7 Apr 2025 | About Index, Americas, Europe and Central Asia, France, News and features, Newsletters, Turkey, United States
The headline today is clear: lawyers need lawyers. It’s frustrating to focus on the USA given the constant coverage the country already receives, but it would be negligent to overlook this issue. President Donald Trump’s attempts to target law firms that oppose his administration’s agenda are deeply troubling. Lawyers should not have to fear government retribution simply because they represent clients or work with colleagues tied to the political opposition. This is a blatant threat to the rule of law, one designed to stifle free speech.
Politico offers a thorough breakdown of the situation, concluding that, for now at least, the practical consequences might seem relatively minor. The firms being targeted are so expensive that most people can’t afford their services. This isn’t necessarily a comforting thought. The flipside could be argued – that only the most financially robust law firms can afford to take on an expensive battle with Trump’s administration. Many smaller firms may quietly decline controversial cases, prioritising ease over principle, and thus further narrowing access to justice.
Over in France, a different kind of danger faces lawyers following Marine Le Pen’s conviction this week. It sparked a dangerous wave of threats against the judges involved, which were so severe that President Emmanuel Macron has been forced to publicly reaffirm the independence of the judiciary, and one of the trial judges has been placed under police protection.
It is, unfortunately, a sign of the times that bears repeating: lawyers represent clients, but they do not necessarily share their views. Yet here we are, facing the reality of a world where legal professionals are increasingly seen as extensions of their clients’ beliefs, rather than independent advocates of the law – a line trotted out for years in Iran, Russia and China and now finding a home elsewhere.
“As if the coup against democracy wasn’t enough, they cannot tolerate the victims of this coup defending themselves. They want to add a legal coup to the coup against democracy,” said Istanbul’s recently jailed Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu on the arrest of his lawyer. Mehmet Pehlivan has since been released. But as Pehlivan’s own lawyer poignantly remarked, his arrest was a “warning”. For Turkey’s autocratic leader, the message is clear: beware the clients you choose. For the rest of us, the takeaway is equally urgent: if we don’t stand firm in support of the defenders of justice, the very concept of justice itself could be dismantled.
4 Apr 2025 | Africa, Asia and Pacific, Burma, Europe and Central Asia, Germany, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Sudan, Uganda, 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 will publish a weekly news roundup of some of the key stories covering censorship and free expression from the past seven days. This week, we look at how Myanmar’s devastating earthquake is being exploited for political repression, and the destruction of a national museum.
Natural disaster: Myanmar blocks aid and access to earthquake-affected regions
On 28 March, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck near the city of Mandalay in central Myanmar, causing immense destruction and claiming thousands of lives. It is the most powerful earthquake to hit the country for over a century, and Min Aung Hlaing, the leader of Myanmar’s military junta, has reportedly exploited the disaster as a weapon against his enemies. Myanmar has been engaged in a deadly civil war for more than four years since the military took power via an armed coup in 2021. It is estimated that the military controls just 21% of the nation, including the key cities, with the rest in the hands of armed resistance forces. In the aftermath of the natural disaster, the junta has been accused of blocking aid to regions of the country that have been severely affected and which are under control of resistance groups, leveraging checkpoints to block humanitarian workers and crucial medicine from reaching those who need it most. Furthermore, foreign journalists are allegedly being blocked from entering the country to report on the catastrophe amid reports that the junta has continued to conduct airstrikes on affected regions. Native journalists already face immense free speech restrictions in Myanmar, with many sent to prison or forced into exile for reporting on the atrocities committed by the junta. With little reporting on the ground, Myanmar’s response to one of the worst disasters in its history is shrouded in darkness.
Cultural destruction: The looting of Sudan National Museum
Since 15 April 2023, Sudan has been embroiled in a devastating conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). According to the United Nations (UN), more than 11 million people have been internally displaced, and tens of thousands have been killed, with the RSF being accused of genocide in the Darfur region of the country. But the damage goes beyond the human cost of war, striking at the heart of Sudan’s cultural heritage. After the SAF recaptured Sudan’s capital Khartoum from RSF control last month, Sudan’s national museum was almost completely ransacked by fleeing RSF paramilitaries. Display cabinets were shattered, artefacts looted, and precious gold and stones were also taken. It was estimated that the museum held approximately 100,000 artefacts of immense historical value, dating back to the Nubian Kingdom, the Kushite empire and Christian and Islamic eras, including some of the oldest mummies in the world – now, all that remains are the largest statues that proved too cumbersome to steal. With these priceless items likely smuggled out of Sudan to be sold abroad, this will have a permanent, devastating impact on both the cultural wealth of the country and its ability to record its history.
