21 Sep 20 | News and features
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Index on Censorship has launched its second report, Breaking the Silence, as part of its ongoing research into a type of vexatious legal action known as a Slapp – strategic lawsuit against public participation. The research focuses on the extent to which journalists and media outlets in Europe are being affected by Slapps, and on what can be done to protect them.
Breaking the Silence outlines a series of concerns raised by media lawyers during a roundtable hosted by Index on Censorship in July, and puts forward six measures that would help prevent Slapps from having an impact. One of the most extensive measures is the introduction of anti-Slapps legislation. “Free speech is vastly protected by the anti-Slapp statute – it’s a night and day difference,” United States-based lawyer, Thomas R. Burke, told the roundtable participants as he outlined the legislation that was enacted in California in 1992.
“We are indebted to the lawyers and legal experts who shared their time and insights with us,” said senior policy research and advocacy officer, Jessica Ní Mhainín, who authored the report. “We hope that policymakers will pay heed to the serious threat that Slapps are posing to freedom of expression, rule of law, and democracy, and consider the measures that are proposed in this report.”
Read the full report.
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21 Sep 20 | Academic Freedom, China, Hong Kong, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114944″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”right”][vc_column_text]A 12-year-old girl tackled by police and pinned to the ground, a media tycoon in handcuffs, dozens of activists in court – these have become the familiar images from Hong Kong since the passage of the national security law. But there’s another victim of the amplified censorship and persecution happening in the city – academia. Hong Kong’s classrooms and lecture theatres are increasingly at the receiving end of pressure to conform – or else.
Within days of the new law, Hong Kong’s education bureau ordered schools to review all reading materials in the curriculum.
“If any teaching materials have content which is outdated or involves the four crimes under the law, unless they are being used to positively teach pupils about their national security awareness or sense of safeguarding national security, otherwise if they involve other serious crime or socially and morally unacceptable act, they should be removed,” the Education Bureau said in a statement.
Politically sensitive books, including those written by pro-democracy leader Joshua Wong, and titles related to China’s Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Square massacre, were removed from library shelves. Textbooks censored out phrases like “separation of powers”. Gone too were illustrations showing anti-government protesters and criticism of the mainland Chinese government.
But the purge hasn’t stopped at reading material. Teachers have been fired. Just hours before the law came into effect, a secondary school visual arts teacher, who is too fearful to reveal his real name and goes by the moniker Vawongsir on Instagram, was laid off. He had received a complaint months earlier about critical artwork he’d done outside of work and yet no firm action had been taken against him. Then the new law was announced and he was fired. At the same time, a middle school music teacher’s contract wasn’t renewed after she failed to prevent students from performing a protest anthem during midterm exams.
“If you look at primary and secondary education it’s really obvious what they’re doing. They’re not hiding it,” said Lokman Tsui, assistant professor at Hong Kong’s School of Journalism and Communication, in an interview with Index. Tsui, who formerly held the position of head of free expression at Google in Asia and the Pacific, focuses his research and teaching on digital rights, security, democracy and human rights in general and in China and Hong Kong.
Tsui says the censorship is less obvious in higher education. Less obvious though does not mean less controlling. “They won’t tell you to not do x, y and z but it’s clear it’s not rewarded,” said Tsui.
Tsui himself is an example. Earlier this year he lost his tenure which, as he described in a letter he wrote at the time, “is important for academic freedom, because it provides job security, so you will not be afraid to lose your job if you take on controversial or challenging research topics.” Tsui was unsure whether this was politically motivated, but it cannot be ruled out.
“Maybe it is true that I would have gotten tenure if I had spent my time exclusively and only on ‘safe’ research and nothing else. But that would not have been me,” he wrote in the letter, which received a plethora of responses in solidarity with him and what he had done and in support of his teaching.
Even tenure doesn’t fully protect you in Hong Kong today. Benny Tai, who was associate professor of law at the University of Hong Kong and one of the Umbrella Movement leaders, was fired in July. Shui-ka Chun, another university educator known for his political activism, was laid off. China’s liaison office in Hong Kong hailed the terminations as a “purification of the teaching environment.”
Unsurprisingly the result is an atmosphere of self-censorship and an environment in which “the good people leave”.
“It’s a storm and no one wants to go outside, even with an umbrella,” said Tsui.
A battle over independence is nothing new for Hong Kong’s educators. Earlier attempts to introduce a patriotic “national education” curriculum into Hong Kong schools resulted in tens of thousands protesting in 2012, forcing it to be shelved. In 2018, charges of “brainwashing” were once again levelled at the government and at Beijing after attempts were made to alter the way history was taught (more focus on mainland China; less on Hong Kong’s colonial past).
To ensure that teachers fall in line, organisations have been established to report on those who might say the wrong thing. A complaint to the Education Bureau was what led to the aforementioned visual arts teacher Vawongsir being flagged and later fired.
Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing chief executive, has made it quite clear that she isn’t going to go easy on education. The city’s schools and universities are often accused of radicalising Hong Kong’s young with Western ideals and preventing a Chinese national identity from flourishing, accusations reinforced by Lam publicly. At an education forum in 2017 she highlighted that many people arrested for participating in illegal protests over the last year were students.
With each attack usually comes defence, often fierce and determined. And rightly so: minds are shaped in the classroom. But fears are this defence, already strained, will not continue.
As Tsui says, the lines have become further blurred since the passage of the national security law. He describes the law as a “clarion call for the entire society to encourage and amplify everything on the pro-government side” and an “open field-day for harassing anyone” who speaks in favour of the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement.
“I think you have freedom even in China, it’s just the price you want to pay for it and they’ve been raising the price of it. It’s going up and up and up.”
“Realistically it will be difficult for me to find a professorship in Hong Kong,” he said, explaining that there are few universities as is and those that do exist are under pressure to follow the party line.
“While I was trying to get tenure, a lot people told me to keep my head low in order to get it. But I disagreed.”
The costs aren’t just professional.
“There are all kinds of social costs. My mother has said ‘Can you please not be so outspoken?’ Even your friends and your romantic partner will say that.”
Tsui is originally from the Netherlands. Will he be one of the good people forced to leave?
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18 Sep 20 | Opinion, Ruth's blog
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This weekend marks the Jewish New Year, the beginning of the year 5781. I will be spending the weekend with my family, keeping to the Rule of Six of course, eating honey cake, celebrating the fact that even in the middle of a global pandemic we get to be together. We’ll laugh, we’ll chat and we might even Zoom in to watch part of the religious services. It will be a relatively normal (if a little surreal because of Zoom) high holy day and no one will bat an eyelid.
Because I live in the UK, I am free to practise my religion without restriction, I am legally protected to be a British Jew and I get to use my voice to fight for others. I am lucky. We are lucky. Others simply are not.
This week, the Chinese government, for the first time, published a seemingly innocent white paper on employment and labour rights in Xinjiang. Xinjiang, the home of the Muslim Uighur community. Xinjiang, the site of a genocide.
In recent months, details of the acts of genocide being perpetrated in Xinjiang have come to light but, given the repressive nature of the CCP government in Beijing, facts have been hard to come by. This changed on Thursday. While the paper is seemingly an innocuous document of government statistics, the numbers actually provide a flavour for what is happening on the ground to a minority community.
From 2014 to 2019 an average of 1.29 million people, every year, received ‘training sessions’ in Xinjiang province. That’s nearly six and a half million people since 2014. Before the publication of these statistics it had been estimated that there were currently over one million people in ‘re-education camps’ across the province – I think the CCP just confirmed that for us.
It is difficult to comprehend what a million people in concentration camps could look like. It’s difficult to humanise the statistic, to see the people behind the headline. But we must. We have to remember that that’s a million people with hopes and dreams. A million people who create works of art, who think, who just seek freedom. A million people who can’t go to mosques, even if they weren’t in camps, because most if not all have been closed, surrounded by razor wire and strict surveillance. A million people who, during their most holy month of Ramadan, were prohibited from fasting and praying.
There are too few personal stories yet from within the camps and our focus at Index is to find more. But as I mark the passing of another year this weekend I’ll be thinking of Merdan Ghappar, a dancer – because we know his name, we know his art, we know that he has been in one of those camps but we don’t know if he is still alive. I can only imagine the emotional torture that his family are going through. My thoughts and prayers will be with them.
I want to wish you all Shana Tova, Happy New Year, and whether you are Jewish or not this weekend take some time to reflect on the battles that still need to be fought and the 1.29 million Uighurs who are currently sitting in re-education camps in Xinjiang province.
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17 Sep 20 | Volume 49.03 Autumn 2020, Volume 49.03 Autumn 2020 Extras
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”The brave stand up when others are afraid to do so. Let’s remember how hard that is to do, says Rachael Jolley in the autumn 2020 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.”][vc_column_text]
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a dissenting voice. Throughout her career she has not been afraid to push back against the power of the crowd when very few were ready for her to do so.
The US Supreme Court justice may be a popular icon right now, but when she set her course to be a lawyer she was in a definite minority.
For many years she was the only woman on the court bench, and she was prepared to be a solitary voice when she felt it was vital to do so, and others strongly disagreed.
The dissenting voice and its place in US law is a fascinating subject. A justice on the court who disagrees with the majority verdict publishes a view about why the decision is incorrect. Sometimes, over decades, it becomes clear that the individual who didn’t go with the crowd was right.
The dissenting voice, it seems, can be wise beyond the established norms. By setting out a dissenting opinion, it gives posterity the chance to reassess, and perhaps to use those arguments to redraft the law in later times.
