12 Apr 2019 | Americas, Campaigns -- Featured, Cuba
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Index on Censorship, Pen International and Artists at Risk Connection of Pen America stand in solidarity with independent Cuban artists as the 13th Havana Biennial, which begins in the Cuban capital on 12 April and ends 12 May 2019.
The month-long, state-sponsored biennial will showcase the work of international and Cuban artists who are officially-recognised by the Cuban Ministry of Culture.
We, the undersigned organisations, call on the participating artists to support the campaign against the country’s Decree 349. Building upon existing laws and regulations that apply to artists officially recognised by the Cuban government, Decree 349 formalises and widens the scope of artistic censorship in Cuba and creates a new category of art inspectors with the power to unilaterally impose fines, cancel events, and subject artists to asset forfeiture as a penalty for presenting work without authorisation from the state.
Independent artists who have peacefully protested the decree have faced persistent harassment, including repeated arbitrary detentions. Artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara was detained last week and again this week. Coco Fusco was denied entry into the country while a family member of artist Tania Bruguera has been harassed. Meanwhile, rappers “Maykel” Castillo Pérez and Lázaro Leonardo Rodríguez Betancourt “Pupito en Sy” have been held in Valle Grande prison since their arrests in September and November 2018, respectively. Arrested shortly after their participation in a public concert critical of Decree 349, the wider Cuban artistic community believes that the charges laid against them have been fabricated in retaliation for their peaceful protest.
Campaigning artists have asked Biennial participants to express solidarity in any way they feel most comfortable with. Suggestions include inviting independent artists affected by Decree 349 to take part in presentations at the Havana Biennial, or supporting alternative events under the title of “Bienal sin 349”. Other actions showing solidarity for participants can include wearing a “No to Decree 349” t-shirts while in Cuba, or even visiting home studios to learn more about the efforts of independent artists. Independent artists only ask that participants find ways to include them in their experience of the Havana Biennial, as they continue to be marginalised and silenced despite government statements that the decree is part of an inclusive and supportive national cultural policy.
The undersigned organisations call on the Cuban authorities to comply with its international obligations as a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to ensure that independent artists be given the opportunity to peacefully protest during the Biennial without the fear of arrest or harm. We also call for the release of rappers Maykel and Pupito en Sy, and for the charges to be dropped, if as is suspected, they are being targeted for the peaceful exercise of their right to free expression.
Index on Censorship
Pen International
Pen America – Artists at Risk Connection
Tate Modern
Cuban artist Yasser Castellanos at the 2018 Biennial
An Open Letter from Cuban Arts Professionals to Participants in the 2019 Havana Biennial
We are members of the artist community in Cuba. We are contacting you with the understanding that you have been invited to participate in the 2019 Havana Biennial. As you may know, over the past eight months, a movement has emerged among artists from all disciplines to protest a new law that recently came into effect, known as Decree 349. This law criminalises independent artistic activity and gives art inspectors the right to impose a fine or subject artists to asset forfeiture as a penalty for presenting work without authorisation from the state. The Cuban government created the law without consulting its arts community. We are attaching information about the decree for your review. Please feel free to ask us if you have any questions.
We have been protesting this law through various tactics: some of us have met with government officials to express our opposition to the laws, while others have developed a campaign in social media to foment critical debate about the laws. Many of us have engaged in direct action and have been detained by the Cuban police for attempting to stage a sit-in at the Ministry of Culture in the days leading up to the law going into effect last December. It goes without saying that the government has not been pleased about our protests and has gone to great lengths to characterise us in the Cuban media as counter-revolutionaries and troublemakers who are not worthy of recognition as artists. Nonetheless, it is the first time in almost 60 years that artists from all disciplines, ages and political views have united against a government decree. More than 300 Cuban artists have signed a letter of protest directed to the Ministry of Culture and numerous foreign arts professionals have expressed their solidarity with our cause.
We have not succeeded in getting the government to rescind the law, but officials did announce last December that they would not put the law into effect fully until a set of regulations that are to be discussed with the arts community are finalised. We have not received any further information about those regulations as yet.
