17 Sep 20 | News and features
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Mehdi Rajabian is once again facing imprisonment. His crime? Including women’s voices in his music.
Rajabian is a musician in Iran, where women’s behaviour and expression – including their ability to sing in public or record their songs – is severely limited by the regime. But Rajabian has been determined to defy the authorities’ efforts to intimidate him, repress his art, and silence women’s voices. “I need female singing in my project,” Rajabian told Index on Censorship from his home in the northern city of Sari. “I do not censor myself.”
In August, Rajabian was summoned by the security police, who arrested him and took him to court. He was handcuffed and brought in front of a judge, who told him that the inclusion of women’s voices in his project “encouraged prostitution”. Rajabian was held in a prison cell for several hours but was able to post bail with the help of his family. He remains on probation and banned from producing music.
It is not the first time that the 30-year-old has faced imprisonment for his art. He spent three months blindfolded in solitary confinement in 2013, and was subsequently sentenced to six years in prison. He was released at the end of 2017 after undertaking a 40-day hunger strike. “I was completely sick after the hunger strike,” he explained. “When a prisoner goes on hunger strike, it indicates that he is preparing to fight with his life, that is, he has reached the finish line.”
After his release, Rajabian continued to make music and last year his album Middle Eastern was brought out by Sony Music. Every track on the album, which features more than 100 artists from across the Middle East, is accompanied by a painting by Kurdish artist and Index on Censorship award-winner Zehra Doğan.
But now Rajabian says that the pressure on him has become so great that it is extremely difficult for him to be able to collaborate with other musicians and to finish his next album. In August, a music journalist was arrested and detained in Evin Prison for several days after mentioning women’s music and referring to Rajabian in an article.
“Artists and ordinary people [in Iran] are all afraid to even talk to me,” he says. “I have been completely alone at home for years. Coronavirus days are normal for me.”
At home alone, he reads, watches films, and listens to music by John Barry. “I am currently reading Alba de Céspedes y Bertini’s books,” he told Index. But he spends most of his time reading philosophy. He believes that his interest in philosophy is one of the reasons why his music has been so targeted by the regime.
“The Iranian regime is not afraid of the music itself, it is afraid of the philosophy and message of music,” Rajabian explains. “Artists who do not have philosophy in their art are never under pressure.”
What does Rajabian believe the future has in store for him? “You can’t predict anything here. I am ready for any event and reaction,” he says. “But I still believe that we must fight and stand up”.
“I will continue to work, even if I return to prison,” he says. “I know that there is a prison sentence and torture for me, but I will definitely complete and publish [the album]. In Iran, making music is difficult for me because of the bans, but I have to make it.”
“Encourage banned artists,” Rajabian concludes. “They are not encouraged in their own countries. Be their voice.”
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12 Jun 20 | Covid 19 and freedom of expression, News and features
Jordan, the UAE, Oman, Morocco, Yemen and Iran. It is the sort of list that Index might compile for any number of attacks on freedom of expression. In this instance they are all countries that have chosen to ban the printing of newspapers and other media during the current Covid-19 crisis, ostensibly to contain the spread of the virus.
This trend of governments using this pandemic to close down newsprint is one of a series of trends that we have identified in compiling Index’s mapping project . The map, created in conjunction with Justice for Journalists Foundation, tracks media violations during the coronavirus crisis.
On 17 March, the Jordanian Council of Ministers ordered newspapers to stop producing print editions for two weeks in a bid to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Minister of state for media affairs Amjad Adaileh said at a press conference that the decision was “because they help the transmission of the pandemic”. On 21 March, the UAE’s National Media Council announced a temporary ban on printing all newspapers and magazines except for regular subscribers of the publications and large outlets in shopping centres.
The council said the decision was “in line with the precautionary measures taken to contain the spread of the virus. Several people touching the same printed material has the potential to disseminate the virus.”
Over the next week, Morocco, the Sultanate of Oman, Yemen and Iran all followed suit, forcing publishers to produce copies online. In April, the Indian state of Maharashtra did things differently; it didn’t ban print publications but banned their delivery to people’s doors.
In early April, a number of Tunisian publishers suspended printing a number of daily and weekly publications.
