26 Jul 21 | Africa, Bosnia, Burma, China, Europe and Central Asia, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Magazine, Magazine Contents, Slapps, Volume 50.02 Summer 2021, Volume 50.02 Summer 2021 Extras
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Index’s new issue of the magazine looks at the importance of whistleblowers in upholding our democracies.
Featured are stories such as the case of Reality Winner, written by her sister Brittany. Despite being released from prison, the former intelligence analyst is still unable to speak out after she revealed documents that showed attempted Russian interference in US elections.
Playwright Tom Stoppard speaks to Sarah Sands about his life and new play title ‘Leopoldstatd’ and, 50 years on from the Pentagon Papers, the “original whistleblower” Daniel Ellsberg speaks to Index .[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Up front” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:22|text_align:left”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Holding the rich and powerful to account by Martin Bright: We look at key whistleblower cases around the world and why they matter for free speech
The Index: Free expression round the world today: the inspiring voices, the people who have been imprisoned and the trends, legislation and technology which are causing concern
Why journalists need emergency safe havens by Rachael Jolley: Legal experts including Amal Clooney have called for a new type of visa to protect journalists[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Features” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:22|text_align:left”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Spinning bomb by Nerma Jelacic: Disinformation and the assault on truth in Syria learned its lessons from the war in Bosnia
Identically bad by Helen Fortescue: Two generations of photojournalists document the political upheaval shaping Belarus 30 years apart
Always looking over our shoulders by Henry McDonald: Across the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland again, journalists are facing increasing threats
Crossing red lines by Fréderike Geerdink: The power struggle between the PUK and KDP is bad news for press freedom in Kurdistan
Cartoon by Ben Jennings: The reptaphile elite are taking over! So say the conspiracy theorists, anyway
People first but not the media by Issa Sikiti da Silva: There was hope for press freedom when Felix Tshisekedi took power in DR Congo, but that is now dwindling
Controlling the Covid message by Danish Raza and Somak Ghoshal: Covid-19 has crippled the Indian health service, but the government is more concerned with avoiding criticism[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Special Report” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:22|text_align:left”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Reality Winner. Credit: Michael Holahan/The Augusta Chronicle
Speaking for my silenced sister by Brittany Winner: Meet Reality Winner, the whistleblower still unable to speak out despite being released from prison
Feeding the machine by Mark Frary: Alexei Navalny has been on hunger strike in a penal colony outside Moscow, since his sentencing. Index publishes his writings from prison
An ancient virtue by Ian Foxley: A whistleblower explains the ancient Greek idea of parrhesia that is at the core of the whistleblower principle
Truthteller by Kaya Genç: Journalist Faruk Bildirici tells Index how one of Turkey’s most respected newspapers became an ally of Islamists
The price of revealing oil’s dirty secrets: Whistleblower Jonathan Taylor has been hounded since revealing serious cases of bribery within the oil industry
The original whistleblower: 50 years on from the Pentagon Papers, whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg speaks to Index
Fishrot, the global stench of scandal: Former Samherji employee Johannes Stefansson exposed corruption and the plundering of Namibian fish stocks[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Comment” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:22|text_align:left”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]What is a woman? by Kathleen Stock and This is hate, not debate by Phoenix Andrews: Two experts debate the case of Maya Forstater, in which Index legally intervened, and if the matter is a case of hate speech
Battle cries by Abbad Yahya: The lost voice of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
A nightmare you can’t wake up from by Nandar: A feminist activist forced to flee her home country after the military coup in February
Trolled by the president by Michela Wrong: Rwanda’s leader Paul Kagame is known for attacking journalists. What is it like to incur his wrath?
When the boot is on the other foot by Ruth Smeeth: People must fight not only for their own rights, but for the free speech of the people they do not agree with[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Culture” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:22|text_align:left”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Playwright Tom Stoppard. Credit: Liba Taylor/Alamy Stock Photo
Uncancelled by Sarah Sands: An interview with the playwright Sir Tom Stoppard on his new play, Leopoldstadt, and the inspiration behind it
No light at the end of the tunnel by Benjamin Lynch: Yemeni writer Bushra al-Maqtari provides us with an exclusive extract of her award-winning novel, Behind the Sun
Dead poets’ society by Mark Frary: The military in Myanmar is targeting dissenting voices. Poets were among the first to be killed
Politics or passion? by Mark Glanville: Contemporary poet Stanley Moss on his long-standing love for China
Are we becoming Hungary-lite? by Jolyon Rubinstein: Comedian Jolyon Rubinstein on the death of satire[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row disable_element=”yes”][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also like to read” category_id=”42664″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
18 Jul 21 | Cuba, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”117089″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]The Cuban revolution has always been adept at PR. Even in the early days, before the revolution succeeded in overthrowing the American backed dictator Fulgencio Batista, Cuban rebel leader Fidel Castro was a master of propaganda.
