20 Mar 2026 | Europe and Central Asia, News, United Kingdom
Could there be a more urgent need for an independent source of news and information with international reach and a historic track record of support for political dissidents and exiles from authoritarian regimes? If the BBC World Service didn’t exist, this would be a very good time to invent it.
So it is excellent news that Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced an increase in funding of £33m over the next three years.
The settlement was said to be a priority for outgoing Director-General, Tim Davie, but MPs and campaign groups had warned of uncertainty as the deadline of the end of the financial year approached.
At the end of February, Index coordinated a letter from nine free expression and journalism organisations calling on Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper to make the funding available and ensure a sustainable funding model for the future. Now the BBC is calling on the government to take back full responsibility for funding the service, as it did until 2014.
The news of the funding settlement comes less than two months after the BBC announced the launch of an emergency radio programme for Iran in response to the internet blackout. In a move reminiscent of the work of Radio Free Europe and the World Service during the Cold War, BBC News Persian has been made available on mediumwave and shortwave to provide a half-hour programme broadcast every evening to Iran.
Funding for the programme had been found from existing sources. But when Fiona Crack, Interim Global Director of BBC News announced the launch of the service in January, before the start of the current conflict, she made it clear that the cash could only be guaranteed until the end of March.
In making the announcement, the foreign secretary paid tribute to the work of the World Service in Iran: “In a world of rising disinformation, the BBC World Service provides hundreds of millions with journalism they can trust and rely on. We are seeing in real time how the BBC Persian service is playing a crucial role in ensuring impartial, accurate news is reaching the Iranian people.”
The BBC has developed a strong recent tradition of emergency radio news services launched in response to conflicts and disasters. In February, the BBC launched a news service for Ukraine following the Russian invasion. Emergency radio broadcasts were setup for Gaza and Sudan in 2023 and in Syria after the fall of Assad. In In April 2025, a BBC News Burmese satellite channel provided news in the aftermath of Myanmar earthquake.
A report from the Public Accounts Committee warned of the wider consequences of cuts to the World Service. Speaking earlier this month. Conservative chair of the PAC, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said: ” It risks opening the door to propaganda from hostile states filling the void it leaves behind. At a time of heightened geopolitical tensions, the UK cannot afford to lose such a crucial soft power instrument.”
Those who have worked at the World Service understand the importance of this element of the BBC’s output and the unique culture it engenders. Writing in The Times this week, columnist Libby Purves remembered her time as a young producer at the World Service HQ at Bush House in the 1970s. She told the story of taking an Angolan friend to lunch who explained how much the World Service had meant during her country’s civil war, “but when I pointed out one of its newsreaders eating lasagne at the next table she dared not be introduced lest emotion overwhelm her”.
I had a similar experience with a Ghanian friend in the early 90s, who insisted on having our photo taken together outside Bush House when he discovered I worked at the World Service. I was in a very lowly position in the organisation, but told me I should feel privileged. And he was right.
I was working at BBC English at the time, which specialised in teaching English as a foreign language, and represented the very essence of soft power. At the time, Managing Director John Tusa had a vision for the World Service in the post-Cold War era, which included a “Marshall Plan for the Mind” to promote British commercial and cultural interests in the post-Communist world.
As the son of a Czech exile Tusa understood how vital the World Service was. Born in Zlín, in former Czechoslovakia, he and his family fled to Britain in 1939 to escape the Nazis.
We need that vision now.
19 Nov 2025 | Europe and Central Asia, Hungary, News, United Kingdom
“Remember to always follow BBC standards. If your information cannot be confirmed by two independent sources, don’t publish the article.” This was the advice my first editor-in-chief gave me when I started working as an intern at the foreign desk of Magyar Hírlap, a daily Hungarian newspaper where I began my career.
The same advice was echoed when a few years later, I entered the doors of Hungary’s national public radio. We took “impartiality, accuracy and fairness” seriously. And for us, serving the public as a journalist was not merely a job, it was a vocation.
Having been born in 1980, I have only vague memories of what it was like when state TV and radio were under the control of the Communist Party. Although Hungary was known as the happiest barracks in Soviet times, this of course did not mean that journalists were free to write whatever they wanted. So, when the Iron Curtain fell and journalism became independent, fact-based and public-oriented once again, we needed to adopt guidelines we could look up to. The BBC seemed like a good place to start, as the organisation had a decades-long history of impartial, accurate and fair reporting that we had lacked for some time.
Almost 20 years later, Hungarian public media could not be further away from these principles.
