6 Sep 2018 | Events, Volume 47.03 Autumn Extras
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”102490″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Join BBC Radio 4’s FutureProofing series presenter Timandra Harkness and special guests Graham Lawton (New Scientist) and Keith Kahn-Harris (author of Denial: The Unspeakable Truth) for an exploration of the Age of Unreason at The Royal Institution.
We will be asking what happens when powerful people like President Trump and Philippines President Duterte embrace falsehoods and decry facts as lies. Are we now living in a world where reason is being trumped by emotion and where scientific research is dismissed because it doesn’t fit with the public’s gut feelings? Or do we just need to argue differently and learn how to persuade?
Using footage of real-life debates in the past and present day, Timandra Harkness and the team will run a short workshop with the audience on how to have better arguments in an age of unreason. There will also be a short panel discussion afterwards exploring science and censorship in the current global climate with an opportunity for audience Q&A.
With thanks to The Royal Institution and SAGE Publishing.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
When: Tuesday 2 October, 6.30-9pm
Where: The Royal Institution, 21 Albemarle St, Mayfair, London W1S 4BS
Tickets: Free. Registration required via Eventbrite.
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6 Sep 2018 | Index in the Press
Margaret Atwood, Elif Shafak and Ali Smith are just two among a group of leading writers piling pressure on the Bahraini king to intervene in the case of a detained political leader who was stripped of the right to read in jail. Read the full article
6 Sep 2018 | Campaigns -- Featured, Statements, United Kingdom
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Index does not believe the UK needs new laws to protect women from abuse and violence.
The UK already has dozens of laws on its books that make criminal the kind of abusive actions that are disproportionately targeted at women: rape, harassment, stalking. Despite this, the most egregious crimes against women frequently go unpunished. In the case of rape, conviction rates are woeful. A report published in 2017 found that only one in 14 rapes reported in England and Wales ended in a conviction.
Creating new laws that make misogyny a “hate crime” will do little to change this, as lawyers argued earlier this week. Nor are they likely to help change attitudes. In fact they can do the opposite.
Laws that criminalise speech are deeply problematic. In a free society, thoughts should not be criminal no matter how hateful they are. Yet laws that make “hate” criminal – in a well-meaning but misplaced effort to protect minorities and persecuted groups – are on the rise.
We should all be worried about this. As the US delegation noted in a United Nations Human Rights Council meeting in 2015, hate speech laws are increasingly being abused by those in power to target political opponents or to persecute the very minority groups such laws are meant to protect.
In addition, they do little to improve tolerance or treatment of such groups: “Such laws, including blasphemy laws, tend to reinforce divisions rather than promote societal harmony,” the US delegation said. “The presence of these laws has little discernible effect on reducing actual incidences of hate speech. In some cases such laws actually serve to foment violence against members of minority groups accused of expressing unpopular viewpoints.”
As if to prove their point, Russia used the same meeting to praise hate speech laws and the need to police hate speech in Ukraine so as not to ignite “nationalistic fires.”
Tackling hate requires changes in society’s attitude. Some of those changes need laws – such as those we rightly already have to outlaw discrimination in the workplace. Some require major changes in our institutions to the structures and practices that reinforce inequality. But prohibiting speech, or policing thought, is not the way to do this. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1536237430689-ea8c7414-e758-3″ taxonomies=”6534″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
6 Sep 2018 | Bahrain, Bahrain Statements, News and features, Press Releases, Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”102525″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Leading writers including Margaret Atwood, Elif Shafak and Claire Tomalin have signed an open letter to the king of Bahrain urging him to intervene in the case of a political prisoner being denied the right to read in jail.
Hassan Mushaima, a leader of the political opposition in Bahrain who was part of the country’s Arab spring protests, has faced repeated torture, and humiliating and degrading treatment in prison. A cancer sufferer, Mr Mushaima has been denied access to all but the most basic medical care. In the latest effort to break Mr Mushaima’s spirit, the prison authorities have confiscated all of the former English teacher’s books — more than 100 collected during his seven years in jail.
His son, Ali, who lives in exile in Britain, is on the 36th day of a hunger strike outside the Bahrain embassy in London protesting on behalf of his father.
“In some ways when you are prisoner, your books are not less important than your life-saving medication,” said Ali. “While your medicine physically saves your body, the books you have saves your mind in a place where life seems to stand still
“My father is a researcher and his books where how he spent his days in prison, they gave him purpose. Taking them away from him felt like a new way to suffocate him in his prison.”
The letter follows:
Your Highness,
We write to you on behalf of Bahraini activist Hassan Mushaima to ask for your assistance in assuring his fair treatment in jail and in particular the return or replacement of his books. Mr Mushaima is a leader of the political opposition in Bahrain and in 2011 was part of the Arab spring protests – a mass movement that peacefully called for human rights and democratic reforms in the kingdom.
Mr Mushaima, along with other leading human rights defenders and opposition figures – known collectively as the Bahrain 13 – was arrested, tortured and sentenced to life imprisonment, simply for calling for democracy.
Throughout his detention, Mr Mushaima has been subjected to humiliating, inhumane treatment in Jau prison. The torture he has endured has caused such severe problems that he has required surgery four times. Although Mr Mushaima has been allowed access to basic medical care in recent days following a hunger strike – which is still ongoing – by his son Ali Mushaima outside the Bahraini embassy in London, he has been denied access to other basic rights – such as access to reading material.
Over the past seven years, Mr Mushaima has accumulated a collection of more than 100 books in jail. These include books on history, religious teachings, and English dictionaries and grammar books. However, the prison authorities have now confiscated these books and we have since learned that they may have been destroyed. We ask your assistance in calling on prison authorities to return or replace these books – and to ensure Mr Mushaima’s fair treatment in prison.
Access to reading materials is considered to be a basic condition for humane treatment of prisoners worldwide: UN general assembly resolution 45/111 on the Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners proclaims that “All prisoners shall have the right to take part in cultural activities and education aimed at the full development of the human personality.”
Mr Mushaima deserves to be treated with dignity. This is a right that should accorded to all prisoners. We urge you to restore Mr Mushaima’s dignity by returning his books.
Yours,
Lisa Appignanesi
Margaret Atwood
Amanda Craig
Ariel Dorfman
Daniel Hahn
Ruth Padel
Elif Shafak
Gillian Slovo
Ali Smith
Preti Taneja
Claire Tomalin[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1536223253239-45a7da5a-81c4-2″ taxonomies=”716″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
