Nyein Nyein Aye, a Myanmar freelancer and journalist, was sentenced to a three-year prison sentence for the spread of ‘false news.’ She was also accused of causing fear and agitating crimes against a government employee. While Nyein worked for various media outlets, one of them: Mizzima News, was banned by the junta.
Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk implied that this arrest is followed by the big wave of arrests of journalists after the February 2021 coup. He also noted that these sentences behind closed doors by military courts are similar to a factory production line. RSF’s press freedom barometer shows that she is the 24th journalist to receive a prison sentence out of the 67 media workers currently held in Myanmar’s prisons.
U.S. president Joe Biden said in his speech at the Arab summit in Saudi Arabia that the United States will keep its close partnership with the Middle East while urging leaders who attended the summit to advance human rights as a powerful source of economic and social changes. With that being said, freedom of the press and democratic rights are highlighted. He urged the necessity of releasing journalists.
Biden sent a message to the leaders saying: ‘Accountable, accountable institutions that are free from corruption and act transparently and respect the rule of law are the best way to deliver growth, respond to people’s needs, and I believe ensure justice.’
The Russian prosecutor’s office brought on a 350-page complaint against the independent Journalists’ and Media Workers’ Union (JMWU), in order to disband it. The union learned about the complaint on 13 July. The complaint proposes that some of the employees are foreign agents while some were accused of systematically harming the state and society with their actions.
The reasons behind the complaint are mainly due to the fact that the JMWU publicly opposed the war in Ukraine, defended Russian journalists who were prosecuted, and criticized media censorship in their country. They also signed the ‘Perugia Declaration for Ukraine’, which confirmed their support for Ukrainian journalists.
Yurii Shchyhol, the head of the Ukrainian State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection, warns there might be an ongoing World Cyber War since the start of Russia’s invasion. Russian cyberespionage and cyberattacks since 24 February weren’t targeted only at Ukraine. Their intervention has been recorded in 42 countries across six continents, mostly from NATO and countries which supported Ukraine during this period.
Shchyhol has stated for Politico that the world has been awakened and that countries are more willing to intensely cooperate with each other on these issues. He also advised: ‘But what we need are not further sanctions and further efforts to curb cyberattacks, we also need for global security companies to leave the market of the Russian Federation. Only then can we ensure the victory will be ours, especially in cyberspace.’
In this interview, it was said that there is strong assistance from the U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency as all of Russia’s attacks are ‘an ongoing, continuous war, including the war in cyberspace.’ What Shchyhol also warns us is that despite the two-month stagnation of Russian cyber attacks, what they’re doing is just a part of their tactic in order to collect resources for another attack – which will likely be on a global level.
Article 19 releases a Global Expression Report annually, tracking the right to freedom of expression and information across 161 countries using 25 indicators to create a score between 0 and 100 for every country.
The 2022 report, published in June, reveals a downward trend, indicating that about 15% of the global population live with less freedom of expression – where they can seek, receive, or share information freely and safely, than they did a decade ago.
In this year’s report, Article 19 highlights the changes over three time periods: the past year (2020–2021), the last 5 years (2016–2021), and the last 10 years (2011–2021). Their global view reveals that all regional scores are either declining or have remained stagnant
Iván Santell-Velázquez pled guilty before the United States District Court Judge Silvia Carreño-Coll, to cyberstalking. The defendant hacked 100 student email accounts and stole their personal information while studying at the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey. Additionally, in the years between 2019 and 2021, the defendant hacked the Snapchat accounts of several women, who were studying at the University of Puerto Rico, and harassed them by sharing their intimate pictures on Twitter and Facebook.
US Attorney Muldrow stated that this case shows how crucial it is to protect personal information, especially in response to suspicious SMS messages and emails. On October 12, 2022, the sentencing hearing is expected to take place.
Since Shehbaz Sharif took over as a Pakistani prime minister in April, there have been a dozen reports of army-related agencies harassing the media, as RSF cautioned. Critical journalists have been a target of a major army campaign to intimidate their work, parallelly destabilizing Pakistan’s democracy.
This serious decline in press freedom was bolstered with the latest case on 9 July when BOL news anchor, Sami Ibrahim, got attacked by three people. The next day, he posted a YouTube video, saying that the attack was planned to prevent him from filming the scene, and the attackers later left in a vehicle with clear signs of being state-owned.
A report outlining the Parliament’s position concerning the AccessibleEU centre was voted on by the Internal Market and Consumer protection committee led by the Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Katrin Langensiepen, and it was adopted by 43 MEPs in favour and 1 abstention. The center is to be created in 2022 with the aim to support the implementation of EU accessibility legislation by facilitating access to relevant knowledge and resources.
This report further details the MEPs expectation of the commission and Member States to set up in order to have a positive impact on 100 million persons with disabilities.
Furthermore, the Parliament calls on Member States ‘to establish national accessibility hubs, which could consist of contact points and mirror groups of experts to work hand in hand with the AccessibleEU centre on implementing, monitoring and enforcing accessibility legislation.’
Founder and director of The Citizen Lab, Ronald Deibert talked to Article 19’s Jo Glanville about the technologies that turn your mobile into a spy in your pocket. The lab research unit, based at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto, focuses on internet security and threats to human rights.
In the podcast, recorded on 21 June, Deibert talks about the growth of the spyware industry and the fast-moving innovations that mean the people targeted are completely unaware of violations against their privacy. He points out that ‘democracies are among the clients for these technologies, and explains what role international human rights bodies can play in stemming violations and calling governments to account.’
The Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA) imposed new rules that oblige telecommunication companies to identify, trace, and block numbers associated with scam calls and SMSes. Telecommunication companies are now required to share information among them and with the authorities to identify scammers.
Essentially, the new code revised the ACMA 2020 Code for combating scam SMSes. It aims to ensure that telecommunications companies assist and inform their customers about the services they receive and thus prevent them from scam calls and SMSes.
In case of non-compliance, telecommunications companies could face penalties of up to $250,000.
