12/06/2012: GREECE – SEEMO CONDEMNS LATEST ATTACK AGAINST A JOURNALIST IN GREECE

Vienna, 12/06/2012

Greek journalist Lambros Panayiotou, who worked for Star Channel TV, on May 29, 2012 witnessed six municipal policemen arresting a Somali immigrant. He filmed the scene and was allegedly hit and insulted by one of the municipal policemen who tried to snatch the mobile phone Panayiotou was using as a camera. Panayiotou identified himself as a journalist.

The Vienna-based South East Europe Media organization (SEEMO), an affiliate of the International Press Institute (IPI), condemns this latest attack against free media in Greece. As a professional reporter, Lambros Panayiotou had the right to film in a public place.

After the incident, both the reporter and the municipal policeman went to the police and pressed charges against each other – the journalist over being attacked and the policeman over supposedly not being able to carry out his work.

“It seems to me that municipal police should know that reporters have the right to film their actions in public places,” said SEEMO Secretary General Oliver Vujovic. “Neither reporters nor citizens should be beaten by the municipal police for using their camera. I hope that the perpetrator of this attack is brought to justice and that media work goes unhindered in the streets of Greek cities.”

Vienna, 18/06/2012

On June 17, as Greeks went to the polls for the second time in six weeks, two hand grenades were found in the courtyard of the Neo Faliro building in southern Athens housing the Kathimerini SA media group, which includes Skai television and radio. The first grenade was spotted by an employee while the second one was discovered thanks to an anonymous phone call. Neither grenade exploded.

Representatives of all mainstream political parties in Greece condemned the incident. The Vienna-based South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), an affiliate of the International Press Institute (IPI), has observed a rise in physical attacks against media outlets and journalists in Greece.

SEEMO Secretary General Oliver Vujovic said: “I hope that the new government, once formed, guarantees media freedom and brings to justice all those responsible for the attacks and threats against journalists.”

Two weeks before the latest elections, on June 4, 2012, four Molotov cocktails were launched at the headquarters of the Kathimerini SA media group. Nobody was injured. One month earlier, on May 9 2012, Skai TV and radio presenter Konstantinos Bogdanos was attacked by several individuals in the Athens neighborhood of Exarchia. According to the Athens-based dailyKathimerini, the journalist said that the attackers were waiting for him. “I can say with absolute certainty that they knew I was a journalist. As they were kicking me, they made reference to Skai.”

In separate media-related developments, several journalists have been attacked in the past weeks, especially those covering anti-government rallies or attacks against immigrants. On June 6, 2012, an Israeli journalist with the Jerusalem Post, Gil Shefler, was attacked after trying to film a mob of armed, masked men beating a group of refugees and homeless people outside the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. He was treated at hospital for injuries to his head and chest.

On May 29, 2012, Greek journalist Lambros Panayiotou, who worked for Star Channel TV, witnessed six municipal policemen arresting a Somali immigrant in Athens. He filmed the scene and was allegedly hit and insulted by one of the municipal policemen who tried to snatch the mobile phone Panayiotou was using as a camera. Panayiotou identified himself as a journalist.

On April 5, 2012, Mario Lolos, the president of the Greek Photojournalists’ Union, was covering an anti-government rally on Syntagma Square, downtown Athens, when a policeman allegedly hit him several times with a baton. Lolos suffered serious head injuries and underwent surgery for a cranial fracture at Hygeia hospital.

“I am very concerned about the media situation in Greece,” said Vujovic. “Both journalists and media outlets are being attacked. I call on politicians and the police to guarantee the safety of all media, to allow them to function freely, and to bring all the aggressors of journalists to justice.”

Vujovic added: “SEEMO will be monitoring media developments in Greece and, if necessary, will send a delegation to Athens to address all the attacks against journalists in the past year.”

Vienna, 20/06/2012

The International Press Institute (IPI) today welcomed the release of another journalist from prison in Turkey and urged the country to free the rest of the nearly 100 journalists it currently holds behind bars, the vast majority of whom have been convicted of no crime.

A court in Istanbul late yesterday afternoon ordered the release of Muyesser Yildiz – who had been imprisoned for 16 months – following the resumption of proceedings in the “Oda TV trial” after a three-month pause.

The case is named for a news website that has been fiercely critical of the government. Prosecutors say the website was at the centre of a purported effort to use the media to advance the alleged “Ergenekon” plot to use terrorism to sow chaos that would lead elements of the military and security services to stage a coup against Turkey’s current Justice and Development Party (AKP)-led government.

