The Buena Vista Social v The Kremlin

28 Mar 2022 | News and features, Russia, Ukraine

Photo: Reporters inside Kyiv’s Buena Vista Social Bar

There’s always a bar. In Kyiv, in 2022, it’s the Buena Vista Social bar, bang next to a Ukrainian police checkpoint which is both funny ha-ha and funny peculiar because there is a nationwide ban on the sale of alcohol. Sssh. It’s a joyful shebeen, Cuban-themed, run by Maks, and you never quite know what’s available to drink and who’s going to be there. All the women have a past; all the men have no future. You get the vibe.

Early on in the war, a fellow regular was a big bloke with a thick moustache and a mane of bubbly, curly hair, often seen with his fixer, a Ukrainian freelancer. I never spoke to him but I clocked him as someone who had presence, who was an interesting character, who I had probably seen in Sarajevo or somewhere like that. He was Pierre “Zak” Zakrzewski, she Sasha Kuvshynova, and they were both killed on 14 March 2022 when their vehicle came under fire in Bucha – pronounced Butcher – to the northwest of Kyiv. British journalist Ben Hall was wounded in the same attack. They were working for Fox News, something Zak, 55, who had been brought up in Ireland, had mixed feelings about. But he knew the risks of war too well and made a decision that working for a big corporate was better risk-management than being freelance. His co-workers at Fox loved him, giving him an award as “Unsung Hero” after he helped get Afghan freelancers out of Kabul.

Sasha was 24, bold and fiercely smart. After her death, her dad said that she learnt to read at the age of three and picked up English from reading restaurant menus while on family holidays. She was a fanatical photographer with five stills cameras, had founded a music festival for up-and-coming jazz musicians, worked as a DJ and wrote poetry. She wanted to make movies.

If you don’t like free expression in a democracy, you blow up the TV tower. The Kremlin’s first journalist victim was Yevhenii Sakun, 49, a camera operator for Ukraine’s LIVE station, on 1 March. The Russian army sent in four missiles in the evening, killing a worker in the TV tower complex and four civilians. The next morning I saw the people from the morgue take away the bodies of a middle-aged man and a mother and her child with my own eyes.

The most dangerous area of Kyiv is the northwest suburbs, where the Russian army’s offensive, driving down through Chernobyl, has come closest to the capital. Reporters seeking human stories, of refugees fleeing with their dogs on a lead or their cat in a box, went repeatedly to Irpin. Fearing further Russian advance, the Ukrainian army flooded the river plains near the suburb and blew up the most southerly bridge, leaving people to pick their way across the skeleton remains. Once beyond that crossing, there is a second bridge. That’s where US film maker Brent Renaud, 50, originally from Little Rock and formerly of the New York Times, found himself, filming refugees running for their lives. Brent knew what he was doing, having filmed and reported man’s cruelty to man in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya: all the nice places.

At Irpin, at the second bridge, the Russian army shot him in the neck and he died of his wounds.

Oksana Baulina was one of those intensely brave Russians who were on Team Navalny before their champion was arrested on fake charges and the organisation broken up. Oksana, 43, was declared a “terrorist” by the Kremlin and had to flee Russia. She set up as a reporter and film maker in Poland and reported on the war. When Russian artillery smashed into a shopping centre in Podil, in the northwest of the city, she was killed.

To be honest with you I have done my best to avoid writing this piece for days now because it can only fill one with gloom to think of these brave truth-tellers sent early to their graves by the mobster in the Kremlin. But my pals and I in the Buena Vista are buoyed up the thought that we are in Ukraine exactly because Vladimir Putin does not want us to be here. And on that point, Mr Putin, do fuck off.

And the rum is good.

There is, also, the line from Tom Stoppard’s great play, Night And Day, which I quoted on Twitter while hurrying back from the bar just before – well, actually, just after curfew – had fallen. This, from memory, is how it goes, how the lover of the dead young journalist, played by Diana Rigg, killed on the frontline denounces the false romance of journalism, “it’s not worth the heart-break beauty queen or the crossword and it’s definitely not worth the leader.”

And the old hack, played by John Thaw, replies: “Yes, you’re right. But also the other thing. People do awful things to each other. But it’s worse in places where everybody is kept in the dark. Information is light. Information, in itself, about anything, is light.”

RIP Zak, Sasha, Yevhenii, Brent and Oksana.

“We will not be intimidated by people who do not like what we stand for”

25 Mar 2022 | Czech Republic, Opinion, Russia, Ruth's blog, Ukraine, United States

“We will not be intimidated or pushed off the world stage by people who do not like what we stand for, and that is, freedom, democracy and the fight against disease, poverty and terrorism.” — Madeleine Albright (1937-2022)

This week one of those special people passed away. A woman who broke glass ceilings, whose leadership inspired so many others, a woman who knew what she stood for and was determined to fight for what she knew to be right. She had a life well lived and has left her mark on the world. The reality is our society is lessened by her passing, but we were lucky to have her, and we so nearly didn’t.

Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Photo: Fiona Hanson/PA Images

Madeleine Albright was born Marie Jana Korbelová, in Prague in 1937, to a Jewish family. Her family fled to London in 1939 when the Nazis invaded. They converted to Roman Catholicism and hid their true identity for decades. The first female US Secretary of State only discovered the truth and the fact that 26 members of her family had been murdered in the Holocaust as an adult. At the end of the war her family chose to return to Czechoslovakia, but this proved short-lived and they were forced to flee the Communist regime in 1949 and seek asylum in the States.

As traumatic as her early life was, Marie Jana Korbelová did more than most to shape the future, to find hope and to cherish the democratic values that were stolen from her and her family. Her personal story and her impact were exceptional. But reflecting on her life has caused me to think a lot about the Children’s Memorial at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Museum.

There is a single candle surrounded by mirrors. The reflection of each flame represents a life not born – a story not told. It highlights, in simply imagery, the lives that were extinguished, the families that were destroyed and, heartbreakingly, the children never born because their parents had been murdered. We have no idea of what the world lost because of the Shoah. The poetry and books not written, the art not created, the scientific discoveries not made.

Which brings me to the horrors we see every day on our news. The images of the death and destruction in Ukraine. Lives of every Ukrainian citizen have been turned upside down. We see daily reports of war crimes. Of children being killed, of journalists being kidnapped, of humanitarian aid being blocked.

In Ukraine today, the daily horrors shock and upset us all but for me it is also the devastation of the lives not lived. The talent that is being brutally removed from our world. Our collective society is being lessened because of their deaths and those that will now never be born. We will never know what we have lost. We can only hope that among those that survive there will be someone as inspirational as Madeleine Albright.

1972: Nixon went to China, BBC banned McCartney and Index was published

18 Mar 2022 | 50 years of Index, China, History, Ireland, Magazine, News and features, Philippines, United Kingdom, United States, Volume 51.01 Spring 2022 Extras

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

The first issue of Index on Censorship magazine, in March 1972.

The first issue of Index on Censorship magazine, in March 1972.

You may have heard that the 70s were different. In 1972, when the first issue of Index magazine was launched, no one knew that 20 years later there would be an influential economic bloc called the European Union. The Beatles’ had only just split. The World Trade Center in New York was being built, while Sir Edward Heath was the prime minister of the United Kingdom.

Fifty years on and some things remain. Queen Elizabeth’s reign goes on and celebrates its 70th anniversary in 2022. Dictatorships and censorship, which should be trapped in history books, continue to torment the lives of many. And as a result, Index on Censorship remains vigilant, defending freedom of expression and giving voice to those who are silenced. 

As we celebrate our 50th anniversary, we go back in time and remember the remarkable events that happened in 1972.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”1″][vc_column_text]January 30th: British soldiers shoot 26 unarmed civilians during a protest in ​​Derry, Northern Ireland. Fourteen people were killed on this day known as “Bloody Sunday”. [/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”2″][vc_column_text]February 1st: Paul McCartney and the Wings release “Give Ireland back to the Irish” in the UK. It would be banned by the BBC, nine days later. [/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”3″][vc_column_text]February 5th: Airlines in the United States begin to inspect passengers and baggage. Tough to imagine that people traveled without any surveillance. [/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”4″][vc_column_text]February 17th: British Parliament votes to join the European Common Market. In 2020, the United Kingdom would leave the European Union. [/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”5″][vc_column_text]February 21st: Richard Nixon becomes the first US president to visit China, seeking to establish positive relations in a meeting with Chinese leader Mao Zedong, in Beijing.

Mao Zedong and Richard Nixon during Nixon’s historical visit to China in 1972. Photo: Ian Dagnall/Alamy

[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”6″][vc_column_text]March 15th: The Godfather, starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, premieres in New York. It wins Best Picture and Best Actor (Brando) at the 45th Academy Awards.

Al Pacino and Marlon Brando in the Godfather. The first film of one the most successful franchises of all time was released in 1972. Photo: All Star Library/Alamy

[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”7″][vc_column_text]June 18th: British European Airways Trident crashes after takeoff from Heathrow to Brussels, killing all 118 people on board. [/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”8″][vc_column_text]July 1st: Feminist magazine Ms, founded by Gloria Steinem, publishes its first issue, with Wonder Woman on the cover.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”9″][vc_column_text]August 4th: Uganda dictator Idi Amin orders the expulsion of 50,000 Asians with British passports.

