The summer issue of Index magazine concentrated its efforts on the developing situation between Russia and Ukraine and consequential effects around Europe and the world.
We decided to give voice to journalists, artists and dissidents who chose to respond to this ruthless war. At the same time, we didn’t forget other attacks on freedoms that haven’t been covered around the globe as much as they should.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Up front”][vc_column_text]Joining Ukraine’s battle for freedom, by Jemimah Steinfeld: We must stand with the bold and brave against Putin.
The Index: A global tour of free expression, departing from the poll booth and arriving at the journalists reporting under Taliban rule.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Features”][vc_column_text]Fifty years of pride and prejudice, by Peter Tatchell: Following the rise and
corporate fall of London’s march for LGBT rights, will grassroots voices rise again?
India’s meaty issue, by Aishwarya Jagani: When a burger comes with a side of oppression.
Cartoon, by Ben Jennings: Art imitates life, caveman style.
One step ahead of the game, by Chen Dan: Media criticism of the Chinese government is all part of the power play.
Welcome to the kingdom of impunity, by Michael Deibert: The landscape is dangerous for journalists in Haiti. Murders and kidnappings are a daily risk.
Politically corrected? By Issa Sikiti da Silva: The banned words the Kenyan
government doesn’t want to hear in this election year.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Special report: The battle for Ukraine”][vc_column_text]Losing battle for truth in Russian lecture halls, by Ilya Matveev: The war has put a new strain on academic freedom. A Russian lecturer laments his lost classroom.
Don’t be afraid to say two plus two is four, by Mark Frary and Alla Gutnikova: As a convicted student journalist speaks out for freedom, do Russian dissidents once again face the gulag?
Emotional baggage, by Slavenka Drakulic: How it feels to pack up a life in Ukraine and become a refugee.
Back to the future, by Martin Bright: The world has been turned
upside down for Ukrainian reporters, and this is their new landscape.
On not being shot, by John Sweeney: Amidst the Kremlin-wrought
wreckage, do we need a new era of journalism?
Turkey’s newfound russophilia, by Kaya Genç: Putinism is seeping into Turkey, and it spells trouble for future freedoms.
Divided by age and a tv screen, by Hanna Komar: How do you make sure your
family see the truth when they’re blinded by Kremlin propaganda? A Belarus activist speaks out.
Culture in the cross hairs, by Andrey Kurkov: Decades after Soviet rule, Ukrainian culture is once again under threat, as are the lives behind the creative expression.
Bordering on media control, by Kseniya Tarasevich: False information about
Ukraine finds fertile breeding ground in Poland.
Worth a gamble, by Jemimah Steinfeld: When telling the truth is a crime, turn to a criminal spam operation.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Comment”][vc_column_text]
Cancel Putin, not culture, by Maria Sorenson: Banning Russian artists assumes
that they are all collaborators of the Russian state and goes against artistic freedoms.
The silent minority, by Ruth Smeeth: A tribute to those whose work never saw the light of day.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Culture”][vc_column_text]‘The light is no longer the light it used to be’, by Lyuba Yakimchuk: The poet on children being indoctrinated and the elderly disorientated in Russia-occupied Ukraine.
A cassandra worth heeding, by Dominic Cavendish: Murdered Russian journalist
Anna Politkovskaya, whose dispatches from Chechnya should be put in the spotlight.
Poetic injustice, by Stephen Komarnyckyj: History is repeating itself
on the pages penned by Ukrainian writers.
Banking on Russia’s poetic spirit, by Maria Bloshteyn and Yulia Fridman: A “piggy bank” of Russian poetry is fighting on the right side of Putin’s war.
Metaphors and madness, by Eduardo Halfon: In Guatemala, truth is best expressed through fiction.
Metal shows its mettle, by Guilherme Osinski: A heavy metal band labelled
“satanic” by Iran is free from prison and taking back the microphone.
America’s coming crucible, by Jo-Ann Mort: Women in the USA might soon be in the dark about their own bodies.
In the summer 2022 issue of Index on Censorship, people across the spectrum talk about the corrosive effect of the war in Ukraine on freedoms. Viktoria Sedult, a journalist in Hungary, writes about how Europe’s most right-wing leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, used fears of being embroiled in the war to secure a resounding electoral victory. Hanna Komar, an activist from Belarus, tells how she is desperately trying to challenge her parents on the lies they see on their TV. We give space to Ukrainian writers and artists, with a moving essay from Andrey Kurkov on how today, as in the past, Russia is trying to erase Ukraine’s culture, and a discussion with the poet Lyuba Yumichuk on children in Donbas being fed an alternative history. We publish the court statement from student journalist Alla Gutnikova, one of the Doxa Four sentenced to two years’ “correctional labour” in April, alongside an interview with her. Ilya Matveev, a Russian academic, writes about the incredibly difficult environment in his St Petersburg classroom, which eventually led him to flee. And we spotlight the amazing ways people are fighting back.
