13 Feb 2019 | Magazine, News and features, Student Reading Lists
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Salman Rushdie. Credit: Fronteiras do Pensamento
On 14 February 1989 Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to execute author Salman Rushdie over the publication of The Satanic Verses, along with anyone else involved with the novel.
Published in the UK in 1988 by Viking Penguin, the book was met with widespread protest by those who accused Rushdie of blasphemy and unbelief. Death threats and a $6 million bounty on the author’s head saw him take on a 24-hour armed guard under the British government’s protection programme.
The book was soon banned in a number of countries, from Bangladesh to Venezuela, and many died in protests against its publication, including on 24 February when 12 people lost their lives in a riot in Bombay, India. Explosions went off across the UK, including at Liberty’s department store, which had a Penguin bookshop inside, and the Penguin store in York.
Book store chains including Barnes and Noble stopped selling the book, and copies were burned across the UK, first in Bolton where 7,000 Muslims gathered on 2 December 1988, then in Bradford in January 1989. In May 1989 between 15,000 to 20,000 people gathered in Parliament Square in London to burn Rushdie in effigy.
In October 1993, William Nygaard, the novel’s Norwegian publisher, was shot three times outside his home in Oslo and seriously injured.
Rushdie came out of hiding after nine years, but as recently as February 2016, money has been raised to add to the fatwa, reminding the author that for many the Ayatollah’s ruling still stands.
Here, 30 years on, Index on Censorship magazine highlights key articles from its archives from before, during and after the issue of the fatwa, including two from Rushdie himself.
Cuba today, the March 1989 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
World statement by the international committee for the defence of Salman Rushdie and his publishers
March 1989, vol. 18, issue 3
On 14 February the Ayatollah Khomeini called on all Muslims to seek out and execute Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses, and all those involved in its publication. We, the undersigned, insofar as we defend the right to freedom of opinion and expression as embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, declare that we also are involved in the publication. We are involved whether we approve the contents of the book or not. Nonetheless, we appreciate the distress the book has aroused and deeply regret the loss of life associated with the ensuing conflict.
Read the full article
Islam & human rights, the May 1989 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
Pandora’s box forced open
Amir Taheri
May 1989, vol. 18, issue 5
‘What Rushdie has done, as far as Muslim intellectuals are concerned, is to put their backs to the wall and force them to make the choice they have tried to avoid for so long’. Last year, when poor old Mr Manavi filled in his Penguin order form for 10 copies of Salman Rushdie’s third novel, The Satanic Verses, he could not have imagined that the book, described by its publishers as a reflection on the agonies of exile, would provoke one of the most bizarre diplomatic incidents in recent times. Mr Manavi had been selling Penguin books in Tehran for years. He had learned which authors to regard as safe and which ones to avoid at all costs.
Read the full article
Islam & human rights, the May 1989 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
Jihad for freedom
Wole Soyinka
May 1989, vol. 18, issue 5
This statement is not, of course, addressed to the Ayatollah Khomeini who, except for a handful of fanatics, is easily diagnosed as a sick and dangerous man who has long forgotten the fundamental tenets of Islam. It is useful to address oneself, at this point, only to the real Islamic faithful who, in their hearts, recognise the awful truth about their erratic Imam and the threat he poses not only to the continuing acceptance of Islam among people of all religions and faiths but to the universal brotherhood of man, no matter the differing colorations of their piety. Will Salman Rushdie die? He shall not. But if he does, let the fanatic defenders of Khomeini’s brand of Islam understand this: The work for which he is now threatened will become a household icon within even the remnant lifetime of the Ayatollah. Writers, cineastes, dramatists will disseminate its contents in every known medium and in some new ones as yet unthought of.
Read the full article
South Africa after Apartheid, the April 1990 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
Reflections on an invalid fatwah
Amir Taheri
April 1990, vol. 19, issue 4
Broadly speaking, three predictions were made. The first was that Khomeini’s attempt at exporting terror might goad world public opinion into a keener understanding of Iran’s tragedy since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The fact that the Ayatollah had executed thousands of people, including many writers and poets since his seizure of power in Tehran had provoked only mild rebuke from Western governments and public opinion. With the fatwa against Rushdie, we thought the whole world would mobilise against the ayatollah, turning his regime into an international pariah. Nothing of the kind happened, of course, and only one country, Britain, closed its embassy in Tehran – and that because the mullahs decided to sever.diplomatic ties. In the past twelve months Federal Germany and France have increased their trade with the Islamic Republic to the tune of II and 19 per cent respectively. The EEC countries and Japan have, in the meantime, provided the Islamic Republic with loans exceeding £2,000 million. The stream of European and Japanese businessmen and diplomats visiting Tehran turned into a mini-flood after Khomeini’s death last June.
