Egypt’s Farouk Hosni has lost the vote to head the United Nations Agency for Education, Culture and Science (Unesco) to Bulgarian Irina Bokova. Hosni had been a controversial candidate accused of making book-burning comments last year and for being...
As Iran’s president prepares to address the UN General Assembly, Malu Halasa calls for the release of her friend and colleague, Canadian-Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari
Candice Holdsworth on Havel, Beckett and resistance to tyranny 20 years after 1989
Timothy Garton Ash looks back at the momentous events of 1989 and asks if it’s time to take to the barricades again
The trial of Adnan Hajizada and Emin Milli, the two Azerbaijani bloggers facing charges of “hooliganism” and “deliberate physical violence”, resumed yesterday.
Is it time for another revolution? Timothy Garton Ash poses a leading question as he revisits the momentous events of 1989 in the latest issue of Index on Censorship. Writers and journalists across eastern Europe join him in assessing the legacy,...
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is reported to have had brain surgery after being beaten by police. Read more here
Human Rights Watch’s suspension of military analyst Marc Garlasco under Israeli pressure raises questions about its own commitment to free expression, says Richard Silverstein of Tikun Olam
The unsolved killings of 17 journalists has had a chilling effect on the work of Russia’s press, writes Nina Ognianova
Samuel Beckett wrote a play for Václav Havel when he was in jail. On being freed, Havel returned the favour. It was the making of a great dramatic double-act, reprised this week by Index on Censorship. Jo Glanville reports
Ursula Owen on the launch of the Free Word Centre in London
Intelligence officials and police shut down freelance journalist Mazen Darwich’s office and confiscated all of its contents on 13 September. The journalist heads the Syrian Centre for Media and Free Expression, Syria’s only NGO specialising in...