12 May 2025 | Europe and Central Asia, News, Turkey
Young people in Turkey have a lot to feel enraged about, from worsening living conditions to the government’s rampant corruption. Since 2015, I have felt my own fair share of rage.
That was the year my father, Can Dündar, a journalist and former editor-in-chief of the opposition daily newspaper Cumhuriyet, was imprisoned on trumped up terror charges.
Pro-government press outlets told lies about him and our family, and prosecutors sought multiple life sentences for his “crime” of reporting on covert arms shipments to Syria. Although he was released nearly 100 days later thanks to public solidarity and a Supreme Court decision, my family was eventually forced into exile, with my parents now living in Germany and myself in the UK.
My father likens Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s tactics to those of Vladimir Putin and multiple other global dictators. “Arrest the opposition, weaponise the judiciary, silence the media, spread fear and disinformation, protect your throne,” he has told me.
Now, ten years later, I have hardly been able to sleep since youth-led protests erupted across Turkey last month following the arrest of Istanbul’s mayor and President Erdoğan’s main rival, Ekrem İmamoğlu. He has been sent to Silivri Prison (also known as Marmara), the same jail my father was imprisoned in.
Once again, this represents a devastating attack on Turkey’s democratic rights and freedom of speech. I’ve been following reports from the handful of independent media that are still operating. According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), 90% of the media in Turkey is now under government control, which has allowed pro-government disinformation to run riot.
After 22 years in power, Erdoğan’s regime has left the economy in ruins, corrupted institutions, and suppressed basic rights. Since 2016, close to 150 local mayors have been dismissed or detained, and replaced with government-appointed bureaucrats. Leaders from three major political parties are now in prison. İmamoğlu and 91 elected officials from the Istanbul Mayor’s office face false corruption charges. It’s a mockery of justice – especially as so much of the ruling party’s corruption avoids scrutiny, and journalists, lawyers and anyone else who draws attention to the government are prosecuted.
Whilst protests continue despite blanket bans in major cities, digital censorship is rife as social media networks have been stifled by low bandwidth. X complied with government requests to shut down hundreds of accounts; TV news coverage has been cut and channels have been threatened with the cancellation of their licences. Meanwhile, 1,133 protestors have been arrested, with many beaten and detained. More than 300 of those arrested are students, and face potential jail sentences and a ban from ever running for political office, not to mention missing their studies. Footage of police brutality continues to fill my social media feeds – crowds of young people beaten and wounded, or shot with tear gas and rubber bullets, some directly in the eye.
The student demonstrations in İstanbul have ignited mass protests in nearly all Turkish cities. Young people have united across ideological and economic divides and catalysed a fractured political opposition into action, symbolised by the chant, “No liberation alone, all of us or none”. At one rally, Özgür Özel, the leader of the main political opposition the Republican People’s Party (CHP), thanked young people for ignoring his caution and taking the lead. A young man was pictured carrying his father on his back to the polls that had been set up to support the detained Istanbul mayor’s candidacy as a presidential candidate against Erdoğan; 15 million people turned out to vote for him in a day.
The spirit of solidarity continues to grow against increasing cruelty. Mothers who have spoken out for their children’s arrest have been detained themselves. Teachers supporting their students’ rights have been sacked, and students at hundreds of high schools have organised sit-ins to show solidarity with them. Thanks to the mobilisation, nearly half of the young people arrested have been released but 48 remain in prison. The political opposition has organised a nationwide boycott of pro-government businesses, and people have been detained for promoting it.
But people continue to show dissent. The CHP holds weekly peaceful gatherings across different cities and municipalities of Istanbul to keep the momentum going. The government recently blocked the access of spotlights to one major gathering in the Beyazıt district. Thousands of people pulled up their phone’s flashlights instead, defying the darkness and lighting up the town square and each other’s faces.
Despite digital censorship, the internet is also being used as a convening space. The Istanbul mayor’s account is currently banned from posting on X, so supporters have reacted by changing their profile photos to his, sprouting countless İmamoğlu accounts across the platform. When X started shutting these down for “likeness” complaints, they got creative by making alternative, hilarious versions of his photo instead. A whack-a-mole scenario has unfolded where every act of oppression creates its own act of resistance.
Today, one in four people aged 15 to 24 in Turkey is neither working nor in school. Youth unemployment has hit a record high in the country. Gallup’s Global Emotions Report conducted across 116 countries found that Turkey scored near the bottom of its rankings for “positive experiences” in 2024, as it has done since 2020, with high levels of unhappiness and anger. This social environment has no doubt fueled the protests.
