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.”
1 Apr 2025 | Africa, News and features, Uganda
In recent months, several young men and women in Uganda have been arrested and charged for views they expressed on TikTok.
In the East African country, the freedom of expression landscape has deteriorated to the extent that one cannot hold a placard and march anywhere in support of a cause or in protest against an injustice. You will be roughed up by the Uganda Police Force, bundled into a police van, locked up in a cell and charged with the colonial-era “common nuisance” offence that the government uses to crush demonstrations.
Consequently, people with critical views turn to social media platforms like TikTok and X. Facebook is not available in Uganda – it was banned in January 2021 after the platform pulled down hundreds of pages that were linked to the government and thought to be fake. Facebook said that it acted after an investigation showed the accounts were attempting to influence the January 2021 presidential elections in favour of the incumbent, Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled Uganda since January 1986.
But even on TikTok or X, which are still allowed in the country, there is the likelihood that you will be arrested for expressing views considered offensive (particularly towards members of the first family – the family of the president) or deemed hateful (usually to members of Museveni’s sub-tribe or tribe, Banyankole, who hold many top positions across multiple sectors in the country).
Those recently arrested and charged include 21-year-old David Ssengozi (alias Lucky Choice), 28-year-old Isaiah Ssekagiri and 19-year-old Julius Tayebwa, all charged in November 2024 with hate speech and spreading malicious information against the first family. They are now awaiting trial.
There are more, although reporting is sparse. Instead, TikTokers themselves cover each other’s cases. Agora Discourse, a platform holding the Ugandan authorities to account, gave Index a list of those who have been charged. They include 26-year-old Muganga Fred, 19-year-old Wasswa Noah (alias Sturbon Josh) and Passy Mbabazi, a member of the National Unity Platform (NUP), the leading opposition party in the country, all charged with hate speech against either Museveni, his family or party members.
Except for Mbabazi’s case, which is ongoing at Bushenyi Magistrate’s Court, Western Uganda, the rest of the cases are being tried at Entebbe Chief Magistrates’ Court in Central Uganda, under one magistrate, Stella Maris Amabilis, who has already found two TikTokers guilty as charged and sentenced them to jail terms.
One of these is 21-year-old Emmanuel Nabugodi, who received a 32-month sentence on 18 November 2024 for hate speech and spreading malicious information about President Museveni for a comedy video in which he held a mock trial of the long-ruling soldier and politician, whom he found guilty and sentenced to a public flogging.
The other is 24-year-old Edward Awebwa, who received a six-year jail term for demeaning President Museveni, his wife Janet Museveni and his son General Muhoozi Kainerugaba. These two convictions make Amabilis, the magistrate, predictable – it is likely that the rest of the TikTokers being tried by her will be found guilty as well.
At least three patterns arise from the above arrests and charges (and, in two occasions, prison sentences). First, Museveni and his family members are the offended parties – the untouchables against whom nobody dares raise a voice. This makes the charges politically motivated with their sole aim being to crush dissent.
Second, the commonly preferred charges are hate speech and spreading malicious information about the people in the ruling party, under the notorious Computer Misuse Act (as amended in 2022).
Finally, most of those being criminally prosecuted are young people, mainly in their twenties.
It is nothing new for critical voices posting online to suffer prosecution in Uganda. Take Stella Nyanzi, an academic, poet and politician, and Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, a novelist, memoirist and lawyer. The former was jailed in 2019 for 18 months for writing a poem on Facebook suggesting that Museveni should have died at childbirth to save Uganda from tyranny. The latter was kidnapped, detained and has described how he was tortured in December 2022, when he wrote on Twitter (now X) that Museveni’s son Kainerugaba was “obese” and a “curmudgeon” and that the Musevenis had “imposed enormous suffering on this country [Uganda]”.
These arrests and prosecutions usually target voices critical of the ruling party. The people who use their social media accounts to express views critical of opposition politicians do not face arrest or prosecution.
According to Godwin Toko, a lawyer and human rights activist, and a member of the Network of Public Interest Lawyers (NETPIL), the crackdown on TikTokers is meant to entrench a culture of silence, unaccountability and untouchability by instilling fear in Ugandans so that they do not participate in public debates that call for better governance.
