Nominations for the 12th annual Index Freedom of Expression Awards close tomorrow. The awards, taking place on 28 March 2012, will honour those who, often at great personal risk, have given voice to issues and stories from around the globe that would otherwise have passed unnoticed.

The awards recognise:
• High quality work that promotes and defends free expression
• Work that took place or was created during 2011 and reflects current issues

Index on Censorship 40th Anniversary award

A special award in celebration of our 40^th anniversary, recognising an organisation or individual who has done outstanding work in defence of free expression

Journalism award

This award recognises journalism of dogged determination and bravery

Innovation award

This award recognises the use of computer or internet technology to foster debate, argument or dissent. Nominations can also include those who enhance online freedom through the use of new technologies

Arts award

Recognising visual and creative arts that support or promote freedom of expression, or artists facing censorship for their work

Advocacy award

Awarded to campaigners who have fought repression, or have struggled to change political climates and perceptions

Send your nominations to awards[at]indexoncensorship.org or post them in the comment section below by Wednesday 25th January 2012.

The British playwright Sir Tom Stoppard yesterday dedicated a special commendation to prisoners of conscience in Belarus. Members of the Belarus Free Theatre collected the award at the 11th annual Freedom of Expression Awards.

The special award was dedicated to all the prisoners of conscience who have been detained because they exercised their right to free expression in criticising President Lukashenko.

“This Index on Censorship award is all the more important as the figure of prisoner of conscience should have been consigned to history,” Sir Tom Stoppard said. “Yet in Europe in 2011 there are 42 prisoners of conscience held by the government of Belarus.”

Interviewed by Evan Davis on the Radio 4 Today programme this morning, Sir Tom Stoppard described the Belarusian regime as an “anomaly”.

“It’s a way of dictatorship which has been consigned in history in Europe except in this one place and the Index on Censorship awards … are acknowledging these Belarusian victims of what is now an iron fist in an iron glove.”

Natalia Koliada, the co-founder of the Belarus Free Theatre, was one of those arrested and gave an emotional acceptance speech at last night’s awards, paying tribute to Oleg Bebenin, a Charter 97 journalist found dead in suspicious circumstances. Irina Bogdanova, sister of imprisoned presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, said “together we will win”, repeating a Sannikov slogan.

On 19 December, the night of the presidential elections in Belarus, a large demonstration was held in Independence Square in Minsk. The protest was dispersed violently, with the arrest of around 700 people. Those held were treated appallingly.

Natalia Koliada was one of those arrested. The Free Theatre had performed at an event organised by Index on Censorship just two weeks previously at the Young Vic. Whilst Koliada was in prison, guards made vile threats: “You are animals. We want to kill you. Our dream is to kill you.”

Those detained were not held in cells, but had to stand in freezing prison corridors. All the prisoners had biometric photographs taken and were fingerprinted and filmed.

Ales Mikhalevich, one of seven presidential candidates who was detained, has subsequently made allegations of torture. In total, 42 people face criminal prosecutions for organising a “mass disturbance”. The charges carry a prison sentence of up to 15 years. With so many presidential candidates amongst those charged, it is likely there is a political motive behind the charges.

• Also see the Independent’s recent report on Belarus Free Theatre at this link.

Booker prize-winning novelist Howard Jacobson gave the keynote address at last night’s Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards, sponsored by SAGE

The last time I attended this event it was a sit-down dinner. When I was invited to give this address I assumed — I think reasonably – that it would be . . . a sit-down dinner. This isn’t a complaint. . .  I’m not saying you’ve got me here under false pretences, but I am starting to wonder whether I am the reason this is not a sit-down dinner. Either someone saw me eat the last time I was here, and doesn’t want to see me eat again.  Or it was thought I’d make dietary stipulations it would be beyond your ingenuity or finances to honour.