Read the full article
South Africa after Apartheid, the April 1990 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
Salman Rushdie and political expediency
Adel Darwish
April 1990, vol. 19, issue 4
When I reviewed Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses in September 1988, it never crossed my mind to make any reference to possible offence to Muslim readers, let alone to anticipate the unprecedented international crisis generated in the months that followed. I do not think I was naive – as an LBC radio reporter suggested when she interviewed me at the first public reading from The Satanic Verses in June 1989. On the contrary, I can claim more than many that I am able to understand what Mr Rushdie was trying to say in his book, and the way the crisis has developed. Like Mr Rushdie, I am a British writer, born to a Muslim family. Born in Egypt, I was educated and am employed in Britain, and have been preoccupied and engaged, mainly in the 1960s and 1970s, with the issues that Mr Rushdie has fought for and with which he seemed to be very much concerned in his book.
Read the full article
Azerbaijan, the February 1991 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
My decision
Salman Rushdie
February 1991, vol. 20, issue 2
A man’s spiritual choices are a matter of conscience, arrived at after deep. reflection and in the privacy of his heart. They are not easy matters to speak of publicly. I should like, however, to say something about my decision to affirm the two central tenets of Islam — the oneness of God and the genuineness of the prophecy of the Prophet Muhammad —and thus to enter into the body of Islam after a lifetime spent outside it. Although I come from a Muslim family background, I was never brought up as a believer, and was raised in an atmosphere of what is broadly known as secular humanism. I still have the deepest respect for these principles. However, as I think anyone who studies my work will accept, I have been engaging more and more with religious belief, its importance and power, ever since my first novel used the Sufi poem Conference of the Birds by Farid ud-din Attar as a model. The Satanic Verses itself, with its portrait of the conflicts between the material and spiritual worlds, is a mirror of the conflict within myself.
Read the full article
20th Anniversary: Reign of terror, the June 1992 issue of the Index on Censorship magazine.
Offending the high priests
Gunter Grass
June 1992, vol. 21, issue 6
When George Orwell returned from Spain in 1937, he brought with him the manuscript of Homage to Catalonia. It reflected the experiences he had gathered during the Civil War. At first, he was unable to find a publisher because a multitude of influential, left-wing intellectuals had no wish to acknowledge its shocking observations. They did not want to accept the Stalinist terror, the systematic liquidation of anarchists, Trotskyists and left-wing socialists. Orwell himself only narrowly escaped this terror. His stark accusations contradicted a world image of a flawless Soviet Union fighting against Fascism. Orwell’s report, this onslaught of terrible reality, tarnished the picture-book dream of Good and Evil. A year later, a bourgeois Western publisher brought out Homage to Catalonia; in the areas of Communist rule, Orwell’s works – among them the bitter Spanish truth – were banned for half a century. The minister responsible for state security= in the German Democratic Republic, right to its end, was Erich Mielke. During the Spanish Civil War, he was a member of the Communist cadre to whom purge through liquidation became commonplace. A fighter for Spain with an extraordinary capacity for survival.
Read the full article
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Russia’s choice, the November-December 1993 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
The Rushdie affair: Outrage in Oslo
Hakon Harket
November 1993, vol. 22, issue 10
The terrorist state of Iran must face the consequences of refusing to lift the fatwa that condemns Salman Rushdie, and those associated with his work, to death. When someone, in accordance with the express order of the fatwa, attempts to murder one of the damned, the obvious consequence is that Iran must be held responsible for the crime it has called for, at least until there is conclusive proof that no connection exists. The shooting of William Nygaard has reminded the Norwegian public of what the Rushdie affair is really about: life and death; the abuse of religion; the fiction of a free mind. This war of terror against freedom of speech is not one we can afford to lose. Since the nightmare clearly will not disappear of its own accord, it must be engaged head-on.
Read the full article
New censors, the March 1996 issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
From Salman Rushdie
March 1996, vol. 25, issue 2
This statement is not, of course, addressed to the Ayatollah Khomeini who, except for a handful of fanatics, is easily diagnosed as a sick and dangerous man who has long forgotten the fundamental tenets of Islam. It is useful to address oneself, at this point, only to the real Islamic faithful who, in their hearts, recognise the awful truth about their erratic Imam and the threat he poses not only to the continuing acceptance of Islam among people of all religions and faiths but to the universal brotherhood of man, no matter the differing colorations of their piety. Will Salman Rushdie die? He shall not. But if he does, let the fanatic defenders of Khomeini’s brand of Islam understand this: The work for which he is now threatened will become a household icon within even the remnant lifetime of the Ayatollah. Writers, cineastes, dramatists will disseminate its contents in every known medium and in some new ones as yet unthought of.
