Lee C. Bollinger and Agnès Callamard Discuss Press Freedom and Jamal Khashoggi
Transcript
00:13
Agnès Callamard, my colleague and friend.
00:16
We are having this conversation at a very sad moment,
00:21
to mark the one year anniversary of the killing of Jamal
00:27
Khashoggi.
00:28
This is also an opportunity for us
00:31
to talk about global freedom of expression issues
00:34
and free speech, free press issues in the United States
00:37
generally.
00:38
Let's start with talking about the creation of Global Freedom
00:43
of Expression Project, that I asked you to come in and head,
00:46
and you've done and so brilliantly.
00:48
What we we've demonstrated at Columbia Global
00:51
Freedom of Expression is actually,
00:54
the richness of our common understanding
01:00
of freedom of expression.
01:01
And the fact that so many courts around the world,
01:07
particularly of course, in Latin America, Africa, and Europe,
01:11
have actually taken the international standard
01:15
form article 19 of the ICCPR, and developed a jurisprudence
01:21
that has become quite integrated across those three continents.
01:25
And is enriching the jurisprudence
01:29
of each of those continent.
01:30
Let's talk about your other work.
01:34
And that is as the special rapporteur
01:37
for the United Nations on extrajudicial killings.
01:42
And then your involvement in the investigation
01:46
of Jamall Khashoggi's murder.
01:49
The case of Jamal Khashoggi is both symbolic of the patterns,
01:57
and it's also quite exceptional.
01:59
So in many ways, it represents global patterns of attacks--
02:06
physical attacks against journalists and media
02:09
workers, which literally do not resort
02:13
into any kind of prosecution.
02:17
So the large amount of impunity attached to those killings
02:23
as far as the masterminds are concerned.
02:26
In a number of cases, the hit men
02:29
may be identified, but who ordered the crimes are not.
02:34
And that was also the story last year,
02:39
because the Saudi authorities quite very quickly identified
02:46
the so-called hit team, but did not really get in
02:51
to who ordered it.
02:52
So the gap there was very much in keeping with the unfortunate
02:59
pattern that we have identified.
03:03
What made the case of his killing particularly distinct
03:08
though, is how international it was.
03:12
So it took place outside the country of the killers
03:18
and outside the country of the victim.
03:22
Most importantly for you and for I in addition to all of that,
03:27
and which was often overlooked, it also
03:31
violated freedom of expression, which
03:34
is a point you made very when in your op-ed
03:38
in the Washington Post, where you demonstrated
03:42
that the killing of Jamal Khashoggi,
03:45
a resident of the United States, also sought
03:50
to violate deeply held norms.
03:54
We all should be concerned whatever
03:56
our citizenship about violations of free speech, free
04:02
press around the world.
04:03
As I like to say and have said, it's now the case
04:06
that censorship anywhere is censorship everywhere.
04:11
And that certainly applies in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.
04:16
The focus I also wanted to bring to this,
04:19
which was the genesis for the piece
04:22
that I did in the Washington Post
04:24
that you referred to because I wanted
04:27
to make the case that if you just cared or looked
04:30
at it from the standpoint of freedom of speech and press
04:35
in the United States, just from the standpoint of the First
04:37
Amendment, he was murdered in significant part because
04:44
of his exercise of First Amendment rights
04:47
in the United States through things
04:49
that he said and wrote, especially in the Washington
04:52
Post.
04:53
And so it raises this profoundly deep concern
04:59
as to what the United States will do
05:01
and can do legally when one of the people or more
05:07
of the people who are exercising their First Amendment rights
05:10
are then killed, murdered, or otherwise
05:15
penalized for that speech by actors and states
05:19
around the world.
05:20
But it made clear that there is under existing United States
05:25
law, a basis for pursuing a criminal investigation
05:31
from the United States into this terrible episode that happened
05:37
in the consulate in Turkey.
05:40
Not only to begin an investigation,
05:41
but if the government, federal government,
05:44
identified they felt were the perpetrators that there
05:49
was a basis for initiating the criminal action against them.
05:53
Not having done that sends a frightening concerning
05:58
message to United States citizens
06:02
and all people who exercise their First Amendment rights,
06:07
that the United States government will not in a sense
06:11
protect them against foreign actors who penalize them,
06:16
even commit murder because of the exercise of their rights.
06:21
I'm certainly hoping that short of a federal level
06:29
investigation of the nature that you are describing,
06:32
I still believe that either the FBI could do something,
06:37
given its mandate.
06:39
If not, the FBI, then the Director of National security
06:46
could do something.
06:48
I'm also hoping that the various ongoing suits around the CIA
06:57
analysis of the killings, of the responsibilities--
07:02
that these information will eventually
07:04
be made public either through a formal request,
07:08
through a court case, through the Congress, and so on.
07:12
So I remain moderately optimistic
07:19
that within the United States, there
07:22
will be sufficient commitment to the values you've described.
07:27
And sufficient courage to move with either one
07:32
of those actions.
