1 Oct 2019 | Campaigns -- Featured, Middle East and North Africa, Statements
Saudi journalist, Global Opinions columnist for the Washington Post, and former editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel Jamal Khashoggi offers remarks during POMED’s “Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia: A Deeper Look”. March 21, 2018, Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), Washington, DC.
Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October, 2018, to obtain official documents in order to get married, but he did not make it out alive. He was brutally killed inside the consulate in what the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Agnes Callamard, called a “premeditated extrajudicial killing” for which the state of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is responsible.
Khashoggi was a well-known Saudi journalist and intellectual who, due to safety concerns and the inability to continue his work inside Saudi Arabia, decided to live in self-imposed exile in the United States. He was a firm promoter of freedom of speech and press freedom in the Arab world.
While he was no outright opponent of the Saudi royal family and did not call for regime change in the country, he criticised the arrest of human rights defenders and the reform plans of the crown prince. This alone may have been enough to seal his fate.
After more than two weeks of deception and denial about his death, on 19 October 2018 the Saudi authorities admitted that Khashoggi had been killed inside the consulate by a group of men connected to the authorities, but continued to deny any direct knowledge or responsibility for the crime. One year after his murder, the remains of Khashoggi’s body are still missing and have not been returned to his family.
The Saudi authorities implicated 11 individuals responsible for Khashoggi’s killing, some of whom face the death penalty. They are currently being tried in the Specialised Criminal Court, a jurisdiction notorious for violations of fair trial guarantees. The trial proceedings remain in large part secret, and criminal responsibility in the chain of command has not yet been established.
Khashoggi’s death sparked outrage and was widely condemned. In the days and weeks following his killing, the international community began to ask questions and to demand clarity. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued several press releases, while the UN Special Procedures on enforced disappearance, summary executions and freedom of expression issued a joint Urgent Appeal. Moreover, the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, stressed the need for a prompt, thorough and transparent investigation into the circumstances of Khashoggi’s death and full accountability for those responsible.
On 24 October 2018, the EU Parliament issued a resolution urging the Saudi authorities to disclose the whereabouts of Khashoggi’s remains. In addition to demanding an independent and impartial international investigation into the journalist’s death, the resolution also classified it as being part of a pattern of a widespread crackdown against prominent human rights defenders, women activists, lawyers, journalists, writers and bloggers, which has intensified since Mohammad bin Salman began consolidating control over the country’s security institutions.
It stated that the systematic practice of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings could amount to a crime against humanity. Lastly, it requested that the perpetrators of Khashoggi’s murder be identified and brought to justice, following a fair trial held in accordance with international standards before an impartial court and with international observers present.
On 5 November 2018, Saudi Arabia’s human rights record was examined by UN Member States as part of the third cycle of the Universal Periodic Review. The killing of Khashoggi was raised extensively during the review and featured heavily among the 258 recommendations the Saudi authorities received to improve the human rights situation in the country. At least 27 states raised concerns about Khashoggi’s extrajudicial killing, with many reiterating the need for a transparent, impartial, independent and effective investigation.
In January 2019, Callamard decided on her own initiative and under the terms of her mandate as UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions to open a special human rights investigation into Khashoggi’s killing.
On 7 March 2019, in a landmark initiative, a group of 36 UN Member States led by Iceland delivered a joint statement during the 40th session of the Human Rights Council expressing serious concern over the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia and condemning in the strongest possible terms the killing of Khashoggi. The statement reiterated the call for a prompt, independent, impartial and transparent investigation into his murder and stressed the need to protect journalists and to uphold the right to freedom of expression.
During the 41st session of the HRC, on 19 June 2019, Callamard presented her report, which concluded that the murder of Khashoggi was “overseen, planned and endorsed by high-level state officials of Saudi Arabia”. The Special Rapporteur found that both the investigations conducted by Saudi Arabia and Turkey failed to meet international standards and that the ongoing trial in Saudi Arabia of 11 suspects, while seemingly an important step towards accountability, also fails to meet international fair trial standards.
Callamard believes that the killing of Khashoggi constitutes an international crime over which states should claim universal jurisdiction. Asserting that her human rights inquiry is not a substitute for a criminal investigation or a court of law, the UN Special Rapporteur called on the Human Rights Council, the Security Council or the UN Secretary-General to demand a follow-up criminal investigation.
Most recently, on 23 September 2019, during the 42nd session of the HRC, Australia delivered a joint statement on behalf of 23 UN member states raising concerns over the persecution and intimidation of activists, the practice of enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention, and reports of torture and unfair trials as well as extrajudicial executions.
