ASEAN: Speak out against Brunei barbarism

April 10, 2019

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While the world is fixated on Brunei’s plan to fully implement Islamic Sharia law, which will see draconian punishments such as stoning to death for offences such as adultery and sodomy, as well as amputation for theft, ASEAN has remained silent on the matter. How disappointing.

The other nine Asean member states so far have not voiced any concerns about the enforcement of the law to its full extent, which blatantly violates human rights. Even the regional rights advocacy agency attached to the bloc – the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) – has yet to issue any statement on the harsh penalties. Its complete inaction can be interpreted as nothing but indifference.

Brunei is a tiny but rich Muslim-majority ASEAN state with a population of 430,000, which is ruled by Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Asia’s last absolute monarch who is also the country’s prime minister.

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Last Saturday, Bandar Seri Begawan shrugged off global concerns, saying it will go ahead with the enforcement of full Sharia law that it first announced plans for in 2014. The implementation has been divided into three stages, and the government is set to go ahead with the final phase tomorrow.

In an announcement issued last week, Brunei’s prime minister’s office stressed that Brunei – as a sovereign and fully independent nation – has the right to “its own rule of law”.

The Muslim-majority state, which has always claimed that it practises a dual legal system based on Sharia law and British Common Law, has said that the two systems will continue to run in parallel with one another.

Prior to 2014, Brunei generally used legal principles derived from Sharia law only for issues relating to family, marriage and inheritance, while British Common Law formed the basis of its laws that dealt with everything else.

Since the outcry over its plan began, non-Muslim Bruneians and members of the international community have come out to criticise the law, saying that some aspects of the punishments are overly harsh, if not outright primitive.

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Last week, Hollywood actor George Clooney called for a boycott of hotels around the world that are linked to the Sultan of Brunei. He urged the public to join him to take a stand against such a brutal law, which he sees as tantamount to the “murder of innocent citizens”. The hotels mentioned by Mr Clooney are located in the US, Britain, France and Italy.

Later, British pop legend Elton John joined forces with Mr. Clooney to support the boycott.

The failure to take a stance against Brunei’s new penal code by other ASEAN countries is understood to be based on the principle of “non-interference in the internal affairs of other states”, which is the core principle of the bloc. The AICHR may have been obliged to behave under the same principle, which means that the AICHR cannot act without the full agreement of all 10 ASEAN members.

But saying nothing about the matter sends the wrong signal that Asean endorses such barbarism. The AICHR’s silence in particular gives the impression that its existence is simply unnecessary.

 

Threats, Violence, Imprisonments Rise for Journalists

December 19, 2018

by John Berthelsen

https://www.asiasentinel.com/politics/journalists-threats-violence-imprisonments/

It has been a terrible year for journalists worldwide, with the number targeted for murder in reprisal for their reporting having nearly doubled in 2018 to 53 and at least 251 journalists are behind bars for their work, as authoritarian regimes increasingly use imprisonment to silence dissent, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists found.

Reporters Without Borders, the other major press organization, fond even higher totals of journalists murdered, with 63 killed along with 13 “citizen journalists” – bloggers – and five media assistants. The two organizations use different criteria to determine whether reporters were killed in connection with their work.

With US President Donald Trump venting an absolute torrent of charges and abuse against reporters for uncovering his lies, the practice of calling critical reporting “fake news” has spread across the planet to Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, Cameroon, Venezuela, Myanmar, Spain. Syria and many other countries to hide human rights abuses, corruption and out-and-out atrocities.

Trump has had a valuable ally in the Fox News Network, owned by Australian Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., which has sought to discredit the reporting of virtually all of the major media, do

In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte has sought to put the crusading website Rappler out of business with trumped-up charges of tax evasion. Twelve journalists have been murdered during the first two years of Duterte’s administration. He famously said shortly after his 2016 election that “Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch” when asked how he would address media killings in the country, one of the world’s worst for violence against reporters.

 

The pressure on journalists led Time Magazine to name “the guardians” the magazine’s Person of the Year, featuring those who have been targeted for their work, chief among them Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was said to have been murdered in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul in October by Saudi agents, apparently because of his critical reporting on the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.

Time Managing Editor Edward Felsenthal told CNN “the first move in the authoritarian playbook is the control of information, the suppression of people who try to get the facts out. And we saw that in a major way” in 2018. That led Time to spotlight the legions of journalists who have been targeted because of their work.

