4 Sep 2025 | Africa, Mali, News
The acclaimed Malian professor and author Étienne Fakaba Sissoko, who was released from prison in March this year, has fled Mali with his wife and young children following abduction threats. He was one of the few voices left criticising the military government.
Sissoko spent a year in jail in the country’s Kéniéroba Central Prison for “harming the reputation of the state” and “dissemination of false news disturbing the public peace” as a result of the publication of his 2023 book, Propagande, Agitation, Harcèlement: La communication gouvernementale pendant la transition au Mali (Propaganda, Agitation, Harassment: Government Communication During Mali’s Transition).
Speaking to Index, Sissoko said after announcing that he was going to publish three books written while in prison – an essay on the resurgence of authoritarian regimes in West Africa, an economic analysis applied to Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, as well as a biography of persecuted public figure Djimé Kanté – attempts to silence him intensified.
Sissoko said there were two attempted abductions at his workplace, the University of Social Sciences and Management of Bamako (USSGB), one of the institutions created after the breakup of the former University of Bamako. He also faced constant surveillance by plainclothes agents and threatening visits to his home, anonymous calls, and social media messages such as ‘We know where you live’”.
The military regime running Mali has long shown its intolerance to Sissoko’s books, many of which have made uncomfortable reading for the junta.
He has written that the security situation in the country has worsened despite “help” from Russian mercenary group Wagner which the author says has committed human rights violations.
In 2020, violence was concentrated in the centre and north of the country, he said, but it now affects every region, including the capital, Bamako.
“Wagner has not brought lasting improvements to security,” he told Index. “It has been involved in serious human rights violations. Its presence serves to consolidate authoritarian power rather than protect civilians. Public opinion is divided: some view Wagner as a symbol of sovereignty, others as a foreign force with no popular legitimacy.”
Sissoko said relations with Russia now extend beyond the military sphere to media relations and diplomacy. Pro-Russian outlets and disinformation campaigns are promoted and Mali is aligned with Moscow positions at the UN.
These relations are being expanded in the higher education sector: 290 scholarships were granted for 2024–2025 to Malian students at Saint Petersburg University, and Bambara, Mali’s national language, is now being taught in some Russian institutions.
“In practice, Mali has become more dependent on Russia than it ever was on its Western partners,” he added.
“The break with France and several Western countries has had three main consequences: including the withdrawal of aid and the collapse of foreign investment and market isolation.
Mali once enjoyed a genuine democratic culture where freedom of expression was a core value, says Sissoko. The 2000s and 2010s saw the emergence of a pluralistic media landscape: the creation of new radio and television stations, the rise of social media, and vibrant citizen mobilisation.
Since the military coups of 2020 and 2021, this progress has been reversed.
Mali is ruled by military leader General Assimi Goïta who overthrew the government of then president Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in August 2020 following anti-government protests.
The cross-border Economic Community of West African States forced Goïta to hand over power to an interim government that was supposed to organise elections but the general staged another coup in May 2021.
Sissoko says repression has become systematic: arbitrary arrests of opponents and journalists, closure of media outlets that include RFI, France 24, TV5, Joliba TV) and dissolution of some movements such as student organisations.
“Today, Mali’s media environment falls into three categories: pro-regime outlets, financed or directly controlled by the military authorities; cautious media, practising systematic self-censorship to avoid reprisals; and independent voices, rare and often forced into exile or marginalised,” said Sissoko.
Opinions contrary to those of the government have also been criminalised by the country’s cybercrime unit, he added. Sissoko said as a result of heightened repression, Malians engage in digital self-censorship and modify their communication even in private as fear has become a method of governance.
Sissoko said in Mali researchers face severe political risks for any research deemed critical. He said there is an absence of independent, forward-looking research to inform public policy; lack of dialogue between academia and political decision-makers; chronic underfunding and lack of infrastructure for independent research.
He founded the Centre for Research and Political, Economic and Social Analysis (CRAPES) in Bamako to aim to fill that gap.
