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Showing posts with label Journalists Under Threat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Journalists Under Threat. Show all posts
Anthony McIntyre ☠ Earlier in the month the National Union of Journalists gathered in Dublin to remember and pay homage to dead journalists.

128 journalists have lost their their lives reporting from conflict zones in the period January 2022 to November 2023. The geographic spread is anything but slim. The NUJ report that journalists have died in Haiti, Kazakhstan, Myanmar, Mexico, India, Brazil, Chad, Turkey, Central African Republic, Ukraine, Guatemala, Philippines, Bangladesh, Israel & the occupied Palestinian Territory, Chile, Honduras, Yemen, Ecuador, USA, Paraguay, Somalia, Colombia, Kenya, Syria, Cameroon, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Albania, Lesotho and Lebanon. Countries we would know much less about were journalists not prepared to take the risks so necessary to maintain an informed world. 

My bus into Dublin fell behind schedule so proceedings were under way by the time I arrived but I did manage to hear Mary Curtin read Seamus Heaney’s poem “From the Republic of Conscience.”A number of her colleagues then read out a list of names at the end of which they placed a red carnation on the ground. Siobhan Holliman, Neil Ward, Ronan Brady, Judy Murphy, Anton McCabe, Gerry Curran, Kitty Holland, Damien Tiernan, Emma O’Kelly, Fran McNulty, Ian McGuinness, Reza Nuri, Norma Prendiville and Michael Foley all stepped up to the microphone. A microphone is a vital tool of the trade through which journalists amplify the news that others do not want heard. On this occasion it was used to speak of those who would never speak into one again.


The pipes of Noel Pocock filled the air with a dirge for the dead, each note a salute to the motionless 128 pens.  

We hear about journalists dying, but insufficiently join the dots to see a pattern, allowing for a tendency to take hold that their deaths are isolated incidents of bad fortune that do not accumulate to the scale that was made evident at the vigil. I commented to NUJ Irish Secretary Seamus Dooley as we were leaving that the vigil was a wake up call. Journalists are an endangered species in an increasingly dangerous world. 

He, in a grim warning, stated that the list of the dead “would inevitably be out of date and may even have been overtaken by horrific events in Gaza.”

In a firm abjuration of the murderous attempts to silence journalists he told those who had assembled:

We gather today in sorrow. We gather to mourn our dead with dignity but let that dignity not be mistaken for lack of anger. The scandalous contempt for the rights of journalists under the Geneva Conventions and Protocols by the Israeli government cannot be justified by the vile actions of Hamas. We mourn the loss of life in Israel and Palestine. The blood of journalists is no different to the blood of the other men, women and children who have been slain in this horrific war.

As a union of journalists, we want to highlight the attempt to silence journalists and journalism, to close down media outlets and to prevent the story of the ongoing assault on human rights being told by independent journalists working in horrendous conditions.

While at the commemoration my daughter, having just finished work, joined me. She might have been the youngest person there. It caused me to reflect on the extent to which young people grasp the essential function journalism performs. I am not sure that many of her generation know that journalism scales great heights by virtue of having to make the climb, gravestone upon gravestone of murdered colleagues.

And then today the news from Gaza via the Committee To Protect Journalists which fulfilled the ominous prophecy of Seamus Dooley: 53 journalists and media workers killed to date. The Israeli policy of muzzling journalists at home is mirrored by murdering them in the Occupied Territories. The Israeli war on hospitals, the war on children is now a war on journalists.

And our heads will bow mournfully again.

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Sightless Eyes

Anthony McIntyre thinks PSNI boss, Simon Byrne, needs to first clean up his own force's act if he is to be taken seriously about vigorously pursuing those who threaten journalists.
 
It was hard not to raise a quizzical eyebrow when in February PSNI boss Simon Byrne vowed to deploy "vigorous action" in pursuit of those who seek to intimidate journalists in the North.

The phenomenon has been on the rise with more journalists reporting that they have been on the receiving end of intimidation. SDLP South Belfast MLA Matthew O'Toole, who heads up the newly formed Stormont MLAs Northern Ireland Assembly All-Party Group (APG) on Press Freedom and Media Sustainability, said:

In a democracy the freedom of the press is a fundamental and non-negotiable principle, but in Northern Ireland threat and intimidation of journalists has become normalised.

