13 Jun 2025 | Americas, Asia and Pacific, Bangladesh, Colombia, Europe and Central Asia, Italy, Mexico, News and features, United States
In the age of online information, it can feel harder than ever to stay informed. As we get bombarded with news from all angles, 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 how one European government is targeting journalists with spyware, and the crackdown on protest in Los Angeles which has pitted the US president against the governor of California.
State-sponsored espionage: Italian government revealed to be using spyware on activists
On 5 June 2025 an Italian parliamentary committee admitted that the country’s government had been using a product of Israeli spyware company Paragon Solutions to view encrypted messages between Italian activists involved in migrant rights. The spyware service, called Graphite, allowed the operators to view private WhatsApp conversations between activists. That the Italians had been using Graphite spyware had been made public knowledge in February 2025, and Paragon reportedly cut ties with the Italian government as a result, claiming that they had breached the terms of the contract by targeting members of civil society.
Though the parliamentary committee admitted that the government had been using the software, they denied that Italian journalist Francesco Cancellato, editor of news website fanpage.it had been targeted. An investigation by Citizen Lab has since revealed that both Cancellato and the head of Fanpage Ciro Pellegrino had indeed been hacked by Graphite spyware, although those responsible have not been identified. Fanpage, based in Naples, has been repeatedly critical of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, but the government denies any involvement in the hacking of these two journalists. The parliamentary committee stated that all surveillance was done in accordance with national law – but the case has sparked outrage over the use of spyware across Europe, and an EU parliamentary debate on the matter has been scheduled for 16 June.
The battle of Los Angeles: National guard summoned to crack down on mass protests against ICE
Over the last week, the state of California has been gripped by unrest. Protests that started in response to workplace raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have grown into a daily occurrence, with riot police called in to enforce a night-time curfew imposed by city mayor Karen Bass – who has demanded that ICE leave the city. President Donald Trump has responded to these protests against ICE with a fierce crackdown, claiming that he must “liberate” Los Angeles from protesters and calling both the National Guard and the Marines to the city. This in turn sparked a feud with California Governor Gavin Newsom, who accused Trump of a “brazen abuse of power” and claimed that “democracy is under assault before our eyes.”
The protests have been largely peaceful, but were met with a stern crackdown that turned violent. Videos have circulated of protesters being trampled by officers on horseback and beaten with wooden batons; numerous journalists have reported being shot with rubber bullets, and tear gas has been used against non-violent demonstrators. The repercussions of the protests have stretched beyond the streets of Los Angeles. California senator Alex Padilla was pinned to the floor and handcuffed during a press conference by Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem when he stood to ask a question, an incident which Governor Newsom described as “outrageous, dictatorial, and shameful”. Despite a federal judge ruling that Trump’s deployment of the National Guard was illegal, an appeals court declared that Trump will maintain temporary control of the guard – signalling that this long week of unrest is far from over.
A lapse in defence: Colombian presidential candidate shot in the head had security reduced on day of attack
On 7 June 2025, Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe was shot twice in the head at a campaign rally in Bogotá. Uribe survived the attack and has undergone major surgery, but his condition is still extremely serious – and it has been revealed that his security detail on the day of his attack was reduced.
Colombian president Gustavo Petro announced on 9 June that Uribe’s protection team was found to have been reduced from seven to three people ahead of his rally in Bogotá, and called for an investigation into the incident. Uribe’s lawyer Victor Mosquera stated that he has filed a criminal complaint against his security detail, alleging that he had made over 20 requests for increased security in 2025. Two individuals have been arrested, including the alleged shooter – a 15-year-old boy who reportedly stated he acted “for money, for my family”.
The attack brings back unwanted memories of a nation fraught with violence. Uribe’s mother, Diane Turbay, was kidnapped and murdered by the cartel of Pablo Escobar in 1991. Human Rights Watch report that homicides and kidnappings in the country have gone up 20.9% and 34.8% respectively since 2016.Frontline Defenders have identified Colombia as the most lethal country in the world for human rights defenders.
A tragic loss: Dhaka University student takes his own life following harrassment over social media post
24-year-old Shakil Ahmed, a fine arts student at Dhaka university in Bangladesh, took his own life in the early hours of Tuesday, 10 June, after he had received threats over a post on Facebook.
