Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Feb. 28th, 2019

[The Chair, Ms. Anita Vandenbeld (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.)]

Thank you, everybody. I call the meeting to order.

This is our final day of hearings for our study on the global state of the free press, with a focus on Myanmar and Venezuela. We have very interesting witnesses today, one talking about Myanmar and another about Venezuela.

We have a few technical issues right now with our connection to Laura Helena Castillo in Caracas; hopefully, we'll be able to resolve those soon. Ms. Castillo is the Co-Founder El Bus TV, which is a way of disseminating the news through volunteers who go on public buses, hold cardboard frames and then read out the news to the people on the bus. We're looking forward to hearing from her when we get the connection.

We also have with us Esther Htusan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. From northern Myanmar, she was forced to leave the country in 2017 after death threats because of her reporting on the Rohingya refugee exodus. She is coming to us from Cambridge, Massachusetts.

I would like to remind members that we will be using translation today.

I see that we now have Laura Helena Castillo with us.

Can you hear us?

[Laura Helena Castillo, Co-Founder, El Bus TV]

[Witness spoke in Spanish, interpreted as follows:]

Yes, perfectly well. Good afternoon.

[The Chair]

Just in case we lose our connection, I would invite you to start. Please go ahead with your 10-minute opening statement.

[Laura Helena Castillo]

[Witness spoke in Spanish, interpreted as follows:]

Hello. Good afternoon.

I am a Venezuelan journalist, and two years ago two partners and I founded a new journalistic enterprise called Bus TV.

We founded it in the midst of the 2017 protests. We did so, because the reality that we witnessed on the streets around the country was very different from what we saw on the buses or in low-income neighbourhoods.

What we saw was that there was an information gap. There has been a systematic policy since at least the year 2007 by the government, then led by President Chávez and now led by President Maduro, that attempted very clearly to achieve communications hegemony, using the state media apparatus and also the purchase of independent media—media that now have shifted their editorial line to be closer to the state.

In Venezuela in the year 2017, there were at least four months of protest. More than 150 people were murdered during the protests. At the time on the streets, there were different perspectives, and a large segment of the population was under-informed. They were disconnected from the protests and unaware of what was happening. We thought it was timely to bring this information closer to the people. This then became a project to do journalism and to try to overcome censorship and disinformation in Venezuela.

We have a video to show you that gives you an idea of how Bus TV works. I'd like to roll the video if we can.

[Video presentation]

Thank you very much for allowing us to roll this video.

This is a rather unique activity that is not easy to explain, if you don't see it with your own eyes. We climb on to city buses and we use a cardboard frame that looks like a TV set. We read the news to the passengers.

In having done this for two years, the response has been fantastic. We feel that we've been creating a community around this appreciation for freedom of information and freedom of expression. We do this on a number of routes, especially in low-income neighbourhoods.

The drivers, the passengers and the journalists have come together to defend freedom of expression. People wait for us. They welcome us. They recommend news that we should read. We start informed debates within the buses. Overall, we've had great reception.

This last month has been very tense, especially last week with the arrival of the humanitarian aid. We have felt that people are more polarized. On some bus lines, our reporters have had to sometimes put a stop to their practice of reading the news because the environment has become too tense at times. It's similar to what is happening outside the buses. These are times of uncertainty and frayed nerves for everybody.

People, overall, are grateful for being informed. There is so much disinformation, not only political disinformation on political or economic affairs or the big issues, but also on things that could save people's lives.

You've seen in the video that we also provide nutrition information, health care information. Here in Venezuela we have seen a resurgence of diseases that had been eradicated before, such as diphtheria. We see hepatitis A. We see malnutrition.

We have a total lack of health information campaigns, so we are doing our best to bring this information to people. It can change people's lives, improve people's lives and provide a service, and this is always well received.

Right now we have two teams in Caracas, in Valencia and in Mérida, and we are about to start one in Guayana City. We have more than 40 journalists. This is our way of trying to overcome disinformation in Venezuela.

Between the years 2005 and 2017, according to investigations by the Instituto Prensa y Sociedad, 39 media outlets have closed, mostly radio stations. Major newspapers have been sold. The only 24-hour news channel was sold, and it changed its editorial line in 2013. It stopped being an independent critical outlet. There are a number of states that have no newspaper right now.

We believe we cannot wait for the public to come to the media. The media has to go out to its audience to bring them information, especially independent and balanced information.

I also wanted to talk about what it has meant for us to go out on the streets this year.

