Human Rights Watch Disappoints on Human Rights

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Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Credit: Jean-Marc Ferré/UN Photo.

GENEVA, Jul 25 2019 (IPS) – On 22 July 2019, Kenneth Roth published an article in Publico, Lisbon, entitled: “UN Chief Guterres has disappointed on Human Rights”.

This essay lampooning Antonio Guterres is not a voice “against the tide” but very much mainstream – and demonstrably skewed. Major NGOs headquartered in rich advanced countries and enjoying generous funding from the Establishment may not always think “out of the box” and are as likely, as are the interest groups which support them, to politicize human rights and therefore to disappoint rights holders in smaller or weaker countries.

While they do contribute to exposing situations of human rights violations worldwide , they are not exempt from biases which reflect the structure of their central governing bodies or the cultural environment within which they operate. They cannot arrogate to themselves the sole legitimacy to speak in the name of the civil society of many countries , and when they claim to do so, they may disappoint rightsholders, particularly in the developing countries, whose priorities are frequently different from theirs.

Kenneth Roth’s bludgeoning of the UN Secretary General in this regard is yet another expression of grandstanding and even of a measure of arrogance. HRW’s criticism of China, Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, would be more persuasive if the organisation addressed with the same intensity the egregious violations of human rights in many other countries

Sober analysis and stocktaking are necessary to determine whether and to what extent the priorities and agendas of NGOs’s like HRW are set by the overall interests of the established power-structures and multiple elites in many countries. Kenneth Roth’s article expressing disappointment at the human rights performance of Secretary General Antonio Guterres fails to identify the root causes of human rights violations.

His admonitions have little or no preventative value, and do not formulate constructive recommendations such as, for instance, the provision of advisory services and technical assistance to many countries that need it and have asked for it.

HRW’s “naming and shaming” strategy has been inconclusive at best because “naming and shaming” depends on the authority of the “namer” and the impartiality of the methodology. Kenneth Roth’s bludgeoning of the UN Secretary General in this regard is yet another expression of grandstanding and even of a measure of arrogance. HRW’s criticism of China, Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, would be more persuasive if the organisation addressed with the same intensity the egregious violations of human rights in many other countries.

For instance, Mr. Roth does not mention the denial of the right of self-determination to millions of people, the retrogression in the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights (prohibited by the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), the looting of natural resources and degradation of the environment by transnational corporations and their neocolonial schemes, the impunity enjoyed by politicians who engage in aggressive wars and by paramilitaries and private security companies, the devastating human rights impact of blockades by source countries and economic sanctions on the populations of Gaza, Syria, Iran and Venezuela, which have caused and continue to cause tens of thousands of deaths.

The politicization or as we now witness with concern, the“weaponization” of human rights is taking the world on a slippery slope. When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)was adopted in 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt, Charles Malik, René Cassin and others spoke of human dignity and the inalienable rights of human beings, but article 29 of UDHR also reminded us that “everyone has duties to the community”.

Indeed, what is most necessary is global education in human rights, including the human right to peace, education in empathy and solidarity with others – compassion, not predatory competition in “the human rights industry” on a “holier than thou” ticket.

Meanwhile, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres should not be expected to act as a Human Rights NGO. This high office is not that of an unaccountable activist. It is neither that of a general that can blast any state at will nor is it a secretary that has to be subservient to the prevailing powers that be.

That high official must recognize the reality of the power balance that he cannot fundamentally alter but must strive with obduracy and at times courage to stretch the international community towards more compliance with the purposes and principles of the United Nations. Most importantly this means the promotion of peace through conflict-prevention, good offices, impartial mediation, disarmament and yes, human rights. When all diplomacy fails and only then may “naming and shaming” become an option. But it is a default option and a sign of diplomatic failure.

In the experience of both of us as Special Rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council, we have delivered on our mandates, not by openly challenging the authority of states or claiming to teach them lessons in human rights but by giving quiet diplomacy a chance .

