Forced evictions of India’s marginalised Dalit community in Delhi have been carried out by the country’s government

All over the world today, both in developing and developed states, liberal democracies and less free societies, there are groups who struggle to gain full access to freedom of expression for a wide range of reasons including poverty, discrimination and cultural pressures. While attention is often, rightly, focused on the damaging impact discrimination or poverty can have on people’s lives, the impact such problems have on free expression is less rarely addressed.

We are not talking about the classic examples of challenges to freedom of expression where repressive regimes attempt to block, limit and inhibit across a population as a whole. Rather we are looking at cases where in both more and less free societies particular groups face greater barriers to free expression than the wider population. Such groups can often be denied an equal voice, and active and meaningful participation in political processes and wider society. Poverty, discrimination, legal barriers, cultural restrictions, religious customs and other barriers can directly or indirectly block the voices of the already marginalised. How much do these barriers and lack of access to freedom of expression matter? A lot – as the examples below tell us.

Why is access to freedom of expression important? Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. It also underpins most other rights and allows them to flourish. The right to speak your mind freely on important issues in society, access information and hold the powers that be to account, plays a vital role in the healthy development process of any society.

The lack of access to freedom of expression is a problem that particularly affects the already marginalised – that is, minorities facing discrimination both in developed and developing countries, from LGBT people in African countries, to disabled people in Western Europe. While the scale of their struggles varies greatly, the principle is the same: within the context of their society, these groups face greater barriers to freedom of expression than the majority. If they are unable to communicate their ideas, views, worries and needs effectively, means they are often excluded from meaningful participation in society, and from the opportunity to better their own circumstances. In other words, discrimination is one of the core elements of unequal access to freedom of expression.

Access to free expression is also vital both to support the development process and as a development goal in its own right. The connection was perhaps most famously put forward by Amartya Sen in his widely cited book — Development as Freedom — where he argued that expansion of freedom is both the primary end and the principal means of development

It is striking to note the way in which cultural and religious customs are sometimes used to clamp down on various minorities’ rights to expression and assembly in many countries around the world. Human Rights Watch’s latest world report states that “traditional values are often deployed as an excuse to undermine human rights.” One example of this is the caste system still in place in countries including India, Nepal and Pakistan. This is culturally-based discrimination on a major, systematic scale. A significant proportion of the Dalits, (lower-caste people, or “untouchables”) are barred from participation in public life and have a limited say in policies that directly affect them. In May 2008, the Dalit community in the Nesda village in the state of Gujarat attempted to stage a protest after being excluded from the government’s development funds allocation, by refusing to fulfil their historic “caste duty” of disposing of dead animals. The dominant caste in the region promptly blocked the protest through a ‘social boycott’, forbidding any social or economic interaction between Dalits and non-Dalits. This is only one example of Dalit’s being barred from having a say in development matters directly relating to them. When they attempted to stage a peaceful protest, they were only further marginalised, and their weak economic, social and political position further cemented. It’s a vicious cycle.

Another major area where discrimination has a knock-on effect on freedom of expression, is with regards to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) people across the globe. They are discriminated against for traditional, especially religious, reasons, with countries like Malaysia and Jamaica claiming that homosexuality is simply “not in our culture” when clamping down on LGBT civil rights. The right to express one’s sexuality is an aspect of the right to freedom of expression both in itself (as an expression of identity) but also because in countries where LGBT rights are not respected, the cultural expression of such rights is often also a political act. Cultural events organised by the LGBT community, such as pride parades, find themselves banned from exercising their right to freedom of assembly and expression, which happened last October in Serbia and Moldova. LGBT-themed art is also often times censored. One example reported by Index took place in Uganda, where a play about a gay man was banned, and its British producer, David Cecil, jailed and later deported. Countries also adopt laws that ban or circumscribe the discussion of homosexualty. In Russia, the Duma recently voted in favor of a draft law to ban “homosexual propaganda”. The amendment, passed by an overwhelming majority, prohibits the “propaganda of homosexuality” (in a practical sense, the discussion of homosexually) to protect children. The bill would in effect seriously curtail the right to freedom of expression of LGBT people.

