Naif Bezwan cannot pinpoint a certain moment in his life in which he decided to pursue academia. For Bezwan, rather, it has been a gradual process of situating his personal narrative within the context of his Kurdish community, within Turkey and within the world.
Bezwan, currently Honorary Senior fellow at UCL Department of Political Science, was born in Diyarbakir, one of the largest cities in southeastern Turkey. A focal point of conflicts between the Turkish government and insurgent groups, the city has a strong tradition of Kurdish liberation movement. Growing up, Bezwan heard the stories of previous generations, including those of his grandparents and relatives, about how they were repressed by the Turkish state. The trajectory of his academic interests was further shaped by his commitment to the universal human struggle for freedom and equality, as well as his determination for democratic reforms through rigorous inquiry. Several areas of his research and teaching expertise include Turkey’s policy towards Kurds and the Kurdish quest for self-rule.
It is not difficult to understand Bezwan’s motivation behind signing the Academics for Peace petition in January 2016. 1,128 academics from 89 universities in Turkey signed the petition, calling on the Turkish government to end its military operations in the Kurdish region and establish negotiations. This peaceful dissent emphatically rejected violence and yet, the signatories weredetained and put under investigation. If found guilty of alleged terrorism charges, the petitioners could face between one and five years in prison.
After signing the petition with 37 colleagues from Mardin Artuklu University, Bezwan faced a disciplinary investigation in February 2016. A second investigation was launched just a few months later, in August 2016, after comments he made about the Turkish military incursion in Cerablus, Syria. This time, however, the consequences were even more severe, unjust and absurd.
The interview with the Turkish dailyEvrensel was related to the core areas of his academic interests and expertise. Bezwan stressed the danger of using military forces at home and abroad in dealing with Kurdish rights and demands. He was immediately suspended from his position at Mardin Artuklu University, where he was teaching at the time, and completely dismissed through an emergency decree issued in September 2016.
Being deprived of teaching, conducting research or holding any public position, with the possible consequences of signing the Academics for Peace petition hanging over his head, Bezwan felt he had no choice but to leave his life in Turkey for London in November 2016. After almost a year of living in exile, Bezwan became a CARA (the Council for At-Risk Academics) fellow at UCL from June 2017 to June 2018.
Bezwan spoke with Long Dang of Index on Censorship about the events that transpired, his life in the UK, and his vision for Turkey’s future.
Index: What motivated you to become an academic?
Naif Bezwan: I could not really remember a certain point in my biographical trajectories in which I decided to become an academic, let alone pursuing an academic career. The idea of pursuing a career in academia has not been considered something worthwhile and esteemed by my generation of Kurdish and Turkish leftist intellectuals growing up under the brutal military rule in the 1980s. Quite the contrary, embarking on individualistic remedies was seen as a kind of opportunistic behaviour to save your skin, as it were, at the expense of a cause greater than yourself. So I think it has really been a process of gradual becoming rather than a decision at a certain point in time to be an academic. Having said that, it has nonetheless been a clear and conscious orientation towards, and commitment to, certain values, such as democracy, social change, justice, equality and self-determination that motivated us greatly. This motivation, I remember vividly, went hand in hand with an insatiable curiosity about the human condition, history, philosophy, as well as about the situation and destiny of your own society. All this was coupled with a pronounced sense of agency and responsibility for transforming what we perceive to contradict human dignity and freedom. Ultimately, it has been this intensive search for understanding of what has been in the past, as well as for what human dignity and flourishing requires, that led me to become an “academic”, or more precisely, an expelled one.
Index:Why did you become interested in working on Turkey’s Kurdish conflict ?
Naif Bezwan: First, as I indicated, it has been due to the life-world in which my political, cultural and intellectual socialisation, dispositions and positions were coming into being and shaped. I was born in a region of Kurdistan in Turkey, in Diyarbakir, where the Kurdish liberation movement has traditionally been very strong, where an awareness of being member of a distinct society is widespread, where interest in politics, culture and world affairs was distinctively strong. Second, I was raised in a family in which memories of brutal repressions of previous Kurdish generations by the Turkish state, including members of my family, namely my grandfathers and their relatives, were kept alive – their engagements were upheld and their sufferings were told, retold and remembered. A third factor that seems to have formed my orientation during my youth was a growing influence of socialist ideas adopted and defended by various Kurdish organisations and movements throughout 1970s and later on. So all these factors have provided a background to my epistemological interest in working on Turkey and Kurdistan. My time and higher education in Germany during my first emigration, and now in London, have bestowed me with the kind of resources needed to study this problem in-depth from a comparative and historical perspective, and with a degree of freedom necessary to inquiry this complex subject-matter.
