The topic was not raised at the 2010 UPR, but free expression situation is becoming alarming in the country due to the current legal and regulatory  conditions. The issues are not raised in the current National report.

We regret that no genuine national consultations taken place and the issues of the freedoms of opinion and expression were not in the agenda of three meetings organized by the government.

This statement addresses two issues:
1) Digital freedom and right to anonymity and
2) Criminal defamation

At the first UPR Mongolia in 2010, Hungary highlighted an issue of independence of publishers along with other freedoms (84.16) and Malaysia recommended to intensify its effort to harmonize national legislation with international standards (84.14). The recommendations accepted by the Government.

In 2011, Mongolia adopted the right to information law which is a significant step towards guaranteeing to access the public information. A year 2010 was active in enacting the government policies on media. Following it, the Regulatory body- Communications Regulatory Committee has adopted a number of rules and procedures which are called ”General Conditions and Requirements” to regulate licensing, broadcast services and digital content. Mongolia has no broadcast or electronic media law.

On January 5, 2013, the Government adopted its Resolution No.1 entitled “A Unified System for Website Comment” which violates the principles of the Article 19 of  the ICCPR, of which Mongolia is a signatory since 1974.

The main concerns restricting digital free expressions are first, filtering and registration of the news and information web sites which are against international standards. Morever, licensing is a new obligation imposed licensing is to the content service providers in accordance with amended “General Conditions and Requirements on Digital Content Service” as of 25 September 2014. It also obliges the news and information websites to place their Users’ IP addresses on the tops of their comments. Media outlets often face demands to disclose their journalistic confidential sources and names of the social media bloggers by police and intelligence authorities.

These documents adopted by the Regulatory Body breaches the Article 19 of the ICCPR which states: “Restrictions must be provided by law”

Another concern is a content restriction. There are two issues;

i) Control over the digital content which is taken by the government agencies with no public participation. Based on their official statements and letters, online media is easily closed down or their services are blocked. The government-controlled regulatory body publicizes the list of blocked web sites which is assumed to be blocked because of the copyright breach, but in the practice it is used as censorship, and

ii) Scope of legal content restrictions is too broad and no narrow definitions which again violates the Article 19 of the ICCPR that restrictions which state that restrictions “must conform to the strict tests of necessity and proportionality”.

Free expression is limited by the strict criminal defamation law. Number of the criminal defamation cases is radically increasing. Updated statistics after the NGO submission tells, 21 criminal cases were reported by Globe International Center while 27 were for a period of 7 years between 2006 and 2012. Only in 2014, the Mongolian courts heard 9 criminal cases. The majority of the plaintiffs are elected politicians and authorities and it is used to disclose whistleblowers and journalistic confidential sources and disclose anonymity of journalists and to threaten journalists and citizens.There are two cases of using criminal law aganist Twitter bloggers.

By date of NGO submission, new draft law on Crime which decriminalizes defamation,was submitted to the Parliament. Unfortunately, the law was re-drafted by the new Government’s Justice Ministry and criminal defamation is back to the current draft.  

Recommendations

We therefore urge that following recommendations are made: