IPI publishes report on the role of Hungarian capital…

IPI publishes report on the role of Hungarian capital in foreign media

New report produced by IPI in cooperation with regional media experts and investigative journalists. The International Press Institute (IPI) today published a new report written by regional media experts and investigative journalists on the investment of Hungarian capital in foreign media and the implications for the spread of Viktor Orbán’s “illiberal” model of media control.

On April 3, Hungary will hold parliamentary elections pitching the incumbent prime minister, Viktor Orbán, against a united opposition candidate, Péter Márki-Zay, in what represents the first serious challenge to Orbán and his dominant Fidesz party since winning power in 2010. During this time, Orbán and Fidesz have become synonymous with the construction of an “illiberal democracy” in Europe. Central to their strategy has been the process of media capture by Fidesz using the instruments of the state to create a bubble of pro-government media. Independent media have been closed or transferred to party-friendly hands. And the government seeks to force the remaining critical outlets to the fringe of public debate, denying them access to information and hobbling their economic position.

The model has been extensively documented by media freedom organizations including through IPI’s 2019 press freedom mission report and IPI’s 2021 analysis of the Hungary’s media capture model and its application in Poland. What is less well known is how Fidesz’s ambitions for media influence and control do not stop at its borders.

In recent years there has been an influx of Hungarian investments in media either in the Hungarian minority communities abroad, or in media aligned with Fidesz’s ideological political allies, particularly in Slovenia and North Macedonia. These investments and the apparent instrumentalization of these media to promote Fidesz’s wider political agenda raise serious questions about efforts to further export the Fidesz model of “illiberal democracy” and media control to its neighbours and beyond. In some cases, as in Slovenia, there are signs that the replication of this model is already underway.

Today, the International Press Institute (IPI) is publishing Hungarian Capital in Foreign Media. Three Strategic Models of Influencing the Neighbourhood, a series of articles examining how, where and for what purpose Hungarian money is being invested into foreign media. The articles explore the following topics:

Since 2017, Hungarian businesses close to Fidesz have purchased numerous media in Slovenia and North Macedonia. While Fidesz politicians insist such investments are purely commercial, heavy investments in these media have been used to support Janes Janša’s SDS in Slovenia and the fugitive former North Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski’s VMRO DPMNE.
Media in Hungarian minority communities in Serbia, Romania, and Slovakia have all received a boost in Hungarian financial support, which is seen as bringing these media into close alignment with Fidesz.
Lastly, in 2019, a new international news agency, V4NA, was launched in London from where it attempts to project Fidesz’s populist narrative onto a pan-European media landscape.

The articles were produced by IPI in cooperation with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN); the Hungarian investigative reporting outlet Átlátszó and its Hungarian-language partner in Romania, Átlátszó Erdély; and the Center for Media, Data and Society at the Central European University’s Democracy Institute.

The report is published as part of IPI’s actions in the Media Freedom Rapid Response, a project which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and Candidate Countries. It is supported by the European Commission and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.

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This report by IPI is part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and Candidate Countries.

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Portugal’s Expresso newspaper still recovering from debilitating ransomware attack

‘It is a way of deliberately destroying the means of production of the media’. It has been a month since the Portuguese weekly newspaper Expresso became the victim of a ransomware attack, causing it to lose access to its website, its archives, and its Twitter account. How is the newspaper recovering from such a disruptive event?

On Sunday, January 2, 2022, the Portuguese newspaper Expresso became the victim of a ransomware attack by a hacker organization called Lapsus$.

Late in the evening, Lapsus$ succeeded in gaining access to the servers of Expresso, one of Portugal’s biggest newspapers.The hackers dismantled Expresso’s archives, and sent tweets from the newspaper’s verified Twitter account. The hackers also sent a phishing email to Expresso’s subscribers. Simultaneously, Lapsus$ hacked the Portuguese television broadcaster SIC and dismantled its system. Both SIC and Expresso are owned by Impresa, one of Portugal’s biggest media conglomerates.

It was an attack that no one saw coming. “We were surprised, so surprised”, Micael Pereira, a senior reporter at Expresso, told IPI. “We were shocked when we learned the website was taken down, and that our Twitter account did not work anymore. On the website, there was a blank page with a message from a group called Lapsus$. They were demanding ransom.”

It was the first time Lapsus$ launched an attack in Portugal. Earlier that month, Lapsus$ had hacked Brazil’s Health Ministry website, taking several systems down, including one with information about the national immunization program and another used to issue digital vaccination certificates.

Recovery

The cyberattack has been a disruptive event for Expresso, Pereira told IPI. The newspaper still has a long recovery ahead of it. The website currently runs on a temporary system, using WordPress as a backend. The paper lost access to all its data. “We could not and still cannot access our digital archives, which not only contained content from Expresso, but also from other newspapers. SIC TV lost access to the digital archives of videos and relies on physical backups, such as hard drives and tapes.”

