17 Oct 2025 | Afghanistan, Americas, Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, India, Israel, Middle East and North Africa, News, Palestine, Peru, Russia, United States
Bombarded with news from all angles every day, important stories can easily pass us by. To help you cut through the noise, every Friday Index publishes a weekly news roundup of some of the key stories covering censorship and free expression. This week, we look at Trump’s assault on the free press and Russian criminal investigations into dissenting voices.
America: Press freedom under threat
US President Donald Trump’s attacks on the free press continue with the introduction of Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s newest rules for journalists.
Under his new directive journalists are being required to sign a pledge promising not to gather or report any information that has not been vetted and approved by the Pentagon. Journalists who don’t follow the rules have been told they will be stripped of their credentials.
Outlets across the US have fought back against these demands by refusing to sign, with only the Trump-affiliated One America News (OAN) agreeing to bend the knee. OAN has made past headlines for its spreading of conspiracy theories relating to fraud in the 2020 presidential election and the Covid-19 pandemic.
This comes during an unprecedented attack on the press from the current administration, with Trump’s dismantling of the Voice of America, and the installation of Trump loyalists at CBS under new owner David Ellison, son of billionaire Trump friend Larry Ellison. This marks a considerable shift to the right for the news outlet.
Russia: Investigations brought against exiled opposition
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on 14 October that it would be targeting exiled opposition figures with criminal investigations in a clear example of trans-national repression.
The charges relate to criticism of Russia’s war in Ukraine, with accusations of a plot to overthrow the Russian government. Former richest man in Russia and critic of Vladimir Putin Mikhail Khodorkovsky faces these charges, as well as journalist and former political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza.
Kara-Murza was sentenced in 2022 to 25 years in prison after speaking out against the invasion of Ukraine, but released as part of a prisoner swap in 2024.
Evgenia Kara-Murza, Vladimir’s wife, won Index’s Freedom of Expression Trustee Award last year for campaigning against the imprisonment of her husband and eventually securing his release.
Kara-Murza is being targeted now because of his involvement in the Russian Anti-War Committee alongside a number of prominent members of the exiled Russian opposition including former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and activist Anastasia Shevchenko.
India: Afghan embassy changes tack on women journalists
Female journalists were given front-row seats to a press conference held by Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Delhi, India on 13 October – after being excluded from a media event there only two days before.
The exclusion of women journalists had been met with anger across India, with opposition politicians decrying the Taliban-led Afghan government’s decision to invite men only.
Women journalists attending the second press conference took advantage of the opportunity to question Muttaqi on the Taliban’s gender discrimination, with journalist Smita Sharma asking: “Why are you doing this in Afghanistan? When will they be allowed to go back and get the right to education?”
A Taliban source told the BBC that female journalists had been excluded “due to lack of proper coordination”.
Peru: Gen Z uprising
A state of emergency has been declared in Peru after a popular 32-year-old hip hop artist Eduardo Ruiz was killed by police during Gen Z protests in Peru this week.
The protests began in September, and culminated in the removal of the then President Dina Boluarte from office on 10 October over accusations of corruption. But demonstrations continued after the appointment of an interim president Jose Jeri who is now refusing to resign over Ruiz’s death.
Boluarte’s government drew criticism earlier this year for its enactment of a law that threatened the work of civil society organisations and NGOs. Boluarte said the new law would: “place under comprehensive review a minority of NGOs that act against the interests of our country, sowing hatred and attacking our system”.
The protest movement in Peru follows a growing trend of global youth-led revolts that have caused the fall of governments in Nepal and Madagascar.
Palestine: Three journalists released but more still imprisoned
Following the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, international press are still being denied entry into the embattled Gaza strip.
Fighting has not stopped since the agreement was reached, with clashes between Hamas and rival militias happening across Gaza. The violence on the ground has already led to the death of another Palestinian journalist Saleh Aljafarawi who was killed by an armed faction last weekend. He was a video reporter covering the war with a huge social media following, but was accused by Israel of being a Hamas propagandist.
As part of the ceasefire agreement, Israeli forces have begun to release Palestinian prisoners but have been slow to let journalists go. Out of 19 media workers detained over the last two years only three have been released.
So far 197 journalists have been killed since the start of the war in Gaza according to reporting by the Campaign to Protect Journalists.
13 Oct 2025 | Israel, Middle East and North Africa, News, Palestine
Last week, British singer Robbie Williams announced the cancellation of his concert in Istanbul. The decision was made by city authorities who deemed it “unsafe” for him to perform. Williams, who is married to a Turkish-born Jewish woman and raising his children Jewish had in the days before been targeted by Turkish social media accounts and NGOs who called for the event to be scrapped. Also last weekend, hundreds were arrested in London for protesting the banning of Palestine Action, and the same last Tuesday for a man holding up The New World, a magazine which had a montage on its front cover referring to the proscribed group.