The head of IPI’s Turkish National Committee, Milliyet columnist Kadri Gursel, said: “The release of Muyesser Ugur Yildiz yesterday following the latest hearing in the Oda TV case is a positive, but small, step. Positive, because she was kept most of the time during her 16 months in custody in conditions of isolation, despite her poor health. It’s a small step, however, because there are other journalists who still remain in custody in the same case. This case, where the accused have effectively been questioned and put on trial for their journalistic activities, has put a dark stain on the reputation of the Turkish justice system, which has criminalized journalism.”

Yildiz was released from the Silivri prison outside Istanbul last night and joins five co-defendants in the case who are currently free pending trial. IPI World Press Freedom Hero Nedim Sener, along with journalists Ahmet Sik, Sait Cakir and Coskun Musluk, was released in March, while Dogan Yurdakul was freed in late February for health reasons. Four other journalists and authors in the case – Soner Yalcin, Yalcin Kucuk, Baris Pehlivan and Baris Terkoglu – remained behind bars yesterday.

The defendants were all taken into custody in early March 2011. Although their trial began in November, it has been punctuated by numerous delays. Observers said yesterday that no end appeared in sight given that a government agency still has not given the court its report on a key piece of evidence – an assessment requested some five months ago.

The government contends that documents found on computers following a February 2011 raid of Oda TV’s offices provide evidence of the alleged plot, and they have centred their case on those documents, as well as on news reports and writings by the defendants and on snippets of wiretapped telephone conversations. The defendants allege that the documents were fabricated and placed on the computers by hackers. They have submitted experts’ conclusions supporting that argument, but the court asked the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) to conduct an independent analysis. As of yesterday, the court still had not received that report.

Some of the defendants’ supporters, citing alleged weaknesses in the prosecution’s case, accused authorities of intentionally withholding the report in order to “punish” the defendants by delaying the trial’s conclusion. They claimed there was little, if any, evidence linking all of the defendants other than past criticism of the Fethullah Gulen religious movement.

The Gulen movement is named for its leader, a Turkish author, educator and Muslim scholar who fled the country in 1999 for Pennsylvania shortly before he was accused of attempting to overthrow the government. The group was at one time a base of support for current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but a rift has reportedly developed between the movement and the AKP.

Critics say the movement’s members occupy high positions in Turkey’s judiciary and some accuse it of being the “new deep state”, a reference to the traditional label identifying an alleged group of influential anti-democratic forces within the government purportedly made up of high-level elements within security and intelligence services, the military and the judiciary.

The South and East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) supports this statement.

Vienna, 20/06/2012

The International Press Institute (IPI) and its affiliate, the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), today expressed concern at apparent attempts by members of Slovakia’s ruling SMER-SD party to dismiss the head of the public service Radio and Television of Slovakia (RTVS).

On June 12, the Slovak TASR news agency reported that the chair of the Slovakian Parliamentary Committee for Culture and Media (CCM), Dušan Jarjabek, tabled a proposal to dismiss RTVS Director General Miloslava Zemková.

Today, the speaker of Parliament Pavol Paska (SMER-SD) told journalist he was determined to include the proposal to dismiss Zemková on the agenda of the third parliamentary session that started today, as soon as he received the approved resolution for Zemková’s dismissal from the Parliamentary Committee for Culture and Media.

The main reason for Zemková’s dismissal, according to the proposal, is her announcement of a business tender to rent out premises owned by RTVS without informing the RTVS Council, the broadcaster’s governing body. Dušan Jarjabek, MP of the ruling Smer political party, argued that this was in breach of the Act on Radio and Television Slovakia (RTVS), as the tender was announced on April 3 and the RTVS Council only found out later.

However, IPI’s sources in Slovakia said the RTVS Act does not regulate the obligation of the Director General to inform the RTVS Council in advance on announced business tenders.

Furthermore, information about the announced public tender regarding the media complex premises lease was reportedly brought to the attention of the Council in its April session. During that session, the Council adopted the Resolution No. 40/2012, which states that the “RTVS Council takes into consideration the information about the public tender announcement regarding a building/media complex premises lease for the purposes of fulfilment of the RTVS tasks stipulated by the Act No. 532/2010 Coll. on Radio and Television Slovakia and assigns M. Kollár and M. Jesenka as RTVS Council deputies for Selection Committee with an observer status.”

Commenting on developments at RTVS, IPI Executive Board Vice-Chair Pavol Mudry said he felt “sorry that once again political interests may be the real reason behind key policy decisions that affect Slovakia’s public radio and television.”

Mudry added that such suspicions arose as a consequence of the fact that “the official reason provided for the change is really unclear and was not even approved by the RTVS control body.”

