Contents – Unsung heroes: How musicians are raising their voices against oppression
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Mozambique faces protest crackdown following disputed presidential election
Mozambique has resorted to an internet shutdown, denying people their right to participatory democracy amid widespread post-election protests that have seen security forces kill at least 20 people.
There has been growing unrest since 24 October, when the country’s National Electoral Commission (CNE) declared Daniel Chapo of the ruling Frelimo party the winner of the 9 October general election with 71% of the vote, amid vote rigging claims.
Independent presidential candidate and Chapo’s main challenger, Venâncio Mondlane was declared the runner-up with 20% while Ossufo Momade, of former rebel group Renamo, came third with 6%.
Ongoing protests reached a crescendo today (7 November) as the opposition called on people to march in their millions in the capital Maputo to show their dissatisfaction with the handling of the election. Thousands have marched, and the police have fired tear gas protesters.
South Africa has since announced that it is closing its Lebombo border “due to security incidents reported on the Mozambican side”, according to South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) News. Rwanda also closed its embassy in Maputo ahead of the protest.
Both local and international organisations have alleged that the election process was heavily flawed. In a statement, the European Union (EU) said its observation mission “noted irregularities during counting and unjustified alteration of election results at polling stations and district level”.
It also said that EU observers were prevented from observing tabulation processes in some districts and provinces, as well as at a national level.
The bloc condemned the killings of opposition candidate Mondlane’s lawyer Elvino Dias, who had been preparing a legal challenge to the results, and Paulo Guambe, an official with the Podemos party who supported the independent presidential candidate.
The EU also called for respect of fundamental freedoms and political rights in Mozambique where nearly 50 years of Frelimo’s uninterrupted rule has engendered hostilities towards the status quo. This is mostly due to widespread poverty, which has been blamed on government corruption and mismanagement of the economy, coupled with the politicisation of state institutions.
Within Mozambique, Archbishop Inacio Saure of Nampula – the president of the country’s bishops’ conference – said the electoral process was marred by ballot-box stuffing and forged polling station result sheets, amongst other election malpractices.
When crowds first poured onto the streets on 25 October to protest the election outcome, the internet observatory Netblocks reported that there was a disruption to mobile internet traffic in Mozambique, a development it said was likely intentional to limit coverage of events on the ground.
Following those initial protests, opposition leader Mondlane piled pressure on the regime by announcing one week of demonstrations from 31 October to 7 November. He said that millions would march on the capital Maputo on the last day and made reference to a revolution.
A charismatic leader who rode on promises to deliver an honest, transparent and reformist government that would remove Mozambique from the list of poorest countries in the world, Mondlane appealed to young people in particular: two thirds of the country’s 32 million population are under the age of 25 and these increasingly highly-educated GenZ-ers are threatening the establishment.
Following his call for a major protest on 7 November, Netblocks issued an update that said Mozambique had implemented restrictions to the social media and messaging platforms Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
According to Amnesty International, Mozambique is facing its worst crackdown on protests in years. The human rights organisation has also said that police have killed more than 20 people, and injured or arrested hundreds more, with security forces routinely trying to violently and unlawfully break up peaceful assemblies with tear gas, bullets and arbitrary arrests. Authorities have said that protestors have killed at least one police officer.
Speaking to Index on Censorship, Wilker Dias, the executive director of the Civil Society Platform for Electoral Monitoring (DECIDE) said the police had responded by killing those expressing their opposition to the allegedly-doctored election results.
Dias said among the irregularities they noted was the fact that when some people went to voting booths, they were told they had already voted when in actual fact they had not done so. He said the killing of protesters across the country was methodical.
“The police are shooting people on the streets. We saw that. The shooting is not sporadic, it’s coordinated.The police are stealing the right to life, the right to free expression,” he said.
Dias said his organisation is lobbying for the annulment of the election results in parts of Mozambique where there is evidence of tampering with the vote.
Mozambique-based journalist Elina Eciate, who works for local publication Jornal Rigor, told Index that she had witnessed the violence first hand and had interacted with some victims of police brutality in the district of Nacala-Porto in the Nampula province.
