15 May 21 | Israel, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116768″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship has raised serious concerns about the destruction by Israeli military forces of a building in the Gaza Strip which houses the offices of a number of media organisations.
The building housed the Associated Press (AP) and Al Jazeera among others but the Israeli military said the building was used by Hamas.
AP president and CEO Gary Pruitt said in a statement: “We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza. They have long known the location of our bureau and knew journalists were there. We received a warning that the building would be hit.
“This is an incredibly disturbing development. We narrowly avoided a terrible loss of life. A dozen AP journalists and freelancers were inside the building and thankfully we were able to evacuate them in time.
“The world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today.”
Al Jazeera said it condemned “in the strongest terms the bombing and destruction of its offices by the Israeli military in Gaza and views this as a clear act to stop journalists from conducting their sacred duty to inform the world and report events on the ground”.
It said it would pursue every available route to hold the Israeli government responsible for its actions.
Commenting on the destruction of the building, Index on Censorship CEO Ruth Smeeth said, “Media freedom is a basic human right. The reported targeted destruction of a media building in Gaza is simply unacceptable. We are incredibly saddened by the ongoing violence and appalling deaths in both Israel and Palestine and we urge the international community to facilitate an immediate ceasefire.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
14 May 21 | Opinion, Ruth's blog, United Kingdom
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116759″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]As a political obsessive, I love the Queen’s Speech in the British Parliament. It marks the beginning of the new parliamentary session. It is uniquely British with all the expected pomp and ceremony and a significant amount of pageantry. But most importantly it is a restatement of our democratic values and processes. It also sets the agenda for the year ahead and makes clear what the Government is prioritising. And unfortunately, this year there were significant concerns for those of us who care about free speech.
The Queen outlined the government’s agenda and on the face of it who could object to an Online Safety Bill or a Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill or even a Counter State Threats Bill. But, as ever, the devil is in the detail and the detail for too many of the British government’s proposals seems to have many, what I can only hope are unintended, consequences.
The draft Online Safety Bill proposes not only the establishment of a new category of unlawful speech in the UK – legal but harmful – but it also proposes outsourcing the regulation of free speech in the UK to Silicon Valley. Most concerningly there is no provision outlined which will let us know how much content has been removed – or even what has been removed. On the face of it, that might not seem that important but how would a victim know if they were vulnerable? How will police prosecute hate crime? And how we will be able to analyse how much of a threat to free speech this bill has become, if we have no idea of how much is deleted. The Government has suggested that they will fine companies for deleting too much content but there is no provision outlined which would allow them to assess the scale.
The Academic Freedom Bill will establish a ‘free speech champion’ to ensure that free speech protections are enacted on campus, but this week the Government couldn’t answer whether this would empower Holocaust deniers to speak on campus – or stop them. What’s likely to happen instead is that academic institutions will be so concerned about the fear of a fine or bad publicity that they will stop speakers attending campus full stop – the ultimate chilling effect.
These are just two examples of why Index has such significant concerns of the direction that government is taking on free speech.
To be clear, Index supports any and all efforts to protect our collective right to free speech across the globe and we expect the British government to take a global leadership role in defending Article 19. But what we’ve seen in this year’s Queen’s Speech does not give us hope – rather it seems to be a systematic assault on free expression by the British government, under the auspices of protecting free speech.
I am a former legislator; I know that you cannot, and you should not try to legislate culture or language – it will have the opposite effect. People won’t want to engage and our public spaces will become free of debate and challenge. We deserve so much better. Going forward we will seek to work with the British government to introduce additional protections for free speech, we must use our voice to protect yours.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”41669″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
12 May 21 | News and features, Russia
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116753″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader and Putin critic, is using Instagram to send messages from the penal colony where he is being held to the outside world about his ill-treatment.
Navalny has been in the colony since February, as a direct result of his poisoning with Novichok nerve agent last summer.
The vocal critic of Vladimir Putin’s leadership collapsed on a flight in August and was taken to Omsk where he was treated before being airlifted to Berlin. The doctors there concluded that he had been poisoned with the nerve agent, with the FSB in the frame for doing so, which they deny. [In a bizarre twist, one of the doctors at the Omsk hospital recently disappeared and was found two days ago wandering around a forest.]
He spent a month in Berlin in recovery before returning to Russia, despite threats that he would be detained.
On his return, he was arrested and put on trial for charges relating to an embezzlement case dating from 2014 for violating parole conditions associated with that case. Index and others believe that the charges are politically motivated and are designed to stop Navalny from contesting elections. Navalny’s argument was that he could not register twice per month as agreed in those conditions because he was in hospital.
Despite his arguments, Navalny was sentenced to almost three years in a penal colony in Vladimir Oblast, east of Moscow.
His Instagram feed – updated by his supports and family – reveals that he has been denied medical care, been tortured with sleep deprivation and is being held in unsanitary conditions with many fellow inmates suffering from tuberculosis.
On 31 March, Navalny announced he was going on hunger strike to protest that he was not receiving adequate medical treatment for acute pain in his back and a loss of feeling in his legs and was being deprived of sleep.
“I have the right to call a doctor and get medicine. They don’t give me either one or the other, “ he said.
“Instead of medical assistance, I am tortured with sleep deprivation (they wake me up eight times a night),” he wrote in one post.
A week later he revealed that there was a high incidence of tuberculosis in the colony, with three out of fifteen in his “detachment” with symptoms.
“Inside there are unsanitary conditions, tuberculosis, a lack of drugs. Looking at the nightmare plates on which they put gruel, I’m generally surprised that there is no Ebola virus here,” he wrote.
On the 13th day of his hunger strike, he complained that the books he had brought with him had been confiscated and that books that he had requested had not been provided.
Navalny had requested a copy of the Koran in order to better understand Islam.
He wrote, “I came here a month ago and brought a bunch of books. And ordered a bunch of books. But so far I have not been given a single one. Because all of them ‘must be checked for extremism’. It takes three months.”