Furthermore, the statement called for an end to impunity over the murder of Khashoggi and highlighted the need for the truth to be established and accountability achieved. We deeply regret that a number of states that had joined the March 2019 statement have now decided to no longer support this immediate call for action. We would like to highlight that states still have the possibility to become co-signatories until 11 October 2019.
Additionally, during the course of the past year and as a response to Khashoggi’s murder as well as the war in Yemen, some governments have suspended weapon sales to Saudi Arabia.
While we welcome the appeals, pledges and measures taken by some states over the past year and consider them as steps in the right direction towards accountability for the murder of Khashoggi, more tangible actions must follow. There is an undeniable risk that with big events scheduled to take place in Saudi Arabia in 2020, such as the G20 summit and the famous Dakar Rally, state-to-state relations could normalise. We cannot stand by and allow the return of business as usual as this would mean that Khashoggi died in vain and that there is little hope for hundreds of other unlawfully disappeared, detained, tortured or executed activists whose cases failed to attract similar levels of international attention.
As Callamard rightly said during a side event at the 42nd session of the HRC: “While one year must feel like a lifetime to Khashoggi’s family and friends, in human justice time and the search for truth it is very brief. Thus we should not lose sight of what we are trying to achieve; we should not lose hope and courage that justice can be attained.”
In that spirit, the undersigned organisations renew their call for action, demanding the following:
We call on the international community, and in particular the UN, to:
- Take action to ensure that a further impartial, prompt, thorough, independent and effective criminal investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is opened;
- Ensure that all perpetrators of the crime, including those at the head of the chain of command, are identified and prosecuted in a fair and transparent trial without recourse to the death penalty;
- Establish an immediate moratorium on all arms sales and exports of surveillance technology to Saudi Arabia;
- Co-sign the joint statement led by Australia on behalf of 23 UN Member States by 11 October;
- Introduce and endorse a UN resolution establishing a monitoring mechanism over the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia; and
- Urge the authorities in Saudi Arabia to implement the recommendations below.
We call on the authorities in Saudi Arabia to:
- Return the remains of Khashoggi’s body to his family;
- Invite independent international experts to oversee investigations into his murder; cooperate in good faith with all UN mechanisms; and ensure that those responsible for his death are brought to justice;
- Immediately and unconditionally release all human rights defenders, writers, journalists and prisoners of conscience in Saudi Arabia whose detention is a result of their peaceful and legitimate work in the promotion and protection of fundamental human rights;
- Establish a moratorium on the death penalty, including as punishment for crimes related to the exercise of the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, and peaceful assembly;
- Guarantee in all circumstances that all human rights defenders and journalists in Saudi Arabia are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities and public reporting without fear of reprisals; and
- Ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and bring all national laws limiting the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association into compliance with international human rights standards.
List of signatories:
ALQST
Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain
Amnesty International
Article 19
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy
CIVICUS
English PEN
European Center for Democracy and Human Rights
European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights
Gulf Center for Human Rights
IFEX
Index on Censorship
International Service for Human Rights
MENA Rights Group
No Peace Without Justice
PEN America
Rights Realisation Centre
Vigilance for Democracy and the Civic State
World Organisation Against Torture
24 Jul 2019 | Event Reports, News and features
Its towering pine trees illuminated in green and purple, fairy lights twinkling in the treetops, the Faraway Forest teemed with groups of storytellers who had congregated to share grisly tales of love and adventure. Though it may have seemed so to attendees, Index on Censorship’s Forest Folktales: Uncensored did not take place in a mystical fairyland, but rather at this year’s Latitude Festival, an annual event that brings together visual artists, musicians, dancers, poets, comedians, and chefs in the picturesque woods of Henham Park, in Suffolk.
Since 2006, Latitude festival has hosted some of the world’s most famous musicians and artists, along with obscure and up-and-coming creatives. Its stages have boasted names ranging from the Killers to alt-J to Mumford and Sons. This year, Latitude was held from 18 to 21 July. It comprised nine music venues of different sizes; nine different performance arenas for a variety of theatrical, comedic, and artistic performances (including the Faraway Forest); and a multitude of diverse food and drink options.
Forest Folktales: Uncensored, Index’s contribution to the festival, was staged over three days. Folktales, folk music, and other oral history traditions are essential for passing cultural heritage onto future generations. Yet over the years, many folktales have been censored or revised to be age appropriate for younger audiences. The original folktales — which are often gory and sexual — erode over time. In staging performances of uncensored folk tales in all their subversive glory, Index hopes to resist centuries of editorial censorship and honour the cultures that live on in the performance of folktales and folk songs.
