Too much news?

30 Sep 2022 | Armenia, Azerbaijan, Burma, Hong Kong, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Opinion, Ruth's blog, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, United States, Zimbabwe

The last week has been unprecedented in global news – although I do feel that every time we see the word unprecedented to refer to current events we’re just tempting fate to make it even worse. Our news has been dominated by crucially important and life-changing stories – the economic turmoil in the UK; the impact of global inflation; the real-life effects of Hurricanes Fiona and Ian on the east coast of Canada and the USA; Putin’s annexation of four more Ukrainian territories; the election of the most right-wing prime minister since Mussolini in Italy and; the suspected nation-state-orchestrated sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. This has been a busy news week. But beyond the headlines there have been so many other stories, other crises, other issues that in a ‘normal’ week (if there is such a thing anymore) would have demanded our attention.

So this week – I want to do a round-up of what we’ve missed as the world has become an even scarier place for too many people. To remind us all of what else is happening in the world that we’ve missed as we have been glued to the news that is struggling to report on everything that has happened.

These are just a few of the dozens of stories that many of us missed this week while the world is in turmoil. As ever the role of Index is to make sure that these stories and those of dissidents are not ignored or forgotten.

Brazil: tragedy, farce and fascism

30 Sep 2022 | Brazil, News and features

It seems incredible but Brazil is becoming a hotbed of fascism, something we thought was more of a European phenomenon. Michel Gherman, a member of the Far Right Observatory, a collaboration between academics from more than 10 Brazilian universities and from other countries, says that Bolsonaro’s election has created a “Disneyland of neo-Nazism in Brazil”, because those who defend him “begin to feel more at ease”.  It is true. After the end of the Brazilian dictatorship in the 1980s, the extreme right was ashamed of itself or remained silent. Now its demons are loose, attacking democracy, killing democrats, because it feels protected by the individual in the presidency and the police around him.

To understand some of the reasons for Brazil reaching this state of affairs, it is well worth reading the book Passengers of the Storm: Fascists and Denialists in the Present Time, by professors Francisco Carlos Teixeira da Silva and Karl Schuster Sousa Leão. Published by Cepe, the second largest publishing house in Brazil, we can learn about the history of fascism in Italy, Germany and Japan, which did not remain in the past, because fascisms (that’s right in the plural) work until today on the great masses with irrationality, lies, the implausible and fear, according to the authors. During the research in the book we come to the Brazil of 2022:

“The current president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, corroborates the authorisation of the indiscriminate use of violence by constructing and using social devices as a tool and policy. When he uses social media to state that ‘reporters should really be beaten’, being replicated by his supporters, seconds later, with the statements ‘journalists should be beaten’ and ‘journalists deserve to be beaten, YES’, he instrumentalises politics through a personal, authoritarian, and charismatic abuse of power that aestheticises sociability with the normalisation of the use of force.”

As early as the election campaign of 2018, Bolsonaro declared, “Let’s shoot the petralhada”, petralhada being a reference to left-wing supporters.

And then came the assassinations.

On Sunday, 18 October 2018 in Salvador, capoeira master Moa do Katendê was killed with 12 stab wounds in the back after defending voting for the Workers’ Party (PT) and declaring himself opposed to Bolsonaro.

In 2019, 61-year-old Antônio Carlos Rodrigues Furtado died of cardiac arrest in Balneário Camboriú, Santa Catarina after being kicked and punched by Bolsonarist Fábio Leandro Schwindlein.

In July 2022, Marcelo Aloizio de Arruda, 50, was shot to death at his birthday party by federal criminal police officer Jorge Guaranho. A Bolsonarist, the killer invaded Marcelo’s private party – which had the PT as its theme and images of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – shouting “here is Bolsonaro”, shooting the host three times.

In early September, according to the Civil Police of Mato Grosso, Benedito dos Santos, a Lula voter, was killed by an attacker wielding an axe.

Before this wave of political crimes committed by Bolsonarists, Brazilian fascism presented both the stimulus and the approval for aggression against democracy. The book Passengers of the Storm says that in 2020 “35 per cent of officers and 41 per cent of military police soldiers throughout Brazil interact on social networks supporting President Jair Bolsonaro”. The authors go on to say, “Their positions in favour of the president, who for at least two years has openly discoursed against several governors, with the Northeast as a focus, make the issue even more politicised and instrumentalised.”