We have a security protocol for our reporters, and we have had to fine-tune it during January and February. These past two months, we have come to realize that the opinion matrix, so to speak, people against the entry of the humanitarian aid, especially on that issue, has really taken hold of certain sectors of the population.

This particular topic has caused a lot of anguish and tension within the buses. Some of our journalists have been attacked and assaulted. We've had to get out of the buses. We can see that this is creating a lot of tension. This week things are a little calmer. But on the street, we feel that over the past month the uncertainty has made us all easy prey for misinformation.

We continue to do what we do, and we continue to grow. But we also know that it will become increasingly difficult to get on the buses and provide information. We feel that it's increasingly necessary and, at the same time, increasingly difficult. It's more sensitive than it was a couple of years ago because people are more tense.

[The Chair]

Thank you. I'm sorry, but that is your time. Thank you so much for telling us about what is a very original initiative.

We will now go to our expert in Cambridge, who will talk about Myanmar.

Ms. Esther Htusan, go ahead, please, for 10 minutes.

[Esther Htusan, Foreign Correspondent, The Associated Press, As an Individual]

Thank you for having me on this panel. I sent a short a statement last night, but I want to talk a little bit more broadly about the current situation and also where we have come along the way.

International organizations have recently focused more on Myanmar because of the bigger Rohingya crisis, but crackdowns against journalists have been ongoing since the quasi-civilian government came to power in 2011, after the first election in 2010, ending half a century of military dictatorship. In 2012, with pressure from international organizations, the military-backed civilian government opened up a little more for local journalists to work broadly on different issues in the country. In late 2012 they cancelled the censorship board in the country. Before that, journalists had to send the papers they were going to publish to the censorship board. Without their permission, we were not allowed to publish anything. After the censorship board was abolished, journalists were allowed to write whatever they wanted, but that also came with the threat of going to prison and the risk of punishment from the military.

The Myanmar military has been launching offensive military attacks against Kachin ethnic minority groups in the country since 2011. Many journalists who were trying to cover this issue were threatened by the military, who were using excessive arms and munitions, including helicopter gunships and Russian-made air strikes, against minority groups in the region. The military particularly focused on journalists who tried to report on these issues in the country's north and northeast, along the border with China.

In 2015 we had the first free and fair election. The opposition National League for Democracy, led by Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, won a landslide victory. We had so much hope, as journalists and activists, and civil society groups had the expectation as well, that the civilian government would implement the exercising of free press, as they had promised during the campaign in 2015. Unfortunately, even though in the Myanmar government the civilian government has the majority of seats in Parliament, where they have the power to abolish the repressive laws that the military was using for the last 50 years, the civilian government continues to use them against the journalists and activists and civil society organizations who are reaching out to the public and trying to tell the truth about what's going on in the country.

We have the military-drafted constitution that also grants the exercise of freedom of expression, but instead of granting our constitutional rights, the civilian government, along with the military, right now is using those repressive laws against journalists to criminalize us, demonizing journalists who try to report on corruption or the civilian government's failures. Action has been taken against journalists for any kind of satire or critical articles. Many journalists have been charged under defamation laws as well as under the Telecommunications Law, which means the government can sue any journalist who writes for online or print media. The Telecommunications Law deals with journalists using telecommunications devices and writing stories about human rights issues in the country.

Recently journalists have faced not just the government and the military's threats but one more, the extremist organizations that have been targeting journalists. These extremist Buddhist organizations that have been spreading xenophobic or Islamophobic ideas among the Buddhist population in the country have also been targeting journalists who try to write about human rights abuses against Rohingya Muslims carried out by the military.

We used to have one institution that we were scared of, that we couldn't overcome, but now we have three institutions that we have to be scared of: the military, the civilian government, and the Buddhist extremist organizations.

Since October 2016, during the first wave of the Rohingya crisis, many journalists—especially journalists who work for international organizations and report particularly on the Rohingya crisis as well as other ethnic minority groups in the country's north—have been particularly targeted by those institutions. Over the last two years, more than 40 journalists have been charged or sued by these different organizations, the three of them. Many are still facing lawsuits by the government or lawmakers.

As we all know, the two journalists from Reuters have been sentenced to seven years in prison. They were initially charged under the state secrets act, which carries 14 years' imprisonment, but the government later accused them under the Unlawful Associations Act of 1906. These are completely outdated laws that have been used particularly to accuse journalists of having connections with ethnic armed groups, of being part of ethnic armed groups, and then to imprison them.

