Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Why Reporters Without Borders is not endorsing the Global Principles on Freedom of Expression and Privacy, by Francis Chartrand
Why Reporters Without Borders is not endorsing the Global Principles on Freedom of Expression and Privacy for ICT companies operating in Internet-restricting countries?
Reporters Without Borders welcomes the adoption of the Global Principles on Freedom of Expression and Privacy as a first step towards ICT companies’ recognition of the importance of free expression while operating in Internet-restricting countries. The international press freedom organization recognizes the important work done by the participants of this multi-stakeholder initiative that gathers companies, academics, investors and NGOs. Nevertheless, after participating in the discussions for almost two years, Reporters Without Borders decided last September to withdraw from the discussions and to not endorse those principles.
The organization believes these principles are one step in the right direction, but they do not go far enough to provide a sufficient protection to freedom of expression on the Internet.
"Under these principles, another Shi Tao case is still possible" stated Reporters Without Borders referring to the jailed Chinese reporter whose verdict revealed that Yahoo ! gave some personal identifying information to the Chinese authorities. "We believe that, as of today, the best option to prevent IT companies from being forced to collaborate with the Web-censors in repressive countries remains to provide a legal framework for companies willing to resist governments’ requests that violate the international free speech standards, as the Global Online Freedom Act, introduced by Representative Chris Smith does for American IT firms", commented the press freedom organization. "We will follow the implementation of the principles and are willing to continue to take part in this interesting collaboration and exchange of ideas, but in a different capacity. We stand ready to be, as a third party, of any assistance to the Initiative should our expertise or input be needed. We have been monitoring the free flow of online information for years and we will continue to denounce the obstacle to online free speech", added Reporters Without Borders.
Reporters Without Borders is concerned by several loopholes and weak language on the central points that may threaten the very implementation of these principles and justify the status quo. It also regrets the fact that some sensitive issues related to the monitoring process remain yet to be addressed.
Here is an overview of the organization’s main concerns:
1 - Local law remains the reference even if it violates international human rights standards. Thus, participating companies will comply with repressive regimes who have at their disposal an arsenal of legal provisions aimed at silencing dissidents.
2 - The extent to which companies are expected to challenge governments’ requests remains unclear. Requests in writing are sought but not mandatory.
3 - Companies could still enter into business relationships (joint ventures, mergers) with local partners that do not follow the principles, then bypass the restrictions imposed by the principles and blame the local entity (such as Alibaba for Yahoo!) in case of violations of freedom of expression or collaboration for the arrest of dissidents.
4 - Disclosure to users and transparency regarding the type of personal information retained by ITC companies’ remains unsatisfactory.. Users have no assurances that companies will try to minimize data collection, nor do they know how long this data will be saved.
5 - The assessors’ independence and impartiality as well as the extent to which companies’ will provide them with the necessary information to monitor developments remains uncertain.
Reporters Without Borders has supported the Global Online Freedom Act (GOFA) since its birth. Introduced by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) in February 2006, it would protect American IT companies from being forced to collaborate with repressive regimes. The Act would prevent repressive governments - those that punish dissidents and human rights activists who exercise their right to online free expression - from accessing personal data through US companies.
The bill would ban companies from locating the servers containing this data and from providing information that identifies users, except in cases in which the law is being legitimately applied, to be decided by the US justice department. The US companies would also have to act transparently and transmit information about the type of censorship they apply to an interagency-staffed Office of Global Internet Freedom, which would have the job of defining US government policy for the promotion of the free flow of online information and monitoring violations. A feasibility study of technologies and equipment’s export control would also be made. The bill also promotes the idea of a voluntary code of conduct to be established for companies working in countries with repressive regimes. GOFA was approved by the House’s Foreign Affairs Committee in October 2007 and is now awaiting a floor vote. In July 2008, MEP Jules Maaten, initiated the European Global Online Freedom Act (EU GOFA), which was drafted out of the American GOFA, and whose goal is to protect European ICT firms doing business with répressive regimes.