When the American journalist Herbert Matthews visited the Sierra Maestra in 1957 and sat down with Castro for an interview, the guerrilla chief fooled Matthews into thinking rebel forces were stronger than they were by marching the same columns of men past at various intervals and by having ‘messengers’ report the existence of non-existent rebel units.
“From the look of things, General Batista cannot possibly hope to suppress the Castro revolt,” wrote The New York Times’ correspondent in his subsequent dispatch.
Over the ensuing half a century, Havana’s propaganda has been equally powerful, fostering an image of Cuba abroad as a besieged outpost against United States aggression; as a beacon of healthcare and education; and as a country in which children are taught to live lives of heroic self-sacrifice in emulation of revolutionary icon Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara (who is the subject of a cult of personality in Cuba).
For those living at a great distance from the Cuban reality, it is easy to be fooled by the idealistic penumbra that surrounds the Cuban revolution. The arbitrary arrests, the grinding poverty, the tentacles of the state that reach into every aspect of daily life – all are submerged in the minds of foreign admirers beneath a tide of romantic kitsch.
Yet as thousands of Cubans take to the streets in unprecedented protests against the dictatorship, it is important that Western human rights and free speech organisations do not allow the distorted image of Cuba as a tropical socialist outpost against capitalism to muddy their thinking.
Many, thankfully, have not. Each year Amnesty International produces a detailed and damning report on the human rights situation in Cuba. In its 2020 report, Amnesty noted that the authorities in Havana “continued to repress all forms of dissent, including by imprisoning independent artists, journalists and members of the political opposition”. Since the mass protests began on 11 July 2021, Amnesty has been closely monitoring the situation, publishing regular updates as to the whereabouts of Cuban activists and dissident voices.
Human Rights Watch has produced similarly comprehensive reports in its coverage of the deteriorating situation on the island for opponents of the dictatorship. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the Cuban government’s repression of citizen protests.
Yet despite the mass of evidence that the government in Havana is an egregious violator of human rights, evidence that is accumulating in real time; and despite the landmark protests by thousands of Cubans who risk imprisonment simply for taking to the streets, one senses that Cuba is unlikely to become a cause célèbre activists in the way that, say, Palestine has become so, or even Belarus or Myanmar.
Worse, some left-wing organisations in the United States and Britain, ostensibly dedicated to human rights and firmly embedded within the social democratic institutions within their countries, have sided openly with the dictatorship. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Young Labour, Black Lives Matter and the Progressive International have all released statements in support of the dictatorship in recent days.
It is vital that organisations dedicated to free speech and human rights continue to draw attention to repressive conditions and abuses inside Cuba. However it is also important that liberals and progressives take the reports that these organisations produce seriously – as seriously as they do when the same accusations are made of less fashionable (or PR-savvy) dictatorships.
During the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, many liberal and progressive voices were quick to jump on news stories featuring battalions of heroic Cuban doctors sent around the world to aid the anti-pandemic efforts. It would be nice if such interest in Cuba wasn’t so fleeting; if it looked beyond Havana’s carefully manufactured PR operation; and if it expressed itself for once by actually listening to the Cuban people and what they want.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”7874″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
05 Jul 21 | Algeria, Awards, Brazil, Burma, Djibouti, Egypt, Fellowship 2021, Kyrgyzstan, News and features, Nicaragua, Niger, Press Releases, Russia
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Index on Censorship has today (5 July) revealed the shortlisted candidates for the charity’s 2021 Freedom of Expression Awards. The winners will be announced at the annual Freedom of Expression Awards Gala on 12 September 2021, and this year’s awards are particularly significant as the charity marks its fiftieth year defending freedom of expression around the globe.
Index on Censorship chief executive Ruth Smeeth said:
“As Index begins to mark its 50th birthday it’s clear that the battle to guarantee free expression and free expression around the globe has never been more relevant. As ever we are in awe of the immense bravery of our award nominees as they stand firm, demanding their rights under repressive regimes. They are inspirational and it is our privilege to help tell their stories.”
The Freedom of Expression Awards, which were first held in 2000, celebrate individuals or groups who have had a significant impact fighting censorship anywhere in the world. Index on Censorship believes that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution, and aim to raise awareness about threats to free expression and the importance of free speech.
