12 Aug 18 | Index in the Press
Campaigners from Index on Censorship have sent books from left-wing bookshop Bookmarks to three UKIP members involved in a protest there at the weekend. Read the full article.
11 Aug 18 | Index in the Press
To convey the support for Shahidul Alam, the detained photojournalist and activist, Index on Censorship and twenty-three other globally renowned civil society organisations have signed a petition calling immediate unconditional release and dropping of all the allegations. Since being taken into custody, Alam has been denied access to his lawyers, and was reportedly beaten and is in poor health. Authorities initially agreed that Alam would be taken to hospital for medical assistance, but after a brief visit on 8 August, he has been returned to detention. Read the full article
10 Aug 18 | Campaigns -- Featured, Statements
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On 6 August 2018, Bangladeshi photojournalist Shahidul Alam was arrested and detained for allegedly “making provocative comments”, and “giving false information” to media, contrary to the Information Communications Technology Act (ICT Act). He remains in detention. Since being taken into custody, Alam has been denied access to his lawyers, and was reportedly beaten and is in poor health. Authorities initially agreed that Alam would be taken to hospital for medical assistance, but after a brief visit on 8 August he has been returned to detention. We, the undersigned civil society organisations, call for Shahidul Alam’s immediate and unconditional release, that all allegations against him be dropped, and that he receive proper medical care.
63-year old Alam was arrested at his home in Dhaka on the evening of 5 August 2018 and brought into police custody a few hours after he posted a video on Facebook and participated in an interview with Al Jazeera about the ongoing road safety protests in Dhaka, where more than 40 journalists and media workers have been injured by groups of armed men.
Alam is accused of violations under Section 57 of the Information Communications Technology Act. However, journalists and rights activists have consistently raised concerns that the law is incompatible with international human rights standards, including Bangladesh’s international obligations under Article 19 of the ICCPR, due to its broad powers to restrict online expression. It has been widely applied against journalists and ordinary citizens who have been arrested, prosecuted and jailed solely for their expression.
On 9 August, a petition by Alam’s lawyers was heard at the High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh demanding they have access to Alam, that he be brought before the court and seeking a court order that he is not subjected to ill-treatment while in custody. The High Court ordered the Home Secretary of the Government of Bangladesh to “arrange medical treatment” for Alam in accordance with Section 2(6) of the Torture and Custodial Death Prevention Act 2013, to make a full medical assessment for ill-treatment, and to report to the court by 13 August 2018.
ARTICLE 19 and the undersigned national and international human rights organisations call for Shahidul Alam’s immediate and unconditional release, and that all allegations against him be dropped as they represent a blatant violation of his right to freedom of expression. We further urge the Ministry of Home Affairs to immediately comply with the court’s order and grant Alam proper medical assistance without delay.
We remain deeply concerned by the use of laws such as the ICT Act in Bangladesh to legally harass journalists and media workers and violate the right to freedom of expression, and call for its urgent repeal.
