Gökhan Biçici is a Turkish reporter and was one of the most active reporters of the 2013 anti-government Gezi Park protests in Istanbul. While covering the protests Biçici was beaten severely by police and then dragged through the streets. Observers in apartments overlooking his arrestcaptured footage of the attack, which quickly went viral.
“The censorship in Turkey is stronger now than ever,” Biçici told Index. “There is no period in history where political power had reached this level of domination over the media. And there is no period in history where disinformation has reached these levels.”
Biçici’s arrest and the Gezi Park protests became a symbol of the state of democracy and free speech in Turkey.
The wave of public engagement was huge, Biçici says, and after the protests were over and people left the streets, he sought to build something more permanent.
“It was necessary to go through the resistance protests and realise the size of the censorship and the imposition of self-censorship and the corruption in the press.”
“In these resistance protests, millions of people went out to the streets. Hundreds of thousands, or even millions, went out to the largest square in Istanbul, Taksim Square, and when they came back home a penguin documentary was on TV instead of the truth,” he said.
“The younger generation was politicised by Gezi. At the same time, their relationship with the social media became politicised, too. All conditions were ready to appear citizen news agency in Turkey.”
Dokuz8Haber aims to be just that.“Dokuz8Haber is a foundation that brings together the journalists and the national reporters of digital activism, in a unified network,” he said.
Launched in March 2015, Dokuz8Haber is a journalism network that gathers various independent citizen journalism outlets to create a common newsroom. Volunteers and citizen journalists send their stories to professional editors, and the news stories are then broadcasted domestically and internationally via Dokuz8Haber. They understand the importance of disseminating news in new, modern ways – using social media, video and live-stream coverage and translation to get information out to the people of Turkey.
They have also organised numerous training programs for potential citizen journalists in all regions in Turkey, to train a network of reporters around the country.
“Freedom of expression is a right we will never give up on,” said Biçici. “It’s an nonnegotiable right and it’s also a pursuit that requires hard work. Personally speaking, it’s what I’ve spent my whole life working on. This is why I chose this career.”
From an artist who had barely used Facebook to the face of #YoTambienExijo, the international online movement for free speech – Tania Bruguera describes how the perfect coalescence of art, social media and politics allowed the world to see the real Cuba at a crucial time in the country’s history.
The beginnings of the #YoTambienExijo movement were born on 17 December 2014, when President Obama announcement a landmark warming of the 53-year chill between the United States and Cuba.
“When I first heard about the Cuba-US reconciliation it had a great impact on me as an artist, but also as a Cuban citizen,” Tania Bruguera told Index. “I was glad about the decision, but at the same time a lot of questions came to my head. Who is going to define that different Cuba? Who is going to be in charge of creating that different Cuba?”
Writing an open letter addressed to Obama, the Pope and Cuban president Raúl Castro, Bruguera demanded for Cubans “the right to know what is being planned with our lives”, also demanding that Cuban citizens gain more from his political change than a place at the table of North American trade.
“Yo Tambien Exijo was one of the phrases in the letter – I also demand. I also demand to know. I demand as a Cuban.”
The sentiment resonated with many Cubans around the world, and after her sister Deborah Bruguera created the Facebook page, #YoTambienExijo, the site quickly attracted thousands of followers.
In the final part of her letter, Bruguera called for Castro to hand over the microphone to the people of Cuba – a reference to a performance piece of Bruguera’s which gives any audience member one minute of unhindered free speech. The idea captured the imagination of #YoTambienExijo’s online audience, who asked Bruguera to stage the performance at the Havana Biennial, an art fair taking place in Cuba’s capital that month.
But arriving in the country days later, Bruguera found her words had not been met with the same level of support by the Cuba government. “I was pretty naïve,” says Bruguera. “When I entered the country, I start behaving as if human rights were being respected. And that clashed with reality.”
A smear campaign was launched against Bruguera, with government-sponsored blogs characterizing the artist as a provocateur acting under the influence of foreign pressure, and even labeling her as a drug smuggler. It’s not uncommon for the Cuban government to attempt to undermine dissenting voices as CIA or right wing, the artist says: “I think one good thing is I’ve worked for 20 years. So people know who I am. Sometime when you are dissident or you are an activist just starting working, in Cuba they are very good at putting in people’s mind the image of that person they want for the rest of the people.”
