23 Jul 2025 | Asia and Pacific, India, News and features
When journalist Afraaz Hussain (not his real name) tried to revisit a series of investigative reports he had filed on human rights abuses in Indian-administered Kashmir, he was stunned to find the links broken and the pages wiped clean. Some of his most critical stories – on government surveillance, military misconduct and civil unrest – had vanished without explanation.
“A lot of my work from the region is totally missing,” said Hussain, who asked that his name be changed to protect his identity. “Entire archives of newspapers before 2019 are missing. Stories critical of the government have disappeared.”
Apart from losing most of his investigative work, which he first noticed had vanished around two years ago, Hussain says he is facing police intimidation and a ban on his travel outside the country.
Many reporters and editors based in India say media outlets are deliberately erasing or hiding their work amid what they describe as growing pressure from the Indian government to limit reporting critical of its policies. Stories that once documented surveillance, hate crimes and rights abuses are now vanishing from digital archives without explanation.
The government has also, in many cases, explicitly ordered the takedown of journalistic pieces that highlight alleged human rights abuses. For instance, last year, India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting directed a magazine to remove an article detailing accusations of torture and extrajudicial killing by the Indian Army in the Jammu region.
This is true not only for the conflict-torn Indian-administered Kashmir and Jammu regions, even if it may have started there. Across India, a quiet purge of digital content is underway. News stories critical of the government are being erased – scrubbed from websites, replaced with 404 errors or removed after veiled legal threats. Journalists and activists call it a “digital vanishing act” that’s increasingly common in the country’s shrinking press freedom landscape.
“404 journalism” is becoming the norm
Veteran journalist and author Ruben Banerjee calls it “404 journalism”.
“You click on a link and the story’s just not there anymore,” Banerjee told Index. “It’s becoming a new genre of journalism in India – stories that once were, but are now memory.”
Banerjee was ousted from Outlook Magazine in 2021, a move he believes is in part linked to the magazine publishing a series of stories critical of the Modi government which allegedly invited political pressure on the publication.
Banerjee cited daily Hindustan Times’ now-defunct Hate Tracker as one of many casualties of “404 journalism”. The tracker, which meticulously documented hate crimes across India, disappeared from the outlet’s website with no public notice or editorial clarification.
“Nobody disputed its facts,” he said. “But the political sensitivity was enough to have it pulled.”
The takedown coincided with the exit of editor Bobby Ghosh. The Wire reported that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a personal meeting with the publication’s proprietor, Shobhana Bhartia, in the months before Ghosh’s departure, and government officials raised objections about Ghosh’s editorial decisions.
In some cases, journalists themselves are requesting takedowns, driven by fear rather than falsehoods.
“Some are scared because their old work is now being used against them,” Banerjee said. “But that is not journalism. That is capitulation.”
The erasure of digital archives is not new, but its scale and coordination appear unprecedented. In Kashmir, where Hussain worked as a correspondent for multiple outlets, entire archives were purged following the Indian government’s 2019 abrogation of Article 370, which revoked the region’s special status.
“Most English, Urdu and vernacular newspapers had their archives wiped clean,” Hussain said. “It is not like a few pieces were removed, it is an institutional erasure.”
These deletions, he said, targeted some of the most impactful journalism on record. “We spent weeks on those investigations. These were exclusive stories on grave issues. When that disappears, you are erasing the rough draft of history.”
The implications are serious.
“For students, researchers, even citizens trying to trace how events unfolded, that material is gone,” said Maariyah Siddique, a research scholar at Aliah University, in the state of West Bengal. “The government’s intention is clear: to intimidate journalists, activists and whistleblowers, reminding them of the government’s omnipresence.”
She added: “Even the government knows that in the digital age, information once posted online cannot really disappear, but such tactics are directed at creating long-term impacts [rather] than short term. It is more mental and psychological than physical intimidation of journalists.”
This subtle form of pressure, explained Siddique, is not only about erasing content but also about instilling a sense of vulnerability among journalists.
“Sometimes government action is simply meant to warn the concerned that their work is being heard and they will be chased next,” she said.
The chilling effect
The government’s legal toolkit also plays a role. A notable example is the 2022 arrest of Kashmiri PhD scholar Abdul Aala Fazili for an article he wrote in 2011. Since then, media houses and their contributors have grown more wary. Several editors told Index that authors and scholars now request takedowns of old pieces, fearing their writing could be used against them.
“What’s worrying,” said Banerjee, “is that many media organisations don’t wait for official orders. They self-censor, just to avoid displeasing the powers that be.”
The consequences go beyond deletion. The constant fear of retaliation has created a culture of self-censorship and editorial paranoia.
