Zehra Dogan, winner of the 2019 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award for Arts, is a Kurdish painter and journalist. She was released from prison on 24 February 2019 after almost 600 days in prison in Turkey, during which she was denied access to materials for her work. She painted with dyes made from crushed fruit and herbs, even blood, and used newspapers and milk cartons as canvases. When she realised her reports from Turkey’s Kurdish region were being ignored by mainstream media, Dogan began painting the destruction in the town of Nusaybin and sharing it on social media. For this she was arrested and imprisoned. During her imprisonment, she refused to be silenced and continued to produce journalism and art. She collected and wrote stories about female political prisoners, reported on human rights abuses in prison, and painted despite the prison administration’s refusal to supply her with art materials.
Dogan also received the 2019 May Chidiac Foundation Award for Exceptional Courage in Journalism. She accepted the prize in Lebanon where she dedicated the prize to the people of Rojava. Dogan also featured at an exhibition at The Drawing Center in New York entitled The Pencil Is a Key by Incarcerated Artists which will feature drawings by incarcerated people from all over the globe. The exhibition will run until 5 January 2020.
Dogan’s first book, Nous aurons aussi de beaux jours – Écrits de prison (We will also have beautiful days – Writings of prison), a collection of her letters from prison during the 600 days she spent in detention, was released on 31 October 2019. From 6 to 23 of November, works by Dogan will go on display at Galerie des Femmes in Paris as part of her exhibition Œuvres Évadées (Escaped Works).
We caught up with Dogan to find out what she has been working on since winning the Index on Censorship award in April 2019.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1574072523308-d110cf72-f9a9-3″ taxonomies=”22555″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Badiucao is a Chinese cartoonist whose provocative work has made him persona non grata with the Chinese government. As a result, he currently lives in exile in Australia, although that distance has not stopped him being the target of Chinese authorities.
His bold artwork homes in on the areas the Chinese government would rather not talk about. Tiananmen for example, alongside critical work on the current leader Xi Jinping. And his life is now the subject of a recently released documentary by filmmaker Danny Ben-Moshe, China’s Artful Dissident, which charts the road to an exhibition of his work in Hong Kong. Click here to read about our private screening of the film and our Q&A with Badiucao.
You can help support the artist and free speech more widely by purchasing your own exclusive Badiucao print. All proceeds will go to the artist. If you are interested in purchasing any of the pieces below, please email [email protected]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”110170″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]“Every Hong Kong protester is my biggest inspiration. You guys think I am brave? Those young kids, 16 and 17 years old, are risking their lives at every protest. They are the people who inspire me, they are the people who motivate me to do more work to share their story with you guys.” These words, from the Chinese dissident artist known as Badiucao, were met with rapturous applause from the audience at the private screening of the new documentary about his life, China’s Artful Dissident.
The invitation-only screening was held at the Tate Exchange and hosted by Index On Censorship. Badiucao, who until recently had kept his identity a secret in an attempt to protect himself and his family from the Chinese government, was present, alongside the filmmaker Danny Ben-Moshe.
The film cannot fail to move and inspire. It documents Badiucao’s move into political activism after watching a documentary about the Tiananmen Square massacre, the details and death toll of which the Chinese government has done its best to suppress, and his move to Australia in 2009 to escape the censorship and artistic oppression in China.
The last part of the documentary shows the lead up to an exhibition of Badiucao’s work in Hong Kong. It ends on a heartbreaking note when the exhibition is cancelled following threats to Badiucao’s family in China. This was the reason Badiucao revealed his identity; it became clear that the Chinese government had already discovered it.
The screening was followed by a Q&A with Badiucao and Ben-Moshe, chaired by Martin Rowson, the political cartoonist and regular contributor to Index on Censorship magazine. Responding to a question about his safety in Australia, Badiucao described it as “a problematic country” and that he may have been naive to think he could entirely escape the influence of Beijing.
“Australia can be an example of how China is projecting its threat all over the world,” he said.
Addressing current counter-protests from the Chinese diaspora specifically, Badiucao said:
“You have to remember that when we grow up in China, we grow up with an entire machine of propaganda, it will take a very long time for people to walk out of this shadow.”
He expressed concern that people may view the Chinese population, the counter-protesters in particular, as brainwashed, aggressive nationalists who don’t deserve democracy.