He has now filed a lawsuit against the colony for their failure to provide them.
“Here books are our everything, and if you have to sue for the right to read, I will sue,” he wrote.
Four days later, his captors threatened to force-feed him.
“This morning, a woman colonel stood over me and said: your blood test indicates a serious deterioration in health and risk. If you do not give up on your hunger strike, then we are ready to move on to force feeding now. And then she described the delights of force-feeding to me: straitjacket and other joys,” he wrote.
By 20 April, Navalny called himself a “walking skeleton” but revealed that the messages of support from Russia and around the world were sustaining him.
On 23 April, he wrote, “As Alice from Wonderland said: ‘Here you have to run to stay put. And to get somewhere, you have to run twice as fast.’…I ran, tried, fell, went on a hunger strike, but all the same, without your help, I just broke my forehead.”
Navalny says that the attention focused on him has meant that he finally started receiving some medical treatment.
“Two months ago, they smirked at my requests for medical assistance, they did not give any medicines and did not allow them to be transferred. A month ago, they laughed in my face at phrases like: ‘Can I find out my diagnosis?’ and ‘Can I see my own medical record?’” he wrote.
He has now been examined twice by a council of civilian doctors and has now abandoned his hunger strike.
“It will take 24 days and they say it is even harder [than the hunger strike itself]. Wish me luck.”
On 27 April, he looked back on the previous 12 months, calling it “the year of doctors and nurses and physicians in general”.
“I have never talked so much with them in my life,” he said. “First, the doctors saved me, who was dying from chemical poisoning on the plane.”
He added, “Then they rescued me a second time, risking their careers, explaining to my wife and everyone that I should be immediately taken away from the Omsk hospital, where their evil colleagues will kill me (they will not just treat me) on the orders of the Kremlin.”
“Then the Charité doctors [in Berlin] turned me from a vegetable back into a human being.”
Navalny said in his Instagram message that some doctors had fought a desperate campaign to get him normal treatment.
“Thanks to my prison doctors. I understand that they are just working within the framework that was given to them by their superiors, and therefore by the Kremlin. I can see now that people are sincerely trying to help. Yesterday, the nurse made a mark on my wrist with a pen, so as not to forget the hour when I had to give the next three tablespoons of oatmeal.”
He added, “You know, even through what I had been through all these months: I want one of my children to be a doctor. Although the children are probably not already. Well, let one of the grandchildren then.”
On 2 May, the day that the Russian Orthodox church celebrates Easter, the following message was posted on Instagram.
“How long I have been waiting for this Easter? Lent this year turned out to be difficult for me. Unfortunately, I will not be able to share a fully-fledged Easter meal today: I am still in the first half of my fascinating transformation from a skeleton barely dragging its feet into just a hungry man. But I will eat a few spoons of porridge allowed for me with an excellent Easter mood. Indeed, on such a day, I know and remember for sure that everything will be fine.”
Index and the rest of the world are watching to make sure everything will be fine.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”15″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
11 May 21 | Ecuador, Magazine, News and features, The climate crisis, Volume 50.01 Spring 2021, Volume 50.01 Spring 2021 extras
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116746″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”right”][vc_column_text]
IN FEBRUARY 2011, a court in Ecuador delivered a historic victory for indigenous and rural communities in that country’s Amazon region: a multi-billion-dollar pollution judgment designed to remedy decades of deliberate toxic dumping by global oil company Chevron on indigenous ancestral lands.
I was a member of the international legal team that obtained the judgment after Chevron had insisted the trial take place in Ecuador. Since then, I have been targeted by the company with what can only be described as a vicious retaliation campaign against me and my family – a campaign designed to silence my advocacy and intimidate other human rights lawyers who might think of taking on the fossil fuel giants.
The evidence against Chevron, as found by Ecuador’s courts, was overwhelming. It consisted of 64,000 chemical sampling results reporting extensive oil pollution at hundreds of oil production sites. Billions of gallons of toxic “produced water” were deliberately discharged into rivers and streams that locals relied on for their drinking water, fishing and bathing. Cancer rates in the region have spiked dramatically.
One experienced engineer who had worked on oil operations in dozens of countries told an energy journalist it was the worst oil pollution he had ever seen. When the indigenous people complained, the company’s engineers told them that oil was like milk and that it contained vitamins.
At the time we won the judgment, I was living in Manhattan with my wife and young son in a small apartment. I was travelling to Ecuador on a monthly basis to help the affected communities while maintaining a small law practice.
To keep the litigation going, I helped my clients raise significant funds from supporters and I helped recruit and manage attorneys from around the world who were preparing to enforce the winning judgment. Enforcement of the judgment became necessary after Chevron vowed never to pay and threatened the indigenous peoples who won the case with a “lifetime of litigation” unless they dropped their claims.
Chevron’s counterattack targeting me came swiftly. In 2009, the company had hired a new law firm that broadly advertised a “kill step” strategy to help rescue corporations plagued by scandal from legal liabilities. This primarily involved accusing the lawyers who won a judgment against the firm’s client of “fraud” to distract attention from the company’s wrongdoing. The ultimate goal was to drive lawyers off the case by demonising them and making life so uncomfortable that their careers were at risk; under such a scenario, the victims of the company’s pollution would be left defenceless.
In my case, Chevron lawyers sued me under a civil “racketeering” statute – accusing me of authorising the bribing of a judge in Ecuador. This is something I have not done, nor would I ever do.
The civil lawsuit was crafted by the Chevron lawyers to read like a criminal indictment. When it was filed in New York in 2011, my life was turned upside down. The company claimed the entire case I had been working on in Ecuador since 1993 was “sham” litigation even though Ecuador’s courts had validated the pollution judgment based on voluminous scientific evidence. Chevron also sued me for $60 billion, the largest potential personal liability in US history. When I refused to give up, the company convinced a US judge in 2018 to charge me with criminal contempt of court for appealing an order that I turn over my electronic devices, passwords and confidential case file to the company.
