20 May 2013 | In the News
GLOBAL
Social media isn’t a free-for-all space
It is often thought that social media breaks down barriers and allows the oppressed an avenue for free speech. Social media can also allow easy sharing of information with a wider audience, all with just a click of a button. (Asia One)
Cannes 2013:Iran’s Farhadi and China’s Jia talk cinema & censorship
Two directors from countries with tough film censorship brought bold and probing movies to the Cannes Film Festival on Friday — one exploring China’s social problems, the other delving into the mysteries of the human heart. (India Live)
ALGERIA
Algerian newspaper editor accuses government of censorship
An editor has accused Algeria’s government of censorship after it blocked the publication of his two newspapers. (Washington Post)
Bouteflika’s ‘coma’ leads to censorship of two Algerian dailies
Algeria censored two dailies over reports that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, hospitalised in Paris since April 27, will return home in a coma after his health took a turn for the worse, their chief said on Sunday. (Middle East Online)
BAHRAIN
Letter: Bahrain citizens denied basic rights
In the U.S., many citizens exercise their right to peaceful assembly. However, in Bahrain this basic human right is being denied. Citizens are subject to ridiculous punishments for peaceful expression and assembly. Bloomington Pantagraph
Video: Surveillance for Sale: ‘UK exports spyware to Bahrain to track activists’
The Bahraini government is accused of using surveillance software from a UK-based company, to spy on a leading rights activist. That’s according to documents filed at the High Court in London, by one of the founders of the rights group, Bahrain Watch. The programme works by infecting your computer, and then recording your Skype conversations and social media activity. It can also take screenshots without your knowledge, and access information on your hard disk. Alaa Shehabi, who filed the court documents – told RT that digital surveillance has been spreading in Bahrain, since former high ranking UK police officer John Yates became security advisor there. (RT)
INDIA
Send Section 66A bullies home
We’re all familiar with the use of IT Act Section 66A to stifle dissent. Even the apex court has admitted that the law cannot be entrusted to ordinary policemen. But now big organisations are figuring out how to take advantage of this censorship tool too. (India Today
ITALY
Amanda Knox claims she is penniless after facing libel lawsuits over her memoir
Amanda Knox has revealed that she is almost broke because of her huge legal bills – despite a $1.5million book advance. (Daily Mail
RUSSIA
EU ‘worried’ about Russia’s human rights record
The European Union criticised Russia’s human rights record, saying it was increasingly concerned at a wave of restrictive legislation and prosecutions against activists. (TV New Zealand)
UNITED STATES
What We Said 150 Years Ago: How free speech is abridged
The New York copperheads (who were Democrats living in northern states opposed to the Civil War) had a meeting the other afternoon to denounce the (Lincoln) administration for suppressing the liberty of “free speech.” (Wisonsin State Journal)
Ashley: Chilling effect on free expression worth worrying about
What’s going on here? By coincidence or terrible karma, the unsettling developments on the free expression of ideas, open government and our ability to monitor that government are reason for concern and anger. (The Herald-Sun)
‘IRS suppressed advocates of free speech’
The Internal Revenue Service has sought to “suppress” advocates of free speech by targeting conservative groups based on their ideology, says Jim W. Dean, managing editor and columnist at Veterans Today. (Press TV)
30 Jun 2017 | Campaigns -- Featured, Digital Freedom, Digital Freedom Statements, Statements
Today, 84 organisations and individuals from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA sent letters to their respective governments insisting that government officials defend strong encryption. The letter comes on the heels of a meeting of the “Five Eyes” ministerial meeting in Ottawa, Canada earlier this week.
The “Five Eyes” is a surveillance partnership of intelligence agencies consisting of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. According to a joint communique issued after the meeting encryption and access to data was discussed. The communique stated that “encryption can severely undermine public safety efforts by impeding lawful access to the content of communications during investigations into serious crimes, including terrorism.”
In the letter organised by Access Now, CIPPIC, and researchers from Citizen Lab, 83 groups and individuals from the so-called “Five Eyes” countries wrote “we call on you to respect the right to use and develop strong encryption.” Signatories also urged the members of the ministerial meeting to commit to allowing public participating in any future discussions.
