Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Feb. 19th, 2019

[Daniel Bastard]

Thank you for those two questions.

Regarding the private press, we don’t really have any large corporations or powerful press magnates as there are in western countries or other Asian countries. We have, instead, small publications that basically depend on advertising and are mono-industrial, in that they are only involved in media such as magazines, dailies or radio. Our regional press is somewhat developed. But all of these structures are still very weak and would need, notably, greater financial assistance. This would allow them to be more viable in the future. Perhaps Parliament and the Canadian government could consider providing support to them.

I will give you a very concrete example. Of course, financial or trade sanctions can be imposed on Myanmar, but you have to see whether this affects the population more than the government. That is why we are considering, together with other non-governmental organizations, having certain cases tried under the famous Magnitski law. That law was first introduced in the United States, but other countries have enacted similar laws. It would make it possible to really target those who are responsible for repressing freedom of the press, through the use of visas and the seizure of their assets abroad. Many of them, however, have assets in China, which complicates things considerably. Despite that, a message can be sent. If we can seize the assets of the leaders, of those who are in command and who make the decision to curtail freedom of the press, we could make people think.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Naing.

[Ko Ko Naing]

I agree with what the journalists were mentioning. Burma had been isolated for more than a decade. It's just recently getting some democracy. The newspapers currently in Burma are the Global New Light of Myanmar and Eleven Media. They all are sponsored by the Burmese government. We need a lot of real news in Burma. However, the Burmese government notoriously likes to censor the news, so there has been no major newspaper in Burma. Reuters journalists just broadcast the news about the Rohingya crisis and they got arrested. I would say that you need to put international pressure on the Burmese government by sanctioning them. Also for countries like Singapore and China, where the military regime is hiding its money, maybe we should also let them know that the Burmese government is notoriously known to jail journalists, so they should not reward them.

From an economic standpoint, with the Burmese government, so far there's no major corporations there. The only thing I can think of is that the U.S. government has a VOA, Voice of America Burma, which is the news channel based in Washington D.C. They did a good job of broadcasting the news about the Rohingya crisis. That is funded by the U.S. Congress, and we really appreciate the U.S. government having Voice of America. It would be great if maybe the Canadian government also had that kind of news to educate the Burmese public and also the Burmese government on giving freedom of the press.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much.

For the next round, we will limit the questions to three minutes. We'll start with Mr. Fragiskatos.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madame Chair.

If possible, I would like to split my time with Mr. Fergus, if we're able to do that.

Thank you to both of you for testifying today.

I have one question, and it's for Mr. Bastard.

We've touched on this already in some ways, but I think it will be good for the record to reflect in the end, when we do produce a report, how things have changed over the decades. My specific point is that reporting in the context of mass violence, genocide in fact, is not new. There were reporters covering Rwanda. There were reporters covering the killing fields in Cambodia and other situations like those. I wonder how social media has impacted the reporting of situations like genocide that the Rohingya have gone through, or if not outright genocide, then certainly instances of mass violence. Is social media helping or hindering the reporting and exposing of violence that's taking place on the ground? That could be in Burma, if you wish to use it as an example. It's a general question, so you can give us a general answer.

[Daniel Bastard]

In Burma, social media obviously contributed to the repression of freedom of information. I think they also contributed to inciting the genocide. One could almost compare the role played by Facebook in Burma to the role played by the Radio Milles Collines in Rwanda. In 1994, just before the Rwandan genocide, calls to hatred were broadcast on that radio station and rebroadcast throughout the country, which accelerated the eruption of the genocide.

In Burma, as I explained, the number of Facebook users has increased exponentially. That platform was used to spread fake news that led to hate speech which increased hatred for the Rohingya. We must also recognize the great responsibility Facebook bears in sparking the genocide, because nothing was done to moderate activities on this platform in Burma, so much so that in the spring, a collective of a dozen Burmese NGOs sent an email to Mark Zuckerberg to make him aware of his share of responsibility in the Burmese genocide.

More generally, I cover all of the Asian area. We see that social media are liberally used to spread hatred. This is the case in India with Twitter, and also in Vietnam and the Philippines. It’s something that really needs to be looked at. There is a real need for moderation, which is very difficult to define, but social media are really responsible for spreading hate speech.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much.

We will first go to Mr. Anderson. Then we will have time to come back to you.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you, Madam chair.

I want to thank you for being with us today. I wish we had a little more time for this.

