13 Jul 18 | Magazine, News and features, Volume 47.02 Summer 2018
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In the summer 2018 issue of Index on Censorship magazine Caroline Muscat takes a closer look at the truths this year’s European Capital of Culture, Valetta in Malta, is hiding
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The sprawl of construction sites represents the reality of Malta. It’s a sign of progress, never mind the fact that planning laws are farcical. The country’s affluence is shown by the number of cars on the road, never mind the traffic congestion. Its freedom is evidenced in the number of media outlets and news portals, never mind the fact that they all offer similar content. It’s all about appearance, not substance. Scratch beneath the surface and the problems start to appear.
“National pride has reached historic levels,” Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told more than 100,000 people who flocked to the nation’s capital, Valletta, for its inauguration as Europe’s Capital of Culture 2018. The announcement was made as the country was grappling with the assassination of its most prominent journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia, and as accusations of a collapse in the rule of law continued to haunt Malta.
Restaurants offering mouth-watering dishes are found across the length and breadth of Malta’s islands, but while digging into a bruschetta few stop to question the sudden influx of Sicilian restaurants that are suspected of being money-laundering fronts for the Sicilian mafia.
Operation Beta, led by the Italian authorities in 2017, culminated in the arrest of 30 people as part of a major clampdown on illegal gaming activities and money laundering linked to a Sicilian family, the Santapaola-Erculanos, linked to the mafia by the Italian media. Almost a year later, Italian police cracked an operation involving Sicilians, Maltese and Libyans smuggling Libyan fuel into the European market. Once again, a link to the Santapaola-Erculano family emerged. A look at the histories of the mafia clans reveals deep family connections to Malta as a hub from which to extend their reach and profits.
The links date back to 1974, when a Sicilian man and his bride went to the Maltese island of Gozo on their honeymoon. They loved the island so much they frequently returned. To the locals who interacted with him in Pjazza San Frangisk, in Victoria, he was known simply as Toto.
But Toto was Salvatore Riina, the mafia boss who terrorised Sicily and made the Italian State tremble while making friends in Malta.
Over the years, Malta has continued to attract shady characters, including politically exposed politicians, from countries including India, Ukraine and Azerbaijan. There are clear risks in probing too deeply into the shadows of modern Malta – not that this is obvious to anyone landing in the country for a fortnight of sun and sea. Popular events, such as the annual music festival the Isle of MTV, continue to offer a distraction on the islands that were once a safe haven for tourists and locals. But the recent release of the Panama Papers linked a Maltese minister, Konrad Mizzi, and the prime minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri, to $1.6m payments to Dubai companies. Both deny the claims of payments.
It is now clear that a political party elected in 2013 on the promise of change was not thinking of adding transparency or media freedom. Since the Panama Papers revelations, journalists have piled up stories of scandals, but nothing has changed. Deals selling off the country’s assets continue to be made, shrouded in secrecy. And in the midst of all this, calls for justice for an assassinated journalist continue to echo in the air.
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Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed because of what she exposed. Seven months later, the institutions that failed to protect her are the same institutions that are failing to bring those who ordered her killing to justice. Every month, on the date marking her death, citizens gather to call for justice in the country’s capital. They gather in front of a makeshift memorial before the law courts as a reminder that justice has not been served. Every time, they know they will see each other the following month because nothing will have changed. Yet their presence, and the flowers and candles placed at the foot of the monument, serve as a reminder to the authorities that they will never forget.
Those who mention her name, those who refuse to bow to a society bent by corruption, are insulted and threatened. Journalists and activists keep being reminded of the untold damage they are doing to the country’s reputation. Malta’s image is everything, but it is not what it seems.
When confronted by the news that the European Parliament was sending a delegation to investigate Malta’s anti-money laundering rules, Muscat said: “I invite them to come over to see what a fantastic country we are.” But the Paradise Papers had already shown just how “fantastic” Malta s by casting a dark cloud over its economic miracle.
While workers in other countries have borne the brunt of austerity, the Maltese have never had it so good, shielded by an economic system which relies partly on enticing shell companies to Malta by offering a favourable fiscal regime, in addition to a growing dependence on i-gaming and construction. In addition, Malta’s controversial “sale” of European passports continues, despite concerns about the erosion of democracy.
