Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards exist to celebrate individuals or groups who have had a significant impact fighting censorship anywhere in the world.
Sociologist and criminologist Grigoris Lazos has for 15 years almost single-handedly put the issue of human trafficking on the Greek government’s agenda. Greece, because of its location, is at the hub of an industry worth an annual 960 million euros. Lazos continues with his work in defiance of death threats, and works on undaunted by official resistance to the problem.
Centre for Constitutional Rights works to uphold the rights of people with the least access to legal resources to the standards of the US Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is currently working to represent individuals who have been held at Guantanamo. In June 2004 the CCR gained a landmark Supreme Court ruling allowing some detainees to challenge their detention in US courts.
Three men tried to kidnap Sumi Khan in April. She was stabbed several times. The men shouted warnings about her articles alleging the involvement of politicians and religious leaders in violence against minorities. In the world’s most dangerous country to be a journalist – over 200 were attacked in 2004 – and despite terrible injuries, Khan returned to work saying, ‘As long as I am alive I will keep working’.
Final Solution is a study of the politics of hate in North East India. It examines the Hindu-Muslim polarisation in Gujarat: voluntary ghettos, segregation in schools, economic boycotts, the murder of 2,500 Muslims, and rape of hundreds of women that followed the burning of 58 Hindus on the Sabarmati Express. Final Solution was banned in India.
Ten years after a civil war described as Africa’s most sadistic, journalist Daniel Bergner records the experiences of a remarkable cast of characters as they look to the future of Sierra Leone and attempt to begin new lives. Along the way, they wrestle with moral dilemmas in the aftermath of brutal atrocities.
Criteria – Anyone involved in tackling free expression threats – either through journalism, campaigning, the arts or using digital techniques – is eligible for nomination.
Any individual, group or NGO can nominate or self-nominate. There is no cost to apply.
Judges look for courage, creativity and resilience. We shortlist on the basis of those who are deemed to be making the greatest impact in tackling censorship in their chosen area, with a particular focus on topics that are little covered or tackled by others.
Nominees must have had a recognisable impact in the past 12 months.
Where a judge comes from a nominee’s country, or where there is any other potential conflict of interest, the judge will abstain from voting in that category.
Panel – Each year Index recruits an independent panel of judges – leading world voices with diverse expertise across campaigning, journalism, the arts and human rights.
The judges for 2005 were:
Jason Burke is a prize-winning author and Chief Reporter for the Observer. Having lived in Middle East and Southwest Asia for more than a decade, Burke has become an expert on terrorism and saw many of the key events described in his books on Al-Qaeda at first hand. His writing gives a critical perspective to the foundations of the ‘War on Terror.’
Geoffrey Hosking is Professor of Russian History at University College London and the author of several books. In 1988, he delivered the BBC Reith Lectures on Gorbachev’s forms and their implications for free speech. He was involved in setting up of voluntary association’s post-Soviet Russia and is now writing a history of Russians in the USSR.
Baroness Helena Kennedy has acted in many leading cases including the Brighton Bombing Trial, the Guildford Four Appeal and many of the trials of battered women who kill their partners. She is Chair of the Human Genetics Commission and a member of the World Bank Institute’s External Advisory Council. Her new book Just Law on the changing face of British justice will be published in paperback in March of this year.
Hari Kunzru is a freelance journalist and editor living in London. He has worked as a travel journalist since 1998, writing for the Guardian, Time Out and the Daily Telegraph. His first novel The Impressionist won the 2002 Betty Trask Prize and the 2003 Somerset Maugham award and was also shortlisted for several awards, including the 2002 Whitbread First Novel Award.
After training at Guildford School of Dance and Drama, Bill Nighy has won countless awards for his stage and screen performances including the Evening Standard Best Actor Award for Love Actually. Other films include Still Crazy, Lawless Heart, Shaun of the Dead and I Capture the Castle. Most recently he was nominated for an Olivier Award for his stage performance in Blue/Orange.
In 2002, Professor Chris Woodhead resigned as Chief Inspector of Schools in order to be able to speak out on educational and political issues. He now writes for the Sunday Times and other national newspapers and appears regularly on many television and radio programmes questioning half-baked orthodoxies and ridicule the jargon that so often these days passes for thought. He also holds the Sir Stanley Kalm Chair in Education at the University of Buckingham.
