19 Jun 2017 | News, Volume 46.02 Summer 2017 Extras
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In the Summer 2017 issue of Index on Censorship, our special report looks at how the consequences of the Russian Revolution have affected freedom of speech around the world, 100 years later.
On this podcast, the British Library’s Susan Reed explains why 1917 is such a pivotal event in 20th century history, before North Korea expert BG Muhn discusses the unique, Soviet-inspired socialist realism art produced by one of the last remaining communist dictatorships, while the Uzbek writer Hamid Ismailov, in exile since 1992, muses on his government’s Soviet hangover and disdain for his work. Plus, Margaret Atwood gives her thoughts on the growing trend in Western countries of scientists being prevented from communicating inconvenient data to the public.
You can read Atwood’s full interview in the magazine, along with pieces by Muhn and Ismailov.
Print copies of the magazine are available on Amazon, or you can take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions. Copies are also available at the BFI, the Serpentine Gallery, MagCulture, (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester) and on Amazon. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship continue its fight for free expression worldwide.
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19 Jun 2017 | Digital Freedom, Magazine, Magazine Editions, Volume 46.02 Summer 2017
Short story writer
Jonathan Tel is the 2016 winner of The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize and the 2015 Commonwealth short story prize. He has written both novels and short stories and has been published in The New Yorker and Granta, amongst others.
Writer and academic
Nina Khrushcheva is professor of International Affairs at The New School in New York. She is the author of The Lost Khrushchev: A Journey into the Gulag of the Russian Mind, and is the great-grandchild of Nikita Khrushchev.
Journalist
Rafael Marques de Morais is an author and investigative journalist from Angola, who currently runs the anti-corruption website makaangola.org. He won the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award in 2015 for journalism.
16 Jun 2017 | Magazine, Magazine Contents, Volume 46.02 Summer 2017
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The Summer 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine looks at how the consequences of the 1917 Russian Revolution still affect freedoms today, in Russia and around the world. Andrei Arkhangelsky argues that the Soviet impulse to censor never left Russia, and Nina Khrushcheva, a great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, reflects on the Soviet echoes in Trump’s use of the phrase “enemies of the people”.
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Hamid Ismailov, a writer who fled Uzbekistan in 1992, also reflects on how the superficial removal of the symbols of Soviet rule did little to change the mentality of the country or its government.
BG Muhn explores the legacy of socialist realism art in North Korea, arguably the only remaining totalitarian communist country, where painters work in government-run studios to produce artwork inspired by Soviet ideals and Korean pride. Also examining propaganda in art, David Aaronovitch looks back at the famous Soviet films he grew up watching, and asks whether their distortion of true events is any more sinister than that of Hollywood.
Jan Fox also interviews Luis Lago Diaz, a Cuban filmmaker, showing the global reach of Soviet influence, and Rafael Marques de Morais dissects the Stalin-inspired cult of personality surrounding the president of Angola.
Meanwhile, with eyes on history, Kaya Genç examines the complex relationship between Russia and Turkey, Bernard Gwertzman reflects on his time as the New York Times’ Moscow correspondent during the 1960s, and Duncan Tucker investigates how Leon Trotsky’s journey from founding Soviet leader to dissident non-person saw him become a champion of free speech during his exile in Mexico.
Outside of the special report, Laura Silvia Battaglia interviews a Yemeni journalist about his ordeal reporting on his country’s war, which has included being kidnapped, tortured and shot, and Eliza Vitri Handayani explains how a small rural community in Indonesia has found innovative ways of standing up to big industry, including encasing their feet in cement.
Plus Jemimah Steinfeld asks the author Margaret Atwood about current threats to free speech, the South African cartoonist Zapiro discusses the time President Jacob Zuma sued him and in the culture section award-winning writer Jonathan Tel presents a surreal, original short story about China’s ban on time-travelling television.
