The twentieth anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini's death sentence on Salman Rushdie (right) takes place in February 2009. In this article for Index on Censorship magazine, Kenan Malik looks at the changes in liberal attitudes to free expression and...
China’s greatest artist, Ai Weiwei, caused controversy in the summer when he announced he would stay away from the Olympic Games, despite being the creative mind behind Beijing’s Bird’s Nest Stadium.
In an exclusive interview for Index on Censorship‘s ‘Made in China issue’, he told Simon Kirby about challenging state censorship and the status quo.
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As the UK government tries to quell a Labour rebellion against plans for a third runway at Heathrow, five young climate change protesters went on trial today at Westminster Magistrates Court in London. Leo Murray, Olivia Chessell, Alexander George,...
Three men are facing trial for the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, but the investigation is far from over. Index on Censorship reports Friends and campaigners are marking the second anniversary of the journalist Anna...
The United Nations is right to condemn Britain's free expression record. But its criticisms would hold more weight if it demonstrated a stronger anti-censorship line itself, writes Jo Glanville The UN Human Rights Committee’s shaming report on the...
The latest high-profile, UK privacy case raises critical questions for press freedom, writes Jo Glanville The ruling on the Max Mosley case has turned out to be less chilling for free speech than originally feared. Mosley, the president of FIA,...
As the murder trial continues this week in Turkey, the investigation remains far from complete. Jo Glanville spoke to Dink family lawyer Fethiye Çetin about the case The sixth hearing in the Hrant Dink murder trial takes place in Istanbul today. It...
The New York State Legislature has passed a law protecting American journalists from defamation lawsuits brought against them overseas. The Libel Terrorism Protection Act, known as ‘Rachel’s Law’, was introduced after Rachel Ehrenfeld was...
A young Saudi woman was murdered by her father last August after he discovered she had been engaging in online chats on Facebook. There are thought to be as many as 30,000 Facebook users in Saudi Arabia, and the site offers several popular dating...
Mark Thomas led an inspired campaign against the UK government's restrictions on the right to protest. He says good riddance …And so farewell then to the anti-protest laws, repealed with a musty splutter from Jack Straw in Parliament last week....
The Burmese authorities have arrested the poet Saw Wai, after realising that one of his love poems contained a hidden message criticising Burma's military leader. The poem was published in a popular magazine in Rangoon. The first words of each line...
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has lost an appeal to prevent the release of a document that formed part of the government's case for invading Iraq. The document was written by John Williams, then Head of News at the Foreign Office. It formed...