28 Apr 2025 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Newsletters, Tunisia
It was the event that started the Arab Spring: in December 2010, a 26-year-old Tunisian street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi fatally set himself alight in an act of despair against state corruption and brutality. This ignited a wave of popular uprisings across the region (pictured above). At Index we documented closely what happened next and we saw how it was a mixed picture, including in Tunisia. Index’s regional editor for Northern Africa at the time, Afef Abrougui, reported in 2012 on the country’s democratic transition being “in jeopardy” and freedom of expression being “under attack”. Still, for many years, hope remained that the darkest days were behind Tunisians. The country was hailed a rare, if imperfect, success of the Arab Spring. Today, sadly, no such praise can be given.
At the weekend, a Tunisian court handed down extreme prison sentences to opposition figures in a mass trial. According to their lawyer, the businessman Kamel Eltaïef was given 66 years and opposition politician Khayyām Turkī was given 48. It was another indication of President Kais Saied’s increasingly authoritarian rule.
Saied, a constitutional law professor who was democratically elected in 2019, initiated a self-coup in 2021, which ended Tunisia’s decade of democratic gains. He went on to fire nearly all government ministers, suspend parliament, create a new constitution, dissolve the independent supreme judicial council and sack dozens of judges. In addition to his political opponents, civil society and the media have since found themselves increasingly censored, though the victims extend beyond these usual targets: last year, officials from the Tunisian swimming federation were arrested for allegedly plotting against state security. Their crime? Not displaying the national flag at a competition.
At the end of 2024, Saied secured a second five-year term in office, receiving 90.7% of the vote, an easy win when the bulk of the opposition are either barred from participating or behind bars.
Despite this, many remain committed to democratic values, as was clear last September when thousands marched through the streets of Tunis to demand an end to Saied’s rule. And it’s not just on the streets that people are making their voices heard. In the latest issue of Index, we spoke to three artists whose recent works push back against Saied’s control. All of them admitted that it wasn’t easy but they are fully committed to creating art. “We need to keep speaking up,” said one.
We too need to keep speaking up – for Eltaïef, for Turkī and for all the others who continue to be punished for daring to dissent.
10 Mar 2025 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, Newsletters, Serbia
According to some analysts, the largest student-led demonstrations in Europe since 1968 are taking place today in Serbia. I almost missed that sentence in this story from the Sunday Times last weekend given all of the other news vying for my attention. I’m glad I didn’t. The article itself is well worth reading – a story that pulls in Abu Dhabi developers and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Now dodgy planning regulations aren’t exactly the lane of Index. But protests and the crushing of dissent most firmly are. So here is what you need to know.
For months now, Serbia has been rocked by huge demonstrations throughout the country, led by students. What began in November 2024 as a movement demanding accountability for a tragic railway station accident in Novi Sad, which claimed 15 lives, has transformed into a broader call for transparency, fair elections, media freedom and an end to corruption.
The protests have resulted in tangible outcomes, such as the resignation of Prime Minister Miloš Vučević and charges against 13 individuals over the train disaster. Serbia is a country where “there is no such thing” as free speech, according to Bosnian actor Fedja Stukan – who was deported in 2024 after speaking openly about his experiences in the 1990s war. The country’s ruling party has been accused of “a textbook process of state capture” and the protests have, unsurprisingly, been marked by serious violations to free speech.
Journalists covering them have faced harassment described as “escalating” and “systematic”. These attacks have included death threats against journalists like Ana Lalić Hegediš, and physical assaults, such as the forced removal of reporters from Novi Sad City Hall in January 2025. Additionally, NGOs critical of the government have been raided by Serbian police.
The students driving the protests have been careful to maintain their distance from political parties from the get-go, which they must have felt vindicated by this week – dramatic scenes emerged from parliament when opposition members launched a smoke bomb and flare protest, leading to injuries and damage. This has only added ammunition to government claims that the protests are part of a “colour revolution”, and that NGOs are foreign-funded agents destabilising the country. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, clipping scenes from parliament, was quick to support this narrative on X.
Expect more dramatic events from Serbia in the coming weeks. Sources on the ground tell me an extra big strike is planned for today and another for 15 March. And with that, be on guard – if history tells us anything, when it’s students versus state, it’s rare that the former win.
27 Sep 2024 | News and features, Newsletters, United Kingdom
Today two young British activists, Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, have been sentenced to prison after being found guilty of criminal damage following a stunt at London’s National Gallery. The pair, part of Just Stop Oil (JSO), famously threw Heinz tomato soup at Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers back in October 2022. At Southwark Crown Court, Judge Christopher Hehir sentenced Plummer to two years in prison while Holland was jailed for 20 months. Judge Hehir said the pair “couldn’t have cared less” if the painting had been damaged. But please note no person or painting was harmed in the making of this protest. The iconic painting’s frame, however, was (hence the charges). Should they be punished for the damage caused? Perhaps. But surely a simple fine, a suspended sentence, or community service would do? Jail time (and quite significant jail time at that) is problematic to say the least and follows a pattern of climate protesters being punished harshly in a way that makes it harder for others to join their cause and chorus.
Under the last government a series of legislation was introduced (the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, the Public Order Act 2023 and Serious Disruption Prevention Orders), each with the aim of restricting peoples’ right to protest and increasing the punishment for those who fall foul of the new laws. Their scale was evidenced earlier this summer when other JSO protesters were sentenced to four and five years’ imprisonment respectively for planning protests on the M25. Commenting at the time of the sentences Michel Forst, the UN’s special rapporteur on environmental defenders, said they should “put all of us on high alert on the state of civic rights and freedoms in the United Kingdom.”
