15 Oct 18 | Malta, Mapping Media Freedom, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”103210″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]“The murder,” says journalist Caroline Muscat, “was a message to the country that whoever investigates those in power and makes corruption visible, has to fear for his life. So we had to send a message back.”
Muscat seems to be in an adrenaline rush while talking in her apartment in a small town in the north of Malta. The interview was postponed twice for an hour because she had to convene with her colleagues about new stories for The Shift, the journalistic website that she and a colleague launched early November 2017. It was just weeks after the shock of the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. The Shift is the message Caroline Muscat sent back to the perpetrators.
Malta doesn’t have a lot of independent journalism. Even media outlets that are not tied to a political party, have opaque ties with the political and entrepreneurial establishment. It is because of such ties that Caroline Muscat quit her job at the widely read Times of Malta in 2016: in publications about the leaked documents known as the Panama Papers, Caruana Galizia revealed that the managing director of the Times’ publisher was implicated too.
“I could not continue to work for the Times,” she says. She freelanced and made plans to start an investigative online paper, to be launched in the spring of 2018. Caruana Galizia’s murder accelerated the launch.
“Our goal is to hold those in power to account,” Muscat says.
That’s not a spectacular goal for a journalistic project. It does lead to remarkable choices though. Muscat tells about the arrest, in December 2017, of three men suspected of placing the bomb in Caruana Galizia’s car and detonating it. “We didn’t publish that news,” Muscat says. “We were immediately criticised about that. A government official even attacked me on Twitter, asking why The Shift didn’t publish about this breakthrough in the investigation.”
She explains – and still gets furious: “The men were detained with a grand show of force. In Malta, there are only a few people who know how to make bombs. Why weren’t they taken earlier? The arrested men have no motive for the murder. We want to know who is behind Daphne’s death. The arrests were a way to conceal that no serious investigation is carried out into the murder. As a journalist, I refuse to contribute to such a scheme.”
By performing journalism that way, The Shift works in the spirit of Running Commentary, the blog of Caruana Galizia. Also, Caruana Galizia didn’t care a bit about good contacts with powerful key figures in politics and business but investigated and scrutinised them, to attack if necessary. Muscat, however, resists the idea that she is following in Caruana Galizia’s footsteps: “Nobody can replace Daphne. She has been the target of hate campaigns and threats for years. Her dogs were murdered, her house was set ablaze. We often ran into each other because we worked on the same kind of stories, but she worked alone, I worked for an established paper. I was protected. She wasn’t.”
After resigning from the Times of Malta, Muscat also lost her protection, which became all the clearer when she started The Shift. An intense disinformation and hate campaign was launched against her, especially on social media, just as had happened to Caruana Galizia. Muscat and her family are, without any grounds, being connected to alcoholism, arms trade and prostitution. In secret Facebook groups linked to the governing Labour Party – where contributors to The Shift went undercover for half a year – pictures of Caruana Galizia and Muscat surfaced, accompanied by hateful comments (“She got what she deserved,” and “She deserves some bombs too”), generously supplied with likes by sometimes highly placed government figures.
Muscat immediately notices when a picture of hers has been doing the rounds again in such online networks. “This week the owner of a grocery shop asked me if I was the woman who publishes articles online. I am starting to get an idea now of the pressure under which Daphne has lived for years. Every aspect of my life has become difficult,” Muscat says.
The Shift welcomes some hundred thousand visitors per month and lives from donations. Muscat does other freelance journalistic work if necessary to earn enough income. Maybe, when the visitor stats rise, they will try to get revenues from advertisements. They usually publish several stories per day, both backgrounds and investigative work and analyses and columns. Muscat: “The Shift is journalism, but it is a movement too. Yes, I have an agenda. My agenda is press freedom, democracy, rule of law. We don’t have the luxury anymore to demand anything else. No, I don’t think The Shift will find the final piece of the puzzle that will solve Daphne’s murder. Such an expectation is unrealistic. All we can do is continue to investigate and contribute to adding pieces of the puzzle.”
