The awards, now in their twenty-second year, celebrate those who risk arrest, assault and imprisonment through their championing of freedom of expression. This year’s panel of judges consists of multi-award-winning artist Alison Jackson, artist and writer Coco Fusco, journalist Ben Preston, and Chair of the Index Board of Trustees Sir Trevor Phillips.
Awards were presented in three categories: the arts, campaigning, and journalism, alongside the annual Trustees Award. The winners were:
The 2022 Trustees Award – Andrey Kurkov
Andrey Kurkov is a writer, journalist, and the current president of PEN Ukraine. Born in St Petersburg in 1961, he graduated from the Kiev Foreign Languages Institute, worked as a journalist and did military service as a prison warder in Odessa. He became a writer, producing screenplays and authoring critically acclaimed and popular novels, including Death and the Penguin. Kurkov is a hugely respected commentator on Ukraine, and his most recently translated novel, Grey Bees, explores the current conflict through adventures of a beekeeper.
The 2022 Freedom of Expression Award for Journalism – Sophia Huang Xueqin
Huang Xueqin is an activist and journalist who has worked with several domestic Chinese media outlets. She has reported extensively on the MeToo movement in China. Huang has worked to promote women’s rights, and to document and expose sexual harassment against women and girls. She has faced legal challenges because of her work and was detained between October 2019 and January 2020 after writing about mass protests in Hong Kong. On 19 September 2021, Huang disappeared. It has since been confirmed that she had been detained along with labour activist Wang Jianbing and charged with “inciting subversion of state power”. She remains in detention and is now held in the No. 1 Detention Centre in Guangzhou.
The 2022 Freedom of Expression Award for Arts – Hamlet Lavastida Hamlet Lavastida has been described as a political activist by way of art, using his art to document human rights abuses in Cuba and to criticise Cuban authorities. Lavastida has been involved in various protest movements in Cuba, including the 27N movement which grew out of the protests held on 27 November 2020. In June 2021, Lavastida was arrested after returning from a residency at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. Following his arrest, Amnesty International named him as a ‘prisoner of conscience’. Lavastida stayed in prison for 87 days. Lavastida has been living in exile in Europe since September 2021, warned that he will be arrested immediately should he ever return to Cuba.
The 2022 Freedom of Expression Award for Campaigning – OVD-Info
OVD-Info is an independent human rights media project documenting political persecution in Russia. They collect information about detentions at public rallies and other cases of political pressure, publish news and coordinate legal assistance to assist detainees. The organisation was set up in 2011 to document arrests during the widespread anti-fraud protests, the organisation has now evolved to offer legal guidance and support to people arrested at peaceful protests in Russia. In September 2021, OVD-Info was labelled as a ‘foreign agent’ by Russian authorities. During the ongoing war in Ukraine and associated anti-war protests in Russia, OVD-Info’s work is more important than ever. Despite a highly unpredictable situation and persistent censorship, OVD-Info continues to support detained and persecuted protesters in Russia.
Ruth Smeeth, Index on Censorship CEO said: “Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression awards celebrate the bravery and brilliance of journalists, artists and campaigners from across the globe. Each and every winner is a beacon for free expression, standing up for their democratic rights and values in the face of often unimaginable personal peril. The quiet heroism of our winners gives us all reason to redouble our work to defend free speech and free expression around the globe, give voice to the persecuted, and stand against repression wherever we find it”.
OVD-Info is an independent human rights media project documenting political persecution in Russia. With the help of a hotline, they collect information about detentions at public rallies and other cases of political pressure, publish news and coordinate legal assistance to detainees.
The organisation was set up in 2011 to document arrests during the widespread anti-fraud protests. Initially, groups of journalists and specialists collected and published information about the arrests on social media. As the organisation grew and became more structured they eventually set up a website. The organisation has now evolved to offer legal guidance and support to people arrested at peaceful protests in Russia.
Over the last year, censorship has increased in Russia with many media sites blocked. In September 2021, OVD-Info was labelled as a ‘foreign agent’ by Russian authorities. This means that the organisation must add a disclaimer to any work they publish: “THIS NEWS MEDIA/MATERIAL WAS CREATED AND/OR DISSEMINATED BY A FOREIGN MASS MEDIA PERFORMING THE FUNCTIONS OF A FOREIGN AGENT AND/OR A RUSSIAN LEGAL ENTITY PERFORMING THE FUNCTIONS OF A FOREIGN AGENT.” Their website was later blocked by Russian authorities because they claimed that news about detained people glorified terrorism and extremism.