It’s not just in the UK that the rights of non-violent protesters are being threatened. As Mackenzie Argent reports for Index here, it’s happening throughout Europe, Australia and North America. And while Argent’s article argues that it’s most pronounced in the UK, if the current Italian government gets its way the UK won’t be the worst for long. There, a new security bill proposes outlawing hunger strikes, one of the most powerful forms of protest open to a political prisoner, amongst other measures. All of the countries cited above claim to be democracies and yet these actions make the label look more decorative than substantive. It’s the same story in Israel. Last weekend soldiers marched into the Al Jazeera office in Ramallah, confiscated equipment and closed it for an initial 45 days. Israel’s military said a legal opinion and intelligence assessment determined the offices were being used “to incite terror” and “support terrorist activities”, and that the Qatari-owned channel’s broadcasts endanger Israel’s security. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has been pressed on these points by organisations like the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) but has not responded (and indeed when the IDF has made similar accusations in the past, it has provided little evidence to hold them up to scrutiny. See the BBC report here for example). So it simply looks like another attack on media freedom, a way to silence an outlet that can (and should) report to the world what is happening in the West Bank.
People need to be able to protest and they need to be able to report the news. When these two essential pillars are shut down in countries like the UK, the USA, Israel and Italy, the dividing line between democracies and autocracies becomes thinner and the former’s ability to call out the latter on their human rights violations becomes weaker.
19 Apr 2024 | Iran, News and features
While Iran and Israel continue to provoke each other in the aftermath of the 7 October attacks by Hamas, there are concerns that the fate of protesters in Iran, particularly those that started after the murder in custody of Jina ‘Mahsa’ Amini, are being forgotten as the Iranian leadership cracks down.
“Governments often utilise external conflicts to divert attention from domestic issues,” says exiled Iranian film-maker Vahid Zarezadeh. “In Iran, while the government addresses threats from abroad, it simultaneously intensifies its grip on civil liberties at home, particularly targeting women’s freedoms. This approach helps consolidate power internally by rallying nationalistic sentiments while suppressing dissent.”
Zarezadeh, who made the documentary White Torture in collaboration with the jailed 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi and Gelareh Kakavand, says, “Given the complexities of the current events in Iran and the ongoing regional tensions, it’s crucial to understand the multifaceted nature of the strife affecting the nation, particularly its impact on women and civil society. As Iran navigates its ongoing conflict with Israel, another critical issue persists domestically: the war against women in the streets of Tehran and other cities. This battle is intensifying with new legislative measures concerning the hijab, marking the beginning of a renewed phase of systematic suppression.”
Last September, Iran’s parliament passed a bill with a huge majority that meant that refusing to wear a hijab, either in person or even on video on social media, was considered as nudity. The bill allows for jail sentences of up to ten years for those who fail to adhere to the new measures. Iranian businesses that “promote or allow immoral behaviour”, including not wearing the hijab, are also targeted by the bill.
Zarezadeh says that pressure from the Iranian authorities on protest and dissent has increased markedly.
“A stringent crackdown on dissent has emerged, characterised by the systematic suppression of women and civil activists,” he says. “While the massive protests have lessened in visibility due to severe governmental crackdowns, underlying discontent remains. The fear of reprisal, particularly the death penalty, has tempered the public’s willingness to protest as openly as before.”
Even with the new stricter laws on dress code, he says that resistance against the compulsory hijab continues as a symbol of wider discontent with systemic gender-based restrictions.
“Despite the risks, including severe penalties such as the death penalty, the spirit of dissent still simmers, manifesting in smaller, yet persistent protests,” he says.
The resistance is still being kept alive through social media, and X in particular, where the hashtag #جنگ_علیه_زنان (“war against women”) has gained traction. Its widespread usage serves as a barometer for the internal sentiment against the current regime’s policies.
Videos showing women being violent attacked in broad daylight by the morality police and being thrown into the backs of vans are being widely shared using the hashtag, such as this:
Many women human rights defenders and activists have been thrown in prison, and face dire conditions with no adequate medical or sanitary provisions.
“A poignant example is Bahareh Hedayat, a prominent student activist who was temporarily released for medical treatment due to uterine cancer but has since been returned to prison,” says Zarezdeh. “Such cases underscore the severe and deteriorating conditions faced by women behind bars.”
One powerful symbol in the protests over the last two years were the actions of schoolgirls in protesting against the restrictions on women.
However, young protesters, including many schoolgirls, have since faced detention and other forms of intimidation. Detailed follow-ups on their situations are scant due to restrictions on information flow within the country.
The fate of the Iranian woman climber Elnaz Rekabi is also far from clear. Rekabi competed in a climbing tournament in South Korea in 2022 without a hijab.
“After her act of defiance by competing without a hijab, Elnaz Rekabi faced both support and significant pressure upon her return to Iran,” says Zarezdeh
When she flew home from South Korea, Rekabi said that her hijab had fallen off inadvertently. Her family’s villa in Iran was subsequently demolished, seemingly in punishment.
Zarezdeh says, “The full extent of Rekabi’s current situation remains unclear with concerns about her freedom and well-being continuing to linger.”
There continues to be a hunger for reform despite the crackdown. “The initial surge in hope for a potential regime change has been dampened by the forceful response from the authorities,” says Zarezadeh. “However, the desire for reform and change persists among various sectors of the society.”