These days, every time I’m asked to make an after-dinner speech — which this isn’t, because there is no dinner — I am also asked where I stand in the matter of pig.  In fact, the Book of Leviticus comes down as hard against lapwing, chameleon and tortoise as  it does against pig, yet no one ever checks to see where I stand on chameleon. Only ever pig.  Do people hear my name and automatically conjure up pig?  Anybody would think I’m a banker. . .  Though if any of you are thinking of calling me a banker, be warned that I’ll be taking out a super-injunction.

I like this idea of getting the law to stop people calling you what you are.  “Call me a comic novelist again and I’ll see you in court!”  Does it then follow that we can get the courts to call us what we aren’t?  I’ve always fancied being described as a great Christian thinker and humanitarian — a great, tall, Christian thinker and humanitarian, wise beyond my years, beautiful beyond the power of words to describe, and wonderfully lacking in neurosis when it comes to what I eat.  Can I sue whoever refers to me in any other terms?

Can I sue anyone who refers to me at all?  Can I take out an injunction against any person who claims to know me, to see me, to have seen me, or to be aware of my existence?  Can I take out an injunction against the promulgation of the idea that I exist?

I feel a novel coming on: the story of a man who goes to law to prevent anyone putting him into words. Words — ladies and gentlemen. It’s not just writers who are the enemy now —  it’s language itself.

We should be flattered, we who deal in language.  Clearly, we wield greater power than we know. Our criticism stings, our derision maddens.  Our sacred calling, to hold nothing sacred, is under threat — it is always under threat – but every time a court attempts to gag us,  or come to that the court of easily swayed public opinion attempts to gag us: someone’s hurt feelings, someone’s outraged sensibility, someone who is offended, as though the fact of being offended somehow confers the right not to be — every time the state steps in to have us silenced, as in the case of some of those we honour tonight, in comparison to whom most of us live the life of Reilly — every time someone would have us silenced, the power we possess is acknowledged.

For our part — we who possess that power – we must not exempt ourselves from the universality of our scorn.  If nothing’s sacred, then we aren’t sacred either. Nor, by the same logic, is any principle. “Objection, evasion, cheerful mistrust, delight in mockery,” Nietzsche said, “are signs of health.”  “Everything unconditional,’ he went on, “belongs to pathology.”  So we are trapped in a contradiction of our profession’s making.  Mockery — sacred; unconditional attachment to mockery — pathological.

Leonard Cohen’s great song in praise of imperfection says something similar:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
THAT’S HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN.

A crack in every ideal; a crack in every belief system; a crack in everything we hold too dear.

It is essential, I believe, that we don’t debase the currency. Not every whistle blower blows for the greater good.  Not every secret is malign. We have no inalienable right to know that a footballer is having an affair – unless he keeps missing penalties, or unless the affair he’s having is with our wife, and even then there’s an argument for our not being told.  “In human relations,” Graham Greene once wrote, “kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.”   The public sphere, however, is different; the public sphere requires that we be less considerate.  Though even then, we are so much more deadly when we pick our target and take careful aim.

And it matters that we are deadly —  not only when it comes to state deceit around the world, but when it comes to our own domestic tyrannies — the tyranny of like-mindedness, sanctimony, unyielding conviction of rectitude, and the daisy-chains of villainy that go with political alignment.  It should not be in the name of party or agenda that we speak out; just scepticism. Nothing is wholly true, nothing is wholly right.  And whoever is offended when we say that . . . deserves to be.

If this were a sit-down dinner — which it isn’t — I would raise a glass to that — “To scepticism!” And just in case you’re worried about it for next time — yes, I do eat pig.  Pig’s brain, oyster and chameleon bagel – there’s nothing like it.

On with the evening.  You do wonderful work.  You let the light in.

The Winners

Index on Censorship New Media Award, supported by Google

TuniLeaks by Nawaat

After accepting the award, Sami Ben Gharbia, co-founder of Nawaat, said: “This award is very important to us. It is given to us the very year we are celebrating the Tunisian revolution and seven years of our existence as a collective blog, which was censored from its launch by Ben Ali’s regime.”

TuniLeaks is a selection of the WikiLeaks State Department cables published by Nawaat.org, an independent group blog run by Tunisian net activists.

TuniLeaks, like its parent site Nawaat, is entirely independent and does not receive funds from any political party.

