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1. Activism, righttoinformation and transparency:The case of immigrantdetention centres

   María Ruiz Aranguren. Email: maria.ruiza@ehu.es AntxokaAgirreMaiora. Email: antxoka.agirre@ehu.es JournalismDepartment. Basque Country University
2. Ourresearch. Mainobjectives This paper is the result of an on-going research project which seeks to determine which strategies have been employed by organised civil society to influence the news flow on the topic of Immigrant Detention Centres in traditional news media. Our interest in the activities of social organizations, as opposed to those of active journalists, is rooted in the conditions for gaining access to the detention centres. Journalists generally cannot enter the IDCs in their capacity as such. The Immigrant Detention Centres (IDCs) are a unique and very interesting case for communication research, particularly the sub-field concerned with the practice of journalism. Nevertheless, even though the media’s treatment of migrations has been the object of several European studies in recent years, the case of the detention centres has hardly been noticed by the faculties of communication.
3. Subject of research 1. TheInmigrantDetention Centres The Immigrant Detention Centres are regulated by the EU Return Directive (2008/115/CE). According to the Ministry of the Interior, the institution responsible for the centres in Spain, the “Immigrant Detention Centres are public establishments of a non-penal character”. As the Immigration Law 4/2000 states, these centres “precautionarily and preventively” detain foreigners against whom deportation proceedings have been initiated. This way, although these persons have only a limited freedom of movement, the rest of the rights and freedoms recognised in the legal system should be guaranteed. Migrants can only be detained in one of the following situations: (1) for purposes of deportation in the cases listed under Article 53 and 54 of the Organic Law 4/2000 , including being on Spanish territory without proper authorisation, posing a threat to public order and/or participating in clandestine migration; (2) when a judge issues a judicial order for detention, in cases where authorities are unable to carry out a deportation order within 72 hours of its having been issued; (3) when a non-citizen fails to depart the country within the prescribed time limit after being issued a deportation order.
4. Subject of research 2. Denounces and fundamental humanrights Migrants organizations and NGO’s have a fundamental role to give information about the IDCs. They have made a lot of denounces: They have mentioned that some of the detention centres are located in former prisons or military compounds. These so called detention centres have been classified to be unsuitable for detainees due to lack of basic fundamental human rights. some of the example of the lack of rights presented by these organizations are the lack of interpretes, lack of access to legal counsel and the lack of cameras in parts of the installations, which would make it very difficult or impossible to check the behavior of the guards towards the detained. Social organizations have also denounced the violation of personal rights, such as the violation of the right to intimacy, for instance in the practice of communication through screens that impede physical contact with family and friends. Another example is the violation of the right to moral integrity brought about by the fact of having to share a room of a few square metres with several other people or the practice of total nudity at the moment of being interned.
5. Hypothesis The main hypothesis of the study is that the news coverage of migration depends to a large degree on the information supplied by organised civil society. The second hypothesis is that the influence of social organizations is reinforced by network practices.
6. Methodology Qualitative methods. We first identified the organizations working in Spain with the dissemination of information about the centres. Of the ten organizations found, we did in-depth interviews with five of them, seeking to maintain a balance between organizations with many resources and organizations with few. This sampling allowed us to identify a broad ranges of strategies employed by organized civil society, independently of the resources at the disposal of the specific organizations. We interviewed the managers of the organizations to find out: 1) which channels they use to disseminate information on the topic of the IDCs; 2) if journalist have contacted them for information; and 3) in which way the refusal to allow journalists access to the IDCs have influenced the news coverage of the centres We elaborated the sample and interviewed the staff of the organizations Pueblos Unidos, Cie’s No, Inmigra Penal, Andalucía Acoge and SosRacismoGipuzkoa in the first half of 2012. Quantitativemethods The information obtained hereby was contrasted with an analysis of the content of the three newspapers with the greatest circulation in Spain: ABC, El País and El Mundo. The main time frame of the analysis was four months per year chosen at random during the last four years (2009-2012). The combing of the three main newspapers, both in their printed and digital editions, have revealed a total of 114 articles about the Immigrant Detention Centres in the time periods chosen, of which 44 were printed and 70 published on the Internet. The period of study was constituted by four of time periods. The number of articles for each period is as follows: 21 in 2009, 6 in 2010, 23 in 2011 and 64 in 2012.
7. MainResults. Interviews 1. Media contact has not been a priority The social organizations analysed do not have specialised departments of communication. The possibility of having a person working exclusively with communication and media contact varies across the organizations, largely in function of their ability to get public funding. Generally, the interviewees refer to a lack of material and economic resources when asked about the possible existence of a department of communication or a staff member dedicated to these issues. This does not mean that the organizations have not developed communication strategies, but simply that they have not been developed by staff working exclusively with that focus. 2. The channels used to inform the media are traditional The sending of press releases has been one of the most used techniques for gaining access to the media. They have typically taken the form of telling the story of particular individuals or treating the more general topics of detention and deportation. Observing that governments have been inclined to criminalise the persons detained in the centres, the social organizations have tried to counteract this government strategy by relating the detailed experiences of a detainee, describing a case of maltreatment or passing on the denunciations of the detainees. Another traditional channel is the organization of press conferences, although this method was not widely employed by the analysed organizations until the creation of the platform “The rule of law does not terminate at the gates of the IDCs” (“Que el derecho no se detenga a la puerta de los CIE”) in may 2011.