We are writing to you to ask for your solidarity and support at a challenging time for Cuban artists. A small gesture of solidarity goes very far in Cuba, particularly in the arts. We are sharing with you a list of artists who are vulnerable due to their protest of Decree 349. We ask you to consider expressing your solidarity in the way you feel most comfortable. We have envisioned several scenarios: You can invite one of the artists affected by the Decree 349 to work with you during your presentation at the Havana Biennial, or you can share part of your exhibition space or stage if you are participating in a public event. You can wear “No to Decree 349” t-shirts while in Cuba to show support for our cause. You can visit us at our home studios to learn more about our efforts. All that we ask is that you find ways to include the artists who are going to be marginalised due to the decree in your experience of the biennial.
As members of a global artistic community, we are all interconnected. Cuban artists have shown their support of other artists in the world when ethically dubious things happen to them. Now we ask for artists to be in solidarity with us, to make Cuba a place in which all cultural expression can thrive.
To contact us please write to: [email protected]
Sincerely,
Lester Alvarez
Italo Expósito
Tania Bruguera
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara
Yanelys Nuñez Leyva
Amaury Pacheco
Iris Ruiz
Sandor Pérez
Michel Matos
Hamlet Lavastida
Nonardo Perea
Yasser Castellanos
Verónica Vega
Aminta D´Cárdenas
Yoandri Kindelán Sierra
Javier Moreno
René Rodríguez
José Ernesto Alonso
Andrés Pérez
Ariel Maceo Tellez
Abu Duyanah Tamayo
Alejandro Barreras
Francis Sanchez
For more information on Decree 349:
Summary in English: https://frieze.com/article/looking-back-year-art-and-protest-cuba
Artist at Risk Connection white paper Art Under Pressure in English and Spanish[/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:1556718415064-1beae721-d7d0-2″ taxonomies=”7874″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
13 Feb 2019 | Magazine, News and features, Student Reading Lists
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Salman Rushdie. Credit: Fronteiras do Pensamento
On 14 February 1989 Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to execute author Salman Rushdie over the publication of The Satanic Verses, along with anyone else involved with the novel.
Published in the UK in 1988 by Viking Penguin, the book was met with widespread protest by those who accused Rushdie of blasphemy and unbelief. Death threats and a $6 million bounty on the author’s head saw him take on a 24-hour armed guard under the British government’s protection programme.
The book was soon banned in a number of countries, from Bangladesh to Venezuela, and many died in protests against its publication, including on 24 February when 12 people lost their lives in a riot in Bombay, India. Explosions went off across the UK, including at Liberty’s department store, which had a Penguin bookshop inside, and the Penguin store in York.
Book store chains including Barnes and Noble stopped selling the book, and copies were burned across the UK, first in Bolton where 7,000 Muslims gathered on 2 December 1988, then in Bradford in January 1989. In May 1989 between 15,000 to 20,000 people gathered in Parliament Square in London to burn Rushdie in effigy.
In October 1993, William Nygaard, the novel’s Norwegian publisher, was shot three times outside his home in Oslo and seriously injured.
Rushdie came out of hiding after nine years, but as recently as February 2016, money has been raised to add to the fatwa, reminding the author that for many the Ayatollah’s ruling still stands.
Here, 30 years on, Index on Censorship magazine highlights key articles from its archives from before, during and after the issue of the fatwa, including two from Rushdie himself.
Cuba today, the March 1989 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
World statement by the international committee for the defence of Salman Rushdie and his publishers
March 1989, vol. 18, issue 3
On 14 February the Ayatollah Khomeini called on all Muslims to seek out and execute Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses, and all those involved in its publication. We, the undersigned, insofar as we defend the right to freedom of opinion and expression as embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, declare that we also are involved in the publication. We are involved whether we approve the contents of the book or not. Nonetheless, we appreciate the distress the book has aroused and deeply regret the loss of life associated with the ensuing conflict.
Read the full article
Islam & human rights, the May 1989 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
Pandora’s box forced open
Amir Taheri
May 1989, vol. 18, issue 5
‘What Rushdie has done, as far as Muslim intellectuals are concerned, is to put their backs to the wall and force them to make the choice they have tried to avoid for so long’. Last year, when poor old Mr Manavi filled in his Penguin order form for 10 copies of Salman Rushdie’s third novel, The Satanic Verses, he could not have imagined that the book, described by its publishers as a reflection on the agonies of exile, would provoke one of the most bizarre diplomatic incidents in recent times. Mr Manavi had been selling Penguin books in Tehran for years. He had learned which authors to regard as safe and which ones to avoid at all costs.
