Journalists have a “right to life”

Hello, readers. This is Sarah Dawood here, editor of Index on Censorship. Every week, we bring the most pertinent global free speech stories to your inbox.

I must confess that today’s newsletter is very bleak, so I won’t be offended if you click away in search of a more optimistic end to your week. We’re reflecting on how journalists are increasingly being silenced globally, not only with the threat of legal retribution or imprisonment, but with death – often with little or no repercussions for those responsible.

This week marked the seven-year anniversary of the murder of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed in a car bomb attack on 16 October 2017. She reported extensively on corruption in Malta, as well as on international scandals such as the Panama Papers (the historic data leak exposing how the rich exploit secret offshore tax regimes).

Two hitmen were convicted for her murder in 2022, but criminal proceedings are still ongoing against three more suspects, including the alleged mastermind of the assassination and the alleged bomb suppliers. This week, free speech organisations signed an open letter to Malta’s prime minister calling on him to promptly implement robust, internationally-sound legal reform to keep journalists safe in future. The letter pointed to a public inquiry into her death, which found it was both “predictable and preventable”, and highlighted “the failure of the authorities to take measures to protect her”.

The start of this month marked another grim milestone – six years since the death of prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi. He was a regular contributor to major news outlets like Middle East Eye and The Washington Post, as well as editor-in-chief at the former Bahrain-based Al-Arab News Channel. A vocal critic of his government, he was assassinated at a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

Such attacks on free speech continue. We were appalled, for instance, to learn of the death of the 27-year-old Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna last week, a reporter from the front-line of the Russia-Ukraine war who had written for Index about her experiences. The circumstances around her death are still unknown, but we know she died in Russian detention.

Increasingly, governments or powerful individuals act with impunity – whereby their human rights violations are exempt from punishment – willfully ignoring international law that states journalists are civilians and have a “right to life”. For many victims, the course of justice is either delayed, as in Caruana Galizia’s case, or the circumstances around their deaths are obfuscated and murky, as in Roshchyna’s. Question marks remain over who is ultimately responsible, or how it happened, creating a cycle of censorship whereby it’s not only the journalists and their reporting that are silenced, but their deaths.

This impunity has been shown in plain sight throughout the Israel-Hamas war. To date, 123 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces, with the Committee to Protect Journalists concluding that at least five were intentionally targeted. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) deny these claims, yet an Al Jazeera documentary recently revealed that journalists live in fear of their lives, and their families’. One of the most high-profile cases of a targeted attack was that of Hamza al-Dahdouh, the son of Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief and veteran journalist Wael al-Dahdouh, whose wife and another two children were also previously killed in Israeli airstrikes. Two Israeli and three Lebanese journalists have also been killed in the conflict, with the International Criminal Court seeking arrest warrant applications for both Israeli and Hamas leaders for war crimes.

All these cases show a growing disregard for journalists’ lives, but also for the very essence of journalism itself. When not threatened with death or physical violence, media personnel are threatened with imprisonment, the closing of legitimate news offices, internet blackouts, and psychological and financial abuse. SLAPPs – strategic lawsuits against public participation – for instance, are being increasingly used globally by powerful and wealthy people as an abusive legal tool to threaten journalists into silence with eye-watering fines. How can “the fourth estate” truly hold power to account, when those in power can so easily dismantle and destroy their means of doing so?

At a time of devastating global conflict, the ability for journalists to report on stories free from the threat of harm, imprisonment, lawsuits or death has never been more important. To protect journalism itself, international and national law must work harder to protect the individuals most at risk. Without the threat of retribution for powerful individuals, the cycle of censorship will only continue.

 

Contents – Inconvenient truths: How scientists are being silenced around the world

Contents

Ever since Galileo Galilei faced the Roman inquisition in the 17th century for proving that the Earth went round the sun, scientists have risked being ruthlessly silenced. People are threatened by new discoveries, and especially ones that go against their political ideologies or religious beliefs. The Autumn 2024 issue of Index examines how scientists to this day still face censorship, as in many places around the world, adherence to ideology stands in the way of scientific progress. We demonstrate how such nations crack down on scientific advancement, and lend a voice to those who face punishment for their scientific achievements. Reports from as far as China and India, to the UK, USA, and many in between make up this issue as we put scientific freedom under the microscope.

