5 Jun 2008 | About Index
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.
21 Feb 2008 | Comment, Middle East and North Africa
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.
(more…)
12 Feb 2008 | News and features
Danish police today arrested three people allegedly plotting to murder cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
(more…)
26 Jul 2007 | Statements
Jailed Tunisian dissident, writer and lawyer Mohamed Abbou was released from prison in Le Kef, where he had been held since his arrest in March 2005. He was sentenced to prison for three-and-a-half years for exposing torture in Tunisian prisons on the Internet. His release and that of more than 20 other political prisoners came on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Proclamation of the Republic of Tunisia, marked on 25 July.
It led to speculation that the release of the country’s highest profile domestic critic was timed simply to prevent the case from spoiling the international response to the independence celebrations.
Index on Censorship and other members of the International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX) Tunisian Monitoring Group (TMG) have long campaigned for his release – including trying to visit him in prison in March.
Index chief executive Henderson Mullin urged the Tunisian authorities to cease the kind of aggressive and intimidating surveillance that Abbou’s wife Samia has endured since he was jailed in 2005.
‘Policemen have been climbing over the Abbou family balconies in the middle of the night, repeatedly, purely to terrorise them,’ said Mullin. ‘Police officers often harassed Mrs Abbou and the friends who accompany her for weekly visits with her husband at Kef prison, and they only let up when representatives of Index and other TMG members were watching in person.
‘It would be a disgrace if this kind of aggressive harassment is allowed to continue now Mr Abbou is free. He must be allowed to express his opinions freely.’
TMG Chair Carl Morten Iversen of Norwegian PEN assured Abbou that the TMG and other human rights groups will keep a close eye on the way Tunisian authorities will treat him and his family in the future. Tunisia’s repression of free expression is seen by many as the sole stain on the country’s otherwise tolerant and peaceful system. Increasingly its poor free speech record has become an issue that obstructs Tunisia’s routine relations with the EU and France.
Significantly, new French president Nicolas Sarkozy had raised Abbou’s case in meetings with Tunisian head of state Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali the week before.
Abbou told al Jazeera TV on the day of his release: ‘As a former prisoner of conscience, I would like to thank all those in Tunisia and the rest of the world who stood by my side during the ordeal I have been through. My release is the result of actions of resistance to oppression undertaken by Tunisians capable of saying no to a regime in violation of basic human rights. The Tunisian Constitution and international human rights law guarantee the right to criticise the government, as long as there are human rights abuses and corruption.’
But he added: ‘The lack of freedom led some young people to use violence which I strongly denounce.’
Abbou was jailed for three-and-a-half-years for posting an article on the Tunisnews website in August 2004 comparing the torture of political prisoners in Tunisia to that perpetrated by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. But observers at his trial suspected the sentence was imposed in response to a different article he had posted online a few days before his arrest, in which he criticised an invitation to Israeli leader Ariel Sharon to attend a UN summit in Tunis.
The IFEX-TMG continues to call on the Tunisian authorities to allow writers, journalists, web loggers and publishers to express themselves freely without fear of persecution or imprisonment in accordance with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Tunisia is a signatory.
(more…)
