[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Editor-in-chief Rachael Jolley argues in the autumn 2019 issue of Index on Censorship magazine that travel restrictions and snooping into your social media at the frontier are new ways of suppressing ideas” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][vc_column_text]
Border Forces – how barriers to free thought got tough
Travelling to the USA this summer, journalist James Dyer, who writes for Empire magazine, says he was not allowed in until he had been questioned by an immigration official about whether he wrote for those “fake news” outlets.
Also this year, David Mack, deputy director of breaking news at Buzzfeed News, was challenged about the way his organisation covered a story at the US border by an official.
He later received an official apology from the Customs and Border Protection service for being questioned on this subject, which is not on the official list of queries that officers are expected to use.
As we go to press, the UK Foreign Office updated its advice for travellers going between Hong Kong and China warning that their electronic devices could be searched.
This happened a day after a Sky journalist had his belongings, including photos, searched at Beijing airport. US citizen Hugo Castro told Index how he was held for five hours at the USA-Mexico border while his mobile phone, photos and social media were searched.
This kind of behaviour is becoming more widespread globally as nations look to surveil what thoughts we have and what we might be writing or saying before allowing us to pass.
This ends with many people being so worried about the consequences of putting pen to paper that they don’t. They fret so much about being prevented from travelling to see a loved one or a friend, or going on a work trip, that they stop themselves from writing or expressing dissent.
If the world spins further in this direction we will end up with a global climate of fear where we second-guess our desire to write, tweet, speak or protest, by worrying ourselves down a timeline of what might happen next.
So what is the situation today? Border officials in some countries already seek to find out about your sexual orientation via an excursion into your social media presence as part of their decision on whether to allow you in.
Travel advisors who offer LGBT travel advice suggest not giving up your passcodes or passwords to social media accounts. One says that, before travelling, people can look at hiding their social media posts from people they might stay within the destination country. Digital security expert Ela Stapley suggests going further and having an entirely separate “clean” phone for travelling.
These actions at borders have not gone unnoticed by technology providers. The big dating apps are aware that information to be found in their spaces might also prove of interest to immigration officials in some countries.
This summer, Tinder rolled out a feature called Traveller Alert – as Mark Frary reports on – which hides people’s profiles if they are travelling to countries where homosexuality is illegal. Borders are getting bigger, harder and tougher.
It is not just about people travelling, it’s also about knowledge and ideas being stopped. As security services and governments get more tech-savvy, they see more and more ways to keep track of the words that we share. Surely there’s no one left out there who doesn’t realise the messages in their Gmail account are constantly being scanned and collected by Google as the quid pro quo for giving you a free account?
Google is collecting as much information as it can to help it compile a personal profile of everyone who uses it. There’s no doubt that if companies are doing this, governments are thinking about how they can do it too – if they are not already.
And the more they know, the more they can work out what they want to stop.
[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left” color=”custom” size=”xl” align=”right” custom_color=”#dd3333″][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_custom_heading text=”Border officials in some countries already seek to find out about your sexual orientation via an excursion into your social media presence as part of their decision on whether to allow you in” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]
In democracies such as the UK, police are already experimenting with facial recognition software. Recently, anti-surveillance organisation Big Brother Watch discovered that private shopping centres had quietly started to use facial recognition software without the public being aware.
It feels as though everywhere we look, everyone is capturing more and more information about who we are, and we need to worry about how this is being used.
One way that this information can be used is by border officials, who would like to know everything about you as they consider your arrival. What we’ve learned in putting this special issue together is that we need to be smart, too. Keep an eye on the laws of the country you are travelling to, in case legislation relating to media, communication or even visas change.
Also, have a plan about what you might do if you are stopped at a border. One of the big themes of this magazine over the years is that what happens in one country doesn’t stay in one country. What has become increasingly obvious is that nation copies nations, and leader after leader spots what is going on across the way and thinks: “I could use that too.”
We saw troll factories start in Mexico with attempts to discredit journalists’ reputations five years ago, and now they are widespread. The idea of a national leader speaking directly to the public rather than giving a press conference, and skipping the “need” to answer questions, was popular in Latin America with President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, of Argentina, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
A few years later, national leaders around the world have grabbed the idea and run with it. It’s so we don’t have to filter it through the media, say the politicians. While there’s nothing wrong, of course, with having town hall chats with the public, one has a sneaking suspicion that another motivation might be dodging any difficult questions, especially if press conferences then get put on hold. Again, Latin America saw it first.