Living in Malta as a journalist one experiences the stark reality of it all. Those exposing corruption are ostracised and vilified. Their voices are drowned out by the millions spent on the marketing machine to promote Malta and clean its image. Journalism is undermined through an almost complete domination of the narrative by the government – millions of euros spent on PR ridicules weeks of investigative journalism. Government advertising drowns out calls for a democracy that ends corruption and protects freedom of speech.
On 16 May, Labour MP Rosianne Cutajar stood up in parliament and spent 30 minutes criticising the publication of a six-month investigation by The Shift News that exposed pro-government secret Facebook groups with thousands of members posting threats against activists. These posts included threats towards anti-corruption activist Tina Urso, whose home address was also published on the site. Urso filed two complaints with the police, but wasn’t offered any protection.
The MP also said I was sowing the seeds of hatred left behind by Caruana Galizia by attacking the government. Compare this with the exposé of anti-Semitism in the UK Labour Party and the media scandal that followed. In Malta, the scandal was the journalist who dared to speak truth to power.
Caruana Galizia had written: “Malta is in a dangerous place, and now we can no longer say that it is corrupt politicians who have brought it to this point, for it can no longer be denied that those corrupt politicians are a reflection of society.”
In this scenario, the protection of journalists is critical in a landscape that is intolerant of independent thought.
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Caroline Muscat is the co-founder of The Shift News, based in Malta
This article was originally published in the Summer 2018 issue of Index on Censorship magazine. Click here to read about the other articles in the issue.
The latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine, Trouble in Paradise, Escape from Reality: what holidaymakers don’t know about their destinations is out now. Buy a subscription. Buy a print copy from bookshops including BFI, Serpentine and MagCulture (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester), and Red Lion Books (Colchester), or via Amazon. Digital versions available via exacteditions.com or iTunes.
Finally, don’t miss our regular quarterly magazine podcast, also on Soundcloud, including an interview with the founder of the Rough Guides, Mark Ellingham. Come by and visit us.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”From the Archives”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”89160″ img_size=”213×287″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064229108535157″][vc_custom_heading text=”Do not disturb” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1177%2F0306422011399822|||”][vc_column_text]2011
In 2011, Charles Young reported that writers, journalists and even DJs are falling foul of Malta’s censorious laws[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”64776″ img_size=”213×287″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064220008536796″][vc_custom_heading text=”Social disturbance” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1177%2F0306422015571882|||”][vc_column_text]March 2015
News footage provided by readers and viewers has entered a new era, where we’re faced with more propaganda, hoaxes and graphic detail than ever before. Vicky Baker looks at the increasingly tough verification process at the BBC’s user-generated content department[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”99282″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064229308535477″][vc_custom_heading text=”Index around the world” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1177%2F0306422018769585|||”][vc_column_text]Spring 2018
Attacks on journalists are escalating in areas formerly seen as safe,
including the USA and the European Union, says Danyaal Yasin[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”top”][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Trouble in Paradise” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2018%2F04%2Fthe-abuse-of-history%2F|||”][vc_column_text]The summer 2018 issue of Index on Censorship magazine takes you on holiday, just a different kind of holiday. From Malta to the Maldives, we explore how freedom of expression is under attack in dream destinations around the world.
With: Martin Rowson, Jon Savage, Jonathan Tel [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”100843″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2018/06/trouble-in-paradise/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1481888488328{padding-bottom: 50px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
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05 Jul 18 | News and features, Volume 47.02 Summer 2018, Volume 47.02 Summer 2018 Extras
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Vicky Baker, Meera Selva, Harriet Fitch Little and Benji Lanyado. Credit: Rosie Gilbey
“I would always err towards saying go rather than don’t go,” said Benji Lanyado, travel writer and founder of picture agency Picfair, speaking at a panel debate to launch the summer 2018 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
The latest issue of the magazine, Trouble in Paradise, looks at the free speech issues that are prominent in certain top travel destinations, and yet are often overlooked by tourists and the tourist industry. Countries covered included Mexico, Malta, the Philippines and the Maldives. For the launch, a panel of travel writers and editors shared their thoughts on the roles of writers to tell the full story, rather than the nice, PR holiday story, and discussed the free speech implications of travel.
