10 Mar 2025 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, Newsletters, Serbia
According to some analysts, the largest student-led demonstrations in Europe since 1968 are taking place today in Serbia. I almost missed that sentence in this story from the Sunday Times last weekend given all of the other news vying for my attention. I’m glad I didn’t. The article itself is well worth reading – a story that pulls in Abu Dhabi developers and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Now dodgy planning regulations aren’t exactly the lane of Index. But protests and the crushing of dissent most firmly are. So here is what you need to know.
For months now, Serbia has been rocked by huge demonstrations throughout the country, led by students. What began in November 2024 as a movement demanding accountability for a tragic railway station accident in Novi Sad, which claimed 15 lives, has transformed into a broader call for transparency, fair elections, media freedom and an end to corruption.
The protests have resulted in tangible outcomes, such as the resignation of Prime Minister Miloš Vučević and charges against 13 individuals over the train disaster. Serbia is a country where “there is no such thing” as free speech, according to Bosnian actor Fedja Stukan – who was deported in 2024 after speaking openly about his experiences in the 1990s war. The country’s ruling party has been accused of “a textbook process of state capture” and the protests have, unsurprisingly, been marked by serious violations to free speech.
Journalists covering them have faced harassment described as “escalating” and “systematic”. These attacks have included death threats against journalists like Ana Lalić Hegediš, and physical assaults, such as the forced removal of reporters from Novi Sad City Hall in January 2025. Additionally, NGOs critical of the government have been raided by Serbian police.
The students driving the protests have been careful to maintain their distance from political parties from the get-go, which they must have felt vindicated by this week – dramatic scenes emerged from parliament when opposition members launched a smoke bomb and flare protest, leading to injuries and damage. This has only added ammunition to government claims that the protests are part of a “colour revolution”, and that NGOs are foreign-funded agents destabilising the country. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, clipping scenes from parliament, was quick to support this narrative on X.
Expect more dramatic events from Serbia in the coming weeks. Sources on the ground tell me an extra big strike is planned for today and another for 15 March. And with that, be on guard – if history tells us anything, when it’s students versus state, it’s rare that the former win.
6 Mar 2025 | News and features, United Kingdom
Today, my son trotted off to school in a hastily assembled knight-doctor-dragon combo, firmly taking on his role as the knight from Zog, whose name I can never get right. Sir Galahad? Sir Gallopalong? Ah yes, Sir Gadabout. This was his first World Book Day, and as a book-loving writer mum, it was quite the moment.
Aside from fond memories of my own childhood World Book Days dressing up as Ratty from The Wind in the Willows (including homemade tail) and Hermione from Harry Potter (hair my own), I now have another reason to love the annual literary celebration.
Last summer, we at Index published an investigation into book censorship in UK school libraries. I have been following the worrying trend of book bans in the USA for several years, and I wanted to know whether any of that censorship is creeping into UK schools. I found out that yes, it is.
In the survey I sent to school librarians, 53% of respondents told me they had been asked to take books off their shelves. And 56% of those actually removed the books in question. When I spoke with librarians directly, many had been left shaken by their experiences.
The censored books largely featured LGBTQ+ content, as well as other areas. In one school, the entire Philip Pullman collection was removed by a senior staff member in a school with a Christian ethos. In another, all books with a hint of LGBTQ+ content were boxed up and left to gather dust.
Since publishing my investigation, even more librarians have been in touch to tell me about censorship in their schools, often telling me how lost they feel. There is no statutory requirement for a school to even have a library in the UK, let alone there being any official policy.
Recently, someone reported to me that when pupils were invited to take books into class, a child who brought a copy of Room on the Broom was swiftly turned away. They were told that they couldn’t read it because it is a Christian school. For anyone who doesn’t know this Julia Donaldson staple (that’s the second Donaldson mention in this piece, so that gives you a sense of how popular her books are), it’s about a witch, and a series of events that means she – you guessed it – does not have room on her broom.
I can’t help imagining how that child felt to have their choice of book rejected, butting up against censorship at such a young age, and being told that their favourite book was “wrong”; the parents or carers of that school second guessing what they might be allowed to send their child into school with; and then suddenly, there is a culture of self-censorship in that school.
World Book Day, in part, is a bit of a pain for parents. Costumes can be time-consuming to make or expensive to buy, and plenty of households up and down the country awoke this morning to a chorus of “World Book Day is today?” Children are ushered out the door, assured that a t-shirt and shorts is actually a very acceptable costume for the kid in insert any ordinary child in any book ever written.
But for me, in spite of whatever costume dramas might arise in the coming years (I may eat my words when that day inevitably comes), it’s a day to celebrate a love of books. And that means fighting for them.