Trevor Philips, Chair of the Index on Censorship Board of Trustees says:
“It’s been half a century since Index declared itself a voice for the persecuted. Today, the opponents of freedom are more numerous and more determined than ever to suppress opponents of the powerful. There is more need than ever to campaign for a diversity of voices to be heard. Our awards are just one candle in the growing gale of repression, and it is humbling to be able to back those who keep the flame of free expression alight.”
Awards will be presented in three categories: campaigning, arts, and journalism. This year’s panel of judges includes Afghan-born Pakistani poet and writer Fatima Bhutto, renowned sculptor Anish Kapoor, and feminist and LGBT activist and academic Ailbhe Smyth.
The shortlisted candidates for the Art award include Russian feminist performance artist Daria Apakhonchich, Brazilian film director Émerson Maranhão and Tatyana Zelenskaya, who is an illustrator based in Kyrgyzstan.
The Campaigning shortlist features feminist blogger and podcaster Nandar from Myanmar, Algerian human rights defender and LGBTQ activist Anouar Rahmani, and imprisoned Egyptian human rights activist Abdelrahman “Moka” Tarek.
Finally, the shortlisted candidates for the Journalism award include human rights activist and journalist Kadar Abdi Ibrahim from Djibouti, co-owner of the Nicaraguan independent media outlet 100% Noticias, Veronica Chavez, and Nigerien blogger Samira Sabou who was arrested in 2020 and charged with defamation under a restrictive 2019 cybercrime law.
Art
Daria Apakhonchich
Daria Apakhonchich is a performance artist from Russia, who focuses mainly on women’s rights and artistic freedom. Among other things, she has participated in a performance art piece called ‘Vulva Ballet’ and designed an artistic lament for Anastasia Yeshchenko, who was murdered by her partner in 2019. In December 2020, Apakhonchich became one of the first artists labelled a ‘foreign agent’ by Russian authorities. She was arrested in January 2021 and is now required to add a disclaimer to all social media posts identifying her as a foreign agent.
Émerson Maranhão
Émerson Maranhão is a film director from Brazil, who focuses mainly on LGBTQ+ visibility. His documentary Those Two (2018) follows the lives of two trans men. In 2019 President Jair Bolsonaro moved to cancel funding for movies with LGBTQ+ themes. Bolsonaro explicitly referred to Maranháo’s screenplay Transversais when defending the move. Funding was later reinstated, but members of the LGBT community and their allies continue to face discrimination in Brazil.
Tatyana Zelenskaya
Tatyana Zelenskaya is an illustrator from Kyrgyzstan, working on freedom of expression and women’s rights projects. Zelenskaya has found inspiration for her work in the waves of anti-government protests that have recently erupted across Russia and Kyrgyzstan. In 2020, she created the artwork for a narrative video game called Swallows: Spring in Bishkek, which features a woman who helps her friend that was abducted and forced into an unwanted marriage. The game was downloaded more than 70,000 times in its first month. Its purpose is to break the silence around the issue of bride-kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan, with the aim of preventing them altogether.
Journalism
Kadar Abdi Ibrahim
Kadar Abdi Ibrahim is a human rights activist and journalist from Djibouti. As an outspoken human rights activist, journalist and blogger, Abdi Ibrahim has been a frequent target of the regime. Kadar Abdi served as co-director and chief editor of L’Aurore, Djibouti’s only privately-owned media outlet, before it was banned in 2016. In April 2018, after returning from Geneva, where he carried out advocacy activities in preparation for Djibouti’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR), intelligence services raided Kadar Abdi’s house and confiscated his passport. He has been unable to leave the country since then. In March 2020, he was named ‘Human Rights Defender of the Month’ by Defend the Defenders.
Verónica Chávez
Verónica Chávez is the co-owner of 100% Noticias, an online Nicaraguan media outlet dedicated to providing critical journalism. In 2018, police raided the offices of 100% Noticias and arrested Chávez, her husband journalist Miguel Mora and news director Lucia Pineda. Chávez was released, but Mora and Pineda were charged and imprisoned for a year. Despite the intense repression, Chávez continued to run 100% Noticias during that time. In October 2020, Chávez was violently attacked by members of paramilitary groups close to the government, and was left in intensive care. She subsequently saw an outpouring of support, including from the Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which condemned the attack.
Samira Sabou
Samira Sabou is a Nigerien journalist, blogger and president of the Niger Bloggers for Active Citizenship Association (ABCA). In June 2020, Sabou was arrested and charged with defamation under the restrictive 2019 cybercrime law in connection with a comment on her Facebook post highlighting corruption. She spent over a month in detention. Through her work with ABCA, she conducts training sessions on disseminating information on social media based on journalistic ethics. The aim is to give bloggers the means to avoid jail time. Sabou is also active in promoting girls’ and women’s right to freedom of expression.