Reports from Singair police station state that an old post by Ahmed, in which he allegedly wrote derogatory comments about Prophet Muhammad, resurfaced and went viral on Facebook. Ahmed’s cousin, Mukta Akter, stated that during the night of 9 June, several hundred people from the surrounding areas converged upon Ahmed’s family home, threatening him and his family over the post despite him already deleting it. Ahmed then made a series of Facebook posts claiming that he did not insult Prophet Muhammad, but that he had “lost the respect of his people” and wrote in one last post that “I cannot live in this world knowing I have destroyed my parents’ dignity”.
Detention and oppression: Indigenous activists in Mexico violently repressed
The Hñöhñö (Otomi) people are an Indigenous group live in Mexico’s central plateau, largely in the state of Queretaro. On 4 June 2025, two young Hñöhñö people were reportedly arbitrarily detained by police while on their way to work in the settlement of Santiago Mexquititlán. A community group organised a peaceful protest against their detention, but they were reportedly met with violence from the Querétaro State Police (POES).
POES agents reportedly violently detained five of the protesters and held them incommunicado for several hours, while the remaining demonstrators were surrounded by police forces. Hñöhñö human rights defender Estela Hernández Jiménez was one of those detained while attempting to document the arrests of the two Hñöhñö youths. She was reportedly beaten and abused by several police officers, before they took her into custody. Jiménez, who was released later that evening, claims she was physically and sexually assaulted by officers. Local human rights groups have condemned the incident claiming that it is part of a wider systematic effort of violence against Indigenous communities in Mexico by the state, dubbing it a “war of extermination”.
2 May 2025 | Americas, Honduras, Mexico, News and features
This article was commissioned and first published by The Conversation – the news, science and arts website written entirely by academics. You can read the original version here.
Humberto Padgett was reporting on the effects of drought in Cuitzeo, a rural area of central Mexico, when his car was intercepted by armed men on September 13 2024. They threatened him and stole the car, his identity papers and work equipment, including two bullet-proof jackets.
Padgett, a Mexican investigative journalist and author, was reporting on Mexico’s growing environmental worries for national talk radio station Radio Fórmula. It proved to be his last assignment for the station. Two days later, he tweeted:
“Today I’m leaving journalism indefinitely. The losses I’ve suffered, the harassment and threats my family and I have endured, and the neglect I’ve faced have forced me to give up after 26 years of work. Thank you and good luck.”
Padgett made this decision despite the fact he, like many other journalists in Mexico, has been enrolled in a government protection scheme for years – the Protection Mechanism for Journalists and Human Rights Defenders, set up in 2012. Several other Latin American countries have similar protection programmes, including Honduras since 2015.
These programmes offer journalists measures such as panic buttons and emergency phone alerts, police or private security patrols, and security cameras and alarm systems for their homes and offices. Some are provided with bodyguards – at times, Padgett has received 24-hour protection.
In Honduras, reporter Wendy Funes, founder of the online news site RI, was given a police bodyguard after being threatened while covering an extortion trial that linked the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), an international criminal gang, with the Honduran government of former president Juan Orlando Hernández, who is now serving a 45-year prison sentence in the US for drug trafficking and arms offences.
Yet even once journalists are enrolled in these government protection schemes, the attacks and threats continue. Shockingly, many come from state employees who, in both Mexico and Honduras, are thought to be responsible for almost half of all attacks on journalists. But the prospect of punishment is remote: at least 90% of attacks on journalists go unprosecuted and unpunished, meaning there is little deterrent for committing these crimes.
Both Mexico and Honduras currently have leftwing governments which have promised to protect journalists, following a long history of crimes against media professionals in both countries. Yet the risk to journalists posed by the state has worsened in recent years amid increasing use of spyware, online smear campaigns, and rising levels of anti-media rhetoric.
Journalists perceived as critical of the leadership are regularly accused of being corrupt, in the pay of foreign governments, and putting out fake news. Donald Trump’s vocal criticism of mainstream media since returning to power in the US is likely to have encouraged this anti-media hostility in Mexico and Honduras, as elsewhere in the world.
Many journalists there have developed strategies for self-protection, including setting up NGOs that support colleagues at risk. But while they are doing journalism in ways that make reporting safer, their work has been further threatened by the abrupt suspension of USAID and other US grants, which is heightening the dangers faced by journalists in Latin America and around the world.
Threats from the state
When I tell people about my research into how journalists in Latin America deal with the relentless violence and impunity, their first question is usually: “Oh, you mean drug cartels?” And indeed, both Padgett and Funes have received death threats for their investigations into cartels and other organised crime groups.
