2024, the year that four billion go the polls

Happy New Year – I hope…

Entering a new year typically encourages us to reflect on the past 12 months and consider the impact of what is likely to happen in the next 12. Depressingly, 2023 was yet another year marked by authoritarians clamping down on freedom of expression and harnessing the power of digital technology to persecute, harass and undermine those who challenge them.

Not only did the tyrants, despots and their allies attempt to again crack down on any seemingly independent thought within their own territories, several also sought to weaponise the legal system at home and abroad through the use of SLAPPs. Several EU member states, especially the Republic of Ireland, as well as the United Kingdom have found themselves at the centre of these legal attacks on freedom of expression.

SLAPPs weren’t the only threat to freedom of expression in 2023 though – from the crackdown on protesters in Iran, to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the continuing repressive actions of Putin and Lukashenka, the end of freedom of expression in Hong Kong, the increasingly restrictions imposed by Modi, the latest war in the Middle East and the ongoing attacks on journalists in South America.

My depressing list could go on and on. However, we desperately need to find some hope in the world, so Index on Censorship ended 2023 with our campaign entitled “Moments of Freedom”, highlighting the good in the world so let’s carry on with that optimism. A new year brings new beginnings after all. So let’s focus on the new moments of light which will hopefully touch our lives this year.

Half the world’s population will go to the polls this year. That’s an extraordinary four billion people. Each with their own aspirations for their families, hopes for their country and dreams of a more secure world.

As a politician it should come as no surprise to anyone that I love elections. The best campaigns are politics at their purest, when the needs and aspirations of the electorate should be centre stage. Elections provide a moment when values are on the line. How people want to be governed, what rights they wish to advance and how they hold the powerful to account. These are all actioned through the ballot box.

There are elections taking place in countries significant for Index because of their likely impact on freedom of expression and the impact the results may have on the current internationally agreed norms, including Taiwan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Africa, Russia, Brazil, the European Union, the USA and the United Kingdom. And given current events we can only hope for elections in Israel to be added to the list. The list goes on with each election posing different questions and the results having a different impact on the current world order.

Many other human rights organisations will talk about the importance of these elections for international stability, and rightly so. At Index we will focus on what these elections mean for the dissidents, journalists, artists and academics. Our unique network of reporters and commentators around the world will allow us to bring you the hidden stories taking place and will highlight the threats and opportunities each result poses to freedom of expression. As with 2023, 2024 will be a year where Index hands a megaphone to dissidents so their voice is amplified.

The rallying cry for 2024 must be: “Your freedom needs you!” If you are one of the four billion remember that your ballot is the shield against would-be despots and tyrants. It is the ultimate democratic duty and responsibility and the consequences go far beyond your immediate neighbourhood – so use it and use it wisely.

Contents – Having the last laugh: The comedians who won’t be silenced

Contents

The Winter 2023 issue of Index looks at how comedians are being targeted by oppressive regimes around the world in order to crack down on dissent. In this issue, we attempt to uncover the extent of the threat to comedy worldwide, highlighting examples of comedians being harassed, threatened or silenced by those wishing to censor them.

The writers in this issue report on example of comedians being targeted all over the globe, from Russia to Uganda to Brazil. Laughter is often the best medicine in dark times, making comedy a vital tool of dissent. When the state places restrictions on what people can joke about and suppresses those who breach their strict rules, it's no laughing matter.

Up Front

Still laughing, just, by Jemimah Steinfeld: When free speech becomes a laughing matter.

The Index, by Mark Frary: The latest in the world of free expression, from Russian elections to a memorable gardener

Features

Silent Palestinians, by Samir El-Youssef: Voices of reason are being stamped out.

Soundtrack for a siege, by JP O'Malley: Bosnia’s story of underground music, resistance and Bono.

Libraries turned into Arsenals, by Sasha Dovzhyk: Once silent spaces in Ukraine are pivotal in times of war.

Shot by both sides, by Martin Bright: The Russian writers being cancelled.

A sinister news cycle, by Winthrop Rodgers: A journalist speaks out from behind bars in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Smoke, fire and a media storm, by John Lewinski: Can respect for a local culture and media scrutiny co-exist? The aftermath of disaster in Hawaii has put this to the test.

Message marches into lives and homes, by Anmol Irfan: How Pakistan's history of demonising women's movements is still at large today.

A snake devouring its own tail, by JS Tennant: A Cuban journalist faces civic death, then forced emigration.

A 'seasoned dissident' speaks up, by Martin Bright: Writing against Russian authority has come full circle for Gennady Katsov.

Special Report: Having the last laugh - The comedians who won't be silenced

And God created laughter (so fuck off), by Shalom Auslander: On failing to be serious, and trading rabbis for Kafka.

