In the run up to Azerbaijan’s presidential election, authorities have showed open hostility to journalists, activists, ordinary citizens and artists. Rasul Jafarov and Rebecca Vincent look at some of the country’s courageous photojournalists, who document what life’s really like under President Ilham Aliyev
As Mali’s new president returns to the country amid fresh fighting between government forces and Tuareg rebels, Index on Censorship magazine looks at the climate for free speech in a country split by conflict — and wonders about the future of its brave musicians
From the magazine: President of the Society of Authors Philip Pullman and Chief Executive of Creative Commons Cathy Casserly debate the future of copyright
An excerpt from Exorcising Terror: the Incredible Unending Trial of General Augusto Pinochet by Chilean expatriate writer Ariel Dorfman
The autumn issue of Index on Censorship magazine brings together articles from writers including Amartya Sen, Philip Pullman, Jonathan Dimbleby and Peter Kellner, and covers India, China, Brazil, South Africa, Honduras, Colombia, Afghanistan and...
As protests continue in Istanbul, journalist Yavuz Baydar calls for the media to resist government pressure to filter the news
From the Magazine: The media’s infatuation with a single narrative is drowning out the country’s diversity, giving way to sensationalist reporting and “paid for” news. But, says Bharat Bhushan, moves towards regulation could have a chilling effect too
From the Magazine: Writer and artist Htoo Lyin Myo gives his personal account of working under government censorship in Burma
Index, in partnership with the European Council on Foreign Relations, held a debate launching the latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine, with a special report on The Multipolar Challenges to Freedom of Expression
From the Magazine: Freedom of expression is a universal, fundamental human right. But who actually has access to free expression? Index CEO Kirsty Hughes looks at the evidence.
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.