12 Oct 17 | Campaigns -- Featured, Statements, United Kingdom
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A vote by Ealing Council that could see anti-abortion protesters banned from demonstrating outside a clinic in a bid to protect women from harassment raises troubling implications for freedom of expression.
Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg said: “We support people’s right to protest publicly and openly. In a free and democratic society that may mean hearing things that shock, offend or disturb. However, protesters do not have the right to physically intimidate others or prevent their free movement. Nevertheless, the suggested use of buffer zones by a London council to prevent protests has the potential to set a dangerous precedent that could be used against all forms of speech – including those who wish to protest on environmental or political issues, for example. Buffer zones are too a blunt tool to deal with public protests. We have legislation that deals with harassment and maintaining public access. Protesters who block the free movement of others or physically harass others could be pursued under that legislation.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator][vc_custom_heading text=”Stay up to date on free expression” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate, and monitor threats to free speech. We believe that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution – no matter what their views.
Join the our mailing list and we’ll send you our weekly newsletter about our activities defending free speech. We won’t share your personal information with anyone outside Index.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1507825054163-140d08ec-3391-5″ taxonomies=”6534″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
14 Aug 17 | Index in the Press, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”95179″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]This column originally appeared in the Evening Standard.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]”Part of building an open, inclusive environment means fostering a culture in which those with alternative views…feel safe sharing their opinions.” Hear, hear. This is a view that so chimes with my beliefs as a free-speech campaigner that I could have written it myself. In fact, those are the words of Danielle Brown, Google’s vice-president of diversity, integrity and governance, in response to the furore over the so-called Google manifesto — the 10-page document in which Google software engineer James Damore outlined his views on why women don’t reach the top roles in certain jobs, arguing why the company’s diversity pushes were misplaced. Google so cherishes diversity it sacked a man for expressing an opinion it didn’t agree with… Spot a problem here?
In all the furore surrounding Damore’s memo, most of the focus has been on critiquing the views he expressed on the differences between men and women, but far less attention has been paid to the broader point he was trying to make: that unpopular views, views that did not accord with the mainstream ideology in the company, could not be expressed. And that this in turn could lead to a monotheistic culture that is not good for business.
“When it comes to diversity and inclusion, Google’s Left bias has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence,” Damore wrote. By sacking him, Google made Damore’s point for him.
Damore expressed a viewpoint that did not accord with the mainstream and he was sacked. I have read plenty of articles arguing he was dismissed not for expressing his opinion but because the expressing of that opinion made colleagues feel unsafe or uncomfortable (more on that later), or justifying the sacking because an employer has the right to discipline employees where their behaviour brings the company into disrepute. But actually, what those who defend Damore’s sacking are really doing is reinforcing something that is increasingly prevalent in our societies: a kind of liberal intolerance.
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Ideas are not challenged by silencing them.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]I heard it a lot in the wake of the killings at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo: “I believe in free speech, but…” and after that “but” came all kinds of things that the supposed defenders of free speech were in favour of censoring because they felt such censorship would better protect marginalised communities. The argument seemed to be that by banning certain kinds of speech we would somehow miraculously eradicate the dangerous, insidious and hateful viewpoints that underlie it.
This “it is OK to censor certain opinions” line is one most clearly articulated in universities — something Damore alluded to in his own manifesto. Views that are considered offensive are dubbed harmful, and speakers are drummed off campus — in some cases physically. In one incident earlier this year, Dr Charles Murray — a political scientist labelled a “white nationalist” for his book linking race and intelligence — was attacked by students after he tried to give a talk at Middlebury College in Vermont.
Ideas are not challenged by silencing them. Indeed, the video of Murray being shouted down by a group of students denying his right to speak demonstrates how an event that could have been an opportune moment to challenge ideas with which the students disagreed simply became an exercise in controlling the narrative. Imagine if the opposite had happened. Imagine if a Black Lives Matter activist had been shut down on campus by a ranting white supremacist mob. There would have been an international uproar.
And that’s the point. Free speech — genuine free speech that tolerates the ideas we find most offensive — must apply equally. It must apply to the ideas we hate as much as to the ideas we champion. What protects Damore’s right to opine that women are “more co-operative and agreeable than men” (Seriously? Has Damore met any actual women?) is also what protects my right to say his views are a laughable load of bollocks. What gives my views the right to be protected and his not?
Those in favour of constraining what others say often do so in the belief that it’s easy to identify, and agree on, good and bad speech. But consider the example of Iranian political activist and human-rights campaigner Maryam Namazie who, in 2015, was repeatedly heckled at an event on blasphemy at Goldsmiths college by members of the Islamic Society and accused of Islamophobia. In one of the great ironies created by the growing “safe space” movement, in which offensive ideas are dubbed so harmful they must be silenced, the Feminist Society at Goldsmiths said it stood in solidarity with the Islamic Society.