07:33
Yes.
07:34
The key point is that people need
07:36
to see that if you care about the First Amendment exercise
07:43
rights of free speech and free press,
07:45
you should be concerned about how the government protects you
07:51
by prosecuting and going after perpetrators of crimes
07:56
abroad against you for the exercise of their rights.
07:59
Absolutely.
08:00
That's one of the things that the Khashoggi case makes.
08:03
Extraterritorially.
08:05
We should all be concerned about anything
08:07
that happens to journalists or speakers around the world
08:11
no matter what country they come from.
08:14
We should all be concerned about that.
08:16
Can you talk some, Agnes, about what
08:19
you found in the investigation that you conducted
08:22
as the special rapporteur?
08:24
What I did find was that the execution of Mr. Khashoggi
08:29
was premeditated, that it was well organized,
08:33
that it was planned, and that there
08:35
is no other way to describe it but as a state killing.
08:39
I reached the conclusion that it was the responsibility
08:44
of the state of Saudi Arabia, not of rogue actors, as they
08:48
have tried to pretend, on the basis of the evidence I
08:51
have collected regarding the organization of the killing.
08:57
And on the basis of international law,
08:59
related to what amounts to a state act, as opposed
09:03
to what amount to an individual act by individual actors.
09:09
There is only one conclusion that can be reached.
09:12
That was a killing for which the state of Saudi Arabia
09:16
is directly responsible.
09:18
That finding has been rejected, and so far
09:22
the state of Saudi Arabia has refused
09:25
to acknowledge its responsibility as a state,
09:29
and has placed the blame of some fairly low key individuals that
09:34
were part of the hit team.
09:37
What I have also found is that the state of Saudi Arabia,
09:41
again, failed to investigate the killing in good faith.
09:46
Failed to cooperate with the Turkish authorities
09:50
in good faith.
09:51
And there is strong evidence pointing
09:54
to the state of Saudi Arabia cleaning up the crime scene
09:58
so as to make it impossible for the Turkish investigators
10:03
to find any kind of evidence.
10:06
And just finally, as far as we know
10:10
and as has been reported in the press,
10:13
our intelligence agencies also agree with those conclusions?
10:18
Well, according to the leaks that had been
10:23
provided by various media, yes.
10:26
I did not rely on this information
10:28
because it was not credible enough
10:33
in terms of meeting my standard of evidence.
10:36
But everything that I've read and heard,
10:40
including directly by people who were briefed by those agencies,
10:49
yes, concur with my conclusion.
10:52
Agnes Callamard, thank you very much.
10:54
Thank you.
Agnès Callamard, my colleague and friend.
00:16
We are having this conversation at a very sad moment,
00:21
to mark the one year anniversary of the killing of Jamal
00:27
Khashoggi.
00:28
This is also an opportunity for us
00:31
to talk about global freedom of expression issues
00:34
and free speech, free press issues in the United States
00:37
generally.
00:38
Let's start with talking about the creation of Global Freedom
00:43
of Expression Project, that I asked you to come in and head,
00:46
and you've done and so brilliantly.
00:48
What we we've demonstrated at Columbia Global
00:51
Freedom of Expression is actually,
00:54
the richness of our common understanding
01:00
of freedom of expression.
01:01
And the fact that so many courts around the world,
01:07
particularly of course, in Latin America, Africa, and Europe,
01:11
have actually taken the international standard
01:15
form article 19 of the ICCPR, and developed a jurisprudence
01:21
that has become quite integrated across those three continents.
01:25
And is enriching the jurisprudence
01:29
of each of those continent.
01:30
Let's talk about your other work.
01:34
And that is as the special rapporteur
01:37
for the United Nations on extrajudicial killings.
01:42
And then your involvement in the investigation
01:46
of Jamall Khashoggi's murder.
01:49
The case of Jamal Khashoggi is both symbolic of the patterns,
01:57
and it's also quite exceptional.
01:59
So in many ways, it represents global patterns of attacks--
02:06
physical attacks against journalists and media
02:09
workers, which literally do not resort
02:13
into any kind of prosecution.
02:17
So the large amount of impunity attached to those killings
02:23
as far as the masterminds are concerned.
02:26
In a number of cases, the hit men
02:29
may be identified, but who ordered the crimes are not.
02:34
And that was also the story last year,
02:39
because the Saudi authorities quite very quickly identified
02:46
the so-called hit team, but did not really get in
02:51
to who ordered it.
02:52
So the gap there was very much in keeping with the unfortunate
02:59
pattern that we have identified.
03:03
What made the case of his killing particularly distinct
03:08
though, is how international it was.
03:12
So it took place outside the country of the killers
03:18
and outside the country of the victim.
03:22
Most importantly for you and for I in addition to all of that,
03:27
and which was often overlooked, it also
03:31
violated freedom of expression, which
03:34
is a point you made very when in your op-ed
03:38
in the Washington Post, where you demonstrated
03:42
that the killing of Jamal Khashoggi,
03:45
a resident of the United States, also sought
03:50
to violate deeply held norms.
