible light on her murder and to identify those responsible. This is dark day for Maltese democracy, freedom of expression and journalism.”

Caruana Galizia had reported receiving threats to the police just two weeks ago, according to Maltese media outlets that declined to give more detail.

Her English-language “Running Commentary” blog would often get more readers than all of the Maltese newspapers, for which she also occasionally wrote. Less than an hour before her death, this tireless whistleblower had posted yet another piece about alleged corruption involving a Maltese politician.

Malta is ranked 47th out of 180 countries in RSFs 2017 World Press Freedom Index.

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

__________________________________________________

REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

Press release

12.10.2017

TURKEY

Turkey sentences Wall Street Journal reporter on terrorism charge

The jail sentence that a Turkish court has passed on Wall Street Journal reporter Ayla Albayrak over her coverage of clashes between Kurdish separatists and Turkish security forces is disproportionate and intended to limit the activities of foreign journalists in Turkey, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says.

The Wall Street Journal announced on Tuesday that Albayrak, who has Turkish and Finnish dual nationality, has been sentenced in absentia to two years and one month in prison on a “terrorist propaganda” charge. She was in New York when the sentence was passed and plans to appeal.

She was convicted in connection with an August 2015 article for which she went to Silopi, in southeastern Turkey, to cover fighting between government forces and members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

“We condemn this arbitrary and disproportionate sentence targeting a journalist whose only crime was to go into the field and report the facts, and thereby do her job,” RSF said. “We think the court’s decision is designed to discourage foreign journalists thinking of going to Turkey, and to restrict their activities there.”

Albayrak has been working for the Wall Street Journal’s Istanbul bureau since 2010, covering Turkish politics, the situation of Syrian refugees, and Turkey’s Kurdish minority.

Her conviction comes amid steadily mounting diplomatic tension between Turkey and the United States, in which both have just suspended issuing visas to the other country’s citizens.

Turkey’s already worrying media situation has become critical under the state of emergency proclaimed after a coup attempt in July 2016. Around 150 media outlets have been closed, mass trials are being held and more than 100 journalists are currently in prison – a world record.

Foreign journalists are no longer spared. Several dozen have been expelled in the past two years and some are still being held. They include Deniz Yücel, a journalist with German and Turkish dual nationality.

Turkey is ranked 155th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index.

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

RSF urges Turkish authorities to protect Syrian journalists

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

Press release

05.10.2017

Fixers - field reporting’s unseen facilitators

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) endorses the tribute paid to the Iraqi Kurdish journalist and fixer Bakhtiyar Haddad at this year’s Bayeux-Calvados War Correspondents awards in France and announces. RSF will henceforth keep a separate log of events involving fixers, who are indispensable for war reporting although they enjoy no official status.

All the French journalists who worked with Bakhtiyar Haddad recall how he would often burst out laughing. Tragically, he and French reporters Véronique Robert and Stéphan Villeneuve were fatally injured by another kind of explosion, that of a mine on 19 June in Mosul’s old town, which ended up being retaken without them. Haddad’s roars of laughter have fallen silent but the impact of his death has served as a reminder of the importance of fixers, a category of journalist that, although not officially recognised, has emerged as essential in the many wars since the end of the Cold War.

References to “fixers” began during the First Gulf War in 1991. They are the specialists who “fix” or arrange all sorts of things for visiting reporters. Without a fixer, a visiting reporter cannot operate quickly or effectively. The fixer’s list of contacts opens doors and obtains interviews. Fixers serve as a compass in a chaotic universe in which a violent conflict has rendered all the usual landmarks unrecognizable.

“I provide an orientation service that enables journalist to dive in even before they arrive,” said Bitta Bienvenu, a fixer in Central African Republic. The assets of these guides-cum-interpreters-cum-logistics specialists include their local knowledge, their extended family, their ethnic group, their friends and any kind of connection that helps them to guarantee the safety of the journalists who turn to them. Fixers are often also the reporter’s guardian angel.

“The homage we must pay to an individual, called Bakhtiyar Haddad, should be accompanied by a thoughtful tribute to his profession, one that has become indispensable in war zones,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

“Without fixers, a great deal of reporting would not happen. Without them, there would be many more news black holes. To better reflect their role, Reporters Without Borders will henceforth keep a separate record of acts of violence in which fixers are the victims. Operating behind the scenes and often risking their lives, they work for the same goal as reporters, which is to inform.”

