05 Jul 16 | Asia and Pacific, Campaigns, Campaigns -- Featured, China, Press Releases
Anti-censorship group GreatFire has today launched a new service that will help internet users inside China live test how well different virtual private networks are working in the country.
VPNs, which create direct links between computers and offer a way in which to gain unrestricted access to the internet, are vital for business in China as well as for accessing information. The country actively censors the internet, with users having to use circumvention tools in order to access over 18,000 websites including Google, Facebook, the BBC and the New York Times.
“There is a commonly held belief in China that if you have a VPN that works then you should keep quiet about it,” said GreatFire co-founder Charlie Smith. “In terms of freedom of access to information, the problem with this approach is that it keeps useful knowledge secret. We hope this project will destroy that model and give people accurate information so they can make informed choices. The public need to be able to get online quickly, reliably and free from state censorship.”
Chinese authorities have stepped up their attacks on circumvention tools over the past 18 months and GreatFire’s new testing site is part of the group’s attempt to fight back. The site – Circumvention Central (CC) – provides real-time information and direct access to both free and paid-for censorship-evasion tools that are working in China.
Constantly updated using information from within China, all VPNs (including GreatFire’s own circumvention tool FreeBrowser) are measured on both speed (how quickly popular websites are loaded) and stability (the extent to which popular websites load successfully).
Speed tests typically measure download and upload speed by sending a few requests to a speed test server. That means reported speeds do not reflect user experience because normal browsing involves frequently sending lots of requests to many different servers.
In contrast, GreatFire’s speed test aims to reflect real user experience by downloading resources from the ten most popular websites in the world, including Google, Facebook, YouTube, Baidu, Amazon and Yahoo. If the contents returned are incorrect or if the download fails to complete within 40 seconds, the test is marked as failed.
Besides speed, stability is also tracked. Typically not taken into account by other services, the stability test reflects the likelihood of a connection failing. Although any connection anywhere should deliver 100% stability unless unplugged, VPNs on the ground in China fail regularly. Testing happens in real-time, which is essential to an environment where VPNs get blocked and unblocked continuously.
Visitors to the CC site can purchase any paid-for tool currently tested. GreatFire will act as a reseller of these tools in China and as such be given a portion of each sale by the VPN providers themselves. Users need not be based in China to purchase a circumvention service.
Any revenue generated through the site will be used to support the ongoing digital activism of GreatFire, which earlier this year won an Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award for its work fighting online censorship in China.
“At the moment, GreatFire relies on the kindness of individuals who send us donations and a limited number of grant-making organizations around the world,” said Smith. “We want to reduce our reliance on these organizations and raise enough funds to properly end internet censorship in China as soon as is humanly possible”.
Smith hopes the new site will revolutionise VPN use in China. “Until CC, nobody has provided public information about the effectiveness of circumvention tools in China. Many have provided misinformation,” he said. “Some VPN providers have also famously encouraged their customers to “keep quiet” about the effectiveness of their solutions. On the contrary, we encourage everyone who hears about this project to share this information with those who they think could benefit.”
For more information please contact [email protected]
Notes for editors
See below for image, copyright free.
GreatFire.org campaigns for transparency of Chinese censorship by providing numerous effective online services that enable users to better understand how censorship operates in China. GreatFire also provides mechanisms for internet users to access censored content. The organisation operates six projects: GreatFire, FreeWeibo, Collateral Freedom, FreeBrowser, FreeBooks and Circumvention Central. A seventh project, Free WeChat, is in development.
Index on Censorship is an international organisation that defends people’s freedom to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution. Our Freedom of Expression Awards celebrate some of the world’s most creative and courageous artists, campaigners, journalists and digital activists. As winners of the 2016 award for Digital Activism, GreatFire are current Fellows, supported to magnify their impact and further the fight against censorship worldwide.
28 Apr 16 | Academic Freedom, Academic Freedom Reports, Campaigns -- Featured, mobile, News and features, United Kingdom
Academic freedom has been the subject of many debates in recent months. With speakers regularly being no-platformed, and increasing violations of safe space, universities and student unions across the UK have faced harsh criticism.
This growing trend of banning speakers from debates rather than confronting their views head on has led to calls for reforms in university policies in protecting academic freedom and so-called “safe space”.
When human rights activist and ex-Muslim Maryam Namazie was invited by the Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society (ASH) to speak at Goldsmiths University in December 2015 she faced heckles and interruptions from students who opposed her views.
Throughout Namazie’s talk about blasphemy and apostasy members of Goldsmiths University’s Islamic Society (ISOC) caused a disruption by laughing, shouting out and even switching off her presentation, leading to some students being removed by security.