Karl Marx, in writing about the French coup of 1851, noted: “Hegel observes in one of his works that all the facts and characters of great importance in the history of the world occur, as it were, twice. But he forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”

For Brazilians, we are now in the second phase of the tragic dictatorship that began in 1964. This is presented in two ways: the tragic destruction of lives by Covid, for which the president said he was not a mortician, and by the destruction of the Amazon.

In 2022, there is talk that garimpo (artisanal mining for precious commodities that is common in the Amazon and often illegal) has “lost its shame”. Under Bolsonaro’s barbarism, openly favourable to the interests of this illegal activity in the forest, the defenders of garimpo are circulating in the corridors of power in the Amazon’s capitals and in Brasilia, and intend to fly even higher: to occupy elective positions in the Legislative Assemblies and in the National Congress, in addition to the governors’ palaces.

Bolsonaro’s attacks on Brazil’s education system, the persecution of artists and the press are tragic but are farcical at the same time. Bolsonaro is ridiculed for being imbrochable, a man who never loses sexual potency, yet he revels in it and this shows in his shouting and speaking. We have reached the point where the animals speak. This is tragedy and farce in unity, the lowest and grossest comedy.

Bolsonaro, in one of his latest farces, has turned historian. He said, “I want to say that Brazilians have gone through difficult times, history shows us. 22, 65, 64, 16, 18, and now 22. History can repeat itself. Good has always won over evil”.

What are these dates he is referring to? It cannot be Modern Art Week because he doesn’t even know what that is. But how has good always triumphed over evil? With murder, torture and cold executions in the dictatorship? With wars and holocausts? Or with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Or with the recent killings of Bruno and Dom in the Amazon? Or does good overcome evil when the forest is devastated? We understand the new language, an absolute inversion of values: good is evil, and evil must be the hope and struggle of the resistance.

For now, we can hope that this barbaric farce can be overcome. We, united, have the streetcar, the ship, the ship of future democracy, whose name is Lula, hopefully winner of the election’s first round. If it is not Lula, then we will sink in the darkness of Brazilian-style fascism.

Statement of support for Ukraine

25 Feb 2022 | Belarus, News and features, Russia, Statements, Ukraine

We, the undersigned organisations, stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine, but particularly Ukrainian journalists who now find themselves at the frontlines of a large-scale European war.

We unequivocally condemn the violence and aggression that puts thousands of our colleagues all over Ukraine in grave danger.

We call on the international community to provide any possible assistance to those who are taking on the brave role of reporting from the war zone that is now Ukraine. 

We condemn the physical violence, the cyberattacks, disinformation and all other weapons employed by the aggressor against the free and democratic Ukrainian press. 

We also stand in solidarity with independent Russian media who continue to report the truth in unprecedented conditions.

Join the statement of support for Ukraine by signing it here. 

#Журналісти_Важливі

Signed: 

