27 Jun 2025 | Africa, Americas, Asia and Pacific, Australia, Belarus, Europe and Central Asia, Hungary, Israel, Kenya, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Palestine, 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 Hungary’s banned Pride demonstration, and mass anti-government protests in Kenya.
Pride in spite of the law: Hungary’s LGBTQ+ march to go ahead in violation of police ban
On Tuesday 18 March, Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party led by Viktor Orbán rushed a bill through parliament banning LGBTQ+ pride marches, sparking outrage from the EU and activists. The ban was made on the grounds that such events are allegedly harmful to children, with Orbán stating “We won’t let woke ideology endanger our kids.” This put Budapest’s annual Pride march, scheduled to take place on Saturday 28 June, in jeopardy – but Hungary’s LGBTQ+ community is refusing to back down.
The march, which marks the 30th anniversary of Budapest Pride, is scheduled to go ahead with backing from Budapest’s liberal mayor, who has taken the step of organising the event through the city council under the name “Day of Freedom” to circumvent the law against LGBTQ+ gatherings – but the city police, still under the control of Fidesz, will be moving to quash these efforts. Those partaking in the event will be targeted by facial recognition technology and could face fines. With more than 200 Amnesty International delegates set to march alongside thousands of Hungarians in solidarity, Saturday is likely to see a clash between Hungary’s LGBTQ+ community and the state police.
Brutality begets brutality: Kenyan protests against government cruelty result in further loss of life
On 25 June 2024, a mass protest outside parliament in Nairobi against tax rises escalated into a tragedy, with Kenyan police officers firing on protesters as they attempted to storm the parliament building. The Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights announced that 39 had been killed in the nationwide demonstrations, and it was recently revealed by BBC Africa Eye that some officers had shot and killed unarmed protesters. Marking a year since this incident, Kenyans took to the streets this week to demonstrate against the government, and further brutality has followed.
Amnesty International Kenya has reported that 16 people were killed at the anniversary protests on 25 June 2025, with approximately a further 400 injured. CNN witnessed police firing live ammunition to disperse peaceful protesters, and the government regulator, Communications Authority of Kenya, issued an order for all local TV and radio stations to stop broadcasting live coverage of the protests. Tensions have been on the rise in recent months, with the murder of Kenyan blogger Albert Ojwang in police custody, and the shooting of street vendor Boniface Kariuki at a demonstration in Ojwang’s honour inflaming the situation further.
Free at last: Pro-Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil released
Palestinian-Algerian activist and Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil was released from his detention in a Louisiana Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility on the evening of Friday 20 June after 104 days in detention.
Khalil’s arrest sparked a national outcry. A prominent pro-Palestinian activist on Columbia’s campus, he would sometimes act as a spokesperson for the student protest movement, making him a prime target for ICE’s crackdown on immigrant protesters – despite Khalil holding a green card, which grants an individual lawful permanent resident status in the USA.
He was arrested without a warrant on 8 March 2025. Charged with no crime, Khalil was earmarked for deportation by Secretary of State Marco Rubio under the belief that his presence in the country had “foreign policy consequences”. This move was deemed unconstitutional, and Khalil was released after a Louisiana judge ruled that Khalil was neither a flight risk nor dangerous, and that his prolonged detention – which led to him missing the birth of his son – was potentially punitive.
Khalil returned to the frontlines of protests just days after his release, but his feud with the Donald Trump administration is far from over. The government is reportedly set to appeal the ruling to release Khalil, and rights groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have suggested that there could be a long legal road ahead.
Unfairly dismissed: Australian journalist wins court case after losing her job over Gaza repost
Australian journalist Antoinette Lattouf has won her court case against Australia’s national broadcaster, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), with a judge ruling she was unfairly dismissed from her job after sharing a post on social media about the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Lattouf reportedly shared a post by Human Rights Watch that accused Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza in December 2023, resulting in her sacking from her fill-in radio presenter role just hours later.
ABC claimed that the post violated its editorial policy, but after the ruling has apologised to the journalist, saying it had “let down our staff and audiences” in how it handled the matter. According to The Guardian, the broadcaster had received a “campaign of complaints” from the moment Lattouf was first on air, accusing her of anti-Israel bias based on her past social media activity. It has also been reported that due process around Lattouf’s dismissal was not followed, with the allegations in the email complaints not put to her directly prior to her sacking.
