2 May 2025 | Africa, Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Hong Kong, Israel, Kenya, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Palestine, Uganda, 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 will publish a weekly news roundup of some of the key stories covering censorship and free expression from the past seven days. This week, we cover the arrest of a prominent Palestinian journalist, and how the Court of Appeal struck down anti-protest legislation in the UK.
Press freedom infringed: Prominent Palestinian journalist detained by Israeli forces in West Bank
On Tuesday morning, Palestinian journalist Ali Al-Samoudi was arrested by Israeli forces in the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank during a raid on his son’s home. Israeli officials stated that he was suspected of the “transfer of funds” to a terrorist organisation – a claim made with no evidence, and that Al-Samoudi’s family strongly denies. The arrest has also been condemned by the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate.
Arbitrary punishment for Palestinian journalists has become a recurring theme; Reporters Without Borders has named Palestine as “the world’s most dangerous state for journalists”. Nearly 200 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks and ensuing Israel-Hamas war, and the Committee to Protect Journalists reports that at least 85 journalists have been arrested in Gaza and the West Bank.
Al-Samoudi has been targeted before; in May 2022, he was working near the Jenin refugee camp when Israeli forces shot and injured him, killing his colleague Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh in the same attack. Over his career, Al-Samoudi has never faced accusations of terrorist affiliation, according to his family. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has reportedly said that he has now been transferred to Israeli security forces “for further treatment”.
The right to protest: UK anti-protest law defeated in the Court of Appeal
Protest rights have been under attack across the globe in recent years, and some of the most notable anti-protest legislation (the Public Order Act 2023) has been passed in the UK. This has drawn condemnation from human rights groups as they have made it more difficult to demonstrate within the bounds of the law, and have given the police more power to disrupt peaceful protest.
But on Friday 2 May, the London Court of Appeal dealt a blow to the ambitions of the UK Government to crack down on protests by agreeing with last year’s High Court ruling that anti-protest regulation was made unlawfully under the former Conservative government. The government appealed against this, but the Court of Appeal has now dismissed that appeal.
Human rights group Liberty, which initially challenged the anti-protest regulation, has described the decision as “a huge victory for democracy”.
Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman had tabled amendments to the Public Order Act 2023 using so-called Henry VIII powers to lower the threshold at which police could restrict protests to “more than minor” levels of disruption – a move which the High Court ruled as unlawful in May 2024.
Akiko Hart, director of Liberty, has stated that this ruling should serve as a “wake-up call” for Labour, who so far in its tenure in government have backed many of the same anti-protest laws as the Conservatives.
Attackers exposed: Kenyan government under fire after documentary investigates killing of protesters
On Monday, BBC Africa Eye released a documentary exposé that detailed how in June 2024 Kenyan security forces shot and killed three unarmed anti-tax protesters who were demonstrating against the Kenyan Government’s controversial finance bill.
According to the exposé, the protesters were posing no threat to the police officers at the time of the incident, and the BBC’s investigators claim they have identified the individuals who fired shots into the crowd.
The exposé has renewed calls for justice to be served to those officers who carried out the killings, with human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and the Kenya Human Rights Commission putting pressure on the Kenyan government to follow up on the BBC’s findings and ensure the identified officers “face the law”.
Government officials have been split on the documentary; a spokesperson called the documentary “one-sided”, and one legislator even called for the BBC to be banned in Kenya – while opposition politicians have largely been supportive of the exposé’s findings, with the main opposition coalition stating that the “execution of peaceful protesters was premeditated and sanctioned at the highest levels”.
Four years on: Pro-democracy lawmakers released from prison in Hong Kong
In 2021, the Hong Kong 47 were charged under a national security law imposed by the Chinese government. The 47 were made up of prominent pro-democracy campaigners, councillors and legislators in the city, accused of attempting to overthrow the government by holding an unofficial “primary” to pick opposition candidates in local elections.
The national security law was brought into effect in response to the wave of pro-democracy protests that swept across Hong Kong in 2019. Up to two million people took to the streets to protest peacefully; this was met with batons, tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and water cannons by the Hong Kong police.
It wasn’t until November 2024 that the campaigners were sentenced and jailed; sentences ranged between four and 10 years, with many of the Hong Kong 47 having been imprisoned since their initial arrest in 2021. The jail sentences have been widely condemned by democratic nations.
But this week, on Tuesday 29 April 2025, the first wave of activists were released from prison. Four individuals, including prominent opposition politician Claudia Mo, were among those imprisoned since 2021, and this was taken into consideration for their sentence – after more than four years behind bars, they have been set free.
Military-level punishment: Ugandan president accused of sending dissenters to military court
Opposition leaders in Uganda have accused Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni of silencing political dissenters and opposition by trying them before military courts rather than civilian courts.
This practice was attempted against opposition politician Kizza Besigye last year – he was abducted in Kenya in November and tried before a military tribunal for treason. Besigye, 68, underwent a 10-day hunger strike in protest at his detention, before a ruling by the Supreme Court demanded that his trial be moved to a civilian court. The landmark ruling found that trying civilians in military courts was unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court ordered all such cases to be transferred. If Besigye, 68, is found guilty of treason, he could be sentenced to death.
While Besigye’s case was eventually moved to a civilian court, Museveni has not been deterred. The government is attempting to push through a law allowing civilians to be tried in military courts. Despite its current illegality, the government has continually weaponised these courts to abuse political opponents, such as supporters of the National Unity Platform (NUP), led by popular opposition politician Bobi Wine (Robert Kyagulanyi). According to Amnesty international, more than 1,000 civilians have been unlawfully convicted in military courts in Uganda since 2002.
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.