Given this trend, we can expect that when one nation starts asking for access to your social media accounts before they give you a visa, others are sure to follow. The border issue is broader than this, of course. Migration and immigration are issues all over the world right now, topping most political agendas, along with security and the economy. Therefore, governments are seeking to reduce immigration and restrict who can enter their countries – using a variety of methods.
In the USA and the UK, artists, academics, writers and musicians are finding visas harder to come by. As our US contributing editor, Jan Fox, reports, this has led to an opera singer removing posts from Facebook because she worries about her visa application, and academics self-censoring their ideas in case it limits them from studying or working in the USA. Where does this leave free expression? Less free than it should be, certainly. This is not the only attack on freedom of expression. Making it more difficult for outsiders to travel to these countries means stories about life in Yemen, Syria and Iran, for instance, may not be heard.
We don’t hear firsthand what it is like, and our knowledge shrinks. This policy surely reached a limit when Kareem Abeed, the Syrian producer of an Oscar-nominated documentary about Aleppo, was initially refused a visa to at-tend the Oscar ceremony. Meanwhile, UK festival directors are calling for their government to change its attitude and warn that artists are already excluding the UK from their tours.
One person who knew the value of getting information out beyond the borders of the country he lived in was a former editor of this magazine, Andrew Graham-Yooll, and we honour his work in this issue. His recent death gave us a chance to review his writing for us and for others. A consummate journalist, Graham-Yooll continued to write and report until just weeks before his death, and I know he would have had his typing fingers at the ready for a critique of what is happening in the Argentinian election right now.
Graham-Yooll took the job of editor of Index on Censorship in 1989, after being forced to leave his native Argentina because of his reporting. He had been smuggling out reports of the horrifying things that were happening under the dictatorship, where people who were activists, journalists and critics of the government were “disappearing” – a soft word that means they were being murdered. Some pregnant women were taken prisoner until they gave birth. Their babies were taken from them and given to military or government-friendly families to adopt, while the mothers were drugged and then dropped to their death, from airplanes, at sea.
Many of the appalling details of what happened under the authoritarian dictatorship only became clear after it fell, but Graham-Yooll took measures to smuggle out as many details as he could, to this publication and others, until he and his family were in such danger he was forced to leave Argentina and move to the UK.
Throughout history the powerful have always attempted to suppress information they didn’t want to see the light. We are in yet another era where this is on the rise.
Rachael Jolley is editor-in-chief of Index on Censorship magazine. She tweets @londoninsider. This article is part of the latest edition of Index on Censorship magazine, with its special report on border forces
Index on Censorship’s autumn 2019 issue is entitled Border forces: how barriers to free thought got tough
Look out for the new edition in bookshops, and don’t miss our Index on Censorship podcast, with special guests, on Soundcloud.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”How barriers to free thought got tough” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2019%2F09%2Fmagazine-border-forces-how-barriers-to-free-thought-got-tough%2F|||”][vc_column_text]The autumn 2019 Index on Censorship magazine looks at borders round the world and how barriers to free thought got tough[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_single_image image=”108826″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2019/09/magazine-border-forces-how-barriers-to-free-thought-got-tough/”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”With contributions from Kerry Hudson, Chen Xiwo, Elif Shafak, Meera Selva, Steven Borowiec, Brian Patten and Dean Atta”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Border forces – how barriers to free thought got tough
The autumn 2019 Index on Censorship magazine looks at how borders are getting tougher, journalists are being stopped, visas refused and border officials are snooping into our social media profiles and personal messages. Nations are looking to surveil our thoughts before allowing us to come into their countries and so limiting freedom of expression and the free flow of ideas.
