13 Jun 2025 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, Russia, Ukraine
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, brave journalists have travelled across the country gathering testimonies from civilians about war crimes committed by the Russian army.
It’s a crucial, difficult and sometimes deadly job – the tragic killing of journalist and writer Victoria Amelina is a stark reminder of this – but these accounts now form a vast database of evidence documenting the atrocities of war inflicted on Ukrainian citizens.
That’s why the recent play The Reckoning, co-written and directed by Dash Arts co-founder Josephine Burton, currently showing at the Arcola Theatre in London, is so powerful. The production is drawn from real testimonies of survivors of Russian oppression in Ukraine, collected by The Reckoning Project – an organisation recording, preserving and conserving witness statements from across the country.
The play follows the story of a journalist (played by Marianne Oldham) travelling around Ukraine to collect these testimonies. As part of her work, she meets “The Man from Stoyanka” (played by Tom Godwin), a security guard who chooses to stay rather than flee as Russian forces approach a village in Ukraine. He recounts to her his traumatic imprisonment by Russian soldiers, who ultimately decide to let him go.
As he shares his experience, the audience is confronted with the many ways in which war pushes people to their very limits: the inner strength we don’t know we have, the instinctive courage to help others, but also the enduring pain of trauma and guilt as ordinary people try to navigate a new and brutal reality.
The play owes much of its emotional resonance to two Ukrainian actors, Olga Safronova and Simeon Kyslyi, who embody the testimonies of innocent civilians while also sharing their own lived experiences of the war. Halfway through the show, to ease the heaviness of the topics covered on stage, they play a game together recalling the positive things happening in their lives. It is this blend of personal witness, light comedy and bittersweet nostalgia that underscores the horror of the crimes committed against Ukraine.
There are moments of relief. One of the most memorable is the making of a Ukrainian summer salad, which the audience watches being prepared and are then invited to eat together at the end of the play. The intimacy of the space, with the audience surrounding the stage on all sides, and the deliciously simple dish unite the viewers and actors. The smell of fresh dill was so evocative that it moved some audience members to tears.
At the end of each performance, Dash Arts invites different individuals and organisations to bring a speaker to the stage to reflect on the play. Last week, Index on Censorship’s editor-at-large, Martin Bright, paid tribute to an individual killed during the war: Victoria Roshchyna. Roshchyna was a fearless Ukrainian journalist with an essential voice who reported from the front lines. In August 2023, she was captured by Russian soldiers while travelling to eastern Ukraine. She died a year later, aged just 27, in Russian custody. A forensic exam showed multiple signs indicative of torture and inhuman treatment.
In her memory, Bright read out Roshchyna’s harrowing account originally written for Index in April 2022, describing an earlier kidnapping by Russian forces while she was en route to Mariupol.
Just as the actors had tried to find a glimmer of hope amidst the devastating stories of war, Bright too sought to shed a positive message following Roshchyna’s death.
“There’s not a lot of good in this [war],” said Bright. “Except I do hope that the publishing of Victoria’s words will retain something of the spirit of Ukraine for the future.”
It is the words of Roshchyna, Amelina, and all the civilians who have shared their stories that will keep the spirit of Ukraine alive for generations to come.
The Reckoning is now showing at the Arcola Theatre in London until 28 June 2025.
13 Jun 2025 | Americas, Asia and Pacific, Honduras, Mexico, News and features, Newsletters, Pakistan
When news broke on Monday of 17-year-old Sana Yousaf’s murder, it was first described as a potential “honour-based killing”. Yousaf, a social media influencer from Pakistan, had become a visible presence online. As outraged as we all were, Index didn’t comment initially, wanting to find out more of the facts. Now we have them. A 22-year-old man has confessed to killing her after she allegedly rejected him romantically.
At first glance, this horrendous murder might not appear to be a straightforward case of censorship. But it’s still part of a broader pattern: women’s voices being suppressed through violence.
Inside Pakistan, Yousaf’s death has triggered both grief and backlash. According to Usama Khilji, director of the digital rights group Bolo Bhi, some – mostly men – have questioned her online presence and even called for her family to delete her accounts. These attempts to silence her posthumously are a horrible sign of how threatening female visibility remains. More horrible still: Yousaf is not alone. In January, for example, teenage TikToker Hira Anwar was murdered by her father, who said he found her posts “objectionable”.
Pakistan is not an outlier. Rather these killings are part of a global pattern of femicide, the gender-motivated killing of women done by men who seek to control what women say and wear, who they love and more broadly how they live. While this control is extreme in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria and Turkey, it’s just as entrenched across Latin America.
Naming this violence is a struggle. In Mexico, where Amnesty International estimated in 2021 that 10 women and girls were murdered every day, Index reported in 2023 on the widespread misclassification of femicides as homicides, which was seen as a strategy to protect the country’s global image. That was under former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Under the country’s new, first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, there may be change. When 23-year-old influencer Valeria Márquez was shot dead last month while livestreaming on TikTok, the gender-based nature of her killing was formally acknowledged by the Jalisco prosecutor’s office.