Bader Ginsburg was the dissenting voice in the case of Ledbetter v Goodyear – in which Lily Ledbetter brought a case on pay discrimination but the court ruled against her – and in Shelby County v Holder on voting discrimination, an issue likely to be hotly debated again in this year’s US presidential election. Bader Ginsburg’s opinions may not have been in the majority when those cases were heard but the passage of time, and of some legislation, proved her right.
The dissenting voice in law is a model for why freedom of expression is so vital in life. You may feel alone in your fight for the right to change something (or in your position on why something is wrong), but you must have the right to express that opinion. And others must be willing to accept that minority views should be heard – even if they disagree with them.
Fight for the principle, and when the time comes that you, your friends or your neighbours need it, it will be there for you.
Right now, writers, artists and activists are standing up for that principle, not necessarily for themselves but because they feel it is right.
Sometimes they also bravely dissent when most people are afraid to speak up for change, or to disagree with those who shout the loudest.
Being different and on the outside is a lonely place to be, but the pressure is even greater when you know opposing an idea, or law, could mean losing your home or your job, or even landing in prison.
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As editor-in-chief at Index I have been privileged to work with extraordinary people who are willing to be dissenting voices when, all around them, society suggests they should be quiet. They smuggle out words because they think words make a difference. They choose to publish journalism and challenging fiction because they want the world to know what is going on in their countries. They often take enormous risks to do this.
For them, freedom of expression is essential. Murad Subay is a softly spoken Yemeni artist with a passion for pizza. He produced street art even as the bombs fell around him in Sana’a. Often called Yemen’s Banksy, Subay – an Index award winner – worked under unbelievably horrible conditions to create art with a message.
In an interview with Index in 2017, Subay told us: “It’s very harsh to see people every day looking for anything to eat from garbage, waiting along with children in rows to get water from the public containers in the streets, or the ever-increasing number of beggars in the streets. They are exhausted, as if it’s not enough that they had to go through all of the ugliness brought upon them by the war.”
Dissenting voices come from all directions and from all around the world.
From the incredibly strong Zaheena Rasheed, former editor of the Maldives Independent, who was forced to leave her country because of death threats, to regular correspondence from our contributing editor in Turkey, Kaya Genç, these are journalists who keep going against the odds. These are the dissenting voices who stand with Bader Ginsburg.
Over the years, the magazine has featured many writers who have stood up against the crowd. People such as Ahmet Altan, whose words were smuggled out of prison to us. He told us: “Tell readers that their existence gives thousands of people in prison like me the strength to go on.”
In this issue, we explore those whose ideas and voices – and sometimes, horrifically, bodies – are deliberately disappeared to muffle their dissent, or even their very existence.
Many people associate the term “the disappeared” with Argentina during the dictatorships, where we know about some of the horrific tactics used by the junta. Opposition figures were killed; newborn babies were taken from their mothers and given to couples who supported the government, their mothers murdered and, in many cases, dumped at sea to get rid of the evidence. The grandmothers of those who were disappeared are still fighting to bring attention to those cases, to uncover what happened and to try to trace their grandchildren using DNA tests.
Index published some of those stories from Argentina at the time because Andrew Graham-Yooll, who was later to become the editor at Index, smuggled out some of the information to us and to The Daily Telegraph, risking his life to do so.
We explore what and who are being disappeared by authorities that don’t want to acknowledge their existence.
Thousands of people who are escaping war and starvation try to flee across the Mediterranean Sea: hundreds disappear there. Their bodies may never be found.
It is convenient for the authorities on both sides of the sea that the numbers appear lower than they really are and the real stories don’t get out.
In a special report for this issue, Alessio Perrone reveals the tactics being used to cover up the numbers and make it appear there are fewer journeys and deaths than in reality.
The International Organisation for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project says that 20,000 people have died in the Mediterranean since records began in 2014, but many say this is an underestimation.
Certainly there are unmarked graves in Sicily where bodies have been recovered but no one knows their names (see page 30). The Italian government has, as we have previously reported, used deliberate tactics to make it harder to report on the situation and to stop the rescue boats finding refugees adrift near her boundaries.
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Also in this issue, Stefano Pozzebon and Morena Joachín report on how Guatemala’s national police archives – which house information on those people who were disappeared during the civil war – is currently closed, and not for Covid-19 reasons (see page 27).
Fifteen years after the archive was first opened to the public, a combination of political pressure and a desire to rewrite history in the troubled nation has closed it. This is a tragedy for families still using it in an attempt to trace what happened to their families.
In Azerbaijan (see page 8), another tactic is being used to silence people – this time using technology. Activists are having their profiles hacked on social media and then posts and messages are being written by the hackers and posted under their names.
Their real identities conveniently disappear under a welter of false information – a tactic used to undermine trust in journalists and activists who dare to challenge the government so that the public might stop believing what they write or say.
This is my 30th and final issue of the magazine after seven years as editor (although I will still be a contributing editor), and it is another gripping one.
They smuggle out words because they think words make a difference.