On Friday, 19 July, Index hosted Jade Cuttle, Scarlett Curtis, and Jemima Foxtrot. Cuttle is a poet, writer, and singer songwriter, and is currently deputy editor of poetry at Ambit magazine. She read aloud two folktales: The Dauntless girl, an English folktale about a fearless young girl’s inadvertent murder of a gravedigger, and Tailypo, a North American folktale about an old man’s demise at the hands of a demonic creature whose tail he has eaten.
Curtis is a writer and blogger, most known for editing the award-winning collection of essays, Feminists Don’t Wear Pink and other lies. She read exerpts of two stories from The Bloody Chamber by the English feminist author Angela Carter, the Snow Child and Bluebeard, which deal with gender violence and sexuality in a classic folktale style. The Snow Child tells of a girl who is magically conjured in the image of a Count’s ideal woman, who is then tricked by the Count’s wife into pricking her finger on a rosebush. Bluebeard tells of young wife who, upon being forbidden by her absent husband from exploring one room in his castle, finds that the room contains torture instruments and the embalmed corpse of his previous wife.
Foxtrot, a writer and performance artist, is also director of the theater group Unruly Mess. She closed out the evening with a folktale and folk song: the Irish song Weila Weila, popularised by the Dubliners, which tells the story of a mother who is hanged for murdering her baby with a penknife; and the Welsh story the Erl-King, which tells of a father whose young son is killed by a supernatural being only his son can see.
The second night of Forest Folktales: Uncensored, Saturday, 20 July, saw the return of Foxtrot, again performing Weila Weila, as well as Angela Carter’s story The Werewolf, about a child who, upon being attacked by a wolf, slices off the wolf’s paw — only to discover that the paw has transformed into the hand of her beloved grandmother. She was joined by Max Porter, a novelist and the former editorial director of Granta and Portobello Books, and the poet Zaffar Kunial. Porter performed the Dauntless Girl and Tailypo, and Kunial performed Carter’s the Snow Child.
On the final evening, Sunday, 21 July, Index’s own Helen Galliano and Anna Millward performed various uncensored folk tales, including a special Icelandic fairy tale translated by Millward, concluding the weekend.
15 Jul 2019 | News and features, Press Releases
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”107818″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship, the campaigning free-speech nonprofit, is excited to be mounting its Forest Folktales at Latitude Festival 19-21 July in Henham Park, Southwold, Suffolk.
As dusk falls and the witching hour approaches, gather in the Faraway Forest for sordid, uncensored folktales as you have never heard them before: Gryla the mountain-troll in Iceland who eats naughty children and killed her first husband, Rapunzel’s sordid late-night tumbles with her prince or Cinderella’s step-sisters chopping off their own toes. Folk stories from around the world have been censored and edited by collectors for years in a bid to remove “taboo” material
Join Index on Censorship for this late-night edition of folktales for grown ups in all their forbidden, filthy and uncensored glory with readers including Scarlett Curtis, Max Porter, Jade Cuttle and Jemima Foxtrot.
See the full line-up here: https://www.latitudefestival.com/whats-on/
– ENDS –
Listings Info:
All talks and performances take place in the Faraway Forest 19-21 July.
- Performing on Friday night at 8:30pm at the Tree of Life:
- Jade Cuttle, Scarlett Curtis, Jemima Foxtrot + Index on Censorship storytellers
- Performing on the Saturday night at 8:30pm at the Tree of Life:
- Max Porter, Jemima Foxtrot + Index on Censorship storytellers
- Performing on Sunday at 5pm at the Clearing: Index on Censorship storytellers
For more information:
INDEX ON CENSORSHIP
Sean Gallagher [email protected]
Notes for Editors:
Index on Censorship is a non-profit organisation that defends free expression and fights censorship of artists, writers, journalists and campaigners worldwide through advocacy, events and an award-winning quarterly magazine. Index believes that everyone has the right to free expression – no matter what their views. Index on Censorship has published some of the greatest names in literature including Samuel Beckett, Nadine Gordimer, Mario Vargas Llosa, Arthur Miller and Kurt Vonnegut. Patrons include Margaret Atwood, Simon Callow and Steeve Coogan.