The TuniLeaks cables revealed the extent of the corruption deeply entrenched in many aspects of Tunisian life. Despite attempts to block the site, news of the cables being released swiftly spread around the country and Nawaat helped informal media networks link communities that had been cut off by government censors.

Nawaat highlights how important transparency is in a country like Tunisia, where citizens had for so many years been cut off from vital information and dialogue. “The aim is to get everyone to read, to get an idea and give meaning to the facts provided,” the website states. “The debate is open.”

The other nominees were the Tor Project and Chinese internet activist Wen Yunchao. Details here

Bindmans Law and Campaigning Award

Gao Zhisheng

Gao Zhisheng has been persecuted by the state for speaking out on human rights issues. Gao, a self-taught lawyer, forged a career representing the underdog in cases involving medical malpractice, land redistribution, employment disputes and forced sterilisation.

He has also defended journalists and religious minorities including Christians and members of Falun Gong. In 2005, he resigned from the Communist Party and wrote an open letter to President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, documenting the suffering of Falun Gong practitioners and calling on the leaders to end their “large-scale, organised” abuse.

Security forces took Gao from his home in Shaanxi province on 4 February 2009. Gao claimed the security forces tortured him. The state denied any knowledge of his whereabouts until January 2010, when a foreign ministry official said the lawyer was “where he should be”. After briefly reappearing Gao disappeared again in April 2010, and the Chinese state has refused to register him as a missing person.

The other nominees were David Coombs, the criminal defence lawyer leading the defence of Specialist Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old accused of leaking classified material to WikiLeaks; and Sherry Rehman, a member of Pakistan’s parliament who submitted a bill proposing amendments to Pakistan’s blasphemy law. Details here

The Guardian Journalism Award

Ibrahim Eissa

After accepting the award  Ibrahim Eissa said ”I consider this to be a prize for Tahrir Square”.

Eissa is Egypt’s leading independent editor, described as a “one-man barometer of Egypt’s struggle for political and civic freedom”. Throughout his career, he has faced prosecution when his push for media freedom has fallen foul of the government.

In 2010, he was fired from his position as editor of the independent newspaper al Dostour, after new owners bought the paper; his popular satellite talk show was also taken off air. His sacking came in the midst of a wider media crackdown in the run-up to the parliamentary elections, when Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party emerged victorious amid accusations of unprecedented vote rigging.

When Eissa was sacked from his job last year, the novelist Alaa al Aswany wrote: “Ibrahim Eissa did not oppose the government; he opposed the system … He called for real democratic change through free and fair elections and regular change at the top.”

The other nominee was Chiranuch Premchaiporn, the co-founder of the Thai online news site Prachatai (“Thai people”). She is currently on trial, facing up to 50 years in jail, for comments posted on Prachatai that were critical of the monarchy. Details here.

The Intelligent Life Arts Award

MF Husain

Celebrated and critically-acclaimed Indian artist Maqbool Fida (MF) Husain has been battling against censorship in his native India and elsewhere for close to 20 years. Born in 1915, he is recognised as one of India’s greatest living artists. He has lived in exile since 2006.

Husain’s work has caused controversy in sections of the conservative Hindu community, who regard his depiction of Hindu gods and goddesses in the nude as blasphemous and offensive. Husain has received numerous threats and exhibitions of his work have come under attack on several occasions; in India, he has faced hundreds of legal actions relating to his work.

In January 2011, three of Husain’s artworks were removed from the Indian Art Summit in New Delhi following threats. Organisers said they could not guarantee the safety of the artwork or of those visiting the exhibition.

The other nominees were Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, a Sikh British playwright, and acclaimed Iranian director Jafar Panahi. Details here

Belarus’s prisoners of conscience were awarded a Special Commendation by Sir Tom Stoppard

Sir Tom Stoppard said: “This Index on Censorship award is all the more important as the figure of prisoner of conscience should have been consigned to history. Yet in Europe in 2011 there are 42 prisoners of conscience held by the government of Belarus.”