In a June 15 letter addressed to Zemková, the director general of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Ingrid Deltenre, said it was “alarming “to hear that Zemková had been subjected to “enormous political and media pressure” to resign as director general of RTVS.

“Such pressure is totally contrary to the principle that true public service broadcasters must be independent of political influence,” Deltenre said in her letter. “It also appears quite clear that those attempting to remove you are not even playing by the rules.”

Denník SME, one of Slovakia’s most widely-read mainstream broadsheets, reported that Zemková sought an interim judgment at a district court to block her dismissal. Zemková also reportedly said that she had requested three independent legal opinions, all of which confirmed that she had not legally erred.

In an interview with Denník SME, she said that there must be some other reason for her firing since the “way and speed with which the dismissal is taking place indicates as much”.

“It is vital that strong mechanisms be in place to ensure the independence of public service broadcasters from political parties,” IPI Deputy Director Anthony Mills said. “The widespread perception that representatives of the government or the opposition are seeking to influence the decision-making structure of the public service broadcaster compromises the credibility of one of the most important sources of information in a democratic country, with grave consequences for people’s ability to access independent information.”

The IPI Vienna Declaration on Public Broadcasting, adopted by the participants of the IPI European Media Symposium, “From State-Controlled Broadcasting to Public Broadcasting,” held in Vienna, Austria, in September 1993, called for “constitutional and statutory measures to remove the governing and managing bodies of public broadcasters from everyday politics”. It continues: “Leading positions in the media should be open to men and women of achievement, regardless of their political affiliations. Only such openness can create an environment of diversity and high quality.”

The South and East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) supports this statement.

Vienna, 21/06/2012

One year after promulgating the latest version of Croatia’s public service broadcasting law, passed in December 2010, the Croatian Radio Television Law is about to be amended again. It is expected that the latest draft proposal, finalized in June 2012, will be discussed in the country’s parliament by July 2012. Although the December 2010 law was formulated in such a way as to guarantee the political independence of the public broadcaster, it did not meet those expectations. Management problems, political meddling and nepotism prevailed. High profile scandals and suspensions of journalists were aired on TV.

The new proposed amendments, however, would give the parliament the upper hand in choosing and appointing the director general, as well as the programming council and monitoring committee members.

The Vienna-based South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), an affiliate of the International Press Institute (IPI), believes that the latest amendments would allow for political interference in the public broadcaster’s management. In SEEMO’s view, this legal solution does not comply with international standards of public broadcasting.

On 19 January 2012, SEEMO reported on the problems facing Croatian Radio Television (HRT) and urged the newly installed government to create a legal and institutional environment for the proper functioning of the public broadcaster. In fact, on 16 January 2012, the newly installed Minister of Culture Andrea Zlatar met with journalists, editors, representatives of NGOs and different professional organisations in order to address the problems related to HRT. The meeting ended with a joint appeal calling, among other things, for an end to political meddling, censorship and nepotism, as well as for transparency, a clear strategy and respect for professional standards.

Several months passed after that meeting before the situation deteriorated: new scandals erupted; high-profile suspensions followed and some members of the HRT governing bodies have resigned.

The June 2012 draft amendments to the Croatian Radio Television Law stipulate that the parliament will be in charge of all the bodies governing and overseeing the Croatian television: the Programme Council, the Director General and the Monitoring Committee. HRT director general and members of the above mentioned bodies will be chosen and appointed by the Parliament. However, the 11-member Programme Council will also count with two members representing the HRT journalists. SEEMO is concerned that these proposed legal solutions would institutionalise political interference.

According to the Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND), it has apparently been impossible to change the current management without changing the law. However, HND president Zdenko Duka pointed out that journalists should have a greater say in the choice of HRT editor-in-chief. It is foreseen that journalists will have a non-binding consultative role in the choice of HRT editor in chief.

“I do understand that HRT needs urgent changes. However, I am concerned that the proposed legal solutions will not create the necessary framework for establishing an independent public broadcaster. The government should analyse the best international practices and consult with international media experts and specialised organisations in order to avoid future mistakes,” said SEEMO Secretary General Oliver Vujovic.

Vienna, 22/06/2012

Andrzej Poczobut, Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza correspondent in Belarus, and Polish minority activist there, was arrested on Thursday in the town of Grodno, Belarus.

At 4 pm police searched Andrzej’s apartment and took the journalist to prosecutor’s office. Andrzej was interrogated and arrested, Igor Bancer, his colleague from the Polish Union in Belarus, the organization banned by the Lukashenko regime, told Gazeta Wyborcza.