At the time of writing, I have been under house arrest in Manhattan for roughly 600 days on a petty charge that carries a maximum sentence of just 180 days in prison. I am being prosecuted by a Chevron law firm in the name of the public after the charges were rejected by the regular federal prosecutor.
To monitor my whereabouts on a 24/7 basis, the court shackled my left ankle with a GPS monitor. It never comes off — I sleep with it, eat with it and shower with it. It often beeps in the middle of the night when the battery runs low.
In all, Chevron has used the US court system to subject me over the past 10 years to multiple attacks:
-
Chevron paid an Ecuadorian witness at least $2 million. It also flew him and his entire family to the USA where they were settled in a new house. Chevron lawyers then coached this person for 53 days to be its star witness. He testified I approved a bribe of the trial judge in Ecuador. This was the “kill step” in action: I was falsely being accused of a crime to ruin my career and remove me from the case. The witness later recanted much of his testimony, but the judge in the case denied me a jury of my peers and used the testimony to rule the Ecuador judgment was obtained by fraud and that I could not collect my legal fee.
-
Chevron used these so-called findings of fact – findings contradicted by six appellate courts in Ecuador and Canada that rejected the company’s false evidence – to orchestrate the suspension of my licence in New York without a hearing. I later won my post-suspension hearing; the case is currently on appeal.
-
Chevron launched a series of financial attacks against me and my family. Even though the company had denied me a jury (required by law in damages cases), the judge allowed Chevron to impose draconian financial penalties on me to “repay” the company for some of the legal fees it used to prosecute me. The judge also imposed billions of dollars of fines on me for supposedly failing to comply with discovery orders that I had appealed. He also authorised the company to freeze my personal accounts and take my life savings.
-
In the ultimate coup de grace, Chevron convinced the judge to essentially block me from working on the case by issuing an injunction preventing me from helping my clients raise investment funds to help enforce the judgment against Chevron’s assets. The cold reality is that Chevron, which grosses about $250 billion a year, is free to spend what it wants to block enforcement actions brought by the Ecuadorian communities. The indigenous people of Ecuador,nmost of whom cannot afford even bottled water, are barred by US courts from raising money to enforce their judgment. The US court did say they could receive “donations”, which will never be enough to cover the costs.
-
In any criminal contempt case, no person charged with a petty crime in the federal system has served even one day’s pre-trial in-home detention; I have served almost two years without trial.
My trial on the six criminal contempt counts is scheduled for 10 May. All the counts relate to legitimate discovery disputes I had with Chevron that I was litigating at the time the judge charged me criminally. At the time, I was in Canada helping lawyers there enforce the Ecuador judgment.
I am a human rights lawyer who has received significant public support, including from 55 Nobel laureates who have demanded dismissal of the criminal case and my release. Thousands of prominent lawyers around the world, including Harvard professor Charles Nesson and legendary civil rights lawyer Martin Garbus, have rallied on my behalf. Courts around the world have validated the judgment I worked years to help secure. Yet Chevron, working through its 60 law firms and hundreds of lawyers, has effectively weaponised the judicial system in service of its interests to nullify my ability to fully function as an advocate. This has happened in retaliation for our success, not because of any errors along the way.
The victims of this new corporate playbook are the people of Ecuador; its higher purpose is to protect a fossil fuel industry that is destroying our planet from being held accountable under the law. The racketeering is the conspiracy organised by Chevron and its allies not only to “win” the case and extinguish the company’s liability but also to kill off the idea that this type of environmental human rights case can happen again. It is critical that environmental justice lawyers, campaigners and all who believe in free speech stand up for the important principles so central to the proper functioning of a free society that are contained in this saga.
The lawyer and the multi-billion dollar oil company
INDEX looks at how Texaco and Chevron became involved in Ecuador and the twists and turns of Steven Donziger’s campaign to get compensation for local people
1964: Texaco begin oil exploration and drilling in Ecuador.
1992: Texaco hand over full control of the oil operation in the country to state-owned oil company PetroEcuador.
1993: Steven Donziger and his team file a suit against Texaco in New York, but Texaco successfully lobby to have the case heard in Ecuador.
1995: A settlement agreement is reached and Texaco agree to help with the clean-up of toxic waste.
1998: The clean-up costs $40 million and Ecuador releases another agreement stating Texaco had met its obligations under the 1998 agreement.
2000: Chevron buy Texaco for around $35 billion.
2003: A US legal team including Steven Donziger sues Texaco on behalf of over 30,000 Ecuadoreans, claiming that between from 1971 to 1992, Texaco dumped four million gallons of toxic wastewater per day.
2011: In February, Chevron sues Donziger and co. under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), alleging extortion.
The original suit, the monetary claims of which were dropped before the trial, saw Chevron seeking $60 billion in damages.
2011: An Ecuadorean court gives a judgment for Chevron to pay $18 billion, which is later raised to $19 billion, to plaintiffs. Chevron appeal the decision.
2013: Ecuador’s Supreme Court upholds the decision but halves the damages to $9.5 billion.
2014: US District Judge Lewis Kaplan rules the decision to be tainted and accuses Donziger of perverting the course of justice. Six other courts rule the decision to be valid. Much of the decision was based on the testimony of former Ecuador judge Alberto Guerra, who claimed there was bribery involved in the 2011 judgement. Parts of this testimony have since been retracted.
2018: Donziger is suspended from practising as an attorney.
2019: Kaplan charges Donziger with contempt of court and orders him to pay $3.4 million in attorney fees.
2020: In August, Donziger is disbarred. 29 Nobel laureates condemn alleged judicial harassment by Chevron.
Chevron hits back
SEAN COMEY, senior corporate adviser, Chevron Corporation, sent Index this response
Steven Donziger continues to try to shift attention away from the facts. In his own words, “we need to make facts that help us and the facts we need don’t always exist”.
