Warning: Undefined array key "label" in /home/jwkxumhx/public_html/newsite02may/wp-content/themes/Divi/includes/builder/class-et-builder-element.php on line 8927 Index on Censorship | A voice for the persecuted Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /home/jwkxumhx/public_html/newsite02may/wp-content/plugins/expand-divi/inc/ExpandDiviSetup.php on line 217
Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /home/jwkxumhx/public_html/newsite02may/wp-content/plugins/expand-divi/inc/ExpandDiviSetup.php on line 218
The winter 2015 issue of Index on Censorship magazine, focusing on taboos. Cover image by Ben Jennings
Join Index on Censorship for a taboo-busting evening at London’s best alternative venue – the Royal Vauxhall Tavern – to celebrate the launch of What’s the Taboo? – Index’s latest magazine featuring stories of the most controversial subjects from around the world.
With a panel that includes comedians Shazia Mirza and Grainne Maguire – we’ll be tackling tricky subjects – nudity, atheism, porn in China, mental health and racism could all be on the cards. If you want to explore and question who makes the rules when it comes to taboos – join us for what will be a dynamic evening exploring the unthinkable, the unmentionable and the unacceptable.
Following the panel event stick around for a special DJ set – Taboo Disco!
When: Wednesday 27 January 6:00pm – 11:00pm (6:00pm: Doors open & drinks; 6:30-8:00pm: What’s the Taboo?; 8:00-11pm: Taboo Disco DJ set) Where: The Royal Vauxhall Tavern, 372 Kennington Lane, London SE11 5HY (map) Tickets: Free but limited. Tickets must be booked in advance by emailing: helen@indexoncensorship.org
More on the speakers:
Shazia Mirza is an award-winning comedian and columnist. TV Appearances include: Have I Got News For You, F*** Off, I’m a Hairy Woman, NBC’s Last Comic Standing and Richard and Judy. In 2008, she was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy and won the GG2 Young Achiever of the Year Award. Her current show The Kardashians Made Me Do It is on tour at the moment.
Grainne Maguire is a stand up comedian and comedy writer. She has appeared on Stewart Lee’s Alternative Comedy Experience, Radio 4’s Now Show, Stephen K Amos’ An Idiots Guide, Front Row and Women’s Hour. Last year her campaign to tweet Taoiseach Enda Kenny her menstrual cycle to protest against Ireland’s abortion laws went viral.
Kunle Olulode is director of black campaigning infrastructure charity Voice4Change England. He is also a film historian and exhibitor and part of the BFI’s African Odyssey programming team.
Max Wind-Cowie is a writer and political consultant. He previously ran the Progressive Conservatism project at the thinktank Demos and has written for newspapers including The Guardian, and the London Evening Standard.
Before 24 November, Turkey was described in Russian news reports as a reliable partner in ambitious projects (TurkStream pipeline, construction of Sochi’s Olympic venues), a source of fruits and vegetables in a period of European food embargoes and Crimea blockade, and one of the main tourist destinations, visited annually by over three million Russians.
But after the downing of the Russian fighter jet, Turkey became the target of a new information war. Reports on estimated growth of turnover and perksat Turkish resorts in Russian state-run media were replaced by a long list of accusations.
Dmitry Kiselev, the head of a state international news agency Rossiya Segodnya and the anchorperson of a weekly programme Vesti Nedeli accused Turkey of buying oil from the Islamic State, exporting carcinogenic vegetables to Russia and trying to revive the Ottoman Empire. Vladimir Soloviev, a popular anchorperson on television channel Rossiya 1, labeled Turkey a sponsor of terrorism.
All media platforms, directly or indirectly controlled by the state, were used in the construction of an image of a new enemy. The past was revised by articles, recalling a long history of Russian-Turkish wars and crimes of the Ottoman Empire. The future was programmed by analysing chances in a possible third world war. Coverage of current affairs has become far from unbiased. News selection has been focused on demonstration of Russia’s sanctions effects and Turkey’s internal problems — oppression of journalists, a growth of child marriage and crime.
After weeks under information attack, on 3 December, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu dismissed the allegations by Russian media as “lies of this Soviet-style propaganda machine”.
“In the Cold War period, there was a Soviet propaganda machine. Every day it created different lies. Firstly, they would believe them and then expect the world to believe them. These were remembered as Pravda lies and nonsense,” he said.
Days later the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti proved his point by using a classic Soviet propaganda trick. In an op-ed that called Davutoglu “Reich Minister”, RIA Novosti compared the new enemy to the old by appealing to one of the most loathed images for all Russian people since the WWII – Nazi Germany.
This method, as with many others used against Turkey, has been tested and mastered during the Ukrainian crisis. Maidan activists, who later became a new elite of the country, were also labeled by Russian television channels as “fascist nationalists” and “extremists”. The technology of information war, the main propaganda mouthpieces and the image of the enemy remain the same.
On 7 December, Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) published the results of its survey, saying that 73% of Russian population have changed their attitude to Turkey to the worse since the downing of Su-24.