But in spite of continued pressure from government officials to cancel the performance, Bruguera refused. “I always say I have no money, I have nothing. I have only my word. So I have to defend that. In this case I gave my word to the 12,000 people who were waiting for this.”
Organising collective action is difficult in Cuba, where low internet connectivity and high levels of state security tend to impede any political protest. So the #YoTambienExijo team put out an online plea for Cubans around the world to call their families and tell them about the performance – which many did.
On the day of the performance Bruguera was arrested, along with several dissidents who had expressed solidarity with Bruguera’s project. But the attempt to stop the performance failed; news of the #YoTambienExijo page and the performance had already spread to Cuban people.
Imprisoned for the whole performance (she was subsequently released and then rearrested twice), Bruguera only learnt later of the arrests of several audience members. As these events unfolded, reporting from the #YoTambienExijo team spread online, gathering international support for Bruguera, and after 14 prominent artists wrote a letter to The Guardian condemning Bruguera’s arrest, the hashtag #FreeTaniaBruguera soon began trending, and another online letter began circulating. “In 24 hours, more than 3,000 people from the international art world signed, including directors from MoMa and the Tate.” Bruguera refused to allow her own release until all audience members were freed along with her. The mounting pressure from the global community meant that, eventually, the every person arrested in connection with the performance was released.
These events were an important wake-up call, Bruguera believes. “Cuba was trying to sell itself to the world as the next opportunity for business, and as a good person, as a victim for 50 years. This unveiled the truth.” In reality, Cuban government’s control over media public discussion and the arts has been absolute for over five decades.
But what happened also showed Bruguera a way forward for Cuba. “It was for me a very difficult experience – the most difficult I have ever had in my life. But it really put us in a way that we are all together, and we understood that we can make a change in Cuba. Because we were able to mobilize not only that many Cubans, but we were able to mobilize also a big group of international artists.”
The international reaction to Bruguera’s story turned #YoTambienExijo into a movement capturing more than just the Cuban experience. Around the world performances were staged in solidarity, with arts organisations including Creative Time in New York, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Netherlands’ Van Abbe Museum, and the Tate Modern, all giving audiences one minute of free speech. It also became a form of protest in countries around the world where citizens and artists face censorship.
“It became Cuba focused and then it became more about totalitarianism in the world in general,” said Bruguera. “And it became also about the role of an artist who wants to deal with political issues in contemporary art.”
Last year Bruguera was shortlisted for the Hugo Boss prize and named one of Foreign Policy’s Global thinkers of 2015. She is now planning to return to Cuba to set up a space in Havana, the Hannah Arendt International Institute of Art and Artivism, a place for the Cuban people to advance their freedom of expression.
On the eve of the anniversary of the arrest of journalist Khadija Ismayilova, members of the Sport for Rights coalition and the Civic Solidarity Platform underscore the unprecedented nature of the repression that has taken place in Azerbaijan in the year that has passed. The groups reiterate their call for the immediate and unconditional release of Ismayilova and Azerbaijan’s other political prisoners, and for the international community to take steps to hold the Azerbaijani government accountable for its human rights obligations as matter of urgent priority.
“Ismayilova’s arrest a year ago signalled an escalation of repression in Azerbaijan”, noted Karin Deutsch Karlekar, Director of Free Expression Programs at PEN American Center. “Independent voices are being silenced at an unprecedented rate, and we urge the authorities to cease the legal and extra-legal harassment of journalists and media outlets immediately”.
On 5 December 2014, prominent investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova was arrested on charges of inciting a local man, Tural Mustafayev, to attempt suicide. Two months later, authorities slammed her with additional politicised charges of embezzlement, illegal business, tax evasion, and abuse of power. After eight months in pre-trial detention, Ismayilova’s trial started on 7 August at the Baku Court of Grave Crimes.
Ismayilova referred to the proceedings as an “express trial”, and observers noted it was rife with due process violations, with the judges rarely granting any motions made by the defence. During the trial, Mustafayev publicly told the court that prosecutors forced him to make a statement against Ismayilova, and withdrew his accusations. Additionally, Ismayilova’s lawyer told the court that her employer did not report any funds missing, that she was not authorised to hire or dismiss other journalists, and that she was not engaged in any commercial enterprise.