Padgett was once sent an unsolicited photo of a dismembered body in a morgue. He was beaten and kicked in the head by armed men who threatened to kill him and his family while he was reporting on drug dealing on a university campus in Mexico City in 2017. He wears a bullet-proof jacket – or did until it was stolen – and keeps his home address a closely guarded secret.
But cartels and gangs are only part of the story when it comes to anti-press violence and impunity in these countries. In many ways, the bigger story is the threat from the state. This has been a constant despite changes in government, whether right or left wing.
My research project and resulting book were inspired by my work providing advocacy, practical and moral support for journalists at risk in Latin America for an international NGO between 2007 and 2016. The extent of the risk posed by state agents – acting alone or in cahoots with organised crime groups – is clear from the many journalists I’ve spoken to in both Mexico and Honduras.
I first interviewed these reporters, and the organisations that assist them, in 2018, then again in 2022-23 (89 interviews in total), to chart how journalists struggle for protection and justice from the state in the face of growing challenges at both domestic and international level.
For both Padgett and Funes, the intimidation, threats and attacks from organised crime groups often followed them reporting on state agents and their alleged links with such groups. Organised crime groups have deeply infiltrated the fabric of society in many parts of Mexico and Honduras – including politics, state institutions, justice and law enforcement, particularly at a local level.
In Padgett’s case, the suspected cartel threats came after he published a book and investigation into links between state governments and drug cartels, including drug money for political campaigns in Tamaulipas and a surge in cartel-related violence in Morelos under a certain local administration.
Padgett had first joined the federal protection mechanism after he was attacked by police when filming a raid in central Mexico City in 2016. The police confiscated his phone and arrested him.
He was later assigned an around-the-clock bodyguard after the Mexico City prosecutor’s office made available his contact details and his risk assessment and protection plan – produced by the state programme that was supposed to safeguard him – for inclusion in the court file on the 2017 attack on him at the university. This meant the criminals behind the attack had full access to this information.
Being part of this protection programme did not stop the threats by state employees. In April 2024, while trying to report from the scene of the murder of a local mayoral candidate in Guanajuato state, Padgett was punched in the face by a police officer from the state prosecutor’s office, who also smashed his glasses and deleted his photos.
Years earlier, he had been subjected to a protracted legal battle by former Mexico state governor and presidential candidate Eruviel Ávila Villegas, who sued Padgett for “moral damages” to the tune of more than half a million US dollars. His offence? A 2017 profile which mentioned that the politician had attended parties where a bishop had sexually abused male minors.
Padgett eventually won the case – but only on appeal, thanks to a pro bono legal team, after 18 months of stress and travelling to attend the hearings. This is a part of a growing trend of “strategic lawsuits against public participation” (Slapps) in Mexico and Latin America, aimed at silencing journalists and other critical voices.
As Padgett put it: “[Even] once we manage to win, there are no consequences for the politicians who call us to a trial without merit – no consequences at all. Eruviel Ávila is still a senator for the PRI [Institutional Revolutionary Party]” – and he was not even liable for costs.
Mexico’s federal government and army have also carried out illegal surveillance of the mobile phones of journalists and human rights defenders investigating federal government corruption and serious human rights violations on multiple occasions, including by using Pegasus spyware.
In Honduras, Funes is no stranger to state harassment either. In 2011, she was among around 100 journalists, many of them women, who were teargassed and beaten with truncheons by officers of the presidential guard and the national police during a peaceful protest against journalist murders.
In recent years, according to Funes, she and her team at RI have been targeted by cyberattacks and orchestrated smear campaigns on social media that have sought to tar them as being corrupt or associated with criminal gangs. She suspects the army is behind some of these attacks since RI has written in favour of demilitarising the police. Several RI team members have been stopped at army checkpoints; when they have denounced this on TikTok or Facebook, they have been flooded by negative comments.
RI has also been attacked by government supporters unhappy with its critical coverage of the Honduras president Xiomara Castro’s leftwing administration. In August 2024, Funes was threatened with prosecution by the governor of Choluteca, southern Honduras, over RI’s investigation into alleged involvement by local government officials in migrant trafficking. And earlier in 2025, Funes and a human rights activist were subjected to misogynistic and sexist diatribes and threats by the head of customs for the same regional department, for demanding justice for a murdered environmental defender.
Almost half of all attacks on journalists in Mexico and Honduras are attributable to state agents, particularly at the local level. In Mexico, the NGO Article 19 has attributed 46% of all such assaults over the last decade to state agents including officials, civil servants and the armed forces.
