[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
115th Congress Printed for the use of the
2nd Session Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A Deadly Calling: The Murder of Investigative Journalists
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
May 9, 2018
Briefing of the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Washington: 2018
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
234 Ford House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-1901
[email protected]
http://www.csce.gov
@HelsinkiComm
Legislative Branch Commissioners
HOUSE SENATE
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ROGER WICKER, Mississippi,
Co-Chairman Chairman
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida BENJAMIN L. CARDIN. Maryland
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas CORY GARDNER, Colorado
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee MARCO RUBIO, Florida
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas TOM UDALL, New Mexico
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
Executive Branch Commissioners
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
(II)
ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
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and Cooperation in Europe, traces its origin to the signing of the
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ABOUT THE COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as
the Helsinki Commission, is a U.S. Government agency created in 1976 to
monitor and encourage compliance by the participating States with their
OSCE commitments, with a particular emphasis on human rights.
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Commission is: .
(III)
A Deadly Calling: The Murder
of Investigative Journalists
_______
May 9, 2018
Page
PARTICIPANTS
Erika B. Schlager, Counsel for International Law, Commission for
Security and Cooperation in Europe ................................ 1
Paul Massaro, Policy Advisor, Commission for Security and
Cooperation in Europe ............................................. 2
Matthew Caruana Galizia, Journalist, son of Daphne Caruana Galizia
(via videoconference) ............................................. 3
Pavla Holcova, Founder, Czech Center for Investigative Journalism . 4
Robert Mahoney, Deputy Executive Director, Committee to Protect
Journalists ....................................................... 6
Jason Rezaian, Journalist, The Washington Post; Global Affairs
Analyst, CNN ...................................................... 8
(IV)
A Deadly Calling: The Murder
of Investigative Journalists
----------
May 9, 2018
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Washington, DC
The briefing was held at 3:37 p.m. in Room SVC 215, Capitol Visitor
Center, Washington, DC, Erika B. Schlager, Counsel for International
Law, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, presiding.
Panelists present: Erika B. Schlager, Counsel for International
Law, Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe; Paul Massaro,
Policy Advisor, Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe;
Matthew Caruana Galizia, Journalist, son of Daphne Caruana Galizia (via
videoconference); Pavla Holcova, Founder, Czech Center for
Investigative Journalism; Robert Mahoney, Deputy Executive Director,
Committee to Protect Journalists; and Jason Rezaian, Journalist, The
Washington Post; Global Affairs Analyst, CNN.
Ms. Schlager. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is
Erika Schlager, and I serve as counsel for international law for the
U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, informally known
as the Helsinki Commission. On behalf of the commission, I'd like to
welcome everyone here today.
Before I turn this briefing over to my colleague, Paul Massaro, I'd
like to provide some context for today's discussion from the Helsinki
Commission perspective. The Helsinki Commission is an independent
agency of the Federal Government charged with monitoring implementation
of the 1975 Helsinki Accords and advancing U.S. policies regarding the
Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Media freedom and media expression are core commitments in the
Helsinki process, agreed by the consensus of all 57 participating
States. All 57 participating States have also agreed that human rights
and democracy are matters of direct and legitimate concern to all
participating States and do not belong exclusively to the internal
affairs of the state concerned.
The targeting of journalists in Afghanistan a week ago, which
resulted in the murder of 10 professionals trying to do no more than
their jobs, was a shocking illustration of the extraordinary risks so
many journalists take. In the OSCE region, scores of journalists are
among those who have been swept up in the post-coup attempt in Turkey.
In Russia, investigative journalist Maksim Borodin appears to be
the latest victim of sudden Kremlin death syndrome, having died by
defenestration, and yesterday we learned that investigative journalist
Olivera Lakic was shot in the leg outside her home. She is the second
journalist to be attacked in Montenegro this year.
Today's briefing will examine the murders of investigative
journalists, including Daphne Caruana Galizia of Malta and Jan Kuciak
of Slovakia. And I understand that this past Saturday, May 6th, a Holy
Mass and memorial concert was attended by approximately 3,000 people in
the eastern Slovak village of Gregorovce. Jan Kuciak was murdered with
his fiancee Martina Kusnirova, and they would have been married in
Gregorovce this past weekend.
I look forward to hearing from our panelists on the challenge of
impunity and the goal of accountability, on the closing space for
investigative journalists and any recommendations they would like to
bring to the table.
I do have a couple of administrative notes. First, this event is
streaming live on the Helsinki Commission's Facebook page as well as
our website. Second, if you're tweeting, please use the Helsinki
Commission handle, which is @HelsinkiComm, C-O-M-M. Third, please
silence your cell phones or any other electronic devices you may have.
And, finally, for our panelists, please be sure to speak closely into
the microphone, which helps with the clarity of our broadcast.
And I would like to say thank you to all of you who have come here
today, including my colleagues from the European Union Parliament, the
Department of State and the Embassy of the Slovak Republic. I really
appreciate that you're here to hear these tremendous panelists.
With that, I turn the briefing over to policy advisor Paul Massaro,
and thank you, Paul, for organizing this event.
Mr. Massaro. Well, thank you so very much, Erika, for that
fantastic introduction. We're very grateful to have four distinguished
panelists with us here today. We'll first hear from Matthew Caruana
Galizia, who is joining us over SKYPE. Matthew is the son of Daphne
Caruana Galizia and himself a journalist. He formally worked with the
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and was an
instrumental player in major investigations such as the Panama Papers
and the Paradise Papers. He left ICIJ in 2018 to work on the case
surrounding the assassination of his mother.
Following Matthew, we will hear from Pavla Holcova, who is the
founder of the Czech Center for Investigative Journalism, which is a
member center of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project--
OCCRP. An accomplished journalist in her own right, Pavla collaborated
with Jan Kuciak on an investigation in the Italian Mafia's influence in
Slovakia.
We will then hear from Robert Mahoney, deputy executive director of
the Committee to Protect Journalists--CPJ. CPJ is one of the leading
organizations advocating for global freedom of the press and the rights
of journalists. Rob is very well-positioned to represent them as a
lifelong journalist himself. He has written on the murders of Caruana
Galizia and Kuciak.
