[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Index on Censorship has dedicated its milestone 250th issue to exploring the increasing threats to reporters worldwide. Its special report, Truth in Danger, Danger in Truth: Journalists Under Fire and Under Pressure, is out now.”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Highlights include Lindsey Hilsum, writing about her friend and colleague, the murdered war reporter Marie Colvin, and asking whether journalists should still be covering war zones. Stephen Grey looks at the difficulties of protecting sources in an era of mass surveillance. Valeria Costa-Kostritsky shows how Europe’s journalists are being silenced by accusations that their work threatens national security.
Kaya Genç interviews Turkey’s threatened investigative journalists, and Steven Borowiec lifts the lid on the cosy relationships inside Japan’s press clubs. Plus, the inside track on what it is really like to be a local reporter in Syria and Eritrea. Also in this issue: the late Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell explores colonialism in Africa in an exclusive play extract; Jemimah Steinfeld interviews China’s most famous political cartoonist; Irene Caselli writes about the controversies and censorship of Latin America’s soap operas; and Norwegian musician Moddi tells how hate mail sparked an album of music that had been silenced.
The 250th cover is by Ben Jennings. Plus there are cartoons and illustrations by Martin Rowson, Brian John Spencer, Sam Darlow and Chinese cartoonist Rebel Pepper.
You can order your copy here, or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions. Copies are also available at the BFI, the Serpentine Gallery, MagCulture, (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester) and on Amazon. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship continue its fight for free expression worldwide.
Index on Censorship magazine was started in 1972 and remains the only global magazine dedicated to free expression. It has produced 250 issues, with contributors including Samuel Beckett, Gabriel García Marquéz, Nadine Gordimer, Arthur Miller, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, and many more.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”SPECIAL REPORT: DANGER IN TRUTH, TRUTH IN DANGER” css=”.vc_custom_1483444455583{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
Journalists under fire and under pressure
Editorial: Risky business – Rachael Jolley on why journalists around the world face increasing threats
Behind the lines – Lindsey Hilsum asks if reporters should still be heading into war zones
We are journalists, not terrorists – Valeria Costa-Kostritsky looks at how reporters around Europe are being silenced by accusations that their work threatens national security
Code of silence – Cristina Marconi shows how Italy’s press treads carefully between threats from the mafia and defamation laws from fascist times
Facing the front line – Laura Silvia Battaglia gives the inside track on safety training for Iraqi journalists
Giving up on the graft and the grind – Jean-Paul Marthoz says journalists are failing to cover difficult stories
Risking reputations – Fred Searle on how young UK writers fear “churnalism” will cost their jobs
Inside Syria’s war – Hazza Al-Adnan shows the extreme dangers faced by local reporters
Living in fear for reporting on terror – Ismail Einashe interviews a Kenyan journalist who has gone into hiding
The life of a state journalist in Eritrea – Abraham T. Zere on what it’s really like to work at a highly censored government newspaper
Smothering South African reporting – Carien Du Plessis asks if racism accusations and Twitter mobs are being used to stop truthful coverage at election time
Writing with a bodyguard – Catalina Lobo-Guerrero explores Colombia’s state protection unit, which has supported journalists in danger for 16 years
Taliban warning ramps up risk to Kabul’s reporters – Caroline Lees recalls safer days working in Afghanistan and looks at journalists’ challenges today
Writers of wrongs – Steven Borowiec lifts the lid on cosy relationships inside Japan’s press clubs
The Arab Spring snaps back – Rohan Jayasekera assesses the state of the media after the revolution
Shooting the messengers – Duncan Tucker reports on the women investigating sex-trafficking in Mexico
Is your secret safe with me? – Stephen Grey looks at the difficulties of protecting sources in an age of mass surveillance
Stripsearch cartoon – Martin Rowson depicts a fat-cat politician quashing questions
Scoops and troops – Kaya Genç interviews Turkey’s struggling investigative reporters
A world away from Wallander – An exclusive extract of a play by late Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell
“I’m not prepared to give up my words” – Norman Manea introduces Matei Visniec, a surreal Romanian play where rats rule and humans are forced to relinquish language
Posting into the future – An extract from Oleh Shynkarenko’s futuristic new novel, inspired by Facebook updates during Ukraine’s Maidan Square protests
The lost art of letters – Vicky Baker looks at the power of written correspondence and asks if email can ever be the same
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”SUBSCRIBE” css=”.vc_custom_1481736449684{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship magazine was started in 1972 and remains the only global magazine dedicated to free expression. Past contributors include Samuel Beckett, Gabriel García Marquéz, Nadine Gordimer, Arthur Miller, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, and many more.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”76572″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]In print or online. Order a print edition here or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions.