Namazie spoke to Index about the importance of academic freedom, stating: “Universities have always been hotbeds of dissent and progressive politics. They are places where anything can and should be discussed and debated – where deeply held sensibilities and beliefs can be reviewed, opposed and challenged.
“If you can’t express yourself on a university campus, doing so off-campus is usually even harder. Where academic freedom is restricted, it is a measure of the limits of free speech in society at large.”
Speaking about the Goldsmiths incident, Namazie refuses to be intimidated. She believes those pushing the Islamist narrative want to prevent a counter-narrative on university campuses and therefore it is more important for her to go and speak on any campus she is invited to and to push to be allowed where she is denied access.
“My family fled the Islamic regime of Iran in order to live freer lives. Therefore, it’s especially important for me to speak up, particularly given how many face imprisonment or lose their lives in doing so. I feel I have an added responsibility to speak for those who cannot,” she told Index.
In September 2015 Namazie was invited to speak at Warwick University by the Warwick Atheists, Secularists and Humanists’ Society, but her invitation was withdrawn by the University’s Student Union, who claimed her views would “incite hatred on campus”.
Other activists including Germaine Greer and Julie Bindel have also been silenced on campuses for their controversial views.
Namazie believes no-platforming is having a chilling effect on students’ academic freedom. She told Index: “These policies equate speech with real harm and violence though clearly there is a huge distinction between speech and action. Criticising Islam and Islamism, for example, is not the same as attacking Muslims. Nonetheless, I have been accused of ‘inciting violence’ or ‘inciting discrimination’ against Muslims.”
Human rights activist Peter Tatchell was involved in a dispute in February after National Union of Students’ LGBT representative Fran Cowling, declined to attend an event at the Canterbury Christ Church University at which Tatchell was giving a keynote address and participating on a panel.
He told Index: “Academic freedom is a crucial element of a free and open society. The right to explore, research, articulate, debate and contest ideas — even disagreeable ones — is a democratic hallmark.
“Imposing restrictions is the slippery slope to authoritarianism. As well as diminishing the realm of knowledge and understanding, it reinforces conformism and the status quo; putting a break on dissent and innovation.”
Right2Debate are a student-led movement who are campaigning for an end to censoring and no-platforming in universities by calling for student unions to reform their policies contesting rather than removing divisive and extremist narratives.
The movement, which has 100 student activists across 12 different UK universities and a further 3000 signatures of support, are aiming to have their four-point policy implemented by student unions across the UK. The policy’s outcomes include debate taking place over censorship, uncontested platforms for extremist speakers and transparency in the way the student unions conduct external speaker policy and challenging extremist/divisive narratives.
Haydar Zaki, Quilliam’s Outreach Right2Debate programme coordinator, told Index: “We are in this hostile environment to free speech because of the fruitless terms that have been employed at universities which include safe spaces and duty of care. In reality, these terms are completely open to interpretation, and have led to the chaos we see today whereby speakers are banned (or initially banned) at one university, but then freely allowed in others.
“What student unions and universities need to do is actually start implementing policies that are transparent and uniform — emphasising academic rights and the right to challenge over censorship.”
Bigoted ideas in society need challenging. To do so students require an academic environment that is willing to have open and civil discussions on all types of ideas, including those that could be deemed offensive, believes Benjamin David, an editor at Right2Debate.
Academic freedom is also essential for developing as a society, he told Index: “Academic freedom is important for a variety of reasons, none so pressing than the instrumental value that it has in making advancements in science, law or politics. Such advancements necessitate that the free discussion of opinion is available.”
The summer 2015 issue of Index on Censorship magazine which focuses on academic freedom. Subscribe here to get your copy.
Professor Chris Frost, former head of journalism at Liverpool John Moores University, agrees. Frost believes academic freedom is important for new ideas to be explored. He told Index: “Academic freedom is critical as it allows academics to investigate matters that may be generally considered socially unacceptable simply because there has been no previous investigation. We cannot expand knowledge and understanding if we don’t challenge socially accepted concepts and seek proof to support our theories. Preventing academic research leads to a stifled society and one that will eventually destroy itself through its own limitations.”
Academic freedom is a regular topic for debate for the Index on Censorship Youth Advisory Board, a group of young professionals who meet up for monthly online meetings to discuss current free speech issues. The board spoke to Index about why academic freedom is important to them.
Board member, freelance journalist and race, ethnicity and conflict Masters student, Layli Foroudi, told Index: “Academic freedom is important to me because the purpose of research and study should be to investigate reality, to seek to shed light on some aspect of life, or “truth” — and most importantly, to challenge other people’s truth claims. If there is no academic freedom then there will only be a narrow view of reality that is being purported and left unchallenged.”
