28 Nov 2024 | Africa, Algeria, News and features
In 2012, the Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal wrote an article for Index about his controversial visit to Israel, where he was inspired by an encounter with the writer David Grossman to launch the Strasbourg Appeal for Peace.
“I muse how wonderful it would be if the writers of the world came together to fight for peace,” he wrote. The article, A Nightmare with a Happy Ending, was full of hope, despite the fatwa issued by Hamas accusing him of high treason against Islam, the Arabic nation and its martyrs for travelling to Israel. “Working for peace is a big deal,” he said. “It requires great numbers and great determination. Who knows what we will be able to achieve.”
Twelve years later, the 75-year-old writer finds himself accused once more. On 16 November he was arrested at Algiers airport and detained by the authorities. His lawyer later confirmed he was being held on national security charges. Algerian state media said he was accused of “attacking national integrity and unity and state institutions”. Sansal faces life imprisonment if found guilty.
French media has suggested the writer’s arrest could be connected to statements Sansal made to the far-right publication Frontières that the disputed territory of Western Sahara was historically part of Morocco. A documentary which aired on state TV in Algeria on Sunday, entitled Servants of Western and Moroccan Agendas, claimed attacks on the unity of the state were acts of terrorism. “Morality and culture have failed to educate Boualem Sansal. He is nothing but an agent under the cover of a writer,” said the documentary, according to the French newspaper, Le Figaro.
An appeal in the French magazine Le Point by fellow Algerian writer Kamel Daoud sparked an international response. Writers including Annie Ernaux, Orhan Pamuk, Wole Soyinka, Salman Rushdie, Andrey Kurkov, Roberto Saviano and Alaa Al Aswany called for Sansal’s immediate release.
Sansal has been a fierce advocate for free expression. As a consistent critic of Islamism and the authoritarian tendencies of the Algerian government, he has also made enemies. Inconveniently for his liberal supporters, Sansal has attracted support from the right in France for his stance on the so-called Islamist threat to the country.
Dr Joseph Ford of the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies at the University of London told Index: “Boalem Sansal has long been a controversial figure in Algeria and increasingly in France, where some of his latest work has alluded to far right conspiracy theories regarding the so-called threat of the Islamisation of France. Nevertheless, detaining him isn’t a good look for the Algerian authorities internationally, and I would expect they’ll either have to charge him or release him soon.”
His writings have tackled the historical horrors of his home country, including the civil war against Islamist insurgents which ended in 2002, and the bloody war of independence fought against France between 1954 and 1962.
As Sansal’s arrest shows, this colonial legacy has left deep scars in Algeria’s national consciousness. In an essay for Index in 2011 entitled A Lesson in Tyranny, Sansal wrote on this subject: “It is because the French won the Battle of Algiers by these methods, by torturing the inhabitants of the city, sparing neither women nor children, that they lost the Algerian War. And it is because the Algerian rebels carried out terrorist attacks on civilians, including women and children, that their victory has a bitter aftertaste of defeat. They lost all notion of freedom, which led to the harshest, most miserable dictatorship imaginable.”
The Algerian writer has been the recipient of national and international prizes including the 2012 Arabic Novel Prize, awarded by the Arab Ambassadors Council in Paris, although the €15,000 prize money was withdrawn following his visit to Israel. In the Index article later that year he justified his trip by saying: “I believe that in order to judge a country one should see it with one’s own eyes. Propaganda is not enough.”
Boualem Sansal is one of Algeria’s most prominent and outspoken writers, who has established an international reputation for his work. Twelve years ago, he called on the writers of the world to fight for peace. Now they must come together to fight for him.
20 Nov 2024 | Awards, Fellowship 2024, Iran, News and features, Palestine, Russia, Uganda
Index on Censorship has announced the winners of its 2024 Freedom of Expression Awards. This year’s honourees are Aleksandra Skochilenko (Russia), Diala Ayesh (Palestinian Territories), Kuchu Times (Uganda), and Nasim Soltanbeygi (Iran), recognised for their impactful work in the fields of art, campaigning, and journalism. Additionally, Evgenia Kara-Murza (Russia) received the prestigious Trustee Award.
