08 Aug 17 | Events
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The Limerick Civic Trust is bringing back its Autumn Lecture Series this September which will take place in the unique setting of St Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick.
The event is in conjunction with the Kemmy Business School and is a six-part series of public lectures to be delivered by internationally renowned commentators and thought leaders in their field. The third lecture in the series with Jodie Ginsberg will take place on 28 September. Ginsberg will speak about how censorship stifles debate and undermines the tenets of free and democratic societies.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”80210″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Jodie Ginsberg is chief executive of Index on Censorship, an international non-profit organisation that publishes work by censored writers and artists and campaigns for free expression worldwide.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”95175″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://www.limerickcivictrust.ie/events/autumn-lecture-series-jodie-ginsberg-censorship-index”][vc_column_text]Limerick Civic Trust is a self-funding charity, which undertakes projects for the improvements of Limerick’s environment in conjunction with local authorities, state agencies and other interested parties.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
When: Thursday 28 September 8pm
Where: St Mary’s Cathedral, Bridge St, Limerick, V94 E068, Ireland Map
Tickets: From €8 via Eventbrite
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08 Aug 17 | Artistic Freedom, Magazine, News and features, Russia, Volume 46.02 Summer 2017
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Influential Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein is often portrayed as the godfather of propaganda in film. David Aaronovitch argues in the summer 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine that historical drama can also be manipulative when it ignores details of the past”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]
A still from Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 film, Battleship Potemkin, portraying a massacre that never happened. Credit: Wikimedia
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My friend, a writer, reminded me of the English romantic poet John Keats’s axiom that “we hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us”. You could say, though, that Lenin and Mussolini – at least when it came to the poetry of film – knew differently. “Of all the arts, for us,” said Lenin, “the cinema is the most important”. “For us” meaning, of course, for the ruling Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the October 1917 revolution. When the Italian dictator Mussolini’s new super studios were opened in 1936 a sign was erected over the gate reading “Il cinema è l’arma più forte”, “cinema is the strongest weapon”.
It was George Orwell, not a dictator (though they doubtless would smilingly have agreed with him) who wrote that, “he who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” It is pretty obvious that the way the powerful medium of film depicts the “then” has important implications for what people can be brought to believe about the “now”.
I was brought up partly on films made in the Soviet Union and saw some of the most celebrated early movies when I was young. The director Sergei Eisenstein was the most famous name and before I was 12 I’d seen almost all his films, from the silent Strike made in 1924 to the extraordinarily ambivalent and terrifying two-part classic Ivan the Terrible. Every single one of them can be said to have had some kind of agenda that dovetailed – sometimes perfectly, sometimes awkwardly – with that of the Soviet state.
[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left” color=”custom” align=”right” custom_color=”#dd3333″][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_custom_heading text=”The massacre on the Odessa steps (once seen, never forgotten) from the movie Potemkin didn’t actually happen” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]
The two that were most obviously about Bolshevism and Russia were The Battleship Potemkin, dealing with events in the city of Odessa in 1905, and October, an account of the “ten days that shook the world” – the Bolshevik seizure of power – in Petrograd (St Petersburg) in 1917.
Both deploy Eisenstein’s famous techniques of intercutting, juxtaposition and montage to create mood and drama. Sometimes cutaways of objects or expressions are inserted to refer obliquely to what the viewer is supposed to think of the person or the moment being depicted.
And in both films the actual history is bent for the purposes of the filmmaker. The massacre on the Odessa steps (once seen, never forgotten) from the movie Potemkin didn’t actually happen. The film version of the storming of the Winter Palace in October involved many more actors than the actual event itself. And October was criticised in Keatsian terms by no less a luminary than Lenin’s widow, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya.