Does she fear for her life? She circles around the question. She seems unable to ponder the issue. She does, however, point to an important difference between The Shift and Caruana Galizia’s blog: “The Shift doesn’t depend on me. We have a team. If one of us falls away, The Shift will continue.” [/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:1539599196129-2228dcb5-22a8-7″ taxonomies=”18781″][vc_raw_html]JTNDaWZyYW1lJTIwd2lkdGglM0QlMjI3MDAlMjIlMjBoZWlnaHQlM0QlMjIzMTUlMjIlMjBzcmMlM0QlMjJodHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRm1hcHBpbmdtZWRpYWZyZWVkb20udXNoYWhpZGkuaW8lMkZzYXZlZHNlYXJjaGVzJTJGOTMlMkZtYXAlMjIlMjBmcmFtZWJvcmRlciUzRCUyMjAlMjIlMjBhbGxvd2Z1bGxzY3JlZW4lM0UlM0MlMkZpZnJhbWUlM0U=[/vc_raw_html][/vc_column][/vc_row]
11 Oct 18 | Artistic Freedom, News and features, Risks, Rights and Reputations
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”97076″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Agnieszka Kolek is curator and co-founder of Passion for Freedom, an annual competition exhibition of by artists facing censorship worldwide. In February 2015, Kolek survived the terrorist attack in Copenhagen, targeting the panel discussion she appeared in alongside Swedish artist Lars Vilks. Later that year in London, the Passion for Freedom 2015 exhibition at Mall Galleries, London, hit the headlines when a work Isis Threaten Sylvania by Mimsy was removed by the curators on the advice of the police. They had no choice because they couldn’t pay the £36,000 demanded by the police to guarantee security of the exhibition.
JF: How does your experience of the Danish police compare to the British police?
AK: The panel discussion — Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Speech — was organised by the Lars Vilks Committee with the full support of the police. This was only a month after the Charlie Hebdo attack, but there was no question that the discussion should go ahead. There were two plain-clothed police officers, two uniformed police and then two special service officers responsible for Lars, who has 24-hour police protection. Police checked bags as the audience came in. When the attack happened — the Danish filmmaker Finn Nørgaard, one of the guests, was shot outside the venue and died on the pavement — the two special service officers took Lars to safety. We know that after an attack on freedom of speech the next target is Jews – it happened with Charlie Hebdo and it happened in Copenhagen when the same gunman attacked a bat mitzvah party in the evening, killing the security guard. Danes feel very bad that they didn’t anticipate this pattern and there was a lot of blaming of the police for this, but they did their best considering the circumstances. I think there has to be more legal power give to the police to extinguish the sources of the extremism, and its results. When you already have flames it is harder to put it, instead you have to prevent the fire from starting.
In London in 2015 it was very different. The police wanted to determine what artworks could go on show, and even the artistic value of exhibited works, showing an indirect form of censorship claiming it was “for your own good – security”. Police intelligence identified “serious concerns” regarding the “potentially inflammatory content” of Mimsy’s work and for this reason “advised” us to remove the work or pay protection money at £6,000 a day. We were completely shocked. Out of all the works in the exhibition, we would never have thought that they would pick this one out. We asked for more information about the “serious concerns”, especially because we wanted to know if there was a threat to Mimsy herself. They didn’t give us any more information. They wanted to place blame on the festival or its artists for causing problems, rather than protecting the space for art to show the suffering of people around the world and the lack of freedom to openly discuss it. While we tried to fundraise for our own protection, we were threatened with more works being withdrawn. Art cannot be controlled by the police – not in London, which for hundreds of years is a symbol of democracy and freedom. Not in the creative capital of Europe where artists flock from all over the world.
JF: But in Copenhagen two people lost their lives – you could have lost yours. How do you reconcile the loss of life with the pursuit of freedom?
AK: It is not easy to answer as I am not treating others’ and my own life lightly. Behind each individual there is a unique person, unique life story and to cut it short for the supposedly abstract ideal of free speech and expression might seem reckless. It is not. Again and again we learn how giving concessions to those who want to restrict freedoms of speech allows the darkness not only to enter our home but also our hearts. Not resisting it at early stages causes our societies to change beyond recognition.
I was invited to the Copenhagen event way ahead, so after the Charlie Hebdo attack, the chair got in touch with me to say she would understand in view of the heightened security risk, if I chose not to come. So I thought long and hard about it and said I will have to die someday, and I know I will look back at that this moment and I will remember the choice I made and it will be important.
