7 Nov 2025 | Asia and Pacific, Burma, China, News, Volume 54.03 Autumn 2025
If you had told Sai a month ago that his latest exhibition would force him to flee across the world, he might not have been surprised.
After spending hundreds of days hiding above an interrogation centre in his home country of Myanmar, sneaking cameras illegally through military checkpoints and risking his life raising awareness about the horrors of the junta through art, he seems immune to shock.
He told Index that to get out of the country and come to Thailand in 2021, he had to “imagine himself dead”.
This experience influenced his work as an artist and curator who has become renowned for his powerful works about the trauma of political persecution and Myanmar’s military coup.
His latest Bangkok show, co-curated with his wife, is Constellation of Complicity: Visualising the Global Machine of Authoritarian Solidarity. It links his experiences with artists from around the world in a powerful exploration of how authoritarian regimes collude internationally in systems of repression. But for some, its message struck too close to home.
It opened at the end of July at the Bangkok Arts and Cultural Centre (BACC), where Sai and his wife had settled in exile. But shortly after it opened, he says that Chinese embassy officials arrived with Thai authorities and demanded that it be shut down.
A display showing artist names which were redacted after complaints from Chinese embassy officials in Thailand. Photo: Pran Limchuenjai
A compromise was reached, but what followed was a wave of censorship that stripped the audacious exhibition of artists’ names, politically sensitive references and some of its bravest works.
The names of Uyghur artist Mukaddas Mijit, Tibetan artist Tenzin Mingyur Paldron and Hong Kong artist duo Clara Cheung and Gum Cheng Yee Man were all blacked out and their works pared down or removed entirely.
Tenzin Mingyur Paldron was the most heavily censored, with the televisions screening his video installations about the Dalai Lama and LGBTQ+ Tibetans switched off.
Tibetan and Uyghur flags were removed and a description of the censored artists’ homelands was concealed with black paint. An illustrated postcard comparing China’s treatment of Muslim populations to Israel’s was also taken down.
Sai, who goes by a single name to protect his identity after repeated warnings that he is being sought by the junta, is no stranger to state power.
His father, the former chief minister of Myanmar’s biggest state, was abducted and jailed on falsified charges after the 2021 coup. His mother lives under 24-hour surveillance, constantly fearing for her safety.
This experience has shaped both his politics and his practice. “My works usually combine social experiment with institutional critique,” he explained. “But since 2021, it has mostly been reflective of my lived experience.”
This inspired the most recent exhibition, which brings together exiled Russian, Iranian, Syrian, Burmese, Tibetan, Uyghur and Hong Kong artists. It’s a snapshot of life under repression, mapping the contours of a global authoritarian network.
“We formulated what would happen if all of the oppressed united together against the few [oppressors],” Sai explained about his defiant stance which quickly stoked retaliation.
“We were very used to absurdity, with what happened to my father, my country, my loved ones. But this was another international-level absurdity happening – the absurdity of transnational repression.”
Thailand, which Sai had once seen as a place of refuge where a large community of pro-democracy artists and dissidents from Myanmar could work with relative freedom suddenly felt perilously unsafe.
“Thailand has long tried to balance being a host for dissidents with keeping strong relations with China,” he said. “The intervention by the CCP, and Thailand’s willingness to comply with it, shows just how fragile that space really was.”
After being informed that police were looking for them, Sai and his wife booked flights out of the country. They fled within hours and are now seeking asylum in the UK.
But he is sympathetic towards the BACC. It is funded by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, and he said it decided to censor the show due to its “connection to city authorities and the political sensitivities such as threats to diplomatic relations between Thailand and China”.
“They were under immense pressure and chose partial censorship as a way of protecting the institution,” he concluded.
However, the irony was almost too much to bear as the Chinese response handed the exhibition, which might otherwise not have been noticed, a global platform. The artists who had their names blocked out have gone viral, reaching new heights of fame. Visitors have flocked to the exhibition, while the gallery has faced uproar for its decision to bow to censorship.
Sai also says it also taught him a valuable lesson. “When we got out [of Myanmar] we promised that we would make something for our country. Now we’ve learned something – we can’t just do it for our own country, because all of these geographical boundaries are just constructs. We live in one world, and we need to fight against global repression together.”
17 Oct 2025 | Europe and Central Asia, France, News
It is understandable that we have been distracted by events in the Middle East over the past week. The release of the Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners ahead of a ceasefire in the deadly two-year-long war in Gaza is a potentially epoch-making event – even if not quite the most significant for 3,000 years, as Donald Trump has suggested. But the peace deal has overshadowed events much closer to home.