“No one even pitches stories critical of the government anymore,” said Qazi Zaid, an editor with Free Press Kashmir, one of the few independent media houses in the region. “We are walking on eggshells with every story. Many authors and journalists ask us to take their articles down because they think it is affecting their passport applications or fellowships.”
Experts say erasure of archives is not just about control but “erasing the past” to influence the future.
“When journalism disappears, so does accountability,” said Siddique. “Every post, every report, every fact contributes to an informed electorate. Erasing it is an act of political manipulation.”
Journalistic freedom in India has steadily declined in recent years, slipping to 151 out of 180 countries in the latest Reporters Without Borders (RSF) press freedom index. Journalists say the vanishing archives are just one more indicator of this decline.
“Press freedom is being eroded like never before,” said Hussain. “And now, it is not just what you can’t say, it is also what you did say, that gets you in trouble.”
For journalists and media experts, it is a moment of reckoning.
“You start reporting, knowing the risks,” said Siddique. “But this erasure… it is the last blow. If your work isn’t going to survive, what’s the point of doing it at all?”
21 Jul 2025 | Afghanistan, Asia and Pacific, News and features, Newsletters
The Telegraph has named it “the most expensive email in history” and that’s the story that dominated the UK this week – news of a leaked dataset on Afghans who helped the British government, the super injunction that kept the story in the dark and the hundreds of millions spent on getting some of the named out of Afghanistan. But while the focus was on those leaving the country, a separate story has been developing throughout. Iran has deported over one million Afghans back into the country this year. It’s a similar case in Pakistan, though the exact numbers here are hard to ascertain. More still are being threatened with deportation, such as Zahra Shams, an Afghan journalist, who was arrested with her family this week by Pakistani police, as reported by the Afghanistan Journalists Support Organization (AJSO). It’s important to state just how dangerous it would be for her if she were forced back.
“Afghanistan is like a cage for women, and we’re coming back to that cage,” said a 17-year-old girl in an interview with the New York Times, who returned last week. Few can argue with the word “cage”. From bans on women visiting parks and no secondary school for girls to a law against women’s voices being heard out loud in public, life for Afghan women today is terrible. Rukshana Media reported this week on Taliban forces administering electric shocks to women over breaches of a hijab mandate, which in some instances have been so strong they’ve knocked women unconscious.
At Index, where we have a history of working with political prisoners, we’ve been calling it a domestic prison. Afghanistan – with a population of 41 million – is arguably the world’s biggest jailer. What girls and women are going through is nothing short of appalling.
We are still hearing a bit about life on the ground in Afghanistan, thanks to organisations like Rukshana and AJSO and the occasional focus in international media. But it’s far from enough. That’s why Index is prioritising working with Afghan women right now. Over the coming year we’ll publish their letters and creative writing. We’ll centre their voices – the very thing the Taliban is trying to take away. If you feel as passionately as I do here, we’d gladly receive donations. Every time we get £250 we are able to publish another article, paying women who might otherwise be financially struggling and keeping morale up in a country where 68% of women have rated their mental health as “bad” or “very bad”. It’s our humble contribution to counter the silencing of Afghan women and to keep Afghanistan in the spotlight outside of breaking news on data leaks.
Click here to donate.
18 Jul 2025 | Afghanistan, Africa, Asia and Pacific, Benin, China, Côte d'Ivoire, Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Palestine, Russia, United Kingdom
In the age of online information, it can feel harder than ever to stay informed. As we get bombarded with news from all angles, important stories can easily pass us by. To help you cut through the noise, every Friday Index publishes a weekly news roundup of some of the key stories covering censorship and free expression. This week, we look at how UK police are interpreting the proscription of Palestine Action, and the detention and extradition of a Beninese government critic.
An oppressive interpretation: Kent woman threatened with arrest over Palestine flags
On 1 July 2025, UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper proscribed Palestine Action, a pro-Palestinian activist group founded in 2020, calling it a “dangerous terrorist group”. The move, which sees PA’s name added to this list, was made after two members of the organisation broke into RAF Brize Norton airbase on scooters and defaced two military planes with red paint, the latest in a long line of actions taken by the group to halt proceedings at locations and factories they believe to be aiding Israel’s offensive in Gaza. Proscription means that joining or showing support for Palestine Action is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
The Home Secretary’s decision has provoked controversy. The move has been described by Amnesty International as “draconian” and a “disturbing legal overreach”. Since the ruling, over 70 protesters have been arrested for displaying signs showing direct support for Palestine Action, and numerous lawyers, UN experts and human rights groups have voiced concerns that the vague wording of the order could be a slippery slope into more general support for the pro-Palestinian cause being punished.