In this issue Steven Borowiec reports from South Korea about how the law means that you can be prosecuted for contacting your relatives in the north without permission; Meera Selva looks at how internet shutdowns are being used round the world to prevent people communicating, most recently in Kashmir; Mark Frary gives tips for LGBT people on how to protect themselves when crossing borders into countries where they might face discrimination. Charlotte Bailey and Jan Fox look at how it is getting tougher in the UK and USA for artists, writers and academics to get visas; and Kaya Genç digs into Turkey’s censorship of the internet. In the rest of the magazine, writers Emilie Pine, Elif Shafak and Kerry Hudson, and theatre director Nicholas Hytnerreflect on past famous Index contributors, Václav Havel, Nadine Gordimer, Samuel Beckett and Arthur Miller. We have an extract of the script of the 1977 film Le Camion by Marguerite Duras which has never appeared in English before, and poems by taboo-breaking poet Dean Atta and the Liverpool Poet Brian Patten. We also have an extract of a story by censored Chinese writer Chen Xiwo about a mother and her daughter and their abusive relationship. Plus Index magazine’s first ever crossword by Herbashe.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Special Report: Border forces: how barriers to free thought got tough”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Big brother at the border by Rachael Jolley
They shall not pass by Stephen WoodmanJournalists and activists crossing between Mexico and the USA are being systematically targeted, sometimes sent back by officials using people trafficking laws
Top ten states closing their doors to ideas by Mark FraryWe look at countries which seek to stop ideas circulating[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row disable_element=”yes”][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Global View”][vc_column_text]Small victories do count by Jodie Ginsberg The kind of individual support Index gives people living under oppressive regimes is a vital step towards wider change[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”In Focus”][vc_column_text]Germany’s surveillance fears by Cathrin SchaerThirty years on from the fall of the Berlin wall and the disbanding of the Stasi, Germans worry about who is watching them
Freestyle portraits by Rachael Jolley Cartoonists Kanika Mishra from India, Pedro X Molina from Nicaragua and China’s Badiucao put threats to free expression into pictures
Mosul’s new chapter by Omar Mohammed What do students think about the new books arriving at Mosul library, after Isis destroyed the previous building and collection?
Cries from the last century and lessons for today by Sally GimsonNadine Gordimer, Václav Havel, Samuel Beckett and Arthur Miller all wrote for Index. We asked modern day writers Elif Shafak, Kerry Hudson and Emilie Pine plus theatre director Nicholas Hytner why the writing is still relevant
In memory of Andrew Graham-Yooll by Rachael JolleyRemembering the former Index editor who risked his life to report from Argentina during the worst years of the dictatorship[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Culture”][vc_column_text]Backed into a corner by love by Chen Xiwo A newly translated story by censored Chinese writer about the abusive relationship between a mother and daughter plus an interview with the author
On the road by Marguerite Duras The first English translation of an extract from the screenplay of the 1977 film Le Camion by one of the greatest French writers of the 20th century
Muting young voices by Brian Patten Two poems, one written exclusively for Index, about how the exam culture in schools can destroy creativity by the Liverpool Poet
Finding poetry in trauma by Dean AttaMale rape is still a taboo subject, but very little is off-limits for this award-winning writer from London who has written an exclusive poem for Index[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Column”][vc_column_text]Index around the world: Tales of the unexpected by Sally Gimson and Lewis JenningsIndex has started a new media monitoring project and has been telling folk stories at this summer’s festivals[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Endnote”][vc_column_text]Endnote: Macho politics drive academic closures by Sally GimsonAcademics who teach gender studies are losing their jobs and their funding as populist leaders attack “gender ideology”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe”][vc_column_text]In print, online, in your mailbox, on your iPad.
Subscription options from £18 or just £1.49 in the App Store for a digital issue.
Every subscriber helps support Index on Censorship’s projects around the world.
SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Read”][vc_column_text]The playwright Arthur Miller wrote an essay for Index in 1978 entitled The Sin of Power. We reproduce it for the first time on our website and theatre director Nicholas Hytner responds to it in the magazine
READ HERE[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Listen”][vc_column_text]In the Index on Censorship autumn 2019 podcast, we focus on how travel restrictions at borders are limiting the flow of free thought and ideas. Lewis Jennings and Sally Gimson talk to trans woman and activist Peppermint; San Diego photojournalist Ariana Drehsler and Index’s South Korean correspondent Steven Borowiec
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/b21faoXVpM4″][vc_column_text]“Students in the United States must be free to express their views, without feeling pressured to censor their speech…We can and will push back hard against the Chinese government’s efforts to chill free speech on American campuses.” This is what Marie Royce, US assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, said in her address welcoming Chinese students to American universities in July 2019.