“Generally, freedom of expression is the bedrock for other freedoms. Without it, other freedoms are hard to guarantee. This has greatly impacted our democracy as people aren’t able to hold leaders accountable,” Toko told Index, calling on Ugandans to “boldly, fearlessly and persistently hold their leaders accountable by using any means necessary to safeguard and further freedom of expression”.
Toko is one of the founding members of Agora, a digital public square spotlighting mismanagement of public resources, be it roads that are potholed, hospitals that are not adequately staffed and stocked, or public institutions, like Parliament, that are corrupt.
The platform was founded after it became impossible for Ugandans to hold peaceful protests after the Public Order Management Act came into force in 2013. The Uganda Police Force has been criticised for misinterpreting the law and shutting down any form of demonstration, as shown by how brutally they arrest anybody who attempts to hold a placard in support of a cause or in castigation of an injustice.
But members loyal to the ruling party are allowed to hold demonstrations of any kind, whenever they wish to. These double standards common among Uganda’s ruling elite are what make TikTokers and freedom of expression activists loud in their condemnation of Museveni, his family members, and his ardent lieutenants.
Unfortunately, this comes at a heavy cost – brutal arrests, drawn-out judicial trials and potentially long prison sentences – to which jailed TikTokers Nabugodi and Awebwa, among others, can attest.
31 Mar 2025 | About Index, Americas, Asia and Pacific, China, Europe and Central Asia, Georgia, Hong Kong, India, News and features, Newsletters, Russia, United States
I have a recurring nightmare: I somehow find myself in China. I’m having a great time until I realise I work at Index, might be on a blacklist, and could get arrested at any moment. When I tell my nightmare to people who work in the China human rights space they always reply with the same reassurance: “It would never come to that – you’d simply be denied a visa to begin with or turned away at the border.” After all, such has been the case for several people in our field, most notably Benedict Rogers of Hong Kong Watch and Aleksandra Bielakowska from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) – both sent back on a plane from Hong Kong airport before setting foot in the territory.
This isn’t a China story; it’s a global one. In the article Be nice, or you’re not coming in, which featured in the Spring 2024 edition of our magazine, Salil Tripathi wrote about how critics of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi were being denied entry to the country. Penny Vera-Sanso of Birkbeck University in London, Lindsay Bremner from University of Westminster and University of Sussex’s Filippo Osella – all three were turned away upon arrival. Georgia has also perfected the art of entry denial. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, scores of independent Russian journalists weren’t allowed in, no reason given. The same happened recently to Lithuanian women’s rights advocate Regina Jegorova-Askerova, who was stopped at the border despite Georgia being her home for the past 15 years and her having family there.
Is the USA joining the club? Last week, a French scientist was denied entry to the country. The French government claims it’s because of his criticism of Donald Trump. The US government says it’s instead because he was carrying confidential information on an electronic device, which violated a non-disclosure agreement. A week before this, several members of the British punk band U.K. Subs were turned back at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Bassist Alvin Gibbs wondered whether this was because of his public criticisms of Trump or whether that theory was just paranoia. Perhaps we are all jumping to the worst conclusions, but inciting paranoia can be intentional – and it’s certainly infectious. In the past few days, several people have spoken to me about whether they should delete their messaging apps and social media profiles before travelling to the USA, or, for those already there, whether it’s wise to leave, fearing they won’t be allowed back in.
Hong Kong, Georgia, India, the USA – places once regarded as relatively liberal – are now part of a troubling trend where dissenters are kept out with the stroke of a pen. This is the new reality: autocrats share tactics, and the freedom to travel is becoming a privilege, not a right.
28 Mar 2025 | Americas, Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, India, Israel, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Palestine, Russia, Turkey, United States
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 the detention of an Oscar Award-winning documentary maker and a poorly-monitored Signal group chat.
