7 Apr 2025 | About Index, Americas, Europe and Central Asia, France, News and features, Newsletters, Turkey, United States
The headline today is clear: lawyers need lawyers. It’s frustrating to focus on the USA given the constant coverage the country already receives, but it would be negligent to overlook this issue. President Donald Trump’s attempts to target law firms that oppose his administration’s agenda are deeply troubling. Lawyers should not have to fear government retribution simply because they represent clients or work with colleagues tied to the political opposition. This is a blatant threat to the rule of law, one designed to stifle free speech.
Politico offers a thorough breakdown of the situation, concluding that, for now at least, the practical consequences might seem relatively minor. The firms being targeted are so expensive that most people can’t afford their services. This isn’t necessarily a comforting thought. The flipside could be argued – that only the most financially robust law firms can afford to take on an expensive battle with Trump’s administration. Many smaller firms may quietly decline controversial cases, prioritising ease over principle, and thus further narrowing access to justice.
Over in France, a different kind of danger faces lawyers following Marine Le Pen’s conviction this week. It sparked a dangerous wave of threats against the judges involved, which were so severe that President Emmanuel Macron has been forced to publicly reaffirm the independence of the judiciary, and one of the trial judges has been placed under police protection.
It is, unfortunately, a sign of the times that bears repeating: lawyers represent clients, but they do not necessarily share their views. Yet here we are, facing the reality of a world where legal professionals are increasingly seen as extensions of their clients’ beliefs, rather than independent advocates of the law – a line trotted out for years in Iran, Russia and China and now finding a home elsewhere.
“As if the coup against democracy wasn’t enough, they cannot tolerate the victims of this coup defending themselves. They want to add a legal coup to the coup against democracy,” said Istanbul’s recently jailed Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu on the arrest of his lawyer. Mehmet Pehlivan has since been released. But as Pehlivan’s own lawyer poignantly remarked, his arrest was a “warning”. For Turkey’s autocratic leader, the message is clear: beware the clients you choose. For the rest of us, the takeaway is equally urgent: if we don’t stand firm in support of the defenders of justice, the very concept of justice itself could be dismantled.
13 Feb 2025 | Americas, News and features, United States
The second Donald Trump administration isn’t even a month old, and yet it seems as though the divisive president has already produced enough headlines to get us to the next election. With sweeping executive orders, massive cuts to federal departments and sights set on the contentious purchase of foreign lands, it’s hard to currently decipher the impact of his decisions and statements on the American people, and globally.
This is particularly true when it comes to one of the foundations of the USA’s Bill of Rights – the right to free speech.
Since his inauguration, there have been accusations of censorship and free speech violations levelled at Trump and his office. His threat to deport students with VISAs who display pro-Palestine views has rung alarm bells, and after the 47th President was credited with the reinstatement of social media platform TikTok in the USA, there were user reports of censorship around criticism of Trump, or pro-Palestine sentiment. There have also been major causes for concern among the LGBTQ+ community as one of Trump’s new executive orders threatens the self determination and self expression of trans people.
But is it all bad news when it comes to free speech? The USA-based non-profit organisation Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) keeps a close watch on how each president upholds freedom of speech according to the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Speaking to Index, members of FIRE’s legislative team explained how Trump’s first few weeks in office have impacted free speech in the USA, for better and worse.
Tyler Coward, lead counsel in higher education related government affairs at FIRE, has concerns about Trump’s threat against pro-Palestine foreign students. “There are mixed signals from some courts about what speech rights people have when they’re here on a temporary status, such as [on] visas, but FIRE’s position is that it’s a bad idea to create two classes of students on campus, some that can participate fully in campus advocacy or campus protests, and those who risk fear of deportation,” he said.
“There are students that can or have engaged in actual unlawful activity, including violence against other students, engaging in sanctionable civil disobedience, actual discrimination or intimidation, things that are generally not protected by the First Amendment,” he continued. “But we think it’s a bad idea to create a system where speech that would be protected for an American student, wouldn’t be for a student on a student visa.”
However, Coward believes that if Trump abides by the precedent set in his first term, the impact on free speech could be varied. “His (first) administration did some things on the campus side, some which were helpful, some which were not. First off, on the helpful side is that we in the United States have an anti-discrimination statute called Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, in education, in any entity that receives federal education dollars.