Read the full article
Shadow of the Fatwa
Kenan Malik
December 2008, vol. 37, issue 4
The Satanic Verses was, Salman Rushdie said in an interview before publication, a novel about ‘migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death’. It was also a satire on Islam, ‘a serious attempt’, in his words, ‘to write about religion and revelation from the point of view of a secular person’. For some that was unacceptable, turning the novel into ‘an inferior piece of hate literature’ as the British-Muslim philosopher Shabbir Akhtar put it. Within a month, The Satanic Verses had been banned in Rushdie’s native India, after protests from Islamic radicals. By the end of the year, protesters had burnt a copy of the novel on the streets of Bolton, in northern England. And then, on 14 February 1989, came the event that transformed the Rushdie affair – Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa.’I inform all zealous Muslims of the world,’ proclaimed Iran’s spiritual leader, ‘that the author of the book entitled The Satanic Verses – which has been compiled, printed and published in opposition to Islam, the prophet and the Quran – and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its contents are sentenced to death.’
Read the full article
The right to publish
Peter Mayer
December 2008, vol. 37, issue 4
As publisher of The Satanic Verses, Peter Mayer was on the front line. He writes here for the first time about an unprecedented crisis:
Penguin published Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses six months before Ayatollah Khomeini issues his fatwa. When we decided to continue publishing the novel in the aftermath, extraordinary pressures were focused on our company, based on fears for the author’s life and for the lives of everyone at Penguin around the world. This extended from Penguin’s management to editorial, warehouse, transport, administrative staff, the personnel in our bookshops and many others. The long-term political implications of that early signal regarding free speech in culturally diverse societies were not yet apparent to many when the Ayatollah, speaking not only for Iran but, seemingly, for all of Islam, issued his religious proclaimation.
Read the full article
Emblem of darkness
Bernard-Henri Lévy
December 2008, vol. 37, issue 4
As publisher of The Satanic Verses, Peter Mayer was on the front line. He writes here for the first time about an unprecedented crisis:
Salman Rushdie was not yet the great man of letters that he has since become. He and I are, though, pretty much the same age. We share a passion for India and Pakistan, as well as the uncommon privilege of having known and written about Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Rushdie in Shame; I in Les Indes Rouges), the father of Benazir, former prime minister of Pakistan, executed ten years earlier in 1979 by General Zia. I had been watching from a distance, with infinite curiosity, the trajectory of this almost exact contemporary. One day, in February 1989, at the end of the afternoon, as I sat in a cafe in the South of France, in Saint Paul de Vence, with the French actor Yves Montand, sipping an orangeade, I heard the news: Ayatollah Khomeini, himself with only a few months to live, had just issued a fatwa, in which he condemned as an apostate the author of The Satanic Verses and invited all Muslims the world over to carry out the sentence, without delay.
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5 Feb 2019 | Artistic Freedom, Artistic Freedom Statements, Campaigns -- Featured, Press Releases, Statements, Uganda
More than 130 musicians, writers and artists, together with many British and Ugandan members of parliament, have signed a petition calling on Uganda to drop plans for regulations that include vetting songs, videos and film scripts prior to their release. Musicians, producers, promoters, filmmakers and all other artists would also have to register with the government and obtain a licence that can be revoked for a range of violations.
Index on Censorship is deeply concerned by these proposals, which are likely to be used to stifle criticism of the government.
“Around the world from Cuba to Indonesia and Uganda, artists are being pressured by governments seeking to control their art and their message. These misplaced efforts are an intolerable intrusion into artistic freedom and must not be enacted,” Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of Index said.
Signatories to the letter include U2’s Bono and Adam Clayton, author Wole Soyinka, and Razorlight’s Johnny Borrell.
Full text of the letter follows:
Uganda’s government is proposing regulations that include vetting new songs, videos and film scripts, prior to their release. Musicians, producers, promoters, filmmakers and all other artists will also have to register with the government and obtain a licence that can be revoked for a range of violations.
We, the undersigned, are deeply concerned by these proposals, which are likely to be used to stifle criticism of the government.