To design the newspaper over the past month, Expresso has been using an old system, which felt like “going back to the nineties”, according to Pereira. “Normally, we have software that allows us to write directly into the pages so that we can see how much space we have. But the past month we needed to write with a very specific amount of characters in our head. That text then needed to be transported to another system, a very complicated and timely process. Luckily, our team managed to go back to the more modern system recently.”

Recovering from the attack has been difficult, but Pereira is still proud of the work his team produces. “Luckily, we are a weekly paper. If it had been a daily paper, it would have been much crazier and much more difficult to get everything done in time.”

New perspective

The cyber attack has fundamentally changed the newspaper’s approach to online security, Pereira said. “Not only is our IT department making important changes to our backend for better protection, but the attack has also educated our team as a whole. Before the attack, we of course constantly received repeated messages from our IT department, encouraging us to change our passwords, to not click that suspicious phishing link. But only now do we fully understand the importance of this.”

Since the attack, Pereira – a member of ICIJ, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – has received numerous questions about security from his colleagues. “As a journalist, I have covered many stories on leaks, for example on the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers. Now my colleagues have asked me for advice on their password manager, their apps, and antivirus systems. Even their home computers are important, as our personal computers have access to the company’s accounts. There is a lot that needs to be changed.”

In addition, Pereira believes awareness needs to be built by giving security training to the whole organization. “Not only to the journalists, but also to people in administrative departments and commercial departments, for example.”

Criminal investigation ongoing

Besides the newspaper’s continuing recovery, there is currently a criminal investigation ongoing into who was behind the attack, and what precisely happened. “This is very necessary, since we do not know if Lapsus$ stole any information from our servers”, Pereira said. “Especially in regards to our sources, this is important to find out.”

There are also still many questions about Lapsus$’s motivation. “The puzzling aspect is that although there was this initial ransomware attack, there was no follow-up”, Pereira said. “In the end, Lapsus$ stopped asking for money and we did not pay them anything. This makes their motivation somewhat of a mystery for me, as Lapsus$ also does not seem to have an ideological approach.”

Despite these unsolved questions, Pereira calls the event a “clear attack against press freedom”. He added: “It was hard, we were not able to do live interviews through Skype or Zoom because they were taken out by the attackers. All the images, all the footage, there was nothing we could use. It was, and is, terrible to recover from that night. It is a way of deliberately destroying the means of production of the media, destroying the capability of a newspaper.”

First published on IPI's website

This article by IPI is part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and Candidate Countries.

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Purchase of services for an external content evaluation of…

Purchase of services for an external content evaluation of MFRR-II

Location: Europe (flexible)

Deadline for applications: February 28, 2022

The Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) tracks, monitors and reacts to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and Candidate Countries. This project provides legal and practical support, public advocacy and information to protect journalists and media workers. The MFRR is organised by an alliance led by the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) including ARTICLE 19, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), Free Press Unlimited (FPU), the Institute for Applied Informatics at the University of Leipzig (InfAI), International Press Institute (IPI) and CCI/Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT). The project commenced in 2020 and is funded by the European Commission.

With funding from the European Commission, the current MFRR project period started at 4 May 2021 and runs until 3 May, 2022.

The final evaluation is scheduled to take place during the last two months of the project period, from March to April, 2022.

Terms of Reference

Background

The programme’s overall objective is to continue the implementation of the previously established Media Freedom Rapid Response mechanism within the European Union and Candidate Countries. The project is following the MFRR pilot project implementation in 2020.

The general objectives and expected results of the programme to be evaluated are:

Strengthen media freedom and media pluralism to foster open democratic debate.
Enhance protection and direct support of journalists, media workers and outlets under threat in Europe.
Rapidly respond to and prevent media freedom violations in Europe by appropriate intervention to mitigate consequences of deterioration of press and media freedom in EU Member States and Candidate Countries.
Support and expand the media freedom community in Europe; stimulate collaboration, joint initiatives and new alliances amongst European, regional and local stakeholders.

A detailed list of the specific objectives can be provided on request.

The activities conducted under the programme consisted in design and managing a Europe-wide rapid response mechanism to support media freedom and journalists’ safety. With the following main pillars of the action: 1. Monitor the state of media freedom in the EU Member States and Candidate Countries. 2. Legal and practical support to journalists and other media practitioners in need. 3. Advocacy and awareness-raising in the field of media freedom and safety of journalists. 4. Awareness-raising campaigns. 5. Ensure communication and dissemination activities. 6. Monitoring and evaluating the action.

Objectives of the evaluation

An indicative list of the areas of assessment is provided below. The evaluation questions can be further refined by the provider carrying out the evaluation.

Relevance: Assess whether the funds from the European Commission contributed to the development and implementation of the Media Freedom Rapide Response across Europe.

To what extent did MFRR-2 achieve its overall objectives?
To what extent did MFRR-2 contribute to strengthening mediafreedom in Europe?
To what extent did MFRR-2 achieve the specific objectives?