This equation of offensive speech with harm lies at the heart of the Google manifesto row, and much of the de facto censorship in operation in companies, online and on campus. Focusing on speech as harm is an easy fix. Don’t like what someone says? Ban them and, lo, we will be safer. (Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is a current good example of this in practice but the UK government’s repeated attempts to deal with “extremist” speech also risk going down this road). This is an easy fix because dealing with the problems underlying the words are so much harder: discrimination based on race, gender, sexuality, religion.
But homing in on speech is a false and dangerous fix. Banning ideas does not make those ideas go away — all too often the banning of an idea gives it more attention — and silencing those with whom we disagree is not the way to the more tolerant and diverse society Google envisages. Far better to let our opponents speak and then challenge them, openly, vocally. And work harder to address the structural problems that persistently marginalise certain groups and so give them a greater voice.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1502698304215-3aa8abeb-3e1e-8″ taxonomies=”6323″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
19 Jun 17 | Artistic Freedom, News and features, Volume 46.02 Summer 2017
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”When cartoonists are being arrested, and novelists told their plots must only support the government line, you know your nation is in deep trouble, argues Rachael Jolley”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]
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A COUNTRY’S SENSE OF humour is a nebulous thing. But when it starts to disappear, something serious is afoot.
And so it is in Spain right now. Comedy, it turns out, is touching a nerve, as it often does, and rather surprisingly the lawyers are getting involved. Comedy is not only a threat, but under threat.
What’s bizarre is, this is Spain, a modern democracy, a solid, sensible country at the centre of Europe. Locking people up for making a joke, that’s something you might expect from an authoritarian and struggling state. But Spain?
Well, it turns out, this is Spain in the 21st century. The list of comedy offences is not short. Spanish comedian Dani Mateo was told to testify before a judge in May for telling a joke referring to a monument built by Franco’s regime as “shit”. He told the joke during a satirical show. Now it doesn’t sound like the best joke in the world, but hell, we defend his right to tell it. And Mateo is not alone in the Spanish comic fraternity. There’s Facu Díaz, who was prosecuted last year for posting jokes on social media; Cassandra Vera, who was sentenced to a year in prison for making jokes about a former Spanish president; and three women who were accused of a religious hate crime for mocking a traditional Easter procession. Puppeteers whose Punch and Judy show included a sign for a made-up terrorist organisation carried by a witch spent a year fighting prosecution, unable to leave the country for weeks, receiving anonymous threats and having to report regularly to the police. On and on it goes, as Silvia Nortes reports for us on page 85.
So why does any of this matter? Well, jokes are a barometer of public mood, and as British comedian Andy Hamilton told this summer’s Hay Festival, you can even use them to test how much the public like or dislike a politician or public figure. He remembered making a joke about then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and being told by one of her staunchest supporters to expect a wave of outrage. On checking, he found just three complaints, and that’s when, he said, he knew Thatcher was on the way out. Similarly, a recent joke about former UK Justice Secretary Michael Gove received a big fat zero moans in the BBC complaints box. Hamilton reckoned this was a sign of just how little the public cared about Gove.
So jokes do take the temperature of the nation, and one of many reasons politicians fear them is, as Mark Twain said, “Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”
Politicians fear being made fun of, and fear that a satirical representation of themselves may take root in the electorate’s brain. They fear the public seeing their weaknesses. Some may remember that the classic satirical British TV puppet show Spitting Image reduced each member of the cabinet to a single ridiculous idea, a spitting former Home Secretary Roy Hattersley or a tiny David Steel tucked in the top pocket of David Owen (joint leaders of the SDP-Liberal alliance). Not good for their egos, not good for their future prospects. Steel said later that the sketch definitely affected his image.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left” color=”custom” align=”right” custom_color=”#dd3333″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_custom_heading text=”That idea of groupthink, honed by the Soviet Union, satirised by George Orwell, continues to haunt writers in former communist countries today” google_fonts=”font_family:Libre%20Baskerville%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Joke-telling is not the only ingredient in the comedy cupboard that upsets the powers that be. Historically, exaggerated portraits, as Edward Lucie-Smith writes in issue 197 of Index on Censorship, have long been used to diminish or enhance a public character. The most obvious creators of exaggerated portraits are newspaper cartoonists, who sometimes feel the long arm of the police on their shoulders as a result.