As much a warning as a welcome, the speech illustrates the balancing act America and other western countries often perform when engaging with Chinese people and organisations on campus. The presence of the Chinese Communist Party on campuses severely limits the free expression of Chinese students, and threatens more broadly to curtail academic freedom, the right to protest, and the ability to engage with the uncomfortable truths about the Chinese government honestly.
To understand the situation, one must first understand the unique nature of the party apparatus. The CCP attempts to control not only China’s political arena but every aspect of Chinese citizens’ lives, at home and abroad, including on US campuses. Dr Teng Biao, a well-known Chinese human rights activist and lawyer, tells Index on Censorship: “It’s quite unique. The party’s goal is to maintain its rule inside China at all costs, and so it sets about making the world safe for the CCP. It is all-directional.”
That control looks very different abroad than it does at home. CCP does not control much of its foreign influence network directly. “It has different ways of implementing influence,” Teng explains. Some Chinese organisations “are directed by the Chinese government and don’t have much independence in making decisions.” However, other organisations, such as alumni networks and Chinese businesses, as well as Chinese students, have their own agency and goals, and operate largely independently.
Sources from US intelligence agencies to the New York Times have reported that the Confucius Institutes, which teach Chinese language skills to non-Chinese people, and the Chinese Students and Scholars Associations, which are student-led organisations that provide resources for Chinese students and promote Chinese culture, are directed by the CCP. The CSSA has worked closely with Beijing to promote its agenda and suppress critical speech. According to Royce, “there are credible reports of Chinese government officials pressuring Chinese students to monitor other students and report on one another” to officials, and the CSSA often facilitates this spying.
Beijing’s influence is perhaps the most indirect and complex with regard to Chinese students themselves. The same day Royce made her welcome address, 300 Chinese nationalists disrupted a demonstration against China’s Hong Kong extradition bill at the University of Queensland, Australia, leading to violent clashes. On 7 August 2019 more violence between detractors of the extradition law and supporters of the CCP occurred at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in what China’s consul general in Auckland calls a “spontaneous display of patriotism”. Earlier this year, Chinese students at MacMaster University in Canada, incensed by a lecture on the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uigher ethnic minority, allegedly filmed the event and sent the video to the Chinese consulate in Toronto, which denied involvement but praised their actions as patriotic. [/vc_column_text][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/kW3c211dy8g”][vc_column_text]Speaking to Index about the Queensland protest, Dr Jonathan Sullivan, director of China Programs at the University of Nottingham Asia Research Institute, said “Many Chinese students have passionately held views and they sometimes mobilise to voice them. I don’t think it’s helpful to see such mobilisations as being the work of the party, although there is also evidence that party/state organisations sometimes provide help.” Sullivan notes, however, that their passion and convictions “are themselves a product of the authoritarian information order created by the party-state” and that “there is among Chinese students potential to react in an organised way.”
Isaac Stone Fish, a prominent journalist and a senior fellow at the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations in New York City told Index “[The party is] very effective generally at keeping students in an ideological framework,” convincing them, for instance, that “the communist party and China are the same” and thus motivating them to protect the party. However,he agrees that students’ convictions belong to them. “It’s ok for Chinese students to feel that Beijing’s policies are correct,” he says. Problems only arise when they try to control the conversation.
As the extent of the CCP’s influence is gradually revealed to the public, there have been fears that governments will retaliate indiscriminately and restrict visas for all Chinese students abroad, or withhold them specifically from members of the CSSA. Tensions over immigration, especially in the US, mean such a reaction is possible, but as Sullivan says: “We should keep in mind that most Chinese students care about their degree and getting on in life, and we all must resist any temptation to homogenise — let alone demonise — them.” Stone Fish concurs. “There is…a danger of a racially-tinged backlash against Chinese people, which would be an ethical and strategic mistake.”
Sullivan is concerned that many universities treat Chinese students like an easy source of income instead of treating them as students with unique and pressing needs. They have that in common with the party itself. One of the biggest dangers in dealing with the CCP, explains Stone Fish, is “its willingness to use Chinese students as bargaining chips” directing them to some universities and way from others to encourage political conformity. Western institutions are vulnerable to such a tactic, Teng claims, because they “care about money more than universal values,” and “They don’t profoundly realise” that the CCP “has become an urgent threat.”
