16 Jul 13 | Africa
A public campaign has been launched to protect fragile manuscripts rescued from Timbuktu during the Mali crisis earlier this year. Sara Yasin reports
The campaign, called “Libraries in Exile”, is raising money for protection and storage for the documents. They are now threatened by moisture damage, thanks to inadequate storage and a change in humidity. The campaign will use donations to reverse existing damage, and to purchase moisture traps and archival boxes. Many of the texts were transferred to Bamako, the country’s southern capital.
The ancient religious texts, some dating back 700 years, were initially thought to have been destroyed by rebels belonging to radical Islamist group Ansar Dine. At least 4,200 documents were damaged by either looting or arson during the crisis, but approximately 300,000 documents were saved.
A UN mission was sent to Mali to assess the damage, from 28 May to 3 June 2013. A programme specialist in UNESCO’s cultural section, David Stehl, told the Associated Press that “4,203 manuscripts were either burned by the Islamists or stolen.”
Most of the manuscripts were housed at the Ahmed Baba Institute, a state-owned library that became Ansar Dine’s headquarters when they captured Timbuktu in March 2012. While they initially did not know the value of the manuscripts, they eventually went looking for them. One of the institute’s employees, Alkamiss Cisse told the Washington Post that once the jihadists “heard of the manuscripts’ importance to the world, they would destroy them.”
In June 2012, fighters from Ansar Dine began destroying Timbuktu’s historic shrines and tombs for being “idolatrous.”
Timbuktu is a UNESCO world heritage site. The organisation listed it as “endangered” following Ansar Dine’s takeover of Mali’s government in March. Shortly before the fighters began destroying the shrines, UNESCO warned that the Ansar Dine’s presence might endanger the city’s “outstanding architectural wonders”.
Timbuktu Deputy Mayor Sandy Haidara told Reuters at the time that the attack was “a direct reaction to the UNESCO decision.”
A team of librarians and archivists risked their lives to smuggle the documents out of Timbuktu. The manuscripts, hailing from centres of medieval learning in Timbuktu, Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Andalusia and Southern Europe, and the Arab trading ports on the Indian Ocean. Timbuktu was once a lively trading hub, and was key to Islam’s spread in West Africa.
Sara Yasin is an Editorial Assistant at Index. She tweets from @missyasin
15 Jul 13 | Burma
Fifty years of authoritarian rule has left its mark on Burmese society affecting the speed and process of transition.
This chapter will explore the political landscape and its potential effect on freedom of expression, the current impact of the government, constitution and judiciary on freedom of expression. Following this the chapter will explore how the ongoing ethnic conflict has impacted upon free speech and how recent developments in the right to freedom of association have affected the ability to protest in Burma.
It is unclear whether the transition to a functioning democracy based on the rule of law and human rights will be completed, or whether the transition will remain incomplete: this will have the largest impact on freedom of expression in Burma in the near-future.
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15 Jul 13 | Burma
It will be argued in this chapter that the media in Burma is freer now than at any point in the last decade, yet significant challenges remain and there are troubling signs on the horizon.
The abolition of the pre-censorship of the printed press, the return of daily newspapers and of formerly exiled independent newspapers and media outlets all point to demonstrable change since the beginning of the transition. It is also a better climate for journalists with the release of a number of journalists from jail during the transition.
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12 Jul 13 | Digital Freedom
Whatever happens to the NSA whistleblower, the repercussions of his actions will endure
Edward Snowden placards at a protest in Berlin (David von Blohn/Demotix)
This is a guest post by Daniel Keane
Edward Snowden’s leaks have exposed an ideological chasm between the partisans of free information and liberty and the guardians of state security. They have also asked demanding questions of the public at large: when does intelligence gathering become an unwarranted intrusion into private lives? Is the first responsibility of an intelligence agent to the country he serves or to a — self defined — greater good? Can we have a free society without people who do dirty work like spying on our emails?
Public reaction in the polls remains mixed, with a Huffington Post/YouGov’s poll this week finding that 38 per cent of Americans believe Snowden did the wrong thing, while 33 per cent believing the contrary. However a survey released by Quinnipiac showed that 55 per cent of Americans believed Snowden was a whistle blower rather than a traitor.
Snowden also denied in interviews published that he gave any information to the Russian or Chinese governments while in transit there. Allegations of leaking information to these authorities arose from the New York Times, which claimed China had ‘drained the contents of Snowden’s laptops’. Snowden claimed he “never gave any information to either government.”
Snowden also declared in an interview given before he left his home in Hawaii with German newspaper ‘Der Spiegel’ that the NSA is “in bed together with the Germans the same as with most other Western countries” and that the USA and Israel co-wrote Stuxnet, the malicious computer virus utilised against an Iranian nuclear site.
These revelations made by Snowden come as a shock to the public consciousness and this is certainly reflected in the activities of pressure groups in the US and the UK. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, based in Washington DC, has filed an emergency petition to the US Supreme Court in order to halt the NSA’s logging of the nation’s telephone records.
Meanwhile in the UK, human rights group Liberty has filed a claim to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal against the British Intelligence Services for their role in the PRISM or Tempora surveillance programmes. It remains to be seen, however, whether both of these attempts to halt or impair mass surveillance will be successful: the US Supreme Court is unlikely to do away with a programme seen as vital to domestic security, while the IPT makes its decisions in private leaving any reform in Britain largely improbable.
If he reaches asylum, possibly in Nicaragua, Venezuela or Bolivia, Snowden could continue to leak crucial information regarding the NSA. The Obama administration finds itself in a crisis should he evade extradition: the inevitable slew of secrets weakening their international credentials.
Furthermore as Snowden reveals more regarding the collaboration of the US with Western European states, countries like Britain and France face a public dilemma as we learn more about the undermining of our personal liberties. These governments risk being whisked into undesirable public debate regarding the legitimacy of organisations such as GCHQ.
Even if Snowden returned to America to face trial the issue would not disappear. People will want to hear what he will say in court.
Many governments probably wish Edward Snowden was condemned to perpetual Limbo in Sheremetyevo Airport. But whatever happens, the repercussions of his actions are sure to endure for a long time as the debate between liberty and security rages ever on.
