The recent arrest of Ilkin Rustamzadeh highlights how Azerbaijan’s authorities use trumped up charges to silence messages they are not comfortable with, blogger Ali Novruzov writes from Baku.
A year after the mass protests marking Vladimir Putin’s controversial presidential win, Elena Vlasenko reports from Moscow on the heavy-handed repression confronting the Russian opposition.
Two journalists were attacked while covering a street rally in Kiev, and nine more Ukrainian reporters were in danger of losing government accreditation following a protest to support their colleagues, Andrei Alaiksandrau reports.
Does surveillance and monitoring chill free expression? Is population-wide mass surveillance always a bad idea? Amongst many questions and debates at today’s Stockholm Internet Forum, the answers to these two questions are surely obvious – yes to both, writes Index on Censorship CEO Kirsty Hughes from Sweden.
Alan Shatter’s 24-year old work of fiction sent to censor amid controversy over abortion and police contact. Padraig Reidy reports.
Plus: The full list of publications banned in Ireland
The Index Award-winning Azerbaijani journalist Idrak Abbasov says he had been threatened by the family of a man who was arrested after an online posting, according to Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety.
Justice is better served by openness and transparency, writes Padraig Reidy
Europe was once again be swept away by a sparkly hurricane of techno beats and pompous ballads, kitschy and/or traditional costumes, wind machines, pyrotechnics, heavily accented English, awkward host banter and nul points. Yes, Eurovision took our breath away in more ways than one, Milana Knezevic writes.
An election is always a good litmus test for a country’s media freedom — particularly in Bulgaria. It consistently ranks last amongst European Union members for media freedom, and the US Department of State called its “gravely damaged media pluralism” one of its most pressing human rights problems, Georgi Kantchev reports.
The International Partnership Group for Azerbaijan (IPGA) -- Index on Censorship is a signatory -- strongly condemns a series of repressive legislative amendments that Azerbaijan’s National Assembly (Milli Majlis) adopted on 14 May 2013. The...