VTsiom, whose director admitted that the main clients of the center are the Kremlin and the ruling party United Russia, has been criticised for manipulation. The results of the survey are symptomatic. If the data is correct, it demonstrates that anti-Turkey propaganda works very well. If the results were rigged in favour of the Kremlin’s agenda, it shows the desirable goal of the information attack.
The day after, on 8 December, a film crew from Russia’s state television channel Rossiya 1 was detained in the Turkish province of Hatay, close to the Syrian border, and deported from the country because of “violations of regulations of work of foreign journalists in the Turkish Republic”. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation responded with harsh critiques, accusing Turkey of “a series of infringements of the rights of local and foreign journalists”.
However, in a communique by OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media on propaganda in times of conflicts, published last year in reference to a similar case related to the Ukrainian crisis, Dunja Mijatović made it clear that censoring propaganda is not the way to counter it. The best way to neutralise propaganda is balance and accuracy in broadcasting, independence of media regulators, prominence of public service broadcasting with a special mission to include all viewpoints, a clear distinction between fact and opinion in journalism and transparency of media ownership.
A similar view was expressed in a speech by Agnès Callamard, the former executive director of ARTICLE 19, delivered at UN Headquarters in December 2014.
“Hatred needs and is fed by censorship, which, in turn, is needed to nurture incitement to the actual commission of atrocity crimes. The lesson is clear: In our efforts to prevent mass atrocities, the free flow of information and freedom of expression are ultimately are our key allies – not our enemies.”
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This is an extract from an article in the Winter 2015 issue of Index on Censorship magazine. You can read the article in full here.
The streets of Dongguan in southern China have been quiet of late. In the past, China’s city of sin would hum to the sound of late-night karaoke bars offering more than just an innocent sing-along. Now these establishments have been forced underground or driven out of business entirely. Their chances of a future are not looking good. On 1 January 2016, new regulations will come into effect that dictate appropriate behaviour for the Communist Party’s 88 million members. As part of President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, the new rules explicitly ban the trading of power for sex, money for sex, and adultery – but these are the foundations of business in Dongguan.
“In Dongguan, whose reputation, if not economy, practically rests on its skin trade, I’m told by several sources that the trade remains mostly out of sight nearly two years after a television report [led to]a sweeping crackdown,” said Robert Foyle Hunwick, a writer who has visited the city many times to research his forthcoming book The Pleasure Garden: China’s Hidden World of Sex, Drugs and the Super-Rich.
Dongguan is not the only city suffering from this campaign against smut – it has been lights out for many brothels across China. Nor is this crackdown limited to China’s Communist party members, as the January 2016 regulations imply. Instead, it forms part of a broader crackdown on China’s sex industry that has been underway since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012.
Enemy number one is internet pornography. In the most recent statistics, from 2014, China accounts for up to 28% of the world’s porn consumption, taking the global lead. It’s a statistic that does not sit well with Xi. Shortly into his term in power, he launched his first anti-pornography crusade, calling for a “benign internet environment”. An attempt was made to clear China’s internet of anything verging on pornography. A similar initiative was launched this summer, following the release of a video featuring a couple having sex in a Uniqlo store. It was the usual drill: sites were blocked or removed and anyone caught facilitating the production or distribution of pornography was arrested.
American rapper Nicki Minaj. Credit: Shutterstock / Tinseltown
As far as reasons to lambast or draw controversy from the head of state in Angola go, you’d expect his taste in music to be some way down the rather long list. But this isn’t necessarily the case. Tomorrow, American rapper Nicki Minaj will sing at a Christmas festival for President José Eduardo dos Santos, in the process risking lending legitimacy to a regime criticised for widespread human rights abuses.
With no signs of cancellation, here are five ways in which free expression is curbed in dos Santos’ Angola.
1. American rappers are welcome; Angolan rappers are not
Dos Santos’ love of rap is selective. While Nicki Minaj is welcomed with open arms, Angolan rapper Luaty Beirao, also known by his stage name Ikonoklasta, arrested on charges of rebellion, will be coming to terms with his house arrest. Beiro has recently ended a five-week hunger strike.
MCK, another Angolan rapper known for his activism in Angola, was barred from leaving the country in November by the immigration services. MCK was on his way to perform at a rap festival in Brazil on the invitation of Rafael Marques de Morais when he was stopped at Luanda’s International Airport.
2. Organising a book club can get you arrested…
It isn’t just rap the country’s leaders take aim at, but literature too. In June, 17 Angolan activists including Ikonoklasta were arrested and later put on trial on accusations of planning a rebellion against the country’s government. The reason for their arrest was a book club meeting in which they discussed peaceful protest and Gene Sharp’s book From Dictatorship to Democracy. Protest and democracy are topics that are out of bounds in dos Santos’ Angola, it would seem.
A new documentary called It Is Forbidden to Talk tells the story of those arrested. During the 25 days it took to shoot the film, its creators were also targeted and attacked by Angolan authorities, and had to seek protection from the Brazilian embassy.