Campaigning
Nandar
Nandar is a feminist advocate, translator, storyteller from Myanmar. She is the creator of two podcasts: Feminist Talks and G-Taw Zagar Wyne. She founded the Purple Feminists Group and co-directed a production of The Vagina Monologues in Yangon. Building upon her experience as a woman in Myanmar, Nandar now uses her podcasts to tackle taboo topics in the country such as menstruation and abortion. In 2020, Nandar was named on the BBC’s list of 100 most influential and inspirational women around the world. She continues to speak up for justice and equality both from personal and political spheres.
Anouar Rahmani
Anouar Rahmani is a human rights defender, campaigner and writer from Algeria. He advocates for freedom of expression, the rights of minorities, and LGBTQ+ rights in Algeria. He is the first Algerian activist who has publicly called for same-sex marriage to be legally recognised in the country. Rahmani has received death threats and persecution due to his work. In 2017 he was questioned by police for “insulting God” in his novel the City of White Shadows. In 2020, Rahmani was convicted of “insulting state officials” in social media posts and ordered to pay a fine of 50,000 Dinar (£290). Rahmani believes that he is being criminalised in retaliation for his work defending freedom of expression and LGBTQ+ rights in Algeria.
Abdelrahman Tarek
Abdelrahman “Moka” Tarek is a human rights defender from Egypt, who focuses on defending the right to freedom of expression and the rights of prisoners. Tarek has experienced frequent harassment from Egyptian authorities as a result of his work. He has spent longer periods of time in prison and has experienced torture and solitary confinement. Authorities have severely restricted his ability to communicate with his lawyer and family. Tarek was arrested again in September 2020 and in December 2020, a new case was brought against him on terrorism-related charges. Tarek began a hunger strike in protest of the terrorism charges. In January 2021, he was transferred to the prison hospital due to a deterioration in his health caused by the hunger strike. As of July 2021, he remains in prison.
Notes to editors:
For more information on the awards, please contact Leah Cross, [email protected]
For any press-related queries, please contact Luke Holland, [email protected][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
23 Jun 21 | News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116981″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Unless you are a classical Greek scholar or a student of the French philosopher Michel Foucault, it is unlikely that you will have heard of parrhesia. It is an Ancient Greek term meaning “to speak freely”. Its use implied not only the freedom to speak without fear but also an obligation to do so for the common good, even at great personal risk to the speaker. In common parlance, it is the virtue at the heart of whistleblowing.
Whistleblowing is not new. In Ancient Greece, Euripedes used it in his play The Bacchae as a medium to remind and instruct the (male) citizens of Athenian society in beneficial social practice. It reappeared in the Roman Empire in the form of delatores, and in early mediaeval England under qui tam practices, which existed in law until 1951.
It crossed the Atlantic to the USA to be encapsulated in the False Claims Act, otherwise known as the Lincoln Law, which combatted procurement fraud during the American Civil War; and it is the genetic antecedent to the current Public Interest Disclosure Act in the UK, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Dodd-Frank Act in the USA.
Despite its long ancestral line, there is a basic problem with whistleblowing. It demands a competition of one’s loyalties: a fundamental contest between loyalty to values and loyalty to the organisation. Whistleblowing asks the individual to consider between exposing what is wrong and an implied debt of allegiance to country, regiment, company, colleagues, friends and even family.
Whistleblowing also requires raw courage; it asks its exponents to place themselves in great danger.
Whistleblowing asks that the powerful recognise that they need the knowledge that only the vulnerable can give.
In Ancient Athens, the parrhesiastic contract not only offered protection but imposed sanctions against those responsible for the wrongdoing and those responsible for reprisals on the parrhesiastes – the whistleblower. The powerful offered not only freedom to speak openly but also protection for doing so. It is this principle that the Athenians understood
I approach the issue in part from personal experience. I am the whistleblower behind the recent Airbus scandal that started with revealing corruption in government-to-government defence contracts in Saudi Arabia. It has just resulted in a £30million fine for GPT, the UK subsidiary, in addition to being one of the triggers to the deferred prosecution agreements between Airbus Group and the USA, the UK and France, penalties of more than €3.6 billion, and the removal of most of the group’s senior management.
I have found that if we really want to change things for the better then we must find a way to better protect whistleblowers. So I have founded a charity called Parrhesia Inc, which brings together experts in whistleblowing research and policy from around the world in order to focus on the practice, protection and human rights of whistleblowers, by co-ordinating, commissioning and collating research to provide the evidence needed by policymakers to form and reform whistleblowing legislation.
We intend to sow the seeds of the parrhesiastic contract into legislation and all parts of modern society.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”581″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
