AS (2013) CR 08
Addendum 1

2013 ORDINARY SESSION

________________________

(First part)

REPORT

Eighth Sitting

Thursday 24 January 2013 at 3.30 p.m.

ADDENDUM 1

The state of media freedom in Europe

      The following texts were submitted for inclusion in the official report by members who were present in the Chamber but were prevented by lack of time from delivering it.

Mr V. HOVHANNISYAN (Armenia) — I would like to emphasise the specific time period in which this important report was made. The world economic crisis has set new challenges before our States and societies. The changes taking place in various fields of the economy affect seriously some very important spheres of our public life. This report examines a complicated issue – freedom of the press. During economic crisis, when societies face severe problems, the issue of a free press becomes much more sensitive and painful.

The mechanisms of controlling the media are becoming more sophisticated with the development of new information technologies. In smaller countries, during a hard economic period, it is quite easy to build a media field that seems free on the outside, though in reality it might be a solid structure of a completely controlled media system.

In small economically unstable countries, the mechanisms for building independent media most often are too weak. Newspapers, information websites and even economically more powerful television companies cannot afford to be independent. The circulation and the publicity market are too limited. This is a direct way towards a controlled media. When the monthly income of a journalist does not exceed $500, it is not easy to resist the temptation.

While examining the situation, traditional parameters can mislead us. I will not mention much more refined technologies, the mechanisms that lead to a controlled media.

There should be zero tolerance to violence in regard to journalists. The cases of threats, physical violence and even murders often reported to have taken place in European countries must be strictly condemned, which is not always done adequately. The voting on the report of Mr Strasser yesterday showed that in the case of some countries we are more tolerant, which is disappointing. And how do we react when a complete media field is sometimes murdered even without a single shot?

We must also be very careful with the legislation that touches the media, as sometimes some quite positive steps may bring unexpected results. In Armenia, the decriminalisation of libel two years ago was considered a step forward but we started to face a new reality. It has become possible to pressure media units through large fines imposed by court.

I cannot avoid mentioning another aspect of the issue – the media using its resources to spread a biased information, quite often slander and abuse, about political or public figures, mainly towards political opponents. There is no moral ban. This is a vicious circle and very difficult to break. Another important aspect is that of self-censorship. Many journalists and even whole media units work under a self-censored control. This is a process that is very hard to reverse.

I once again emphasise the importance of this kind of report. The issues relating to a free press and civil society must be kept under our permanent attention.

Mr ARIEV (Ukraine) — The media report covers many important journalism topics in Europe. I congratulate Mr Johansson on his brilliant report. As a professional journalist, I understand all the problems described very well. Let me focus your attention on Ukrainian media problems.

There are a lot of difficulties in this field. The Ukrainian media and journalists have been slowly moving towards catastrophe. This fact was fixed in the Ukrainian Institute of Mass Information’s last report for 2012. Last year, the number of journalists' rights violations in Ukraine reached its maximum in the past 10 years. Last year, 329 violations were recorded – 3.5 times more than the previous year. The violence peak – 190 cases in a year – was registered in 2004, the year of the presidential elections, and this was one of the reasons for the Orange Revolution.

The 2012 election campaign in Ukraine was characterised by the constant growth of journalists’ rights violations. Thus, from July until October 2012, the experts of the Institute of Mass Information recorded 185 cases of violations, 115 of them directly associated with the parliamentary elections and/or done by parliamentary candidates.

The main groups of violations concerned journalists involved in investigations connected with the bribing of voters. Methods of indirect pressure were also applied to journalists and the media. A striking example was a search of Kharkiv’s office of the news web-site “Glavnoe” that was carried out without the journalists’ presence after they had been pushed outside the office. Journalists were not allowed to enter or were chased from some polling stations or constituency commissions during the election in October 2012. Many local media in the regions have been under constant pressure exercised by local authorities.

One fact was of great importance. It happened during the election campaign when the Party of Regions, the ruling party in Ukraine, attempted to make some changes in the criminal code in order to criminalise defamation. After the protest campaign, the ruling majority denied its intention to implement that initiative, but some of its members promised to come back to the project later.

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine was allowed to conduct criminal prosecutions against all journalists who published investigative reports on private lives. This decision was passed four days ago, on 20 January. The definition of “private life” could be used for financial disclosures, villas, relatives holding positions and so on. The penalty for violation is imprisonment of up to five years. At the same time, the Constitutional Court ignored a recent recommendation of the European Court of Human Rights to define limitations of authorities’ private lives.

All these signals are very disturbing. The state of media freedom in Ukraine as well as in the other post-Soviet countries must be under the constant surveillance of the Council of Europe. I call on you to continue the monitoring and to respond immediately to all attempts to limit media freedom in the region.