On 1 September, the court convicted Ismayilova of the charges of embezzlement, illegal entrepreneurship, tax evasion, and abuse of office, and sentenced her to 7.5 years’ imprisonment. She was acquitted of the charge of inciting Mustafayev to attempt suicide. On 25 November, the Baku Court of Appeals upheld this conviction, and Ismayilova was transferred to Prison Number 4 on 27 November.
Sport for Rights considers the charges against Ismayilova to be politically motivated and connected to her work as an investigative journalist, particularly her exposure of corruption among the ruling elite. Sport for Rights believes that in jailing Ismayilova, the Azerbaijani authorities sought to silence her critical voice before the country faced increased international media attention during the inaugural European Games, which took place in Baku in June. For this reason, Sport for Rights has referred to Ismayilova as a “Prisoner of the Games”.
“Ismayilova’s imprisonment is emblematic of the Azerbaijani authorities’ repression of independent journalists and human rights defenders”, said Melody Patry, Senior Advocacy Officer at Index on Censorship. “Every day Ismayilova and the other political prisoners spend in jail is another reminder to the world that the Azerbaijani government fails to respect and protect the democratic principles and fundamental rights it has committed to upholding”.
Ismayilova is one of dozens of political prisoners in Azerbaijan. Other prominent cases include journalists Nijat Aliyev, Araz Guliyev, Parviz Hashimli, Seymur Hezi, Hilal Mammadov, Rauf Mirkadirov, and Tofig Yagublu; bloggers Abdul Abilov, Faraj Karimli, Omar Mammadov, Rashad Ramazanov, and Ilkin Rustamzade; human rights defenders Intigam Aliyev, Rasul Jafarov, Taleh Khasmammadov, Anar Mammadli, Arif Yunus, and Leyla Yunus; NIDA civic movement activists Rashadat Akundov, Mammad Azizov, and Rashad Hasanov; opposition activist Yadigar Sadikhov; and opposition REAL movement chairman Ilgar Mammadov.
Besides politically motivated arrests and imprisonment, the Azerbaijani authorities continue to employ a wide range of tactics as part of an aggressive crackdown to silence the country’s few remaining critical voices. Independent online television station Meydan TV has been a particular target, with its staff and their relatives threatened, detained, and otherwise pressured in connection with Meydan TV’s critical news coverage of Azerbaijan. Other independent NGOs and media including the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety and its online television project Obyektiv TV, as well as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Baku office, have also been aggressively targeted over the past year.
In addition to the post-European Games crackdown, the Azerbaijani authorities also worked to silence criticism ahead of the 1 November parliamentary elections. For the first time, the elections took place with almost no credible international observers, and with the majority of the traditional opposition boycotting. Independent domestic observers reported widespread fraud, such as carousel voting and irregularities in the vote counting and tabulation process. Now, in the run-up to the Formula One European Grand Prix, which will take place in Baku in June 2016, the crackdown shows no signs of relenting.
These issues and more are detailed in a new Sport for Rights report, No Holds Barred: Azerbaijan’s Human Rights Crackdown in Aliyev’s Third Term, which also contains specific recommendations to the Azerbaijani authorities and the international community on urgent measures needed to improve the dire human rights situation in the country. Sport for Rights and the Civic Solidarity Platform particularly urge the international community to sustain focus on Azerbaijan over the coming months, when critical voices will need concrete support more than ever before.
Supporting organisations:
ARTICLE 19
Association of Ukrainian Human Rights Monitors on Law Enforcement
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
Center for Civil Liberties (Ukraine)
Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights (Russia)
Civil Rights Defenders
Committee to Protect Journalists
Crude Accountability
Freedom Now
Front Line Defenders
Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association
Golos Svobody Public Foundation (Kyrgyzstan)
Human Rights House Foundation
Human Rights Movement “Bir Duino-Kyrgyzstan”
Index on Censorship
Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), within the framework of the
Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
International Partnership for Human Rights
Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law
Kharkiv Regional Foundation – Public Alternative (Ukraine)
Kosova Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims
Norwegian Helsinki Committee
PEN American Center
People In Need
Platform
Promo-LEX (Moldova)
Public Verdict Foundation (Russia)
Reporters Without Borders
Sova Center for Information and Analysis (Russia)
World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the
Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
In conjunction with the Cambridge Festival of Ideas 2015, we will be publishing a series of articles that complement many of the upcoming debates and discussions. We are offering these articles from Index on Censorship magazine for free (normally they are held within our paid-for archive) as part of our partnership with the festival. Below is an article by children’s book author Norma Klein, on the censorship of children’s books, taken from the spring 1987 issue. It’s a great starting point for those who plan to attend the Banned books: controversy between the covers session at the festival this year.