Taking place at The Book Club in Shoreditch, London, Lanyado was joined by former foreign correspondent Meera Selva, and Harriet Fitch Little, a Financial Times writer. The discussion was chaired by Vicky Baker, a journalist at the BBC.
“The best travel writers do weave in the history and the politics of a place,” said Selva, while Fitch Little, talking about travel writing that might be paid for by travel companies or tourist boards as opposed to publications, said “there’s a way to write about a press trip that is fascinating and revealing.”
All panellists agreed on the value of speaking to locals in a destination, though they also acknowledged that doing so was not necessarily on the top of everyone’s holiday priority list, in particular families who might just want a nice break or might not have the budget for more adventurous travel – and that shouldn’t necessarily be condemned. “We all need escapism from time to time,” said Baker.
The panel also discussed whether travel journalists should write about problematic countries at all, raising questions about whether travelling to these places – and encouraging others to travel to them – benefits corrupt regimes.
“The best travel writers don’t just regurgitate the travel documents provided by the government,” Lanyado said.
“Sometimes you can get so obsessed by the pitfalls of a country and the leaders of a country that you forget about the people, and they can be totally different,” he added and asked whether boycotting a country was a form of censorship in its own right.
“If you don’t go, you don’t learn about the people,” said Baker.
Selva recalled a story of a travel journalist who went on a press trip to North Korea. While this journalist had first-hand experience of government propaganda, they also saw another side of the country when their bus driver did a detour into the countryside, heading off the beaten track. Had the travel journalist not gone, they would not have been able to report on this side.
The question of “ethical travel” was picked up by an audience member, Tina Urso from Malta, who spoke about Daphne Caruana Galizia, a Maltese journalist who was murdered on 16 October 2017 some 70 metres away from her home. Her death, which remains unsolved, exposed Malta’s dark side. There is now a memorial to Daphne opposite the central law courts in Valletta, the capital.
Urso said how this memorial is constantly dismantled, but that tourists, more so than locals, regularly rebuild it. She therefore saw the presence of tourists in Malta as playing a fundamental – and positive – role in highlighting these free speech abuses.
Finally, Fitch Little, who worked for local press in Lebanon and Cambodia, noted that there can sometimes be pressure coming from the other direction, namely pressure for writers to ham up the darker sides of destinations and that this too can conceal the real truth. She said how when writing about Cambodia, UK media often wanted a particular angle, usually one related to the Khmer Rouge.
Equally, when working for Time Out in Lebanon, her friends back home found it hard to believe that the country could have nice restaurants, for example, having seen the country in a more negative light. “Less sexy stories don’t get told,” she said.
For more information on the summer issue of the magazine, click here. Included in the issue is an article from a Maltese journalist, Caroline Muscat, on corruption in the country, a look at journalists living under protection due to their reporting of the drug wars in Baja California Sur and an interview with Federica Angeli, a journalist who lives under 24-hour police protection following her exposé of the mafia in the pretty Italian seaside resort of Ostia.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Trouble in Paradise”][vc_column_text]The summer 2018 issue of Index on Censorship magazine takes you on holiday, just a different kind of holiday. From Malta to the Maldives, we explore how freedom of expression is under attack in dream destinations around the world.
With: Martin Rowson, Jon Savage, Jonathan Tel [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”100843″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
Subscription options from £18 or just £1.49 in the App Store for a digital issue.
Every subscriber helps support Index on Censorship’s projects around the world.
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20 Jun 18 | News and features, Volume 47.02 Summer 2018
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Crime writers have less to lose than travel writers in describing the underside of holiday spots, argues Rachael Jolley in the summer 2018 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][vc_single_image image=”101057″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]
When you read a novel, it takes you on a journey to a different time or place. Being an avid reader of crime fiction, my early journeys to Chicago were in the company of Sara Paretsky. I walked the streets with her VI Warshawski. We shot down North Michigan Avenue and headed out to Wrigley Field for the fifth inning. Chicago opened up to me in those books – not always gloriously.
Donna Leon showed me around the small islands of the Venetian Lagoon and Ian Rankin has taken me on numerous tours of the dark closes of Edinburgh, as well as its swankier New Town.
Crime writers have less to lose than many other authors in describing the underside of the cities. After all, their readers don’t expect a fairytale, and their escapism is a different kind from the happy-ever-afters of the perfect beach-read.