Presumably, Poczobut was again charged for allegedly insulting president Alexander Lukashenko in articles published on Belarusian websites. The case against Poczobut is again run by the same state prosecutor in Grodno: Viktor Nikolaievich Morozow.

This time they didn’t charge him for articles in Gazeta Wyborcza, but only on the independent websites Bieloruski partizan and Karta ’97 – to keep the case quieter – says Bancer.

Last July Andrzej Poczobut, after 3 months in jail, was given a suspended sentence of three years in jail for similar alleged “offenses”. His friends are worried that the suspension may be lifted.

The last time that Poczobut was arrested and tried, Gazeta Wyborcza ran a “countdown” of his hardships each day on the front page. The newspaper covered the trial with reports from its Moscow correspondent and from a correspondent from a radio station associated with Gazeta Wyborcza’s publisher.

A suspended sentence means that he may be returned to jail at any time at the full discretion of Lukashenko’s regime if authorities decide that he has again “broken the law” while performing his journalistic work. It effectively constitutes a form of intimidation and an attempt to force Poczobut and Gazeta Wyborcza to engage in self-censorship.

Following his arrest in April 2011, Amnesty International recognized Poczobut as a prisoner of conscience, and the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton and the president of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, had strongly demanded Poczobut’s immediate release.

Pressure against Lukashenko regime’s violations of press freedom and democracy – which included jailing political opponents and silencing journalists – has mounted widely in Europe.

After his former sentence, Poczobut, who is married and the father of an 11-year-old daughter and a 16-month-old son, said he would not cow to judicial blackmail. He indicated that he had no plans to stop writing on Belarus authorities’ violations of human rights and the country’s harsh economic crisis.

He noted that when the state prosecutor’s investigation against him started, he did not for a moment stop his truthful reporting on developments in Belarus.

The South and East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) supports this statement.

Vienna, 25/06/2012

The car belonging to Zorica Radulovic, a journalist with the Belgrade-based daily Kurir, was set ablaze several minutes after she had parked it and walked away.

The incident occurred around 11 pm on Friday, 22 June 2012, in front of her apartment building in Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Serbia. According to Kurir, it appears that the perpetrators followed Radulovic during the day and waited until she left the car to set it on fire. The daily states that the arsonists arrived by car, walked out, poured petrol and lit the flame.

The Vienna-based South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), an affiliate of the International Press Institute (IPI), condemns the destruction of the journalist’s car.

“I call on the police to investigate this incident and bring all the perpetrators to justice. I also call on the authorities to protect journalists and create an environment where media professionals can work freely and safely,” said SEEMO Secretary General Oliver Vujovic.

Vienna, 27/06/2012

The Vienna-based South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), an affiliate of the International Press Institute (IPI), deplores the June 22, 2012 decision of the Kosovo parliament to keep media-unfriendly articles in the Criminal Code. It was the second time in two months that the parliament had voted in favour of the articles, which hold journalists criminally liable if they do not reveal their sources. Deputies did not pay attention to local and international recommendations regarding decriminalisation of libel.

In April 2012, the parliament approved the Criminal Code, including the problematic articles 37 and 38 dealing with media. However, Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga returned it to the parliament for review. She based her decision on the fact that Articles 37 and 38 of the Criminal Code were “in complete contradiction with Article 40 and Article 42 of the Constitution”, which regulate freedom of expression and freedom of the media as well as “with Article 22, item 2 of the Constitution”, which requires implementation of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and its Protocols, according to the official explanation posted on the president’s website.

The parliament voted for the second time in favor of articles 37 and 38 in the Criminal Code, in spite of the recommendations of the Association of Professional Journalists of Kosovo, and the opinions of Kosovo President Jahjaga, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice, Hajredin Kuci who warned that he would resign should the controversial articles be approved. After the voting results were known, he resigned.

In SEEMO’s view, keeping these controversial articles appears to benefit those accused of bribery and illicit activities. As one daily illustrated, a journalist could end up in prison if he or she does not reveal a source that has denounced irregularities or bribes.

”I can freely say that I am ashamed by this decision of the Kosovo Parliament. I would like to emphasise that as Prime Minister of the country, at no time will I concur with laws and a code which inspire fear in the free press, and which could be exploited by someone to undermine freedom of speech and thought,” declared Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, according to the official website of the Kosovo Government.

In fact, following the vote, the Kosovo government approved the Draft Law on amending and supplementing the Criminal Code but excluded articles 37, 38 and 39. According to SEEMO sources, the government appears to be searching for legal mechanisms that would enable the lawmakers to reconsider their decision.