3. …writing books can too
If reading subversive literature can land you in trouble, you better believe writing it can too. In May 2015, Angolan investigative journalist and Index on Censorship award-winner Rafael Marques de Morais was handed down a six-month suspended sentence in Luanda. His crime was to write about the killings and torture that takes place in Angola’s diamond fields.
4. Going to a non-official church could mean death
On 16 April, police and defence forces killed scores of pilgrims on Mount Sumi, in Angola’s central highlands, to avenge the deaths of eight police officers, allegedly at the hands of members of a Christian sect known as the Seventh Day in the Light of the World. The tragedy was not widely reported and underscores the extent of government control of the flow of information in Angola.
5. Planning a peaceful protest lands you a six year sentence
In September 2015, human rights activist Jose Marcos Mavungo was given a six-year prison sentence for attempting to hold a peaceful protest on 14 March. Mavungo is a former member of Mpalabanda, a group that was banned after it highlighted rights abuses by security forces in the province. Mavungo’s jailing was a travesty of justice and shows the blatant disregard for basic human rights in Angola.
Documentary It Is Forbidden to Talk in Angola tells the story of the 15 young adults who were accused of planning a rebellion against the government of José Eduardo Dos Santos for taking part in a book club. It is released for the first time with English subtitles by Index in conjunction with Brazil’s award-winning investigative journalists Agencia Publica.
Filmed over 25 days by award-winning journalists Natalia Viana and Eliza Capai from Agencia Publica, It Is Forbidden to Talk in Angola tells the story of the young rappers and activists who are being tried for reading a book by US Nobel Prize nominee Gene Sharp, called From Dictatorship to Democracy, A Conceptual Framework for Liberation.
The activists are facing trial on charges of “preparing acts of rebellion and plotting against the president and state institutions”, which are considered crimes against the security of the Angolan state. If found guilty they could face heavy prison sentences of up to 12 years. Some of the 15 jailed activists were kept in pre-trial detention for 177 days, exceeding the 90 days allowed by Angolan law.
The activists were told on 15 December that they would be sent home and placed under house arrest, according to MakaAngola.org.
Some of the jailed activists went on hunger strike to protest their arrest and detention. Rapper Henrique Luaty Beirão ended his hunger strike on October 27, after 36 days, following requests by his family and friends. He remains in serious condition.
Viana and Capai met several members of Central Angola, a community journalist and activist website whose members have received threats, have been beaten and are constantly surveilled by the security services of the Angolan government. Laurinda Gouveia, a 26-year old philosophy student, told the interviewers how she was beaten with metal bars for two hours in November 2014 for filming a small protest against the government.
“I felt their anger when the police beat me up. They kept saying: ‘You shouldn’t get involved in this, you are a woman, you should think about having a husband and a family… By the way we are beating you up, you will not be able to have babies’,” Gouveia told the journalists.
Following the interview, Gouveia was included in the state prosecutor’s investigation and is now on trial with her colleagues.
Viana and Capai also interviewed rapper Beirão’s family, after which the two journalists were targeted by Angolan authorities. Five days later, while in a public square during an event to mark the president’s birthday, the journalists said they were attacked by two members of the security forces. Disguised as “thieves”, the individuals stole the journalists’ equipment. Shaken, the two sought protection from the Brazilian embassy.
It Is Forbidden to Talk in Angola is a first-hand account of how Dos Santos’ regime works to intimidate anyone who questions his power, and it is released here for the first time with English subtitles.
Agencia Publica is a non-profit investigative journalism organisation that seeks to provide non-partisan reporting in the public interest on Brazilian and Latin American issues.
Index on Censorship strongly condemns the murder of Ahmed Mohamed al-Mousa, a member of the news website and campaigning organisation Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS).
A non-partisan and independent media collective who report on atrocities perpetrated against the civilian population of Raqqa, the group collected an international press freedom award just last month for their work. Al-Mousa was assassinated by a group of unknown masked men on the same day as Index announced his organisation had been long-listed for Index on Censorship’s 2016 Freedom of Expression Awards.
“In their brave pursuit of the truth and their remarkable commitment to the people of Raqqa, RBSS are shining examples to us all. An idea cannot be lost to violence and intimidation and we stand side-by-side with RBSS and its courageous citizen journalists in their refusal to be silenced,” said Index CEO Jodie Ginsberg.
In October 2015, journalist Ibrahim Abd al-Qader was killed alongside Fares Hamadi in Urfa, southeastern Turkey with a video since surfacing that claims they were murdered to warn all “apostates [that] they will be slaughtered silently”.
Fifty years ago, Chilean author Ariel Dorfman wrote down the seed of a story, which he then lost in his years of exile during General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Recently he revisited the idea and realised how to develop it into his new short story, All I Ever Have, which is published for the first time in the latest Index on Censorship magazine. Vicky Baker speaks to him about its key theme of music as resistance
Writer Ariel Dorfman remembers the exact moment the idea first came to him for his latest short story, All I Ever Have. It was 7 January 1966, his wedding day. As dawn broke over Chile, an image came into his mind of a man in a military band, playing a defiant, rebellious song on his trumpet. Just seven years later General Augusto Pinochet would seize power.
