The week in free expression: 28 June–4 July 2025
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initiatives protecting free expression – like in Uganda, where crucial shelters and aid for LGBTQ+ citizens has been withdrawn, leaving them at the mercy of ever-increasing government crackdowns on their community.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.”
This week Index on Censorship took the unusual step of legally intervening in an employment appeal tribunal. As always our focus was on the core principle of free expression and protecting free speech in law. The tribunal has now concluded and has reserved judgment - we expect to learn the result in the coming months. Much will be discussed and written about in the coming days regarding the Maya Forstater tribunal, but for your information on what Index provided to the court please access