10 Oct 2025 | Africa, Americas, Asia and Pacific, Australia, Madagascar, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Saudi Arabia, 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 social media restrictions in Afghanistan and the indictment of Letitia James.
Afghanistan
Taliban sources have confirmed that new restrictions on social media platforms in Afghanistan this week are intentional.
Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are among platforms facing disruption, according to global internet monitor NetBlocks, who also reported another internet outage in Kandahar province.
Last week saw a total telecommunications outage across Afghanistan, which Taliban officials told journalists was caused by old fibre optic cables that needed to be replaced. With this somehow causing a country-wide blackout of both internet and phone services.
USA
New York’s Attorney General Letitia James has been indicted on charges of fraud as part of a wider push by President Donald Trump to use the Justice Department as a weapon against his political enemies.
In 2022 in her position as Attorney General, James had filed a civil lawsuit against the Trump Organisation, as well as aiding in a three-year criminal investigation into Trump’s New York business dealings that led to a now overturned $500 million fraud ruling.
In order to prosecute James and also the former head of the FBI James Comey who had investigated Russian interference in the 2016 elections (and was fired by Trump), the President installed his former personal lawyer Lindsey Halligan as interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia. This was after her predecessor refused to bring charges against people Trump had characterised as enemies.
In September before these prosecutions started, Trump posted to Truth Social a message he later admitted was intended as a private memo to Attorney General Pam Bondi stating: “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
Comey this week pleaded not guilty to charges of lying to congress.
Australia
Canberra, Australia, 9 October, whistleblower David McBride, who was jailed for leaking documents that alleged Australian Special forces had killed innocent people in Afghanistan, had an application rejected to have his case heard by Australia’s High Court.
This is the latest in an ongoing battle to have his sentencing overturned.
During the original trial, the Australian Government moved to prevent McBride from seeking protection under Australia’s whistleblower laws by blocking expert witnesses from speaking, citing “public interest immunity laws”.
The former military lawyer-turned whistleblower was convicted of three charges last year and sentenced to five years and eight months in prison for the theft of classified documents and for passing the documents to journalists at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
The documents formed the bases of an ABC investigation titled ‘The Afghan Files’ that claimed Australian Special forces units had committed war crimes whilst stationed in Afghanistan.
McBride is the only person imprisoned in relation to these crimes.
Madagascar
Even following the dissolution of his government, embattled President Andry Rajoelina of Madagascar refuses to step down in the face of large scale youth-led protests.
Rajoelina said at a press conference: “I swear that if power cuts persist in the capital within a year, I will resign.”
Protesters from group Gen-Z Mada were not convinced, calling for more protests to take place on Thursday, during which rubber bullets and tear gas were used to disperse demonstrators. They also called for a general strike as a display that they reject the President’s promises.
Saudi Arabia
Human Rights Watch have told comedians who performed at Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Comedy festival that they “cannot accept” money that originated from the government of Saudi Arabia.
The statement comes as comedians who performed at the festival scramble to get public opinion back on their side.
Bill Burr, Louis C.K. and Omid Djalili have all attempted to spin their participation as positive, whilst comics Aziz Ansari and Jessica Kirson offered to donate their fees in a futile effort to buy back public opinion.
9 Oct 2025 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Saudi Arabia
This is the final day of the Riyadh Comedy Festival so we thought we’d publish some jokes audiences probably won’t have heard during the last fortnight.
Index staff have used AI to imagine some gags from artificial facsimiles of stand-ups Bill Burr, Jimmy Carr, Jack Whitehall and Louis C.K.
We felt compelled to do this because we support those in Saudi Arabia whose voices are so often silenced and those who are currently in prison. Last week we published an article by Ghanem al-Masarir about how he was persecuted as a Saudi comedian, and we remember journalist Jamal Khashoggi who was murdered by the regime in the Saudi embassy in Turkey seven years ago on 2 October – a grim reminder of the stance the Saudi government takes against their critics.