France has been in a state of political deadlock for months. At the beginning of this month, on 6 October Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu resigned and then found himself reappointed within the week. He is now attempting to avoid votes of no confidence introduced by the far-right National Rally and hard-left France Unbowed by suspending President Macron’s plans for pension reform.
This may all sound very technical and “continental”, but France matters. An unstable France means an unstable Europe. Macron may yet avoid the collapse of his presidency, and with it the Fifth Republic, but he will struggle to stop the slide towards a creeping populism of the right and left.
We ignore what is happening in France at our peril. We have watched the drift towards populism and authoritarianism across Europe. But our nearest neighbour could yet become the latest example of a “hybrid democracy” on the lines of Hungary. Some would say it is already halfway there. This is due, in part, to a phenomenon that has received scant coverage in the UK, possibly because it is such a mouthful in English: the so-called “Bollorisation” of the French media.
The term is named after Vincent Bolloré, sometimes known as “the French Murdoch”, a billionaire whose family-controlled Vivendi group dominates the media on the other side of the Channel. The parallels with Murdoch provide a useful shorthand but Bolloré really is a quite distinct figure whose media organisations directly support the ideology of the French far right. Although he has officially retired, Bolloré’s influence remains significant, and his organisations have been credited with propelling Marine Le Pen’s National Rally into the mainstream.
The beginnings of Bollorisation can be traced back at least ten years to the purchase of the broadcaster Canal+, France’s main pay-to-view channel. The emergence of CNews, a 24-hour right-wing news channel modelled on Fox News smashed the dominance of public broadcaster France TV (which owns France 2 – formerly Antenne 2 – and France 3). Bolloré then began his march through the French media world. His acquisition of Prism Media in 2021 gave him a dominant position in print and digital magazines including business, lifestyle, travel titles and even TV guides. Two years later, after a long battle with the European regulatory authorities, Vivendi purchased the giant French publishing house Hachette, which also owns the publishing group Little, Brown in the USA and the UK. But Bollorisation doesn’t stop there. The far-right billionaire now also owns the radio channel Europe 1, the iconic French celebrity and news magazine Paris Match and France’s only Sunday newspaper, Le Journal de Dimanche, which has shifted its editorial line from the political centre to the far right. Meanwhile, Bolloré also owns the Havas Group, a giant international advertising and PR agency, which helps manage the reputation of the empire.
Investigative journalists and media freedom organisations in Europe have been warning about Bollorisation for years. Mediapart, the independent French investigative publication, has compiled a huge ongoing dossier on the subject. After the French elections last year almost delivered power to the National Rally, Mediapart’s Antton Rouget wrote: “The work of media outlets controlled by the Bolloré Group during those elections set a new precedent: while major corporations have always thrown their weight behind campaigns in a bid to influence public debate, never before had one done so as openly and unapologetically, with the clear aim of helping the far-right into power.”
There are many theories about why France was so vulnerable to Bollorisation. But there is general agreement that the French media was already in the hands of too few people. And when traditional media owners looked at declining advertising revenue they were all too happy to sell. A weak regulatory landscape and Bolloré’s tightly-focused right-wing mission made for a perfect storm.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) which is based in Paris has consistently expressed its concern about Bolloré’s tactics, including the use of the courts to silence investigations into his empire. Earlier this year RSF published a report into the billionaire’s use of non-disclosure agreements and non-disparagement clauses to protect him from criticism. The report was commissioned after Jean-Baptiste Rivoire, a former journalist at Canal+, was fined 150,000 euros for questioning Bolloré’s methods in an RSF documentary, Le Système B.
The Heinrich Böll Stiftung which is aligned to Germany’s Green party, has also raised concerns about the crisis of media freedom in France concluding baldly: “France is an outlier among other major European democracies for the mediocrity of its media system and the strong position of the far right within mass media”.
An Atlanticist tendency in the British media and among the political classes means Europe is too often a blind spot. Shamefully few British politicians or journalists speak a European language, and many are focused on Washington politics to the point of obsession. This partly explains why the coverage of France is so poor beyond the heroic efforts of the Paris correspondents and a handful of French commentators based in the UK.
But there really is no excuse. There is a cultural and political crisis in France that deserves our attention. Bollorisation may be a mouthful, but we need to start talking about it, to avoid a different version of the phenomenon happening here.
You may also want to read our recent article on the controversy over Spitting Image’s parody of Paddington. StudioCanal, which is controlled by the Bolloré Group, is pursuing legal action against the comedy programme over its portrayal of the beloved bear.
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.