Passion for Freedom is a very effective tool for assessing how much freedom there is in society. Artists cannot be easily controlled. In their inner core they are idealists. We stand with them giving them space and time to express themselves. Freedom will prevail despite political and corporate pressure to censor and restrict open debate. We are its guardians.
JF: How have the experiences of 2015 impacted on how you approach this year’s exhibition?
AK: The commitment and the conviction are still there. But we are not clear where we stand, because there is no clear definition of what is appropriate or what is inflammatory. It is a shifting ground. In the past, we created the space to fully exhibit work that had been censored elsewhere by a curator or a gallery owner. Now we are in the situation where the state, through the arm of the police, imposes this pre-emptive self-censorship on you. Since the censorship incident, we cannot guarantee artists that they will be able to exhibit/perform during a festival talking about freedom. Over the years there has been a number of artists who requested to be exhibited under pseudonyms (as often their lives are threatened in the UK or back in their home countries). Can we guarantee that the police will not arrest them? Until now, we could guarantee it to them. Since 2015 we are not sure that is the case. My approach is not to have any preconceived idea of how it will go with the police this time. We will still try to be open and have a dialogue in the belief that the police are still there to protect us and it is still a democratic country. I will be honest – we are also treating it as a kind of testing ground. Let’s see if this is still a democratic country or is it just on paper?
The artistic community in the United States and Australia is shocked by the police’s censorious attitude to arts in London. There are groups of people who decided to open Passion for Freedom branch offices in New York and Sydney to ensure that British censorship is being exposed. And in case freedom is completely extinguished in the UK they can continue the important work to give artists the platform to exhibit their works and debate important issues in our societies. And if we discover that there is even less freedom than in 2015, we are considering moving this exhibition to Poland because there is more freedom there. This is on the cards, we are already discussing it.
JF: Do you think Passion for Freedom exhibition represents a security risk?
AK: The way it is being framed in the media it looks like we are troublemakers and we are asking for it. I see it another way – we are representing the majority of society that wants to ask questions, to solve problems and to move forward together. Instead of giving in to a minority that wants to use violence and threats as a way to push forward their own agenda. I think it is in the interests of any society to make sure there is the space for difficult conversations because it moves away from creating the situation where the only way to solve problems is violence. You need to allow people to have this space and art is a wonderful tool to do that, without falling for propaganda, or just favouring one way of looking at things over another. Here you can have different voices, at different volumes, and different issues at play.
JF: The 2015 terror attack in Copenhagen targeted Swedish artist Lars Vilks and those who support him. Why do you think it is important for an artist to be free to deliberately insult and offend people’s religious beliefs?
AK: The world is a much more complex place than the newspaper headlines would like us to believe. Lars Vilks was invited to participate in an art exhibition on the theme “The Dog in Art” that was to be held in the small town of Tällerud in Värmland. Vilks submitted three pen and ink drawings on A4 paper depicting Muhammad as a roundabout dog. At this time, Vilks was already participating with drawings of Muhammad in another exhibition in Vestfossen, Norway, on the theme “Oh, My God”. Vilks has stated that his original intention with the drawings was to “examine the political correctness within the boundaries of the art community”. It is not a secret that Sweden is known for vehemently criticising the United States and Israel, whereas political Islam and its influence on non-Muslim communities are rarely questioned.
Artists practising various forms of art, whether poetry, drama, drawing or film, have been challenging those who hold power for millennia.
Few kings, warlords or dictators allowed criticism or satire of themselves. The blasphemy laws were in place not to protect God but those who claimed to be his only representatives on earth. Nowadays, the same seems to be disguised in the cloak of hurt feelings and delicate egos. Artists are idealistic visionaries. They cannot hold themselves back pretending that they are blind to what is in front of their eyes. Lack of open discussion stifles our development as societies. Fear of reprisal and death cripples the human spirit. Those who cower under the whip hoping to appease and remove the threat are actually risking the fate of a slave and subordinating to dehumanised serfdom their true nature – that of a free man.
JF: Why do you have this passion for freedom?
