It all became perfectly clear in Miguel’s head when a high-ranking editor from his newspaper eagerly approached him one day with a story idea. It was August 2012, and the Angolan presidential elections were scheduled for the 31st.
“You’re going to write an article that will prove once and for all to the Portuguese audience that Angola is a true democracy and not dictatorship. We’ll show that it is the Portuguese who are the fascists here, not the Angolan,” the editor told him.
The assignment came as no surprise to Miguel, who was aware of the rumours that the cash-strapped newspaper he works for is one of the many Portuguese media outlets that have received cash infusions funded by Angolan investors. These investments come from individuals connected to Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos, the man who enriched himself and his country’s tight-knit elite throughout his 36 years of power. While rich in resources — Angola figures among the world’s top producers of oil and diamonds — the country’s profits benefit very few. The most shocking example of that is the fact that this former Portuguese colony has the world’s highest mortality rate for infants and for children under the age of five.
Eventually, after informing his editor that he didn’t share the opinion that “Angola is a true democracy”, Miguel acquiesced and wrote the article on the condition that his byline would not appear.
Later that month, on 31 August 2012, dos Santos won the election with a controversial 71.84% of the votes.
“After that, I imposed on myself a kind of conscious negligence on everything relating to Angola. I stopped thinking about it, not just in order to keep my job, but also for mentality’s sake,” Miguel admits.
Ownership of Portuguese media outlets by Angolan oligarchs is a way for the dos Santos regime to hide the country’s negative side while promoting it before a foreign audience, experts say.
“They know better than anyone that the media can help them create the illusion that Angola is a good example when it comes to politics, the economy or even human rights,” says Portuguese MEP Ana Gomes, a member of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights and a close follower of the Angolan situation. “It grants good publicity and an idea of respectability to Angolan personalities who got all their money by stealing assets of the Angola state.”
Francisco Louçã, a former leader of the Portuguese Left Block political party and co-author of the book The Angolans Who Own Portugal, told Index on Censorship that “by owning strategic positions of the Portuguese media, these businessmen and businesswomen who are very close to the Angolan regime can manage and condition the information that reaches Portugal, which, from their perspective, is the perfect gateway for other European markets”.
It’s hard to find a media title in Portugal that isn’t owned in some way or another by Angolan oligarchs — and although Portugal has yet to see the effects of media transparency legislation that will make it mandatory for newspapers to reveal their shareholders beginning on 27 October, many news reports dating back to 2008 show that Angolan money is being invested in the Portuguese media.
Then there’s Newshold, a media group owned by Angolan banker and businessman Álvaro Sobrinho. After buying the weekly Sol in 2008, Newshold announced the acquisition of the daily i in 2014. Newshold is also a shareholder in the two largest national media empires: 1.9% in Cofina, which includes Portugal’s highest circulation newspaper, Correio da Manhã; and 3.2% of Impresa, owner of television powerhouse SIC and the prestigious weekly Expresso.
In 2012, Newshold was also a frontrunner for the concession of RTP, the Portuguese public television network, after the government announced that it was willing to put it into the hands of private owners — a sale that was later dropped.
Then there is the case of Isabel do Santos, daughter of the Angolan president and Africa’s richest woman. Much of her $3.1 billion (£2.07 billion) net worth has been facilitated by her father’s decisions, which led to Forbes to dubbing her “daddy’s girl”. Not long after that piece was published, Isabel dos Santos bought the rights to produce a Portuguese-language version of Forbes which will be sold in Portugal and in Portuguese-speaking African countries.
Although Isabel dos Santos has no reported ownership of a Portuguese media outlet, she does co-own NOS, Portugal’s leading cable television company, in a joint-venture with the Portuguese telecom mogul Sonaecom — which is also the owner of the daily Público.
Whether they are the recipients of direct investments or not, all newspapers in Portugal are dependent on money from Angola’s elite in the form of advertising. With holdings in Portugal’s real estate, telecoms, construction and banking industries, Angolan investors can potentially influence coverage through contracts for ad space.
It isn’t always clear how the Angolan money is invested in Portugal’s media. For example, in the case of i, a newspaper that has struggled with financial issues, a February 2012 purchase of a 70% stake by printing-house owner Manuel Cruz was completed behind a reluctance to reveal the identity of the investors. “It’s a deal that is done through a foreign group, of which I’m a shareholder representative in Portugal,” Cruz was quoted as saying at the time.
