Index on Censorship announces 2024 Freedom of Expression award shortlist

4 Nov 2024 | Awards, Fellowship 2024, News and features, Press Releases

Today, Index on Censorship announces the shortlist for its annual Freedom of Expression Award. The shortlist of 13 organisations and individuals from nine countries across five continents, highlights how free expression can be protected at a time of growing instability, authoritarianism and censorship. Each nominee covers diverse and critical issues such as the treatment of political prisoners in conflict zones, empowering citizen journalism and accountability, championing independent journalism, defending the rights of women and the LGBTQ communities, opposing war propaganda and authoritarianism, celebrating local languages, cultures and identities and countering disinformation.

Divided into three categories: Arts, Campaigning and Journalism, the annual award is an opportunity to celebrate the courage and creativity of the journalists, artists, campaigners and dissidents who, against all odds and at times facing threats of persecution, harassment, imprisonment or death, speak out and speak up to defend human rights and democracy.

The short list announced today is:

Arts

  • Atena Farghadani (Iran) – An imprisoned cartoonist and visual artist who has used her art to defend human rights and democracy in Iran.
  • Jota Ramos (Colombia) – An Afro-Colombian musician currently under house arrest after ongoing threats and persecution for his music and campaigning.
  • Aleksandra Skochilenko (Russia) – An anti-war musician, artist and campaigner who was imprisoned for her creative opposition to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Campaigning

  • Diala Ayesh (Palestinian Territories) – A lawyer and prison advocate who has campaigned for the rights of prisoners in Israel and Palestine, who was detained by Israeli authorities and remains incarcerated.
  • Fundamedios (Ecuador) – A media freedom monitoring watchdog working to protect journalists and media workers across Latin and South America.
  • Kuchu Times (Uganda) – A media and campaigning organisation working to protect and support the LGBTQ community amid increased legal persecution.
  • Tanele Maseko (Eswatini) – The widow of murdered human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko has faced intimidation and threats continuing his legacy, fighting for justice and defending human rights for all.

Journalism

  • Chutima Sidasathian (Thailand) – A journalist and citizen advocate has faced a litany of legal threats for her work exposing financial wrongdoing in rural communities across the country.
  • Nasim Soltanbeygi (Iran) – A journalist who reported on the Women, Life, Freedom protests and women’s rights issue who has been imprisoned and persecuted for her reporting.

 

Jemimah Steinfeld, CEO of Index on Censorship said:

Judging these awards was a truly humbling experience. I am always overwhelmed by the bravery of our award nominees and no more so than this year. The march of authoritarianism has seemingly picked up pace across the globe but it’s heartening to know that everywhere there are still people willing to fight for what is right, even if they end up paying an extreme price in doing so. I look forward to celebrating the winners later on this year and want to say my own thanks to everyone on the shortlist – you are all inspiring and make the world better. 

Sir Trevor Phillips OBE, the Chair of Index on Censorship said:

It’s always one of the hardest moments of the year – we are always faced with candidates for the awards who are talented, impactful and courageous. It’s humbling – but always worthwhile because we know from the dictators’ regular annoyance at the winners that they really make a difference.

The Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award, established in 2001, has long championed those who have risked everything for the right to speak out and defend democracy and human rights. Previous winners include the imprisoned Iranian rapper, Toomaj Salehi; the Pakistani education campaigner Malala Yousafzai; the global whistleblowing platform, Wikileaks; the Turkish artist, Zehra Dogan; Honduran investigative journalist, Wendy Funes and many others.

This year’s shortlist demonstrates the creative, courageous and diverse voices opposing authoritarianism and silence. The winners will be announced on 20 November at a ceremony in London. The jury panel for the 2024 awards is made up of Baroness Hollick OBE; Ziyad Marar, President of Global Publishing at Sage; Sir Trevor Phillips OBE, chair of Index on Censorship; Ben Preston, Culture, Arts and Books Editor of The Times & Sunday Times; Jemimah Steinfeld, CEO of Index on Censorship.

ENDS

Media contact:

Index on Censorship is a non-profit organisation that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide, including by publishing work by censored writers and artists and monitoring threats to free speech. We lead global advocacy campaigns to protect artistic, academic, media and digital freedom to strengthen the participatory foundations of modern democratic societies. www.indexoncensorship.org

Awards 2024 arts shortlist Aleksandra Skochilenko

4 Nov 2024

ALEKSANDRA SKOCHILENKO Arts Award | Nominee | Freedom of Expression Awards Artist and musician Aleksandra Skochilenko was arrested on 11 April 2022. In response to Russia’s unlawful and full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she had participated in anti-war rallies (for...