8. MainResults. Interviews 3. They have used internet to achieve specific objectives Although the organizations from 2010 to 2012 have also begun using social networks to disseminate information about the IDCs, their main use of internet is in order to achieve the specific objective of gathering signatures on petitions. For instance, when the platform Avaaz was used to gather support for demanding regulations that guarantee greater transparency in the IDCs, more than 45.000 signed the petition. The internet is also used to inform and maintain contact with journalist through Twitter, although only one of the organizations specifically mentioned this. 4. Community-based media are not on the agenda of the social organizations The social organizations in question respond to the requests for information by community-based media, such as free radios or neighbourhood radios. Actually, this type of media asks for information more often and more regularly than commercial media. To the social organizations, the community-based media are important, although not essential, since they are directed at an audience who is already more informed about the IDCs and have formed stronger opinions on the issues than the general population.
9. MainResults. Interviews 5. Public events and protests are part of the strategy The organizations regularly organise protest marches and demonstrations outside the IDCs. Nevertheless, they realise that this kind of activities are not reflected in the traditional news media. This lack of impact also characterises the organization of conferences and seminars on the topic. 6. The writing of reports and the networking strategies have been keys to gaining legitimacy as a source for the news media The social organizations all agree that one of the fundamental factors that helped them catch the attention of the media is the writing of reports about the violation of fundamental rights in the IDCs, in many cases in cooperation with legal experts. As a result of a their network approach, these reports contain contributions from various organizations. Especially relevant is the creation of the platform “The rule of law does not terminate at the gates of the IDCs” (“Que el derecho no se detenga a la puerta de los CIE”), in which the majority of the relevant Spanish social organizations participate. Apart from this, there are also international networks at play, such as Migreroup and JRS Europe. It is through these reports that the media have come to consider the social organizations a legitimate and authoritative source of information on the topic of Immigrant Detention Centres.
10. MainResults. Content analysis Initiative: Who generates the information covering the media? In 26 cases (22,8% of the total), the article corresponds directly to an initiative of a social organization. The initiatives are very diverse, ranging from the presentation of reports on the IDCs to demonstrations outside them. The government is another actor important for the coverage. In thirteen cases, the article is generated by a governmental activity or public appearance, in almost all cases by the Ministry of the Interior. In ten cases, the information is generated by the judicial control by prosecutors or judges, in nine cases by the ombudsman, regional or central, in 6 cases the article is generated by police activities or the political positioning of the police trade unions, and in the rest of the cases, the news pieces are generated by the detainees (deaths, escapes, protests, statements, etc.) B) Sources: To whom go the means to contrast and complete information? The social organitations appear in 57 cases (50% of the total). This is a very important fact, especially bearing in mind that in 33 cases (28,9%) no source is cited and that the second-most important complementary source, the police, is only cited in 21 cases.
11. MainResults. Content analysis C) Network organization: It is noteworthy that of the 26 cases, in which the news coverage of the IDCs was about an activity undertaken by social organizations, in eighteen cases it was a joint activity. Further, also the activities undertaken by a single organization are often based on cooperation in a network, for example: Two protests by the 15-M movement, the symbol of network organization; a report by the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR) based on the joint effort of various organizations and itself part of the European study DEVAS about the IDCs en 23 European countries; and the annual report of the Madrid-based association Pueblos Unidos supported by the network Red Incola. D) Reports publication: Of the 26 cases in which social organizations have managed to generate a newspaper article, sixteen have been relative to the publication of a report. The rest of the cases are relative to demonstrations (4), rallies (4), music against the IDCs (1) and celebration of the International Migrants Day (1). The reports are thus the principal tool of the organizations for activating the media. They also allow the organizations to function as a reliable source when a news medium needs to complement or check information. All the published reports have been written jointly by organizations cooperating in a network.
12. MainResults: contentanalysis E)Temporal sequence By time period, 21 articles are published by the three newspapers in 2009. In 2010, only six articles are published. In 2011 the number goes up to 23, whereas the number of articles published in 2012 swells to 64. “The increase in information comes together with the celebration of the first state congress of social organizations against the CIE (2011-10), the death of two immigrants in the CIE in Madrid and Barcelona (2011-12) and the change in the Spanish government (2011-12) proposing a new regulation in the topic.”
13. Conclusions Articles on the IDCs in the media depend a great degree on the information generated by social organizations Cooperatingina network while managing solid information has enabled the social organizations working against the IDCs to articulate a discourse that allows them to reach a large news media organizations he channels used to inform the media are traditional Documents published by the organizations with the help of experts has been the most effective strategy to have a major impact in media coverage. Media coverage has been unequal in the three newspapers
14. Openinginvestigationlines: Righttoinformation and transparency One of the opened lines of research where are currently working, is related with the right of information and also with achieving a comparative between different countries, as there are specific features. After completing this work, we wonder which is actually the involvement of the media and journalists in existing initiatives that are asking further information about the topic. The last and not the least; we wonder about the consequences of the fact that opening more immigrant detention centres to the journalists. Is the information of the topic better covered? Is the media’s information about immigration and the conditions of the detained persons in detention centres more reliable and complete
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