Meltem Arikan shares her anger over the mine disaster that rocked Turkey — and the arrests that followed.
Turkey: Losing the freedom to mourn
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CATEGORY: Europe and Central Asia
Russia: Vladimir Putin and the rise of swearbots
In an attempt to police Russia’s ocean of foul language, enter the swearbot, a computer programme forecast to go live this autumn, enforcing laws passed last spring. It should automate the rooting out blasphemous Russians, Alastair Sloan reports
Ben Jennings: Russia’s propaganda machine
This week cartoonist Ben Jennings takes on Vladimir Putin’s information war.
Padraig Reidy: Why does everyone want to be censored?
There is absolutely no one engaged in modern public life at any level at all who has not complained that they’ve been silenced, denied a platform, bullied into submission by a cruel cabal of agents of reaction or “the liberal agenda”, take your pick.
Press freedom in Turkey is challenged by opaque court rulings
Last Thursday, after nearly eight years of detention three journalists were among a group released from a prison near Istanbul. Catherine Stupp reports
EU adopts new guidelines on freedom of expression
New guidelines were released this week by the European Union Foreign Affairs Council specifically focusing on freedom of expression online and offline. Alice Kirkland reports
Are search engines the ultimate arbiters of information?
Although the Court of Justice of the European Union’s ruling on the right to be forgotten was made with intention of protecting European citizens’ personal data, the court’s ruling opens the door for anyone to request that anything be hidden from a search engine database with no legal oversight.
Art for Democracy: Artistic freedom of expression in Azerbaijan
As Azerbaijan is about to assume the Chairmanship of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers, a new report details cases of violations of the right to artistic freedom of expression over the past three years in the country. According to the...
Revealed: The British exports that crush free expression
The Arab Spring has not stopped Britain from helping crush free expression by selling crowd control ammunition to authoritarian states including Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Alex Stevenson reports
From Eurovision to ice hockey — how do we engage with dubious regimes?
Autocrats try to use international competitions to control the world’s view of them. We should beat them at their own games, writes Padraig Reidy