The Freedom of Expression Awards celebrate the brave efforts of individuals and organisations worldwide to protect free expression, advocate for the right to information, and combat censorship. Selected by a distinguished panel of judges, the winners are honoured for their extraordinary courage and commitment to truth, justice, and human rights—often in the face of serious threats, including harassment, imprisonment, and even death.
The winners are:
Art
- Aleksandra Skochilenko (Russia) – An anti-war musician, artist and campaigner who was imprisoned for her creative opposition to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Campaigning
- Diala Ayesh (Palestinian Territories) – A lawyer and prison advocate who has campaigned for the rights of prisoners in Israel and Palestine, who was detained by Israeli authorities and remains incarcerated.
- Kuchu Times (Uganda) – A media and campaigning organisation working to protect and support the LGBTQ community amid increased legal persecution.
Journalism
- Nasim Soltanbeygi (Iran) – A journalist who reported on the Women, Life, Freedom protests and women’s rights issue who has been imprisoned and persecuted for her reporting.
Trustee
- Evgenia Kara-Murza (Russia) – A human rights activist and wife of political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza, twice-poisoned Russian opposition leader, imprisoned since 11 April 2022 for protesting the war on Ukraine.
Jemimah Steinfeld, CEO of Index on Censorship said: “The Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award, established in 2001, has long championed those who have risked everything for the right to speak out and defend democracy and human rights. Previous winners include the imprisoned Iranian rapper, Toomaj Salehi; the Pakistani education campaigner Malala Yousafzai; the global whistleblowing platform, Wikileaks; the Turkish artist, Zehra Dogan; Honduran investigative journalist, Wendy Funes and many others.”
The jury panel for the 2024 awards is made up of Baroness Hollick OBE; Ziyad Marar, President of Global Publishing at Sage; Sir Trevor Phillips OBE, chair of Index on Censorship; Ben Preston, Culture Editor of The Times & Sunday Times; Jemimah Steinfeld, CEO of Index on Censorship.
The award winners and their families have shared their thoughts on their success on the night.
Aleksandra Skochilenko said: “I’m really flattered to have received this award because I’m awarded just for being myself and sometimes being yourself is really hard work.”
Diala Ayesh’s family said: “Diala has worked for many years defending political prisoners and detainees in Israeli occupation prisons and Palestinian Authority facilities. She has been tirelessly dedicated to defending stolen rights. Diala’s nomination for this award comes in recognition of her efforts in defending freedom of expression and independent voices.”
Ruth Muganzi, the programs director for Kuchu Times, said: “The right to use our voices and our stories, to speak out and defend our lives, is a right worth fighting for. To be silent will never be an option.”
Nasim Soltanbeygi said: “Censorship in Iran creates new boundaries every day. Security institutions expand censorship by arresting, summoning, and implementing illegal practices. Iran is on the list of the 10 countries with the largest prisons for journalists, and in the past year, more than 280 legal cases have been filed against journalists. Despite this, we independent journalists have always stood by the truth and the people. Despite the threats and the difficulties of the challenging path to freedom, I believe that a free press is the way to illuminate the truth and the path to achieving a humane society.”
Evgenia Kara-Murza said: “It is easier to commit crimes in the silence, in the darkness, and behind closed doors. This is why freedom of speech is always the first victim of any autocracy. But free speech is not just some abstract notion. Behind it are countless stories of those who risk their freedom and often their lives to defend their right to exercise it. Those who break the silence, light candles in the dark and throw open the doors to make it harder for dictators to hide the truth about their evil acts.”
20 Nov 2024
Palestinian human rights defender and lawyer named as joint winner in the Campaigning category of Index on Censorship’s 2024 awards
6 Nov 2024 | News and features, United States
Waking up to today’s news that Donald Trump has been re-elected as president of the USA is deeply troubling. Despite what he claims, Trump is no poster boy for free speech. We at Index have many grave concerns about what another four years under him could mean for the USA and the world.
