10 Jul 18 | Event Reports, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Additional reporting by Shreya Parjan and Sandra Oseifri.
“When you hold the mirror up to […] a totalitarian regime, it recognises it and attempts to stamp it out,” said Tony Howard, a Warwick University professor, discussing how Shakespeare can be used to slip controversial ideas into public spaces under the eyes of the censors.
Howard was part of a discussion held at London’s Globe theatre looking at how censorship is used against theatres and how playwrights can sometimes get around it.
The Shakespeare Under The Radar debate was held as part of a series marking the 50th anniversary of the end of the UK Theatres’ Act in 1968. Until then the Lord Chamberlain had the power to stop plays going on stage, or mark sections of the script to be taken out.
The panel also featured Index on Censorship magazine editor Rachael Jolley, Memet Ali Alabora, the exiled Turkish actor, and Zoe Lafferty, theatre director and producer. It was chaired by Samira Ahmed, the award-winning journalist and broadcaster.
“Turkey is one of the rarest countries where the persecution of artists has never ended,” Alabora told the audience in the Sam Wanamaker theatre, named after an actor who was blacklisted in the USA during McCarthyism. “When you’ve got a state of emergency the law gives you the right to ban material because it is unsafe,” added Alabora.
Alabora talked about his personal experience as director and actor in the 2012 play Mi Minör. The play was set in Pinima, a fictional country where the president decides anything. Amid the wave of demonstrations and civil unrest during the 2013 Gezi Park protests in Turkey, the play was condemned by governmental and pro-governmental agencies, as an attempt to “rehearse” the protests. The threats against Alabora and his creative team forced them to leave the country because of fears for their safety.
Jolley said theatre can be a medium for social change, even in the face of censorship. “Theatre can do things in a way that is more radical or challenging because censors are more attuned to film and TV,” she said. She talked about how memes are used in China to get around censorship: “Everybody can use that form of communication to talk about things that are not allowed.”
Lafferty’s work, which includes Queens of Syria, the story of female Syrian refugees, focuses on conflict areas such as Afghanistan, Yemen, Palestine, Lebanon and Haiti. Her plays are dedicated to giving life to stories that might otherwise be inaccessible due to conflict, military occupation or censorship. “In the nine or ten years I’ve been involved with Palestine, the censorship, in lots of different ways, has been very brutal, including imprisonment and death,” she says.
However, it could be difficult to pinpoint exactly who does the censoring, she said. “It’s hard to get into all of the layers. There is the military occupation, the Palestinian authorities, the taboos of society, etc.” As Lafferty’s experience illustrates, there are also more insidious ways to silence: “There is a huge visa process which is a massive form of censorship.”
Despite the obstacles put in their way, Alabora and Lafferty have no intention of backing down from their theatrical work. Alabora directed Meltem Arikan’s play Enough is Enough, which highlights issues around incest, child abuse and violence against women. Meanwhile, Lafferty directed the play And Here I Am, which is based on the life story of Ahmed Tobasi, who went from being a member of Palestine’s Islamic Jihad to an actor.[/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:1531488724804-26d39abd-64f9-5″ taxonomies=”8146, 8175″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
05 Jun 18 | Artistic Freedom, News and features, Turkey
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Kurdish artist and journalist Zehra Doğan
The last time Onur Erem and his girlfriend Zehra Doğan, a Turkish artist and journalist, met face-to-face, she was chirpy and seemed happy, he recalls. They sat at a picnic table and talked about her art being concurrently exhibited in various places around the world, from New York to Europe. They were surrounded by other families, busily conversing amongst each other at the picnic tables to their left and right.
But this was no picnic. Two prison guards walking up and down the aisle in between two rows of tables screwed to the concrete floor, eyeing the prisoners and their families with forced indifference masking wariness, made sure no one lost sight of the fact.
“She was in good spirits,” Erem says, attributing it to her continuing to create art while in prison, just like she did on the outside, before her sudden arrest as she was awaiting the outcome of the court case against her on charges of spreading propaganda in favour of a terrorist organisation.
“She writes down the stories of the people she met there. Since there’s not much in terms of the supplies on the inside, she uses the dyes that she makes from food. They don’t give her canvass, so she draws either on clothing or envelopes from the letters she receives. She collects the bird feathers that fall in the prison yard and makes improvised brushes out of them,” he explains.