The full article by David Aaronovitch is available with a print or online subscription.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Film and the Soviet state”][vc_column_text]
Sidebar by Margaret Flynn Sapia
[/vc_column_text][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UQMg3saU4Q&t=1s” title=”Strike (1925)”][vc_column_text]The Soviet version of Russian history had two goals: to legitimise the rise and rule of the current government, and to instil its values into future generations. Strike, the first film directed by Sergei Eisenstein, undoubtedly does both. The film, set before the revolution, tells the story of a group of factory workers as they rise up against their abusive management. It begins with a quote by Lenin – “The strength of the working class is organisation” – and ends with a violent strike cross cut with the slaughter of animals. From the first frame to the last, the message is clear.[/vc_column_text][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcJkHCihTmE” title=”Ivan the Terrible (1944)”][vc_column_text]It is fitting that Joseph Stalin regarded Tsar Ivan IV as his role model, given that the two men men are renowned as two of Russia’s cruelest and most feared leaders. Directed by Eisenstein and commissioned by Stalin himself, Ivan the Terrible takes a stab at telling Ivan’s story in a way that flatters the Stalin regime. The plot portrays the boyars, the highest of bourgeois aristocracy, as internal enemies seeking to undermine the singular strength of Ivan’s leadership, a less-than-subtle parallel for the one-party Soviet state of the 1940’s.[/vc_column_text][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS5kzTbNKjs” title=”Battleship Potemkin (1925)”][vc_column_text]Like a dozen other Soviet films, The Battleship Potemkin depicts the horrors of the tsarist regime and a subsequent popular revolt. It dramatises the true story of a 1905 mutiny by the crew on a Russian battleship, but its most famous and enduring scene, the massacre on the Odessa steps, was entirely invented. However, unlike many of its comrades, this movie was internationally celebrated for its technical excellence, and was ranked as the 11th best film of all time in a 2017 BFI critics poll. Through the film’s five acts, Eisenstein demonstrates that propaganda and art are not mutually exclusive, and that the confines of oppression can sometimes breed incredible creativity.[/vc_column_text][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riOLSslKvxU” title=”October: 10 Days That Shook the World (1928)”][vc_column_text]A retelling of Russia’s 1917 Revolution, this film creates a fascinatingly skewed representation of the Soviet Union’s rise. While the series of major events in the film is historically accurate, the depictions of Soviet leaders and opposition give the film’s biases away, as key facets of character and decisions are highlighted and hidden. When watching the film, pay special attention to the portrayals of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. [/vc_column_text][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-QBqT9RQAM” title=”Panfilov’s 28 Men (2016)”][vc_column_text]Panfilov’s 28 Men demonstrates how Russian manipulation of history did not end with the Soviet Union. Released in 2016, this film is based on a famous but disputed incident in World War II wherein a small group of Russian soldiers purportedly warded off a wave of Nazi tanks and soldiers, all dying in the process. The events were heavily embellished by Soviet propagandists and later debunked, but the film based on them was partially funded by the Russian Ministry of Culture and is widely advertised as an accurate depiction of historical events. Times change, but the Russian regime continues to use cinema to its benefit.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
This article is published in full in the Summer 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine. Print copies of the magazine are available on Amazon, or you can find information about print or digital subscriptions here. Copies are also available at the BFI, the Serpentine Gallery, MagCulture, (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), and Home (Manchester). Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship continue its fight for free expression worldwide
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”From the Archives”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”80560″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306422014523227″][vc_custom_heading text=”Reel Drama: WWII propaganda” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1177%2F0306422014523227|||”][vc_column_text]March 2014
David Aaronovitch argues that all’s fair in war against fascist dictatorship, including seducing the United States into war with pretty faces and British accents.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”89184″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064220512331339706″][vc_custom_heading text=”The ferghana canal” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1080%2F03064220512331339706|||”][vc_column_text]February 2005
The first 145 shots of a shooting-script by Sergei Eistenstein, a prologue to the modern drama of Uzbekistan’s reclamation of its desert wastes.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”98486″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064229108535073″][vc_custom_heading text=”Iron fist, silver screen” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1080%2F03064229108535073|||”][vc_column_text]March 1991
An examination of how film is an arm of party propaganda in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, highlighting the 1973 Law on Censorship of Foreign Films.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”100 Years On” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fnewsite02may%2F2017%2F06%2F100-years-on%2F|||”][vc_column_text]Through a range of in-depth reporting, interviews and illustrations, the summer 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine explores how the consequences of the 1917 Russian Revolution still affect freedoms today, in Russia and around the world.
With: Andrei Arkhangelsky, BG Muhn, Nina Khrushcheva[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”91220″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/newsite02may/2017/06/100-years-on/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fnewsite02may%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][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_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]
08 Aug 17 | Bahrain, Bahrain News, News and features
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Bahraini human rights defender Nabeel Rajab (Photo: The Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy)
On 7 August, a Bahraini judge postponed a ruling until 11 September in one of the cases against human rights activist and president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights Nabeel Rajab.
Rajab is facing trial for tweets and retweets about the war in Yemen in 2015, for which he is charged with “disseminating false rumours in time of war” (Article 133 of the Bahraini Criminal Code) and “insulting a neighboring country” (Article 215 of the Bahraini Criminal Code), and for tweeting about torture in Jau prison, which resulted in a charge of “insulting a statutory body” (Article 216 of the Bahraini Criminal Code).
This case, one of four Rajab faces, began in April 2015. The trial has been postponed 14 times since and carries a sentence of up to 15 years. During the trial Rajab’s son, Adam Nabeel Rajab, tweeted that the state lacks evidence against him.