To study the various aspects of the Kurdish society and conflicts as a Kurdish scholar almost per se makes you suspicious in the eyes of Turkish state authorities and can lead to your expulsion and imprisonment, as has been the case for many scholars over the years. But it can unfortunately also have consequences of a different kind even in Western countries, such as being branded as biased because of your Kurdish identity or being asked not to criticise the repressive policies leading up to your expulsion and emigration.
Index: On January 2016, 1128 academics signed a petition, entitled “We will not be a party to this crime”, demanding the Turkish government to end military oppression against the Kurdish population. What were your reasons for signing the petition? Were they professional or personal?
Naif Bezwan: It was a combination of both. There was a brutal ongoing war against the Kurdish population, a war whose effects we felt in our daily lives and the lives of our students. I was working at Mardin Artuklu University, which is located at the heart of the Kurdish region at the border between Turkey and Syria. I excruciatingly remember how young people and soldiers were killed everyday, lives and livelihoods destroyed as a result of the termination of the peace process by the government in the summer of 2015. I could not simply stand by and see all these atrocities while the whole community was being destroyed – my students and the people I knew were very affected by this policy of destruction. That is why I signed the petition, knowing that possible severe consequences would be arising from it.
Index: The petition called for a peaceful settlement between the government and the Kurdish population, and yet the government termed it “terrorism”. You were first suspended from your position because of a critical interview on the Turkish military incursion into Syria in August 2016. How do these incidents speak to the government’s system of oppression?
Naif Bezwan: I was suspended from my position for giving the interview with the Turkish Daily National. As an academic for International Relations and Political Science with a specific focus on Turkish domestic politics, political system, foreign policy and Kurdish issue, I argued that the Kurdish issue was essentially entrenched within Turkey, which meant that security would not be possible through more invasion or use of military violence internally and externally. The way to solve the problem, I stressed, was to return to the peace process which had been broken by the government. Only a couple of hours following the interview’s publication, I was called by the faculty administration to be handed down an official document. Upon my arrival, I was given a letter. This letter, in which a reference was made to the interview, was nothing but an order for my suspension that had been signed by the rector of the University. So I was immediately suspended from my position and then requested to give my defence as to why I gave the interview. In my defence, I emphasised that the interview was related to the core area of my expertise, and that suspension of academics and suppression of free speech cannot be the way in which academics arguments should be exchanged and universities function. My assessment, I added, might have been wrong or problematic. If so, however, it should have been responded through counterarguments instead of punitive measures. I have not yet been notified of the outcome of the administrative inquiry, but instead have been completely expelled from my position and public service through a decree-law in September 2016.
Index: Could you describe the hostile environment in Turkey after the failed coup attempt of July 2016?
Naif Bezwan: The coup attempt was a vicious attempt against democracy, but the government used it as the pretext to extend the dimension and size of oppression. In the aftermath of the failed coup, Erdogan said something very treacherously revealing – he depicted the coup as a kind of blessing. Why was it so? Well, this “blessing” was used first to intimidate the whole range of oppression, and second to consolidate his power. It was clear that it would be difficult to live in the country and therefore my partner and I decided to leave the country for the UK on 9th November 2016.
Index: How has life in the UK been for you?
Naif Bezwan: I think every form of forced exile contrary to freely chosen ways of immigration in search for a better life is painful. You are all of a sudden cut off from many things that make your life meaningful – your work, your relationships, your friends and family. After having migrated from Turkey to Germany in 1991, I freely decided to return to Turkey in January 2014, in the hope of doing something meaningful. I had just settled down and once again I was compelled to leave the country. The choice I had to make was between going into a new exile or being deprived of many things and activities that defined me and my way of life.
