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Posts Tagged ‘freedom of expression’

Unbowed and Unafraid: Old Media’s Old Battle Is New Media’s New War

January 13th, 2009 by AV Flox in blogging, citizen journo, freedom of expression, manifesto

Lasantha Wickramatunge was the editor-in-chief of the The Sunday Leader, a Sri Lankan paper founded in 1994 to expose corruption and confront issues facing the people of Sri Lanka.

On January 8, 2009, while driving to work, Wickramatunge was viciously assassinated by two unidentified gunmen. As attacks on the media increased around the country, Wickramatunge knew his death was near, but his commitment to truth was bigger than his fear. In an editorial he wrote just days before his death–and which The Leader ran three days after–he reminds the world, what seeking the truth and reporting it is all about:

No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.

I have been in the business of journalism a good long time. Indeed, 2009 will be The Sunday Leader’s 15th year. Many things have changed in Sri Lanka during that time, and it does not need me to tell you that the greater part of that change has been for the worse…. Indeed, murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty. Today it is the journalists, tomorrow it will be the judges. For neither group have the risks ever been higher or the stakes lower.

Why then do we do it? I often wonder that. After all, I too am a husband, and the father of three wonderful children. I too have responsibilities and obligations that transcend my profession, be it the law or journalism. Is it worth the risk? Many people tell me it is not…. But there is a calling that is yet above high office, fame, lucre and security. It is the call of conscience.

… The free media serve as a mirror in which the public can see itself sans mascara and styling gel. From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future. Sometimes the image you see in that mirror is not a pleasant one. But while you may grumble in the privacy of your armchair, the journalists who hold the mirror up to you do so publicly and at great risk to themselves. That is our calling, and we do not shirk it.

Every newspaper has its angle, and we do not hide the fact that we have ours. Our commitment is to see Sri Lanka as a transparent, secular, liberal democracy. Think about those words, for they each has profound meaning. Transparent because government must be openly accountable to the people and never abuse their trust. Secular because in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society such as ours, secularism offers the only common ground by which we might all be united. Liberal because we recognise that all human beings are created different, and we need to accept others for what they are and not what we would like them to be. And democratic… well, if you need me to explain why that is important, you’d best stop buying this paper.

The Sunday Leader has never sought safety by unquestioningly articulating the majority view. Let’s face it, that is the way to sell newspapers. On the contrary, as our opinion pieces over the years amply demonstrate, we often voice ideas that many people find distasteful…. For these views we have been labelled traitors, and if this be treachery, we wear that label proudly.

… I have the satisfaction of knowing that I walked tall and bowed to no man. And I have not travelled this journey alone. Fellow journalists in other branches of the media walked with me: most of them are now dead, imprisoned without trial or exiled in far-off lands….

As for the readers of The Sunday Leader, what can I say but Thank You for supporting our mission. We have espoused unpopular causes, stood up for those too feeble to stand up for themselves, locked horns with the high and mighty so swollen with power that they have forgotten their roots, exposed corruption and the waste of your hard-earned tax rupees, and made sure that whatever the propaganda of the day, you were allowed to hear a contrary view.

For this I–and my family–have now paid the price that I have long known I will one day have to pay. I am–and have always been–ready for that. I have done nothing to prevent this outcome: no security, no precautions. I want my murderer to know that I am not a coward like he is, hiding behind human shields while condemning thousands of innocents to death. What am I among so many? It has long been written that my life would be taken, and by whom. All that remains to be written is when.

That The Sunday Leader will continue fighting the good fight, too, is written. For I did not fight this fight alone. Many more of us have to be–and will be–killed before The Leader is laid to rest. I hope my assassination will be seen not as a defeat of freedom but an inspiration for those who survive to step up their efforts.

People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a matter of time before I am bumped off. Of course I know that: it is inevitable. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted.

… If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.

His message ripples across the world, calling attention to the fight in which many engage every day to report the truths around them.

“Just two days earlier, the offices of Sri Lanka’s largest private broadcasting company were attacked in the middle of the night,” Jyoti Thottam writes in a piece for TIME, which paints a frightening picture of the fight between freedom of the expression and the oppressive climate in Sri Lanka.