Rajab, who was an Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Advocacy award-winner in 2012, has faced continuous persecution for his activism in Bahrain. He is currently also charged with “spreading false news and statements and malicious rumours that undermine the prestige of Bahrain and the brotherly countries of the GCC, and an attempt to endanger their relations” for a piece published in Le Monde, and “undermining the prestige of the state” for a piece he wrote in The New York Times about his detention. On 10 July, Rajab was sentenced to two years in prison for charges related to 2015 television interviews with Bahraini, Iranian and Lebanese networks which support the Bahraini opposition. Rajab was unable to appear in court due to his poor health last month, and was sentenced in his absence.
Rajab marked one year in detention on 13 June, and for much of this time has been in solitary confinement and unsanitary conditions, which have contributed to his poor health and hospitalisation[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1502191511509-ebf34e9e-b840-8″ taxonomies=”716″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
07 Aug 17 | Events
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Join Index on Censorship, Free Word Centre and Islington Library and Heritage Services as we celebrate our freedom to read as part of Banned Books Week.
Every day, across the globe, writers are being censored in a hundred different ways. Some face persecution, others are imprisoned, some have their work banned and some are subject to more insidious means of censorship.
So, who are the modern-day censors? And what ingenious evasions – both modern and ancient – have writers and publishers used to protect our right to read?
Join award-winning journalist David Aaronovitch in conversation with Irish author Claire Hennessy and publisher Lynn Gaspard, as they explore what happens when ideas are silenced.
With readings by Moris Farhi and Bidisha.
The event will be followed by free drinks courtesy of Flying Dog Brewery and Index on Censorship.
Part of Banned Books Week 2017. Presented by Free Word and Index on Censorship in partnership with Islington Library and Heritage Services[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Speakers:[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”95061″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]David Aaronovitch is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and author and chair of free expression organisation Index on Censorship. He is a regular columnist for The Times newspaper.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”95058″ img_size=”200×200″ alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Claire Hennessy is the Irish author of several young adult novels that boldly tackle many complex issues for young people. She has written about anorexia and, most recently in her new book Like Other Girls, Ireland’s archaic abortion laws and queer culture.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”95059″ img_size=”200×200″ alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Lynn Gaspard is the Publisher of Saqi Books, who claim a history rather more dramatic than most bookshops or publishing houses: obstacles over the years have included wars, censorship, political instability and export embargoes.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]Readings:[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”95062″ img_size=”200×200″ alignment=”center”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]Moris Farhi is a Turkish novelist and essayist who for over twenty-five years has campaigned for writers persecuted and imprisoned by repressive regimes. In 2001 he was elected a Vice President of International PEN. In the same year he was appointed an (MBE) for services to literature.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”95425″ img_size=”200×200″ alignment=”center”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]Bidisha is a British newspaper journalist, critic and broadcaster/presenter for the BBC, Channel 4 and Sky. She specialises in international human rights, social justice, gender and the arts and is a trustee of the Booker Prize Foundation. Her most recent book, Asylum and Exile: Hidden Voices of London, is based on her outreach work, most recently with young asylum seeker mothers[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
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07 Aug 17 | Events
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Please join us for an event which forms part of Banned Books Week, organised by Index on Censorship. This is a hugely important focus on censorship and the denial of freedom of expression through the banning of books. The event includes the co-authors of a new book – Censored – in conversation with deputy editor of Index on Censorship magazine, Jemimah Steinfeld.
A provocative history of literary censorship uncovers the limits of free speech in the UK and the USA.
When Henry Vizetelly was imprisoned in 1889 for publishing the novels of Émile Zola in English, the problem was not just Zola’s French candour about sex – it was that Vizetelly’s books were cheap, and ordinary people could read them. Censored exposes the role that power plays in censorship.
In twenty-five chapters focusing on a wide range of texts, including the Bible, slave narratives, modernist classics, comic books, and Chicana/o literature, Matthew Fellion and Katherine Inglis chart the forces that have driven censorship for over six hundred years, from fears of civil unrest and corruptible youth to the oppression of various groups – religious and political dissidents, same-sex lovers, the working class, immigrants, women, racialized people, and those who have been incarcerated or enslaved. The authors also consider the weight of speech, and when restraints might be justified. Rich with illustrations that bring to life the personalities and the books that feature in its stories, Censored takes readers behind the scenes into courtroom battles, legislative debates, public campaigns, and private exchanges that have shaped the course of literature.
A vital reminder that the freedom of speech has always been fragile and never enjoyed equally by all, Censored offers lessons from the past to guard against threats to literature in a new political era.
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As the Norwich’s only truly independent new bookshop, The Book Hive stocks a personally chosen and intriguing selection of titles.
