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Preserving Timbuktu’s exiled manuscripts

16 Jul 13 | Africa

A public campaign has been launched to protect fragile manuscripts rescued from Timbuktu during the Mali crisis earlier this year. Sara Yasin reports

The campaign, called “Libraries in Exile”, is raising money for protection and storage for the documents. They are now threatened by moisture damage, thanks to inadequate storage and a change in humidity. The campaign will use donations to reverse existing damage, and to purchase moisture traps and archival boxes. Many of the texts were transferred to Bamako, the country’s southern capital.

The ancient religious texts, some dating back 700 years, were initially thought to have been destroyed by rebels belonging to radical Islamist group Ansar Dine. At least 4,200 documents were damaged by either looting or arson during the crisis, but approximately 300,000 documents were saved.

A UN mission was sent to Mali to assess the damage, from 28 May to 3 June 2013. A programme specialist in UNESCO’s cultural section, David Stehl, told the Associated Press that “4,203 manuscripts were either burned by the Islamists or stolen.”

Most of the manuscripts were housed at the Ahmed Baba Institute, a state-owned library that became Ansar Dine’s headquarters when they captured Timbuktu in March 2012. While they initially did not know the value of the manuscripts, they eventually went looking for them. One of the institute’s employees, Alkamiss Cisse told the Washington Post that once the jihadists “heard of the manuscripts’ importance to the world, they would destroy them.”

In June 2012, fighters from Ansar Dine began destroying Timbuktu’s historic shrines and tombs for being “idolatrous.”

Timbuktu is a UNESCO world heritage site. The organisation listed it as “endangered” following Ansar Dine’s takeover of Mali’s government in March. Shortly before the fighters began destroying the shrines, UNESCO warned that the Ansar Dine’s presence might endanger the city’s “outstanding architectural wonders”.

Timbuktu Deputy Mayor Sandy Haidara told Reuters at the time that the attack was “a direct reaction to the UNESCO decision.”

A team of librarians and archivists risked their lives to smuggle the documents out of Timbuktu. The manuscripts, hailing from centres of medieval learning in Timbuktu, Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Andalusia and Southern Europe, and the Arab trading ports on the Indian Ocean. Timbuktu was once a lively trading hub, and was key to Islam’s spread in West Africa.

Sara Yasin is an Editorial Assistant at Index. She tweets from @missyasin

Free expression in the news

16 Jul 13 | In the News

INDEX EVENTS
18 July New World (Dis)Order: What do Turkey, Russia and Brazil tell us about freedom and rights?
Index, in partnership with the European Council on Foreign Relations, is holding a timely debate on the shifting world order and its impact on rights and freedoms. The event will also launch the latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine, including a special report on the multipolar world.
(More information)

19 July: What surveillance means to YOU
Join us 19 July for a live Google hangout with Index on Censorship as Trevor Timm of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Rebecca Mckinnon of Gloval Voices discuss what mass surveillance means to all of us as individuals. Hosted by Padraig Reidy of Index, the hour-long event will delve in the issues around government surveillance of innocent civilians.
(More information)

BAHRAIN
Bahrain warns against attending protest rallies
A spokesperson for the Bahrain government has warned against participation in the so-called “Rebellion of Bahrain” rallies and said participants will face legal action.
(Khaleej Times)

CHINA
Head of Google China leaves post, to be replaced by executive from Europe
Google’s leader for its China operations, John Liu, is leaving his position as the company continues to maintain a low-key presence in the nation following heated disputes over online censorship.
(PC World)

Incoming West Kowloon museum curator vows to be ‘politically incorrect’
Censorship has no place in at ideas places like venues such as museums, which should stimulate people to think for themselves, says a top New York curator who is due to join Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District’s visual culture museum.
(South China Morning Post)

INDIA
India Marks End of Era with Last Telegram
Thousands of people crowded telegraph offices around India to send the country’s last telegrams, as the government shut down the 163-year old service on Sunday.
(VOA)

MALTA
Malta FA presidential candidate sues for libel
Peter Fenech is to file two libel suits against Maltatoday and the newspaper’s website, maltatoday.com.mt, over two articles published yesterday entitled ‘Peter Fenech in impossible attempt at MFA presidency’ and ‘Dede’s supporters play down MFA rival’s transparency credentials’.
(Times of Malta)

RUSSIA
Russia’s Putin wants Snowden to go, but asylum not ruled out
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(Reuters)

TUNISIA
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(Los Angeles Times)

UNITED KINGDOM
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(The Telegraph)

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(South Wales Guardian)

UNITED STATES
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(Kennebec Journal)

Zimmerman lawyer says he’ll move to sue NBC for libel
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(American Thinker)

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(The Washington Times)

Free expression in the news

15 Jul 13 | In the News

BRAZIL
Brazil eyes internet bill amid spying leaks
With reports of NSA internet spying, Congress reconsiders stalled bill that some say would have prevented it.
(Al Jazeera)

GLOBAL
Week in Review: Criminalizing Free Speech and Spying to Crush Dissent
Most popular stories of the week
(Global Research)

INDIA
Impediment of Speech and Imbalance of Justice
In March 2013 Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was invited by some pro-business, pro-industry students at an American university to give a keynote address via video conference.
(Dissident Voices)

LIBYA
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(The Christian Science Monitor)

RWANDA
Rwandans Consider Their Media Free – Survey
A Rwanda Media Barometer (RMB) survey carried out by Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) and consultants from Transparency International Rwanda has shown that media freedom in the country, in the perceptions of its population, was at its highest.
(AllAfrica)

