IFEX Communiqué Vol 20, No 29 | 20 July 2011

http://www.ifex.org/2011/07/20/comm_20_29/

1. Israel: Anti-Boycott Law Curbs Free Expression, Say Mada and Human Rights Watch

Israel has violated the right to free expression by approving a law that penalises individuals and organisations that call for boycotting Israel, say IFEX members the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) and Human Rights Watch.

The law, approved in a 47-to-38 vote by Parliament on 11 July, makes it a punishable offence to publicly call for a boycott - economic, cultural or academic - against Israel, its institutions or any area under its control, a reference to the occupied Palestinian territories of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

It would enable Israeli citizens to sue people and organisations instigating such boycotts, and subject offenders to fines. Companies and organisations supporting a boycott risk being barred from bidding on government contracts, and non-profit groups could lose their tax-exempt status.

"Whatever one thinks of boycotts, a law that punishes peaceful advocacy in opposition to government policies is a bald-faced attempt to muzzle public debate," said Human Rights Watch. "This law attacks Israeli civil society and will turn back the clock on freedom of expression and association."

MADA fears that the new law will lead to a "steep rise in the number of violations committed against journalists [in the occupied Palestinian territories] and a further suppression of Palestinian voices."

Israeli human rights groups, such as the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, have said they will petition the Supreme Court to overturn the law on the basis that it infringes individual freedoms.

According to "The New York Times", the newspaper "Haaretz" called it "politically opportunistic and antidemocratic," and warned that it and other recently enacted laws were "transforming Israel's legal code into a disturbingly dictatorial document."

Both Amnesty International and "The New York Times", which are opposed to boycotts of Israel, agreed that the law is a fundamental issue of free speech.

"With peace talks stalemated, Palestinians are searching for ways to keep alive their dream of a two-state solution, including a push for United Nations recognition this fall. Israel risks further isolating itself internationally with this attempt to stifle critics," said "The New York Times" in an editorial.

A movement of Palestinians and foreign supporters has stepped up calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel to protest Israel's illegal settlements. Their campaigns have led to a number of cancellations of events by both Israeli and international artists.

The bill's sponsor, Zeev Elkin of the Likud, the conservative party led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said his concern was that the calls for a boycott "increasingly have come from within our own midst."

He and other advocates of the law said it was a necessary tool in Israel's fight against what they called its "global delegitimisation".

According to Human Rights Watch, the anti-boycott law is only one of many efforts recently passed, or being considered by, the Knesset that restrict freedom of expression and target Israeli civil society organisations and Palestinian citizens and supporters. A law passed in February (also sponsored by Elkin) that imposed quarterly rather than annual reporting requirements on non-governmental groups that receive foreign funding exempted pro-settler groups, Human Rights Watch reports.

"No country can be delegitimised if it holds true to its democratic principles. Opponents are already challenging the law in court. We hope they succeed, for Israel's sake," concluded "The New York Times".

Related stories on ifex.org:
- Anti-boycott bill stifles expression, says Human Rights Watch:
http://www.ifex.org/israel/2011/07/14/anti-boycott_bill/

More on the web:
- MADA condemns the Israeli anti-boycott bill (MADA):
http://www.madacenter.org/madaeng/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=344:mada-condemns-the-israeli-anti-boycott-bill-&catid=71:report2011&Itemid=84

- Anti-boycott law an attack on freedom of expression (Amnesty):
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=19575

- Not befitting a democracy (The New York Times):
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/opinion/18mon2.html

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REGIONAL NEWS

1. Bahrain: National Dialogue Doomed As Al-Wefaq Pulls Out and Crackdown Continues

The prospects for peace in Bahrain are not looking as bright now that the main opposition party, Al-Wefaq, has pulled out of the national dialogue, and the government continues to crack down on its critics, report the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) and other IFEX members.

Al-Wefaq said in a statement that the dialogue, which was launched on 2 July and aimed at making political reforms after the unrest that started in February, would "not reach a radical political solution to the crisis."

Al-Wefaq said it was "vastly underrepresented and marginalised in the dialogue ... whose results have been determined in advance."