Being confronted with a forced immigration, one also needs to look on the bright side, try to create new possibilities and involve oneself in activities that would give meaning to one’s life again. In June 2017, almost a year after my arrival in London, I was granted the CARA fellowship at the Department of Political Science at UCL. Thanks to the fellowship, I was able to more systematically and continuously work and promote my studies and public engagement. I have completed two academic articles during the first months of my fellowship. I have been able to do a lot of research and participate in many academic conferences. In a group of other academics and friends, I became involved in establishing a London-based charity, the Centre for Democracy and Peace Research, which provides substantial support for our friends and colleagues back home. In all, being in the UK has been an uplifting opportunity, allowing me to continue with my studies and with my life.
Index: What is your perspective on the newly-expanded powers of Erdogan and their implications for the freedom of academics? What sort of support do you think is necessary for freedom movements to gain momentum? Could momentum be gained from within the country, or is some form of international intervention fundamental?
Naif Bezwan: As far as the character of the new regime is concerned, I think we have to keep in mind that the constitutional changes that introduced the new government system was made under a state of emergency. Opposition was silenced and intimidated, and there was no free press or free speech. This is very indicative of the character of the current regime. It is essentially an authoritarian, autocratic regime based on arbitrariness, with severe restrictions on free speech and a range of repressive policies at its disposal. For example, just three days before Erdogan was sworn in as president, there was an emergency decree through which about 18,000 civil servants, including academics, were dismissed. The message that the government wants to send is: we celebrate our victory through the intimidation and suppression of people, depriving them of basic rights, of the basis for life in dignity and freedom.
Given the nature of the current regime, two major outcomes seem to be possible. First, if there is a convergence between the parliament majority and president, which is currently the case, it would allow the president to exercise a constitutional dictatorship, in which the president can act in absolutely unbounded manners, since the dictatorial exercise of state authority is grounded in the very nature of the constitution itself. The current regime is authoritarian and autocratic in character, based on and emerged out of, extensive policies of intimidation, expulsion, fear and war-mongering. The other option would be a divergence between the parliament majority and president, which would result in an illiberal, dysfunctional regime. So: we had a choice between two equally undemocratic, unreasonable and repressive ways of governing the country. What makes things even worse is the fact that the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) – the far-right, anti-kurdish, anti-western, utterly racist party – now provides the president and his new regime with the necessary majority.
Given the fact that the country is increasingly becoming a big prison for the Kurds, minority groups, academics and critical voices, the work of the Kurdish and Turkish diaspora, as well as the support of the international community, is essential to strengthening democratic opposition and forces of transformation in the country. Due to the monopolization of the press in Turkey by the government, critics have no free space for acting and organizing themselves. This is why it is so important for organizations like Index to give voice to the people, their suffering and their resistance, in Turkey and beyond.
Index: Do you have hope that you will be able to return to Turkey, and pick up from where you left off?
Naif Bezwan: Going through all this process and being affected by it make you perhaps particularly sensible to the injustices directed at other people. I feel it incumbent upon me to do more academic work and be even more involved in civic duties to change the current situation and the utterly repressive regime. It is not an easy task at all. It requires patience and perseverance on the one hand, and creativity, solidarity and imagination on the other to generate new alternatives. I feel a responsibility to contribute the realising democratic and peaceful conditions in Kurdistan, Turkey and beyond.
Sahika Erkonan never thought signing a petition meant signing away her life, her family or her country. Marooned in London, she now faces an uncertain future.
Erkonan was one of over 2,000 Turks that signed a January 2016 petition by Academics for Peace, an organisation formed in 2012 that advocates for peace between Kurds and Turks. The signatories called on the Turkish government to end its war with Turkey’s Kurdish population in the southeast of the country.
Erkonan was a research assistant studying for her PhD at the University of Ankara when she joined other students and university professors in criticising the Turkish government’s ongoing conflict with the Kurds.
With signatures from over 90 universities, the petition had wide-reaching implications. Deemed “so-called intellectuals” by president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 330 academics were dismissed from their universities on 7 February 2017 for alleged involvement in the July 2016 coup. Hundreds of academics were held on criminal charges as the government cracked down on “organisations or groups that are determined to carry out activities against [the] state’s national security”.
