Why Journalism Matters
Israel joins top 10 of nations who jail journalists. EU approves first press freedom law and how the UK government covertly tried to discredit John Pilger
4 minute read
Israel moves up the ranks among countries who put journalists in Jail
The latest shocking figures from the Gaza war indicate that more than 80 journalists have been killed since the current conflict began on October 7.
That unprecedented statistic is now compounded by the revelation that Israel has risen up the ranks among the countries that have jailed journalists over the past year.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) keeps an an annual census of how many journalists end up in prison at the end of each year. As of December 1, 2023 17 journalists were behind bars in Israel, a disturbing number in a country which continues to regard itself as a fully functioning democracy. It puts Israel in a tie for sixth place among journalism jailers, tied with its avowed enemy Iran.
Behind bars
According to the CPJ, 320 journalists around the world were behind bars in connection with their work, the second highest number since records began being kept in 1992. The highest ever numbers were recorded in 2022 when 360 journalists were incarcerated.
Israel still has a way to go to catch up to the top offenders in this authoritarian race, with China remaining the frontrunner at 44 behind bars, Myanmar with 43, and with Belarus coming third, holding 28 journalists as prisoners.
But Israel is keeping company with Russia (22)and Vietnam(19).
“Our research shows how entrenched authoritarianism is globally, with governments emboldened to stamp out critical reporting and prevent public accountability,” said Jodi Ginsberg, CPJ’s Chief Executive Officer.
“Meanwhile, Israel’s standing in CPJ’s 2023 prison census is evidence that a fundamental democratic norm—press freedom—is fraying as Israel exploits draconian methods to silence Palestinian journalists. This practice must stop.”
The Israeli spike in arrests is a byproduct of the country’s increasing use of ‘administrative detention’ in the West Bank which has seen thousands of ordinary Palestinians arrested since the October 7 Hamas attack. This judicial practice allows a military commander to detain anyone without charge and extend their detention without limitations on the grounds of preventing future offences.
Ginsberg added: “Across the world, we have reached a critical moment. We need to see an end to the weaponisation of laws that silence reporting and ensure journalists are free to report. During a banner election year, with billions headed to the polls across the world, anything less is a disservice to democracy and harms us all,” she said.
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CPJ report on journalists held prisoner
4 minute read
EU passes its first law to protect journalists and guarantee the freedom and independence of the press. Will it be effective?
After almost a year of arguments over protecting journalists’ sources and prohibiting wholesale government spying on journalists The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has given its blessing to the new European Media Freedom Act (EMFA).
The final provisions of the law which aim to protect press freedom, independence and pluralism across the European Union were agreed by the European Parliament and the EU Council in December, following several months of disputes and wrangling.
“This is a victory for all defenders of press freedom and democracy,” said the EFJ in a statement.
A 2023 investigation by journalists working in co-operation across Europe found that seven European countries wanted to be able to spy on journalists without hindrance when they had concerns about national security.
Leading French outlet Disclose along with Investigate Europe and Follow the Money discovered that France, Italy, Finland, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, and Sweden were trying to undermine the EMFA.
Protecting sources
One important aspect of the bill was set out in Article 4 of the legislation which concerned the protection of journalistic sources. This protection is considered one of the “basic conditions for press freedom” by the European Court of Human Rights. Without this protection, “the vital public-watchdog role of the press as guardian of the public sphere may be undermined.”
The provisional agreement obliges member states to guarantee the effective protection of journalists and media providers in the exercise of their professional activity, and prohibits member states from using coercive measures to obtain information about journalists’ sources or confidential communications except in specified cases.
European Commission vice president Vera Jourova was one of the key players in the final negotiations. She insisted on the strong safeguards detailed in article 4.2 of the EMFA to protect journalists’ sources from any abusive measure.
The final text provides, for example, for the need to obtain prior authorisation from an independent judicial authority before any repressive measures under Article 4 can be used by governments. (Detention, sanction, search and seizure, access to encrypted data, use of surveillance technologies, spyware, etc.)
“This provisional agreement is historic,” reacted Maja Sever, EFJ President. “We fought hard to achieve this result, against States which attempted to include particularly repressive provisions. It is good to see that the EFJ slogan – Journalism is a public good – is not just a dead end of a sentence.”
