Whether a nation has a high degree of freedom of expression cannot be determined by looking at what happens normally, but rather by what happens to the media’s right to report during extraordinary events.
Three journalists covering a protest against the Ministry of Education’s non-transparent changes to high-school curriculum guidelines were detained by the police, fined NT$10,000 by prosecutors and face legal action by the ministry itself.
This demonstrates not only that Taiwan does not have a high degree of freedom of the press, it also means there is a high degree of threat because of the threadbare democratic values of the individuals in power.
The fierce opposition to the proposed changes to the curriculum guidelines is an important news story that concerns a major, controversial policy involving what is taught in schools. Media coverage of the main points and process of the protests is not only about the media fulfilling its duty for the public’s right to know, it is also about the media performing its necessary function as the fourth estate.
On the scene of major protests in particular, the exercise of the right to report is more than simply a necessary condition for the transmission of facts; it also entails the important function of being able to hold the government to account. This is a crucial element in the media’s duty and an important indicator of whether a nation’s fourth estate does indeed exist.
Of course, journalists cannot act with total impunity. There have to be limits. In general, journalists cannot in the course of their reporting present an obvious impediment to law enforcement and neither can they engage in illegal, destructive activities. However, the three journalists reporting on the curricular adjustment protest had not only already made themselves known to the police, there is also no indication that they are guilty of any transgressions, yet the police placed considerable restrictions upon what they could do.
Prosecutors, despite not having any evidence against them, set bail at NT$10,000, only changing this to placing them under house arrest when the reporters refused to pay. The ministry then insisted upon taking the three of them to court, placing the burden of proof that there was a need for this event to be covered on the journalists. If this is not fettering press freedom, what is?
In Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 9 last year, an 18-year-old black man, Michael Brown, was fatally shot by a police officer, and questions arose about US officers’ use of power, leading to serious tensions and social conflict. The police dealt with ensuing protests by arresting and detaining almost 100 members of the public, together with at least 10 journalists.
The Associated Press and dozens of other media organizations were up in arms over the journalists’ detention.
The police said it was difficult for them to tell who was a reporter at the scene. Not only did the press find this explanation unacceptable, US President Barack Obama said in a speech on Aug. 18 that there was “no excuse for police to use excessive force against peaceful protests” and that “police should not be bullying or arresting journalists who are just trying to do their jobs and report to the American people on what they see on the ground.”
Also, following the March 4 release of a US Department of Justice report noting the presence of racial prejudice among Ferguson police, on March 30 the four journalists arrested while covering the racial unrest sued the St Louis County Police Department and 20 of its officers who were sent to Ferguson to provide security.
The four journalists claimed that the police had infringed upon their civil rights, detaining them illegally and that “this unlawful conduct was undertaken with the intention of obstructing, chilling, deterring and retaliating against plaintiffs for engaging in constitutionally protected speech, news gathering and recording of police activities.”
The four journalists included three German reporters, one of them being a freelance journalist. Even though they showed the police their press credentials at the scene of the protest, wore their press cards around their necks and were carrying camera equipment, they were all met with rough treatment at the hands of the police, including being shot at with rubber bullets. Interestingly, the indictment said that the police obstructed them from “oversight of police action against citizens engaged in protest activity.”
The way the US government enforced the law during the 2011 “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrations also caused widespread debate, with the law departments of seven US universities, including Harvard and New York University, publishing a scathing report — carried out in conjunction with civil groups — on the way the US government handled protesters and journalists’ rights.
Concerning the infringement of the journalists’ rights, the report said that journalists’ rights to report on protests without undue interference from the state is guaranteed in international law. Furthermore, this right to report extends not only to journalists carrying press credentials, but also to reporters operating without press credentials, bloggers, live-streamers and individuals using any other mode of publication because, as one human rights report by the US Congress said, the media is the eyes and ears of the public, and they help ensure the police can be held accountable to the people they serve.
Of course, there is still room to debate how journalists can exercise the right to report without hindering the police in their role as enforcers of the law and this is a debate the institutions or groups involved can engage in. However, if freedom of the press is not respected, not only does the media suffer, it also casts a shadow of shame over democratic politics. The journalists are not the only people to have been fettered in the way the curricular adjustment protest was dealt with.
Hu Yuan-hui is an associate professor of communications at National Chung Cheng University.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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