The journalist said some victims who had been shot were not receiving adequate medical attention.
“I managed to interview one person who was shot. He was discharged from hospital even though he needed medical assistance. The victim is 24 years old,” she said.
Eciate said after taking two bullets, police left him for dead. He was taken by locals to Nacala-Porto district hospital, but was discharged even though he still wanted medical help, she added.
“The doctors claimed they wanted to give space to other patients. They said he could continue with the treatment while at home. Even though he still wanted medical assistance, he was left to his own devices,” Eciate said.
She said communication was difficult as the whole country is affected by internet restrictions.
The journalist said freedom of expression is simply enshrined in law but in practice people cannot freely express themselves in the African country.
“The internet still remains a problem. We are using alternatives, in this case [virtual private networks] VPN,” she added.
Mozambique’s government has heaped blame on Mondlane for civil disturbances in the country. The country’s interior minister Pascoal Ronda told local media that the opposition leader was hiding in South Africa but police have opened a criminal case against him.
Ronda said Mondlane was “manipulating public opinion” using social media. On the other hand Mozambique’s defence minister, Cristóvão Chume said
protesters were preparing to march to Ponta Vermelha, the official residence of the country’s president, and added that if the escalation of violence continues, the armed forces would be called upon to “protect” the state.
Mondlane was not reachable for comment and there was no response to questions that Index sent to him via WhatsApp.
However, he has been updating his followers on Facebook. “My people, I’m here to announce that on the 7th I’m coming back to my country for the big march on Maputo City,” he wrote in one post.
In another post, Mondlane said in the face of constraints to freedom of speech, censorship and “the growing alienation of our media organs”, his Facebook page had become an essential tool for direct communication with the Mozambican public.
In yet another post titled “Call to the Revolution of Mozambican People”, Mondlane declared:
“Brothers and sisters, our homeland calls for freedom and dignity and November 7 will be our collective cry for change! Countrymen from all provinces will be in Maputo to demand together what is rightfully ours.”
Belarus: If you want freedom, take it
Four years ago today, Belarusian president Alyaksandr Lukashenka claimed victory in the country’s elections garnered more than 80% of the vote. The victory meant a sixth term in office.
That 80% figure is as meaningless as Vladimir Putin’s recent 88% in Russia and Paul Kagame’s patently ridiculous 99.15% in Rwanda. If you’re a dictator it’s just a matter of choosing a number you’re comfortable with.
The average Belarusian was not at all comfortable with that 80% and hundreds of thousands went onto the streets to protest.
Such huge demonstrations did not sit well with Lukashenka and they were met with a huge show of force.
At the time of the 2020 election, the EU said the election was “neither free nor fair”, the UK said it “did not accept the result” and called the subsequent repression of protesters “grisly” while the US Government said “severe restrictions on ballot access for candidates, [the] prohibition of local independent observers at polling stations, intimidation tactics employed against opposition candidates, and the detentions of peaceful protesters and journalists marred the process”.
The demonstrations did not manage to topple Lukashenka, one of Russia’s biggest allies. Vladimir Putin congratulated him on his victory and offered military help to put down protests..
Almost 1,400 political prisoners now languish in Belarusian jails, according to the human rights centre Viasna. That’s one political prisoner for every day that has elapsed since the rigged 2020 election.
A few weeks ago, the UK and 37 other countries condemned the human rights situation in Belarus. Speaking on behalf of all these countries, the Slovenian ambassador to the OSCE Barbara Zvokelj said those jailed “experience torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, acts of physical or sexual violence, lack of basic medical care and privacy, lack of a fair trial, psychological pressure and discrimination, with their cells and clothing marked with yellow tags.”
Those behind bars experience horrendous conditions and include Nobel laureate Ales Bialiatski, the lawyer Maksim Znak and musician Maria Kalesnikava who are all being held incommunicado. They also include our former colleague Andrei Aliaksandrau, who was previously the Belarus and OSCE programme officer at Index.