03:54
We all should be concerned whatever
03:56
our citizenship about violations of free speech, free
04:02
press around the world.
04:03
As I like to say and have said, it's now the case
04:06
that censorship anywhere is censorship everywhere.
04:11
And that certainly applies in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.
04:16
The focus I also wanted to bring to this,
04:19
which was the genesis for the piece
04:22
that I did in the Washington Post
04:24
that you referred to because I wanted
04:27
to make the case that if you just cared or looked
04:30
at it from the standpoint of freedom of speech and press
04:35
in the United States, just from the standpoint of the First
04:37
Amendment, he was murdered in significant part because
04:44
of his exercise of First Amendment rights
04:47
in the United States through things
04:49
that he said and wrote, especially in the Washington
04:52
Post.
04:53
And so it raises this profoundly deep concern
04:59
as to what the United States will do
05:01
and can do legally when one of the people or more
05:07
of the people who are exercising their First Amendment rights
05:10
are then killed, murdered, or otherwise
05:15
penalized for that speech by actors and states
05:19
around the world.
05:20
But it made clear that there is under existing United States
05:25
law, a basis for pursuing a criminal investigation
05:31
from the United States into this terrible episode that happened
05:37
in the consulate in Turkey.
05:40
Not only to begin an investigation,
05:41
but if the government, federal government,
05:44
identified they felt were the perpetrators that there
05:49
was a basis for initiating the criminal action against them.
05:53
Not having done that sends a frightening concerning
05:58
message to United States citizens
06:02
and all people who exercise their First Amendment rights,
06:07
that the United States government will not in a sense
06:11
protect them against foreign actors who penalize them,
06:16
even commit murder because of the exercise of their rights.
06:21
I'm certainly hoping that short of a federal level
06:29
investigation of the nature that you are describing,
06:32
I still believe that either the FBI could do something,
06:37
given its mandate.
06:39
If not, the FBI, then the Director of National security
06:46
could do something.
06:48
I'm also hoping that the various ongoing suits around the CIA
06:57
analysis of the killings, of the responsibilities--
07:02
that these information will eventually
07:04
be made public either through a formal request,
07:08
through a court case, through the Congress, and so on.
07:12
So I remain moderately optimistic
07:19
that within the United States, there
07:22
will be sufficient commitment to the values you've described.
07:27
And sufficient courage to move with either one
07:32
of those actions.
07:33
Yes.
07:34
The key point is that people need
07:36
to see that if you care about the First Amendment exercise
07:43
rights of free speech and free press,
07:45
you should be concerned about how the government protects you
07:51
by prosecuting and going after perpetrators of crimes
07:56
abroad against you for the exercise of their rights.
07:59
Absolutely.
08:00
That's one of the things that the Khashoggi case makes.
08:03
Extraterritorially.
08:05
We should all be concerned about anything
08:07
that happens to journalists or speakers around the world
08:11
no matter what country they come from.
08:14
We should all be concerned about that.
08:16
Can you talk some, Agnes, about what
08:19
you found in the investigation that you conducted
08:22
as the special rapporteur?
08:24
What I did find was that the execution of Mr. Khashoggi
08:29
was premeditated, that it was well organized,
08:33
that it was planned, and that there
08:35
is no other way to describe it but as a state killing.
08:39
I reached the conclusion that it was the responsibility
08:44
of the state of Saudi Arabia, not of rogue actors, as they
08:48
have tried to pretend, on the basis of the evidence I
08:51
have collected regarding the organization of the killing.
08:57
And on the basis of international law,
08:59
related to what amounts to a state act, as opposed
09:03
to what amount to an individual act by individual actors.
09:09
There is only one conclusion that can be reached.
09:12
That was a killing for which the state of Saudi Arabia
09:16
is directly responsible.
09:18
That finding has been rejected, and so far
09:22
the state of Saudi Arabia has refused
09:25
to acknowledge its responsibility as a state,
09:29
and has placed the blame of some fairly low key individuals that
09:34
were part of the hit team.
09:37
What I have also found is that the state of Saudi Arabia,
09:41
again, failed to investigate the killing in good faith.
09:46
Failed to cooperate with the Turkish authorities
09:50
in good faith.
09:51
And there is strong evidence pointing
09:54
to the state of Saudi Arabia cleaning up the crime scene
09:58
so as to make it impossible for the Turkish investigators
10:03
to find any kind of evidence.
10:06
And just finally, as far as we know
10:10
and as has been reported in the press,
10:13
our intelligence agencies also agree with those conclusions?
10:18
Well, according to the leaks that had been
10:23
provided by various media, yes.
10:26
I did not rely on this information
10:28
because it was not credible enough
10:33
in terms of meeting my standard of evidence.
10:36
But everything that I've read and heard,
10:40
including directly by people who were briefed by those agencies,
10:49
yes, concur with my conclusion.
10:52
Agnes Callamard, thank you very much.
10:54
Thank you.