So far, the western response to the issue has been inconsistent and uncertain. “I think universities need to develop a much clearer understanding of the issues,” Sullivan says. “These can be complex and university administrators are not generally China specialists who are able to identify the nuances, which makes policy and provision inadequate and potentially unbalanced.” Going forward, Stone Fish asserts, we should be “Educating college administrators about how the party works,” and “having universities work together.” Cooperation is essential, because “Beijing prefers to negotiate one-on-one,” but as a bloc, Universities have leverage of their own.
Demand for western education in China is strong and continues to grow, especially among the Chinese elite and middle class. However, universities can only use that demand to resist pressure from the CCP if they coordinate their response. Stone Fish concludes, “I think the greatest danger is giving in to Beijing’s demands not to have certain speakers, or allow the party to prevent certain voices from being heard.” [/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1566913121795-e09fc4f8-7d31-10″ taxonomies=”8843″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row disable_element=”yes”][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Apply for Free Speech Training and Mentoring” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]
>> Applications for Free Speech Is For Me have now closed <<
Following a successful initial pilot of Free Speech is for Me we are now preparing to offer our free speech training to a wider group of the public. We hope to make this next group bigger than ever, and the training will be free and online. If you are interested in these free sessions on free speech and free expression, with links to advocacy, activism and defending human rights please fill in this form to express your interest today.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/_pmpc3CpGn0″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Free speech has been critical to social movements throughout history. It has consistently been used as a powerful tool for marginalised groups to articulate their grievances and demand to be heard.
But today discussions surrounding “free speech” have unfortunately been dominated by a small number of people who seek to use it primarily to curtail the rights of others and spread hate, leading many to question it as a value.
However, when the principle of free speech is abandoned, those who already face oppression are hurt most: including people of colour, religious and ethnic minorities, and those who campaign on sex and gender issues. Free Speech is for Me aims to show how freedom of expression furthers democracy and individual liberty and benefits everyone. If we allow free speech protections to be weakened, we lose our greatest tool in advocating for change.
We are now supporting these advocates in reclaiming free speech as a fundamental right that must apply to everyone by offering training and mentoring on freedom of expression issues. This will include one on one support from leading free speech experts plus media, communications and public speaking training. They will end the programme with a clearer understanding of the challenges of censorship and the tools to overcome them.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row disable_element=”yes”][vc_column width=”1/4″ css=”.vc_custom_1565187480669{background-color: #e52d1c !important;}”][vc_column_text]
We are recruiting six people in the US and six people in the UK, from groups whose belief in the value of free expression principles has been challenged in recent years.
We are seeking applicants who would bring a different angle to discussions around free speech.
Applicants may come from all age groups and particular consideration will be given to activists who have experienced the shutting down of speech. We want applicants who will champion free speech as a right that benefits them and their peers and is essential to their cause but is also a right shared by all.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row disable_element=”yes”][vc_column][vc_separator color=”white”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row disable_element=”yes”][vc_column width=”1/4″ css=”.vc_custom_1565187500255{background-color: #E52D1C !important;}”][vc_column_text]
If your application is successful you will receive:
Mentoring: Advocates will be paired with experienced free speech advocates who will act as an advisor and mentor to each individual over the course of the training. You will have 4-6 meetings delivered either face to face or virtually, plus additional support as needed.
Media training: Advocates will receive one full day of professional media training plus regular training on public speaking/writing as necessary.
Public events: Advocates will be given the skills to talk about issues of free speech at public events, in private meetings and in the media. We will work with you to identify these opportunities. We will pay for your expenses to attend training and a speaker fee for events and writing.
Please complete the following application form and submit to us by Friday 27 September 2019.
If you are shortlisted you will also be asked for full resume and may be invited to an interview, which will take place during the last week of September.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row disable_element=”yes”][vc_column][vc_separator color=”white”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row disable_element=”yes”][vc_column][gravityform id=”42″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Free Speech is for Me: Class of 2020 US
See what this year’s American intake have been doing as part of their programme.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”112393″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”112394″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”112395″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”112396″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Free Speech is for Me: Class of 2020
See updates from the first intake of the programme, featuring interviews with mentors and advocates.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”111324″ img_size=”large” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2019/12/free-speech-is-for-me-class-of-2020/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qc8MSYLkQg”][/vc_column][/vc_row][/vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Meet the mentors” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]
Through training and mentoring, Free Speech is for Me is equipping people from all backgrounds and beliefs to speak out against censorship. The mentors will work with the 13 advocates to help them defend and champion the issue of free speech.