“Before 2020, university lecturers could address almost any topic freely. My own arrest in 2022 — the first time in Mali’s history an academic was imprisoned for research work — marked a turning point,” he told Index.
Since then: academics decline invitations to speak publicly on political topics, even in their own areas of expertise. Scholarly work linking political developments with current events has become rare; self-censorship is widespread,” he added.
“Students, too, avoid taking political positions in class. Fear has replaced critical thinking, eroding the university’s mission.”
The professor argued that these alternatives cannot replace the diversity and quality of former partnerships with western countries.
Sissoko’s coverage of the worsening state of freedom of expression in his books, Libertés en exil, pouvoir en treillis: Chronicle of an Authoritarian Drift in Mali (2020–2025) and De la transition à la régression: The Dissolution of Political Parties in Mali as a Symptom of Legal Authoritarianism has made him a target for the government.
He feels he was left with no choice but to leave the country with his family.
Sissoko told Index, “These systematic and organised threats aimed to prevent me from speaking out again. My family had to be evacuated for their safety. Even in exile, I remain under a suspended sentence, which illustrates the regime’s determination to maintain permanent judicial pressure.”
3 Sep 2025 | Americas, News, United States, Volume 54.02 Summer 2025
This article first appeared in Volume 54, Issue 2 of our print edition of Index on Censorship, titled Land of the Free?: Trump’s war on speech at home and abroad, published on 21 July 2025. Read more about the issue here.
In late April, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt decided to do things differently by holding a new type of press briefing. Instead of fielding questions from credentialled journalists, she held separate briefings specifically for social media news influencers.
“Tens of millions of Americans are now turning to social media and independent media outlets to consume their news, and we are embracing that change, not ignoring it,” Leavitt said at the beginning of the first such briefing on 28 April.
Jackson Gosnell – a college student who runs a popular TikTok news account and sometimes appears on the pro-Donald Trump broadcaster One America News – attended that briefing. He asked about Russia’s war in Ukraine given Trump’s promise to end it quickly.
“I thought it was important to ask questions that people at home wanted to know,” Gosnell told Index. “Not the fluff that others might have given.”
Unsurprisingly, nearly all the 25 people identified by NBC as having attended that week’s briefings at the White House have a history of clear support for Trump. The “fluff” from the other news influencers – dubbed “newsfluencers” or “news brokers” by various academics – included a combination of softball questions, overt praise for Trump, false information and conspiracy theories.
But how did these people make their way into the heart of the federal government? In January, Leavitt announced that “new media” – such as podcasters and social media influencers – would be permitted to apply for credentials to cover the White House. She began reserving a rotating “new media” seat at regular press briefings and giving its occupant the first question. Analysis by The New York Times found that the seat often went to either right-wing media or newer outlets such as digital start-ups Semafor and Axios.
The White House then took over the press pool in February, giving it control for the first time in a century over which reporters were permitted close access to cover the president. It announced it would start inviting “new media” to join the press pool, with most of the invited outlets being conservative or right-wing, according to analysis by the non-profit Poynter Institute for Media Studies.
Historically organised by the independent White House Correspondents’ Association, the press pool is a group of rotating journalists, who cover the president up close every day for a wider group of media, who are known as the press corps.
The rise of citizen journalism in the USA has been a long time coming. But in the months since Trump returned to the Oval Office, the phenomenon has quickly reached a crescendo as the White House embraces pro-Trump newsfluencers in a way that has never been done before.
Former president Joe Biden invited social media influencers to the White House, too. But the current administration openly welcomes, champions and legitimises pro-Trump newsfluencers and other members of the “new media” cohort – many of whom tend to disseminate falsehoods and conspiracies.
The White House has simultaneously used other mechanisms – such as co-opting the press pool – to box out traditional media and make it more difficult for mainstream journalists to cover the current administration.