Immediately after signing the petition, Erkonan was placed under investigation by the University of Ankara. As part of her research assistant contract, she was due to work at another university in the country. However, after being put under investigation, Erkonan decided it was best to continue her thesis abroad, resigning from the University of Ankara. The university accepted her resignation and she was able to use her passport to leave the country, unlike many others, although four months later she was dismissed by decree.
Now studying and living in the UK, Erkonan spoke with Danyaal Yasin of Index on Censorship about her experience.
Index: After you and hundreds of other academics and students were exiled, what were your initial thoughts?
Sahika Erkonan: I was in denial. I was upset. People told me I was an exile when I arrived in London. I denied it. I just wanted to focus on my research without thinking about the question of returning to my country. After my dismissal, which was four months later, this uncertainty became certain and weighed down on me far more than before. My first thought was that I had expected to be dismissed from the university. I wasn’t the first [to be dismissed]. It was clear that the government does not want intellectuals to raise their voices because we want peace, and this disturbs them, and this leads to our removal from the universities.
Index: Where were you when you found out you were dismissed? How did this affect you and your family?
Erkonan: I was at home in London. One of my friends let me know about our dismissal. Since that day, I haven’t gone back to Turkey. It has hugely affected my life. I realised that I cannot travel. If I decided to go home, I wouldn’t be able to come back to London to continue my research. I wouldn’t have any chance of finding a job in Turkey and I would be at risk all the time.
My family became very sad, but they were very supportive and my mother gave me lots of encouragement to finish my PhD here because any decision to return means uncertainty about leaving Turkey again due to passport issues. Actually, now I am not able to travel out of the United Kingdom either and have no clear residency status without applying for asylum. I am stuck here and this affects everything; my wellbeing, my ability to carry out my research, my political activity, my entire life. However, I am much better than last year and I feel I could define the difficulties I had and I can continue.
Before coming to London, I assumed I would go back to Turkey for a holiday within two months. Now I am still waiting to get my travel rights back, and have no idea when, if ever, they will be returned. I was lost for words following my dismissal. It wasn’t that I lost my job, I also lost my rights. Although I wasn’t the first to be dismissed, the feeling of loss still felt unknown.
Index: How did it impact your studies?
Erkonan: It fundamentally affected my research. The predominant focus I have in my life: work is being paralysed. I have a sense of not being in control and not being able to think clearly or critically. It takes incredible resilience and I often doubt myself. I was not able to work productively. I am so lucky that I am supervised by two amazing people in London. They are very supportive and understanding. They are not only dealing with my thesis, but they are also friendly and help me emotionally.
Immediately after I came here, my supervisors were aware of the risks and they wanted me to change my thesis fieldwork, as my initial research was based on Turkey. After four months, I was dismissed by Ankara University and unfortunately my everyday life was massively affected therefore I couldn’t concentrate easily. But now, I am in a totally different mindset.
Index: What was the most difficult part?
Erkonan: For me, the most difficult part is defining and understanding the feeling and emotions I’ve encountered. The uncertainty has a material, political basis that reflects the precariousness of the refugee’s sıtuation in Britain, a country with its own issues regarding the rights of foreigners. I have been interested to see how UK academia enforces conformity, not by jail sentences, but by neoliberalisation. Under the state of emergency, the law decrees against dissidents mean civil death. Your passport is taken away so you can’t travel abroad and you can’t find employment in public and private services. Trying to fight back is hard because you have no rights; you have to wait for the state of the emergency commission to make specific decisions about the law decrees.
During this process, I’ve never felt alone. Since the government’s attacks started, Turkey’s academics have stood in solidarity.
Index: Why do you think that people in academia are being brought to trial? What’s the government’s goal?
Erkonan: To silence dissent and crack down on critical thought. Academics for Peace is not the first instance of this; the government has always been in conflict with intellectuals, with students. It’s become especially clear that the AKP [Turkish ruling party] are trying to divide us academics by bringing us to trial individually. The authorities cannot judge over 2000 people without it being a huge international scandal; they are doing it individually to fly under the under the radar of international law but to keep us all in a continual state of fear and exhaustion. Every dissenter is at risk, we academics are only one part of that.
Index: What has been the biggest change for those in education within the country since the attempted coup?
Erkonan: Immediately after the attempted coup, the AKP government declared a state of emergency. Pressure on the education system by power had already been strong but thanks to the state of emergency, the authorities have had a chance to apply arbitrary policies. Therefore, they have applied whatever they want easily and they started to change the university staff.
