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RIGHTS-EUROPE: U.N. Group Takes Aim at ‘Mono-coloured’ Press

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Oct 10 2003 (IPS) - Among the 13 British newspapers published in London and with national distribution there are only 10 editors, 13 reporters and one columnist who are considered ethnic minorities – "disgraceful" evidence of continued discrimination, says a journalist association leader.

In confronting the problem of racism, "recruitment of people of African descent and other minorities in the media is an important area, yet one which to date has been largely overlooked in Europe," says Lionel Morrison, with the International Federation of Journalists.

The matter has been up for debate this week in a meeting of United Nations human rights experts. In his address to the group, Morrison stressed that the enormous influential power of the communications media, "when used in a negative way, irresponsibly or incompetently," can feed racism and intolerance.

The Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, created in April 2001 by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, this week studied stereotypes, negative images and the invisibility of this community in the media.

The group is headed by Peter Lesa Kasanda, of Zambia, and includes George Nicolas Jabbour, of Syria, Roberto Borges Martins, of Brazil, Irina Zlatescu, of Romania, and Joe Frans, of Sweden.

Invisibility is related to the scarcity of people of African origins in the political life and in the communications media in the countries where they are a minority, agreed the experts.

The persistence of racism is the result of this invisibility, which in turn is a product of its trivialization, said Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, representative of the International Council on Human Rights Policy, a Geneva-based institution.

Among the many causes of this phenomenon, the most important is the relationship of economic and social forces, which in most cases disfavours minority groups, noted Boël Sambuc, researcher for Switzerland’s federal anti-racism commission.

Working Group expert Zlatescu said that of the broad range of themes that the media cover, "the social and cultural segments seem best suited to increase the visibility of and familiarisation with persons of African descent."

But IFJ activist Morrison said he thinks the "racist discourse in the media is increasingly implicit."

Discrimination is manifest not only through crude stereotypes, he said, "it acts through omission, for example, the lack of minority news sources and absence of the black presence in the news rooms."

Emerging in the Working Group discussion were comments that the European press has shown an "inability to question or challenge racist ideas" and promotes the "perception of black people as the source of problems."

Recently in Switzerland, said Sambuc, there has been massive dissemination in the media of those stereotypes that associate certain behaviour with the colour of one’s skin.

Numerous newspaper articles and news programmes reaching all of Switzerland linked Africans in general with drug traffickers, said the researcher.

Another stereotype suggests that any woman of African descent who walks down a street is a prostitute, she added.

Furthermore, Swiss citizens of African descent are targeted by the police simply because of their skin colour, and they are stopped and questioned by officers much more often than their white compatriots.

With these precedents, Sambuc calls on the Swiss mass media to renounced the use of simplistic references and generalisations, such as "in Africa" or "the Africans".

In Britain, said Morrison, "the attitude of newspapers and broadcasting stations is a crucial element in race relations and in the opinion forming on asylum seekers. Immigration or colour prejudice can be affected by the way these media handle stories concerning them."

On an Internet site supported by the IFJ, diversity-online.org, "You can read page after page of poisonous coverage and how these stories show that ‘asylum seekers’ once meant ‘scrounger’ and now means ‘terrorist’," said Morrison.

The social researchers convened by the U.N. Working Group of Experts also mentioned the negative effects of attitudes expressed by some sports announcers.

"Regrettably, football has not escaped the influence of racism," admitted Patrick Gasser, a representative of the Union Européenne de Football-Association.

The sports organisation has attempted to tackle racism by taking disciplinary actions.

Gasser said punishing racist attacks is a crucial matter, but lacks effectiveness if the public is not informed of such incidents, or does not recognise them as a problem.

The Working Group this week concludes its third period of sessions, which for the first time included an expert from the western countries, Sweden’s Joe Frans.

The other regional blocs active in this human rights sphere of the U.N. – Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia, and Eastern Europe – have backed the efforts of the Working Group from the outset.

But the western countries delayed in naming their representative expert, a show of disapproval of certain decisions taken at the World Conference Against Racism, held in 2001 in the South African city of Durban.

Sambuc commented that lack of interest in the racism problem persists among states and economic powers, evident in the slowness to apply the recommendations approved in Durban.