Up Front

When ideology enters the equation: Sally Gimson
Just who is silencing scientists?

The Index: Mark Stimpson
A tour around the world of free expression, including a focus on unrest in Venezuela

Features

A vote for a level playing field: Clemence Manyukwe
In Mozambique’s upcoming election, the main challenger is banned

Whistling the tune of ‘terrorism’: Nedim Türfent
Speaking Kurdish, singing in Kurdish, even dancing to Kurdish tunes: do it in Turkey and be prepared for oppression

Running low on everything: Amy Booth
The economy is in trouble in Bolivia, and so is press freedom

A dictatorship in the making: Robert Kituyi
Kenya’s journalists and protesters are standing up for democracy, and facing brutal violence

Leave nobody in silence: Jana Paliashchuk
Activists will not let Belarus’s political prisoners be forgotten

A city’s limits: Francis Clarke
The Hillsborough disaster still haunts Liverpool, with local sensitivities leading to a recent event cancellation

History on the cutting room floor: Thiện Việt
The Sympathizer is the latest victim of Vietnam’s heavy-handed censors

Fog of war masks descent into authoritarianism: Ben Lynfield
As independent media is eroded, is it too late for democracy in Israel?

Movement for the missing: Anmol Irfan, Zofeen T Ebrahim
Amid rising persecution in Pakistan, Baloch women speak up about forced disappearances

Mental manipulation: Alexandra Domenech
The treatment of dissidents in Russia now includes punitive psychiatry

The Fight for India’s Media Freedom: Angana Chakrabarti, Amir Abbas, Ravish Kumar
Abuse of power, violence and a stifling political environment – daily challenges for journalists in India

A black, green and red flag to repression: Mehran Firdous
The pro-Palestine march in Kashmir that became a target for authorities

Special Report: Inconvenient truths - how scientists are being silenced around the world

Choked by ideology: Murong Xuecun, Kasim Abdurehim Kashgar
In China, science is served with a side of propaganda

Scriptures over science: Salil Tripathi
When it comes to scientific advancement in India, Hindu mythology is taking priority

A catalyst for corruption: Pouria Nazemi
The deadly world of scientific censorship in Iran

Tainted scientists: Katie Dancey-Downs
Questioning animal testing is a top taboo

Death and minor details: Danson Kahyana
For pathologists in Uganda the message is clear: don’t name the poison

The dangers of boycotting Russian science: JP O’Malley
Being anti-war doesn’t stop Russian scientists getting removed from the equation

Putting politics above scientific truth: Dana Willbanks
Science is under threat in the USA, and here’s the evidence

The science of purges: Kaya Genç
In Turkey, “terrorist” labels are hindering scientists

The fight for science: Mark Stimpson
Pseudoscience-buster Simon Singh reflects on whether the truth will out in today’s libellous landscape

Comment

On the brink: Jo-Ann Mort
This November, will US citizens vote for freedoms?

Bad sport: Daisy Ruddock
When it comes to state-sponsored doping, Russia gets the gold medal

Anything is possible: Martin Bright
The legacy of the fall of the Iron Curtain, 35 years later

Judging judges: Jemimah Steinfeld
Media mogul Jimmy Lai remains behind bars in Hong Kong, and a British judge bears part of the responsibility

Culture

The good, the bad and the beautiful: Boris Akunin, Sally Gimson
The celebrated author on how to tell a story, and an exclusive new translation

Song for Stardust: Jessica Ní Mhainín, Christy Moore
Celebrating the folk song that told the truth about an Irish tragedy, and was banned

Put down that book!: Katie Dancey-Downs, Allison Brackeen Brown, Aixa Avila-Mendoza
Two US teachers take their Banned Books Week celebrations into the world of poetry

Keeping Litvinenko’s voice alive: Marina Litvinenko
The activist and widow of poisoned Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko has the last word

Ukraine: Index and partners mourn death and demand justice for Victoria Roshchyna

Index on Censorship, the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) and partner organizations today mourn the death of Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna, who died in unclear circumstances while in Russian detention, and whose death was confirmed by Russian and Ukrainian authorities on Thursday. We welcome the opening of an investigation by Ukrainian authorities on grounds of “war crime combined with premeditated murder” and demand that Russian authorities do the same to elucidate the circumstances of Roshchyna’s death and bring to justice all those who could be responsible.