The facts are that Donziger has been disbarred because of a pattern of illegal activity related to the case. Decisions by courts in the USA, Argentina, Brazil, Canada and Gibraltar and an international tribunal in The Hague confirm that the fraudulent Ecuadorian judgment should be unenforceable in any court that respects the rule of law. The US District Court for the Southern District of New York held that the judgment against Chevron was the product of fraud and racketeering, finding it unenforceable in the USA. The court found Donziger violated the US racketeering statute by committing extortion, wire fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations. The judgment is final after been unanimously affirmed by the Court of Appeals and denied review by the Supreme Court.
Even the government of Ecuador now acknowledges the judgment was based on fraud. The international Bilateral Investment Treaty tribunal in The Hague – including an arbitrator appointed by the Ecuadorian government – unanimously ruled the Ecuadorian judgment was based on fraud, bribery and corruption, and rejected the environmental allegations against Chevron, ruling those claims were settled and released by the Republic of Ecuador decades ago following an environmental remediation supervised and approved by the government.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
Subscription options from £18 or just £1.49 in the App Store for a digital issue.
Every subscriber helps support Index on Censorship’s projects around the world.
SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
11 May 21 | Academic Freedom, News and features, United Kingdom
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Rt. Hon. Gavin Williamson MP Secretary of State for Education
Department for Education
20 Great Smith St
London, SW1P 3BT
Dear Secretary of State,
As organisations specialising in freedom of expression, we are writing to you to voice our significant concerns regarding the announcement of the Academic Freedom Bill in today’s Queen’s Speech.
There is an important discussion to be had around the state of freedom of expression in the UK’s universities. Hostile powers have felt increasingly emboldened to investigate and even sanction critical academics. Academics are having to both change their curricula and their method of teaching due to external pressures. Universities that fail to comply with government orders have had their sources of funding threatened.
All of the above threats, however, emanate from state powers – not from students. It is far from clear, therefore, that academic freedom will be strengthened by imposing more state control over universities. There is unfortunately, some evidence to suggest that there is a chilling effect on university campuses. For example, 25 per cent of students surveyed by King’s College London describing themselves as scared to express their views openly. We agree that no one should feel uncomfortable expressing their opinion on campus, however the extent to which there is a growing trend of intolerance to speech on campus is unclear. This, furthermore, is a cultural problem – and not something that a blunt legislation will be able to fix.
The extent to which “no platforming” of speakers is a growing trend also needs to be explored further, with research by the government’s own Office for Students suggesting it occurs on a very limited basis. Of more than 62,000 requests by students for external speaker events in English universities in 2017-18, only 53 were rejected by the student union or university, less than 1 per cent of the total.
This was echoed by the British Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights which “did not find the wholesale censorship of debate in universities which media coverage has suggested” in their 2018 report on into Freedom of Speech in Universities, and by a recent WONKHE survey which found that of almost 10,000 events involving an external speaker in 2019-20, just six were cancelled – mainly for failing to follow basic administrative processes. This would suggest that at the very least, further research is required to fully understand the scale of the issue.
Freedom of expression is a vital right. Universities are already bound by government legislation and have a legally binding duty to support and actively encourage freedom of expression on campus, including the right to protest. Blunt statutory tools may fail to recognise the various rights at play in any given situation, for example the rights of the speaker and the rights of students to protest against that speaker. This is a delicate balancing act that universities are best placed to navigate – not state regulators or courts of law. On university campuses, freedom of expression issues are best dealt with by existing legislation and by the universities and Student Unions themselves.
We are very concerned that additional legislation, including the imposition of a “Freedom of Speech Champion”, may have the inverse effect of further limiting what is deemed “acceptable” speech on campus and introducing a chilling effect both on the content of what is taught and the scope of academic research exploration.
None of the signatory organisations have been meaningfully consulted in the development of the legislation thus far. We would welcome the opportunity for genuine engagement in the issue of academic freedom. Further research is needed on the main threats to speech on campus, while the scope of enquiry into academic freedom should be widened to encompass government interference. We therefore call for the Academic Freedom Bill to undergo a full, transparent, and meaningful period of consultation.
Signed:
Index on Censorship
English PEN
Article 19[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
07 May 21 | Opinion, Ruth's blog
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116736″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Platform or publisher?
Free speech versus hate speech?
Personal responsibility versus corporate responsibility?
What is social media for and who is responsible for what?
This week Donald Trump, the former American President, once again made international headlines. This time not for something he had said that day – but rather on whether he has the right to have a public platform on social media, and Facebook in particular.
Many of us undoubtedly have a significant problem with many of the tweets that the former President posted during his tenure. My personal politics are well known, and no one would be surprised for a second that I found Trump to be abhorrent. He does have the right however, as a citizen in a free society to be offensive and abusive (although not to incite violence – which I believe he did).
But the question at hand isn’t actually about his free speech or whether he has the right to be on social media or not. Rather the question is – what is social media? Is it a publisher of content that is legally responsible for the words and deeds of their users or is it a platform which facilitates debate (and in too many cases hate)?
Social media is a core part of many of our lives. At times of crisis, both personal and national, it can be a blessing, letting you know friends and family are safe. At its best it can and should inspire thoughtful debate and challenge the status-quo. But at its worst it can bring out the very worst in every one of us. It can incite hate, racism, misogyny, harassment, bullying and violence. It can radicalise. But is can also entertain and inform. In other words, social media and its impact is as complex as the people who use it.
Given how we all use it, it is easy to consider social media a free public space, one that we all have access to without restriction. But social media companies are exactly that – private companies – who get to decide who uses their services and how they get to use them. That doesn’t make them inherently bad, but it does mean that they have their own rationale for operation. It also means we don’t have either an intrinsic right to use or and complete free speech on them – unless they allow it.