However, inside the newsroom, journalists became alert to the possibility that that investment had roots in the Angolan oligarchy. “It became known through rumours, which were later proved to be true,” says António Rodrigues, a former editor of i’s foreign news desk. “It got pretty obvious even without an official confirmation. It’s impossible for the owner of a printing house to be able to afford to suddenly buy an unprofitable newspaper during an economic crisis. There had to be someone from Angola behind him.”
Rodrigues was right. But this was only to be fully brought to light in September 2014 when i and Sol moved into the same building.
In the meantime, while journalists were left to speculate on who their mysterious bosses were, news regarding Angola became a sensitive topic. “One had to be more careful and it was policy to ask the editors-in-chief for permission to publish anything related to Angola,” Rodrigues said.
After seven months working under the new owners, Rodrigues was laid off and the foreign news section was left without a permanent editor — such responsibilities were transferred to the masthead. This led to a gradual, yet steady loss of importance of the foreign news section in the paper. It didn’t take long until negative news concerning Angola nearly disappeared from i, Rodrigues said.
Other Portuguese news outlets appear to have limited their coverage of Angola. The ongoing hunger strike by Luaty Beirão — an Angolan-Portuguese rapper who began protesting on 21 September after being accused, along with 14 other activists, of preparing “crimes against [Angola’s] state security” — has been met with reluctance by some newspapers. i and Jornal de Notícias are yet to give more space to the subject than a brief item. And while it did write about new business opportunities for Isabel dos Santos, Diário de Notícias devoted only a little more than one column to the hunger strike when a demonstration for Beirão’s freedom took place in Lisbon to mark the 25th day of his protest.
On 27 October, Portugal will implement a media transparency law that will make it mandatory for newspapers to divulge their list of shareholders — TV and radio stations already follow this procedure. Until recently, similar drafts have been voted down by the centre-right governing coalition.
“Resistance by the media owners to laws of this kind is very high and some parties respect this clearly. The Angola regime is a sacred cow to some of them,” says Louçã.
“Finally we have such a law that will bring some light to this very dark issue. And I’m sure that if we follow the money trail, we’ll always find our way to very important personalities of the Angolan regime with high stakes in the Portuguese economy,” says Gomes.
However, Marques de Morais, a connoisseur of the ways of the Angolan oligarchy, is more skeptical of the results of this new law.
“If the regime of José Eduardo dos Santos has shown an ability to do something, it’s to hide their footsteps. There is always a way for them.”
How is it possible that people who cannot manage even the most basic protest, without being violently clamped down and detained, could have the means to organise a coup d’état? This is a pertinent question sent in by a reader of my website, Maka Angola, following the detention of 15 activists in Angola in late June.
The young people had formed a study group. They armed themselves with books on peaceful forms of protest in order better to defend their ideas. This posed an even greater threat to those in power who, according to various analysts, are more afraid of freedom of thought than of guns.
On Wednesday 24 June, the attorney general, Army General João Maria de Sousa, confirmed the detention of 15 youths for allegedly preparing acts of collective disobedience to overthrow the government, and unseat President Dos Santos. “These acts constitute crimes against the security of the state, as a crime of rebellion. As such, the competent bodies of the state must take action to avert the worst,” General João Maria de Sousa told the press.
The group were reading the famous book by US academic Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation. The book’s blurb describes it as “a blueprint for nonviolent resistance to repressive regimes.” The youth were reportedly brainstorming peaceful strategies to protest against the rule of Dos Santos.
Maka Angola has decided to find out about these 15 people jailed as “coup plotters”, and has compiled profiles of each one on the site. An extract follows here.
Inocêncio António de Brito “Drux” Age: 28 years Occupation: Student and head of Scout group at a Catholic church
“My son only knows how to manipulate a pen, he does not know how to handle a gun. Will he be able to make a coup with a pen?” wonders Marta Mulay, the mother of Inocêncio de Brito.
She says the arrest of her son “is an injustice. He is innocent of everything that he is accused of. Inocêncio disagrees with the president’s governance. He just simply wants to help to open the minds of the people because the country is in bad shape. As a family, we demand his immediate release”.
In turn, his sister, Marcelina de Brito, told us how he was taken back to his home after being arrested at the meeting. She says the police shoved a black bag over his head so that he could not see where he was being taken. She confirmed that the police seized his computer, telephone and all his books and university notebooks.