On Monday 14 July, peaceful protester Laura Murton was holding a Palestinian flag as well as signs that read “Free Gaza” and “Israel is committing genocide”, when she was threatened with arrest under the Terrorism Act by Kent police. Despite showing no support for Palestine Action, she was told by police that the phrase “Free Gaza” was “supportive of Palestine Action”; police were recorded by Murton stating that “Mentioning freedom of Gaza, Israel, genocide, all of that all come under proscribed groups, which are terror groups that have been dictated by the government.” She was made to provide her name and address, and was told that if she continued to protest, she would be arrested.
Murton told the Guardian that it was the most “authoritarian, dystopian experience I’ve had in this country”. Labour’s Minister of State for Security Dan Jarvis seemed to condemn the incident, stating “Palestine Action’s proscription does not and must not interfere with people’s legitimate right to express support for Palestinians.”
Defying refugee status: Beninese journalist forcibly detained and extradited
On 10 July, Beninese journalist and government critic Hughes Comlan Sossoukpè was arrested in a hotel room in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire and swiftly deported back to Benin, in violation of his status as a refugee.
Sossoukpè, who is the publisher and director of online newspaper Olofofo, had been living in exile in Togo since 2019 due to threats received regarding his work criticising the Beninese government and has held refugee status since 2021. He had reportedly been invited to Abidjan by the Ivorian Ministry of Digital Transition and Digitalisation to attend a forum on new technologies – one of Sossoupkè’s lawyers accused Cote d’Ivoire of inviting him for the purpose of his capture.
Another of his lawyers, speaking to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), reported that Sossoupkè recognised two of the five police officers that arrested him as being Beninese officers rather than Ivorian. They allegedly ignored his request to see a judge, confiscated his personal devices and escorted him to a plane back to Benin.
On 14 July, Sossoukpè was brought before the Court for the Repression of Economic Offences and Terrorism (CRIET) in Cotonou, Benin, and charged with “incitement to rebellion, incitement to hatred and violence, harassment by electronic means, and apology of terrorism”. He has been placed in provisional detention in a civil prison, and numerous groups such as CPJ, Frontline Defenders, and the International Federation of Journalists have called for his unconditional release.
The crime of a Google search: Russia ramps up dissent crackdown under guise of “anti-extremism”
Russia’s lower chamber of parliament, the State Duma, passed legislation on 17 July that greatly extends the state’s ability to crack down on dissenters. Starting in September, in addition to criminalising taking part in activities or groups that the Kremlin deems “extremist”, you can be fined just for looking them up online.
Anti-extremism laws in Russia have long been used to crack down on organisations whose views do not align with the state’s; There have been over 100 extremism convictions for participating in the “international LGBT movement”, and lawyers who defended opposition leader Aleksei Navalny were also arrested and imprisoned on extremism charges. But with the new changes passed on Thursday, those who “deliberately search for knowingly extremist materials” will face fines of up to 5000 roubles, or around £47.
Extremist materials are designated by the justice ministry via a running list of over 5000 entries which includes books, websites and artworks. Other materials that could result in a fine include music by Russian feminist band Pussy Riot, articles related to LGBTQ rights, Amnesty International and various other human rights groups, pro-Ukraine art or works..
The ruling has been met with a backlash from politicians and organisations from across Russia’s political spectrum; the editor-in-chief of pro-Kremlin broadcaster Russia Today said she hopes amendments will be made to the legislation, as it would be impossible to investigate extremism if online searches are prohibited, while Deputy State Duma speaker Vladislav Davankov reportedly called the bill an “attack on the basic rights of citizens”.
The Taliban vs journalism: Local Afghan reporter detained
In the most recent case of the Taliban’s crackdown on journalism in Afghanistan, journalist Aziz Watanwal was arrested and taken from his home on 12 July alongside two of his friends in a raid by intelligence forces.
A local journalist of the Nangarhar province of eastern Afghanistan, Watanwal had his professional equipment confiscated. Despite his friends being released in the hours following his arrest, Watanwal is still in custody with no information regarding his whereabouts, and the Taliban reportedly gave no reason for his detention.
Since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021, journalistic freedoms have taken a sharp decline. Afghanistan Journalists Centre have reported that in the first half of 2025, press freedom violations increased by 56% compared to the same period in 2024. In the three years following the Taliban’s return to rule, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reported that 141 journalists had been arrested for their work, and the country currently sits 175th out of 180 countries on RSF’s Press Freedom Index.