“Perhaps because I was so full of the music of the day, the positive songs of betrothal, that counter-image visited me that morning,” Dorfman said from his current home in the USA, where he is soon to celebrate his golden wedding anniversary with his wife, Angelica. The words he hastily scribbled down that morning were lost in Chile’s 1973 coup, when he was forced into exile, having supported the ousted president Salvador Allende and worked as his cultural adviser.
But the image of the lone musician never went away. “Only recently, I understood how to write it,” he said. “It was not only about the man who plays the trumpet but about what stays behind him, how the singer may die but not the song.”
Dorfman has always been interested in music as a form of resistance. He remembers Ode to Joy, from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, being sung in the streets of Santiago as a protest against Pinochet. Groups would assemble outside prisons to sing over the walls, and inmates who survived the torture there later spoke of the strength it gave them. Dorfman’s 1990 play Death and the Maiden, which was first published in English in Index on Censorship magazine, tells of a sadistic doctor who rapes a political prisoner to the sound of Schubert’s String Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, known as Death and the Maiden.
“Death and the Maiden echoes the horror that the commanders of Nazi concentration camps adored Beethoven,” he said. “I have been reflecting for a long time on music as a meeting place with those who are our adversaries and even enemies. That music is a territory that we share with many whose views we disagree with.”
In All I Ever Have, one of the most powerful moments comes when the soldier quietly whispers “You are not alone” to the dissenting trumpeter, just out of earshot of the anonymous general. Dorfman said the moment was informed by his years writing about human rights and talking with victims of torture. “I am always moved by a moment – an almost invariable moment – when each of them [the victims] says that, in jail, or after having been tormented, they realise they are not alone, not only because there are other prisoners nearby, but because the guards suddenly change their attitude, the guards become wary, as if they know they are being watched. This solidarity is almost like a physical wave that can be felt by those in need. It’s as if we were sending songs to the injured and insulted of the world, and they hear the songs, they really do.”
You can read the Ariel Dorfman’s new short story, All I Ever Have, in the latest Index on Censorship magazine. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship fight for free expression worldwide. Order your copy here, or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions (just £18 for the year).
You can also find Index on Censorships Music as Resistance playlist here.
Ariel Dorfman’s latest novel in Spanish, Allegro, is narrated by Mozart in three crucial moments of his life (Editorial Stella Maris, November 2015)
Music has long been used as a form of resistance, from civil rights movements to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine, focusing on taboos and the breaking down of social barriers, features an exclusive new short story by Ariel Dorfman about a military trumpeter who plays a defiant, rebellious song on his instrument.
In honour of the story, we have compiled a playlist of music that has been used as protest and resistance from all over the world. The influence of these songs show just how powerful music can be as a form of rebellion.
Many artists on the list have been forced into exile or censored. Index on Censorship has teamed up with the award-winning makers of the documentary They Will Have To Kill Us First to launch the Music in Exile Fund, which will help support musicians in similar situations.
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony – Ode to Joy
Ode to Joy has been adopted by many protest movements around the world. Most notably the song was played on the streets of Chile in resistance to the Pinochet dictatorship. Demonstrators gathered outside prisons singing Ode to Joy, giving strength to the prisoners who suffered torture there at the hands of the regime.
Joan Baez – We Shall Overcome
We Shall Overcome is a key protest song of the civil rights movement. The song, which has been covered by various artists, was first used in 1945 by tobacco workers fighting for better pay in Charleston, South Carolina. The song, with its message of solidarity and hope, has been used in many protests around the world, not least in the 1950s and 1960s by activists in the American civil rights movement.
Vuyisile Mini – Ndodemnyama we Verwoerd
Ndodemnyama we Verwoerd (Watch Out, Verwoerd) is one of the most well-known songs in South Africa due to its association with the campaign against apartheid. Hendrik Verwoerd, who served as prime minister of South Africa until his assassination in 1966, became known as the “architect of apartheid” for his role in implementing the system of racial segregation. Unsurprisingly, he became the subject of many protest songs, including Ndodemnyama we Verwoerd by Vuyisile Mini. Mini became one of the most powerful organisers of the resistance, earning himself the moniker the “organiser of unorganised”. He was sentenced to death in 1964 on charges of sabotage and political crimes and is said to have sung the song while being led to the gallows.
November 2015 marked the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. Many songs have been associated with the demise of the wall, which divided Berlin for nearly three decades, particularly Wind of Change by German heavy metal band The Scorpions. The song, one of peace and hope, was released a few months after the wall was torn down and became one of the top-selling singles of 1991. The music video to Wind of Change shows footage of the wall being removed.
Songhoy Blues – Al Hassidi Terei
The four members of Songhoy Blues met as refugees after being forced into exile by Muslim extremists who banned all music in Mali in 2012. In defiance of the extremists, they formed the desert blues band, refusing to have music taken away from them. They have since gone on to work with Damon Albarn of Blur and Nick Zimmer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, been on an international tour and were nominees for the arts category of the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards 2014.