Roshchyna, a freelance journalist with Ukrainska Pravda, a major Ukrainian publication, and several other leading Ukrainian outlets, left Kyiv in late July 2023 with the intention to reach Russian-occupied territory in southeastern Ukraine. Soon after her departure, she went missing, with many of her colleagues expressing their fear that she was most likely being held by Russian forces.

In May 2024, nearly a year after her departure, Roshchyna’s family reported that Russian authorities had confirmed to them that the journalist was being held in Russian custody. However, the charges against her, as well as the place of her detention remained unknown.

Following the announcement of her death, reports emerged suggesting that Roshchyna had spent the past four months in an individual prison cell in the Russian city of Taganrog, which is located immediately next to the Ukrainian border. Prior to this, it has been reported that she was held in pre-trial detention by Russian forces in Berdyansk, a city in southeastern Ukraine currently under Russian occupation.

According to Russian authorities, Roshchyna died on September 19. Unconfirmed reports by Ukrainian media suggest that she passed away while being transported from Taganrog to Moscow. According to the same reports, Russia was preparing to include Roshchyna into a prisoner exchange with Ukraine.

While it is unclear what location the journalist managed to reach as part of the reporting trip she began in late July 2023, it was known that she planned to report from regions of Ukraine under Russian occupation.

“Victoria was herself from the Zaporizhia region,” Ukrainska Pravda editor-in-chief Sevgil Musayeva told IPI in October 2023, when Roshchyna’s disappearance was first made public. “She saw it as her mission to tell the stories of the people under occupation and when fears grew that the Russian military may be planning to blow up the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, she wanted to go.”

Roshchyna was one of the very few Ukrainian journalists to travel to Russian-occupied territories to cover the impact of the war. In March 2022, she was taken captive by Russian forces while reporting near Mariupol, when the city was under a prolonged siege by Russian forces. She was released ten days later and continued working as a journalist from Kyiv. She documented her experiences in captivity here.

MFRR partners, Index on Censorship and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reiterate their support of journalists who continue to report on Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. We mourn the death of yet another journalist who lost her life while attempting to cover the consequences of this brutal invasion, and demand justice for her and other deceased colleagues. 

Signed:

International Press Institute (IPI)

European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)

Index on Censorship

Reporters Without Borders (RSF)

ARTICLE 19 Europe

OBC Transeuropa (OBCT)

International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF)

Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

Free Press Unlimited (FPU)

Detained, blindfolded and threatened with death: a week in the hands of Ukraine’s Russian occupiers

This article was first published on 5 April 2022 and is being republished following confirmation of her death in Russian custody.

I was in Zaporizhzhia on the morning of 12 March. I wanted to get to Mariupol to write an article; I thought that I had to tell the truth from the blocked city. It was my initiative.

I found out that a humanitarian convoy was going to Mariupol. I went to the assembly point but the convoy had already left. I contacted the authorities and asked them if I could catch it up. They replied that I could try. I did not find a personal driver, so I left with another convoy heading to Polohy. We caught up the Mariupol convoy near Vasylivka, and I continued with them.

I came across the occupiers’ first checkpoint in Vasylivka. Russian soldiers thoroughly checked me. They made me unzip my coat and show the contents of my bag. They found a camera and asked if I was a journalist. I confirmed this. They told me that I had no business in Mariupol and that I should return to Zaporizhzhia. They inspected my phone and camera and found nothing. I asked permission to continue with the column. The occupiers did not mind. We stopped overnight in Berdyansk.

We continued our way in the morning but we were stopped near the city limits and we were told to wait for permission. We were waiting for two or three hours by a crossroads where the roads to Mangush, Energodar and Vasylivka go. Rumours started to spread that we wouldn’t be allowed to move.

Cars passed by and a woman from the convoy told us that she had found some local guys who were willing to drive us to Mariupol. When we arrived at the agreed place, the car was no longer there. The Russian military told us to wait and started talking with us.

I stepped aside. I was thinking of returning to the convoy but a Russian soldier approached me and asked me to show him my phone. He told me that he had instructions from above to check me.

