02 Jul 19 | Artistic Freedom, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”107744″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]It could be argued that identity has become a dominant feature in contemporary art and performance since the 1980s, where artists have been and still are exploring the multiple worlds they inhabit, the overlaps between identity, language, history, geopolitics, race and representation. The characteristics of identity as represented in folk or popular culture and the media are interrogated through performance and the semiotics of how identity is enacted. A particular controversial trope in performance has been that of the “blackface”. Wikipedia’s entry describes blackface as a form of “theatrical make-up used predominantly by non-black performers to represent a caricature of a black person”. Undoubtedly the grotesquery and exaggeration contributed to justifying the dehumanising of Africans and other non-white people by the dominant white masters in slavery and colonialism, and popular culture shows such as The Black and White Minstrel Show.
Recently “blackfacing” has been highlighted in many cultural manifestations that may not necessarily have been intended to demean Black or other non-white people. In January 2019, The film Mary Poppins was accused by a writer in the New York Times of shamelessly flirting with blackface, and an American restaurant displaying a photograph of white coal miners covered in coal-soot was seen as offensive by Rashaad Thomas in his opinion piece for azcentral, the digital home of The Arizona Republic newspaper, in February 2019.
Viewing blackfacing through the lens of racial subordination/superiority struck me again this year when I met and mentored the Warwickshire based British visual artist Faye Claridge this year for Bloomberg New Contemporaries. Claridge’s work reveals a deep fascination with “representation and belonging in a country obsessed with (constantly reworked) history” by exploring “how current and future identities are shaped by ideas about the past”. She works with history, folk traditions and archives to “connect the public, especially young people, to mythologies about personal, local and national identity”, particularly in rural English culture. An ongoing body of work of hers called Of Their Own Volition involved research and public participation that excavated the fluid context for blacking-up in traditional Border Morris Dancing. The work questions context, perception and tradition. However, she was compelled to remove earlier works from this series relating to Border Morris Dance.
I asked her what motivated or inspired her to research the Border Morris Dance tradition, she told me that she “felt an urgency to revisit portraits of morris dancers with blackened faces I’d made almost 10 years previously after becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the explanations I was asked to give in their defence. The final catalyst for this was when one of my images was used for a photography conference at the Tate but was then censored after it provoked complaints.” The subject is close Claridge’s heart, as the artist herself comes from a family of morris dancers. The explanation given for blacking-up in border morris “replicated a very old form of cheap and easy sooty disguise. I was told this was adopted by dancers for a range of reasons: to avoid recognition from potential employees, to beg anonymously, to bring luck – and fertility – as a pretend stranger and/or to look scary to ward off evil spirits. No reasons for disguise were related to race, I was told, and any conflation with derogatory black and white minstrel blacking was unfortunately mixing visuals with entirely different histories and motives.” This received knowledge led Claridge to seek evidence by speaking to experts, visiting key sites and digging into archival material.
However, her research did not uncover clear motives for blacking-up. “I started to recognise that finding historical evidence is only a small part of the issue. The impact of blacking up in performance (of any kind) today has unavoidable aesthetic links to the deliberately damaging racial stereotypes of the black and white minstrels. Even if undisputable evidence pointed to a non-racial origin for morris blacking, its continued use for any reason after the acknowledged harm of minstrelsy has to be questioned.” Part of the work involves a series of portraits of contemporary Border Morris dancers. One of the photographs that Claridge showed me is of a woman with long flowing brunette hair blacked up, holding a bouquet of local flowers – daisies, daffodils, ivy and bird-feathers – staged against the backdrop of a painted scenery of washed out grey clouds and English mountains. Claridge is unable to show this portrait, and other similar photographs, in exhibitions as the sitter withdrew her permission when the artist invited her to contribute to the research on blacking-up. Claridge has since re-imagined the image by masking the subject with the letter that the sitter sent to the artist. The letter, with personal information redacted, says “I would prefer that you no longer use this image of me… I no longer feel qualified to comment on the blacking up issue… I hope you will respect my wishes”. The image is displayed on the back of a picture frame instead of the front as a metaphor for the original work’s journey into self-censorship.