In the months ahead I’m going to be speaking a lot about the Online Safety Bill, the legislation progressing through the British parliament regarding our online access and future regulation. There is clearly a cultural problem on social media – it can all too often be a grim place to spend time; we need to recognise that and help fix it. But not at the cost of protections for free speech, our right to debate and engage.
There needs to be space to be offended – while at the same time protecting people from hate and violence. We also need to remember that personal responsibility is relevant in this debate and no one acts with impunity.
So the challenge for all of us – is helping to make social media a better place while protecting our core rights – a balance that we must find.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”41669″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
30 Apr 21 | Football, News and features, United Kingdom
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
The Premier League and a coalition of football governing bodies from across the United Kingdom are set to commence a social media blackout from 30 April to 3 May to raise awareness of online racist abuse, but the initiative has raised questions over its end goal.
Clubs, players and governing bodies have called for implementation of the contentious Online Harms Bill (also known as the Online Safety Bill), which will impose regulation on social media companies in order to ensure they remove hateful speech online. They hope the blackout will draw awareness and support of the issue.
The legislation has been criticised as the bill will introduce several key points that a number of free expression groups, including Index, believe to be regressive and will impact on people’s free speech online.
This includes the definition of terms such as “legal but harmful”, which will classify some speech as legal offline but illegal online, meaning there would be inconsistency within the UK system of law.
The Professional Footballers Association (PFA), however, are in strong support of the bill. In a statement they said they hoped social media companies would be held “more accountable”.
“While football takes a stand, we urge the UK Government to ensure its Online Safety Bill will bring in strong legislation to make social media companies more accountable for what happens on their platforms, as discussed at the DCMS Online Abuse roundtable earlier this week,” they said. “We will not stop talking about this issue and will continue to work with the government in ensuring that the Online Safety Bill gives sufficient regulatory and supervisory powers to Ofcom. Social media companies need to be held accountable if they continue to fall short of their moral and social responsibilities to address this endemic problem.”
Index’s CEO Ruth Smeeth has questioned using the bill as a solution to targeting racism, as well as the use of a blackout.
“No one who has spent any time on social media could deny the fact that there is a real problem, with abuse, racism and misogyny,” she said. “The nature of social media platforms seems to bring out the worst in too many people and empower hate from every corner. The question is, though, how to fix it.”
“This is more than about what platforms allow on their sites, it’s about the culture that has been allowed to thrive online. We are all responsible for it, so we all need to work together to fix it as we can’t legislate for cultural change. I understand why the PFA wants to boycott social media platforms – but we saw only last year when others did the same because of antisemitism, boycotts deliver only temporary respite, the haters are still hating. We all deserve better.”
The blackout will see a period of silence on social media to symbolise clubs and governing bodies coming together against the serious issue of racism in football, though some believe the action to be counter-productive and may discourage those affected from speaking out, or removing a place for discourse where people can debate such issues.
Editor of football website These Football Times, Omar Saleem, released a statement explaining why they won’t be joining the blackout over the weekend saying clubs need to take “genuine action”, “not the weekend off”, but also called for social media companies to be held accountable.
“Silence is not the answer. I truly believe that. As a minority in football, that’s my opinion,” he said. “Racism cannot be fought by white-led social media teams suggesting we go silent for the weekend during some of the quietest times on those platforms.”
“Instead of silence, we need action. We need voices to speak louder than ever, programmes that educate and organise. We needed that societally post-George Floyd and we need it in football, too. We need clubs to take genuine action – not the weekend off.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also like to read” category_id=”581″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
30 Apr 21 | China, Opinion, Ruth's blog, Uncategorized
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
“When governments collaborate with totalitarian regimes committing atrocities, they grow richer, they get faster technology. But when they slowly discover that freedom of speech is growing smaller then this wealth, this technology, is meaningless”
Ma Jian
Even in the middle of a global pandemic there has been one country that has broken through the news cycle – China. The acts of the Chinese government in recent years are a true cause for global concern. From Hong Kong to Tibet, from Xinjiang to Inner Mongolia we are all witnessing the actions of an authoritarian regime, one that seemingly thinks little of human rights or of its citizens. To the outside observer the Chinese government seems more interested in quashing dissent, re-writing history and bending the rest of the world to fit its narrative, than it does on embracing core human values.
Index has written extensively over many years about the impact of this within China, the effect on media freedom, freedom of expression and freedom online. We’ve highlighted the work of incredibly brave dissidents demanding democracy in Hong Kong. We’ve featured the words of Uighur poets, the writings and musings of Ai Weiwei and the amazing work of organisations like GreatFire who every day challenge the firewall that the Chinese government has erected, restricting their citizens access to global information.
But the Chinese government is more than an authoritarian government. It is a government built on the ideology and infrastructure of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This year marks the centenary of the CCP and in the latest edition of Index on Censorship magazine we’ve focused on the impact of the CCP both at home and abroad. Of the many features in our special report, what is most touching, at least for me, are the beautiful words of Ma Jian, the acclaimed writer in exile. Ma Jian reflects on the impact of the CCP on his life and why he has to live in exile.
When Index on Censorship was launched, one of our founders, Stephen Spender, was adamant that it was going to be more than a frustration sheet, we were going to be a home for amazing writing that inspired and moved us. Ma Jian’s words did exactly that, which he did once again when he spoke at the launch of the magazine on Wednesday.
His personal testimony will haunt me, his words were beautiful and reminded me once again of the vital importance of our work. Please take a minute to read Ma Jian in his own words, he will inspire you.
And to enter the bank holiday on a positive note, a few more words of hope from Ma Jian.
“The CCP will one day fall because it is not in tune with the values of humanity.”