The first of these concerns is media freedom. His record on this is worrying. During his last term as president, Trump constantly appeared on our website and in our magazine. David E. McCraw, the New York Times deputy general counsel, spoke to us about the physical violence journalists were facing in the USA as a result of Trump; the great-granddaughter of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Nina Khrushcheva, wrote about his lashing out at various mainstream media with labels like “enemy of the people” and even said life in the Soviet Union was better in this regard:
“Once a Soviet citizen, I’ve been checking my surroundings. Am I living in cosmopolitan New York? Am I back in a homogeneous Moscow reading the Pravda headlines about the drummed-up victories of the communist state and the denunciations of the enemies who plot to take it down? In fact, when I was growing up in the 1970s, not even Pravda used such ominous language for Kremlin critics.”
Alas if Trump is to be taken at his word, his first four years in power were simply the dress rehearsal before the real show. Project 25, the Republican Party’s 900-page policy wish-list, includes plans to seize journalists’ emails and phones, while campaign-trail Trump frequently railed against the media, threatening to arrest those who disparage him and to strip television networks of their broadcast licenses. This might partly explain why Jeff Bezos crushed the Washington Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris. Self-censorship is after all self-preservation.
This Sunday Trump said he wouldn’t have minded if journalists had been shot during his assassination attempt.
Such language incites. Reporters have spoken about feeling very unsafe at Trump rallies. Such language is also not limited to the media. His desire to throw people in jail extends to his detractors more broadly and is often personal. His campaign team claims his “firing squad” comment towards former US Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney has been taken out of context. Perhaps. Still there is no denying that he launched a vicious attack, solely because she was on Team Kamala.
This leads onto our broader concerns for freedom of expression in the USA. Minority voices will be further marginalised. So too will the voices of those who simply wish to criticise Trump or pull up his administration when it falls short. Even the best administrations fall short. Never mind ones staffed with conspiracists and liars. The implications are terrifying.
All the while Trump’s particular style of “noisy” leadership feels structurally built to erode USA democracy. In Umberto Eco’s essay Censorship and Silence, the Italian twentieth century scholar argued that too much information was an intentional tactic. Noise becomes an instrument of censorship and a tool of totalitarianism. It drowns out what we should be hearing. Trump likely knows this; his constant chatter is, many believe, done on purpose, the chaos it creates aimed at frustrating and distracting the public.
This does not just concern people in the USA. It concerns all of us, especially anyone living under dictatorships. Autocrats benefit from our distraction. Is it any surprise that, with our attention fixed on Israel-Palestine and indeed the USA, Saudi Arabia has carried out the highest number of executions this year since 1990 and that few have spoken about this?
Moving forward our fears deepen for those who live in totalitarian states and we fear too for people in Ukraine, the Baltics and in the Middle East given Trump’s allegiances in those regions.
Trump was voted in – but concerns have been raised about how fair the election was, starting with accusations once again of Russian meddling, the fact that one of Trump’s biggest supporters (Elon Musk) runs a highly influential social media platform and offered money to people voting in swing states, and stories of ballot boxes being set on fire. But in the grand scheme of elections, where countries like North Korea don’t hold any, it is undeniable that the USA’s 2024 ones were closer to free and fair.
That his election was democratic provides no solace, however. The world is not short on examples of autocrats who received a popular vote at the start. Victor Orban. Narendra Modi. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. A vote is only one function of a democratic system and it is all too often imperfect.
As newspaper columnists address what led to this moment we pledge to work tirelessly to hold Trump to account on free speech.
When Index was launched in the early 1970s our mission was always to look at censorship everywhere and to not assume that we in the so-called West will have freedoms tomorrow just because we have them today. In the decades since we have tirelessly reported on and promoted free expression. We’ve successfully campaigned to change laws, to free prisoners of conscience, to get people off death row. We will continue to work in this way and we will report on every violation to free speech that Donald Trump and those in his government make. We will do our best to ensure the right to free expression does not bear the brunt of his presidency.
We know we need to make the case for free speech even stronger too. It is simply not good enough that the loudest voices talking about free speech are the very voices that want to dismantle it.
Today is a day of despair. It is also a day for collective action, for those of us who genuinely care about free speech to come together to protect and promote it. Please join us.
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