Justice Darryl Rangiah ruled that Lattouf had been fired “for reasons including that she held a political opinion opposing the Israeli military campaign in Gaza”, in violation of Australia’s Fair Work Act. Lattouf was awarded 70,000 Australian dollars ($45,000) in damages. She told reporters outside the courtroom “I was punished for my political opinion”.
Sudden freedom: 14 Belarusian political prisoners freed from prison following US official visit
During the visit of the US special envoy Keith Kellogg to Belarus’s capital Minsk, dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka made the surprise move of releasing 14 political prisoners from detention on 21 June 2025. The US brokered deal, reportedly led by Kellogg, saw the release of prominent Belarusian activist Siarhei Tsikhanouski who was arrested in 2020 and sentenced with 18 years in prison after declaring his intention to run for president. Also released was journalist Ihar Karnei who worked at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty for more than 20 years.
Tsikhanouski has recounted his experience in prison as being “torture”. He said he was kept in solitary confinement and denied adequate food and medical care, and he lost more than 100 pounds during his five years’ imprisonment. He told the Associated Press that prison officials would mock him, saying “You will be here not just for the 20 years we’ve already given you – we will convict you again” and “You will die here.”
Tsikhanouski is the husband of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who following his arrest took his place in running for president and became the main opposition leader in Belarus. Now living in exile in Lithuania, the two have been reunited in Vilnius – but Tsikhanouskaya insists that her work is not finished with reportedly more than 1,100 political prisoners still remaining inside Belarusian jails.
13 Jun 2025 | Americas, Asia and Pacific, Bangladesh, Colombia, Europe and Central Asia, Italy, Mexico, News and features, 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 how one European government is targeting journalists with spyware, and the crackdown on protest in Los Angeles which has pitted the US president against the governor of California.
State-sponsored espionage: Italian government revealed to be using spyware on activists
On 5 June 2025 an Italian parliamentary committee admitted that the country’s government had been using a product of Israeli spyware company Paragon Solutions to view encrypted messages between Italian activists involved in migrant rights. The spyware service, called Graphite, allowed the operators to view private WhatsApp conversations between activists. That the Italians had been using Graphite spyware had been made public knowledge in February 2025, and Paragon reportedly cut ties with the Italian government as a result, claiming that they had breached the terms of the contract by targeting members of civil society.
Though the parliamentary committee admitted that the government had been using the software, they denied that Italian journalist Francesco Cancellato, editor of news website fanpage.it had been targeted. An investigation by Citizen Lab has since revealed that both Cancellato and the head of Fanpage Ciro Pellegrino had indeed been hacked by Graphite spyware, although those responsible have not been identified. Fanpage, based in Naples, has been repeatedly critical of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, but the government denies any involvement in the hacking of these two journalists. The parliamentary committee stated that all surveillance was done in accordance with national law – but the case has sparked outrage over the use of spyware across Europe, and an EU parliamentary debate on the matter has been scheduled for 16 June.
The battle of Los Angeles: National guard summoned to crack down on mass protests against ICE
Over the last week, the state of California has been gripped by unrest. Protests that started in response to workplace raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have grown into a daily occurrence, with riot police called in to enforce a night-time curfew imposed by city mayor Karen Bass – who has demanded that ICE leave the city. President Donald Trump has responded to these protests against ICE with a fierce crackdown, claiming that he must “liberate” Los Angeles from protesters and calling both the National Guard and the Marines to the city. This in turn sparked a feud with California Governor Gavin Newsom, who accused Trump of a “brazen abuse of power” and claimed that “democracy is under assault before our eyes.”
The protests have been largely peaceful, but were met with a stern crackdown that turned violent. Videos have circulated of protesters being trampled by officers on horseback and beaten with wooden batons; numerous journalists have reported being shot with rubber bullets, and tear gas has been used against non-violent demonstrators. The repercussions of the protests have stretched beyond the streets of Los Angeles. California senator Alex Padilla was pinned to the floor and handcuffed during a press conference by Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem when he stood to ask a question, an incident which Governor Newsom described as “outrageous, dictatorial, and shameful”. Despite a federal judge ruling that Trump’s deployment of the National Guard was illegal, an appeals court declared that Trump will maintain temporary control of the guard – signalling that this long week of unrest is far from over.
A lapse in defence: Colombian presidential candidate shot in the head had security reduced on day of attack
On 7 June 2025, Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe was shot twice in the head at a campaign rally in Bogotá. Uribe survived the attack and has undergone major surgery, but his condition is still extremely serious – and it has been revealed that his security detail on the day of his attack was reduced.