“The Federal Department of Education was interpreting that statute in ways that threatened free expression, particularly free speech, on sex and gender issues, and the first Trump administration passed rules that were very speech protective to allow for broader discussion and debate about these issues on campus… the Obama administration and the Biden administration both adopted rules that were harmful to free speech on those issues.”
But other executive orders implemented during Trump’s first term, and being continued into this administration, could have stretching powers that impact people’s right to protest and express views freely, Coward added.
For instance, Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act – which bans discrimination based on race, colour, or national origin in organisations that receive federal funding, such as universities – has now been extended to include anti-Semitism. While hate speech should rightly be tackled, the concern is that the order could be expanded beyond hate speech and used in such a way that stifles the free speech of those who oppose Israel’s policies.
“I suspect we’ll see a lot more enforcement and a lot of speech that is protected by the First Amendment, including criticisms of Israel, that will pressure educational institutions that receive federal dollars,” said Coward. “The institutions will be cracking down on this speech in ways that threaten free expression, and then the education department itself will start investigating institutions for failure to censor that speech.”
Carolyn Iodice, legislative and policy director at FIRE, also told Index about the threats that journalism in the USA could face as a result of Trump’s attitude to the media. The president has sued several media outlets and social media firms because of the way they have reported news about him, represented his opponents or moderated his speech, Iodice said.
“We would have normally expected that the entities – like CBS News, Facebook and ABC News – would fight that kind of lawsuit; because for one [Facebook], there’s no legal claim to be had against them, and two, with CBS and ABC, if you don’t defend your journalists it creates this chill about what they can and can’t say about the president.”
Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, is due to pay $25 million to Trump in a settlement, after Trump sued the Big Tech firm and its chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in 2021 over the suspension of his accounts following the 6 January 2021 Capitol riots. ABC has settled its defamation case for $16 million. CBS is also reportedly considering settling over a case involving an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, where Trump alleged that CBS had edited the show to unfairly cast Harris in a more favourable light.
“The concern there is that you now have, by virtue of these lawsuits, a multi-billion dollar incentive for companies to have their journalists shape their coverage in ways that won’t get them brought back to court by the president again and again,” Iodice said.
Regarding social media, despite anecdotal user reports of censorship on TikTok when it was first reintroduced in the USA, FIRE are generally positive about the steps Trump has taken towards reducing censorship on these platforms.
“The most promising thing so far,” Iodice said, “is that he issued an executive order that talked about, and was critical of, the practice of the government leaning on social media companies to coerce them to [censor] speech in ways the government couldn’t directly require them to do, because of the First Amendment. And we think that’s a very good thing, regardless of who does it.”
The second Trump Administration outwardly champions free speech for Americans, but the first weeks of government have not always represented this ethos. Those of us working against censorship around the world have looked on with trepidation at this new government, which looks set to overturn the applecart in all facets of government. One can only hope that the First Amendment isn’t flung to the wayside.
26 Sep 2024 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, United Kingdom
On Monday 16 September, the United States imposed financial sanctions and visa restrictions on Georgians who they believed to be involved with violent crackdowns on peaceful protests that had occurred in the country’s capital Tbilisi in the spring. The protests were sparked in resistance to the passing of a “foreign agents law”, which shares similarities with an existing law in Russia – raising concerns that the Georgian government is aligning more closely with the Kremlin.
These demonstrations were led by young adults. University students organised and turned out in their thousands, and the majority of protesters on the streets were members of Gen Z. It is commonplace for young people to be vocal about what they believe in, but despite the US supporting the struggle of the youth against their government in Georgia, when it comes to home soil, their commitment to free speech isn’t so steadfast. The US drew condemnation from UN human rights experts regarding the aggressive and harsh measures used by authorities against pro-Palestine protesters on US university campuses – many peaceful demonstrations were met with surveillance and arrests across the country. Further measures are being taken to prevent protests ahead of the 2024/25 academic year, and these have been met with disdain from the American Association of University Professors in a statement made last month.
