22 Jun 22 | Afghanistan, Africa, Americas, Asia and Pacific, Belarus, China, Europe and Central Asia, European Union, Hungary, India, Kenya, Magazine, Magazine Contents, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Volume 51.02 Summer 2022 Extras
The summer issue of Index magazine concentrated its efforts on the developing situation between Russia and Ukraine and consequential effects around Europe and the world.
We decided to give voice to journalists, artists and dissidents who chose to respond to this ruthless war. At the same time, we didn’t forget other attacks on freedoms that haven’t been covered around the globe as much as they should.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Up front”][vc_column_text]Joining Ukraine’s battle for freedom, by Jemimah Steinfeld: We must stand with the bold and brave against Putin.
The Index: A global tour of free expression, departing from the poll booth and arriving at the journalists reporting under Taliban rule.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Features”][vc_column_text]Fifty years of pride and prejudice, by Peter Tatchell: Following the rise and
corporate fall of London’s march for LGBT rights, will grassroots voices rise again?
India’s meaty issue, by Aishwarya Jagani: When a burger comes with a side of oppression.
Cartoon, by Ben Jennings: Art imitates life, caveman style.
My three years of hell in an Uyghur ‘re-education’ camp, by Gulbahar Hatiwaj and Rahima Mahmut: As the world stays silent, hear the truth from inside China’s brutal concentration camps.
One step ahead of the game, by Chen Dan: Media criticism of the Chinese government is all part of the power play.
Welcome to the kingdom of impunity, by Michael Deibert: The landscape is dangerous for journalists in Haiti. Murders and kidnappings are a daily risk.
Politically corrected? By Issa Sikiti da Silva: The banned words the Kenyan
government doesn’t want to hear in this election year.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Special report: The battle for Ukraine”][vc_column_text]Losing battle for truth in Russian lecture halls, by Ilya Matveev: The war has put a new strain on academic freedom. A Russian lecturer laments his lost classroom.
Don’t be afraid to say two plus two is four, by Mark Frary and Alla Gutnikova: As a convicted student journalist speaks out for freedom, do Russian dissidents once again face the gulag?
Emotional baggage, by Slavenka Drakulic: How it feels to pack up a life in Ukraine and become a refugee.
Back to the future, by Martin Bright: The world has been turned
upside down for Ukrainian reporters, and this is their new landscape.
On not being shot, by John Sweeney: Amidst the Kremlin-wrought
wreckage, do we need a new era of journalism?
Russia’s trojan horse moves closer to Europe, by Viktória Serdult: In Hungary, Putin’s right-hand man and Europe’s right-wing firebrand wins again.
Turkey’s newfound russophilia, by Kaya Genç: Putinism is seeping into Turkey, and it spells trouble for future freedoms.
Divided by age and a tv screen, by Hanna Komar: How do you make sure your
family see the truth when they’re blinded by Kremlin propaganda? A Belarus activist speaks out.
Culture in the cross hairs, by Andrey Kurkov: Decades after Soviet rule, Ukrainian culture is once again under threat, as are the lives behind the creative expression.
Bordering on media control, by Kseniya Tarasevich: False information about
Ukraine finds fertile breeding ground in Poland.
Treat tragedies of the Ukraine war with dignity, by Olesya Khromeychuk: The grieving hearts left behind when death becomes news fodder.
Worth a gamble, by Jemimah Steinfeld: When telling the truth is a crime, turn to a criminal spam operation.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Comment”][vc_column_text]
Cancel Putin, not culture, by Maria Sorenson: Banning Russian artists assumes
that they are all collaborators of the Russian state and goes against artistic freedoms.
Beware the ‘civilisation’ battle, by Emily Couch: Why Europe must reject
anti-Asian racism to fully stand with Ukraine.
The silent minority, by Ruth Smeeth: A tribute to those whose work never saw the light of day.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Culture”][vc_column_text]‘The light is no longer the light it used to be’, by Lyuba Yakimchuk: The poet on children being indoctrinated and the elderly disorientated in Russia-occupied Ukraine.
A cassandra worth heeding, by Dominic Cavendish: Murdered Russian journalist
Anna Politkovskaya, whose dispatches from Chechnya should be put in the spotlight.
Poetic injustice, by Stephen Komarnyckyj: History is repeating itself
on the pages penned by Ukrainian writers.
Banking on Russia’s poetic spirit, by Maria Bloshteyn and Yulia Fridman: A “piggy bank” of Russian poetry is fighting on the right side of Putin’s war.
Metaphors and madness, by Eduardo Halfon: In Guatemala, truth is best expressed through fiction.
Metal shows its mettle, by Guilherme Osinski: A heavy metal band labelled
“satanic” by Iran is free from prison and taking back the microphone.
America’s coming crucible, by Jo-Ann Mort: Women in the USA might soon be in the dark about their own bodies.
05 Apr 22 | News and features, Russia, Ukraine
I was in Zaporizhzhia on the morning of 12 March. I wanted to get to Mariupol to write an article; I thought that I had to tell the truth from the blocked city. It was my initiative.
I found out that a humanitarian convoy was going to Mariupol. I went to the assembly point but the convoy had already left. I contacted the authorities and asked them if I could catch it up. They replied that I could try. I did not find a personal driver, so I left with another convoy heading to Polohy. We caught up the Mariupol convoy near Vasylivka, and I continued with them.
I came across the occupiers’ first checkpoint in Vasylivka. Russian soldiers thoroughly checked me. They made me unzip my coat and show the contents of my bag. They found a camera and asked if I was a journalist. I confirmed this. They told me that I had no business in Mariupol and that I should return to Zaporizhzhia. They inspected my phone and camera and found nothing. I asked permission to continue with the column. The occupiers did not mind. We stopped overnight in Berdyansk.