BCHR says that only 35 of the 300 seats at the national dialogue were allocated to opposition parties, and that some of the leaders who should be at the table are instead in jail. Plus, says BCHR, none of the important issues are up for discussion, such as the discrimination against Shia workers, the direct election of the Prime Minister, the release of political prisoners, and the deaths of more than 30 protesters.

Al-Wefaq's withdrawal will "remove any legitimacy the talks gained from their involvement," says BCHR.

Since the launch of the national dialogue, few concessions have been granted and most good news has been tempered. Ayat al-Gormezi, a poet and university student who was arrested in March and sentenced to a year in jail after reading an anti-government poem to protesters, was freed on 13 July, reports the Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of PEN International.

But her release is conditional on not travelling outside Bahrain or speaking to the media about her detention, and the charges on which she had been jailed have not been dropped, says WiPC. She told reporters that she was beaten, electrocuted and threatened with sexual assault while in custody, including being tortured by a female member of the royal family.

While rights activists are hopeful that more Bahrainis will be released before Ramadan starts on 1 August, it's almost certain that former BCHR president Adbulhadi al-Khawaja, renowned blogger Abduljalil al-Singace and the six others that were recently given life sentences will not be among them. A further 13 people received sentences of up to 15 years in the same case. Their appeal has been postponed until 11 September, when it will be heard before a criminal court, after being transferred from a special military court, reports BCHR.

But even during the dialogue, "the government has not stopped firing teachers and other employees, attacking protesters and torturing political prisoners," says BCHR. Human Rights Watch says that more than 2,000 workers have been fired since March, apparently as punishment for taking part or supporting pro-democracy protests.

In a recent report, "Targets of Retribution", Human Rights Watch has documented serious government abuses against doctors, nurses and paramedics who treated injured protesters, as well as injured protesters themselves, such as charges that are pending against 48 medics.

"The attacks on medics and wounded protesters have been part of an official policy of retribution against Bahrainis who supported pro-democracy protests," says Human Rights Watch. "Medical personnel who criticised the severe repression were singled out and jailed, among the more than 1,600 Bahrainis facing solitary confinement and ill-treatment in detention and unfair trials before a special military court."

As recently as last week, Dr. Mohsen Tarif, a consultant psychiatrist who works in Salmaniya Medical Complex (a hub for treating injured protesters), was arrested by security forces, says BCHR.

Last week, Front Line (the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders) was part of an Irish delegation to Bahrain that investigated the detention and torture of medics who helped treat protesters.

Pro-government supporters, including members of a journalists' association, brought a 14 July press briefing by the Irish delegation to a halt and then publicly shamed Reem Khalifa, a journalist for the daily "Al-Wasat", who had earlier this year condemned the deaths of protesters and called for the King to intervene, report BCHR, Front Line and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). When she tried to stop a camera from filming the ordeal, she was charged with verbally abusing and physically assaulting a government supporter. The state media then carried out a smear campaign against her.

Many journalists have been in the firing line, with BCHR reporting the death of two in detention. They have been "intimidated, interrogated, smeared in government-owned and -aligned publications, and harassed and sued by government supporters," reports CPJ.

CPJ reveals that numerous critical journalists have been subjected to the same tactics, including local journalists Maryam al-Shrooqi, Lamees Dhaif, Naziha Saeed, Mazen Mahdi and international journalists Mohammed Fadel and Fredrick Richter.

RSF says that the authorities continue to try journalists and media before military courts, and are keeping reporting about the ongoing trials under strict control. It is calling for a response from the international community that includes the dispatch of a UN special rapporteur to Bahrain. In calling for an investigation into recent human rights violations in Bahrain, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, is now backing a high-level international mission.

Related stories on ifex.org:
- Poet released from prison but sentence still standing:
http://www.ifex.org/bahrain/2011/07/18/algormezi_released/

- Disturbing wave of prosecutions on eve of national dialogue:
http://www.ifex.org/bahrain/2011/07/06/military_court_prosecutions/

More on the web:
- BHCR website :
http://www.bahrainrights.org

- Systematic attacks on medical providers (Human Rights Watch):
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/07/18/bahrain-systematic-attacks-medical-providers

- Revoke summary firings linked to protests (Human Rights Watch):
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/07/14/bahrain-revoke-summary-firings-linked-protests

