In this Index on Censorship magazine article from 1988, Duncan Campbell claimed that former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who died this week, was “utterly disdainful of press freedom and open government”
Index CEO Kirsty Hughes looks at the current climate for free speech around the world, from press regulation in the UK to ongoing challenges to digital freedom
Christos Syllas looks at the threats to journalists and activists in crisis-stricken Greece, where a climate of terror prevails
Legendary Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe died yesterday aged 82. In 1981, he addressed a writers’ conference at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. Index on Censorship published this extraordinary speech the same year
Index on Censorship has had a makeover! Find out more about how we’re leading the global debate on freedom of expression with our fresh new look
Free speech is enshrined in the constitution. But in reality, those with power and influence can stifle critical debate and reporting. It’s time to overhaul the system, says Rafael Spuldar
Attempts to criminalise demonstrations in Spain could change the face of citizen protest, says Juan Luis Sánchez
Index on Censorship Magazine Volume 42 Number 1 2013 Fallout: the economic crisis and free expression CHRISTOS SYLLAS Greece: free speech takes a beating JUAN LUIS SANCHEZ Spain: voices of the plazas KIRSTY HUGHES Global view RAFAEL SPULDAR On the...
Index on Censorship investigates whether the major economic crisis sweeping through Europe since 2008 had had negative effects on citizens’ ability to debate, demonstrate and exchange ideas through journalism, new media, artistic expression, politics or academia.
Includes articles by: Nick Cohen on censorship and the bankers; Diran Adebayo writes about Twitter and the sporting hero; Rafael Spuldar reports on Brazil; Jo Glanville on saving the BBC World Service.
Philosopher Ronald Dworkin, who died today, was a supporter of, and contributor to, Index on Censorship magazine. In this article from 1994, he put forward a passionate and forensic defence of free speech as a universal right
A quarterly journal set up in 1972, Index on Censorship magazine has published oppressed writers and refused to be silenced across hundreds of issues.
The brainchild of the poet Stephen Spender, and translator Michael Scammell, the magazine’s very first issue included a never-before-published poem, written while serving a sentence in a labour camp, by the Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who went on to win a Nobel prize later that year.
The magazine continued to be a thorn in the side of Soviet censors, but its scope was far wider. From the beginning, Index declared its mission to stand up for free expression as a fundamental human right for people everywhere – it was particularly vocal in its coverage of the oppressive military regimes of southern Europe and Latin America but was also clear that freedom of expression was not only a problem in faraway dictatorships. The winter 1979 issue, for example, reported on a controversy in the United States in which the Public Broadcasting Service had heavily edited a documentary about racism in Britain and then gone to court attempting to prevent screenings of the original version. Learn more.