One reason behind the normalisation is to be found in the hostile attitude towards journalism displayed by the body that Simon Byrne heads up. Its own nefarious actions been wholly corrosive of journalistic integrity and freedom to investigate. Prior to his watch - for which he bears no individual responsibility - the PSNI pursued with a vengeance journalists investigating the role of state actors in Britain's Dirty War in Ireland. 

This manifested itself in house raids, arrests and seizure of material. The PSNI assault on journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey in a failed attempt to convict the duo, was for the purpose of intimidating journalists out of plying their trade, more specifically to derail investigations into loyalist killings that were carried out with a large measure of state connivance.

Those behind the recent threats might have been using their muscle in a different way but the combined effect was a legal and extra-legal pincer movement. Collusion was hardly a factor but there was certainly common purpose: to create a culture of contempt towards the work of journalists so that the confidence to maintain the cutting edge of their reporting would be undermined. A warning to look the other way or else.

There was no rule of law at play in the action against Birney and McCaffrey, just the rule of law enforcement. Now the same law enforcement agency is asking the public to have confidence in it supposedly going after its "partner in crime" for coming at journalists from a different direction. 

The MLA group mentioned above is also said to be seeking clarity on how the PSNI is dealing with the increasing level of threat. Its Vice-Chair Mike Nesbitt – a former television journalist journalist – made the telling observation:

It would appear from evidence from the NUJ that police forces in Great Britain have had greater success against individuals who have threatened journalists than is the case here.

Should that surprise us? The PSNI has never shown the same vigour when in pursuit of those who threaten journalists as it has towards those who threaten the narrative that the PSNI has sought to protect in relation to the history of Dirty War collusion. Martin O'Hagan's killers have never been prosecuted and the thug who threatened to rape the baby of Patricia Devlin has never been subjected to any attempt to apprehend him. In both cases there is a strong suspicion that agents are to be protected before journalists.

On past form, there is more to suggest that the PSNI will seek to vigorously evade accountability than to vigorously pursue those threatening the North's journalists. 

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Common Purpose

Pete Trumbore ✒ Back in October, in response to questions from local journalists, I argued that the risks of reporters and other media figures being intentionally targeted by violent political actors (OK, OK, domestic terrorists) was relatively low.


My thinking has changed in the wake of the escalation of political violence that we saw on Jan. 6 and the continuing dangers of more and greater violence in the coming days and weeks.

(Credit: AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

A week ago we watched pro-Trump mobs storming the U.S. Capitol pause to assault members of the media, delivering the violence against journalists the president has been inciting literally for years.

To cut to the chase, after last Wednesday I don’t think media organizations can automatically assume that their reporters, photographers, and camera crews will be safe at any pro-Trump demonstration in the future, especially if his supporters show up armed. Members of the media should maintain maximum situational awareness and have a plan for how to get out of harm’s way if they need to.

In short, I think media organizations covering a pro-Trump demonstration need to treat it the same way they’d treat sending their staff into a war zone. The risks are that real.

When I thought about this four months ago, my feeling was that the main danger to journalists covering protests and counter-protests during the summer came largely, and unfortunately, from the police, who we saw intentionally targeting journalists with rubber bullets and chemical irritants both here in Detroit and across the United States. I also knew, and the data backs it up, that the most likely perpetrators of domestic terrorism in the United States were unlikely to intentionally target journalists.

These most-likely perpetrators — white supremacists and white nationalists, neo-Nazi groups, violent anti-abortion activists and groups, armed anti-government militias — have had different targets in their sights. In short, journalists have historically fallen outside their “legitimate target” set. But now that a number of these groups have rallied behind Trump, and that the president has explicitly and repeatedly described journalists as “enemies of the people,” I don’t think we can assume that will remain the case.

I am not saying this because I have knowledge of any specific plot or threats against journalists. I say this because it would fit the pattern that we see in terrorism generally.

There is a connection between what terrorist groups and violent political actors — so-called lone wolf terrorists — believe and who and what they target for violence.* Their worldview or ideology shapes their identification of legitimate targets. In embracing Trump, his enemies become their enemies.

So that’s Democrats, Republicans who are insufficiently loyal to Trump, public officials who refused to back his attempt to steal the election. And journalists. There is precedent for this. In 2018 Cesar Sayoc, a pro-Trump extremist, mailed letter bombs to more than a dozen politicians, media companies, and prominent Trump critics.

I don’t mean to be alarmist, but I do think it is important for media organizations to be aware of this changing landscape and to be as fully prepared as possible to keep their people safe.

*It occurs to me that I need to write a post that describes this dynamic. But not this evening.

 ⏭Professor Peter Trumbore blogs @ Observations/Research/Diversions. 

Yeah, I Think They Are At Risk

Financial Times ✒ Criminal paramilitary groups threaten press freedom in Northern Ireland.

Arthur Beesley

Patricia Devlin was at home in Northern Ireland when the police arrived with a stark message: there was an immediate threat to her life from members of the outlawed Ulster Defence Association, a pro-British faction linked to the criminal underworld. 

“I was told that a UDA group had planned an imminent attack on me and that they were in possession of firearms and pipe bombs,” said Ms Devlin, a journalist at the Sunday World newspaper who reports on paramilitary crime in the UK region and has been threatened in the past. 

“Within 12 hours, police were back at my house again to say they had received further intelligence that west Belfast UDA planned to shoot me and that the shooting would take place in Belfast city centre in the next day or two,” she added. 

The threats against Ms Devlin were the latest in an escalating cycle of paramilitary intimidation against journalists in Northern Ireland reporting on organised crime and criminality. 

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based group that promotes press freedom, said it has been monitoring the situation and documenting incidents.  

Continue reading @ Financial Times.

Criminal Paramilitary Groups Threaten Press Freedom In Northern Ireland

Pete Trumbore ✒ discusses whether the US antigovernment far right poses a serious threat to journalists.  


Ever since the domestic terrorist plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was disrupted by the FBI and State Police, one of the questions that I’ve repeatedly fielded from local journalists and reporters is whether they are at risk themselves from the kind of anti-government extremists behind the planned attack against Whitmer.
 
(Credit: Bloomberg)

My immediate reaction was no, just off the top of my head. Such anti-government groups have an ideology that points toward a very different target list.

While anything is possible, I could not recall a single incident of an attack on a journalist or media establishment by any organized American far-right group, at least since the early 1980s, and only one or two by violent right-wing extremists since. But when in doubt, look at the data. In this case, that data comes from the Global Terrorism Database.

From 1980 through 2018 there have only been 44 terrorist attacks on journalists or the media in the United States. Only six of those attacks occurred since 2010.

Only a handful of attacks attributable to organizations or extremists on the political far right — including antisemitic, white supremacist, white nationalist, or anti-government — have been carried out in this nearly 40 year period. Here’s a quick list, in chronological order. Descriptions of the events are taken from the incident summaries presented in the Global Terrorism Database, augmented with additional research where helpful.

  • Dec. 19, 1981 — Jackson, Miss: This is the first of two attacks on the office of the Black newspaper the Jackson Advocate, one month apart. In this case shots were fired into the building, and firebombs thrown. While no specific group was identified as responsible, see the next entry.
  • Jan. 1, 1982 — Jackson, Miss: Two members of the Ku Klux Klan carry out a second attack on the offices of the Jackson Advocate, firing rifles through the windows. both perpetrators were arrested.
  • June 18, 1984 — Denver: Prominent and controversial Jewish talk-radio host Alan Berg is assassinated outside his home by members of The Order, a white supremacist terrorist group active between September 1983 and December 1984.
  • May 1, 1996 — Spokane Valley, Wash.: Two masked attackers detonate a pipe bomb at a suburban office of The Spokesman-Review newspaper. The bombing was apparently a diversion intended to occupy police while a nearby bank was robbed. The attackers left notes at both scenes signed “Phineas Priests.” The Phineas Priests were not a formal organization, but a self-description adopted by extremists rooted in the racist and antisemitic Christian Identity movement.
  • Dec. 15, 2016 — Dallas, Texas: Newsweek journalist Kurt Eichenwald, who has epilepsy, suffers a seizure triggered by a flashing GIF image embedded in an electronic message sent to him via Twitter. The original indictment in the case charged the perpetrator was motivated by anti-Jewish bias.
  • Oct. 29, 2018 — Atlanta, Ga.: A letter bomb addressed to the offices of CNN is discovered and defused at a mail sorting facility in Atlanta. This was one of 16 coordinated mail bomb attacks between Oct. 22 and Nov. 1, 2018 targeting critics of Pres. Donald Trump. When the suspect in the attacks, Cesar Sayoc, was arrested, his vehicle was covered with posters and stickers espousing right-wing propaganda. Sayoc is described in the GTD data as a “pro-Trump” extremist.

So that’s the list. Since 1980, we can only attribute six out of 44 terrorist attacks targeting journalists or media establishments on groups or individuals that we can place on the extremist far-right of the American political spectrum. None of those attacks are linked to the kind of anti-government far right groups accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan’s governor. They’ve mostly been the work of racists and antisemites.