Following the USA’s footsteps: EU citizens face deportation from Berlin for pro-Palestine protests
The detention and threat of deportation of pro-Palestine activists on Visas or green cards under the Donald Trump administration has been widely reported on in recent weeks, with the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil sparking uproar and raising many questions over the right to protest in the USA. This may have set a precedent for how western countries respond to people publicly displaying criticism of Israel’s military actions in Gaza. Germany, in particular, appears to have been increasingly prioritising crackdowns on pro-Palestine protests. Immigration authorities in Berlin have ordered three EU citizens and one American to leave the country by 21 April or face deportation following their participation in a university sit-in at Berlin’s Free University protesting Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The four individuals have been accused of antisemitism and supporting terrorism, and of constituting a threat to public safety. However, lawyer Alexander Gorski, who is representing the protesters, said that despite concerns from Berlin’s immigration office over the legality of removing EU citizens, the country’s Department for Interior and Sport overruled these objections and went through with the order. The four protesters, none of whom hold any existing criminal convictions, have appealed the decision.
Protest crackdown: Metropolitan Police raids Quaker meeting house to arrest activists
Following the trend of protest crackdowns in democratic nations, London’s Metropolitan (Met) Police broke new ground on 27 March by raiding a Quaker meeting house in Westminster to arrest six women involved in a meeting with activist group Youth Demand, on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. Youth Demand is a group that organises for climate causes and in solidarity with those affected by the war in Gaza. According to reporting by The Guardian journalist George Monbiot, one woman arrested wasn’t an activist but was a student journalist covering the meeting; she was detained for 16 hours, with no contact permitted with her family or friends. A spokesperson for Quakers in Britain said that this is the first time “in living memory” that anyone has been arrested at a Quaker Meeting House, which is the Quakers’ place of worship. This led to Quaker members holding a silent protest outside New Scotland Yard on 3 April. These arrests mark a chilling continuation of the UK police’s trend to silence protesters, as Index has previously covered.
Oil over people: Thousands displaced in Uganda following oil pipeline construction
Uganda’s burgeoning oil industry is reported to be of huge fiscal benefit to the nation, strengthening economic growth and opening up thousands of jobs for locals, with 14 oil fields and a heated oil pipeline under construction with investments to the tune of $15 billion. However, this oil rush comes at a cost – both through contributing to the climate crisis, and uprooting the lives of thousands. A report by Kampala-based non-profit Haki Defenders Foundation and the University of Sheffield released on 1 April revealed that planned resettlement for those displaced by the oil pipeline was inadequate, with overcrowded resettlement camps and lack of access to basic infrastructure such as water and medical care. Monetary compensation was also so low that those who received it could not afford to relocate anywhere else. This injustice has also stepped into the terrain of free speech violations; it has been reported that those who have protested peacefully against these new projects have faced violent crackdowns from security forces over the past few years, with 11 protesters being imprisoned in Kampala in February.
4 Apr 2025 | Americas, Europe and Central Asia, Hungary, News and features, United States
When Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán delivered his annual state of the nation speech in February, he declared the Trump administration was an inspiration.
But if you look at Orbán’s record you can see that the Hungarian prime minister could actually be the inspiration for Donald Trump’s recent manoeuvres. Orbán was bullying universities, threatening the free press and raging against LGBTQ+ rights way before the second Trump administration started taking aim at those things.
Orbán sees Trump as a “comrade-in-arm[s]” and well he might, as the Trump plan has plenty of resonance with what the Hungarian leader enacted after his second election win in 2010. If Trump had been studying what Orbán had achieved and jotted down notes, he could easily be following the same tick box list of opponents.
Take note of the similarities in language. Orbán talks of: “Pseudo-NGOs, bought journalists, judges, prosecutors, politicians, foundations, bureaucrats – an entire machine that operates the liberal opinion dictatorship and political oppression in the Western world”. This sounds awfully like a Trump speech.
But here’s the thing; Orbán was way ahead of Trump 2.0 in closing down cash flows to universities, which he saw as breeding grounds for opinions he didn’t like.