I want to come back to the discussion about the newspapers. I understand that in 2013 private newspapers were allowed to be set up for the first time. Nineteen of them came into existence. Seven of them survive to this day. They have to compete with two dailies run by the government, and one run by the military.

Can you talk about the relationship between those newspapers? I think you had suggested, Mr. Bastard, that more money would help. I'm wondering if that's actually the solution. I think you had also said we need to go after those who are limiting freedom. That's probably the primary thing we want to do.

Could you talk a little bit about the relationship with these newspapers? Everybody has their bias. How do we treat them?

[Daniel Bastard]

I can say that the newspapers that are close to the government are more or less organs of propaganda. As for private newspapers, they work in a grey zone. As I said, there is a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. Even if they publish an investigation based on information from impeccable sources, they still may be sued for libel. Even if they are not ultimately convicted, this means that they will incur enormous financial costs. That is why I spoke of providing financial support to the private press.

Since 2013, a culture of journalistic ethics has developed that must be taken into account—it should not be neglected. I am thinking particularly of the Eleven Media group; three of its journalists were jailed last October. They are true heroes. They represent the face of what could be freedom of the press in Burma.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Can I interrupt you there? I guess you're done. There was such good news in 2016. There was an expectation that things would go in a positive direction. What actually happened after 2016? You talked earlier about holding people responsible. Who are the people who should be held responsible for the changes?

We're going to do a report. It would be good to have that information.

[The Chair]

You have just 20 seconds. Sorry.

[Daniel Bastard]

Fine.

The change is due to the fact that Ms. Aung San Suu Kiy had to ally herself with the military to hold on to power. Because of that, the army imposed its law and Ms. Aung San Suu Kiy and civil power gave in in that negotiation to keep power.

[The Chair]

We'll go to Mr. Fergus for a question.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I also thank our two witnesses. Their testimony today is stressful, to say the least, and it is difficult to fully grasp the situation.

Mr. Bastard, could you expand on your comments concerning the role of Facebook and of all social media? You are no doubt aware of the fact that Facebook, like other social media, is increasingly bringing in measures to monitor comments—and I am weighing my words here—in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. Why have they not done the same thing in countries where there is a serious risk of genocide?

[Daniel Bastard]

I don’t want to suggest that this is neocolonialism, but I think that Facebook uses small countries like laboratories. That is what I saw in Cambodia. At the end of 2017, Facebook put in place the “Explorer feed” functionality in Cambodia and in five other countries of moderate importance, such as Nicaragua, Slovenia and Sri Lanka. This functionality relegated all information of public interest to a space that was very difficult to reach. All you could find were comments about what a friend had eaten, or kitten videos.

All of the public interest information, which is fundamental in that type of country where the news media are repressed and where social media should play a role in disseminating information, had been relegated to a space that was practically unreachable. So a lot of NGOs, such as ours, took Facebook to task for this. After a few months, given the outcry, the social media platform finally removed that functionality.

What the Burmese example tells us is that Facebook was guilty of extreme negligence at the very least. Our correspondent in Myanmar explained that he had contacted one of the few people entrusted, not with monitoring, as you said, but moderating the social network. My correspondent contacted him, and in fact he is pro-government.

[The Chair]

Thank you, Mr. Bastard. I am sorry to have to interrupt you but I must give the floor to Mr. Anderson for one last very brief question.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I want to thank Ms. Hardcastle for sharing her time with me.

Someone had mentioned the regional press. With the increased military pressure on Kachin, Kayin, Shan, and Rakhine states, what is the state of the regional press in those areas? They're a bit more autonomous, if you want to call it that, in those areas to some degree. What is the state of the press there?

[Daniel Bastard]

There is an escalation of conflicts in border zones. As soon as there is some conflict, the newspapers lose editorial freedom. It’s even physically dangerous to publish anything the army would not want you to publish. It is only in the few areas where the population lives in peace that regional newspapers can be published.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Do those areas have regional press of their own? That's what I'm asking. Within those areas, do those entities have their own regional press where they can get their message out?

[Daniel Bastard]

There are regional newspapers, but they are only distributed in certain peaceful zones. Any conflict zone where the army is active is not covered at all by the press.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair]

Thank you so much to both of our witnesses for your very compelling and informative testimony.

I'd like to remind the committee that on Thursday we will be having two meetings. We'll be joining the foreign affairs committee from 11 to 12 to hear from Mark Lowcock, the United Nations under-secretary-general and emergency relief coordinator. Then again at one o'clock we'll be here to discuss, in camera, the witness list for our women human rights defenders study. We will see all of you on Thursday.

Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.