As culture wars continue to heat up in the USA, it’s important that we do not let that slide into our classrooms, and that classrooms do not become battlegrounds. Just as it’s important that a child is not shamed for bringing in Room on the Broom, it’s vital that young people must be able to access stories where they can see their own experiences (and those of their peers) reflected.
Julian is a Mermaid by Jessica Love is one of our favourite stories at home. It is beautifully illustrated, and tells the tale of a boy who wants to dress up as – even imagines he is – a mermaid. He is encouraged to use his imagination by his grandmother, and he is not shamed for exploring his identity. It’s not only a gorgeous story, but a lovely way to introduce young children to discovering who they are and how others around them might explore their own identities too. Despite this, it was one of the books that librarians in my investigation reported as having been banned.
Stories help us understand the world, and they help us understand ourselves. They help us navigate things that are scary, complicated and confusing. They help flex our imaginations. And they’re joyful.
I do not want our schools to face the level of censorship that many schools in the USA do, and for our librarians to be fighting off book challenges instead of helping children find their next great read. I don’t believe widespread book bans are a real threat right now, but we now have evidence that there are pockets of this happening across the country. So this World Book Day, I’m going to harp on again about the importance of the freedom to read, and keeping our schools free from book bans.
If you care about books as much as I do (and why wouldn’t you?), please join me in celebrating books, and kicking up a fuss about the importance of good school libraries, where librarians are empowered to curate a diverse and creative collection.
6 Mar 2025 | Americas, News and features, United States
As the Oscars season came to a close this weekend, all eyes were once again on Hollywood. The prestigious awards ceremony, which took place on Sunday in Los Angeles, played host to some of the biggest names in cinema, all of whom were hoping to secure one of the infamous golden statuettes afforded to the year’s biggest on-screen successes.
This year, many awards were given to Index-worthy films and documentaries, as they bravely called out human rights and free speech abuses.
No Other Land, an Israeli-Palestinian collaboration investigating how Palestinian activists are protecting their communities from destruction by the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank, won best documentary. Another short feature from Iran, In the Shadow of the Cypress, won best animated short film, with the directors using their acceptance speech to speak out for their “fellow Iranians who are suffering”.
Meanwhile, Adrien Brody won best actor for playing the lead role in The Brutalist, a postwar film documenting the life of the fictional László Tóth, a Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor and esteemed architect. The Brazilian film I’m Still Here also won best international film, and is based on the true story of the lawyer and activist Eunice Paiva, whose husband was “disappeared” and murdered in the 1970s.
Clearly, there was much to celebrate from this year’s awards. However, beneath the glitz and glamour lies the much murkier issue of the close relationship between Hollywood and the US government.
When imagining a film produced in collaboration with the US Department of Defence (DoD), most would presumably envision a recruitment video for the armed forces, or another form of military propaganda. In reality, it’s likely that many people have already seen a film that has been vetted and approved by the DoD without even realising.
Have you watched Top Gun, Apollo 13 or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? What about Transformers, Armageddon or I Am Legend? If so, you’ve seen a film from the US military-entertainment complex. From James Bond classics like Goldfinger to modern Marvel creations like Iron Man, the DoD have had a hand in countless Hollywood productions over the years.
This is no conspiracy theory. In fact, the DoD’s own website boasts of its “long-standing relationship” with Hollywood filmmakers, in which they state that their two-fold goal is “to accurately depict military stories and make sure sensitive information isn’t disclosed”.
Despite this transparency, the fact that a department of the federal government influences the stories that are told by the oldest and biggest film industry in the world raises valid questions concerning censorship and free speech in cinema.
Roger Stahl, a professor, writer and film director who has spearheaded research on the US military-entertainment complex for the last 20 years, spoke to Index last year, around the time that Index on Censorship featured a special print edition on censorship in cinema.
He said that, although it is less direct, the DoD has historically engaged in censorship by vetting Hollywood productions.
“When filmmakers come to the DoD, they routinely express how great they think the film is going to be for military PR [public relations]. That is, they are trying hard to sell the script to the DoD right off the bat,” he said. “Then later there are the actual DoD requests for script changes, which almost never encounter resistance.”
“None of this process really qualifies as censorship in the traditional sense of a government entity enforcing its will under the threat of legal consequences,” he added. “The outcome is much the same, though.”
Stahl has explained in previous research how the process of Hollywood filmmakers collaborating with the Pentagon works: if a production company approaches the DoD to ask for their help with or endorsement for a movie, the Entertainment Liaison Office will request to see the script. If the script is at odds with military interests, it will be denied. However, if they decide the script is compatible enough to work with, they sometimes request changes to be made.
The logical outcome of this is that a lot of Hollywood films tend to show the military in a good light as filmmakers look to garner favour with them. The assistance of the armed forces in a film can be crucial in terms of obtaining much-needed personnel and equipment and the Pentagon would be less willing to offer help to those seeking to portray them negatively.