Mbanza Hamza
Age: 30
Occupation: Primary school teacher
Since 2011, Mbanza Hamza has been one of the main victims of the brutality inflicted by the police and security forces on the youth movement that has protested against the regime of President dos Santos. In 2012, MPLA-controlled militias broke his skull and collarbone during a raid on a house where youths were meeting to plan a demonstration.
Mbanza lives with his two children in his mother’s house. His mother, Leonor Odete João, has no fear about expressing her disgust at her son’s detention. “My son’s strength is his conscience. The books he reads are what’s scaring the president …The danger here is studying, it’s what my son is learning. He has freedom of conscience and freedom of choice.”
She added: “Since my son was arrested I haven’t been eating, just weeping.”
She condemns the way in which police from the Criminal Investigation Service (SIC) arrived at her house without a warrant for the searches and arrests they carried out. “They took my computer, they took my phone and my younger son’s. They even took my women’s magazines and newspapers that I have kept. They took all the papers they could find.”
José Gomes Hata “Cheik Hata” Age: 29 years Occupation: Hip-hop artist
Cheik Hata is one of the promoters, with Hitler Samusuku, of the hip-hop group Third Division. His lyrics are considered to be revolutionary. The verses are about rebellion – rebellion of the youngsters who feel robbed, oppressed and betrayed – and they speak about the reality of life in Angola, bluntly and without any fear.
“Wake up, let’s do it/Negative thoughts, devilish acts/results in violations, corruption and murder/in general, men possessed without mercy/More percentage to Zé (…)/”, sings the rapper in the music track “Half man, half animal”, from the record Project Does Not Vote.
Domingos da Cruz Age: 31 years Occupation: Professor at the Independent University of Angola
Because of his intellectual role and as the main speaker during debates of new forms of peaceful activism, the authorities consider Domingos da Cruz as one of the “ringleaders” of the alleged coup-plotting. He is the author of the book Tools to Destruct the Dictator and Prevent New Dictatorship: Political Philosophy to the Liberation of Angola. The work has been used as a manual in the young people’s meetings and may be considered an adaptation of the activist model propagated by the US academic Gene Sharp, in his book From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation. This book has been internationally used as an instruction manual for non-violent strategies against dictatorships.
However, the contents of Domingos da Cruz book is not as bombastic as the title suggests. In general, the 184-page work defends non-violent struggle, including civil disobedience, as the best way for Angolans to achieve their freedom and implement true democracy. The author is against the use of violence and insists on safeguarding human lives. On the possibility of a coup, for example, to overthrow the dictatorship, for example, Da Cruz argues that coups represent a setback in the process of change and tend to give rise to a new dictatorship. He does not promote the idea of change based on external support. He is against it.
To pursue Da Cruz, the judicial bodies are clinging to the title of his works.
According to his sister, four police agents, last Sunday 21 June 2015 ransacked Da Cruz’s house, “including the bathroom and water buckets”. They took everything that was written on paper.
The other detainees include: Hitler Jessia Chiconda “Samusuku”, a student and hip-hop artist; Osvaldo Caholo, a lieutenant in the National Air Force and assistant teacher of African history; Nelson Dibango, a computer technician; Albano Evaristo Bingobingo “Albano Liberdade”, a driver; Arante Kivuvu, a student; Manuel Baptista Chivonde Nito Alves, a student; Luaty “Ikonoklasta” Beirão, a rapper; Sedrick de Carvalho, journalist; Fernando Tomás “Nicola Radical”, technician; Nuno Álvaro Dala, university lecturer; and Benedito Jeremias, a student.
Rafael Marques de Morais, Safa Al Ahmad, Amran Abdundi, Mouad “El Haqed” Belghouat and Tamas Bodokuy (Photo: Alex Brenner for Index on Censorship)
A Kenyan woman standing up for women’s rights in one of the world’s most dangerous regions. A Hungarian journalist and his investigative news site. A documentary filmmaker who exposed an unreported uprising in Saudi Arabia. An Angolan journalist who has been repeatedly prosecuted for his work uncovering government and industry corruption. A Moroccan rapper whose music tackles widespread poverty and endemic government corruption.
These were the five individuals named Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award winners on 18 March 2015. Three months later, here are updates on their ongoing work.