I used to feel distinguished, almost honoured, when my young books were singled out to be censored. Now, alas, censorship has become so common in the children’s book field in America that almost no one is left unscathed. Some of the most conservative writers are being attacked; it’s reached a point of ludicrousness which, for me, was symbolised by my most recent encounter with ‘the other side’ in Gwinett county, Georgia, in April 1986.
Usually, my books are attacked for their sexual content. The two school board meetings I had attended in the early 1980s, one in Oregon, one in the State of Washington, had centred on two books for older teens, It’s Okay if You Don’t Love Me, a book about two 18- year-olds having a love affair, and Breaking Up, a novel about a 15-year-old girl who discovers her mother is gay. I might add parenthetically that these books have just been published in England for the first time by Pan Books in a new series aimed at teenagers, ‘Horizons’. Already, as in America, they are selling well and already, as in America, I have been told of indignant parents storming into bookstores and objecting to certain passages. It seems that things are not very different in other countries.
What was unusual about the Gwinnett county case was that the book selected to be attacked was one of my early ones, Confessions of an Only Child, about an eight-year-old girl. The offending sentence was one where the girl’s father is putting up wallpaper. Here it is in its entirety:
‘God damn it,’ Dad said as the wallpaper swung around and whacked him in the face.
When the paperback publisher of Confessions first heard of the attack, he attempted to defend the book in the following way:
Abrasive words are sometimes used by writers to add definition to a character or a story; they give the reader an understanding of the situation or kind of person speaking, but are not meant to be words which the reader should use or admire. It is our belief that the family relationships are so positive in this book that they far outweigh the use of realistic language.
My attacker, Theresa Wilson, a stunning blonde, had been heartened by her success in having another book she objected to, Deanie by Judy Blume, removed from the shelves. Her first attempt to remove my book was defeated by a 10-member review panel consisting of six parents, three teachers and a librarian. Ms Wilson claimed to have ‘stumbled’ upon the offending passage one afternoon while in the Beaver Ridge library looking for books that contain material to which she might object. In her thirties, she has no profession and, in a sense, being a censor has led to her becoming a local celebrity; she now, whether her attacks succeed or fail, appears regularly on TV and radio and is covered widely in local newspapers. The 10-member panel voted to keep Confessions on the shelves; only one person voted to keep it on a restricted shelf. ‘The consensus is that the book had literary merit for the age group intended,’ said principal Becky Hopcraft.
Free Thinking! A unique partnership in 2015, Cambridge Festival of Ideas are working with Index on Censorship to offer in-depth articles and follow-up pieces from leading artists, writers and activists on all of our headline events.
In the latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine Spies, secrets and lies: How yesterday’s and today’s censors compare, we look at nations around the world, from South Korea to Argentina, and discuss if the worst excesses of censorship have passed or whether new techniques and technology make it even more difficult for the public to attain information. Subscribe to the magazine.
Incidentally, Ms Wilson said she didn’t object to my heroine’s mother saying, ‘Ye Gods,’ in the next line, because she does not believe ‘Gods’ refers to the Christian god. She wants every book containing the word ‘damn’ restricted from Gwinnett elementary schools. She cited a US Supreme Court ruling against hostility toward religion and said the use of God Damn in Confessions indicated a ‘hostility toward Christianity’.