[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][staff name=”Jodie Ginsberg” title=”CEO, Index on Censorship” profile_image=”104110″]Jodie Ginsberg is the CEO of Index on Censorship. Prior to joining Index, she worked as a foreign correspondent and business journalist and was previously UK bureau chief for Reuters. She sits on the council of global free expression network IFEX and the board of the Global Network Initiative, and is a regular commentator in international media on freedom of expression issues.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][staff name=”Will Gore” title=”Columnist” profile_image=”110641″]Will Gore is the head of partnerships for the National Council for the Training of Journalists and former managing editor of The Independent, i, Independent on Sunday and the London Evening Standard. He writes on a wide range of topics, including politics, the media and cricket, and writes a weekly column for the Independent on memorable journeys.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][staff name=”Kiri Kankhwende” title=”Journalist and campaigner” profile_image=”110611″]
Kiri Kankhwende is a Malawian journalist and political analyst based in London who writes primarily about politics and immigration. She has worked in human rights campaigning and is a member of Writers of Colour. She is also a member of Index on Censorship’s board of trustees.
[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][staff name=”Meera Selva” title=”Journalist” profile_image=”110962″]Meera is an accomplished senior journalist with experience in Europe, Asia and Africa, currently the Director of the Journalism Fellowship Programme at the Reuters Institute. She joined the Reuters Institute from Handelsblatt Global where she had been working out of Singapore, having helped launch the digital daily business paper in Berlin in 2014. Her previous experience includes several years as a London based correspondent for the Associated Press, and three years as Africa correspondent for the Independent based in Nairobi, along with stints in business journalism at a range of publications including the Daily Telegraph.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][staff name=”Nadine Strossen” title=”Professor of law” profile_image=”111384″]New York Law School professor Nadine Strossen, the immediate past President of the American Civil Liberties Union (1991-2008), is a leading expert and frequent speaker/media commentator on constitutional law and civil liberties, who has testified before Congress on multiple occasions. Her acclaimed 2018 book HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship was selected by Washington University as its 2019 “Common Read.”[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][staff name=”Kenan Malik” title=”Writer, lecturer and broadcaster” profile_image=”82874″]Kenan Malik is a British writer, lecturer and broadcaster. His main areas of interest are the history of ideas, philosophy of science, religion, politics, race and immigration. His books include The Meaning of Race (1996), Man, Beast and Zombie (2000) and Strange Fruit: Why Both Sides Are Wrong in the Race Debate (2008). He writes a column for The Guardian and the New York Times.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][staff name=”Xinran” title=”Author and journalist” profile_image=”106837″]Xinran is a British–Chinese author, journalist and activist. Her first book, The Good Women of China, was published in 2002 and became an international bestseller. She has written two novels, Miss Chopsticks (2008) and The Promise (2018) and four other non-fiction books: Sky Burial, China Witness, Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother and Buy Me the Sky. She is an advocate for women’a issues and is a contributor to Index on Censorship magazine.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][staff name=”Konstantin Kisin” title=”Comedian” profile_image=”110630″]Konstantin Kisin is an award-winning Russian-British comedian, podcaster and writer. In 2018 he refused to sign a university “behavioural agreement form” which banned jokes about religion, atheism and insisted that all humour must be “respectful and kind”. He is also the creator and co-host of Triggernometry, a posdcast and YouTube show where comedians interview economists, political experts, journalists and social commentators about controversial and challenging subjects.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][staff name=”Emily Knox” title=”Professor in the School of Information Sciences” profile_image=”111712″]Emily Knox is a professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and teaches on information access, intellectual freedom and censorship. She is also the author of Book Banning in 21st Century America and recently edited Trigger Warnings: History, Theory, Context. Knox serves on the boards of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Beta Phi Mu, the Freedom to Read Foundation, and the National Coalition Against Censorship.