Index: What do you think of the current educational system in Turkey? Has it declined/improved?
Erkonan: Universities in Turkey are not independent. They have been controlled by the Higher Education Council since the military coup in 1980. In the aftermath of the coup attempt of 2016, 5822 academics have lost their job. The state of emergency has given much more power to the authorities and we can say the educational system has declined rapidly.
Index: Do you feel the current climate will ever improve within the country?
Erkonan: Unfortunately this is a process which all of us have to witness in this climate. We are still having days which we are still trying to comprehend what’s happening. It seems the situation won’t improve within the country, but this is what the authorities want. Decreasing the hope for the future, increasing the fear of power.
If you look at Turkey’s past, you can guess and analyse how the current situation will play out. In terms of oppressing dissenters in the country, authoritarian states all have similar aspects, but whenever it occurs, we see it as new so it brings shock and fear, and sometimes it makes us silent. We live in an era, internationally, of the rise of authoritarianism. This places all those who do not fit into a narrow obedient vision of ‘the people’ at risk. Intellectual enquiry places us outside conformist ways of thinking so we will always be at risk. This era will take an international effort to maintain the existence of oppositional ideas, which are under attack globally. But I am not hopeless. One day this climate will change. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1531843923773-49fd17dd-fbe5-6″ taxonomies=”8607″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Seventeen international freedom of expression and professional organisations have sent a joint letter with their demands for how to protect and strengthen media freedom and independent journalism in Turkey to all candidates in the upcoming presidential elections :
Your term starts in critical times. Freedom of expression in particular has declined drastically in the last couple of years in your country. To this day, more than 150 journalists remain in prison, thousands of critical thought leaders have lost their jobs and a large number of them have left the country.
We, the undersigned international freedom of expression and professional organisations, ask you to prioritise the following points in the upcoming term to uphold the rule of law and to protect and strengthen media freedom and independent journalism in Turkey:
– release all journalists who have been imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of expression and their journalistic work and drop all charges against them.
– restore the impartiality of the judiciary and ensure the functioning of the Constitutional Court by refraining from exerting any political pressure on it and guaranteeing the implementation of its decisions.
– reform the system of criminal law that is currently being abused in order to prosecute and jail journalists, specifically the Penal Code and the Anti-Terror Law, which are among the main obstacles to freedom of the press and freedom of expression in Turkey.
– de-centralise and end state control of the regulation of media. Let media policy and media regulation processes be implemented by journalist associations, media representatives and academics, in compliance with the jurisprudence of the ECtHR.
– support the independence and pluralism of the media by redesigning ownership restrictions, support public broadcasting media to become free from political and economic interference, ensure media pluralism by subsidising small independent local media. Legal, political and administrative measures must be adopted to ensure free and fair competition in the media.
– reform and monitor the Press and Advertising Agency (Basın İlan Kurumu) to ensure that independent newspapers are not deprived of public advertising revenue. The appointment of media and internet regulatory bodies such as RTÜK and BTK should be transparent and must answer to the principles of media independence and freedom.
17 uluslararası ifade hürriyeti kuruluşu, basın özgürlüğü ve bağımsız gazeteciliğin korunarak güçlendirilmesi adına taleplerini içeren ortak bir açık mektup yazarak 24 Haziran öncesi tüm cumhurbaşkanı adaylarıyla paylaştı.
“Döneminiz çok kritik bir zamanda başlıyor. Ülkenizde ifade hürriyeti özellikle son iki yılda büyük bir gerilemeye maruz kaldı. Bugüne kadar 150 gazeteci hapsedilmiş, binlerce muhalif fikir önderi işinden edilmiş ve çoğu ülkeyi terk etmiştir.