This is how one of us together with another Independent Expert facilitated a lifting of the sanctions on Sudan and this is how we are again currently engaging with protagonists of other conflicts. We have succeeded in confidence-building and contributed to the release of detainees. Persevering and discrete advocacy bears fruit.

We want a SG that puts values above politics in human rights matters and this is, in our opinion, what Guterres is doing. We have a Secretary General that can speak for truth and can at least listen to the narratives of the smaller and weaker states who have no access to the world media and whose action is distorted by biased reporting.

Of course the murder of Khashoggi is a tragedy because beyond the tragic loss of a human life, it is the freedom of expression that is targeted. But Kenneth Roth does not mention the thousands of migrants whose lives end in the liquid graves of the oceans because saving them at sea is becoming a criminal offence in some « enlightened » nations.

Are there different values attached to life according to the « exploitability » of its loss for political aims? We do not think that the Secretary General should go down along this road, even if this may cause disappointment in some quarters.

We would be really concerned if the Secretary general were to follow the path of selective indignation advocated implicitly by Mr Roth, because he would lose the moral leadership that we all, people of good will, can identify with across the world. THAT would be a major disappointment.

We welcome in Antonio Guterres a Secretary General who does not hesitate to call a spade a spade, a SG who promotes peace and does not stoke conflict, who challenges unilateral economic sanctions, who supports the Right to Development1 and places the Secretariat of the United Nations in its service. We welcome a SG who, together with the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, are engaging all of humanity in the noble task – day by day – of implementing civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights in larger freedom – and in good faith.

Idriss Jazairy Special Rapporteur, UN Human Rights Council
Alfred de Zayas Former Independent Expert, UN Human Rights Council

 

The Precipitous Barbarisation of Our Times

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ROME, Jul 23 2019 (IPS) – When all is said and done, it appears that Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century English philosopher who had a dire vision of man, was not totally wrong.

From the frivolous to the serious, in just a week we have had four items of news which would not happen in a normal world. An English porn beauty with 86,000 followers on social media has put bottles of the water she bathes in on sale at 30 pounds a bottle and has sold several thousand bottles.

Roberto Savio

A survey in Brazil found out that 7% of citizens believe that the earth is flat (40 percent of American schools teach that the world was created in a week, according to the Bible, so there cannot be ancient civilisations) Another survey, this time of members of the British Tory party, who seem likely to elect Boris Johnson as prime minister (not exactly a triumph of reason) are so in favour of a “hard” Brexit that they do not care if this means the exit of Scotland and the end of the United Kingdom. Finally, in order to win election, US president Donald Trump has made racism one of his banners and, in a country of immigrants, this has given him an increase of 5 points in opinion polls.

There are so many signs of barbarisation that they would fill a book… and, as Euripides famously wrote: Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

It is not a popular task, but we have to look at the reality and observe that, in the most scientifically and technologically developed period of history, we are living in times of precipitous barbarisation.

Social inequality has become the basis for the new economy. People have now lowered their expectations and are prepared to work part-time in a precarious job, where young people (according to the International Labour Organisation) can hope for a retirement pension of 600 euro a month. This has been accepted by the political system. We even have a study from Spain according to which, in the present housing market, nearly 87% of people need 90% of their salary just to rent a house.

Today, for many, a salary means survival, not a dignified life. The new economy has developed the so-called gig economy: you work to distribute food, but you are a co-entrepreneur without any of the rights of an employee, for an amount that will never allow you to marry. Children have grown accustomed to look at phenomena such as poverty or war as natural. And now politics are not based on ideas but on how you can successfully exploit the guts of the people, waving banners against immigrants (when we are witnessing a rapid fall in the birth rate) and splintering countries between ”We” who represent the people and “You” enemy of the country. The United States is the best example, where Republicans consider Democrats enemies of the United States. And this brings us to a central question: have Trump, Italy’s Matteo Salvini, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and company not been elected democratically? And they are the symptom or the cause of the “populocracy” which is replacing democracy?

It is not possible to offer a sociological or historical study here. Let us just use a bite: we have gone from the Gutenberg era into a new era – the Zuckerberg era.

