This article was first published on Comment is Free On 13 December, 1948, Frederic Warburg typed up his comments on the manuscript of George Orwell's recently completed Nineteen Eighty-Four. 'Orwell has no hope, or at least he allows his reader no...
Index on Censorship contributor Kenan Malik was a guest on the Little Atoms radio show last Friday. You can listen to the interview here.
'An appeal judge in Australia has ruled that an animation depicting well-known cartoon characters engaging in sexual acts is child pornography. The Internet cartoon featured characters from the Simpsons TV series.' The rest is on the BBC here
My colleague Neil Denny and I will be interviewing Kenan Malik on the Little Atoms radio show tonight. You can hear it live on Resonance FM at 7pm, or download next week from the Little Atoms site. We're hoping to discuss Kenan's last book, Strange...
The new issue of Index on Censorship hits the shops this week, focusing on the legacy of George Bush's administration. You can find out more about it here. There's also a few perspectives on The Satanic Verses, or, more precisely, the fallout from...
Index on Censorship editor Jo Glanville was a 'witness' on Radio 4's the Moral Maze last night, discussing the BNP list leak, and whether attitudes towards BNP members working in social services etc showed we had 'lost our nerve over freedom of...
The Burmese people are still experiencing the backlash from the Saffron Revolution, with more and more writers, satirists and dissidents being locked up. Read Index on Censorship and Article 19's joint statement on the situation here (pdf).
Conservative Shadow Chancellor George Osborne very nearly lost his job recently after he was accused of 'talking down' the pound. He's managed to ride the storm, but it was a close-run thing. Osborne should of course be able to say what he likes,...
Yesterday I had the privilege of taking part in a discussion at the Foreign Press Association with Egyptian writer Ali Salem. He was in London to accept the Civil Courage Prize, an award set up by US businessman (and co-founder of the Paris Review)...
Caspar Melville of New Humanist has an update on the cancellation of a poetry reading in Cardiff after threats of disruption by Stephen Green of Christian Voice. Gerry Johnson, Managing Director of Waterstone's, has been in touch to explain the...
The dispute over the BBC's restructuring of its Russian service continues. After Thursday's letter in the Times, signed by Index on Censorship and others, the World Service director Nigel Chapman went to great length to contact various signatories...
Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre is not happy. In his speech to the Society of Editors last night, he railed against the dangers of the creeping introduction of the notion of privacy in UK law. Specifically, he singled out Mr Justice Eady, whose...