In the aftermath of the 2010 election victory of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian government initiated a programme of measures designed to exercise control over the media. Utilising a two-thirds majority, the Fidesz party successfully implemented a comprehensive overhaul of Hungary’s media legislation, culminating in the appointment of individuals with strong allegiances to Fidesz within the nation’s media regulatory body. The centralisation of state media, including the national news agency, distributing news to every newsroom in the country free of charge, was of particular significance.
Over the years, more than 1,600 journalists and media workers at the national public media company (MTVA) were fired and replaced with people who would support the government’s story.
By today, Hungary’s public media has effectively been turned into a government mouthpiece.
Human Rights Watch learned from one current and one former employee at M1, a public service television channel under MTVA, that reporters are instructed by their editors on the subjects to be covered, the terminology to be used, and the subjects to be avoided. Should a reporter disagree, they are told to resign. In a leaked audio recording from a 2019 meeting, Balazs Bende, foreign news editor at public service broadcaster M1, can be heard telling staff: “this institution does not support the opposition coalition,” and “we all work accordingly,” and that “anyone who doesn’t like it should resign”.
Public television and radio channels consistently echo the talking points disseminated by Fidesz and a network of think tanks and pollsters that receive funding from the government and the party. In contrast, opposition politicians have long complained that they are allocated a mere five minutes of airtime every four years on public television, the legal minimum, to present their platforms before elections.
It is clear that how public media works has a direct effect on democracy and the rule of law. The government’s control stops people from being able to hold the government to account and stops people from getting information. In Hungary, there are still many people – especially in the countryside – who do not use the internet daily and only watch what the public TV and radio stations have to offer. So, they won’t even know about the corruption scandals exposed by the independent media. If they only hear one side of the story, they won’t be able to make an informed choice when it comes to the elections.
As the example shows, if public media outlets fail to do their job and are unable to resist political pressure, this can have serious consequences for the journalists working there and for society as a whole. This kind of pressure is now common not only in Hungary but throughout the world. So, it is all the more important that established and respected public media outlets – including the BBC – resist political pressure and set an example. If they stick to their own rules and always stand by them, they can’t be undermined.
Conversely, failure to do so will result in the inevitable.
6 Jun 2025 | Africa, Americas, DR Congo, Europe and Central Asia, Honduras, Hungary, Israel, Middle East and North Africa, News, Syria, Tanzania, United Kingdom
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 Hungary’s crackdown on LGBTQ+ content, and Tanzania’s shutdown of the social media platform X.
A “climate of hostility”: Hungary’s ban of LGBTQ+ content on TV and in schools violates human rights
The rights of LGBTQ+ people in Hungary have been under attack for years, as Index covered last week. With the latest development being a new law banning LGBTQ+ demonstrations, president Viktor Orbán and his government have drawn continued ire from the EU as they continue to ramp up oppression. Now, a senior legal scholar at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has stated that Hungary’s 2021 “child protection law” violates basic human rights and free expression.
In her 69-page non-binding opinion, CJEU advocate general Tamara Ćapeta said that rather than protecting children from harm, the law “expands such harm”, highlighting the law’s “stigmatising effects” and the “climate of hostility” it has created towards LGBTQ+ people. The law prohibits the depiction of LGBTQ+ individuals in school educational content, or any TV show, film or advert shown before 10pm, placing this content in the same bracket as sexually explicit content. Ćapeta said that the law illustrates a government belief that “homosexual and non-cisgender life is not of equal value or status as heterosexual and cisgender life”.
While a “non-binding opinion” does not strictly carry legal weight or enforcement, Ćapeta’s assessment reflects a growing trend amongst EU lawyers and officials that Hungary is falling foul of EU regulations when it comes to freedom of expression. With tensions only rising, it seems only a matter of time before a breaking point is reached; though it is yet to be seen what action the EU will take against Hungary.
Social blackout: Tanzania bans X under guise of pornographic content
In a move that has drawn much criticism, Tanzania has blocked social media platform X from being accessed in the country, on the basis that it allows pornographic content to be shared, according to the government. Minister for information, communication and IT, Jerry Silaa has said that this content is against the “laws, culture, customs, and traditions” of the East African nation. However, human rights organisations within the country have reason to believe that digital repression and censorship are the true reasons behind the ban.
In a post on the banned platform, the Legal and Human Rights Centre noted that a similar shutdown occurred ahead of the 2020 Tanzanian general elections, and that other platforms such as Telegram and Clubhouse are similarly inaccessible in Tanzania without the use of a virtual private network (VPN).