Over the years, I am proud to have worked with the incredible, brave, talented and determined. We have published new writing by Ian Rankin, Ariel Dorfman, Xinran, Lucien Bourjeily, and Amartya Sen, among others. And it has been a privilege to work with the mindblowing, sharp, analytical journalism from the pens of our incredible contributing editors over the years, including Kaya Genç, Irene Caselli, Natasha Joseph, Laura Silvia Battaglia, Stephen Woodman, Duncan Tucker and Jan Fox, plus regular contributors Wana Udobang, Karoline Kan, Steven Borowiec, Alessio Perrone and Andrey Arkhangelsky.
These people do amazing work: their writing is ahead of the game and they bring together thought-provoking analysis and great human stories. Thank you to all of them, and to deputy editor Jemimah Steinfeld.
They have told me again and again why they value writing for Index on Censorship and the importance of its work.
And because we believe that supporting writers and journalists is also about them getting paid for their work, unlike some others we have always supported the principle of paying people for their journalism.
Over the years we have attempted to go above and beyond, providing a little extra training when we can, translating Index articles into other languages, inviting journalists we work with to events, and introducing them to book publishers.
But just like the first time I ventured into the archives of the magazine, I am still amazed by what gems we have inside. We have recently reached our biggest readership to date, with hundreds of thousands of articles being downloaded in full, showing an appetite for the kind of journalism and exclusive fiction we publish.
Thank you, readers, for being part of the journey, and please continue to support this small but important magazine as it continues to speak for freedom.
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Rachael Jolley is the former editor-in-chief of Index on Censorship magazine. She tweets @londoninsider. This article is part of the latest edition of Index on Censorship’s autumn 2020 issue, entitled The disappeared: how people, books and ideas are taken away.
Look out for the new edition in bookshops, and don’t miss our Index on Censorship podcast, with special guests, on Soundcloud.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_custom_heading text=”Listen”][vc_column_text]The autumn 2020 magazine podcast featuring Hong Kong-based journalist Oliver Farry, who discusses the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in the region
LISTEN HERE[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][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.
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17 Sep 20 | News and features
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Mehdi Rajabian is once again facing imprisonment. His crime? Including women’s voices in his music.
Rajabian is a musician in Iran, where women’s behaviour and expression – including their ability to sing in public or record their songs – is severely limited by the regime. But Rajabian has been determined to defy the authorities’ efforts to intimidate him, repress his art, and silence women’s voices. “I need female singing in my project,” Rajabian told Index on Censorship from his home in the northern city of Sari. “I do not censor myself.”
In August, Rajabian was summoned by the security police, who arrested him and took him to court. He was handcuffed and brought in front of a judge, who told him that the inclusion of women’s voices in his project “encouraged prostitution”. Rajabian was held in a prison cell for several hours but was able to post bail with the help of his family. He remains on probation and banned from producing music.
It is not the first time that the 30-year-old has faced imprisonment for his art. He spent three months blindfolded in solitary confinement in 2013, and was subsequently sentenced to six years in prison. He was released at the end of 2017 after undertaking a 40-day hunger strike. “I was completely sick after the hunger strike,” he explained. “When a prisoner goes on hunger strike, it indicates that he is preparing to fight with his life, that is, he has reached the finish line.”
After his release, Rajabian continued to make music and last year his album Middle Eastern was brought out by Sony Music. Every track on the album, which features more than 100 artists from across the Middle East, is accompanied by a painting by Kurdish artist and Index on Censorship award-winner Zehra Doğan.
But now Rajabian says that the pressure on him has become so great that it is extremely difficult for him to be able to collaborate with other musicians and to finish his next album. In August, a music journalist was arrested and detained in Evin Prison for several days after mentioning women’s music and referring to Rajabian in an article.
“Artists and ordinary people [in Iran] are all afraid to even talk to me,” he says. “I have been completely alone at home for years. Coronavirus days are normal for me.”
At home alone, he reads, watches films, and listens to music by John Barry. “I am currently reading Alba de Céspedes y Bertini’s books,” he told Index. But he spends most of his time reading philosophy. He believes that his interest in philosophy is one of the reasons why his music has been so targeted by the regime.
“The Iranian regime is not afraid of the music itself, it is afraid of the philosophy and message of music,” Rajabian explains. “Artists who do not have philosophy in their art are never under pressure.”
What does Rajabian believe the future has in store for him? “You can’t predict anything here. I am ready for any event and reaction,” he says. “But I still believe that we must fight and stand up”.
“I will continue to work, even if I return to prison,” he says. “I know that there is a prison sentence and torture for me, but I will definitely complete and publish [the album]. In Iran, making music is difficult for me because of the bans, but I have to make it.”
“Encourage banned artists,” Rajabian concludes. “They are not encouraged in their own countries. Be their voice.”