Amazingly, Fox News host Laura Ingraham scolded the magazine for choosing journalists who have been targeted, arrested or killed as their “Person of the Year,” calling the decision “transparently self-serving,” and saying there is “something transparently self-serving about journalists giving awards to other journalists.”

China, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia imprisoned more journalists than in 2017 as despots intensified their repression of local journalists, according to the CPJ, and Turkey remained the world’s worst jailer for the third year in a row, with at least 68 behind bars. Austin Tice, who was kidnapped in 2012 while freelancing for the Washingfton Post, remains arguably the longest-imprisoned.

Some 70 percent of journalists have been jailed on anti-state charges and 28 charged with “false news,” CPJ said, an increase from nine in 2016. Politics was the most dangerous beat for journalists, followed by human rights. The number of female journalists behind bars increased, with 33 imprisoned globally, including four in Saudi Arabia who wrote about women’s rights. An increase in the overall number of journalists jailed in China this year is the result in part of Beijing’s persecution of the Uighur ethnic minority.

“The terrible global assault on journalists that has intensified in the past few years shows no sign of abating,” said Joel Simon, CPJ’s executive director. “It is unacceptable that 251 journalists are in jail around the world just for covering the news.  The broader cost is being borne by all those who care about the flow of news and information. The tyrants who use imprisonment to impose censorship cannot be allowed to get away with it.”

Afghanistan, where extremists have stepped up deliberate attacks on journalists, was the deadliest country, with12 killed, the most of any year since the CPJ began keeping track and accounted for much of the increase in journalist murders, CPJ said. At least 53 journalists have died since Jan. 1, of which at least 34 were singled out for murder.  The number of reporters who died in combat or crossfire, however, fell to 11, the lowest since 2011, and deaths on other dangerous assignments, such as covering protests that turn violent (eight this year).

The total is up from 47 killed in all of last year, of which 18 were pinpointed for murder. A total of 50 were killed in 2016. The recent uptick in killings follows two years of decline, but comes as the jailing of journalists hits a sustained high, “adding up to a profound global crisis of press freedom.”

With President Trump’s refusal to believe CIA findings that Khashoggi was murdered at the hands of the Saudi Crown Prince, “Essentially, Trump signaled that countries that do enough business with the United States are free to murder journalists without consequence.”

In Syria, at least nine journalists were killed in each 2017 and 2018, compared with a high of 31 in 2012. In Yemen, three journalists were killed in 2018, and in Iraq, CPJ has not confirmed that any journalists were killed because of their work for the first time since 2012. Elsewhere in the Middle East, two Palestinian journalists were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers while covering protests in the Gaza strip. CPJ is investigating the killing of another 23 journalists in 2018, but so far has not been able to confirm that the motive was journalism in those cases.

The prison census accounts only for journalists in government custody and does not include those who have disappeared or are held captive by non-state actors. Cases including journalists held by Houthi rebels in Yemen and a Ukrainian journalist held by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine are classified as “missing” or “abducted.”

In the US, no journalists were in jail for their work on December 1, although in the past 18 months CPJ has documented or assisted with the cases of at least seven foreign journalists who were held in prolonged detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after fleeing threats in their home countries.

Murder of Journalists

May 4, 2018

Analysis

Murder of Journalists

http://www.ideaschannel.com

 

It’s worth reflecting that this week, the week that celebrates Press Freedom Day, 10 journalists were killed in two suicide bombings on a singe day in Kabul.

These killings bring the total number of journalist deaths in 2018 to 32, according to the Inrternational Federation of Journalists (IFJ). But overall numbers killed are not an accurate indication of what’s happening. For example, in 2017, there were fewer deaths of journalists – 82 – than in any other year in the last decade.

According to BBC News, this reduced number is because fewer news organizations are sending correspondents into danger zones after high profile kidnappings and beheadings of foreign journalists from 2012 onwards.

Yet the reasons why journalists are being killed today is perhaps more sinister. Most of those killed in 2017 were murdered for their investigations into politicial corruption and organized crime. According to the deputy executive director of the Committee to Protect Journaists, the countries of high risk to journalists include the Philippines, Russia and Mexico. None of these countries are officially at war.

According to the International Federation of Journalists, only 1 out of 10 killings of journalists is investigated.

In some cases, leaders even deliberately encourage a climate of violence against newsworkers. For example, Rodrigo Duterte, as the newy elected Philippine President, when he was asked about protectiing press freedom after a journalist was murdered in Malila, raged against reporters: “Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch.”

