Index on Censorship and Missouri School of Journalism’s ‘Global Journalist’ partner on exiled journalist project

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Jan. 25, 2018 (London and Columbia, Mo.) – Index on Censorship and the Missouri School of Journalism’s Global Journalist have formed a new partnership to help tell the stories of journalists exiled from their home countries for reporting the news.

Under the agreement, the U.K.-based freedom of expression group will publish interviews and articles about journalists in exile written by student journalists and professional staff at ‘Global Journalist’ on the Index on Censorship website.  

The partnership is an extension of Global Journalist’s “Project Exile” series, which has published 52 interviews with exiled journalists from 31 different countries since September 2014. The series has included interviews with former New York Times’ Iran correspondent Nazila Fathi, Iraqi BBC News cameraman Qais Najim and Newsweek Japan cartoonist Wang Liming of China, also known as “Rebel Pepper,” who is the 2017 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards Arts Fellow.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 262 journalists were in jail for their work in 2017. Though estimates vary, many others escape prison or violence by fleeing their home countries each year.

“Telling the stories of journalists who lose their right to live in their own country for simply doing their job is one way to highlight efforts to roll back freedom of expression around the globe,” said Fritz Cropp, the associate dean for global programs at the Missouri School of Journalism. “Together with Index on Censorship we hope this effort will intensify scrutiny of governments that seek to intimidate the press into submission.”

Index on Censorship is a London-based nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. It publishes work by censored writers and artists, promotes debate, and monitors threats to free speech through its Mapping Media Freedom project. Founded in 1972, Index on Censorship magazine publishes original creative writing and articles about free expression from across the globe. Its contributors have included noted authors and journalists including Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Salman Rushdie, Ken Saro-Wiwa and Václav Havel.

Global Journalist is a website that features global press freedom and international news stories as well as a weekly radio program that airs on KBIA, mid-Missouri’s NPR affiliate, and partner stations in six other states. The website and radio show are produced jointly by professional staff and student journalists at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, the oldest school of journalism in the United States. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”6″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”2″ element_width=”12″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1516816724036-b6713aa4-3a80-10″ taxonomies=”22142″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Free speech on trial in Turkey

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Free Speech On Trial in Turkey

Both before and after the state of emergency that followed the botched coup in 2016, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has shown increasing authoritarian tendencies, rolling back an essentially weak democracy. Now a truly authoritarian regime is in place and instigates multiple attacks against fundamental rights and democratic institutions, such as arbitrary arrests and prosecutions of critical voices, extensive use of emergency decrees, massive purges of the state institutions and the witch hunt against the Academics for Peace, signatories of the Peace petition. As it is generally the case, free speech and academic freedom have been major casualties of this authoritarian drift. Gathering academics, lawyers and human rights defenders, this panel will offer a critical insight into current legal and political developments in Turkey and discuss the way forward in the defence of freedom of expression and academic freedom in the country.

Panel 1 – 14.30 – 16.00 Free Speech under Threat in Turkey: A Legal Approach

Chair: Noémi Lévy-Aksu (Birkbeck College)

Ayse Bingöl (Media Legal Defence): The criminalisation of speech under state of emergency regime.

Bill Bowring (Birkbeck College, Professor of Law): Recent Strasbourg case law on freedom of expression in Turkey.

Oya Aydın (Lawyer): What are the Academics for Peace accused of?

Panel 2 – 16.15 – 17.30 Trial Observation, Legal Intervention and Advocacy

Chair: Mehmet Uğur (University of Greenwich)

Georgia Nash (Article 19)

Sarah Clarke (Pen International)

Hanna Machlin (Index on Censorship)[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]

When: Tuesday 30 January 2018, 2:30-5:30pm
Where: Birkbeck College, London (Map)
Tickets: Free. Register here

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