The world just marked two years since 7 October. Some commemorated the victims of that day. Others remembered those who have been killed since. Many mourned both. A ceasefire is now agreed and let’s hope it’s lasting. In addition to the devastating destruction and loss of life, as the above examples show, free speech has deteriorated rapidly.
It happened from day one. Journalists and activists were killed in Israel. The war then quickly became the deadliest for media workers since records began. Hundreds of Palestinian journalists have now been killed. International journalists have been barred throughout. This has resulted in huge blind spots, a constant tussle over the narrative and Hamas’ retribution against dissenters circulating only in fragments online.
It’s hard to argue that the Palestinian cause has been silenced overall. This is likely the most talked-about conflict of our time. It has dominated global headlines. Protests are held regularly in town centres. Palestine badges adorn the outfits of many and flags drape from windows. But that doesn’t mean all pro-Palestine speech has been protected. Across the world, campus protests have been shut down. Students have been disappeared in the USA. Writers have lost awards, others their jobs. Just this week, someone told us they were denied entry to the BBC’s Graham Norton Show simply for wearing a watermelon broach.
Too often criticism of Israel has been wrongly equated with antisemitism. That conflation not only damages free speech but obscures real antisemitism, allowing genuine bigotry to slip by, like that of an NHS doctor whose hatred for Jews was barely veiled.
This isn’t just about the silencing of Palestinian solidarity. Israeli voices have been shut down too. Singers and artists have seen shows cancelled for either not saying the right thing or not saying anything at all. Jewish writers have approached me to say they feel pushed out of the publishing world, with calls to boycott them apparently trending on BookTok. Venues in Edinburgh removed two Jewish comedians from the Fringe bill. I know of someone bullied out of their workplace for platforming Israeli voices. As with pro-Palestinian voices, the list of those cancelled is long, two years on.
It’s become a grotesque carnival, voices silenced from every direction. Such toxicity has limited the space for dialogue and squeezed out many in the moderate middle. Now the extremes typically dominate: apologists for Hamas on the one side, defenders of Netanyahu on the other.
It can feel trivial to complain about speech when children are dying. But it’s not. Free speech underpins every human right. Without it injustice multiplies in silence. The retreat from the principle has been a woeful chapter in this horrendous story.
7 Oct 2025 | Europe and Central Asia, News, United Kingdom
Two names have rung through the halls of the Labour Party Conference last week – Nigel Farage, who was given a kicking – and Owen Jones, who was literally kicked out. The Guardian columnist had been vox-popping politicians and delegates for his YouTube channel. His style is confrontational. But did he cross a line? Apparently so. On Tuesday his conference pass was revoked over “safeguarding issues”. He was told: “After careful consideration, we’ve concluded that we cannot continue your attendance while ensuring we meet our safeguarding obligations to all attendees.” Jones has cried foul. He called it “Trumpian behaviour” and believes it was because of his “attempt to question Cabinet members and MPs about Britain facilitating Israel’s genocide”.
It was a similar story for Rivkah Brown from Novara Media, who had her pass revoked, safeguarding cited, and asked whether Labour was “purging journalists it doesn’t like”.
Whether their free speech rights were violated or not is hard to tell (of Owen’s behaviour specifically we spoke to some conference attendees who said it was aggressive and others who’ve said it wasn’t). If the safeguarding concerns were genuine then there isn’t much of a story here, for us at least. A free speech defence can’t be used to excuse bad behaviour. But Labour would do well to be open and transparent, to provide details of what specifically they think he did wrong. Otherwise, we’re left to draw the worst conclusions.
Labour is not the only party expunging its conference of critics. Reform and the Conservatives (whose conference started on Sunday) have banned reporters without explanation. One was Byline Times journalist Adam Bienkov, who has attended and reported from Conversative Party conferences for years now. Last year the Byline Times published an embarrassing story about Conservative party councillors pretending to be ordinary folk during a televised election campaign event. A year later, Bienkov is suddenly off the invite list.
A reminder – both parties are led by people who position themselves as guardians of free speech. It’s pretty revealing of the vacuity of such claims.
Meanwhile, the Green Party’s conference opened last friday. A few weeks ago a curious email came into my inbox. It was from an esteemed doctor who was organising a fringe event about medically unnecessary penile circumcision in children. It got cancelled. They’ve also not been given a reason and their suspicion is that it’s to avoid wading into something that might offend Jewish people and Muslims, and attract adverse media publicity as a result.
Party conferences are revenue-raising events yes, and the press are shipped in to capture the hot takes. But conferences are also places where policy is debated and agendas set. Journalists come to ask the tough questions and challenge politicians and even party members on inconsistencies or shortfalls. Fill the marquees with “yes” people and democracy is bound to suffer.
