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...
Coverage of the recent Duma poll and forthcoming presidential race suggests that Russian media increasingly only functions to endorse the government line, writes Oleg Panfilov On 12 December, Vladimir Putin had an official meeting with the Chairman...
Index examines the internet-driven explosion in communication, new forms of censorship (and the ways to get round them) and the impact on social attitudes
Hugo Chavez’s defeat in the recent constitutional referendum came despite massive media manipulation, writes Daniel Duquenal On December 2 Venezuela held a referendum to modify 69 articles of its constitution. The goal was to give President Chavez...