Civil liberties activists criticise choice of Lauri Kivinen as new YLE boss

Nokia Siemens Networks supplied Iran with electronic surveillance equipment

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Human rights and freedom of speech advocates have criticised last week’s appointment of Lauri Kivinen as the new Director-General of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE). Kivinen is the Head of the Corporate Affairs function at Nokia Siemens Networks, responsible for public relations and corporate responsibility.
      Kivinen held the post in 2008, when NSN sold a monitoring centre to Iran as part of a GSM mobile telephone network. Human rights advocates say that the equipment has enabled Iranian authorities to locate and apprehend political dissidents.
     
Kivinen emphasises that the contracts were drawn up in 2006 and 2007 by Siemens, before the Nokia and Siemens mobile network units teamed up to form NSN. This has not satisfied critics of the appointment.
      “It is questionable that a person who defends the export of a monitoring system and considers it a normal deal, is allowed to take a top spot in the nation’s public information”, says Tapani Tarvainen, the chairman of Electronic Frontier Finland (EFFI). On Friday, EFFI issued an “honourable mention” to NSN connected with the group’s annual “Big Brother” prize.
      Lauri Otonkoski, the chairman of the Finnish section of the Pen organisation, says that there is a contradiction between Kivinen’s old and new job. “The director of YLE cannot work to promote snooping and restriction of freedom of speech.”
     
The European Parliament passed a resolution earlier in the month concerning Nokia Siemens Networks for the sale of the equipment to Iran.
      “It is most likely that the Nokia deal has advanced the arrest, torture, and executions of student activists”, says Finnish MEP Heidi Hautala, the chairwoman of the European Parliament’s subcommittee on human rights.
     
On Friday Helsingin Sanomat asked Kivinen about his possible role in the deal.
      “My role was to inform political decision-makers mainly in the US and the EU about what we had done.
      “A tremendous revolution in mobile communications has taken place in Iran; 40 million people have acquired their first mobile telephones in the past three years.”
      “Because of international GSM standards, the networks need to have built in to them a mechanism from which it is possible to pick and save information.”
      Kivinen notes that NSN has failed in its attempt to correct the perception that the company’s products have been used by the authorities in Iran to restrict Internet access.
     
Kivinen says that he does not know if the mobile network equipment supplied by NSN has allowed the Iranians to arrest activists.
      He says that the monitoring centre does make it possible to record telephone calls dialled to or from a specific number.
      “In democracies, supervision takes place on the basis of a court decision, to investigate crimes. Even in democratic societies the question of who should have access to digital the data that we leave behind us, is a question of considerable debate.”
     
Kivinen says that NSN became the focus of attention in this case because it was open about the deal. He notes that his company has a market share of only 30 per cent in Iran.
      Nevertheless he did not want to comment on the activities of NSN’s competitors in Iran.
      He also feels that selling GSM networks to Iran can promote both business and human rights.
      “When people engage in trade, they engage less in war.”


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Lauri Kivinen to replace Mikael Jungner as director of national broadcaster (19.2.2010)
  COMMENTARY: Iranian blunder for Nokia-Siemens Networks (12.2.2010)

Helsingin Sanomat