Does this mean that journalists won’t potentially become targets in the future? No, we can’t say that. But we can say that, in general, these groups tend to have other targets in their crosshairs.

 ⏭Professor Peter Trumbore blogs @ Observations/Research/Diversions. 

Are Journalists At Risk?

The Conversation ✒ The insidious problem of online violence against women journalists is increasingly spilling offline with potentially deadly consequences, a new global survey suggests.

Julie Posetti 
 Jackie Harrison 
Silvio Waisbord

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of female respondents to our survey – taken by 1210 international media workers – said they had experienced online abuse, harassment, threats and attacks. And 20% of the women surveyed reported being targeted with offline abuse and attacks that they believe were connected with online violence they had experienced. The survey, which concluded this month, was fielded by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Online violence is the new frontline in journalism safety – and it’s particularly dangerous for women. In the digital environment, we’ve seen an exponential increase in attacks on women journalists in the course of their work, particularly at the intersection of hate speech and disinformation – where harassment, assault and abuse are used to try to shut them up.

Misogyny and online violence are a real threat to women’s participation in journalism and public communication in the digital age. It’s both a genuine gender equality struggle and a freedom of expression crisis that needs to be taken very seriously by all actors involved.

Continue reading @ The Conversation.

Online Attacks On Female Journalists Increasingly Spilling Into The ‘Real World’

Anthony McIntyre feels the National Union of Journalists missed an opportunity to showcase the type of threat journalists face as they go about their vocation. 

For anything but the right reason, when we learn of events like the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, it is all too commonplace to see what Einstein did, "spooky action at a distance.”

When the young journalist Lyra McKee was killed last year, her colleagues intuited correctly that, unlike the killing of Martin O’Hagan two decades ago, it was not a focused attack on journalists, rather a transfer of hideous malice. The projectile of hatred was aimed towards another, not her.

That's hardly the full story. In an era where the leader of the "free world" increasingly demonizes the "free press", both threats and violence against journalists and the profession of journalism are much closer to home. As recently as yesterday the NUJ released a press statement:

Two journalists working for the Sunday World newspaper have been contacted by police and told of a series of "imminent threats" of attack by criminals and loyalist paramilitaries including the West Belfast Ulster Defence Association (UDA). One NUJ member was contacted in the middle of the night by the police and alerted to a threat. Another NUJ member has been issued with a shoot to kill threat and is also at risk of entrapment and attack. Both individuals have been named in various threatening social media posts and both journalists have been threatened on previous occasions.

Appalling, but it is far from an isolated incident. Earlier in the week there were reports of threats having been issued against a journalist working for the Belfast Telegraph.

Increasingly, the website of the NUJ finds itself flagging up the type of intimidation that is wielded against journalists in Britain, the union's general secretary Michelle Stanistreet, voicing her own concern.

If you’re being threatened with rape, if you’re being threatened with grotesque violence, your family members, your children are being threatened over social media, you can’t simply think, ‘Don’t feed the trolls, don’t engage with it … You have to take those threats very seriously. And even if you weren’t, the very fact that this content is appearing in your life, in your home, is incredibly unsettling, and it’s affecting people’s mental health and their well-being.

The backdrop to the Stanistreet comments was a NUJ survey which estimated that one in five journalists claimed to have been physically attacked while a staggering 51% had experienced online abuse, with ethnic minorities and women bearing the brunt.

The specificity of the rape threat being used against journalists was earlier made evident by the UK journalist Lizzie Dearden:

I had been getting hundreds of threatening messages from people calling for me to be raped, attacked or killed. They had been sparked by a report I wrote from a terror trial – an account of what had been said in the court – that was published on The Independent.

It was with this invidious spectre hovering menacingly in the background that a charity group took the initiative and organised an online workshop to explore the matter. Compass Rose Network describes itself as: 

a charity set up in response to dealing with conflict, trauma, peace and reconciliation. We run workshops where ordinary people relate their narratives of conflict and trauma but also how, by telling their story they have gained a transformative life changing experience.

The thinking behind the event, according to one of the proposed speakers, was to "to discuss attacks on women journalists." Invitations had been sent to journalists around the world as well as to academics and others who might have an interest in the subject matter.