Biz aşağıda imzası bulunan uluslararası ifade hürriyeti kuruluşları olarak, önümüzdeki dönemde hukukun üstünlüğünü temel ilke edinerek ve Türkiye’de basın özgürlüğü ve bağımsız gazeteciliğin korunarak güçlendirilmesi için şu hususları öncelikli olarak dikkate almanızı rica ediyoruz:
-ifade hürriyeti hakkını kullanmış ve görevini yaptığı için hapsedilmiş tüm gazeteciler tahliye edilerek haklarında açılmış tüm davalar düşürülmeli,
-şu an gazetecileri yargılamak için kullanılan ceza hukukunda, özellikle de Türkiye’de basın özgürlüğü ve ifade hürriyeti önündeki ana engellerden olan Türk Ceza Kanunu ve Terörle Mücadele Yasasında bir reform yapılmalı,
-medya üzerinde devlet denetimini sonlandırılmalı ve yetkiler sorumlu kurumlara dağıtılmalı. Basın yasasının ve medyayı ilgilendiren düzenlemelerin gazetecilik kurumları, basın temsilcileri, akademisyenler tarafından Avrupa İnsan Hakları Mahkemesi yönetmelikleriyle uyumlu şekilde uygulanması sağlanmalı,
-bağımsız gazetecilik ve basında çoğulculuğu, medya sahipliği önündeki kısıtlamaları kaldırarak, kamu yayını yapan medya organlarının siyasi ve ekonomik müdahalelerden arındırılmasıyla, küçük ölçekli bağımsız yerel medya organlarına mali destek sağlayıp medyada çoğulculuğu sağlayarak desteklenmeli. Basında özgür ve adil bir ortam oluşturulabilmesi için gerekli yasal, siyasi ve idari adımlar atılmalı,
-bağımsız gazetelerin kamu reklam gelirlerinden mahrum kalmamasını sağlamak adına Basın İlan Kurumu reform edilerek denetlenmeli. RTÜK ve BTK gibi medya ve internet denetimi yapan kurumlara yapılan atamalarda şeffaflık olmalı ve basının bağımsızlığı ve özgürlüğü ilkelerine tabi olmalıdır.
20 Haziran 2018
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Saygılarımızla,
Alman Yazarlar Birliği
Amerikan Yazarlar Birliği
Avrupa Basın ve Medya Özgürlüğü Merkezi ECPMF
Avrupa Gazeteciler Derneği AEJ
Avrupa Gazeteciler Federasyonu EFJ
Danimarka Yazarlar Birliği
Dünya Gazeteler ve Haber Yayıncıları Derneği WAN-IFRA
Global Editors Network GEN
Güneydoğu Avrupa Medya Kurumu
Index on Censorship
International Press Institute IPI
İsveç Yazarlar Birliği
Norveç Yazarlar Birliği
Ossigeno per l’Informazione
Sınır Tanımayan Gazeteciler RSF
Transeuropa – Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso OBCT
Uluslararası Karikatürist Hakları Ağı CRNI[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”Turkey” full_width_heading=”true” category_id=”55″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”With contributions from Mai Khoi, Jon Savage and Jonathan Tel, as well as interviews with Ian Rankin, Victoria Hislop and Maria Ressa”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
The summer 2018 issue of Index on Censorship magazine takes a special look at the free speech issues that affect the world’s most popular tourist destinations.
We examine the journalists who are trying to expose the darker sides of paradise and the issues they encounter in doing so, including an article from a Maltese journalist, Caroline Muscat, on corruption in the country, a look at journalists living under protection due to their reporting of the drug wars in Baja California Sur and an interview with Federica Angeli, a journalist who lives under 24-hour police protection following her exposé of the mafia in the pretty Italian seaside resort of Ostia.
The issue features interviews with bestselling novelists Ian Rankin and Victoria Hislop about how they went about creating a more real depiction of the idyllic places their books are set in.
The special report also features new data on the relationship between free speech issues and tourism from Mark Frary.
Outside the special report, Samira Shackle discusses the current state of media freedom in Pakistan ahead of elections in the country, and music journalist and author Jon Savage writes about how current attacks on drill rap music are nothing new – the censors have been trying to suppress music trends for over a century.
Finally, we have two short stories written exclusively for the magazine, one by Turkish contributing editor Kaya Genç about a man’s musings on paradise and another by award-winning writer Jonathan Tel on the dangerous end point of facial recognition technology.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Special report: Trouble in paradise”][vc_column_text]
Spraying bullets not sunscreen, by Stephen Woodman: Baja California Sur is at the forefront of Mexico’s drug wars. Journalists are at a great risk. The government hopes tourists don’t notice
The other side of paradise, by Meera Selva: A post civil war Sri Lanka attracts tourists, but locals were hoping for greater freedoms
Speaking out of turn, by Jan Fox: Hawaiian is an official language in this state and yet those who speak it face restrictions.