In Honduras, according to the Committee for Free Expression (C-Libre), 45% of attacks on journalists in the first quarter of 2024 were attributed to state agents, up from 41% in 2021. These include the national police, the Military Public Order Police, officials and members of the government.
Impunity is a fact of life
One key reason for the failure of the journalist protection schemes in Mexico and Honduras is they lack the power to investigate, prosecute and punish those responsible for the attacks that caused the journalists to enter the programmes in the first place.
Padgett is yet to see justice, either for the attack on him by drug dealers at the university campus almost eight years ago or the results of the official investigation into the Mexico City prosecutor office’s apparent leaking of his contact details to the assailants. When he asked the prosecutor’s office for an update on its investigation in June 2024, he was told it had been closed two years earlier. His request for a copy of the file was denied.
When he went to the office to ask why, he was detained by police officers. “This is justice in Mexico City,” he said in a video he filmed during his arrest, adding:
“Drug dealing is allowed. My personal data is leaked to the organised crime [group] that threatened to kill me and my family. Then the matter is shelved. I come to ask for my file and instead of giving it to me, they take me to court. That is the reality today.”
Padgett lodged a complaint and, following “a tortuous judicial process”, eventually managed to get the investigation re-opened. But he says he has lost hope in the process and the justice system in general. Even something as simple as filing a report on the theft of his bullet-proof jacket during the armed attack in September 2024 has proved beyond the official responsible for the task, so the protection programme has not replaced it.
Funes says she reported one of the cyber-attacks on RI to the special prosecutor established by Honduras in 2018 to investigate crimes against journalists and human rights defenders. Funes provided the name and mobile phone number used by the hacker. However, she said the case was later closed for “lack of merit”.
Previously, the official investigation into the 2011 attack on her and other women journalists had also been quietly shelved after the evidence was “lost”. Funes says this put her off reporting subsequent incidents to the authorities:
“What for? I just want them to protect me … why waste my time? Really, you get used to impunity, you normalise it.”
There have been a few important advances in Mexico in recent years, including the successful prosecution of some of those behind the 2017 murder of two high-profile journalists, Javier Valdez and Miroslava Breach, but such cases remain the exception. Around 90% of attacks on journalists still go unprosecuted and unpunished by the state in both Mexico and Honduras, meaning there is little deterrent against these crimes.
Safer, better ways of working
Many of the journalists I have interviewed prioritise covering under-reported issues relating to human rights and democracy, corruption, violence and impunity. They use in-depth, investigative journalism to try to reveal the truth about what is happening in their countries – which is often obscured by the failings and corruption of the justice system and rule of law.
Many are developing safer, better ways of working, with three strategies having grown noticeably in recent years: building collaborations, seeking international support, and professionalising their ways of working.
Journalists from different media outlets often overcome professional rivalries to collaborate on sensitive and dangerous stories. In Mexico, members of some journalists’ collectives and networks alert each other of security risks on the ground, share and corroborate information, and monitor their members during risky assignments. Others travel as a group – when investigating the mass graves used by drug cartels, for example.
In Mexico and increasingly in Honduras, they publish controversial stories, such as on serious human rights violations involving the state, in more than one outlet simultaneously to reduce the chance of individual journalists being targeted in reprisal. Such collaborations build trust, solidarity and mutual support among reporters and editors – something that has traditionally been lacking in both countries.
Increasingly, international media partners also play an important role regarding the safety of Mexican and Honduran journalists and amplifying public awareness of the issues they report on – encouraging the mainstream media in their own countries to take notice and increasing pressure on their governments to act.
According to Jennifer Ávila, director of the Honduran investigative journalism platform ContraCorriente, transnational collaborations are a “super-important protection mechanism” because they give journalists access to external editors and legal assistance – as well as help leaving the country if necessary.
International partners also bring increased resources. In Mexico and Honduras, as in other Latin American countries, the main source of funding is government advertising and other state financial incentives. But these come with expectations about influence over editorial policies and content, so are not an option for most independent outlets. Private advertising is also challenging for these and other reasons. So, most independent media outlets and journalistic projects are heavily dependent on US and European donors such as the National Endowment for Democracy (Ned), Ford Foundation and Open Society Foundations.
Much of Latin America has high levels of media concentration, with the mainstream media typically being owned by a handful of wealthy individuals or families with wider business interests – and close economic and political links to politicians and the state. Combined with the strings of government advertising, this often results in “soft” censorship of the content that these outlets publish. Some journalists are escaping this either by setting up their own media digital outlets, like Funes, or by going freelance – as Padgett has decided to do following the attack on him in Cuitzeo in 2024.