In our exclusive interview with legendary South African cartoonist Zapiro, he talks not only about the power of cartoonists, but the pressure on them not to offend or upset. In an interview with South African journalist Raymond Joseph, Zapiro said: “We provoke thought, even if that thought is pretty outrageous. Others can do it too. We just occupy a space where you can really push the boundaries.” Zapiro faced a six-year court battle with South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma over one of his cartoons. But Zapiro is just as feisty as ever, and reckons he is bolshier than the generations that have come after him.
Cracking down on comedy is just one way to command and control society. This issue’s special report examines others as we study the long shadows Russia’s 1917 revolution cast within and without its national borders.
From the beginning the early Soviets were not particularly fond of disagreement. Shortly after their rise to power, between October 1917 and June 1918, around 470 opposition publications were closed down. Lenin was clear how the nation should work. He believed that journalists, novelists and opinion formers were either with him, or against the state. If they were against the state, they shouldn’t be allowed to write or outline their views. “Down with non-partisan writers,” he argued. This is a view very much in favour with many other rulers today, including Angola’s President José Eduardo dos Santos, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and, recently, US President Donald Trump.
That idea of groupthink, honed by the Soviet Union, satirised by George Orwell, continues to haunt writers in former communist countries today. In Uzbekistan, as Hamid Ismailov outlines, the Soviet Union may have fallen, but the thinking remains the same. Writers with arguments that contradict President Shavkat Mirziyoyev are either neutralised by being employed by the state as advisers and consultants, or leave the country, or fail to be published.
In President Vladimir Putin’s Russia most of the media, apart from a few brave exceptions, fall into line with government positions. For instance, in February this year, according to the Index-led Mapping Media Freedom project, major Russian national television channels abruptly reduced the number of times they mentioned the US president. This followed a Kremlin order to cut back on “fawning coverage” of Trump.
In all the recent furore over “fake news”, prompted by almost incessant use of the term by Trump to undermine any reporting he didn’t like, it’s worth pointing out that tricks to get the public to believe something that is not true have been used throughout history. In fact, as Jemimah Steinfeld investigates (page 114), the Roman emperor Augustus was a master of manipulation well before PR handbooks were written.
And open the pages of a treasured book in our office and you’ll see an early version of photoshopping at work. Photographs featured in The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin’s Russia, show how people were “disappeared” from official Soviet portraits in the 1930s as they fell out of favour. Belarusians have been experiencing government attempts to get them to believe false stories for decades. In his report on page 52, Andrei Aliaksandrau unpicks the tricks used over the years and holds them up to the light.
And there’s some excellent thoughtful pieces in our fiction section too, with two new short stories written for this publication: one by Turkish writer Kaya Genç, and the other by British writer Jonathan Tel. The final slice is a new English translation of a much older story, by Russia’s “Comrade Count” Alexei Tolstoy.
To finish, a sad note. Our regular, and fantastic, Brazil correspondent Claire Rigby has died suddenly. Claire did amazing reporting for us, and we will miss her.
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Rachael Jolley is the editor of Index on Censorship magazine. She recently won the editor of the year (special interest) at British Society of Magazine Editors’ 2016 awards
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”From the Archives”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”80569″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306422017716030″][vc_custom_heading text=”Provoking the president” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1177%2F0306422017716030|||”][vc_column_text]June 2016
Legendary South African cartoonist Zapiro talks about being sued for millions by Jacob Zuma, fighting for “Lady Press Freedom” and death threats.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”90636″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/030642200002900126″][vc_custom_heading text=”Funeral of laughter” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1177%2F030642200002900126|||”][vc_column_text]January 2000
Oscar Collazos reports on the Colombian mourners after the assassination of comedian Jaime Garzon, who told insolent truths to the world.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”89185″ img_size=”213×289″ alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064220500157814″][vc_custom_heading text=”You must be joking! ” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fdoi%2Fpdf%2F10.1080%2F03064220500157814|||”][vc_column_text]May 2005
Israeli comedians who dare to make jokes around the Shoah run foul of their country’s ultimate taboo: this is no laughing matter.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”top”][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”100 Years On” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2017%2F06%2F100-years-on%2F|||”][vc_column_text]Through a range of in-depth reporting, interviews and illustrations, the summer 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine explores how the consequences of the 1917 Russian Revolution still affect freedoms today, in Russia and around the world.
With: Andrei Arkhangelsky, BG Muhn, Nina Khrushcheva[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”91220″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/magazine”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1481888488328{padding-bottom: 50px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
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15 Jun 17 | Digital Freedom, Mapping Media Freedom, Netherlands, News and features
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Dutch journalists launched a campaign to pressure advertisers into reconsidering advertising on sites that denigrate women.