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also want to read” category_id=”41669″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
28 Apr 21 | Magazine, Volume 50.01 Spring 2021
Author
Ma Jian is an award-winning Chinese writer. His latest novel is China Dream. His work is banned in China
Singer
Gelareh Sheibani was born in Iran and took keyboard lessons as a youngter. She found a passion for singing in her teenage years but solo singing in the country was not permitted. After the release of the video for her song Nagoo Tanhaei and the follow-up she was arrested and prosecuted. She later left the country and now lives in Turkey
Journalist
Sarah Sands is Chair of the Gender Equality Advisory Council for G7 and a board member of Index on Censorship. Sands was the former editor of BBC’s Today programme
28 Apr 21 | Africa, Burma, China, Hong Kong, Slapps, United States, Volume 50.01 Spring 2021, Volume 50.01 Spring 2021 extras
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Illustration: Badiucao
Index looks back on 100 years of the Chinese Communist Party and how their censorship laws continue to shape the lives of people around the world and threaten their right to free speech. Inside this edition are articles by exiled writer Ma Jian and an interview with Facebook’s vice-president for global affairs, former UK deputy Prime minister Nick Clegg; as well as an exclusive short story from acclaimed writer Shalom Auslander.
Acting editor Martin Bright said: “I am delighted to introduce the latest edition of Index which marks the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party.”
“This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the magazine and I am proud that we are continuing the founders’ legacy of opposition to totalitarianism.”
“In this Spring edition of Index we are particularly pleased to publish an exclusive essay by the celebrated Chinese writer Ma Jian, who suggests that an alternative tradition of tolerance and freedom is still possible.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Up front” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:22|text_align:left”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
A century of silencing dissent by Martin Bright: We look at 100 years of the Chinese Communist Party and the methods of control that it has adapted to stifle free expression and spread its ideas throughout the world
The Index: Free expression round the world today: the inspiring voices, the people who have been imprisoned and the trends, legislation and technology which are causing concern
Fighting back against the menace of Slapps by Jessica Ní Mhainín: Governments continue to threaten journalists with vexatious law suits to stop critical reporting[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Features” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:22|text_align:left”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Friendless Facebook by Sarah Sands: An interview with Facebook vice-president Nick Clegg about being a British liberal at the heart of the US tech giant
Standing up to a global giant by Steven Donziger: A lawyer who has gone head to head with the oil industry since 1993 at great personal cost tells his story
Fear and loathing in Belarus by Yahuen Merkis and Larysa Shchryakova: The crackdown on journalism has continued with arrests. Read the testimony of two reporters
Killed by the truth by Bilal Ahmad Pandow: Babar Qadri was one of Kashmir’s most strident voices, until he was gunned down in his garden
Cartoon by Ben Jennings: Arguments about the removal of statues cause a stir
The martial art of free speech by Ari Deller and Laura Janner-Klausner: The question of Cancel Culture continues to rage. Is it really a problem?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Special Report” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:22|text_align:left”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Ma Jian
Burning through censorship by Mark Frary and Martin Bright: Censorship-busting online organisation GreatFire celebrates its 10th anniversary
The party is your idol by Tianyu M. Fang: China’s propaganda is adapting to target young people
Past imperfect by Rachael Jolley: Four historians explain how the CCP shaped China and ask if globalisation will be its undoing
Turkey changes its tune by Kaya Genç: Uighur refugees living in Turkey find themselves victims of a change in foreign policy
The human face and the boot by Ma Jian: The acclaimed writer-in-exile reflects on 100 years of the CCP and its legacy of bloodshed
A moral hazard by Sally Gimson: Universities around the world and the CCP’s challenges to academic freedom
Director’s cuts by Chris Yeung: Hong Kong broadcaster RTHK has been squeezed by China’s tightening control
Beijing buys Africa’s silence by Issa Sikiti da Silva: Africa’s rich natural resources are being hoovered up by China
A new world order by Natasha Joseph: Journalist Azad Essa found when he wrote about China in Africa, his writing was silenced
A most unlikely ally by Stefan Pozzebon: Paraguay has long been an ally of Taiwan, but it’s paying an economic price
China’s artful dissident by Mark Frary: A profile of our cover artist: the exiled cartoonist Badiucao.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Comment” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:22|text_align:left”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Lies, damned lies and fake news by Nick Anstead: Fake news is rife, rampant and harmful. And we can only counter it by making sure that the truth is heard
Censorship? Hardly by Clive Priddle: Even the most controversial book usually finds a publisher after it has been turned down
A voice for the persecuted by Ruth Smeeth: As Index celebrates its 50 year anniversary, we note why free speech is still important[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Culture” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:22|text_align:left”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Collective ©ALEXANDER NANAU PRODUCTION
Don’t joke about Jesus by Shalom Auslander: An exclusive short story based on a joke by the acclaimed author of Mother for Dinner
Poet who haunts Ukraine by Steve Komarnyckyj: Vasyl Stus, the writer who remains a Ukrainian hero, 35 years after perishing in a Soviet gulag
The freedom of exile by Khaled Alesmael, Leah Cross: A young refugee Syrian writer on the love between Arab men
Forbidden love songs by Benjamin Lynch: Iran’s underground pop music scene upsets the regime
Reviews: Saudi Arabia’s murder of Jamal Khashoggi, USA Gymnastics and healthcare in Romania: we review three new documentaries[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Endnote” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:22|text_align:left”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]War of the airwaves by Ian Burrell: The Chinese government faces difficulties with its propaganda network CGTN[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row disable_element=”yes”][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You may also like to read” category_id=”42664″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
28 Apr 21 | News and features, Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
This week Index on Censorship took the unusual step of legally intervening in an employment appeal tribunal. As always our focus was on the core principle of free expression and protecting free speech in law. The tribunal has now concluded and has reserved judgment – we expect to learn the result in the coming months. Much will be discussed and written about in the coming days regarding the Maya Forstater tribunal, but for your information on what Index provided to the court please access our skeleton argument here.
