20 Apr 2021 | Croatia, Monaco, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116596″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]A British oil industry whistleblower was detained last night by armed police in Zagreb and held overnight against his will in a psychiatric hospital after British diplomats raised concerns about his mental health.
Jonathan Taylor has been stranded in Croatia since July last year, when he was arrested while entering the country for a holiday with his family. The authorities in Monaco, where he worked for oil company SBM Offshore, have accused him of extortion and requested his extradition to the Principality. He is awaiting a decision from the Croatian Supreme Court this week.
In 2013, Taylor blew the whistle on a multimillion dollar network of bribery payments made by SBM around the world and cooperated with prosecutors in the UK, the US, Brazil and the Netherlands. These investigations resulted in fines against the company to the tune of $827 million and the conviction of two former CEOs of SBM for fraud-related offences. However, Monaco has decided to target the whistleblower rather than those responsible for the bribes.
Freedom of expression organisations, including Index on Censorship, have been lobbying the British government to put pressure on Monaco and Croatia to allow Taylor to return England where his family is now based. Media Freedom Rapid Response partners have demanded an end the extradition proceedings.
Taylor had alerted the British Embassy and the Sofia-based regional consul last Friday about his deteriorating mental health and was asked to put his thoughts into writing. This set off a train of events in Zagreb that Jonathan Taylor relates in his own words here:
“I was met by two armed officers at the roadside to the entrance of the forecourt to my apartment at about 9:15pm last night. I was told I had to wait with them until a psychiatrist arrived in an ambulance. After about 45 minutes we went up to my apartment as it had started raining and the ambulance still hadn’t arrived.
“At about 10:15pm the ambulance drivers arrived and joined the two policemen in my apartment. I was then told I had to accompany them to hospital. I protested stating I had been told a psychiatrist would come to me. I made it clear I was not prepared to leave the apartment. Then four more other armed officers arrived. I again explained I was not happy to go to hospital (see picture top).
“Eventually two of the armed officers manhandled me to the ground causing my head to hit a wall and a resulting headache. I was the cuffed with face against the floor and manhandled out of my apartment into an ambulance where I was strapped into a stretcher. Upon arrival at hospital (no idea where I am) I was dragged out of ambulance and sat on a chair just inside the door to the hospital. I was left there under guard, still handcuffed, for about 30 minutes.
“A lady came to see me (apparently a psychiatrist, but she did not introduce herself) and she asked a few basic questions like ‘why did I arrive with the police?’ and ‘how long had they been following me?’ (!).
“Shortly after this I was taken to a room, still cuffed, where I was strapped to a bed by my feet and legs and my hands. I then refused unidentified tablets and was invited to swallow them whilst someone held a cup of water to my mouth. I refused. I was then forcibly turned and something was injected into my upper thigh. It was now at least 12:30am. At about 6:30am, again against my will, I had a further injection. Another psychiatrist came to see me at about 10:15am and she determined I could go…
“A smiling male nurse has just prodded my arm saying ‘everything will be OK, don’t hate Croatia now!” I have just discovered that I am at the University Hospital Vrapte. What to say?…Where I was looking for help, I got one of the worst twelve-hour experiences of my life.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”256″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
16 Apr 2021 | Fellowship 2021, Opinion, Ruth's blog
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Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, a 2020 Freedom of Expression Awards winner
This week we were interviewing for a new member of the team to help support our work on the Freedom of Expression awards. The joy of interviewing for a new role is that it makes you reflect on what you do and why, even as you’re speaking to the candidates. As I was outlining the importance of the awards, I was reminded of why they are so incredibly important and not just for the winners, but also for the team. The fact is they give us hope, we get to show real solidarity with people who are on the frontline, people who every day are demanding their rights and protections under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Those people shortlisted for an award are typically unknown outside their countries, their stories untold. They have been jailed for campaigning for free speech. Hounded for using their talents as artists and writers to explore people’s realities under totalitarian regimes. Threatened for being journalists exposing corruption and repression at a national level. They are also just people who have found themselves in horrendous situations which they are determined to help fix.
Our award-winners and all of those nominated are extraordinary. They are inspirational. And they honestly keep the team going when day in and day out we are exposed to some of the horrors of what people are facing in too many places around the world, from Myanmar to Kashmir, from Afghanistan to Hong Kong, from Belarus to Xinjiang, from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Greece.
It can be emotionally exhausting just trying to keep on top of what is happening in too many countries by too many authoritarian leaders. Soul-destroying to say today we have to focus on Egypt rather than Iran because we don’t have enough resource. The guilt that we aren’t doing enough or that we aren’t providing enough support or that the world has moved on and we can’t get traction for someone’s story. The world can just feel too depressing.