Full access to freedom of expression is difficult to achieve in the absence of universal education and literacy. Around the world, illiteracy and inadequate (or non-existent) education hits the poorest hardest – both because education is often private, and because in poor countries where it is provided by the state, the standard of education can be low. Women and girls in the developing world are the groups most affected by illiteracy. There are a number of factors contributing to this, including higher levels of poverty among women, with culture and tradition also playing a significant part. There are still a number of societies around the world where it simply is not accepted that girls should receive education at all, and certainly not higher education. While the gender gap in education has been decreasing over time, in 2009, there were still around 35 million girls out of primary education, compared to 31 million boys. Lack of education is still the single biggest contributing factor to high and persistent levels of illiteracy — making it the most basic barrier to freedom of expression. It stops people from effectively participating in society, as it hinders them from being able to read, write and share written information, and thus fully engage with a range of issues or debates. Women make up the majority (64 per cent) of the nearly 800 million illiterate people in the world today. UNHCHR resolution 2003/42 identified this as a contributing factor to constraints on women’s rights to freedom of expression.

As well as the impact of poverty, discrimination and religious and cultural factors, governments and local authorities often put in place more formal mechanisms which result in significant restrictions on access to freedom of expression for minority groups. This can come in the form of restrictions on minority languages, such as Kurdish in Turkey, or barriers to political participation, such as the Bosnian constitutional ban on Jews and Roma running for high office.

Refugees are one of the hardest hit groups of people in terms of facing significant and basic restrictions on freedom of expression. A report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees on the political rights of refugees stated that they, “…like other aliens, are entitled to the same freedom of expression, association and assembly as citizens.” However, a 2005 report investigating the state of Italian immigration detention centres showed that those detained in Italy were given few opportunities for communication with the outside world. Similarly, allegations of arbitrary deprivation of liberty in Greek detention centres are to be examined by independent experts selected by the UN Human Rights Council later this year. These are only a few examples of fundamental barriers on refugees’ access to fully express themselves. This, of course, cannot be separated from the wider discrimination as outlined above. Refugees constitute a group which often face prejudice and racism. Research from Cardiff University has for instance shown that they do not have the platform to counter the overwhelmingly negative way in which they are portrayed in the UK media. Refugees have universal rights like all other people around the world — states must recognise this and must act to tackle discrimination in all forms.

The barriers to free expression discussed here show why exercising our right to free expression is not as simple as living in a democratic society that broadly respects rights. Barriers that block or inhibit access to freedom of expression exist all over the world, in various forms and to varying degrees. Through being denied a voice, these groups are being denied a fundamental right, are facing barriers to their active participation in society, and, in many cases, are facing additional limits on their ability and opportunity to play a part in improving their own lives. Tackling the barriers from poverty to discrimination to laws that limit access to freedom of expression is vital.

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Tomorrow theatre producer David Cecil will go back to court — he could spend two years in a Ugandan jail for staging a play about homosexuality

UPDATE 27 November
David Cecil’s court hearing  was postponed. “They set a [new] court date for 2 Jan and no news yet on whether we’re any closer to setting an actual trial date,” Cecil told Index. According to his lawyer John Francis Onyango, the date has been moved because the prosecution said “the police are still carrying out investigations.” The hearing was initially scheduled for 22 November.

In the interim Cecil has been granted permission to travel to Britain while awaiting his day in court, which incidentally falls on his birthday. He told Index he will be spending Christmas in the UK.

“Absolute freedom of speech in enshrined in the constitution. The fundamentals of the law are that you can do and say what you like as long as you don’t incite public disorder and so on. People are unaware of that.”

British theatre producer David Cecil, 34, is talking about Uganda, the country where he has lived and worked in for the past three years.