Ramy Essam – Irhal
Irhal became known as the anthem of Egypt’s uprising against President Mubarak’s after singer Ramy Essam performed the song during the 2011 protests in Tahrir Square. Irhal, which urges the president to resign, became internationally known after Essam’s performance was posted on YouTube during the protests. After the revolution, Essam returned to Tahrir Square where he was arrested and tortured by the military council. He was offered safe city residence in Sweden following his arrest and has been living there since 2014.
Tropicália/Gilberto Gil – Miserere Nóbis
The Tropicália movement is a brief artistic movement that took place in Brazil in the 1960s. During the movement, which was co-founded by Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, musicians expressed their resistance to the country’s military dictatorship through their music and their socially and politically charged lyrics. The movement only lasted around a year before being suppressed by the military regime. Gil and Veloso were arrested in 1969 and forced to live in exile in London for the political content of their work but returned to Brazil in 1972.
Billie Holiday – Strange Fruit
Strange Fruit, most famously performed by Billie Holiday, protests American racism and the lynching of African Americans. The song began as a poem written by teacher Abel Meeropol published in 1937; Who then set it to music and performed it as a protest song at various venues in New York in the late 1930s along with his wife and the singer Laura Duncan.
Chieftains and Sinead O’Connor – Foggy Dew
Foggy Dew is the name of several old Irish ballad. This version of the song chronicles the Easter Rising of 1916 in Dublin when Irishmen fought for the cause of Irish independence. During World War I, thousands of Irishmen served in the British forces. Many Irish nationalists felt they should have stayed in Ireland and fought for Irish independence, which is reflected in the song.
Killing in the Name – Rage Against The Machine
American rap-metal band Rage Against the Machine released Killing in the Name in 1992, six months after the Los Angeles riots, which were triggered after four white police officers were acquitted of beating black motorist Rodney King. The song is institutional racism and police brutality. Known for its excessive use of expletives, Killing in the Name originally received little air time.
Joe Strummer (The Clash) mural, London. Credit: Flickr / Matt Brown
The Clash – White Riot
When The Clash released White Riot, many people thought it was a song advocating some kind of race war. This couldn’t be further from the truth. With the lyrics, Joe Strummer was appealing to white youths to find a worthy cause to fight (or riot) for, just as many black youths had in the UK at the time. At its heart, it is a song about class and race.
Bob Marley – Get Up, Stand Up
Bob Marley is renowned for his songs about peace, love and resistance. With Get Up, Stand Up being one of his most well-known protest songs. Marley wrote the song with fellow Jamaican musician Peter Tosh as a challenge to oppression. The song is famed for the lyrics: “You can fool some people sometimes but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”
Pete Seeger – Joe Hill
Joe Hill was a miner, songwriter and union organiser for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Hill was executed in America in 1915 following a controversial trial in which he was found guilty of the murders of John G Morrison and his son Arling. Hill refused to testify at his trial believing he would be worth more to the labour movement as a dead martyr than alive. After his death, Hill was the subject of songs by various artists, including Paul Robeson, Joan Baez and Pete Seeger.
Sam Cooke – A Change Is Gonna Come
A Change Is Gonna Come has been covered by various artist but was originally written by Sam Cooke. The song is another civil rights anthem concerning the struggles of African Americans during the 1960s. Cooke was said to have been inspired to write to song by various events in his life, predominantly being turned away from a “whites only” hotel. The singer was shot and killed just before the song was due to be released as a single in 1964.
Tinariwen – Lulla
Tinariwen are made up of musicians from the Tuareg community, whose music reflects the issues faced by the Tuareg people. The musicians received military training when they were living in exile in Libya in the 1980s, and many of the members of Tinariwen were rebel fighters in the 1990 revolt against the Malian government. In 1991, the collective, who’s name translates to “the people of the desert”, left the military to focus on music on a full-time basis.
Eagles of Death Metal – People Have the Power
On 8 December, Eagles of Death Metal joined U2 on stage in Paris, just three weeks after Muslim extremists launched an attack at their concert at the Bataclan Theatre, killing 89 people, plus 41 in two other attacks. Together the bands performed a cover of Patti Smith’s People Have the Power, showing bravery and resistance against the terrorists who left the city in fear.
You can read the Ariel Dorfman’s new short story, All I Ever Have, about music as a form of resistance in the latest Index on Censorship magazine. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship fight for free expression worldwide. Order your copy here, or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions (just £18 for the year).
A graffiti artist who paints murals in war-torn Yemen, a jailed Bahraini academic and the Ethiopia’s Zone 9 bloggers are among those honoured in this year’s #Index100 list of global free expression heroes.
Selected from public nominations from around the world, the #Index100 highlights champions against censorship and those who fight for free expression against the odds in the fields of arts, journalism, activism and technology and whose work had a marked impact in 2015.
Those on the long list include Chinese human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, Angolan journalist Sedrick de Carvalho, website Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently and refugee arts venue Good Chance Calais. The #Index100 includes nominees from 53 countries ranging from Azerbaijan to China to El Salvador and Zambia, and who were selected from around 500 public nominations.