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Only peace protects freedoms in post-9/11 world, by Anne Humphreys
It is not economic prosperity but peace that guarantees press freedom. That is the main lesson to be drawn from the world press freedom index that Reporters Without Borders compiles every year and from the 2008 edition, released today. Another conclusion from the index - in which the bottom three rungs are again occupied by the “infernal trio” of Turkmenistan (171st), North Korea (172nd) and Eritrea (173rd) - is that the international community’s conduct towards authoritarian regimes such as Cuba (169th) and China (167th) is not effective enough to yield results.
“The post-9/11 world is now clearly drawn,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Destabilised and on the defensive, the leading democracies are gradually eroding the space for freedoms. The economically most powerful dictatorships arrogantly proclaim their authoritarianism, exploiting the international community’s divisions and the ravages of the wars carried out in the name of the fight against terrorism. Religious and political taboos are taking greater hold by the year in countries that used to be advancing down the road of freedom.”
“The world’s closed countries, governed by the worst press freedom predators, continue to muzzle their media at will, with complete impunity, while organisations such as the UN lose all authority over their members,” Reporters Without Borders added. “In contrast with this generalised decline, there are economically weak countries that nonetheless guarantee their population the right to disagree with the government and to say so publicly.”
War and peace
Two aspects stand out in the index, which covers the 12 months to 1 September 2008. One is Europe’s preeminence. Aside from New Zealand and Canada, the first 20 positions are held by European countries. The other is the very respectable ranking achieved by certain Central American and Caribbean countries. Jamaica and Costa Rica are in 21st and 22nd positions, rubbing shoulders with Hungary (23rd). Just a few position below them are Surinam (26th) and Trinidad and Tobago (27th). These small Caribbean countries have done much better than France (35th), which has fallen again this year, this time by four places, and Spain (36th) and Italy (44th), countries held back again by political or mafia violence. Namibia (23rd), a large and now peaceful southern African country that came first in Africa, ahead of Ghana (31st), was just one point short of joining the top 20.
The economic disparities among the top 20 are immense. Iceland’s per capita GDP is 10 times Jamaica’s. What they have in common is a parliamentary democratic system, and not being involved in any war. This is not the case with the United States (36th domestically and 119th outside its own territory) and Israel (46th domestically and 149th outside its own territory), whose armed forces killed a Palestinian journalist for the first time since 2003. A resumption of fighting also affected Georgia (120th) and Niger, which fell sharply from 95th in 2007 to 130th this year. Although they have democratic political systems, these countries are embroiled in low or high intensity conflicts and their journalists, exposed to the dangers of combat or repression, are easy prey. The recent provisional release of Moussa Kaka, the Niger correspondent of RFI and Reporters Without Borders, after 384 days in prison in Niamey and cameraman Sami al-Haj’s release after six years in the hell of Guantanamo serve as reminders that wars sweep away not only lives but also, and above all, freedom.
Under fire from belligerents or intrusive governments
Countries that have become embroiled in very violent conflicts after failing to resolve serious political problems, such as Iraq (158th), Pakistan (152nd), Afghanistan (156th) and Somalia (153rd), continue to be highly dangerous “black zones” for the press, places where journalists are targets for murder, kidnapping, arbitrary arrest or death threats every day. They may come under fire from the parties at war. They may be accused of taking sides. Any excuse will do to get rid of “trouble-makers” and “spies.” Such is the case in the Palestinian Territories (163rd), especially the Gaza Strip, where the situation got much worse after Hamas seized power. At the same time, in Sri Lanka (165th), where there is an elected government, the press has to face violence that is only too often organised by the state.
Bringing up the rear are the dictatorships - some disguised, some not - where dissidents and pro-reform journalists manage to open cracks in the walls that enclose them. The year of the Olympics in the new Asian power, China (167th), was the year that Hu Jia and many other dissidents and journalists were jailed. But it also provided opportunities to those liberal media that are trying gradually to free themselves of the country’s still pervasive police control. Being a journalist in Beijing or Shanghai - or in Iran (166th), Uzbekistan (162nd) and Zimbabwe (151st) - is a high risk exercise involving endless frustration and constant police and judicial harassment. In Burma (170th), run by a xenophobic and inflexible junta, journalists and intellectuals, even foreign ones, have for years been viewed as enemies by the regime, and they pay the price.