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][staff name=”Will Creeley” title=”Lawyer” profile_image=”111713″]Will Creeley is a lawyer and senior vice president of Legal and Public Advocacy at Fire (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education). Creeley has appeared on television and radio and has spoken to thousands of students, faculty, administrators and lawyers at events across the country. He is a member of the First Amendment Lawyers Association. Creeley’s writing has been published by The New York Times and The Washington Post, amongst others. Creeley edited the second edition of Fire’s Guide to Due Process and Campus Justice, coedited the second edition of Fire’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus and has coauthored amicus curiae briefs submitted to a number of courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][staff name=”Chris Finan” title=”Executive director, National Coalition Against Censorship” profile_image=”111714″]Chris Finan is executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, an alliance of 56 national non-profits that defends free speech. Finan has been involved in the fight against censorship throughout his career. He is former president of American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. He is author of From the Palmer Raids to the PATRIOT Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][staff name=”Emma Llansó” title=”Director, Centre for Democracy and Technology Free Expression Project” profile_image=”111767″]Emma Llansó is the director of the Center for Democracy and Technology Free Expression Project. Llansó leads CDT’s legislative advocacy and amicus activity around freedom of expression in the USA and the EU. Llansó serves on the board of the Global Network Initiative, an organisation that works to advance individuals’ privacy and free expression rights in the ICT sector around the world. She is also a member of the Freedom Online Coalition Advisory Network, which provides advice to FOC member governments aimed at advancing human rights online.[/staff][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Meet the advocates” font_container=”tag:h2|text_align:center” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][staff name=”Ash Kotak” profile_image=”111138″]Ash Kotak is an award-winning playwright & film maker. He is also a curator and journalist. Free speech is at the core of all his work as he is often challenging and questioning popular narratives to illuminate greater truths.
His works as a playwright includes Maa (Royal Court); Hijra (Bush Theatre, Theatre Royal Plymouth, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Theatre Du Nord, Lille (in French), New Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco, USA); No Gain, No Pain (The Other Place, Stratford-Upon-Avon). He is working on a new play entitled The AIDS Missionary. His latest film work includes: The Joneses(Exec Producer, USA, 90 mins, 2017); Punched By a Homosexualist (Exec Producer, Russia, 55 mins, 2018).
He set up an arts curating collective, Aesthesia, in 2014 which works with dehumanised, marginalised and disempowered communities to amplify individual voices through creative art projects.[/staff][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][staff name=”Athena Stevens” profile_image=”111594″]Athena Stevens is an Olivier nominated writer and performer, a spokesperson for the UK’s Women’s Equality Party, and a human rights activist.
As both a creative and as an advocate she relies on free speech in the hopes that she and others will be able to give language to trauma, tell their story, and create a systematic change that leads to equality[/staff][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][staff name=”Dan Clarke” profile_image=”111595″]Dan Clarke is a master’s student of international public policy at UCL. He is interested in censorship issues around the world, especially in authoritarian countries such as China and many others in the Middle East and Africa.
Promoting freedom of the media and freedom of expression for all in society, including artists and critics, is vital for a fair, equitable and honest society where social issues can be addressed directly and without fear of repercussion. The protests in Hong Kong and the crackdown on the Uyghurs in China are two of the most important censorship issues for him. [/staff][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][staff name=”Max Lake” profile_image=”111181″]Max graduated from the University of Birmingham in July 2019 and, as a liberal, was deeply alarmed at the student union’s censorious policies. He wants to change the culture of free speech, particularly on university campuses, where he and other students were fearful of speaking freely in seminars and lectures.
He has previously been constituency coordinator for Vote Leave in Rossendale and Darwen and is currently a constituency organiser for The Brexit Party. He would love to advocate for free speech, democracy and other constitutional issues as a future career.[/staff][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][staff name=”Rhiannon Adams” profile_image=”111207″]Rhiannon is a researcher and campaigner for human rights and technology. Educated at UCL and UC Berkeley, she trained at Amnesty International in their technology programme. She currently works in the legal sector, working with activists who have been targeted with spyware for their activism. She also works on the #NotYourPorn campaign to end revenge porn.
Her interests are targeted surveillance, spyware, online censorship and the issues that come with free speech on the internet, specifically self-censorship, internet shutdowns and blanket bans on certain types of speech. She hopes her insight into technology and human rights will bring an interesting perspective to the discussion on freedom of expression. [/staff][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][staff name=”Maya Thomas” profile_image=”111601″]Maya is a third-year history undergraduate at Oxford University, and founder of the Oxford Society for Free Discourse, a group dedicated to countering censorship among students and academics. OSFD’s aim is to promote free speech as a universal value essential to facilitating constructive interaction between polarised ideas.