“The individuals and organisations listed in the #Index100 demonstrate courage, creativity and determination in tackling threats to censorship in every corner of globe. They are a testament to the universal value of free expression. Without their efforts in the face of huge obstacles, often under violent harassment, the world would be a darker place,” Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg said.
Those in the #Index100 form the long list for the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards to be presented in April. Now in their 16th year, the awards recognise artists, journalists and campaigners who have had a marked impact in tackling censorship, or in defending free expression, in the past year. Previous winners include Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, Argentina-born conductor Daniel Barenboim and Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat.
A shortlist will be announced in January 2016 and winners then selected by an international panel of judges. This year’s judges include Nobel Prize winning author Wole Soyinka, classical pianist James Rhodes and award-winning journalist María Teresa Ronderos. Other judges include Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, tech “queen of startups” Bindi Karia and human rights lawyer Kirsty Brimelow QC.
The winners will be announced on 13 April at a gala ceremony at London’s Unicorn Theatre.
The awards are distinctive in attempting to identify individuals whose work might be little acknowledged outside their own communities. Judges place particular emphasis on the impact that the awards and the Index fellowship can have on winners in enhancing their security, magnifying the impact of their work or increasing their sustainability. Winners become Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards Fellows and are given support for the year after their fellowship on one aspect of their work.
“The award ceremony was aired by all community radios in northern Kenya and reached many people. I am happy because it will give women courage to stand up for their rights,” said 2015’s winner of the Index campaigning award, Amran Abdundi, a women’s rights activist working on the treacherous border between Somalia and Kenya.
Each member of the long list is shown on an interactive map on the Index website where people can find out more about their work. This is the first time Index has published the long list for the awards.
Bartomeu Marí at the charity launch of a calander at the MACBA, from which he controversially resigned earlier this year. Credit: Flickr/Mossos. Generalitat de Catalunya
The South Korean art community has released a statement requesting that the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) implement reforms to protect artistic freedom ahead of the appointment of Bartomeu Marí as director of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA).
The decision to appoint Marí has been met with objections due to his controversial resignation as director of the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA) in March, after he was accused of attempting to have a sculptor removed from an exhibition called La Bestia y el Soberano (The Beast and the Sovereign).
The satirical sculpture by Ines Doujak, titled Not Dressed for Conquering, featured former Spanish King Juan Carlos and Bolivian labour leader and feminist Domitila Chúngara involved in a sexual act with a dog on a bed of SS helmets. The exhibition went ahead despite Marí’s alleged attempts to cancel the whole exhibition when curators refused to remove the sculptor, leading to him firing two curators and his own resignation.
The Korean art community released their statement in November when Marí was the leading candidate for the position. They stated: “We demand that both the MMCA and its overseeing body, the MCST, offer plausible explanations regarding the appointment of the new MMCA director and institute fully fledged reforms to protect and foster artistic freedom so they may perform the duties they were originally intended as proponents of the arts.”
They also used the statement, which has been signed by nearly 800 artists, to highlight their concerns about the South Korean government’s mounting censorship of and bureaucratic restrictions on artistic freedom. They state: “We strongly oppose all variants of censorship and surveillance that harm the autonomy of art, and we pledge multifaceted, continued efforts to recover the autonomy and independence of art.”
Marí, who is also currently the president of the International Committee for Museums and collections of Modern Art (CiMAM), was officially appointed as director on 2 December leading the group to release a new statement again asking the newly appointed director and the MCST institute reforms protecting artistic freedom, which would be submitted to the culture minister and director on his appointment today.
The new director took nearly two weeks to respond to the complaints by stating he opposes censorship of any kind. He told a press conference in Seoul: “I stand against all kinds of censorship, and I support the freedom of expression. These are my values.”
He added: “I am sad there are artists who opposed my nomination. But there are many who support me. I hope I can be judged by what I do here, not by what some people say happened in the past.”
Pressure is mounting on journalists in Germany from right-wing groups that intimidate, insult and sometimes physically assault them, according to an analysis of reports filed to Index on Censorship’s project Mapping Media Freedom. In 2015 there were 29 attacks on media in Germany, 12 of those incidents were connected with the far right.
Starting in autumn 2014, the anti-immigrant, right-wing extremist group PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident) began as a protest movement that a year later still holds large demonstrations in cities around the country. PEGIDA, along with the populist right-wing political party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and similar extremist splinter groups frequently hold rallies that have become sites of aggression and violence against journalists reporting on them.
In 2014, Germany’s annual prize for Un-word of the Year for the most offensive new or recently popularised term went to “Lügenpresse” (lying press), a motto chanted at protests to smear journalists. Angry demonstrators call journalists part of a biased political elite. When journalists try to interview rally participants, they’re often turned away, yelled at or attacked.
“Index is extremely disturbed by the continuous attacks on journalists by right-wing protesters in Germany,” said Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project officer, Hannah Machlin. “Media workers have been repeatedly assaulted and insulted in their line of work and these aggressions must be addressed by public officials in order to preserve press freedom in the country.”