Multiple academics said that, taken together, these phenomena are concerning for US democracy because they make holding the president accountable a taller order. They also send the message to the rest of the world that the USA doesn’t care as much about championing global press freedom as it once did.
“This is about trying to eliminate criticism and dissent,” Kathy Kiely, chair of free press studies at the Missouri School of Journalism, said. “[It’s] lapdogs versus watchdogs.”
The White House’s spokesperson Anna Kelly told Index over email that the media has enjoyed “an unprecedented level of access to President Trump, who is the most transparent and accessible president in history.”
“Under the president’s leadership, the press office has been more inclusive of new media, whose audiences often dwarf those of legacy media outlets, and local syndicates – ensuring that the president’s message reaches as many Americans as possible,” she added.
The concept of a newsfluencer is relatively new. In the USA, they were once on the fringes of the media ecosystem. But the 2020 election and the subsequent “big lie” narrative – that the election was stolen from Trump – was a major inflection point that accelerated the rise of far-right newsfluencers. False narratives about the Covid-19 pandemic and the 6 January insurrection in 2021 also helped facilitate their ascent.
Many rose to prominence by deliberately differentiating themselves from the mainstream media. But now some of them are on the verge of entering the mainstream themselves, if they haven’t already.
“These Maga [Make America Great Again] influencers see their role not as sceptical journalists but as boosters of the president and his administration,” said Aidan McLaughlin, editor-in-chief of the media news site Mediaite.
The months leading up to the 2024 presidential election crystallised the vast reach that newsfluencers now wield. Trump appeared on an array of podcasts and online shows popular with male audiences, including the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Former vice-president Kamala Harris also turned to “new media” in her campaign.
It’s difficult to measure the extent that newsfluencers impact how people vote or think about societal issues, said Roxana Muenster, a graduate in communications at Cornell University in New York who studies far-right lifestyle movements online. She said the outsized role they played around the 2024 election was undeniable.
Shortly after the election, a Pew Research Centre report confirmed the growing power that newsfluencers hold. Roughly one in five Americans regularly get news from influencers on social media, the report found, and about two-thirds of that group say this helps them better understand current events and civic issues.
No longer on the outskirts of the US media sphere, right-wing TikTokers and podcasters are now welcomed into the White House. Some, such as Laura Loomer, influence Trump himself (her sway has allegedly led to the sacking of several government officials, including former national security adviser Mike Waltz).
Others – including Robert F Kennedy Jr, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino – have even become members of the administration.
To a certain extent, these newsfluencers don’t really need the White House, says Muenster, because they already have significant followings of their own. But they do get something else out of it.
“It bestows them with a certain legitimacy,” she said. “It says that these are reliable sources to get your news from.”
This can pose problems when the newsfluencers aren’t actually reliable or accurate, as is often the case. “They are not as strict with the truth as people in the actual news industry,” Muenster said.
That means false information and conspiracy theories can run rampant, which doesn’t bode well for the health of US democracy.
Disinformation and misinformation can erode trust in institutions and make authoritarianism seem more appealing, according to Mert Bayar, a post-doctoral scholar at the University of Washington’s Centre For an Informed Public.
“In a normal democracy, you want credible sources of information,” he said.
For instance, while in the “new media” seat during an official briefing in late April, Tim Pool – the prominent host of several conservative podcasts, which last year were found to have links to Russian state media – lambasted “legacy media” for “hoaxes” about Trump and asked Leavitt to comment on their “unprofessional behaviour”. (“We want to welcome all viewpoints into this room,” Leavitt replied.)
And at one of the influencer briefings, Dominick McGee – a highly-followed conspiracy theorist on X who operates under the pseudonym Dom Lucre – asked Leavitt whether Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would ever be investigated for election integrity. Forbes reported that McGee was briefly suspended from X (then Twitter) in 2023 for posting a video of child sexual abuse.
Leavitt said McGee’s question was “refreshing” and that “the legacy media would never ask” it.