At the same time, there has been a widespread raising of standards through increased training in techniques such as journalistic ethics, making freedom of information requests, digital and investigative journalism, and covering elections. This all helps to promote “journalistic security” – using information as a “shield in such a way that no one can deny what you’re saying”, according to Daniela Pastrana of the NGO Journalists on the Ground (PdP). It also helps counter the perception – and in some cases, reality – of longstanding corruption in parts of the profession.
Hostile environment puts progress at risk
Despite the promise of transforming journalism through increasing collaboration, professionalisation and international support, the current outlook for journalists in Mexico and Honduras – and other countries in Latin America – is not encouraging. Hostile government rhetoric against independent reporters and media outlets is on the rise, despite the presidents of both Mexico and Honduras having pledged to protect journalists and freedom of expression.
In Honduras, the hostile rhetoric towards journalists is growing in the run-up to the presidential elections in November. According to Funes: “There is a violent public discourse from the government which is repeated by officials [and] prepares the ground for worse attacks on the press … This is dangerous.”
In both countries, such attitudes at the top are often replicated by local politicians and citizens, including online, with the threat of violent discourse leading to physical violence. This hostility appears likely to grow given the example of Donald Trump’s aggressive and litigious attitude towards journalists and the media in the United States.
Indeed, the policies of the second Trump administration are already jeopardising progress made in terms of transforming journalism in Mexico and Honduras. In late January 2025, the US government suspended international aid and shuttered USAID, amid unsubstantiated accusations of fraud and corruption.
According to the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, the USAID freeze included more than US$268m (£216m) that had been allocated to support “independent media and the free flow of information” in 2025.
USAID has been a key funder of organisations such as the nonprofits Internews and Freedom House, which in turn have been vital to the development of independent and investigative journalism in Latin America through their support of new media outlets, journalistic projects and media freedom groups. Another important donor, Ned – a bipartisan nonprofit organisation largely funded by the US Congress – has had its funding frozen.
Uncertainty about future funding has led to the immediate suspension of operations and layoffs by many nonprofit media organisations in Mexico, Honduras and across the region. While this seismic shift in the Latin American media landscape reinforces the urgent need to diversify its sources of funding, there is no doubt that in the short and even medium term, it has dealt a serious blow to the development of free and independent journalism and the safety of all journalists.
In a region of increasingly authoritarian leaders, it is now a lot harder to hold them accountable for corruption, human rights violations, impunity and other abuses.
International impotence
Anti-press violence and impunity are global problems, with more than 1,700 journalists killed worldwide between 2006 and 2024 – around 85% of which went unpunished, according to Unesco.
Although international organisations, protection mechanisms and pressure can be important tools in the fight against anti-press violence and impunity, they are ultimately limited in impact due to their reliance on the state to comply. Some journalists in Mexico and Honduras suggest the impact of such international attention can even be counter-productive, due to their governments’ increasing hostility toward any criticism by international organisations, journalists and other perceived opponents.
Twenty years ago, Lydia Cacho, a renowned journalist and women’s rights activist, was arbitrarily detained and tortured in Puebla state, east-central Mexico, after publishing a book exposing a corruption and child sexual exploitation network involving authorities and well-known businessmen. Unable to get redress for her torture through the Mexican justice system, Cacho eventually took her case to the United Nations.
Finally, in 2018, the UN Human Rights Committee ruled that her rights had been violated and ordered the Mexican state to re-open the investigation into the attack, and to give her adequate compensation. This judgment has led to several arrests of state agents in Puebla, including a former governor and chief of the judicial police and several police officers, as well as a public apology from the federal government.
But cases like Cacho’s are the exception. Securing rulings from international bodies requires resources and energy, the help of NGOs or lawyers – and can take years. What’s more, enforcement of international decisions relies on the state to comply.
While international pressure was key to persuading the Mexican and Honduran states to set up their government protection schemes for journalists and specialised prosecutors to investigate attacks against them, these institutions have generally proved ineffective.
Resourcing is always an issue: typically, protection mechanisms and prosecutors’ offices are underfunded and the staff are poorly trained. Some bodies have limited mandates, such as protection mechanisms that lack the power to investigate attacks on journalists. Sometimes, these failings are believed to be deliberate. According to Padgett, the Mexican journalist protection scheme has “political biases against those whom officials consider to be hostile to the regime”.