Those who greeted the arrival of the Internet with enthusiasm also did so because it would democratise communication and therefore bring about greater participation. The hope was to see a world where horizontal communication would replace the vertical system of information which Gutenberg made possible. Information was, in fact, a support for states and business that used it to reach citizens, who had no recourse to feedback. With Internet, people could now speak directly throughout the world and the propaganda which accompanied its arrival was not considered relevant: it is not important to know, it is important to know where to find It. Well, we have all the statistics on how Internet has affected the general level of culture and dialogue.

The attention span of people has declined dramatically. The majority of Internet users do not stay on an item more than 15 seconds. In the last five years, book volumes have been shortened by 29 pages. Today, articles longer than 650 words are not accepted by columnists’ services. The last meeting of editors of international news agencies decided to lower the level of news from the level of 22 years to that of 17 years. In Europe, the percentage of people who buy at least one book a year now stands at 22% (in the United States it is now 10.5%). According to a recent study in Italy, only 40% of the population is able to read and understand a book. In the same country, 13% of libraries have closed in the last ten years. A very popular transmission in Spain was ”59 seconds” which saw a number of people debate round a table; at the 59th seconds their microphones would disappear. Today, the dream of a TV interviewer is that the person interviewed will give a shorter answer than the question. Newspapers are for people over forty. And there is a unanimous complaint about the level of students entering the university: not all are free from mistakes of orthography and syntax. And the list could continue practically ad infinitum.

The problem of barbarisation has major relevance for political participation. The Gutenberg generations were accustomed to dialogue and discussion. Today, 83% of Internet users (80% under the age of 21), do so only in the virtual world they carved out for themselves. People of Group A gather only with people of Group A. If they come across somebody from Group B, they insult each other. Politicians have been able to adjust rapidly to the system. The best example is Trump. All US newspapers together have a circulation of 60 million copies (ten million those of quality, both conservative and progressive). Trump has 60 million followers who take Trump’s tweets as information. The do not buy newspapers, and if they watch TV it is Fox, which is Trump’s amplifier. No wonder that over 80% of Trump’s voters would vote for him again. And the media, which have lost the ability to offer analysis and cover processes, not just events, take the easy path. Let us follow famous people and make the famous more famous. Analytical journalism is disappearing. In the United States it exists thanks to grants … in every European country, there are few quality papers left, and the largest circulation goes to tabloids which spare their readers the effort of thinking. The Daily Mirror in Britain and Bild in Germany are the best examples.

Internet has made everybody a communicator. This is a fantastic achievement. But in this increasing barbarisation, people also use the Internet for transmitting false information, stories based on fantasy, without any of the quality controls that the media world used to have. And artificial intelligence has been taking over, creating many false accounts, which now interfere in the electoral process, as was proven in the last US elections. We have to add to this that the algorithms used by the owners of the Internet aim to trap the attention of users in order to keep them as much as possible. This month, El Pais published a long study entitled “The toxic effects of YouTube”, where it shows how its algorithms push the viewer to items that are of fantasy, pseudoscientific and of great attraction.

This is due to the fact that the owners have become fabulously rich by transforming citizens into consumers. They find out our identity, and they sell it to companies for their marketing, and also for elections. Those owners have unprecedented wealth, never achieved in the real world: not only in that of production, but even in the world of finance, which has become a casino with no control. The entire world of production of services and goods, man-made, is now close to a trillion dollars a day; that same day, financial flows reach 40 trillion dollars. Jeff Bezos ‘s divorce gave his wife 38 billion dollars. That is equal to the annual average income of 20,000 dollars of 19 million people. No wonder that 80 individuals now possess the same wealth as 2.3 billion people (in 2008, they were 1,200 individuals).

According to historians, greed and fear are great engines of change in history. That was also true in the Gutenberg era. But now, they have triggered a combination of both in a short period of time. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the doctrine of liberal globalisation arrived with such strength that Margaret Thatcher (who with Ronald Reagan ushered in the new vision of individual profits and elimination of social goods) famously talked of TINA: There Is No Alternative.