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Censored: A Literary History of Subversion & Control
By Matthew Fellion and Katherine Inglis[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”88892″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Jemimah Steinfeld is the deputy editor of Index on Censorship magazine.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
When: Wednesday 27 September, 7-8:30pm
Where: The Book Hive, 53 London St, Norwich NR2 1HL
Tickets: Free. More details.
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07 Aug 17 | Campaigns -- Featured, Media Freedom, media freedom featured, Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship condemns the decision by the government of Israel to ban Al Jazeera from operating in the country.
“A free and open media landscape is necessary for the proper functioning of a democratic society. The silencing of Al Jazeera’s networks — whether English or Arabic — is a detriment to the public’s right to information,” Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of Index on Censorship, said.
The revoking of the press cards belonging to the network’s reporters is a clear violation of press freedom and the right to freedom of expression.
Israel’s decision echoes the move by Saudi Arabia and its allies, who demanded that Qatar shutter the network and other media outlets as part of a list of demands to end a diplomatic crisis.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1502111795096-e5480c80-f680-8″ taxonomies=”449″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
07 Aug 17 | Campaigns, Campaigns -- Featured, Statements, Turkey, Turkey Statements
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Loup Bureau is being held by Turkish authorities
Index on Censorship urges Turkish authorities to immediately release French journalist Loup Bureau and drop all charges against him.
Freelance journalist Loup Bureau was arrested in Şırnak on charges of terrorism-related activities.
“Turkish authorities have been using terrorism charges to restrict access to information and silence journalists,” Index on Censorship’s head of advocacy Melody Patry said. “By arresting journalists simply for doing their job, Turkey violates the fundamental right to seek, receive and impart information. The charges against Loup Bureau are groundless and we call for his immediate and unconditional release.”
Euronews reported that the journalist was first detained on 26 July at Habur, where he was crossing into Turkey from Iraq.
After five days in police custody, he was charged and taken to a prison in the town of Şırnak on 1 August.
Turkey is the world’s top jailer of journalists, with over 100 currently in prison. The crackdown on media freedom intensified in the aftermath of the coup attempt last July 2016 and under the state of emergency that followed.
The arrest of Bureau takes place just two months after another French journalist, Mathieu Depardon, was deported from Turkey one month after his arrest in Gaziantep. The European Federation of Journalists reports that Deniz Yücel, Turkish correspondent for the German newspaper Die Welt is still behind bars as of February and French national Olivier Bertrand was deported in November 2016 while he was working on a report focused on the post-coup situation in Turkey.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_custom_heading text=”Media freedom is under threat worldwide. Journalists are threatened, jailed and even killed simply for doing their job.” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fnewsite02may%2Fcampaigns%2Fpress-regulation%2F|||”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship monitors media freedom in Turkey and 41 other European area nations.
As of 7/8/2017 there were 500 verified violations of press freedom associated with Turkey in the Mapping Media Freedom database.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship campaigns against laws that stifle journalists’ work. We also publish an award-winning magazine featuring work by and about censored journalists. Support our work today.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1502110018823-3f3d8c6f-bee4-8″ taxonomies=”55″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
07 Aug 17 | Bahrain, Bahrain Statements, Campaigns -- Featured, Statements
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Nabeel Rajab, BCHR – winner of Bindmans Award for Advocacy at the Index Freedom of Expression Awards 2012 with then-Chair of the Index on Censorship board of trustees Jonathan Dimbleby
The Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s silence on the sentencing of human rights figure Nabeel Rajab in Bahrain has been called “appalling” in a letter to the Foreign Secretary, signed by 17 rights groups & parliamentarians today.
The President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights faces trial tomorrow, 7 August, for tweeting about the Yemen war and torture in Bahrain. He faces up to 15 years. He was sentenced in absentia following an unfair trial to two years in prison for giving media interviews on 10 July. Rajab has not been allowed to speak to his family since 15 July. Rajab has been held largely in solitary confinement in the first nine months of his detention. This led to his health deteriorating in April, and he is currently recovering in the Ministry of Interior clinic.
Despite British Embassy representatives regularly attending Rajab’s trials, the 10 July sentence, which clearly violated his freedom of expression, went unremarked on for over two weeks. On 26 July, the FCO stated in response to a parliamentary question: “We note the two year sentence given to him and understand there are further steps in the judicial process, including the right of appeal.”
The letter, signed by 17 rights groups says: “It is appalling that while the FCO recognises the brave work of human rights defenders worldwide, it has turned a blind eye to the human rights abuses in Bahrain, including the reprisals against Mr. Rajab.” They raise the FCO’s Human Rights and Democracy Report, published last month, which applauds the work of human rights defenders globally and state that silence on Rajab’s case contradicts policies to support human rights defenders.