This work has been selected for an open competition organised by the Nottingham based gallery The New Art Exchange but when Claridge proposed the series to other curators she was met with much unease and anxiety about the work. One curator responded that “It’s all very difficult terrain out there at the moment… have a good look around what black artists are doing in this area. The question of authorship is the critical issue it seems. Who can speak for who…We are finding people returning to very insecure places and taboo subjects raise anxieties.” Another curator told Claridge that “I imagine you know what sticky territory you are in (!), and I guess you know about other precedents for this conversation.”
Art institutions are becoming increasingly risk-averse and unable to deal with the questions that such works throw up, the people in the photographs feel exposed through the perceived racist lens and the artist is a white British woman…”who can speak for who”, it’s a taboo subject that may trigger the viewers’ anxieties but shouldn’t art be a tool to ask difficult questions, to provoke debate and transcend the divisions and borders relating to race and identity? The origins of blackfacing in border morris remains a mystery and has led the artist to question her own motivations: “The research journey has taken me to other, far deeper, questions about my power as an artist in gathering and sharing opinions. If I respect and repeat all views equally then my role is strangely inhuman, if I assert my own opinions, am I unfairly using my position? My nature has been exposed and tested: I’m keenly aware that I don’t like conflict and the risk of upsetting people deeply makes me anxious. It’s also apparent that I don’t like power being misused and I hate inequality. This is what motivated my drive to seek evidence (or lack of it) for morris blacking at the start, to see if my own work had a case to answer in this regard. I’ve concluded that it has; I won’t exhibit the original morris portraits again without significant alterations and my work evolving from this research more transparently references the problematics of power, blurred histories and appropriation…”
Increasingly, artists are forced to self-censor due to the possible backlash not only by curators, academics and the community, but also from fellow artists. It is part of a wider problem that I highlighted in a blog for the Manifesto Club on the self-censorship of a young adult novel by Amélie Wen Zhao. This is worrying for artistic freedom.
As Claridge says, there is “a sadness that it should come to this and a question of where exactly this is that we have come to. I remain unsure.”
Manick Govinda is a freelance arts consultant, artist mentor, campaigner and curator. His writings can be found here.
Faye Claridge’s work Blackout will be exhibited at NAE Open from 13 July to 8 September 2019.[/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1562063442406-116696fa-3728-1″ taxonomies=”15469″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
01 Jul 19 | Global Journalist, media freedom featured, Morocco, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This article is part of Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist’s Project Exile series, which has published interviews with exiled journalists from around the world.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”107703″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]When the security software on Moroccan journalist Hicham Mansouri’s computer alerted him that there had been a number of attempts to hack his email, he did what came naturally: he began investigating.
Little did he know that the 2015 incident would be followed by a bizarre effort by Moroccan police to sexually humiliate him and a female friend and ten torturous months in jail after being arrested on trumped-up charges of operating a brothel and adultery, which is illegal in the North African nation.
Efforts to prosecute or intimidate journalists are not unusual in Morocco, and as Mansouri’s story demonstrates, the government of King Mohammed VI can be both cruel and creative in its efforts to silence dissenting voices. The kingdom ranks 135th out of 180 countries on Reporters Without Borders’ 2019 World Press Freedom Index, below nations like Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and the Philippines. Morocco was also named in a 2018 report from the Canadian Citizen Lab as a country where Pegasus spyware is used to track mobile phones of civil society activists.
Mansouri himself, a co-founder of the Moroccan Association of Investigative Journalists, had already been beaten up by strangers in September 2014 after leaving a meeting at a hotel with the Moroccan historian and prominent dissident Maâti Monjib. Even today, after 10 months in jail on adultery charges, two hunger strikes and three years in exile in France, Mansouri faces pending charges of threatening state security in Morocco. These stem from his involvement with StoryMaker, an app that helps citizen journalists create video reports based on events they witness.
Yet Mansouri remains undaunted. Now living in France, he blogs for the French online investigative and opinion site Mediapart and contributes to the Italian newspaper Caffe Dei Giornalisti as well as the online site of Maison des journalistes, a group that provides housing to journalists in exile. Mansouri spoke with Global Journalist’s Gaëlle Fournier about his imprisonment, his continuing legal troubles and life in exile. Below, an edited and translated version of their conversation:[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Hicham Mansouri was beaten up on September 24, 2014. (Photo: Ahmed Bensedik)
Global Journalist: Tell us about your journalism career.