Read the full article
Islam & human rights, the May 1989 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
Jihad for freedom
Wole Soyinka
May 1989, vol. 18, issue 5
This statement is not, of course, addressed to the Ayatollah Khomeini who, except for a handful of fanatics, is easily diagnosed as a sick and dangerous man who has long forgotten the fundamental tenets of Islam. It is useful to address oneself, at this point, only to the real Islamic faithful who, in their hearts, recognise the awful truth about their erratic Imam and the threat he poses not only to the continuing acceptance of Islam among people of all religions and faiths but to the universal brotherhood of man, no matter the differing colorations of their piety. Will Salman Rushdie die? He shall not. But if he does, let the fanatic defenders of Khomeini’s brand of Islam understand this: The work for which he is now threatened will become a household icon within even the remnant lifetime of the Ayatollah. Writers, cineastes, dramatists will disseminate its contents in every known medium and in some new ones as yet unthought of.
Read the full article
South Africa after Apartheid, the April 1990 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
Reflections on an invalid fatwah
Amir Taheri
April 1990, vol. 19, issue 4
Broadly speaking, three predictions were made. The first was that Khomeini’s attempt at exporting terror might goad world public opinion into a keener understanding of Iran’s tragedy since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The fact that the Ayatollah had executed thousands of people, including many writers and poets since his seizure of power in Tehran had provoked only mild rebuke from Western governments and public opinion. With the fatwa against Rushdie, we thought the whole world would mobilise against the ayatollah, turning his regime into an international pariah. Nothing of the kind happened, of course, and only one country, Britain, closed its embassy in Tehran – and that because the mullahs decided to sever.diplomatic ties. In the past twelve months Federal Germany and France have increased their trade with the Islamic Republic to the tune of II and 19 per cent respectively. The EEC countries and Japan have, in the meantime, provided the Islamic Republic with loans exceeding £2,000 million. The stream of European and Japanese businessmen and diplomats visiting Tehran turned into a mini-flood after Khomeini’s death last June.
Read the full article
South Africa after Apartheid, the April 1990 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
Salman Rushdie and political expediency
Adel Darwish
April 1990, vol. 19, issue 4
When I reviewed Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses in September 1988, it never crossed my mind to make any reference to possible offence to Muslim readers, let alone to anticipate the unprecedented international crisis generated in the months that followed. I do not think I was naive – as an LBC radio reporter suggested when she interviewed me at the first public reading from The Satanic Verses in June 1989. On the contrary, I can claim more than many that I am able to understand what Mr Rushdie was trying to say in his book, and the way the crisis has developed. Like Mr Rushdie, I am a British writer, born to a Muslim family. Born in Egypt, I was educated and am employed in Britain, and have been preoccupied and engaged, mainly in the 1960s and 1970s, with the issues that Mr Rushdie has fought for and with which he seemed to be very much concerned in his book.
Read the full article
Azerbaijan, the February 1991 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
My decision
Salman Rushdie
February 1991, vol. 20, issue 2
A man’s spiritual choices are a matter of conscience, arrived at after deep. reflection and in the privacy of his heart. They are not easy matters to speak of publicly. I should like, however, to say something about my decision to affirm the two central tenets of Islam — the oneness of God and the genuineness of the prophecy of the Prophet Muhammad —and thus to enter into the body of Islam after a lifetime spent outside it. Although I come from a Muslim family background, I was never brought up as a believer, and was raised in an atmosphere of what is broadly known as secular humanism. I still have the deepest respect for these principles. However, as I think anyone who studies my work will accept, I have been engaging more and more with religious belief, its importance and power, ever since my first novel used the Sufi poem Conference of the Birds by Farid ud-din Attar as a model. The Satanic Verses itself, with its portrait of the conflicts between the material and spiritual worlds, is a mirror of the conflict within myself.
Read the full article
20th Anniversary: Reign of terror, the June 1992 issue of the Index on Censorship magazine.