Signed
ARTICLE 19
Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK)
Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF)
Bandhu Social Welfare Society (BSWF)
Bangladesh Adivasi Forum
Bangladesh Dalit and Excluded Rights Movements (BDERM)
Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council (BHBCUC)
Bangladesh Mahila Parishad (BMP)
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
German Section of Amnesty International
Sramik Nirapotta Forum (SNF)
Boys of Bangladesh (BOB)
Friends Association for Integrated Revolution (FAIR)
International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX)
Index on Censorship
Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF)
National Alliance of Disabled Peoples Organizations
Nijera Kori
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
Steps Towards Development
Transparency International, Bangladesh (TIB)
Nagorik Uddyog
Open Society Foundations Program on Independent Journalism
Jagriti Prokashoni[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1533911170502-46b50a00-93a8-2″ taxonomies=”99″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
09 Aug 18 | Events
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”102120″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Join Authors’ Club, Media Diversified, Index on Censorship, and the Jhalak Prize for a discussion of the ways in which dissenting voices are structurally silenced – and the many ways to resist. Sunny Singh (author and Jhalak Prize co-founder), Sarah Shaffi (literary editor and journalist), Catherine Johnson (author and Jhalak Prize inaugural judge) and Jamilah Ahmed (author and literary agent) will share their own experiences on how institutions and structures operate in subtle legal ways to silence voices that are considered discomfiting, challenging and dangerous. They will also reflect on the ways in which contemporary writing and publishing continue to find means of resisting such unofficial forms of censorship.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”101907″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.bannedbooksweek.org.uk”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]In partnership with[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”102333″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://mediadiversified.org/about-us/jhalak-prize/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”102334″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://www.authorsclub.co.uk/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”102335″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://mediadiversified.org/”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
When: Friday 28 September, 7-9pm
Where: Lady Violet Room, National Liberal Club, Whitehall Place SW1A 2HE (Directions)
Tickets: Free. Registration required via Eventbrite
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09 Aug 18 | Events
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”102094″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]Join London’s free-thinking comedy club, Comedy Unleashed, for an evening of uncensored comedy featuring:
Shappi Khorsandi
Shappi came 11th in last year’s ‘I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!’. But she’s also done some other things, which include Presidency of the Humanist Association, writing a novel, defending everyone’s right to free speech and fleeing the Iranian Islamic revolution as a child.
You already know that Shappi is a top comedian and a beautiful person. She’s great, come and see her in ‘unleashed mode’.
People Like Us
Julie Burchill and Jane Robin’s hilarious play about the chattering classes and their Brexit horror hits London theatreland in October. We will be treated to a live preview from the play.
Jay Handley
Jay pokes fun at unthinking orthodoxies and unpicks liberal pretensions. He was a hit at a previous Comedy Unleashed gig and, in response to many requests, we have given Jay a longer slot. Here’s a taster
Godfrey Elfwick Memorial Service, performed by Andrew Doyle
Elfwick was a brilliant Twitter caricature of the excesses of the liberal-left. He, or rather xe, identified as a ‘genderqueer Muslim atheist’ who was ‘born white in the #WrongSkin’. For some, the image of Godfrey on the Women’s March in a full burka and pink pussy that was a step too far. Godfrey has been banned by Twitter. This is our memorial to his life.
Red Richardson
Red Richardson sees Red.
Dan Evans – Compere
Dan is an overgrown kid who enjoys losing himself in surrealism. He won’t give you his life story or deliver well-rehearsed observational stories. Thank god for that.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
When: Tuesday 11 September 2018, 7:30-10pm
Where: Backyard Comedy Club, 231 Cambridge Heath Road, London, E2 0EL (directions)
Tickets: £9-17
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]In partnership with[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_single_image image=”102326″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://comedyunleashed.co.uk/”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]
09 Aug 18 | Index in the Press
Index on Censorship gives books promoting tolerance to two men suspended from party after attack on Bookmarks in London. Read the full article.
09 Aug 18 | Index in the Press
Index on Censorship is sending political party UKIP a bundle of books, including The Handmaid’s Tale and a copy of the Quran, in the hope it will forward them on to those of its members involved in Saturday’s attack on Bookmarks bookshop. Read the full article.
09 Aug 18 | News and features, Press Releases, Volume 46.04 Winter 2017 Extras
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”96746″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship is honoured to announce that our magazine has won an ‘Award of Excellence’ in the ‘Magazines, Journals & Tabloids – Writing (entire issue)’ category for the Awards for Publication Excellence (APEX). The award was given to our winter 2017 issue What price protest? How the right to assembly is under threat.
This is the second year Index on Censorship has won an APEX award. Last year Index won a Grand Award in the same category for our issue Truth in danger, danger in truth: Journalists under fire and under pressure.
APEX Awards are based on excellence in graphic design, editorial content and overall communications excellence. This year there were over 1,400 entries, with competition being “exceptionally intense”, the APEX site noted. “Each year, the quality of entries increases. Overall, this year’s entries displayed an exceptional level of quality,” it said.
