We should be asking why people wear veils, says Padraig Reidy
Niqabis are not just veiled, they are silenced
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CATEGORY: News
Sudanese woman risks flogging for refusing to pull up headscarf
As activist and engineer Amira Osman prepares to go on trial on Thursday, Dalia Haj-Omar looks at the Public Order laws punishing Sudanese women for ‘indecent’ clothing and behaviour
Egypt’s government reportedly shopping for PR firm
It appears General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and his men are now looking for some outside help to polish up their image as protectors of the state. Milana Knezevic offers some suggestions for firms not squeamish about working with regimes with questionable human rights records.
Whatever you write about, don’t write about the censors
A Lebanese playwright has exposed the farcical sensitivity of the country’s Censorship Bureau, Padraig Reidy writes
Murder leads to a print news blackout in India
In the aftermath of a murder of a delivery driver and discovery of explosive devices in his van, a small underground group took responsibility, but news editors refused to carry the group’s statement, leading to a print blackout in Manipur. Mahima Kaul reports
On the death of journalism – and my Indy career
Former Indy journalist Christina Patterson reflects on the end of her job at the publication and the wrenching changes overtaking the news industry.
Egypt’s retro crackdown on dissent
Prosecuting Egyptian dissenters was common practice under deposed president Hosni Mubarak with regime loyalists often fabricating charges against opponents to silence them. Shahira Amin reports on the latest wave of intimidation by the country’s current military regime.
From the archives: Behind the Sunglasses: Chile has done its best to forget its past
An excerpt from Exorcising Terror: the Incredible Unending Trial of General Augusto Pinochet by Chilean expatriate writer Ariel Dorfman
Harvard study: Actions speak louder than words in China’s censorship machine
A new Harvard study for the first time provides an inside look at the complex system of Chinese social media censorship. The report confirms a little-known theory: while messages referencing direct political action are banned, criticism of the communist leadership is often allowed. Milana Knezevic writes
Mass surveillance sparks investigative journalism renaissance
The mass surveillance scandal has sparked an investigative journalism renaissance with virtually every major news organisation in the United States—not just the keepers of the Snowden files—getting in on the act. Trevor Timm writes