We, the undersigned, vehemently oppose the draconian legislation currently being prepared by the Ugandan government that will curtail the freedom of expression in the creative arts of all musicians, producers and filmmakers in the country.
The planned legislation includes:
- All Ugandan artists and filmmakers required to register and obtain a licence, revokable for any perceived infraction.
- Artists required to submit lyrics for songs and scripts for film and stage performances to authorities to be vetted.
- Content deemed to contain offensive language, to be lewd or to copy someone else’s work will be censured.
- Musicians will also have to seek government permission to perform outside Uganda.
Contained in a 14 page draft Bill that bypasses Parliament and will come before Cabinet alone in March to be passed into law, any artist, producer or promoter who is considered to be in breach of its guidelines shall have his/her certificate revoked.
This proposed legislation is in direct contravention of Clause 29 1a b of the Ugandan
Constitution which states:
- Protection of freedom of conscience, expression, movement, religion,
assembly and association.
(1) Every person shall have the right to—
(a) Freedom of speech and expression which shall include freedom of the media;
(b) Freedom of thought, conscience and belief which shall include academic
freedom in institutions of learning;
Furthermore, in accordance with Clause 40 (2)
(2) Every person in Uganda has the right to practise his or her profession and to
carry on any lawful occupation, trade or business.
As a Member State of the African Union, the Republic of Uganda has ratified the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Article 9 of the Charter provides:
- Every individual shall have the right to receive information.
- Every individual shall have the right to express and disseminate his opinions within the law.
We therefore call upon the Ugandan government to end this grievous and blatant
violation of the constitutional rights of Ugandan artists and producers, and to honour
its international obligations as laid down in the various international human rights
conventions to which Uganda is a signatory and for Uganda to uphold freedom of speech.
Background
- Although freedom of expression is protected under the Uganda constitution, it is coming under increasing threat in the country.
- In 2018, authorities arrested popular musician and opposition member of parliament, Robert Kyagulanyi, better known as Bobi Wine. He was badly beaten in military custody. Musicians, writers and social activists including Chris Martin, Angelique Kidjo, U2’s The Edge, Damon Albarn and Wole Soyinka, signed a petition calling for his release, which ultimately succeeded.
- Since July 1, Ugandans have had to pay a tax of 200 shillings, about 5 US cents, for every day they use services including Facebook, Twitter, Skype and WhatsApp.
- The government said it wanted to regulate online gossip, or idle talk but critics fear this meant it wanted to censor opponents.
- During the presidential election in 2016, officials blocked access to Facebook and Twitter
- On Thursday January 31 a statement was made by Jeremy Hunt MP, the UK’s Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs: “”We are aware of the proposed regulations to the Ugandan music and entertainment industry that are currently being consulted on and are yet to be approved by the Cabinet. The UK’s position is that such regulations must not be used as a means of censorship. The UK supports freedom of expression as a fundamental human right and, alongside freedom of the media, maintains that it is an essential quality of any functioning democracy. We continue to raise any concerns around civic and political issues directly with the Ugandan government.”
ABTEX – Producer, Uganda
ADAM CLAYTON – Musician, U2
ALEX SOBEL – Member of Parliament, United Kingdom
AMY TAN – Novelist, Screenwriter
ANDY HEINTZ – Freelance journalist and author, USA
ANISH KAPOOR – Artist, United Kingdom
ANN ADEKE – Member of Parliament, Uganda
ANNU PALAKUNNATHU MATTHEW – Artist, USA and India
ASUMAN BASALIRWA – Member of Parliament, Uganda