Offending the high priests
Gunter Grass
June 1992, vol. 21, issue 6
When George Orwell returned from Spain in 1937, he brought with him the manuscript of Homage to Catalonia. It reflected the experiences he had gathered during the Civil War. At first, he was unable to find a publisher because a multitude of influential, left-wing intellectuals had no wish to acknowledge its shocking observations. They did not want to accept the Stalinist terror, the systematic liquidation of anarchists, Trotskyists and left-wing socialists. Orwell himself only narrowly escaped this terror. His stark accusations contradicted a world image of a flawless Soviet Union fighting against Fascism. Orwell’s report, this onslaught of terrible reality, tarnished the picture-book dream of Good and Evil. A year later, a bourgeois Western publisher brought out Homage to Catalonia; in the areas of Communist rule, Orwell’s works – among them the bitter Spanish truth – were banned for half a century. The minister responsible for state security= in the German Democratic Republic, right to its end, was Erich Mielke. During the Spanish Civil War, he was a member of the Communist cadre to whom purge through liquidation became commonplace. A fighter for Spain with an extraordinary capacity for survival.
Read the full article
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Russia’s choice, the November-December 1993 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
The Rushdie affair: Outrage in Oslo
Hakon Harket
November 1993, vol. 22, issue 10
The terrorist state of Iran must face the consequences of refusing to lift the fatwa that condemns Salman Rushdie, and those associated with his work, to death. When someone, in accordance with the express order of the fatwa, attempts to murder one of the damned, the obvious consequence is that Iran must be held responsible for the crime it has called for, at least until there is conclusive proof that no connection exists. The shooting of William Nygaard has reminded the Norwegian public of what the Rushdie affair is really about: life and death; the abuse of religion; the fiction of a free mind. This war of terror against freedom of speech is not one we can afford to lose. Since the nightmare clearly will not disappear of its own accord, it must be engaged head-on.
Read the full article
New censors, the March 1996 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
From Salman Rushdie
March 1996, vol. 25, issue 2
This statement is not, of course, addressed to the Ayatollah Khomeini who, except for a handful of fanatics, is easily diagnosed as a sick and dangerous man who has long forgotten the fundamental tenets of Islam. It is useful to address oneself, at this point, only to the real Islamic faithful who, in their hearts, recognise the awful truth about their erratic Imam and the threat he poses not only to the continuing acceptance of Islam among people of all religions and faiths but to the universal brotherhood of man, no matter the differing colorations of their piety. Will Salman Rushdie die? He shall not. But if he does, let the fanatic defenders of Khomeini’s brand of Islam understand this: The work for which he is now threatened will become a household icon within even the remnant lifetime of the Ayatollah. Writers, cineastes, dramatists will disseminate its contents in every known medium and in some new ones as yet unthought of.
Read the full article
Shadow of the Fatwa
Kenan Malik
December 2008, vol. 37, issue 4
The Satanic Verses was, Salman Rushdie said in an interview before publication, a novel about ‘migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death’. It was also a satire on Islam, ‘a serious attempt’, in his words, ‘to write about religion and revelation from the point of view of a secular person’. For some that was unacceptable, turning the novel into ‘an inferior piece of hate literature’ as the British-Muslim philosopher Shabbir Akhtar put it. Within a month, The Satanic Verses had been banned in Rushdie’s native India, after protests from Islamic radicals. By the end of the year, protesters had burnt a copy of the novel on the streets of Bolton, in northern England. And then, on 14 February 1989, came the event that transformed the Rushdie affair – Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa.’I inform all zealous Muslims of the world,’ proclaimed Iran’s spiritual leader, ‘that the author of the book entitled The Satanic Verses – which has been compiled, printed and published in opposition to Islam, the prophet and the Quran – and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its contents are sentenced to death.’
Read the full article
The right to publish
Peter Mayer
December 2008, vol. 37, issue 4
As publisher of The Satanic Verses, Peter Mayer was on the front line. He writes here for the first time about an unprecedented crisis:
Penguin published Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses six months before Ayatollah Khomeini issues his fatwa. When we decided to continue publishing the novel in the aftermath, extraordinary pressures were focused on our company, based on fears for the author’s life and for the lives of everyone at Penguin around the world. This extended from Penguin’s management to editorial, warehouse, transport, administrative staff, the personnel in our bookshops and many others. The long-term political implications of that early signal regarding free speech in culturally diverse societies were not yet apparent to many when the Ayatollah, speaking not only for Iran but, seemingly, for all of Islam, issued his religious proclaimation.