On 13 September, he was arrested in Kampala and held in detention for three days. Eventually released on bail, he now faces two years in jail or deportation on a charge of “disobeying lawful orders” after refusing to let the authorities suspend and review his play the River and the Mountain.

The play, which tells the story of a successful gay businessman who is murdered by his employees when he comes out, was always likely to cause controversy in Uganda.

The country’s terrible gay rights track record received international attention when the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was tabled in 2009. Homosexuality remains illegal in Uganda but the bill sought to introduce the death penalty for “repeat convictions”.

In October 2010 local tabloid the Rolling Stone published the names, photos and addresses of “known homosexuals”, and published a front page headline reading “Hang Them”.

Members of the LGBT community suffered verbal and physical attacks and gay rights activist David Kato — one of the people identified by the paper — was killed in his home in Mukono, outside Kampala, in January last year.

Following widespread international condemnation, the bill was shelved but only to be revived in February 2012, Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga recently vowing it would pass before the end of the year. The death penalty clause has been removed, but it remains a highly discriminatory piece of legislation and this summer the government attempted to ban 38 NGOs it claimed were promoting gay rights.

Against this backdrop, Cecil was aware the play was likely to be politicised by both sides of the LGBT debate, with outspoken homophobes rallying against it and gay rights groups using it as a launchpad for advocacy. Despite this, he stresses the theatre company’s intention was not to make a political statement.

It is a drama and it’s quite provocative, but it’s comedy, it’s entertainment. Our intention was to make a comedy drama that would make people think and talk.

Only days before the play was set to open in August, Cecil received a letter from the country’s Media Council, the body tasked with regulation of media. It stated the play was to be suspended pending an official content review. Cecil and his company, under legal advice, interpreted this as a request rather than an order. Initially, the play was to run at the National Theatre, open to the general public but Cecil decided to move the production to private venues and eight performances were seen by an invited audience. Cecil was arrested after the short run, and branded a gay rights activist by an angry media.

Initially director Angella Emurwon wasn’t worried about a government backlash. In her seven years of putting on plays in Uganda, this was the first time the government asked to review one prior to preview. “For me it was never a question that we would be in trouble, either physically or legally. It was never a thought that entered my mind”.

While Emurwon concedes censorship exists in Uganda, she points to its selective and seemingly random nature. Indeed, in 2005, a local production of the Vagina Monologues was banned and mere weeks after Cecil’s arrest, the play The State of the Nation Ku Ggirikti was suspended. The production is said to criticise corruption and bad governance in President Yoweri Museveni’s administration. But Emurwon says productions critical of authorities have run without any issues.

She has personally not experienced any backlash, but is worried about Cecil and finds the whole situation scary.

I’ve noticed that people pay a lot more attention to what I say. Every word I utter has gravity. That means I have to be very careful about what I say. That is not the sort of person that I am, so that has been difficult. I feel like I’m becoming a self-censor, because everyone can take something that I’ve said and make it into a big deal.

Cecil’s second hearing is taking place tomorrow. There, it will be decided if the prosecution have enough evidence to take the case to court. Cecil’s legal team will argue that there were no references to any parts of the constitution or penal code in the letter from the Media Council. It did not refer to any legal consequences if they should choose to perform the play. Furthermore, Cecil says the Media Council is supposed to be an advisory body, it holds no executive authority over individuals’ rights to express themselves.

A petition calling for the charges against Cecil to be dropped has been signed by more than 2,500 people, including Mike Leigh, Stephen Fry, Sandi Toksvig and Simon Callow. The petition was organised by Index on Censorship and David Lan, the artistic director of the Young Vic.

While Cecil warns artists in Uganda against trying to directly influence policy through their art — labelling it a “risky and even ill-advised” strategy — but he hopes some positive changes will come from his case.

He wants other artists to see that:

not only is it possible to put on a play about something quite controversial, but [they] will see the importance of if, and see that by making controversial statements, you are actually reaching a lot more people.

Milana Knezevic is an advocacy intern at Index. She tweets from @milanaknez.

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