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What difference Russia’s revolution makes to our freedom today
Mexico’s unlikely visitor, by Duncan Tucker: Leon Trotsky might have arrived in Mexico with blood on his hands, but he quickly became a free speech fighter
Land of milk and honey, by Lahav Harkov: Israel’s kibbutz movement walks a fine line between being harmonious and restrictive
Friends reunited, by Kaya Genç: For most of the 20th century, Turkey and Russia were hostile neighbours. Now as both clamp down on free speech, they’re finding common ground
The enemies of those people, by Nina Khrushcheva: Nikita Khrushchev’s great-grandchild considers life in Trump’s USA compared to her Soviet upbringing
Airbrushing history, by Jeffery Wasserstrom & Yidi Wu: With China’s Communist Party still in power, the way 1917 is remembered must follow the party line. One man learnt the hard way
Being the big man, by Rafael Marques de Morais: Angola’s long-ruling president has constructed an image of himself straight out of Stalin’s playbook
The big chill, by Bernard Gwertzman: Staged press conferences and tapped phones were two obstacles to reporting from Moscow during the Cold War for The New York Times’ correspondent
Help! I’m a Taiwanese communist, by Michael Gold: Taiwan went through a mass killing of its communists. Today the country is opening up about this dark past and communists face a freer environment
Shot in Havana, by Jan Fox: The state still controls Cuba’s film industry, but a Cuban producer is hopeful about changes ahead
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Provoking the president, by Raymond Joseph: South African cartoonist Zapiro talks censorship and drawing in an exclusive interview
Novel lines, by Jemimah Steinfeld: An interview with Margaret Atwood on current threats to free speech and why scientists need defending
No country for free speech? by Daniel Leisegang: An old libel law and a new one aimed at social media are two threats to free expression in Germany
Read all about it, by Julia Farrington: Somaliland’s hugely successful festival is marking 10 years of extending access to books
See no evil: A Chechen journalist on the current climate of fear and intimidation that is stopping real news getting out
No laughing matter, by Silvia Nortes: Making jokes about Franco and ETA is off the table in Spain if you want to avoid trouble with the law
Cementing dissatisfaction, by Eliza Vitri Handayani: Indonesians experimenting with creative forms of protest are grabbing attention and sparking new movements
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”CULTURE” css=”.vc_custom_1481731777861{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
Frenemies, by Kaya Genç: A mysterious man arrives at the White House. What does he want? A short story written exclusively for Index
Stitched in time, by Jonathan Tel: The award-winning writer on why the Chinese government controls historical narratives and an original story based on their ban of time travel shows
A tale of two Peters, by Alexei Tolstoy: First-time English translation of a story about Peter the Great by Russia’s Comrade Count, Alexei Tolstoy
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”COLUMNS” css=”.vc_custom_1481732124093{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
Global view, by Jodie Ginsberg: Freedoms are being curtailed across the globe in the name of “national security”
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”END NOTE” css=”.vc_custom_1481880278935{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”SUBSCRIBE” css=”.vc_custom_1481736449684{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship magazine was started in 1972 and remains the only global magazine dedicated to free expression. Past contributors include Samuel Beckett, Gabriel García Marquéz, Nadine Gordimer, Arthur Miller, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, and many more.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”76572″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]In print or online. Order a print edition here or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions.
Copies are also available at the BFI, the Serpentine Gallery, MagCulture, (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester) and on Amazon. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship continue its fight for free expression worldwide.
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8 Jun 2017 | Azerbaijan, Digital Freedom, Europe and Central Asia, France, Mapping Media Freedom, News, Russia, Spain
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Over the last seven days, violence, intimidation, harassment and assault have been used to stop journalists from doing their job in the countries covered by Index on Censorship’s project Mapping Media Freedom.
Project manager Hannah Machlin explained why incidents in Azerbaijan and Ukraine are particularly alarming. She called the Azerbaijani incident “the most serious violation to press freedom in the past few days and it shows the situation in the region continues to be disturbing”.
The violation, which took place in late May, was against exiled Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Mukhtarli, who was abducted and allegedly tortured before being taken across the border and put in pre-trial detention in Azerbaijan.