Colombian president Gustavo Petro announced on 9 June that Uribe’s protection team was found to have been reduced from seven to three people ahead of his rally in Bogotá, and called for an investigation into the incident. Uribe’s lawyer Victor Mosquera stated that he has filed a criminal complaint against his security detail, alleging that he had made over 20 requests for increased security in 2025. Two individuals have been arrested, including the alleged shooter – a 15-year-old boy who reportedly stated he acted “for money, for my family”.
The attack brings back unwanted memories of a nation fraught with violence. Uribe’s mother, Diane Turbay, was kidnapped and murdered by the cartel of Pablo Escobar in 1991. Human Rights Watch report that homicides and kidnappings in the country have gone up 20.9% and 34.8% respectively since 2016.Frontline Defenders have identified Colombia as the most lethal country in the world for human rights defenders.
A tragic loss: Dhaka University student takes his own life following harrassment over social media post
24-year-old Shakil Ahmed, a fine arts student at Dhaka university in Bangladesh, took his own life in the early hours of Tuesday, 10 June, after he had received threats over a post on Facebook.
Reports from Singair police station state that an old post by Ahmed, in which he allegedly wrote derogatory comments about Prophet Muhammad, resurfaced and went viral on Facebook. Ahmed’s cousin, Mukta Akter, stated that during the night of 9 June, several hundred people from the surrounding areas converged upon Ahmed’s family home, threatening him and his family over the post despite him already deleting it. Ahmed then made a series of Facebook posts claiming that he did not insult Prophet Muhammad, but that he had “lost the respect of his people” and wrote in one last post that “I cannot live in this world knowing I have destroyed my parents’ dignity”.
Detention and oppression: Indigenous activists in Mexico violently repressed
The Hñöhñö (Otomi) people are an Indigenous group live in Mexico’s central plateau, largely in the state of Queretaro. On 4 June 2025, two young Hñöhñö people were reportedly arbitrarily detained by police while on their way to work in the settlement of Santiago Mexquititlán. A community group organised a peaceful protest against their detention, but they were reportedly met with violence from the Querétaro State Police (POES).
POES agents reportedly violently detained five of the protesters and held them incommunicado for several hours, while the remaining demonstrators were surrounded by police forces. Hñöhñö human rights defender Estela Hernández Jiménez was one of those detained while attempting to document the arrests of the two Hñöhñö youths. She was reportedly beaten and abused by several police officers, before they took her into custody. Jiménez, who was released later that evening, claims she was physically and sexually assaulted by officers. Local human rights groups have condemned the incident claiming that it is part of a wider systematic effort of violence against Indigenous communities in Mexico by the state, dubbing it a “war of extermination”.
23 May 2025 | Afghanistan, Africa, Americas, Asia and Pacific, El Salvador, Europe and Central Asia, Kenya, News and features, Palestine, Russia, Tanzania, Uganda, 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 arrest of a human rights lawyer and how Russia has banned Amnesty International.
Detained for her work: Leading human rights lawyer arrested for supporting immigrants
Cristosal is one of the most prominent groups working to defend human rights in Central America. Over recent months, it has supported those wrongfully deported to El Salvador from the USA, and now one of its most prominent figures is paying the price for this work. Ruth López, chief legal officer in anti-corruption for Cristosal, has been arrested in El Salvador over a decade-old embezzlement accusation from when she worked in electoral courts.
Arrested late on Sunday 18 May, her family and legal team have no knowledge as to her whereabouts and are concerned about her safety. Numerous human rights organisations have come out in her defence, condemning her arrest as a violation of due process, and outlining the “environment of fear” that is prevalent in the country.
Cristosal wrote on Bluesky that Lopez is “likely the victim of short-term enforced disappearance”, constituting a “serious human rights violation under international law”. López has led multiple legal cases against the Salvadoran government, and Cristosal claims that she has been the target of smear campaigns and social media attacks coordinated by Nayib Bukele’s government, and that this is its latest attempt to silence her for her work.
No amnesty for Amnesty: Prominent human rights group banned in Russia
On Monday 19 May, Russia officially announced that it would ban the prominent human rights organisation Amnesty International from operating within the country, designating it “undesirable”. The Kremlin claims that Amnesty is the “centre of preparation of global Russophobic projects”, and that it “[justifies] the crimes of Ukrainian neo-Nazis”.