Before the two Reuters journalists, three other journalists were arrested just for going into ethnic minority regions and trying to cover the humanitarian crisis up there.

We are seeing more arrests, more threats, including death threats and online harassment. The online harassment is not just by random people who are trying to harass journalists. It is systematically or deliberately targeting journalists. These online social platforms are being used by the military as well as by government lobbyists who are trying to threaten journalists to stop them from doing what they are doing.

We have seen early signs of oppression against journalists. In 2014, a journalist was killed when he was trying to cover an ethnic conflict along the border with Thailand. Then, in 2016—this is quite recent—one of the journalists was trying to investigate illegal logging that the military was directly involved in. This journalist was also killed right before he could publish his story.

These actions are actually preventing journalists in Myanmar from being able to write what they're supposed to write, and making them self-censor, even though there's no more censorship board. Journalists are scared of writing about the human rights issues and humanitarian crisis in the country.

As I mentioned before, since the second wave of the Rohingya crisis, in August 2017—the attack happened on August 25, 2017, and one day after that, on August 26, 2017, I was threatened by the military for talking about the Rohingya being violated and about human rights abuses by the military. They knew exactly that most of the journalists who were working for international organizations were going to write about this and they were trying so hard to actually silence all of us, to stop us from writing what we were trying to report.

Also, at the same time, the government has been carrying out misinformation, using social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and other sorts of platforms.

The military's propaganda against the Rohingya has been very successful. In the middle of driving out the Rohingya to Bangladesh, they have received much support from the Buddhist extremist groups, as well as the general population, which did not want the Rohingya Muslims in the country.

[The Chair]

I'll have to ask you to wind up now.

Go ahead.

[Esther Htusan]

That's why the government's crackdown on the journalists has been successful. We don't see much reported about the killing, the raping and the human rights abuses against civilians in the ethnic regions, as well as in the Rohingya minority region.

[The Chair]

We'll start with the questions and you can both elaborate a little bit more during the questions and answers.

We'll start with Mr. Sweet.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

My first question is for Esther Htusan. First off, thanks for your bravery and your good work.

I have two questions for you. First, has a united front of journalists approached Facebook because of the repercussions from the manipulation of Facebook against individual journalists and others in Myanmar? Has Facebook been told that they need to deal with the human rights violations perpetrated by governments that manipulate and use their platform?

[Esther Htusan]

Earlier last year, in April 2018, there was a civil society group in a local innovation centre in Yangon that had been giving close attention to how social media platforms like Facebook had been fuelling government and Buddhist extremist organizations in the spread of hatred among the population and threats against journalists.

This innovation centre sent an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg for his ignorant actions on.... When this local innovation centre reported to Facebook about the Buddhist organizations sending messages to each other through Facebook Messenger to attack Muslim populations across the country, Facebook ignored it. That's why many local organizations came together and asked for action against Facebook.

Right after that, there was Cambridge Analytica. All these problems came together, and Mark Zuckerberg was asked about particular cases on Myanmar's war because of this open letter.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Thank you.

I ask, Chair, that our researchers make sure that we have that open letter as part of our evidence.

I'd like to pose my next question to Laura Helena Castillo. It's a fascinating “back to the future” approach, your news broadcasting on the buses. You mentioned extra tension these days. Is part of that the government's intervention with the drivers to force you off the buses?

[Laura Helena Castillo]

[Witness spoke in Spanish, interpreted as follows:]

The buses in Venezuela, the buses that we use, are private. These are private co-operatives. In fact, part of the policy is not to use the government-owned buses in order to avoid compromising situations. Especially, we have felt tension and, like I said, there have been verbal assaults and in one case a physical assault by other passengers who sympathize with the government and express their sympathy for the official line. They disagree with some of the information we offer. Since this is an off-line newscast, we are on site with no intermediaries, face to face with the passengers. In recent weeks, we've had to deal with some verbal assaults and some attempts at physically assaulting us. Again, it is because there is enormous tension in the air.

We have become aware of the fact that overall we are very much accepted and well received, but sometimes we do report on cases of corruption or problems with public utilities and various aspects of this prolonged and protracted emergency that we are living through. If we say, for example, “interim president Juan Guaido”, when we allow for the possibility that there is a political process under way, then we have felt very different reactions by some of our viewers. This is a minority, clearly. If there are 25 people on the bus, say, maybe one or two will disagree, but they will do it very vehemently sometimes. Over the past two weeks, this has been a surprise, really, because over two years this has been the first time. Only this week have we had to deal with all the tension that I have described.