Perhaps we get more accurate portrayals of cities or countries by crime writers than in guidebooks or from travel apps.
Take Mexico and the Maldives, for instance. These are sexy holiday destinations, popular with everyone from honeymooners to scuba divers. But when thousands of holidaymakers are packing their sunscreen and swimsuits, do they know of the catastrophic numbers of journalists killed in Mexico in the past few years? Or how journalists in the Maldives are fleeing in fear of their lives?
Ad-hoc, non-scientific research, through the medium of asking friends and family, suggests not. And when that information is received, it is with some shock.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left” color=”custom” align=”right” custom_color=”#dd3333″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_custom_heading text=”The results are stark. Many top tourism destinations do terribly on freedom of expression.” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
The other side: Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered on 16 October 2017
Mexico is ranked 147th out of 180 in the 2018 Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index, down from 75th in 2002. During this period, tourist numbers have continued to go up. Meanwhile, 4.6% of the government’s annual spend continues to go on tourism, significantly more than is spent in Brazil and New Zealand, for instance.
Travel and tourism delivers 6.9% of Mexico’s GDP, compared with 3.3% of Brazil’s and 5.1% of New Zealand’s. No wonder, then, that Mexico’s government is prepared to invest in tourism, and to keep that tap firmly switched on.
Informed tourists could be a powerful pressure point on governments that have been practising repression of those voices raised in criticism, or that don’t bother to pursue the criminals who threaten or kill those voicing dissent.
At this year’s Hay Festival, I was on a panel with Paul Caruana Galizia, son of the murdered journalist Daphne, as well as Malta journalist Caroline Muscat of The Shift News, and BBC Europe editor Katya Adler. Paul talked about his mother’s work, the pressures she was under and how she pursued her investigations. We discussed the wider situation in Malta, where 34 libel cases against Daphne have, since her death, rolled over to the rest of the family. During the question and answer session, some members of the audience said they had no idea about what was going on in Malta, even though they went there on holiday, and asked what they could do to help.
Paul suggested that anyone holidaying on the Mediterranean island might mention being aware of the case to local people they met. The island was dependent on tourism, and if the Maltese felt this could be affected there would be more pressure on the government to alter its attitude, and legislation, on media freedom.
He also believed the Maltese government was much more worried about international attitudes than local ones.
In places where freedom of expression is under pressure – and Malta, the Maldives and Mexico are just a few of them – tourism is often a valuable asset. So visitors who are aware of the wider situation could be advocates for change.
According to analysis of travel, tourism, financial and freedom-of-expression data carried out for Index on Censorship magazine by Mark Frary, there are indications that some tourists want to know more than whether or not a destination has a good beach before they head off on holiday.
Data on travel patterns suggest that travellers also “reward” destinations that change legislation or the environment, his analysis suggests, with Argentina picking up significant tourist numbers after it became the first South American country to make gay marriage legal.
In this issue, we have asked reporters around the world to dig into the details of popular holiday destinations to look at their records on freedoms, such as the right to protest, the right to debate and freedom of the media. The results are stark. Many top tourism destinations do terribly on freedom of expression.
In post civil war Sri Lanka, there was a period of hope after the election of Prime Minister Maithripala Sirisena in 2015. Many hoped that this beautiful island could have a future that was less violent, more equal and more open. Those hopes are now looking tarnished. As Meera Selva reports for the magazine, the country’s tourist numbers grew spectacularly in 2017. But while tourists flocked in, the great improvement was not going as well as Sri Lankans had wished.
The prime minister has reactivated the Press Council – a body with the power to imprison journalists – and civil rights activists report threats against them. In this potential Eden, the garden is not as green and pleasant as predicted.
Pretty beach paradise Baja California Sur is a popular holiday destination, particularly for Americans. But not many will know that it also has the second-highest murder rate in Mexico, behind the western state of Colima, according to government data. The dangers of being an investigative journalist there are particularly high, with some living under 24-hour protection, as Stephen Woodman reports in the magazine. Again, this is a place where many (probably most) tourists are unaware of the fuller picture of the place where they are happily enjoying the sunshine.
As someone with a heritage collection of guidebooks from publishers including Lonely Planet, Rough Guides and Footprint, it is easy for me to flick through the pages and see that those guides have made a fair effort to inform readers on questions of human rights, politics and safety in the past.