Indeed, many journalists and support groups suspect the Mexican and Honduran governments don’t really want these institutions to work. As the pro-democracy judge Guillermo López Lone commented about the repeated failure to secure convictions for crimes against journalists and human rights defenders in Honduras: “These are international commitments [made] due to pressure, but there is no political will.”
López Lone, who was illegally removed from his position after the 2009 coup in Honduras and only reinstated as a judge after a years-long struggle, including a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, alleged that these institutions “play a merely formal role” in Honduras, because they have been “captured by the political interests of the current rulers, and by criminal networks”.
Similarly, according to Sara Mendiola, director of Mexico City-based NGO Propuesta Cívica, it’s not enough to talk about a lack of resources or training: “Even if you doubled the [state] prosecutors’ offices’ budgets, you’d still have the same impunity because the structures [that generate impunity] remain.”
Activism is a risky business
It’s clear that in both Mexico and Honduras, despite the governments’ stated commitment to freedom of expression, there is a deep-seated ambivalence about how important or desirable it is to protect journalists and media freedom.
The heart of this issue is the contradiction of the state as both protector and perpetrator – a state that does not want to, or is incapable of, constraining or investigating itself and its allies. This in turn is linked to longstanding structural problems of corruption, impunity and human rights violations, and a legacy of controlling the media dating to pre-democracy days.
Activism by journalists against this situation – another form of self-protection – takes various forms, including public protests and advocacy, and working for and setting up NGOs that support colleagues at risk. Increasingly, activism also involves the coming together of those who are the victims of violence.
In Mexico City, groups of journalists displaced from their homes by threats and attacks, many of whom end up without a job or income, have formed collectives and networks to provide mutual support and assist colleagues in similar circumstances. In Veracruz state, the Network in Memory of and Struggle for Killed and Disappeared Journalists was formed by the relatives of the many such journalists in 2022.
But activism is a risky business in Mexico and Honduras, opening journalists and their loved ones up to further repression and attacks by the state – and sometimes raising questions about their impartiality and credibility. While many journalists have taken part in activism out of necessity or desperation, in both countries their main source of optimism in the face of violence and impunity is journalism itself.
Journalism as the solution
Fortunately, journalists like Padgett don’t give up easily. After an eight-month hiatus following the attack in Cuitzeo and its aftermath, he now feels ready to go back to reporting.
Although he succeeded in getting the shelved investigation into the 2017 attack on him and subsequent data leak reopened, the lack of any action since means he’s decided to draw a line under this labyrinthine process. He is now looking for “alternative means of justice to compensate for the impunity”.
As a part of the reparations, he has been promised a formal apology from the Mexico City Prosecutor’s Office (similar to the apology received by Cacho). Such a ceremony is not justice and may largely be symbolic, but Padgett feels it will allow him to move on and focus on journalism again – this time as a freelancer. He is keen to make the point that Mexico remains “an extraordinary place to be a reporter”.
Despite the lack of state protection and all the other challenges, journalists like Padgett and Funes are determined to keep going – investigating their countries’ ills, probing the root causes, transforming their profession. Their commitment offers a ray of hope for the emergence of a truly free and independent media in Mexico, Honduras and beyond.
Tamsin Mitchell’s new book, Human Rights, Impunity and Anti-Press Violence: How Journalists Survive and Resist, is published by Routledge.
8 Jan 2025 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Syria
For more than five decades, Syria has lived under a repressive regime that has made freedom of expression a distant dream. Under Bashar al-Assad, expression was curtailed by repressive laws and strict censorship, while the security services were used as a tool to silence dissenting voices. With the Syrian revolution in 2011, a new age of free expression seemed to be emerging, but it quickly collided with security, political, and social challenges. Now that the Assad regime has been overthrown, what does this mean for the future of free expression in the country?
Freedom of expression under Assad
There were many forces at play within Assad’s regime that were used to silence those critical of the government and stop dissent.
The first were repressive laws. Throughout the decades of the Assad family’s rule, laws were designed to serve the security services and ensure the political domination of society.
The emergency law, which remained in place from 1963 to 2011, gave the security services unlimited powers to prosecute dissidents and protesters and restrict freedoms. Assad lifted the law following Syria’s Arab Spring protests, though opposition politicians called this move “useless” without reform of the legal system and accountability for security services. The 2001 Publications Law, which tightly censored the press, banned the emergence of any independent media voices. This was later repealed and replaced with a Media Law in 2011, but this still placed restrictions on journalists, including that freedom of expression should be “exercised responsibly and with consideration”. More recently, the cybercrime law in 2022 was used to silence dissenting voices online, and has made public criticism of the regime a crime punishable by imprisonment.