“What has happened to Lasantha Wickrematunge today is an absolute atrocity,” the TIME article quotes Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, the executive director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a research group. He said the two attacks were linked, part of a plan to silence Sri Lanka’s few independent media voices. “Those who are doing it want to stifle dissent and destroy democracy in this country.”

Wickrematunge had known his time was coming, but he hadn’t shrunk away in fear.

“I spoke to him less than an hour before the gunmen appeared, and he was full of ideas,” Thottam writes in his memorial piece at TIME. “It will be up to the staff at the Leader—including his wife, also a journalist with the paper—to continue that work. A staffer who was waiting at the hospital during his surgery told me a group of her colleagues had decided to go back to the office before they knew whether their mentor and friend would survive. ‘We have to get the newspaper out,’ she said. I can’t think of a more fitting tribute.”

Neither can I.

THE HARD FACTS

Reporters Without Borders has fought for press freedom on a daily basis since it was founded in 1985. Their annual survey of violence against journalists continues to be the canary in a coal mine, indicating the well-being of freedom of expression in our increasingly hostile world.

In 2008, the figures for print media tally as follows:

60 journalists were killed
1 media assistant was killed
673 journalists were arrested
929 were physically attacked or threatened
353 media outlets were censored
29 journalists were kidnapped

But it’s not just tradition print media that’s at stake here. Let’s not assume that just because one is a blogger and not working at a newspaper that these numbers don’t mean anything. We can bicker all day long about whether a blogger is a journalist but at the end of the day, this isn’t really about the medium or the way of reporting: it’s about the freedom of expression.

The Press Freedom Round-up 2008 report by Reporters Without Borders summarizes it well: “As the print and broadcast media evolve and the blogosphere becomes a worldwide phenomenon, predatory activity is increasingly focusing on the Internet… it poses a threat to those in power who are used to governing as they wish with impunity.”

Last year, for the first time in the history of the blogosphere someone was killed while acting as a citizen journalist.

The victim was Chinese businessman Wei Wenhua and his infraction was filming a clash between demonstrators in Tianmen with municipal police officers. He was beaten to death.

Cases of online censorship were recorded in 37 countries, above all China (93 websites censored), Syria (162 websites censored) and Iran (38 websites censored).

There are democracies that do not lag far behind in terms of online surveillance and repression. Taboos established by the monarchy in Thailand and by the military in Turkey are so tenacious that incautious Internet users are increasingly being monitored and punished by the police. Video-sharing websites such as YouTube and Dailymotion are favorite targets of government censors. It is becoming more and more common for sites to be blocked or filtered because of content that officials have deemed “offensive.” A visceral reaction from some governments towards participatory websites, especially social networking sites, is beginning to give rise to cases of “mass censorship.” The censorship of sites such as Twitter (in Syria) or Facebook (blocked in Syria and Tunisia, and filtered in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates) leads to massive amounts of content being blocked–an effect that is considerably compounded when combined with other standard methods of control.

Governments are increasingly responding with imprisonment to criticism by bloggers. In China, 10 cyber-dissidents were arrested, 31 were physically attacked or threatened, and at least three were tried and convicted. In Iran, Reporters Without Borders registered 18 arrests, 31 physical attacks and 10 convictions. Online free expression is also curtailed in Syria (8 arrests and 3 convictions), Egypt (6 arrests) and Morocco (2 arrests and 2 convictions).

Internet freedom has been crushed with particular severity in Burma, where the military government has arrested and tried blogger and comedian Zarganar and the young cyber-dissident Nay Phone Latt in a disgraceful manner and sentenced them to incredibly severe jail terms (59 years for the former, 20 years for the latter). These two men join Burma’s many other political prisoners, who include 16 journalists.

RIGHT OR PRIVILEGE?

It’s automatic: open browser, log in to the blog, type like crazy, hit publish. Some of us have been doing it for so long we can’t imagine not blogging.

Take a minute right now to look at the figures:

1 blogger was killed
59 bloggers were arrested
45 were physically attacked
1,740 websites were blocked, shut down or suspended

It doesn’t matter whether you blog about handbags or political issues. The oppression of expression is something we should all fight against.

Lasantha Wickrematunge had this clear. In his last editorial, he quotes the famous and haunting poem by the German theologian, Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

pass it on!

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