The entire political system, including Social Democrats, accepted riding a system of values based on greed and unfettered competition at individual level, at state level and at international level. It took twenty years to understand that the poor have become poorer, and the rich richer, and that states have lost much of their sovereignty to multinational corporations and the world of finance. It is worth noting that, in 2009, in order to save a corrupt and inefficient financial system, the world spent 12 trillion dollars (the United States alone, 4 trillion). Since that rescue, banks have paid the impressive amount of 800 billion dollars in penalties for illicit activities.

The financial crisis of 2009 has triggered a wave of fear. Let us not forget that until 2009, there were no sovereignist, populist, xenophobic parties anywhere, except for Le Pen in France. Soon old traps such as “in name of the nation” and “the defence of religion” were resurrected by politicians able to ride fear. A new scapegoat – immigrants – was found and populocrats are now undermining democracy everywhere.

Populocracy is the new wave. Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi ushered in a new language, and that language has now been updated by Salvini, Trump and so on. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are the new medium and now the medium is the message. The old elite had not found a new language.

The Zuckerberg era is an era of greed and fear. Zuckerberg is now attempting to create a global currency, the Libra, to be used by his 2.3 billion users. Until now, states were the only entities able to emit money, a symbol of the nation. Zuckerberg’s currency is based entirely on the Internet and will have no control or regulations. In case of a default, we will have a world crisis without precedent. In the Gutenberg era, this was not possible.

But who has made able Jeff Bezos to give 38 billion dollars to a former wife? Who has elected Trump and Salvini and company, who speak on behalf of the nation and the people, and turn those who do not agree into enemies of the nation and the people, creating an unprecedented polarisation, accompanied by an orgy of revolt against science and knowledge, which have supported the elite, and must now be put aside for the good of people.

This process of barbarisation should not obscure an old proverb: every country has the government it deserves. It is called democracy. However, the traditional elite has no code of communication with the new era. The answer will come from citizen mobilization.

A young Swedish girl, Greta Thunberg, has done more with her stubbornness to raise awareness about impending climate change than the entire political system. Even Trump (albeit for electoral reasons) has now declared that climate change is important.

Today, there many “points of light“ appearing in the world. The elections in Istanbul are a good example, as are the mobilisation in Hong Kong, Sudan and Nicaragua, among many others. Let us hope we will reach a point where people will take the reins of the process and awake the world from the precipitous course of barbarisation. Even Thomas Hobbes concluded that humankind will always, soon or later, find the right path, and give itself good governance. He thought that an elite would always be able to lead the masses.

Well, elites are now the Greta Thunbergs of the world.

Publisher of OtherNews, Italian-Argentine Roberto Savio is an economist, journalist, communication expert, political commentator, activist for social and climate justice and advocate of an anti neoliberal global governance. Director for international relations of the European Center for Peace and Development.. He is co-founder of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency and its President Emeritus.

 

Are We Fighting a Losing Battle in the War Against Drugs?

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UNITED NATIONS, Jul 3 2019 (IPS) – How effective is the global war on drugs?

The latest statistics released by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) are staggering: 35 million people across the globe currently have a substance use disorder, and as of 2017, 585,000 people have died worldwide as a result of drug use.

According to a recently-released UNODC report, the lack of proficient drug treatment and facilities for those that need it is impacting mortality rates at alarming levels.

Hence, it stands to reason that treatment and prevention are immensely falling short of the mark on a global scale.

Prisons are also no exception to these shortcomings. In fact, the Report unmasked that those incarcerated for drugs are more likely to continue being exposed to drugs.

The Report also highlighted that out of the 149 countries that were surveyed, about 1 in 3 people reported that they consumed drugs in prison at least once while incarcerated, and 1 in 5 people who are currently incarcerated reported that they have used drugs within the past month.

“In terms of data, we did some data collection, always trying to get as much as possible, in terms of socio-economic characteristics, we would have this type of data, I imagine, and this is also something that will run throughout the new report, and is being discussed now.” Chloé Carpentier, Chief of the Drug Research Section told IPS.