The reason for Doğan’s incarceration was the drawing she made while covering the Turkish military operation in the town of Nusaybin on the border with Syria, populated mainly by Kurds. The drawing was made based on the photograph that had previously been circulated widely by the Turkish military on social media, according to press reports and Erem. The point of contention is whether the original photograph did or did not include the flags of the Turkish Republic hanging from buildings half-destroyed during the operation.
“She drew a military vehicle in the form of a scorpion. I’d say, this was her only addition to the photograph itself,” he says explaining that the military vehicle his girlfriend depicted in such a manner is referred to as “Akrep”, the Turkish word for a scorpion. “However the judge, in spite of all the evidence presented, sided with the opinion that the photo was taken by Zehra herself, that the original photo didn’t contain the Turkish flags hanging from the destroyed buildings and that [she] added them on for propaganda purposes, and thus, by way of this picture she was engaged in a propaganda on behalf of a terrorist organisation.”
Boxing the art
The widely-shared narrative is that Erdogan lashed out against artists after the July 2016 coup attempt. However, his government had gone after scores of artists and their freedom of artistic expression much earlier, of which Doğan is but one example. Two years after the coup, the crackdown doesn’t seem to dissipate, and the arrest of Turkish rapper Ezhel on inciting drug use in his songs on 24 May 2018 being the latest occurrence.
Attacks on artists across Turkey range from firing of one of the country’s most prominent orchestra conductors İbrahim Yazıcı for his criticism of the Erdogan government, to decapitating Ankara University’s theater department by dismissing Tülin Sağlam, its head and five other senior professors critical of the authoritarianism; from arrests of popular cartoonists, such as Cumhuriyet newspaper’s Musa Kart, to handing down a 10-months sentence against Zuhal Olcay, one of the country’s most popular singers and actresses.
The limitation of artistic freedoms is clearly a trend in Turkey, says Julie Trebault, Director of Artists at Risk Connection, an artistic freedom non-profit based in New York, adding that while in the past two years the attacks have escalated, they’d started before the coup attempt.
Years in the making
“We have several cases, for example, the case of the two filmmakers who have released their film, Bakur in 2015. Bakur was screened at many festivals in Europe for a couple of months without being censored or attacked. And then, in 2015, at the 34th Istanbul film festival, just hours before the premiere, the film got censored,” she recalls, explaining that the film was a documentary about the PKK, a Kurdistan Workers’ Party that is considered a terrorist organisation by the government of Turkey.
As to the persecution of artists even before the coup, Trebault adds “When Erdogan became president, things went down and down and down in Turkey. It took years to arrive where we are in Turkey [now]”.
Turkish filmmaker Elif Refiğ sees the roots and the reasons for the persecution of artists in the Gezi Park protests of 2013. “There had been a very serious oppositional sentiment that had collected in the society until then, that failed to organise until that moment. A very important feature, it included artistic institutions, and its nature was very creative to the extent that it changed the very definition of ‘disobedience’,” she says. According to her, it was a completely peaceful campaign spearheaded by arts institutions that didn’t tolerate violence, and it spread all over the country.
Refiğ points out that in addition to arrests, torture and jailings as ways for the state to punish the disobedient artists that often meet the eye, there are other ways of applying pressure: “The economic obstacles make the lives of the artists miserable. Blacklisting. It makes it difficult for the people to find work, impedes their freedom of movement.” As the case in point, she cites Füsun Demirel, popular television and cinema actress who has been struggling to find work for the past three years because “she is a Kurd, and because she openly voiced her opinions.”
As harmful as it is for the arts in Turkey, the crackdown on the freedom of artistic expression has also affected the general public, Trebault says.
“There’s definitely more self-censorship. People tend to get less out about those issues. People tend to be extremely careful on what they are saying,” she adds.
Responding to a question about the public’s reaction, Refiğ says that, although, the general public is critical, “Where would the criticism from the society be coming from? At this point, all television channels, all newspapers have been silenced by the forces in power.” She explains that multiple ongoing court cases against the media outlets are having a chilling effect on the public.
While the Turkish society is succumbing to self-censorship and its artists are fighting to get out their artistic word amid incarceration and repressions, the international community is struggling with possible solutions.
International support coming too late
“In my personal opinion, the international support is coming to Turkey too late,” says Refiğ. She explains that some international institutions like Pen America or Amnesty International are doing their best to call the international attention to the ongoing crisis with the freedom of expression in Turkey, while others, “institutionalised international organisations,” as she terms them, such as the E.U. and the Council of Europe, for instance, have their own pressing concerns-not letting the mass influx of refugees from the conflicts in the MENA region to cross into their borders, and, therefore, desperately needing the co-operation of the Turkish government.