Mark Crawford, a postgraduate student specialising in Russian and post-Soviet politics at University College London and current board member, added: “As a historian, it always seemed to me that academic freedom was the closest anyone can really get to ideas breaking down monopolies of power -– hard, scientific investigation can cut through the emotions around nationalism or religion, and afterwards you’re left with truths that however inconvenient are always extremely necessary for new and better narratives to be built.”
This article was updated on 3 May 2016. Corrects to clarify the nature of the dispute over Peter Tatchell’s appearance at Canterbury Christ Church University.
Josie Timms is editorial assistant at Index on Censorship and the first Liverpool John Moores University/Tim Hetherington fellow.
Related:
Why is freedom of speech important?
Worst countries for restrictions on religious freedom
22 Apr 16 | Magazine, Volume 45.01 Spring 2016 Extras
Order your copy of the spring issue of Index on Censorship here.
Saturday 23 April marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. The Bard’s work has long been used to tackle difficult or controversial issues; issues that most often only received an audience due to the cloak of his respectability. To honour the occasion Index has put together a list of all things Shakespeare.
Shakespeare and his role in protest and dissent is the theme of the spring 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine: Staging Shakespearean Dissent; Plays That Protest, Provoke and Slip by the Censors. The issue features pieces that explore how the bard’s plays have been used to circumvent censorship and tackle difficult issues around the world; from Bollywood adaptions to Othello in apartheid-era South Africa and a ground-breaking recent performance of Romeo and Juliet between Kosovan and Serbian theatres, along with reports on theatre upsetting people in the USA, and interviews with directors around the world
Index on Censorship magazine editor Rachael Jolley introduces our Shakespeare special issue with her editorial piece, How Shakespeare’s plays smuggle protest. In this piece Jolley discusses how the work of “established” or “historic” playwrights gave actors the chance to tackle themes that would otherwise never be allowed.
Shakespeare was no stranger to censorship, from the Elizabethan to Jacobean police states. In this extract actor and theatre director Simon Callow looks at how his plays amused monarchs and dictators but also prompted their anger.
My Mate Shakespeare recasts the playwright as a brandy loving bingo addict, struggling in a war zone. The poem, which was published in the spring issue of Index on Censorship magazine, was written by poet Edin Suljic following a visit to his home country, Former Yugoslavia. The issue also features an interview with the poet, who fled to London in 1991 ahead of the country’s impending war, discussing his inspiration for the poem and his involvement with theatre group Bards Without Borders.
How well do you know Shakespeare? Take our quiz and see how much you know about the Bard and his work.
The theatre and censorship reading list is a compilation of articles from the magazine archive covering theatre censorship across the world. From the censorship of Romeo and Juliet in US high school textbooks to Janet Suzman’s controversial production of Othello in apartheid-era South Africa, to the banning of performances of Macbeth in actors’ homes in Czechoslovakia.
In an interview with magazine editor Rachael Jolley an award-winning cartoonist, Ben Jennings, discusses his design for the latest Index on Censorship magazine cover on the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death.
Hitler was a Shakespeare fan; Stalin feared Hamlet; Othello broke ground in apartheid-era South Africa; and Brazil’s current political crisis can be reflected by Julius Caesar. Across the world different Shakespearean plays have different significance and power. In our global guide to using Shakespeare to battle power some of our writers talk about some of the most controversial performances and their consequences.
Order your full-colour print copy of our Shakespeare magazine special here, or take out a digital subscription from anywhere in the world via Exact Editions (just £18* for the year). Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship fight for free expression worldwide.
*Will be charged at local exchange rate outside the UK.
Magazines are also on sale in bookshops, including at the BFI and MagCulture in London as well as on Amazon and iTunes. MagCulture will ship anywhere in the world.
08 Apr 16 | Magazine, mobile, Student Reading Lists
Order your copy of the Staging Shakesearean dissent here.
Order your copy of Index on Censorship here
To mark the release of the spring 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine Index has compiled a reading list of articles from the magazine archives covering the censorship of theatre. The latest issue, Staging Shakespearean Dissent, takes a look at how Shakespeare’s plays have allowed directors to tackle issues that would have otherwise been censored in countries around the world.
Egoli — City of Gold
August 1982 vol. 11 no. 4
Performances of South African play Egoli, by writer Matsemela Manaka, went ahead at a Johannesburg theatre without being censored, yet the printed version – an extract of which is featured in this article – was banned. Egoli, which means “city of gold”, focuses on the plight of migrant mine workers in South Africa. Its two characters, John Moalusi Ledwaba and Hamilton Mahonga Silwane, were in prison at the same time: one for a political crime, the other for rape and murder. Now they work in the gold mines, while their families attempt to farm in the “homelands”.