He asked if I was a journalist. I did not lie as it could make things even worse. He asked to show him my WhatsApp account and he saw the contact of the security services of Zaporizhzhia. There was a message with a request to publish a video of a Russian soldier who had swapped sides to join Ukraine.

Some other soldiers began to interrogate me. Then they spoke with Metropolitan Luka [a priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church]. Luka and other clerics were leading the convoy. When they returned, they said I had to go with them. I was put into a prison van accompanied by four Chechen paramilitaries who took me to the Berdyansk district administration office.

I was met by people dressed in black and wearing balaclavas. They seemed to be very young, less than 30 years old. They started to interrogate me, searching me and inspecting my phone and documents. They told me that I was not a journalist but a spy and a propagandist which I denied. It lasted for an hour. Then, one of them said: “Everything is clear with you”. I realised later they were from the Russian security services, the FSB.

One of the men in balaclavas brought in his commander. When I asked him who he was, he replied: “I am the man. You have two options: you either go to a jail for women or to a Dagestani military base." I asked them what that meant. They did not explain. Then two men grabbed me, put a blindfold over my eyes and took me out of the room. I was crying, explaining that I was a journalist, that people would be looking for me, and that they would not get away with it. They took me to the local office of the SBU, the Ukrainian Security Service.

I was met by Chechens and Dagestanis who put me in a tiny room with a chair, a table and a window which they closed and told me not to approach it. They brought a blanket on which I slept on the floor. It was light and warm there. I was taken out only to the bathroom. Almost all my stuff was taken. When I asked when they would let me go, they answered, “When Kyiv is taken”. They added “Luka is in charge of the convoy and he refused to take you”.

From time to time, I was interrogated by Russian occupiers.

“We have no conscience. The law does not exist for us,” the FSB guys said. “Ukraine does not exist anymore.”

They repeated this every day.

“If we bury you somewhere here, no one will ever find out. You will be lost forever,” they said.

I had no fear. I knew they were trying to break me. But I felt desperate because I knew nothing about the outside world, and I was not able to do my job.

“We do not fucking care that you are a woman and a journalist,” they shouted.

But I knew the fact that I was a journalist restrained them.

At some point Chechens joined in with the daily moral pressure of the FSB guys. They guarded me and tried to convince me to cooperate.

“They are serious. They won’t let you go for nothing. You’d better to cooperate with them because you are so young. Otherwise, you will stay here forever,” they said.

They added: “We are the power. They are the brains.”

They brought me some food, but I refused. The first days I ate my remaining supplies from Zaporizhzhia. When it was finished, I took nothing but sweet tea. I felt my energy leave me. It was difficult just to get on my feet. During the last visit of the FSB men, I was not able to stand. But I continued to demand my release. When I cried too loud, one of the Chechens hit me and told me that I wasn’t at home, and I should watch my tone.

There were a few empathetic men among them, nevertheless. They came to ask if I was OK,  asked me to eat something and begged me not to kill myself.

I asked to be allowed to make a call. They refused. Afterwards, the FSB told me that there would be a neutral interview and then I would be released. I insisted that I wouldn’t lie. They agreed. They brought a camera after a while. They had a prepared text with them, and they demanded I read it. I did not agree with the wording “high probability of having saved her life”. Eventually I agreed to shoot the video and they dropped the previous demands regarding full support of Russian actions and accusations against Ukraine.

Once the video was completed, they took me to another place. It was the local jail in Berdyansk. They refused to return my phone and camera as they considered them “propaganda tools”.

I spent the night in a room with a Russian soldier, who was supposed to guard me. The electricity and heating were cut off during the night. It was very cold. With my flashlight I counted the hours until morning. The soldier told me that the people who had interrogated me were from FSB. He was afraid that I would kill him during the night. He asked me whether I considered them as occupiers. Then he put the Ukrainian flag and the national emblem near me and said: “This is to calm you down. You see, we did not destroy them.”

In the morning, they blindfolded me again. Then they took me out of the jail and showed me the direction to go. I reached the closest bus station and went to the location of an evacuation convoy. I left with them the next day to territory controlled by Ukraine.

I am sincerely grateful to everyone who put in their efforts to find me and release me.

This account was first published by independent Ukrainian news channel hromadske and is published here in English for the first time.