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New Fronts, Brave Voices: Press Freedom in South Asia 2016-17

Laxmi Murthy (ed.)

New Delhi: International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Asia-Pacific; South Asia Media Solidarity Network (SAMSN) (2017), 113 pp.

"South Asia is a region of enormous contrasts, but from the vastness of India to tiny and placid Bhutan, journalism faces several problems in common. The safety situation has improved in some of the countries that were racked by internal strife, but journalists remain at acute risk in India and Paki ... more

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The Routledge Companion to Media and Human Rights

Howard Tumber, Silvio R. Waisbord (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2017), xix, 520 pp.

"The Companion is the first collection to bring together two distinct ways of thinking about human rights and media, including scholarship that examines media as a human right alongside that which looks at media coverage of human rights issues. This international collection of 49 newly written piece ... more

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So This is Democracy? State of Media Freedom in Southern Africa 2017

Reyhana Masters (ed.)

Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) (2017), 189 pp.

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Expanding influences research to insecure democracies: How violence, public insecurity, economic inequality and uneven democratic performance shape journalists' perceived work environments

Sallie Hughes, Claudia Mellado, Jesús Arroyave, José Luis Benitez, Arnold de Beer, Miguel Garcés, Katharina Lang, Mireya Márquez-Ramírez

Journalism Studies, volume 18, issue 5 (2017), pp. 645-665

"Democracies with sharp violence and public insecurity have proliferated in recent decades, with many also featuring extreme economic inequality. These conditions have not been explicitly considered in comparative research on journalists' work environments, an omission that may obscure important rea ... more

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„Tu deinen Mund auf“: Das Menschenrecht auf freie Meinungsäußerung und Pressefreiheit

Hannover: Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) (2017), 69 pp.

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Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression: Comparative, Theoretical and Historical Reflections After the Charlie Hebdo Massacre

Jeroen Temperman, András Koltay (eds.)

Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press (2017), xix, 740 pp.

"The tension between blasphemy laws and the freedom of expression in modern times is a key area of debate within legal academia and beyond. With contributions by leading scholars, this volume compares blasphemy laws within a number of Western liberal democracies and debates the legitimacy of these l ... more

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Challenges for Independent Media

Phnom Penh: Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM) (2017), 14 pp.

"Only 11 percent of 75 surveyed journalists said Cambodian media was headed in the right direction, down from 71 percent in 2015. 83 percent said media freedom had decreased in the past year. 92 percent consider the shutdowns of independent media outlets this year to have been political. 38 percent ... more

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Commitments: Freedom of the Media, Freedom of Expression, Free Flow of Information 1975-2017

Vienna: OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, 4th ed. (2017), 75, 75 pp.

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Cambodia: The Independent Press in Ruins

Daniel Bastard

Paris: Reporters Without Borders (2017), 26 pp.

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Online and on All Fronts: Russia’s Assault on Freedom of Expression

Yulia Gorbunova et al.

Human Rights Watch (2017), 84 pp.

"Since 2012, Russian authorities have intensified a crackdown on free expression, treating criticisms of the government as threats to state security and public stability and curbing privacy online. The government has introduced significant restrictions to online expression and invasive surveillance ... more

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First Steps in Understanding Freedom of Expression Online and Offline
Key Guides

Bogdan Manolea, Liana Ganea (eds.)

American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) and supported by the United States Department of State. (2017), 44 pp.

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Fearing the Majority: Catholic Media in Muslim Indonesia