Finally, we will hear from Jason Rezaian. Jason is a journalist for
The Washington Post and a global affairs analyst for CNN who served as
the Post's correspondent in Tehran from 2012 to 2016. During that time,
he spent 544 days unjustly imprisoned by Iranian authorities until his
release in January 2016. He knows all too well the threats faced by
journalists and has written extensively on the topic, including the
cases of Caruana Galizia and Kuciak.
With that, I would like to hand the floor to our first speaker,
Matthew Caruana Galizia. Matthew, please.
Mr. Caruana Galizia. Thank you, Paul, and thank you to the Helsinki
Commission. It's a real honor to join this panel. I assume that people
in the audience are more or less familiar with the case of my mother.
What they're probably less familiar with is what led to everything that
happened leading up to her assassination.
Things really turned badly around 2016 with the publishing of the
Panama Papers. But even before that, my mother had--really at the peak
of her 30-year career as a journalist, and the threats against her
started long ago. Growing up, I thought these things were normal. I
thought it was normal to get strange phone calls from people screaming
threats on the phone or to receive letters at home containing feces or
handcuffs in the letter box.
We came home from school [audio break, technical difficulties] back
in the 1990s when my mother was writing about drug trafficking and
nothing was really ever done to ensure that there was no impunity for
these crimes--to ensure that people were brought to justice for them.
So there was this kind of slow increase in threats, I suppose, over the
first 25 years of her career. But, as I said, over the past perhaps 2
or 3 years, things became really, really bad.
There was a concerted effort by government figures to bring libel
cases against my mother. She had 46 pending against her at the time of
her death--5 criminal libel cases and the rest of--19 of them brought
against her by a single political party donor with connections to
organized crime.
I think it became so bad around 2016 because that was when my
mother was bringing really incontrovertible evidence of corruption at
the highest levels of government to light. It just became impossible
for people to deny that this corruption really existed--that things had
become unbearably bad.
So something had to give. Either my mother had to be eliminated or
there had to be some kind of judicial action taken against the corrupt
politicians and businessmen on whom she was reporting. And in the end,
because Malta's institutions were ineffective, incapable of taking
action, completely captured by corporate interests and the interests of
the governing party, no action was taken, and we know what gave in the
end.
My mother was killed, and that seems to be what's happening across
Europe today. In countries where institutions are weak, where there's
no--where journalists are exposed and left fighting corruption alone,
they're really the last institution standing against government
corruption. Then they're threatened and they're eliminated.
This happened in Slovakia. It looks like it's happening on the kind
of periphery states of Europe--obviously, Malta is one of them--as well
as accession states like Montenegro and Serbia, that things are
becoming increasingly difficult for journalists. In these countries,
the threats that journalists live under have become normalized.
Take Italy as an example. It's more or less the same situation,
where so many journalists are living under armed guards that I've lost
count. With Malta, it's more or less a lost cause in the sense that we
depend almost entirely on outside help--on the help of the European
Commission, on the help of the State Department, and/or the help of
journalists from countries where they're able to practice their
profession more freely.
This is why I think the Daphne Project has been such a help and
such a boost to both journalists and investigators in Malta who are
trying to do their job under very difficult circumstances, fighting the
corrupt leaders of their institutions. It really gives backing to these
people and it really brings--it really puts pressure on the Maltese
Government to take action, to allow institutions to do their work, to
allow institutions to prosecute corruption and to bring charges against
people who are engaged in organized crime. [Audio break, technical
difficulties]--or, rather, this attention on the country has really
changed everything, both for my family as well as for the journalists
there who are still alive. And what I hope is that it also changes the
game for journalists not just in the periphery states of Europe who are
also trying to do their job under difficult circumstances, but
journalists all over the world, too. I hope it inspires them and makes
them feel as though the world is looking.
So thank you, everyone, for this meeting and for being here today.
The attention that you're giving to this issue is really part of what,
in the end, I think [audio break, technical difficulties] this and not
just for my mother, but for other journalists who have been killed and
imprisoned and who are under threat all over the world.
Mr. Massaro. Thank you very much, Matthew, for those comments, and
thank you so much for your emphasis on the need for attention on these
subjects. I hope that this event serves that cause and for my part,
I've personally been deeply inspired by the work of the Daphne Project
and the way that the leading papers of Slovakia came together in the
aftermath of Jan Kuciak's death and published his unfinished work.
I think that the collaboration among investigative journalists now
has been one welcome development from a very dire set of circumstances.
So with that thought, I'd like to hand the floor over to Pavla. Pavla,
please.
Ms. Holcova. Hello. Yes, thank you, Helsinki Commission, for having
this important, fully important discussion and for inviting me to be
part of it. I used to live in a region where the media press--media
were among the most free in the world. But it doesn't apply anymore.
It's not true anymore because it seems society doesn't see the
democratic values as a priority anymore. It feels as if people prefer
simple solutions, simple media, simple articles than those that are
more complicated, more analyzing, more difficult to understand.
We are, in Central Europe as a whole region, facing state capture
at a level we could never imagine before. For journalists, the winter
already came. We have a fear. We are facing the fear and the fear is
paralyzing. It's paralyzing us for--from doing in-depth analysis of the
situation we are now living. It's really difficult for us to tell where
is the line between politicians, powerful political parties, and
organized crime--where is the line between financial fraudsters and
business interests and, once again, political parties. This is mostly
the case in Czech Republic but in Slovakia as well. This is just the
wider context of what actually happened with the brutal violent attacks
on my colleague, Jan Kuciak, and on Daphne in Malta.
Also, it highlights the importance of our job, importance of doing
proper investigative journalism. There is one real important thing I've
learned from this murder of my friend and colleague, and that's the
importance of sharing and collaboration. That's also the reason why I
founded Czech Center for Investigative Journalism in 2013 and why we,
as the Czech Center, joined Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting
Project, because they are, for me, kind of a--trend setters in the form
of the way of doing journalism, because it's pretty much based on
collaboration and pretty much based on sharing of the information.