In a phone interview, McGee told Index he thought US media was “broken” and had “betrayed the American people”.
He said he considers himself a journalist; but he also said he was more concerned with being “freaking entertaining”.
Like McGee, Gosnell thinks mainstream media is dead and influencers are the future of the media industry.
But compared with other “new media” in the Trump orbit, Gosnell is relatively balanced in how he delivers the news. Even though he welcomes the rise of the newsfluencer, he knows it comes with risks. “It’s a little scary, too, because people on the internet can lie just as much as news hosts – if not [more],” Gosnell said.
Still, he is sometimes tempted to produce more opinionated content, adding: “It seems way more profitable.”
The White House gets something out of its new arrangement, too, according to Bayar. Speaking directly to Maga newsfluencers gives the White House a sympathetic ear to peddle its messages to. Meanwhile, prioritising these voices also limits the ability of journalists from mainstream outlets to ask hard questions that can hold the administration accountable.
To Bayar, the situation in the USA reminds him of his home country, Turkey, where the government picks and chooses which journalists are and aren’t allowed at press conferences with president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
“It is part of this authoritarian playbook,” said Bayar. “If you don’t get asked tough questions, you can actually control public opinion better because you control your answers.”
While the White House’s embrace of Maga newsfluencers appears to be bad news for democracy in the “land of liberty” and the home of the First Amendment, it also has implications for the rest of the world.
The USA has historically championed press freedom globally. But the administration’s simultaneous embrace of pro-Trump influencers and attacks on critical media signal that Washington doesn’t really care about independent journalism anywhere in the world, according to Kiely. “It sends a very strong signal to dictators elsewhere,” she said.
Some authoritarian countries appear to have already been emboldened by Trump’s actions. As part of the Azerbaijani government’s crackdown on independent media, authorities in May imprisoned Voice of America contributor Ulviyya Guliyeva. Press freedom experts and her colleagues believe the Trump administration’s campaign to gut VOA emboldened Baku to target the reporter.
As McLaughlin says, “this has a bad ripple effect on the rest of the world”.
29 Aug 2025 | Americas, Europe and Central Asia, Iran, Israel, Middle East and North Africa, News, Palestine, United Kingdom, United States
Bombarded with news from all angles every day, 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 Israeli “double-tap” strike on a hospital that killed 20 people, and the sexual misconduct libel case of actor Noel Clarke.
In public interest: Actor Noel Clarke loses libel case against The Guardian
Prominent English actor Noel Clarke has lost a lengthy sexual misconduct libel case in High Court against The Guardian in which 26 witnesses testified against him.
The landmark case was based on a series of articles and a podcast published by the Guardian between April 2021 and March 2022 in which more than 20 women accused Clarke of sexual misconduct, with allegations ranging from unwanted sexual contact to taking and sharing explicit pictures without consent. The actor claimed that these allegations were false, bringing libel charges against the Guardian over what he believed was an unlawful conspiracy, reportedly seeking £70 million in damages if his case was successful.
Mrs Justice Steyn, ruling on the case, gave the verdict that the Guardian succeeded in defending themselves against the legal action on truth and public interest grounds, with Steyn stating that Clarke “was not a credible or reliable witness”, and that his claims of conspiracy were “born of necessity” due to the sheer number of witnesses testifying against him. In a summary of the findings, she ruled that the allegations made were “substantially true.”
The UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition, headed by Index on Censorship, have stated that while this is a crucial ruling, the case “exerted a significant toll on The Guardian and its journalists”, and that a universal anti-SLAPP law is necessary to avoid similar situations from occurring. Index also stated that “public interest journalism needs greater protections”. Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, wrote this was a landmark ruling for investigative journalism and for the women involved. During proceedings, the court heard that one woman had been threatened with prosecution by Clarke’s lawyers in what was described by the lawyer acting for the Guardian as an attempt at witness intimidation.