This award is dedicated to all the prisoners of conscience who have been detained because they exercised their right to free expression in criticising President Lukashenko.

On 19 December, the night of the presidential elections in Belarus, a large demonstration was held in Independence Square in Minsk. The protest was dispersed violently, with the arrest of around 700 people. Those held were treated appallingly.

Natalia Koliada, the co-founder of the Belarus Free Theatre, was one of those arrested. The Free Theatre had performed at an event organised by Index on Censorship just two weeks previously at the Young Vic. Whilst Koliada was in prison, guards made vile threats: “You are animals. We want to kill you. Our dream is to kill you.”

Those detained were not held in cells, but had to stand in freezing prison corridors. All the prisoners had biometric photographs taken and were fingerprinted and filmed.

Ales Mikhalevich, one of seven presidential candidates who was detained, has subsequently made allegations of torture. In total, 42 people face criminal prosecutions for organising a “mass disturbance”. The charges carry a prison sentence of up to 15 years. With so many presidential candidates amongst those charged, it is likely there is a political motive behind the charges.

Gao Zhisheng was unable to attend and his wife, Geng He, accepted the award on his behalf, via video.

Full text here

About Gao Zhisheng

Chinese lawyer Gao Zhisheng has been persecuted by the state for speaking out on human rights issues. Gao, a self-taught lawyer, forged a career representing the underdog in cases involving medical malpractice, land redistribution, employment disputes and forced sterilisation.

He has also defended journalists and religious minorities including Christians and members of Falun Gong. In 2005, he resigned from the Communist Party and wrote an open letter to President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, documenting the suffering of Falun Gong practitioners and calling on the leaders to end their “large-scale, organised” abuse.

Security forces took Gao from his home in Shaanxi province on 4 February 2009. Gao claimed the security forces tortured him. The state denied any knowledge of his whereabouts until January 2010, when a foreign ministry official said the lawyer was “where he should be”. Gao disappeared again in April 2010, and the Chinese state has refused to register him as a missing person.

Index on Censorship Free Expression Award 2010 winners

The 11th annual Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards honour those who, often at great personal risk, have given voice to issues and stories from around the globe that would otherwise have passed unnoticed.

This year’s event will be hosted by Jonathan Dimbleby at the Royal Institution in Mayfair on 24 March. It promises to be a truly inspiring evening, with a keynote address from Booker prize-winning novelist Howard Jacobson and a special address from celebrated playwright Sir Tom Stoppard.

READ ABOUT THIS YEAR’S AWARD NOMINEES HERE

Over four decades Index has worked for victims of oppression and censorship, championing their right to free expression. In December, when Natalia Koliada of the world-renowned Belarus Free Theatre was arrested and bundled into a police van, her first call for help on a smuggled mobile phone was to Index on Censorship. In Tunisia we’ve been working on the ground with civil society activists for five years. In addition to our international work, we lead the campaign to reform English libel law.

The awards, kindly sponsored by SAGE, gives you the opportunity to support our vital work. We expect over 300 prominent guests this year, and your attendance will fund our ongoing campaign for free expression in the UK and abroad. The event will begin at 7pm with a champagne reception and grand canapés. After the awards ceremony we will ask you to bid high in our celebrated auction.

You can read about last year’s Index Award winners here

Lots include:

See your name in Howard Jacobson’s next book
This prize has got your name on it. Howard Jacobson, whose Man Booker prize-winning novel The Finkler Question has been called “impeccable” in its characterisation, will name one of his characters after you in his next book.

Hang a Peter Blake print on your wall
Peter Blake is one of Britain’s greatest living artists. Knighted in 2002 for his services to art, Blake has continued to create iconic pieces of work as he proudly develops into his self-titled “Late Period”. Take this chance to snap up a signed print of his iconic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band cover, one of a limited edition of 50.

Five days in heaven at Jade Mountain Resort, St Lucia

With unparalleled views of the Pitons and the Caribbean Sea, Jade Mountain Resort was carefully designed to make the best of St Lucia’s magnificent natural landscape. Enjoy five nights in a magnificent double room. Jade Mountain won the Conde Nast Johansens 2011 Most Excellent Romantic Hideaway Award, and has been showered with prizes naming it the Caribbean’s most desirable and exclusive luxury resort.