“We are thrilled to have received this award for a second year in a row. As the winning issue highlighted, the right to protest is under threat throughout the globe. We hope awards like this will raise awareness of this important issue, while also acknowledging the excellent standard of journalism and writing, design and hard work that goes into producing the magazine,” Jemimah Steinfeld, deputy editor of Index on Censorship magazine, said.
The protest issue, which came out at the end of 2017, considered the relevance of the 1968 protests 50 years on. It looked at the areas where the 1968 protests had been concentrated, such as Prague and Paris, and addressed what relevance these protests still have today. It also looked at the current state of protest across the globe. Particularly notable articles included one from the UK-based writer Sally Gimson about how central areas in English cities are being privatised and with that the right to protest is under threat, and an article from Wael Eskander, an Egyptian journalist, about witnessing the dangers and now demise of protest in his country over the past few years. There were also contributions from Micah White, one of the co-founders of the Occupy movement, and an interview with the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who spoke about the importance of protest in relation to his wife’s imprisonment.
For more information on the protest issue click here. For more information on the APEX awards click here: http://apexawards.com/A2018_Win.List.pdf.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”96747″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]ISSUE: VOLUME 46.04 WINTER 2017
What price protest?
How the right of assembly is under threat
The winter 2017 Index on Censorship magazine explores 1968 – the year the world took to the streets – to discover whether our rights to protest are endangered today.
Micah White proposes a novel way for protest to remain relevant. Author and journalist Robert McCrum revisits the Prague Spring to ask whether it is still remembered. Award-winning author Ariel Dorfman‘s new short story — Shakespeare, Cervantes and spies — has it all. Anuradha Roy writes that tired of being harassed and treated as second class citizens, Indian women are taking to the streets.
Editorial: Poor excuses for not protecting protest | Full contents | Podcast[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1491471988224{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1474781640064{margin: 0px !important;padding: 0px !important;}”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1477669782590{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;}”]CONTRIBUTORS[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1491471994875{margin-top: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1474781919494{padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][staff name=”Ariel Dorfman” color=”#ee3424″ profile_image=”72266″]Ariel Dorfman is a playwright, author, essayist and human rights activist. His play Death and the Maiden won the 1992 Lawrence Olivier award and was adapted into a film.[/staff][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1474781952845{padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][staff name=”Anuradha Roy” color=”#ee3424″ profile_image=”96805″]Anuradha Roy is an award-winning novelist, journalist and editor. She has written three novels, including Sleeping on Jupiter, which was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize.[/staff][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1474781958364{padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][staff name=”Micah White” color=”#ee3424″ profile_image=”96806″]Micah White is an activist, journalist and academic, who co-created Occupy Wall Street. He is author of The End of Protest: A New Playbook for Revolution, which was published in 2016.[/staff][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row equal_height=”yes” content_placement=”top” css=”.vc_custom_1513939419504{margin-top: 30px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 30px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1505202277426{background-color: #455560 !important;}”][vc_column_text el_class=”text_white”]Editorial: Poor excuses for not protecting protest
Fifty years after 1968, the year of protests, increasing attacks on the right to assembly must be addressed, argues Rachael Jolley.
Sadly this basic right, the right to protest, is under threat in democracies, as well as, less surprisingly, in authoritarian states. Fifty years after 1968, a year of significant protests around the world, is a good moment to take stock of the ways the right to assembly is being eroded and why it is worth fighting for.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″ css=”.vc_custom_1477280180238{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #78858d !important;}” el_class=”image-content-grid”][vc_row_inner css=”.vc_custom_1512406771641{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 65px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 65px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-image: url(https://www.indexoncensorship.org/newsite02may/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/magazine-winter2017-1500.jpg?id=96748) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}” el_class=”resp-0margin”][vc_column_inner css=”.vc_custom_1474716964379{margin: 0px !important;border-width: 0px !important;padding: 0px !important;}”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1513939361978{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;padding-top: 20px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #78858d !important;}” el_class=”text_white”]Contents
A look at what’s inside the winter 2017 issue, which explores the power of protest.