The FCO’s response evaded providing an opinion on Rajab’s sentence and compares unfavourably with its response to a previous sentence Rajab received in 2012 on similar charges related to his expression. At that time, Middle East Minister Alistair Burt stated he was “very concerned” at the sentencing of Mr. Rajab on charges related to his free expression, and added, “I have made it clear to the Bahraini authorities that the human and civil rights of peaceful opposition figures must be respected.” Burt was reshuffled out of the Foreign Office in 2013, but reappointed Middle East Minister following the June election.
The rights groups told the Foreign Secretary today: “British silence on this case contradicts FCO support for human rights defenders internationally and the FCO’s own past record on Mr. Rajab’s case. We urge you to overturn this policy of silence and support Nabeel Rajab and all human rights defenders in Bahrain … by condemning his sentence and calling on the Government of Bahrain for his immediate and unconditional release and the dropping of all pending charges against him.”
While the UK was initially silent on Rajab’s sentence, key allies of Bahrain including the United States and the European Union as well as Germany and Norway all called for Rajab’s release shortly after the ruling. The US, EU and Norway called for Rajab’s release, and Germany deplored his sentence. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ office called for his unconditional release.
“The FCO’s weak language on Nabeel Rajab’s case falls in line with the UK’s overall disappointing position on free expression in Bahrain and more widely in the Gulf. Boris Johnson should call for Rajab’s immediate release and take broader steps to ensure that human rights – not just arms sales – are a priority in the UK’s relations with Bahrain and the other Gulf states”, said Rebecca Vincent, UK Bureau Director for Reporters Without Borders.
“Instead of working with civil society and human rights defenders to address systemic problems and reform in Bahrain, as it has previously committed to, the government of Bahrain continues to persecute human rights defenders like Nabeel Rajab simply for exercising their right and duty to promote and protect human rights,” said Andrew Anderson, Executive Director of Front Line Defenders.
Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, Director of Advocacy, Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy: “Boris Johnson should be ashamed of his isolated policy, which is at total odds with the foreign policy of all Bahrain western allies and partners. True partners should speak out to their allies when they cross the line. The Bahraini government’s abuses don’t seem to matter to Boris Johnson’s Foreign Office, which only appears to be vocal against repression when it’s by governments that don’t host the Royal Navy or trade with the UK.”
The letter was signed by Article 19, English PEN, FIDH, Front Line Defenders, Index on Censorship, the Jimmy Wales Foundation, PEN International, Reporters Without Borders and World Organisation Against Torture, alongside the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain, Gulf Centre for Human Rights and European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights. The letter was also signed by Sue Willman, Director of Deighton Pierce Glynn, Julie Ward MEP and Tom Brake MP.
The Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales is also separately seeking an urgent meeting with the Foreign Secretary to raise concerns over the treatment of human rights defenders in Bahrain and about the breaches of freedom of expression and fair trial and due process in Nabeel Rajab’s case.
“The trial in absence and subsequent imprisonment of Nabeel Rajab was in flagrant breach of his rights to a fair trial process. The criminalisation of Nabeel Rajeb – for sharing an opinion – is contrary to international rights and protections of freedom of expression. Whilst Mr. Rajab’s health continues to deteriorate, due his treatment in prison, this case stands as a sad indictment of Bahrain’s attitude to citizens who voice criticism. It is not too late for proper due process to be applied in this case; this would result in Mr. Rajab’s immediate release,” said Kirsty Brimelow QC of Doughty Street Chambers.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1502100162408-9703f46f-9b77-3″ taxonomies=”716″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
07 Aug 17 | Academic Freedom, Campaigns, News and features, South Africa
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]David Benatar, a professor of philosophy and head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Cape Town, was one of the proponents behind the invitation to journalist Flemming Rose, the editor responsible for publishing controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005, to deliver the 2016 TB Davie Memorial Lecture on academic freedom. The invitation to Rose was rescinded by the university because Rose’s appearance might provoke conflict on campus, pose security risks and might “retard rather than advance academic freedom on campus.” In a guest post, Benatar, writing here in a personal capacity, shares his thoughts on the 2017 lecture. [/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”81181″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]In 2016, the executive of the University of Cape Town in South Africa overrode its academic freedom committee’s invitation to Flemming Rose to deliver the annual TB Davie academic freedom lecture. Mr Rose was disinvited over the protestations of the then members of the academic freedom committee. The irony of preventing a speaker from delivering an academic freedom lecture seems to have been lost on the university’s leadership, with the vice-chancellor, Dr Max Price, publicly defending the decision to disinvite.