These labels matter because, without calling it femicide, it’s hard to confront the systems that routinely and violently deny women a voice. Unsurprisingly, such systems deny women justice too. In Honduras – the country with the highest femicide rate per capita in Latin America – these murders don’t just go periodically unpunished, they’re often undocumented. Many are too afraid to name an assailant, fearing retaliation. Some survivors of violence are even told that women “should not talk about these things”.
So let’s not treat Sana Yousaf’s death as the act of a lone, disturbed man. Let’s call it what it is: another attempt to silence women who dare to speak.
6 Jun 2025 | Africa, Americas, DR Congo, Europe and Central Asia, Honduras, Hungary, Israel, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Syria, Tanzania, United Kingdom
In the age of online information, it can feel harder than ever to stay informed. As we get bombarded with news from all angles, important stories can easily pass us by. To help you cut through the noise, every Friday Index publishes a weekly news roundup of some of the key stories covering censorship and free expression. This week, we look at Hungary’s crackdown on LGBTQ+ content, and Tanzania’s shutdown of the social media platform X.
A “climate of hostility”: Hungary’s ban of LGBTQ+ content on TV and in schools violates human rights
The rights of LGBTQ+ people in Hungary have been under attack for years, as Index covered last week. With the latest development being a new law banning LGBTQ+ demonstrations, president Viktor Orbán and his government have drawn continued ire from the EU as they continue to ramp up oppression. Now, a senior legal scholar at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has stated that Hungary’s 2021 “child protection law” violates basic human rights and free expression.
In her 69-page non-binding opinion, CJEU advocate general Tamara Ćapeta said that rather than protecting children from harm, the law “expands such harm”, highlighting the law’s “stigmatising effects” and the “climate of hostility” it has created towards LGBTQ+ people. The law prohibits the depiction of LGBTQ+ individuals in school educational content, or any TV show, film or advert shown before 10pm, placing this content in the same bracket as sexually explicit content. Ćapeta said that the law illustrates a government belief that “homosexual and non-cisgender life is not of equal value or status as heterosexual and cisgender life”.
While a “non-binding opinion” does not strictly carry legal weight or enforcement, Ćapeta’s assessment reflects a growing trend amongst EU lawyers and officials that Hungary is falling foul of EU regulations when it comes to freedom of expression. With tensions only rising, it seems only a matter of time before a breaking point is reached; though it is yet to be seen what action the EU will take against Hungary.
Social blackout: Tanzania bans X under guise of pornographic content
In a move that has drawn much criticism, Tanzania has blocked social media platform X from being accessed in the country, on the basis that it allows pornographic content to be shared, according to the government. Minister for information, communication and IT, Jerry Silaa has said that this content is against the “laws, culture, customs, and traditions” of the East African nation. However, human rights organisations within the country have reason to believe that digital repression and censorship are the true reasons behind the ban.
In a post on the banned platform, the Legal and Human Rights Centre noted that a similar shutdown occurred ahead of the 2020 Tanzanian general elections, and that other platforms such as Telegram and Clubhouse are similarly inaccessible in Tanzania without the use of a virtual private network (VPN).
Indeed, access to X specifically has been prohibited previously, aside from during elections. Following an incident in May this year when the official account of the Tanzania Police Force was hacked, posting falsely that the country’s president had died, the platform was blocked temporarily.
This recurrence of digital restrictions, particularly in the run up to the 2025 Tanzanian elections, raises further concerns about free expression in a country that was recently subject to international outcry over the detention and alleged torture of two human rights activists.
No comment: DR Congo bans reporting on former president and his entire party
The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) has banned the media from reporting on the activities of former president Joseph Kabila, or interviewing any members of his party, the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy.
The controversial former president returned to the country in May after two years in self-imposed exile. He had previously been accused of support for the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group that is currently in conflict with Congolese forces, with senators stripping him of immunity and accusing him of treason. However, he has now returned to the M23-held city of Goma, in eastern DR Congo. Kabila has previously denied links with the rebel group, but has reportedly been seen visiting religious leaders in the presence of an M23 spokesperson.
Breaches of the blanket media ban will result in suspension, according to Christian Bosembe, head of DR Congo’s media regulator.
Kabila himself has not yet commented on the decision, but his party’s secretary Ferdinand Kambere described the decision as “arbitrary and illegal” in a statement on X, accusing the Congolese government of tyranny. A spokesperson for M23 stated that media outlets in rebel-controlled areas would not abide by the ban.
Detained for reporting: BBC crew held at gunpoint by IDF in southern Syria
The BBC has released a statement condemning the treatment of four BBC staff members and three freelance colleagues by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while filming in southern Syria.