Maya’s work with OSFD varies from organising speaker’s events and public demonstrations, to informal debates and research. Linking her interest in free speech to her former presidency of the History Society, Maya has also become involved in the production of “Clear and Present Danger”, a podcast on the history of free speech.[/staff][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][staff name=”Madeleine Stone” profile_image=”111605″]Madeleine recently completed an MA in human rights law at SOAS and is currently working with Big Brother Watch, where she has focused on technology, surveillance, data and free speech online. She is involved in the ‘Preventing Prevent’ campaign, which seeks to educate and organise resistance to the government’s intrusive counter-terrorism strategy, Prevent.
She is particularly interested in how counterterrorism, surveillance and policing combine to create a chilling effect that dampens free speech, particularly for those who have traditionally been at the sharp end of state power. She is also passionate about women’s rights and LGBT rights and seeks to amplify the voices of these communities in her work.[/staff][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][staff name=”Marjory Wentworth” profile_image=”112016″]
Marjory Wentworth is the New York Times bestselling author of Out of Wonder, Poems Celebrating Poets (with Kwame Alexander and Chris Colderley). She is the co-writer with Herb Frazier and Bernard Powers of We Are Charleston, Tragedy and Triumph at Mother Emanuel, and also wrote Taking a Stand, The Evolution of Human Rights, with Juan E. Mendez. She is the current poet laureate of South Carolina. Wentworth serves on the board of advisors at The Global Social Justice Practice Academy. She teaches courses in writing, social justice and banned books at The College of Charleston.
[/staff][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][staff name=”Lillian Bustle” profile_image=”112131″]Lillian Bustle is a TEDx speaker, burlesquer and body love activist. Bustle has lobbied the state of New Jersey and municipalities for trans rights and successfully removed laws prohibiting cross dressers in bars and obscenity laws statewide. She is an advocate for sex workers’ rights, the LGBTQ community, and intersectional feminism. She recently led an advocacy workshop at a national burlesque conference and is working to connect her advocacy to the protection and promotion of freedom of expression more directly. Bustle is based in New Jersey.[/staff][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][staff name=”Mariana Nogales-Molinelli” profile_image=”112136″]Mariana Nogales-Molinelli is a human rights lawyer in Puerto Rico. She has a breadth of experience and is publicly active in diverse human rights (feminist, queer, environmentalist, anti-austerity) networks. Nogales-Molinelli’s recent free speech work has focused on protecting the right to protest through the organisation, Brigada Legal Solidaria. She is one of the founders of Humanistas Seculares de Puerto Rico, an organisation that advocates for the separation of church and state.[/staff][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][staff name=”Maya Rubin” profile_image=”112058″]Maya Rubin is a sophomore at Wellesley College. She is passionate about free speech for students on college campuses, and has worked with the Wellesley Freedom Project as an Adam Smith fellow and senior fellow to further the intellectual diversity at Wellesley. She has also worked with Index on Censorship as an intern. She hopes to show students the importance of free expression to improve their ability to honestly engage with one another.[/staff][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][staff name=”Obden Mondésir” profile_image=”112015″]Obden Mondésir is an archivist and oral historian at the Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn, New York. He is also active in the prison abolition movement. Obden’s parents are Haitian immigrants who lived under dictatorship and Obden saw firsthand how a culture of fear was sustained in the USA through self-censorship. Last year, he helped to organise a free speech series with the New School, NCAC and Article 19. As part of that effort, he began a research project on historic “seditious” speech.[/staff][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][staff name=”Adeline Lee” profile_image=”112263″]Adeline Lee is a graduate of Wellesley College. She is currently at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project which works to advance and defend First and Fourth Amendment freedoms amid developments in technology and science. Prior to the ACLU, Lee helped establish PEN America’s Campus Free Speech Program, working with university officials, faculty and student leaders across the country to foster dialogue and understanding following major free speech controversies. She is the coauthor of Chasm in the Classroom: Campus Free Speech in a Divided America, analysing over one hundred instances of Trump-era free speech infringements and debates, and served in 2019 on education-technology company EVERFI’s first national advisory board for diversity, equity and inclusion.[/staff][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_zigzag][/vc_column][/vc_row]
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