  1. Justice for Journalists Foundation 
  2. Index on Censorship
  3. International Foundation for Protection of Freedom of Speech “Adil Soz” 
  4. International Media Support (IMS)
  5. Yerevan Press Club 
  6. Turkmen.news 
  7. Free Press Unlimited
  8. Human Rights Center “Viasna”
  9. Albanian Helsinki Committee
  10. Media Rights Group, Azerbaijan 
  11. European Centre for Press and Media Freedom
  12. Association of European Journalists
  13. School of Peacemaking and Media Technology in Central Asia 
  14. Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan
  15. Reporters Without Borders, RSF
  16. Association of Independent Press of Moldova, API 
  17. Public Association “Dignity”, Kazakhstan
  18. PEN International 
  19. Human Rights House Foundation, Norway
  20. IFEX
  21. UNITED for Intercultural Action
  22. Human Rights House Yerevan
  23. Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly – Vanadzor, Armenia
  24. Rafto Foundation for Human Rights, Norway
  25. Society of Journalists, Warsaw
  26. The Swedish OSCE-network
  27. Hungarian Helsinki Committee 
  28. Legal policy research centre, Kazakhstan
  29. Public Foundation Notabene – Tajikistan 
  30. HR NGO “Citizens’ Watch – St. Petersburg, Russia
  31. English PEN
  32. Public organization “Dawn” – Tajikistan
  33. International Press Institute (IPI)
  34. The Union of Journalists of Kazakhstan 
  35. ARTICLE 19
  36. Human Rights House Tbilisi
  37. Rights Georgia
  38. Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center, Azerbaijan
  39. International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
  40. Bulgarian Helsinki Committee
  41. Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD)
  42. European Federation of Journalists
  43. Social Media Development Center, Georgia
  44. Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia
  45. OBC Transeuropa
  46. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
  47. Journalists Union YENI NESIL, Azerbaijan
  48. Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA) , Istanbul
  49. Baku Press Club 
  50. Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development
  51. Union Sapari
  52. The Coalition For Women In Journalism (CFWIJ)
  53. Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression, Armenia 
  54. FEDERATIA SINDICATELOR DIN SOCIETATEA ROMANA DE RADIODIFUZIUNE, Bucharest, ROMANIA 
  55. CD FILMS (FRANCE)
  56. CFDT-Journalistes
  57. Belarusian Association of Journalists 
  58. SafeJournalists network
  59. Association of Journalists of Kosovo
  60. Association of Journalists of Macedonia
  61. BH Journalists Association
  62. Croatian Journalists’ Association
  63. Independent Journalists Association of Serbia
  64. Trade Union of Media of Montenegro
  65. Analytical Center for Central Asia (ACCA)
  66. Trade Union of Croatian Journalists 
  67. European Press Prize
  68. Ethical Journalism Network
  69. European Journalism Centre 
  70. Slovene Association of Journalists
  71. Investigative Studios
  72. PEN Belarus
  73. Public Media Alliance (PMA)
  74. Estonian Association of Journalists
  75. Federación de Sindicatos de Periodistas (FeSP) (Spain)
  76. DJV, German Journalist Federation  
  77. Free Russia Foundation   
  78. Association for Human Rights in Central Asia – AHRCA 
  79. “Human Rights Consulting Group” Public Foundation, Kazakhstan
  80. Committee to Protect Journalists
  81. Ski Club of International Journalists (SCIJ)
  82. Women In Journalism Institute, Canada – associate of CFWIJ
  83. Romanian Trade Union of Journalists MediaSind
  84. Romanian Federation Culture and Mass-Media FAIR, MediaSind
  85. New Generation of Human Rights Defenders Coalition, Kazakhstan
  86. Coalition for the Security and Protection of Human Rights Defenders, Activists, Kazakhstan
  87. Legal policy Research Centre, Kazakhstan 
  88. Eurasian Digital Foundation, Kazakhstan
  89. Legal Analysis and Research Public Union, Azerbaijan
  90. German Journalists Union
  91. Digital Rights Expert Group, Kazakhstan
  92. Bella Fox, LRT/Bellarus Media, Lithuania
  93. Syndicat national des journalistes CGT (SNJ-CGT), France
  94. Karin Wenk, Editor in Chief Menschen Machen Medien
  95. Press Emblem Campaign 
  96. Federacion de Servicios, Consumo y Movilidad (FeSMC) – UGT (Spain)   
  97. Sindicato dos Jornalistas, Portugal
  98. International media project Август2020/August2020 (august2020.info), Belarus
  99. Independent Association of Georgian Journalists (journalist.ge)
  100. Independent Trade Union of Journalists and Media Workers, Macedonia
  101. Adam Hug, Director, Foreign Policy Centre
  102. Zlatko Herljević, Croatian journalist, lecturer of journalism at University VERN, Zagreb, Croatia
  103. Independent Journalists’ and Media Workers’ Union (JMWU), Russia
  104. The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation
  105. Hungarian Press Union (HPU), Hungary
  106. Lithuanian Journalists Union
  107. National Union of Journalists UK & Ireland 
  108. Federazione Nazionale Stampa Italiana (Italy)
  109. Dutch Association of Journalists (NVJ) 
  110. Uzbek Forum for Human Rights
  111. Association of Journalists, Turkey
  112. Slovak Syndicate of Journalist, Slovakia
  113. GAMAG Europe (European Chapter of the Global Alliance for Media and Gender)
  114. Slovenian Union of Journalists (SNS)
  115. Federación de Asociaciones de Periodistas de España (FAPE)
  116. Syndicate of Journalists of Czech Republic
  117. 360 Degrees, Media outlet, North Macedonia
  118. Frontline, Skopje, North Macedonia
  119. Community Media Solutions (UK)
  120. The Norwegian Union of Journalists, Norway
  121. Rentgen Media (Kyrgyz Republic)
  122. Union of Journalists in Finland (UJF)
  123. Syndicat National des Journalistes (SNJ), France
  124. The Swedish Union of Journalists, Sweden
  125. Asociación Nacional de Informadores de la Salud. ANIS. España
  126. Association Générale des Journalistes professionnels de Belgique (AGJPB/AVBB)
  127. Macedonian Institute for Media (MIM), North Macedonia  
  128. Lithuanian Journalism Centre, Lithuania
  129. Club Internacional de Prensa (CIP), España
  130. Periodical and Electronic Press Union
  131. Fojo Media Institute, Sweden
  132. Mediacentar Sarajevo 
  133. Media Diversity Institute
  134. Impressum – les journalistes suisses
  135. Agrupación de Periodistas FSC-CCOO
  136. South East European Network for Profession­alization of Media (SEENPM)
  137. TGS, Turkey
  138. Investigative Journalism Center, Croatia
  139. Verband Albanischer Berufsjournalisten der Diaspora, Schweiz
  140. IlijašNet
  141. Journalists Union of Macedonia and Thrace (Greece)
  142. The Union of Journalists of Armenia (UJA) 
  143. Associació de Periodistes Europeus de Catalunya (APEC)
  144. International Association of Public Media Researchers (IAPMR)
  145. FREELENS e.V. – German Association of Photojournalists & Photographers
  146. LawTransform (CMI-UiB Centre on Law & Social Transformation, Bergen, Norway)
  147. Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio & Communication
  148. Platform for Independent Journalism (P24), Turkey
  149. Novi Sad School of Journalism (Serbia) 
  150. Col·legi de Periodistes de Catalunya (Catalunya)