The issue between drugs and human rights is on Secretary General António Guterres’ radar as well.

“Together, we must honour the unanimous commitments made to reduce drug abuse, illicit trafficking and the harm that drugs cause, and to ensure that our approach promotes equality, human rights, sustainable development, and greater peace and security.” Secretary General António Guterres stated on the International Day Against Drug Use and Illicit Trafficking.

“We will make sure that no one with a drug problem is left behind” Dr. Miwa Kato assured, during the official launch of the Report on June 26.

Dr. Kato continued to push this message throughout her speech and cited that “Health and justice need to work hand in hand.”

Beyond the UN, this is a topic of interest for the academia world as well, since young people are heavily susceptible to a substance use disorder.

“It is important that we say people— not user or addicts, that language itself is stigmatizing.” Dr. Danielle Ompad, Associate Professor, College of Global Public Health and Deputy Director, Center for Drug Use and HIV Research at New York University (NYU) told IPS.

Dr. Ompad highlighted the importance of person-first language, citing that “It is important how we refer to people, and view them as humans, and not just the behavior (the substance use).

In terms of the World Drug Report, she noted that “The war on drugs, if you look at it, hasn’t really been an effective war”, and elaborated that the focus should not be supply- side intervention, because in the long run, drugs are going to be produced and sold no matter what, which leads to mass incarceration, which doesn’t benefit any party.

It is also important to recognize that “not everyone needs treatment, and those that do should absolutely have access to it. But just because you use marijuana does not mean you are an addict”.

She went on to suggest a harm- reduction approach. The harm-reduction approach blends a plethora of strategies from safer use to managed use to abstinence- it meets the need of the person.

www.HarmReduction.org

Meanwhile, tracing back to the issue of treatment, the Report affirmed that over 80% of the world’s population lack access to adequate treatment with only 1 out of 7 people with a substance use disorder receiving treatment each year.

The Report showcased that women cited a strong sense of fear that kept them from seeking the help that they needed for a variety of reasons that ranged from possible legal issues to the lack of childcare while in treatment.

Another issue is several countries, particularly in Asia, is the death penalty for any person found guilty of a drug ‘offense.’

Last month, Sri Lanka’s President, Maithripala Sirisena signed death warrants for four convicts- thus pushing the notion that those who have a substance use disorder are ‘dirty’ and should be disposed of.

Similarly, in a 2014 study conducted by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, it was shown that having a substance use disorder was viewed more negatively than mental illness. Ironically, however, the two are all but intertwined.

This is also evidenced by the Report- about half of the world’s population that develop a mental disorder will also experience a substance use disorder in their lifetime.

However, it is to be noted, that despite all of the above, the Report only cited the “lack of effective treatment interventions based on scientific evidence and in line with human rights obligations.” but made no further elaborations on the what’s and how’s and was only discussed briefly at the official Report launch.

That said, the issue of ensuring those that do have a substance use disorder are provided for while figuring out more beneficial and healthier initiatives to reduce drug rates across the globe are currently being discussed among the United Nations (UN) and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Dr. Ompad said for better or worse, licit, and illicit drug use is part of our world.

“Focus a little bit more on harm reduction,” Dr. Ompad stated, and above all “We need to stop the war on the people who use drugs,” she declared.

 

Why the Prosecution of Julian Assange is Troubling for Press Freedom

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Opinion

Alex Ellerbeck* is North America Program Coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists & Avi Asher-Schapiro* is North America Research Associate

NEW YORK, Apr 16 2019 (IPS) – After a seven-year standoff at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, British police last week arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange–a development press freedom advocates had long feared.

For years, journalists and press freedom advocates worried the U.S. would prosecute Assange under the Espionage Act for the publication of classified information, a scenario that potentially would have set a devastating legal precedent for U.S. news organizations that regularly publish such material.

During the Obama administration, officials ultimately said they would not prosecute because of the possible consequences for press freedom.

It was unclear whether the Trump administration would have the same compunction: while Trump praised WikiLeaks, then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo labeled it a “non-state hostile intelligence service.”