“At very critical points, when they shouldn’t have restrained their words, they stood by our government, as they were afraid of the opening of the borders [by Turkey] and a free movement of Iraqi and Syrian refugees to Europe” she says of the international institutions. “Hypocrisy is the word that even might come to one’s mind. Words-wise, there’s a lip service to improving the human rights situation in Turkey, but action-wise, there’s very little acting upon it, unfortunately.”
Trebault, on the other hand, says Turkey, as a member of various international bodies is a signatory to important international human rights treaties, and Western governments should call on its government to abide by them.
Grim prospects, great expectations
Looking into the future, Trebault says she doubts things will get better in the next few years in Turkey.
“In 2017 the referendum gave even more power to the president,” she says of the plebiscite that effectively abolished the parliamentary system existing at the time and replaced it with the presidential system with a much stronger executive. “So, to be honest with you, I don’t think there will be changes for the better with this government,” she says.
Back in Diyarbakır’s E-type maximum security prison, while counting days until her release, Doğan is also pondering her future.
Making plans for after her release upon completing her two-and-a-half-year sentence next February, Erem says Doğan plans to continue working on her art, as well as her work as a journalist. “Currently, there’s an exhibit of her artwork In France that includes paintings and drawings smuggled out of the prison, as well as her previous work. This draws the attention of the artistic community, as well as the society at large, that’s why she wants to continue.”
He says that his girlfriend is also taking notes while in prison that she’s planning to use for writing a book when she is out.
“Of course, the solidarity that she sees on the outside also helps a lot. [It] helps her and her jailed friends to keep their spirits high, as they see that their voices are heard on the outside and there are quite a few people who don’t want to leave their side.”[/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:1528275200044-7774f8c3-7f31-3″ taxonomies=”8607″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
17 May 18 | Events
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”100419″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Celebrate daring artists who stage Shakespeare expressly to challenge political authority.
Shakespeare’s texts have been used time and again to bypass censorship and challenge authority. This panel discussion celebrates the daring of radical theatre makers across the world, who have performed Shakespeare and created work expressly for the purpose of holding ‘the mirror up to nature’ and challenging political landscapes.
There will also be the opportunity to put your questions to the panel on the night #JoinTheDebate
[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”100423″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Director and actor in Mi Minor – This experimental theatre production accused by government officials and pro-government media of being the ‘rehearsal’ for the 2013 Gezi Park protests in Istanbul. The resulting campaign forced him and the creative team to leave the country[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”100421″ img_size=”152×115″ add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]The University of Warwick academic is writer of three drama-documentaries on the history of multicultural Shakespearean acting in Britain and America. Howard’s Ira Aldridge documentary was given a reading in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in 2017[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”90098″ img_size=”152×114″ add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Journalist and editor of the Index on Censorship Magazine – Edited Staging Shakespearean Dissent edition[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”100422″ img_size=”152×114″ add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Theatre director and creative producer whose work focuses on uncovering stories from within situations that are hard to access due to conflict, occupation and censorship. She has worked in countries including Afghanistan, Yemen, Palestine, Lebanon, Haiti, Syria and the UK.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”80231″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]The chair of the panel is the award-winning journalist and broadcaster – Visiting professor of journalism at Kingston University, and presenter of Front Row on Radio 4 and Newswatch on BBC1[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”86201″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2016/02/staging-shakespearean-dissent/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
ISSUE: VOLUME 45.01 SPRING 2016
Plays that protest, provoke and slip by the censors
Index on Censorship marked the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death in 2016 by creating a special issue of our award-winning magazine, looking at how his plays have been used around the world to sneak past censors or take on the authorities – often without them realising. Our special report explores how different countries use different plays to tackle difficult themes.
Browse the issue
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Index on Censorship magazine has compiled a reading list of articles from the magazine archives covering the censorship of theatre.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
28 Feb 18 | Europe and Central Asia, Mapping Media Freedom, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
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Recent developments in Turkey, once seen as a role model for the Muslim world, have shown that concepts such as the rule of law and right to free speech are no longer welcome by the Erdogan government.
With 156 journalists behind bars as of 26 February 2018 and the closing down of more than 150 media outlets by virtue of the state’s of emergency decrees, Turkey is the global leader in suppressing the media. The irony is that Erdogan was once a victim of an earlier oppressive regime in the late 1990s, having been dismissed as mayor of Istanbul, banned from political office and put in prison for three months for inciting religious hatred after he recited part of a poem by the Turkish nationalist Ziya Gokalp at a political rally.