Indeed, access to X specifically has been prohibited previously, aside from during elections. Following an incident in May this year when the official account of the Tanzania Police Force was hacked, posting falsely that the country’s president had died, the platform was blocked temporarily.
This recurrence of digital restrictions, particularly in the run up to the 2025 Tanzanian elections, raises further concerns about free expression in a country that was recently subject to international outcry over the detention and alleged torture of two human rights activists.
No comment: DR Congo bans reporting on former president and his entire party
The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) has banned the media from reporting on the activities of former president Joseph Kabila, or interviewing any members of his party, the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy.
The controversial former president returned to the country in May after two years in self-imposed exile. He had previously been accused of support for the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group that is currently in conflict with Congolese forces, with senators stripping him of immunity and accusing him of treason. However, he has now returned to the M23-held city of Goma, in eastern DR Congo. Kabila has previously denied links with the rebel group, but has reportedly been seen visiting religious leaders in the presence of an M23 spokesperson.
Breaches of the blanket media ban will result in suspension, according to Christian Bosembe, head of DR Congo’s media regulator.
Kabila himself has not yet commented on the decision, but his party’s secretary Ferdinand Kambere described the decision as “arbitrary and illegal” in a statement on X, accusing the Congolese government of tyranny. A spokesperson for M23 stated that media outlets in rebel-controlled areas would not abide by the ban.
Detained for reporting: BBC crew held at gunpoint by IDF in southern Syria
The BBC has released a statement condemning the treatment of four BBC staff members and three freelance colleagues by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while filming in southern Syria.
BBC Arabic special correspondent Feras Kilani detailed how himself and his crew were held at gunpoint on 9 May 2025 while at a checkpoint just outside Quneitra, which is located in the Israeli-Syrian buffer zone in the Golan Heights. Their phones and equipment were confiscated, before members of the crew were blindfolded, handcuffed and strip searched. Kilani was also strip searched and interrogated, with soldiers reportedly asking personal questions about his family, before proceeding to interrogate the rest of his team. Held for seven hours, their devices were inspected and some photos deleted. According to Kilani, they were told that the IDF knew everything about them, and that they would be tracked down if they published photos from the trip.
The BBC’s statement, released on 5 June, objected to the journalists’ treatment, stating that “the behaviour they were subjected to is wholly unacceptable.” The BBC has complained to the Israeli military, but is yet to receive a response.
Media abandoned: Journalist killed in Honduras despite state protection
Salvadoran journalist Javier Antonio Hércules Salinas was murdered by armed men on motorbikes in Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras on 1 June. He was killed whilst driving a taxi, a part-time job he did alongside working as a reporter for the local news outlet, A Todo Noticias.
Salinas had been working in Honduras for more than 10 years, and had been under the protection of the Honduran government since October 2023, after being subjected to threats and a kidnapping attempt, which he escaped unharmed. Dina Meza, director of the Association for Democracy and Human Rights of Honduras, stated that the Secretariat of Human Rights (SEDH), Honduras’s government body responsible for implementing human rights plans, did not listen to advice for a more thorough security plan, and that state security had “[turned] their backs” on journalists in the country.
Salinas’s murder is the latest in a country that has proven to be extremely dangerous for journalists, with the Honduran College of Journalists (CPH) reporting that more than 100 journalists have been killed in the country since 2001. Honduras ranks 142 out of 180 countries for media freedom on Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index.
16 May 2025 | Afghanistan, Africa, Asia and Pacific, Azerbaijan, Europe and Central Asia, Mali, Middle East and North Africa, New Zealand, News, Palestine, United Kingdom
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 the potential suspension of three Māori MPs, and the dissolution of political parties in Mali.
Cultural suspension: Māori MPs face suspension for performing the Haka in parliament
In November 2024, an act of protest in New Zealand’s parliament went viral on social media when opposition MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke initiated a traditional Haka dance during session to demonstrate against a controversial bill concerning Māori people’s rights. Opposition party members joined in the ceremonial group dance, leading to a striking scene in which a copy of the bill was ripped in two.
The bill aimed to drastically change the way that the Treaty of Waitangi, a founding document of New Zealand that has been crucial in upholding Māori rights, was interpreted. Critics and Māori rights activists claimed that this bill undermined New Zealand’s founding document – and following a nine-day hīkoi (peaceful protest) last year, the bill was voted down in April. But the MPs that spoke out against the bill in parliament haven’t escaped unscathed.