Listed as panel speakers were journalists working and living in the North, Felicity McCall, Trisha Devlin and Kathryn Johnson, each of whom was expected to outline their knowledge or experience of the dangers faced by journalists. The keynote address was to be given by Trisha Devlin, who according to one of the organisers, had been subjected to horrific abuse,  “trolled, abused and the safety of her and her baby threatened by loyalist gangsters.” 

 
In an even chillier echo of the experience of those British journalists outlined by Michelle Stanistreet and Lizzie Dearden, the type of horrific abuse hurled the way of Trisha Devlin included a threat to rape her infant son. It is without the slightest difficulty that we can conjure up the horrendous vista of some knuckle dragger being more than prepared to follow through on his threat and then use political motive to mask his predilection for children. As in the case of Lyra McKee who had gone to the PSNI accompanied by a NUJ official to complain about being persistently bullied, stalked and intimidated - ironically on this occasion allegedly by a fellow member of the NUJ - the police have continued farcically directing onlookers away from the scene of the crime. 

With police disinterest shaping a "look the other way" approach, it was crucial that CRN's workshop proceeded so that attention could be brought to matters that both the PSNI and Police Scotland would for some reason rather not see the light of day.

Nevertheless, the CRN event ended up being pulled in the most puzzling of circumstances that gravely dismayed the organisers who took to Twitter to express their disappointment:

It has unfortunately come to our attention that a journalist has made a complaint to the NUJ regarding one of our members. This is in relation to a personality clash + only that. As a result of this action we feel that they have prohibited the valuable work that CRN aim to do ... Many journalists will now not get the opportunity to tell their stories or participate in the upcoming workshop which has gathered an attendance from all backgrounds globally. The fact that @NUJofficial were NOT sponsoring this event nor did they contact us is disappointing ... Very sad state of affairs..... that freedom of speech is hindered by the very body who continually fight for it.... based on a vindictive complaint.

According to Lesley Stock, a former PSNI officer and one of the minds behind the event, CRN was contacted by participants claiming to have been informed by their union "that a ‘complaint’ had been lodged by another female journalist about one of the organisers.” Ms Stock further felt that the NUJ in London left the three journalists with no option other than to withdraw from the event.

The NUJ's reason for not wanting its members taking part is apparently down to three tweets posted earlier in the year by Ms Stock about a NUJ member, which the latter is said to have taken offence at. The tweets are available online and it seems beyond question that while sarky there is nothing in them that would remotely lend itself to a legitimate reason for seeking to dissuade journalists - including one under serious threat - from joining the panel.

If events like these which afford journalists some protection at an otherwise foreboding moment - where the police are culpable of a complete failure - are to be scuttled it should be for reasons of the utmost gravitas rather than the piffling one upon which the decision to upend this workshop seems to have swung.

Journalism matters, journalists under threat matter, and the voices of journalists like Felicity McCall, Kathryn Johnston and Trisha Devlin matter in the battle against all forms of perverse obscurantism and the threat posed from that quarter. They are voices that should be amplified not muffled. Lesley Stock and her colleagues at CRN deserve credit for doing in essence what the NUJ should be doing. 

While what is happening to journalists is no laughing matter, if a laughing stock does emerge from this gratuitous cancellation - or the feet of someone are to be placed in stocks as atonement - it will not be Ms Stock.

 ⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Voices That Need Amplified Not Muffled

From Buzzfeed News concern about journalists under threat.

Press freedoms are under assault around the world. These are the most urgent cases in November, including journalists receiving threats, being subjected to unfair trials, and their murders left unsolved.   

No answers or justice one year after a violent murder inside the Saudi Consulate.

In 13 months without answers about the brazen killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, no independent criminal investigation has come. Pressured by recent attacks on Saudi oil facilities, the Saudi crown prince spoke out in September denying any role in Khashoggi's death. He did, however, claim responsibility for the “mistake” on behalf of consulate workers in Istanbul. Yet, findings from the UN and the CIA point to his involvement. Stateside, President Donald Trump blew a congressional deadline to release intelligence reports under the US Global Magnitsky Act.

An investigation has begun two years after a reporter’s killing in Malta.

Oct. 16 marked two years since Panama Papers investigative reporter Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed in a car bomb blast in Malta. In September, the Maltese government announced the establishment of a public inquiry, calling on investigators to ensure the process is fully independent and impartial. Three men are currently in detention in relation to the killing; however, the perpetrators, including the masterminds, have yet to be brought to justice. No trial dates have been announced.

Continue reading @ BuzzFeed News.

Journalists Facing Huge Threats And Injustice For Pursuing The Truth

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