In this context, writer, dissident and former political detainee Fayez Sarah told Index: “The policies of the Assad regime pushed me and many activists to confront [them], as muzzling voices and preventing political and civil activities motivated me to engage in political and social work.” Sarah said he had been arrested several times simply for participating in opposition political activities.
The second tool used was that of the “official” media, which became the regime’s only voice. The official media was focused on perpetuating the public image of Assad’s regime, and presenting his version of events without space for other opinions. All mass media TV channels and newspapers were under direct control of the state, which ensured the promotion of the regime’s ideology and the obscuration of truth.
Journalist and writer Ali Safar recalled that while working for a state media organisation, creativity was rejected, and security reports suppressed any attempt to deviate from the official line.
The third oppressive weapon was direct repression against activists and journalists. Syria is one of the most dangerous countries for journalists, having witnessed unprecedented levels of violence towards media workers over the past few years. According to Reporters Without Borders, Syria has lagged behind in the Global Press Freedom Index, consistently ranking amongst the 10 worst countries since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011.
Under the Assad regime, journalists were subjected to arbitrary arrests, torture, and enforced disappearances. In areas of armed opposition, despite there being space for independent media, journalists have also been threatened and kidnapped by some factions who saw media coverage as a threat to their interests.
As journalist Sakhr Idris told Index: “Even in liberated areas, journalists faced challenges such as the intervention of military factions and pressure from funders or local communities.”
At least 300 journalists were killed whilst covering the civil war, whilst others lived in exile or under constant threat. Thousands of people have been threatened, arrested and forcibly disappeared. Muhannad Omar has been forcibly disappeared since 2012. His fate is currently unknown but there are fears that he was tortured and killed in detention in prison.
The Impact of the Syrian revolution on freedom of expression
With the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, social media platforms began to play a crucial role in breaking the regime’s monopoly on the media.
Activists have used platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to convey the truth to the world, and expose the regime’s abuses.
Citizen media began to emerge as an alternative to official media, with on-the-ground journalists relying on simple technology to circulate coverage of demonstrations and violations.
But despite a promising start, freedom of expression has faced numerous challenges as the conflict morphed into an all-out war. The regime’s repression continued in new forms, including through digital smear campaigns and intensive surveillance.
In areas outside of the regime’s control, armed factions also began to impose their own visions, limiting press freedom.
The takeover of the Syrian State Television building
After the fall of the Syrian regime on 8 December, concerns emerged about the future of the official media as new forces started to dominate the media landscape. One such case was the takeover of the Syrian State Television building in Damascus, raising widespread concern that the official media could turn from a tool to serve the regime into a platform that promotes the vision of dominant rebel groups.
For example, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group which led the deposition of Assad, is known for its directed political and religious rhetoric, and may use state television to spread its ideology and strengthen its influence over public opinion in Syria.
The move also raises questions about the fate of free and pluralistic media in a post-Assad Syria, especially with the country’s record of restricting press freedom, suppressing independent journalists, and directing the media to serve its political and religious goals.
There is also a risk that media domination will be used to expand repression, leaving Syria stuck in the cycle of media tyranny under different names and parties.
These concerns highlight the greater challenge of ensuring the independence of the official media in this transitional period and putting in place laws to protect it from political or ideological influences that may divert it from its true role as a platform for all Syrians.
Future challenges to freedom of expression after Assad
One major obstacle is the absence of an existing legal and constitutional framework to protect free expression.
Ali Safar, a Syrian writer and executive producer of Radio Sout Raya, a Syrian radio station based in Istanbul, believes that “the only guarantee of freedom of expression is a sophisticated and dynamic media law that revitalises public space”.
Another challenge is existing societal conflict; the war has left deep sectarian divisions that have affected public debate and discourse.
According to Sheikh Riad Drar al-Hamood, a Syrian opposition political activist, writer and human rights activist, the traditional religious community has not helped to build an environment that respects pluralism, but rather has supported authoritarianism under the umbrella of traditional law.
However, he says the role of religious groups will be significant in future, and forward-thinking individuals within them can “form an incubator for the new society”. “The enlightened voices among the clergy can be leaders of social liberation, but unfortunately they are few,” he said. For instance, Sheikh Muhammad Rateb al-Nabulsi and the late Sheikh Jawdat Saeed were supporters of moderate thought in Syria, and called for change by peaceful means. Their influence combined to promote the values of dialogue and tolerance, which made them distinguished voices in the face of tyranny and extremism.