Like all campus censors, Dr Price professed his commitment to academic freedom and freedom of expression before justifying his violation of these very principles. His arguments were roundly criticised by some. Other members of the university community supported the decision he and his colleagues had taken, which is part of a broader institutional pathology that, so far as I can tell, is even more pervasive than otherwise similar pathologies at various universities in North America and Europe.
The TB Davie Memorial Lecture was established in 1959 by students at the University of Cape Town. It is named after Thomas Benjamin Davie, vice-chancellor of the university from 1948 until his death in 1955. Dr Davie vigorously defended academic freedom against the apartheid regime’s imposition of racial segregation on higher education in South Africa, a battle that was ultimately unsuccessful.
A preface to printed versions of some past lectures in the series says that the “TB Davie Memorial Lecture keeps before the university a reminder of its ethical duty to defend and to seek to extend academic freedom”. The events of 2016 demonstrate that reminders are insufficient. One can remember the duty without fully understanding it, and one can understand it without having the courage to discharge it. Courage is needed to protect unpopular speech and speakers, not to protect orthodox views and their purveyors.
There have been some developments to this sad saga. First the good news: The South African Institute of Race Relations, upon hearing of the disinvitation of Mr Rose, invited him to South Africa to deliver the annual Hoernle lecture, which he did without incident in both Johannesburg and Cape Town in May 2017. While in South Africa, Mr Rose also spoke at the University of Cape Town, albeit unannounced and in a small class at the invitation of a single professor. There he addressed and had a pleasant and respectful exchange with the students.
The bad news is that the academic freedom committee’s term of office ended soon after Mr Rose was disinvited. The committee’s expression of outrage over the disinvitation was its final act. There is some reason to think that this committee’s stand on the Flemming Rose matter galvanised the dominant regressive sector of the university in a way that influenced how the committee was repopulated for the new term of office.
The result is an academic freedom committee that, on the whole, is significantly tamed. For example, the new members of the committee include somebody who had criticised the earlier invitation to Mr. Rose and someone else who had claimed that “human dignity and civility trumps” freedom of speech. It is thus a committee that is much less likely to highlight or object to the many threats to academic freedom and freedom of expression within the university. It is also a committee that is unlikely to test the university’s commitment to these values by, for example, its choice of speakers for future TB Davie lectures.
It was unsurprising that the new committee has shown no signs of endorsing the six separate nominations it received for Mr Rose to deliver the 2018 lecture. Nor is it surprising that it invited Professor Mahmood Mamdani to deliver the 2017 lecture. (Although Professor Mamdani, now at Columbia University, but at one stage a professor at the University of Cape Town, has had his disagreements with the University of Cape Town, his criticisms are the staples of the university’s self-flagellation and thus very far from a test of freedom of expression.)
I wrote to Professor Mamdani on 2 April 2017 to advise him of the events of 2016 and to ask him to refuse to give this lecture until such time as Mr Rose is permitted to give his. In my email, I acknowledged that he, Professor Mamdani, “might use the opportunity of the TB Davie lecture to criticise the university for having disinvited Mr Rose”, but that it would be far more effective if he refused to give the lecture. I said that until “Mr Rose’s disinvitation is reversed, the TB Davie lecture will be a farce”.
About a dozen other members of the university community, mainly academic staff, subsequently wrote to him to endorse my request. To the best of my knowledge, none of us have received a response, and the lecture is scheduled to take place on 22 August. Until Professor Mamdani gives his lecture, we cannot be sure what he will say. However, his failure either to withdraw from the lecture or to reassure those who had written to him that he would be taking a stand against the disinvitation of Mr Rose does not augur well.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ show_filter=”yes” element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1502096677412-aee0a1d7-4cdb-4″ taxonomies=”4524, 8562″ filter_source=”category”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
07 Aug 17 | Uncategorized
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]From: David Benatar
Subject: TB Davie Memorial Lecture
Date: 02 April 2017 at 12:49:25 AM SAST
To: Mahmood Mamdani
Dear Professor Mamdani
I understand that you are scheduled to give the TB Davie Memorial Lecture this year. This named lecture, as you know, is devoted to the theme of academic freedom and freedom more generally. What you might not know is that the 2016 lecture was going to be given by Mr. Flemming Rose, cultural editor of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper and notable defender of freedom of expression. However, the University Executive, over the protestations of the then-members of the Academic Freedom Committee disinvited Mr Rose because they perceived him as a controversial speaker. I responded to this ironic and outrageous breach of academic freedom here: http://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/uct-a-blow-against-academic-freedom
The Academic Freedom Committee’s term of office came to an end at around this time and the new committee has invited you to be the speaker in 2017. While it is possible that you might use the opportunity of the TB Davie lecture to criticise the University for having disinvited Mr Rose, it would be far more effective if you and other potential speakers in future years refused to give the lecture. Until Mr Rose’s disinvitation is reversed, the TB Davie lecture will be a farce. Thus I urge you to indicate to the Academic Freedom Committee that you will not deliver a TB Davie lecture until Mr Rose has been allowed to deliver the lecture he was invited to give.