But guidebooks are carried by far fewer travellers these days. According to the Financial Times, from 2005 to 2014, 9% fewer travellers left the UK but guidebook sales fell by 45%.
With most people looking to the web for all their holiday information, are they finding themselves as well-informed as they would have been with a well-thumbed book under their arm?
An April 2018 travel section article about Malta’s capital Valletta on The Guardian’s website doesn’t mention the politics or human rights record of the island. Nor, as far as I could find, did the Lonely Planet website section on Malta. While, of course, it would be possible to find news about those issues on different parts of The Guardian site, or elsewhere on the web, it’s certainly not connecting the dots for travellers.
With the printed travel sections of newspapers under pressure from advertisers – and far smaller than they were a decade ago – there is little space to create in-depth reports, and travel articles that include gritty details as well as the delights seem few and far between.
At the upcoming Index magazine launch and summer party on 4 July, our panel of experts will discuss what responsibility authors might have to tell their readers about the good, the bad and the ugly sides of any destination. It should be an interesting evening, chaired by BBC World reporter Vicky Baker, who also writes for Guardian Travel. If you would like to join us, email [email protected] to grab a free ticket.
And since we are just back from the Hay Festival, we can also recommend our special Hay Festival podcast, where deputy editor Jemimah Steinfeld chats to three authors about taboos. Catch it on Soundcloud.com/indexmagazine.
Finally, don’t miss our regular quarterly magazine podcast, also on Soundcloud, including an interview with the founder of the Rough Guides, Mark Ellingham. Come by and visit us.
The latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine, Trouble in Paradise, Escape from Reality: what holidaymakers don’t know about their destinations is out now. Buy a subscription. Buy a print copy from bookshops including BFI, Serpentine and MagCulture (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester), and Red Lion Books (Colchester), or via Amazon. Digital versions available via exacteditions.com or iTunes.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”top”][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Trouble in paradise” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2018%2F06%2Ftrouble-in-paradise%2F|||”][vc_column_text]The summer 2018 issue of Index on Censorship magazine takes a special look at how holidaymakers’ images of palm-fringed beaches and crystal clear waters contrast with the reality of freedoms under threat
With: Ian Rankin, Victoria Hislop, Maria Ressa [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”100776″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2018/06/trouble-in-paradise/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1481888488328{padding-bottom: 50px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
Subscription options from £18 or just £1.49 in the App Store for a digital issue.
Every subscriber helps support Index on Censorship’s projects around the world.
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14 Jun 18 | Magazine, Magazine Contents, Volume 47.02 Summer 2018
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”With contributions from Mai Khoi, Jon Savage and Jonathan Tel, as well as interviews with Ian Rankin, Victoria Hislop and Maria Ressa”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
The summer 2018 issue of Index on Censorship magazine takes a special look at the free speech issues that affect the world’s most popular tourist destinations.
We examine the journalists who are trying to expose the darker sides of paradise and the issues they encounter in doing so, including an article from a Maltese journalist, Caroline Muscat, on corruption in the country, a look at journalists living under protection due to their reporting of the drug wars in Baja California Sur and an interview with Federica Angeli, a journalist who lives under 24-hour police protection following her exposé of the mafia in the pretty Italian seaside resort of Ostia.
The issue features interviews with bestselling novelists Ian Rankin and Victoria Hislop about how they went about creating a more real depiction of the idyllic places their books are set in.
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The special report also features new data on the relationship between free speech issues and tourism from Mark Frary.
Outside the special report, Samira Shackle discusses the current state of media freedom in Pakistan ahead of elections in the country, and music journalist and author Jon Savage writes about how current attacks on drill rap music are nothing new – the censors have been trying to suppress music trends for over a century.
Finally, we have two short stories written exclusively for the magazine, one by Turkish contributing editor Kaya Genç about a man’s musings on paradise and another by award-winning writer Jonathan Tel on the dangerous end point of facial recognition technology.
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Spraying bullets not sunscreen, by Stephen Woodman: Baja California Sur is at the forefront of Mexico’s drug wars. Journalists are at a great risk. The government hopes tourists don’t notice
The other side of paradise, by Meera Selva: A post civil war Sri Lanka attracts tourists, but locals were hoping for greater freedoms
Speaking out of turn, by Jan Fox: Hawaiian is an official language in this state and yet those who speak it face restrictions.
