4 Jul 2025 | Africa, Algeria, Americas, Asia and Pacific, China, Europe and Central Asia, France, India, News and features, United Kingdom, United States
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 complete shutdown of USAID, and the imprisonment of a French football journalist in Algeria.
The end of an era: USAID closes its doors
After six decades, USAID – the world’s largest humanitarian aid agency – has been completely shut down. Following an increasing number of funding cuts, restrictions and staff layoffs that left it with only 20% of its agency programmes still running by March, the Trump administration has ordered USAID to be absorbed into the US state department, under the control of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Founded in 1961 under President John F Kennedy with the goal of fighting extreme poverty, disease and fostering democratic societies around the world, USAID also supported initiatives protecting free expression – like in Uganda, where crucial shelters and aid for LGBTQ+ citizens has been withdrawn, leaving them at the mercy of ever-increasing government crackdowns on their community. Such initiatives were criticised by Rubio, who described USAID as inefficient and stated that Americans will no longer “pay taxes to fund failed governments in faraway lands“. The state department will look to ensure that any foreign spending “prioritises national interests” to align with Trump’s “America First” approach.
The move has been condemned by former presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush; Obama stated at a video conference with USAID workers that “Gutting USAID is a travesty, and it’s a tragedy. Because it’s some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world”.
A Lancet study estimates that by 2030, roughly 14 million lives will have been lost as a result of USAID’s dismantling.
Arrested for sport: French football journalist imprisoned for seven years in Algeria
Prominent French football journalist Christophe Gleizes has been sentenced to seven years in prison by an Algerian court.
Gleizes, who was in Algeria to report on football clubs Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie (JSK) and Mouloudia Club d’Alger, was held in the country for 13 months following his arrest on 28 May 2024. He has been charged with “glorifying terrorism” and “possessing publications for propaganda purposes harmful to national interests”, charges that Reporters Without Borders have described as “shockingly unfounded” and “nonsensical”.
Gleizes allegedly corresponded three times with an individual who was a prominent figure at JSK, but is now the leader of Movement for Self-Determination of Kabylia (MAK); a separatist group dedicated to independence of the Kabylia region of Algeria and the Kabyle people, a minority group in the country. They were proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Algeria in 2021.
RSF have stated that two of the three interactions with this person were before MAK’s proscription, and that all discussions were purely related to football. So Foot, a French Football magazine to whom Gleizes would regularly contribute, stated that he was “imprisoned for doing his job”.
No freedom to write: Women arrested in China for writing gay erotica
Female authors in China are being targeted and arrested for writing danmei – homosexual erotic novels, largely written for a straight female audience. It has garnered a strong following amongst young Chinese women in recent years, but at least 30 danmei authors have been arrested in China since February 2025, accused of breaking China’s law against “producing and distributing obscene material”.
The law specifically targets “explicit descriptions of gay sex or other sexual perversions”, meaning that similar novels depicting heterosexual relations are often subjected to far less scrutiny. Authors who earn a profit from such material could face up to 10 years in prison, while any online work that garners more than 5,000 views is seen as “criminal distribution”.
Public backlash has been significant despite censorship around the topic. Chinese social media websites Weibo and WeChat have both seen discussions and articles critical of China’s anti-obscenity laws swiftly taken down. Xi Jinping has overseen increasing crackdowns on LGBTQ+ expression in recent years, calling for the “purification” of the internet, and in 2021 China’s National Radio and Television Administration issued a directive banning the appearance of “effeminate men” on screen.
State-sanctioned truth: Proposed jail terms for fake news in India
Legislation has been drafted in India that would see up to seven years’ jail time for those deemed to be spreading “fake news”. Proposed by the state of Karnataka, a prominent tech-hub state in southwest India, the Misinformation And Fake News (Prohibition) Bill outlines that posting fake news, “anti-feminist” content or “promoting superstition” would be subject to fines and imprisonment, but has not yet specifically defined what these offences entail.
Misinformation and fake news have been rampant online in India for years, with AI generated reports, deepfakes and lies causing major problems in a country with over 1 billion internet users. But this new proposal has raised concerns among free speech advocates over how it would be implemented, risking selective enforcement and honest mistakes being met with judicial punishment.
Apar Gupta, founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation who first made the draft legislation public, argued that misinformation is subjective in some cases, and that “every person who uses the internet is susceptible to falling within the dragnet of this law“. An opinion piece in The Deccan Herald, an Indian-English publication based in Karnataka, slammed the legislation as “anti-democratic” and a “remedy worse than the menace”.
UK book ban: Trans books removed from children’s sections across UK council
A Reform UK councillor at Kent County Council has announced that he has ordered the removal of all transgender-related literature from the childrens’ section of libraries in the county based on a single complaint from a “concerned member of the public”. The ban will affect 99 libraries and five mobile library vans.