Copies are also available at the BFI, the Serpentine Gallery, MagCulture, (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester), Calton Books (Glasgow) and on Amazon. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship continue its fight for free expression worldwide.
Films, like every kind of art, are often made purely for cinema’s sake – but sometimes they aren’t. Some of the most iconic recent films have actually played a major role in inspiring rights’ movements and protests around the world.
Ten Years, recipient of Hong Kong’s best film award on 3 April 2016, is just one of the latest examples of how cinema can side up with rights: films have often given protests momentum and a cultural reference.
Sometimes, directors have spoken out publicly in favour of protests; other times the films themselves have documented political abuses. In other cases, protesters and activists have given a film a new life, turning it into an icon for their protests on social media even against the directors’ original ideas.
Here are a few recent cases of popular films that have become symbols of rights’ movements around the world:
Directed by Chow Kwun-Wai with a $64,500 budget, Ten Years is a “political horror” set in a dystopian 2025 Hong Kong. In the five short stories told in the film, Chow Kwun-Wai warns against the effects that ten years of Beijing’s influence would have on Hong Kong: The erosion of human rights, the destruction of local culture and heavy censorship.
According to the South China Morning Post, Ten Years was not intended to be a political film, but the political content is explosive to the extent that some critics have dubbed it “the occupy central of cinema”.
China Digital Times reports that both the film and the awards ceremony are banned in China. On Sina Weibo, China’s leading social network, the searches “Ten Years + Film Awards” (十年＋金像) and “Ten Years + film” (十年＋电影) are blocked from results.
Birdman
Winner of a 2015 Oscar, Birdman’s plot is not about rights or protests: The film told the story of a popular actor’s struggles years after his success impersonating a superhero.
But Mexican director’s Alejandro González Iñárritu’s acceptance speech turned it into the symbol of a protest against Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
After asking for a respect and dignity for Mexican immigrants in the USA, Iñárritu said in his speech: “I want to dedicate this award for my fellow Mexicans, the ones who live in Mexico. I pray that we can find and build a government that we deserve.”
The speech came after the Mexican government declared the death of 43 students who went missing while organising a protest.
Iñárritu’s speech made Twitter erupt against Peña Nieto’s government under the hashtag #ElGobiernoQueMerecemos, “the government we deserve”.
Twitter user Guillermo Padilla said, “Now we are only missing a good ‘director’ in this country” – a play on words since “director” means both director and leader in Spanish.
The sci-fi blockbuster Hunger Games took a life of its own in Thailand, where student demonstrators turned the protagonist’s salute into a symbol of rebellion against the ruling junta.
In the film, set in a heavily oppressed country where every year young people are forced to fight to death in a nationally televised contest, protagonist Katniss Everdeen defies the central government and inspires a rebellion against totalitarian rule. Her three-finger salute becomes the symbol of the protest.
In Thailand, students started to use the three-finger salute as a symbol of rebellion after the military government took power with a coup on 22 May 2014 and clamped down on all forms of protest, censored the country’s news media, limited the right to public assembly and arrested critics and opponents. According to The New York Times, hundreds of academics, journalists and activists have been detained for up to a month.
The Guardian reported that social activist Sombat Boonngam-anong wrote on Facebook: “Raising three fingers has become a symbol in calling for fundamental political rights.”
Since then, using the salute in public in groups of more than five people has been prohibited through martial law.
V for Vendetta
V for Vendetta holds a special place among films about freedom of speech. In 2005, it was incredibly successful bringing the themes freedom of speech and rebellion against tyranny into the mainstream media debate.
In the film, a freedom fighter plots to overthrow the tyranny ruling on Britain in a dystopian future. The mask he always wears has the features of Guy Fawkes, an English Catholic who attempted to blow up the parliament on 5 November 1605.
The mask has since become an icon. According to The Economist, the mask has become a regular feature of many protests. Among others, it has been adopted by the Occupy movement and Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.
David Lloyd, author of the graphic novel on which the film is based, has called the mask a “convenient placard to use in protest against tyranny … It seems quite unique, an icon of popular culture being used this way.”
Suffragette
In 2015, the film historical drama Suffragette inspired a protest against the government’s cuts to women services in Britain.
The film shows the struggle for women’s rights that took place in the beginning of the 20th century, when Emmeline Pankhurst led an all-women fight to gain the right to vote.
Before the movie premiere in London’s Leicester Square, activists from the feminist group Sister Uncut broke away from the main crowd, and laid down on the red carpet.
According to The Independent, they chanted “It is our duty to fight for our freedom,” and held signs reading “Dead women can’t vote” and “2 women killed every week” to draw attention to domestic violence and cuts to women’s services.