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16 Sep 20 | Uncategorized
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15 Sep 20 | Volume 49.03 Autumn 2020
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Special report”][vc_column_text]Government hits activists’ online profiles by Arzu Geybulla: Journalists and activists are finding their social media profiles hacked and sometimes deleted in a clear harassment campaign in Azerbaijan
Presiding over bloodshed by Issa Sikiti da Silva: The voice of the opposition is increasingly missing in action as Uganda approaches election day
“Silence got us nowhere. We need to speak up” by Rushan Abbas: One woman’s anguish and outrage over her sister’s disappearance and the millions of others into the concentration camp network in Xinjiang, China
“The idea is to kill journalism” by Bilal Ahmad Pandow: Kashmiri journalists on what it’s like working under lockdown, an internet blackout and a new draconian media law
What has the government got to hide? by Jessica Ní Mhainín: The new Irish government has to decide whether to block access to historic child abuse records
Don’t show and tell by Orna Herr: In a bid to avoid offence, TV shows are disappearing from the airwaves. Are we poorer for it?
Restaurants scrub off protest walls by Oliver Farry: All signs of the city’s recent protest past are being removed in Hong Kong’s restaurants, shops and even libraries following the new security law
Closure means no closure by Stefano Pozzebon and Morena Pérez Joachin: The library housing documents on the disappeared of Guatemala’s brutal civil war has been closed and with it the disappeared have disappeared further
The unknown quantity by Alessio Perrone: The Italian government is making efforts to cover up who and how many are trying to cross the Mediterranean
Tracing Turkey’s disappeared by Kaya Genç: A centre looks into the forced disappearances of Kurds in Turkey. Will they find answers or obstacles?
“There’s nobody left to speak” by Somak Ghoshal: First they came for the journalists. Then they came for the lawyers and activists. Who can speak out in today’s India?
Out of sight, but never out of mind by Laura Silvia Battaglia: Our interview with the director of a new documentary about the disappeared in Syria
Blogger flees Tunisia after arrest by Layli Foroudi: After telling a joke, one Tunisian blogger had to flee her country to avoid prison
Becoming tongue-tied by Sally Gimson: China is one country that is forcing people to give up their minority languages. Others have also attempted it
Spain’s lonely voices by Silvia Nortes: We trace the demise of many minority Spanish languages and look at whether others will survive[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Global view”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Why Index has never been needed more by Ruth Smeeth: The world is witnessing an acceleration of illiberalism. We all need to be vigilant[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”In focus”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Ecce homo sovieticus by Andrey Arkhangelsky: Decades after the end of the Soviet Union, Russians are still plagued by totalitarianism. It’s getting worse
“I have suffered death threats and they killed my pet dogs” by Stephen Woodman: Mexican journalists work in war-like conditions. Many are suffering terrible mental illnesses because of it
Nonsense and sensibility by Jemimah Steinfeld: An interview with the bestselling author Dave Eggers about society’s slide into a total surveillance state
Fighting the laws that are silencing journalists by Jessica Ní Mhainín: Vexatious legal threats are part of the European media landscape. We need to take action against them, says a new Index report
2020 by Ben Jennings: Is Alexa censoring the news or is it just that bad? A new cartoon from the award-winning illustrator
Will the centre hold by Michella Oré? They voted for Trump in 2016 because their voices were not being heard. How does middle America feel today?
Who Speaks for Iowa by Jan Fox? The owner of a small-town radio station talks about feeling ignored in the rural USA[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Culture”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Past imperfect by Lisa Appignanesi: The award-winning writer speaks to Rachael Jolley about the inspiration for her new short story, written exclusively for Index, which looks at the idea of ageing, and disappearing memories, and how it plays out during lockdown
The history man by Xue Yiwei: One of China’s most widely read writers discusses a childhood memory of being punished for singing, alongside his short story, published in English for the first time here
Four more years by Mark Frary? Analysis of the upcoming US election looking at the media, plus a new satirical short story by Kaya Genç in which a dog considers Trump’s re-election hopes
Speech patterns by Abraham Zere: The Eritrean writer on escaping one of the world’s most censored countries and now living in Trump’s USA. Plus a new short story of his[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Index around the world”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]New tactics to close down speech by Orna Herr: The news editor at Rappler speaks to Index about legal threats against the media outlet’s CEO, Maria Ressa, plus a report on Index’s recent work[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”End Note “][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Spraying discontent by Jemimah Steinfeld: With museums closed some of the most powerful art is on the streets. Index speaks to the world’s street artists on why it is suddenly a popular form of protest[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
15 Sep 20 | Belarus, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114819″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]On 9 August, Belarus went to the polls to elect their president. Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, was seeking a fifth term.
When the result was announced, Lukashenko had won 80% of the vote. However, the Belarusian people believed the election was rigged and took to the streets in their thousands to protest peacefully.
One of those protesting was 73-year-old great grandmother Nina Bahinskaya, who has become a famous face on the streets of Minsk as she squares up to Lukashenko’s riot police.