This is described by Debra Ramsay, a lecturer in Film Studies at Exeter University, as being “a question of negotiated influence rather than outright censorship or control”.
The DoD has stated: “While Hollywood is paid to tell a compelling story that will make money, the DoD is looking to tell an accurate story.” This is a rather generous sentiment which suggests that the changes they request are to do with correcting the use of military language and equipment to ensure it is accurately portrayed. However, Ramsay calls the focus on the term accuracy a “minefield”.
“Accuracy is also often about which narratives institutions like the DoD choose to invest in and which they don’t,” she told Index last year. “The DoD of course are concerned with questions of accuracy, and of course they have a vested interest in showing the armed forces favourably.”
Stahl contends that this interference from the US military – who will of course have their own agenda – in filmmaking amounts to military propaganda “with qualifications”.
“Propaganda is a term with a lot of baggage – it has associations with government-produced material with an overt political message designed to influence civilian populations. Products that arise from the Pentagon-Hollywood collaboration do not fit perfectly into this definition,” he explained.
“In my view, though, I have no problem calling this one of the biggest peacetime propaganda operations in our nation’s history,” he added.
However, Ramsay points out that the producers are not forced to change the script and that it is “up to the filmmakers” to decide how far they will allow the relationship with the DoD to go. She gives the example of the film producer Darryl Zanuck, who was cooperating with the US military when producing his 1962 film The Longest Day, and refused the request to cut a scene where two members of the US army shoot two German soldiers who have surrendered.
“The military could not control whether or not that scene made the final cut,” she said.
This demonstrates the grey areas that surround this issue, as the Pentagon is not actually stopping anti-military films from being made, but is rather indirectly incentivising pro-military films. However, this undoubtedly can lead to self-censorship, which is still a genuine issue – particularly when concerning the world’s biggest film industry.
Stahl has attempted to raise awareness of the extent of the relationship between the DoD and Hollywood, as he and his small team of researchers have utilised Freedom of Information requests to find that the Pentagon and the CIA have exercised direct editorial control over more than 2,500 films and television shows. Stahl says that although the fact that the Pentagon works with Hollywood and has an Entertainment Media Office is public knowledge, we don’t know the extent of this collaboration, which is a concern.
“The Entertainment Office does [media] interviews, they’ll admit to working with films, and even to making the military look good,” he told Index. “But they have been extremely guarded about the details.
“You could read a dozen press accounts, and no one could tell you how many productions were subject to official script oversight.”
It is difficult to measure the extent to which the military-entertainment complex influences how the US armed forces are actually perceived. Stahl points to audience effect studies being “few and far between”, while Ramsay suggests that it is a “difficult thing to quantify”.
“As an academic, I’d be wary of suggesting that these films influence people or change their perception – I’d want to see evidence of that – but they certainly appear to nudge people in a particular direction,” said Ramsay. “There is no clear-cut answer here, but I think the relationship definitely needs scrutiny and publicity.”
However, any amount of censorship is too much. The objectives and agenda of the DoD cannot be placed above a filmmaker’s right to freedom of expression. At last weekend’s Oscars ceremony, filmmakers were rewarded for the stories they have shown us on the screen, many of which gave a space to vital yet unheard voices; we mustn’t forget those stories that aren’t allowed to be told.
To read more like this, check out the cinema-themed issue of our quarterly magazine from July 2024. For further issues, you can subscribe to the magazine here.
6 Mar 2025 | Iran, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
The beauty and power of Iran’s music is being strangled, with many musicians jailed and tortured purely for raising their voices against the regime’s viciousness and in harmony with those protesting against it.
The case of rapper and Index Freedom of Expression award-winner Toomaj Salehi has been the highest profile case of Iran cracking down on freedom of expression among the country’s musicians but he is not alone. Index was at the heart of the campaign to get Salehi’s sentence commuted and he was eventually released but the country’s other musicians still face persecution.
Musicians like Salehi are regularly thrown in jail for highlighting the brutality and hypocrisy of Iran’s government. Even after release from prison, if they are lucky, these musicians still face surveillance and control.
Singer Mehdi Yarrahi, whose song Roosarito (Your Headscarf) gained widespread attention and became an anthem of resistance, was jailed in early 2024 for challenging “the morals and customs of Islamic society”. After his release on medical grounds, he was forced to wear an ankle tag to track his movements. A source told Index that this has only recently been removed. This week, it was reported that Yarrahi had been sentenced to the inhumane torture of 74 lashes to end the criminal case against him.
In May last year, rappers Vafa Ahmadpour and Danial Moghaddam were sentenced to prison for “propaganda against the regime”. Our source tells us they are serving their sentences under house arrest and must wear ankle tags to restrict movement away from their homes.