“This shows that Georgia can’t be considered a safe haven for opposition journalists and activists as well as reiterates the continued crackdown on press freedom in Azerbaijan,” Machlin said. The incident has been reported to the Council of Europe’s platform on the protection of journalism to enable that organisation to pursue discussions with the country’s representatives. Index on Censorship joined other press freedom organisations to request the Georgian government take action on the incident.
Machlin said the situation in Ukraine “indicates a complex issue in a war-torn area”. She said the “the report shows that there’s still renewed violent intimidation tactics perpetrated by the separatists against Ukrainian public broadcasters in Donbas”. She explains this is interesting because it shows that the separatists are targeting channels of free information set up by Kyiv and that Ukraine is even trying to install public broadcasters in the eastern region controlled by self-proclaimed authorities because the country “is trying to put a press presence back in there”.
29 May 2017 – Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Mukhtarli was on his way home but never made it.
Mukhtarli was reportedly kidnapped from his neighbourhood after being forced into a car with his hands tied together. He was also beaten with a broken nose and bruises all over his head and face.
He then was transported back to Azerbaijan without a passport.
Mukhtarli was charged for illegally crossing the border, smuggling and resisting law enforcement and was also accused of being in possession of 10,000 EUR during the police search at the border.
One day later on 30 May, he was sentenced to three months in pretrial detention.
Mukihtarli’s wife and child in still in Tbilsi where they fled after escaping Azerbaijan in 2015 when Mukhtarli was threatened over his investigative reporting on corruption in the Azerbaijan.
26 May 2017 – Do TeBe, a new TV channel, endured a smashing of their front door by two unidentified assailants.
Police came to the channel, located in Donetsk oblast and are now investigating the incident.
Do TeBe’s deputy director Ilya Suzdalyev said “We are in the front line region, even what looks like hooliganism must be thoroughly investigated and perpetrators should be punished. Especially when it is, in fact, an attack on the public broadcaster, which was just created in Ukraine.”
Do TeBe TV channel is a regional branch of the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine.
31 May 2017 – Outside the parliament building where the 2017 presidential inauguration took place journalists were assaulted by supporters of the new president.
Lidija Valtner, a journalist for daily Danas, was filming and interviewing an anti-government protester when she was assaulted by a group of supporters. Not only did they shove her around and try to take her mobile phone, but they also assaulted the protester she was interviewing.
Another journalist on the scene was reporting for Radio Belgrade when she was pushed and her equipment thrown to the ground.
Journalists for Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and Vice Serbia were also harassed with violence from the crowd whilst they were taking photos of the clashes. The police asked for their IDs after they witnessed a few men ripping a protest banner.
The assailants are still on the loose.
31 May 2017 – An unknown person called the editor-in-chief of the local news website Kurier.Sreda.Berdsk and threatened her and the editorial staff. Galina Komornikova’s outlet is located in the Novosibirsk region in Berdsk.
On the call, the individual said that “the Syrian theme is not one for journalists”.
The call may have been in response to a story published by the outlet the day before about the secret funeral of a Berdsk resident and Russian military officer. Yevgeni Tretyakov, who was killed in Syria on 15 May, may have belonged to private Russian military troops as he was not an official Russian army contractor.
The outlet then commented on the article saying “An unknown individual called us and promised to ‘come and handle us on behalf of law enforcement agencies’ following the article.”
Para-military private troops are not a new concept. Both Russian and international civil investigative groups and media outlets have been reporting evidence for these groups in the Syrian conflict.
A comment was also left by user “The Animal” stating “Actually, data on military casualties is classified, therefore, I would not be surprised if special people came to visit you to shake a bit, you and your sources.”
29 May 2017 – After elimination while being interviewed, tennis player Maxime Hamou tried to kiss channel Eurosport journalist Maly Thomas several times.
It was at the Rolland Garros tournament where Hamou grabbed Thomas and tired kiss her on the neck and cheek.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Mapping Media Freedom
Click on the bubbles to view reports or double-click to zoom in on specific regions. The full site can be accessed at https://mappingmediafreedom.org/[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