[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”10″][vc_column_text]September 4th and 5th: 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team are murdered by a Palestinian terrorist group in the second week of the 1972 Olympics in Munich.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”11″][vc_column_text]September 21st: Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos declares martial law. In 2022, his son Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos is running for president. [/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”12″][vc_column_text]October 13th: A flight from Uruguay to Chile crashes in the Andes Mountains. Passengers eat the flesh of the deceased to survive. Sixteen people are rescued two months later.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”13″][vc_column_text]November 30th: BBC bans “Hi, Hi, Hi”, by Paul McCartney and The Wings, due to its drug references and suggestive sexual content. [/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”14″][vc_column_text]December 7th: Apollo 17 is launched and the crew takes the famous “blue marble” photo of the entire Earth.

Marble earth/Index on censorship

The earth seen from the Apollo 17 spacecraft. Photo: NASA/Alamy

[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”15″][vc_column_text]December 28th: ​​Kim Il-Sung takes over as president of North Korea. He’s the grandfather of the country’s current leader, Kim Jong-un. [/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”16″][vc_column_text]December 30th: US President Richard Nixon halts bombing of North Vietnam and announces peace talks in Paris, to be held in January 1973. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Statement of support for Ukraine

25 Feb 2022 | Belarus, News and features, Russia, Statements, Ukraine

We, the undersigned organisations, stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine, but particularly Ukrainian journalists who now find themselves at the frontlines of a large-scale European war.

We unequivocally condemn the violence and aggression that puts thousands of our colleagues all over Ukraine in grave danger.

We call on the international community to provide any possible assistance to those who are taking on the brave role of reporting from the war zone that is now Ukraine. 

We condemn the physical violence, the cyberattacks, disinformation and all other weapons employed by the aggressor against the free and democratic Ukrainian press. 

We also stand in solidarity with independent Russian media who continue to report the truth in unprecedented conditions.

Join the statement of support for Ukraine by signing it here. 

#Журналісти_Важливі

Signed: 