December 2017[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″ css=”.vc_custom_1474720637924{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #78858d !important;}” el_class=”image-content-grid”][vc_row_inner css=”.vc_custom_1513939407866{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 65px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 65px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-image: url(https://www.indexoncensorship.org/newsite02may/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Zaman_protest.jpg?id=81952) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}”][vc_column_inner][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text el_class=”text_white” css=”.vc_custom_1533801648458{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;padding-top: 20px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;}”]Magazine Extra: Podcast
Featuring interviews with authors in this issue.
December 2017[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row equal_height=”yes” css=”.vc_custom_1517585906327{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1474716728107{margin: 0px !important;border-width: 0px !important;padding: 0px !important;background-color: #78858d !important;}”][vc_row_inner css=”.vc_custom_1517586137918{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 65px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 65px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-image: url(https://www.indexoncensorship.org/newsite02may/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/MG_3736.jpg?id=97797) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}”][vc_column_inner][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text el_class=”text_white” css=”.vc_custom_1517585967524{padding-top: 20px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;}”]Magazine launch
A look at the magazine launch party for the winter 2017 issue #WhatPriceProtest
December 2017[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1474720465330{padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #78858d !important;}” el_class=”image-content-grid”][vc_row_inner css=”.vc_custom_1517586176452{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 65px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 65px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-image: url(https://www.indexoncensorship.org/newsite02may/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/6MD4OKVXIG5JX3NEIA2M_prvw_63818.jpg?id=97558) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}” el_class=”resp-0margin”][vc_column_inner][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1517586002603{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;padding-top: 20px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #78858d !important;}” el_class=”text_white”]Special focus: Book fairs and freedom
After Gothenburg and Frankfurt book fairs faced tension over who was allowed to attend, we asked four leading thinkers, Peter Englund, Ola Larsmo, Jean-Paul Marthoz, Tobias Voss, to debate the issue.
December 2017[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1474720476661{padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-color: #78858d !important;}” el_class=”image-content-grid”][vc_row_inner css=”.vc_custom_1517586191965{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 65px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 65px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background-image: url(https://www.indexoncensorship.org/newsite02may/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/171110Index.jpg?id=97533) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}”][vc_column_inner][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1517586030050{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;padding-top: 20px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #78858d !important;}” el_class=”text_white”]China’s middle-class revolt
As China’s economy slows, an unexpected group has started to protest – the country’s middle class. Robert Foyle Hunwick reports on how effective they are
December 2017[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row equal_height=”yes” el_class=”text_white” css=”.vc_custom_1474815446506{margin-top: 30px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 30px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;background-color: #455560 !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1478506027081{padding-top: 60px !important;padding-bottom: 60px !important;background: #455560 url(https://www.indexoncensorship.org/newsite02may/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/magazine-banner2.png?id=80745) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1474721694680{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”SUBSCRIBE TO
INDEX ON CENSORSHIP MAGAZINE” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:24|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]Every subscription helps Index’s work around the world
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08 Aug 18 | Campaigns -- Featured, Statements
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On Saturday, thugs damaged displays and threatened staff at a bookshop in London. At Index on Censorship, we believe reading broadens the mind and helps to create a more tolerant and inclusive society. So we’re sending some of the books we’ve been featuring ahead of next month’s Banned Books Week to those involved.
The books include The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, a book burned in the Nazi bonfires of 1933 because of Sinclair’s socialist views, as well as The Color Purple, The Handmaid’s Tale and a copy of the Quran. We’re sending them to UKIP, which has suspended the attackers as members, in the hope they will forward these on to them as something to read during their suspension.
If you’d like to help us raise funds to cover the costs of these books or support our work tackling censorship, please donate here, or feel free to send your own books to UKIP, whose address can be found here. You can support Bookmarks and Gay’s The Word, shops targeted in recent attacks.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1533803445742-e0453aac-0f94-6″ taxonomies=”9059″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
08 Aug 18 | Campaigns -- Featured, Digital Freedom, Digital Freedom Statements, Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Index believes that all speech – eccentric, contentious, heretical, unwelcome, provocative and even bigoted – should be protected unless it directly incites violence.