Below are five recent stand-out cases of right-wing extremist intimidation of journalists.
On 30 October, Helmut Schümann, a columnist for the Berlin daily newspaper Tagesspiegel, was attacked by several assailants in front of his apartment building in the city’s Charlottenburg neighbourhood. An attacker asked “Are you Schümann for Tagesspiegel?” and then called him a “left-wing pig”.
On the day before the assault, Schümann had published an article about the rise in xenophobia coming out of right-wing extremist groups, headlined: Is that still our country?
Schümann filed a complaint of physical assault and insult with Berlin police. Following the attack, he said: “I’ll keep running my column, positioning myself and won’t let myself be intimidated.”
At a PEGIDA rally in Dresden on 19 October, several journalists were physically attacked. The demonstration was held to mark the one-year anniversary of the protest group and attracted thousands of people.
A reporter for German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle, Jaafar Abdul Karim, was surrounded by protestors while filming with his crew. He was prevented from filming and called a racial slur before being hit in the neck. His attacker ran away.
Jose Sequeira, a cameraman for the Russian TV channel Ruptly, had his gear thrown to the ground by protesters. He was then beaten in the back and head by a group of six or seven men.
At the same protest, an employee of German public radio station Deutschlandradio was attacked by a drunk protestor and mildly injured.
3. Belittling the “lying press”
Right-wing attacks against media workers include insults, intimidation and physical attacks
Police did not immediately identify a right-wing motive behind the assault while they looked for suspects.
4. Physical assault on cameraman
Aggressive protesters at another large PEGIDA rally on 23 November physically assaulted a cameraman who was filming the protest with a Russian TV crew. The 43-year-old suffered non-serious injuries and was brought to a nearby hospital.
Police arrested one 28-year-old suspect in connection to the attack.
Dresden, where PEGIDA began, was host to several shameful attacks against journalists in 2015. On 28 September, one reporter from state public broadcaster Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) was kicked and another from the newspaper Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten was punched in the face while covering a large rally organised by the extremist group.
The MDR broadcast journalist reported after the assault that he was standing with colleagues adjusting his camera when he was approached from behind by a protester. When the journalists ignored the man’s questions, several other demonstrators joined in and began attacked the reporter.
Other protesters tried to grab the camera out of the hands of the Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten reporter and then punched him in the face.
As with many of the assault cases reported from protests this year, the assailants managed to escape into the crowd before police appeared at the scene.
Mapping Media Freedom
Click on the bubbles to view reports or double-click to zoom in on specific regions. The full site can be accessed at https://mappingmediafreedom.org/
Femen activists demonstrate in front of the Saudi Arabian embassy in Berlin. Photo: Florian Schuh/dpa/Alamy Live News
Societies often endanger lives by creating taboos, rather than letting citizens openly discuss stigmas and beliefs. Index on Censorship magazine editor Rachael Jolley introduces our taboo-themed issue, which looks at no-go subjects worldwide, from abortion and mental health to the Holocaust and homosexuality
Teenager Rahenaz Sayed was told by her family not to sit on a bed, not to touch her hair oil and not to pray during her period.
Sayed, now 20, has started to go into schools in Mumbra, near Mumbai, along with two other young women, to discuss the taboos around menstruation, according to India’s Hindustan Times.
Traditionally, girls here didn’t talk to their mothers about getting their periods, or pain that they might be experiencing. This was something you were not expected to discuss, better, in fact, to pretend that it just wasn’t happening.
These restrictions were not open to challenge, until now. “We thought, ‘Why not talk of an issue which women don’t speak about and suffer silently?’ We suffered due to silences surrounding menstruation and didn’t want others to go through the same,” Mubhashirin Naik, one of the women starting to go into schools to talk about these long-held practices, told the newspaper.
They had been told that these “rules” came from the scriptures, but when they read those same passages themselves they found that while they spoke about women resting during menstruation nothing was written about banning them from prayer.
Taboos, subjects that are off limits to argument, are different in every country around the world. But this story shows why the act of not allowing a group of people to discuss a tradition or convention can injure society. Why should girls be treated like outcasts once a month and banned from doing the most normal things in life? The answer is because somehow this has become accepted and challenges frowned upon.
Once these three young women began to see that the structures they were being told to follow were nonsensical (they were not able to ask for painkillers, for instance), they had the strength to stand up against them. And by doing so, they will have begun to change the dynamic. No doubt, other women will also be encouraged to question the “rules”. And that’s how societies adapt over time, by questioning power.
In El Salvador, where abortion is illegal under any circumstance, even where the pregnant woman could die, the way that the law is enforced means that women who suffer a miscarriage can wake up with a police officer standing next to them.