Yet there is mounting evidence that there is little or no risk of catching the virus from newspapers, which has led Index to suspect that Covid-19 is being used as an excuse.
The World Health Organisation is reported to have said that the risk of contracting the virus from newsprint is “infinitely small”.
Professor George Lomonossoff, a virologist at the John Innes Centre said in a TV interview: “Newspapers are pretty sterile because of the way they are printed and the process they’ve been through. Traditionally, people have eaten fish and chips out of them for that very reason. So all of the ink and the print makes them actually quite sterile. The chances of that are infinitesimal.”
Former director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research N K Ganguly told the Deccan Herald: “It is more of a perception than reality that COVID-19 virus spreads through newspapers.
The risk of catching the virus from newsprint seems remote but some say the fear of it spreading that way is causing people not to buy print newspapers.
Vincent Peyrègne, CEO of the World Association of News Publishers, (WAN-IFRA) said:
“Today, modern newspaper production is fully automated from end to end. There is hardly human intervention until the last mile distribution point. The ink and solvent used in newspaper printing act as a disinfectant to a large extent and there is no evidence to show that newspapers are carriers of the virus. The rumours that the virus can spread through newspapers is also having a disastrous effect, and newspaper as a source of transmission of the virus is very remote.”
It is perhaps telling that the countries which appear high on various rankings of press freedom have not joined in with banning newsprint.
Peyrègne said these countries “banned print newspapers with the fallacious, or misleading argument that they needed to protect the health of citizens”.
“Any banning of media or placing of restrictions on journalists or media organisations is not only an attack on the freedom to inform and to be informed, but it also carries serious consequences in terms of responsibility for contributing to one of the most serious humanitarian and economic crises we have experienced in the last one hundred years. Nevertheless, many authoritarian countries feel that the crisis is the perfect excuse to crack down on free speech, silence their critics and accelerate repressive measures,” said Peyrègne.
The ban on print editions of newspapers and magazines has contributed to a devastating effect on circulations.
Peyrègne said: “The month of April hit the circulation of the daily press hard, due to confinement, the closure of sales outlets and the shutdown of transport. Generally speaking, readership and subscription surged dramatically during the lockdown. Some segments were obviously more affected than others.”
In the UK, the auditing body ABC has told publishers they no longer have to reveal their print circulations, a move which media trade journal Press Gazette says may mean we “never get the full picture of the impact of coronavirus on newspaper sales”. It says that News UK is the only major publisher to say it will not provide the figures so far.
The crisis has also seen a dramatic acceleration in the move of local newspapers away from print. Many local newspapers rely on advertising from their communities and most of these businesses have been forced to close during the crisis, sucking revenues from the publishers.
News Corp Australia announced at the end of May that 76 of its local and regional newspapers would become digital only while 36 others would cease publication permanently.
In the UK, JPIMedia said it was temporarily stopping the print publication of a dozen of its titles, including the MK Citizen in Milton Keynes and the News Guardian in North Tyneside.
In Egypt, Sawt Al-Azhar, Veto, Al-Youm Al-Gadid and Iskan Misr have all temporarily stopped producing print editions.
It is good to see that some countries, including Morocco, Tunisia and Jordan have reversed their bans but such incidents represent just a small part of wider crackdowns on media freedom that we are witnessing at this time of crisis and which we are reporting on our interactive map.
Newspapers play a vital role in informing communities, particularly at times of crisis, and the combination of misguided bans and the poor financial viability of some titles will be a loss that will be keenly felt.
Read more about Index’s mapping media freedom during Covid-19 project.
29 Aug 19 | Iran, Media Freedom, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”108837″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]On 24 August 2019 Kioomars Marzban, a 27-year-old satirical writer from Iran, was sentenced to 23 years and 3 months in prison. He was found guilty on five separate charges, given a two-year travel ban, and a two-year ban on publishing or using social media.
Marzban left Iran in 2009 and had been living in Malaysia for nearly a decade, from where he wrote for Iranian diaspora programmes, including Radio Farda and the London-based media network Manoto. He returned to Iran to spend time with his sick grandmother in early 2018. On his return, he began leading creative writing workshops and had referred to some of his work abroad.