Back–to–back strikes: more journalists killed in “double tap” attack on Gaza hospital
An Israeli attack in which two missiles hit back-to-back on the same Gaza hospital has killed at least 20 people, including four health workers and five journalists.
The attack struck Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, at approximately 10am on Monday 26 August. An initial missile hit the hospital, killing at least one person – then approximately ten minutes later, when rescue workers and journalists had flooded the scene, a second strike hit the hospital. This second attack was broadcast live on Al Ghad TV, and showed a direct hit on aid workers and reporters,. The nature of the attack has led to it being dubbed a “double-tap”, a military tactic in which an initial strike on a target is followed up shortly after with a second strike, which targets those who rush to the scene.. The IDF have released an initial inquiry into the attack, and are further investigating “several gaps” in how this incident came to pass.
The five media workers killed were Reuters journalist Hussam al-Masri who died in the initial strike, and Mohammad Salama of Al-Jazeera, Mariam Dagga of Associated Press, Ahmed Abu Aziz of Middle East Eye, and independent journalist Moaz Abu Taha killed subsequently. The attack follows a targeted Israeli strike on 10 August that left four Al-Jazeera journalists and three media workers dead. The Committee to Protect Journalists have documented that at least 189 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since the start of the war.
Putting out fires: Trump attempts to ban the burning of American flags
Donald Trump is moving to ban the burning of United States flags – an act that has been protected under a Supreme Court ruling since 1989.
Stating that burning the flag “incites riots at levels we’ve never seen before,” Trump signed an executive order that calls for Attorney General Pam Bondi to challenge a court ruling that categorises flag burning as legitimate political expression under the constitution. He outlined how anyone caught committing the offence would be subject to one year in jail – a statement that will be tested soo. Mere hours after signing the order a 20-year-old man was arrested for burning an American flag just outside the White House.
The White House published a fact sheet that described desecrating the American flag as “uniquely and inherently offensive and provocative”, and referenced the burning of the flag at the 2025 Los Angeles protests alongside conduct “threatening public safety”. They argue that despite the 1989 ruling, the Supreme Court did not intend for flag burning that is “likely to incite imminent lawless action” or serve as a form of “fighting words’” to be constitutionally protected.
The crime of online activism: Iranian activist sentenced to prison over social media activism
Iranian student activist Hasti Amiri has been sentenced in absentia to three years in prison for her social media advocacy for women’s rights and against the death penalty.
Amiri, who previously served 7 months in a Tehran prison in 2022 over her anti-death penalty stance, has been sentenced by a Revolutionary Court in Iran to three years imprisonment and a 500 million Iranian rial fine for “spreading falsehoods” and “propaganda against the state”, as well as a 30.3 million rial fine for appearing without a hijab in public.
Amiri reported all of the charges against her in a post on Instagram, writing that “When simply opposing the death penalty is considered propaganda against the state, then execution itself is a political tool of intimidation”. She is the latest human rights activist to face criminal charges in Iran – Sharifeh Mohammadi was recently sentenced to death for “rebelling against the just Islamic ruler(s)”, and student activist Motahareh Goonei was this week sentenced to 21 months in prison for the same crime of “propaganda against the state”.
Reforming local government: Reform UK bans local press access in Nottinghamshire
Journalists from the Nottingham Post have been banned from speaking to Reform UK members of Nottinghamshire County Council in what has been called a “massive attack on local democracy.”
Mick Barton, Reform’s council leader in Nottinghamshire reportedly took issue with the paper following an alleged dispute over an article covering a disagreement between councillors. The decision has been condemned by three former county council leaders, and has drawn scrutiny from national groups such as the National Union of Journalists and the Society of Editors.
The ban also covers reporters at the Nottingham Post from the BBC-funded Local Democracy Reporting Service which shares stories with media outlets across the country. The newspaper has also found out that press officers at the council have been told to take reporters off media distribution lists, meaning they won’t get press releases or be invited to council events. Leader of the opposition and former council leader Sam Smith criticised the ban: “The free press play a key role in keeping residents informed of actions being taken by decision makers and in return the press express the views of residents to the politicians and public in publishing balanced articles.”
