22 Apr 2009 | Uncategorized
Speaking at last night’s Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards, Chief Executive
John Kampfner outlined the plans, opportunities and challenges for Index on Censorship in the year ahead.
Two and a half decades in journalism took me to Berlin for the fall of the wall, to Russia for the collapse of Communism, to Rwanda for the terrible genocide. They also took me to Westminster for the likes of Alastair Campbell, Peter Mandelson, and, yes, Damian McBride. One of the frustrations of that profession is that you talk about what other people do, but you rarely have the chance to do it yourself.
Free expression is under threat as never before. It goes to the core of civil liberties and to the health of civil society around the world.
Index on Censorship is a wonderful organisation, as many will attest. When Index on Censorship was founded the issue was much more black and white. Some states and systems were identified as abusers of free speech, others as promoters. Now the concerns are more variegated. Free speech is seen by some not as a bedrock of human rights, but as a challenge to them, for example on so-called ‘hate speech’. Restrictions are being imposed not just by authoritarian states but through self-censorship and democracies too.
I know it is invidious to pick out a few of our partners, but I want to thank our major funders — the Open Society Institute, Fritt Ord, the Arts Council and the Prince Claus Fund.
Our international and UK projects are led by Rohan Jayasekera with funding from different branches of the UN and EU, along with the foreign ministries and UK-based trusts, continue to be the benchmark for the most professional hands-on work to be found in the sector. A number of media lawyers have been doing invaluable campaigning with us on our current project, in conjunction with English PEN, to highlight the odious nature of libel law in this country.
Rohan and I will also be representing Index on Censorship at the Global Forum on Free Expression in Oslo in June and I have agreed with Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty that we will host a joint event in the autumn.
I’d like to pay tribute to Jonathan Dimbleby, who brought me onto Index on Censorship in September, and has shared our plans to modernise the organisation and increase its profile. We have an inspirational board of trustees, who do so much work behind the scenes. I’m delighted that the former Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald QC, has agreed to join us.
Our website relaunches in May and is already attracting contributors like Bernard-Henri Levy, and Orlando Figes , among others. We invite contributions from people committed to civil liberties and free expression on all sides of the political spectrum. It is journalism, but it is much more than journalism.
Our ambition is clear: we want to ensure that Index on Censorship becomes, through the new website, magazine, events and other advocacy, the number one place, the hub, where people around the world turn to for intelligent, incisive work on free expression.
22 Apr 2009 | Uncategorized
The purpose of last night’s Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards, indeed, the purpose of Index on Censorship, is to highlight the stories of people fighting for free expression around the world, and to ensure that free expression is at the heart of the discourse on rights and liberties.
In carrying out that task this year, we’ve been lucky to collaborate with the Guardian‘s Liberty Central site.
Liberty Central’s Natalie Hanman interviewed award nominee Harrison Nkomo, who explained the difficulty of uphold the rights to a free press, and proper legal processes. You can watch the interview here.
Bindman’s Law and Campaigning award winner Malik Imtiaz Sarwar wrote an article for the site, detailing his struggle in Malaysia, including the defence of Raja Petra Kamarudin of Malaysia Today.
And the top story today is Sir David Hare’s keynote speech from the event, where he admits to some initial scepticism about Index on Censorship (thankfully he then admits he was wrong!).
David Hare also raises his own misgivings on what we might call ‘free-speech abolutism’, saying: ‘I had misgivings about freedom of speech being made the sole criterion of a free society. I still do.’
It’s an interesting point. Free expression may not be the sole criterion of a free, and healthy society, but I think discussion is. Societies flounder and fail when discussion is shut down. As award winner Ma Jian put it in his speech last night, the end result of censorship (and perhaps the desired result of censorship) is stultification and stupefaction of individuals and society.
Liberty Central is a good embodiment of why free expression is important: we need free expression so we have the space to discuss all other rights, liberties and responsibilties — as happens on Liberty Central.
22 Apr 2009 | Uncategorized
I am always blown away by the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards. But for some reason, last night’s event seemed to throw up an even more astonishing roster of award winners than usual. It was also good that so many were there in person. (In a surreal touch, Paul Staines, aka Guido Fawkes, was also there in person at a table he had bought for the occasion).
The Sri Lankan paper, the Sunday Leader, won the journalism award, which was collected by Lal Wickrematunge. Lal explained he and his brother Lasantha had started the magazine 15 years ago on a shoestring budget and distributed it from the back of a car. Unfortunately, Lasantha couldn’t be there because he was assassinated in January.
Ma Jian’s Beijing Coma, a novel about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, was the unanimous choice for the book award. In his acceptance speech the writer explained that ever since the atrocity, on the eve of the 4 June anniversary Chinese police visit the homes of former demonstrators with duvets and camp out to make sure they don’t talk to foreign journalists. What a weird and deeply sinister image of a repressive regime that is.
But I was particularly taken with the New Media award, which went to the creators of Psiphon, a software programme to allow internet access in countries where censorship is imposed. The programme, developed at Citizen Lab at the Univeristy of Toronto allows people in non-censored countries to turn any computer into an encrypted server. However, I did think the award should have gone jointly to Hossein ‘Hoder’ Derakhshan, an Iranian blogger who can take credit for a revolution in blogging in his country. In 2001 he invented a way for Persian characters to be represesented on the web. He was arrested for his activities in November 2008 and is being held in an unknown location.
Originally posted at The Bright Stuff
22 Apr 2009 | Comment, News and features, United Kingdom
In a stirring and provocative speech at the Freedom of Expression awards, Sir David Hare presented a challenge for Index on Censorship, and all free speech advocates
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