OUR WORK IN 2015-2016

“The Government is doing what it can to enhance media freedom. We will do our part. Are you ready to do yours?”

Those were the words of Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe spoken to local media at an event on World Press Freedom Day co-hosted by IMS in Colombo in May 2016. Sri Lanka has been at the bottom of global press freedom indices for more than a decade, but in 2015 came to represent one of the most encouraging developments in the area of press freedom in South and Southeast Asia – a year which also saw deeply worrying trends. In countries such as Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan, we contributed to progress on media law reforms while the increased targeting of journalists by terrorist groups or authorities in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh demanded a strong focus on improving the safety of journalists.

In Sri Lanka, a new government elected in August 2015, embarked on a fresh discourse of democratic reform, showing a will to expand the space for freedom of expression. Our continuous presence in the country since 2003, enabled us to react promptly to this window of opportunity when the new government showed signs of aspiring for change. In May 2016, together with the Secretariat for Media Reforms, a coalition of Sri Lankan organisations, IMS presented the country’s new reform-oriented government with a roadmap for the development of an independent and pluralistic media sector based on UNESCO’s Media Development Indicators.

The landslide victory of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party in Myanmar provided renewed hope for further change after a marked slowdown in media reform efforts. With support from the Danish, Swedish and Norwegian governments, IMS, together with the interim press council launched the first code of conduct for Myanmar journalists. A 2015 survey of 134 journalists shows that the code of conduct is well-known and used across the country.

Considering that Myanmar’s population until 2011 lived in a virtual information blackout for more than 50 years, the establishment of a coalition of civil society organisations and media working to promote Right to Information (RtI) legislation is a milestone in the country’s media reform process. RtI is important because it ensures the public’s right to request information from public institutions, which in turn minimises the chances of corruption and abuse of power. A draft RtI law has been shared with the new NLD-led government and advocacy efforts together with IMS’ partner, the Center for Law and Democracy, will continue in pursuit of government action.

Similar hopes for pushing forward media development efforts are tied to the thorough assessment of Myanmar’s media environment published by IMS in June 2016, building on UNESCO’s Media Development Indicators. The analysis is emerging as an important advocacy tool by both Myanmar and international stakeholders in their pursuit of change.

In Nepal, sustained lobbying by IMS and partners in the Nepal International Media Partnership to improve the safety of journalists is having substantial effect. The organisation with the necessary legal powers to undertake investigations, the National Human Rights Commission, is establishing a national mechanism that addresses the safety of journalists and human rights defenders and the impunity for those who attack them.

While the mechanism is not yet functional, its implementation delayed by the devastating earthquake in April 2015, we have assisted the Commission in preparing the necessary policy frameworks to allow it to become operational.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban’s renewed hostility towards the media in 2015 posed a severe challenge to which the country’s nationwide journalist safety mechanism was quick to react. The IMS-supported Afghan Journalists’ Safety Committee (AJSC) evacuated more than 70 journalists, many of them women, during the Taliban’s takeover of the northern city of Kunduz in autumn 2015.

A central part of AJSC’s effectiveness stems from its community-based approach to setting up safety and emergency response mechanisms. Safety coordinators in eight provinces use risk analyses of local power structures in their communities to tailor safety and emergency strategies for journalists. Where Islamic State or the Taliban may be the main forces to reckon with in one province, it may be warlords or religious leaders in another. Some provinces have cooperative police forces, in others, journalists must find other avenues of support. In Nangarhar, AJSC has signed the first agreement with the local government to provide support to media in emergencies.

Following a Taliban attack on Tolo TV in January 2016 in Kabul which killed seven media workers, IMS and AJSC provided input to more than 10 media houses on in-house safety strategies for media staff and their families in work-related emergencies. Having­ safety packages in place is also a means of encourag­ing journalists to remain in Afghanistan.

In light of the dire situation for journalists, the government of Pakistan has shown encouraging signs of considering a legislative framework that protects the rights of media workers and enables speedy, conclusive trials on crimes against journalists. In spring 2016, after years of advocating the government for change, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, and a number of local media stakeholders provided the Pakistani government with input on a media workers protection law.

In a parallel track under the auspices of a Danish government-supported two year media development programme, some of Pakistan’s leading journalists, media managers, human rights activists and civil society members have formed an expert group to draft a national agenda that outlines for the first time ever a priority action plan on effecting broad-ranging media reforms.