AK: Behind the Iron Curtain we naively believed that not only was the West this Land of Milk and Honey of material goods, we were also certain that there was freedom here, that people would value and protect it. So moving here, first you discover that everything is not so perfect materially, but then the bigger eye-opener is that there is always someone who wants to take freedom away and if you don’t stand up tall in society this threat is always present. I don’t think you can continue just exercising freedom of speech without appreciating what it has brought to us over the long years when previous generations were fighting for it, and though it is not ideal, the state we are in is much better than it used to be.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”103159″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]
Passion for Freedom Art Festival
10th-anniversary edition, 1 – 12 October 2018, London
The Royal Opera Arcade Gallery & La Galleria Pall Mall
Royal Opera Arcade, 5b Pall Mall, London SW1Y 4UY
The 10th-anniversary edition of internationally renowned Passion for Freedom Art Festival will open in London on 1 – 12 October 2018 at its new location – the Royal Opera Arcade Gallery & La Galleria Pall Mall. The exhibition showcases uncensored art from around the world, promoting human rights, highlighting injustice and celebrating artistic freedom.
Passion for Freedom was founded in 2008 and over the past ten years grew into an international network of artists, journalists, filmmakers and activists striving to celebrate and protect freedom of expression. We have displayed more than 600 artworks from 55 countries, including China, Iran and Venezuela.
The competition attracts much worldwide attention. This year, we received more than 200 submissions out of which we will exhibit over 50 shortlisted artists. From Venezuela to Turkey to the United Kingdom, those artists ceaselessly expose the restraints on freedom of speech, expression, and information in their countries. Altogether, we will display 100 such artworks during the festival. Passion for Freedom covers painting, photography, sculpture, performance, video, as well as authors, filmmakers and journalists.
Competitors will be judged by a prestigious selection panel. Winners will be announced on the 6th of October at the Gala Award Night.
This year’s judges are:
Andrew Stahl (United Kingdom)
Francisco Laranjo (Portugal)
Gary Hill (USA)
Lee Weinberg, PhD (Israel)
Mehdi-Georges Lahlou (Belgium)
Miriam Elia (United Kingdom)
Mychael Barratt PRE (Canada/United Kingdom)
This year we are thrilled to announce a Special Theo Van Gogh Award awarded in honour of his courage and contributions to freedom of expression.
Furthermore, we have invited a select group of special guest artists to display their latest works.
Passion for Freedom 2018 Guest Artists are:
Agata Strzalka (Poland)
Andreea Medar (Romania)
Emma Elliott (United Kingdom)
Jana Zimova (Czech Republic/Germany)
Mimsy (United Kingdom)
Öncü Hrant Gültekin (Turkey/Germany)
Oscar Olivares (Venezuela)
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03 Oct 18 | Event Reports, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”103062″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]“Critical thinking is important, but we should also be teaching scientific literacy and political literacy so we know what knowledge claims to trust,” said Keith Kahn-Harris, author of Denial: The Unspeakable Truth, at a panel debate during the launch of the autumn 2018 edition of Index on Censorship.
The theme of this quarter’s magazine, The Age of Unreason, looks at censorship in scientific research and whether our emotions are blurring the lines between fact and fiction. From Mexico to Turkey, Hungary to China, a whole range of countries from around the globe were covered for this special report, featuring articles from the likes of Julian Baggini and David Ulin. For the launch, a selection of journalists, authors and academics shared their thoughts on how to have better arguments when emotions are high, while exploring concerns surrounding science and censorship in the current global climate.
Aptly taking place at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the historical home of scientific research for 14 Nobel Prize winners, Kahn-Harris was joined by BBC Radio 4 presenter Timandra Harkness and New Scientist writer Graham Lawton. The discussion was chaired by Rachael Jolley, editor of Index on Censorship magazine.
“Academics and experts are being undermined all over the world,” said Jolley, setting the stage for a riveting conversation between panellists and the audience. “Is this something new or something that has happened throughout history?”
When Jolley asked why science is often the first target of an authoritarian government, Lawton proposed that the value of science is that it is evidence-based and subsequently “kryptonite” to what rigid establishments want to portray. He added: “They depend extremely heavily on telling people half-truths or lies.”[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”103066″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Harkness led a workshop highlighting the importance of applying critical thinking skills when deconstructing arguments, using footage of real-life debates, past and present, to investigate such ideas. Whether it was the first televised contest between presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960, or a dispute between Indian civilians over LGBT rights earlier this year, a wide variety of topics and discussions were analysed.
