[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Index on Censorship has dedicated its milestone 250th issue to exploring the increasing threats to reporters worldwide. Its special report, Truth in Danger, Danger in Truth: Journalists Under Fire and Under Pressure, is out now.”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Highlights include Lindsey Hilsum, writing about her friend and colleague, the murdered war reporter Marie Colvin, and asking whether journalists should still be covering war zones. Stephen Grey looks at the difficulties of protecting sources in an era of mass surveillance. Valeria Costa-Kostritsky shows how Europe’s journalists are being silenced by accusations that their work threatens national security.
Kaya Genç interviews Turkey’s threatened investigative journalists, and Steven Borowiec lifts the lid on the cosy relationships inside Japan’s press clubs. Plus, the inside track on what it is really like to be a local reporter in Syria and Eritrea. Also in this issue: the late Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell explores colonialism in Africa in an exclusive play extract; Jemimah Steinfeld interviews China’s most famous political cartoonist; Irene Caselli writes about the controversies and censorship of Latin America’s soap operas; and Norwegian musician Moddi tells how hate mail sparked an album of music that had been silenced.
The 250th cover is by Ben Jennings. Plus there are cartoons and illustrations by Martin Rowson, Brian John Spencer, Sam Darlow and Chinese cartoonist Rebel Pepper.
You can order your copy here, or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions. Copies are also available at the BFI, the Serpentine Gallery, MagCulture, (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester) and on Amazon. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship continue its fight for free expression worldwide.
Index on Censorship magazine was started in 1972 and remains the only global magazine dedicated to free expression. It has produced 250 issues, with contributors including Samuel Beckett, Gabriel García Marquéz, Nadine Gordimer, Arthur Miller, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, and many more.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”SPECIAL REPORT: DANGER IN TRUTH, TRUTH IN DANGER” css=”.vc_custom_1483444455583{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_text]
Journalists under fire and under pressure
Editorial: Risky business – Rachael Jolley on why journalists around the world face increasing threats
Behind the lines – Lindsey Hilsum asks if reporters should still be heading into war zones
We are journalists, not terrorists – Valeria Costa-Kostritsky looks at how reporters around Europe are being silenced by accusations that their work threatens national security
Code of silence – Cristina Marconi shows how Italy’s press treads carefully between threats from the mafia and defamation laws from fascist times
Facing the front line – Laura Silvia Battaglia gives the inside track on safety training for Iraqi journalists
Giving up on the graft and the grind – Jean-Paul Marthoz says journalists are failing to cover difficult stories
Risking reputations – Fred Searle on how young UK writers fear “churnalism” will cost their jobs
Inside Syria’s war – Hazza Al-Adnan shows the extreme dangers faced by local reporters
Living in fear for reporting on terror – Ismail Einashe interviews a Kenyan journalist who has gone into hiding
The life of a state journalist in Eritrea – Abraham T. Zere on what it’s really like to work at a highly censored government newspaper
Smothering South African reporting – Carien Du Plessis asks if racism accusations and Twitter mobs are being used to stop truthful coverage at election time
Writing with a bodyguard – Catalina Lobo-Guerrero explores Colombia’s state protection unit, which has supported journalists in danger for 16 years
Taliban warning ramps up risk to Kabul’s reporters – Caroline Lees recalls safer days working in Afghanistan and looks at journalists’ challenges today
Writers of wrongs – Steven Borowiec lifts the lid on cosy relationships inside Japan’s press clubs
The Arab Spring snaps back – Rohan Jayasekera assesses the state of the media after the revolution
Shooting the messengers – Duncan Tucker reports on the women investigating sex-trafficking in Mexico
Is your secret safe with me? – Stephen Grey looks at the difficulties of protecting sources in an age of mass surveillance
Stripsearch cartoon – Martin Rowson depicts a fat-cat politician quashing questions
Scoops and troops – Kaya Genç interviews Turkey’s struggling investigative reporters
A world away from Wallander – An exclusive extract of a play by late Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell
“I’m not prepared to give up my words” – Norman Manea introduces Matei Visniec, a surreal Romanian play where rats rule and humans are forced to relinquish language
Posting into the future – An extract from Oleh Shynkarenko’s futuristic new novel, inspired by Facebook updates during Ukraine’s Maidan Square protests
The lost art of letters – Vicky Baker looks at the power of written correspondence and asks if email can ever be the same
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”SUBSCRIBE” css=”.vc_custom_1481736449684{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship magazine was started in 1972 and remains the only global magazine dedicated to free expression. Past contributors include Samuel Beckett, Gabriel García Marquéz, Nadine Gordimer, Arthur Miller, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, and many more.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”76572″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]In print or online. Order a print edition here or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions.
Copies are also available at the BFI, the Serpentine Gallery, MagCulture, (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester), Calton Books (Glasgow) and on Amazon. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship continue its fight for free expression worldwide.