Reform MP for Ashfield Lee Anderson, who has a history of disagreements with the Nottingham Post, has announced that he will also be joining the boycott. This follows social media posts from the MP accusing journalists of having a negative bias towards the party.
22 Aug 2025 | Africa, Americas, Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Guinea-Bissau, Hong Kong, Iran, Middle East and North Africa, News, Russia, United Kingdom, United States
Bombarded with news from all angles every day, 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 a human rights defender sentenced to death in Iran, and a crackdown on media freedom in Guinea-Bissau.
The price of rebellion: Human rights defender sentenced to death in Iran
Iranian human rights defender Sharifeh Mohammadi has had her death sentence confirmed by Iran’s supreme court, for the crime of “Baghi” or “rebelling against the just Islamic ruler(s).”
Having been sentenced to death in July 2024, her sentence was then overturned in October that year due to “flaws and ambiguities” by the same branch of the Supreme Court that confirmed it this week.
Mohammadi, who advocates for women’s rights and labour rights, was first arrested on 5 December 2023 while on her way home from work. She has remained imprisoned ever since, and her family allege that she has been subjected to torture and several months in solitary confinement. Her cousin, Vida Mohammadi, stated that her charges were “not based on justice from the outset but rather on a scenario fabricated by the Intelligence Ministry.”
Access denied: Portuguese media outlets shut down in Guinea-Bissau
The authorities in Guinea-Bissau have ordered the closure of two Portuguese media outlets, LUSA and RTP and the discontinuation of local broadcasts of RTP, ordering their journalists to leave the country.
The authorities did not provide an explanation for their actions but promised to release a statement, which has yet to be shared. While President Sissoco Embaló declined to give a reason for the measure, he reportedly told journalists it is “a problem between Guinea-Bissau and Portugal.”
The act is being viewed as part of Embaló’s broader crackdown on media freedom within the country.
Safety not guaranteed: Hong Kong summons UK envoy after activist offered asylum
Hong Kong has summoned British and Australian envoys after both nations granted asylum to individuals who fled the territory.
Pro-democracy activist Tony Chung announced on the weekend that the UK Home Office granted his asylum claim. He had been one of the youngest people to receive a jail sentence under Hong Kong’s notorious national security law and left the country in 2023.
The day after, former lawmaker Ted Hui announced his successful asylum claim in Australia.
The move comes as part of a campaign of transnational repression by the Hong Kong authorities to silence those who fled for their safety.
The price for reporting: Ice’s continued detention of Atlanta reporter
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have called for the release of Atlanta journalist Mario Guevara who remains detained by Immigration and customs enforcement (Ice).
Guevara was detained on 14 June 2025 while covering the “No Kings” protest. Shortly after his arrest, prosecutors dropped the criminal charges and an immigration judge granted him bond on 1 July. His family attempted to pay the bond, yet Ice refused to release him and instead transferred him to Gwinnett County on a traffic violation charge. Despite those charges being dropped, Ice refused to release him.
Guevara arrived legally to the USA from El Salvador where he has lived for more than 20 years.
Scarlet Kim, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project has called for his release, stating “Mario Guevara is being detained solely because of his journalism — specifically his livestreaming of immigration and other law enforcement officials.”
Censored screens: our favourite TV shows are heavily censored in Russia
According to the New York Times, ever since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian citizens have been turning to streaming platforms for respite.
However, despite watching the same shows we know and love, what we see and Russians see is entirely different. TV shows such as Just Like That, White Lotus, and The Wire have been censored and edited to remove content featuring trans and LGBTQ+ content, reference or mention of President Vladimir Putin or scenes which show intimacy between men.
Since the start of the war, the Kremlin has ramped up its attack on LGBTQ+ rights. Part of their crackdown includes a “gay propaganda” law targeting activists.