Whatever the outcome of the Employment Appeal Tribunal the toxic nature of the current conversation on gender and trans rights is doing little to build bridges or solidarity. As promised by our Chief Executive, in the coming weeks Index will seek to provide a platform for considered debate and engagement. We plan to publish the words of those people who are being silenced and provide a space for people to highlight their lived experiences without fear or favour. So watch this space.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
28 Apr 21 | China, Magazine, News and features, Volume 50.01 Spring 2021
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”116639″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]
Sometimes, from the most trivial event or seemingly insignificant interaction, you can gauge the health of a society and decide: “This is a place I’d like to live, a place conducive to happiness.”
A few years ago, while in Taiwan for a literary festival, I went to a night market to look for tangyuan – the sticky rice dumplings that are traditionally eaten on the final day of Chinese New Year. As their name is a homophone for the word “union”’, Chinese families eat them on this day to ensure that during the coming year they will remain united. As I’d recently been cast into exile from mainland China, I thought the dumplings could assuage my longing for home.
After a long search, I found a small dumpling stall and asked the elderly owner if she had any. She told me she’d sold out, but that if I bought a bag of frozen ones from the supermarket across the road she would boil them up for me on her stove. I did as she suggested and she served them to me in a big bowl, handed me a spoon and invited me to sit at one of her rickety tables. She fervently refused my offer of payment. As I sat there savouring the hot, translucent dumplings stuffed with sweet black sesame paste, I felt closer to home than I had done in years.
It was not the dumplings themselves or the memories they evoked that made me feel close to home. It was the simple act of kindness from this old woman who didn’t know me. Her kindness struck me as peculiarly Chinese. It was imbued with what we call renqing: a sentiment, a human feeling that inspires one person to perform a favour for another simply because they can, with no thought of recompense.
Traditional Chinese society was glued together by such sentiments. Their roots lie in Confucian values of benevolence, righteousness and propriety. At the heart of them all is the idea that to lead a good life you must treat others with compassion, that each human being has the potential to be good and is worthy of dignity and respect. Almost 500 years before the birth of Christ, Confucius devised his own Golden Rule: “When you leave your front gate, treat each stranger as though receiving an honoured guest … Do not do to others what you do not wish for yourself.”
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fas fa-quote-left” color=”custom” custom_color=”#dd0d0d”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_custom_heading text=”The horror of the current situation in Xinjiang is in a category of its own”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
But in China, these ancient values have been bludgeoned by 70 years of Chinese Communist Party rule. Since the days of Mao, the CCP has clung to power through violence, propaganda and lies, viewing its subjects as senseless cogs that it can blind with promises of a future Utopia while confining them to a present hell. How easy it is for humans to be stripped of reason by a tyrant’s deceit and malice. At 13, having survived the Great Famine caused by Mao’s reckless Great Leap Forward campaign, when my siblings and I had had to eat toothpaste and tree bark to stave off starvation, I nevertheless longed to join Mao’s party. When he launched his Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, I was incensed that the class background of my grandfather, who had perished in a Communist jail, disqualified me from joining Mao’s Red Guards. The deepest hope of my generation was that after purging China of bourgeois elements, we could travel to Britain and the USA to liberate their populations from the yoke of capitalist oppression and welcome them into the CCP’s revolutionary fold.
Slowly, as I witnessed horrific scenes of mob violence, I began to see this march to Utopia for what it was: a dehumanising nightmare that divided people into class categories, pitting one against the other in constant struggle, “rightist” against “leftist”, neighbour against neighbour. Time-honoured values of family loyalty and respect for elders were shattered as sons were encouraged to betray their fathers and daughters their mothers. No thought other than Mao Zedong Thought was allowed. Anyone who, however inadvertently, strayed from party orthodoxy was branded a class enemy and destroyed.
At least 45 million people are estimated to have died in Mao’s Great Famine. Millions more were killed or persecuted in his Cultural Revolution. Mao’s ideas and values caused catastrophic suffering and death, and corroded the hearts of the nation.
In the 40 years since Mao’s death, the Chinese have been forbidden to reflect on their traumatic past or contest any current injustices. Like a cunning and obdurate virus, the CCP has mutated. While other communist regimes around the world have fallen, it lives on, still suppressing free thought, still whitewashing history, but embracing, with increasing vigour, the capitalism Mao strove to eliminate. The party has loosened tethers it itself placed on the economy, and the Chinese have got rich. Although it continues to spout Marxist-Leninist jargon, its overarching obsession is power, and how to cling on to it. It still views the Chinese people as senseless cogs it can manipulate or flatten as it pleases. It still tells them that the material life is all that matters and that happiness is the China Dream of wealth and national glory conceived by the party’s current leader, Xi Jinping. Freedom, democracy, human rights, the desire to become master of one’s own fate: all of these are unnecessary, absurd, dangerous, it says. The Chinese people have no need for them!
In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston is told that if he wants a picture of the future, he must “imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever”.
This totalitarian nightmare is not some fictional future, though. Published in 1949, the year Mao rose to power, the novel prophetically describes China’s fate under CCP rule.
For moments, sometimes for days or weeks during the dark decades of China’s recent history, a hand has pushed the boot aside and the human face has looked up. It looked up with hope and joy during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, when millions gathered across the nation to call for freedom and democracy. In 2008, it looked up when 303 Chinese dissidents signed Charter 08 that argued for an end to one-party rule and asserted that freedom and human rights are universal values that should be shared by all humankind. In Hong Kong, the human face has looked up defiantly as the territory bravely struggles to retain what few freedoms it has left. And last year, back on the mainland, the face looked up for a few short hours when, after Dr Li Wenliang was reprimanded for raising the alarm about Covid-19 and then died of it, Chinese social media became flooded with the courageous hashtag #IWantFreedomOfSpeech.
Every time citizen journalists like Fang Bin upload independent reports on social media, civil rights activists like Xu Zhiyong call openly for political reform, dissidents like Gao Yu shine a light on the secret workings of the oppressive state, the human face looks up and proclaims: “without freedom of speech we are all enslaved”.