The jokes that are made - and banned - in China, by Jemimah Steinfeld: Journalist turned comedian Vicky Xu is under threat after exposing Beijing’s crimes but in comedy she finds a refuge.

Giving Putin the finger, by John Sweeney: Reflecting on a comedy festival that tells Putin to “fuck off”.

Meet the Iranian cartoonist who had to flee his country, by Daisy Ruddock: Kianoush Ramezani is laughing in the face of the Ayatollah.

The SLAPP stickers, by Rosie Holt and Charlie Holt: Sometimes it’s not the autocrats, or the audience, that comedians fear, it’s the lawyers.

This great stage of fools, by Danson Kahyana: A comedy troupe in Uganda pushes the line on acceptable speech.

Joke's on Lukashenka speaking rubbish Belarusian. Or is it?, by Maria Sorensen: Comedy under an authoritarian regime could be hilarious, it it was allowed.

Laughing matters, by Daisy Ruddock: Knock knock. Who's there? The comedy police.

Taliban takeover jokes, by Spozhmai Maani and Rizwan Sharif: In Afghanistan, the Taliban can never by the punchline.

Turkey's standups sit down, by Kaya Ge: Turkey loses its sense of humour over a joke deemed offensive.

An unfunny double act, by Thiện Việt: A gold-plated steak and a maternal slap lead to problems for two comedians in Vietnam.

Dragged down, by Tilewa Kazeem: Nigeria's queens refuse to be dethroned.

Turning sorrow into satire, by Zahra Hankir: A lesson from Lebanon: even terrible times need comedic release.

'Hatred has won, the artist has lost', by Salil Tripathi: Hindu nationalism and cries of blasphemy are causing jokes to land badly in India.

Did you hear the one about...? No, you won't have, by Alexandra Domenech: Putin has strangled comedy in Russia, but that doesn't stop Russian voices.

Of Conservatives, cancel culture and comics, by Simone Marques: In Brazil, a comedy gay Jesus was met with Molotov cocktails.

Standing up for Indigenous culture, by Katie Dancey-Downs: Comedian Janelle Niles deals in the uncomfortable, even when she'd rather not.

Comment

Your truth or mine, by Bobby Duffy: Debate: Is there a free speech crisis on UK campuses?

All the books that might not get written, by Andrew Lownie: Freedom of information faces a right royal problem.

An image or a thousand words?, by Ruth Anderson: When to look at an image and when to look away.

Culture

Lukashenka's horror dream, by Alhierd Bacharevič and Mark Frary: The Belarusian author’s new collection of short stories is an act of resistance. We publish one for the first time in English.

Lost in time and memory, by Xue Tiwei: In a new short story, a man finds himself haunted by the ghosts of executions.

The hunger games, by Stephen Komarnyckyj and Mykola Khvylovy: The lesson of a Ukrainian writer’s death must be remembered today.

The woman who stopped Malta's mafia taking over, by Paul Caruana Galizia: Daphne Caruana Galizia’s son reckons with his mother’s assassination.

The world needs to learn from Masha Gessen moments

The rules on what we can and cannot say have exponentially increased since Hamas’ attack in Israel in October and Israel’s response. Just ask Masha Gessen. Over the last few days the Russian-American writer has found themselves at the centre of a controversy over an award they were due to receive.

It was a play of two acts. Act one, disinformation. The well-respected site LitHub ran an article with the heading “Masha Gessen’s Hannah Arendt Prize has been canceled because of their essay on Gaza.” The problem was it hadn’t been cancelled. Gessen pointed that out, saying they had only been approached by one journalist and that as a result “inaccuracies pile up”. LitHub had to issue what every editor dreads – a correction.

The reality – act two – was more prosaic. The main sponsor withdrew their support of the ceremony. It still went ahead, just at a different venue, on a different day. This past weekend Gessen received the Hannah Arendt prize for political thought for their work documenting Russian war crimes. It was a slimmed-down event; Gessen had a police escort.

Even in the absence of more in-your-face censorship, this still feels very problematic, part of a broader ecosystem in which people are punished in some way for what they say. And all of this because of a few lines in a New Yorker article in which Gessen compared Gaza to Nazi-era ghettos.

I should state here, for whatever relevance it holds, that I am Jewish. My family tree lost most of its branches because of the Holocaust. I’m sensitive to both inaccurate comparisons with the Holocaust and to Jewish suffering and prejudice writ large. Like myself, Gessen was born into a Jewish family and is a descendent of those murdered in the Holocaust. Their piece was not, as the furore would have made me assume, a 3000-word smear piece on Israel. Instead it was a thoughtful response to Germany’s Holocaust memory, which criticised Israeli policy at points – as we all do. Gessen’s words were precise, measured, balanced. The root of the controversy was when Gessen says “the ghetto [Gaza] is being liquidated”, a part that is far from throwaway and instead accompanied by caveats and qualifications. That it could cause such outrage exemplifies everything wrong with how we are approaching conversations right now. We simply can’t handle views that we find confronting or upsetting. Our instinct is to silence and to over-correct.

