A tragedy foretold: Norway condemns Uzbek activist to jail and torture

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]“I will be arrested the minute I land in Uzbekistan and then thrown in prison,” an Uzbek human rights activist tells me, “and what happens with me afterwards is a good question.”

For his family’s safety, I cannot tell you the name of the young man. Let’s call him Rustam, a common name in Uzbekistan.

“I only have five minutes, then they cut off the phone,” the 26-year old explains.

Since 12 June he has been held at the immigration services detention centre in Oslo, Norway, after having received the third and final rejection of his appeal for political asylum. He will be deported on 12 July.

Looking at his case it is obvious that the Norwegian authorities are ignoring evidence showing that returning Rustam to Uzbekistan is as good as sentencing him to torture, even death. They have also disregarded UN evidence that says returned Uzbek dissidents who sought refugee status abroad have been disappeared and subjected to torture.

It is easy to detect the fear in Rustam’s voice. In 2004, he and some friends started an NGO called Movement for Freedom and initiated a campaign against child slave labour. Every year, two million Uzbek school children — the youngest just 7 years old — are forced to spend six to eight weeks picking cotton, eight to 10 hours a day.

Uzbekistan has been heavily criticised for this abuse of children. But the income from cotton exports runs into hundreds of millions of dollars, and much of it falls into the pockets of the Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov, who has been in power for 23 years since Soviet times.

When Rustam and his friends started their campaign against child slavery, he was detained and tortured. Upon his release, Rustam fled to Russia. While he was in hiding, he heard that one of the Movement’s co-founders had been killed in an Uzbek prison. He decided to move on to Norway.

 I understood how dangerous it would be for me if I returned or was extradited…I too could very easily be killed.

Russia, a close ally of the Karimov regime, routinely extradites Uzbeks.  Afterwards many of them ‘disappear’.

The authorities in Norway have two problems with Rustam’s plea for asylum:

1/  Rustam does not have a passport.  Rustam says he threw it away when he smuggled himself out of Uzbekistan to ensure he could not be identified by the police if he was apprehended. But it means outside Uzbekistan Rustam now cannot prove that he is who he claims to be.

2/ While Rustam was in Norway hoping to be granted asylum, he started working as a volunteer for the Uzbek human rights defender Mutabar Tadjibaeva. This is now the heart of Rustam’s appeal: the Norwegian authorities do not believe that he worked as her webmaster.

Because of her international standing, Tadjibaeva is hated by the Karimov regime; working with her would land Rustam in very serious trouble in Uzbekistan.

Tadjibaeva has been living in exile in France since in 2008 escaping after three years of prison, rape and torture in Uzbekistan. The country has more than 10,000 political and religious prisoners and experts put it amongst the harshest dictatorships in the world, on par with North Korea.

Tadjibaeva runs the website Jayaron, one of very few independent sources of information about Uzbekistan, a country in which media are strictly controlled by the regime. She has established a widespread network of informants inside the country who send her details about corrupt court cases, unfair imprisonments and cases of torture. Her site is a thorn in the side of a regime that has almost managed to completely isolate its population from the outside world.

The Karimov regime call Tadjibaeva an “extremist” and accuse her of planning to overthrow the government, which is rather difficult to imagine when you meet her in person — a small, soft-spoken 49-year-old woman, her health scarred by years of torture and prison.

In 2008 the US State Department gave Tadjibaeva the prestigious Woman of Courage award. After Tadjibaeva received it, a Wikileaks telegram revealed that the American ambassador in Tashkent received a “tongue lashing” from the Uzbek dictator, who threatened to block US transit to Afghanistan in retaliation.

The ambassador advised his government to tone down the criticism of the Uzbek regime, advice they took. And relations are nearer to the close relationship the countries enjoyed before Karimov’s army killed 800 demonstrators, many of them women and children, in May 2005.

Mutabar Tadjibaeva stresses to me that Rustam has worked with her since August 2010.  She cannot understand why the Norwegian immigration authorities rejected Rustam’s asylum plea, stressing that they do not believe that he and Mutabar work together.

We have worked closely together, you can even find his name on our website. Because of this, his life would be in great danger if he were returned to Uzbekistan.

“The Uzbek regime does not like people telling the truth,” she adds. “I have no less than 343 emails here in which we discuss Rustam’s work with our website and my blog,” she tells me, “that obviously prove that we worked closely together.”