For extra context, this is part of a leaked contract for performers at the festival and was a condition of them performing:
“ARTIST shall not prepare or perform any material that may be considered to degrade, defame, or bring into public disrepute, contempt, scandal, embarrassment, or ridicule A) The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including its leadership, public figures, culture, or people; B) The Saudi royal family, legal system, or government, and; C) Any religion, religious tradition, religious figure, or religious practice.”
Google Gemini in the style of Bill Burr
“The whole thing with this Saudi oil money… everybody’s going, ‘How could you? How could you take that blood money?’ And I’m just looking at them like, ‘Have you seen the offer? That’s not money, that’s a yacht dealership. That’s a ‘Hey Bill, we’re giving you enough cash to never have to stand next to a TSA agent again.’ Suddenly, all that moral outrage I was preaching about two years ago? Yeah, that’s gone. It’s in a tiny little oil drum somewhere in the desert. I went from ‘Speak truth to power!’ to ‘Does this robe come with a gold chain?’ in like, nine seconds.”
Anthropic’s Claude in the style of Jimmy Carr
“The Saudi royal family spent 100 billion dollars on a futuristic city in the desert called NEOM. 100 billion! On a city that doesn’t exist yet!
You know what would be MORE futuristic? Women’s rights.
[pause for laughs]
Cost a lot less, too.
[short laugh]
They’ve got plans for flying cars, robot servants, artificial moons… but apparently equal rights for half the population? ‘Woah, woah, woah… let’s not get science fiction about this!’
[smirks]
And they claim it’s going to be this eco-friendly utopia powered entirely by renewable energy. Which is ironic, because the only thing they’ve been good at renewable is OPPRESSION.
[staccato laugh]
The Saudi government says journalists are always welcome to come visit and report on their progress. Just… maybe don’t write anything negative. Or critical. Or true.
You know, JOURNALISM.
[pause]
Because the last guy who did that? Let’s just say… he’s in pieces about it.
[waits for groan/laugh]
Too dark? Oh, I’m sorry—I didn’t realise we were suddenly worried about what’s inappropriate!”
Google Gemini in the style of Jack Whitehall
Right, so my agent, – you’d hate him, he wears a gilet indoors – he rings me up. “Jack, darling! Got a massive gig for you. Corporate do. The fee is… well, let’s just say you could buy a controlling stake in Waitrose.”
I’m in. Obviously. I’m thinking, lovely jubbly, probably some tech bros in a horribly trendy warehouse in Shoreditch.
He goes, “It’s in Riyadh.”
Ah. Right.
He says, “Don’t worry! They’re super keen. They’ve just sent over a small list of topics to avoid in your set.”
He starts reading it out. “Okay so… no politics, no religion, no mentions of the royal family, no observational stuff about men and women… and absolutely no sarcasm.”
And I’m just sitting there, thinking… my God. That’s my entire personality gone. What am I supposed to do for twenty minutes? Just list my favourite types of hummus?
But then he read the last rule: “And finally, absolutely no crowd work.”
And honestly? That’s where I drew the line. I mean, you can take away my freedom of expression, you can censor my political satire… but you will not take away my God-given right to bully a man in the front row for wearing terrible shoes. Some principles are just non-negotiable.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT in the style of Louis C.K.
“So the Saudi government…
You ever look at a country and think, ‘Wow… that place is like if God gave a toddler infinite money and zero supervision’?
It’s just oil, gold, and beheadings. Like… literal beheadings. Not metaphorical. Like, actual… ‘Whoops, I tweeted!’ — CHOP.
And people still say, ‘Well, they’re making progress!’
Yeah? So is cancer.”
[Crowd groans — Louis leans in, smirking]
“No, really — they let women drive now!
As long as they don’t drive… their own thoughts.”
[Beat — he shrugs, mock-defensive]
“I know. I shouldn’t talk. I come from America — the land of freedom, where we bomb the same countries we lecture about human rights.
It’s like yelling at your kid for smoking while you’re doing heroin in the garage. ‘Don’t do that, it’s bad for you!’”