We’re ending 2023 in a bad place. In every region of the world democracies are under attack, as a Freedom House report concluded. Argentina has elected a foul-mouthed president who denies the number of disappeared from the previous dictatorship. Donald Trump could be president in the USA again in 2024, even if from a jail cell, and he’s already threatened his critics. In once liberal Hong Kong Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy activist and publisher, is on the stand in what could be best labelled a show trial. Russian troops are far from losing in Ukraine. And all the while countries like Germany, which are meant to promote free speech, are getting in tangles over anything they think could remotely be perceived as antisemitic. It’s a very bad place indeed.

Of course we didn’t arrive at the Gessen moment overnight. Our inability to move an inch from whatever camp we’ve pitched our flag has been going on for some time, with Israel-Palestine and other conflicts and ways we identify.

But staying with Israel-Palestine, who exactly does it benefit? Our fear that some language might be labelled antisemitic means we’re looking in the wrong direction. Attacks on Jews are rising around the world. In Germany itself, the far-right AfD party won its first mayoral victory at the weekend. Anti-Muslim crimes are surging too. There are plenty of real, ugly attacks that we need to tackle. It’s just they’re not coming from Gessen or the New Yorker. To suggest as such distracts.

If the goal is to lessen hatred, to create more tolerant societies, the approach of trying to block out speech we don’t like doesn’t work, not least because the instinct itself is authoritarian. Pro-Palestinian voices are being silenced, as are Jewish ones. It’s minorities who always lose out.

In Gessen’s acceptance speech for the award, which was not their original one, they spoke of the power of comparisons: “Comparison is the way we know the world. And yet we make rules about things that cannot be compared to each other,” they said, adding that the Holocaust has been put in a place where it is seen as an exception, unlike anything else, beyond likening. Gessen was clearly not going to be silenced. Instead they chose the moment to pause and reflect, to open up a conversation about how language is used and to challenge the rules around speech that we’ve currently been told to obey. There are lessons to be learnt here as we head into 2024.

Putin’s control threatens Russian dissident voices

2023 has been a year with more news than days. Every corner of the world is a cacophony of broadcasts describing horror, injustice, sorrow and pain. There are times when you just want to cover your ears, close your eyes and hope for peace in all senses of the word. But in this barrage of bulletins dictators thrive.

Whilst the United Nations scrutinises the Israel-Hamas war, the United States Congress holds crunch talks over the future of funding for Ukraine in its defence and Beijing gears up for the trial of Jimmy Lai, Putin lurks in the shadows. His nefarious and nihilistic plots continue their march to his single goal of power at all costs. This week Vladimir Putin announced that he will be seeking yet another term as President of the Russian Federation. He boasts that he will hold polls in the occupied territories he illegally invaded in Ukraine and brushes over the matter he is riding roughshod over the Russian constitution once again.

However, Putin’s determination to cling to power can only happen when he oppresses and silences dissidents. The latest victim of the Russian President’s tyranny is Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen. The trumped-up charges from the Kremlin are “spreading false information about the Russian army”. This is the latest crackdown on dissent being undertaken by the Russian state.

This week we also heard that lawyers for Alexei Navalny have been unable to contact the Russian opposition leader. His legal team have made two attempts to reach the two penal colonies where they believe Navalny is being held. Neither of the colonies have responded to the requests for information. Only last week the jailed Russian opposition leader fell ill within prison and was due to appear in court again this week.

Another thorn in the side of Putin, the former member of a Moscow municipal council Alexei Gorinov, has grown ill whilst incarcerated for seven years in prison. Gorinov no longer has the strength to sit up or even speak.

Gessen, Navalny and Gorinov all reflect the autocratic approach by Putin to his critics: imprisonment, abuse, and hunting down those who are able to escape. Whether you are a journalist, politician or member of the public in Putin’s Russia you are at risk of the whims of a man who yearns only for more control.

Whilst war rages in Ukraine it is easy to lose sight of the dissidents saying loudly that the Russian state doesn’t act in their name. During turbulent times it’s all too easy for us to be deafened by events and for dissidents' voices to be muffled. We cannot allow that to happen and as long as Index on Censorship exists we will give a megaphone to those fighting for freedom of expression to ensure you can hear what they are saying.

To finish - as we reach the end of 2023 - the only thing I can really promise you is that the team at Index will be required to keep fighting for dissidents in 2024 - and that will do our job with the dedication and commitment that you expect from us.

So from the team at Index - we wish you well over the holidays and hope for a much better 2024.