But each time, the CCP boot stamps back down again. In 1989, it sent the tanks to Tiananmen Square to crush the unarmed protesters. In 2009, it imprisoned the leading dissident Liu Xiaobo who co-authored Charter 08, banned him from collecting the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded the following year, and in 2017, humiliated him even in death by stage-managing his funeral, forcing his family to drop his ashes unceremoniously into the sea. Fang Bin has been disappeared, Xu Zhiyong is in prison, Gao Yu and countless other dissidents like Ding Zilin, who courageously persists in dragging the Tiananmen massacre from state-imposed amnesia, are under intense surveillance. In Hong Kong, the party has violated the Sino-British Joint Declaration, beaten protesters and arrested every prominent critic. In Tibet, decades of CCP oppression have driven 156 Tibetans to set fire to themselves in anguish.
“But look how much richer the Chinese have become!” CCP apologists cry out. “Western democracies like the USA and Britain are a sham, corrupt and incompetent – see how they failed to contain the Covid-19 epidemic! Does this not prove the superiority of China’s authoritarian regime?”
They ignore that the CCP’s obsession with secrecy caused the initial outbreak’s catastrophic spread, and that democratic Taiwan far outperformed China, recording only 10 Covid deaths, without the government having to imprison whistleblowers or weld Covid patients into their homes.
It’s true that UK prime minister Boris Johnson and US president Donald Trump failed disastrously to contain the virus. (Is it a coincidence that both leaders share Xi’s disregard for the truth?)
But Trump could be voted out, Johnson can be vilified in the press, and no one loses their freedom of speech. This is the power of democracy – however embattled it may become, it guarantees, more than any other system yet invented, that every citizen can have their say and that political change is always constitutionally possible.
“The Chinese just aren’t suited to democracy, though – it’s not in their culture,” the apologists retort. But Taiwan destroys this argument – it proves that the Chinese can be both prosperous and free.
“It’s different on the mainland,” the apologists insist. “Look at the popular support for the party!” But the apologists fail to understand that when people have been governed by lies and fear, their gratitude to their leaders is little different from the affection some hostages develop for their captors.
The truth is, everyone in China is a hostage. Some may be wealthier than others, some more aware than others of the prison bars that surround them, but everyone is spiritually incarcerated by the CCP. They have all been denied the most fundamental human right: the right to form independent thought. Without freedom of thought, one loses respect for oneself and the ability to respect and feel compassion for others. China may be rich, but 70 years of CCP rule has plunged the country into an ever-deepening moral abyss.
It is impossible to make a hierarchy of misery, to judge the death and persecution of one person or of one people as worse than those suffered by others. But the horror of the current situation in Xinjiang seems to be in a category of its own. The images of Uighur convicts, handcuffed and blindfolded, heads shaven and bowed, being herded onto trains; of hastily-erected internment camps with watchtowers, barbed wire fencing and high perimeter walls; of inmates forced to smile and sing to foreign inspection teams, despair welling in their eyes; the accounts of torture, rape, forced sterilisations and indoctrination from the few Uighurs who have managed to escape. These images and accounts recall the worst atrocities of the 20th century. In the name of “anti-terrorism”, a people and a culture are being annihilated. Determined to eradicate any perceived threat to its rule, the CCP is stamping its boot down on an entire ethnic group, aiming to extinguish the Uighurs “root and branch”.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fas fa-quote-left” color=”custom” custom_color=”#dd0d0d”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_custom_heading text=”As I witnessed horrific scenes of mob violence, I began to see this march to Utopia for what it was: a dehumanising nightmare”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Ma Jian
When reports first emerged of the Xinjiang camps, I found the images too dreadful to bear. Wanting to convey my grief and solidarity, I sought out a Xinjiang restaurant in London, which has now closed. After I paid for my meal, I asked the owner to join me outside, so that we could speak without being overheard. I asked him about the camps, and whether he still had family in the province. It turned out he was not a Uighur but a Han Chinese who had moved to Xinjiang in the 1990s. “Those Uighurs – they deserve what’s happened to them!” he said with a smirk. “Good thing they’ve been locked up in the camps. My family say the streets are much quieter now.”
His words were abhorrent, but he was expressing views many Han Chinese on the mainland share. These Chinese mainlanders are not evil, of course. The corrupted moral view that some of them may have is the tragic product of an evil regime.
On the hundredth anniversary of its founding, the CCP will reassert that ‘Without the Communist Party, there is no New China!’ Xi wants his model of authoritarian capitalism to be applauded and replicated by the entire world. He wants the UN to move its headquarters to Beijing – the ultimate validation of his ideas and values.
For anyone who cherishes human rights and freedom of speech it is repugnant that, while hundreds of millions of victims of the CCP’s man-made disasters lie rotting in their graves, while Chinese dissidents continue to be jailed and disappeared, while Hong Kong turns from a place that once offered refuge to mainland dissidents into a place from which its own citizens flee, while Tibetans continue to set themselves on fire, and while a genocide is taking place right now in Xinjiang – it should be repugnant to everyone that in the face of such unending injustice, some Western commentators could suggest that the CCP is winning the battle of values and ideas in the world.
But more appalling still is that for the sake of some grubby trade deals with China, the political leaders of Western democracies are doing little more than offering asylum to Hong Kong citizens and expressing “concern” at China’s human rights abuses. As China’s economy grows and CCP values spread across the nation’s borders, freedom of speech, liberal values and renqing – that essential human capacity for kindness and compassion – will become increasingly endangered. Unless Western leaders defend, not with gunboats or empty rhetoric but with unwavering commitment, the enlightenment values of liberty, fraternity and reason that should form the foundation of every civilised country, then there will soon be very few places left in the world that are conducive to human happiness.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
Subscription options from £18 or just £1.49 in the App Store for a digital issue.
Every subscriber helps support Index on Censorship’s projects around the world.
SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