- CPJ calls on Bahrain to end harassment of critical journalists (CPJ):
http://cpj.org/2011/07/cpj-calls-on-bahrain-to-end-harassment-of-critical.php

- Bahrain Shiite opposition pulls out of talks (AFP):
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jgn5jpXwWLYmaWs9CTxHId3tRjiQ?docId=CNG.eed8c928c224c4fcae23d47f8879aab6.7a1

2. Honduras: Young Radio Station Manager Killed Before Community Radio Meeting

Twenty-six-year-old radio manager Nery Jeremias Orellana was riding a motorcycle to work on 14 July in Candelaria, Lempira, near Honduras's border with El Salvador, when he was gunned down by unidentified assailants, report the Committee for Free Expression (C-Libre) and other IFEX members. According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the International Press Institute (IPI), he is the third journalist killed possibly as a result of his profession this year in Honduras.

Orellana was shot several times in the head on his motorcycle by gunmen just minutes after he phoned Radio Progreso, a station for which he was also a correspondent, to confirm that he was going to participate in a regional meeting of community radio stations that day, C-Libre reports. He was rushed to a hospital nearby, where he died of his injuries a few hours later.

Orellana headed Radio Joconguera de Candelaria, a commercial radio station that also belonged to an alternative network of community radio stations, and regularly covered human rights violations in the area, reports RSF.

According to C-Libre, he offered air time to the Catholic Church, and the National Popular Resistance Front (FARP), a political party that formed after the coup that removed President Manuel Zelaya from office two years ago. He was a member of both groups.

"All this means that he was kind of journalist who was liable to be a target for violence," said RSF, which is demanding that the possibility that his murder is work-related be prioritised in an investigation.

Father José Amilcar, a priest in Candelaria who has criticised the coup and worked with the journalist, told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that he, Orellana and another Radio Joconguera employee had all recently received anonymous death threats via text message and had been heckled on the street. Amilcar said that he thought the journalist's death might have been "a message to the rest of us to make us keep quiet."

A dozen journalists have been killed in Honduras since March 2010, at least three in direct reprisal for their work, says CPJ. In June, Honduras was readmitted to the Organization of American States, but RSF noted that the readmission has not restored rule of law nor resolved the problems caused by the 2009 coup: IFEX members have recorded a string of recent attacks on journalists throughout the country.

Related stories on ifex.org:
- Radio director killed in Candelaria:
http://www.ifex.org/honduras/2011/07/15/geremias_orellana_killed/

3. Uzbekistan: Dismissed State TV Journalists Continue Fight Against Censorship

Two women journalists protesting media censorship in Uzbekistan ended their hunger strikes last week due to poor health, report Index on Censorship and news reports. Saodat Omonova and her colleague, Malohat Eshonkulova, had started their hunger strike after being arrested and fined for protesting against censorship and corruption in Uzbekistan's state television. Their case is emblematic of Uzbekistan's "atrocious human rights record, including repression of free speech," says Human Rights Watch.

Omonova and Eshonkulova were arrested on 27 June - Media Workers' Day in Uzbekistan - after trying to start their hunger strike outside the Presidential Palace in Tashkent. They were convicted of staging an unauthorised protest and fined 2.94 million Soms (US$1,500).

Eshonkulova told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) that she decided to end her hunger strike after 19 days, when she started spitting up blood and could not lift her head. Omonova ended her hunger strike on 12 July after being forcibly hospitalised, reports Index.

The two women were seeking a meeting with President Islam Karimov to discuss media censorship at the state TV channel Yoshlar (Youth). They were fired from Yoshlar last December, three days after they staged protests against media censorship. They are still fighting a court battle to appeal their initial dismissal.

Eshonkulova told RFE/RL that since 2 May, they have sent 56 letters to Karimov detailing examples of censorship at Yoshlar and requesting a meeting with him. But they have received no response.

Omonova revealed to RFE/RL that after spending several years broadcasting state propaganda as an employee of state television, her "eyes are open now and [she] sees how ordinary people [in Uzbekistan] are suffering."

According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), sacking journalists is particularly effective in a country where the government controls all "authorised" media, making it near impossible for them to find any other journalism work.

"The treatment that Omonova and Eshonkulova have received is clearly designed to intimidate other state media journalists who might be tempted to follow their brave example," said RSF.