Unchanging hells
In Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s Tunisia (143rd), Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya (160rd), Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarus (154th), Bashar el-Assad’s Syria (159e) and Teodoro Obiang Nguema’s Equatorial Guinea (156th), the leader’s ubiquitous portrait on the streets and front pages of the newspapers is enough to dispel any doubt about the lack of press freedom. Other dictatorships do without a personality cult but are just as suffocating. Nothing is possible in Laos (164th) or Saudi Arabia (161st) if it does not accord with government policy.
Finally, North Korea and Turkmenistan are unchanging hells in which the population is cut off from the world and is subjected to propaganda worthy of a bygone age. And in Eritrea (173rd), which has come last for the second year running, President Issaias Afeworki and his small clan of paranoid nationalists continue to run Africa’s youngest country like a vast open prison.
The international community, including the European Union, endlessly repeats that the only solution continues to be “dialogue.” But dialogue has clearly had little success and even the most authoritarian governments are still able to ignore remonstrations without risking any repercussions other than the inconsequential displeasure of the occasional diplomat.
Dangers of corruption and political hatred
The other disease that eats away at democracies and makes them lose ground in the ranking is corruption. The bad example of Bulgaria (59th), still last in Europe, serves as a reminder that universal suffrage, media pluralism and some constitutional guarantees are not enough to ensure effective press freedom. The climate must also favour the flow of information and expression of opinions. The social and political tensions in Peru (108th) and Kenya (97th), the media politicisation in Madagascar (94th) and Bolivia (115th) and the violence against investigative journalists in Brazil (82nd) are all examples of the kinds of poison that blight emerging democracies. And the existence of people who break the law to get rich and who punish inquisitive journalists with impunity is a scourge that keeps several “great countries” - such as Nigeria (131st), Mexico (140th) and India (118th) - in shameful positions.
Certain would-be “great countries” deliberately behave in a manner that is brutal, unfair or just disturbing. The examples include Venezuela (113th), where President Hugo Chávez’s personality and decrees are often crushing, and the Putin-Medvedev duo’s Russia (141st), where state and opposition media are strictly controlled and journalists such as Anna Politkovskaya are killed each year by “unidentified” gunmen who often turn out to have close links with the Kremlin’s security services.
Resisting the taboos
The ranking’s “soft underbelly” also includes countries that waver between repression and liberalisation, where the taboos are still inviolable and the press laws hark back to another era. In Gabon (110th), Cameroon (129th), Morocco (122nd), Oman (123rd), Cambodia (126th), Jordan (128th) and Malaysia (132nd), for example, it is strictly forbidden to report anything that reflects badly on the president or monarch, or their family and close associates. Journalists are routinely sent to prison in Senegal (86th) and Algeria (121st) under repressive legislation that violates the democratic standards advocated by the UN.
Online repression also exposes these tenacious taboos. In Egypt (146th), demonstrations launched online shook the capital and alarmed the government, which now regards every Internet user as a potential danger. The use of Internet filtering is growing by the year and the most repressive governments do not hesitate to jail bloggers. While China still leads the “Internet black hole” ranking worldwide, deploying considerable technical resources to control Internet users, Syria (159th) is the Middle-East champion in cyber-repression. Internet surveillance is so thorough there that even the least criticism posted online is sooner or later followed by arrest.
Only a few countries have risen significantly in the ranking. Lebanon (66th), for example, has climbed back to a more logical position after the end of the bomb attacks on influential journalists of recent years. Haiti (73rd) continues its slow rise, as do Argentina (68th) and Maldives (104th). But the democratic transition has halted in Mauritania (105th), preventing it from continuing its rise, while the slender gains of the past few years in Chad (133rd) and Sudan (135th) were swept away by the overnight introduction of censorship.
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