The USA is far from alone when it comes to recent crackdowns on the right to protest. As Index has previously covered, there have been multiple arrests at both climate protests and pro-Palestine protests in the UK in recent years, and the Conservative government led by Rishi Sunak introduced the much criticised Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, the Public Order Act 2023, and Serious Disruption Prevention Orders, all of which significantly inhibit people’s right to protest. This crushing of demonstrations even breached the realms of legality when Suella Braverman was ruled to have passed unlawful anti-protest legislation in 2023. In recent times, the sheer scale of punishment for non-violent protesters in the UK has been brought into the public eye with the sentencing in July of Roger Hallam of Just Stop Oil (JSO) to five years imprisonment, and four other JSO members to four years, for coordinating protests on the M25.
Lotte Leicht, a Danish human rights lawyer who holds the position of advocacy director at Climate Rights International – a monitoring and advocacy organisation that recently put out a statement outlining hypocrisy from western governments regarding climate protests – spoke to Index on this issue, and she believes that the UK is the worst offender.
“The crackdown, and particularly the use of law to sentence non-violent disruption by climate protesters in the UK has stood out as the most severe and most extraordinary measure [from any country]. And one thing that’s very disappointing from our point of view is not to see the new Labour government tackling these draconian laws from the previous government, and taking steps to revoke them,” Leicht said.
She added: “The prevention of UK activists from explaining their motivations for their actions in court, and judges actually preventing them from doing so… As a lawyer, I would say this prevents people from having a fair trial.”
This crackdown on protests has become prevalent in many democracies within ‘the Global North’ in recent years, and examples are not hard to come by. On 11 September, thousands of anti-war protesters in Melbourne, Australia gathered outside a weapons expo, protesting the government’s stance on arms, and the use of such weapons in Gaza. The protests quickly became the subject of great scrutiny when there were violent clashes between Melbourne police and demonstrators, with police allegedly using excessive “riot-type” force, resulting in multiple injuries.
In Germany, pro-Palestine protests have also repeatedly been met with harsh measures, such as bans. The country’s history of anti-Semitism has impacted its attitude towards protests and events that are critical of Israel, causing police to be more heavy handed than in other democracies.
Leicht, who is also the council chairwoman at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), a nonprofit dedicated to enforcing civil and human rights globally, told Index that this increasing anti-protest action from western democracies sets a very worrying precedent.
“This represents a massive deployment of double standards. Because these are the same governments that rightfully stand up for freedom of expression, association and assembly in different corners of the world when authoritarian governments are cracking down horrifically on dissent in their countries,” she said.
“These countries are usually there to say ‘Oh, that’s not good’, and we want them to do that! But by not practising what they preach and undermining these principles at home, they will lose that credibility. In a way, they will provide a green light to authoritarian governments to do the exact same for those that they don’t like. I mean, why not?”
Leicht does, however, believe that a continued struggle against these litigations will not be in vain.
“Protests in the past have also been disruptive, annoying and irritating for those in power — look at the Suffragettes. Now, is that something that we today would say ‘That’s just annoying and irritating’? Many felt so at the time. They were disruptive, they were irritating, they were strong, they were principled – and they were successful. And I think history will tell the same story about courageous climate protesters,” she said.
It is clear that countries positioning themselves as “champions of democracy” must truly allow freedom of expression within their own borders, especially when they set the tone globally. If they continue to infringe upon the rights of people to demonstrate their beliefs and advocate publicly for change, then the future will be silent.
6 Sep 2022 | Americas, Brazil, News and features
President Bolsonaro has taken over the Brazilian flag as a symbol of patriotism to the country. Photo: Marcos Correa/Zuma Press
I was born in the city of Curitiba, in the south of Brazil, and I was always proud to be Brazilian. Since Jair Bolsonaro came to power on 1 January 2019 though it has been very upsetting to watch what has happened to my country.
Bolsonaro was elected – it wasn’t a coup – but he is not in favour of democracy. In fact he represents everything that a democracy isn’t — an enemy of women, Black people, the LGBTQ+ community and Indigenous peoples. During his election campaign he propagated hatred with homophobic, misogynistic and anti-environmental rhetoric. Then, as soon as he began his term in 2019, he put all of his words into actions.