One protester told The Independent: “We’re the modern suffragettes and domestic violence cuts are demonstrating that little has changed for us 97 years later.”
Pohyon Temple in the Myohyang mountains, once a national center for Korean Buddhism. Credit: Uri Tours / Flickr
After the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent organisation created by the US Congress to evaluate religious freedom conditions around the world, released its 2015 report, it became clear that an insufficient amount of progress had been made since Index on Censorship last reported on the issue.
Here’s a roundup of some the most appalling religious freedom violations from across the globe.
Burma
Bigotry and intolerance continue to scorch the lives of religious and ethnic minorities in Burma, particularly Rohingya Muslims. The Burmese government demonstrated little effort toward intervening or properly investigating claims of abuse, including those carried out by religious figures in the Buddhist community. As internet availability spread throughout the country, social media played a role in promoting a platform of hate and proposed violence against minority populations. Rohingya Muslims in the country face a unique level of discrimination and persecution. The government denies them citizenship and the right to identify as Rohingya. Additionally, four discriminatory race and religion bills could further the prejudices affecting religious minorities.
North Korea
North Korea is a nation where genuine freedom of religion or belief is non-existent; it remains one of the most oppressive regimes and worst violators of human rights. Punishment comes to those who pose difficult questions while the government maintains its control through a constant threat of imprisonment, torture and even death for those who break the law regarding religion. Estimates suggest up to 200,000 North Koreans are currently suffering in labor camps, tens of thousands of whom are there for practicing heir faith. In February 2014, the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea released its report documenting the systematic, severe violations of human rights in the country. It found “an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience”.
Saudi Arabia
Officially an Islamic state with eight to ten million expatriate workers of different faiths, Saudi Arabia continues to restrict most forms of public religious expression inconsistent with its interpretation of Sunni Islam. The government continues to use criminal charges of blasphemy to suppress any dialogue between dissenting viewpoints, with a new law helping drive home the goal of silence. The Penal Law for Crimes of Terrorism and its Financing criminalises virtually all forms of peaceful dissent and free expression, including criticising the government’s view of Islam. Lastly, authorities continue to discriminate grossly against dissident clerics and members of the Shia community.
Sudan
The Sudanese government continues to engage in massive violations of freedom of religion, due to president Omar al-Bashir’s policies of Islamisation and restrictive interpretation of sharia law. Despite 97% of the population being Muslim, there is a wide range of other religions practiced. The country’s turmoil from religious persecution rests on the 1991 Criminal Code, the 1991 Personal Status Law of Muslims, and state-level “public order” laws, which have restricted freedom for all Sudanese. The laws – which contradict the country’s constitutional and international commitments to human rights and freedom of religion – allow death sentences for apostasy, stoning for adultery, cross-amputations for theft, prison sentences for blasphemy and floggings for undefined “offences of honor, reputation and public morality”. Since 2011, more than 170 people have been arrested and charged with apostasy.
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[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Join the Index mailing list and get an exclusive gift” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:28|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Index on Censorship’s summer magazine 2016
We’ll send you our weekly emails and periodic updates on our events. We won’t share your personal information with anyone outside Index.
You’ll also get access to an exclusive collection of articles from our landmark 250th issue of Index on Censorship magazine exploring journalists under fire and under pressure. Your downloadable PDF will include reports from Lindsey Hilsum, Laura Silvia Battaglia and Hazza Al-Adnan.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Uzbekistan
In Uzbekistan, the government imprisons individuals for not conforming to officially prescribed practices or whom it claims are extremist, including as many as 12,000 Muslims. A highly restrictive religion law is imposed, the 1998 Law on Freedom of Consciences and Religious Organisations, which severely limits the rights of all religious groups and facilitates Uzbek government control over religious activity. Many who don’t fit into the framework of officially approved practices are regularly repressed. Additionally, the government has continued a campaign against independent Muslims, targeting those linked to the May 2005 protests in Andijan; 231 are still imprisoned in connection to the events, and ten have died. All the while, Uzbekistan has pressured countries to return Uzbek refugees who fled during the Andijan tragedy.
Turkmenistan
In an environment of nearly inescapable government information control, severe religion freedom breaches persist in Turkmenistan. Continuing police raids and harassment of registered and unregistered religious groups matched with laws and policies that violate international human rights norms has the nation as one of the year’s biggest offenders. With an estimated total population of 5.1 million, the US government projects that the country is 85% Sunni Muslim, 9% Russian Orthodox, and a 2% total that includes Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, and evangelical Christians. Despite Turkmenistan’s constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom and separation of religion from the state, the 2003 religion law negates these provisions while setting intrusive registration criteria for individuals. It also requires that the government is informed of all foreign financial support, forbids worship in private homes and places discriminatory restrictions on religious education.