Rafael Marques de Morais / Journalism
Rafael Marques de Morais (Photo: Alex Brenner for Index on Censorship)
International signatories, from Tiffany & Co and Leber Jewellers to Oscar-winning film director Steve McQueen, and from Blood Diamond film stars David Harewood and Michael Sheen to journalist Sir Harold Evans, recently called on Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos to abandon the prosecution of investigative journalist Rafael Marques de Morais.
The campaigning journalist returned from collecting his award in London to face trial linked to his book Blood Diamonds. He filed a criminal complaint against a group of generals who he held morally responsible for human rights abuses he uncovered within the country’s diamond trade. For this, they filed a series of libel suits against him in Angola and Portugal.
The media attention that Marques won off the back of his award “helped a great deal” he said. “It raised my profile in the days before my trial and maybe helped to make it an international cause.” In a rare sight for Angola, a number of anti-corruption protesters publicly gathered outside of the Luanda courthouse as his trial opened and covert protests have continued under the cover of darkness since.
Marques’ trial played out in a Kafkaesque way over the subsequent weeks, with behind-the-scenes negotiations leading to criminal defamation charges first being dropped, only for him to suddenly discover that he would instead be sentenced for the alternative crime of malicious prosecution.
The American Bar Association, who monitored the trial throughout, published a report stating that the court had failed to meet international fair trial standards on at least three counts. The ABA Center for Human Rights report found that “throughout the proceedings, the defendant was denied the right to present a defense, induced to make a statement on the basis of false pretenses and compelled to bear the burden of proving his innocence, all in violation of international law.”
Marques’ sentence finally came down on 25 May: six-months imprisonment, suspended for a term of two years. Marques is now appealing against this punishment that effectively seeks to silence him until 2017; coincidentally the same year as Angola’s next elections.
The court also attempted to censor Marques’ book from republication and further distribution but these efforts have blatantly failed with copies of the book widely circulated online and an English language version becoming available for the first time less than a week after his sentence.
Despite the international attention, the situation for Marques and his peers in Angola’s human rights and journalism communities remains grim. Recounting the experience of taking his car to the local garage for repairs recently, the fear is palpable in his voice. “There were two members of the ruling party there, by coincidence. They walked across to the mechanic and warned him not to fix my car unless he wanted to risk becoming collateral damage.”
Marques’ email has also recently been repeatedly hacked and his website www.makaangola.org is presently subject to over 250 attacks per day, forcing him to desist from updating it for the time being.
Marques continues to work closely with Index on Censorship and a number of other international organisations. His recent report on the massacre of a sect at Mount Sumi was published by The Guardian, he continues to keep a close eye on both the persecution of journalists and corruption at the highest levels in Angola, and he is expecting to hear back from the Supreme Court about his appeal in the next few weeks.
Hugely grateful for the support of the international community, Marques remains determined “to continue the good fight for change”.
“I have only the interests of my people at heart,” he says, “and to experience all this persecution, it must mean you are doing something positive, something right.”
Safa Al Ahmad (Photo: Alex Brenner for Index on Censorship)
Joint winner of the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award for Journalism, Safa Al Ahmad has spent much of the past three months in the editing studio.
Applauded for her documentary Saudi’s Secret Uprising, Al Ahmad’s new film The Rise of the Houthis – first distributed at this year’s Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards Gala and since screened by both the BBC and PBS Frontline – has won wide critical acclaim.
Next month, on 6 July, BBC worldwide will also premiere a follow-up film that Al Ahmad has produced and directed, with Gaith Abdulahad exploring the present situation in the south of Yemen.
Now regularly invited to attend international public meetings, from Copenhagen to Geneva to Washington DC, Al Ahmad says she thinks that the award has brought more exposure – both for credible investigative journalism from Saudi Arabia, and for her work.
Is that a good thing for a journalist who has made her name through operating undercover? It is a challenge, she says, to find ways to do credible journalism about Saudi Arabia and the region without being on the ground. But there are complex stories, beyond TV, that Al Ahmad would increasingly like to focus on.
Abdundi, who knows many students from the college, immediately joined with other women leaders to organise strong community protests against Al-Shabaab.
“It was a barbaric attack done by a crazy group who have no respect for human life,” she said. “It was a sad day for the people of Kenya and the victims of the attack. But it will not scare [the] people of northern Kenya as we will continue and fight to overcome them”.