Not surprisingly, the International Federation of Journalists lists the Philippines as second in the world for the highest number of journalist and media staff deaths between 1990-2017. Iraq is at the top of the list, with Mexico, Pakistan and Russia ranking next highest after the Philippines.

And, at the elite levels, even the United Nations has backed away from its earlier support of Press Freedom Day by postponing this year’s panel discussion on international media freedom and fake news. This has sparked accusations of censorship. Also, the UN group involved in the controversy has admitted asking a participant to alter a video presentation that had singled out countries with heavy restrictions on news media.

Russia is another country in which the murder of journalists is common. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 58 journalists have been killed in Russia since 1992.

An American commentator raises questions about the most recent Russian attacks on journalists:

It appears that windows and balconies in Russia are very dangerous places. Polygraph.info reports that windows and balconies are where those disliked by the government frequently fall to their deaths, after which they are declared to have committed suicide or to have died accidentally.

According to Russian investigative journalist Orkhan Jemal, as quoted by Polygraph.info, “We’ve had cases in which suspects managed to jump out of completely sealed, barred wiindows, and,” he added sarcastically “even cases in which the suspects suffered multiple lethal injuries from falling out of first floor windows.”

There have been surprisingly many recent suspicious deaths in Russia involving falling from windows, listed by Pooygraph.iinfo.

The time-honored method of silencing journalists is to shoot them. Other common techniques include beatings, imprisonment, threats and exploding bombs.

The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that a record number of journalists – 262 – were imprisoned in 2017.

Every attack on every journalists is of personal concern to me. I’m a journalist by profession, and four of my journalist friends have been killed while on assignment. Three were murdered to silence them. and only one was killed in crossfire in a war zone – Iraq.

The father of the journalist killed in Iraq is also a friend, John Little. John was himself a former Vietnam War correspondent. He said in the dedication to his book, The Man Who Saw Too Much, “I am comforted by the certain knowledge that Jeremy (Little) was pursuing a noble calling, helping to shed light on a dark chapter of history. It is because the Jeremys of this world are prepared to risk their lives that we, in our safe world, are informed.”

The Washington Post has a new slogan on its home page – ‘Democracy dies in darkness‘. But the reverse is also true – that despots and demagogues thrive best when they silence journalists.

 

Fake news, Facebook and fanning emotions

March 30, 2018

by Nathaniel Tan@www.malaysiakini.com

COMMENT | Not so long ago, food trucks were a craze here in Kuala Lumpur. I enjoyed their novelty as much as the next guy. But at some point, it occurred to me… these aren’t new. We’ve had food trucks here almost as long as we’ve had trucks – lok lok, sugar cane, rojak and/or cendol, to name but a few.

Fake news is a little bit like that. It’s entered out lexicon in a way that suggests it was invented when Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. The truth is, that stuff goes back way further.

One 28-year-old example of fake news comes from when Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah was accused by UMNO of having Christian leanings, simply because a young woman in Sabah put traditional Kadazan headgear on his head that apparently had a cross somewhere in its design. Some say it cost him the 1990 general election.

Existing laws sufficient

One criticism of these new fake news bills, both here and in Singapore, is that there already exist plenty of laws to deal with the spreading of misinformation or lies.

This is entirely true. There is no way a country like Singapore would not already have plenty of ways to slap you six ways to Sunday for publishing something even remotely untrue.

The manner in which all these countries are now jumping on the fake news bandwagon and enacting unnecessary new legislation suggests that this action is not borne out of any genuine commitment to truth and responsible journalism, but merely a “fashionable” excuse to ramp up repression.

In Malaysia at least, the new laws are horribly worded and give an insane amount of power to the state to literally define what is true and what is not.

Giving this power to institutions that do not have the best reputation with regard to integrity and impartiality, to say the least, seems little more than an extension of the crackdown on legitimate dissent and satire.

The echo chamber

While fake news isn’t new, social media is – or relatively so, anyway. This basically means that now, like the AirAsia motto goes, everyone can publish fake news.

Apparently, nobody understands this new power better than Russian trolls – the people some say played a pivotal role in Trump’s election. Cambridge Analytica has also apparently taken credit for that particular victory, citing its success in using data harvested from Facebook to guide micro-targeted political advertisements.

Amid these claims, I think what we should be most wary of regarding Facebook and other social media networks is the echo chamber effect.