In 2021, Orbán massively overhauled the way Hungary’s universities were run. A new law meant that 11 universities passed out of state hands and became foundations instead with supervisory boards of politically like-minded people, excluding anyone with “internalist” or “globalist” views, the prime minister said. Several members of the government at the time were installed on these boards including foreign minister Peter Szijjarto. Opposition figures accused Orbán’s government of wanting to control what was taught and researched. “They want ideological control over the universities,” Jozsef Palinkas, a former member of Orbán’s Fidesz party and president of the Academy of Sciences told the German news outlet Deutsche Welle at the time.
The highly ranked Central European University had already been forced to move its main campus out of Hungary and relocate to Austria in 2019, because of the Orbán government’s continuous attacks on it and its founder, the Hungarian-born, US-based George Soros.
Does this all sound familiar? Trump is in the first round of a bloody battle with US universities, demanding removal of diversity programmes, crackdowns on student protests, and possible changes to the syllabus.
Already this is bearing fruit. The University of California has agreed to drop a policy where new staff had to fill in a statement about how they would contribute to diversity on campus. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has cut $400 million in research grants from Columbia University. Trump’s team are linking the cuts to criticism that the institution had not done enough to crack down on antisemitism by allowing pro-Gaza protests. Fearful of what might happen next, Columbia has caved to Trump’s threats and has already agreed to give its campus police more power to arrest student protesters and to replace those running its Middle Eastern studies department.
While there were rumblings about the “liberal elite” running US universities during Trump 1.0, these vague threats mostly came to nothing. This time, though, the attack on the university sector is wholehearted. It partly stems from a belief of Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) Republicans that universities and any critical media are part of a bastion of oppression for those with right-wing values. Such a deep and dangerous attack on US universities and their academic freedom via their research funding has never been attempted with this vigour.
Back in 2021, now vice-president J.D. Vance gave plenty of warning about what might happen next, when he outlined why the Republicans had to take action against “hostile institutions” who control “what we call truth”. Vance said: “If any of us want to do the things that we want to do for our country … we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.” That’s clearly what’s happening now.
Amelia Hadfield, head of the department of politics at Surrey University in the UK, said: “Trump is following a long-established autocratic playbook. Dictatorial heads of state including Orbán have for years provided a populist-led model based on a sharp ideological tilt to the right, filleting their state’s reach in terms of social, welfare, and humanitarian and international support whilst repressing anything resembling open debate, let alone criticism.”
Trump has continued his swivel against the liberal media that he began in his first term. He expects uncritical support, otherwise – as The Associated Press (AP) has already experienced – your access to the White House will be removed. Again Orbán had reached this point earlier on, with a plan to get rid of critical media that might get in his way.
While Orbán set the groundwork for creating a pro-rightwing media sphere in Hungary during his first term, the hard work really began when he returned to office in 2010. Orbán set out, with a little help from his friends, to force out, close down or neutralise unfriendly media outlets. International media conglomerates such as Axel Springer sold up and moved out as foreign news outlets were vilified, and government advertising contracts were removed from those that didn’t publish pro-Orbán editorials. Meanwhile, wealthy allies of Orbán bought out significant national and regional media. Suddenly it was possible to find all the same stories with the same angles and headlines in news sources across Hungary, all run by Orbán’s friends.
Orbán and Trump have an awful lot else in common including tough migration programmes and a warm relationship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. But Trump is moving a lot faster than Orbán did and for those trying to fight back against Trump’s plans to erode media and academic freedoms, one thing they might want at the forefront of their minds is that Orbán has now been in power continuously for 15 years. This is something that Trump might well put on his to-do list, if he can work out how to achieve it.
3 Apr 2025 | Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Syria, Turkey
At 2.30pm on 19 December 2024, Ahmed Mohamed, editor-in-chief of the Syrian-Kurdish Hawar News Agency (ANHA), received a dispatch from two of his colleagues. An hour later, they were dead.
“They had just sent me a message saying ‘we’re coming back’,” Mohamed told Index.
Cihan Bilgin and Nazim Daştan, two Kurdish reporters, were reportedly targeted and killed by a Turkish airstrike as they returned from the Tishreen Dam near Aleppo, where they were covering ongoing clashes between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Turkish-backed network of militias known as the Syrian National Army (SNA).