It's not only to bring groundbreaking global stories on organized
crime, on money laundering, on state capture, but also it brings
protection to journalists, because it's quite easy to silence one
journalist or two. It's much more difficult to silence a network of
journalists. And as I'm going to repeat again and again, you can kill a
journalist, but you can't and you shouldn't kill a story.
Once you do it, once you kill a journalist, there are tens more to
come to finish those stories, as we can see in Daphne Project and in
the ``All for Jan'' project. Yes, but the murders are just tip of the
iceberg. These days in Slovakia, even though the government changed, I
still believe the situation is still not stable, because the people who
are now taking part being exchanged in the government are from the same
governmental party. Still people protest. Still there are thousands of
people in the streets requesting the real change in Slovak society,
requesting the real change in the politics, not other members of the
very same political party. Also, I believe there's not much will to
properly investigate the murder of my colleague, Jan Kuciak.
In Czech Republic, the situation is slightly different but not
better. We have a president who actually poses in front of the press
with a toy gun with inscription, ``To journalists.'' Also, when he
entered the room with Vladimir Putin, who is known for taking the press
as an enemy, he joked with him--what is actually recorded--that there
are too many journalists and we should eliminate them.
At the same time, our prime minister, Andrej Babis, he's owner of
the biggest media house. At the same time, he is the leader of the most
powerful political party and at the same time he's one of the most rich
businessmen and one of the most rich person in the Czech Republic. He
is actually a walking, living conflict of interest.
The situation is not better in Hungary, another country for the
Central Europe. The prime minister, Viktor Orban, created some kind of
a blacklist of journalists who are enemies of, let's say, his state.
What's going to happen now with the blacklist is not clear.
In Poland, those media who are not reporting well for the
government are being eliminated by financial means. They are being
investigated for how they pay taxes. There are audits, and many, many
more. They don't get enough advertisements to survive because they
don't get the advertisement from the state companies. Yes, and we can
probably continue to other countries as well.
Anyway, just slightly a little bit more on the personal note,
because of my job as an investigative reporter, my family is forced to
live under police protection. Still, we, as a journalist, not only in
Czech Republic but also in the whole region of Central Europe, we are
called enemies. We are called foreign agents. We are called
mercenaries. It's really difficult to persuade the society that they
actually need us.
Yes. Maybe journalism must undergo such a kind of a crisis that we
actually experience today so that the people, that a society, would
understand better how they actually need our work, how they should
actually value the information, unbiased, in-depth, well-researched
information that, in some cases, can cost lives of the reporters.
Today, I have brought my daughter here--she's sitting there--just
to show her that there are still people and the groups of people who do
value the job we are doing.
Thank you.
Mr. Massaro. Well, thank you very much, Pavla, and we most
certainly do value the job that you are doing and I really appreciate
you highlighting this, what seems to be a vanishing line between
organized crime and mainstream politics, and I think that it's really
alarming. It's something that I pay attention to at the commission
quite a lot. I work on a lot of anti-corruption issues and that's my
connection here. It's what Erika and I have worked on together.
But there really is not an obvious solution. I think part of the
solution is to be this collaboration that you highlight between
investigative journalists. It's an extremely powerful deterrent to know
that you can kill the journalist but you cannot kill the story, and
it's just not going to do anything for you except bring even greater
attention on it.
Ms. Holcova. Yes. I meant, there's also other tools, because
sometimes in the countries where we work we are not able to publish the
stories, because once--we will start to be prosecuted for the story.
The legal system is so embedded with the government that actually it's
clear--in, like, you can say 100 percent that you can't win the court
case as a journalist. So it's important to publish somewhere else where
actually the government, they don't have the tools how to manipulate
the legal process.
Mr. Massaro. Absolutely, and that issue of state capture--I've
written down right here--that's something I wanted to talk about. So
thank you, again, for highlighting that. It is a confounding issue.
So with that, I'd like to hand the floor to Rob. Please.
Mr. Mahoney. Thank you, and thank you to the commission for
organizing this. And I'm glad that you mentioned that there were people
from the European Union here, because I think that this is a message
that we need their support in getting out.
I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the context of global
threats to journalists and to press freedom and try to situate what's
happening in Europe into that because, to us, this is quite
unprecedented and quite alarming. You know, being a reporter in much of
the world is dangerous work, but being an investigative reporter can be
deadly, and the assassinations of Daphne in Malta in October and of Jan
in February underscore the dangers facing reporters who dig
painstakingly through thousands of documents and track down reluctant
sources to expose wrongdoing and to hold the powerful to account.
Of the 1,303 journalists killed since the Committee to Protect
Journalists began keeping statistics in 1992, more than half--that's
838--were murdered. Covering politics, crime, and corruption is more
dangerous as an assignment for most reporters than covering wars. Some
256 journalists have been murdered over that period, and they were
covering corruption, while another 189 were covering crime, according
to our research.
According to our research, the killers and those ordering the
murder of journalists are rarely brought to justice. In fact, in 86
percent of murder cases, the killers and those who hire them get away
scot free. We, at the Committee to Protect Journalists, along with our
colleagues around the world, are working hard to ensure that this is
not the case for Daphne and Jan. We want their killers and the
masterminds who employed them unmasked, prosecuted, and brought to
justice. These murders were particularly shocking because they took
place in the European Union, where we expect the rule of law to
prevail.
Over the years, fortunately, relatively few reporters have paid the
ultimate price for their work in Western Europe. That makes these two
brutal slayings of investigative reporters, which were only 4 months
apart, unprecedented. The intimidation of reporters following the
tentacles of organized crime is a great concern. Unchecked, assaults
and threats will lead to that cancer that eats away at independent
journalism in many violence-plagued societies--self-censorship.
Smuggling, money laundering, human trafficking, embezzlement of EU
funds and subsidies are all topics that European journalists, whether
individually or in collectives, have taken on, and this leaves them
exposed. Failure to achieve full justice in the cases of Daphne and Jan
could leave journalists in Malta and Slovakia in even greater danger.
It would also send a message throughout the rest of the continent that
reporters' lives don't matter. That would be catastrophic for press
freedom across Europe, especially given the growing authoritarianism we
are witnessing in Russia and in several of its former Soviet-era
allies.