TUNISIA
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(Egypt Indpendent)

TURKEY
Turkish journalists join up against censorship and violence
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(DW)

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A senior Turkish political analyst says Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s strong opposition to the ouster of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi by the army may have “disastrous political consequences” for Turkey if the Muslim Brotherhood fails to return to power in Egypt.
(Tehran Times)

UNITED KINGDOM
UK Ideological Travel Ban Helps Hate
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(ACLU)

UNITED STATES
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Free expression in the news

12 Jul 13 | In the News

AZERBAIJAN
President Aliyev: Creating conditions for free activity of media is one of main directions of state policy
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(Trend)

BELARUS
Praying in Homeless Shelter a Crime
A young Catholic layman, who turned his home into a shelter for homeless people with a prayer room, is being accused of leading an unregistered religious organization. Aleksei Shchedrov, who says he has helped about 100 local people since December 2011, is being investigated on criminal charges under Article 193-1. As a result, he now faces a maximum possible sentence of two years’ imprisonment.
(Canadian Free Press)

BRAZIL
Brazilian writer convicted for fictional story
José Cristian Góes says case brought against him is a “direct attack on free speech. Rafael Spuldar reports
(Index on Censorship)

Brazil May Seek to Speak With Snowden as Spy Charges Spread
Brazil’s government said it may contact fugitive former security contractor Edward Snowden as it probes allegations the U.S. monitored phone calls and e-mail in Latin America’s largest economy.
(Bloomberg)

CANADA
Canada Repeals Restriction on Online “Hate Speech”
Have you heard about this place called Canada? It’s like some weird parallel America where they never had a revolution.
(Reason)

CJFE concerned by arrest of New Brunswick journalist
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(Press Release)

Censoring Canadian science
Last summer, a rally of over 2,000 researchers, scientists, and students gathered on Parliament Hill to protest a federal trend of scientific censorship that began when the Conservative party took control of the Federal government in 2006. For the protesters, the government had crossed the line with numerous budget cuts to environmental research programs, extensive job cuts to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and numerous restrictions on investigators’ communications with the media.
(McGill Daily)

GHANA
Journalist freed in Ghana amid free speech concerns
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(AFP)

GUINEA
Radio Station Director Charged for Libel
Managing Director of Planete FM, Mandian Sidibe, has been charged with libel and placed under judicial review by a Magistrates’ Court in Conakry, the capital, for comments he made during a radio programme.
(All Africa)

INDONESIA
Indonesia Affirms Restrictions to Freedom of Expression
On July 10 and 11, 2013 the UN Human Rights Committee reviewed the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, one of the most important human rights treaties Indonesia has ratified and has the obligation to implement to ensure protection of these rights in Indonesia.
(Scoop)

KENYA
Kenyan Media shock over new Media Bill that removes self-regulation
Media stakeholders are worried after learning that sections of the Media Bill 2013 that guarantee self-regulation of the press have been deleted from the original draft.
(Standard Digital)

NEW ZEALAND
Suicide reporting rules under review
The Government has announced that New Zealand’s 25-year-old censorship of suicide reporting is to be reviewed by the Law Commission. JAMES HOLLINGS talks to two leading experts who think the restrictions should go.
(The Press)

RUSSIA
New Russian video game takes aim at punk band riot
A Russian Orthodox youth group unveiled a video game on Thursday that gives players a chance to “kill” members of the punk band Pussy Riot, whose profanity-laden protest in a Moscow cathedral last year angered the church and offended some believers.
(Reuters)

SRI LANKA
Sri Lanka flirts with press regulation
Is Sri Lanka’s President Rajapaksa, identified as an “enemy of the press”, taking lessons from Leveson, asks Padraig Reidy
(Index on Censorship)

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
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(Trinidad Express)

TUNISIA
Tunisia’s version of Tamarod
A Tunisian version of the Egyptian Tamarod movement has been collecting signatures against the country’s government and institutions, writes Lasaad Ben Ahmad in Tunis
(Al-Ahram)

TURKEY
Scientific Conflict in Turkey
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(BBC)

UNITED STATES
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Pornographic movie makers told a judge that a Los Angeles County voter-approved measure requiring adult-film actors to wear condoms violates their constitutional right to free speech.
(Bloomberg)

Hate speech or free speech in Milford
You’ve heard that freedom isn’t free. The “cost” of free speech is that everybody gets it, even people you don’t like.
(Connecticut Post)

Removing the Kahane Google App Isn’t Censorship
In a recent Open Zion column, Zack Parker criticized Google’s decision to take down a Google App containing Kahane quotes, to which the radical settler extremist Baruch Marzel had linked, as censorship. While the objective of preserving free speech is pure, the criticism of the takedown as censorship misunderstands the nature of free speech and the implementation of the criticism would be a severe blow to counter-radicalization efforts.
(The Daily Beast)

Proposed restrictions on Fort Williams artists raise free speech issue in Cape Elizabeth
A public hearing grew tense Monday when a local artist and his wife accused the Town Council of undermining the U.S. Constitution.
(The Forecaster)

My fight for free speech at LSU
I decided in seventh grade that one day I was going to attend Louisiana State University’s law school, and anyone who knows me can tell you that I’ve bled purple and gold ever since. So when I finally got there last fall, I never expected that in a few short months I would be involved in a lawsuit against the school.
(Live Action News)

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