A tweet from author, editor and teacher Taner Beyter sums it up: “Young friends, we have nothing to lose. We won’t be able to buy a car or a house. We won’t have stocks. Even if we succeed in the exams, we’ll be singled out in interviews. If we are taken to court, we don’t have ‘our guy’ to bail us out. We won’t get rich in this corrupt economy. Let’s carry on resisting against those stealing our future.”
For many Turkish youths, this is their first protest movement against a government they’ve only ever known as Erdoğan’s – just as mine was during the 2013 Gezi Park protests, a wave of demonstrations that began with the demolition of Istanbul’s Gezi Park. It quickly sparked into a movement against mounting injustices. At their core, both movements have their roots in inequality and crackdowns on free expression, and have been driven by a hope for change.
The millions who came out to the streets during the Gezi Park protests have since been separated and many were individually targeted. Once the crowds dissipated, no longer linked arm-in-arm, people were easier to subdue and prosecute with chilling effects.
But decades of crackdowns have failed to silence young people in Turkey. A photo on my X feed shows a poster raised by a young protester. Under the names of those who were killed during Gezi Park, a note reads: “I was nine years old then when my brothers stood up for me. I may have missed meeting them, but they’ve all gained a place in me. I promise I won’t let this be.”
There’s hope in collective reaction. Youth movements propel frustrations into action, catalysing a fractured opposition to work together for common goals. Established political parties may struggle to meet their demands at first, but they are slowly being shaped by them and changing their approach.
Around the world, young dissidents are speaking out to demand a better future in the face of mounting challenges from inequality to global conflict, state corruption to environmental decline.
Still, pressures against them are mounting. Their legitimate demands are being criminalised across the world from Iran to Palestine, USA to Belarus, Serbia to Myanmar, and more.
This is why at PEN International, the world’s largest association of writers, we’re building a youth network called the Young Writers Committee with representatives from 58 countries. We launched our web platform Tomorrow Club last week along with a podcast series, to amplify the stories of brave young people from around the world, and to create spaces for them to collaborate, learn about each other’s lives and struggles, and discuss how to cope with them.
It’s clear to see the shared experience across borders. We are all suffering from a shrinking space for free expression, and we want to uplift each other, exchange tools and tales, and establish supportive links for a shared future.
There is a common pride in the word “youth”. Although it paints a massively diverse group with a single brush, it can also help us come together against urgent challenges.
Cihan Tugal, a sociology professor at Berkeley University in California, USA, recently noted: “When Erdoğan fights for himself, he is also fighting for Trump, [Narendra] Modi, [Javier] Milei and Orbán, even if their interests do not always align. When the students and others in the street struggle against Erdoğan, they are also fighting for the rest of the world.”
That type of togetherness is demonstrated by young people protesting in Turkey and other countries. We should support and empower them to keep going. Their strong stance for justice and a better, fairer future can bring together fractured masses and pave the way against rising tides of authoritarianism.
9 May 2025 | Africa, Americas, Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Ghana, India, News, Pakistan, Russia, United States, Venezuela
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 how Voice of America could be morphing into a right-wing mouthpiece, and analyse the Indian government’s censorship of Pakistani online content.
Throttling the free press: Voice of America to use newsfeed from right-wing network
Voice of America (VOA) has been one of Donald Trump’s key targets since his inauguration in January 2025. The government-funded news outlet prides itself on “[exemplifying] the principles of a free press”, broadcasting uncensored news to those in restrictive regimes such as Iran or Russia. The Trump administration however has seen the outlet as a threat, accusing VOA of spreading “radical propaganda” and holding a leftist, anti-Trump bias.
VOA journalists have been shut out of their newsroom for almost two months following an executive order aimed at slashing government funding for news media. A legal battle has ensued, and victory for more than 1,000 VOA workers initially appeared likely following a court ruling in their favour. However, a federal appeals court has now blocked the ruling that had ordered the Trump administration to allow VOA to go back on air, stopping staff from returning to work for the time being. Hopes of a return to their normal broadcasting have also been dashed after Senior Trump adviser Kari Lake announced that VOA will be made to use the newsfeed of right-wing outlet One America News (OAN).
Beyond being a pro-Trump mouthpiece, OAN has become notorious for misinformation, spreading conspiracy theories such as coronavirus being created by Anthony Fauci to harm the first Trump administration. OAN’s takeover of an organisation that has championed objective, independent reporting since World War Two is only the latest development in the dismantling of a free press in the USA.