Hicham Mansouri: I worked for a regional newspaper called Machahid in [the southern coastal city of] Agadir and then for the non-governmental organisations Free Press Unlimited and International Media Support in Rabat.
In 2009, I participated in an investigative journalism programme. With some colleagues, we decided to create a network of Moroccan investigative journalists. The association was recognised in 2011, two days after the Arab Spring began in Morocco. I was then programme director of the association, but now the association has ceased its activities. The website of the AMJI [Moroccan Association for Investigative Journalism] was hacked and replaced by pornographic content. We were censored and received threats.
GJ: How would you describe the environment for the press in Morocco?
Mansouri: Freedom of the press is differentiated geographically. If you’re living around Casablanca or [the capital] Rabat, more things are tolerated than they are in the countryside.
There are what is commonly called the three “red lines” in Morocco. These topics are likely to be censored: Islam, the monarchy and the issue of Western Sahara [a territory claimed by Morocco].
All independent newspapers that have addressed these issues have been punished by the authorities. Editors have been put in jail, so they cease their activities. There is a lot of self-censorship.
Some journalists are even in trouble for translating foreign articles into Arabic. Not many people read newspapers in Morocco as there is a high illiteracy rate. The journalists who get in trouble are [often] the broadcasters.
GJ: You spent 10 months in jail after being arrested for adultery and operating a brothel. This came right after you began investigating the electronic surveillance of journalists and activists, including yourself.
Mansouri: I was working on an investigative piece about electronic surveillance when I got arrested by the police in 2015. I’m not a cybersecurity specialist, but thanks to software, I found the IP addresses [of the cyber attacker]. They were protected by malware and I decided to investigate. I tried to delete the two addresses but found that they could not be deleted.
I found this strange, so I contacted the creator of the [security] software who indeed told me that there was something wrong.
Three days later, I was arrested. It was around 10am on a morning back in 2015. I was seeing a female friend and five minutes after she arrived, the police broke down the door of my apartment and forced me to undress.
They also tried to undress the woman in order to stage a scene showing us engaged in adultery. The police filmed the entire thing from the beginning.
At trial, we asked the police video be shown as proof of what happened, but they refused. They only showed pictures they took of me, almost naked, on my bed. They also said they found a used condom on the bed.
I had been assaulted a few months prior to this, so I was really paranoid. I found out later that I had been watched by the police for a few months prior to my arrest.
GJ: You were later jailed on the adultery charge. Tell us about your time behind bars.
Mansouri: It was very hard. I felt the invisible hand of repression and it followed me everywhere.
The first day in jail, I was thrown in a cell with [serious] criminals, while I should have been assigned to the what’s called Block A, which is reserved for first-time offenders like me. I was sent to Block D, which the inmates call “the trash,” the worst of all. The cell was overcrowded. I had to sleep on the floor in unsanitary conditions. Within a week I was infested with lice.
The worst was the violence I witnessed, including fights between inmates and self-harm. I even thought some of the fights were orchestrated to kill me.
I went on two hunger strikes, which eventually led the authorities to provide me with some books and newspapers and assign me to a block with inmates suspected of terrorism, who were watched by policemen.
I tried to survive and write about my memories in jail. This diary project is not so much about sharing my experience, it’s about telling the stories of the inmates I met, who came back from Syria, were tortured, used drugs. However, my experience in jail is not unique. It is one all activists and journalists [jailed in Morocco] have to go through.
Hicham Mansouri being welcomed out of the prison by his friend and colleague Maâti Monjib, who was nominated for an Index on Censorship Award for Campaigning in 2017. Monjib, a historian and writer, along Hicham Mansouri and five other journalists, is accused of endangering Moroccan state security. Their trial has been postponed 14 times since its start in 2015.
GJ: Even though you’re in France, you still face trial in Morocco on “suspicion of endangering state security” along with six co-defendants. This charge was also brought against you in 2015 and the trial has been postponed 14 times.
Mansouri: It began with a citizen journalism project called StoryMaker, created in partnership with Free Press Unlimited and The Guardian. We are officially accused of falsifying videos and photos with this app, which we created to be a reporting tool for citizens.
The authorities told me that “investigation” is the work of the police, not the media. We are even accused of spying and diverting funds from state-owned media. There is no evidence for any of this.