Report: The rise of Confucius Institutes

27 Sep 2021 | China

“First, we stood up, then we got rich, and now we got strong.” Chinese officials are repeating this slogan over and over, China analyst Mareike Ohlberg recently told the audience at an Index on Censorship event. “Part of being a strong country means being able to influence or determine what people talk about, not just in China but globally.”

Confucius Institutes were established in 2004 with the stated mission of teaching Chinese language and culture abroad and are widely acknowledged as one of the ways China exerts its influence around the world. In 2010, the Confucius Institute headquarters (known as Hanban) received the ‘Chinese Influence the World Award’. “People often ask me about the Confucius Institute’s role in soft power,” said its founder, Xu Lin, at the award ceremony. “We are indeed trying to expand our influence.”

Confucius was a sixth-century philosopher, educator, and quasi-religious figure, who has since come to symbolise peace and harmony. By promoting this image and avoiding any reference to Marxist ideology, a Chinese state institution has made its way onto more 550 university and college campuses, and into 1,172 primary and secondary school classrooms around the world. According to the New York Times, “The carefully selected label [of Confucius Institutes] speaks volumes about the country’s soft-power ambitions.”

In the West, the largest number of Confucius Institutes are found in English-speaking countries. Why? “The Chinese government is minimalist,” Ohlberg replied. “If you have the government in your pocket, why do you need a Confucius Institute?” The UK has approximately 30 Confucius Institutes, five in Scotland. France has 21, Germany has 19, and Italy has 16. There are 103 in the EU.

By operating primarily on campuses, Confucius Institutes are unlike other countries’ cultural organisations, like the British Council, Alliance Française, or Goethe Institutes. Tao Zhang of Nottingham Trent University believes this enables the Chinese authorities “to gain a foot-hold for the exercise of control over the study of China and the Chinese language.”

Confucius Institutes are also unlike European institutes in that they are directly managed by the Chinese government. According to the Netherlands Institute of International Relations, “[t]his offers Confucius Institutes the possibility to unilaterally promote Chinese policy and ideas in a one-sided way, to commit censorship, or to stimulate self-censorship about China among students, pupils and the wider public”.

This report looks the rise of the Institutes and whether those fighting for freedom of expression should be worried.

SUPPORT INDEX'S WORK