Effectiveness: Assess whether the grant was implemented effectively and efficiently by the partners in the consortium to fulfil the planned deliverables, especially amid upheaval caused by the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

To what extent were the planned activities carried out and were these delivered within the planned budget and timetable?
Were risks properly identified and managed?
How effective was the programme’s design in the success of the project? (Elements of the programme’s design include the roles and responsibilities of consortium partners)

Impact: Assess the changes resulting from the programme (positive/negative, direct/indirect, intended/unintended).

What measurable impact, if any, did MFRR-2-supported investigations have on policy, public discourse or any specific outcomes?
How did MFRR-2 help to safeguard Media Freedom across the EU?
To what extent did MFRR-2 help build a clear picture of threats against Media Freedom in Europe?
To what extent has MFRR-2 supported media workers under threat in the EU?

Sustainability and replicability: Assess whether the impacts achieved through the programme are likely to be sustained after the current funding period and if they are replicable in other regions.

What are the prospects of the programme being sustained?
To what extent has government (EC) grants and private philanthropy been successful in contributing to the production of independent journalism in the public interest?
To what extent are the outputs of the project (i.e., supported investigations) likely to continue fostering debate across borders and result in progressive change?

Learning Review: Identify and expand upon lessons learned that have not been drawn in the sections above.

This section will cover any key areas that have not featured in the sections above and that may surface throughout the evaluation process.

Methodology and deliverables

The selected provider will:

Review all grant-related documents;
Assess the impact of the different activities implemented throughout the project implementation of MFRR-2;
Interview staff from the consortium organisations involved in the project, including project managers and senior management;
Interview a cross-section of MFRR-2 beneficiaries;
Other relevant activities.

All interviews with beneficiaries will remain confidential and anonymised. During all contacts with stakeholders, the independent evaluation provider will clearly identify themselves as independent consultants and not as an official representative of the consortium behind MFRR-2.

The consultant will provide one draft report (approximately 30 pages long) covering all areas noted in Section 2. It shall be submitted to ECPMF by May 15, 2021. The final report – which incorporates or has responded to any internal feedback provided on the draft version – should be submitted to ECPMF by May 30, 2022.

Eligibility criteria

The selected provider will need relevant subject knowledge and experience conducting journalism-related evaluations.

The independent evaluation provider must be strictly neutral, and they will not have had any involvement in the project prior to this activity, so as to avoid any potential conflict of interests.

Award criteria

Quality of the offer (60%), including:

Methodology proposed;
Previous experience in evaluating journalism-related projects/programmes;
Technical competence and experience in conducting evaluation from a distance/by video conference.

Financial offer (40%).

Eligible tenderers will be invited for an interview to discuss their credentials and proposed plan. All tenderers will be informed about the outcome of their submission by email.

Applications

Interested parties must provide a short proposal outlining their approach (two pages maximum). This should be accompanied by:

CV(s) of staff who will be involved in carrying out the evaluation;
A proposed methodology for carrying out the monitoring and evaluation;
Ideally, one example of an evaluation report recently completed in English.

Tenders shall be submitted by email only (with attachments) to the email address application@ecpmf.eu with the reference “MFRR-2 2021/22 evaluation”. Deadline for submission: February 28, 2022.

Interviews are tentatively scheduled to take place between March 5-10 and these will be conducted remotely to address COVID-19 related health and safety risks.

Other considerations

The assignment shall be conducted remotely, following all COVID-19 safety recommendations.

The maximum amount available for the evaluation of the project, covering all the deliverables to be achieved by the selected tenderer as listed above, is 15,000 Euros (incl. VAT). The allocated budget includes consultancy fees, and travel and subsistence if relevant and in line with COVID-19 safety rules, and translation costs, if any.

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Hungary: Government bypasses court order on journalists’ hospital access

Hungary is the only EU member state not to give media access to hospitals during pandemic. The IPI global network today condemned a Hungarian government decree which – despite a court order – ensured journalists from independent media titles could continue be barred from reporting from inside hospitals. IPI called on the Fidesz government and its pandemic management body to approve future requests for journalists to access health facilities and stop hindering the media from doing their jobs and reporting on the realities of COVID-19.

Since the beginning of pandemic, representatives of the independent press have been barred from filming or reporting from within hospitals and their COVID-19 wards. In March 2021, this led to an unprecedented appeal from the the editors of 28 media outlets to the prime minister that the rules be changed to allow the media to record within health care facilities.

This appeal was rejected by the PM, who said that such a move could lead to the spread of “fake news”. Since the start of the pandemic, the government-controlled public television and the state news agency have been the only media permitted to film inside hospitals. Independent newsrooms have requested access on dozens of occasions but all were rejected by the government’s Department of Human Resources (Emmi).

This led Telex and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU) to launch legal action against the government on the basis that the order disproportionately affected media freedom. The Metropolitan Court initially sided with the government last year. Following an appeal, on January 27, 2022, the Supreme Court sided with Telex and ruled that Emmi could not bar media from reporting from within hospitals, as that power lay with individual hospital directors.