Paying dearly

Like the journalists they accompany into war zones, fixers take enormous risks - to the point that their names sometimes become forever linked. The Afghan Zabihullah Tamanna and the American David Gilkey, the Ukrainian Andreï Mironov and the Italian Andrea Rocchelli, the Gaza-based Palestinian Ali Shehda Abu Afash and the Italian Simone Camili were all killed together by bombs or artillery shelling between 2011 and 2016.

The dangers for fixers are not however limited to those of war zones. Their asset of being a “local,” can also be their biggest weakness. Twice in Afghanistan, when a kidnapped foreign journalist was freed, the accompanying fixer was killed. Ajmal Nashqbandi was beheaded by his abductors in 2007 and Sultan Munadi was fatally shot by the British soldiers who rescued their national Stephen Farrell from his abductors in 2009.

Becoming a fixer means exposing yourself to threats of various kinds, and not only on the war front. Dozens of local journalists have been killed in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan while working as fixers or reporters for foreign media. Working for a foreign media outlet in these countries can make you a target for armed groups that kidnap for ransom or carry out execution-style killings.

Akbar Khan, a member of a leading Pashtun family in Afghanistan, learned this terrible lesson 15 years ago. “I’d received warnings,” he said. “Several people told me I was going to pay dearly for working with foreign journalists.” But he never imagined that something would happen to his family. He never imagined that his two-year-old son would be kidnapped and then killed as a result.

Journalists leave, fixers stay

Unlike visiting foreign reporters, fixers don’t leave the country when the job is done. Central African Republic’s Bitta Bienvenu cites the photo of a soldier executing someone on a Bangui street that was taken by a news agency photographer with whom he worked. The soldier called the news agency to say that, if he had a problem because of the photo, he would be gunning for them. All of the staff were threatened, without distinction. “The journalist went home but I stayed there,” Bienvenu points out.

Proximity deepens the wounds, and creates invisible scars. “This job can break people because they feel powerless in the face of so much misery and suffering” in their own country,” said Salar Salim Saber, a fixer in northern Iraq and Kurdistan. “Journalists chase big stories because it’s their job, says Ömer Faruk Baran, who has been working with foreign media in the Turkish-Syrian border region for three years. But all “the forgotten sorrows” he has helped them to cover have caused him “indescribable grief,” he adds.

Zaher Said, a fixer in Syria, and Abdulalaziz al-Sabri, a fixer in Yemen, today resemble survivors traumatized by over-exposure to war. After frequent brushes with death in the course of gathering information in the field without ever being able to leave the war zone, they have sustained lasting scars and suffer bouts of deep depression.

Suspected of spying

Even crossing a checkpoint between one world and another can be trickier for fixers than the journalists they are with. “The fact that I’m from Donetsk makes both the Ukrainian government and the separatists suspect me,” said Alexandra Hrybenko, who has been arrested and interrogated by the intelligence services on both sides several times. Her compatriot, Anton Skyba, was taken away by gunmen as he escorted a US TV crew towards Donetsk. Thanks to protests by foreign media, he was released five days later, with his head shaved and his face swollen. “I just wanted to forget that nightmare,” he said.

The mere act of working with foreigners can raise suspicion. In a tense environment in which any information could be seen as extremely sensitive, the slightest incident can result in a fixer being accused of spying for a real or imaginary enemy. Saïd Chitour, a fixer for the BBC, France 24 and the Washington Post in Algeria, is suffering the consequences. He has been detained since June 5 on suspicion of providing foreigners with “classified information liable to endanger the country’s interests,” a charge that carries a possible life sentence.

Forced to flee

From spy to traitor is a just a small step. Both Bitta Bienvenu and Akbar Khan helped to produce reports in which one of the persons interviewed was later killed. In Bienvenu’s case, the head of an armed group in Central African Republic was killed a week later in a clash with a patrol of UN peacekeepers and local gendarmes. In Khan’s case, a Taliban commander in Afghanistan was killed by a US drone six months later. Both fixers ended up being accused of treachery.