“Kosovo politicians claim that joining the European Union is their objective,” said SEEMO Secretary General Oliver Vujovic. “In order to become a member of the EU, Kosovo has to approve and respect European laws and adopt international standards in all areas, including the media. Let us not forget that a free media is an essential element of democracy. I hope that in the near future Kosovo deputies will reconsider their decision regarding the amendments and support the free press in Kosovo.”

Vienna, 28/06/2012

The Vienna-based South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), an affiliate of the International Press Institute (IPI), expresses concern at calls by individuals and some civil society organizations in Serbia to eliminate the license fee for the public broadcaster, Serbian Radio-Television (RTS). Advocates of the elimination of license fees quote the electoral promise of the recently elected president Tomislav Nikolic.

SEEMO considers that the elimination of license fees would open the door to political interference in the operation and programming of the public broadcaster: international experience has demonstrated that other sources of financing, as for example through the state budget or the parliament, cannot guarantee editorial independence. SEEMO recalls that public broadcaster is not a state or a party broadcaster.

“License fees are a guarantee that public broadcaster can remain independent, “said Oliver Vujovic, SEEMO Secretary General. “International experience shows that public broadcasters that depend on the parliament for their budget have problems serving the public. They have to comply with political demands,” he added.

“If the public is not satisfied with the quality of programming, there are other channels to demand better broadcasting, “said Oliver Vujovic

Vienna, 02/07/2012

The Vienna-based South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), an affiliate of the International Press Institute (IPI), has been monitoring developments related to Romanian public television (TVR) and has observed a growing politicisation of the management of the public service broadcaster, which has affected journalistic quality and audience share, and has contributed to economic problems.

On June, 26, 2012, deputies from the two chambers of the Romanian parliament elected new members of TVR’s Board of Managers. Of a total of 452 deputies, only 240 were present. Seven out of 13 board members were re-elected and a director general will be chosen from among them. Although the Board of Managers has a four-year mandate, since 1995 only one director general has completed the mandate. According to a 1994 law regulating public broadcasting, eight members of the Board must be chosen by parliament, one by the president, one by the government, two by employees, and one must represent a national minority.

Technically, the TVR management should not change when the government or distribution of party seats in parliament are reshuffled, but in practice it does. As a Bucharest-based media expert pointed out, pluralism is understood as party representation rather than the pluralism of views.

The latest Board operated for only two years. In 2010 the parliament voted a new Board, and as soon as the government of Prime Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu was unseated in a no-confidence vote in April 2012, the new parliamentary majority called for new elections of board members.

Political interference in managing the public broadcaster has had diverse consequences:

Between 2004 and 2008, TVR registered a 73 per cent decline in total audience, according to a study by Cristian Ghinea and Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, prepared for the Mediadem project. Its current audience share is estimated at 7 per cent.

Credibility is another challenge: One need only recall the January 2012 antigovernment demonstrations, when over 2,500 demonstrators marched to the public television offices. TVR was accused of biased coverage of the rallies and a failure to cover them as extensively as other channels did. TVR responded with a public statement saying that TV was an institution of “national security concern”, according to the Nine O’Clock web portal.

TVR’s management of human resources has contributed to overstaffing. According to SEEMO sources, different political parties have employed their associates and members. TVR employs over 3,300 people.

In recent years, mismanagement has contributed to accruing debt. By 2012, according to information from the Ministry of Culture, TVR has accumulated a debt of 117, 6 million Euros.

In May 2012, tax authorities froze TVR’s accounts but later unfroze them for a period of six months. TVR’s income comes from license fees, advertising, and from the state budget.

Further, TVR has witnessed different scandals. The latest occurred in June 2012. The police is currently investigating a contract through which TVR allegedly ceded to a private television station some of the rights to broadcast EURO 2012 games. “The Bucharest Municipal Police has announced that it is conducting an investigation into the manner in which TVR directly attributed to DOLCE TV the rights to broadcast European Football Championship EURO 2012 games,” Nine O’ Clock reported.

In 2004, there was an attempt to change the law regulating the public broadcaster, but the initiative failed. The current law, dating back to 1994, does not comply with all the recommendations of the Council of Europe. Yet, it is not the law but its interpretation that is the problem, according to a Bucharest-based media expert.

SEEMO recalls that in most transition countries the process of establishing independent broadcasters has been slow. Distinguishing between public and party interests has been particularly challenging.

As a first step towards strengthening public trust and credibility in TVR, SEEMO calls on the government of Romania and the parliament to find a mechanism to stop political interference in the running of TVR.

“The upcoming parliamentary elections are a good opportunity for the politicians to establish solid grounds – legal and practical – for TVR to function as a true public broadcaster,” said Oliver Vujovic, SEEMO Secretary General.