The destruction of the rule of law in Turkey has been in the making since the anti-government Gezi Park protests and corruption probes of 2013. However, the government has made its intentions on the right to free speech crystal clear in the aftermath of the 15 July 2016 coup attempt. Many journalists and writers have been imprisoned over accusations as absurd as spreading subliminal messages to promote the coup.
Some of them — like Die Welt journalist Deniz Yucel — have languished in detention without charge for a year. Yucel was used as a bargaining chip against Germany and was only freed after chancellor Angela Merkel put pressure on the Turkish government. Immediately after he was let out of detention he published a video message in which he said: “I still don’t know why I was arrested and why I have been released.”
Ahmet Sik, another well-known journalist, was imprisoned because of his thorough investigations into the dark sides of the coup attempt. Can Dundar was arrested for publishing about Turkish intelligence’s illegal arms transfers to Syria. He was kept in prison for several months and eventually released on a constitutional court decision in February 2016. He fled the country and currently lives in Germany. Veteran journalists Sahin Alpay and Mehmet Altan, on the other hand, were not so lucky. They had been granted freedom by the constitutional court but a local court refused to implement their release. Recently, the Altan brothers, Mehmet and Ahmed, and another senior journalist, Nazli Ilicak, have been brutally sentenced to aggravated life prison sentences. Examples of the obscene unlawful imprisonment of journalists can go on and on.
The heart of the issue is that Turkish journalists do excellent work. They go to extraordinary efforts to make sure the public is informed about corruption, illegal arms transfers, extrajudicial killings of Kurds and minorities, shady affairs of the ruling party with the judiciary and unanswered questions about the coup attempt. The government doesn’t want to see these issues make headlines, and for defying it many journalists have sacrificed their freedom.
Behind the thin veneer of Turley’s judicial system is the political machine manufacturing countless crimes. After 500 days pretrial detention, Ahmet Turan Alkan, an intellectual and a respected writer, pointed that out by telling a judge: “Your honour, I know you can’t release me because if you decide to do so you will be jailed.”
Turkey’s journalists are faced with a unique problem: if they continue to lay bare the truth for all to see they risk exile or prison. In a normal country, journalists performing at the height of their abilities would be encouraged or rewarded, perhaps not by their governments but by the society as a whole. But not so in Turkey, where the government mouthpieces and politically-aligned media outlets spout the latest propaganda to manipulate Turks. Unfortunately, the majority of people actually believe that most of the arrested journalists are criminals or terror supporters.
This collective hostility to freedom of expression makes Turkey one of the biggest violators of press freedom in the 42 European-area countries Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project monitors; one of the lowest ranking countries in Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index; and deemed “not free” by Freedom House’s evaluation.
It’s not just journalists. Academics, rights defenders, philanthropists and lawyers also face punishment for carrying out their professional responsibilities on behalf of the public. Disclosing the unlawful practices of those in power is all it takes for an individual to find themselves on the wrong side of the bars. As with Alpay and Altan, a court had ordered Taner Kilic, the chairman of Amnesty Turkey, to be released from detention, but the prosecutor put him back in prison. Kilic and his colleagues are being targeted in retribution for Amnesty International’s work to make the world aware of the inhumane conditions in Turkey’s post-coup attempt era.
The government’s intolerance toward dissenting voices can also be seen in its treatment of university professors, students and others who signed an Academics for Peace petition, which called for an end to violence in the Kurdish region of the country. Hundreds of distinguished academics have found themselves summoned to courtrooms. For taking a stand about the ongoing tragedy in Kurdish cities, the majority of these academics are dehumanised and defamed. They have not only become enemies of the state but enemies of all Turks.
Yes, the government has terrorised ordinary people with the narrative of the “world against great Turkey” and urged them to stand against outspoken figures who are the “spies, traitors and enemies”.
What do the EU and other international organisations do? Mostly expressing their “concern” in different formats such as “great”, “deep” or “serious”. Even the European Court of the Human Rights has not issued a single verdict against Turkey’s post-coup purge which has seen the country become the world’s largest jailer of journalists.
On the same day the Altan brothers were sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison, Tjorbon Jaglan, the secretary general of the Council of Europe was on a two-day visit in Turkey. He didn’t utter a single word about their situation. What else could better fit the definition of the “banality of evil” conceptualised by Hannah Arendt?[/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:1519832159496-f7b69135-ce98-10″ taxonomies=”8607″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