Every time there is a hearing [in Rabat], the file is not even open and the trial is postponed to another date. It’s like the sword of Damocles. Before, we used to defend our innocence. But now we just want the matter brought before a judge for a decision, whether it’s for or against us.
GJ: Even after you were jailed, you did a major environmental investigation. What did you find?
Mansouri: In 2016, I did an investigation about Morocco importing 2,500 tons of toxic industrial waste from Italy. The toxic industrial waste was burnt to make cement in Morocco, something that is strictly forbidden in Europe.
Based on documents, it revealed the existence of indirect links between cement works owned by the king’s holding company and an international environmental business tied to the Italian mafia. It was published by the news site Lakome2, whose founder is actually being prosecuted for “sympathising with terrorism”.
GJ: How did you decide when was the right time to leave Morocco?
Mansouri: I made the decision to leave my country when I was in jail. I did not tell anyone. The physical and psychological torture I experienced led to my exile. My first day in prison, I had tachycardia [abnormally fast heartbeat], and I was beaten by a prison guard. I really felt suicidal. I felt like I was suffocating, not able to speak, to cry, to scream. I was ready to do anything to leave this hell.
I decided to leave Morocco when I learned that the judge who sent me to jail [for adultery] was also the one who was going to work on the state security case. I know how he proceeds and it did not portend anything good.
When I learned this, I had been in jail for six months. It was a nightmare. It was as if I was in a bottomless pit. Everything was dark. I could not bear staying five more years in jail when I could have spent those years studying for a PhD.
GJ: What are your plans for the future?
Mansouri: Living in exile is far from being easy. You have to start for scratch.
I was mostly busy over the past two years with my asylum application, which was a real obstacle course.
I’m now working on an observation project on hate speech in several countries of the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region like Jordan, Tunisia, Egypt for the NGO MENA Media Monitoring. We have published two reports so far. I continue to fight for what is happening in Morocco, I keep on testifying to show the truth. I’m publishing from time to time articles on my Mediapart blog. I’m also finishing my master’s in political science[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/6BIZ7b0m-08″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist is a website that features global press freedom and international news stories as well as a weekly radio program that airs on KBIA, mid-Missouri’s NPR affiliate, and partner stations in six other states. The website and radio show are produced jointly by professional staff and student journalists at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, the oldest school of journalism in the United States. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Don’t lose your voice. Stay informed.” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate, and monitor threats to free speech. We believe that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution – no matter what their views.
Join our mailing list (or follow us on Twitter or Facebook). We’ll send you our weekly newsletter, our monthly events update and periodic updates about our activities defending free speech. We won’t share, sell or transfer your personal information to anyone outside Index.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content”][vc_column][three_column_post title=”Global Journalist / Project Exile” full_width_heading=”true” category_id=”22142″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
25 Jun 19 | Digital Freedom, Event Reports, News and features
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“Are social media companies publishers or platforms?” Juliet Oosthuysen, who was recently banned from Twitter for expressing an opinion regarding the UK’s Gender Recognition Act, asked at a panel discussion to launch Article 19’s Missing Voices campaign on 20 June.
Oosthuysen was joined by Jennifer Robinson, a barrister who specialises in international media law, Paulina Gutierrez, an international human rights lawyer who has worked on developing the digital rights agenda for Article 19, and Pavel Marozau, an online activist whose satirical films have been removed from YouTube. The event was co-sponsored by Index on Censorship.
Article 19 is an organisation devoted to protecting freedom of expression. Missing Voices is its campaign to call for more transparency and accountability from the likes of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube over content removal. The aim is to protect online free expression in the complex web of intellectual property laws, community standards, algorithms and government censorship mandates that regulate what can and cannot be posted on social media platforms.
As described in Article 19’s 2018 policy brief, Missing Voices’ mission is to “Call on social media platforms to respect due process guarantees in the content moderation and account suspension or removal processes, create clear and transparent mechanisms to enforce such guarantees, and at the same time, call for them to align their policies with their responsibility to respect human rights, set out in the Guiding Principles of Business and Human Rights.”
As social media now spans hundreds of countries and their respective laws surrounding censorship, companies have to either model universally applied community standards to fit within every country’s unique laws or to impose standards unique to each country. This can create overly strict restrictions or even more barriers to free expression. Robinson said: “If any one country can determine that their takedown requirements based on their own free speech standards can be applied globally then we are going to see a race to the bottom of what is available online.”