She has been arrested and fined half of her pension but still comes back for more.
Index on Censorship’s associate editor Mark Frary spoke with her to find out how she became an unlikely protestor, why she always carries a flag and whether she fears for her safety in the face of police brutality.
With thanks to Franak Viacorka, Radio Free Europe, Euroradio and Alina Stefanovic (interpreter).[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/4Ap8jtyRVKc”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
11 Sep 20 | Opinion, Ruth's blog
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114787″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]One of the things I love about working at Index is the fact that free speech isn’t easy. That every time a new, or even a more established, issue arises you have to think through what it means and how it fits into your own value system.
Should you defend the right of a racist to hide behind their right to free speech? Where is the line between protecting free speech and opposing hate speech?
Free speech underpins our right to protest. However, does that mean if people decide to protest against our free press, that it is legitimate free expression too?
Crucially, if a repressive regime is undermining the right to free speech and attacking every other human right, is a boycott, whether of goods or culture, a legitimate way to protest?
If you believe in the basic human right of free expression – can you and should you boycott? Is your right to protest through boycott or blockades legitimate if the people or items you are boycotting are also simply exercising their right to free speech?
This question has been playing on the team at Index this week.
Every day we discuss what’s happening in China, from the acts of genocide against the Uighur Muslims, to the impact of the national security law in Hong Kong and the latest revelations about the curtailing of human rights in Inner Mongolia.
Every day we despair at what is happening to people who are living under a tyrannical regime that cares little for its citizens and even less for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Which brings me, bizarrely, to the latest Disney film release – Mulan.
Mulan should be an inspirational story, one of a woman whose actions saved a dynasty.
A woman who didn’t want her father to face another conscription, to fight in a war she knew would lead to his death. To protect her family, she pretended to be a man and joined the army and ultimately saved the day.
However, the latest version of the story is rightly proving to be controversial.
The actor playing Mulan has praised the actions of the police against the protestors in Hong Kong – parroting the Chinese Communist Party line straight from Beijing.
The script of the film shows Mulan as Han Chinese and not of Mongolian origin as many believe she was. The views of one actor, as wrong as I believe them to be, are a matter for her. The cultural misrepresentation makes for an inaccurate and to many an offensive film, but these editorial choices do not warrant a boycott of someone’s art.
What might is that Disney shot the film in the Xinjiang province.
Xinjiang is the home of the majority Muslim Uighur community and, now, the site of numerous concentration camps, where women are being forcibly sterilised, piles of human hair are being collected, people are being disappeared and the term re-education has become code for the eradication of any cultural identity that does not subscribe to the Beijing norm.
The term for this is genocide. A mass killing and cultural subjugation waged against millions of people. And it is happening today, right now in Xinjiang on the orders of the Chinese Communist Party.
Disney chose to film their latest Mulan adaptation in Xinjiang and, in doing so, have marginalised the suffering of our fellow human beings. Disney exists to turn fantasies and fairy tales into real life, their raison d’etre is to transport us all to worlds of innocent pleasure. Yet they used their power to thank the public security bureau in the city of Turpan and the “publicity department of CPC Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomy Region Committee” in the end credits.
They thanked the people who are not only complicit but who are seemingly orchestrating acts of genocide. Their power and agency was used not to stand with the oppressed but with the oppressors.
Index doesn’t support boycotts; we were established to publish the work of censored artists and writers – those who are being persecuted. In my opinion that puts us on the side of the Uighurs not Disney.
Disney isn’t persecuted, it isn’t being censored – you can still see Mulan. But choices and actions have consequences. The choices Disney made to ignore the inconvenient truth of a genocide are not immune from scrutiny because their end product is an artistic output. This is a company that should be held accountable for its actions.
Free speech is important; it’s vital. It gives every one of us the right to protest. So, I’m using my right of free speech to say that I think Disney should be ashamed and that I won’t be watching Mulan and I don’t think anyone else should either. I stand with the Uighurs.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”You might also want to read” category_id=”13527″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
10 Sep 20 | News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114740″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]“Someone has to say enough is enough,” said Shabana Mahmood, a member of parliament (MP) from the UK in a speech she delivered last night in the British parliament about the genocide of the Uighur people from the Chinese province of Xinjiang.
“The Chinese government continue unhindered with a campaign of what can only accurately be described as genocide, but where we should expect leadership and action, there is only a yawning void.”
Mahmood said the testimonies from Uighurs are “ever more disturbing”, citing a recent ITV news item in which a doctor spoke of forced sterilisation and abortion (in one instance a baby was still moving when it was discarded into the rubbish) and a man spoke of torture so extreme that he passed out. These are not isolated examples. It is estimated that at least one million people are incarcerated in camps across the region, while the millions of others who are not in a camp are subject to constant harassment and are living under extreme surveillance and control, right down to the language they speak.
“The charge sheet is long and horrific,” said Mahmood.