Read the full article
Emblem of darkness
Bernard-Henri Lévy
December 2008, vol. 37, issue 4
As publisher of The Satanic Verses, Peter Mayer was on the front line. He writes here for the first time about an unprecedented crisis:
Salman Rushdie was not yet the great man of letters that he has since become. He and I are, though, pretty much the same age. We share a passion for India and Pakistan, as well as the uncommon privilege of having known and written about Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Rushdie in Shame; I in Les Indes Rouges), the father of Benazir, former prime minister of Pakistan, executed ten years earlier in 1979 by General Zia. I had been watching from a distance, with infinite curiosity, the trajectory of this almost exact contemporary. One day, in February 1989, at the end of the afternoon, as I sat in a cafe in the South of France, in Saint Paul de Vence, with the French actor Yves Montand, sipping an orangeade, I heard the news: Ayatollah Khomeini, himself with only a few months to live, had just issued a fatwa, in which he condemned as an apostate the author of The Satanic Verses and invited all Muslims the world over to carry out the sentence, without delay.
Read the full article[/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:1623240200822-8c1bcd36-9835-10″ taxonomies=”8890″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
15 Jan 2019 | Awards
[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content_no_spaces” css_animation=”fadeIn” css=”.vc_custom_1547219633236{padding-top: 250px !important;padding-bottom: 250px !important;background-image: url(https://www.indexoncensorship.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/freedom-of-expression-awards-2019-1460×490-with-year-1.jpg?id=104692) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}”][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1500449679881{margin-top: -50px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”2019 FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AWARDS” font_container=”tag:h1|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_row_inner disable_element=”yes”][vc_column_inner][vc_empty_space height=”15px”][vc_custom_heading text=”ABOUT THE AWARDS” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”middle”][vc_column_inner el_class=”awards-inside-desc” width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards exist to celebrate individuals or groups who have had a significant impact fighting censorship anywhere in the world.
Awards are offered in four categories: Arts, Campaigning, Digital Activism and Journalism. Anyone who has had a demonstrable impact in tackling censorship is eligible. Winners are honoured at a gala celebration in London. Winners join Index’s Awards Fellowship programme and receive dedicated training and support.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/JeDl0BWXXOc”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”2019 FELLOWSHIP” font_container=”tag:h1|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]
Selected from over 400 public nominations and a shortlist of 16, the 2019 Freedom of Expression Awards fellows exemplify courage in the face of censorship. Learn more about the fellowship.
[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_custom_heading text=”Arts” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”104529″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Zehra Doğan | Turkey
Released from prison on 24 February 2019, Zehra Doğan is a Kurdish painter and journalist who, during her imprisonment, 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, Doğan 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.
Full profile | Acceptance speech[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_custom_heading text=”Campaigning” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”104518″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Cartoonists Rights Network International | United States / International
Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI) is a small organisation with a big impact: monitoring threats and abuses against editorial cartoonists worldwide. Marshalling an impressive worldwide network, CRNI helps to focus international attention on cases in which cartoonists are persecuted and put pressure on the persecutors. CRNI tracks censorship, fines, penalties and physical intimidation – including of family members, assault, imprisonment and even assassinations. Once a threat is detected, CRNI often partners with other human rights organisations to maximise the pressure and impact of a campaign to protect the cartoonist and confront those who seek to censor political cartoonists.
Full profile | Acceptance speech[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_custom_heading text=”Digital Activism” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”104520″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Fundación Karisma | Colombia
Fundación Karisma is a civil society organisation that challenges online trolls by using witty online ‘stamps’ that flag up internet abuse. It is an initiative that uses humour to draw attention to a serious problem: the growing online harassment of women in Colombia and its chilling effect. The organisation offers a rare space to discuss many issues at the intersection of human rights and technology in the country and then tackles them through a mix of research, advocacy and digital tools. Karisma’s “Sharing is not a crime” campaign supports open access to knowledge against the backdrop of Colombia’s restrictive copyright legislation.
