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Fighting for freedom of expression: Interview with Miklos Haraszti

Miklos Haraszti, a former Hungarian dissident, member of parliament, writer and journalist, completes his 6 year term as the OSCE's Representative on Freedom of the Media on 10 March. In this interview with OSCE Web Editor Sarah Crozier he reflects on his work and the ongoing challenges. Question: How would you characterize the situation for journalists today in the OSCE region? Over the last 10 years there has been a deterioration. But I think that is because we had a wonderful 10 years before that, when the post-Soviet states embraced the universal right to free expression and produced a very vibrant civil society, and to some extent there has been a 'counter-reformation' against that. But the fact that civil society has climbed high enough to require governments to fight such a battle is encouraging. Q: What are the major challenges? I would say there are three: television, which is content-wise in government hands in many post-Soviet democracies, making it meaningless to speak of free elections in those places; secondly, violence against journalists is increasing - we need only look at the recent spate of murders of Kyrgyz journalists; and thirdly there is a new danger, both East and West of Vienna, in the attempt to regulate the internet and put it under national governance - which in fact is impossible. We are not simply talking about filtering and blocking sites, but the fact that internet services providers are not pluralistically owned - and they need to be. We are seeing laws being applied to the internet in a way that is political, selective and arbitrary. Q: Have you been able to achieve as much as you had hoped during your 6 years as OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media? The memory of every journalist that is killed can make efforts seem futile and mocks the very idea of success. But in terms of achievement there are perhaps two things I can point to. First, we were, through our interventions, in many cases able to protect journalists and endangered media outlets. We were sometimes able to get journalists out of prison, and that's concrete help. Second, the production and dissemination of ideas. It doesn't have to be law - laws can be reversed - but real progress is to anchor ideas and have a value acknowledged. We have done this through legal reviews, press releases, conferences, and seen our ideas get discussed among the players, which in the end can create far more momentum than a single law. But we also had a pleasing amount of good media governance laws passed based on our advice - decriminalisations, demonopolisations, liberalisations, and the like. Q: You talked about helping individuals. Part of your work - and that of your Office and the OSCE field missions - has involved following trials and visiting imprisoned journalists. What sort of reaction have you had from such individuals? The reaction has been very positive. For example, I visited Eynulla Fatullayev, an investigative journalist in Azerbaijan imprisoned for eight and half years on politically motivated charges of slandering the name of a village, tax evasion and incitement to terrorism, who stopped his hunger strike after I visited him in prison. He wrote me a letter. I am glad that, thanks to the OSCE, I have been able to keep fighting for justice. I started that first as a dissident, being myself sentenced to prison, and at the OSCE I was able to speak out for others. People sometimes say that public protest about these cases can endanger the individuals involved, but in fact this is usually not true. Visiting prisoners can in very few cases improve the situation but it almost always stops a deterioration in their conditions. Q: You have mentioned the threat to media freedom on the internet. But is there a flip side to that - can new media such as blogging and social media networks help journalists in countries where media freedom is under threat? It is true that these forms of network can have mobilizing power, and they can be a good shot against the oppression of information sharing, but it is a mistake to believe that mass connectivity without structure can replace the need for real journalism. Twitter is not journalism - you do not get the kind of rational discussion about issues that ultimately creates democracy. Q: The OSCE is a unique and sometimes complex organization. Do you have any advice for your successor? Be geographically blind, but not problem blind. Find the right vehicle for communication - whether it be internal correspondence, informal talks with diplomats, press conferences, local visits, there is a large spectrum of tools available. You need to use the right one for each situation, always with the aim of making a difference. During the past 6 years there have been many messages that haven't been public, and in many cases things have been improved before a draft became law. At the same time, never give up the option of going public.

Source: OSCE.org

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