A petition urging advertisers to withdraw their ads from provocative right-wing blog GeenStijl, shook up The Netherlands last month. About 150 women journalists and celebrities signed an open letter after a post that lead to a storm of sexual harassment and rape threats towards a female journalist. A few large companies and government institutions have so far pulled out their adverts.
The first time Loes Reijmer’s picture appeared on the front page of GeenStijl, in March 2017, she had just written a piece for her newspaper De Volkskrant about the reasons behind and the consequences of online sexual harassment of women.
In the article, she explained how blogs and social media groups are increasingly harassing women, for example by posting nude photos without their consent. She mentioned GeenStijl as the one Dutch example of a website thriving on sexist, racist and humiliating content.
GeenStijl, a popular and controversial website owned by Telegraaf Media Group, was quick to answer to Reijmer’s critical article. The next day her headshot appeared on the front page, accompanied by the text: ‘This is Loes Reijmer. Would you do her?’ A storm of sexist comments followed, including rape threats.
In April, daily NRC-columnist Rosanne Herzberger added fuel to the fire by writing a column questioning GeenStijl’s credibility. She went one step further and urged GeenStijl’s advertisers, some of the biggest companies in the country, to rethink spending their money on the site.
“The question is, which companies are making content like this possible?” Herzberger wrote. She mentioned companies like TUI travels, McDonald’s, Renault, Rabobank, Dutch theme park De Efteling and even the Dutch tax service and the Ministry of Defense.
GeenStijl has a reach of 1.2 million unique viewers per month, which makes it one of the biggest online media outlets in the country. Its videoblog Dumpert.nl has an even wider reach, 2.2 million views per month.
“Humiliating women is big business,” Herzberger stated firmly. Her column was widely spread and shared on social media, and lead to many companies to actually reconsider their advertising choices.
A couple of days later GeenStijl reposted the picture of Loes Reijmer with now the text: “Would you do her? Tell us how!”, followed by even more threatening comments by GeenStijl readers.
This is when dailies Volkskrant and NRC joined forces and published an open letter addressed to the advertisers. “Dear advertisers,” it read. “You are paying for a website where sexism and racism is the norm, not the exception.” About 150 women, from celebrities to journalists, signed the letter.
The campaign was inspired by the American organisation Sleeping Giant that keeps track of companies whose adverts appear on the alt-right website Bartbreit.
Journalists in The Netherlands are increasingly experiencing harassment and threats, a recently published investigation by the Dutch Union for Journalists (NVJ) showed. More than half (61 percent) of all (638) questioned Dutch journalists have been threatened physically or via social media at some point in their career, 22 percent even on a monthly basis. Amnesty International called the Dutch numbers “worrying”.
Volkskrant’s own ombudswoman, Annieke Kranenberg, believes it is a worrying trend. In an op-ed in De Volkskrant she stated that being a target of sexual intimidation and threats online could lead to self-censorship.
She asked several Volkskrant journalists about their experiences and many admitted they are suffering from self-censorship. “I always expect to receive negative comments, but the comments on GeenStijl are the worst, the most hateful you can get,” one journalist, who remained anonymous, told her. “The reality is that I do think twice before I write about something sensitive.”
Even the journalists that don’t have experience with self-censorship find themselves obstructed in doing their jobs. When they have been smeared by GeenStijl, they notice the articles in which they have been portrait negatively, keep coming up in the search engines. “I’m bothered by that,” one journalist said. “People Google your name before they say yes to an interview request.”
Online harassment against female journalists and women, in general, is not just a problem in The Netherlands, ombudswoman Annieke Kranenberg argued. “Worldwide it has an effect on press freedom,” she wrote. She referred to an essay by the American journalist Amanda Hess in 2014: Why women aren’t welcome on the internet. The amounts of sexist and threatening messages women receive online “are an assault on women’s careers, their psychological bandwidth, and their freedom to live online,” Hess stated.
OSCE’s media freedom spokesperson Dunja Mijatovic published a report on the topic in 2015. She concluded that female journalists are disproportionately affected by online hate speech. Mijatovic recommended that media companies themselves could play a role in changing this discourse by working on better on equality on the work floor. Media companies should also publicly stand up more against online hate speech, and they must ensure psychological and legal support for their journalists, Mijatovic argued.
GeenStijl has fired back to the open letter. They argue that dailies De Volkskrant and NRC have crossed a line by publishing such a threat and that by doing so they are themselves restricting freedom of expression.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content_no_spaces” content_placement=”middle”][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”91122″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2017/05/stand-up-for-satire/”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