Andrey Kurkov is an Ukrainian author who has written about 20 documentary, fiction and TV movie scripts and also 19 novels, including the bestseller Death and the Penguin. Read More
Andrey Kurkov is an Ukrainian author who has written about 20 documentary, fiction and TV movie scripts and also 19 novels, including the bestseller Death and the Penguin.
The summer issue of Index magazine concentrated its efforts on the developing situation between Russia and Ukraine and consequential effects around Europe and the world. We decided to give voice to journalists, artists and dissidents who chose to respond to this...
A journalist covering a demonstration in Kyiv, Ukraine, August 2020. Credit: Oleksandr Polonskyi/Shutterstock
While media crews from around the world are arriving in Ukraine to cover the situation amid a build-up of Russian troops on Ukraine's border, local journalists are trying to overcome the many obstacles that stand in the way of their media freedom. The working environment is challenging: from disinformation campaigns and orchestrated propaganda to limited resources in newsrooms, attacks on journalists and the often inadequate response of law enforcement.
In Ukraine, the armed conflict has been going on for almost eight years, ever since Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula and put armed forces in eastern Ukraine. In the wake of this, the Ukraine government has trod a difficult path as they have tried to balance media freedom and plurality against the risks that could be posed from an unregulated media landscape. They have not always made the right decisions. For example, one year ago, President Volodymyr Zelenskyimposed sanctionsthat resulted in three TV channels associated with a pro-Russian politician - ZIK, NewsOne and 112 Ukraine - being taken off air. While some Ukrainian media expertssupported the move, others saw it as repressive andcriticised the authorities because they bypassed legal procedures and did not provide enough information to justify emergency restrictive measures.
At the same time Ukraine does face a real problem when it comes to misinformation. The ecosystem of online platforms and various social media in Ukraine that are being used by both state, influential non-state and political players is extensive. According to areport from Freedom House, paid commentators and trolls have proliferated Ukraine’s online public space. In many cases, these online platforms are anonymous and are spreading and amplifying messages that benefit the Russian government and seek to destabilise the Ukrainian political landscape. Many of these accounts have tens of thousands of subscribers and are being used by interested parties from inside or outside the country. They spread anything from malicious disinformation to banal clickbait to attract news audiences and they also attack journalists. According to the Institute of Mass Information survey, the majority of Ukrainian journalists have experienced some form of cyberbullying.
Independent journalists suffer from the damage related to misinformation, and their day-to-day duties are not easy either. Media workers in Ukraine are often defenseless against attacks and police responses to them can be inadequate. About 100 Ukrainian media workers were physically assaulted in 2021, revealed Ukraine’s National Union of Journalists (NUJU). This is hardly an improvement on the last year, when 101 journalists were physically assaulted.
Despite the tightening of legislation regarding accountability for attacks on journalists, the efficiency of the law enforcement system remains low, so the perpetrators often go unpunished. Several murders of famous journalists have not yet led to the punishment of those responsible. In 2019, Vadim Komarov, a journalist and blogger from Cherkasy, was violently attacked by an unknown person in a city center. Komarov was known for his exposes of corruption. He died in hospital after several months in a coma. Police still haven'tfound the perpetrator and the investigation remains open.
Anotherfrightening example of the violence that Ukrainian journalists encounter in their work is the murder of Pavel Sheremet in 2016. Sheremet, who was a harsh critic of Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian authorities, died in a car explosion in downtown Kyiv. Three years later, after a new president came to power, the police detained five suspects. The trial is ongoing and as yet no one has been sentenced.
Sometimes difficulties arise from where they were not expected.For example, the NUJU says that rising prices for natural gas and fuel have caused many regional newsrooms to be unable to heat their editorial offices.
It's hardly a surprise that about 48% of journalists reported self-censoring in the Ukrainian media, according to a 2019 study by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation. Topics related to patriotism, separatism, terrorism and Russia were the ones most avoided. And almost 65% believe that the war has increased self-censorship. Then there are those who literally get told what to say. For example, former employees of the state TV channel DOM have spoken about censorship by the Office of the President of Ukraine, which has demanded positive news about the president and his initiatives.
