Contents – The forgotten patients: Lost voices in the global healthcare system

9 Apr 2025 | Afghanistan, Botswana, Czech Republic, Ethiopia, Georgia, India, Iran, Israel, Magazine Contents, Palestine, Russia, Slovakia, Somalia, Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Volume 54.01 Spring 2025

Contents

Modern medicine is a wonderful thing. Before Edward Jenner’s development of the smallpox vaccination in 1796, infectious diseases and viruses killed millions. The introduction of anaesthetic gases during surgical procedures in 1846 eliminated the excruciating pain of surgery. And before Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin in 1928, people died unnecessarily from cuts and grazes.

But the benefits of modern medicine are not felt equally around the world. In this issue, we explore the forgotten patients in global healthcare settings – the marginalised groups who fall through the cracks or are actively shut out of healthcare provision, then ignored or silenced when they raise concerns.

Just like free speech, healthcare is an indisputable human right. But for many around the globe, both these rights are being removed in conjunction with each other. Through telling their stories, this edition aims to shine a light on these injustices and – we hope – empower more people to speak up for the right to health for themselves and others.

Up Front

A bitter pill to swallow: Sarah Dawood
Not all healthcare is made equal, and pointing this out can have serious consequences

The Index: Mark Stimpson
From elections in Romania to breaking encryption in the UK: a tour of the world’s most pressing free expression issues

Features

Rape, reputation and little recourse: Samridhi Kapoor, Hanan Zaffar
Indian universities have a sexual violence problem that no one is talking about

Georgian nightmare: Ruth Green
Russian-style laws are shutting down more conversations in Georgia, with academia feeling the heat

Botswana’s new era: Clemence Manyukwe
From brave lawyer to president – could the country’s new leader put human rights front and centre?

Venezuela’s prison problem: Catherine Ellis
The disputed new president has a way of dealing with critics – locking them up

Forbidden words: Salil Tripathi
The Satanic Verses is back in India’s bookshops. Or is it?

The art of resistance: Alessandra Bajec
A film, a graffiti archive and a stage play: three works changing the narrative in Tunisia

A tragic renaissance: Emily Couch
The pen is getting mightier and mightier in Ukraine

In the red zone: Alexandra Domenech
Conscription is just one of the fears of an LGBTQ+ visual artist in Russia

Demokratia dismantled: Georgios Samaras
The legacy of the Predator spyware scandal has left a dark stain on Greece

Elon musk’s year on X: Mark Stimpson
The biggest mystery about Musk: when does he sleep?

Keyboard warriors: Laura O’Connor
A band of women are fighting oppression in Myanmar through digital activism

Behind the bars of Saydnaya prison: Laura Silvia Battaglia
Unspeakable horrors unfolded at Syria’s most notorious prison, and now its survivors tell their stories

Painting a truer picture: Natalie Skowlund
Street art in one Colombian city has been sanitised beyond recognition

The reporting black hole: Fasil Aregay
Ethiopian journalists are allowed to report on new street lights, and little else

Special Report: The forgotten patients - Lost voices in the global healthcare system

Whistleblowing in an empty room: Martin Bright
Failures in England’s maternity services are shrouded in secrecy

An epidemic of corruption: Danson Kahyana
The Ugandan healthcare system is on its knees, but what does that matter to the rich and powerful?

Left speechless: Sarah Dawood
The horrors of war are leaving children in Gaza unable to speak

Speaking up to end the cut: Hinda Abdi Mohamoud
In Somalia, fighting against female genital mutilation comes at a high price

Doctors under attack: Kaya Genç
Turkey’s president is politicising healthcare, and medics are in the crosshairs

Denial of healthcare is censoring political prisoners – often permanently: Rishabh Jain, Alexandra Domenech, Danson Kahyana
Another page in the authoritarian playbook: deny medical treatment to jailed dissidents

The silent killer: Mackenzie Argent
A hurdle for many people using the UK’s National Health Service: institutional racism

Czechoslovakia’s haunting legacy: Katie Dancey-Downs
Roma women went into hospitals to give birth, and came out infertile