“As a consequence, the far right will rise, xenophobia will rise, discrimination will rise, racism against China will rise. Ultimately this solution will not solve the problem, it just pushes the Chinese back to Beijing.”
Badiucao’s career goal, he explained, is to destroy censorship using art. He said: “I’m very proud and honoured that my work is recognised and used by the Hong Kong protesters.” He also said that his art is a way to record history to act as counterpoint to the Chinese government, who rewrite history.
Badiucao is now living in Australia and having revealed his identity, he is followed, sees strange cars outside his home and receives daily threats via social media. He made light of those that daily detract him.
“We call them 50 cent, because when they send me a death threat, they get 50 cent deposited into their bank accounts,” he said of China’s infamous trolls.
All of this is the price he pays for simply expressing himself through his art.
Click here to read more about Badiucao and to see an exclusive cartoon of his in the new magazine[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Tech journalist Geoff White (Photo: Sean Gallagher / Index on Censorship)
“Put your hand up if you’re concerned at the moment about facial recognition”, Geoff White, investigative technology journalist, told the audience at the launch of the latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine. “Keep your hands up if you own a smartphone”, was White’s next instruction to the majority of the audience. “Good news. You’re already using facial recognition!”
The autumn issue of the magazine, on the theme of borders, investigates how border forces around the world are increasingly clamping down on the free movement of ideas. The worrying and growing trend of travellers’ social media accounts being checked as they enter a country was a particular focus of the magazine. Contributors questioned whether people would begin to self-censor their online presence for fear of their views being held against them at airport security. This could pose particular dangers to LGBT travellers travelling through countries with repressive laws.
The launch was part of the Science Museum’s September’s late event, which takes place monthly. The theme of the night was Top Secret, and Index on Censorship shared the venue with talks about cracking codes and personal security. White was joined on stage by Jacob Wilkin, a penetration tester. Their talk was introduced by Rachael Jolley, editor of Index on Censorship magazine.
White highlighted the issues around the increasingly widespread use of facial recognition technology: the data that can be attached to the image of a face. Different stashes of data, bank and tax records for example, each have a unique number attached to them. He said: “But to really have power in this new world of data you need to get all the stashes together.” This requires one number that unites them all. “And guess what, we’ve had it along. It’s literally written on your face.” Facial recognition technology reduces an image of a face to a set of numbers and letters.
This comes into play at the world’s borders. International airports, including LAX and Gatwick Airport are employing facial recognition technology. The Transport Security Administration in the US have scanned 19,000,000 people to detect imposters. They detected 100. Is it worth collecting the data of so many to catch so few?
White said: “Think about the number of stashes of data that your face connects to. Your Facebook profile, your LinkedIn profile, your Twitter profile, your driver’s license, your passport, and increasingly every cctv camera you walk past.” Britain is second only to China for proliferation of CCTV cameras.
Network penetration specialist Jacob Wilkin (Photo: Sean Gallagher / Index on Censorship)
Wilkin demonstrated how easily computer programmes can find these social media accounts with minimal information. Wilkin describes himself as “a hacker for the good guys”, testing for flaws in the security of corporations and banks. He has created a facial recognition programme called Social Mapper.
Social Mapper correlates people’s social media profiles based on an image and a name that is fed into it. Days before the launch, Jodie Ginsburg, CEO of Index on Censorship, volunteered a photo of herself to Wilkin to run through his programme. Her Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook profiles promptly appeared on the wall behind Wilkin. “This took two minutes” he said. “If you run this over multiple days with multiple machines, you can collect all the Linkedin data for a whole organisation.”
“What are the border implications of this?” Wilkin asked. He has spoken at an event for US Department of Homeland Security, who are looking at “scraping social media profiles as people come into the country. They want to find links to drugs, smuggling, terrorism.”
Catching people who pose a threat to the safety of others is doubtless a good thing. But should it come at the price of the violation of the privacy of the general public? Social media provides platforms where people are free to air political views, and exhibit aspects of their lives, including sexual orientation. When crossing borders into countries where freedom of expression is limited and dissenters are punished, will knowing that this information is being instantaneously collected impact on how people use their right to freedom of expression online? [/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1569514532933-51b65a69-4c09-0″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