“If the Norwegians really wanted to know the truth, all they have to do is check his computer, mobile phone and emails.” She showed me the email and text communication between the two.

“I have even transferred money to him in Norway, so he could buy a computer and work on our website,” Mutabar explains. She shows me receipts.

If he is sent back to Uzbekistan, a long time in prison and severe torture awaits him. There is a real risk that the regime will kill him, as a warning to others to stay away from human rights work.

At the moment it looks like that Rustam will be deported to Uzbekistan within the next week.

But in June something happened which Mutabar hopes will help Rustam. The UN Committee against Torture censured Kazakhstan — Uzbekistan’s neighbour — for deporting 29 Uzbek asylum seekers in 2010. Several of the 29 were later given lengthy prison sentences, kept in isolation and therefore, say analysts, most likely tortured.

UN conventions forbid states deporting people to their home countries if there is a risk that they will be tortured.

Exact numbers are impossible to come by — this is Uzbekistan — but according to local human rights organisations dozens of people are tortured to death each year in Uzbek prisons, and the favourite victims of the security police are those who have been in the West asking for asylum or even speaking poorly about the regime. This description clearly applies to Rustam.

Mutabar Tadjibaeva hopes that the UN decision will make Norway re-consider his case. “But,” she adds, “so-called democratic countries in Europe have often shown themselves full-willing  to close their eyes to the atrocities of the Uzbek regime. I have lost all faith in them.”

Michael Andersen is a Danish journalist who has covered Central Asia for more than 10 years. His newest feature-length documentary on Uzbekistan is called Massacre in Uzbekistan.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Turkish arrest warrant against Nedim TĂŒrfent condemned

International free expression, media freedom, human rights and journalists’ organisations are deeply alarmed by reports that an arrest warrant has been issued for the Kurdish writer, journalist and poet Nedim TĂŒrfent on the charge of “Disseminating propaganda in favor of a terrorist organization”. TĂŒrfent is currently living in exile in Germany due to the ongoing persecution he has faced by the Turkish authorities. While the arrest warrant was issued on 7 May 2025 by the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office of YĂŒksekova district in Hakkari, TĂŒrfent was only made aware of it on 25 June. The existence of the warrant was made public by the Dicle Firat Journalists’ Association (DFG) on 27 June.

This is the latest in a litany of threats and judicial harassment aimed at TĂŒrfent in recent years. He spent six years and seven months in prison after he was detained in May 2016 in response to his reporting on special police forces’ ill-treatment of Kurdish workers. This came amidst a severe clampdown on public interest journalism, where Kurdish writers and journalists were explicitly targeted. According to PEN International, as a result of his reporting he “began receiving death threats from the police and was the target of an online harassment campaign.” The day after his arrest, he was formally charged with “membership of a terrorist organisation”. Out of the 20 witnesses called during the court hearings, 19 retracted their statements, saying they had been extracted under torture. TĂŒrfent spent almost two years in solitary confinement. After spending over 2,400 days behind bars, he was released on 29 November 2022.

As reported by DFG, the basis of the warrant appears to be four news-related posts and retweets TĂŒrfent shared on his X account. The charge of “Disseminating propaganda in favor of a terrorist organization”, outlined in Article 7 of Turkey’s Anti-Terror Law (Law no. 3713), has long been used to stifle critical speech or public interest reporting. In 2024, 82 accounts on X, including those used by Kurdish politicians, journalists, publishers and media houses, were blocked by Turkish courts on the basis of this charge, as well as other provisions commonly used to restrict free expression. Other journalists and civil society representatives, including Erol Önderoğlu (Reporters Without Borders representative in Turkey and International Press Institute member), ƞebnem Korur Fincancı (Chair of Human Rights Foundation of Turkey) and writer Ahmet Nesin have also been charged under this provision in 2016. While they were acquitted, this verdict was overturned in October 2020.

As TĂŒrfent is now based in Germany, the warrant may result in an extradition request. Turkey has long requested the extradition of those in exile, many of whom were targeted for their criticism of the ruling party and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan or for acts of public interest journalism. For instance, in 2017, a year after the failed coup, it was reported that Turkey had requested the extradition of 81 people from Germany. While German courts have previously rejected a number of requests on human rights grounds and in reference to the European Court of Human Rights, we are deeply concerned by the possibility of TĂŒrfent being forcibly returned to Turkey. This fear is enhanced by the fact that his visa expires at the end of August 2025.

