3-05-2021, 18:58 Category: English, News
IWPR: The pandemic and lockdown have made people spend more time online. Based on this, has Covid-19 influenced the level of internet freedom of speech in Central Asia?
Inga Sikorskaya: The period of the pandemic has become one of the gloomiest for freedom of speech in Central Asia. The authorities have responded with strict restrictive measures that suppressed freedom of speech and the press and increased the risks of threats and attacks against journalists and bloggers, especially those who wrote about coronavirus.
On the one hand, we became dependent on digital technologies. On the other, many measures affected internet freedom as it became the main platform for sharing information during social isolation.
Hundreds of Kyrgyz protest against a draft law they say will hit press and internet freedoms with a man holding up a portrait of MP, the bill initiator Gulshat Asylbayeva, Bishkek, June 29, 2020. © Danil Usmanov/AFP via Getty Images
The authorities silenced journalists and refused to accredit media outlets when they covered coronavirus during the lockdown. In Kyrgyzstan, in March-April 2020 the authorities forced bloggers to apologise for criticism that the government had responded poorly to the pandemic.
In Uzbekistan in July 2020, a security agency supervisor forced the administrator of the Troll.uz Telegram channel to delete a post about corruption during the pandemic. In another case, unknown people called bloggers and reminded them of their criminal liability for "spreading panic” in posts about coronavirus.
The level of hate speech in the media and on the internet has increased slightly during social isolation because of the increase in comments from people who shifted to the online sphere.
The situation increased the growth of xenophobia and Islamophobia. According to the results of our last survey on the influence of Covid-19 on discrimination, the main targets of hate attacks online in Kyrgyzstan were Muslim pilgrims who returned from hajj just before lockdown. Some users not only accused them of spreading coronavirus, but also urged other people to punish them.
Another target group among hate distributors were ethnic Chinese, the main target of media xenophobia in Kazakstan. In Uzbekistan, there was online hate speech against migrant workers who returned due to the pandemic.
In fact, the dynamics remain the same as in previous years. The only change is in the amount of recorded hate speech against various social groups and the political context that affected narratives of intolerance in the public space.
For example, in Kyrgyzstan – which experienced a disputed parliamentary election, an extraordinary presidential election, a referendum and political shock - hate speech spread on the internet much faster than in quieter neighbouring countries.
Most of the methods that are used to regulate the internet in Central Asia are authoritative and promote censorship. This trend can be seen in other states that experience digital authoritarianism. Instruments are used to strengthen social and political control and to suppress civil liberties. Despite the fact that digital society does suffer from fakes, the implementation of technologies related to online control and regulation requires guaranteed personal data confidentiality and the rule of law. It is difficult to assume that the governments of Central Asian countries will be willing to do this.
Therefore, the problem of fake accounts is best solved by cooperating with technology companies, digital giants such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter. These companies are already actively involved in this issue, developing new algorithms, rules, promoting openness, transparency and their own regulatory mechanisms [alongside] freedom of expression.
Recent trends show a steady decline in internet freedom for several years in a row. There are three main challenges that will further threaten the freedom and development of journalism in Central Asia.
Firstly, this is an increase in the level of online threats, which continue in the offline environment. During the election campaigns of 2020 and 2021 in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakstan, journalists and Internet activists faced an increase in bullying, attacks and seizure of equipment while covering political processes live on the internet.
Therefore, more attention needs to be paid to the digital and physical security of media workers and all fighters for the freedom of expression.
Secondly, there are disinformation campaigns organised on the internet which often aim to entrap the media or active users. This is directly related to a digital tribalism trend. This is when discussion group members or trolls evaluate information not on the basis of compliance with generally accepted standards of evidence or common understanding, but on the basis of whether it supports the values and goals of a given digital tribe and whether this information is confirmed by their leaders.
The third challenge is the continued use of hate speech on social media platforms and under articles by online news agencies. Most of the documented incidents fall under the umbrella of freedom of expression and, if necessary, are regulated by the development of correct polemics, education and social disapproval.
However, there is a danger that the dissemination of hateful content could provoke outbreaks of offline violence against minorities and social groups. Therefore, the media community must act carefully here, with an understanding of the flexible structure of hate speech so as not to cause a baseless attack on freedom of expression.
The pandemic has changed not only attitudes but also technologies. Censorship will grow through the expansion of technology and the export of digital authoritarianism in Central Asia's big neighbours, Russia and China. The surveillance and control of internet freedom advocates will grow. This challenge to democratic principles and human rights shows that we are moving in the opposite direction. Only new, alternative strategies can win.
These can be joint programmes of digital companies, media, civil society and governments, which must agree on a basic set of rules and values, taking into account the importance of preserving freedom of expression for the development of an open and inclusive society.