Reform UK’s communities portfolio holder Paul Webb, who has responsibility for libraries, compared transgender literature to “alcohol, cigarettes and gambling” in terms of potential damage to children and stated that they should be protected from “potentially harmful ideologies and beliefs such as those held by the trans lobbyists.” Kent County Council leader Linden Kemkaran described it as a “victory for common sense in Kent”.
LGBTQ+ activists have expressed deep concern over the decision. Erin Strawbridge, manager of an LGBTQ+ bookshop in Folkestone, Kent, told the BBC that the ban “pushes kids into the closet, into worse mental health situations”. Liberal Democrat opposition leader Anthony Hook said that “it feels like an act of bullying towards a small, vulnerable group of people”, and that “We risk becoming a narrow-minded society if we limit what individuals choose to read.”
6 Jun 2025 | Africa, Americas, DR Congo, Europe and Central Asia, Honduras, Hungary, Israel, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, 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.
2 Jun 2025 | Europe and Central Asia, Hungary, News and features, Newsletters
The European Convention on Human Rights was set up in the aftermath of World War Two to protect the rights of people in the Council of Europe’s 47 member states. Enshrined within it are fundamental obligations around free speech, including the right to free expression and the right to protest. It was intended to act as a blueprint for democracy and a rules-based order – but certain member states are tearing up this rulebook, none more so than Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, and seemingly getting away with it.
In recent years, Orbán has intensified his crackdown on democratic principles, including eroding academic freedoms and increasing hostility towards the media. In April, Orbán even decided to withdraw Hungary from the International Criminal Court – a pan-global organisation set up to uphold the rule of law and hold those charged with the gravest war crimes accountable.
The LGBTQ+ community has been particularly targeted in Hungary, with laws passed abolishing the legal recognition of transgender people in 2020 and banning the depiction of homosexuality to under-18s in 2021. A recent escalation is a law banning Pride marches, introduced in March, under the guise that such gatherings are harmful to children. At the time, Orbán said: “We won’t let woke ideology endanger our kids.”
Hungary’s parliament has since passed a series of other amendments tightening the government’s grip on those seeking to attend Pride, which will allow authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify people at events, and potentially fine them up to 200,000 Hungarian forint (HUF), the equivalent of $560. Protests have erupted across Hungary since the law was passed, and thousands are expected to turn out in defiance at Budapest Pride on 28 June.
Meanwhile, other draft legislation is making its way through parliament that is reminiscent of Russia’s “foreign agent” law – the Transparency of Public Life bill, if passed, would allow the government to penalise and ban dissenting voices and critics deemed detrimental to Hungary’s national interests, including the press and NGOs.
Hungary’s recent actions not only contravene the ECHR, but also the European Union’s (EU) policies around democracy and human rights, as laid out in its treaties and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, of which its 27 member states are meant to abide by.
But the political tide appears to be turning. Hungary is clearly moving further and further away from the fundamental values of the EU, and many member countries are growing frustrated with the Central European state, and with the European Commission for not taking strong enough action.
This week, 17 EU countries, including France, Germany, Ireland and Spain, signed a declaration expressing their concerns and dismay over Hungary’s anti-Pride law. They have called on Orbán to revise it, and have asked the European Commission to take legal action against Hungary if it does not do so.
Michael McGrath, the EU commissioner responsible for democracy, said this week the “willingness is there” to take action against Hungary, and that a “comprehensive analysis of the relevant legislation is underway now”.
But so far, retribution for Hungary’s actions has been negligible. The European Council has discussed Hungary’s rule of law violations seven times in the European Parliament since 2018, but has never taken the next step in the process, which would allow member states to vote on sanctions against Hungary.
There have been some financial penalties, but relations between the EU and Hungary are likely complicated by the need for cooperation against Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In December 2022, the European Commission froze €30 billion ($34 billion) in funds to Hungary, after the country’s failure to address concerns around democracy and the rule of law; a year later, a third of these funds were unfrozen, with speculation that Orbán was threatening to impede the EU’s actions in supporting Ukraine.
Patience with Hungary amongst EU nations appears to be wearing thin. The question is: how long will Orbán’s impunity be allowed to continue, and what example does this set for other EU countries wishing to replicate his methods?
30 May 2025 | Africa, Americas, Asia and Pacific, Egypt, Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Russia, Samoa, Uganda, United Kingdom, 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 a controversial new monument to an infamous dictator, and Uganda’s “state-sanctioned bigotry”.
A tribute to repression?: Moscow unveils new Stalin statue in subway station
At the Taganskaya metro station in central Moscow, a controversial new monument has been revealed: a life-sized figure of Joseph Stalin, perhaps the most infamous and brutal of Soviet Russia’s dictators, amongst a crowd of adoring citizens. He stands before St Basil’s Cathedral and the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower, with a banner to his predecessor Vladimir Lenin unfurled above his head.
A monument to a leader who executed nearly 800,000 people, whilst millions more died in prison work camps known as Gulags and from famine under his reign, is of course highly controversial. The display has been dubbed a “gift” to the people who travel Moscow’s metro, and opinions have been firmly split amongst citizens – bouquets of red carnations adorn the feet of Stalin, left by those who look back fondly on the man who industrialised the Soviet Union, while others, such as members of Russia’s liberal Yabloko party, have protested the installation of a homage to “a tyrant and a dictator”, describing the statue as “an act of mockery against the descendants of the repressed”.
