30 Jun 23 | China, News and features
A packed-out audience gathered at St John’s Church in Waterloo, London on Tuesday to see and hear an extraordinary night of talk, music and art aimed at showing how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) reaches beyond its borders to repress freedom of expression around the world.
Badiucao, the political cartoonist, artist and human rights activist who is a target of the CCP, was the main speaker and detailed how the CCP attempts to suppress his work abroad and the lengths they will go to.
Known as the Chinese Banksy, Badiucao was born into an artistic family in 1986. He explained he was told by his father at a young age that to be an artist in China is dangerous, and he would have to leave the country to pursue his career. He left in 2009.
‘Tell China’s Story Well’, by Badiucao
“I didn’t want to be silenced and devalued by this terrible regime, and the way to go forward was to make art they don’t believe in,” he said.
However, in 2018 an exhibition of his work in Hong Kong was cancelled by organisers after threats made by the Chinese authorities. After this, he also felt there was a lack of interest to show his work in Australia but blamed a strategy of the CCP for this.
“The Chinese government are very good at playing mind games”, he said. “They will use a tactic of accusing people and countries of being racist, of simply being anti-Chinese.”
Fresh from his exhibition in Warsaw in June, Badiucao said the pressure from China not to exhibit his work in Europe has so far been successfully fought against, but the pressure has been ramped up. He explained that in Warsaw, when the exhibition was announced, the Chinese Embassy visited the museum and demanded its cancellation.
Banned By Beijing exhibition
“Wherever I take this exhibition, they follow me,” he said. “It’s a warning to anybody wanting to host my show, that you must handle the pressure you’ll get. However, what the CCP is doing is raising the bar for my future work.”
Baudicau feels that as a dissident abroad his work means the CCP will eventually catch up with him. He said: “To me it’s no longer a yes or no. It’s just a case of when. But the more people join [protest the CCP], we can all share this big burden together.”
Music was provided by the London Silk Road Collective, who performed the diverse music traditions found along the ancient Silk Road route, connecting Europe, Central Asia and South East Asia, with a particular focus on songs (both melancholy and hopeful) from the Uyghur region. Its singer, Uyghur campaigner Rahima Mahmut, spoke about the personal effects of being a dissident abroad when she explained the anguish of her sister recently dying in China but being unable to contact her family due to the CCP.
The event also marked the opening of the Banned by Beijing art exhibition, aimed at highlighting transnational repression from China. Badiucao’s artwork featured, as well as works from husband-and-wife painting duo Lumli Lumlong and cartoonist and former secondary school visual arts teacher Vawongsir. The exhibition will run in the crypt of St John’s Church, Waterloo until 10 July 2023.
23 Jun 23 | News and features, Opinion, Ruth's blog
The cornerstone of any functioning democracy is the ability to speak freely without fear or favour and to be confident that your right to say it is inalienable.
Index on Censorship has spent years working with dissidents in repressive countries where speaking out can lead to anything from banishment from your home to state-sponsored abduction and execution. Our work started with materials smuggled out of the USSR – published and translated – and smuggled back into the Soviet bloc so that different opinions and divergent points of view could have a platform on which they could be heard.
Today, we do the same in Hong Kong, Russia, Belarus, Iran and Afghanistan where we support the rights of citizens to use their freedom of speech and freedom of expression to challenge those who seek to crush dissent and disagreement.
The principle of free speech is one worth fighting for and defending whenever it comes under attack.
This principle is even greater when engaging in lawful and legitimate democratic activities whether that be campaigning on a single issue or seeking voter support in elections.
In recent years, the way we engage with voters has changed – dramatically. Long gone are the days when town hall meetings, articulate speakers and well-designed printed materials were the best mechanisms for getting your message out.
Now a huge amount of the activity is digital, undertaken from a computer screen with complex and sophisticated targeting of bespoke policy offers to the exact voters needed to build a winning coalition. The advancement of technology has greatly outpaced existing political regulations and opened new opportunities for bad faith actors and unfriendly foreign governments to interfere in domestic elections.
Rightly, governments around the world are looking at how they create a level playing field against the new platforms available and secure the integrity of their election processes.
However, any new regulation has the possibility of impinging on free speech and free expression, usually as an unintended consequence of a well-intentioned proposal.
And this is where there exist dangers in the proposals by the European Union to regulate political advertising.
The proposals for regulations on the transparency and targeting of political advertising are now in the critical trialogue phase, with the European Commission, Council and Parliament thrashing out compromises to reach a series of new rules they all broadly agree on.
The problems arise from the broad scope of what is being proposed and mechanisms that will be built into the regulations to enforce it. Both offer huge challenges to freedom of speech and freedom of expression and require considered thought by lawmakers in the EU.