We, the undersigned, condemn the issuance of this arrest warrant targeting TĂŒrfent for acts of protected speech and for his work as a journalist. Speaking to Index on Censorship in 2023 about his persecution, TĂŒrfent said: “My journalism was then declared a ‘crime’.” This cannot happen again and we call for the warrant to be retracted without delay. We will continue to monitor the situation.

Signed by:
Index on Censorship
Association of European Journalists (AEJ)
Dicle Firat Journalists’ Association (DFG)
English PEN
Human Rights Association (İHD)
Gefangenes Wort
European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)
European Center for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA)
PEN Kurd (Kurdish PEN)
PEN Melbourne
WahrheitskÀmpfers e. V.
DİSK Basın-İß
International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)
Stimmen der SolidaritĂ€t – Mahnwache Köln e.V.
PEN International
Croatian PEN Centre
PEN Norway
PEN America
Vietnamese Abroad PEN Centre
PEN Netherlands
Progressive Lawyers’ Association (ÇHD), Turkey
Deutsche Journalistinnen und Journalisten Union (dju) in ver.di
Internationale Gesellschaft fĂŒr Menschenrechte (IGFM)
PEN CatalĂ  (Catalan PEN)
International Society for Human Rights (ISHR)
San Miguel PEN
PEN Sweden
Journalists’ Union of Turkey (TGS)
PEN Denmark (Danish PEN)
South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO)
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
IFEX
P24 Platform for Independent Journalism
Association of Lawyers for Freedom (ÖHD)
Giuristi Democratici Association – Italy
International Press Institute (IPI)
PEN Esperanto
Research and Development Center for Democracy (CRED)
ARTICLE 19
Articolo 21
PEN Sydney
German Journalists’ Association (DJV)

Left speechless: How trauma is leaving children in Gaza unable to communicate

This article first appeared in Volume 54, Issue 1 of our print edition of Index on Censorship, titled The forgotten patients: Lost voices in the global healthcare system, published on 11 April 2025. Read more about the issue here.

Most children say their first word between the ages of 12 and 18 months. But Fatehy, a Palestinian boy living in Jabalia City in Gaza, is four years old and is still barely talking.

When he does speak, he says the same words over and over again – “scared”, “bomb” and “fighters”. While he used to say words such as “mumma” and “bubba”, his language progression has reversed, and now he is mostly silent.

He has been displaced roughly 15 times and experienced several close family deaths, including those of his mother and sister. At one point, he was discovered on a pile of bodies and was presumed dead. He was rescued purely by luck when a family member saw that he was still gently breathing.

His cousin, Nejam, is three years old. His speech is also very limited, and is mostly reserved for the names of tanks, drones and rockets. He has been pulled from rubble several times.

Neither child has access to school, nursery or social activities with friends. Medical treatment is severely limited, and they have been unable to access any of the few speech therapists available. Food scarcity also means they have been unable to learn basic vocabulary about ingredients or meals.

Dalloul Neder, a 33-year-old Palestinian man living in the UK since 2017, is their uncle.

“The only thing they’ve been listening to is the bombing,” he told Index. “That’s why they are traumatised.

“They miss their families, grandparents, mums and family gatherings around the table. They realise something is not right but they can’t express their pain.”

Psychological trauma is extremely common for children living in warzones. This can cause mental health issues such as depression, anxiety and panic attacks, but also communication problems, such as losing the ability to speak partially or fully, or developing a stammer. For younger children such as Fatehy and Nejam, war trauma can impact cognitive development, causing language delays and making it hard to learn to speak in the first place.

In December, the Gaza-based psychosocial support organisation Community Training Centre for Crisis Management published a report based on interviews it had conducted with more than 500 children, parents and caregivers. Nearly all the children interviewed (96%) said they felt that death was “imminent” and 77% of them avoided talking about traumatic events. Many showed signs of withdrawal and severe anxiety. Roughly half the caregivers said children exhibited signs of introversion, with some reporting that they spent a lot of time alone and did not like to interact with others.

Katrin Glatz Brubakk is a child psychotherapist who has just returned to Norway from Gaza, where she was working as a mental health activities manager with Médecins Sans FrontiÚres in Nasser Hospital, Khan Younis. Her team offers mental health support to adults and children, but mainly to children dealing with burns and orthopaedic injuries, mostly from bomb attacks.