In the breakout session that followed the panel, various groups discussed the difficulty in balancing the protection of opinions expressed online and fighting against the rampant harassment faced by ethnic, racial, sexual or gender minorities. The line between what is and is not acceptable is often blurry, argued multiple panellists, and is even more so when the decisions about what content to remove and which users to ban are increasingly made by artificial intelligence or algorithms. Speaking about her own experience with being banned and her multiple fruitless attempts to regain her Twitter account, Oosthuysen said: “A person made the decision to terminate my account, and I would like to speak with a person to get it reinstated, not an algorithm.”
Community standards are difficult to navigate. One audience member jokingly suggested social media platforms institute a “cooling off period,” so that users could be protected from censorship for posts made in the heat of the moment following a tragedy. This is not, in fact, a new suggestion: human Facebook content moderators are encouraged to consider recent personal events, such as romantic upheaval, when deciding whether to remove a piece of content that expresses hatred towards a gender, for example. However, the idea that circumstances could excuse certain content that was otherwise inexcusable is difficult to enshrine in community standards that are supposed to be universally implemented. Algorithms — and even human censors — are not always able to determine when a piece of content is intended as a joke or whether it is condoned by the perceived target.
Marozau said that when attempting to understand what community standards he had broken, it was obvious content-sharing platforms “can’t say clearly what they’re against”. Marozau’s film attacked Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, and he was subsequently persecuted by the Belarusian government. His film, which he does not believe violated any community standards, was removed shortly after. It can often be difficult, noted Robinson, to determine the reason for the removal of a piece of content, and when removals are manipulated for political ends rather than legitimate online harassment.
There have been instances — some quite recent — when content-sharing platforms have been criticised for censorship after barring high-profile users whose content has been controversial. For example, American far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was censored and banned by Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and Twitter, platforms that haven’t pursued many accounts with less followers but more violent rhetoric. Community standards, it seems, are applied most frequently to send a message rather than act punitively.
The Missing Voices campaign seeks to counteract censorship and consolidate laws and community standards wherever possible. The campaign will lobby media companies by spreading the message of free speech through social media influencers, marginalised groups, employees of the companies and shareholders.
According to Gutierrez: “If we put all the processes together, then we can… find inconsistencies between the actual responses and what [social media companies] are publishing in their transparency reports.” Gutierrez hopes that clarifying the regulations about posting will lead to better awareness about when community standards and laws are used fairly and when for political ends, and that doing so will make social media platforms more conducive to free speech. [/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:1561458322739-c029debc-beba-1″ taxonomies=”4883, 16927″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
19 Jun 19 | Magazine, Magazine Contents, Volume 48.02 Summer 2019
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”With contributions from Xinran, Ahmet Altan, Stephen Woodman, Karoline Kan, Conor Foley, Robert Harris, Stefano Pozzebon and Melanio Escobar”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Judged: How governments use power to undermine justice and freedom. The summer 2019 edition of Index on Censorship magazine
The summer 2019 Index on Censorship magazine looks at the narrowing gap between a nation’s leader and its judges and lawyers. What happens when the independence of the justice system is gone and lawyers are no longer willing to stand up with journalists and activists to fight for freedom of expression?
In this issue Stephen Woodman reports from Mexico about its new government’s promise to start rebuilding the pillars of democracy; Sally Gimson speaks to best-selling novelist Robert Harris to discuss why democracy and freedom of expression must continue to prevail; Conor Foley investigates the macho politics of President Jair Bolsonaro and how he’s using the judicial system for political ends; Jan Fox examines the impact of President Trump on US institutions; and Viktória Serdült digs into why the media and justice system in Hungary are facing increasing pressure from the government. In the rest of the magazine a short story from award-winning author Claudia Pineiro; Xinran reflects on China’s controversial social credit rating system; actor Neil Pearson speaks out against theatre censorship; and an interview with the imprisoned best-selling Turkish author Ahmet Altan.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Special Report: Judged: How governments use power to undermine justice and freedom”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Law and the new world order by Rachael Jolley on why the independence of the justice system is in play globally, and why it must be protected
Turkey’s rule of one by Kaya Genc President Erdogan’s government is challenging the result of Istanbul’s mayoral elections. This could test further whether separation of powers exists
England, my England (and the Romans) by Sally Gimson Best-selling novelist Robert Harris on how democracy and freedom of expression are about a lot more than one person, one vote
“It’s not me, it’s the people” by Stephen Woodman Mexico’s new government promised to start rebuilding the pillars of democracy, but old habits die hard. Has anything changed?
