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How India’s comedians are paying the price for free speech
An incident in which Mumbai’s Habitat comedy club was vandalised by supporters of a local political group after Kunal Kamra made jokes about its leader is a worrying sign of the times
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The week in free expression: 19 – 25 July 2025
Index rounds up of some of the key stories covering censorship and free expression from the past seven days
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Has President Trump launched the age of the American dissident?
A new era of authoritarianism has dawned in the “land of liberty”. What can US political activists learn from those who defied Soviet repression?
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Palestine Action proscription and Afghan data leak test UK’s commitment to free expression
Recent news has called into question whether certain UK laws are too broad and ill-defined to protect our speech rights
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Attacked on all fronts in the West Bank
Diala Ayesh, a Palestinian human rights lawyer, was imprisoned for a year in an Israeli jail for unknown reasons. Index speaks to her about the dan...
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Spotlight: Trump's official visit to the UK
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Has President Trump launched the age of the American dissident?
A new era of authoritarianism has dawned in the “land of liberty”. What can US political activists learn from those who defied Soviet repression?
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Who’s the Boss? Trump and Springsteen’s war of words
It is ironic that the US president, a supposed champion of free speech, has threatened Bruce Springsteen for expressing his thoughts
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Could Donald Trump’s administration be a double-edged sword for free speech?
We speak with the USA-based non-profit Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) about the new president's complicated approach to fre...
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Can academic freedom survive Donald Trump’s plans for thought control?
The president’s aim to remove power from universities and punish so-called “woke” ideology has chilling implications for free speech globally
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MAGAZINE
LATEST ISSUE: VOLUME 54.02 SUMMER 2025
Land of the Free?: Trump's war on speech at home and abroad
Has the USA, the so-called Land of the Free, become a dangerous country for those who question its government?
Such a notion is, of course, in opposition to the country’s founding principles. Enshrined in the 1791 First Amendment to the US Constitution are citizens’ fundamental freedoms – including freedom of religion, speech, the press, protest and petition. Conveniently glossing over its dark history of colonisation and slavery (which would continue for nearly a century after the First Amendment was ratified), it signified the USA as a global bastion of democracy, equality and civilised values. Now, Trump appears to be metaphorically setting fire to the paper these principles are written on.
This is having profound impacts within the USA and around the world. Trump was inaugurated for his second term only six months ago, but already he has sought to deport people for their views on Israel and Palestine; threatened universities with eye-watering financial sanctions if they do not adhere to his ideological viewpoints; slashed the budgets of state-funded broadcasters; deployed the National Guard to police protests, a tactic used by military dictatorships; and dismantled the US Agency for International Development (USAID), stopping the work of human rights groups globally.
In this edition, we explore these attacks on free speech at home and abroad.
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