Pohyon Temple in the Myohyang mountains, once a national center for Korean Buddhism. Credit: Uri Tours / Flickr
After the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent organisation created by the US Congress to evaluate religious freedom conditions around the world, released its 2015 report, it became clear that an insufficient amount of progress had been made since Index on Censorship last reported on the issue.
Here’s a roundup of some the most appalling religious freedom violations from across the globe.
Burma
Bigotry and intolerance continue to scorch the lives of religious and ethnic minorities in Burma, particularly Rohingya Muslims. The Burmese government demonstrated little effort toward intervening or properly investigating claims of abuse, including those carried out by religious figures in the Buddhist community. As internet availability spread throughout the country, social media played a role in promoting a platform of hate and proposed violence against minority populations. Rohingya Muslims in the country face a unique level of discrimination and persecution. The government denies them citizenship and the right to identify as Rohingya. Additionally, four discriminatory race and religion bills could further the prejudices affecting religious minorities.
North Korea
North Korea is a nation where genuine freedom of religion or belief is non-existent; it remains one of the most oppressive regimes and worst violators of human rights. Punishment comes to those who pose difficult questions while the government maintains its control through a constant threat of imprisonment, torture and even death for those who break the law regarding religion. Estimates suggest up to 200,000 North Koreans are currently suffering in labor camps, tens of thousands of whom are there for practicing heir faith. In February 2014, the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea released its report documenting the systematic, severe violations of human rights in the country. It found “an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience”.
Saudi Arabia
Officially an Islamic state with eight to ten million expatriate workers of different faiths, Saudi Arabia continues to restrict most forms of public religious expression inconsistent with its interpretation of Sunni Islam. The government continues to use criminal charges of blasphemy to suppress any dialogue between dissenting viewpoints, with a new law helping drive home the goal of silence. The Penal Law for Crimes of Terrorism and its Financing criminalises virtually all forms of peaceful dissent and free expression, including criticising the government’s view of Islam. Lastly, authorities continue to discriminate grossly against dissident clerics and members of the Shia community.
Sudan
The Sudanese government continues to engage in massive violations of freedom of religion, due to president Omar al-Bashir’s policies of Islamisation and restrictive interpretation of sharia law. Despite 97% of the population being Muslim, there is a wide range of other religions practiced. The country’s turmoil from religious persecution rests on the 1991 Criminal Code, the 1991 Personal Status Law of Muslims, and state-level “public order” laws, which have restricted freedom for all Sudanese. The laws – which contradict the country’s constitutional and international commitments to human rights and freedom of religion – allow death sentences for apostasy, stoning for adultery, cross-amputations for theft, prison sentences for blasphemy and floggings for undefined “offences of honor, reputation and public morality”. Since 2011, more than 170 people have been arrested and charged with apostasy.
Article continues below
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Join the Index mailing list and get an exclusive gift” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:28|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Index on Censorship’s summer magazine 2016
We’ll send you our weekly emails and periodic updates on our events. We won’t share your personal information with anyone outside Index.
You’ll also get access to an exclusive collection of articles from our landmark 250th issue of Index on Censorship magazine exploring journalists under fire and under pressure. Your downloadable PDF will include reports from Lindsey Hilsum, Laura Silvia Battaglia and Hazza Al-Adnan.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Uzbekistan
In Uzbekistan, the government imprisons individuals for not conforming to officially prescribed practices or whom it claims are extremist, including as many as 12,000 Muslims. A highly restrictive religion law is imposed, the 1998 Law on Freedom of Consciences and Religious Organisations, which severely limits the rights of all religious groups and facilitates Uzbek government control over religious activity. Many who don’t fit into the framework of officially approved practices are regularly repressed. Additionally, the government has continued a campaign against independent Muslims, targeting those linked to the May 2005 protests in Andijan; 231 are still imprisoned in connection to the events, and ten have died. All the while, Uzbekistan has pressured countries to return Uzbek refugees who fled during the Andijan tragedy.
Turkmenistan
In an environment of nearly inescapable government information control, severe religion freedom breaches persist in Turkmenistan. Continuing police raids and harassment of registered and unregistered religious groups matched with laws and policies that violate international human rights norms has the nation as one of the year’s biggest offenders. With an estimated total population of 5.1 million, the US government projects that the country is 85% Sunni Muslim, 9% Russian Orthodox, and a 2% total that includes Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, and evangelical Christians. Despite Turkmenistan’s constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom and separation of religion from the state, the 2003 religion law negates these provisions while setting intrusive registration criteria for individuals. It also requires that the government is informed of all foreign financial support, forbids worship in private homes and places discriminatory restrictions on religious education.
