Featured
Afghanistan’s female lawyers are the latest target for the Taliban
Pursuing a legal career has become impossible for women in the country. Some of those women told Index their stories
By Ruth Green
Latest news
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The war on drill
The police are disproportionately censoring and criminalising music by young Black men, with drill at the forefront
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Editor in exile: One journalist’s daring escape from Myanmar
Index travels to Germany to meet exiled newspaper editor Kyaw Min Swe, who faced torture and imprisonment at the hands of the military junta
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Liam Payne’s death signals an epidemic of silence in the music industry
While the future looks brighter, the mental health of artists has long been neglected
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Lukashenka’s election plan is to shut down the internet – again
In the run up to the Belarusian presidential election, Index's Belarus researcher reflects on her own experience during protest crackdowns in 2020
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Spotlight
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Elif Shafak on divisive language
Following the Charlie Hebdo attacks in 2015, the best-selling Turkish novelist wrote for Index about how writers are staying silent on their self-c...
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Donald Trump’s re-election is disastrous for free speech
Today is a day of despair – but it is also a day for those of us who genuinely care about free expression to come together to protect and promote it
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No D-Day for the Channel Islands
The recent inquiry into slave labour camps on Alderney showed much of the story of the islands remains untold
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Belarus: An open letter from Andrei Aliaksandrau on his day in court
Our former colleague writes to his supporters as his trial on charges of treason opens in Belarus
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MAGAZINE
LATEST ISSUE: VOLUME 53.04 WINTER 2024
Unsung heroes: How musicians are raising their voices against oppression
Music has been described as a “cultural universal” – a practice found in all known human cultures and societies. While anthropologists still scratch their heads over exactly where the concept originated, evidence indicates that humans have used musical instruments for an astonishing 40,000 years.
During an excavation in 1995 in Slovenia, researchers discovered a bear’s femur bone with holes in it and concluded that it could be an ancient flute.
Humans have always found ingenious ways to make music, and it’s not difficult to see why. It is one of the most powerful forms of self-expression, capable of eliciting both intense happiness and sadness in the listener. It is used to celebrate, lament, respect and enrage, and its endless genres, styles and instruments form a core part of countries’ unique cultural heritages.
But despite its universality, music is being silenced globally. Religious extremism, political factions, racism and nationalism are all driving forces, stopping it being performed, produced and listened to. In this issue we explore how music bans have been weaponised to silence communities and erase histories.
Uncensored gallery
Index commissions censored and exiled artists from around the world to illustrate our magazine covers and feature stories. You can view some of their work here