Indeed, Turkey, which is violently opposed to the Kurdish-led project due to its own domestic repression of the Kurdish cause, continues to target the region and journalists in particular, profiting from the chaos caused by the fall of former Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. According to the Kurdish-run Firat News Agency (ANF), Turkey has killed 14 journalists and wounded seven others in the Iraqi Kurdistan and Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) regions since 2019.
Journalists under attack
Sinem Adali, a journalist for Rojava TV, is preparing to go to the Tishreen dam front. Photo by Angeline Desdevises / Hans Lucas
In ANHA’s editorial offices in Qamishli, the de-facto Syrian Kurdish capital, a memorial showcases the microphones and cameras of journalists who died in the line of duty. Since 2017, six of ANHA’s journalists have been killed in the field: three reportedly in Turkish attacks, and three while covering the Kurds’ famous fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Despite the recent ceasefire agreement between Syria’s new Turkish-linked president Ahmed al-Sharaa and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, Turkish bombardments continue to target the Tishreen Dam, according to local monitor Rojava Information Center.
Leyla Abdi, a reporter for Ronahi TV, was wounded at the dam in January. Three days after her arrival at the dam, she was standing alongside civilians staging a protest on the crucial infrastructure, when she was hit by a bombardment. “That day, a dozen drones flew over us all day long. Turkey systematically strikes civilian convoys,” said Abdi, who is still recovering from her injuries.
Kurdish journalists aren’t only targeted when working on the frontline. Repeated attacks have made the road along the Turkish border dangerous, if not impassable. It was here that, in August 2023, the vehicle of the women’s television channel Jin TV was destroyed. The driver, Necimedîn Sînan, was killed instantly, while journalist Delila Ağît lost an arm. Dijwar Iso, who also works at ANHA, said that press workers are now obliged to switch off their phones during missions to prevent the Turkish armed forces on the other side of the border from being able to track and target them.
These attacks are part of a wider drive to stifle the press from covering Turkey’s occupation of North and East Syria, which has killed hundreds and displaced hundreds of thousands of primarily Kurdish civilians to date. In November 2022, journalist Essam Abdallah was killed and another journalist Mohammad Al Jarada was injured in separate Turkish air raids on the same day.
In 2019, a civilian convoy accompanied by Kurdish journalists and a French television team was bombed by Turkish forces, killing two local journalists and injuring others. Several civilians were also killed in the strike.
Although journalists are protected by international law, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s administration is stepping up its attacks on journalists beyond its borders. In neighbouring Iraq, a drone strike in August last year killed two Kurdish media workers working for a local TV channel and wounded their colleague. Local sources say the drone was operated by the Turkish armed forces, which the Turkish defence ministry has denied. Human rights organisations and Kurdish media unions have called on the United Nations to investigate attacks on journalists, which they describe as “war crimes”.
Gypsy Guillén Kaiser, director of advocacy and communications at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in New York, drew attention to the recent murder of Cihan Bilgin and Nazim Daştan, calling on the Turkish authorities to conduct a thorough investigation.
Psychological warfare
In ANHA’s offices, a memorial showcase displays the equipment and photos of six journalists who died while doing their job in north-eastern Syria. Photo by Angeline Desdevises / Hans Lucas
These constant attacks have created a climate of insecurity for all journalists in the region. Local journalist Loristan Derwish said: “As a woman, it was already hard to obtain the legitimacy to practise our profession and now we are confronted with attacks from Turkey and online harassment.” At the end of 2024, she was subjected to a wave of online harassment following a TV report she made interviewing female Kurdish fighters. Several Instagram accounts impersonating her were created, displaying fake pornographic photo montages. She believes the culprits are in Turkey.
Online harassment is predominantly aimed at female journalists. Arîn Swed, spokesperson for the Syrian Kurdish Women’s Media Union (YRJ), said the union defends all female media workers against sexist and psychological attacks. “We supported Cîhan when she was threatened over the phone by MIT [Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı – the Turkish secret service],” she said.
As of today, it is believed that at least five journalists, including Ciwana Cuma, a reporter for Ronahî TV, are being targeted. Cuma has covered the confrontations at the Tishreen Dam on several occasions. In a post on X (which has since been deleted) made by a Turkish account with more than 200,000 followers, the young woman was described as “another example like Cihan Bilgin”, “a terrorist”, and therefore identified as a potential future target.