Full profile | Acceptance speech[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_custom_heading text=”Journalism” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”104523″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Mimi Mefo | Cameroon
Mimi Mefo is one of less than a handful of journalists working without fear or favour in Cameroon’s climate of repression and self-censorship. An award-winning broadcast journalist at private media house Equinoxe TV and Radio, Mefo was arrested in November 2018 after she published reports that the military was behind the death of an American missionary in the country. Mefo reports on the escalating violence in the country’s western regions, a conflict that has become known as the “Anglophone Crisis” and is a leading voice in exposing the harassment of other Cameroonian journalists, calling publicly for the release of those jailed.
Full profile | Acceptance speech[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][awards_gallery_slider name=”2019 AWARDS GALA” images_url=”105882,105875,105876,105877,105878,105879,105880,105881,105883,105884,105885,106029,106030,106031,106032,106033,106034,106058,106057,106056,106055,106054,106053,106052,106051,106050,106059,106060,106063,106064,106065,106066,106067,106068,106069,106075,106070,106077,106078,106079,106080,106081,106091,106090,106089,106088,106087,106086,106085,106084,106083,106082,106092,106094″][vc_column_text]
The Awards were held at London’s May Fair Hotel on Thursday 4 April 2019.
High-resolution images are available for download via Flickr.
[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”THE 2019 FELLOWSHIP SHORTLIST” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”Arts” tab_id=”1554809902471-b3c9fc73-9d6d”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
ARTS
for artists and arts producers whose work challenges repression and injustice and celebrates artistic free expression
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/gL5qzotQJzI”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”104515″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]ArtLords | Afghanistan[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”104529″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Zehra Doğan | Turkey[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”104519″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]ElMadina for Performing and Digital Arts | Egypt[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”104526″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Ms Saffaa | Saudi Arabia / Australia[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”Campaigning” tab_id=”1554809902549-60799150-d1e3″][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
CAMPAIGNING
for activists and campaigners who have had a marked impact in fighting censorship and promoting freedom of expression
Sponsored by Mainframe
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/2dyUzhOE7Cw”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”104518″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Cartoonists Rights Network International | United States / International[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”104521″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Institute for Media and Society | Nigeria[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”104525″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Media Rights Agenda | Nigeria[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”104527″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]P24 | Turkey[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”Digital Activism” tab_id=”1554810071532-b8b029f3-2bd1″][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
DIGITAL ACTIVISM
for innovative uses of technology to circumvent censorship and enable free and independent exchange of information
Sponsored by Private Internet Access
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/1K7rOcfma2c”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”104520″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Fundación Karisma | Colombia[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”104524″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Mohammed Al-Maskati | Middle East[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”104528″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]SFLC.in | India[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”Journalism” tab_id=”1554810135332-a68bcfef-814d”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
JOURNALISM
for courageous, high-impact and determined journalism that exposes censorship and threats to free expression
Sponsored by Daily Mail and General Trust, Daily Mirror, France Medias Monde, News UK, Telegraph Media Group, Society of Editors
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/w1ff5zMDnp8″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”104516″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Bihus.info | Ukraine[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”104517″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia (CINS) | Serbia[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”104522″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Mehman Huseynov | Azerbaijan [/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”104523″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Mimi Mefo | Cameroon[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_tta_section][/vc_tta_tabs][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1484569093244{background-color: #f2f2f2 !important;}”][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”JUDGING” font_container=”tag:h1|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_row_inner el_class=”mw700″][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]
Each year Index recruits an independent panel of judges – leading voices with diverse expertise across campaigning, journalism, the arts and human rights. Judges look for courage, creativity and resilience. We shortlist on the basis of those who are deemed to be making the greatest impact in tackling censorship in their chosen area, with a particular focus on topics that are little covered or tackled by others. Where a judge comes from a nominee’s country, or where there is any other potential conflict of interest, the judge will abstain from voting in that category.