She told Index that children tended to present with “acute trauma responses”, while the long-term impacts on their psychological wellbeing were yet to be seen.

In her work, she typically sees two types of responses – either restlessness and being hard to calm down, or becoming uncommunicative and withdrawn. She believes the latter is significantly harder to spot and therefore under-reported.

“We have to take into account that it’s easier to detect the acting-out kids, and it’s easier to overlook the withdrawn kids or just think they’re a bit shy or quiet,” she said.

She commonly saw children experiencing extreme panic attacks due to flashbacks, where any small thing – such as a door closing or their parent leaving a room – could trigger them. She noted they would often let out “intense screams”.

But some children have become so withdrawn they do not scream or cry at all. Some have even fallen into “resignation syndrome”, a reduced state of consciousness where they can stop walking, talking and eating entirely.

Brubakk recalled one “extreme case” of a five-year-old boy who was the victim of a bomb attack and witnessed his father die. He fell completely silent and did not want to see anybody, and also hardly ate.

“When children experience severe or multiple trauma, it’s as if the body goes into an overload state,” she said. “In order to protect themselves from more negative experiences and stress, they totally withdraw from the world.”

Living in a warzone can also mean that children’s “neural development totally stops”, she said, as they lose the opportunity to play, learn new skills, learn language and understand social rules. “The body and mind use all their energy to protect the child from more harm,” she said. “That doesn’t affect the child only there and then, it will have long-term consequences.”

This is made worse by a lack of “societal structures”, such as schools. “[These offer a] social arena, where they can feel success – there’s no normality, there’s no predictability.”

Therapy can be used to encourage children to speak again, particularly with creative methods such as play and drawing therapy. Brubakk explained how through “playful activities” and “small steps”, her team were able to encourage children to communicate.

Recently, she managed this through the creation of a makeshift dolls house. A young girl had been burnt in a bomb attack. Her two brothers had been killed and her two sisters injured, with one of them in a critical state. It was uncertain whether her sister would survive.

The girl wasn’t able to speak about her experiences until Brubakk helped her create a dolls house using an old box, some colouring pens and tape, plus two small dolls the girl had kept from her home. She named the dolls after herself and her sister, and was able to start expressing her grief and fears, as well as her hopes for the future.

“So through a very different type of communication, she was able to express how worried she was about her sister, but also process some of the experiences she had,” said Brubakk.

A report published by the non-profit Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) includes success stories of children who have benefited from creative communication. Alaa, a 12-year-old boy who sustained facial injuries after a bombardment and then later experienced forced evacuation by Israeli forces from Al-Shifa hospital, developed recurring nightmares, verbal violence, memory loss and an aversion to talking about his injuries. A treatment plan of drawing therapy and written narrations of the events helped him to become more sociable, and now he visits other injured children to share his story with them and listen to theirs.

Sarah, meanwhile, is a 13-year-old girl who developed post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic mutism after having an operation on her leg following a shell attack. She didn’t speak for three months and would use only signals or write on pieces of paper. The GCMHP worked with her on a gradual psychotherapy plan, including drawing and play therapy. After three weeks, she started saying a few words, and she was eventually able to start discussing her trauma with therapists.

Trauma-related speech issues are complex problems that can be diagnosed as both mental health issues and communication disorders, so they often benefit from intervention from both psychotherapists and speech and language therapists.

Alongside developing speech issues due to war, living in a warzone can worsen speech problems in children with pre-existing conditions. For example, those with developmental disabilities such as autism may already have selective mutism (talking only in certain settings or circumstances), and this can become more pronounced.

Then there is behaviour that can become “entrenched” due to their environments, Ryann Sowden told Index. Sowden is a UK-based health researcher and speech and language therapist who has previously worked with bilingual children, including refugees who developed selective mutism in warzones.

“Sometimes, [in warzones,] it’s not always safe to talk,” she said. “One family I worked with had to be quiet to keep safe. So, I can imagine things like that become more entrenched, as it’s a way of coping with seeing some really horrific things.”

She described a “two-pronged” effect, with war trauma causing or exacerbating speech issues, and a lack of healthcare services meaning that early intervention for those with existing communication disorders or very young children can’t happen.

There is an understandable need to focus on survival rather than rehabilitation in warzones, she said, and a lot of allied health professionals, such as occupational therapists, physiotherapists and psychotherapists, are diverted to emergency services.

