19 Nov 2021 | China, News and features
Forget about the white lines. When it comes to tennis China might have just crossed a red one. That has been the lesson from the disappearance of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai.
Two weeks ago the Wimbledon doubles winner vanished after she made sexual assault allegations against a top Chinese government official. For those familiar with China, the plot unfolded much like other #MeToo stories there – victim speaks up only to be quickly silenced.
Except in this case, rather than a smattering of individuals and NGOs condemning the action, the world’s sporting greats have screamed with fury. United under the hashtag #WhereIsPengShuai Serena Williams has said Peng’s disappearance “must be investigated and we must not stay silent”. Novak Djokovic said he was shocked. Germany’s Olympic team have asked for “clarity” on “her well-being and current condition”; Even FC Barcelona football player Gerard Pique shared a meme of the star alongside the hashtag.
It’s not just sporting superstars. It’s organisations too. Organisations like the Women’s Tennis Association. WTA chair Steve Simon said on Wednesday that “the WTA and the rest of the world need independent and verifiable proof that she is safe”. Her sexual assault allegation must be investigated “with full transparency and without censorship”, he added.
Then, yesterday, when a letter surfaced claiming to be from her both denying the allegations and saying she was ok (a letter that was quickly discredited), the WTA chair said:
“We’re definitely willing to pull our business and deal with all the complications that come with it because…this is bigger than the business.”
This, despite years of the WTA building up the profile of tennis in China. It’s an astonishing show of solidarity.
Not mincing his words at all, the writer Christoph Rehage, currently chronicling his ‘longest walk’ from China to Germany, tweeted: “I totally did not expect the tennis world to be the first to say fuck you xi jinping this shit is enough”. Neither did we Christoph, neither did we.
And why would we? We’ve become so accustomed to the opposite – silence. In the face of series after series of human rights violations, ones of a scale that we said would never happen again, the world’s leading financiers, brands and sporting figures have usually opted to not speak up. Silence like that from the International Olympic Committee, who have said they would not comment on the Peng affair and favoured “quiet diplomacy”.
And not just silence, actual kowtowing, such as when the general manager of Houston Rockets basketball team apologised for a tweet in support of Hong Kong protesters, or when actor John Cena apologised on Chinese social media after calling Taiwan a country, or when the parent company of Zara reportedly removed a statement on their website relating to cotton in Xinjiang.
At the core of the Peng story is a tragedy on an epic scale, of a woman who might have been sexually assaulted and has presumably been threatened or even imprisoned – and of a nation where free expression is muzzled and showing solidarity with the victims of sexual crimes can be a crime in itself. But this is also a story of hope. It’s been very heartening to watch the international outcry, to see for the first time in a while people and organisations who have everything to gain from being friends with China actually saying “enough is enough”.
The tennis world is not the only one taking on China this week. Granted much smaller in scale, students at the University of Exeter called a meeting with senior management about the university’s links to Chinese universities deemed complicit in the genocide of Uyghur Muslims. The students used freedom of information requests to establish the link and as a result the university says it will rethink its policy. On the back of this victory, the external organisation they teamed up with – Students for Uyghurs – have expressed a desire to do similar work at other UK universities.
These two actions, one local one international, are hugely significant. We’ve been told for years that China is too big to take on, too powerful. We’ll be punished; people in China will be punished. We’ve even had the environment thrown at us “Don’t upset the Chinese! We need them on our side to achieve 1.5 degree goals!”). And yet where has silence got us? “Nowhere. We need to speak up”, wrote Rushan Abbas, an activist whose family is incarcerated in China, in a 2020 issue of Index on Censorship.
So to all those of you who have spoken up against atrocities in China this week – thank you. You’ve given us hope that a different future can exist.
22 Oct 2021 | Opinion, Ruth's blog
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On 15 October 1971, in the depths of the Cold War, the feted British poet Stephen Spender wrote an impassioned appeal for the Times Literary Supplement in which he highlighted the threat of a world without creativity or impartial news as repressive regimes sought to silence dissent.