In another unique show of solidarity, six press clubs across Pakistan representing over half of Pakistan’s community of 18,000 journalists have worked together to establish journalist safety resource hubs at their premises. Pakistan has thereby joined a small club of countries where civil society, with IMS technical support and advice, has developed local safety mechanisms that assist journalists in ­distress, which document attacks against journalists and advocate authorities at provincial and national levels to address the safety cases.

The work that goes on across organisations and countries globally to address the safety of journalists also continues under the auspices of the UNESCO-led UN Plan of Action for the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity. This global process enables those of us working on media safety to improve cooperation and sharing of best practices so crucial to turning the tide of attacks against media.

The silencing of critical voices through the means of despotism and armed conflict left the Middle East and North Africa behind as one of the most dangerous regions in the world to practice journalism. In an environment of killings, threats, imprisonment and stigmatisation, our partners continued to produce high quality news based on ethical and professional standards, illustrating the enormous potential of the region’s journalists, civil society representatives, and human rights defenders — future leaders, who despite their surroundings, work tirelessly to offset the seemingly never-ending spiral of calamities.

The region’s relative bright spot Tunisia battled spill-­over insecurity in its border areas, internal threats from jihadist groups, and a pushback against human rights and democratic reform, but media and civil society groups still forged ahead. Our partner, the Tunisian National Journalists’ Syndicate succeeded in securing provisions that protect journalists and allow them to shield their sources in a new counterterrorism bill. The Syndicate’s ability to intervene came as a direct result of our institutional support, which allowed them to free up resources to focus on substantive matters.

In the region’s gloomy setting for independence and innovation, Tunisia’s collective blog platform, Nawaat continued to provide a glimmer of hope, providing investigative reports and opening the space for a variety of opinions and debates. Our work with Nawaat enabled them to strengthen the quality and reach of its video productions by setting up and coaching dedicated editorial and technical teams. A testament to its broad reach, Nawaat’s YouTube channel was watched more than two million times over the course of 2015.

At the other end of the spectrum from Tunisia’s relatively constructive progress, were Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. In Egypt, the tightening of state security measures and the threat from violent ­extremists provided for a severely challenging environment for the country’s independent media and civil society. In the case of Yemen, civil war and a vast humanitarian crisis led to an almost complete shutdown of the few independent media available with exile initiatives established elsewhere in the region. One of them, Almashahid.net, was launched with the assistance of IMS. It seeks to counterbalance the propagandistic news coming out of media run by Houthi rebels and President Hadi, says the editorial team behind the site:

“No one has any interest in exposing the horrors of this war and meanwhile the Yemeni population continues to suffer and is misled by propaganda. We need to change this.”

Propaganda also filled the information spheres of Syria where the despotism of President Assad and the violence of extremist groups rose to unparalleled levels of brutality. The massive displacement of people had a major impact on the media, shifting journalists and their audiences into surrounding countries. With its unrivalled presence of correspondents in Syria and surrounding areas, our partners continued their coverage of the conflict and the consequences for the millions displaced as a result.

Our support to the award-winning Radio Rozana, allowed it to further its position as one of the most reliable media outlets covering Syria. It developed new relationships with other media and human rights partners such as the Violations Documentation Centre, the investigative journalism network ARIJ, and the website Syria Untold as well as international media houses which all benefitted from the radio’s unique network of 120 correspondents inside Syria. We also continued our work with the Syrian Network for Print Media, a group of newspapers seeking to reach similarly inaccessible audiences. The group succeeded in distributing around 30,000 newspapers weekly through more than 600 distribution points in Turkey and in northwestern Syria, successfully providing readers with a diversity of reliable news and information. In 2015, an independent monitoring of the papers’ content found significant improvements across the board with higher ethical standards, innovative angles and improved visual appearance. Sourietna, one of the member papers of the Network was awarded the Judge’s Special Recognition at the European Newspaper Awards.

In Iraq, the situation evolved from bad to worse, with the already highly fragile media environment under sustained attack from both violent extremists and formal instruments of repression. A counterbalance in the public narrative for those who are most at risk, we supported the women’s magazine, Zhin, an unlikely success story in Iraqi Kurdistan where entrenched gender inequality and violence against women are still widespread. The magazine produces stories ranging from the female fighters who battle against Islamic State to the latest trends in fashion.

“People are tired of only hearing about the miserable parts of women’s lives. They want to read about those who succeed,” says Ala Lattif, the editor of Zhin.

As threats against journalists continued to grow, so did our work to ensure their safety with legal protection provided through the Iraqi Network of Lawyers for Freedom of Expression, a voluntary network of lawyers defending journalists. The lawyers won 16 cases and settled another seven out of court in 2015.