26 Sep 2025 | Americas, Asia and Pacific, China, Europe and Central Asia, European Union, Israel, Middle East and North Africa, News, Palestine, United Kingdom, United States
Bombarded with news from all angles every day, important stories can easily pass us by. To help you cut through the noise, every Friday Index publishes a weekly news roundup of some of the key stories covering censorship and free expression. This week, we look at the designation of Antifa as domestic terrorists and the indictment of James Comey.
Australian horror movie edited to make a gay couple straight
An Australian company behind the new horror film Together, pulled it from cinemas in China this week. This followed the discovery of unauthorised changes made by the Chinese distributor which had edited a scene from a gay wedding to make the couple appear heterosexual.
Together, starring James Franco and Alison Brie, is distributed by Neon who released a statement on the edits: “Neon does not approve of Hishow’s unauthorised edit of the film and have demanded they cease distributing this altered version.”
Guidelines released by China’s top media regulator in 2016 banned depictions of homosexuality from TV in the country. In the past, the ban would have meant sections of an offending movie or documentary would have been edited out as happened with the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. However AI technology has allowed scenes to be altered instead.
In the case of Together an AI-generated woman replaced the man depicted in the original and so a gay wedding became a straight one.
Trump signs order designating Antifa a domestic terrorist organisation
US President Donald Trump signed an order on Monday designating Antifa a domestic terrorist organisation following the death of podcaster Charlie Kirk.
An article released by the White House refers to an alleged “trend of Radical Left violence that has permeated the nation in recent years” and provides a list of supposed “Antifa” attacks. This included the assertion that Kirk was “assassinated by a Radical Left terrorist” which many people dispute, as there is little proof the shooter had any political affiliation or that there was a greater conspiracy.
Antifa gets its name from compacting the term “anti-facist” and has its roots in 1920s and 1930s Europe, where groups formed to push back against growing fascist movements.
Concerns have been raised regarding the legality of such an order, or even how such an order should be carried out, with Antifa not really being an organisation at all in the USA, just a loosely connected network of protest groups. Seth G. Jones from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) wrote in 2020 after Trump had suggested a similar move: “While President Trump raised the possibility of designating Antifa as a terrorist organization, such a move would be problematic. It would trigger serious First Amendment challenges and raise numerous questions about what criteria should be used to designate far-right, far-left, and other extremist groups in the United States. In addition, Antifa is not a “group” per se, but rather a decentralised network of individuals. Consequently, it is unlikely that designating Antifa as a terrorist organisation would even have much of an impact.”
BBC releases short film calling for Gaza access
A short film premiered on Wednesday and launched by the BBC, AFP, AP and Reuters called for international journalists to be allowed into Gaza.
Independent reporters have been refused entry to the strip since the 7 October attacks on Israel, leading to repeated calls for access from foreign press and governments.
In a statement Deborah Turness, CEO of BBC News, said: “As journalists, we record the first draft of history. But in this conflict, reporting is falling solely to a small number of Palestinian journalists, who are paying a terrible cost.
“It is almost two years since October 7th when the world witnessed Hamas’ atrocities. Since then, a war has been raging in Gaza but international journalists are not allowed in. We must now be let into Gaza. To work alongside local journalists, so we can all bring the facts to the world.”
You can watch the short film here.
Chinese Journalist Zhang Zhan jailed for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”
Chinese lawyer and journalist Zhang Zhan has been sentenced to four years imprisonment for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”.
Zhan was jailed in 2020 for reporting on the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan through her YouTube and Twitter (now X) accounts and is just one of many writers and journalists currently imprisoned in China.
Released in May 2024 she was arrested again by police three months later whilst travelling to report on the arrest of an activist in the province of Gansu.
Concerns are mounting over Zhan’s health after she has reportedly gone on repeated hunger strikes to protest her arrest.
Ex-FBI director James Comey indicted on two charges
Ex-director of the FBI James Comey has been indicted on two charges by a Virginia court this week.
Comey has been charged with one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice according to the indictment.
Comey was appointed FBI director in 2013 by then President Barack Obama and served in this role until his firing in 2017 by President Donald Trump, during an investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 presidential election.
In 2020 Comey faced a congressional hearing where he defended the investigation, stating: “In the main, it was done by the book, it was appropriate and it was essential that it be done, there were parts of it that were concerning.”
It is at this hearing that Comey is accused of knowingly lying to congress whilst being questioned about the FBI’s handling of both the Russia investigation and an investigation into a private email server used by Hilary Clinton.
Comey’s trial is notably being held in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, known as the espionage court, and famously host to cases such as that of Edward Snowden, and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou.