Wijayanto

Media Asia, volume 44, issue 1 (2017), pp. 33-39

"It was 16 June 2016, during the fasting month of Ramadhan. Inside the Kompas newsroom, tens of uninvited guests, mostly wearing white, were visiting the office of the media group. They were members of Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), a hardline Islamic group well known for its sporadic sweeping of In ... donesia, mostly in the name of defending Syaria law. Two days before, a letter had been sent to Kompas newsroom from the FPI, saying they wanted to seek clarification about some of the paper’s coverage. That night, one of the journalists said to me with a bitter smile, “This is a special exception where a guest determined the date and time of the visit without waiting for approval.” As planned, around 1 pm on June 16, those special guests were seated in one of the newspaper’s conference rooms, welcomed by chief editor of Kompas daily newspaper, Budiman Tanuredjo, as well as some other chiefs of the media group from Kompas.TV and Kompas.com. In a video that went viral on YouTube, people could see that the discussion was rather one-sided. The FPI members spoke while the journalist were mostly listening to them. Munarman, the FPI’s spokesperson, accused the media group of unfairly covering recent events. He highlighted the news about the latest swoop in Serang Regency, which caught a middle-aged woman, Saeni, selling food during the day during the fasting month. It was carried out by Satpol PP, the municipal police of the local government specifically functions as public order enforcers. Munarman believed that the raid was virtuous, to enforce Syaria law. He said Kompas had reported the news in a way that portrayed Saeni as a victim and the Satpol PP as the aggressor. Thus, in the view of FPI, Kompas had hurt the feeling of Muslim people. They demanded the coverage to be stopped. They also warned the news organization to never again do such reportage. The FPI members did not stop there. Munarman and other FPI members also incited violence. In an aggressive tone, Munarman warned that such coverage could provoke a repeat of the incidents of 1998. This was a reference to the mass riots in the days before the forced resignation of President Suharto on 21 May 1998. The riot involved ethnic violence against the Chinese minority. Thousands of stores owned by Chinese Indonesians were destroyed, robbed and burnt. Furthermore, tens of Chinese women were sexually abused. There is still ongoing debate about the underlying reasons why the Chinese were targeted, but one theory suggests that it was part of a regime strategy to channel public anger away from President Suharto. Interestingly, despite believing that Kompas was not wrong in a journalistic sense, their journalists responded to the accusations with submission. Responding with smile and a lower tone, Budiman Tanuredjo said, “If we were seen as already crossing the boundaries (kebablasan), please kindly let us know” (Budiman Tanuredjo, 23 June 2016). In the same vein, the journalists from Kompas TV responded that “we were advised that we might have crossed the boundaries in our way, our news routine, we really make it as a lesson”. The other senior journalists who acted as a spokesperson of the media said, “Thank you for your reminder.” Instead of arguing that they were acting according to their journalistic judgment, they decided to admit that they were wrong and apologise to the hardliners. The submissiveness of Kompas becomes more interesting when viewed against the fact that it was not the only media to report the incident. There were at least 10 other online media that reported the raid on Saeni. Those media were Republika, SindoNews, DW, BBC, BeritaSatu, Detik, Tempo, The Jakarta Post, Media Indonesia and Viva. Republika – an Islamic newspaper – was one of the most critical of the raid, explicitly describing Saeni as a victim. On 13 June 2016, they wrote that the spokesperson of the President said that the President had given support to Saeni, “who had been the victim of Satpol PP”. The article’s title was, “Jokowi Gave Charity to a Mother Who Sold Food.” The use of the word “victim” implied that there was a perpetrator, which was the Satpol PP. Yet, FPI did not attack Republika or any other media. Only Kompas became their target. This article argues that the allegations against Kompas and its response were a result of historical factors. Kompas has been repeatedly attacked by Islamic groups due to its Catholic roots. This tendency is exacerbated by the fact that existing blasphemy law provides immense space to prosecute anyone deemed to be offending the feelings of religious believers. Kompas journalists end up internalizing a belief that being minority Catholic is an “original sin” in a majority Muslim country." (pp.33-34) more

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Safeguarding Civil Society: Assessing Internet Freedom and the Digital Resilience of Civil Society in East Africa

Small Media; CIPESA; Defend Defeners; CIPIT (2017), 127 pp.

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Freedom of Speech in Russia: Politics and Media from Gorbachev to Putin

Daphne Skillen

London; New York: Routledge (2017), viii, 363 pp.

"This book traces the life of free speech in Russia from the final years of the Soviet Union to the present. It shows how long-cherished hopes for an open society in which people would speak freely and tell truth to power fared under Gorbachev’s glasnost; how free speech was a real, if fractured, ... more

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Assaults against Journalists: We see the tip of the iceberg

Katharine Sarikakis

In: The Assault on Journalism. Building Knowledge to Protect Freedom of Expression

Ulla Carlsson, Reeta Pöyhtäri (eds.)