Jordan also battled with its own internal tension and challenges, but remained comparatively stable. Our work there continued in the form of journalistic training of a network of female journalists from the journalism faculty of the local university in the conservative southern province of Ma’an. The network secured regular production of TV reports from Ma’an for the national independent broadcaster Roya TV, giving a public voice to local women.

“We tell women about their rights and duties,” says Hanifa who also covered campaigns of female candidates for parliament to inspire local women. “We plant the seeds of change through our programmes. We plant respect for women,” she says.

Planting the seeds of change is one of the hallmarks of our documentary film work in the region as well as in Iran, where we in 2015 began working with the public Tehran University. Following a film education study trip abroad, the university launched a course entitled “The Arne Bro Methodology” in a clear reference to the vice-director Arne Bro at the National Film School of Denmark. Supported productions in 2015 included the documentary “Speed Sisters” by the Palestinian SocDoc Studios, a remarkable film that follows four female race drivers in the West Bank. The film premiered at the Hot Docs film festival in Toronto in early 2015 and has a won a variety of international prizes.

Whether through documentary film or journalism, our media partners and the civil society and human rights groups we work with across the Middle East and North Africa, have persisted throughout 2015 and into 2016 to bring about real change, informing and expanding the space for expression and debate in some of the most dangerous environments in the world. Whether they are established legacy media, new, emerging media actors, or long-standing civil society groups they represent true pockets of media excellence in the repressive and conflict-affected contexts. Pockets of excellence that seek to transform societies, that seek peaceful development and progress, providing encouragement as they push back against repression.

From a geopolitical standpoint, the Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (ECCA) region remains as important as ever. As events in Ukraine have demonstrated, Russia continues to shape the trajectory of political and human rights developments across the former Soviet republics, bringing additional challenges for independent media and civil society in the region.

As the year unfolded, conditions for media in the region deteriorated sharply with journalists and activists struggling with mounting restrictions on the free flow of news and information — in addition to grave threats to their own lives.

In Azerbaijan, where our partners and we worked to promote press freedom until 2014, censorship and state control of the media has become deeply entrenched. Those who have dared to challenge government restrictions have done so at great personal risk – potentially facing imprisonment, assault and intimidation.

Over the years, our Azerbaijani journalist and human rights defender colleagues have been thrown in jail on fabricated charges, media outlets have been shut down and civil society groups have been forced into exile. Bringing about any form of change in Azerbaijan seemed near impossible. IMS was one of the few that chose to stay. At a time when Azerbaijan had one of the most restrictive media and civil society environments in the region, “Sport for Rights”, an international advocacy campaign for free expression, set sail.

The campaigning alongside a host of other initiatives by international and national actors, along with evidence-based advocacy, contributed to the release of a number of political prisoners, including prominent journalists and human rights defenders.

In Ukraine, we launched back in 2008 an ambitious media law reform initiative with support from ­Danida. The immediate reaction from some stakeholders was that we were aiming too high. Today, the legal framework for the media in Ukraine is among the most progressive in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. We are incredibly proud to see that years of perseverance and hard work by our partners has resulted in the passage of several groundbreaking pieces of media legislation, including laws on transparency of media ownership, access to information, and the privatisation of state owned print media. Work by IMS and our partners has been instrumental in terms of drafting another landmark piece of legislation – this time on the protection of whistleblowers. The new draft law is important because it raises awareness among public servants that whistleblowing does not constitute a form of betrayal and that they are provided with adequate legal protection in case of whistleblowing.

The reform process in Ukraine and the results of advocacy efforts in Azerbaijan over half a decade  serve as a collective reminder that develop­ment is often a gradual process. However, IMS’ long-term engagement and strategic patience in countries like these proves that we can make a meaningful contribution to fostering change during long-term transitions. Change that enables the media to provide people with independent news and information — news and information that acts a counterbalance in the information spheres that are so heavily dominated by propaganda, rumour, and fabricated stories designed to win the battles of information war that are waged subtly side by side with armed conflict.

In Central Asia, IMS has brought innovation to areas where the mainstream media fails to inform public discourse via robust, issue-led journalism. In Kyrgyzstan, we are excited to follow the rapid growth of Kloop, a long-time partner of ours. What began as a training institution for young people with a website has developed into a fully fledged multi-platform media organisation that produces content not only for web, but also radio, video and live online broadcasts. This has multiplied the skills within the organisation and significantly enhanced Kloop’s reputation as the most innovative media organisation in Kyrgyzstan.