The abortion law is so draconian that women who lose their baby through illness can find themselves charged with man- slaughter. Under the ferocity of this law, many women are too frightened to talk to anyone about any concerns they might have about pregnancy, let alone discuss abortion (more on this in the latest issue). In 2008 a 25-year-old woman, Guadalope Vásquez, was sentenced under the abortion law to a 30-year sentence after suffering a miscarriage. Under these conditions, women are often too frightened to discuss anything about health complications during their pregnancy with a doctor, or anyone else. Lives will be put at risk.
Throughout history, taboos have been established to limit and control society, and help to retain a status quo. “Best not mention it” is the nodded instruction to put something off limits in the family living room. In the 20th century, in the UK, societal disapproval would be rained down on those who ate something other than fish on Fridays, or children who played outside on a Sunday, or an adult who didn’t wear a hat to church. And in the US today the Westboro Baptist Church tells its female followers that it is forbidden for them to cut their hair. But why? Who decided these were the rules, and how do they change?
Sometimes it takes a generational shift, such as we have seen in Ireland, with the 62% vote to change the law to allow same-sex marriage. There’s a tipping point when a body of resistance builds up to such a point that the dam breaks and the public suddenly demands another way is found, and an older way is discarded.
But societal disapproval can be fierce and individuals who deviate from “the normal” can also find themselves isolated and alone, as Palestinian academic Mohammed Dajani Daoudi discovered when he took a group of his students to Auschwitz to learn about the Holocaust (read his story in the magazine). Dajani felt it was important for his university students to learn about this period of history. He saw his duty as one of teaching about,
not ignoring, a particular piece of history. Others saw it as the action of a traitor, accusing him of ignoring the suffering of Palestinians. He knew he was tackling a taboo subject, but hadn’t expected the reaction to the visit to be so violent. Afterwards he received death threats, and has now moved his family to Washington DC, partly for safety reasons.
Societies often endanger lives by creating taboos, rather than letting citizens openly discuss stigmas and beliefs. Remember the days when people would fear being judged for admitting they had cancer and would not mention it in public? Alastair Campbell does, and draws parallels to attitudes to mental illness today. Such beliefs can lead to people failing to talk to doctors about symptoms because of embarrassment, and potentially leaving diagnosis too late. These societal barriers are often out-of-date, sometimes stemming from archaic religious beliefs, or from traditions that have been left unchallenged. But still today an action that conflicts with expected behaviour can result in damage to an individual. The Encyclopedia Britannica states: “Generally, the prohibition that is inherent in a taboo includes the idea that its breach or defiance will be followed by some kind of trouble to the offender, such as lack of success in hunting or fishing, sickness, miscarriage, or death.” Living in fear of breaching such a “rule” can leave people afraid to dispute or argue for a sensible alternative.
To challenge a famous phrase from a WWI poster, talk doesn’t cost lives, but not talking certainly can.
Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship fight for free expression worldwide. Order your copy here, or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions (just £18 for the year).
Warning: Attempt to read property "term_id" on null in /home/jwkxumhx/public_html/newsite02may/wp-content/plugins/divi-overlays/divi-overlays.php on line 2979
Warning: Attempt to read property "url" on bool in /home/jwkxumhx/public_html/newsite02may/wp-content/plugins/divi-overlays/divi-overlays.php on line 2990
Warning: Undefined variable $separator_content in /home/jwkxumhx/public_html/newsite02may/wp-content/plugins/exclusive-divi/includes/modules/Divider/Divider.php on line 340
We are currently working hard to ensure that our new website is in perfect working order so we can continue to bring you the latest news, views and content from around the world. You may find that some pages are currently offline or that you are unable to find something that you are looking for. This is only temporary - and we apologise for any convenience this may cause.
Please consider subscribing to our weekly newsletter below, so that you are among the first to hear from our contributors and don't miss anything in future.
Thanks for your understanding.
?
STAY INFORMED.
Be the first to hear from uncensored writers and artists
For over 50 years, Index has published work by censored writers and artists. Subscribe to our email newsletter to get regular updates from our incredible contributors.
Warning: Undefined variable $separator_content in /home/jwkxumhx/public_html/newsite02may/wp-content/plugins/exclusive-divi/includes/modules/Divider/Divider.php on line 340
Be the first to hear from uncensored writers and artists
For over 50 years, Index has published work by censored writers and artists. Subscribe to our email newsletter to get regular updates from our incredible contributors.
?
SUPPORT OUR WORK
Index on Censorship’s work is only possible because of donations from people like you.
Please consider chipping in to help us give a voice to the voiceless:
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Shazia Mirza is an award-winning comedian and columnist. TV Appearances include: Have I Got News For You, F*** Off, I’m a Hairy Woman, NBC’s Last Comic Standing and Richard and Judy. In 2008, she was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy and won the GG2 Young Achiever of the Year Award. Her current show The Kardashians Made Me Do It is on tour at the moment.
Grainne Maguire is a stand up comedian and comedy writer. She has appeared on Stewart Lee’s Alternative Comedy Experience, Radio 4’s Now Show, Stephen K Amos’ An Idiots Guide, Front Row and Women’s Hour. Last year her campaign to tweet Taoiseach Enda Kenny her menstrual cycle to protest against Ireland’s abortion laws went viral.