Given all of these attacks, how exactly can Ukraine's journalists hold power to account?
And yet, thanks to the efforts of the journalistic community there is progress, the head of the NUJU Sergiy Tomilenko believes. Representatives of media and journalistic organisations have consistently raised concerns about the safety of journalists publicly and in face-to-face meetings with government officials for years. According to Tomilenko, the police have begun to investigate faster than before, and now see attacks against journalists as what they are - threats to the very nature of their work.
Media freedom and pluralism is crucial in general and no more so now. We need to see more positive change and fast.
10 October 2016: Belarus Free Theatre project Ai Weiwei's symbol of freedom of expression onto five iconic buildings across London to highlight the case of Oleg Sentsov. Credit: Graeme Robertson
"We urgently call upon British politicians to put justice, human rights and international law ahead of business interests and to look afresh at the cases of the Kremlin hostages, [and] all political prisoners held by Russia, including our friend Oleg Sentsov," co-founding artistic director of Belarus Free Theatre, Natalia Kaliada said.
On Monday 10 October, the theatre company hosted Freedom of Expression in Ukraine, an event at the House of Commons, in solidarity with Oleg Sentsov, a popular film director and pro-Ukrainian activist serving a 20-year prison sentence as well as all other Ukrainian political prisoners currently detained in Russian jails.
Sentsov is currently imprisoned in Siberia and is facing 18 more years in jail on charges of being part of a terrorist conspiracy. Sentsov has stated that he was tortured by investigators, and that a key witness recanted in the courtroom on the grounds that evidence had been extorted under torture. His lawyers describe the case against him as "absurd and fictitious".
The night included a film calling for Sentsov's release featuring actor Simon Callow, Belarusian Nobel Laureate for Literature Svetlana Alexievich, Polish film director and chair of European Film Academy Agnieszka Holland, actor Will Attenborough, film director Yuri Khaschevatsky and fashion designer and activist, Vivienne Westwood.
Natalia Kaplan, a cousin of Sentsov, could not be in London for the event but recorded a special video appeal for his release.
Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina and members of Belarus Free Theatre read extracts of letters from Sentsov and short scenes from Belarus Free Theatre's latest production, Burning Doors. Other speakers included Andrei Khliyvynuk, activist and frontman of Ukrainian supergroup Boombox, and film and theatre-director-turned-soldier Eugene Stepanenko.
Nobel Laureate for Literature Svetlana Alexievich and British filmmaker Lord Puttnam both recorded a special message for the event.
Sentsov first came to the attention of the international film world with Gamer, a debut feature inspired by the computer and video-gaming club for young people that he had founded. It opened to great acclaim at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 2012.
The European Film Academy together with leading international film directors, including Pedro Almodóvar, Wim Wenders, Stephen Daldry, Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, have campaigned for Sentsov’s release, echoing the grave concerns of Amnesty International that his trial was a “total fiasco” and that the “entire case for the prosecution is built on a house of cards”.
Fernando Bovaira named Sentsov an honorary member of the 62nd San Sebastian Film Festival’s main competition jury, and a chair was reserved for him in solidarity.
During the evening, an image of Ai Weiwei’s middle finger was projected onto five iconic buildings in London: The National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing, The Forth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, Royal Opera House, Soho’s Gerrard Street and Tate Modern, together with a short film of Sentsov’s "sham trial" to garner UK public support and attention to his plight.
Ai's finger, is used as a symbol of freedom "a powerful reminder of the need to strive for justice and freedom of expression," explained Kaliada.
Credit: Graeme Robertson.
Credit: Graeme Robertson
Credit: Graeme Robertson
Credit: Graeme Robertson
Credit: Graeme Robertson
The demonstration was part of Belarus Free Theatre’s I'm with the Banned campaign which is an artist-led effort to bring together those who live in political freedom in solidarity with artists and activists who are censored or imprisoned in Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and anywhere else in the world where justice and freedom are denied.
Kaliada said: “In recent months, Ukraine has disappeared off the public radar even though the war rages on and Russia continues to drag the world into a new Cold War at a highly sophisticated level that endangers people living in the geopolitical knot known as Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, as well as threatening the global security of people further across the world."
She said that London is where the founding members of Belarus Free Theatre sought shelter five years ago when they arrived in the UK as political refugees from Belarus."For one night, the walls of the city will speak on behalf of those who are silenced, and one of the greatest capitals of the world will stand with us in solidarity with Oleg Sentsov," she said. "As contemporary artists and human beings we have only one tool: creativity."