Women left out in the cold, by Johannes Nugroho: When a Balinese woman was mutilated by her husband, it created a media storm within Indonesia and shed light on domestic abuse there. And yet it barely dented its international reputation
Rocking the nation, by Marco Ferrarese: Malaysia has pitched itself as an Asian melting pot paradise. The reality is different. Just listen to the nation’s punk rockers
Stripsearch, by Martin Rowson: Carry on filtering those pictures darling. Your Instagram followers only want to see the most perfect holiday pics
Two sides of every story, by Alison Flood and Jemimah Steinfeld: Two top novelists, Victoria Hislop and Ian Rankin, talk about showing darker sides of tourist destinations in their books, and upsetting Greek Cypriots
Double vision, by Caroline Muscat: Malta’s Valletta is this year’s Europe’s Capital of Culture. The label conceals darker truths
Taking on the untouchables, by Irene Caselli: Italian journalist Federica Angeli’s life has been on the line since she reported on the mafia. She talks about how 24-hour protection affects her family life
Freedom to travel v travel towards freedom, by Mark Frary: Exclusive new data analysis for the magazine on whether tourists worry about a holiday resort’s reputation for media freedom
Fears that rain on their parades, by Silvia Nortes: Sunbathe all you like, just try to avoid offending religious sensibilities in the Spanish Canary Islands
“We’re not scared of these things”, by Miriam Grace A Go: Rappler news editor on how the newsroom continues despite the increasing threats, alongside words from their CEO Maria Ressa
Slouching away from Eden, by Kaya Genç: Turkey was once hot on the tourist trail, with major city Istanbul hailed as one of the world’s hippest. A look at its fall from grace, and why
White sands, dark deeds, by Zaheena Rasheed: The ultimate honeymoon destination is not so idyllic for the nation’s journalists, who battle corruption, fines and risk their lives as they get their stories
After Isis lost, by Laura Silvia Battaglia: It’s becoming more dangerous, rather than less, to be a reporter in Iraq as two generations of Iraqi journalists explain. Translation by Sue Copeland
Sunshine capital, by Davion Smith: The British Virgin Islands desperately need freedom of information. One journalist reports on finding the truth against the odds
Demonising those teenage dirtbags, by Jon Savage: The current moral outcry over drill music is so last century. Adults have been scared about what the kids are singing for decades
Under the watchful eye of the army, by Samira Shackle: Elections are approaching in Pakistan, and the army has the nation’s journalists and bloggers in its sights
Liberté, egalité… autorité, by Jean-Paul Marthoz: Considered by many as the cradle of modern democracy and free speech, France isn’t practising what it has historically preached
A walk in the park, by Kaya Genç: In this new short story for the magazine, an old man contemplates life and his shifting views of paradise
Georgian plain speaking, by Lasha Bugadze: The Georgian playwright and author on the censorious nature of the church in the country. Plus an extract of his new novel, translated into English for the first time by Donald Rayfield
Little big voice, by Mai Khoi: Vietnam’s “Lady Gaga” discusses always looking over her shoulder. Plus a song of hers translated and published in English for the first time
Facing the future, by Jonathan Tel: The award-winning short story writer on how much control the Chinese government actually has and a new short story about facial recognition, written exclusively for the magazine
Index around the world, by Danyaal Yasin: The unprecedented levels of Turkish journalists being imprisoned are being tracked by Index’s Mapping Media Freedom. Read about this and other countries of concern, plus an update on the fellowships
Game on, by Jemimah Steinfeld: Trump has jumped on the ban video games bandwagon. He called for a ban on games, rather than guns
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”top”][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Trouble in paradise” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2018%2F06%2Ftrouble-in-paradise%2F|||”][vc_column_text]The summer 2018 issue of Index on Censorship magazine takes a special look at how holidaymakers’ images of palm-fringed beaches and crystal clear waters contrast with the reality of freedoms under threat
With: Ian Rankin, Victoria Hislop, Maria Ressa [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”100776″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2018/06/trouble-in-paradise/”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1481888488328{padding-bottom: 50px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
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