The original scope drew little distinction between political advertising and political speech. Some changes along the legislative pathway have constrained, slightly, the scope, but Article 2 still defines political advertisement as:
“the preparation, placement, promotion, publication or dissemination, by any means, of a message: (a)by, for or on behalf of a political actor, unless it is of a purely private or a purely commercial nature; or (b)which is liable to influence the outcome of an election or referendum, a legislative or regulatory process or voting behaviour.”
Such a wide-ranging scope would mean that any attempt to promote this article – an opinion piece by a campaign group on a subject of regulation – would fall into the scope of the regulations and, ironically, a free speech organisation could find themselves either censored or denied our right to express our views.
Of course, every campaign attracts media attention and there has been little commentary or clarification as to how these regulations would apply. Does a journalist discussing the latest policy announcement by an opposition political party now count as ‘disseminating a message by a political actor’? Does live coverage of a climate protest or a campaign stunt by pro-life groups constitute ‘promotion of a political actor which is liable to influence the outcome of an election or referendum’?
Do we really want to be concerned that our news outlets are resorting to self-censorship through fear of state-mandated regulation? I am certain that no EU member state would wish for that but the unintended consequences of attempts to regulate free speech could do just that.
But Article 2 is not the only place where freedom of speech is undermined by these proposals.
The enforcement of these rules will, in part, be down to individuals ‘flagging’ content that they believe is in breach of the rules. Big tech platforms will then have to ‘examine and address’ the notifications they receive.
While having mechanisms to allow for content to be considered – again new rules are sensible – these proposals make big tech platforms the arbiter of what is and what isn’t acceptable political speech. It places a huge amount of power to regulate our freedom of speech in the hands of very large online platforms with little clarity or transparency of how they will consider the flags they receive.
During regulated periods ahead of elections, those platforms will have to process those flags within 48 hours – with failure to consider the flags or enforce the rules opening them to potential liability and penalty.
The inevitable outcome of this is that during elections, big tech platforms will act overly cautiously, and flagged materials will be removed to prevent the platform from being exposed. And once that happens, the floodgates will open for retaliatory ‘flagging’ between rival positions.
Bad-faith actors will happily target politicians and those whose political positions they oppose with vexatious and numerous flags in order to silence them. You can easily foresee a situation where political content from smaller groups are mass-flagged and their views and opinions removed from the digital sphere while they are examined and considered.
The protection of freedom of speech is a core tenet of our political systems just as much as ensuring transparency and accountability in political activity. One need not be at the expense of the other.
The Commission, Council and Parliament can find a solution that protects the founding principles of the Union – fair elections and freedom of speech.
21 Jun 23 | China, News and features, Press Releases
Index on Censorship’s upcoming “Banned by Beijing” event will highlight the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to censor and repress freedom of expression through an evening of art and performance. The CCP’s repression of human rights has been widely documented but few realise that their repression extends far beyond its borders, including into Europe. This event will provide an opportunity for attendees to see and hear what the CCP have tried to repress.
Earlier this month, the Chinese Embassy in Poland tried to block the opening of the exhibition, “Tell China’s Story Well”, by the political cartoonist and human rights activist Badiucao. Chinese embassies in Prague and Rome have previously made similar attempts to close his exhibitions. He will join the event to speak about his experience of transnational repression.
Uyghur campaigner Rahima Mahmut will also speak about her experience of transnational repression, and perform with her band the London Silk Road Collective. Mahmut previously contributed to a report by Index, which highlighted the transnational repression faced by the Uyghur community in Europe.
The event will also mark the opening of the Banned by Beijing exhibition, aimed at highlighting transnational repression from China. As well Badiucao’s artwork, works from husband-and-wife painting duo Lumli Lumlong and cartoonist and former secondary school visual arts teacher Vawongsir, will be displayed. The exhibition will run until 10 July.
The event will take place as we mark the third anniversary of the enactment of Hong Kong’s National Security Law. The exhibition will pay tribute to the 75-year-old British businessman and founder of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper, Jimmy Lai who remains in prison in Hong Kong, charged with violating the national security law among other offences. It will be the first time that Lumli Lumlong’s “Apple Man” will be shown in public.
Jessica Ní Mhaínin, Head of Policy and Campaigns at Index on Censorship said:
“This Banned by Beijing event will provide an opportunity to see a side of China that the Chinese Communist Party would much rather you didn’t. We want people to join us on the evening to stand in solidarity with those who are being subject to transnational repression. The event will send a clear message: dissident artists and performers cannot and will not be censored by the long arm of the regime.”
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS
- The event takes place on Tue, 27 June 2023 19:00 – 22:00 at St John’s Church in Waterloo and the exhibition will run until 10 July.
- Report into repression of Uyghurs in Europe: https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2022/02/landmark-report-shines-light-on-chinese-long-arm-repression-of-ex-pat-uyghurs/
- For more information, please contact Sophia Rigby on [email protected] or Jessica Ní Mhaínin on [email protected].
- The artists will attend the event in person and we can organise for interviews during the evening with any of the artists and Rahima Mahmut.