[He pauses, then sighs]
“But I still fly through Riyadh sometimes. Why?
‘Cause I’m a piece of shit.
And they’ve got phenomenal airport lounges.
Like, terrifying government… but you can get a foot massage and a lamb biryani while pretending they don’t jail poets.”
3 Oct 2025 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Yemen
Salim Mohammed was working in an adjacent building when Israeli missiles struck the headquarters of two major Yemeni newspapers on 10 September 2025. The 40-year-old investigative journalist and father of three survived, but watched helplessly as colleagues gathered to watch a Gulf Cup youth football match between Yemen and Saudi Arabia died under the rubble of the main building.
“The explosions were massive. I felt the earth shake,” Salim recalls from Sanaa, where he now works without his camera, laptop, or personal equipment — all buried in the partially destroyed building. “I saw people fall to the ground, smoke covering everything. All my colleagues were under the debris. Some of their bodies remained there for days.”
The airstrikes on the offices of 26 September [named after the starting date of the civil war in the 1960s] and Al-Yemen newspapers killed at least 31 journalists, according to the Houthi-run government, in what local and international media rights organisations described as one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in recent decades. The incident highlights the precarious situation facing Yemeni media workers trapped between Israeli military operations, Houthi authoritarianism, and rival armed factions.
Israel claimed the strike deliberately targeted Houthi media centres, a justification that sparked local and international outrage over civilian casualties masked as military operations. The Committee to Protect Journalists‘ Middle East programme director Sarah Qudah called the strikes “a deeply concerning escalation that expands Israel’s war on journalism beyond the genocide in Gaza.”
“This latest wave of killings is not only a grave violation of international law, but also a terrifying warning to journalists across the region — there is no safe place,” Qudah added.
Hisham Mohammed, a sports journalist since 2004 and father of five who also survived the attack, emphasises that newspaper employees are not participants in political conflict but rather civil servants who have adapted to Yemen’s changing power structures over the past decade.
“We are government employees who previously worked under Ali Abdullah Saleh’s rule, then Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, and currently under Houthi administration,” Hisham explains. “We don’t create editorial policy — we implement it according to the directives of whoever holds power.”
The targeted building housed the newspaper’s archives dating to 1962 and is now completely destroyed. Hisham currently works from home using WhatsApp and other mobile applications to file stories.
Living under permanent threat
The September strikes were not merely an attack on a workplace but a warning to remaining journalists working in Houthi-controlled media institutions, who now operate under constant terror.
Walid Ghalib, 46, a father of six who works in local news at the official Al-Thawra newspaper in Sanaa (who requested his real name to be withheld), describes the pervasive fear: “We constantly worry we’ll be the next target. Previously, during years of Saudi and Emirati airstrikes, we received multiple threats of bombing our newspaper headquarters. We would evacuate our offices whenever we heard reports of potential targeting.”
“Now, after the Israeli strikes and the targeting of our colleagues, some of us only spend three hours at the newspaper headquarters—usually from 4 to 7pm. Others have decided to stay home,” Walid adds.
He emphasises the lack of alternatives: “There is no substitute for this work. There is no longer independent journalism like before. We work according to what newspaper management requests, which in turn follows the directives of the ruling authority.”
Hisham Mahmoud, 38, former editorial director of investigations at 26 September newspaper in Marib city—controlled by the internationally recognized government—presents a bleak picture of eroding journalistic independence in Yemen. Having moved between Sanaa, Taiz, and Marib throughout his career, he witnessed firsthand how editorial freedom disappeared.
“I worked as an investigative journalist at the official Al-Thawra newspaper in Sanaa since 2012. After the Houthis seized Sanaa in late 2014, new editorial policies were imposed on the newspaper, our salaries were cut by more than 70%, and I couldn’t continue,” Hisham recalls.