AYELET WALDMAN – Writer
BELINDA ATIM – Uganda Sustainable Development Initiative
BILL SHIPSEY – Founder, Art for Amnesty
BONO – Musician, U2
BRIAN ENO – Artist, Musician and Producer
BRUCE ANDERSON – Journalist Editor/Publisher
CLAUDIO CAMBON – Artist/Translator, France
CRISPIN BLUNT – Member of Parliament and former Chair of Foreign Affairs Select Committee, United Kingdom
DAN MAGIC – Producer, Uganda
DANIEL HANDLER – Writer, Musician aka Lemony Snicket
DAVID FLOWER – Director, Sasa Music
DAVID HARE – Playwright
DAVID SANCHEZ – Saxophonist and Grammy Winner
DEBORAH BRUGUERA – Activist, Italy
DELE SOSIMI – Musician – The Afrobeat Orchestra
DOCTOR HILDERMAN – Artist, Uganda
DR VINCENT MAGOMBE – Journalist and Broadcaster
DR PAUL WILLIAMS – Member of Parliament, United Kingdom
EDDIE HATITYE – Director, Music In Africa
EDDY KENZO – Artist, Uganda
EDWARD SIMON – Musician and Composer, Venezuela
EFE OMOROGBE – Director Hypertek, Nigeria
ERIAS LUKWAGO – Lord Mayor of Kampala Uganda
ELYSE PIGNOLET – Visual Artist, USA
ERIC HARLAND – Musician
FEMI ANIKULAPO KUTI – Musician, Nigeria
FEMI FALANA – Human Rights Lawyer, Nigeria
FRANCIS ZAAKE – Member of Parliament, Uganda
FRANK RYNNE – Senior Lecturer British Studies, UCP, France
GARY LUCAS – Musician
GERALD KARUHANGA – Member of Parliament, Uganda
GINNY SUSS – Manager, Producer
HELEN EPSTEIN – Professor of Journalism Bard College
HENRY LOUIS GATES – Director of the Hutchins Center at Harvard University
HUGH CORNWELL – Musician
IAIN NEWTON – Marketing Consultant
INNOCENT (2BABA) IDIBIA – Artist, Nigeria
IRENE NAMATOVU – Artist, Uganda
IRENE NTALE – Artist, Uganda
JANE CORNWELL – Journalist
JEFFREY KOENIG – Partner, Serling Rooks Hunter McKoy Worob & Averill LLP
JESSE RIBOT – American University School of International Service
JIM GOLDBERG – Photographer, Professor Emeritus at California College of the Arts
JODIE GINSBERG – CEO, Index on Censorship
JOEL SSENYONYI – Journalist, Uganda
JON FAWCETT – Cultural Events Producer
JON SACK – Artist
JOHN AJAH – CEO, Spinlet
JOHN CARRUTHERS – Music Executive
JOHN GROGAN – Member of Parliament, United Kingdom
JONATHAN LETHEM – Novelist
JONATHAN MOSCONE – Theater Director
JONATHAN PATTINSON – Co-Founder Reluctantly Brave
JOHNNY BORRELL – Singer, Razorlight
JOJO MEYER – Musician
KADIALY KOUYATE – Musician, Senegal
KALUNDI SERUMAGA – Former Director – Uganda National Cultural Centre/National Theatre
KASIANO WADRI – Member of Parliament, Uganda
KEITH RICHARDS OBE – Writer
KEMIYONDO COUTINHO – Filmmaker, Uganda
KENNETH OLUMUYIWA THARP CBE – Director The Africa Centre
KING SAHA – Artist, Uganda
KWEKU MANDELA – Filmmaker
LAUREN ROTH DE WOLF – Music Manager Orchestra of Syrian Musicians
LEMI GHARIOKWU – Visual Artist, Nigeria
LEO ABRAHAMS – Producer, Musician, Composer
LES CLAYPOOL – Musician, Primus
LINDA HANN – MD Linda Hann Consulting Group
LUCIE MASSEY – Creative Producer
LUCY DURAN – Professor of Music at SOAS University of London
LYNDALL STEIN – Activist/Campaigner, United Kingdom
MARC RIBOT – Musician
MARCUS DRAVS – Producer
MAREK FUCHS – MD Sauti Sol Entertainment, Kenya
MARGARET ATWOOD – Author
MARK LEVINE – Professor of History UC Irvine – Grammy winning artist
MARY GLINDON – Member of Parliament, United Kingdom
MATT PENMAN – Musician, New Zealand
MARTIN GOLDSCHMIDT – Chairman, Cooking Vinyl Group
MEDARD SSEGONA – Member of Parliament, Uganda
MICHAEL CHABON – Writer
MICHAEL LEUFFEN – NTS Host, Carhartt WIP Music Rep
MICHAEL UWEDEMEDIMO – Director, CMAP and Research Fellow King’s College London
MILTON ALLIMADI – Publisher, The Black Star News
MORGAN MARGOLIS – President, Knitting Factory Entertainment, USA
MOUSTAPHA DIOP – Musician, Senegal MusikBi CEO
MR EAZI – Musician, Producer, Nigeria
MUWANGA KIVUMBI – Member of Parliament, Uganda
NAOMI WEBB – Executive Director, Good Chance Theatre, United Kingdom
NICK GOLD – Owner, World Circuit Records
NUBIAN LI – Artist, Uganda
OHAL GRIETZER – Composer
OBED CALVAIRE – Musician
OMOYELE SOWORE – Founder Sahara Reporters and Nigerian Presidential Candidate
PATRICK GRADY – Member of Parliament, United Kingdom
PAUL MAHEKE – Artist, United Kingdom
