In a stirring and provocative speech at the Freedom of Expression awards, Sir David Hare presented a challenge for Index on Censorship, and all free speech advocates Everyone's in favour of freedom of speech, aren't they? All right, to my shame I...
News that anti-terror officers trawled Damian Green MP’s personal emails for information, including details of Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti, has further highlighted the government's worrying attitude to civil liberties, says Chris Huhne MP...
The conviction of the Pirate Bay Four is not just a breach of the right to free expression, says Sean Dodson, it’s an absurdity in an era when free online content seems the only way forward for the entertainment industry In this increasingly...
Twenty years ago this week, Chinese students began their occupation of Tiananmen Square, a protest that ended in a massacre. In an exclusive extract from the next issue of Index on Censorship, Wang Dan, a leading figure in the 1989 movement, talks...
Why is British government trying to censor documents relating to the Iraq war it has already published, asks Chris Ames A new twist in the tale of Tony Blair’s Iraq dossier has exposed the blatant double standard that the government applies to...
From Raúl Alfonsín onwards, Argentina has done well to move on from the dark days of the generals. But is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's government now threatening media freedoms? Andrew Graham-Yooll reports Argentina’s five-year old Kirchner...
The Internet threatens to make US obscenity law unworkable, says Marjorie Heins Robert and Carleen Thomas were happily operating the ‘Amateur Action Bulletin Board’ out of their California home in 1994 when legal hell descended in the form of a...
The UK government’s retention of this archaic legislation only serves to justify oppression in other countries, writes Evan Harris In 1763, journalist John Wilkes and 49 of his publishers were arrested for seditious libel. Their crime was to have...
The United Nations Human Rights Council today passed a resolution aimed at restricting criticism of religion, or 'religious defamation'. Roy W Brown examines why the UN is putting protection of ideas above freedom of expression Slowly but...
Britain's libel laws are a malign force far beyond just celebrity journalism. Radical reform is overdue, writes Jo Glanville This article originally appeared in the Guardian Libel laws remain the most significant daily chill on free speech in the...