As mentioned, Poland and Hungary are deeply troubling examples of a
decline of press freedom in the European Union. Brussels looks on
fecklessly as media diversity and freedom of expression fray on its
eastern edges. In Poland, the government has taken control of public
media, cut off official access to critical reporters and threatened
others with legal action. Lucrative state advertising is used to wield
influence over news outlets. Critical outlets are deprived of that ad
revenue.
And Hungary has gone even further down that road. Prime Minister
Viktor Orban, now starting his third term in office, has most broadcast
and print media in his camp. For example, the news website Atlatszo
estimates that more than 500 titles are now in the hands of oligarchs
and businessmen linked to the government, all of them heavily
benefiting from state advertising. Of those 500, just 3 years ago there
were only 31 that were aligned to the government. That shows how much
damage has been done in Hungary through media ownership to the
independent press.
And in Bulgaria, another EU member state, three investigative
journalists have been attacked in the past 6 years. One, a prominent
television reporter, Genka Shikerova, has had her car set on fire twice
since 2013. She's famous for asking politicians tough questions on air.
Someone, apparently, did not appreciate her frankness. No one, of
course, has been prosecuted for any of the assaults or the arson.
And so it's hardly surprising that in the countries lining up to
join the European Union press freedom violations also go unpunished.
Look at Montenegro. Just last night, as mentioned, journalist Olivera
Lakic was shot and wounded outside her home in the capital of
Podgorica. She covers crime and corruption for the newspaper Vijesti.
It's the second time she's been assaulted for her work, and this latest
shooting is worrying because it comes just 5 weeks after a car bomb
exploded outside the home of investigative reporter Sead Sadikovic in
the northern town of Bijelo Polje. No one was injured. Sadikovic, who
also reports on corruption and organized crime, had been threatened in
February over a report he aired in December. He reported the threat to
the police, but they took no action.
Outside of the EU, Ukraine has seen the murder of two journalists
in the past 4 years including Pavel Sheremet, who, like Daphne, was
blown up in his car. And, finally, to Russia, which is the murder
capital of Europe for the press, some 38 journalists have been killed
there since 1992. Some have been high-profile assassinations such as
those of Forbes editor Paul Klebnikov, or Novaya Gazeta, Anna
Politkovskaya.
Some deaths barely make a ripple in the international media because
it's hard to prove the link to journalism. One such is the death last
month of investigative reporter Maksim Borodin, who mysteriously fell
from the balcony of his fifth-floor apartment in Yekaterinburg. Borodin
had gained national attention in Russia for his reporting on the deaths
in Syria of Russian private military contractors fighting on the side
of President Bashar al-Assad.
This is a dark time for European journalism and the killings of
Daphne and Jan are an outrage. But that's not the end of the story. It
can't be. Journalists are fighting back with the best weapon they
have--journalism. Last month, an international collective of
journalists representing 18 media outlets from 15 countries was
launched--the Daphne Project. Its mission is to continue working on
Daphne Caruana Galizia's unfinished stories as well as to investigate
the truth about her murder.
The project yielded almost immediate tangible results because on
November 23, a member of the European Parliament, Pieter Omtzigt, was
appointed special rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe. He will monitor the ongoing murder investigation in
Malta, examine the broader circumstances surrounding the journalist
staff, and make calls for impunity to be addressed.
In Slovakia, as we've heard, protests have brought the resignations
of the prime minister and the interior minister, and journalists around
the world, as well as those who were working on the news website
Aktuality with Jan, have vowed to pursue the stories that Jan was
working on at the time of his death and to monitor the investigation
into his killing.
It's essential that we, as journalists, continue the investigations
of our murdered colleagues to send the message that you cannot censor
reporters and shut down their work through media. This we are doing. We
will not remain silent. Briefings like this one play an important part
in keeping the plight of the press in the public eye. It is essential
that we keep up the publicity and the pressure so that law enforcement
and the judiciary bring justice to all those involved in the
assassinations. Failure to do so will send the message to those with
the means and the motive that murder is an effective way of silencing
criticism.
Thank you.
Mr. Massaro. Thank you very much, Rob, and I wish the overview
weren't so grim, but here we are. Thank you also for highlighting the
cancer of self-censorship. In fact, the worst thing that could possibly
happen now is for people to be silent--is for people to stop doing
their work. That's exactly the purpose of these murders, right, is to
cause that reaction. So if they learn that the only reaction they'll
get is louder voices, then perhaps these murders will cease. Then that
would be the hope, right?
Mr. Mahoney. Absolutely, and, you know, there are these consortiums
of journalists, some of whom are represented here, that are doing great
work in keeping these alive. And so congratulations to them and I wish
them well in their pursuit.
Mr. Massaro. Thanks again, Rob.
Jason, you have the floor.
Mr. Rezian. Thanks for having me this afternoon. I want to make a
confession that I'm sort of an accidental advocate of press freedom.
You know, I've spent many years working in Iran, which is a pretty
hostile environment to journalists, and as many of us who work in that
part of the world or working in countries where we face a lot of
threat, we don't think a lot about the challenges our colleagues face
in other places.
But I had the opportunity for a year and a half to think about that
a great deal, and I had the unenviable experience of being somebody who
had a great platform with The Washington Post to have that taken away
from me, to be silenced for a year and a half and not really have the
ability to defend myself in the face of simply ridiculous claims. So
there wasn't any moment when I sat there in prison and thought to
myself, OK, I'm going to come out and be a defender of press freedoms.
But when I came out I saw just how much work had been done on my
behalf and realized that this is something that I needed to become more
involved with, A, because it was the right thing to do, but B, because
I had an opportunity and a platform, and it seemed like a unique one
and a responsibility, really, whether I wanted it or not, and I decided
I wanted it.
And after about 2 years of recovery--it's been since January since
I returned to work at the Post--and I decided that I would write about
these issues as much as the Post gave me the opportunity to do that.
And they've given me a lot of room to write about press freedom issues,
attacks on the free press--and the unfortunate reality is it's not
confined to places like Iran and Russia and Mexico and, you know, what
I'm seeing in my work, and I know that folks at CPJ, Reporters sans
Frontieres (RSF), the Press Club, other organizations know very well
and have known for a long time, that this is a problem that reaches all
over the world.