PAUL MWIRU – Member of Parliament, Uganda
PETER GABRIEL – Musician
RACHEL SPENCE – Arts Writer and Poet, United Kingdom
RASHEED ARAEEN – Artist, United Kingdom
RAYMOND MUJUNI – Journalist, Uganda
RHETT MILLER – Musician, Writer
RILIWAN SALAM – Artist Manager
ROBERT MAILER ANDERSON – Writer and Producer
ROBIN DENSELOW – Journalist, United Kingdom
ROBIN EUBANKS – Trombonist, Composer, Educator
ROBIN RIMBAUD – Musician
RUTH DANIEL – CEO, In Place of War
SAMIRA BIN SHARIFU – DJ
SANDOW BIRK – Visual Artist, USA
SANDRA IZSADORE – Author, Artist, Activist, USA
SEAN JONES – Musician, Composer, Bandleader, Educator
SEBASTIAN ROCHFORD – Musician, Pola Bear
SEUN ANIKULAPO KUTI – Musician, Composer
SHAHIDUL ALAM – Photojournalist and Activist, Bangladesh
SIDNEY SULE – B.A.H.D Guys Entertainment Management, Nigeria
SIMON WOLF – Senior Associate, Amsterdam & Partners LLP
SRIRAK PLIPAT – Executive Director, Freemuse
STEPHEN BUDD – OneFest / Stephen Budd Music Ltd
SOFIA KARIM – Architect and Artist
STEPHEN HENDEL – Kalakuta Sunrise LLC
STEVE JONES – Musician and Producer
SUZANNE NOSSEL – CEO, PEN America
TANIA BRUGUERA – Artist and Activist, Cuba
TOM CAIRNES – Co-Founder Freetown Music Festival
WOLE SOYINKA – Nobel Laureate, Nigeria
YENI ANIKULAPO KUTI – Co-Executor of the Fela Anikulapo Kuti Estate
ZENA WHITE – MD, Knitting Factory and Partisan Records
31 Jan 2019 | Bahrain, Bahrain Statements, Campaigns -- Featured, Middle East and North Africa
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Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Credit: UN Women / Flickr
H.E. Michelle Bachelet
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
United Nations
52 Rue des Paquis
1201 Geneva, Switzerland
Your Excellency,
We, the undersigned organisations, write to you to express our concern regarding the worsening situation for civil society in Bahrain. We believe co-ordinated international action coupled with public scrutiny are imperative to address the government of Bahrain’s ongoing attacks on civil society and to hold the kingdom accountable to its commitments to international human rights laws and standards. To this end, we call upon your Office to continue to monitor the situation in Bahrain and to continue to raise concerns at the highest level, both publicly and privately, with the government, as was done by your predecessor, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein. We believe heightened scrutiny of Bahrain’s human rights record and its ongoing human rights violations is particularly important now that the kingdom is a Member State of the Human Rights Council.
In the past two years, the Bahraini government increased its repression of the kingdom’s remaining civil society organisations, political opposition groups, and human rights defenders. In June 2016, Bahrain’s Administrative Court forcibly dissolved al-Wefaq, Bahrain’s largest political opposition society, a ruling that was upheld in February 2018. In May 2017, a court approved the forcible dissolution of the National Democratic Action Society, also known as Wa’ad. Only a month later, the government indefinitely suspended the kingdom’s last remaining independent newspaper, Al-Wasat, continuing its repression of free expression and press freedom.
While there were hopes that the government might ease repression in the run-up to elections for the lower house of parliament on 24 November 2018, these were dashed with a series of actions and policies that effectively precluded the elections from being free or fair, and that continued the broader assault on civil society. Only weeks ahead of ahead of the elections, the country’s highest appeals court sentenced Sheikh Ali Salman, the Secretary-General of Al-Wefaq, to life in prison on spurious charges of espionage dating from 2011. The government also enacted new legislation banning all individuals who had ever belonged to a dissolved political society from seeking or holding elected office, as well as anyone who has ever served six months or more in prison. This affects a large portion of Bahrain’s population, as the kingdom currently has around 4,000 political prisoners.
