The defunding of USAID has had a catastrophic impact on Radio Free Asia and other independent news sources

The defunding of USAID has had a catastrophic impact on Radio Free Asia and other independent news sources
What does the erosion of the press amid a rapid increase in citizen journalism mean for American democracy?
Speaking out about societal issues such as poverty, hunger and police abuse is perilous and risks attention from authorities and terror groups
Young Chinese people are spontaneously breaking into song while commuting and it’s all about signalling their resistance to CCP control
Nigerians are increasingly turning to social media to voice their concerns about societal issues
Trump’s administration is making clear it wants to do business with Russia. Will this rapprochement bring lasting peace or ultimately increase Putin’s aggression?
There is growing pressure on environmental activists in the UK, the second most likely country in the world for protesters to be arrested
A new era of authoritarianism has dawned in the “land of liberty”. What can US political activists learn from those who defied Soviet repression?
Volume 54.02 Summer 2025
Contents
A quarterly journal set up in 1972, Index on Censorship magazine has published oppressed writers and refused to be silenced across hundreds of issues.
The brainchild of the poet Stephen Spender, and translator Michael Scammell, the magazine’s very first issue included a never-before-published poem, written while serving a sentence in a labour camp, by the Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who went on to win a Nobel prize later that year.
The magazine continued to be a thorn in the side of Soviet censors, but its scope was far wider. From the beginning, Index declared its mission to stand up for free expression as a fundamental human right for people everywhere – it was particularly vocal in its coverage of the oppressive military regimes of southern Europe and Latin America but was also clear that freedom of expression was not only a problem in faraway dictatorships. The winter 1979 issue, for example, reported on a controversy in the United States in which the Public Broadcasting Service had heavily edited a documentary about racism in Britain and then gone to court attempting to prevent screenings of the original version. Learn more.