  1. Justice for Journalists Foundation 
  2. Index on Censorship
  3. International Foundation for Protection of Freedom of Speech “Adil Soz” 
  4. International Media Support (IMS)
  5. Yerevan Press Club 
  6. Turkmen.news 
  7. Free Press Unlimited
  8. Human Rights Center “Viasna”
  9. Albanian Helsinki Committee
  10. Media Rights Group, Azerbaijan 
  11. European Centre for Press and Media Freedom
  12. Association of European Journalists
  13. School of Peacemaking and Media Technology in Central Asia 
  14. Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan
  15. Reporters Without Borders, RSF
  16. Association of Independent Press of Moldova, API 
  17. Public Association “Dignity”, Kazakhstan
  18. PEN International 
  19. Human Rights House Foundation, Norway
  20. IFEX
  21. UNITED for Intercultural Action
  22. Human Rights House Yerevan
  23. Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly – Vanadzor, Armenia
  24. Rafto Foundation for Human Rights, Norway
  25. Society of Journalists, Warsaw
  26. The Swedish OSCE-network
  27. Hungarian Helsinki Committee 
  28. Legal policy research centre, Kazakhstan
  29. Public Foundation Notabene – Tajikistan 
  30. HR NGO “Citizens’ Watch – St. Petersburg, Russia
  31. English PEN
  32. Public organization “Dawn” – Tajikistan
  33. International Press Institute (IPI)
  34. The Union of Journalists of Kazakhstan 
  35. ARTICLE 19
  36. Human Rights House Tbilisi
  37. Rights Georgia
  38. Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center, Azerbaijan
  39. International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
  40. Bulgarian Helsinki Committee
  41. Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD)
  42. European Federation of Journalists
  43. Social Media Development Center, Georgia
  44. Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia
  45. OBC Transeuropa
  46. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
  47. Journalists Union YENI NESIL, Azerbaijan
  48. Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA) , Istanbul
  49. Baku Press Club 
  50. Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development
  51. Union Sapari
  52. The Coalition For Women In Journalism (CFWIJ)
  53. Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression, Armenia 
  54. FEDERATIA SINDICATELOR DIN SOCIETATEA ROMANA DE RADIODIFUZIUNE, Bucharest, ROMANIA 
  55. CD FILMS (FRANCE)
  56. CFDT-Journalistes
  57. Belarusian Association of Journalists 
  58. SafeJournalists network
  59. Association of Journalists of Kosovo
  60. Association of Journalists of Macedonia
  61. BH Journalists Association
  62. Croatian Journalists’ Association
  63. Independent Journalists Association of Serbia
  64. Trade Union of Media of Montenegro
  65. Analytical Center for Central Asia (ACCA)
  66. Trade Union of Croatian Journalists 
  67. European Press Prize
  68. Ethical Journalism Network
  69. European Journalism Centre 
  70. Slovene Association of Journalists
  71. Investigative Studios
  72. PEN Belarus
  73. Public Media Alliance (PMA)
  74. Estonian Association of Journalists
  75. Federación de Sindicatos de Periodistas (FeSP) (Spain)
  76. DJV, German Journalist Federation  
  77. Free Russia Foundation   
  78. Association for Human Rights in Central Asia – AHRCA 
  79. “Human Rights Consulting Group” Public Foundation, Kazakhstan
  80. Committee to Protect Journalists
  81. Ski Club of International Journalists (SCIJ)
  82. Women In Journalism Institute, Canada – associate of CFWIJ
  83. Romanian Trade Union of Journalists MediaSind
  84. Romanian Federation Culture and Mass-Media FAIR, MediaSind
  85. New Generation of Human Rights Defenders Coalition, Kazakhstan
  86. Coalition for the Security and Protection of Human Rights Defenders, Activists, Kazakhstan
  87. Legal policy Research Centre, Kazakhstan 
  88. Eurasian Digital Foundation, Kazakhstan
  89. Legal Analysis and Research Public Union, Azerbaijan
  90. German Journalists Union
  91. Digital Rights Expert Group, Kazakhstan
  92. Bella Fox, LRT/Bellarus Media, Lithuania
  93. Syndicat national des journalistes CGT (SNJ-CGT), France
  94. Karin Wenk, Editor in Chief Menschen Machen Medien
  95. Press Emblem Campaign 
  96. Federacion de Servicios, Consumo y Movilidad (FeSMC) – UGT (Spain)   
  97. Sindicato dos Jornalistas, Portugal
  98. International media project Август2020/August2020 (august2020.info), Belarus
  99. Independent Association of Georgian Journalists (journalist.ge)
  100. Independent Trade Union of Journalists and Media Workers, Macedonia
  101. Adam Hug, Director, Foreign Policy Centre
  102. Zlatko Herljević, Croatian journalist, lecturer of journalism at University VERN, Zagreb, Croatia
  103. Independent Journalists’ and Media Workers’ Union (JMWU), Russia
  104. The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation
  105. Hungarian Press Union (HPU), Hungary
  106. Lithuanian Journalists Union
  107. National Union of Journalists UK & Ireland 
  108. Federazione Nazionale Stampa Italiana (Italy)
  109. Dutch Association of Journalists (NVJ) 
  110. Uzbek Forum for Human Rights
  111. Association of Journalists, Turkey
  112. Slovak Syndicate of Journalist, Slovakia
  113. GAMAG Europe (European Chapter of the Global Alliance for Media and Gender)
  114. Slovenian Union of Journalists (SNS)
  115. Federación de Asociaciones de Periodistas de España (FAPE)
  116. Syndicate of Journalists of Czech Republic
  117. 360 Degrees, Media outlet, North Macedonia
  118. Frontline, Skopje, North Macedonia
  119. Community Media Solutions (UK)
  120. The Norwegian Union of Journalists, Norway
  121. Rentgen Media (Kyrgyz Republic)
  122. Union of Journalists in Finland (UJF)
  123. Syndicat National des Journalistes (SNJ), France
  124. The Swedish Union of Journalists, Sweden
  125. Asociación Nacional de Informadores de la Salud. ANIS. España
  126. Association Générale des Journalistes professionnels de Belgique (AGJPB/AVBB)
  127. Macedonian Institute for Media (MIM), North Macedonia  
  128. Lithuanian Journalism Centre, Lithuania
  129. Club Internacional de Prensa (CIP), España
  130. Periodical and Electronic Press Union
  131. Fojo Media Institute, Sweden
  132. Mediacentar Sarajevo 
  133. Media Diversity Institute
  134. Impressum – les journalistes suisses
  135. Agrupación de Periodistas FSC-CCOO
  136. South East European Network for Profession­alization of Media (SEENPM)
  137. TGS, Turkey
  138. Investigative Journalism Center, Croatia
  139. Verband Albanischer Berufsjournalisten der Diaspora, Schweiz
  140. IlijašNet
  141. Journalists Union of Macedonia and Thrace (Greece)
  142. The Union of Journalists of Armenia (UJA) 
  143. Associació de Periodistes Europeus de Catalunya (APEC)
  144. International Association of Public Media Researchers (IAPMR)
  145. FREELENS e.V. – German Association of Photojournalists & Photographers
  146. LawTransform (CMI-UiB Centre on Law & Social Transformation, Bergen, Norway)
  147. Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio & Communication
  148. Platform for Independent Journalism (P24), Turkey
  149. Novi Sad School of Journalism (Serbia) 
  150. Col·legi de Periodistes de Catalunya (Catalunya)
SUPPORT INDEX'S WORK