Censorship of an archive: Chinese tech corporation seeks closure of crucial social media archive
Chinese multinational tech conglomerate Tencent has launched legal action against censorship archive organisation GreatFire to take down FreeWeChat, a platform run by GreatFire that aims to archive deleted or blocked posts on prominent Chinese messaging and social media app WeChat.
WeChat is one of the most popular apps for Chinese citizens and diaspora, and posts on the platform critical of the government are frequently subject to censorship. FreeWeChat was created in 2016 in an effort to catalogue posts taken down by Chinese authorities, but it is now under threat from this legal attack by Tencent.
Tencent’s claim is that FreeWeChat’s use of “WeChat” in the domain is a trademark and copyright infringement, submitting a takedown complaint with this reasoning on 12 June. GreatFire rebutted the allegations, stating that they do not “use WeChat’s logo, claim affiliation, or distribute any modified WeChat software”, and claim that Tencent’s intent is to “shut down a watchdog”.
Martin Johnson, lead developer of GreatFire, stated that the organisation have previously dealt with state-sanctioned DDoS attacks, but they have outlined their intent to keep FreeWeChat up and running despite a takedown order from the site’s hosting provider.
18 Jul 2025 | Africa, Burkina Faso, Chad, DR Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, News and features, Niger, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sudan, Togo
The 2020s have been a busy time for military coups in Africa.
University of Kentucky political scientists Jonathan Powell, who specialises in the study of political instability, and Professor Clayton Thyne, whose research focuses on domestic conflict and coups d’état, said there were 13 attempted coups in Africa in the years 2021 to 2023.
Powell says eight of those coups succeeded – in Chad, Mali, Guinea and Sudan in 2021, two separate coups in Burkina Faso in 2022, one on 23 January of that year and another on 30 September, and in Niger and Gabon in 2023..
The remaining five coups failed: in Niger and Sudan in 2021, in Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe in 2022 and in Sudan in 2023. In the latter, the military rulers who had seized power in 2021 continued to run the war-torn country.
Where the military have been successful in taking control, the army generals leading the coups have since shown no appetite for a return to civilian rule despite promising to do so when they took control..
Two of the coup leaders – Chad’s military leader Mahamat Idriss Déby, who seized power in 2021,and Gabon’s General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema who masterminded a coup in 2023 – have since held disputed elections in an attempt to give their rule a measure of legitimacy. In May 2024, Déby swept the presidential polls with more than 60% of the vote while Nguema won with 90% of the vote in April this year.
The effects of these coups have been devastating: brutal repression marked by arbitrary detentions, torture, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings to stifle political dissent.
There has also been corruption, erosion of free speech and strained relations with neighbouring countries or former colonial powers in some instances.
Promises to restore security, revitalise the economy or champion the will of the people that were invariably given as a motivation to seize power have been substituted by measures to entrench the rule of the military dictatorships.
Powell said the wave of coups have a common thread, a reluctance to relinquish power and erosion of rights such as free speech.
“The big takeaway is that previously coup leaders or the armed forces typically retreated from power, and often very quickly. This has radically shifted since 2021. Since then, all coups have seen the coup leaders remain in power,” he told Index.
“The coups since 2021 occurred within varying contexts, but major commonalities are other forms of domestic instability, civil war, violence, political manipulation and governments’ loss of legitimacy in the eyes of their people even with [previously] elected leaders “
In those countries where coups have seen the de facto establishment of military rule, freedoms in general are suffering, with journalists and media freedom in particular coming under attack.
“We have seen the arbitrary arrest of journalists in different countries, while Mali’s junta has attempted to virtually ban political coverage altogether,” Powell added.
Mali, Burkina Faso, and Gabon offer a study in how military rulers are corrupted by power, becoming worse or more brutal than the regimes they overthrew.
Mali’s transitional military government, which seized power in May 2021, announced that scheduled elections would be delayed indefinitely for technical reasons.
The military government also suspended political parties, a development the human rights watchdog said violates both Malian law and the rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly under international human rights law.
Human Rights Watch also said that Mali’s council of ministers has adopted a decree directing all media to stop “broadcasting and publishing the activities” of political parties and associations.
In the case of Burkina Faso, coup leader Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Damaogo Damiba became interim president in January 2022 but was ousted by Captain Ibrahim Traoré in a subsequent coup nine months later.
Traoré pledged to restore the civilian government by 1 July 2024 but last year he extended the transition period by another five years, adding that he would be eligible to contest the elections.
In Gabon, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, the country is on track to swap one form of autocratic governance with another. The military regime of Brigadier General Brice Oligui Nguema, who seized power in a coup on 30 August 2023, has instituted a “sequence of actions to pave an unobstructed pathway to claim the presidency” in upcoming elections.