International actors will also have a key role to play in establishing a pluralistic media. Supporting Syria’s democratic transition depends heavily on international support, which is conditional on political reforms. A transition is needed that draws on the experiences of other countries to avoid media and political chaos.
The role of civil society organisations and activists within Syria will also be crucial. Civil society is a key hope for building a free space. According to Fayez Sarah, political and civil activism has contributed to changing the relationship between Syrians and the regime, as they have become more emboldened in expressing their opinions.
But challenges remain significant, including security threats and the stress of living under threat of prosecution.
Comparing Syria with other global experiences
The state of free expression in Syria can be compared to the experiences of other countries such as Iran and Chechnya, where societies have faced similar pressures around the suppression of dissenting voices and the use of religious or national authority to tighten control.
Even before Iran’s 1979 revolution, freedom of expression was limited under the regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, where the press and civil society were censored, and the SAVAK (the Bureau for Intelligence and Security of the State) was used to muzzle voices. While Iranians dreamed of the right to free expression after the revolution, repression has shifted in character from political to ideological.
The new Islamic regime imposed tight control on the media, as obedience to Wali al-Faqih – a doctrine that means the transfer of political and religious authority over to the Shia clergy – became a criterion for the legitimacy of media and intellectual discourse.
Although dissenting voices have emerged from within the religious establishment – such as Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri – they have been marginalised and suppressed, which is consistent with Sheikh al-Hamood’s assertion that enlightened voices in religious communities often have little impact.
Similarly to Syria, in Iran religion or nationality has been used officially to justify restricting freedoms and turning the media into a tool for official propaganda.
In Chechnya, freedom of expression has been heavily affected by armed conflicts and wars between the Russian government and separatist movements.
During the First (1994-1996) and Second (1999-2009) Chechen Wars, independent journalism was virtually wiped out. Russian authorities and local groups have used the media as a propaganda weapon against the opposition, reminiscent of the Syrian regime’s control over the media during and after the revolution.
In the post-conflict era, freedom of expression remained limited under the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov. Independent journalists were imprisoned and political activity was suppressed. As in Syria, armed conflicts have weakened the free media and have led to the authorities’ exploitation of nationalism and religion to justify repression.
In Iran, Chechnya and Syria, freedom of expression has been affected by volatile political phases and armed conflicts. Free expression was the first casualty of repressive regimes that used religion or nationalism as a pretext for control.
Global experiences continue to offer useful lessons for Syria in the future, as they can be leveraged to build a free media system that respects pluralism and promotes national reconciliation.
Looking to the future
The journey of freedom of expression in Syria is a reflection of the stages that the country has gone through politically and socially, from systematic repression under Assad, to limited openness during the revolution, to successive setbacks as the conflict escalated. There are many challenges to building an environment that incubates free expression post-Assad, from the need for a constitution that protects the right to confront sectarian discourse, to rebuilding trust between the media and society. But despite this, there is still hope that Syria could become a model for free expression within the region.
This article was translated and edited from Arabic by Hussein Maamo.
ObscuraCam is a free smartphone application that uses facial recognition to blur individual faces automatically. Developed by WITNESS and the Guardian Project, it enables users to protect their personal security, privacy and anonymity. In 2011 and 2012, uprisings throughout the Middle East have shown the power and danger of mobile video footage. ObscuraCam helps protect activists who fear reprisals but want to safely capture evidence of state brutality. Launched in June 2011 and based in the USA, ObscuraCam is the only facial blurring or masking application that has responded to the concerns of human rights groups, citizen activists and journalists. In addition to obscuring faces, the application removes identifying data such as GPS location data and the phone make and model.
Telecomix is the collective name for a decentralised group of internet activists operating in Europe. Their focus is to expose threats to freedom of speech online. During one operation, Telecomix activists published a huge package of data which proved that the Syrian government was carrying out mass surveillance of thousands of its citizens’ internet usage. Telecomix’s revelation that the technology used was supplied by US firm Blue Coat Systems has prompted serious investigations into the involvement of western technology firms in helping repressive regimes spy on their people. In mid-August 2011, Telecomix’s dispersed group of hackers came together to target Syria’s internet. Those attempting to access the internet though their normal browsers were confronted with a blank page bearing a warning: “This is a deliberate, temporary internet breakdown. Please read carefully and spread the following message. Your internet activity is monitored.” Following this, a page flashed up describing how to take precautions to encrypt usage.