The 2019 judging panel:
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1510244917017{margin-top: 30px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][staff name=”Khalid Abdalla” title=”Actor and Filmmaker” profile_image=”104118″]Khalid Abdalla is an actor, producer and filmmaker. He has starred in award-winning films, including Paul Greengrass’s United 93 and Marc Forster’s The Kite Runner. He has producing credits on Hanan Abdalla’s In the Shadow of a Man and the upcoming film The Vote and has appeared in Jehane Noujaim’s Oscar-nominated The Square. Khalid is a founding member of three collaborative initiatives in Cairo – Cimatheque, Zero Production and Mosireen. Brought up in the UK to Egyptian parents, Cairo and London are his two cities.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][staff name=”Nimco Ali” title=”Writer and Social Activist” profile_image=”104121″]Nimco Ali is a British Somali feminist, writer and social activist. She is co-founder and director of Daughters of Eve, a survivor-led organisation which has helped to transform the approach to ending female genital mutilation, and is the lead advisor to the UK’s APPG to End FGM. She is working to ban FGM in Somaliland, is a former ambassador for #MAKERSUK and was awarded Red Magazine’s Woman of the Year award 2014 and placed No. 6 in Woman’s Hour Power List. Her book ‘RUDE’ comes out in early 2019.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][staff name=”Kate Devlin” title=”Writer and Academic” profile_image=”104081″]Kate Devlin is a writer and an academic in the department of Digital Humanities in King’s College London where she works on artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction. Her book, Turned On: Science, Sex and Robots, explores intimacy and ethics in the digital age.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][staff name=”Maria Ressa” title=”CEO and Executive Editor” profile_image=”104085″]Maria Ressa is CEO and executive editor of social news network Rappler in the Philippines. She was CNN’s bureau chief in Manila then Jakarta, and became CNN’s lead investigative reporter focusing on terrorism in Southeast Asia. She is an author of two books on terrorism, co-founder of production company Probe and managed ABS-CBN News and Current affairs. Maria has won numerous awards for her work, including the prestigious Golden Pen of Freedom Awards in 2018.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content_no_spaces” css=”.vc_custom_1500453384143{margin-top: 20px !important;padding-top: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_custom_heading text=”SPONSORS” font_container=”tag:h1|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes” css=”.vc_custom_1484567001197{margin-bottom: 30px !important;}”][vc_column_text]
The Freedom of Expression Awards and Fellowship have massive impact. You can help by sponsoring or supporting a fellowship.
Index is grateful to those who are supporting the 2019 Awards:
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner equal_height=”yes” el_class=”container container980″][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″ offset=”vc_col-xs-6″][vc_single_image image=”80918″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” img_link_target=”_blank” link=”https://uk.sagepub.com/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″ offset=”vc_col-xs-6″][vc_single_image image=”80921″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” img_link_target=”_blank” link=”https://www.google.co.uk/about/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”85983″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”85977″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://www.edwardian.com/”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner equal_height=”yes” el_class=”container container980″][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″ offset=”vc_col-xs-6″][vc_single_image image=”105358″ img_size=”234×234″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://mainframe.com/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″ offset=”vc_col-xs-6″][vc_single_image image=”105536″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” img_link_target=”_blank” link=”http://www.vodafone.com/content/index.html#”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″ offset=”vc_col-xs-6″][vc_single_image image=”105360″ img_size=”234×234″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.francemediasmonde.com/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”105359″ img_size=”234×234″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner equal_height=”yes” el_class=”container container980″][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″ offset=”vc_col-xs-6″][vc_single_image image=”80924″ img_size=”200×200″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” img_link_target=”_blank” link=”https://psiphon.ca/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″ offset=”vc_col-xs-6″][vc_single_image image=”105361″ img_size=”200×200″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.telegraph.co.uk/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″ offset=”vc_col-xs-6″][vc_single_image image=”105363″ img_size=”200×200″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.societyofeditors.org/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”105365″ img_size=”200×200″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.news.co.uk/”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner equal_height=”yes” el_class=”container container980″][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″ offset=”vc_col-xs-6″][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″ offset=”vc_col-xs-6″][vc_single_image image=”106100″ img_size=”200×200″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.mirror.co.uk/” css=”.vc_custom_1569840872089{margin-top: -70px !important;}”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″ offset=”vc_col-xs-6″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]
If you are interested in sponsorship you can contact [email protected]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