When political debate becomes nasty, brutish and short by Jan Fox President Donald Trump has been trampling over democratic norms in the USA. How are US institutions holding up?
The party is the law by Karoline Kan In China, hundreds of human rights lawyers have been detained over the past years, leaving government critics exposed
Balls in the air by Conor Foley The macho politics of Brazil’s new president plus ex-president Dilma Rousseff’s thoughts on constitutional problems
Power and Glory by Silvia Nortes The Catholic church still wields enormous power in Spain despite the population becoming more secular
Stripsearch by Martin Rowson In Freedonia
What next for Viktor Orbán’s Hungary? Viktoria Serdult looks at what happens now that Hungary’s prime minister is pressurising the judiciary, press, parliament and electoral system
When justice goes rogue by Melanio Escobar and Stefano Pozzebon Venezuela is the worst country in the world for abuse of judicial power. With the economy in freefall, journalists struggle to bear witness
“If you can keep your head, when all about you are losing theirs…” by Caroline Muscat It’s lonely and dangerous running an independent news website in Malta, but some lawyers are still willing to stand up to help
Failing to face up to the past by Ryan McChrystal argues that belief in Northern Ireland’s institutions is low, in part because details of its history are still secret
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][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]Sending out a message in a bottle by Rachael Jolley Actor Neil Pearson, who shot to international fame as the sexist boss in the Bridget Jones’ films, talks about book banning and how the fight against theatre censorship still goes on
Remnants of war by Zehra Dogan Photographs from the 2019 Freedom of Expression Arts Award fellow Zehra Doğan’s installation at Tate Modern in London
Six ways to remember Weimar by Regula Venske The name of this small town has mythic resonances for Germans. It was the home of many of the country’s greatest classical writers and gave its name to the Weimar Republic, which was founded 100 years ago
“Media attacks are highest since 1989” by Natasha Joseph Politicians in South Africa were issuing threats to journalists in the run-up to the recent elections. Now editors have built a tracking tool to fight back
Big Brother’s regional ripple effect by Kirsten Han Singapore’s recent “fake news” law which gives ministers the right to ban content they do not like, may encourage other regimes in south-east Asia to follow suit
Who guards the writers? Irene Caselli reports on journalists who write about the Mafia and extremist movements in Italy need round-the-clock protection. They are worried Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini will take their protection away
China in their hands by Xinran The social credit system in China risks creating an all-controlling society where young people will, like generations before them, live in fear
Playing out injustice by Lewis Jennings Ugandan songwriter and politician Bobi Wine talks about how his lyrics have inspired young people to stand up against injustice and how the government has tried to silence him[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Culture”][vc_column_text]“Watch out we’re going to disappear you” by Claudia Pineiro The horrors of DIY abortion in a country where it is still not legal are laid bare in this story from Argentina, translated into English for the first time
“Knowing that they are there, helps me keep smiling in my cell” by Ahmet Altan The best-selling Turkish author and journalist gives us a poignant interview from prison and we publish an extract from his 2005 novel The Longest Night
A rebel writer by Eman Abdelrahim An exclusive extract from a short story by a new Egyptian writer. The story deals with difficult themes of mental illness set against the violence taking place during the uprising in Cairo’s Tahrir Square[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Column”][vc_column_text]Index around the world – Speak out, shut out by Lewis Jennings Index welcomed four new fellows to our 2019 programme. We were also out and about advocating for free expression around the world[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Endnote”][vc_column_text]
[/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=”Listen”][vc_column_text]Music has long been a form of popular rebellion, especially in the 21st century. These songs, provide a theme tune to the new magazine and give insight into everything from the nationalism in Viktor Orban’s Hungary to the role of government-controlled social media in China to poverty in Venezuela
LISTEN HERE[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Listen”][vc_column_text]The summer 2019 magazine podcast, featuring interviews with best-selling author Xinran; Italian journalist and contributor to the latest issue, Stefano Pozzebon; and Steve Levitsky, the author of the New York Times best-seller How Democracies Die.
LISTEN HERE[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