He moved to Taiz, his birthplace, and attempted to write about the war raging through the city’s streets between Houthis and other local factions. “I didn’t side with anyone, not my governorate’s residents and neighbours, nor those bombing them in my reports. I focused on the humanitarian suffering the war inflicted on citizens. But that didn’t please the newspaper leadership in Sanaa, and I was fired in early 2017.”
Hisham then moved to Marib, where he was appointed investigations director for the government-created version of 26 September newspaper in 2018. However, he faced similar exclusion due to views misaligned with imposed editorial direction.
“Every party in the Yemeni war wants journalists to be mouthpieces. Independent media has been completely killed, and real content is not allowed. This transforms journalism into a tool for mobilization and incitement, destroying what remains of opportunities for societal peace,” Hisham explains.
Arrests and kidnappings across battle lines
Beyond bombardment, Yemeni journalists face systematic repression from warring factions. On 23 September 2025, the human rights group SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties documented the kidnapping of journalist Majed Zayed in Sanaa, noting it came two days after he posted a patriotic song celebrating the Yemeni flag on Facebook, coinciding with the anniversary of the 26 September Revolution. The organisation confirmed his fate remains unknown.
In May 2025, Reporters Without Borders documented the detention of eight journalists by Houthis in Hodeidah city — one of the broadest arrest campaigns since the 2022 UN-brokered ceasefire under the Stockholm Agreement.
Independent journalist Mohammed Al-Mayahi was kidnapped from his home in September 2024 and sentenced in May 2025 to 18 months imprisonment by a Houthi court on charges of harming national security. He was fined five million rials ($10,000) and forced to sign a pledge never to write again.
In internationally recognised government-controlled areas, conditions appear no better. The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate condemned the Southern Transitional Council militia’s raid on Aden Al-Ghad newspaper headquarters in Aden on 27 September 2025, and the arrest of editor-in-chief Fathi bin Lazraq before his later release and the newspaper’s forced closure. The syndicate considered this a violation of press freedom, holding the Transitional Council fully responsible.
In June, the State Security Prosecution in Hadramawt issued arrest warrants for journalists Sabri bin Makhashin and Muzahim Bajabir over Facebook posts criticising local authority corruption. Despite the Interior Ministry’s decision to release Bajabir, the Hadramawt governor refuses to implement the order.
Multiple repressive laws
According to human rights activist Tawfiq Al-Humaidi, president of SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties, Houthis have exploited the “Anti-Normalization with Israel Law” passed in December 2023 to suppress any dissenting voice.
“The law was expanded to include anyone expressing discontent with living conditions or criticising the group’s performance—transforming from a political law into a tool for criminalising opinion. The concepts of treason and betrayal were broadened to muzzle mouths and prosecute journalists outside the legal framework,” Al-Humaidi explains.
He says that those working in official media in Houthi-controlled areas are government employees subject to group-loyal leadership, following directives from Al-Masirah channel — the Houthis’ strongest media arm — which determines general direction for other institutions.
“In a country suffering the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, Yemeni journalists are besieged from all sides: aerial bombardment targets them, arbitrary arrests from de facto authorities, and persecution from the internationally recognised government. Between the Houthis’ and the government’s jaws, between incitement rhetoric and battlefields, truth is lost and free pens are broken,” Al-Humaidi adds.
The convergence of military strikes, authoritarian repression, and economic collapse has created an environment where journalism in Yemen has become, as survivor Salim Mohammed describes, “a profession written in ink but paid for in blood”.
The 10 September attack represents a chilling expansion of threats facing regional journalists. For Yemeni media workers specifically, it compounds years of systematic persecution, arbitrary detention, and forced self-censorship under multiple armed authorities claiming legitimacy.
As freedoms recede and journalism transforms into a mobilisation tool, truth remains the greatest casualty in Yemen. Journalists who once documented their country’s rich history and diverse voices now operate in fear—unable to report freely, unable to remain silent, and increasingly unable to survive.
26 Sep 2025 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Syria
In the upscale Damascus neighbourhood of Al-Adawi, a blue metal door bears a sign reading: “The One Room Theatre.”