The dehumanisation of journalists continues after their death. According to multiple sources, a photo of the decapitated body of reporter Vedat Erdemci, who was killed in a Turkish airstrike in 2019 in the Syrian city of Ras al-Ain, was sent to his mother. The Turkish state also refused to allow Cihan Bilgin and Nazim Daştan’s bodies to be handed over to their families in Turkey. They were finally buried in Qamishlo in January.
The West’s failure to respond to these crimes also creates negative psychological outcomes, local press workers say. “The death of a Kurdish journalist doesn’t cause a stir. The West creates a hierarchy among lives,” said Berîtan Ali, the regional head of a Kurdish TV station. Dilyar Cizîrî, co-chair of Free Press Union (YRA) organising in north-east Syria echoed her words: “Turkey’s attacks benefit from a sense of impunity, [caused] by the silence of international institutions.”
Destroying material resources
Beyond psychological attacks and online harassment, one of Turkey’s objectives is to shut down all means of expression for journalists in north and east Syria. Their social media accounts are frequently closed down by the platforms and their websites hacked. The ANHA website is the victim of roughly 7,000 cyber attacks per day, according to editor Mohamed. In 2019, hackers succeeded in replacing the homepage with a Turkish nationalist message, he said. Radio frequencies are also hijacked, the editor added, and overlaid with Turkish nationalist propaganda.
The media also face difficulties in obtaining the equipment they need to do their job, due to an embargo imposed on the region. “It is impossible to transport professional equipment legally across the Iraqi border. We have to find other ways,” said Mohamed. The workers are therefore forced to smuggle in protective equipment, such as bulletproof vests and helmets. ANHA only owns five vests for a team of 61 journalists, he said.
Fleeing domestic repression
The bodies of the two Kurdish journalists Cihan Bilgin and Nazim Daştan are buried in Qamishli. Photo by Angeline Desdevises / Hans Lucas
In Turkey, attacks on opposition journalists have forced many into exile. Threatened with imprisonment for covering a demonstration near the Syrian border, Turkish-Kurdish journalist Dilan Dilok had to flee Turkey for Syria in 2017. “If I return to Turkey, I will either be arrested or killed,” she said. She adds that Turkish police are trying to intimidate her again: “My parents are often raided in the middle of the night and subjected to long interrogations.”
Bazid Erven, a reporter for Kurdish news agency Ajansa Welat, and 10 other journalists were allegedly arrested on 20 December 2024 in Van, Turkey, for protesting against the assassination of their colleagues. “These arrests are nothing new, they are routine for us,” Erven said. The day after his own arrest, seven other journalists were detained in Istanbul for several weeks. “There is state and police repression against Kurdish journalists,” he added. It therefore comes as no surprise that Turkey is ranked 158 out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ worldwide press freedom ranking.
A future for the Syrian press
A Jin TV journalist reports on the funeral of two Kurdish political figures killed by a Turkish drone strike in Iraq. Photo by Angeline Desdevises / Hans Lucas
Since the fall of Assad’s regime, the ANHA agency has opened several offices across Syria. Its journalists, who previously worked underground in other regions of the country, can now operate openly. However, there is still concern for Syrian news professionals in view of the rampant insecurity in the country, a reality brought home by recent massacres committed by forces of the new government, targeting the Alawite minority.
On 6 February, interim prime minister Mohammed al-Bashir ordered the dissolution of the Syrian Journalists‘ Union (SJU). The Free Press Union (YRA)’s Cizîrî strongly condemned this decision: “The SJU was controlled by the former regime, but the solution should have been to restructure it.” The International Federation of Journalists also sent a letter to Al-Bashir and Syrian president Al-Sharaa, condemning the dissolution of the union and calling on them to uphold international law.
North and East Syria’s YRA says it is ready to help establish a new nationwide independent union and has just set up a Security Advisory and Risk Management Unit in order to provide “support and assistance to all Syrian journalists and media workers”. It seeks to pressure armed groups so that they abide by international law and wants to “contribute to efforts toward accountability and justice”.
In Qamishlo, the latter are yet to be found. Women’s Media Union (YRJ) president Swed is moved when she talks about her colleagues who have been killed in the field. But above all, she is determined to fight for their legacy: “As soon as [Cihan’s death] was announced, the women of the union took over. Today, if ANHA’s media coverage of Tishreen continues, it is thanks to the other women journalists.”