Yours sincerely,
David Benatar[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1501498075189-5ba0ae4f-e1a9-10″ taxonomies=”16315, 4524, 8562″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
06 Aug 17 | Events
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What is the place of the satirist in our age of controversies? The irreverent cartoonist Martin Rowson, of The Guardian and Index on Censorship magazine, joins publisher Joanna Prior of Penguin Random House for what promises to be a coruscating conversation; feathers will no doubt be ruffled.
This event is in association with Pembroke College as part of Banned Books Week and will be introduced by Index CEO Jodie Ginsberg.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Speakers:[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”89693″ img_size=”500×300″ alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Martin Rowson is a British editorial cartoonist and writer. His genre is political satire and his style is scathing and graphic. He characterizes his work as “visual journalism”. His cartoons appear frequently in The Guardian, the Daily Mirror and Index on Censorship magazine.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”95149″ img_size=”500×300″ alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Joanna Prior is the managing director of Penguin General Books, president of the Publishers Association, chair of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Board and was also listed in this years Debrett’s 500 which recognises Britain’s 500 most influential people[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”80210″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Jody Ginsberg is the chief executive officer at Index on Censorship. A former Thomson Reuters Bureau chief for UK and Ireland, she has worked as a foreign correspondent in south and west Africa. Her advocacy roles include the London think tank Demos and Cambridge-based Camfed.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
When: Sunday 24 September 2017, 2-4pm BST
Where: Old Library, Pembroke College, Cambridge Map
Tickets: Free. Registration required via Eventbrite
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06 Aug 17 | Events
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Banned Books Week 2017 is being celebrated with multiple ways to get involved.
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When: Friday 22 September, 5pm BST
Where: Archway Methodist Church Archway Close N19 3TD Map
Tickets: £5/£1 under 16s via ArchWay With Words
ArchWay With Words presents a thrilling event with two of Britain’s most exciting, prize-winning writers who tell stories about young people. Alex Wheatle talks about his trilogy of novels set in ‘Crongton’, a place rife with gang warfare and home to a cast of characters whose lives and loyalties are tested in gripping dramas. Patrice Lawrence talks about her dazzling debut ‘Orangeboy’, and the breathtaking follow up ‘Indigo Donut’, a story about tough choices and everyone’s need to belong.
This event is presented by Archway With Words.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_custom_heading text=”24 September” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]
When: Sunday 24 September 2017, 2-4pm BST
Where: Old Library, Pembroke College, Cambridge Map
Tickets: Free. Registration required via Eventbrite
What is the place of the satirist in our age of controversies? The irreverent cartoonist Martin Rowson, of The Guardian and Index on Censorship magazine, joins publisher Joanna Prior of Penguin Random House for what promises to be a coruscating conversation; feathers will no doubt be ruffled. This event is in association with Pembroke College as part of Banned Books Week and will be introduced by Index CEO Jodie Ginsberg. Full details[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner equal_height=”yes”][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”89693″ img_size=”500×300″ alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]
Martin Rowson
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Joanna Prior
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Jodie Ginsberg
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When: Tuesday 26 September 5-6pm
Where: Online at GoToWebinar
Tickets: Free. Registration required
Over the past few years, the news has been replete with stories about how authors, thought-leaders, and others have become disinvited or pressured to withdraw from university speaking engagements because they don’t promote prevailing ideology. What are the consequences of disallowing diverse viewpoints on campus and what can speakers, faculty, and librarians do to support intellectual freedom in academia?
Join the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, SAGE Publishing and Index on Censorship for a webinar on speaker disinvitation during Banned Books Week. It will include perspectives from Mark Osler, a professor who was disinvited from a campus speaking engagement, Glenn Geher, a professor of psychology who helped to bring a controversial speaker to campus, and Judith C. Russell, a dean of libraries who addresses issues relating to controversial speakers, academic freedom and campus safety on campus.
The event will be chaired by Jemimah Steinfeld, deputy editor of Index on Censorship magazine.
Full details
This event is presented by SAGE Publications[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner equal_height=”yes”][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”95734″ img_size=”213×127″ alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]
Mark Osler
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Glenn Geher
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Judith C. Russell
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Jemimah Steinfeld
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British Library
When: Tuesday 26 September 7:15-8:30pm
Where: Knowledge Centre British Library, 96 Euston Rd, Kings Cross, London NW1 2DB
Tickets: From £7 via British Library
Censorship. Whose morals and values does it seek to protect? Trace the blue pencil and its consequences through literary history, from Ulysses and Lolita to a book implicated in a murder case.