All this, the initial attack on my book and its initial success in being retained on the shelves, helped to achieve an important result — the founding of a group called Gwinnett Citizens for Freedom in Education. Initially a small group, it now has nearly 500 members. Its president, Lorna Cox, said she was amazed at the diversity of the group’s members, proving that liberals in America are not, as some right-wingers insist, an elitist minority. ‘We’ve got people who didn’t graduate from high school,’ Ms Cox said, ‘college graduates, doctors, professionals, and people who aren’t even affiliated with a school but have a deep, burning desire to be involved in education.’ The group participates in workshops to learn more about censorship at the local and national levels and contacts school administrators each week to learn about potential book bannings.
As in the cases involving It’s Okay if You Don’t Love Me, and Breaking Up, my travel expenses to Georgia were paid by the author’s organisation, PEN. They have a Freedom to Read committee with a fund for cases like this. My own reason for attending these meetings is that I feel having the author appear and help argue the case not only gives heart to the local anti-censorship organisations involved, such as Gwinnett Citizens for Freedom in Education, but may focus national attention on the case. Perhaps it was co- incidental, but CBS did appear in the courtroom to cover the debate for a TV segment on ‘secular humanism’.
Before flying to Georgia I was interviewed by phone. I was quoted as saying, ‘I’m not a religious person… To me the phrase god damn has no more negative a connotation than the expression, Oh gosh. I added that I attributed the swing toward censorship in America to the conservative mood of the Reagan administration. When I arrived, I was told by two of my supporters that the negative reference to Reagan was a mistake. ‘Everyone is for him down here,’ they said. I have to add parenthetically that one of the reasons I write the kinds of books I do and am, perhaps ingenuously, surprised at the reaction they provoke, is due to the fact that I’ve lived all my life in New York City and know personally only liberal people. I’ve never met anyone who voted for Reagan; I am always amazed when the Republicans win an election. But it’s probably similar that in a two-week stay in London’ in the spring of 1986,1 didn’t meet anyone who was for Margaret Thatcher either. This may, however, give me a kind of inner freedom from certain restrictions, due simply to underestimating the power of the right.
The school board meeting I attended was crowded with supporters from both sides. It was conducted as a kind of mock trial. Both sides were allowed to question anyone from the other side about anything that was relevant to the case. I was pleased and relieved that every time Ms Wilson tried to bring the questioning around to my own personal religious beliefs, she was told that was not relevant to the book. In a perverse way I found her performance at the trial fascinatiing. She alternately flirted with, and tried to antagonise, the three-member school board which consisted of two men and a woman. Luckily for me, her case was weak and she overstepped the bounds of tolerance — even within a conservative, religious community — by telling the school board members that if they didn’t ban my book, they would, on Judgment Day, go straight to Hell. ‘One day each and every one of you will stand before God almighty and you will answer to how’you believe, how you voted, how you stand.’ Evidently this threat did not frighten anyone sufficiently.
The closest Ms Wilson got to making me come forward and state my personal beliefs was when she asked if I considered myself to be ‘above God’. I responded, ‘I assume that’s a rhetorical question.’ She laughed nervously and said she didn’t know what ‘rhetorical’ meant.
Confessions of an Only Child is about a family in which the mother gets pregnant and loses her baby. It shows how this affects the heroine who was enjoying her only child status. In deciding that Confessions had ‘redeeming educational value’, one of the board members, Louise Radloff, stated, ‘I think this book has much literary merit and it shows an open discussion within the family’. I had argued in my presentation that I felt that books could be an avenue to open discussion… a way to bring parents and children closer together, that simply having a book available was not forcing it on anyone.
What amazed me, though, was that in their closing remarks, though each school board member re-iterated the literary values of my book, all three said that, indeed, the phrase ‘God damn’, was offensive and should have been left out. One board member said he, thank heaven, had never used that word. Another said he had used it once, at the age of 10 and had been beaten so severely by his parents for this that he had never used it again. I am utterly unable to judge the sincerity of these remarks. What I did feel was the pressure on everyone living in these suburban communities to conform to what is felt to be a general set of beliefs. People are terribly afraid to come out and say they are feminists, atheists, or even, God forbid, Democrats.