However, just two days later on January 29, the government passed a decree which bypassed the Supreme Court’s ruling. It instead determined that only the government centre in charge of managing the pandemic, the Operational Tribunal, could decide on press access and accreditation. The rule came into effect on February 5, 2022, leading to a fresh outcry about government interference from the country’s remaining independent media titles.

“This government decree is another shocking example of the Hungarian government’s efforts to block media’s access to public health information and hinder the ability of independent media to do their job” said IPI Deputy Director Scott Griffen. “During the pandemic, media across Europe have been able to report from within hospitals and speak with front-line health workers. This has been vital for showing the human face of the health services and for building trust in state health measures, as well as allowing for frontline staff to raise concern when necessary and to foster healthy debate on health policy.

“In Hungary, however, despite numerous appeals, journalists have repeatedly been barred from visiting hospitals, limiting transparency and leaving reporting from within health facilities to state media, which sorely lack independence and impartiality. There is no other country in the European Union right now which still has such restrictive hospital reporting policies in place as Hungary.

“IPI continues to condemn the Hungarian government’s efforts to ban journalists from hospitals. That a government decree was used to bypass a ruling from the Curia is a stark example of the length which Fidesz will go to retain control over the COVID-19 messaging ahead of the upcoming elections. We stand with independent journalists in Hungary in their demand for access to information, which is a fundamental right. It’s shocking that this is still up for debate in an EU member state.”

The government decree means the Operational Tribunal will have full responsibilities for deciding on which journalists and TV crews can film or record interviews on the premises of health facilities. That body will have the power to overrule directors who feel it is acceptable to welcome media into their facilities they head.

During the pandemic, journalists working for what remains of the country’s independent media operate in an extremely challenging environment for accessing public information or questioning public officials. While media critical of the government are shunned for interview requests, the prime minister meanwhile gives expansive interviews to state-controlled media. After the media sent an open letter to the PM in March 2021, government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs accused “left-wing portals” of spreading “fake news” to embarrass the country’s health care system.

At different points during the pandemic, doctors and other healthcare professionals have been forced to speak with media off record to raises concern about their institutions’ capacity to handle rising cases and an influx of patients. The government decree came amidst a general election campaign for the April 3 election.

First published on IPI's website

This statement by IPI is part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and Candidate Countries.

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Poland: Dismissal of SLAPP-targeted journalist Grzegorz Rzeczkowski sets concerning…

Poland: Dismissal of SLAPP-targeted journalist Grzegorz Rzeczkowski sets concerning precedent

The undersigned partners of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) extend their support to journalist Grzegorz Rzeczkowski who faces four SLAPPs and was recently dismissed by Polityka, one of the major independent weekly magazines in Poland, without a transparent reason.

The MFRR is concerned by the abusive legal actions targeting the journalist for his investigations and that his dismissal may be due to the financial costs to the outlet which these SLAPP lawsuits are accruing. If this is the case, it could send a signal that journalists in Poland who are targeted with SLAPPs for their investigations into sensitive issues will be left to face such lawsuits without the support of their employers and have a chilling effect on press freedom in the country.

Grzegorz Rzeczkowski is a seasoned reporter who investigated the wiretapping scandal that led to major political changes in Polish politics in 2014. As a result of his coverage on abuse of power issues, the journalist is facing four SLAPPs.

On 19 January Rzeczkowski announced on Twitter that his contract at Polityka had been abruptly terminated and he would be leaving the outlet in April. Rzeczkowski was notified by email about the contract termination and was given a vague explanation of the employer’s decision. Rzeczkowski worked at Polityka for 12 years and has not received any prior warning that would have indicated the employer’s intentions. In an interview with Wirtualnemedia.pl, Jerzy Baczyński, the editor-in-chief of Polityka was reluctant to disclose the reasons that led up to the dismissal but noted that the decision wasn’t motivated by staff cuts. He went on to say, “we are convinced that a journalist with such experience and achievements will easily position himself in the market”.

Given the four ongoing legal proceedings against Rzeczkowski and Polityka, the journalist is now put in an extremely difficult financial situation. Up until his contract’s termination, all legal fees and costs were covered by the employer. Since Polityka let go of its reporter, it is uncertain whether the outlet will continue to support Rzeczkowski’s legal fees.

Rzeczkowski faces four SLAPPs, both civil and criminal defamation lawsuits. Three of them were filed following the journalist’s coverage on the so-called wiretapping scandal that led to the demise of the government formed by Civil Platform (PO) and paved the way for the Law and Justice (PiS) party’s victory in the presidential and then parliamentary elections in 2015 and 2016, respectively.

Two cases against Rzeczkowski were initiated due to his articles discussing links between Marek Falenta, key figure in the “wiretapping scandal”, and the Russian mafia and secret service. In addition, Rzeczkowski, together with the editor-in-chief and the outlet itself are also sued by Anna Hofer, the State Prosecutor, who was promoted to this position when PiS came to power. In one of his articles, Rzeczkowski claimed that the state prosecutor didn’t investigate the involvement of the people with close ties to PiS in the wiretapping scandal and that she omitted to investigate the Russian influence on the election results. In 2019, the former head of the Military Counterintelligence Service brought a private criminal defamation case against the journalist, following his coverage on career advancement of people close to the former Minister of Defence, Antoni Macierewicz.