The ensuing threats were such that both men had to go into hiding. After spending weeks or months concealed in their own home or in the home of friends, they finally fled the country. Bienvenu said: “I’m no longer free. I still feel a weight on me.” Khan, who now lives in France, said: “Losing both your child and your country is too high a price to pay. I’ve lost a lot but the journalists I helped have helped me. They’ve done things for me, and that has given me a lot of strength.”

Possible improvements

Despite the profession’s problems and hardships, few of the fixers contacted by RSF said they regretted becoming one. This is because most of them are local journalists themselves, or aspire to become journalists, or just wanted to see “the truth emerge” in their troubled countries. It is both instructive and “an honor to work with leading media and experienced foreign journalists,” said Abdulaziz al-Sabri, who works as a fixer and cameraman in Yemen. Nonetheless, after being kidnapped by an armed group while out reporting with an Al Jazeera journalist, he has seen that the lack of a press card or ID showing that one works for a foreign media outlet can pose a security problem. As with freelancers, the media need to consider how to provide better protection for their fixers.

Consideration should also be given to insurance, security training and equipment (bullet-proof vests and helmets). “Fixers need the same legal protection as freelance journalists,” said Salar Salim Saber, a fixer whose status has improved since he began working regularly for an international news agency in Erbil, Kurdistan. He also thinks the names of the fixers should routinely be included in the credits of TV reports, as the BBC usually does, because “they are often the ones who found the story and organized the interviews.” And because the harshness of their profession should not be compounded by a complete lack of recognition. It would give them a deserved visibility.

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

Press release

21.09.2017

Press release

​04​.0​9​.2017

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) will testify for the defence in the Azerbaijani government’s lawsuit against French broadcast journalists Elise Lucet and Laurent Richard, which a court in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre will begin hearing tomorrow.

The two journalists are accused of defaming the Azerbaijani government by referring to it as a “dictatorship” in 2015, when it received a visit from the French president.

RSF regards the lawsuit as an act of intimidation highlighting the Azerbaijani government’s contempt for free speech. Not content with eradicating all pluralism at home, the regime is now targeting its critics abroad.

Introducing a “Cash Investigation” programme about the background to the presidential trip on the France 2 TV channel in September 2015, Lucet described Azerbaijan as “one of the world’s harshest dictatorships.”

In a radio programme, Richard referred to Azerbaijan as a “dictatorship” and its president as a “despot.” He was previously arrested at the end of his reporting trip to Azerbaijan in May 2014 and his equipment was seized.

Trying to intimidate journalists in France

The head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, Johann Bihr, Azerbaijani journalist Agil Khalil and husband-and-wife human rights defenders Leyla Yunus et Arif Yunus will all testify in defence of the two French journalists.

Khalil fled to France in 2008 after escaping several murder attempts in Azerbaijan. Leyla and Arif Yunus fled to the Netherlands after being imprisoned for 18 months despite being in very poor health.

“By suing two French journalists who just used their right to free speech, the Azerbaijani government is demonstrating its complete inability to tolerate criticism,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

“We must not let Baku export its censorship to France. We call on as many media outlets as possible to come and cover this attack on their freedoms by a foreign government. We will definitely be there to ensure that the world sees the true face of President Ilham Aliyev’s regime.”

As far as RSF knows, this is the first time that a foreign government has brought a defamation suit against journalists before a French court. Lola Karimova, the Uzbek president’s daughter, was acting as a private individual when she sued the French news website Rue89 in 2011 for calling her a “dictator’s daughter” who was helping to “launder her country’s image.”

The Aliyev regime’s true face

Azerbaijan is ranked 162nd out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index. For the past three years, its authorities have systematically eliminated what remained of media independence. In 2014, they throttled the newspaper Zerkalo economically and forcibly closed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Baku bureau.

Crippled by its financial director’s arrest in 2016, the last opposition newspaper, Azadlig, has stopped publishing, and its leading journalists have been forced to flee abroad.

The Turan news agency, the country’s last independent media outlet, became the latest victim in August of this year. Its director has been jailed and its bank accounts have been frozen, forcing it to suspend all activities. Access to all the main independent news websites is blocked.

At least 16 journalists, bloggers and media workers are currently imprisoned in connection with the provision of news and information – usually on trumped-up charges. This means that Azerbaijan is second only to Turkey in Europe in the number of media personnel detained. Beatings, blackmail and bribes are also used to silence the few remaining critics.