This was echoed by Julie Marshall, emerita professor of communication disability at Manchester Metropolitan University and formerly a speech and language therapist working with refugees in Rwanda. Her academic research has noted a lack of speech and language therapists in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) in general.

“In many LMICs, communication professionals are rare, resulting in reliance on community members or a community-based rehabilitation workforce underprepared to work with people with communication disorders,” she wrote in a co-authored paper in British Medical Journal Global Health.

For children who already have speech or language difficulties, losing family members who are attuned to their other methods of communication, such as gestures or pointing, can make the issue worse.

“If you are non-verbal, you may well have a family member who understands an awful lot of what we would call ‘non-intentional communication’,” said Marshall. “If you lose the person who knows you and reads you really well, that’s huge.”

In warzones, Marshall and Sowden both believe that speech and language therapy is more likely to be incorporated alongside medical disciplines dealing with physical injury, such as head or neck trauma or dysphagia (an inability to swallow correctly). This belief was mirrored by the work of Brubakk, whose mental health team at Nasser Hospital worked mostly with patients who had been seen in the burns and orthopaedics departments.

One of the most valuable things that can be done is to train communities in simple ways to help children who may be living with a speech or language difficulty, Marshall believes, shifting away from treating a single individual to trying to change the general environment.

“There are lots of attitudes around communication disabilities that could be changed,” she said. For example, it is often misjudged that children with muteness may not want to talk, and they are subsequently ignored rather than patiently and gently interacted with.

Despite a lack of healthcare provision, there are some professionals on the ground in Gaza. In 2024, the UN interviewed Amina al-Dahdouh, a speech and language therapist working in a tent west of Al-Zawaida. She said that for every 10 children she saw, six suffered from speech problems such as stammering. In a video report, al-Dahdouh held a mirror up to children’s faces as she tried to teach them basic Arabic vocabulary and show them how to formulate the sounds in their mouths.

But the destruction of medical facilities such as hospitals and a lack of equipment have made it difficult for professionals to do their jobs. Mohammed el-Hayek is a 36-year-old Palestinian speech and language therapist based in Gaza City who previously worked with Syrian child refugees in Turkey.

“Currently, there are no clinics or centres to treat children, and there are many cases that I cannot treat because of the war, destruction and lack of necessary tools – the most important of which is soundproof rooms,” he told Index. “Before the war, I used to treat children in their homes.”

Soundproof rooms can be used by speech and language therapists to create more private, quiet and controlled spaces that reduce distracting external noises including triggering sounds such as gunfire or bombs.

The most common issue he has encountered is stammering, which he says becomes harder to tackle the longer it is left untreated.

“Children are never supported in terms of speech and language,” he added. “[It is] considered ‘not essential’ but it is the most important thing so that the child can communicate with all their family and friends and not cause [them] psychological problems.”

For many of these children, the road to recovery will be long. Mona el-Farra, a doctor and director of Gaza projects for the Middle East Children’s Alliance, told Index that the “accumulation of trauma” caused by multiple bombardments meant that even those receiving psychological support were offered little respite to heal.

One glimmer of hope is that cultural barriers around trauma appear to be lifting, which has encouraged people to stop self-censoring around their own mental health.

“There is no stigma now [around mental health],” said el-Farra. “The culture used to be like this, but not anymore. You can see that 99% of the population has been subjected to trauma. [People] have started to express themselves and not deny it.”

At the time of publishing, the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas had broken down and bombardment had restarted. When a permanent ceasefire is finally established and healthcare provision in Gaza can be rebuilt, there will need to be a concerted effort to support children with their psychological and social rehabilitation as well as their physical health. Hopefully then they can start to come to terms with their experiences and tell their stories – otherwise, they could be lost forever.

The harassment of Chinese-Australian artist, political cartoonist and activist Badiucao must end

The undersigned organisations condemn the harassment of artist, political cartoonist and activist Badiucao, which has taken place via email, in the media, and on social media in the last week. The harassment began as Badiucao was preparing to publish a statement criticising the human rights situation in Hong Kong. The statement was providing context to his artwork – a short video – that was being exhibited in the city. Like much of Badiucao’s work, the video sought to champion the right to freedom of expression and challenge authoritarianism.

Badiucao was one of more than a dozen artists featured in the three-minute video compilation put together by the Milan-based digital gallery, Art Innovation, on billboards during the Art Basel fair in Hong Kong last week. The 4-second clip, entitled “Here and Now”, showed Badiucao silently mouthing the words “you must take part in revolution” – the title of his newly-published graphic novel and a Mao Zedong quote. It was broadcast hourly between 28 March and 2 April.