Beyond rigging the election process at the expense of political opposition societies and free and fair participation, over this past year Bahrain has continued to target, harass, and imprison activists and human rights defenders for exercising their right to free expression. The government criminalised calls to boycott the elections, and, on 13 November 2018, arrested former Member of Parliament Ali Rasheed al-Asheeri for tweeting about boycotting the November elections. On 31 December 2018, Bahrain’s Court of Cassation – its court of last resort – upheld prominent human rights defender Nabeel Rajab’s five-year prison sentence on spurious charges of tweeting and re-tweeting criticism of torture in Jau Prison and the war in Yemen, drawing criticism from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. With this decision, Rajab has exhausted all legal remedies to reverse the charges and will remain in prison until 2023. He has already served a two-year prison sentence on charges related to television interviews in which he discussed the human rights situation in the kingdom.
While Bahrain has several institutions tasked with oversight responsibilities and enforcing accountability for human rights abuses, we have grave concerns over their effectiveness, their independence, and their commitment to fulfilling their mandates. Similar concerns have been raised about other Bahraini institutions – the National Institution for Human Rights (NIHR) and the Ministry of Interior Ombudsman – by the UN Human Rights Committee. In the Committee’s first evaluation of Bahrain under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in July 2018, it found the NIHR largely lacked sufficient independence from the government. The European Parliament has also criticised the NIHR, including in a June 2018 resolution where the body expressed “regret” for the honours it has bestowed upon the NIHR. In the resolution, the European Parliament cited the institution’s lack of independence to fulfil its duties. The Ministry of Interior (MoI) Ombudsman has received sharp criticism, including from the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT). The CAT cited the Ombudsman’s lack of independence, impartiality, and efficacy in addressing complaints submitted to the institution.
Bahrain’s national institutions not only fail to implement human rights reforms, they help perpetuate and whitewash abuses. Both the Ombudsman and NIHR have released reports that sanitise violations like police brutality, while neglecting to address or condemn violent police raids on peaceful protests.
The failure of Bahrain’s human rights institutions to address serious abuses both reflects and promotes a broader culture of impunity in the country, where the government can continue to suppress free expression and civil society.
Despite these abuses and despite concerns from UN bodies, Bahrain has not been the subject of collective action in the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) since a joint statement in September 2015 at HRC 30. Since then, the government has taken increased steps to limit fundamental freedoms, including restricting the rights to free expression, free assembly, free association, and free press, dissolving political opposition societies and jailing human rights defenders, religious leaders, and political figures. However, even as Bahrain has embarked on this campaign to suppress opposition and dissent, state action on Bahrain in the HRC has been limited to individual condemnations by various governments under Agenda Items 2 and 4.
Despite this lack of joint action, the Office of the High Commissioner has been consistently vocal about Bahrain’s rights abuses, and we are very appreciative of the Office’s attention over the past several years. Your predecessor raised concerns about Bahrain in his opening statements at the HRC, including at the 36th Council session, where he highlighted restrictions on civil society and the kingdom’s lack of engagement with international human rights mechanisms, and at 38th Council session, in which he reiterated past concerns and sharply criticised Bahrain for its continued refusal to co-operate with the Office of the High Commissioner and the mandates of the Special Procedures.
We believe that this UN scrutiny is now even more necessary as Bahrain assumes a seat on the Council as a Member State.
We strongly urge you to continue to monitor the situation, to publicly express your concerns to Bahraini officials, and to call on the Bahraini government to meet its international obligations, including those concerning protecting and promoting civil society. Without an independent, viable civil society in the country there can be no serious domestic pressure on the government to relax restrictions and ease repression.
We call on you to highlight Bahrain’s restrictions on civil society, targeting of human rights defenders, dissolution of political opposition, and unrelenting attacks on free expression in your opening statement at the 40th Human Rights Council session, the first session of which Bahrain is a member of the Council.
Sincerely,
Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
Adil Soz – International Foundation for Protection of Freedom of Speech
ARTICLE 19
Bahrain Center for Human Rights
Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI)
Center for Media Studies & Peace Building (CEMESP)
Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ)
Foro de Periodismo Argentino
Freedom Forum
Independent Journalism Center (IJC)
Index on Censorship
Initiative for Freedom of Expression – Turkey
Maharat Foundation
Mediacentar Sarajevo
Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)
Norwegian PEN
OpenMedia
Pacific Islands News Association (PINA)
PEN America
Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA)
South East Europe Media Organisation
Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM)
Vigilance for Democracy and the Civic State
Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)
Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia (AHRE)
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy
Cairo Institute to Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
CIVICUS
European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights
Odhikar (Bangladesh)
Center for Civil Liberties (Ukraine)
Sudanese Development Initiative (Sudan)
JOINT Liga de ONGs em Mocambique
West African Human Rights Defenders Network
Latin American Network for Democracy (REDLAD)
Ligue Burundaise des Droits de l’homme ITEKA
Organisation Tchadienne Anti-Corruption (OTAC)[/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:1549278314945-d1d5bcda-455e-2″ taxonomies=”716″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
10 Dec 2018 | Artistic Freedom, Cuba, News and features
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The artist Tania Bruguera who was detained last week with fellow artists in Cuba for protesting against Decree 349, an artistic censorship law, has written an open letter explaining why she will not attend Kochi biennial at a time that is crucial for freedom of expression in Cuba and beyond.