These sentences and treatment, for simply writing songs of protest, are unjust.
Another recent case involves musician and activist Khosrow Azarbeig who was arrested in Tehran on 17 February for “insulting” former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad following a protest performance in Tehran’s metro.
The lawyer Amir Raesian shared the news on X: “Mr. Khosrow Azarbeig, a daf player, was arrested on Monday evening on a street in Tehran. His family has been informed that his charge is ‘insulting Bashar al-Assad’.”
It follows a string of other actions against musicians and singers in the country.
Last July, Zara Esmaeili was arrested by Iranian security forces at her home in Karaj. Her arrest came after online footage emerged of her on the streets of Tehran singing the Amy Winehouse hit Back To Black without wearing a hijab.
According to a friend, just one day before her arrest, she tried to prevent the security police from detaining one of her friends in Tehran. This escalated into a confrontation with security forces, ultimately resulting in her violent arrest.
The exiled Iranian filmmaker Vahid Zarezadeh, now in Germany, told Index: “Zara Esmaeili was not widely known in the media, which meant that her voice remained largely unheard. She has been in detention for several months now, yet her family has received no information about her whereabouts or the reason for her arrest – a scenario all too familiar for many detainees in Iran.”
“Since then, there has been no official information about the charges against her, her legal status, or even where she is being held. Meanwhile, her Instagram account was suspended by order of the Iranian judiciary – a common tactic used to silence activists and dissidents.”
He added: “Our best assumption is that she is being held in solitary confinement in Ward 209 of Evin Prison, as no one inside the prison has seen or heard from her. Her situation remains shrouded in uncertainty, and, like many others, the complete silence surrounding her case could indicate that she is under severe pressure in detention.”
In December, the singer Parastoo Ahmadi was arrested along with two band members for performing a livestream concert in the symbolic venue of an old caravanserai (an inn which provided lodging for travellers) without wearing a hijab, violating Iran’s strict rules on dress for women.
Posting the concert on her channel, she wrote: “I am Parastoo, a girl who wants to sing for the people I love. This is a right I could not ignore; singing for the land I love passionately. Here, in this part of our beloved Iran, where history and our myths intertwine, hear my voice in this imaginary concert and imagine this beautiful homeland… I am grateful to all those who have supported me in these difficult and special circumstances.”
The other members arrested were Iranian composer Ehsan Beyraghdar and guitarist Soheil Faghih Nasiri.
The Iranian authorities issued a statement saying that the concert took place “without legal authorisation and adherence to Sharia principles” and that appropriate action would be taken against the singer and production team. Since it was posted, the video has attracted 2.5 million views and was widely shared on Iranian social media, despite YouTube being banned in the country.
Ahmadi and the others have since been released on bail pending a trial.
Meanwhile, the controversial Iranian rapper Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo (better known as Amir Tataloo) is facing up to 15 years in prison.
The singer, known for being completely covered in tattoos, fled to Istanbul, Turkey in 2018 following repeated arrests by the Iranian authorities. In December 2023, he was deported by Turkish authorities, seemingly for visa violations although some reports say that his return to Iran was of his own volition. On crossing into Iran at the Bazargan border crossing, he was arrested.
While he was in Turkey, controversy swirled around Tataloo including allegations of attempts to groom young girls.
In 2020, Tataloo’s Instagram profile was suspended after he was accused of inviting young girls to join his “harem”. He later allegedly posted an audio file on Telegram justifying his position in which he said: “What I discussed was legitimate by the laws of our country and our religion. It is in our religion that you can have… four wives and 40 concubines. Also, marriage above the age of nine is allowed in Islam. But I said 15 to 16 years of age. Then I said with the consent of the parents, so that there would be no controversy.”
Since his return to Iran, he has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for “promoting corruption and prostitution”, a sentence upheld by the Court of Appeal. He faces a further five years for “insulting religious sanctities” but this is currently under review by the Supreme Court.
Some reports have claimed that Tataloo has been sentenced to death for blasphemy against the Prophet (“Sabb al-Nabi”). However, the Iranian judiciary’s media centre has denied this, stating that his final sentence has not yet been issued.
“Many individuals and social groups hesitate to support him due to his unpredictable character,” said Zarezadeh. “His supporters and critics alike constantly anticipate his next move – one day he performs a concert on the deck of an Iranian military vessel, another day he poses alongside President Ebrahim Raisi, and then at another moment, he positions himself as an opposition figure. All of these contradictions have made his case even more ambiguous.”
Despite the controversy surrounding Tataloo and his alleged crimes, the fact is that Iran has a problem with the freedom of expression of its musicians. Music was never intended to be silenced but heard. This systemic persecution has to stop.