And one of the first stories that I wrote when I came back was
about Jan, and it was something that affected me very deeply, and this
through line, this sort of connecting thread of impunity, is one that I
understand in a unique way and feel as though I have an opportunity to
strike back at.
But I can't do it alone, and none of these organizations can do it
without the help of one another, and I'm happy to see the collaborative
nature of the work that you all do. As you guys know better than most,
these are not stories that attract the same kind of attention that
Presidential scandals or volcanoes or other sorts of one-off news
events do.
But it affects us all very deeply and I had the opportunity--about
a month ago, I met Matthew up in New York and we shared a few minutes
together and, you know, the thing that came home to me was just how
much these crimes against journalists destroy lives, disrupt families,
scatter people all over the world, and it's not something that I'm
going to sit quietly about.
But, again, the key is to figure out ways to raise awareness on
these cases. Fortunately, for me, awareness was raised on mine, because
without that, I wouldn't be here today. I mean, we look at the case of
President Trump pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal yesterday. There's
five American prisoners that are being held there right now and you
didn't hear much about them except from me and a handful of other
journalists who knew that you had to write about this lest they be
forgotten.
And so these are issues that don't have a lot of parallels but we
have to use the tools and platforms available to us and work together
to find some common answers to the problems that up until recently we
may have thought were unique to different geographic locations. But as
it turns out, there's a problem everywhere and we've got to figure out
the answer collectively. So I'm happy to be a part of trying to find a
solution for that.
Mr. Massaro. Well, thanks so much, Jason. Thank you so much for
being here today. I think I and many, many people, if not all in this
room, see you as the living breathing example of how journalists should
and, hopefully, will react in the face of the kind of intimidation and
attacks that many are facing today--that is, get louder, get deeper in
it and really start to speak out. So thank you so much for the work
you're doing.
We'll now enter a Q&A phase, and we hope the audience will
participate. I will start off with just one remark and I welcome anyone
that would like to say something on this, and that is, I'd like to ask
a question about the nature of these two killings in particular and the
nature of the killings we're seeing in the region.
No effort was made here to make these look like accidental
killings. These were very clearly planned, in both cases, by hired
guns--hit men. So I'd just like to get your thoughts on--and if we
could start with Matthew and Pavla and anyone else who would like to
speak--on why this is the case and perhaps why this is the case here
versus the type of murder we see in Russia of journalists where
somebody falls out a window, right, and is gone.
Matthew, would you like to say something, or----
Mr. Caruana Galizia. Thank you. That's the first thing that I
thought of. I mean, on the scene that day when I ran out to the car and
everything was on fire, the first thing I thought was that this is a
declaration of war. It isn't just a way of getting rid of someone. It's
a show of force and a show of impunity. We can do this in broad
daylight and we can get away with it.
And I think it's also--I think the fact that my mother was a woman
also played a part. If you look at this in the kind of culture and
dynamics of organized crime in southern Europe and it's dominated by
men, and it would have been extremely damaging to the egos of both the
corrupt politicians that my mother was reporting on, who are almost
universally men, and their allies in organized crime or their
facilitators.
And for them to be openly--to be exposed and mocked by a journalist
who's a woman would have been so humiliating, something that they would
have never been able to recover from, and I just can't escape this
feeling that that somehow played a part in my mother's murder. To
someone or to gangster politicians like the prime minister's chief of
staff, for example, to have my mother, a woman, reporting on his
activities and revealing what he was doing, it would have been just so
humiliating he'd need to retaliate in a way like this, and I think that
might explain the choice of method.
But, of course, like you said, it's force. It's a show of
impunity--that they simply were not concerned, and not concerned with
making it look like a suicide or anything like that. They were just so
confident of their ability to get away with it. And it seems that
they're right, really, because we're 6 months down the line and we
still have no idea who's behind this.
Mr. Massaro. Thank you, Matthew.
Pavla, do you have something you want to say to that?
Ms. Holcova. In case of Slovakia, it's not only a question of the
murder of Jan but his fiancee Martina Kusnirova, was murdered as well.
It brings even--I don't know, I have no explanation. I have no theory
why. It was to show off the power or the possibility that yes, we can
kill a journalist. I have no explanation for it because it had to be
clear that it would bring much bigger storm than if it would look
innocent. And still, I really--it is one of the questions I would
really like to hear any kind of explanation why they did it this way.
It was probably to send some message. But what kind of a message? It's
not clear to me.
Mr. Massaro. Thank you. I'm going to ask a second question. Then
we'll open it up. Erika, would you like to ask a question? No? Okay.
And that question is, you mentioned during--both Matthew and
Pavla--that there are a lot of journalists under police protection--
Pavla, yourself, you're forced to live under police protection. I was
wondering who provides this police protection and are these elements of
the state that are not captured. You know, are these police acting as
protection or are they acting as keeping tabs on you, making sure
that----
Ms. Holcova. Yes. Actually, I am, and my family, we are under
police protection of different state----
Mr. Massaro. Oh.
Ms. Holcova. ----that actually where it happened. So I am pretty
much confident that the guys who are taking care of us are real
professionals and they do their best job to really keep us safe. I
wouldn't be so sure about my situation if I would be under police
protection provided by Slovak State.
Mr. Massaro. Okay. Thank you very much. Do we have questions from
the audience? Jordan, please. Jordan Warlick, office director at the
Helsinki Commission. And, Jordan, thank you so much for your help in
putting this event together.
Questioner. Yes. Absolutely, and thank you so much to all of you
for being here and for sharing your powerful stories with us.
Rob, you referred to Russia as the murder capital of journalists in
Europe. Would you say that these increasing threats in the EU--the
murders within the EU--does that embolden Russia in any way, give them
more of a free pass to commit more murders against their own people?
Mr. Mahoney. I don't think they need any encouragement to be bold
in suppressing the media. I think that it's unfortunate that it's
probably spread westward from Russia rather than going back the other
way. There was a spate of murders of journalists in the mid-2000s.