Fortunately, inside the bus there seems to be a system of checks and balances, and other passengers then debate on the issue, but of course that is not our duty. We are there simply to read the news, and then we leave, but hopefully the debate is ongoing. For us, this is a very healthy and positive outcome, because people are generally very fearful of speaking openly about the political situation. Fortunately, we have had a great amount of support also from the drivers, more than 70%—

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Ms. Castillo, time is always our enemy, and I just want to ask you one more question.

[The Chair]

You have one minute.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Have any of your journalists been arrested? Also, do they get any kind of remuneration or are they all volunteers?

[Laura Helena Castillo]

[Witness spoke in Spanish, interpreted as follows:]

None has been arrested. One of them was detained temporarily because there was a police checkpoint and most young people are asked for their ID, but that has nothing to do with their activity as newscasters. Every day, people are detained on a regular basis. The majority are students. Most are journalism students who are doing community service with us. In Venezuela, there is a community service law that mandates students of journalism and of any other profession, in fact, to do community service. In the case of journalists, they can do a sort of internship in a media outlet, and they do that with us.

We do have a group that is remunerated. We have some who are doing community service and internships, and some who are remunerated. Overall, we are around 40 in total.

[The Chair]

Now we will move to Mr. Tabbara for seven minutes.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you to our witnesses for being here.

My first question is for Ms. Castillo, and then I want to ask a follow-up question.

I want you to first describe what's happening to social media platforms. Is social media being heavily restricted? Are people not able to see what's happening in the mainstream media? Then I'll follow up with another question.

[Laura Helena Castillo]

[Witness spoke in Spanish, interpreted as follows:]

Yes. Since last year especially, there has been a policy to restrict and block social media platforms, especially social media that does investigation or has a broad reach, like El Pitazo. There are other outlets, like Runrunes, like armandoinfo, Climax, that are selectively blocked, especially when they're doing investigative journalism. Some of them have been blocked for months. That's one example.

Another example is that more than half of the population—these are official numbers from the Telecommunications Commission—don't have access to Internet. Those who do have access find that independent media is being blocked. Recently, YouTube has been blocked, and foreign broadcast channels such as CNN have been blocked.

Yes, it's true. A lot of these outlets have been blocked. The smart phone here, for example, is very, very expensive. It's not easy for people to have access to a smart phone, because it's a large part of the minimum income.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

There's been so much disinformation. I can see that when you're getting so many platforms and media outlets blocked, you would have disinformation in a large country such as Venezuela.

How does your organization help provide more accurate information and unbiased information?

[Laura Helena Castillo]

[Witness spoke in Spanish, interpreted as follows:]

It's very important for us to provide information that is accurate.

The disinformation is so serious that there's not only disinformation about public officials or opposition leaders, there's also a lot of misinformation, as I was saying earlier, with a central topic such as health.

We believe that this information is the one that is better received. It's the one that can really be of service to the population. That's what helps us turn the news into a true public service. We have seen that the response has been very positive.

Of course, we can never neglect political issues and topics. It's important to provide representation of different voices and points of view. That's the nature of journalism. Our intention isn't to complicate the situation. Our objective is to go to where the audiences and the public are, so that we can provide information about what is happening on the street, the different perspectives about different incidents. For example, if one of the themes is violence against women, we can first explain what violence against women is. We can talk about impunity, about economy. We can also talk about nutrition or other health subjects.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

If I can step in, when I was reading a little article about your program, I heard that it's encouraging a lot of debates when you're broadcasting. A lot of the times, from what I've read, you're getting a lot of applause at the end of your broadcasts as well.

Can you elaborate on that?

[Laura Helena Castillo]

[Witness spoke in Spanish, interpreted as follows:]

Yes, the first time that we did it, we saw the response. That's the case in most of the broadcasts we do. It's clear for us that people are applauding for their right to receive information.

We are a country with a long democratic history and a long history of freedom of expression. Citizens know they have a right to information. Therefore, the applause is also for the bravery of the reporters, because they are very young and they've stayed in the country. We know that they're also applauding for access to the news and for the people who are undertaking this initiative.

This initiative started after the closure of the first channel during the government of Hugo Chavez. Ten years had passed. It was the 10 year anniversary of that closure. That was the same day we started this project. It's in a way a tribute to the reporter of that program that was closed down during Hugo Chavez's government. It's been 12 years since that closure.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much.

We will now go to Ms. Hardcastle for seven minutes.