Amnesty has continually documented Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, and the organisation has long been on Russia’s blacklist, with its website blocked and its Moscow office closed since the early days of the war. The group is far from the first to be banned by the Kremlin; since 2015 the register of “undesirable organisations” has been used to ostracise hundreds of human rights groups and media outlets. Amnesty International’s secretary general Agnès Callamard said that “you must be doing something right if the Kremlin bans you”, and outlined the organisation’s intentions to keep exposing Russia’s human rights violations in both Ukraine and Russia.
University protests: Student has degree revoked for pro-Palestine speech
Since Donald Trump was inaugurated in January, university campuses have become key battlegrounds in the fight for free expression in the USA. Some pro-Palestine protesters have been arrested on campus, others have been punished through suspension, and the Trump administration has threatened to withdraw funding from schools and universities that allow what it deems “illegal protests”. International students are at particular risk, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have detained and attempted deportations of student protesters who are in the USA on visas or green cards.
Despite the threats facing them, it appears that students are not being deterred from protesting. New York University (NYU) undergraduate Logan Rozos gave a pro-Palestine speech at his graduation ceremony last week, condemning the war in Gaza. “The genocide currently occurring is supported politically and military by the United States, is paid for by our tax dollars and has been live-streamed to our phones,” he said. NYU quickly announced that the university is withholding his diploma while it pursues disciplinary action against him.
Similarly, this week, George Washington University (GWU) student Cecilia Culver criticised her university’s ties to Israel and called for students to withhold donations to GWU in a graduation speech that went viral on social media. She has since been banned from campus, with some groups calling for the withdrawal of her diploma until she apologises.
In February it was announced that a federal government taskforce set up to tackle antisemitism would be investigating events that have occurred at 10 universities, and both NYU and GWU are on this list.
Media shutdown: Taliban fires 300 from national broadcaster in mass budget cuts
As part of an initiative to cut government spending, the Taliban has fired more than 300 members of staff from the prominent national broadcaster Radio Television of Afghanistan (RTA), 91 of whom are women. Many were journalists and editors who had worked for the organisation for decades. The Afghanistan Journalists Support Organization (AJSO) believes that this is more than just a cost-cutting exercise.
In a statement on X, AJSO outlined how this continues a theme of media suppression by the Taliban, and that the decision is part of “the systematic exclusion of women from the public sphere, especially in the media”. The drive to remove women from the workplace has intensified since the Taliban regained control of the country in 2021; state-run nurseries in Kabul have reportedly seen more than 100 female staff dismissed, while hundreds of women professors have been fired from public universities across the country. At the end of last year, women were banned from training as midwives and nurses.
A 2024 UN report also outlined how the Taliban has devastated the country’s independent media landscape, with the latest cuts appearing to be a continuation of these efforts.
Freed on demand: Two activists released from detention in Tanzania following government requests
Boniface Mwangi, a prominent Kenyan activist and journalist, and Ugandan activist Agather Atuhaire have reportedly been returned to their home countries following a three-day detention in Tanzania. Mwangi and Atuhaire were in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on Monday 19 May for the court case of Tanzanian opposition leader Tundu Lissu when they were arrested. They were taken into custody, with their whereabouts unknown, and allegedly denied access or contact with either their lawyers or families.
The Kenyan government publicly protested the detention, calling on Tanzania to release Mwangi in an open letter on Thursday 22 May – later that day, Mwangi was dumped on the border of Kenya and Tanzania. Mwangi has recounted his experiences in detention, claiming that he and Atuhaire were tortured while in custody. Atuhaire was also found at the border of Tanzania and Uganda, after the Ugandan High Commission wrote to Tanzania seeking information about her whereabouts. Amnesty Kenya has condemned their detentions, and has called for an independent investigation into the allegations of torture and human rights abuses by Tanzanian officials.
21 May 2025 | Europe and Central Asia, Israel, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Palestine, United Kingdom
On Saturday 17 May, veteran human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell was arrested. Tatchell is no stranger to arrest. When he celebrated his 70th birthday in January 2022, his post marking the occasion said he’d been arrested 100 times. At the end of that year he added another one to the list, this time in Qatar, where he was protesting the country’s criminalisation of LGBTQ+ people ahead of the World Cup. That arrest wasn’t exactly surprising. Qatar doesn’t tolerate protest, much as it doesn’t tolerate gay people.