Trump has shown little concern for freedom of the press, once allegedly urging then-FBI Director James Comey to jail journalists. (In response to news of Assange’s arrest, Trump said he would leave it to the Justice Department).

In this context, the charge on which Assange was arrested seemed modest: A single count of conspiracy (with former Army Pfc. Chelsea Manning) to “commit computer intrusion” under the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, with a maximum penalty of five years.

Unlike the publication of classified information, hacking computers is not a tool for reporters. Some journalists were quick to point out this out.

“[The] charge here is attempting to help crack a password to steal classified material. Didn’t work but would news orgs do that? (Not in my experience.),” said Greg Miller, a national security reporter at The Washington Post, said on Twitter.

But press freedom advocates, and some journalists, have not expressed relief based on the indictment. A host of organizations, including CPJ, spoke out against the prosecution. Here’s why:

(1) The indictment is flimsy and could simply be a pretext to punish Assange for publishing classified information.

The diplomatic time and resources expended between three countries to detain Assange strikes some observers as disproportionate to the single computer misuse charge.

The indictment is vague about the exact nature of the aid Assange allegedly provided Manning in the course of their interaction, but it does not appear that Assange successfully hacked any password.

Even if his attempts were successful, they would have helped Manning cover her tracks, but not let her break into a system to which she didn’t already have access.

Prosecutors have wide range of latitude; it’s worth remembering that the Obama administration likely had all the same information, but declined to pursue an indictment.

Matthew Miller, a former Justice Department spokesperson in the Obama administration, told The New York Times that he thought the charge was justified but “This is not the world’s strongest case.”

So, is it just a pretext on the part of the U.S. government to punish Assange for the publication of classified information — a practice that should be constitutionally protected? The issue comes in a time of heightened concern for investigative journalists and national security reporters.

Since the September 11 attacks, the government has increasingly classified large amounts of material and punished those who share it with the press. CPJ has written extensively about the chilling effect of this crackdown on reporting in the public interest.

“Given the nature of the charge — a discussion 9 years ago about an unsuccessful attempt to figure out a password — I think it’s fair to debate whether this is a fig leaf for the government punishing someone for publishing stuff it doesn’t want published,” tweeted Scott Shane, a national security reporter for The New York Times.

“If it wasn’t Julian Assange, it would be very unlikely you’d see this prosecution,” Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told CPJ. “This is what over-broad discretion in prosecution does, it gives them a pretext for going after people they don’t like.”

(2) The charge could be a placeholder, with more to come.

Another reason why the charge may seem so modest: It could be the first of several. Last week, CNN cited U.S. officials promising additional charges against Assange. The press freedom implications of any future charges could be significant–especially if they involve the Espionage Act.

“It may be part of a larger case,” Ben Wizner the director of the American Civil Liberties Union, told CPJ. The current indictment already cites the Espionage Act and describes the cracking of a password as part of a conspiracy to violate it.

The DOJ’s legal strategy could be to pile on more charges after Assange is extradited. The extradition treaty between the U.S. and the U.K. says an individual can only be charged for the “offense for which extradition was granted” or similar offenses, but it also stipulates how governments can waive this rule.

Assange has an extradition hearing on May 2, which gives the U.S. government time to develop new charges.

(3) The language of the case seems to criminalize normal journalistic activities.

While the charge against Assange relates to the alleged conspiracy to hack a password, the language of the indictment sweeps in a broad range of legally protected and common journalistic activity.

Count 20 of the indictment states, “It was part of the conspiracy that Assange encouraged Manning to provide information and records from departments and agencies of the United States.”

The indictment goes on to characterize a number of journalistic practices as part of a criminal conspiracy, including use of a secure message service, use of a cloud-based drop box, and efforts to cover Manning’s tracks.

The cultivation of sources and the use of encryption and other means to protect those sources are essential to investigative journalism. While the government may include these details to show intent or to describe the means and context for the alleged criminal action, they seem to go beyond what is necessary.