Women left out in the cold, by Johannes Nugroho: When a Balinese woman was mutilated by her husband, it created a media storm within Indonesia and shed light on domestic abuse there. And yet it barely dented its international reputation
Rocking the nation, by Marco Ferrarese: Malaysia has pitched itself as an Asian melting pot paradise. The reality is different. Just listen to the nation’s punk rockers
Stripsearch, by Martin Rowson: Carry on filtering those pictures darling. Your Instagram followers only want to see the most perfect holiday pics
Two sides of every story, by Alison Flood and Jemimah Steinfeld: Two top novelists, Victoria Hislop and Ian Rankin, talk about showing darker sides of tourist destinations in their books, and upsetting Greek Cypriots
Double vision, by Caroline Muscat: Malta’s Valletta is this year’s Europe’s Capital of Culture. The label conceals darker truths
Taking on the untouchables, by Irene Caselli: Italian journalist Federica Angeli’s life has been on the line since she reported on the mafia. She talks about how 24-hour protection affects her family life
Freedom to travel v travel towards freedom, by Mark Frary: Exclusive new data analysis for the magazine on whether tourists worry about a holiday resort’s reputation for media freedom
Fears that rain on their parades, by Silvia Nortes: Sunbathe all you like, just try to avoid offending religious sensibilities in the Spanish Canary Islands
“We’re not scared of these things”, by Miriam Grace A Go: Rappler news editor on how the newsroom continues despite the increasing threats, alongside words from their CEO Maria Ressa
Slouching away from Eden, by Kaya Genç: Turkey was once hot on the tourist trail, with major city Istanbul hailed as one of the world’s hippest. A look at its fall from grace, and why
White sands, dark deeds, by Zaheena Rasheed: The ultimate honeymoon destination is not so idyllic for the nation’s journalists, who battle corruption, fines and risk their lives as they get their stories
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”In focus”][vc_column_text]
After Isis lost, by Laura Silvia Battaglia: It’s becoming more dangerous, rather than less, to be a reporter in Iraq as two generations of Iraqi journalists explain. Translation by Sue Copeland
Sunshine capital, by Davion Smith: The British Virgin Islands desperately need freedom of information. One journalist reports on finding the truth against the odds
Demonising those teenage dirtbags, by Jon Savage: The current moral outcry over drill music is so last century. Adults have been scared about what the kids are singing for decades
Under the watchful eye of the army, by Samira Shackle: Elections are approaching in Pakistan, and the army has the nation’s journalists and bloggers in its sights
Liberté, egalité… autorité, by Jean-Paul Marthoz: Considered by many as the cradle of modern democracy and free speech, France isn’t practising what it has historically preached
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A walk in the park, by Kaya Genç: In this new short story for the magazine, an old man contemplates life and his shifting views of paradise
Georgian plain speaking, by Lasha Bugadze: The Georgian playwright and author on the censorious nature of the church in the country. Plus an extract of his new novel, translated into English for the first time by Donald Rayfield
Little big voice, by Mai Khoi: Vietnam’s “Lady Gaga” discusses always looking over her shoulder. Plus a song of hers translated and published in English for the first time
Facing the future, by Jonathan Tel: The award-winning short story writer on how much control the Chinese government actually has and a new short story about facial recognition, written exclusively for the magazine
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Index around the world, by Danyaal Yasin: The unprecedented levels of Turkish journalists being imprisoned are being tracked by Index’s Mapping Media Freedom. Read about this and other countries of concern, plus an update on the fellowships
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Endnote”][vc_column_text]
Game on, by Jemimah Steinfeld: Trump has jumped on the ban video games bandwagon. He called for a ban on games, rather than guns
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”top”][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Trouble in paradise” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2018%2F06%2Ftrouble-in-paradise%2F|||”][vc_column_text]The summer 2018 issue of Index on Censorship magazine takes a special look at how holidaymakers’ images of palm-fringed beaches and crystal clear waters contrast with the reality of freedoms under threat
With: Ian Rankin, Victoria Hislop, Maria Ressa [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”100776″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2018/06/trouble-in-paradise/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1481888488328{padding-bottom: 50px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
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