This includes appointing loyalists to two-thirds of the Senate and National Assembly, appointing all nine members of the Constitutional Court, hosting a tightly scripted national dialogue process in mid-2024, from which 200 political parties were banned and rewriting of the constitution to allow members of the military to contest political office, and extend presidential terms to seven years.
An activist from Niger, Dr Mayra Djibrine, told Index that since the July 2023 coup in her country led by General Abdourahamane Tiani, there has been a rise in arbitrary arrests and detentions of political opponents, activists, and journalists.
Djibrine said while military leaders may justify coups as necessary measures to restore order or combat corruption, history has shown that military governance often leads to prolonged instability.
She said the military leaders in Niger have announced their intentions to transition to civilian rule but have not specified a concrete timeline for elections but given the uncertainty and historical precedents in the region, skepticism remains about how soon Niger will revert to a stable civilian government.
“The military regime has imposed restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly, accompanied by heightened surveillance and censorship of media outlets critical of the government. Additionally, ongoing insecurity due to extremist violence in certain regions has further complicated the human rights landscape. Humanitarian access has also been limited in some areas, worsening the plight of those in need,” said Djibrine.
“Freedom of speech in Niger is facing significant challenges in the wake of the coup. While there was some degree of media freedom prior to the coup, the current military government has implemented measures that stifle dissent and control public discourse. Journalists are often subjected to intimidation, harassment, and detention for reporting critically on the regime. Access to independent media has been increasingly limited, and public protests against the government are met with a strong repressive response. This environment has led to self-censorship, diminishing the space for open dialogue and critical expression.”
She said to prevent coups throughout Africa, several approaches could be considered that include building robust democratic institutions that ensure citizen representation and accountability can help reduce discontent and the likelihood of military takeovers.
She said this involves not only conducting credible elections but also promoting transparency within the government.
She said there is also a need to strengthen the role of civil society organisations to enhance public engagement and create mechanisms for citizens to collaboratively voice their concerns, thus reducing disillusionment with political systems.
“Reforming security forces to ensure they operate under civilian authority and focus on national defense rather than political ambitions is crucial. Prioritising military professionalism is essential for building trust between civilians and the armed forces,” she said.
In July 2023, as the world was witnessing an uptick in coups in African countries, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) released a report titled Soldiers and Citizens: Military Coups and the Need for Democratic Renewal in Africa as part of its partnership with the African Union Commission which offered insights into what fuels coups in Africa.
The report said readily exploitable grievances, linked to African leaders’ failures to deliver inclusive development as they rule behind a façade of democracy while deploying innately exclusionary models of governance has created fertile ground for coups to be staged on the continent.
It said there is a correlation between heightened coup risk and stagnant growth, exclusionary economic governance, multidimensional poverty, inequality, reduced youth and women’s participation, governance deficits, among others.
The findings confirm that coup risk can be viewed as a subset of state fragility. Countries that experience contemporary coups perform poorly on global development indices. These rankings are not abstract, but represent millions of lives marred by exclusion, infringement of rights, restriction of opportunity and frustration. These grievances create a base of frustration that coup leaders can readily exploit,” the report said.
Nick Watts, the vice president of EuroDefence UK told Index that the countries affected by coups have been courted by China and Russia who are playing on anti-colonial sentiment.
He said a Russian proxy, the Wagner Group, has been providing the means of removing governments deemed too close to their former colonial masters.
Watts said Wagner has continued operating in the region even after the death of its former powerful leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.
He offered an explanation on why these coups have taken place.
“The regimes have been seen as out of touch, which has played into the hands of ‘liberation’ movements,” he said.
The desire for power in Africa has not diminished.
In May 2024, a failed coup took place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo while other African dictators, such as Togo’s Faure Gnassingbé who ruled the country from 2005 after he was installed by the army when his autocratic father Gnassingbé Eyadéma died, changed the constitution to prolong his rule. Gnassingbé, whose family has ruled the country for nearly six decades, was sworn into a new post of President of the Council of Ministers which has no official term limits, a move which sparked deadly protests.
While the 2020s have been a particularly fertile period for coups in Africa, it continues a historical precedent. The UNDP report says there have been 98 coups in Africa between 1952 and 2022, more than one a year.
The report’s authors said that to mitigate coup risk, African governments must strive to deliver better governance, deepen democracy and inclusive development.
It called on regional and international actors to engage proactively with countries where presidents are nearing the end of their term limits to secure public assurances that they will resign and allow for a peaceful transfer of power. History tells us that Africa’s military leaders are unlikely to listen.