In early September 2018, authorities arrested Marzban on charges relating to his satirical writing. They raided his house and confiscated his laptop, mobile phone, and writing materials. He was only permitted to appoint a lawyer several months after being detained.
Following his arrest, a website affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) falsely claimed that Marzban had travelled to the United States in order to set up an anti-Iranian media outlet. The website said that the outlet would have been “aimed at inflaming the people and creating social divisions”. Marzban is understood to have only ever travelled to Georgia (in the Caucasus) during his time in Malaysia.
The IRGC also accused Marzban of cooperating with the human rights organisation Freedom House, which according to them is “a project of American intelligence to push the issue of human rights internationally through media organisations”.
Marzban was sentenced to 11 years for “communicating with America’s hostile government”, 7 years and 6 months for “insulting the sacred”, 3 years for “insulting the [supreme] leader”, 1 year and 6 months for “propaganda against the state”, and 9 months for “insulting officials”.
Condemning the sentencing of Kioomars Marzban, Jodie Ginsberg, Chief Executive of Index on Censorship, said “Kioomars has been given a sentence that would put him in jail for almost as long as he has been alive, meaning he would not be freed until 50. And all because he poked fun at power through writing. We urge satirists worldwide to condemn his jailing and for states who claim to support freedom of expression to demand his immediate release ”.[/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1567097330224-5056a739-f424-9″ taxonomies=”8996″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
19 Jul 19 | Magazine, News and features, Student Reading Lists
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”107971″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Andrew Graham-Yooll served as editor for the Index on Censorship magazine from 1989-1993. He was then, and remained until his death in 2019, committed to free expression and the free press around the world. In honour of his memory, Index is featuring some of the highlights of his writing for the magazine about his home country Argentina. The pieces featured cover a broad range of topics and events primarily related Argentinian art and journalism, and showcase Graham-Yooll’s fierce integrity and characteristic humor. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”94869″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064227308532221″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]Letter from Argentina
June 1973, vol. 2 issue: 2
“Censorship in Argentina is not a sin of the State, but a sickness of society”. Thus closes Andrew Graham-Yooll’s scathing indictment of censorship and self-censorship in the Argentinian press, in an environment where press controls are loosely organised but vicious.Graham-Yooll describes the routine torture and corruption in the criminal-justice system that the Argentinian press seems uninterested in, and expresses his opinion that, however damaging state censorship is, it is the fear and self-censorship it engenders in the press that is truly destorying Argentina’s soul.
Read the full article[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”94773″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064227508532398″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]The Argentinian press under Peron
March 1975, vol. 4 issue: 1
Andrew Graham-Yooll reflects on the record he kept of all the obstacles to press freedom and independence in Argentina during the early 1970s. He outlines, in broad strokes, the conflict between right- and left-wing branches of Peronism, and what the escalating conflict between the two–and the right wing’s eventual victory–meant for the operation of the Argentinian press. The press had faced restrictions and instability under Alejandro Augustin Lanusse and Hector Jose Campora that exploded into violence and direct government interference with print, radio, and television media under Raul Alberto Lastiri, Juan Peron himself, and his widow, Isabel Martinez de Peron.
Read the full article[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”94399″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064227908532905″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]Arrests in Argentina
March 1979, vol. 8 issue: 2
Graham-Yooll takes a look into the fate of the nine workers at El Independiente, a left-of-center, nationalist local paper in the poor Argentinian province of La Rioja that “established itself on the wrong side of every provincial administration”. After Juan Peron was restored to power in 1973, the paper faced increasing harassment and frequent suspensions, until by 1976, El Independiente was permanently and forcibly closed, with seven of the nine workers arrested under dubious charges, some of their families in exile or tortured, and the remaining two workers missing. The Argentinian Newspaper Publishers’ Association demanded their release, but at the time of the article’s writing they were all still imprisoned.
Read the full article[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”90901″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064229508535825″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]Coming Home
January 1995, vol. 7 issue: 2
This article is not an obituary, but it deals with the death of a gay Argentianian novelist, Manuel Puig. Puig died of AIDS in Mexico, a fact that Graham-Yooll was surprised to see mentioned in coverage of the artist and his work. Argentina’s social climate tolerates homosexuality to a degree, Graham-Yooll says, but only unobstrusive or plausibly deniable homosexuality. The brutal targeted repression under the military junta of “putos, guerrilleros, y faloperos” (queers, guerillas and drug addicts) is still in living memory for many gay Argentinians, and though the coverage of Puig could be a positive sign, discussion of homosexuality and gay rights was still not part of mainstream news coverage or culture in Argentina at the time of the article’s writing.
