As Google, Yahoo and Microsoft sign up to a ground-breaking code of conduct, will this change the way they do business with repressive regimes? Leslie Harris, who was a key player in forging the agreement, explains what it means for free speech.
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The independent Tunisian online magazine Kalima has suffered an attack that has completely destroyed its web content, and in a separate but related incident, its editor has been abused by police in the street.
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Index on Censorship runs a programme of UK based and international projects that put the organisation’s philosophy into practice. Its long history and years of experience inform work in some of the worlds most complex and dangerous regions, making Index more accessible, relevant and authoritative on the issues than most media and think tanks. The projects exemplify the power of partnerships, where Index takes a proactive role in providing resources needed to facilitate and sustain them. We work with regional grass roots organisations where the combined resources of our network of leading thinkers, practitioners, artists and activists and local knowledge ensure that research, facilitation and advocacy programmes are appropriate, relevant and productive. In addition Index extends the free expression advocacy agenda to include censorship and self-censorship in the independent arts and cultural sectors as well as the media.
This year the work of the international programme takes us to Tunisia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Burma in support of journalists, broadcasters, artists and writers who are struggling to continue their work against a backdrop of intimidation, repression, and censorship. We are working with IFEX, in particular Tunisia Monitoring Group, WAN, Norwegian PEN as well as in-country delivery partners. We are working with Burmese exiled artists and publishers to support the collective efforts of Burma’s creative community and working with UNDP to support journalists in Iraq reporting on the forthcoming elections.
The UK programmes investigate the impact of current and recetn social and political change on freedom of expression, in particular as it affects the whole gamut of arts practitioners by assessing the degree and depth of self-censorship. A research and development grant from Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust is funding this work. In addition, Index is devising a youth-led outreach programme in partnership with Project Phakama, UK Youth Parliament and LIVE Magazine to bring the voices of young people directly into the freedom of expression debate.
Index on Censorship works internationally to support the creation of new work, not only articles for print and online, but also new photography, film & video, visual arts and performance –– using the act of free expression to defend the right to free expression itself. This includes a European exhibition of Open Shutters, photostories produced by women in Iraq); imagine art after working with artists from refugee and migrant communities in UK, linking them to artists from their country of origin — new commissions exhibited at Tate Britain in 2007; commissioning a new play by Actors for Human Rights — Burma Monologues; and a book of poetry by homeless people in London and St Petersburg.
A Tunisian comic may have paid a high price for making fun of the country’s leader, writes Rohan Jayasekera
Index on Censorship is calling for the release of Tunisian comedian Hédi Ouled Baballah, who has been jailed on the basis of suspect evidence, apparently in punishment for mimicking the country’s president.
The trigger seems to have been a private recording (available here) of comedian Hédi Ouled Baballah’s satirical imitation of Tunisian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali that has spread across the country by mobile phone.
Index on Censorship, together with fellow members of the Tunisian Monitoring Group (TMG) of international free speech groups, believes that Ouled Baballah was targeted by police and framed for drugs and currency charges as punishment for the popular satire.