Dozens of journalists have fled the country in recent years to escape the crackdown. By persecuting their relatives, the government even manages to put pressure on those, such as Ganimat Zahid and Emin Milli, who continue to work as journalists after fleeing abroad. The main media support NGOs were shut down in 2014.

Aliyev, who succeeded his father as president in 2003, is on RSF’s list of press freedom predators. He was “reelected” with nearly 85% of the votes in a 2013 poll that was criticized by the OSCE. The results were “leaked” on the eve of the voting.

A September 2016 referendum reinforced his powers and, on 21 February of this year, his wife was appointed first vice-president, becoming Azerbaijan second most important official.

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

Press release

10.08.2017

TURKEY

Journalists in new wave of arrests

The Turkish police carried out a new wave of arrests this morning under a combined warrant issued today for 35 journalists and media workers suspected of installing the encrypted messaging app ByLock on their smartphones.

The authorities are now treating installation of this app as proof of membership of the movement led by the Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, which is accused of masterminding the July 2016 coup attempt.

Turkey’s Court of Cassation nonetheless ruled on 16 June that “use of [ByLock] would constitute incontestably incriminating evidence in the event that it was technically and indisputably established that communication took place at the behest of the [Gülen] organization and with the aim of exchanging secret messages.”

In practice, the judicial authorities tend to criminalize any link with ByLock users, as they have in the case of Cumhuriyet columnist Kadri Gürsel.

“Lumping together all ByLock users and anyone who contacts them as criminals is totally illegal,” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. “The judicial authorities cannot accuse journalists on the basis of this app alone, without establishing a specific and individual link to criminal activities.”

Nine journalists and media workers have so far been arrested under this warrant. They include Burak Ekici, the editor of the online edition of the left-wing newspaper BirGün.

They also include Muhsin Pilgir of Cihan (and formerly Zaman), Ömer Faruk Aydemir of IHA, Sait Gürkan Tuzlu, Cüneyt Seza Özkan (formerly of Samanyolu), Yusuf Duran, Ahmet Feyzullah Özyurt, Mutlu Özay and Ahmet Sağırlı (who was fired last week from the weekly Türkiye).

Ranked 155th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index, Turkey is the world’s biggest prison for professional journalists, with more than 100 currently detained.

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

Press release

08.08.2017

RUSSIA

RSF urges Russia not to send Uzbek journalist back to Uzbekistan

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Russia authorities not to expel Khudoberdi Nurmatov, an Uzbek journalist seeking asylum in Russia. A Moscow court has ordered him sent back to Uzbekistan, which is ranked 169th out of 180 countries in the RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index.

Arrested on 1 August, Nurmatov was taken later the same day before a judge, who issued the expulsion order at around 11 pm. The speed was suspicious, especially as the order was issued after the legal closing time for the courts. Nurmatov was placed in a detention centre for foreign nationals.

Also known by the pen-name of Ali Feruz, Nurmatov tried to take his own life at the end of the hearing, his lawyer said.

“Ali Feruz must not be sent back to Uzbekistan,” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. “He would be in great danger if expelled to that country, which criminalizes independent journalism and systematically uses torture. We urge the Russian authorities to overturn this decision on appeal and to release this journalist without delay.”

Stripped of his passport several years ago, Nurmatov was first arrested in March for “residing in an irregular manner” in Russia, although his asylum application sufficed to give a legal basis to his presence in the country.

Nurmatov fled Uzbekistan in 2009 to escape growing pressure from the Uzbek intelligence services. His mother lives in Russia and has Russian nationality. His asylum application was finally rejected in May but he had filed an appeal against this decision.

After helping various human rights groups, Nurmatov had been working for more than a year for the Moscow-based independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta , writing articles on Uzbek domestic policy and the appalling conditions in which Central Asian immigrants live in Moscow.

In Uzbekistan, the regime has a complete monopoly of news and information, and independent journalists who try to keep working are exposed to terrible reprisals. Many reports have documented the widespread use of torture in Uzbek prisons.

The Russian and Uzbek governments are linked by security cooperation accords that are often invoked to the detriment of international humanitarian law. Several Uzbek citizens who had been seeking asylum or had been granted refugee status have gone missing in Moscow in recent years only to reappear some time later in Uzbek jails.

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REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS (RSF)

Rebecca Vincent

UK Bureau Director

______________________________________________________________________

Press release

03.08.2017