For some, such restrictions may seem sensible, while for others, they appear arbitrary at best, oppressive and dangerous at worst. The list of books suppressed in the English language features the sacred and profane, poetic and pornographic, famous and infamous. A history of the censorship of literary texts is also a history of the authorities that have attempted to prevent their circulation: sovereigns, politicians, judges, prison officers, slaveholders, school governors, librarians, teachers, parents, students, editors and publishers.
Katherine Inglis and Matthew Fellion, authors of a fascinating new book on suppressed literature, explore the methods and consequences of censorship and some of the most contentious and fascinating cases. Followed by a book signing. Full details
This event is presented by The British Library[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”27 September” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]
When: Wednesday 27 September 2017, 6:30-8:15pm
Where: Free Word Centre 60 Farringdon Road London EC1R 3GA
Tickets: From £5 via Free Word Centre
Who are the modern-day censors? And what ingenious evasions – both modern and ancient – have writers and publishers used to protect our right to read? Join award-winning journalist David Aaronovitch in conversation with Irish author Claire Hennessy and publisher Lynn Gaspard, as they explore what happens when ideas are silenced. With readings by Moris Farhi and Bidisha. Full details[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”95061″ img_size=”200×200″ alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]
David Aaronovitch
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Lynn Gaspard
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Claire Hennessy
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Moris Farhi
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Bidisha
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When: Wednesday 27 September, 7-8:30pm
Where: The Book Hive, 53 London St, Norwich NR2 1HL
Tickets: Free. More details.
Join Index on Censorship magazine Deputy Editor Jemimah Steinfeld in conversation with Matthew Fellion and Katherine Inglis, authors of the new book Censored: A Literary History of Subversion and Control.
In twenty-five chapters focusing on a wide range of texts, including the Bible, slave narratives, modernist classics, comic books, and Chicana/o literature, Fellion and Inglis chart the forces that have driven censorship for over six hundred years, from fears of civil unrest and corruptible youth to the oppression of various groups – religious and political dissidents, same-sex lovers, the working class, immigrants, women, racialized people, and those who have been incarcerated or enslaved. The authors also consider the weight of speech, and when restraints might be justified.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”95334″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]The Book Hive is Norwich’s only truly independent new bookshop[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”95338″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]
Censored: A Literary History of Subversion and Control by Matthew Fellion and Katherine Inglis
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”88892″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Jemimah Steinfeld, deputy editor Index on Censorship magazine[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”28 September” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]
When: Thursday 28 September 8pm
Where: St Mary’s Cathedral, Bridge St, Limerick, V94 E068, Ireland Map
Tickets: From €8 via Eventbrite
The event is in conjunction with the Kemmy Business School and is a six-part series of public lectures to be delivered by internationally renowned commentators and thought leaders in their field. The third lecture in the series with Jodie Ginsberg will take place on 28 September. Ginsberg will speak about how censorship stifles debate and undermines the tenets of free and democratic societies. Full details[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”80210″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]
Jodie Ginsberg
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When: Thursday 28 September, 7:00-8:30pm
Where: Knowledge Centre British Library, 96 Euston Rd, Kings Cross, London NW1 2DB
Tickets: From £7 via British Library
“In 1989 the death penalty was re-introduced in Britain. Not for terrorism. Not for murder. But for writing a book.” Nearly 20 years after Salman Rushdie was forced into hiding following the publication of The Satanic Verses, members of the Salman Rushdie Campaign Group re-unite to talk about their fight for freedom of expression. With archive recordings of Salman Rushdie reading from The Satanic Verses. With Lisa Appignanesi, Melvyn Bragg, Frances D’Souza, Sara Khan and Caroline Michel. Full details
Presented by The British Library in partnership with The Royal Society of Literature, Free Word and Islington Library and Heritage Services[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”30 September” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]
British Library
When: Saturday 30 September, 2:30-6pm
Where: Regent Street Cinema 309 Regent Street London W1B 2UW
Tickets: From £16 via British Library
Revisit the shock of symphorophilia with Will Self and Chris Beckett, editor of a new edition of Crash. Their discussion is followed by a rare chance to see the uncut version of David Cronenberg’s 1996 film adaptation on the big screen. Cronenberg’s film of Crash (1996), which Ballard greatly admired, was awarded a Special Jury Prize at its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. The film introduced a second generation to Ballard’s unsettling vision, and sparked a censorship controversy that led to the film being banned by Westminster City Council. The film will be introduced by its producer, Jeremy Thomas. Full details
This event is presented by The British Library[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