Attacks on investigative journalism: The assault and detention of Hamdan Ballal
On Monday 24 March, Yuval Abraham, an Israeli investigative journalist and co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, announced on X that his fellow co-director Hamdan Ballal had been assaulted by Israeli settlers, and was subsequently taken from an ambulance by Israeli soldiers and detained. Ballal is a Palestinian filmmaker from Susya in the occupied West Bank. He was released on Tuesday 25 March. In an interview with The Guardian, Ballal said that the attack was “revenge” for the creation of No Other Land, which explores Israeli soldiers’ destruction of the West Bank’s Masafer Yatta, a collection of 19 Palestinian hamlets. The documentary was created by a group of Palestinian and Israeli journalists and filmmakers, with particular focus on the positive alliance developed between Abraham and a Palestinian activist called Basel Adra. This collaborative effort has proved controversial in Israel and the occupied West Bank, and Ballal recounted being physically attacked and beaten by both settlers and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers. His lawyer, Lea Tsemel, said Ballal didn’t receive adequate medical care for his injuries in detention, and that she had no access to him for several hours after his arrest. Ballal’s treatment represents a significant attack on investigative journalism, and follows a string of free expression violations in Israel and the occupied West Bank, including restrictions on journalists and the censorship of cultural products depicting Palestinian-Israeli relations.
National security breaches: US war plans leaked via Signal group chat
This week saw a most remarkable story come out of the USA; on 11 March, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the magazine The Atlantic, was accidentally (and rather carelessly) added to a top secret group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal where senior US Cabinet members were discussing plans for attacks on Houthi targets across Yemen. Chat members included US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, among other chief members of the Donald Trump administration. At first sceptical of the “Houthi PC small group” chat’s legitimacy, Goldberg realised it was definitely real after attacks discussed in the chat were carried out a few hours later. To hold such crucial discussions via a messaging app, then to mistakenly add a journalist to said discussions, constitutes a monumental breach in American national security. Both Hegseth and US National Security Adviser Michael Waltz have faced great scrutiny for this major mishap. Meanwhile, Goldberg has faced backlash from the highest echelons of the US government, with Trump himself attempting to lead a smear campaign against the journalist.
Film censorship: Globally-acclaimed film Santosh banned in India
With Hamdan Ballal bearing the brunt of the backlash to his co-directed documentary in the West Bank, there are other reports of film censorship coming out of India. Santosh, a film created by British-Indian director Sandhya Suri, has received international plaudits for its depiction of corruption and bigotry eminent in the Indian police force. Yet it was this very portrayal that has seen it banned from being screened in India. The film – which features an all-Indian cast and is filmed completely in the Hindi language – debuted at Cannes film festival and was nominated for both a Bafta and an Oscar. But its depictions of misogyny, caste-based violence and prejudice, institutional Islamophobia and brutality in the police force mean it may never see the light of day in the country of its setting.
Protest crackdowns: BBC correspondent deported from Turkey
Following the arrest and detention of Istanbul mayor and presidential political rival Ekrem Imamoglu, protests erupted across major cities in Turkey. Clashes between demonstrators and riot police reportedly saw more than a thousand people detained between 19 and 23 March. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has cracked down on the protests – and seemingly, their coverage as well. BBC correspondent Mark Lowen, who had been in the country reporting on the demonstrations for several days, was taken from his hotel by Turkish authorities on 26 March, according to the BBC, then deported back to the UK on 27 March. The authorities claimed that Lowen was “being a threat to public order”. Imamoglu is seen as Erdoğan’s main rival for the 2028 presidential election, and similarly to how many see his arrest as an attempt to remove political opposition, the deportation of a journalist could be seen as an attempt to obscure the truth.
Political prisoners: Russian anti-war activist’s prison sentence extended
Maria Ponomarenko is a Siberian activist and journalist who was jailed in 2023 for reporting on the Russian bombing of a theatre in Mariupol, southern Ukraine. The Kremlin denied any involvement in the attack, thought to have killed hundreds of civilians, despite multiple eyewitness reports. Ponomarenko was sentenced to six years in prison after her journalism was deemed to be “fake news”. Now, her sentence has been extended by one year and ten months because she allegedly attacked two prison guards, a charge that Amnesty International has described as “spurious” and which the human rights group claims is an attempt to further silence and repress her. Ponomarenko has reportedly launched a hunger strike while in prison to demand better treatment and justice for her false charges.