To begin with, firearm registration grew in the country. Support for carrying a weapon was one of the pillars of Bolsonaro’s campaign back in 2018. This worries me, as I am totally against arming the population. It makes me distressed to think of the danger that people I love are in with more guns out there. Bolsonaro relies on the premise that Brazilians have a way to defend themselves against bandits and criminals, but he forgets the main focus, which should be greater investment in public safety, better working conditions for police officers and more educational resources — the only possible way to reduce crime in the country.
An incident on 9 July in the city of Foz do Iguaçu is one example of how gun ownership can have terrible consequences. Municipal guard Marcelo Arruda, treasurer of the Workers’ Party, was celebrating his 50th birthday at a private party when he was shot dead by federal prison agent Jorge Guaranho, a supporter of Bolsonaro. It was a political crime. Arruda supported left-wing candidate Lula and Bolsonaro has been known to promote violence against those with opposing political views, as he did in 2018 when he encouraged his supporters to “shoot the petralhada” (a reference to left-wing supporters) on a visit to the state of Acre.
This incident also raises concerns over freedom of expression in Brazil. Is it no longer possible to support a candidate who is against the current government without automatically becoming the target of violent and radical people?
Bolsonaro is clearly not concerned about the high rates of deforestation in the Amazon and Pantanal region. The situation in the Amazon received a lot of attention in June with the murder of British journalist Dom Philips, together with Indigenous activist Bruno Pereira, who were exposing the scale of environmental destruction at the moment. Their murders were awful, in general and for their families. They also spoke more broadly of Bolsonaro’s disregard for the lives of Brazilians.
For me, Bolsonaro represents death. It is difficult to forget his neglect of the Brazilian people in the worst moments of the Covid-19 pandemic. Since the pandemic started he adopted denialism. He encouraged the use of ineffective drugs and delayed the purchase of vaccines. As a result, people close to me saw family members and friends die from a disease even after the vaccine became available. My family and best friends received their first dose of the vaccine months after those in the UK did, a wait that made me anxious. (As an aside, because of Bolsonaro’s reckless actions, Brazil was on the UK travel red list for almost a year. I couldn’t go back to Brazil and no one could visit me in England. It was 10 months of loneliness, not knowing when I would see the ones I love the most.) In the end, Bolsonaro is partly responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands in Brazil from Covid. How can I not be disgusted by a president who, when asked if he had any words of solidarity with the victims’ families, said “I’m not a gravedigger, OK?”
In Bolsonaro’s Brazil, journalism has also been devalued and attacked with alarming regularity. The president himself has verbally attacked journalists. Examples date back decades and are many, but you don’t have to go back decades to find them. A couple of weeks ago will do. On 28 August, during a presidential debate when journalist Vera Magalhães criticised Bolsonaro’s approach to the Covid-19 pandemic, he called her a “disgrace to Brazilian journalism”. And just this week, he lashed out at the journalist Amanda Klein. When Klein asked Bolsonaro about his finances related to property acquisitions, he said: “Amanda, you are married to someone who supports me”. The journalist promptly answered by saying that her personal life was not on the agenda, which was followed by Bolsonaro questining why his was. “Because you are a public person. You are the president,” she responded, correctly.
These two journalists also shared another thing in common – their gender. Bolsonaro’s contempt and awful treatment towards women is widely known in Brazil. In 2003, for example, he told the politician Maria do Rosário that he wouldn’t rape her because she didn’t deserve it. Eleven years later, he elaborated by saying that she didn’t deserve to be raped because she was ugly and not his type. And yet there are still women who vote for him, something I just can’t understand.
Bolsonaro took over the Brazilian flag with his motto “God above all, Brazil above all”. Before him, when I saw the green and yellow flag – which I think is one of the most beautiful in the world – in houses or on the streets, it was usually people cheering for Brazil on the day of a World Cup match. Today, it’s difficult not to associate the flag with Bolsonaro supporters.
Bolsonaro does not represent me, nor the millions of other Brazilians who have taken a stand against his atrocities. Brazil is much bigger than Bolsonaro. It is a country of exuberant beauty and many kind and generous people. I am proud to be Brazilian and that will never change. One day Bolsonaro will be held accountable for all his actions. Hopefully that day is soon.