Also imprisoned is former blogger Siarhei Tsikhanouski who announced his intention to stand in the 2020 elections against Lukashenka but was arrested two days later. In the event, his wife Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya stood against the incumbent. The regime claimed she won just 8.8% of the vote.
In an Index exclusive, the country’s would-be president has written an article for us on the country’s political prisoners. Sviatlana has not heard from her husband since 9 March 2023. She writes, “For my son and daughter, sending letters, postcards and drawing pictures to their father was keeping us morally afloat. They constantly wrote to him but never received any answer.”
Despite many families not receiving answers from their jailed loved ones in Belarus, they are not forgotten.
On Monday 5 August, Index hosted an evening of film and activism in partnership with St John’s Waterloo and Roast Beef Productions, joining a room full of friends and colleagues passionate about free expression, human rights and democracy to mark the fourth anniversary of Lukashenka’s fraudulent elections.
The event’s organiser Index development officer Anna Millward said, “In the belly of the old crypt, we stood in solidarity with, and gave voice to, just some of the many political prisoners in Belarus. Together, we watched the powerful and unmissable documentary The Accidental President (Roast Beef Productions), which charts the presidential campaign of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. As the film ended and the lights stayed dimmed, the audience started to softly sing the resistance song Moment: it was an unexpected, moving moment full of hope. A panel discussion followed exploring everything from following Sviatlana’s campaign behind the scenes through to the chilling reach of transnational repression with PEN Belarus President, Taciana Niadbaj; Belarusian poet, writer and activist Hanna Komar; and Roast Beef Productions’ Mike Lerner and Martin Herring.”
She adds, “Finally, we launched our pilot exhibition Letters from Lukashenka’s Prisoners, giving unjustly detained individuals a voice by collecting, translating, publishing and displaying their letters. The exhibition was designed and curated by Martha Hegarty on behalf of Index, and is inspired by a project of the same name carried out by Index in partnership with Belarus Free Theatre, Human Rights House Foundation and Politzek.me between 2021 and 2023.”
As we mark this dark anniversary of Belarus it is poignant to think about the words of the song sung this past Monday.
“We are Belarusians, we are going in peace. In a bright and sunny way.
Destroy the prison walls! If you want freedom, take it!
The wall will soon collapse, collapse, collapse — And the old world is buried!”
Let us hope that is the case sooner rather than later.
Our manifesto: the next UK government’s necessary actions to restore freedom of expression
Political parties in the UK are now in the final stages of campaigning as they approach the general election on 4 July 2024. During the circus of the campaigning season, important issues can and have slipped through the cracks. We, the undersigned, want to ensure that the next government, whoever it may be, will stand firmly on the side of free expression.
Back in January, Rishi Sunak laid out key targets he wished to deliver before the end of his term, with varying degrees of success. In this spirit, we have compiled our own manifesto outlining key issues relating to free speech that we would like the next UK government to address. They are:
Enact Anti-SLAPP Legislation
Strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, are a means for those with money to abuse the legal system by threatening critics with costly lawsuits in order to intimidate them into abandoning their position. They have become a silencing tactic in recent years, with journalists in particular being targeted, alongside environmental defenders, writers and sexual violence survivors.
Particularly worrying is the current trend of SLAPPs becoming more common throughout Europe. Over 820 cases were registered by Case, the Anti-SLAPP Coalition, in 2023, 161 of which were lawsuits filed in 2022, a significant jump compared to the 135 filed in 2021. Such lawsuits are a stain on our free speech and media freedom credentials. Many journalists live in fear of them. In addition to the lawsuits we know about there are likely scores of articles that never make it to print because newsrooms fear the potential legal ramifications, articles that could serve the public interest.
Prior to the election being called, a private members bill, called the Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation Bill, had been put forward by MP Wayne David in an attempt to address the issue. Although the bill itself contained significant flaws and was weaker than many had hoped, it was at least a promising starting point from which to address the problem. However, with the announcement of the general election, the bill is dead.
We call upon the next government to take up the mantle against SLAPPs and to push forward with another, stronger bill that takes a much firmer approach to resolve the problem.