Three members of opposition party Te Pāti Māori (The Māori Party) are expected to be suspended for performing the Haka, in what has been described as the harshest punishment ever proposed on MPs in the country. A parliamentary committee recommended the suspensions, arguing that the Haka could have “intimidated” fellow MPs, while a Te Pāti Māori spokesperson described the punishment as a “warning shot to all of us to fall in line”. Maipi-Clarke is due to be suspended for a week, while the party’s co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer will be banned for 21 days.
The party’s over: Political parties in Mali dissolved in latest crackdown on democracy
Since a military junta took control of Mali in 2021 via a coup led by Colonel Assimi Goita, democracy has all but disappeared in the Sahel nation. Goita promised to hold elections in the year following his ascendancy to head of state, but has backed out of this commitment, instead holding onto power and recently gained backing to be declared president until at least 2030 – a move denounced by opposition parties.
But now, these parties won’t be able to denounce any further decisions made by the junta, as Goita has announced that all political parties were dissolved as of 13 May. Members of these parties have been banned from organising or holding any meetings.
This move is the latest escalation from a nation becoming increasingly repressive. Opposition leader Mamadou Traoré was arrested and imprisoned in April, and two further opposition leaders went missing last week and are feared forcibly disappeared. Protests took place in the capital Bamako last week, marking the first major pro-democracy demonstration since the military originally took control of Mali in 2020. These protests have not been tolerated, with the junta attempting to ban future demonstrations “for reasons of public order”.
A crackdown on journalists: Azerbaijan detains two independent journalists
Ilham Aliyev has been president of Azerbaijan since 2003, and his tenure has been marred by repeated attacks on the media. The nation ranks 167 out of 180 nations in Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index, and in recent years has ramped up its efforts to smother independent reporting and detain journalists on trumped up charges. In the latest continuation of these efforts, two of the country’s few remaining independent journalists – Ulviyya Ali and Ahmad Mammadli – were detained on 6 and 7 May.
Ali was seemingly expecting her imminent detention. Having seen many of her contemporaries detained for their work, she preemptively wrote a letter to be published online in the case of her arrest. According to reporting by Le Monde, upon her arrest, Ali was allegedly beaten and threatened with rape by a police officer. Some have posited that Ali, who frequently worked for Voice of America, became more vulnerable following the forced closure of the US-funded media outlet’s operations by the Donald Trump administration.
Mammadli, who documented labour rights violations and political repression online, was arrested over an alleged stabbing – a charge his colleagues claim is politically motivated – and according to his wife, was beaten and tortured with electroshocks by police after refusing to unlock his phone. These two arrests bring the total number of journalists jailed in Azerbaijan to 25 since late 2023.
Social media shutdown: The Taliban targets content creators
The Taliban is implementing a large-scale crackdown on social media influencers in the country, particularly on platforms such as TikTok.
Two teenage influencers have been detained by the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice for taking part in TikTok live broadcasts with women content creators from abroad, a practice denounced by the Taliban for being “un-Islamic”. Ministry spokesperson Saif Khyber has issued a warning that the ministry is surveilling public profiles for activity it deems to be immoral, and released two videos in which the TikTokers expressed regret and remorse for their content. Some have speculated that these videos may have been recorded under duress.
One of the TikTokers, Haroon Pakora, had been vocal about living in poverty before he gained fame on TikTok through street interviews in Kabul, but it is unlikely that he will continue posting on the platform.
A documentary withheld: BBC under fire for delaying release of Gaza documentary
Over 600 film industry professionals and members, including notable figures such as Miriam Margolyes, Susan Sarandon and Frankie Boyle, have accused the BBC of censoring Palestinian voices and have signed an open letter urging the organisation to release a Gaza documentary that has been withheld from broadcast.
Gaza: Medics Under Fire includes accounts from frontline health workers in Gaza and documents attacks on hospitals and medical clinics. According to the signatories, it has been ready to air for months, having undergone extensive fact checks and reviews. The BBC has claimed that the delay to Medics Under Fire has been extended due to its investigation into another documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, which began after the narrator was revealed to be the son of a Hamas agriculture minister. The documentary was initially broadcast, then swiftly withdrawn.
The hold-up of the Medics Under Fire documentary, which was originally due to be broadcast in January, has drawn ire towards the BBC, with the open letter stating that “this is not editorial caution. It’s political suppression”, and suggesting the delay is “rooted in racism”. Some of the signatories were BBC employees, and a BBC spokesperson has stated that the film will be released “as soon as possible”. As of yet, there is no timeline for broadcast.