BBC Arabic special correspondent Feras Kilani detailed how himself and his crew were held at gunpoint on 9 May 2025 while at a checkpoint just outside Quneitra, which is located in the Israeli-Syrian buffer zone in the Golan Heights. Their phones and equipment were confiscated, before members of the crew were blindfolded, handcuffed and strip searched. Kilani was also strip searched and interrogated, with soldiers reportedly asking personal questions about his family, before proceeding to interrogate the rest of his team. Held for seven hours, their devices were inspected and some photos deleted. According to Kilani, they were told that the IDF knew everything about them, and that they would be tracked down if they published photos from the trip.
The BBC’s statement, released on 5 June, objected to the journalists’ treatment, stating that “the behaviour they were subjected to is wholly unacceptable.” The BBC has complained to the Israeli military, but is yet to receive a response.
Media abandoned: Journalist killed in Honduras despite state protection
Salvadoran journalist Javier Antonio Hércules Salinas was murdered by armed men on motorbikes in Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras on 1 June. He was killed whilst driving a taxi, a part-time job he did alongside working as a reporter for the local news outlet, A Todo Noticias.
Salinas had been working in Honduras for more than 10 years, and had been under the protection of the Honduran government since October 2023, after being subjected to threats and a kidnapping attempt, which he escaped unharmed. Dina Meza, director of the Association for Democracy and Human Rights of Honduras, stated that the Secretariat of Human Rights (SEDH), Honduras’s government body responsible for implementing human rights plans, did not listen to advice for a more thorough security plan, and that state security had “[turned] their backs” on journalists in the country.
Salinas’s murder is the latest in a country that has proven to be extremely dangerous for journalists, with the Honduran College of Journalists (CPH) reporting that more than 100 journalists have been killed in the country since 2001. Honduras ranks 142 out of 180 countries for media freedom on Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index.
4 Jun 2025 | News and features, United Kingdom
A growing number of UK journalists believe that the truth is shaped by those in power and many believe that media freedom in the country is at risk. UK journalists are also increasingly coming under attack for their work and are taking a more activist role in their reporting.
The findings are contained in a new report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and the University of Oxford, which is based on a survey conducted between September and November 2023 with a representative sample of 1,130 UK journalists.
The UK Journalists in the 2020s report revealed that almost half (48%) of journalists believe that “truth is inevitably shaped by those in power”. It also reveals that left-leaning journalists (55%) are more likely to agree with this than right-leaning ones (33%).
One of the report’s editors, Craig T Robertson, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Reuters Institute, said: “Journalists are in a key position to question those in power and try to get at the truth – it’s their job. For this reason, it may be somewhat surprising that almost half of UK journalists believed that ‘truth is inevitably shaped by those in power’. But this almost cynical feeling could come down to the fact that those in political power, especially, are difficult for journalists to work with.”
Another editor Jingrong Tong, a senior lecturer in media and information studies at the University of Sheffield, said: “It is worrying that, in total, 43% of respondents considered the UK news media to have only ‘some’, ‘little’, or ‘no media freedom’ at all. The divided views on media freedom echo the recent warnings signalled by observer groups such as Index on Censorship that the UK has already slid down to be only ‘partially open’”.
“Although UK journalists still considered their traditional roles as informers and watchdogs to be the most important, the emphasis they gave to these roles has shifted. Overall, the informer roles have decreased in importance, while watchdog roles have increased,” the report added.
Nearly three quarters of respondents (71%) found it very or extremely important to “counteract disinformation” and two thirds (65%) thought it very or extremely important to “shine a light on society’s problems”.
The growing threats to UK journalists are also laid bare by the report. It reveals that only 18% of UK journalists reported they had never experienced safety threats related to their work over the previous five years. The most frequent forms of safety threats experienced by journalists were “demeaning or hateful speech” (45% had experienced these at least “sometimes”), followed by “public discrediting” (39%) and “other forms of threats and intimidation” (16%). Gender was significant in journalists’ experience of safety threats. In the survey, 22% of women journalists had experienced sexual violence in the previous five years compared with only 4% of men. One in eight female journalists and one in twelve male journalists report that they had encountered demeaning or hateful speech often or very often.
The survey also suggests there is much work to be done in the UK to prevent journalists being threatened by powerful actors. Some 17% of journalists said they had been the subject of legal action because of their work. (Journalists facing legal threats can explore our new Am I facing a SLAPP tool here.)
The survey also reports that UK journalists are overwhelmingly privileged, white and university-educated and are increasingly left-leaning.
Of the 1,130 UK journalists surveyed, 90% were white, 91% had been to university and 71% came from a privileged background (as defined by their parents’ occupation).
Pete Clifton, former editor of BBC News and former editor-in-chief at PA Media, wrote in the foreword: “Despite so many people banging the drum for diverse newsrooms to cater for diverse audiences, the results make difficult reading once again.”
The survey reveals that the proportion of journalists from ethnic minority backgrounds has increased since the last survey was done in 2015 but the figures are still small compared to the general population: 3% of journalists are Asian (compared to 9% of the UK population in general) and 1.3% are Black (compared to 4%).
The survey also found that, as a group, UK journalists have moved further to the left since 2015. In 2015, around half (54%) identified with the political left, but this rose to three quarters (77%) by 2023.