The Index team is extraordinary and resilient – but we all need a little hope.
And that’s what our awards do – they provide hope. The remind us of the struggles that people are prepared to fight and allow us to celebrate those people are fighting the good fight – so they know they are not alone, and that people genuinely care what happens to them.
Our award nominees and the eventual winners are extraordinary individuals but for the team at Index they embody our mission – to ensure that we are a Voice for the Persecuted. They represent the best of us, and we honour and support them not just because of who they are and what they have done – but because of what they represent. Bravery, resilience and determination for a better world.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”41669″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
16 Apr 2021 | Media Freedom, News and features, Russia
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Student journalists at Doxa
Index on Censorship has expressed concern over four student journalists charged with allegedly inciting minors to take part in criminal activity.
Armen Aramyan, Alla Gutnikova, Vladimir Metelkin, and Natalia Tyshkevich, journalists at online magazine Doxa – an independent student magazine about the realities of modern university life – were arrested on 14 April. The arrest of the students – from the Higher School of Economics and Moscow State University of Civil Engineering – came after they reported on protests in support of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and publishing a video in which they argue that the expulsion of students from university for participating in actions in support of Navalny is illegal.
The video, published by Doxa on 22 January, prompted the Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor to order its removal, a decision which Doxa subsequently challenged.
Roskomnadzor claimed the video was “persuading or otherwise involving minors in committing illegal actions that pose a threat to their life and health.”
The charges against the four are under 151.2 of the Russian criminal code, which carries a sentence of up to three years in prison for “involving a minor in committing acts that pose a danger to the life of a minor”.
Doxa’s offices were searched along with the homes of each of the four on trial, with their equipment seized.
The journalists are now under heavy pre-trial restrictions, which prevents them from leaving their homes, using the internet, or speaking to anyone except their close relatives and lawyers.
Since the arrests, more than 270 academics around the world have expressed their support for the four in an open letter, calling the charges “preposterous”.
Doxa said in a statement that the targeting of the student journalists is indicative of Russian authorities’ clamping down on free thought within universities.
They said: “In early 2021, we learned about the unprecedented pressure on students in Russian educational institutions. Schoolchildren, their parents, college and university students were threatened with possible problems, legal prosecution and expulsion due to participation in actions in support of Alexei Navalny, who was detained upon arrival in Russia.”
Protests in support of Navalny began in January, with over 5,000 people estimated to have been arrested across the country at the time amid some of the largest protests seen in opposition to President Vladimir Putin. In response, Russian authorities have since attempted to crack down on journalism and protests.
Index CEO Ruth Smeeth defended the rights of the Doxa four and described student journalism as “a building block of media freedom”.
“Repressive regimes silence opposition when they are scared of their populations and when they fear losing power. The Kremlin’s behaviour towards student journalists shows how fearful, yet again, they have become of their own people,” she said.
“Student journalism is a building block of media freedom, it educates and informs as well as ensuring the lifeblood that feeds the next generation of journalists. We are horrified at the targeting of the Doxa magazine and their student editors and we stand united in solidarity with them.”
Director of Global Youth & News Media, an organisation that aims to amplify youth journalism, Dr Aralynn Abare McMane said: “It shows just how desperate the Russian authorities are becoming that they persecute these student journalists, and we are gratified to see that the international press freedom community is taking this case very, very seriously.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”8996″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
15 Apr 2021 | Events
[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”116569″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Join us for the launch of the new Index on Censorship magazine, China: A century of silencing dissent. In this special edition we are marking the centenary of Chinese Communism with a series of long reads by writers, historians and journalists in the field, including acclaimed writer Ma Jian, whose exclusive personal essay on the legacy of the Chinese Communist Party is a centrepiece of this edition
Ma Jian will open the event with a reading from China Dream, his 2018 dystopian novel about repression and state-enforced amnesia set in contemporary China. The reading will be followed by a conversation with Tania Branigan, The Guardian’s foreign leader writer.
Ma Jian was born in Qingdao, China. He is the author of seven novels, a travel memoir, three story collections and two essay collections. He has been translated into twenty-six languages. Since the publication of his first book in 1987, all his work has been banned in China. He now lives in exile in London.
Tania Branigan is foreign leader writer for The Guardian. She was previously its China correspondent from 2008 to 2015, and before that its political correspondent.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
When: Wednesday 28 April 2021, 18:30 to 19:30
Where: ONLINE
Tickets: Free, advance booking essential
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