Read the letter in full:
Senator the Hon. George Brandis
Attorney General of Australia
Hon. Christopher Finlayson
Attorney General of New Zealand
Hon. Ralph Goodale
Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness of Canada
Hon. John Kelly
United States Secretary of Homeland Security
Rt. Hon. Amber Rudd,
Secretary of State for the Home Department, United Kingdom
CC: Hon. Peter Dutton, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Australia;
Hon. Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship, Canada;
Hon. Jeff Sessions, Attorney General for the United States;
Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould, Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Canada;
Hon. Michael Woodhouse, Minister of Immigration, New Zealand
To Ministers Responsible for the Five Eyes Security Community,
In light of public reports about this week’s meeting between officials from your agencies, the undersigned individuals and organisations write to emphasise the importance of national policies that encourage and facilitate the development and use of strong encryption. We call on you to respect the right to use and develop strong encryption and commit to pursuing any additional dialogue in a transparent forum with meaningful public participation.
This week’s Five Eyes meeting (comprised of Ministers from the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia) discussed “plans to press technology firms to share encrypted data with security agencies” and hopes to achieve “a common position on the extent of … legally imposed obligations on … device-makers and social media companies to co-operate.” In a Joint Communiqué following the meeting, participants committed to exploring shared solutions to the perceived impediment posed by encryption to investigative objectives.
While the challenges of modern day security are real, such proposals threaten the integrity and security of general purpose communications tools relied upon by international commerce, the free press, governments, human rights advocates, and individuals around the world.
Last year, many of us joined several hundred leading civil society organisations, companies, and prominent individuals calling on world leaders to protect the development of strong cryptography. This protection demands an unequivocal rejection of laws, policies, or other mandates or practices—including secret agreements with companies—that limit access to or undermine encryption and other secure communications tools and technologies.
Today, we reiterate that call with renewed urgency. We ask you to protect the security of your citizens, your economies, and your governments by supporting the development and use of secure communications tools and technologies, by rejecting policies that would prevent or undermine the use of strong encryption, and by urging other world leaders to do the same.
Attempts to engineer “backdoors” or other deliberate weaknesses into commercially available encryption software, to require that companies preserve the ability to decrypt user data or to force service providers to design communications tools in ways that allow government interception are both shortsighted and counterproductive. The reality is that there will always be some data sets that are relatively secure from state access. On the other hand, leaders must not lose sight of the fact that even if measures to restrict access to strong encryption are adopted within Five Eyes countries, criminals, terrorists, and malicious government adversaries will simply switch to tools crafted in foreign jurisdictions or accessed through black markets. Meanwhile, innocent individuals will be exposed to needless risk. Law-abiding companies and government agencies will also suffer serious consequences. Ultimately, while legally discouraging encryption might make some useful data available in some instances, it has by no means been established that such steps are necessary or appropriate to achieve modern intelligence objectives.
Notably, government entities around the world, including Europol and representatives in the U.S. Congress, have started to recognise the benefits of encryption and the futility of mandates that would undermine it.
We urge you, as leaders in the global community, to remember that encryption is a critical tool of general use. It is neither the cause nor the enabler of crime or terrorism. As a technology, encryption does far more good than harm. We, therefore, ask you to prioritise the safety and security of individuals by working to strengthen the integrity of communications and systems. As an initial step, we ask that you continue any engagement on this topic in a multi-stakeholder forum that promotes public participation and affirms the protection of human rights.
We look forward to working together toward a more secure future.