During the ongoing war in Ukraine and associated anti-war protests in Russia, OVD-Info’s work is more important than ever. Within the first 10 days of the war, OVD-Info registered more than 13,000 arrests at anti-war protests in Russia. In March 2022, Marina Ovsyannikova interrupted the Russian state Channel One while holding a sign saying “Stop the war. No to war.” Following her on-screen protest, OVD-Info released a pre-recorded video by Ovsyannikova where she explained her motivations.
Despite a highly unpredictable situation and persistent censorship, OVD-Info continue to support detained and persecuted protesters in Russia.
BBC Broadcasting House. Photo: Peter Hastings, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
This week I had planned to write about the importance of public service broadcasting. To focus on and celebrate 100 years of the world’s oldest national broadcaster, the BBC. I wanted to talk about my favourite programmes and highlight their successes and importantly their failures – because we should always have an honest appraisal of even those entities which we rely upon. But there is a bigger issue at play – in a world of disinformation and misinformation, where conspiracy feels like it’s becoming the norm we have never needed independent and publicly funded news outlets more.
Call me biased but the BBC is the best in the world and needs to be cherished and protected. Its journalists have been on the frontline of every new story for a century. They have documented every joy and every horror, without fear or favour. Because of them we have historical evidence of war crimes, of the Holocaust, of protests, of the rise and fall of governments in every corner of the world and of course the moments of global jubilation and joy.
I, for one, will always defend the institution of the BBC – it’s central to my daily life and I trust their output. I make no apologies for loving the BBC – but it’s not just the institution – it’s the promise of independent journalism, of being able to hold the powerful to account and of documenting events for posterity.
This week we have seen the value of public service journalism. In Manchester the BBC documented a democracy protester being dragged into the Chinese consulate by CCP officials. He was beaten. His story is now known and the subject of a diplomatic incident because the BBC covered the news. Bob Chen will have justice, or at least be protected because his story was told by independent journalists.
Contrast that with events in Russia. Protest is banned. Independent journalism all but crushed. Dissidents are arrested every day. Challenge is not tolerated. Their leaders never questioned.
I am so lucky to live in a democracy. To be blessed with a free press. To be able to hold my politicians to account.
Public broadcasting is integral to that – so Happy Centenary BBC – we’re lucky to have you.
I went on my first political demo when I was a baby – joining the march against pit closures. For four decades I have been on demos to save jobs; on pickets to support striking workers and; on marches against racism and political extremism. I have participated in political stunts at elections and vigils to mark horrendous and heartbreaking events. Each has been newsworthy to some extent, each was meant to be a mark of solidarity with a community or a group whose voice needed to be amplified in order to be heard. Each was a statement of my personal values and a commitment to make our society a little better.
But none of these acts of democratic participation required me to be brave. Not really. I never once considered if my political views could, on that day, cost me my life. Although in hindsight some of them made me very vulnerable. But I never thought about it seriously because I am so incredibly lucky to live in a democracy, to have basic human rights which protect my right to be heard, to protest, to assemble. To speak truth to power. My biggest threats came from individuals who wished me harm – not a government or a police force or a judiciary.
I am lucky. I know I am. And I am so grateful for it.
Which is why it is so important that people like me, like you, use their voices to promote those who are brave, those who risk everything by walking down the street without a head scarf, those who stage a sit in outside the Kremlin against an unjust war, those who unveil a banner exposing the tyrant that governs them. These people are brave beyond words. They use the only things available to them – usually their bodies – to challenge an unacceptable status quo. And by doing so they build a movement. They move the dial just a little and they place untold pressure on the tyrants and dictators who strive to silence them.
We have a duty to support them, to tell their stories and to amplify their voices. Because otherwise nothing changes.
The tyrants win if we let these acts of protest pass without notice. If we let global news move on and forget the faces of those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice to demand their access to the universal values that we hold so dear and so easily take for granted. We have an obligation to support the Iranian women in their demands for equality. We have a duty to tell the stories of those Russian dissidents who push back against Putin’s illegal invasion. We have a responsibility to ensure that the democracy campaigners imprisoned in Hong Kong are remembered. Not just today but every day.
We have to be, today and always, a Voice for the Persecuted.