Writers, academics, journalists and artists were subject to state sanctioned persecution on a daily basis, threatened, arrested and in too many cases murdered as authoritarian leaders moved against their citizens. Watching was no longer enough, letters to the Times and statements of solidarity were no longer sufficient for Spender and a group of his contemporaries.
It was time to act, to provide an international platform for dissidents to publish their work and importantly it was time to make a positive argument for the liberal democratic values of free speech and free expression. It was time to launch Writers and Scholars International and its in-house journal Index on Censorship.
Spender concluded: “The problem of censorship is part of larger ones about the use and abuse of freedom.”
In the 50 years since Spender wrote in the TLS, Index has published the works of thousands of dissidents, their words, their art and their journalistic endeavours. From Havel to Rushdie, from Zaghari-Radcliffe to Ma Jian, their works have found a home in our publication. Their stories have been told and their works published for posterity – a recognition of their plight.
Fifty years later Spender would have hoped for us to be irrelevant, that the fundamental freedom of free expression was not just respected but embraced throughout the world. If only that was the case. Every week there is an attack on academic freedom at home or abroad, a new debate about our online rights and a new report of a systematic attack on those that embody the very principle of free speech.
In 1971 over a third of the world’s population lived under Communist rule with still more living under other forms of totalitarian regime. Today 113 countries, representing 75 per cent of the global population, completely or significantly restrict core human rights.
These aren’t just statistics, there are real people behind each headline.
In Belarus 811 people are currently detained as political prisoners by Lukashenka, including Andrei Aliaksandrau one of Index’s former staff members. In Egypt more than 60,000 people are imprisoned, including our award-winner Abdelrahman Tarek – detained and regularly tortured since the age of 16 for attending democracy demonstrations. In Afghanistan three young female journalists were brutally assassinated as they left work earlier this year. In Hong Kong the 50 leading democracy protestors have been arrested by the CCP and their families threatened.
These brave journalists and campaigners represent millions of people who cannot use their voices without fear of retribution. Every day they face a horrendous choice between demanding democratic rights or being silenced.
Index seeks to be a platform for them – providing a voice for the persecuted, ensuring that no tyrant succeeds in silencing dissent.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also wish to read” category_id=”41669″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
10 Sep 2021 | Afghanistan, Belarus, Hong Kong, Ruth's blog
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”106069″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Afghanistan. Hong Kong. Belarus.
Every day we’ve learned of a new atrocity. A new act of repression. A new effort to silence. A new law to intimidate.
The news has been awful. There are too many heartbreaking stories, too many images of people being tortured or arrested. Too many things to be angry about. But the reality is, thankfully, as painful as these stories are. They are in the news. They are being covered. And the world knows what is happening – daylight is truly trying to act as a disinfectant.
So as much as I worry about the horrendous restrictions to free expression that we see on the news and the people behind the headlines, every night I find myself fretting about who we’re not reporting on. Who is missing? What other regimes should we be focusing on. Whose story needs to be told. And most importantly how can we help.
In part, the annual Index Freedom of Expression awards is our answer to that question. Shining a light on activists, campaigners, artists, writers and journalists who are being targeted by repressive regimes. Making sure that some of the bravest most inspirational people in the fight for the right to global free expression have their stories told. This weekend we will be announcing our winners. But it’s not just about our winners, it’s about every nominee from Brazil to Nicaragua, from Egypt to Russia. Their stories, their fights deserve the world’s attention. And on Sunday evening we get to share their stories.
So over the weekend please watch our social media for the coverage. But before we get there I want to thank this year’s sponsors, Facebook, Edwardian Hotels, the Times and Sunday Times, Microsoft and Sage publications for enabling us to shine a spotlight on repressive regimes that don’t always dominate the news.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”41669″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