Knock out some tunes on Mark Knopfler’s guitar
Become the proud owner of a Fender Signature Stratocaster designed and signed by Mark Knopfler. This beautifully made guitar features a ’57-style ash body, a vintage-tinted ’62 C-shaped maple neck with rosewood fingerboard and five-way switching to help you recreate guitar legend Mark Knopfler’s unmistakable sound.

Get away to Tuscany
This beautiful 18^th century villa sits alone on a hill above the village of Paganico, with glorious views of the South Tuscan countryside. Take your nine favourite people with you and spread out in comfort with five double ensuite bedrooms, three sitting rooms, two terraces, a dining room and a big country kitchen. There is a large pool outside or good beaches just 45 minutes away.
Please note, the villa has limited availability in the summer. Click here for pictures

Have a Martin Rowson cartoon makeover
See your best — or worst — features picked out for special attention in a personal caricature by Martin Rowson, winner of the 2010 Political Cartoonist of the Year Award. Rowson dissects the good, the bad and the ugly for the Guardian, Index on Censorship and other leading publications, and was appointed “Cartoonist Laureate” of London.

A beautiful Paris apartment for a long weekend
Look out from the window of this beautiful one bedroom flat in the Marais, next to the Bastille Metro. Only five minutes’ walk from the Place des Vosges and Isle Saint Louis, take the chance to live like a Parisian and make the most of the city. You could even bring friends — as well as a double bed, there is a sofa bed in the sitting room. Situated in a quiet block, this flat wasc very recently renovated and has everything you’ll need. Click here for pictures

Own one of Nick Danziger’s most famous political photographs
April 8: 2.30pm. Reception hall, Hillsborough Castle, Northern Ireland Tony Blair and George Bush feature in this print of Danziger’s famous “mirror image” photograph, winner of the World Press Photo 1^st Prize in 2004. You could own this piece of history, taken while Danziger accompanied Blair on a 30-day study of a prime minister at war.

The 11th annual Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards honour those who, often at great personal risk, give voice to issues and stories from around the globe that may otherwise have passed unnoticed.

This year’s ceremony on 24 March 2011 will be hosted by broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby at the Royal Institution in London, with a keynote speech by Booker Prize-winning novelist Howard Jacobson. Click here to buy tickets.

Award judges introduce the nominees in each category at these links:

The Bindmans award for Law and Campaigning

The Guardian Journalism award

The Intelligent Life Arts award

The New Media award, supported by Google

Nominees for this year’s awards, presented in association with SAGE, include Egyptian newspaper editor Ibrahim Eissa, British playwright Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, campaigning Pakistani politician Sherry Rehman and MF Husain, regarded as India’s greatest living artist. There will also be a special commendation, presented by Sir Tom Stoppard.

When thinking about freedom of expression, it’s easy just to focus on the headlines. But it is often the work behind the scenes that makes the difference, so the law and campaigning award is crucial in recognising the champions of free speech. This year’s shortlist demonstrates clearly that tools to silence are used by both dictatorships and democracies – and that those committed to making sure unheard voices are listened to often do so at great personal risk. This year we turn our attention to Pakistan, where those working to change an incredibly hostile climate for free speech have found themselves under fierce attack. In China, those defending campaigners against land redistribution or promoting religious freedom meet with heavy penalties and often risk their lives. And we look at the United States, where the government’s preoccupation with national security has overridden one of its citizen’s human rights. It’s more important than ever to honour those who take on this difficult and complex work – and it’s thanks to them that rigorous legal work plays a key role in keeping freedom of expression in a prominent position on the international stage.

David Coombs

David Coombs is the criminal defence lawyer leading the defence of Specialist Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old US army intelligence analyst accused of leaking classified material to WikiLeaks. Manning faces a court martial and up to 52 years in prison.