On 1 April, Badiucao contacted several media organisations to let them know he would be publishing a statement about the artwork later that evening. Some of them then contacted Art Innovation for comment. Shortly thereafter, Badiucao received an email from the gallery warning him not to publish his statement. They told him that legal action would “definitely” follow if content “against the Chinese government is published”. The gallery later responded to media requests saying that the exhibition “had nothing to do with political messages”.

Badiucao went on to publish his statement. In it, he said: “This art action underscores the absurdity of Hong Kong’s current civil liberties and legal environment. And it would remind everyone that art is dead when it offers no meaning.” The exhibition was removed from the billboards the following morning, despite having been scheduled to be displayed until 3 April.

In a second email to Badiucao, Art Innovation said that his actions had already resulted in financial implications, as well as legal actions, “which will be directed against you”. They demanded that he immediately remove all posts from his personal social media accounts related to the exhibition and claimed that failure to comply could “result in further legal consequences”. They said their lawyers were already working to “initiate appropriate legal action” against him.

On 3 April, Art Innovation publicly accused Badiucao of having provided them with false information and of having violated the contract he signed by submitting political content. “[W]e can consider it a crime,” they wrote on social media. Badiucao said he had submitted the artwork under the pseudonym Andy Chou because the video clip was to be shown in Hong Kong, where the authorities had previously shut down his exhibition. He said he never concealed his identity from the gallery and that they knew that he was behind the artwork.

Art Innovation would also have been aware of the distinctly political nature of Badiucao’s artwork given that they first contacted him via social media, where he regularly shares his artwork with his more than 100k followers, in 2022. They invited him to collaborate on a billboard exhibition during Art Basel in Miami that year, to which he contributed a satirical image of Chinese president Xi Jinping.

“We are appalled at the behaviour of this Italian gallery, which claims to ‘love everything that is outside the rules’ and ‘love the freedom of artists’ and yet harasses and tries to silence an artist that stands for exactly those principles,” the undersigned organisations said. “Badiucao must be applauded for his efforts to creatively challenge censorship and authoritarianism in such a repressive regime. Art Innovation should immediately withdraw their legal threats, issue a public apology to Badiucao, and refrain from further harassment of the artist.”

Signed:

Index on Censorship

Alliance for Citizens Rights

Art for Human Rights

ARTICLE 19

Australian Cartoonists Association

Australia Hong Kong Link

Befria Hongkong

Blueprint for Free speech

Civil Liberties Union for Europe

Cartooning for Peace

Cartoonists Rights Network International

The Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation

DOX Centre for Contemporary Art

European Federation of Journalists

Foundation Atelier for Community Transformation ACT

Freemuse

Freedom Cartoonists

Freiheit fĂŒr Hongkong

Hong Kong Committee in Norway

Hong Kong Forum, Los Angeles

Hong Kong Watch (HKW)

Hongkongers in Britain (HKB)

Hong Kongers in San Diego

Hong Kongers in San Francisco Bay Area

Human Rights in China (HRIC)

Human Rights Foundation (HRF)

Humanitarian China

IFEX

Lady Liberty Hong Kong

NGO DEI

NY4HK

Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT)

Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND)

Trade Union of Croatian Journalists

PEN America

PEN International

Reporters Without Borders (RSF)

Richardson Institute – Lancaster University

The Rights Practice

Safeguard Defenders

StraLi for Strategic Litigation

Stand with Hong Kong EU

Toronto Association for Democracy in China ć€šć€«ć€šæ”ŻèŻæœƒ

Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP)

Washingtonians Supporting Hong Kong (DC4HK)

Notes:

  • The day after Badiucao published his statement, Hong Kong’s new chief of police warned that, despite Hong Kong’s return to stability following the 2019-20 protests, there continued to be “soft resistance” to the regime through arts and culture. He did not name Badiucao or Art Innovation specifically.
  • On 8 April, the South China Morning Post reported that Hong Kong’s Culture, Sports, and Tourism Bureau had confirmed that they had not requested the removal of the video.
  • The Security Bureau of the Hong Kong government had told South China Morning Post that: “[The] freedom of literary and artistic creation and other cultural activities are protected by law. As long as they do not violate the law, the above-mentioned freedoms will not be restricted.”
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