But Saturday’s arrest was different. Tatchell was detained in central London while peacefully partaking in a large-scale pro-Palestine march. Another twist: Tatchell believes he was reported to the police by the protest organisers themselves because his message called out Hamas, as well as the Israeli government. He was carrying a placard that read: “STOP Israel genocide! STOP Hamas executions! Odai Al-Rubai, aged 22, executed by Hamas! RIP!” The police also said Palestine march stewards told them he shouted “Hamas are terrorists”, which he firmly denies.
Let’s pause here for a moment. For the past two months protests have been taking place in Gaza against Hamas. In response, Hamas has reportedly issued orders via one of its Telegram channels for the execution of all “traitors and troublemakers”. Odai Al-Rubai was one of them. According to his family he was brutally beaten and his lifeless body dumped outside his home with the message: “This is what happens to people who criticise Hamas.” According to Tatchell, who wrote a blog post on his website in response to Saturday’s arrest, others have suffered a similar fate.
Tatchell’s point was simple: if you care about Palestinian lives, you should care about all the forces threatening them – including Hamas. For that, he says, he was told by a small minority of protesters at the start of the march to “fuck off”, “get out of here” and called “Zionist scum” (the police incidentally did nothing) before being reported on and taken away.
The idea that calling out Hamas somehow makes you an enemy of the Palestinian cause is bonkers, frankly. And yet this idea has taken hold. I’ve experienced this myself. In the past 19 months I’ve frequently criticised Israel for its attacks on freedom of expression (and human rights more broadly). But the moment I mention Hamas, the tone shifts. Eyes roll. The atmosphere chills. It’s not just that people seem uncomfortable with the idea of pulling up anyone from Gaza, there’s a suggestion there too: “well, you would say that – you’re Jewish”.
For me the response has been frustrating – if we’re talking about freedom of expression violations we have to be consistent. Hamas isn’t exempt. Eye roll all you want; for others though, the treatment has been far worse. Add to the Tatchell example these: A recent report looking at the state of freedom of expression in the UK arts sector detailed how an artist was bullied out of a collective for criticising Hamas; Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Gazan peace activist living in the USA, is relentlessly targeted online — including with death threats — for condemning the group.
Such division, and the inconsistency in approach, is deeply unhelpful. At Index on Censorship we frequently defend the right of peaceful pro-Palestinian voices to be heard because they absolutely have experienced significant silencing – around the world, including in the UK – and that is wrong. Now some within those same spaces are turning on others. It’s a textbook case of free speech for me, not for thee – and it too is wrong.
That the police complied might also look like an anomaly. In truth, it was the result of several disturbing patterns converging. Tatchell was arrested at a protest, and whilst standing in a designated area, something he was forced to point out to the police. Stories like this are fairly par for the course with UK demonstrations these days since the last government pushed through sweeping anti-protest laws. In one of the most stark signs of police overreach, 87-year-old Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos was questioned earlier this year under caution by police in connection to his peaceful involvement in a pro-Palestine demonstration in January.
In many of these cases, the police don’t seem to be exercising much judgment. With Tatchell, they acted on a report and arrested a protester whose placard was critical, not hateful. He was accused of “racially and religiously aggravated breach of the peace”, and of being part of a counter-protest movement. Perhaps they saw the word Hamas and jumped to the conclusion that he was promoting the group? Perhaps they didn’t read his words before it accusing Israel of genocide? Perhaps they didn’t see his “Free Palestine” badge?
Whatever the reason, it’s lazy work. The police appear to be acting more like blunt algorithms than sentient beings, and it’s not unique to Tatchell. As The Economist warned in its latest issue, police in Britain are arresting 30 people per day for speech online, double the 2017 rate. Some are for serious crimes, while others are for posts that people have found offensive, which fall short of the threshold of being a crime.
So his arrest wasn’t surprising. But it was, and is, deeply worrying. And it was a reminder of several important things, one being that the UK’s draconian protest laws need to go. Several organisations are fighting the new legislation and others need to join in. Beyond these laws the police need to be better trained on the nuances around speech. Their job is to keep the public safe, not to reach for handcuffs every time someone gets reported on.
Finally, those in the protest movement who treat Hamas as beyond reproach should pause to reflect on the name Odai Al-Rubai – a young protester silenced by the very group claiming to defend his people. Great movements can come undone by the authoritarianism within them that they fail to confront, as much as by their enemies. To protect the cause, protesters must stop defending those who would never defend them.
