The Afghan Senate has issued a statement supporting the death sentence imposed on a journalist. Pervez Kambaksh, 23, was convicted last week of downloading and distributing an article critical of Islam. His trial has been criticised by the UN and...
A court in Baku, Azerbijan, has sentenced two journalists to hard labour following their conviction for libel. The charges related to articles they published in 2007 regarding alleged corruption in government circles. Avaz Zeynalli, the editor of...
The situation for journalists in the north of the country is deteriorating, writes Harun Najafizada Police in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz beat up a local journalist last week, apparently because he wrote a story critical of Afghan...
On 19 January, three domestic news and opinion websites were blocked to users in Yemen by the government-owned Internet provider. The sites joined a list of at least five others that have been censored without any official explanation. News site...
New proposals to limit extremist speech could have a significant chilling effect on the Internet, argues Bill Thompson Taking a leaf from its approach to prosecuting predatory paedophiles who use the Internet to establish contact with young people,...
Rashid Majid Al-Sari, editor of biweekly newspaper Al Fatah, was arrested and his computer and personal files confiscated by US troops at his Baghdad home on 18 January. Al Fatah is affiliated to Sayyid Al Shuhada, a Shia party founded in 1991. It...
Awale Jama Salad , a photo-journalist for Garowe Online, has been sentenced to six months in jail. He was arrested on 23 December in Somalia’s northern region of Puntland, in connection with photographs he took of the kidnapped French TV journalist...
Index Arts is a specialist arm of Index on Censorship, working in all art forms to promote and support freedom of artistic and cultural expression for disempowered, under- and mis-represented or silenced communities and individuals, both in this country and around the world.
Vision
The artistic, creative and cultural expression of all people is valued as essential to achieving a balanced, vibrant and responsive society;the arts are acknowledged as having an important role to play in bringing about change on a personal and societal level.
Index Arts aims to:
• Provide platforms for artists from marginalised, repressed and under-represented communities
• Provide access to tools of creative expression to people experiencing social exclusion, as a means to finding and presenting their voice
• Provide platforms for cultural and artistic expression by marginalised and under-represented communities
• Further the debate on freedom of expression in the arts and offer training
• Monitor, document and publish online, abuses of freedom of expression in performing, lens based and visual arts
• Work with young people to understand and exercise their right to freedom of expression through the creative arts.
Index on Censorship hosts a number of events on censorship and free speech issues throughout the year. Remember to check this page for details.
Nouritza Matossian remembers Armenian journalist and campaigner Hrant Dink, who was murdered on this day (19 January) in 2007
The prosecution of a Foreign Office civil servant under the Official Secrets Act has been dropped. The UK government now has questions to answer. Jo Glanville reports Derek Pasquill was charged last September with making damaging disclosures of...
Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris will tomorrow table an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill calling for the abolition of ‘blasphemous libel’. Here, Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society explains why such a crime has...