Sincerely,
Access Now
Advocacy for Principled Action in Government
American Library Association
Amnesty International
Amnesty UK
Article 19
Australian Privacy Foundation
Big Brother Watch
Blueprint for Free Speech
British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA)
Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA)
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE)
Center for Democracy and Techology
Centre for Free Expression, Ryerson University
Chaos Computer Club (CCC)
Constitutional Alliance
Consumer Action
CryptoAustralia
Crypto.Quebec
Defending Rights and Dissent
Demand Progress
Digital Rights Watch
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Frontiers Australia
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Engine
Equalit.ie
Freedom of the Press Foundation
Friends of Privacy USA
Future Wise
Government Accountability Project
Human Rights Watch
i2Coalition
Index on Censorship
International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG)
Internet NZ
Liberty
Liberty Coalition
Liberty Victoria
Library Freedom Project
My Private Network
New America’s Open Technology Institute
NZ Council for Civil Liberties
OpenMedia
Open Rights Group (ORG)
NEXTLEAP
Niskanen Center
Patient Privacy Rights
PEN International
Privacy International
Privacy Times
Private Internet Access
Restore the Fourth
Reporters Without Borders
Rights Watch (UK)
Riseup Networks
R Street Institute
Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest
Clinic (CIPPIC)
Scottish PEN
Subgraph
Sunlight Foundation
TechFreedom
Tech Liberty
The Tor Project
Voices-Voix
World Privacy Forum
Brian Behlendorf, executive director, Hyperledger, at the Linux Foundation
Dr. Paul Bernal, lecturer in IT, IP and media law, UEA Law School
Owen Blacker, founder and director, Open Rights Group; founder, NO2ID
Thorsten Busch, lecturer and senior research fellow, University of St Gallen
Gabriella Coleman, Wolfe Chair in scientific and technological literacy at McGill University
Sasha Costanza-Chock, associate professor of civic media, MIT
Dave Cox, CEO, Liquid VPN
Ron Deibert, The Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs
Nathan Freitas, Guardian Project
Dan Gillmor, professor of practice, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University
Adam Molnar, lecturer in criminology, Deakin University
Christopher Parsons, The Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs
Jon Penney, research fellow, The Citizen lab, Munk School of Global Affairs
Chip Pitts, professorial lecturer, Oxford University
Ben Robinson, directory, Outside the Box Technology Ltd and Discovery Technology Ltd
Sarah Myers Wes, doctoral candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
J.M. Porup, journalist
Lokman Tsui, assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Faculty Associate, Berkman Klein Center)
15 Jan 2026 | Asia and Pacific, Australia, Europe and Central Asia, Israel, Middle East and North Africa, News, Palestine, United Kingdom
What do a book festival in Adelaide and a secondary school in Bristol have in common? Both were in the news this week after being mashed up in rows over Israel and Palestine and both for doing the same thing – cancelling speakers they’d invited. Neither organisation went looking for an argument but they found themselves at the centre of rows where reputations were trashed, as in the Australian case, and parents, students and a politician doubtless feel less safe, as in the Bristol case. Now most people looking at either of these cases will be less likely to invite controversial figures to schools – even a local MP – or to have outspoken speakers at book events.
The Adelaide Book Festival should have been a little more aware than the Bristol school that they might find themselves in a spot of bother. They invited the Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah to appear at the festival. Abdel-Fattah is a novelist, lawyer and academic and had been asked to come and talk about her new book Discipline, published by the University of Queensland Press. The book ironically is about a journalist and academic navigating censorship in the wake of the Israel-Gaza war. In September, The Guardian in London, which has a large presence in Australia, interviewed her. The interviewer made clear that she was a controversial figure: the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship grant she had been using to create a digital archive of Arab activism had been suspended after criticism from Jewish groups. She’d made several anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist comments on social media, including saying that Zionists had “no claim or right to cultural safety”. And she’d already withdrawn from the Bendigo Writers Festival last August after a code of conduct was issued telling panellists to “avoid language or topics that could be considered inflammatory” when some 50 other authors walked out with her. Abdel-Fattah has made a point of being outspoken, and other authors had shown themselves inclined to follow her lead.
So there is no way that the Adelaide Book Festival could claim that they didn’t know. And if further proof be needed, she had spoken at the book festival two years and joined others in asking for New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman to be de-platformed. He didn’t come because of “scheduling issues”. If the book festival didn’t want her to speak, they could have quietly not invited her. They obviously felt she had important things to say.
But following the murder of Jewish people celebrating Hannukah on Bondi beach, Abdel-Fattah’s remarks looked very different, or as the board wanted to “reiterate” (before they resigned) in an apology to Abdel-Fattah about the way she was disinvited, “this is not about identity or dissent but rather a continuing rapid shift in the national discourse around the breadth of freedom of expression in our nation following Australia’s worst terror attack in history.” Abdel-Fattah, as you might expect, has hit back accusing the board of being “disingenuous”.