Protect the right to protest
The UK has seen a number of concerning attacks being made on protest rights in recent years. Legislation such as the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the 2023 Public Order Act have given the police and government sweeping powers to restrict protest, a move criticised by rights groups such as Amnesty International.
In May 2024, former Home Secretary Suella Braverman was ruled by a high court to have acted unlawfully by making it easier to criminalise peaceful protests. Various groups conducting peaceful protests have suffered as a result, such as environmental activists being handed lengthy prison sentences and pro-Palestine protesters being arrested.
Index has previously spoken out against the increasingly authoritarian approach to protesting in the UK and the worrying climate this creates for those wishing to peacefully exercise their right to free assembly and free expression. We would like to see the next government address the issues raised by repealing these alarming pieces of legislation, ensuring that peaceful protesters are no longer restricted in such fashion, and releasing and/or compensating those who have already been punished.
Take a stand against transnational repression
Transnational repression refers to the various ways that authoritarian governments, such as Russia, China, Iran, Rwanda and Saudi Arabia, reach across borders in order to silence dissent, using a range of tactics including online smear campaigns, threats and physical violence. Awareness of transnational repression has increased in recent years but so too has the phenomenon, not least in the UK.
The most famous example is probably the poisoning of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in 2018. Other examples include high-profile Hong Kong activists, Iranian journalists and Saudi comedians being assaulted on UK soil. Even on a less violent level, there are too many reports of students being spied on and university courses changed in acts of appeasement.
In November 2022 the UK government formed the Defending Democracy Taskforce, which is meant to be reviewing the UK’s approach to transnational repression. Late last year the taskforce announced it would be taking a more active role in coordinating electoral security, which is welcome given several hacks that have been traced back to China. But as for the broader issue of protecting dissidents overseas, and indeed those who challenge authoritarian regimes, there is little movement.
Index, for example, has worked extensively to highlight the dangers of transnational repression and we ask the next government to take a more proactive approach to tackle it by both protecting those within the state and sanctioning foreign states who utilise such tactics.
Support journalists in exile and in the UK
In May 2024, the BBC reported that the number of BBC World Service journalists working in exile is estimated to have nearly doubled since 2020, in part due to crackdowns in countries such as Russia, Afghanistan and Ethiopia. Similarly, in 2023 Reporters Without Borders (RSF) provided financial assistance to 460 journalists in exile – nearly twice as many as in 2022 – after being inundated with requests from journalists who had been threatened for their work.
As the number of media workers forced to flee their home country grows, the need for the international community to step in and help intensifies. The UK has an obligation to support and protect journalists in this situation by prioritising press freedom in their foreign policy objectives and calling for accountability for those countries who violate it.
For a journalist facing the distressing and difficult reality of living in exile, one of the most useful pieces of aid is a visa. By holding a visa they can live without fear of being sent back to a country where they face persecution, and can continue their work. We call upon the next government to ensure that journalists from abroad who are living in exile are able to obtain emergency visas in order to be kept safe from authoritarian regimes.
At the same time we’d like to go one step further; the next government should place attacks on the media high on the list of their foreign policy priorities, calling for true accountability for those violating press freedom. Ideally emergency visas shouldn’t be necessary as journalists everywhere are protected and we ask the next government to lead the way in upholding and defending media freedom.
In the process the government must show it respects media freedom in the UK. Stories like “Braverman criticised for shutting out Guardian and BBC from Rwanda trip” must become a thing of the past and some of the sections of the 2023 National Security Act should be repealed given their concerning implications for both journalists and whistleblowers.
Don’t go soft on authoritarian regimes
Over the years, the UK has had a habit of welcoming leaders from authoritarian states and overlooking their poor records on human rights. This was a common theme when David Cameron was prime minister, for example. He welcomed, among others, Egyptian President General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi less than two years after 800 unarmed protesters were killed at Rabaa al-Adawiya square in Cairo and Chinese leader Xi Jinping just days after the arrest of bookseller Gui Minhai.