Online censorship: Muslim social media accounts and Pakistani content banned in India
On 22 April 2025, a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir killed 26 people. India accused Pakistan of orchestrating the attack, while Pakistan denies responsibility. India has since retaliated, and the incident has led to rapidly escalating tensions between the two historically-opposed nations, with both sides of the border in Kashmir reporting air strikes. This has claimed further lives in a disputed region that has already seen two wars fought over its contentious borders.
Now, as a result of the increased tensions, the Indian government has tried to purge the country’s internet of all things related to Pakistan. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued an advisory note to Indian streaming services that all Pakistani content – such as movies, songs and podcasts – should be taken down immediately. Meta, under the direction of the Indian Government, blocked the prominent Instagram account @Muslim from being accessed in India, alongside the accounts of many prominent Pakistani celebrities. On X, the platform’s official global government affairs team’s account posted its compliance with executive orders from the Indian government to ban more than 8,000 accounts, such as international media and other prominent users – despite @GlobalAffairs clearly stating its discontent at doing so.
“To comply with the orders, we will withhold the specified accounts in India alone. We have begun that process. However, we disagree with the Indian government’s demands,” reads the post. “Blocking entire accounts is not only unnecessary, it amounts to censorship of existing and future content, and is contrary to the fundamental right of free speech.”
A daring escape: Five Venezuelan opposition politicians rescued from Argentinian embassy
Five aides of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado have been rescued and brought to the USA after spending more than a year trapped in the Argentine Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, in what US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has dubbed a “precise operation”. The aides, all of whom are part of Machado’s political party Vente Venezuela, had taken refuge in the embassy last March after a warrant was issued for their arrest in Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s intense crackdown on political opposition.
Vente Venezuela ran against Maduro’s party in last year’s presidential elections – a highly controversial affair in which Maduro claimed victory and was sworn in as president despite numerous claims from opposition politicians of fraud, inciting sanctions from western nations. Since these elections, Maduro’s government has cracked down on dissent, committing widespread human rights abuses against protesters and critics, according to Human Rights Watch.
The five aides, who were victims of these crackdowns, escaped from the embassy whilst under intense government surveillance. Some are reported to have fled through the Dutch-Caribbean island of Curacao, 40 miles off Venezuela’s coast. It is as yet unclear whether US forces were directly involved in the escape, but some argue that the success of the operation shows cracks are beginning to form in Maduro’s regime.
From Russia’s clutches: Escape of kidnapped Russian journalist orchestrated by Reporters Without Borders
The five Venezuelan aides were not the only captured dissidents to escape – the 63-year-old Russian journalist Ekaterina Barabash, known for being critical of Russia’s war in Ukraine, was under house arrest and faced a potential 10-year prison sentence for her anti-war Facebook posts made in 2022 and 2023, and was labelled a “foreign agent”. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) intervened, and helped to orchestrate a risky, arduous escape from her home country to Paris, France.
This escape involved her ripping off her electronic tag and making a journey of over 1,700 miles, using “clandestine routes” to avoid any Russian agents that would be looking for her. Declared as “wanted” by Russia since 21 April, RSF’s director said that at many points along her journey she was believed to have been arrested, and at one she was even suspected to have died – but two weeks later, exhausted but undeterred, she arrived in Paris to give a press conference. Of her perilous escape, she stated: “I fled – I had no other choice. Journalism no longer exists in Russia.”
Suspension of law: Ghanaian Prime Minister suspends chief justice without due process
Hundreds of opposition protesters have taken to the streets this week in Ghana after President John Mahama suspended the country’s Supreme Court chief justice without following due process. They are accusing him of violating the nations’ constitution to further his own political agenda.
Chief justice Gertrude Torkornoo was suspended last month following the filing of three petitions with undisclosed allegations against her, marking the first time a chief justice has ever been suspended in Ghana. Opposition parties have claimed that this is an attack on the judiciary’s independence, and that Mahama is attempting to pack the courts with his sympathisers. Torkornoo was nominated in 2023 by previous president Nana Akufo-Addo, and she has been accused of siding with his now opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), on key legal decisions.
The NPP led a coalition of opposition parties in submitting a petition to reverse Torkornoo’s suspension, and took to the streets of Accra on Monday 5 May to protest against Mahama’s decision, with one protester telling the BBC that “The youth (of Ghana) will not sit for him to do whatever he wants to do”.