The Adelaide Book Festival is now in crisis and has been cancelled. Zadie Smith and 180 other participants, including the former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the British novelist Kathy Lette, refused to appear in protest at the treatment of Abdel-Fattah. Rescinding her invitation to speak has meant the loss of an opportunity for difficult conversations about her views to be had, and a book festival brought down with it.
The Bristol Brunel Academy should not have expected to find itself in such a difficult position, because all the headteacher there had done was to invite his local MP to visit, on the topic of democracy no less. Except Damien Egan is vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel and is married to an Israeli man. The school had some unionised teachers, who told them that if Egan came they would all wear keffiyehs (Palestinian scarves) and demonstrate outside the school along with parents and members of the public. School leaders took fright and cancelled the visit at the last moment.
The visit should have gone ahead, but the safeguarding of students at schools is all important and teachers can become easily spooked. The academy trust has now said they have taken police advice, and the visit will be rebooked. The Times has run a further story saying that the same teacher group boasted about cancelling a speaker from an Israeli tech firm at the school’s summer conferences. All this is in the wider context of a bitter political fight between Labour and the Green Party in Bristol, and a direct action protest movement around the Bristol-based Israeli arms company Elbit, for which Palestine Action activists are being prosecuted for aggravated burglary among other charges.
While it is understandable that the school, in this kind of atmosphere, might want to act with caution and also that the MP might feel aggrieved (though he has said nothing so far), it’s another matter how Steve Reed, the Secretary of State for Communities, waded in. He highlighted the case at a Jewish Labour Movement conference months after the incident thus: “I have a colleague who is Jewish, who has been banned from visiting a school and refused permission to visit a school in his own constituency, in case his presence inflames the teachers”. He went on to say it was “an absolute outrage” and vowed to hold school leaders to account.
It looks at least from the outside as if Reed was playing politics with the school. As a cabinet minister he is the government not a campaigner. Why hadn’t he just reported the issue to the Department for Education and Ofsted? It might well have been a serious immediate issue, particularly for any Jewish young people at the school. But let’s assume school leaders were trying to do the right thing. They have now found themselves in the middle of a battle between politicised teaching unions (who of course have the right to protest, but also to teach young people in a non-biased way) and a senior government minister inflaming the row between the Greens and Labour in Bristol, all fought under the proxy banners of Israel and Palestine.
The protesting teachers clearly don’t want a debate; the school and Egan perhaps do. Either way the real-world losers? Free expression and the students who are seeing grown-ups trying to shut each other down rather than learning about how to debate in a democratic society on difficult issues.
If we are to have a world where free expression is to be encouraged, literary festivals and schools should be safe spaces to talk about uncomfortable ideas. Instead, they are being laid waste by those who won’t stand by decisions to invite controversial speakers when the heat is on, and others who want to make political hay at the expense of young people. All this too shuts down a proper discussion of what is actually going on in the Middle East.
16 May 2025 | Afghanistan, Africa, Asia and Pacific, Azerbaijan, Europe and Central Asia, Mali, Middle East and North Africa, New Zealand, News, Palestine, United Kingdom
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 the potential suspension of three Māori MPs, and the dissolution of political parties in Mali.
Cultural suspension: Māori MPs face suspension for performing the Haka in parliament
In November 2024, an act of protest in New Zealand’s parliament went viral on social media when opposition MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke initiated a traditional Haka dance during session to demonstrate against a controversial bill concerning Māori people’s rights. Opposition party members joined in the ceremonial group dance, leading to a striking scene in which a copy of the bill was ripped in two.
The bill aimed to drastically change the way that the Treaty of Waitangi, a founding document of New Zealand that has been crucial in upholding Māori rights, was interpreted. Critics and Māori rights activists claimed that this bill undermined New Zealand’s founding document – and following a nine-day hīkoi (peaceful protest) last year, the bill was voted down in April. But the MPs that spoke out against the bill in parliament haven’t escaped unscathed.
Three members of opposition party Te Pāti Māori (The Māori Party) are expected to be suspended for performing the Haka, in what has been described as the harshest punishment ever proposed on MPs in the country. A parliamentary committee recommended the suspensions, arguing that the Haka could have “intimidated” fellow MPs, while a Te Pāti Māori spokesperson described the punishment as a “warning shot to all of us to fall in line”. Maipi-Clarke is due to be suspended for a week, while the party’s co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer will be banned for 21 days.