There were a few years when there were none and now it's started again.
Basically, much of the free and independent media in Russia has
been silenced. There are very, very few, and you could look at it that
apart from those few brave journalists that do do this, either there's
been state capture of the media, particularly of broadcast media, or
the message that was sent by these high-profile assassinations has been
received and journalists are either censoring themselves or pulling
back. So Russia does not need any encouragement from bad actors in the
European Union. It's sad to think that it's actually spread now.
Mr. Massaro. Thanks very much. Do we have any questions from the
audience? Please, right over there. If you could state your name and
your affiliation that would be great.
Questioner. Viola Gienger. I'm a freelance journalist.
Thank you all very much for taking the time to tell your stories
here. I think it is really important. For those of you with experience
in Europe recently, when these cases have come about of attacks on
journalists there, what is the most effective, if any, response that
you have seen from the European Union or government officials that
should occur more often?
Mr. Massaro. Is there anyone in particular you'd like to direct the
question to?
Questioner. No.
Mr. Massaro. Okay. Anyone like to take that? Pavla? Matthew? Rob?
Jason?
Mr. Mahoney. Well, I thought maybe the European-based journalists
would want to go first.
Mr. Massaro. Yes.
Mr. Mahoney. For us--the Committee to Protect Journalists--the most
effective response is to keep the case in the public eye and to keep
the pressure on various institutions. Don't forget that the
administration of justice in the European Union is a national thing. So
you've got to work with the national governments of EU member states
first. But we bring these cases to the European Parliament, to the
European Council.
All these organizations, they don't really have much power. That's
why it's important that we have briefings like this to keep the
pressure on the Maltese and the Slovak authorities. Otherwise, they'll
just slink away into the darkness and these cases will not get proper
justice because impunity is the big problem here, and it's the same in
Europe as it is in anywhere else.
So I would encourage you, if you are a journalist, to write about
these cases and to follow it through. Like Jason was saying, he's
started following it. That's the only way that you'll get some justice.
It's to make there be a political cost to killing journalists or
suppressing freedom. If there is no political cost, there will be no
justice.
Ms. Holcova. Yes, I agree. Thank you for it. For us as journalists,
the most important answer to such a killing is to finish those stories,
not to let them be unfinished, and even if you are not able to finish
those stories, you should publish them even if they are not 100 percent
ready. We should publish them just to show what was going on behind,
not to silence the voice that was actually digging into those stories,
exposing those people who didn't want to be exposed, and expose those
people.
Mr. Massaro. So I'd like to follow up on that question real quick--
and, Matthew, just feel free to jump in whenever here in the Q&A
session, Okay--and that is to ask, are there any thoughts on the panel
of--you know, you're very right to state, Rob, that the administration
of justice remains at the national level in the European Union and
that's a really major piece of this. Are there actions that concerned
Eurocrats in Brussels can take?
Mr. Mahoney. Absolutely, there's a lot of things they can do. We
have seen the appointment of a special rapporteur for the Council of
Europe. That's not the same, obviously, as the European Union but it is
an important institution. It's older than the European Union, and we
need to make sure that all those structures that do exist, including
the European Parliament and the Commission, are aware of this and are
able to prevail upon individual member states. There are moral and
other pressures that can be brought on the administration of justice in
these states and we certainly want to make sure that those institutions
are active for those countries that are lining up to join the European
Union like Montenegro, which we've mentioned, which has----
Mr. Massaro. Accession criteria.
Mr. Mahoney. Yes. So we've seen what happened with Turkey when the
pressure was taken off. The place has gone backward very fast, from a
press freedom point of view, from the days when it too was actively
seeking to join the European Union. So, no, Brussels has a very
important part to play and, again, you know, that's--we have an office
there for that very reason--that we are trying to make sure that
pressure is brought and influence wielded on those institutions.
Mr. Massaro. And while we are sort of at the--in this policy
responses discussion, we've focused a lot on, and rightfully so, on the
way that investigative journalists have responded to this with more
collaboration in a deterring capacity--you know, continuing to push
this line of, you can kill the journalist but you can't kill the story,
and that the murder of a journalist will only bring more attention to
the story you were trying to kill. Is there a role for Congress,
outside of holding events like these?
Ms. Holcova. Actually, I think yes.
Mr. Caruana Galizia. Can I say something? But go ahead.
Ms. Holcova. Okay, I will be quick. Yes. Actually, what U.S.
policymakers can do is to ask their European counterparts to keep or to
bring the issue of protection not only of the journalists but also of
the whistleblowers and to discuss it more and actually to implement it
better in international laws, because in Europe the protection of
whistleblowers it's not as embedded in society and in the system as in
the U.S. At least, I hope so that it still is embedded in U.S.
society--protection of the whistleblowers.
Mr. Massaro. It is.
Mr. Caruana Galizia. I think the statistics that Rob was mentioning
give an indication of what the root cause is and what the policy
solutions could be because if you have a high number of journalists who
are being killed because they're reporting on corruption then the
obvious solution, well, is to work on eliminating corruption and the
European Union has been very weak on that, especially when you compare
it to the U.S.
It has no effective cross-border judicial cooperation and no
effective cross-border police cooperation, no effective diplomatic
pressure on member states when it comes to corruption. Look at what
Malta has gotten away with for so many years and they're still getting
away with. It really took the murder of a journalist for the EU's
justice commissioner to finally arrange a visit to Malta. It really
shouldn't get that far. You shouldn't need that.
I really believe that that's the way forward. You can throw as much
funding as you want at investigative journalism, but really what we
need is to not be standing alone. We need an immediate response. When
we bring stories to attention, there needs to be some kind of--[audio
break, technical difficulties].
Mr. Massaro. Thank you very much, Matthew, and I couldn't agree
with you more. Right. Yes. I just wanted to say real quick that yes, if
you want to stop investigative journalists from being murdered, then
fight corruption and end corruption. [Laughter.] I mean, I'm with you.
Mr. Caruana Galizia. We didn't want to be--we don't want armed
guards. We don't want to put security cameras on our houses. This isn't
a way to live.
Mr. Massaro. Right.