The entrance feels unwelcoming. The adjacent garden is frozen in time, suggesting abandonment. This impression deepens beyond the threshold – a cluttered “waiting room” overflows with scattered cassette tapes, faded playbills, film posters and yellowed newspaper clippings haphazardly pinned to walls and windows.
Dominating the wall in the theatre room, is a photo of identical twins, Mohamad and Ahmad Malas. Over 15 years ago, they dreamed of entering Syria’s theatrical scene. Rejected by state institutions that dismissed their vision, they converted a room in their family home into an intimate theatre. Small in size, vast in ambition.
Militias in support of former President Bashar al-Assad’s regime had occupied the house at some point during the Syrian civil war, according to Mohamad Malas, but family relatives later expelled them.
“When the regime fell last December we rushed back from a Jordan film festival,” he told Index. “Returning home was painful – the house stood looted and empty. Its soul has gone.”
Ahmad Malas recalls writing plays with his brother in 2009, inspired by their studies at a private Damascus theatre institute.
Under Assad’s rule, addressing direct political topics was forbidden, so they crafted humanist stories with whispered political undertones. After the Directorate of Theatres repeatedly ignored their licensing requests, they launched the underground One Room Theatre.
They hosted three plays, the last of which was staged shortly after Syria’s revolution began.
As protests surged, the twins joined the uprising personally, not only through art. Arrests and security threats followed, forcing them to flee Syria in late 2011. Heartbroken, they locked their theatre door. Months later, their family abandoned the home and headed to Saudi Arabia, leaving it silent.
The Malas Brothers drifted through Lebanon, Egypt and finally France, where they pursued theatre in Arabic and French. One play, The Two Refugees, serendipitously reached Damascus in late 2024.
On their return, the twins deliberately left the waiting room’s chaos untouched – tapes strewn, posters peeling. Their only change was to move the theatre to a sunlit balcony near the kitchen due to Syria’s chronic power cuts. At 4pm, natural light frames their play All Shame Upon You.
Photo by Mawada Bahah
Mohamad Malas explained that the play, staged 20 times post-Arab Spring but paused in Syria, now features rewrites “we’d never dare perform before liberation”.
The performance unfolds on a crumbling sofa “stage” before low chairs. It follows two opposites sharing a flat: a heartbroken intellectual whose lover married during his imprisonment, and a crude soldier dreaming of martyrdom-for-glory. Their clashes blend rage, dancing and tears, culminating in the soldier forcing the poet to call his lost love.
The Culture Ministry has promised support – unlike the pre-revolution era when security agents monitored every show. Yet the twins remain pragmatic.
“The theatre in Syria doesn’t pay for bread,” Mohamad Malas said, adding that he and his brother will split time between France (to earn a living) and Syria (to follow their passion).
Their French passports offer global protection but “mean nothing in Syria,” he added. “If a French passport serves me better, our country is still on the wrong path.”
In their last show on 5 June, before they returned to France, the Malas brothers cautiously pushed boundaries, hinting at identity-based killings on Syria’s coast earlier this year.
In March, hundreds of minority Alawite civilians in coastal cities were killed by Sunni fighters, according to Reuters news agency reporting and several monitoring groups. Assad belonged to the Alawite sect, and the massacre came after a rebellion by remaining Assad loyalists, that ended in bloodshed.
The attacks took place only three months after Assad’s ousting in December ended his brutal rule and followed almost 14 years of civil war.
“Freedom isn’t just criticising the past regime,” Mohamad Malas said.
A pivotal line lingers in his play: “Was the homeland worth all this suffering?” When asked, Ahmad Malas admitted: “Sometimes, no, not after children died in Daraya, Ghouta… then again on the coast after the revolution.”
Despite Syria’s wounds, they harbour hope: “Mistakes happened, but awareness and law can heal rage.”
But despite the gloomy theme of the play, the Malas brothers struggle to hide their joy. The reason is that they’re finally able to stage work without censors hiding in the audience.