China
While the Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of religion, this idea really only applies to “normal religions”, better known as the five state-sanctioned “patriotic religious associations” associated with Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism. Even still, the government monitors religious activities unfairly, and there has been an increased religious persecution of Uighur Muslims in the name of fighting terrorism. All around repression in China worsened in 2014, including the governmental push for controlling Tibet, Xinjiang, and even Hong Kong, as well as controls on the internet, social media, human rights defenders, activists and journalists.
Eritrea
Ongoing religious freedom abuses have continued in Eritrea, including torture or ill-treatment of religious prisoners, random arrests without charges and banning’s on public religious activities. The situation is especially serious for Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the government suppresses Muslim religious activities and those opposed to the government-appointed head of the community. In 2002, the government increased its control over religion by imposing a registration requirement on all religious groups other than the Coptic Orthodox Church of Eritrea, Sunni Islam, the Roman Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church of Eritrea. The requirements mandated that the non-preferred religious communities provide detailed information about their finances, membership, activities, and benefit to the country. Additionally, released religious prisoners have reported to USCIRF that they were confined in crowded conditions, and subjected to extreme temperature fluctuations. The government continued to arrest and detain followers of unregistered religious communities. Recent estimates suggest 1,200 to 3,000 people are imprisoned on religious grounds in Eritrea, the majority of whom are Evangelical or Pentecostal Christians.
Iran
Poor religious freedom in Iran continued to worsen in 2014, particularly for minority groups like Bahá’ís, Christian converts, and Sunni Muslims. The government is still engaging in systematic violations, including prolonged detention, torture, and executions based on the religion of the accused. Despite Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians being recognised as protected minorities, the government has consistently discriminated against its citizens on the basis of religion. Killings, arrests, and physical abuse of detainees have increased in recent years, including for religious minorities and Muslims who are perceived as threatening the government’s legitimacy.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1493906845781-a7b9ac80-f77d-2″ taxonomies=”1742″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Awards Gala tickets“I may lose my life anytime,” Zimbabwean human rights campaigned Nkosilathi Emmanuel Moyo told Index. At the time he was still hiding in South Africa, having fled after news of his last action went viral – he sent Robert Mugabe a birthday present that consisted of a prison outfit marked ‘crimes against humanity’, plus handcuffs.“I started receiving death threats through anonymous calls. My office and my home were visited by suspected state agents who were looking for me. Then I realised that my life was and is in danger and I went into hiding,” he said.
Born in 1987, the same year Mugabe became president, Nkosilathi Emmanuel Moyo was political from a young age. “It’s more of an inborn thing. I remember when I was growing up at that stage where most kids would be interested in watching cartoons I could be seen watching news from CNN to BBC,” he said.
And Moyo watched as Mugabe, who originally fought for independence and assumed power as Zimbabwe’s anti-colonial hero, imposed an increasingly dictatorial regime. Mugabe’s ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), and Zimbabwe’s security forces, went on to oversee systematic human rights violations. In the post-2000 era, during Moyo’s teenage years, Zimbabwe witnessed unprecedented political violence, leading to an economic freefall, with year-on-year inflation exceeding 1,000%.
Growing up in a small mining town, Moyo saw the young people around him manipulated by politicians to perpetuate this political violence, at the same time that they were pushed to the peripheries of political leadership and policy making. “The youth became ‘willing’ tools of abuse due to economic hardships,” he says, which included “victimising the electorate in election times.” So in 2010, at the age of 23, Moyo set up the Zimbabwe Organization For The Youth In Politics (ZOYP), along with Jasper Maposa, a community leader from his town. “We sought to enculture the youths to resist being used as agents of politically motivated violence,” he said.
ZOYP has now trained a small army of over 2,500 activists, with a new brand of peaceful politics to counter 92-year-old Mugabe’s violent regime. He has also trained 80 human rights defenders in a grassroots programme called the Community Human Rights Defenders Academy, working in remote areas of Zimbabwe.
Now author of four best-selling political books, Moyo has become an important critic of a regime notorious for disappearing, intimidating and arresting dissenting voices – criticism that has not gone unnoticed.
After publishing his book in 2015, Robert Mugabe: From Freedom Fighter to the People’s Enemy, Moyo faced increased state surveillance and death threats. He fled to the Netherlands for three months, staying with Shelter City in Utrecht, an initiative set up to protect human rights campaigners. As soon as he returned to Zimbabwe he published another book, criticising Robert Mugabe’s wife, Grace Mugabe: “Africa’s upcoming first female dictator.”
He’s been arrested in the past for his politics, after organising a youth event where former US Ambassador to Zimbabwe Charles Ray was a speaker. Charged under the Public Order and Security Act – a repressive law used to silence dissenting voices, particularly from civil society organisations and ZANU-PF opposition – he was sentenced to six months in prison, later getting off with a fine.