In a conversation with ARTICLE 19, Rzeczkowski underscored that the legal costs have already exceeded ten thousand Euros – an amount impossible to cover by himself. Rzeczkowski also mentioned that the SLAPPs against him have caused him great emotional distress and emphasised the importance of having his employer’s financial support and solidarity.

The MFRR expresses concern over the ongoing legal harassment against Rzeczkowski as well as his abrupt dismissal. Despite the lack of clarity to what extent the dismissal might have been motivated by the drawn-out and costly lawsuits, this sets a concerning precedent for the protection of journalists in Poland. SLAPPs are vexatious lawsuits that became an all-too-common tool aimed at silencing independent voices, dissuading them from hard-hitting reporting on critical issues and exhausting their financial resources. If journalists covering controversial yet crucial topics start feeling a legitimate threat and lack of proper support, they may eventually turn to self-censorship or even abandon their investigations. The undersigned organisations stand in solidarity with Grzegorz Rzeczkowski and call upon the media outlet and journalists’ associations in Poland to provide necessary support to the journalist throughout the legal proceedings.

Signed by:

ARTICLE 19
European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
International Press Institute (IPI)
OBC Transeuropa (OBCT)

This statement was coordinated by the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and Candidate Countries.

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Malta: Media battle for access to public information

Press freedom groups raise concern over unprecedented FOI obstructions. The undersigned international media freedom organisations today express growing concern over the challenges that media outlets in Malta face in accessing public information through the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. The unprecedented appeals by some 30 government ministries and entities against a decision by the Information and Data Protection Commissioner which ordered the disclosure of information on public expenditure requested by The Shift News are emblematic of these challenges.

The appeals stem from FOI requests that The Shift’s editor sent to various public bodies which sought documents about possible contracts and payments made by public entities to Malta Today co-owner Saviour Balzan and his commercial entities. The Shift stressed the information was in the public interest as it concerned the use of public money. However, those requests were denied by multiple entities, which argued the information requested did not exist in the form of standard documentation.

After the newspaper appealed, a review by the Data Commissioner rejected this argument and ordered the disclosure of the documents. One by one, around 30 different ministries and public authorities have since filed identical appeals, arguing the requests put an undue burden on state departments. These coordinated challenges underway at the Appeals Tribunal will result in costly and time-consuming court battles for the newspaper, which will be drained both financially and psychologically. Already the outlet has been forced to turn to a crowdfunding campaign to fund its legal case.

This case is about a simple principle that affects all media in Malta: the right to access publicly held information on how taxpayer money is used. This is a basic right that is essential for the functioning of democracy. The coordinated refusal by Maltese authorities to abide by the Data Commissioner’s finding that there is a clear public interest justification for the information disclosed is highly concerning. It carries serious implications for transparency and media freedom and sets a precedent that damages the ability of all media in Malta to do their work.

Moreover, the transparency of Saviour Balzan’s relations with the government is of wider importance to press freedom in Malta: he is one of the seven members of the Committee of Experts which will oversee the implementation of recommendations resulting from the public inquiry about the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. While the collection of documents by ministries may well be burdensome, this is not a sufficient reason to decline the release of public interest information. We therefore urge the relevant public bodies to respect the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Commissioner’s ruling, drop their appeals and provide the requested documentation in a timely fashion.

#Malta 🇲🇹: @TheShiftNews faces unprecedent Freedom of Information battle over public contacts.

Read the alert 👉 https://t.co/MqCYuqIGoV
Report new threats 👉 https://t.co/xwMP9Iu39T #MFRR #MediaFreedom https://t.co/z3QX7qtMkS

— Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) (@MediaFreedomEU) February 4, 2022

Worryingly, the Shift’s current experience is illustrative of a far wider problem regarding access to information in Malta. Public bodies regularly deny FOI requests from media on arbitrary grounds. Responses are often delayed until the last possible minute and often followed by requests for extensions. When FOI requests are accepted, information is often incomplete. Regular appeals to the Data Commissioner meanwhile lead to lengthy and taxpayer-funded court battles, further undermining timely reporting. Evidence also suggests that FOI requests from certain media outlets, or on certain topics, are handled in a discriminatory manner by certain administrative bodies. Inundated with appeals, Malta’s under-resourced Data Commissioner lacks the capacity to take up every case.

The result is that rather than fostering a culture of transparency, Malta’s current freedom of information legislation is regularly being abused to obstruct requests and obfuscate the disclosure of public information. Moving forward, it is increasingly clear that amendments to the existing 2008 law are needed. Revisions have already been called for by both the current Data Commissioner and the independent board of the Public Inquiry into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. Similar concerns have also been raised by the Venice Commission and the Special Rapporteur for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

Our organisations agree that reforms are needed to first make the judicial process for FOI appeals less cumbersome and secondly to remove the right of public authorities to appeal an order granting the commissioner the right to access a document as part of the commissioner’s decision on whether or not it should be released. Enacting such changes would make significant improvements to the system for freedom of information and help support watchdog journalism in Malta. Ultimately though, any changes in legislation will only be effective if supplemented by the development of a culture of transparency and accountability within government. Our organisations stand ready to assist in any way we can in developing these FOI amendments in the coming years.