Mahmood mentioned new Disney movie Mulan, which was filmed in the province, as “one of the most striking examples of choosing to look away” and said there was a savage irony given the story of Mulan is one of family and emancipation.
“We should all be alarmed and appalled by what we are seeing, but we should all also resolve to forge a path forward for Uighur freedom,” argued Mahmood, who said this path involves various approaches, such as corporate and government accountability. We “cannot allow the fruits of forced labour to end up on our shores and in our homes”, she said, adding: “The Chinese Communist Party has busily been buying up influence and the silence of other countries.”
She also spoke of legal avenues, including those that have been used in recent years to help the Rohingya from Myanmar.
“History will judge us for the unforgivable lack of action thus far,” said Mahmood.
Many of these moves Mahmood called for were at a governmental level. What can we as individuals do?
1) Shout about it
Yes, a Tweet and a Facebook post are easy, but they are still better than nothing. We must use our words, especially when those in Xinjiang are being so woefully deprived of theirs. This is not to say that if we remain silent we are complicit. As the philosopher Julian Baggini wrote for the magazine earlier this year: “There are innumerable injustices around the world. Save for a handful of full-time activists and professionals in organisations such as Index, the finite supply of time ensures that most of us are silent about the vast majority of them.” Baggini specifically mentioned the Uighurs. But he also spoke about the concept of a “speech act”. “The key idea is very simple: words do not only convey information, they can actually do things. When a boss says ‘You’re fired’, a person loses their job. When a male manager says something misogynistic, he diminishes the status of female colleagues and makes their opinions count for less.” We can, through our words, foster an environment in which these actions are not condoned, in which Chinese officials find it increasingly difficult to go on live television and claim the atrocities are not happening, and in which world leaders struggle to continue their inaction.
2) Be wise to where our products come from
We at Index do not advocate outright banning – it goes against what we stand for. But nor do we promote companies and organisations involved in exploitation and human rights abuses. In an interview earlier this year about companies working with China, Yaqiu Wang, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: “By caving into the Chinese demands you are putting your values [aside] – social responsibility, freedom. It is really corrosive. You are affecting global freedom of speech.” As a consumer it’s difficult to know where everything comes from. That said, with each passing day evidence emerges linking major global brands to slave labour in Xinjiang. As consumers we can speak through our wallets. We can buy from the brands that we know aren’t complicit in the genocide; we can watch movies that aren’t filmed in the province. And we can support organisations like End Uyghur Forced Labour who are working hard to expose these links. We have choices here.
3) Protest on the streets
Live in London? The Chinese Embassy is located at 31 Portland Place, W1B 1QD. That’s a great place to start. Index have documented over the years countless examples of protest working, whether it’s a single person campaigning from their home or millions coming together. There’s a reason governments are so keen to control and clamp down on protest; it works.
4) Don’t normalise technology that is used against Uighurs
Genocides don’t happen overnight. The foundations for genocides are laid years, even decades, in advance. And while it’s difficult to pinpoint when the start date is, there are certain key moments. In the case of the Uighurs, one of these was the spread of mass surveillance. We need to fight against this, not just because video cameras sprouting up like mushrooms in our streets are bad for our own privacy. Also because if we are OK with it being used here we lose some of our moral high ground for arguing against it being used there.
5) Campaign for media freedom
There has been some phenomenal reporting on Xinjiang. Thanks to drone footage of camps by Buzzfeed and videos taken from inside a prison on the BBC, we are now gaining a far greater picture of what is happening in Xinjiang. Journalists are at the forefront of exposing the genocide. At the same time getting information out of Xinjiang is incredibly hard – the Chinese government tightly controls access to the province and some journalists have found their visas revoked as a result of their coverage. When we speak up for Uighurs, we must also speak up for the journalists who are putting their lives and careers on the line to bring us information. If you do hear of any media violations, whether related to Xinjiang or elsewhere, please report them to us or to our media map.
6) Give platforms to those in the Uighur community
Whether you are an events host, a media outlet or simply have your own blog, offer space for those from the Uighur community to talk. Uighurs have a rich and wonderful history of poetry and the spoken word. Why not publish some? That is what we are hoping to do in our winter issue. And in our forthcoming Autumn issue of the magazine, US-based Uighur activist Rushan Abbas, whose sister is in a concentration camp in Xinjiang, writes about her own experience and outrage. Please do subscribe to read this important article.
7) Finally, support organisations that are supporting Uighurs
There are now some excellent organisations to engage with. Here are a few of them: Campaign for Uyghurs, World Uyghur Congress and Uyghur Human Rights Project. You can donate to them and can sign petitions organised by them. Plus write to your local MP so that they can join people like Mahmood in putting pressure on the UK government to act.