Read the full article here.
Knife edge
March 2015 vol. 44 no. 1
Lucien Bourjeily’s 2013 play Will It Pass or Not? was banned by Lebanon’s censorship bureau, yet his 2015 play For Your Eyes Only, Sir was approved after some minor changes, despite the play including scenes from its banned prequel. Aimée Hamilton talks to Bourjeily about why his new play escaped the censors when his previous one didn’t, and what inspired it; and For Your Eyes Only, Sir is translated into English for the first time for Index on Censorship magazine.
Read the full article here.
Oh! How I miss the termite
July 1979 vol. 8 no. 4
Despite government assurances that it was lifting restrictions on Brazilian stage productions in April 1979, theatres were among the most censored over the next decade. Every play had to be submitted to the censor in Brasilia before it was staged, and a complete rehearsal had to take place in the presence of a censor of the town in which the play was being performed. In December 1978 one of Brazil’s best know playwrights Plínio Marcos, notorious for having 18 of his works suppressed without performance, wrote the play Oh! How I Miss the Termite to be read only, believing he could not get the play performed publicly.
Read the full article here.
My Temptation
November 1986 vol. 15 no. 10
In an interview with Czech exile Karel Hvizdala, for inclusion in a book of interviews he was working on, Czechoslovakian playwright Vaclav Havel, who was unable work in his profession in his own country – where nothing he had written had been published or performed since 1969 – speaks about his latest plays Largo Desolato and Temptation.
Read the full article here.
A censored life
February 1985 vol. 14 no. 1
Karel Kyncl tells the story theatre and film actress Vlasta Chramostová, her Living Room Theatre, and how Shakespeare was used as a form of resistance. In the 1960s and 70s Czechoslovakian actors put on performances of Macbeth in houses, which they called Living Room Theatre. However, Shakespeare was seen as an enemy of socialism by Czechoslovakia police, who began to harass the actors. The actors continued to perform despite pressure from the police but eventually some of these actors were driven into exile.
Read the full article here.
Shame in Birmingham
May 2005 vol. 34 no. 2
Janet Steel discusses the censorship Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti faced when the British-Pakistani playwright attempted to put on her production Behzti at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. The local Sikh community called for the play to be banned, stating it incited racial hatred, which led to Bhatti receiving threats because of her work.
Read the full article here.
Nan Levinson: Bowdler revisited
March 1990 vol. 19 no. 3
Nan Levinson discusses censorship of Romeo and Juliet in textbooks in American schools. Artist Janet Zweig read an article written by a student about the discrepancies between the play in his school textbook and the version he saw on stage. Over 300 lines had been cut from the play, the majority of which contained sexual references. Zweig spoke to publishers and found the publishers that didn’t cut lines from the textbook didn’t sell as many as those who did. She went on to make a book from the 336 lines that were cut from the textbooks, part of which is featured in this article.
Read the full article here.
Dame Janet Suzman: Stage directions in South Africa – June 2014 vol. 43 no.2
Dame Janet Suzman’s 1987 production of Othello in South Africa caused a huge amount controversy due the production showing a relationship between a black man and a white woman during the apartheid. Many people left the production in protest and sent threatening letters, however the play escaped being banned or censored because it was Shakespeare. In this article Suzman discusses why she chose to put on such a controversial production and how through Shakespeare they escaped the censors.
Read the full article here.
The fate of Tang Xianzu
November 1998 vol. 27 no. 6
The long awaited revival of a 400-year-old classical opera, in rehearsal at Shanghai’s Kunju Theatre, was called off by the Shanghai Bureau of Culture. It accused the director of introducing “archaic, superstitious and pornographic” elements into his production and vetoed its export first to New York and subsequently to France, Australia and Hong Kong. Mu Dan Ting, (Peony Pavilion), had not been performed in its entire act since it was written by Tang Xianzu in 1598 during the Ming Dynasty, as it was written out of classical repertoire under the communists. However director Yang Lian believes this time round its banning has more to do with political manoeuvering than the nature of the opera itself.
Read the full article here.
Theatre Censorship
August 1980 vol. 9 no. 4 23-28
“Censorship in the theatre has always been more petty and strict than censorship in general – that of literature, for instance. Sadly, it has often been the finest examples of Russian drama that have not reached the stage until several years – sometimes decades – after they were written.” Anna Tamarchenko discusses the censorship of Russian theatre throughout the years.
Read the full article here.
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