Signed by:

ARTICLE 19
European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)
International Press Institute (IPI)
OBC Transeuropa (OBCT)
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation

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Turkey: 27 international media freedom and free expression groups…

Turkey: 27 international media freedom and free expression groups call for release of journalist Sedef Kabaş

27 undersigned human rights and journalists’ organizations including the MFRR consortium members, call for the immediate release of journalist Sedef Kabaş following her late-night arrest on January 22 and for an end to the judicial harassment of independent media.

On January 22, Kabaş was detained during a midnight police raid in Istanbul following critical comments she made about Turkish President Erdoğan on a program aired on January 14 on TV broadcaster TELE1. In the programme, Kabaş quoted a Circassian proverb on air as follows: “An ox does not become a king as it ascends to a palace, but the palace becomes a barn.” Kabaş added, “There is a very famous proverb that says that a crowned head becomes wiser. But we see it is not true.” This remark was interpreted as an insult directed at Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and prosecutors opened an investigation shortly after Kabaş made the remarks. Article 299 of the Turkish Criminal Code makes it a crime to insult the president, and those found guilty of doing so face a prison sentence of between one and four years.

Following the programme, a number of governmental officials condemned Kabaş’s remarks on social media. Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gül said while Kabaş was being held for questioning that her words went “beyond the limit”, “stem from hatred”, and “shall find a response in front of justice”. Following Gül’s statement, Kabaş was arrested on a charge of “insulting the president”.

On January 26, Kabaş’s lawyer announced that their appeal against her arrest had been rejected by the criminal court. Kabaş’s lawyer also claimed that Minister Gül’s intervention had influenced the judiciary and thereby violated both the Constitution and the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) with regards to Article 6 on the right to a fair trial.

Last October, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the offence of insulting the president under Turkish criminal law is incompatible with freedom of expression. The court also found no justification for the imposition of police custody or a criminal sanction in the case before the court, which involved an individual who posted critical content about Erdoğan on Facebook.

Prior to Kabaş’s arrest, Ebubekir Şahin, president of Turkey’s Radio and Television High Council (RTÜK), announced that RTÜK had initiated a probe into TELE1 regarding Kabaş’s remarks. On January 24, RTÜK issued a 5 percent revenue fine and a five-day programme broadcast ban against TELE1. After TELE1 journalist Uğur Dündar criticized RTÜK over the decision, the body issued another 3 percent revenue fine against the channel.

In addition, Alican Uludağ, a judicial reporter and Ankara chairperson of the Journalists Union of Turkey, received death threats on Twitter following his reports noting that the judge who ordered the arrest of Kabaş was the same judge who ordered the re-arrest of Osman Kavala in 2020.

Therefore we, the undersigned organizations, request:

The immediate release of Sedef Kabaş and of all other detained or arrested journalists
A full investigation into the death threats against Alican Uludağ, whose safety and protection must be guaranteed by the authorities
The withdrawal of RTÜK’s broadcast fines and bans against TELE1 and an end to the discriminatory issuing of punitive measures against independent broadcasters by RTÜK

Signed by:

Articolo 21
Association of European Journalists (AEJ)
Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI)
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
Danish PEN
English PEN
European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)
Freedom House
German PEN
Index on Censorship
International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)
International Press Institute (IPI)
Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT)
PEN America
PEN Centre of Bosnia-Herzegovina
PEN International
PEN Iraq
PEN Melbourne
PEN Norway
PEN Québec
PEN Turkey
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
San Miguel PEN
South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO)
Swedish PEN
WAN-IFRA

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Spain: Press freedom in 2021: Towards the end of…

Spain: Press freedom in 2021: Towards the end of the ‘gag law’?

Public Safey Law, online harassment remained key challenges for journalists in Spain last year

Plataforma por la Libertad de Información (PLI)

In a guest article for IPI, the Spanish free expression organization Plataforma por la Libertad de Información (Platform for Freedom of Information, PLI) summarizes key trends in press freedom in Spain in 2021. At the top of the list: the country’s ‘gag law’ continues to be applied against journalists, even as lawmakers mull a partial repeal of the widely criticized measure.

In a year that witnessed a record number of fines under the controversial Law on the Protection of Public Safety (known as the “gag law” due its negative impact on free expression), the Spanish Parliament finally took steps to approve a fundamental reform of the law. It is hoped that in the first half of 2022 the provisions most detrimental to press freedom and the right to protest will be repealed.

PLI has reacted cautiously to the agreement on this partial repeal out of fear that some of the most dangerous clauses with respect to freedom of the press and free expression may nevertheless be maintained.