Mr. Caruana Galizia. We just need the root cause to be--the root
cause of the problem to be solved.
Mr. Massaro. Thank you very much, Matthew.
Bob Hand, policy advisor with the Helsinki Commission.
Questioner. Yes, thank you. I want to thank all the panelists for
your presentations. At the commission, I follow the countries of the
Balkans and so, of course, what just happened in Montenegro but also
what happens in Serbia and so many of the other countries with
investigative journalism, and its link to revealing corruption is a
deep concern to me.
The one thing I take a little bit of heart in in what happened in
Montenegro with the shooting of Ms. Lakic is that people go out into
the street and say the denial of her right to report is a denial of our
right to know, and maybe it's because Montenegro wasn't as developed a
democracy that they feel that linkage and that threat much more
closely.
But it begs the question, and I haven't heard it at least so much
here in the case of Malta or Slovakia, putting aside what the European
Union does or its officials or what the United States says, how do
the--what was the public reaction to the fact that in what's supposed
to be a democratic country something like this can take place, and is
there a sufficient strength in the democratic institutions and the
system that there are people within Parliament who are insisting on a
thorough investigation and prosecution?
Is there a public out there saying this should not be happening in
our country and trying to encourage efforts to change things or is it,
as you, Pavla, had said, is the public, the way I interpreted it, more
passive--they just want simple information and they just view this as a
way--as just a further confirmation that maybe that's the way to go and
there's just less of a commitment to preserving a democracy?
So the short question is, what was the public reaction in Malta as
well as in Slovakia to these incidents in terms of expressing outrage
or seeking some concrete action to try to keep it from happening again?
Mr. Massaro. Pavla, since your name was mentioned I guess you get
to speak first and then, Matthew, I imagine you'll want to say
something to this. Then we can----
Ms. Holcova. Yes. Actually, the public response in Slovakia was
huge. It's something like 5 million citizens country and there were
something like a hundred thousand protestors in streets, what is not
typical for a region. Those were the biggest protests since--in the
modern history of Slovakia. It was huge and it was the only reason why
any changes were made in the government.
Actually, the impact of the protests looked good. You know, the
prime minister was forced to resign, the minister of interior was
forced to resign, the head of anti-corruption unit resigned, and the
police president is due to resign by the end of May.
Still, the public doesn't see it as real change to the government
because those people were replaced by the people from the very same
political party but didn't really bring the change in the trust in the
institutions, in the free courts, in independent judiciary, in the
police. The trust in the police is probably the lowest in last 20
years. So there are more demands and the recent demand of the people
who are in the streets is actually the new elections that would come or
won't come. But the public outcry was huge.
Mr. Massaro. Matthew.
Mr. Caruana Galizia. It is good that you mentioned Montenegro--
[audio break, technical difficulties]--the European Union's complete
inability to deal with corruption even in pre-accession states, and
over the past couple of years the European Union has thrown, I think
it's almost half a billion euros in pre-accession funding at
Montenegro, and over the past decade Montenegro's ranking as a
democracy by the economists and intelligence unit has actually fallen
from flawed democracy to hybrid regime, which is one step above an
authoritarian regime and this just--it, obviously, corresponds to the
state of journalism in the country itself.
And regarding the--I mean, civil society reaction is--[audio break,
technical difficulties]--Malta. Malta has had a very different
experience to Balkan or Eastern European States. There's no--there's
very little culture of public protest or civil disobedience or anything
like that. We're really only just the beginning. I think this is the
first time in probably about 20, 30 years that we're seeing anything
resembling civil society pro-democracy movements. They're really just
the beginning.
Mr. Massaro. Thank you very much, Matthew.
Jason.
Mr. Rezian. Yes. I just wanted to say that, from a sort of a media
news point of view, I mean, the Post sent our Berlin bureau chief to
Bratislava to cover the protests and he did several live reports from
there, which I was really happy about it. We wrote quite a few stories
about the murder and we'll continue to write about them. But, you know,
I don't know what impact that that had there.
Mr. Massaro. Jason, in your statement you mentioned that public
outcry and public advocacy was really key in getting you out of the
unjust imprisonment that you found yourself in in Iran. Could you speak
at all to sort of how that went and how effective advocacy looks?
Mr. Rezian. Well, look, I mean, I was on the other side of the
wall----
Mr. Massaro. Right. Right.
Mr. Rezian. ----so I, you know--speak to the folks here----
Mr. Massaro. Kind of like forensics. [Laughter.]
Mr. Rezian. Yes. I mean, Rob and our friends from RSF who are here
were intimately involved in that throughout. But it has to be a
concerted effort, you know, that takes place between advocacy groups,
the organizations, families, receptive governments, and if you don't
have all of those pieces working in concert, you're fighting an uphill
battle that you're not likely to win. I think--does that jive with your
experience, Rob?
Mr. Mahoney. Yes, absolutely. You need a coalition of people
pushing in different directions and all the time. There's no one-size-
fits-all way of getting people like Jason out of prison. Iran is its
own case. It's very different. But the one thing that comes through, as
we've seen with the journalism, with the advocacy, is the need for
cooperation and concerted effort.
Mr. Massaro. Great. Thank you very much.
Mr. Rezian. And kind of a singularity of the message, whether it's,
you know, this is an outrage that you've----
Mr. Massaro. Yes.
Mr. Rezian. ----imprisoned, murdered or otherwise silenced a
journalist and it's--I think one thing that undercuts a lot of these
cases, especially in authoritarian countries when there's imprisonments
involved--I mean, these days there's so often these charges of against
national security and terrorism and espionage----
Mr. Massaro. Oh, yes.
Mr. Rezian. ----and, you know, these are patently false, across the
board. You know, you haven't found one yet that was accurate and I
think we need to do a better job of calling that out from the get-go.
Mr. Massaro. Absolutely.
Yes, please. If you could say your name and affiliation.
Questioner. This is Alex Tarascio with the International Republican
Institute.