We continued our way in the morning but we were stopped near the city limits and we were told to wait for permission. We were waiting for two or three hours by a crossroads where the roads to Mangush, Energodar and Vasylivka go. Rumours started to spread that we wouldn’t be allowed to move.
Cars passed by and a woman from the convoy told us that she had found some local guys who were willing to drive us to Mariupol. When we arrived at the agreed place, the car was no longer there. The Russian military told us to wait and started talking with us.
I stepped aside. I was thinking of returning to the convoy but a Russian soldier approached me and asked me to show him my phone. He told me that he had instructions from above to check me.
He asked if I was a journalist. I did not lie as it could make things even worse. He asked to show him my WhatsApp account and he saw the contact of the security services of Zaporizhzhia. There was a message with a request to publish a video of a Russian soldier who had swapped sides to join Ukraine.
Some other soldiers began to interrogate me. Then they spoke with Metropolitan Luka [a priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church]. Luka and other clerics were leading the convoy. When they returned, they said I had to go with them. I was put into a prison van accompanied by four Chechen paramilitaries who took me to the Berdyansk district administration office.
I was met by people dressed in black and wearing balaclavas. They seemed to be very young, less than 30 years old. They started to interrogate me, searching me and inspecting my phone and documents. They told me that I was not a journalist but a spy and a propagandist which I denied. It lasted for an hour. Then, one of them said: “Everything is clear with you”. I realised later they were from the Russian security services, the FSB.
One of the men in balaclavas brought in his commander. When I asked him who he was, he replied: “I am the man. You have two options: you either go to a jail for women or to a Dagestani military base.” I asked them what that meant. They did not explain. Then two men grabbed me, put a blindfold over my eyes and took me out of the room. I was crying, explaining that I was a journalist, that people would be looking for me, and that they would not get away with it. They took me to the local office of the SBU, the Ukrainian Security Service.
I was met by Chechens and Dagestanis who put me in a tiny room with a chair, a table and a window which they closed and told me not to approach it. They brought a blanket on which I slept on the floor. It was light and warm there. I was taken out only to the bathroom. Almost all my stuff was taken. When I asked when they would let me go, they answered, “When Kyiv is taken”. They added “Luka is in charge of the convoy and he refused to take you”.
From time to time, I was interrogated by Russian occupiers.
“We have no conscience. The law does not exist for us,” the FSB guys said. “Ukraine does not exist anymore.”
They repeated this every day.
“If we bury you somewhere here, no one will ever find out. You will be lost forever,” they said.
I had no fear. I knew they were trying to break me. But I felt desperate because I knew nothing about the outside world, and I was not able to do my job.
“We do not fucking care that you are a woman and a journalist,” they shouted.
But I knew the fact that I was a journalist restrained them.
At some point Chechens joined in with the daily moral pressure of the FSB guys. They guarded me and tried to convince me to cooperate.
“They are serious. They won’t let you go for nothing. You’d better to cooperate with them because you are so young. Otherwise, you will stay here forever,” they said.
They added: “We are the power. They are the brains.”
They brought me some food, but I refused. The first days I ate my remaining supplies from Zaporizhzhia. When it was finished, I took nothing but sweet tea. I felt my energy leave me. It was difficult just to get on my feet. During the last visit of the FSB men, I was not able to stand. But I continued to demand my release. When I cried too loud, one of the Chechens hit me and told me that I wasn’t at home, and I should watch my tone.
There were a few empathetic men among them, nevertheless. They came to ask if I was OK, asked me to eat something and begged me not to kill myself.
I asked to be allowed to make a call. They refused. Afterwards, the FSB told me that there would be a neutral interview and then I would be released. I insisted that I wouldn’t lie. They agreed. They brought a camera after a while. They had a prepared text with them, and they demanded I read it. I did not agree with the wording “high probability of having saved her life”. Eventually I agreed to shoot the video and they dropped the previous demands regarding full support of Russian actions and accusations against Ukraine.
Once the video was completed, they took me to another place. It was the local jail in Berdyansk. They refused to return my phone and camera as they considered them “propaganda tools”.
I spent the night in a room with a Russian soldier, who was supposed to guard me. The electricity and heating were cut off during the night. It was very cold. With my flashlight I counted the hours until morning. The soldier told me that the people who had interrogated me were from FSB. He was afraid that I would kill him during the night. He asked me whether I considered them as occupiers. Then he put the Ukrainian flag and the national emblem near me and said: “This is to calm you down. You see, we did not destroy them.”
In the morning, they blindfolded me again. Then they took me out of the jail and showed me the direction to go. I reached the closest bus station and went to the location of an evacuation convoy. I left with them the next day to territory controlled by Ukraine.
I am sincerely grateful to everyone who put in their efforts to find me and release me.
This account was first published by independent Ukrainian news channel hromadske and is published here in English for the first time.
01 Apr 22 | News and features, Russia, Ukraine
Oleksandra Matviichuk is head of the Centre for Civil Liberties in Kyiv. She recorded this video for Index on Censorship to appeal to the international community to act over Russian abuses of free expression in the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russian troops since 24 February. She is particularly concerned with beatings and abductions of protesters and journalists in cities in the southeast of the country and names Khakova, Mariupol, Kherson and Berdyansk in her powerful testimony.
Index has been working closely with members of the Ukrainian media and civil society since the outbreak of the conflict. It is our intention to build a network of journalists, writers and artists in Ukraine itself and in the diaspora to help keep the outside world informed.
Index was inspired by dissidents in Russia and Czechoslovakia who protested against the Soviet invasion of 1968. We are proud to stand by those who continue to fight for freedom of expression in Ukraine today.