Barton Gellman, who led The Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting on the Snowden documents, told CPJ, “If asking questions and protecting a source are cast as circumstantial evidence of guilt, we’ll be crossing a dangerous line.”

“A lot of the way the crime is described here could be applied to other journalists,” Wizner, at the ACLU, told CPJ. “If the government wanted to just target the attempted intrusion, they could have written a very different complaint.”

(4) The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is incredibly broad.

In all of the concern over the Espionage Act, journalists may not have sufficiently raised alarm over the law under which the U.S. charged Assange: the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). “Thinking we should breathe a sigh of relief because it was the CFAA instead of the Espionage act is premature.” Cohn, of Electronic Frontier Foundation, told CPJ.

The CFAA carries its own set of free expression issues. While it encompasses clearly illegal behavior like hacking, it also criminalizes “unauthorized access to a computer.”

Manning was prosecuted under the CFAA in addition to the Espionage Act, but prosecuting a publisher under the under the CFAA for conspiracy in obtaining the classified information could potentially create a dangerous legal model.

While reporters do not conspire to decrypt passwords, they are often aware of, and might actively discuss with sources, activities that could fall under the broad frame of “unauthorized access.”

As the Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez wrote on Twitter, “The way ‘helping to hack’ is being charged is as a conspiracy to violate 18 USC §1030 (a)(1) [of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act]. And good reporters conspire with their sources to do that constantly.”

“For almost every reporter working with a source, the source is providing information in digital form. Anyone who is working with a source who obtained that info in a way that they weren’t supposed to has a CFAA risk,” Cohn said.

She added that any journalists who don’t think there are broader press freedom implications to the Assange prosecution are “whistling past the graveyard.”

(5) Ecuador’s withdrawal of asylum raises questions.

Assange’s arrest came after Ecuador withdrew his asylum protection. In a tweet on April 11, Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno said the decision came after Assange’s “repeated violations to international conventions and daily-life protocols.”

In a video statement accompanying the tweet, he cited Assange’s repeated “intervening in the internal affairs of other states” via WikiLeaks publications.

Ecuador had previously restricted Assange’s access to the internet based on allegations that he was interfering in U.S. elections and in the referendum for Catalan independence from Spain.

While Assange’s unusual presence in a diplomatic mission created tensions–both inside the embassy and in Ecuador’s broader international relations–withdrawing asylum is an extreme measure, and one that could have troubling implications if it was done in response to publishing.

*Alexandra Ellerbeck, CPJ’s North America program coordinator, previously worked at Freedom House and was a Fulbright teaching fellow at the State University of Pará in Brazil. She has lived in Chile, Bolivia, and Brazil.

*Asher-Schapiro is CPJ’s research associate for North America. He is a former staffer at VICE News, International Business Times, and Tribune Media, and an independent investigative reporter who has published in outlets including The Atlantic, The Intercept, and The New York Times.

 

Hard Battle Ahead for Independent Arab Media

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Opinion

This article is part of a series on the current state of civil society organisations (CSOs), the focus of International Civil Society Week (ICSW), sponsored by CIVICUS, which concluded in Belgrade, April 12

 
Mouna Ben Garga is an Innovation Officer with CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organisations.

TUNIS, Apr 12 2019 (IPS) – Sometimes a peak into the future reminds us just how stuck we are in the past and present.

It was the talk of the Middle East’s largest annual media industry gathering: a robot journalist – the region’s first – that wowed some 3,000 industry leaders and practitioners at the Arab Media Forum (AMF) in Dubai recently.

In an address titled “Future News Anchors”, the robot, known as A20-50, waxed lyrical about robots that would report ‘tirelessly’ all day, every day and be programmed to do any task.

At a conference organised around the theme, “Arab Media: From Now to The Future”, it was ironic that journalism produced by programmed automatons was held up as a glimpse of what the future held for media in the Arab world.

Ironic because, considering the state of journalism in the Middle East, it doesn’t sound as much like the future as the region’s present and past.