Website: www.indexoncensorship.org
Twitter: @IndexCensorship
Latitude Festival is an annual music festival that takes place in Henham Park, near Southwold, Suffolk, England. It was first held in July 2006. Immerse yourself in all of the magical areas coming to Latitude Festival this summer. Not only can you delight your ears with music from across the genres at one of our seven music stages, you can also embark on a cultural safari across the arts taking in comedy, theatre, dance and more, have fun for all of the family in our kids, teens and family area, and care for your wellbeing with pamper sessions and outdoor swimming. Whatever your passion there’s something for everyone in Henham Park.
Website: https://www.latitudefestival.com/
Twitter: @LatitudeFest
Performers
Scarlett Curtis is a writer, journalist, and blogger. She is the curator of the Sunday Times Bestseller and National Book Award winning Feminists Don’t Wear Pink & other lies; a collection of essays by 52 women on what feminism means to them, published by Penguin in 2018. She is contributing editor at The Sunday Times Style and has had work published in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Times and Vogue. In 2017 Scarlett co-founded The Pink Protest; a feminist activist collective committed to helping young people take action online and IRL. To date they have been a part of campaigns that have changed two laws; a bill to help end period poverty and a bill to get FGM into the Children’s Act.
In 2014 she worked for 18 months as social media director of the UN’s campaign ‘The Global Goals’ and is a passionate activist. From 2017 – 2018 she wrote a weekly column for The Sunday Times Style newspaper titled The Generation Z Hit List.
Follow Scarlett Curtis on Twitter at @scarcurtis and Instagram at @pinkprotest and @scarcurtis.
Jade Cuttle is a poet, writer, and folk singer-songwriter. She is currently deputy poetry editor at Ambit Magazine and is completing her MA in Creative Writing (Poetry) at the University of East Anglia. In addition to performing her poetry across multiple BBC platforms and writing for BBC podcasts, Jade has been awarded with numerous awards. Her poem ‘Miracle of Mould’ for BBC Radio 3 was written for End Hunger UK in order to raise awareness about food insecurity.
In 2017, she also released her debut album of poem-songs ‘Leaves and Lovers’, which focuses on the resilience and quiet wisdom of nature. Her second album is set to be released this year. Her passion for nature has also led to her leading nature-focused workshops with the public and with schoolchildren, most notably her Poetry of Trees workshop.
You can follow her on Twitter at @JadeCuttle and on Instagram at @jadecuttle.
Jemima Foxtrot is a writer, theatre-maker, performer, and musician. Her first collection of poetry, All Damn Day, was published in 2016, and she is currently touring three original theatre pieces: Kiss Me, Help! I hate you, Above the Mealy-Mouthed Sea, and Rear View. In the past, she was commissioned by the Tate Britain, the BBC, the Tate Modern, Latitude Festival, and more.
Mirror, her feminist poem-turned-film focusing on self-acceptance, was commissioned by BBC Arts as part of their Women who Spit series. Jemima is also a founding member of Unholy Mess, a theatre company that aims to tell important stories of human experience that are often overlooked or under-represented in art. Unholy Mess draws on performance poetry, live singing and physical theatre and tours internationally.
Follow Jemima on Twitter at @jemimafoxtrot and on Instagram at @jemima.foxtrot
In 2015, Max Porter published his first book, Grief is the Thing with Feathers, which British Council Literature called “one of the eeriest, most exuberant and rapturously received fictional debuts in recent British writing”. Porter himself called it “a multi-voice fable … a short book which moves between prose, poetry, play script, fairytale and essay”, and the book captured “the domestic tenderness of single fatherhood and the way that literature helps us cope with life” by mixing “dark comedy and poignant beauty”. Porter draws on his own experience of parental loss for his book.
Porter is based in London, where he is the editorial director of Granta and Portobello Books. [/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1563188427946-203d2eec-312c-0″ taxonomies=”5692″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
4 Jul 2019 | Events
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”107818″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]As dusk falls and the witching hour approaches, gather in the Faraway Forest for sordid, uncensored folk tales as you have never heard them before: Gryla the mountain-troll in Iceland who eats naughty children and killed her first husband, Rapunzel’s sordid late-night tumbles with her prince or Cinderella’s step-sisters chopping off their own toes. Folk stories from around the world have been censored and edited by collectors for years in a bid to remove “taboo” material
Join Index on Censorship for this late-night edition of folktales for grown ups in all their forbidden, filthy and uncensored glory with readers including Scarlett Curtis, Max Porter and Jade Cuttle.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]
When: Friday 19 July to Sunday 21 July, various times
Where: Latitude Festival
Tickets: Weekend passes via Latitude
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