Bruguera who was due to attend Kochi states in the letter:
“At this moment I do not feel comfortable traveling to participate in an international art event when the future of the arts and artists in Cuba is at risk… As an artist I feel my duty today is not to exhibit my work at an international exhibition and further my personal artistic career but to expose the vulnerability of Cuban artists today.”
Bruguera feels it is important to highlight the situation in Cuba and also to see it as part of a global phenomenon of repression of artists and freedom of expression. Recent cases such as Shahidul Alam, the photographer imprisoned by the government of Bangladesh (who Bruguera campaigned for by hosting two protest shows at Tate Modern in October), the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi killed in the Saudi embassy in Turkey, and photographer Lu Guang who has gone missing in China, demonstrate that governments feel emboldened to openly attack high profile figures, moving beyond internal state repression which used to happen behind closed doors.
On Wednesday 5 December supporters of Bruguera held a protest exhibition at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, where participants spoke on a microphone about Decree 349 and the abuse of artists around the world. Alistair Hudson, director of the Whitworth and Manchester Art Gallery spoke at the event via live phone in. Tate director Maria Balshaw, also spoke out on the BBC news broadcast of the Turner Prize whilst Tate Modern director Frances Morris made a statement on Tate twitter. A speech by HRH Prince Constantijn on the occasion of the 2018 Prince Claus Awards at the Royal Palace, Amsterdam on 6 December 2018 also spoke about the situation with reference to Tania Bruguera, Shahidul Alam and Lu Guang. Many other cultural institutions around the world have also made public statements, whilst others are showing signs that they will follow.
The hope is that art institutions and events around the world, such as Kochi biennial, follow suit and show open solidarity to defend the artists’ space.
The full wording of Bruguera’s letter is as follows:
OPEN LETTER BY TANIA BRUGUERA TO THE DIRECTOR OF KOCHI BIENNALE ON DECREE 349
At this moment I do not feel comfortable traveling to participate in an international art event when the future of the arts and artists in Cuba is at risk. The Cuban government with Decree 349 is legalizing censorship, saying that art must be created to suit their ethic and cultural values (which are not actually defined). The government is creating a `cultural police´ in the figure of the inspectors, turning what was until now, subjective and debatable into crime.
Cuban artists have united for the first time in many decades to be heard, each with their own points of view. They had meetings with bureaucrats from the Ministry of Culture who promised them that they would meet again to give them answers. Instead, the Minister and other bureaucrats appeared on TV and made comments such as “[those who oppose Decree 349] want the dissolution of the institution” and “the alternative they are proposing is the commercialisation of art.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. If this were true, the artists would not have written to the institutions and sought dialogue with them.
But, a public opinion campaign by the government against the artists, with the intention to divide between “good ones” and “bad ones”, has started. This is even more concerning when under this decree the law restricts but provides no guarantee of whether an artist will or will not be criminalized or not at any time.. Moreover, the decree states that all `artistic services´ must be authorized by the Ministry of Culture and its correspondent institutions, making independent art impossible.
The last time a decree of this sort was enacted was the no. 226 from November 29 of 1997, which is evidence of the long life that such a decree could have and its long term impact on our culture.
As an artist I feel my duty today is not to exhibit my work at an international exhibition and further my personal artistic career but to be with my fellow Cuban artists and to expose the vulnerability of Cuban artists today.
We are all waiting for the regulations and norms the Ministry of Culture will put forward to implement Decree 349 in the hope that they include the suggestions and demands so many artists shared with them. I would like to add that the instructor from the Ministry of Interior who is in charge of my case menaced me yesterday, saying that if I didn’t leave Cuba and if I did `something´, I would not be able to leave in the future.
Injustice exists because previous injustices were not challenged.
Ironically, I’m sending you this text on December 10th the International Day of Human Rights.
Un abrazo,
Tania Bruguera[/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:1544431942749-6dbcba3e-bd36-2″ taxonomies=”15469, 7874″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