Inga Sikorskaya, a former senior IWPR editor for Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, now heads the School of Peacemaking and Media Technologies research organisation. She warns that government responses to freedom of speech amid the crisis heralds a worrying trend for future attempts to control online expression.
Timur Toktonaliev is IWPR’s Central Asia editor.
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Within the current context, media and journalists in Central Asia face the following dilemmas: How to cover issues happening in Afghanistan now? How to communicate information to the audience while describing the Taliban, whose image has been presented mainly in reports on terrorist attacks for almost 20 years? Can journalists offer audiences updated and redesigned narratives about a seemingly ex-terrorist group, while complying with standards and ethics?
Conflict-sensitive approaches, peace and solutions journalism tools, and new media formats can help create strategies to offer audiences a sufficiently clear and objective story.
Not Terrorists Anymore?
Kazakhstan was the first Central Asian country to officially remove the Taliban from the list of banned terrorist organisations. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said Astana took this step based on "the importance of developing trade and economic cooperation with present-day Afghanistan and understanding that this regime is a long-term factor”.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan soon reported the same decision, emphasising that it was "aimed at strengthening regional stability and maintaining a dialogue”.
In mid-September 2024, the media reported on the "unofficial visit” of the head of Tajikistan’s State Committee for National Security Saimumin Yatimov to Kabul and his meeting with the Taliban security chiefs. It was noted that the visit was made to "strengthen bilateral relations between Tajikistan and the Taliban”.
Official Dushanbe has not yet made any statements on this, however, at the time of writing this article, the Taliban were not on the list of terrorist and extremist organisations. Economic interests play their role. Tajikistan exports electricity to Afghanistan and has reopened five markets in border towns where goods are traded on both sides. Foreign trade turnover between the two countries totalled about $46 million in the first six months of 2024.
In Uzbekistan, the Taliban were not included in the 2016 list of 22 terrorist organisations banned by the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan. After the Taliban came to power, official Tashkent opened the Uzbek-Afghan border for the delivery of essential goods and humanitarian aid.
This August, Uzbek Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov visited Kabul. According to media reports, Aripov met with Taliban leaders and discussed bilateral relations and strengthening trade and business between the two countries. As a result, five trade and investment agreements were signed in the energy, agricultural, and industrial sectors.
Turkmenistan had been in contact with the Taliban representatives even before they came to power amid growing tensions over the paramilitary attacks across Afghanistan. On September 11, 2024, in the border town of Serhetabad, Turkmenistan and the Taliban representatives relaunched the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) Natural Gas Pipeline Project. This large-scale project was first initiated almost 10 years ago.
The pipeline is expected to transport up to 33 billion cubic metres of natural Turkmen gas to South Asia annually.
On the one hand, the Central Asian region is becoming an important partner for Afghanistan offering infrastructure and trade projects and increasing cooperation with the regime in Kabul. This cooperation is taking place despite violations of the rights of women, girls, and minorities, restrictions on media freedom, arbitrary executions, and active calls by the UN and other international human rights bodies to put an end to such violations. The regime’s representatives in Kabul are still on the UN Security Council Consolidated Sanctions List.
On the other hand, Central Asian countries are concerned about security issues.
For example, in early September, a suicide bomber, a member of ISIS (an organisation banned in Central Asia), detonated an explosive device near the Kabul prosecutor’s office killing 6 people and injuring 13.
This fact and the length of the common Central Asian border with Afghanistan, which is more than two thousand kilometres long, pose a danger of infiltration into the region by members of ‘sleeper terrorist cells’.
Where Do We Start?
Define the unified terminology you will use in reporting on Afghanistan-related topics.
How should we describe the formerly banned and terrorist Taliban movement now?
Refer to international documents. Look up the UN-used terminology in the Case Law Database. In the latest speech of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, the regime in Kabul is referred to as the ‘de facto authorities’. This is quite a correct phrasing as it does not legitimise the authorities but only shows the reality.
In statements and reports of the European Union, the authorities in Kabul are called ‘the Taliban’. Many foreign media – BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, and others – also use this term. For the Central Asian media, it is less acceptable because for several years, the phrase ‘the Taliban’ was necessarily labelled in brackets as ‘the terrorist and banned movement’.
The following is a list of terms that may be acceptable to use.
To use definitions correctly, it is necessary to update editorial guidelines and compile a list of terms for reporting on Afghan issues.
More precise terminology is necessary to create a balanced and impartial narrative when describing events related to Afghanistan.
What Events Should I Select for Reporting?
The most suitable topics may include:
Human Rights and Other Sensitive Topics
Many media avoid reporting on this sensitive issue amid Central Asian countries’ selective cooperation with Afghanistan. However, reporting on human rights violations is a journalist’s ethical obligation.