And I found myself in Bratislava on March 15th and sort of looked
outside to see 65,000 or 100,000 people protesting outside. I'm
wondering--I guess, two questions. First, what is it about Jan Kuciak's
murder that was so different that it seemed--that so quickly mobilized
a huge number of people to go out into the streets and protest in a way
that doesn't seem to happen very often for similar crimes? And second,
is that an effective model? Is Slovakia safer for journalists now as a
result? Is this something that we should seek in other countries to
replicate?
Mr. Massaro. Please.
Ms. Holcova. Well, I didn't--I mean, the murder was probably just
the last drop. The frustration in the society in Slovakia was already
huge before the murder, and when we worked with Jan on the story, we
discussed a lot what would be the impact of the story and we agreed,
like, okay, we are actually proving the links between 'Ndrangheta, what
is the most powerful Italian mafia, to the prime minister of Slovakia.
And this--I mean, like we need to keep it dry, not to make it,
like, bombastic because we want to expose the dry facts, and we were
actually saying, okay, but still nothing much is going to happen
because, you know, the Direction-Social Democracy (SMER) Party is very
strong. And then it--I mean, it was, like, maybe 10 days before
publishing of the story when he was murdered and the--it just didn't
happen any time before in the whole Central European region that they
would kill a journalist for his work and that it would be so evident,
and also he was very young. So you can't really put him in the context
of any political games. He was 27.
So I think his profile as a journalist who was properly doing his
job being murdered for the--possibly for the story of linking Mafia and
the leading political party and the government actually just sparked
the huge protests in the streets because, you know, people were already
quite nervous, quite upset about a government that is in power for
many, many years already. So it was just the last drop, I believe. It
was shocking, and it was shocking for everyone.
What was the second question? Sorry.
Questioner. Is that an effective model?
Ms. Holcova. Well, like, killing a journalist off effective model?
Questioner. Protests. Popular anger.
Ms. Holcova. Yes. It's not--probably it's not so important for the
government that is just--you know, that could just follow the protests,
see what's happening and then act on it. But it's very important for
the journalists that they can see that someone cares--they are not
alone. And if we really do our job properly or if we will lose our
lives doing our job properly we can still bring the change, because
people really do care about what we are doing. So, yes, it sends a
strong message to everyone who is interested in actually living in a
better society.
Mr. Massaro. Jason, please.
Mr. Rezian. Yes. As I mentioned, we sent a reporter there to cover
those protests and I think that that's an indication that it is
successful, right. I mean, in a democratic society where you're allowed
to protest the government for their action or inaction, I think that
it's generally the best course of action, and you bring people onto the
streets to say damn it, we're not going to stand for this, and there
needs to be some accountability.
Now, you know, I'm not Slovakian and, from what Pavla said, the
government response is not sufficient, because the people that are
replacing the leaders and officials who have resigned are from the same
party. But, you know, the opposite--if people were just silent about it
I think sends the worst message possible, and I'm glad to see that
there was some solidarity there and I hope that it continues.
Mr. Massaro. Yes, please.
Mr. Mahoney. Yes, I think that what we saw there was something
which took place in the glare of publicity in the capital city and a
lot of the killings of journalists around the world are not in capital
cities. There are Brazilian journalists who are covering environmental
issues in the Amazon, or Mexican journalists who are not in Mexico
City. Their deaths don't get this kind of publicity and protests
because the national spotlight isn't on them, and that's the
unfortunate part of this story, that if you are in a country which has
a functioning or quasi-functioning democracy and a strong national
media then the killing will get attention. If you don't, the murder can
go with very little attention.
Mr. Massaro. Yes, and I think that ideally you create a culture
where any murder of any journalist in your country sparks a massive
protest.
Mr. Mahoney. Exactly. That's what we're trying to do. [Laughter.]
Mr. Massaro. Yes, please.
Questioner. Hello. Weston [sp] over in the U.S. House of
Representatives.
Has there been an example of countries who have been able to
successfully reverse the trend of murder of journalists in their
country, and if they have, what was it that they did that made it so
successful?
Mr. Massaro. Any takers? Rob, maybe?
Mr. Mahoney. Sure. There have been some examples. I think you could
look at the numbers of journalists that have been killed in a country
like Colombia, for example, where there were mechanisms. You had an
active civil society. You had a government that wanted to do it and you
had law enforcement that could provide effective protection for
journalists, and the killings of journalists declined in that case.
But what we're dealing with in the cases here represented on the
panel and in other countries like Russia is individual targeted
assassinations, and it's very difficult to prevent. You know, you can't
wrap a journalist in bubble wrap and give them bodyguards. They're on
the street. They're talking to people. They're vulnerable. Where you
have a conflict or a war situation you can sometimes bring about
mechanisms for protection. But we've seen it tried and not be
particularly successful in Mexico. It was more successful in Colombia,
as I mentioned.
But as I said in my remarks, more than half the journalists that
are killed are murdered, and we see that as something that's very
worrying because you can't really take a great deal of precautions.
These journalists who are targeted, who are threatened, they can change
their behaviors. They can try to protect themselves. But the reversing
of the trend is very difficult.
Mr. Massaro. Did you want to add something at all, Erika? A
question, anything with that?
Ms. Schlager. Thank you, Paul.
Mr. Massaro. Certainly.
Ms. Schlager. Before we wrap up--and I know we only have a couple
minutes left--I did just want to make one observation about these
issues versus some things that are not being addressed here right now.
I think from the Helsinki Commission perspective, there are a lot of
different ways that, unfortunately, freedom of the media and freedom of
expression can be restricted and the one we're--the method we are
discussing today is the most serious and that's why we're here. When
journalists are murdered or physically attacked, it demands our
attention and we must respond.
Outside of many of the countries we've discussed here today, there
is a singular situation in Turkey, and I do just want to acknowledge
that before we leave the room and note that the Helsinki Commission has
addressed many of those issues in separate hearings relating to the
state of emergency. The situation for journalists in Turkey was not
good even before the state of emergency and it has gotten much, much
worse since then. So just to give a fuller picture of some of the work
that we do.
Thank you.
Mr. Massaro. Fantastic. Well, any more comments from the panel
before we close? Any questions from the audience?
We thank you all so very much for coming today and we will close
the briefing. [Applause.]
[Whereupon, at 4:53 p.m., the briefing ended.]
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