Abdundi hopes to help further through her ongoing work with her grassroots community organisation Frontier Indigenous Rights Network, tracking arms movements across the dangerous border with Sudan and travelling to meetings in Nairobi to report observations. “Security is improving now,” says Abdundi.
Winning the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award for Campaigning, and sharing the story of the people of northern Kenya with the wider world, “made me so happy” she says. “The award ceremony was aired by all community radios in northern Kenya and reached many people. I am happy because it will give women courage to stand up for their rights”.
Spending a week in Index on Censorship’s office in London was “an opportunity to see how you work” Abdundi said, and has inspired her to want to develop a new website for her work, helping her to “spread her message to all corner[s] of northern Kenya”.
Tamas Bodoky (Photo: Alex Brenner for Index on Censorship)
Atlatszo.hu, Tamas Bodoky’s investigative news website in Hungary has continued to gather praise and acclaim, including another award, the Theodor Heuss Medal.
“All of this recognition is very helpful,” said Bodoky. “We are always afraid of retaliation and this offers us a level of protection… Hungarian authorities are very aware of this international attention and it is less likely that they will attack as we continue with our investigative projects.”
Atlatszo continues to publish three to four articles and numerous blog posts each week, including an English newsletter, often drawing on FOI requests to try to bring more transparency to Hungarian public life.
The campaigning journalists scored a major recent success with their campaign to demand political party foundations make information on their beneficiaries, income and spending publicly available. When political party Jobbik’s foundation refused to comply, Atlatszo took action. It began legal proceedings that proved sufficient to make them capitulate.
Bodoky’s organisation is now using this newly available information to research deeper, exploring “far right networks” and, he says, some curious connections between governing party Fidesz and football club Ferencvarosi TC.
As he looks ahead, Bodoky is especially concerned by the looming threat of a foreign NGO law – holding all NGO’s with foreign funding “accountable and transparent” by forcing them to register.
“We don’t know exactly when they will seek to expose and limit foreign funding, but the Russian recipe is definitely on the table,” says Bodoky. Fortunately his organisation has been totally open and transparent since 2013.
Rapper El Haqed (Photo: Alex Brenner for Index on Censorship)
Rapper Mouad Belghouat, better known as El Haqed (“the enraged” in Arabic) continues to rail against the endemic corruption and widespread poverty he says he sees in Morocco.
Imprisoned three times since 2011, El Haqed was not only prohibited from performing publicly in his homeland but had also been struggling to obtain visas to travel or perform internationally.
The good news is that his visit to the UK has helped him to overcome this obstacle, recently spending five weeks touring Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Highlights included performing live during Oslo’s 1 May celebrations and working with the organisation Freemuse to record a new Fela Kuti cover as part of a group of Arab and Iranian revolutionary artists (listen here). “It was much easier to be there because I went to England and came back,” said Belghouat.
Until recently limited to publishing and sharing his work via YouTube and Facebook, El Haqed has also begun something of an offline resurgence back home. Approached by promoters in his home town of Casablanca after winning the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Arts Award brought him widespread local media coverage, El Haqed now hopes to stage his first live concert on home soil in a long time this Friday 19 June. (Update 22 June 2015: Morocco: Police block concert by Index award-winning rapper El Haqed)
“Usually people find many excuses not to work with him,” according to Belghouat’s brother and manager Abderrahim Belghouat, “but so far this time no people have yet come and told the venue ‘don’t work with him’…”
Update 23 June 2015: El Haqed has now cancelled his planned tour of five of Morocco’s least affluent towns. The planned series of concerts would have teamed El Haqed with six other local musicians to “bring joy to poorer people in cities without theatres, cinemas and cultural areas, in the old Moroccan way, by making music for free outdoors”.
El Haqed is determinedly hopeful, “the Index award has shown Moroccan authorities that you can’t stop me,” he said, “the more of an effort they make to silence me, the more my voice arrives everywhere.”
Journalist and human rights activist Rafael Marques de Morais (Photo: Alex Brenner for Index on Censorship)
International signatories from the worlds of technology, journalism, publishing, theatre, film and business, including jewellers Tiffany & Co, called on Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos on Tuesday to drop the prosecution of award-winning investigative journalist Rafael Marques de Morais.
“Rafael’s trial was a sham. He was told charges would be dropped, only for him to be hit with new charges out of the blue, and he was not allowed to present his evidence or call witnesses,” said Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of freedom of expression group Index on Censorship, which organised the letter.