Examining a debate between 2016 presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton, Harkness asked an audience member his thoughts. Focusing on Trump’s approach, he said: “He’s put up a totally false premise which is quite a conventional tactic; you put up something that is not what the other person said, and then you proceed to knock it down quite reasonably because it’s unreasonable in the first place.” Harkness agreed. “It’s the straw man tactic”, she said, “where you build something up and then attack it.”
Panellists began discussing how to argue with say those who deny climate change, with Kahn-Harris contending that science has become enormously specialised over the past centuries, which means people cannot always debunk uncertain claims since they are not specialists. He said: “There’s something tremendously smug about the post-enlightenment world.”
Harkness said “robust challenges” should be sought-after rather than silencing those who share different views, while Lawton added that “storytelling and appealing to emotions are perfectly valid ways of arguing.”
For more information on the autumn issue, click here. The issue includes an article on how fact and fiction come together in the age of unreason, why Indian journalism is under threat, Nobel prize-winning novelist Herta Müller on censorship in Romania, and an exclusive short story from bestselling crime writer Ian Rankin. Listen to our podcast here. Or, try our quiz that decides how prone to bullshit you are…[/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1538584887174-432e9410-24f0-4″ taxonomies=”8957″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
02 Oct 18 | Event Reports, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”103055″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]When Sunny Singh was writing her last novel, “Hotel Arcadia,” featuring an Indian protagonist caught in a terrorist siege, she received a response from a publisher she didn’t expect: “We already have our female war correspondent novel of the year.” They didn’t need another one.
“I didn’t know there was a category for female war correspondent novels, but there you go,” she said.
The crowd laughed at the anecdote, but within the tale was a serious problem — the self-censorship of the publishing industry.
On Friday evening, Banned Books Week UK held a panel discussion on the ways the publishing industry systemically silences voices from marginalised groups, and how to resist this unofficial censorship.
The panel was hosted by Index on Censorship, Media Diversified, Author’s Club, and Jhalak Prize — a literary award for book of the year by a writer of colour. It featured Singh, Sarah Shaffi, literary editor and journalist, Catherine Johnson, author and Jhalak Prize inaugural judge, and Jamilah Ahmed, author and literary agent.
The talk focused on the point of books that don’t have the privilege of being banned, whose ideas aren’t allowed to make it to that stage.
“What we’re banning is experiences and voices,” Shaffi said. “Essentially what we’re doing is we’re not letting voices come to the fore.”
The panel called it “soft censorship,” the ways in which the industry bans books from marginalized and minority groups through subtle, structural methods.
This is particularly harmful to children of colour, who only see stories revolving around white children and grow up thinking that only white children are in books, Shaffi said. Singh, who teaches creative writing at the university level, said that she still has trouble getting her students to write about someone not named Mary.
But the panel was quick to point out that the problem is not with the writers, but the industry, which often only wants one version of a minority story — as with Singh’s “Hotel Arcadia” — and doesn’t want to work harder to sell a book they don’t already know how to sell.
This manifests in book covers — novels set in Africa always showing an elephant or a sunset, or novels set in India always showing a woman in a sari. Publishers often only want to depict a certain type of narrative of a place, because they know that story will make money. Singh had this problem with “Hotel Arcadia,” with a publisher finally telling her that if she went along with one of the stereotypical covers, the book would sell better.
Singh resisted, but many writers fall into the trap. Johnson said some writers will modify themselves and their stories to get published.
It’s also a privilege to write, and not everyone has the time to spend on writing, especially with no guarantee their work will get published or make any money.
“By the time you’ve got that book submitted, who’s going to publish that book, and is that book going to be worthy? Are the publishers going to put money so that it’s in the window in Waterstones?,” Johnson said. “And that’s a journey.”
It’s not a journey everyone is willing to take, especially when structural disadvantages make it more difficult for minority authors to get published.
Even book awards require fees, which act as a barrier. Publishers will only put that money down for stories they know will sell, which probably won’t be books from marginalized groups. So the books that become critically acclaimed are often already the ones that had that advantage.
The situation isn’t all bleak. Smaller, independent publishers are often better at seeking out lesser known voices, and sometimes reviewers can specifically request books by people of colour, LGBTQ folks and those with disabilities.
It’s also up to the readers, who Johnson said must be confident and interested enough to seek these marginalized stories out.
“We need to have a culture of informed and active readers,” she said.[/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1538410490886-c1058b9e-6953-1″ taxonomies=”8957″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
