The Multipolar Challenge to Free Expression

02 Jul 13 | Volume 42.02 Summer 2013

The current issue of Index on Censorship magazine features a special report on the shifting world power balance and the implications for freedom of expression.

“The multipolar world can be one where universal human rights and freedom of expression are kept firmly on the agenda, and increasingly respected, if these democracies hold themselves and each other to account — and are held to account — at home and internationally,” write Index CEO Kirsty Hughes and London School of Economics professor Saul Estrin.

The issue also looks at press freedom in Italy, Burma, Mexico, Columbia and India as well as violence against journalists and arrests of those who expose uncomfortable truths.  “Worldwide, on average only one in ten cases of murders of journalists ends in a conviction,” says Guy Berger, author of an article on the threats and dangers journalists encounter around the world. Instead of being reassured that the rule of law will be upheld, “the take-away lesson for everyone is: journalists can be killed with impunity”.

From the current issue
Global view: Who has freedom of expression? | The multipolar challenge to free expression | Censorship: The problem child of Burma’s dictatorship | News in monochrome: Journalism in India

Also in this issue:

  • John Lloyd on how party politics have skewed Italian journalism
  • Yavuz Baydar says Turkey’s media moguls must defend free speech
  • Htoo Lwin Myo tells what was it is like to work as a writer in Burma
  • Bharat Bhushan on “paid-for” news and the absence of marginal voices in the Indian media
  • Lawrence Freedman and Benedict Wilkinson on the opportunities — and limits — of online activism
  • A new play from Turkmenistani writer-in-exile Farid Tukhbatullin, whose wit offers a glimpse of life inside one of the world’s most closed and repressive countries.
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