“Rafael is a courageous journalist, working with little support to expose corruption in Angola. This absurd trial and verdict is meant to stop him from speaking out. We want to make sure that does not happen.”
Marques was awarded an Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression award in March for his work. Signatories to the letter include jewellers Tiffany & Co.; tech entrepreneurs Martha Lane Fox, one of the judges of the awards, and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales; authors Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman and Elif Shafak; actors Janet Suzman, Juliet Stevenson, and Simon Callow; playwrights Howard Brenton and Timberlake Wertenbaker; as well as Steve McQueen, director of Oscar-winning film 12 Years a Slave. Other signatories included journalists Sir Harold Evans and Christina Lamb; and artists and writers with direct experience of censorship, such as Syrian political cartoonist Ali Ferzat and Azerbaijani journalist Idrak Abbasov.
The letter will be delivered by Index on Censorship to the Embassy of Angola in London on Tuesday, June 2.
For more information, contact David Heinemann on 0207 260 2664 or email [email protected].
The letter
We, the undersigned, call on Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos to drop the prosecution of journalist Rafael Marques de Morais.
Marques’ vital investigations into human rights abuses should not be impeded by the threat of jail, which is set to loom over him for two years under the court’s terms.
His conviction and six-month suspended sentence are a clear violation of the rights to free expression, to a free press and to a fair trial.
Marques’ reporting is fundamental not only to Angola, but to the world at large.
We call on you to ensure standards of international law are applied during the appeal process.
Yours faithfully,
Ali Ferzat, cartoonist
Angela Quintal, editor, Mail & Guardian, South Africa
Dame Ann Leslie, journalist
Anthony Barling, lawyer
Art Kaufman, World Movement for Democracy
Bob Fu, founder and president, ChinaAid
Brilliant Earth Jewellery
Carl Gershman, president, National Endowment for Democracy
Chantal Uwimana, Transparency International
Chie Murakami, director general, Diamonds for Peace, Japan
Christopher Hird, film producer
Christophe Deloire, secretary-general, Reporters Without Borders
Christina Lamb OBE, journalist
David Aaronovitch, columnist
David Harewood MBE, actor
David McCune, publisher
David Schlesinger, founder, Tripod Advisors
Dreda Say Mitchell, author
Edward Fitzgerald CBE QC, lawyer
Elaine Potter, journalist
Elif Shafak, author
Geoffrey Hosking OBE, historian
Grigory Pasko, journalist
Sir Harold Evans, journalist
Howard Brenton, playwright
Idrak Abbasov, journalist
Janet Suzman, actor and director
Jesper Højberg, executive director, International Media Support
Jeffrey Smith, Robert F Kennedy Centre for Justice & Human Rights
Jimmy Wales, founder, Wikipedia
Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive, Index on Censorship
John Witherow, editor, The Times, UK
Juliet Stevenson, actor
Kamila Shamsie, author
Kostas Vaxevanis, journalist
Lara Pawson, author of In the Name of the People: Angola’s Forgotten Massacre
Larry Kilman, secretary-general, World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers
Leber Jeweler Inc
Lee Hirsch, film director
Lindsey Hilsum, journalist
Louise Redvers, journalist
Mariane Pearl, journalist
Mark Stephens CBE, senior member, Howard Kennedy LLP
Martha Lane Fox CBE, House of Lords
Mary Lawlor, executive director, Front Line Defenders
Maya Wolfe-Robinson, journalist
Matthew d’Ancona, journalist
Matthew Parris, journalist
Mohamed Al-Dharadji, film director
Neil Gaiman, author
Paul Webster, film producer
Peter Oborne, journalist
Peter Kellner, president, YouGov
Peter Pomerantsev, author
Peter Tatchell, director, Peter Tatchell Foundation
Philip Pullman, author
Rahim Haciyev, editor, Azadliq, Azerbaijan
Richard Sambrook, director, Centre for Journalism, Cardiff University
Ronald Deibert, academic
Robert McCrum, writer and editor
Sanar Yurdatapan, Initiative for Freedom of Expression, Turkey
Shubhranshu Choudhary, journalist
Simon Callow CBE, actor
Steve McQueen CBE, film director
Sue Woodford-Hollick OBE, businesswoman
Sue Valentine, Committee to Protect Journalists Africa Programme
Suzanne Nossel, executive director, PEN American Centre