Looking at news output in this polarized landscape, it often seems that journalists (and their organisations) are like robots, programmed to produce and promote certain political agendas ‘tirelessly’, all day, every day.

From Egypt to Kuwait, most news outlets support specific positions, usually those espoused by the companies or organisations that own or control them – often either toeing the official line or supporting rival agendas or political opposition.

Following the 2013 coup in Egypt and the civil wars in Syria, Yemen and Libya over the past decade, the pro-government media used the fear of instability and war to silence citizens and twist the facts.

For instance, the Egyptian mainstream media convinced its audience that the 2013 massacre of more than 900 people in Cairo was the only way to fight against terrorism.

In the context of the Middle Eastern media coverage of the killing of the Saudi journalist Khashoggi, both Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya television channels took up positions in front of the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and resumed the fierce row between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, from there.

The truth was lost in this fierce political conflict and the Arab viewer had to cross-check the presented facts with other international reporting. This implicit bias and lack of balance polarized Arab public opinion and pushed news consumers to social media in search of trusted factual information, crushing the credibility in traditional media.

And when they aren’t busy working to manipulate bias in news coverage, Arab authorities are old hands at plain old media repression. Not surprisingly, nations in the Middle East and North Africa again find themselves at the bottom of Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index of 2018.

Across the region, journalists and media organisations are under attack for their reporting – from intimidation to arrests, detention, prosecution and the shuttering of outlets. Four Arab countries – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Syria – top the list of the world’s worst jailers of journalists ,according to the 2018 press freedom report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Egypt jailed the most number of journalists on “false news” charges – 19, amid heightened global rhetoric about so-called fake news; The murder of exiled Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in the country’s Instanbul consulate illustrated the extreme lengths the Gulf kingdom’s leaders would go to stop published criticism.

And in Syria, 13 journalists were killed in 2017, and more than 40 journalists and citizen-journalists are currently detained, kidnapped or have disappeared.

In this complex context of divisions, repression and lack of public trust, the future of trustworthy Arab media is in the hands of alternative media, journalists’ unity and active citizens.

Since the Arab spring, independent journalism platforms such as Daraj, Nawaat in Tunisia, and Beirut-based Raseef22 have emerged, offering alternative narratives that counter state propaganda and mainstream media self-censorship.

But the challenges for these organisations are their limited reach – many mainstream news consumers consider them elitist and targeting “intellectual” users – and their financial sustainability.

The key here is inclusivity. One of the most successful news outlets is AJ+ Arabic, a project that grew out of Al Jazeera’s Incubation and Innovation Group, focusing exclusively on social platforms targeting millennials.

The other major challenge – financial survival – calls for new, sustainable journalism business models developed around new forms of storytelling and original content production supported by creative funding approaches including crowdfunding and data sales or services, for example.

Empowering citizen journalism is another possible solution to producing independent media in the Arab world. Indeed, citizen journalists, young bloggers, and active tweeps are not governed by the same relationship between the state and media professionals and are authentic voices and channels to the Arab street – they speak its language and represent its concerns and challenges.

Alternative media leaders need to build the citizen capacity beyond data collection and reporting to include online security, storytelling and counter-narratives. Increasing the transfer of these savoir-faire to citizens would amplify more voices to tackle the polarization effect through facts.

But of course, there is a place in the future of quality Arab media for professional journalism. Professional bodies have a role to play in fight for press freedom in the region.

Local unions have to wage numerous battles for their own independence through advocating for better legislation that affords greater protection to reporters and that prohibits prosecutions for reporting.

They have to promote the development of more journalistic organisations and more actively resist government attempts to contain and control the media by positioning themselves as defenders of free, independent media, creating strong alliances with alternative media, citizens journalists and social media influencers.

They need to be inclusive to promote a positive narrative about the role of the media in citizens’ lives and bridge the social gap between journalists and the general public to increase support for stronger independent media.

As a major regional proxy war rages on in the region, dominating headlines and geopolitical agendas, the battle for a future independent Arab media that is trusted and trustworthy, is one that seeks to do away with robotic journalists and organisations programmed only to serve the interests of the powerful.