The tradition has continued since. Under current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak the UK has developed a unique relationship with Rwanda, with the state being at the centre of the Conservative’s policy on asylum seekers. It was recently revealed that Rwanda’s top diplomat in the UK oversaw the use of the international justice system to target critics of the regime overseas in a clear example of transnational repression.
Indeed Cameron, in his new role as foreign secretary, went to Saudi Arabia in April for the World Economic Forum and did not press them on their poor human rights record, which amongst other issues sees many punished under draconian blasphemy laws or, in the case of Salma al-Shehab, for simple retweets. Meanwhile senior British government officials last month congratulated the newly appointed head of the Ugandan army, a man accused of abusing critics and of torture. The list could go on.
The next government would do well to choose its friends wisely, rather than helping authoritarian rulers maintain their grip on power and improve their international status.
Reform the Online Safety Act
The aim of the Online Safety Act – to protect children and adults online – is a commendable one. However, there are elements of the bill that are problematic when it comes to the protection of free speech, particularly those relating to encryption. One section of the act seemingly requires service providers to search for illegal content online by breaking end-to-end encryption, which threatens both privacy and cyber-security, as well as leaving the door open for government interference and surveillance.
Encryption is vital to ensure people can express themselves online safely, especially when they’re living under a repressive regime. Not only does the Online Safety Act put the privacy of online users at risk in the UK, the problematic language used in the bill can also be co-opted by other countries with more sinister intentions.
The next UK government needs to address the issues that have been raised by the bill’s passing by reforming and re-wording the legislation.
Advocate for a global limit on commercial surveillance
Another growing threat to free speech both globally and in the UK is the rise in spyware. This problem has worsened as technology has advanced, with highly sophisticated surveillance software – such as the infamous hacking software Pegasus – becoming readily available to governments around the world.
Pervasive surveillance clearly encroaches on people’s right to privacy and data protection and is a threat to free speech more broadly. People can be put off political participation, or even just from expressing their opinion freely, if they think they are being spied upon by the state. Spyware also often targets individuals like journalists, politicians and activists as a means of repression and intimidation.
We call upon the UK government to support the implementation of a global moratorium on commercial spyware until proper safeguards are put in place to deal with these threats. Controls and guardrails must be enforced globally to ensure that any surveillance tools comply with human rights.
Preserve academic freedom
Threats to academic freedom are widely viewed to be more of a problem in the USA than the UK. That said there have been worrying signs here which ought to be addressed before the problem escalates.
The number of reports of university events and speakers being cancelled has grown in recent years. This was supposedly the motivation behind the government’s introduction of a free speech tsar in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, which came into effect in 2023 and has been criticised by some for being “lip service” to free speech issues.
The tsar, Arif Ahmed, said at the time of his appointment that he would remain politically neutral in his efforts to combat attacks to free speech on campus. We can only hope he is true to his word. The current government has tried to interfere in universities, such as threatening to regulate certain academic approaches (in 2020 the then-equalities minister Kemi Badendoch condemned critical race theory – an academic field focussed on discussions of white privilege and structural racism – and the government declared itself “unequivocally against” the concept, for example).
Another threat is aforementioned – that of transnational repression – with students reporting growing fears of surveillance on campus, especially Chinese students. When you add in increasing fears around book banning in school libraries, there is a clear argument that free speech in education needs close attention in order to truly preserve academic freedom. But this must not come from a party-political position. Politics must not enter the classroom or lecture hall.
Support British nationals overseas
There are several British nationals overseas who are currently in prison, serving time for no crime at all. They are people who have been committed to free expression, human rights and democracy and for this they have lost their own freedom. Three of the most prominent are Jimmy Lai, a media mogul who is in jail in Hong Kong, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a writer and activist who has been in and out of prison in Egypt for a decade now, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a journalist and activist who has been behind bars since 2022.
The UK government has demonstrated a lack of commitment to help free these three men and we urge the next government to reverse this trend. The unjust imprisonments of them, and others like them, must be a priority and must then act as a blueprint for future action if other British nationals find themselves at the mercy of authoritarian regimes.
Signed:
Index on Censorship
Article 19
Humanists UK