The Law on the Protection of Public Safety has been criticized since its approval in 2015 by PLI and by international groups such as IPI as well as by organizations such as the OSCE, the Council of Europe, and the U.N. Human Rights Committee for its generic provisions that allow for the law to be arbitrarily applied by the police. It has since been used in Spain against activists and journalists, especially those covering protests and demonstrations.

According to the most recent available statistics, fines for disobeying or resisting authority or failing to identify oneself (Article 36.03 of the law) grew 20-fold between 2019 and 2020, from 12,645 to 243,001. This article is among those most frequently applied against journalists (especially photojournalists), and has a clear negative impact on press freedom, as PLI has reported.

On the other hand, there were only 50 sanctions in 2020 (the most recent year for which figures are available) for the “unauthorized use of images of police in the exercise of their function” (Article 36.23) – though this nevertheless represented a 30 percent increase compared to 2019. In December 2020, the Spanish Constitutional Court found this article to be unconstitutional and eliminated it. However, this nullification has not led to greater freedom for journalists during the past year, who continue to be fined under Article 36.03. In fact, we started 2022 with the case of Catalan photojournalist Mireia Comas, who was fined for refusing to delete photographs after she was ordered to do so by a police officer.

Another of the law’s provisions applied against journalists is Article 37.04 on displaying lack of respect to the police. There were 14,782 fines under this provision in 2020 amounting to a total of 2,384,693 euros.

Last year, once again, it was photojournalists and journalists who cover protests that suffered the biggest blows. Blows in the literal sense, like the police violence that Guillermo Martínez reported experiencing (he was later investigated for providing false testimony, despite presenting a medical report and video evidence supporting his account), and blows in the form of fines. The chilling effect from these types of measures limits the ability of journalists to do their jobs freely.

One of the most prominent cases is that of El País photojournalist Albert García, who at one point faced a prison sentence. Later, prosecutors withdrew that demand but maintained a fine for resisting authority. In November, we got the news that García had finally been acquitted.

Safety of Spanish journalists

In April 2021, two Spanish journalists lost their lives while doing their job: David Beriain and Roberto Fraile were murdered in Burkina Faso. Spanish foreign correspondents also faced difficulties reporting last year from Cuba and Gaza.

Inside Spain, the blot of online harassment and attacks on female journalists on social media continues to be one of the biggest concerns for journalists, women, and organizations that defend freedom of expression. Ana Pastor, Ángels Barceló and Anna Bosch are just three name on a list that grows year after year. María Tikas is another journalist who was forced to live this terrible experience last year.

But journalists weren’t much safer inside the newsroom: Alicia Gutiérrez and news site Infolibre were charged with the revelation of secrets.

Elsewhere, the media outlets El Confidencial and Cuarto Poder reported that the Spanish electricity company Iberdrola withdrew advertising from the newspapers after they published information about it.

PLI also gave its support to Crónica Global in a case of the right to be forgotten and to various independent media that suffered cyberattacks that left them offline for several days.

Freedom of expression

Regarding freedom of expression and the persecution of artistic expression, a woman was fined for participating in a 2013 procession that featured a plastic vagina.

Another prominent case was that of singer Pablo Hasel, who remains in prison after being sentenced to nine months on charges of glorifying terrorism and insulting the crown and state institutions for his song lyrics and messages on Twitter in which he attacks the monarchy and the police.

He wasn’t the only singer who faced censorship. The municipality of Toledo yielded to the pressure of the far-right party Vox and removed a concert poster of the singer Zahara dressed as the Virgin Mary. The artist Pamela Palenciano faced another year of criticism, insults, and threats for her theatre monologue “It’s not only the blows that hurt” (No solo duelen los golpes).

There was also a serious case of censorship in which a judge in Castellón ordered the removal from schools of books with homosexual content.

Finally, a joke in poor taste led to well-known comedian David Suárez facing court for an alleged hate crime.

Positive news

In positive news, the family of journalist José Couso, killed in Baghdad in 2003, won a court victory and will finally receive compensation.

It’s also worth mentioning the consolidation of fact-checking media in Spain, which play an essential role in the fight against disinformation. This includes both dedicated ones (such as Maldita.es or Newtral) as well as those initiated by existing media themselves such as “EFE Verifica” or “Verifica RTVE”.

First published on IPI's website

This article was first published by the IPI as part of Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and Candidate Countries.

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Albania: news outlets faced cyber attacks following reports about…

Albania: news outlets faced cyber attacks following reports about Mayor of Tirana

The partners in the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) are worried about developments in Albania this week. Cyber-attacks on news outlets believed to be in relation to their reporting on Tirana’s Mayor Erion Veliaj and the appointment of government loyalist Endri Fuga to lead the Media and Information Agency add to existing challenges for media freedom in the country.