Despite Coombs’s complaints, Manning has been held in solitary confinement in a military brig on a Prevention of Injury (POI) order since July 2010. This order, usually used for short
periods prior to a psychological evaluation, limits his social contact, news consumption, ability to exercise and sleep. Coombs has used his blog to detail Manning’s experiences in solitary confinement.

Coombs called an assertion by a Pentagon Press Secretary that Manning is being treated like every other detainee at the Quantico brig “patently false”. His work has been pivotal in making Manning’s ordeal public.

Gao Zhisheng

Chinese lawyer Gao Zhisheng has been persecuted by the state for speaking out on human rights issues. Gao, a self-taught lawyer, forged a career representing the underdog in cases involving medical malpractice, land redistribution, employment disputes and forced sterilisation.

He has also defended journalists and religious minorities including Christians and members of Falun Gong. In 2005, he resigned from the Communist Party and wrote an open letter to President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, documenting the suffering of Falun Gong practitioners and calling on the leaders to end their “large-scale, organised” abuse.

Security forces took Gao from his home in Shaanxi province on 4 February 2009. Gao claimed the security forces tortured him. The state denied any knowledge of his whereabouts until January 2010, when a foreign ministry official said the lawyer was “where he should be”. Gao disappeared again in April 2010, and the Chinese state has refused to register him as a missing person.

Sherry Rehman

Sherry Rehman is a member of Pakistan’s parliament and chair of the Jinnah Institute, a think tank committed to “policies that promote fundamental rights, tolerance and pluralism”. For ten years Rehman served as editor-in-chief of the Herald, and from 1988 to 1998 she served as a member of the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors.

In November 2010, Rehman submitted a bill proposing amendments to Pakistan’s blasphemy law, which is routinely used to silence dissent and as a tool of intimidation against non-Muslims and members of minority Muslim sects.

Rehman and her late PPP colleague Salman Taseer were vocal critics of Pakistan’s blasphemy law. They were vociferous in their support of Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death after Muslim neighbours claimed she had blasphemed against Islam following an argument. After the assassination of Taseer by his bodyguard, Rehman was forced to withdraw her bill in February 2011.

“In the era of new media, some might think traditional journalism is yesterday’s story, but this year’s entries prove that’s not so. Today’s facebookers and tweeters are building on the bravery and dedicated investigative skills of old-school journalists, many of whom still face persecution. I’m struck by how those on this year’s shortlist don’t give up, whatever the forces brought to bear against them. When their publication is closed down, they start a new one. When released from prison, they start reporting where they left off. They are an inspiration.”

Chiranuch Premchaiporn

Chiranuch Premchaiporn is the executive director and co-founder of the Thai online news site Prachatai (“Thai people”). She is also a founding member of Thai Netizen Network (TNN), a group of media activists, internet users, bloggers and IT academics who monitor violations of freedom of expression on the internet.

She is currently on trial, facing up to 50 years in jail, for comments posted on Prachatai that were critical of the monarchy. The comments were posted by a user; Chiranuch removed the comments after she was contacted by officials from the Ministry of Information. She is being prosecuted under both the Computer Crimes Act of 2007 and lèse majesté legislation, which makes criticism of the king an offence. The case is seen as part of a crackdown on the media in Thailand, targeting satellite television news stations, community radio stations, print publications and websites aligned with anti-government advocates. The trial resumes in the autumn.

Ibrahim Eissa

Ibrahim Eissa is Egypt’s leading independent editor, described as a “one-man barometer of Egypt’s struggle for political and civic freedom”. Throughout his career, he has faced prosecution when his push for media freedom has fallen foul of the government. In 2010, he was fired from his position as editor of the independent newspaper al Dostour, after new owners bought the paper; his popular satellite talk show was also taken off air. His sacking came in the midst of a wider media crackdown in the run-up to the parliamentary elections, when Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party emerged victorious amid accusations of unprecedented vote rigging.

When Eissa was sacked from his job last year, the novelist Alaa al Aswany wrote: “Ibrahim Eissa did not oppose the government; he opposed the system … He called for real democratic change through free and fair elections and regular change at the top.