Göteborg: Nordicom (2017), pp. 119-128

"The summarised reports in this chapter show that the scope of safety and sacrifice is far greater than each actor alone or their sum can account for. Although the discussion did not offer an investigation into the USA and other mature democracies, it is clear from the survey in the European territo ... more

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Media Ownership Monitor Ghana

Reporters Without Borders; Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) (2017), 567 pp.

"The Media Ownership Monitor (MOM) reveals a high level of audience concentration in various media sectors. An almost maximum concentration was found among the printed press, where the top four media companies (Graphic Communications Group Limited, New Times Corporation, Western Publications Limited ... more

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Pluralism Under Attack: The Assault on Press Freedom in Poland

Annabelle Chapman

Washington, DC: Freedom House (2017), 20 pp.

"Poland has become a crucial battleground in the drive by authoritarian-minded leaders to gain control over political discourse and limit media pluralism. The Law and Justice government has sought to control the media as part of a broader push to weaken checks and balances and silence independent vo ... more

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Case Study on ICT and Human Rights (Policies of EU)

Rikke Frank Jørgensen, Anja Møller Pedersen, Wolfgang Benedek, Reinmar Nindler

European Commission (2017), x, 95 pp.

"The first part of the study focuses on the EU’s internal policies in the field of online content regulation. Drawing on case-studies of three EU directives – Directive 2000/31/EC on e-commerce, Directive 2011/93/EU on combating the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child porn ... ography and Directive 2004/48/EC on intellectual property rights enforcement – the study seeks to illustrate how dealing with alleged illegal content through blocking, filtering and take-down of content within co- and self-regulatory frameworks shaped around ‘Internet intermediaries’ challenge freedom of expression and information. The directives presuppose, accept or encourage self-regulation and, combined with schemes of limited liability, subject the intermediaries to an increasing pressure to implement public policy in the online domain. However, these practices and their limitations to freedom of expression are rarely framed as human rights issues, nor do they have the required safeguards. Based on analysis of the EU directives, the study explores the weaknesses – seen from a human rights perspective – of the European approach towards tackling illegal content on the Internet. The study provides a number of suggestions to ensure that the EU addresses the human rights implications of co- and self-regulation, including the strengthening of safeguards and guidance for Member States and intermediaries to implement the said EU policy. Also, the study calls for a comprehensive EU freedom of expression and information framework, covering both its internal and external policy. In line with this, the EU should consider the freedom of expression and information implications of current and new policies when reviewing them according to the Digital Single Market Strategy. The second part addresses the external policies of the EU with a focus on the protection and support of Human Rights Defenders using digital means (‘Digital Defenders’). For this purpose, EU policies and instruments of relevance for Digital Defenders are analysed, including the implementation of the Internet Freedom Strategy and the No Disconnect Strategy. The programmes under the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights are reviewed with respect to their relevance for human rights activities online, taking into account the recent EU Guidelines on Freedom of Expression Online and Offline. This part of the study also explores the related issues of the safety of journalists (which are often citizen journalists), export control of surveillance technology by the EU Member States and the cooperation with other international organisations active in the field of online rights. Proposals are offered on how to improve the general environment for Digital Defenders and their right to freedom of expression and information, and how to improve the coherence of EU action in this field. The newly created Human Rights Defenders Mechanism can play a pivotal role in this regard, as could updated EU Guidelines on human rights defenders." (Executive summary) more

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Attacks on the Record: The State of Global Press Freedom 2017-2018

Freedom House (2017), 7 pp.

"Press freedom is facing new threats in major democracies as well as in repressive states, where authorities are focusing their efforts on social media and other online platforms after subduing the independence of major print and broadcast outlets. The analysis below—drawn from the findings of Fre ... more

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Compromising Connectivity: Information Dynamics Between the State and Society in a Digitizing North Korea

Nat Kretchun, Catherine Lee, Seamus Tuohy

Washington, DC: Intermedia (2017), 97 pp.

"The information and media environment in North Korea continues to evolve quickly. This report demonstrates that the depth and diversity of information and media access channels have grown markedly since the release of A Quiet Opening in 2012. More North Koreans have greater access to a larger varie ... more

First Steps in Understanding Freedom of Expression Online and Offline Key Guides

First Steps in Understanding Freedom of Expression Online and Offline
Key Guides