In a sense this is a success story. Not only will my book remain on the shelves, but the Gwinnett Citizens for Freedom in Education feel heartened that the positive publicity they received will help them in future battles. But Theresa Wilson is, seemingly, not daunted. She’s already after another book, Go Ask Alice. ‘I don’t love publicity,’ she said when interviewed on a local radio show the day after the hearing. ‘I love showing the glory of God.’ Sadly, even the local people who are against her regard her as good copy. Although she had lost her case, she was brought forward to be on the radio show with me and most of the time was spent, not debating the issues involved, but in baiting her with peculiar call-in questions from the audience. What a pity. But still, no matter how absurd and tiny this one case is, I feel I would do it again for my own books and would encourage other authors to do the same. Passivity and inaction only encourages censorship groups even more. I think now they are beginning to realise they will, at least, have a fight on their hands.
Reporting the Third World
World leaders, or their top ministers, in an effort to arrive at something we call ‘balanced coverage’. Most Third World leaders feel you are either for ’em or against ’em and there is not much middle ground to walk upon. Some, as in Saudi Arabia, just don’t want to talk to the Western press. I can remember one visit to the Saudi kingdom in early 1981 when four American correspondents — from the New York Times, Time magazine, the Associated Press, and myself from The Washington Post — jointly applied for an interview with either King Khalid or Crown Prince Fahd. Each of us knew it was unlikely either would bother with an interview for just one publication, but here was a broad segment of the US print media asking collectively for an interview. After waiting around for two weeks, we collectively gave up and left.
One major problem for American correspondents is the near total ignorance of Third World leaders about how the Western media work and how to use them for their own ends. While the correspondent may regard his or her request for an interview with a leader or top minister as a chance to air their views, they seem to look upon it as a huge favour which they are uncertain will be rewarded in any way.
Other forms of indirect censorship come in control over a correspondent’s access to the story or means of communication. Israel restricted, or at least tried to restrict, access to southern Lebanon after its invasion in June 1982 to those it felt were sympathetic to its cause or important to convince of its view. The policy never really worked because correspondents could always get into Israeli-occupied territory from the north through one back road or another. But it got more difficult as time went on. The Israeli attempt at restricting access to southern Lebanon was hardly the worst example of this kind of censorship I experienced in nearly two decades of working in the Third World, however. Covering the war between Iran and Iraq was, and remains, far more difficult. In four years, I never once got a visa to Iran. I got to Baghdad several times, but imagine my surprise the first time customs officials seized my typewriter at the airport and told me I would have to get special permission from the Information Ministry to bring it in. (At the airport in Tripoli there was a roomful of confiscated typewriters the last time I visited there in September 1984.) Whether one was allowed to the Iraqi war front depended on either an Iraqi victory or a lull in the war. As for permission to travel into Iraqi Kurdistan, it was never granted to any Western correspondent I can think of in the four-to-five years I was covering the Middle East.
The other game Iraqi information officials play is attempting to censor your coverage of the war. When I first went there, there was a Ministry of Information official sitting at the hotel who had to okay your copy or you could not send it out by phone or telex. This kind of direct censorship of copy was rare in my experience, however. Other than Israel, where military news is supposed to pass through the censor’s office, and Iraq and Libya, I can think of no examples where I had to submit my copy before sending it.
Are the techniques of indirect censorship getting worse? In the areas of the world where I have worked, I am not sure. If Syria has become worse, Iraq is probably better today. Egypt has definitely got better, and so had Kuwait until recently. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has restricted access to a far greater degree in the past two years, and Bahrain has become more sensitive. South Africa has taken a turn for the worse. Countries that were always difficult to cover, such as Zaire, Malawi, Ethiopia and Angola, remain more or less the same.
As economic problems have got worse or rulers have felt a greater threat to their regimes, Third World governments seem to be tightening up when it comes to outside press coverage.
If this is indeed the underlying principle governing the degree of press censorship, then the problem may be more cyclical than linear, getting worse or better according to the political and economic health of a country or the special challenges it is facing at that time.
Who believes it?
‘That is how the theory goes: Restrict the press to supportive comment, and a country’s life will be calmer and better. But experience and reason suggest that the opposite will happen. Faulty government policies, if they are not subject to real criticism, grow worse. Autocrats become more autocratic. Can anyone believe that repression of criticism leads to efficiency in a society, to new ideas?’
Join us on 25 October at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas 2015 for Question Everything an unconventional, unwieldy and disruptive day of talks, art and ideas featuring a broad range of speakers drawn from popular culture, the arts and academia. Moderated by Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg.