“My arrest did not come as a shock,” he told Index. And likewise the reaction to Mugabe’s birthday gift is not surprising, but Moyo remains defiant. “I don’t regret what I did, indeed President Mugabe must answer for crimes against humanity which he committed. Justice must prevail in Zimbabwe.”
Moyo has now set his sights worldwide, working to establish an international platform for young with political aspirations. “Looking at what is happening in Burundi, Syria, Uganda only to mention a few, I think there is a need,” he says. “Developing young people in politics is a step towards creating a peaceful world.”
One of China’s leading human rights lawyers and free speech campaigners, Pu Zhiqiang is known particularly for his way with words. “Whether in court or online, he is adept at mixing classical erudition and street vernacular,” said Chinese scholar and a friend of Pu’s Perry Link. “Twitter was made for him, but Twitter is banned in China.”
Since May 2014 Pu’s voice has been silenced, after he was arrested and charged for a series of blog posts. His trial drew huge international attention with many observers calling it a litmus test for freedom of speech in China. He was released in December 2015 to house arrest, and has made no public comment since.
Index asked three of Pu’s friends to tell his story for him.
“He was born on 11 January 1965 in Luanxian, near Tangshan, Hebei Province,” said Tong Yi, who has been a friend of Pu’s since meeting him in 1988. “His father was categorized as ‘landlord’. Therefore, when he grew up in his village, he was discriminated against because of his father. He experienced the devastating earthquake in Tangshan in July 1976.”
“Despite all the hardship he faced in those years, he grew up with an imposing physical build, as well as a standout student with a keen intellect and a photographic memory.”
As a student Pu became involved in the Tiananmen Students’ Movement. He was at Tiananmen Square in 1989, and witnessed the massacre of many of his friends and fellow campaigners. That was a turning point for him, says Link.
“He felt especially bad about the ordinary workers who protested and then died. They were not famous like some of the students and intellectuals, but were called ‘riffraff’ by the government, then slaughtered and forgotten. That experience has haunted Pu and, I believe, has been the anchor for his devotion to human rights law.”
This devotion saw him become a leading human rights lawyer in China, taking on controversial campaigns that earned him a “Robin Hood” reputation.
“Over the past decade, Pu has defended right to freedom of expression in a number of well-known cases,” Professor Hu Yong, China’s leading academic authority on the history of the Internet in China told Index.
His defendants include earthquake activist and writer Tan Zuoren, dissident writer Wang Tiancheng, fellow human rights lawyer Zheng Enchong, Tibetan environmentalist Karma Samdrop, banned writers such Chen Guidi, Chun Tao and Zhang Yihe, and artist Ai Weiwei.
“He also rescued a dozen of villagers facing harsh criminal charge for disclosing local corruption and criticizing officials, and defended a number of outspoken whistleblowing journalists and liberal media outlets against defamation charges,” said Hu Yong.
This work obviously earned him a place on China’s closely-watched list, but Pu knew the law so well he’d always managed to stay on the right side of it, said Link. That was until last year, when he was arrested after attending a small meeting about Tiananmen Square. Pu was later charged with “creating disturbances” and “inciting ethnic hatred” via seven comments posted on the microblogging platform Weibo between July 2011 and May 2014. The posts criticized the central government’s policies in Xinjiang and Tibet that repress minorities’ religious and ethnic identities.
Pu was detained for 19 months, with many prepared for his trial to result in an 8-year-sentence. On 22 December 2015 Pu was finally released, with an unexpected 3-year suspended sentence.
Xinhua, China’s official news agency, claimed Pu had been given “a light punishment…as he confessed his crime honestly, pleaded guilty and repented his guilt.”
“The government’s goal in persecuting Pu was to to quell freedom of speech on the internet,” said Link. “It was as if the government was saying, ‘Look, if we can take free speech away from the country’s leading advocate of free speech, then what can’t we do? EVERYBODY TAKE NOTE.’ It has worked, to some extent. But the story is not over.”
Hu Yong agrees that Pu’s arrest and sentence, even though less harsh than expected, marks a huge step backwards for freedom of speech in China. “Many people saw Pu’s case as a touchstone that would demonstrate whether the rule of law in China has been moving backward or progressing,” Hu Yong wrote for ChinaFile.
“In terms of levels of the government other than the judiciary, some thought that if Pu were to be convicted, it would serve as a weathervane indicating that China is returning to a ‘second Cultural Revolution.’ In fact, there is no need for a touchstone, and the weathervane has long been pointing in the same direction.”
As for Pu’s own future, Hu Yong believes he could lose his right to practice law. Whether his voice as the Robin Hood of China is lost forever is also still to be decided.
“What happens to Pu will depend mostly on how he decides to play his cards from now on,” said Link. “ If he accepts the government’s muzzle, the authorities will leave him alone. If he chooses to speak out again, they will try to re-imprison him or punish him in other ways.”
SUBSCRIBE NOW[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]