China
While the Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of religion, this idea really only applies to “normal religions”, better known as the five state-sanctioned “patriotic religious associations” associated with Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism. Even still, the government monitors religious activities unfairly, and there has been an increased religious persecution of Uighur Muslims in the name of fighting terrorism. All around repression in China worsened in 2014, including the governmental push for controlling Tibet, Xinjiang, and even Hong Kong, as well as controls on the internet, social media, human rights defenders, activists and journalists.
Eritrea
Ongoing religious freedom abuses have continued in Eritrea, including torture or ill-treatment of religious prisoners, random arrests without charges and banning’s on public religious activities. The situation is especially serious for Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the government suppresses Muslim religious activities and those opposed to the government-appointed head of the community. In 2002, the government increased its control over religion by imposing a registration requirement on all religious groups other than the Coptic Orthodox Church of Eritrea, Sunni Islam, the Roman Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church of Eritrea. The requirements mandated that the non-preferred religious communities provide detailed information about their finances, membership, activities, and benefit to the country. Additionally, released religious prisoners have reported to USCIRF that they were confined in crowded conditions, and subjected to extreme temperature fluctuations. The government continued to arrest and detain followers of unregistered religious communities. Recent estimates suggest 1,200 to 3,000 people are imprisoned on religious grounds in Eritrea, the majority of whom are Evangelical or Pentecostal Christians.
Iran
Poor religious freedom in Iran continued to worsen in 2014, particularly for minority groups like Bahá’ís, Christian converts, and Sunni Muslims. The government is still engaging in systematic violations, including prolonged detention, torture, and executions based on the religion of the accused. Despite Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians being recognised as protected minorities, the government has consistently discriminated against its citizens on the basis of religion. Killings, arrests, and physical abuse of detainees have increased in recent years, including for religious minorities and Muslims who are perceived as threatening the government’s legitimacy.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1493906845781-a7b9ac80-f77d-2″ taxonomies=”1742″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales read anonymous collective GreatFire’s acceptance speech.
We are honoured to have been chosen as the winner of Index’s 2016 digital activism award. We’d like to take this opportunity to highlight the incredible and important work being done by the other digital activism nominees who are as, if not more, deserving of this award.
We would not be in this position if it were not for the support of others.
Thank you to those who have provided us with the means to dedicate ourselves to GreatFire. Thank you also to the many individuals within China who have made personal donations. Sadly, many news organisations have their content blocked and censored in China, but we thank those organisations that have chosen to work with us to deliver uncensored information across the great firewall.
A big thank you to our developers, past and present, who have contributed to all of our projects. Without you, none of this would be possible.
And finally, thanks to all Chinese who have supported our efforts from the start. Millions of people have visited our websites, shared our content and downloaded our apps. This incredible support not only gives us the energy to continue our work, it also highlights the great demand that exists in China for unmitigated access to an uncensored internet.
Since the early days of the internet, technology has been used to censor online speech — and to circumvent this censorship.
The Communist Party of China built the Great Firewall, which one-by-one has closed down access to YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Google, most Chinese-language news sources hosted outside China and, most recently, Wikipedia. In response, VPN services, proxies and other circumvention tools were developed.
On domestic social media websites like Sina Weibo (pronounced “way-bow”), sophisticated keyword and message filtering has been developed by the censors. In response, clever users made use of homophones and images to bypass the filters.
Because there is always a workaround, it may seem as if online censorship is failing. Such an optimistic conclusion, however, would be based on a misunderstanding of the intent of the censors. Their goal is not to completely deny access to certain topics, but rather to prevent these topics from reaching the mainstream. Unfortunately, in this mission they have been successful.
VPNs are only an option for people with knowledge and the means to pay. Free circumvention tools are usually difficult to find, complicated to use or unstable. Homophones on domestic social media are only understood by those who already know the story background.
We believe that to make a real impact we have to reach beyond these users and offer a compelling, uncensored, mainstream service. With these goals in mind, we created FreeBrowser, a free Android browser app with built-in circumvention. On the default start page of the app, we promote uncensored news from a wide range of sources.
To reach more users, we all need your support. Feel free to visit our websites, including freebrowser.org, or reach out to us directly via email or social media. We believe that our impact as well as the impact of all projects combating censorship should be measured by the degree to which we bring censored topics back into the mainstream. Freedom of speech was declared a human right 67 years ago. To make it a reality requires us to raise our ambitions, to collaborate and to demand change. Thank you!
Google’s Anthony House and tech entrepreneur Bindi Karia presented the 2016 Freedom of Expression Digital Activism Award to anonymous tech collective GreatFire (Photo: Elina Kansikas for Index on Censorship)
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