Social media and tech companies — as private entities — have the right to set whatever terms they choose, but the patchwork, inconsistent and opaque terms of service approach to policing speech online leaves them open to political and societal pressures. We strongly encourage the adoption of terms of service policies that maintain the widest possible scope for free speech online.
This means we – as users – will have to tolerate the fraudulent, the offensive and the idiotic. The ability to express contrary points of view, to call out racism, to demand retraction and to highlight obvious hypocrisy depend on the ability to freely share information across the evenest possible playing field.
Any other course of action will – in the end – diminish everyone’s right to free expression.
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08 Aug 18 | Index in the Press
Independent cites Index on Censorship in its coverage of the rejection of Mark Meechan’s appeal. Read the full article.
08 Aug 18 | News and features, Turkey
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”102049″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]When Turkish forces attacked Kurdish villages in the southeast of the country in 2016 after the collapse of a ceasefire between Ankara and the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) in July 2015, journalist Nurcan Baysal was there to document the human rights violations. The state declared military curfews, cut off electricity and water supplies and then began bombing civilians in their homes.
“The Turkish media say only terrorists were killed in the basements of Cizre, but 54 of them were students from Turkish universities who went there just to show solidarity and tell the Kurdish people ‘we are with you’,” Baysal tells Index on Censorship. “The security forces burnt them alive — they didn’t want them to return.”
Among the dead were Kurdish fighters, but also journalists and civilians, including children. “With the shooting and bombing, it became too dangerous for people to go outside. Some old people died because they didn’t have enough food.”
Baysal, a Kurdish human rights activist and journalist from the Kurdish-majority province of Diyarbakir, says it was too dangerous even to retrieve those killed from the streets. The children of one dead woman tried in vain to keep dogs from her body by throwing rocks.
“People say things in Turkey are bad, and they are right, but they think it’s the same situation all over the country,” Baysal says. “In the southeast, we aren’t just talking about journalists being locked up. Right now in one area, there are 50 dead bodies still on the ground; they are being eaten by animals.”
Baysal’s political awakening came in July 1991 when the tortured body of her neighbour, Vedat Aydin, a prominent human right activist and politician, was found under a bridge after he was been taken into police custody. She then began her career working for the UN Development Programme where she focused on poverty and strengthening women’s organisations in Diyarbakir. During this time she established a number of NGOs focusing on the forced migration of the Kurdish people. Her experience saw her take up an advisory role in the Northern Irish peace process in the late 1990s.
Baysal was back in Ireland in May 2018 to collect an award from the Irish human rights organisation Front Line Defenders, who named her its Global Laureate for Human Rights Defenders at Risk for 2018.
(Photo: Jason Clarke for Front Line Defenders)
“There was a lot of coverage in the Irish papers, which is good because you don’t tend to read much coverage of Kurdish issues elsewhere,” she says. “The international community does not pay attention to the violence against the Kurdish people. The international community is indifferent.”
In March 2013 a new peace process began, but by May 2013 Baysal began to see an increase in village guards, paramilitaries hired by the Turkish government to oversee the inhabitants, in half of the areas she works in. “In those villages we were trying to implement a development programme, but I could see something was wrong and I knew what that meant for peace.”
For her work covering what she says aren’t just ordinary human rights violations, but war crimes in Turkey’s southeast, Baysal has endured threats, intimidation, travel bans and worse. Legal cases have been taken against her, two of which have gone to court. “One of these was for reporting on what I witnessed in Cizre, such as the used condoms left by Turkish soldiers which show the horrible things they did there,” she says. “There were other journalists there but they decided not to write about it, and the Turkish media has closed their eyes, so I knew what I had to.”
Her work was on this issue was censored. “In Turkey there is usually a process if you want to censor something, but in this case there was no process, they just did it,” she says.