Watch Mahmood’s speech in full here.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”Read more on China” category_id=”85″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]
09 Sep 20 | Events
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114632″ img_size=”large”][vc_column_text]Banned Books Week 2020 (27 September–3 October) takes place four months after George Floyd’s murder led to a global resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, and three months after the publication of the Rethinking Diversity in Publishing report, which demonstrated the particular challenges writers of colour still encounter.
Taking Banned Books Week’s theme as its starting point – a celebration of the freedom to read – our panel take stock of the commitments to inclusion and representation that have been made in publishing over the last few months. With representatives from the books industry – from editors to heads of writers’ organisations – this webinar will explore how we work together to celebrate marginalised voices in literature.
Adam Freudenheim is the Publisher and Managing Director of Pushkin Press. He has worked in publishing since 1998 and was Publisher of Penguin Classics, Modern Classics and Reference from 2004 to 2012. Adam joined Pushkin in May 2012, where he has launched the Pushkin Children’s Books, Pushkin Vertigo and ONE imprints, and he is particularly proud to have published the first translation of The Letter for the King by Tonke Dragt and Jakob Wegelius’s dazzlingly original The Murderer’s Ape; as well as to have introduced the acclaimed American short story writer Edith Pearlman to British readers (with Binocular Vision) and Israeli writer Ayelet Gundar-Goshen (her most recent novel is Liar).
Sharmaine Lovegrove is the Publisher of Dialogue Books, the UK’s only inclusive imprint, part of Little, Brown Book Group and Hachette UK. Dialogue Books is a home for a variety of stories from illuminating voices often missing from the mainstream. Sharmaine was the recipient of the Future Book Publishing Person of the Year 2018/19 and is inspired by innovative storytelling, and has worked in public relations, bookselling, events management and TV scouting. She was the literary editor of ELLE and set up her own bookshop and creative agency when living in Berlin. Sharmaine serves on the boards of The Black Cultural Archives, The Watershed and is an founding organiser of The Black Writers Guild. Home is London, she lives in Berlin and her roots are Jamaican – Sharmaine is proud to be part of the African diaspora and books make her feel part of the world.
Claire Malcolm is the founding Chief Executive of the literary charity New Writing North where she oversees flagship projects such as the David Cohen Literature Award, Gordon Burn Prize, the Northern Writers’ Awards and Durham Book Festival and award-winning work with young people. She works with partners from across the creative industries and charity and public sectors including Penguin Random House, Hachette, Faber and Faber, Channel 4 and the BBC to develop talent in the North. Claire is a trustee of the reading charity BookTrust, the Community Foundation Tyne and Wear and a board member of the North East Cultural Partnership.
Aki Schilz is the Director of The Literary Consultancy, which runsediting services, mentoring and literary events. At TLC Aki co-ordinates partnerships and programmes, including running the Quality Writing for All campaign which focuses on inclusivity and diversity. In 2018 Aki was named as one of the FutureBook 40, a list of people innovating the publishing industry, and was also nominated for an h100 Award for her work with the #BookJobTransparency campaign. In 2019 she was shortlisted for the Kim Scott Walwyn Prize for women in publishing, and in 2020 was named as one of INvolve’s Top 100 Ethnic Minority Future Leaders.
In partnership with the Royal Society of Literature, English PEN, the British Library and the Black Writers’ Guild.
This event is FREE for all. Please register here.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”114627″ img_size=”large”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
09 Sep 20 | Events
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”114628″ img_size=”large”][vc_column_text]In the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the resultant global Black Lives Matter protests, it has been clearer than ever before that the voices of some are prioritised to the exclusion of others.
As part of Banned Books Week 2020 – an annual celebration of the freedom to read – Index is partnering with the Royal Society of Literature, the British Library and English PEN, bringing together a panel of writers who have committed to sharing their stories, to creating without compromise, and to inspiring others to do the same. We ask what ‘freedom’ means in the culture of traditional publishing, and how writers today can change the future of literature.
Urvashi Butalia is Director and co-founder of Kali for Women, India’s first feminist publishing house. An active participant in India’s women’s movement for more than two decades, she holds the position of Reader at the College of Vocational Studies at the University of Delhi.
Rachel Long is a poet and founder of Octavia Poetry Collective for Womxn of Colour, based at the Southbank Centre. Her first collection My Darling from the Lions, shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2020, explores the intersections of family, love, and sexual politics. She is co-tutor on the Barbican Young Poets programme.
Elif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist, whose work has been translated into 54 languages. She is the author of eighteen books; her latest, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the 2020 RSL Ondaatje Prize. She holds a PhD in political science and she has taught at various universities in Turkey, the US and the UK. She was elected an RSL Fellow in 2019.
Jacqueline Woodson is the author of more than two dozen award-winning books. She is a four-time National Book Award finalist, a four-time Newbery Honor winner, a two-time NAACP Image Award winner, a two-time Coretta Scott King Award winner, recipient of the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the 2018 Children’s Literature Legacy Award and the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award.
Public tickets can be booked through the British Library (£5).[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”114627″ img_size=”large”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
