Freedom of Expression Awards 2009

18 Dec 2008 | Uncategorized

We are now accepting nominations for the Freedom Of Expression Awards, Index on Censorship’s spring gathering of free expression heroes, advocates and supporters. The Freedom of Expression Awards celebrate our right to know and tell, and to recognise that this, of all human rights, is the one so often in the balance in democracies, so often the first victim of intolerance and poor legislation. As an event it provides an annual snap shot of the state of play for freedom of thought and speech, protest and dissent, around the world. When looking through the list of past recipients and nominees (here) I am reminded of that over-quoted line of Milan Kundera’s: ‘The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.’

The awards short lists are like book marks in recent history, reminding us of so many nearly forgotten struggles, so many gutsy protestations buried in the white noise of the mainstream media. The awards help get these stories back to the surface, and offer the messengers some support, and a day to celebrate their accomplishments.

To find out how you can nominate your free expression heroes of in the book, film, whistleblower, journalism, new media, and law and campaigning categories click here.

BURMA: REFERENDUM AND REPRESSION

24 Apr 2008 | News and features

U Attira accepts Index Award
Last Monday, Index on Censorship honoured Burma’s monks for their struggle against the ruling junta. The military regime is now cracking down on dissent as it pushes through a new constitution, writes David Jardine

Burma’s brutal ruling military junta will stage a national referendum on 10 May to rubber stamp a Potemkin constitution that will give the armed forces a guaranteed 25 per cent of seats in the national assembly.

The crucial home affairs ministry will remain in the hands of the junta, thus securing for it permanent control of the media.

The junta, led by General Than Shwe, is boastfully confident that it will secure the Yes vote that the all-out propaganda campaign of the state-controlled media is demanding. Anyone campaigning for a No vote faces arrest and almost certainly a long term of imprisonment in one or other part of the junta’s gulag, including the much hated Insein prison in Rangoon.

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