The court case lasted two years, at the end of which she was given a ten-month prison sentence — one she wouldn’t serve as long as she didn’t re-offend — for “humiliating Turkish security services” with her article and accompanying photographs. She told the judge that she has even worse photographs that she didn’t publish out of respect for the victims.
When Turkey began its military incursion, code-named Operation Olive Branch, into Afrin, Syria, which was under the control of Kurdish YPG forces, in January 2018, Baysal criticised the Turkish government and called for peace in a series of five tweets. Then, on Sunday 21 January 2018, while she was watching a film with her children at her Diyarbakir home, she heard a noise that she couldn’t understand at first. “It took me a moment to realise the noise was coming from my door,” she says. “They tried to break it down, but it was so strong that the wall around it crumbled and in came a 20-man special operations team with masks and Kalashnikovs. I don’t know what they were planning to find in my home, but when they did this they were sending a message and a lot of other people got scared.”
Baysal spent three nights in prison before being bailed following a series of protests, not just locally, but internationally. Three hundred supporters gathered outside the detention centre, she received the support of Kurdish MPs and her case was raised in the European Parliament.
Baysal now awaits trial on charges of “inciting hatred and enmity among the population”. If convicted, she faces up to three years in jail.
A lot of Turkish newspapers now refer to Baysal as a terrorist, she explains. “The word ‘terrorist’ is used so much that right now half the country are terrorists. Academics for Peace? Terrorists. Students? Terrorists. Doctors? Terrorists. Those who use the word ‘peace’? Terrorists.”
“Kurdish society is a colonised society. Two Kurdish wedding singers were put in prison because they were singing Kurdish songs. A student has been imprisoned for whistling in Kurdish. I really don’t know what it means to whistle in Kurdish,” she laughs.
Baysal explains how in many Kurdish areas, Kurdish mayors have been imprisoned, only to be replaced by government-appointed administrators. In one part of Diyarbakir, Kurds had planted flowers in yellow, red and green, the colours of the Kurdish flag. “One day we woke up and they had taken the heads off all the flowers. Why? The administrators said ‘these are the colours of the PKK’.”
In the November 2015 general election in Turkey, the leftist pro-Kurdish HDP surpassed the 10% threshold necessary to win seats in the new parliament. The effect on the peace process was immediate. The Turkish government saw the process as benefitting only the Kurdish parties, not themselves, Baysal says. “If you ask them now, they will say there is peace, and they are only fighting the PKK, but in their eyes you are PKK if you speak in Kurdish.”
Over the last three years, all Kurdish street signs have been replaced with Turkish ones. “They say ‘those Kurdish signs are PKK’,” Baysal explains. And what about Kurdish media? “Well, we don’t have Kurdish media anymore either, they’ve all been closed.”
Various neighbourhoods in the Sur district of Diyarbakır have been demolished as part of an “urban regeneration programme”
Turkey’s Kurds have known war for a long time, but this time it is different. Rather than fighting in the mountains, war has now been brought into the cities. Since 2015, Turkish forces have demolished entire Kurdish towns and cities. “This is what happened in Sur, which today it is a flattened area,” Baysal says. “Sur is a city that’s 7,000 years old. It’s part of the history of humanity, not just the history of Kurdish people. The story of Armenians, Assyrians — and it’s been ruined.”
Tens of thousands of Kurds have been made homeless by this destruction, with many making their way to other Kurdish towns and cities, while others have set up camp in tents along roads.
In the 1990s, Kurdish people felt that even though they were at war there was always hope, Baysal explains. “With the peace process there was always the belief that things would get better, but today we don’t have hope — no hope at all in the Turkish state.”
“Having seen what has happened in the last three years and how cruel this state can be, I really don’t know what will happen in the future. Everything is unclear. We don’t know tomorrow or even tomorrow morning. This is how we live now.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]
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Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to tell the stories of censored Turkish writers, artists, translators and human rights defenders.
Learn more about Turkey Uncensored.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Media freedom violations in Turkey reported to and verified by Mapping Media Freedom since May 2014
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