Read the full article[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”90587″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064220408537324″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]News From Patagonia
April 2004, vol. 33 issue: 2
In 2003, shortly before the article was written, Argentina’s Supreme Court struck down a law passed some twenty years earlier under the junta, which had made it illegal to provide broadcasting licences to community radio. The nominal grounds for that practice had been that it was easier to prevent the infiltration by the regime’s ideological enemies of commercial radio. However, before the law was struck down, its true raison d’etre had become the preservation of cronyism and political nepotism. Graham-Yooll uses the Supreme Court’s ruling as a chance to take stock of Argentina’s broadcasting landscape, with particular focus on the florshing of extra-legal, shoestring FM radio stations.
Read the full article[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”89187″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064220512331339490″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]The Pain and the Memory: The Legacy of Nunca Mas
February 2005, vol. 34 issue: 1
In 1984, Argentina’s National Commission on the Disappearance of Person released a report, Nunca Mas (Never Again), on the human rights abuses under the National Reorganisation Process between 1976 and 1983 that devastated many in the country. In this piece, written in 2012 Graham-Yooll discusses the abuses of the military and the many ways Argentina has attempted to grapple with the report, from the junta trials to a more recent photo exhibition of the atrocities. He shares a few of his own experiences from that time and describes how both dictatorship and report live on in Argentinian memory.
Read the full article[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”89185″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064220500125985″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]Our Father, Who Art in Art
May 2005, vol. 34 issue: 2
In 2004, right after the Argentinian branch of the Catholic Church received praise for opening up politically, Leon Ferrari opened up an exhibition in Buenos Aires reviewing the collusion between the church and some of Latin America’s worst regimes over the centuries. Graham-Yooll describes some of the most important exhibit pieces and the extreme backlash the exhibit received from the church and laymenry–sometimes simultaneously, as in the entertaining story of a Christian vandal whose destruction of a piece was turned into an exhibit piece itself.
Read the full article[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”89186″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064220500125985″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]Cumbia Villera: the Sound of the Slums
August 2005, vol. 34 issue: 3
A new genre of music is becoming popular in Latin America: the “politically incorrect” cumbia villera, a high-energy, hard-hitting new street music with a Carribbean beat. The lyrics to these songs, according to Graham-Yooll, are “vile and often violent”: they are filled with misogynistic abuse, incitement to prison breaks and riots, and enthusiastic encouragement of alcohol and hard drug use. For this reason, the Argentinain government at the time of the article was considering censoring cumbia villera, but in what Graham-Yooll asserts is a reflection of Argentina’s growing class divide, the music is gaining a mass following in the slums that seems unstoppable.
Read the full article[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”89110″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306422012456134″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]The Past in Hiding
September 2012, vol. 41 issue: 3
Nearly 40 years after the dirty war, Graham-Yooll examines two new books whose dialogue he believes represent hope that the record of atrocities committed by the junta can be known and Argentina can thus “come to terms” with its past. The first book, Final Disposal, is a set of nine interviews journalist Ceferino Reato conducted with members of the erstwhile regime in prison, in which those members display, according to Graham-Yooll, both generosity with information and a cold and brutal view of their own crimes. The second book, From Guilt to Forgiveness, is a personal account written by Norma Morandini, a former journalist and politician, about her personal journey from denial of what happened under the regime to a reckoning.
Read the full article[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”80566″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306422015605706″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]From murder to bureaucratic mayhem: After Argentina’s dictatorship, what happened next for the country’s journalists
September 2015, vol. 44 issue: 3
After Argentina emerged from under the rule of the military junta in 1983, press freedom improved considerably. Now, journalists are not murdered by the regime, but silenced through systemic harassment and the entangled web of cronyism. Graham-Yooll explains how the leader of Argentina at the time of the article, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, has developed a distinct and effect new “means of controlling the message”: not reactive censorship, but preemptive control of content through control of the ownership and cash flows of the media.
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