7 Apr 2025 | About Index, Americas, Europe and Central Asia, France, News, Newsletters, Turkey, United States
The headline today is clear: lawyers need lawyers. It’s frustrating to focus on the USA given the constant coverage the country already receives, but it would be negligent to overlook this issue. President Donald Trump’s attempts to target law firms that oppose his administration’s agenda are deeply troubling. Lawyers should not have to fear government retribution simply because they represent clients or work with colleagues tied to the political opposition. This is a blatant threat to the rule of law, one designed to stifle free speech.
Politico offers a thorough breakdown of the situation, concluding that, for now at least, the practical consequences might seem relatively minor. The firms being targeted are so expensive that most people can’t afford their services. This isn’t necessarily a comforting thought. The flipside could be argued – that only the most financially robust law firms can afford to take on an expensive battle with Trump’s administration. Many smaller firms may quietly decline controversial cases, prioritising ease over principle, and thus further narrowing access to justice.
Over in France, a different kind of danger faces lawyers following Marine Le Pen’s conviction this week. It sparked a dangerous wave of threats against the judges involved, which were so severe that President Emmanuel Macron has been forced to publicly reaffirm the independence of the judiciary, and one of the trial judges has been placed under police protection.
It is, unfortunately, a sign of the times that bears repeating: lawyers represent clients, but they do not necessarily share their views. Yet here we are, facing the reality of a world where legal professionals are increasingly seen as extensions of their clients’ beliefs, rather than independent advocates of the law – a line trotted out for years in Iran, Russia and China and now finding a home elsewhere.
“As if the coup against democracy wasn’t enough, they cannot tolerate the victims of this coup defending themselves. They want to add a legal coup to the coup against democracy,” said Istanbul’s recently jailed Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu on the arrest of his lawyer. Mehmet Pehlivan has since been released. But as Pehlivan’s own lawyer poignantly remarked, his arrest was a “warning”. For Turkey’s autocratic leader, the message is clear: beware the clients you choose. For the rest of us, the takeaway is equally urgent: if we don’t stand firm in support of the defenders of justice, the very concept of justice itself could be dismantled.
6 Mar 2025 | Americas, News, United States
As the Oscars season came to a close this weekend, all eyes were once again on Hollywood. The prestigious awards ceremony, which took place on Sunday in Los Angeles, played host to some of the biggest names in cinema, all of whom were hoping to secure one of the infamous golden statuettes afforded to the year’s biggest on-screen successes.
This year, many awards were given to Index-worthy films and documentaries, as they bravely called out human rights and free speech abuses.
No Other Land, an Israeli-Palestinian collaboration investigating how Palestinian activists are protecting their communities from destruction by the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank, won best documentary. Another short feature from Iran, In the Shadow of the Cypress, won best animated short film, with the directors using their acceptance speech to speak out for their “fellow Iranians who are suffering”.
Meanwhile, Adrien Brody won best actor for playing the lead role in The Brutalist, a postwar film documenting the life of the fictional László Tóth, a Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor and esteemed architect. The Brazilian film I’m Still Here also won best international film, and is based on the true story of the lawyer and activist Eunice Paiva, whose husband was “disappeared” and murdered in the 1970s.
Clearly, there was much to celebrate from this year’s awards. However, beneath the glitz and glamour lies the much murkier issue of the close relationship between Hollywood and the US government.
When imagining a film produced in collaboration with the US Department of Defence (DoD), most would presumably envision a recruitment video for the armed forces, or another form of military propaganda. In reality, it’s likely that many people have already seen a film that has been vetted and approved by the DoD without even realising.
Have you watched Top Gun, Apollo 13 or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? What about Transformers, Armageddon or I Am Legend? If so, you’ve seen a film from the US military-entertainment complex. From James Bond classics like Goldfinger to modern Marvel creations like Iron Man, the DoD have had a hand in countless Hollywood productions over the years.
This is no conspiracy theory. In fact, the DoD’s own website boasts of its “long-standing relationship” with Hollywood filmmakers, in which they state that their two-fold goal is “to accurately depict military stories and make sure sensitive information isn’t disclosed”.
Despite this transparency, the fact that a department of the federal government influences the stories that are told by the oldest and biggest film industry in the world raises valid questions concerning censorship and free speech in cinema.
Roger Stahl, a professor, writer and film director who has spearheaded research on the US military-entertainment complex for the last 20 years, spoke to Index last year, around the time that Index on Censorship featured a special print edition on censorship in cinema.