The 2024 Freedom of Expression Awards

4 Nov 2024

THE 2024 FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AWARDS ABOUT THE AWARDS Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards celebrate those who have had significant impact fighting censorship anywhere in the world. There are four categories: Arts, Campaigning, Journalism and the...

Journalists have a “right to life”

18 Oct 2024 | Malta, News and features, Newsletters, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine

Hello, readers. This is Sarah Dawood here, editor of Index on Censorship. Every week, we bring the most pertinent global free speech stories to your inbox.

I must confess that today’s newsletter is very bleak, so I won’t be offended if you click away in search of a more optimistic end to your week. We’re reflecting on how journalists are increasingly being silenced globally, not only with the threat of legal retribution or imprisonment, but with death – often with little or no repercussions for those responsible.

This week marked the seven-year anniversary of the murder of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed in a car bomb attack on 16 October 2017. She reported extensively on corruption in Malta, as well as on international scandals such as the Panama Papers (the historic data leak exposing how the rich exploit secret offshore tax regimes).

Two hitmen were convicted for her murder in 2022, but criminal proceedings are still ongoing against three more suspects, including the alleged mastermind of the assassination and the alleged bomb suppliers. This week, free speech organisations signed an open letter to Malta’s prime minister calling on him to promptly implement robust, internationally-sound legal reform to keep journalists safe in future. The letter pointed to a public inquiry into her death, which found it was both “predictable and preventable”, and highlighted “the failure of the authorities to take measures to protect her”.

The start of this month marked another grim milestone – six years since the death of prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi. He was a regular contributor to major news outlets like Middle East Eye and The Washington Post, as well as editor-in-chief at the former Bahrain-based Al-Arab News Channel. A vocal critic of his government, he was assassinated at a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

Such attacks on free speech continue. We were appalled, for instance, to learn of the death of the 27-year-old Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna last week, a reporter from the front-line of the Russia-Ukraine war who had written for Index about her experiences. The circumstances around her death are still unknown, but we know she died in Russian detention.

Increasingly, governments or powerful individuals act with impunity – whereby their human rights violations are exempt from punishment – willfully ignoring international law that states journalists are civilians and have a “right to life”. For many victims, the course of justice is either delayed, as in Caruana Galizia’s case, or the circumstances around their deaths are obfuscated and murky, as in Roshchyna’s. Question marks remain over who is ultimately responsible, or how it happened, creating a cycle of censorship whereby it’s not only the journalists and their reporting that are silenced, but their deaths.

This impunity has been shown in plain sight throughout the Israel-Hamas war. To date, 123 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces, with the Committee to Protect Journalists concluding that at least five were intentionally targeted. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) deny these claims, yet an Al Jazeera documentary recently revealed that journalists live in fear of their lives, and their families’. One of the most high-profile cases of a targeted attack was that of Hamza al-Dahdouh, the son of Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief and veteran journalist Wael al-Dahdouh, whose wife and another two children were also previously killed in Israeli airstrikes. Two Israeli and three Lebanese journalists have also been killed in the conflict, with the International Criminal Court seeking arrest warrant applications for both Israeli and Hamas leaders for war crimes.

All these cases show a growing disregard for journalists’ lives, but also for the very essence of journalism itself. When not threatened with death or physical violence, media personnel are threatened with imprisonment, the closing of legitimate news offices, internet blackouts, and psychological and financial abuse. SLAPPs – strategic lawsuits against public participation – for instance, are being increasingly used globally by powerful and wealthy people as an abusive legal tool to threaten journalists into silence with eye-watering fines. How can “the fourth estate” truly hold power to account, when those in power can so easily dismantle and destroy their means of doing so?

At a time of devastating global conflict, the ability for journalists to report on stories free from the threat of harm, imprisonment, lawsuits or death has never been more important. To protect journalism itself, international and national law must work harder to protect the individuals most at risk. Without the threat of retribution for powerful individuals, the cycle of censorship will only continue.

 

SUPPORT INDEX'S WORK