I speculate that the success of the alleged Russian voter influence machine was predicated largely on the willingness of individuals to share material that appealed to them, and which they did not care to verify.

As our social media network often consists of people with similar views to us, what happens is that a lot of material gets bounced around similar networks – material that is often created and shaped with the explicit purpose of generating certain types of sentiment.

Over time, people often prefer platforms like Facebook, which essentially provides them with more of what they want to hear – either from like-minded people, or from microtargeted ads based on “psychographic” profiling.

Thus, a chamber where the same types of sentiment echo continuously back and forth.

What’s in a forwarded WhatsApp message?

One of the more interesting, ironic things about the “fake news” craze is that it’s used by every side.

In America, fake news probably helped get Trump elected. Simultaneously, “fake news” is also Trump’s favourite battle cry against his critics – saying for example, that the reports of Russians meddling in the American elections is, in fact, fake news.

As the circle goes round and round, it’s important not to think that it is only things we don’t like that are “fake news,” and that all other information that concurs with our pre-existing sentiment and views is genuine.

I likely share a number of demographic traits with your average Malaysiakini reader, and I speculate that many of you have received or forwarded material that is, essentially, fake news.

The examples I keep coming back to are material with an anti-Malay or anti-Muslim bent.

There are a couple of “favourites” that keep showing up again and again over the years. I think there’s one talking about how great Japan is because they don’t have any Muslims there.

Then, in the wake of the Robert Kuok controversy recently, there was another round of pro-Chinese, anti-Malay content circulating around again.

It’s a little bit of an uphill struggle, dealing with older generations in particular perhaps, but we should all do our part to encourage moderation and to make it harder for those trying to play on old prejudices and manipulate our various echo chambers for less than sanguine reasons.

The importance of objectivity

Objectivity is not a particularly common trait among humans – not consistently anyway.It’s not easy to expect people to self-police, and be aware of when they are becoming the target of manipulation, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

Perhaps, just as we were expecting the impending demise of traditional journalism as a result of technological evolution, we are seeing that same evolution recreate a need for professional, objective and neutral, fact-based journalism.

If news organisations can, over time, develop a solid reputation for integrity and commitment to ethical journalism, I do hope and believe that over time, society will eventually self-correct and gravitate towards more reliable sources of information.

Of course, no change happens without sufficient pushing by people who care sufficiently. Let’s hope enough of us will answer that call.

 

Malaysia’s Liar in Chief Proposes a ‘Fake News’ Bill

March 28, 2018

By: John Berthelsen

The concept of “fake news” has suddenly gained currency because of the rise to the US Presidency of Donald Trump, who by actual count issued more than 2,100 verifiably false statements during his first year in office while branding every negative story about his Presidency “false news.  In fact, according to the fact-checking organization PoliFact, during his first year in office Trump’s public statements were wholly true only 5 percent of the time, fully true 11 percent of the time, half-true 15 percent, mostly false 22 percent, outright false, 32 percent and “pants on fire” 15 percent of the time.

That’s a Fake Statement, Mr. Najib. You should be charged when the Fake News Bill become law.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has run up  a pretty good record of his own, claiming for instance that he had never met the murdered Mongolian party girl Altantuya Shaariibuu who was killed by his bodyguards in 2006 despite credible evidence that he had, that he was innocent of all wrongdoing in the purchase of French submarines although he was cited as having been the recipient of bribes by French prosecutors, that he had been cleared of all charges in the enormous 1MDB scandal in which US$4.5 billion had disappeared, that the US$681 million that found its way into his private bank accounts was a gift from Saudi royalty, and many more.

” Jib, I did not teach you to lie”.

With national elections looming possibly as early as within days and with an increasingly unpopular government looking to limit free expression, the bill is regarded by opponents as yet another method of limiting criticism, particularly of the Prime Minister, Najib Razak.  It is aimed at quelling criticism on social media, about the last avenue left for an increasingly hemmed-in opposition.

In its inclusion of Malaysians and foreigners alike, even if they are outside of Malaysia, the bill is also aimed at critical news organizations like Sarawak Report, which has published dozens of deeply embarrassing and often incriminating stories about Malaysian crookedry, and Asia Sentinel, both of which have been barred from circulating in the country. Malaysian academic Din Merican, who affiliated with a university in Cambodia, was added to the list last week.