He said that, although it is less direct, the DoD has historically engaged in censorship by vetting Hollywood productions.
“When filmmakers come to the DoD, they routinely express how great they think the film is going to be for military PR [public relations]. That is, they are trying hard to sell the script to the DoD right off the bat,” he said. “Then later there are the actual DoD requests for script changes, which almost never encounter resistance.”
“None of this process really qualifies as censorship in the traditional sense of a government entity enforcing its will under the threat of legal consequences,” he added. “The outcome is much the same, though.”
Stahl has explained in previous research how the process of Hollywood filmmakers collaborating with the Pentagon works: if a production company approaches the DoD to ask for their help with or endorsement for a movie, the Entertainment Liaison Office will request to see the script. If the script is at odds with military interests, it will be denied. However, if they decide the script is compatible enough to work with, they sometimes request changes to be made.
The logical outcome of this is that a lot of Hollywood films tend to show the military in a good light as filmmakers look to garner favour with them. The assistance of the armed forces in a film can be crucial in terms of obtaining much-needed personnel and equipment and the Pentagon would be less willing to offer help to those seeking to portray them negatively.
This is described by Debra Ramsay, a lecturer in Film Studies at Exeter University, as being “a question of negotiated influence rather than outright censorship or control”.
The DoD has stated: “While Hollywood is paid to tell a compelling story that will make money, the DoD is looking to tell an accurate story.” This is a rather generous sentiment which suggests that the changes they request are to do with correcting the use of military language and equipment to ensure it is accurately portrayed. However, Ramsay calls the focus on the term accuracy a “minefield”.
“Accuracy is also often about which narratives institutions like the DoD choose to invest in and which they don’t,” she told Index last year. “The DoD of course are concerned with questions of accuracy, and of course they have a vested interest in showing the armed forces favourably.”
Stahl contends that this interference from the US military – who will of course have their own agenda – in filmmaking amounts to military propaganda “with qualifications”.
“Propaganda is a term with a lot of baggage – it has associations with government-produced material with an overt political message designed to influence civilian populations. Products that arise from the Pentagon-Hollywood collaboration do not fit perfectly into this definition,” he explained.
“In my view, though, I have no problem calling this one of the biggest peacetime propaganda operations in our nation’s history,” he added.
However, Ramsay points out that the producers are not forced to change the script and that it is “up to the filmmakers” to decide how far they will allow the relationship with the DoD to go. She gives the example of the film producer Darryl Zanuck, who was cooperating with the US military when producing his 1962 film The Longest Day, and refused the request to cut a scene where two members of the US army shoot two German soldiers who have surrendered.
“The military could not control whether or not that scene made the final cut,” she said.
This demonstrates the grey areas that surround this issue, as the Pentagon is not actually stopping anti-military films from being made, but is rather indirectly incentivising pro-military films. However, this undoubtedly can lead to self-censorship, which is still a genuine issue – particularly when concerning the world’s biggest film industry.
Stahl has attempted to raise awareness of the extent of the relationship between the DoD and Hollywood, as he and his small team of researchers have utilised Freedom of Information requests to find that the Pentagon and the CIA have exercised direct editorial control over more than 2,500 films and television shows. Stahl says that although the fact that the Pentagon works with Hollywood and has an Entertainment Media Office is public knowledge, we don’t know the extent of this collaboration, which is a concern.
“The Entertainment Office does [media] interviews, they’ll admit to working with films, and even to making the military look good,” he told Index. “But they have been extremely guarded about the details.
“You could read a dozen press accounts, and no one could tell you how many productions were subject to official script oversight.”
It is difficult to measure the extent to which the military-entertainment complex influences how the US armed forces are actually perceived. Stahl points to audience effect studies being “few and far between”, while Ramsay suggests that it is a “difficult thing to quantify”.
“As an academic, I’d be wary of suggesting that these films influence people or change their perception – I’d want to see evidence of that – but they certainly appear to nudge people in a particular direction,” said Ramsay. “There is no clear-cut answer here, but I think the relationship definitely needs scrutiny and publicity.”
However, any amount of censorship is too much. The objectives and agenda of the DoD cannot be placed above a filmmaker’s right to freedom of expression. At last weekend’s Oscars ceremony, filmmakers were rewarded for the stories they have shown us on the screen, many of which gave a space to vital yet unheard voices; we mustn’t forget those stories that aren’t allowed to be told.
To read more like this, check out the cinema-themed issue of our quarterly magazine from July 2024. For further issues, you can subscribe to the magazine here.