The party’s over: Political parties in Mali dissolved in latest crackdown on democracy
Since a military junta took control of Mali in 2021 via a coup led by Colonel Assimi Goita, democracy has all but disappeared in the Sahel nation. Goita promised to hold elections in the year following his ascendancy to head of state, but has backed out of this commitment, instead holding onto power and recently gained backing to be declared president until at least 2030 – a move denounced by opposition parties.
But now, these parties won’t be able to denounce any further decisions made by the junta, as Goita has announced that all political parties were dissolved as of 13 May. Members of these parties have been banned from organising or holding any meetings.
This move is the latest escalation from a nation becoming increasingly repressive. Opposition leader Mamadou Traoré was arrested and imprisoned in April, and two further opposition leaders went missing last week and are feared forcibly disappeared. Protests took place in the capital Bamako last week, marking the first major pro-democracy demonstration since the military originally took control of Mali in 2020. These protests have not been tolerated, with the junta attempting to ban future demonstrations “for reasons of public order”.
A crackdown on journalists: Azerbaijan detains two independent journalists
Ilham Aliyev has been president of Azerbaijan since 2003, and his tenure has been marred by repeated attacks on the media. The nation ranks 167 out of 180 nations in Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index, and in recent years has ramped up its efforts to smother independent reporting and detain journalists on trumped up charges. In the latest continuation of these efforts, two of the country’s few remaining independent journalists – Ulviyya Ali and Ahmad Mammadli – were detained on 6 and 7 May.
Ali was seemingly expecting her imminent detention. Having seen many of her contemporaries detained for their work, she preemptively wrote a letter to be published online in the case of her arrest. According to reporting by Le Monde, upon her arrest, Ali was allegedly beaten and threatened with rape by a police officer. Some have posited that Ali, who frequently worked for Voice of America, became more vulnerable following the forced closure of the US-funded media outlet’s operations by the Donald Trump administration.
Mammadli, who documented labour rights violations and political repression online, was arrested over an alleged stabbing – a charge his colleagues claim is politically motivated – and according to his wife, was beaten and tortured with electroshocks by police after refusing to unlock his phone. These two arrests bring the total number of journalists jailed in Azerbaijan to 25 since late 2023.
Social media shutdown: The Taliban targets content creators
The Taliban is implementing a large-scale crackdown on social media influencers in the country, particularly on platforms such as TikTok.
Two teenage influencers have been detained by the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice for taking part in TikTok live broadcasts with women content creators from abroad, a practice denounced by the Taliban for being “un-Islamic”. Ministry spokesperson Saif Khyber has issued a warning that the ministry is surveilling public profiles for activity it deems to be immoral, and released two videos in which the TikTokers expressed regret and remorse for their content. Some have speculated that these videos may have been recorded under duress.
One of the TikTokers, Haroon Pakora, had been vocal about living in poverty before he gained fame on TikTok through street interviews in Kabul, but it is unlikely that he will continue posting on the platform.
A documentary withheld: BBC under fire for delaying release of Gaza documentary
Over 600 film industry professionals and members, including notable figures such as Miriam Margolyes, Susan Sarandon and Frankie Boyle, have accused the BBC of censoring Palestinian voices and have signed an open letter urging the organisation to release a Gaza documentary that has been withheld from broadcast.
Gaza: Medics Under Fire includes accounts from frontline health workers in Gaza and documents attacks on hospitals and medical clinics. According to the signatories, it has been ready to air for months, having undergone extensive fact checks and reviews. The BBC has claimed that the delay to Medics Under Fire has been extended due to its investigation into another documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, which began after the narrator was revealed to be the son of a Hamas agriculture minister. The documentary was initially broadcast, then swiftly withdrawn.
The hold-up of the Medics Under Fire documentary, which was originally due to be broadcast in January, has drawn ire towards the BBC, with the open letter stating that “this is not editorial caution. It’s political suppression”, and suggesting the delay is “rooted in racism”. Some of the signatories were BBC employees, and a BBC spokesperson has stated that the film will be released “as soon as possible”. As of yet, there is no timeline for broadcast.