DDoS cyber-attacks

In previous days starting on 24 January, several online media were targeted by distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) cyber-attacks, making it difficult to access their websites. RTV Ora, Lapsi.al, Doja.al, Syri.net, Maska.al, Gijotina.al, Faktor.al and SportEkspress were among the affected outlets. Although no concrete evidence has been presented yet, the outlets believe the attacks to be coordinated and connected to their reporting on an ongoing dispute involving Veliaj. He is accused of threatening board members of the Albanian Football Federation (FSHF) ahead of a vote for the head of the governing body. The targeted websites all published an audio recording related to the FSHF elections. On the tape, Veliaj is heard using slurs, coarse language and threats in an apparent attempt to influence the upcoming vote in favour of his preferred candidate. Veliaj has confirmed the authenticity of the recording but stated it should be considered in context. His spokesperson said it was just “boys’ talk”. Chairing the Federation is nominally a non-political position; however, most football teams in Albania are owned by local municipalities, whose mayors vote in the elections.

We call for a swift and effective investigation into these cyber-attacks. DDoS attacks constitute a significant threat to media freedom, as they prevent information from being disseminated resulting in direct censorship, and add financial pressures on the affected outlets.

Doubts about Media and Information Agency impartiality

In addition, we condemn the appointment of Fuga to head the newly established Media and Information Agency (MIA), which centralises control over the government’s public relations within a single entity. Yesterday, following a request for information by BIRN Albania, the government confirmed that Fuga was appointed as General Director of the new Agency by Order of the Prime Minister No. 96, dated 29 September 2021. Fuga was previously the spokesperson for Prime Minister Edi Rama. His appointment in the new role, which holds a status equal to that of a government minister and comes with wide-ranging powers, exacerbates existing doubts about the MIA’s independence and impartiality and fears that it may be instrumentalised to restrict journalists’ access to public information.

The decision to put the MIA into operation is a grave step backwards for government transparency in Albania. We reiterate our call for the establishment of greater safeguards to ensure the Agency functions fairly and transparently, even more so following the public confirmation of Fuga’s appointment as its General Director.

Signed by:

European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
Free Press Unlimited (FPU)
International Press Institute (IPI)
OBC Transeuropa (OBCT)

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Lithuania: State Data Protection Inspectorate (SDPI) must not obstruct…

Lithuania: State Data Protection Inspectorate (SDPI) must not obstruct journalistic activity in the country

The Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) and partner organisations have written to Director Raimondas Andrijauskas and Deputy Director Danguolė Morkūnienė of the Lithuanian State Data Protection Inspectorate (SDPI)’s to express concern at their attempted obstruction of investigative project “Karštos Pėdos” (“Hot Feet”)’s journalistic activity.

Dear Director Andrijauskas,

Dear Deputy Director Morkūnienė,

We, the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) and partner organisations, are writing to denounce the administrative harassment of “Karštos Pėdos” (“Hot Feet”). We call on the State Data Protection Inspectorate (SDPI) to stop pressuring and obstructing the journalistic project’s activities, to abide by the limits to its authority as defined in domestic law and to respect the letter and spirit of EU Regulation 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR).

Karštos Pėdos is a platform launched in autumn 2020 that is part of a transparency initiative co-funded by the European Commission and implemented by Media4Change in collaboration with Investigative Journalism Centre Siena. It visualises links between politically exposed persons in Lithuania and government spending, making use of datasets comprising declarations of interest of public persons, public procurement statistics and EU funding data, which are all publicly available.

Since late 2020, the SDPI has been attempting to inspect Karštos Pėdos. The investigation was initiated through a series of correspondence, in which the SDPI has been requesting a host of information to show that the project is not violating GDPR and the Law on Legal Protection of Personal Data. The SDPI ordered to provide data protection impact assessment, records of processing activities and documentation that data subjects of concern have been notified of their data processing, among other things.

From the outset, the team behind Karštos Pėdos have been arguing that the GDPR does not apply to journalists to the full extent. We share their view that in line with the derogations provided under the Regulation, Karštos Pėdos is not obliged to provide all the requested information as the information in their platform complies with the journalistic exemption Lithuania’s framework should provide according to the GDPR. Moreover, pursuant to Article 7 of the Law on Legal Protection of Personal Data, the SDPI lacks the authority to monitor the application of data protection laws to the processing of personal data for journalistic purposes, which instead lies with the Inspector of Journalistic Ethics. In June 2021, following a request by Media4Change, the Office of the Inspector of Journalistic Ethics confirmed in a letter that Karštos Pėdos is considered a journalistic activity. It is our understanding that despite being informed of the Office of the Inspector of Journalistic Ethics’ position, the SDPI has ignored it and has not involved the Office. In November 2021, moreover, the SDPI escalated the proceedings by proposing the imposition of an administrative fine for failing to provide the requested information in violation of data protection laws.

We concur with the Office of the Inspector of Journalistic Ethics and with the project team that Karštos Pėdos’s activities and content available are in line with journalist purposes serving the public interest. Therefore, pursuant to the Law on Legal Protection of Personal Data, the SDPI is not authorised to inspect or to impose fines on Karštos Pėdos. We further recall that the GDPR obliges the Member States to reconcile the right to protection of personal data with the right to freedom of expression and information. Accordingly, we call on the SDPI to stop pressuring and attempting to obstruct the activities of Karštos Pėdos.