Contents – The battle for Ukraine: Artists, journalists and dissidents respond

22 Jun 2022 | 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]

Cancelling Russian culture is today’s moral imperative, by Marina Pesenti: Putin is using culture to extend his reach. We must say a hard no to this soft power play.

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.

Call for an end to beatings and abductions of journalists and protesters in Ukraine

1 Apr 2022 | 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.

How an independent broadcaster in Ukraine is defying the invasion

14 Mar 2022 | News and features, Russia, Ukraine

It was never easy for hromadske. The independent Ukraine broadcaster was set up in 2013 during the dark days of Viktor Yanukovich, the pro-Russian President of Ukraine. Founded originally as an independent TV station, hromadske (public, in Ukrainian), prided itself on its freedom from control by oligarchs or the state even after Yanukovych was forced to flee by the “Maidan” protests of 2014.

Over the years journalists at the station had adapted to shifts in the media landscape and by the time of the Russian invasion hromadske was streaming topical videos on You Tube and Facebook with special reports every Tuesday and Thursday.

“From January 2022 we changed our model and had no broadcasts, only irregular live streams on the spot from what we considered to be major events,” producer Kostan Nechyporenko tells Index on Censorship. These included the treason trial of former President Petro Poroshenko and major demonstrations.

“After 24 February things changed dramatically,” says Kostan. “It was tense in the first few days and people moved out of Kyiv. We had a backup plan in case of invasion.” The station moved its studio from the centre of Ukraine, close to the country’s parliament building, to a temporary base in Vynittsia, halfway between the capital and the Moldovan border.

“We left a lot of our gear,” says Kostan. We took our most important things. We had to take care of the website as a priority.” The producer moved with his family to the countryside outside Kyiv but plans to return to the office for more equipment this week. Meanwhile, he organises logistics for hromadske crews still reporting all over the country. The film making capacity of hromadske was initially reduced, but the team took the opportunity to revive broadcasts and there is now an hour-long programme every evening at 6.30pm.

The whole mission of hromadske has now changed. “Only the video production had some problems in the early days of the war. The website and social media were working overtime and much more intensely than before. After the first five or six days the situation changed with video production too. Now we produce two to three videos a day, though they might be made in a rush. And because of the war, we’re back to digital broadcasting, though it’s of poorer quality and from a makeshift studio.”

Kostan has no doubt hromadske journalists are at mortal risk from the Russian forces. At the beginning of the war, one of his colleagues, whose must remain anonymous for security reasons, was already in the Donbas region in the east of the country to report on the shelling of Shchastia in the Luhansk region. The reporter remained there when the war started and reported from the front, but had serious problems getting out.

“Our journalist found a car and went to the front line again in the Zaporizhzhia region,” Kostan continues. “The car got shot by a Russian tank so was abandoned. The Russians took a laptop, camera and personal belongings.” Thankfully, the reporter was able to hide in an abandoned house and contact her colleagues at hromadske the next morning.

A second correspondent  narrowly escaped from Irpin, on the northwest edge of Irpin, where New York Times journalist Brent Renaud was killed.

The hromadske project was founded during a flowering of independent media in Ukraine and fiercely protected its freedom from the influence of oligarchs and government. The independent values remain more important than ever as it continues to report from Ukraine under siege.