Defender of the Fake (not Faith)–Mr. Said Keruak

The fake news legislation is one spike in a long list of other attempts to neuter the Pakatan Harapan opposition headed by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, including a contorted redistricting that leaves some Barisan Nasional districts with as few as 4,000 voters while cramming up to 150,000 opposition adherents into others.  The government has used sedition, official secrets and public security laws to attempt to intimidate opposition members and leaders.

Among those protesting the fake news legislation are at least 13 good government organizations including the International Commission of Jurists, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, the Kuala Lumpur-based SUARAM, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the Media, the Organization of American States (OAS) Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information.

Tech giants including Facebook, Amazon, Google and others have expressed concern prior to the publication of the bill, which critics say could hurt mainstream organizations as well as the opposition, limiting access to wide amounts of industrial, business and other information as well as criticism.

“The bill is flawed in its design and will be open to abuse by the Malaysian government which maintains a poor track record in upholding freedom of expression,” said Sevan Doraisamy, SUARAM’s Executive Director, in a prepared release.

Emerlynne Gil, ICJ’s Senior International Legal Adviser added in the SUARAM release that, “The term ‘fake news’ is in itself problematic.  It is defined in an overbroad manner in the draft law, and therefore vulnerable to arbitrary interpretation and enforcement.”  Gil further said, “Given past experience in Malaysia, it is highly likely to be used to suppress legitimate criticism of the government on matters of opinion or where the facts are contested.”

The bill, according to the judicial organization, “makes no provision for exceptions or defenses such as honest mistake, parody, artistic merit, or public interest. The bill would allow up to 10 years’ imprisonment for publication of fake news.

“The penalties are wildly disproportionate”, said Gil. “Indeed, under international standards, imprisonment is never an appropriate penalty for such offences.”

The bill has been introduced during the final days of the sitting of Parliament, which is expected to be dissolved soon to make way for the election, leaving little time for deliberation or consultation.

“Allowing this bill to be passed would only serve as an affront to democratic values. It will be another strike on Malaysia’s already shoddy human rights record,” said Doriasamy. “Adopting a law that would unduly limit the right to freedom of opinion and expression is not the optimal way to counter disinformation and propaganda. The best way is to disseminate accurate information and to make such information accessible to everyone,” said Gil.

In addition to the prospect of 10 years imprisonment, offenders may be subject to a fine up to RM500,000 (US$127,681) if convicted of knowingly creating, offering, publishing, printing, distributing, circulating, or disseminating any ‘fake news’ or publication of ‘fake news.’

https://www.asiasentinel.com/politics/malaysia-najib-proposes-fake-news-bill/

Malaysia: This is what happens when UMNO loses the Battle of Ideas–Clamp down the Internet

March 7, 2018

https://www.themalaysianinsight.com/s/41329/

 

COMMENT: Does this UMNO Politician know the difference between right and wrong? If he does, he will not be a Najib Razak/M01’s horndog and Rosmah Mansor’s Nail Polisher. This observation applies to people like Paul Low and MCA, MIC and Gerakan Leaders. When the UMNO-BN government contemplates such an action, we know that it is desperate to curtail freedom of speech. It takes strength of character and moral courage as embodied in the person of an Anwar Ibrahim to stand up for your beliefs and speak the truth. –Din Merican

 

Najib Razak’s Horndog Salleh Said Keruak says the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission may be asked to monitor social media for people posting irresponsibly. – The Malaysian Insight file pic, March 6, 2018.

 

THE government will step in and restore order to the internet if bloggers and social media users fail to act responsibly, said Communications and Multimedia Minister Salleh Said Keruak.

“Don’t allow it to come to the stage where action needs to be taken against abusers of the internet and social media,” warned Salleh on his blog today.

He said the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission may be asked to monitor social media.

“After all, if you’re educated enough to use social media, then you should be educated enough to differentiate between right and wrong,” Salleh said.

He noted that bloggers and social media users had of late been acting recklessly in what they posted on the internet.

“This has probably intensified due to the upcoming general election where temperatures and sentiments are running high. We must not allow tempers to jeopardise the peace, harmony, and stability of Malaysia,” he said.

Salleh said that notwithstanding the laws controlling the abuse of social media such as the publishing of fake news, seditious and libellous postings, and so on, bloggers and social media users should be sensible and responsible enough to practice self-censorship.

“Why wait until the government needs to act or clamp down on the abuse of the internet? Malaysians know what’s socially acceptable and what’s offensive,” he said. – Bernama, March 6, 2018.