Should such a monument be permitted? To many, Stalin symbolises decades of brutality, repression, fear and censorship, and many have raised concerns that honouring him in this way embraces a history of violence at a time when Russia is waging an aggressive war in Ukraine. But some Russians see the monument as a memorial to a man who shaped much of their nation’s history. Artistic expression must be protected and history, including its horrors, must not be forgotten. However, ironically, when protesters left a poster on the monument displaying quotes from Vladimir Putin previously condemning Stalin, it was quickly removed, and one of the activists was detained, somewhat undermining the notion of artistic agency.
State-sanctioned bigotry: Human Rights Watch report condemns Uganda’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws
International NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has issued a damning report detailing how the Ugandan government has consistently repressed and restricted LGBTQ+ people throughout the reign of president Yoweri Museveni, particularly since the introduction of the Anti-Homosexuality Act in May 2023.
Uganda has been described as having the world’s harshest anti-gay laws, and the report reinforces this notion. The report details the 2023 act’s egregious punishments, which include the death penalty for “serial offenders” of “aggravated homosexuality”, and life imprisonment for same-sex conduct. It also enforced censorship, making any advocacy or discussion of LGBTQ+ rights punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
HRW reported a surge in threats towards LGBTQ+ Ugandans over the past two years, due to a targeted effort by Ugandan politicians to spread misinformation and shape public discourse against the LGBTQ+ community. Oryem Nyeko, senior Africa researcher at HRW, stated that Uganda must “end its assault on LGBT people and choose a future of dignity, equality, and freedom for all those who live there.”
The dangers of defamation: Samoa urged to repeal defamation law that silences journalists
On 1 May 2025, Samoan journalist Lagi Keresoma published an article alleging that a former police officer had appealed to the Head of State to have charges against him removed, reported to be forgery charges regarding a loan application. Just over two weeks later, Keresoma, head of the Journalists Association of (Western) Samoa (JAWS), was arrested and charged with defamation under a law which has long drawn international scrutiny.
Samoa’s harsh criminal libel law was previously repealed, but was reintroduced in 2017 with harsher penalties, and has since been weaponised against critical and investigative reporting. JAWS has stated that the case represents “a troubling development for press freedom in Samoa”, and that the defamation charges could be perceived as “an abuse of power to suppress public scrutiny and dissent.”
The country treats defamation as a criminal rather than a civil matter, something which the UN Human Rights Committee has warned against. Samoa has fallen significantly in Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index, from 22 in 2024 to 44 in 2025.
Arbitrary detention: UN rules that Alaa Abd el-Fattah is being held illegally in Egypt
Following an 18-month investigation, an independent UN panel has found that the British-Egyptian writer and activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah is illegally detained in Cairo, and has called on the Egyptian government to release him immediately.
Detained since 2019, el-Fattah was sentenced to five years in prison in 2021, convicted of spreading false news and harming Egypt’s national interests. Amnesty International described the verdict as a “travesty of justice”. Since September 2024, his mother Laila Souief, who is based in London, has been on hunger strike to protest his detention. She was admitted to hospital this week, marking the second time she has been hospitalised since February.
Many leading figures have called on the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) to issue warnings against travelling to the north African country, with former British ambassador to Egypt John Casson describing the country as a “police state” in a letter to The Times. He said that British citizens in the country “cannot expect fair process, nor normal support from the British government”, and that “Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s case is not isolated.” UK prime minister Keir Starmer has called Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sissi twice, urging for el-Fattah’s release, but no movement has yet been seen regarding the fate of one of Egypt’s most prominent writers.
An uncontested victory: Maduro make big gains in elections as opposition parties boycott
On 25 May, Venezuela’s regional and parliamentary elections took place, but the ballot papers were notably barren. Nicolás Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela’s (PSUV) stormed to victory in 23 out of 24 states. However, it was largely uncontested, due to a decision by the majority of opposition parties to boycott the vote in protest at last year’s presidential election, the results of which were proven to have been falsified.
Opposition leader María Corina Machado was a leading voice in the boycott campaign, stating that the true results of the 2024 presidential election must be adhered to before any other vote. In a video posted earlier this month, she announced that “We voted on 28 July. On 25 May, we won’t vote.” Venezuela’s electoral council claimed that the turnout was above 40%, but have neglected to post the election results online as was standard practice before 2024, with the pollster Meganálisis claiming turnout was actually around 14%.
Not all opposition members agreed with the boycott; former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles continued to campaign and urged Venezuelans to vote, arguing that by not voting, “all you’re doing is making things easier for the government.” But it seems that regardless of the outcome, Maduro would have clung on to power – and now, with an overwhelming majority in government and an ever-increasing crackdown on political dissidents, the future of both free speech and fair elections in Venezuela looks bleak.