Uzbekistan is ranked 163rd out of 178 counties in the latest RSF press freedom index. Independent journalists are routinely "persecuted, detained, and tried on spurious criminal defamation charges that carry the prospect of prison time and huge fines" and "websites containing information on sensitive issues or that are critical of the government are routinely blocked within Uzbekistan," says Human Rights Watch.

Earlier this month, the Press Court in Paris dismissed a lawsuit brought by the President's daughter, Lola Karimova, against French news site Rue89 for a May 2010 article that called her the daughter of "dictator Karimov", and alleged she was "whitewashing Uzbekistan's image" through charity events, reports Human Rights Watch.

In another case, Abdumalik Boboyev, a stringer for the U.S broadcaster Voice of America, has not been allowed to leave Uzbekistan because he was prosecuted last fall on trumped-up defamation charges, reports the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

According to RSF, at least 11 media personnel are currently detained in Uzbekistan in connection with their work.

Related stories on ifex.org:
- French court dismisses defamation suit filed by Uzbek president's daughter:
http://www.ifex.org/uzbekistan/2011/07/05/defamation_suit_dismissed/

- Embattled reporter prevented from leaving the country:
http://www.ifex.org/uzbekistan/2011/05/26/exit_visa_denied/

More on the web:
- Former state TV journalists start hunger strike after being convicted over protest (RSF):
http://en.rsf.org/ouzbekistan-former-state-tv-journalists-start-27-06-2011,40532.html

- Second Uzbek journalist ends hunger strike (RFE/RL):
http://www.rferl.org/content/second_uzbek_journalist_ends_hunger_strike/24267135.html

4. Africa / Awards and Other Opportunities: UNESCO Offering Scholarships For Access To Information Meeting In Cape Town

UNESCO is offering scholarships to attend the Windhoek +20 Pan-African Summit on Access to Information in Cape Town, South Africa, from 17 to 19 September 2011. A limited number of places are available so apply now - the closing date for scholarship applications is 3 August 2011.

The summit will bring together hundreds of Africa's media leaders, journalists and civil society members to discuss the current and future status of press freedom and access to information in Africa, which will hopefully lead to UNESCO and the African Union adopting the African Platform on Access to Information.

The Windhoek +20 Campaign is a continental initiative of African organisations - including IFEX members Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Media Rights Agenda, Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Africa office, as well as ARTICLE 19 - lobbying for a pan-African declaration dedicated to access to info. The campaign derives its name from the Windhoek Declaration on Press Freedom, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly 20 years ago to promote press freedom in Africa.

Other events will be taking place at the same time, including the Highway Africa Conference and the African Media Leaders Forum.

For the scholarship, preference will be given to individuals with proven records of advocacy around access to information.

To apply, send a cover letter outlining your motivation for going and your CV to karen (@) misa.org. Only successful applicants will be contacted.

More on the web:
- UNESCO offers scholarships to Cape Town! (Windhoek +20):
http://windhoekplus20.org/2011/07/unesco-offers-scholarships-to-cape-town/

5. International: Amnesty International Launches Online TV Show for 50th Anniversary

To mark its 50-year anniversary, Amnesty International launched Amnesty TV last week - a biweekly, 15-minute, online show that mixes satire and stunts with documentaries, opinion and news about human rights stories around the world.

The first episode, which aired on 14 July, features Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, talking about Internet freedom in front of a group of school children. There's also a birthday message from Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and a valiant attempt to get ambassadors from Iran, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. to sign Amnesty's 50th birthday card.

The next show, due to air on 28 July, has U.S. President Barack Obama telling viewers what "he really thinks about Guantanamo Bay."

Speaking about the launch, Amnesty's Andy Hackman told the "Observer", "Amnesty International's aim is to connect people and unite them behind a common belief that people coming together can effect real, tangible change. Amnesty TV's combination of entertaining content and inspiring stories will help us engage and mobilise a new generation of supporters."

Watch Amnesty TV here.
- http://www.amnestytv.co.uk/

Or on YouTube.
- http://www.youtube.com/amnestytv

More on the web:
- Amnesty International marks 50th with launch of online TV channel:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/10/amnesty-international-jimmy-wales-aung-san-suu-kyi

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