The exclusion of women and girls from education and employment opportunities, as well as from public spaces, continues in Afghanistan. Extreme forms of violence occur. In addition to forced early marriages and sexual violence, the Taliban has adopted a decree on public flogging and stoning women to death.
The UN Women estimates that since the Taliban came to power, they have adopted 70 documents restricting women’s rights and freedoms. Such policy is carried out with no regard for the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which Afghanistan ratified in 2003.
At the end of August 2024, the law on ‘Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice’ was announced by the de facto authorities, which prohibits women from saying anything out loud in public and demonstrating their faces outside the house. This law cements policies that completely erase women’s presence in public – depriving them of their autonomy, attempting to render them into faceless, voiceless shadows.
Pay attention to the following topics:
Use Teamwork to Prepare the Material
Teamwork and cross-border reporting are great methods to gather information from different sides. Create a team of journalists and experts from several countries, including Afghanistan. Identify the topic and the person responsible for finalising the gathered information.
Citations, Statistics, and Online Resources
To keep up to date, create a similar list of Afghan media and keep track of the information. Pay attention to Afghan media amu.tv, which is based abroad. It has a separate constantly updated section on cooperation with Central Asia.
When reporting on violations of women’s rights and violence against women, in addition to using international reports, monitor incidents of gender discrimination on Rukhshana.media. This is an Afghan women’s media organisation created in memory of Rukhshana, a young woman stoned to death in Ghor province for running away after a forced marriage.
Be careful with citations. If you are going to use official press releases, it will be necessary to give some explanation in brackets after phrases such as ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’ (note: This is the title of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan used by the de facto authorities since 2021), etc. The same should be considered when republishing materials from Afghan official media. If you use Russian-language versions of Afghan websites, it is worth double-checking the information several times, as problems with translation accuracy are common.
If references to Afghan statistics are needed, you can use data from the National Statistics and Information Authority (NSIA). However, there is no comprehensive information available. There is a lack of data on the ethnic composition of the population. This problem dates to 1979, the last time a population census was conducted. After a failed attempt in 2008, another census began in 2013 and was expected to be completed in six years. According to the Minority Rights Group, it was decided that the census would not include questions on language or ethnic background for fear that the results would be too politicised and lead to another failed census. However, the census was never completed.
What Background Information Should Be Used?
Reports on issues in Afghanistan should always contain background information to better explain to the audience what is happening. Since the Central Asian aspect is more focused on the events after August 2021, it is necessary to mention the process of peace negotiations in Afghanistan, why all the conditions of the Peace Deal were not fulfilled, and how the society lived before that.
For example: "De facto authorities came to power in Kabul after the previous Afghan government led by President Ashraf Ghani collapsed amid the US troops withdrawal from the country in August 2021. Earlier, in February 2020, a Peace Deal was signed between the US and the Taliban in Doha (Qatar) after more than eighteen years. The Deal addressed a reduction in violence, withdrawal of foreign troops, the start of intra-Afghan negotiations, and guarantees that Afghanistan won’t again become a refuge for terrorists. However, the Taliban failed to fulfil several conditions of the Peace Deal. The Taliban was formed in Pakistan in the 1990s after the Soviet Union’s troops withdrew from Afghanistan. Many of its early militants were trained in Pakistani madrassas. After NATO troops’ deployment, Pakistan gave the Taliban refuge”.
Such background can be shorter or longer according to the topic you are reporting on.
If the material is to cover the state structure of Afghanistan, the focus should be on comparing the Constitution of the country legally in force since 2004 with the draft Constitution that de facto authorities proposed and then abandoned.
It is also important to note that Afghanistan is a party to several international conventions, such as the Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment (1984), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979), the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (1965), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006). In addition, the country ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (2002), the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict (2000), the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution, and child pornography (2000). Explore the report describing the impact of the situation on human rights.
It is necessary to use the links to these documents in the context of human rights reporting.
Visual Design of the Materials
When using visuals, such as illustrative photos or collages, it is important to consider the nuances of traditional dress that identify different groups. If you want to show a group of Afghan men wearing dastmols (Persian: دستمال) – traditional headscarves, you need to know that these are most often soft-textured, black, grey, white, brown, mixed tones of these colours, or brown and turquoise scarves in a checked pattern.
The group of people from the de facto government can be identified by the white or black turbans on their heads. If it is not possible to find original photos, search for such illustrations.
A man wearing a red and white chequered scarf of hard texture represents Arabic or Middle Eastern style and the use of such an illustration would be wrong.
When designing visuals for the material on women’s issues, it is correct to refer to a woman’s head and face garment in the Afghan dialect as chodari (Persian: چادری) rather than burqa. It is most often a blue-coloured garment, but other colours are also found.