Good will
“I am moved by all the united strength to make this agreement happen,” added Renate Schroeder, EFJ Director. “In times when journalism and journalists are attacked from all sides, It is good to see that it is still possible to convince political decision-makers of our good will and our commitment to the public interest. Together we are strong. And we will continue the fight, which is not over, neither for the EMFA nor for other challenges that threaten press freedom in Europe.”
No doubt an interesting story will unfold as the EMFA comes into force across the EU. And we will learn in due course whether the new law will uphold journalism and professional standards equally across the 27 member states.
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4 minute read
|The UK government monitored and made efforts to discredit journalist John Pilger and other left wing figures during Cold War
In our last issue we paid tribute to the controversial investigative journalist John Pilger who died in December at the age of 84.
And in the short time since his death we’ve learned courtesy of the investigative outlet Declassified UK (DCUK) that his activities were monitored by the UK intelligence services, starting in the 1970s.
Researching recently declassified UK government files, reporter John Mcevoy revealed how a special unit of the Foreign Office tried to discredit Pilger and other left wing figures and intellectuals, in part, by encouraging media contacts to try to attack them in the press.
The UK authorities were particularly concerned about two of Pilger’s major film investigations. Stealing a Nation exposed how in the 1950s the British government expelled the native population of the Chagos Islands, and then transformed them into an entity called the The British Indian Ocean Territory so that one of the islands could be turned into a large and strategic American naval base.
Attempted genocide
The second film was Death of a Nation which exposed the attempted genocide in East Timor by the Indonesian dictatorship took place with “the connivance of Britain, the US and Australia”.
As Mcevoy reports: “In 1975, the Foreign Office’s secret cold war propaganda unit, the Information Research Department (IRD), opened a file on Pilger.
“That year, IRD official Mrs J. O’Connor Howe complained that Pilger’s television programme broadcast in the UK, ‘A Nod and a Wink’, had given ‘entirely sympathetic treatment to the Shrewsbury pickets’, when several trade unionists were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned.”
Howe added: ‘It must be hoped that John Pilger and his sort do not become influential in their current affairs coverage’.
In 1977 the IRD was shut down by the government but Pilger’s file was transferred to a successor organisation, still at the Foreign Office called The Special Production Unit (SPU) and they continued to monitor his activities.
The office of then prime minister Margaret Thatcher privately asked the British embassy in Bangkok for “information on Pilger’s journalistic background”.
It specifically requested “examples of any Pilger material on Vietnam/Cambodia over the period 1968-78, and examples of his work criticising UK domestic policies”.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Pilger visited southeast Asia to film Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia and Cambodia: Year One.
The documentaries covered Washington’s secret bombing campaign of Cambodia during the Vietnam War, and the partial responsibility of the US and Britain for the brutality under the Pol Pot regime.
Monitored activities
Throughout this period, the UK government monitored Pilger’s activities and plotted to launch counter-measures against him.
The declassified files indicate that The Foreign Office were frequently highly critical of Pilger and his motives.
Macevoy wrote: “His work on Southeast Asia read like a ‘cynical voice from the Kremlin’, one Foreign Office official argued, with another complaining that it ‘looks like a PR job on behalf of Hanoi and Moscow’.
Whatever action the Foreign Office took against Pilger remains unknown. There are many documents that have been removed from Pilger’s file and some will remain classified until 2041.
But Pilger was not the only one targeted by the Foreign Office during the Cold War.
Another set of recently declassified files tell the story of the Home Desk, a secret unit of the Home Office used to monitor leftist journalists, intellectuals and trade unions deemed to be ‘subversive’ and which sought to discredit them.
In a story also written by John Mcevoy Declassified UK summarises their findings on the Home Desk as follows:
· UK propaganda officials planned a “hatchet job” on investigative TV programme World in Action to discredit this “highly suspect organisation”
· The Home Desk worked with MI5 to undermine communist trade unionists, and interfered in trade unions’ election processes
· The Foreign Office used a private network of journalists and academics to delegitimise Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm
The existence of the Home Desk was completely shrouded from the public. As Mcevoy reports: “Outside of a small clique of high-ranking British ministers, diplomats, and intelligence agents, the Home Desk simply did not exist.”
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