An inconvenient truth: Ella Pawlik
While Covid vaccines saved millions of lives, those with adverse reactions have been ignored

Punished for raising standards: Esther Adepetun
From misuse of money to misdirecting medicines, Nigerian healthcare is rife with corruption

Nowhere to turn: Zahra Joya
Life as they know it has been destroyed for women in Afghanistan, and healthcare provision is no different

Emergency in the children’s ward: Shaylim Castro Valderrama
The last thing parents of sick children expect is threats from militia

Comment

We need to talk about Sudan: Yassmin Abdel-Magied
Would “a battle of narratives” give the war more attention?

RFK Jr could be a disaster for American healthcare: Mark Honigsbaum
An anti-vaxxer has got US lives in his hands

The diamond age of death threats: Jemimah Steinfeld
When violent behaviour becomes business as usual

Free speech v the right to a fair trial: Gill Phillips
Are contempt of court laws fit for the digital age?

Culture

An unjust trial: Ariel Dorfman
A new short story imagines a kangaroo court of nightmares, where victims become defendants

Remember the past to save the future: Sarah Dawood, Diane Fahey
Published exclusively, the issues of antisemitism and colonialism are recorded through poetry

Where it’s more dangerous to carry a camera than a gun: Antonia Langford
A singer meets filmmakers in Yemen, and both take risks to tell her story

The fight for change isn’t straightforward: Shani Dhanda
The Last Word, on exclusion and intersectional discrimination

Contents – Unsung heroes: How musicians are raising their voices against oppression

17 Dec 2024 | Afghanistan, Argentina, Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Georgia, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Magazine Contents, Music, Nigeria, Palestine, Russia, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Volume 53.04 Winter 2024

Contents

Music has been described as a “cultural universal” – a practice found in all known human cultures and societies. While anthropologists still scratch their heads over exactly where the concept originated, evidence indicates that humans have used musical instruments for an astonishing 40,000 years.

During an excavation in 1995 in Slovenia, researchers discovered a bear’s femur bone with holes in it and concluded that it could be an ancient flute.
Humans have always found ingenious ways to make music, and it’s not difficult to see why. It is one of the most powerful forms of self-expression, capable of eliciting both intense happiness and sadness in the listener. It is used to celebrate, lament, respect and enrage, and its endless genres, styles and instruments form a core part of countries’ unique cultural heritages.

But despite its universality, music is being silenced globally. Religious extremism, political factions, racism and nationalism are all driving forces, stopping it being performed, produced and listened to. In this issue we explore how music bans have been weaponised to silence communities and erase histories.

Up Front

Songs of defiance: Sarah Dawood
How ever much authoritarians try to turn down the volume, musicians will play on

The Index: Mark Stimpson
Moments that matter in the free speech world, from US disinformation to a democracy void in Belarus

Features

Adding insult to injury: Nour El Din Ismail
Turkey is not always welcoming to Syrian journalists

Waiting for the worst: Alexandra Domenech
A daring few Russian politicians are staying put

Somalia’s muzzled media: Hinda Abdi Mohamoud
The challenge of seeking out the truth in the face of daily risks

Further into the information void: Winthrop Rodgers
A new law in Iraq could hinder rather than help journalists

Peace of mind: Chan Kin-man, Jemimah Steinfeld
From umbrellas, to prison, to freedom. A word from a founder of the Hong Kong Occupy movement

“She will not end up well”: Clemence Manyukwe
In Rwanda, opposition politicians have a nasty habit of being assassinated

Modi’s plans to stifle the internet: Shoaib Daniyal
India’s prime minister is keeping a tight grip on what goes online

Editor in exile: Ian Wylie
A Burmese journalist shares his story of arrest and escape

Evading scrutiny: Beth Cheng
China’s new tactic for dealing with critics: keep the trials under wraps

Lowering the bar: Ruth Green
Working in law in Afghanistan is now impossible – if you’re a woman

A promise is a promise: Amy Booth
Argentina’s president is taking a chainsaw to media freedom

Going offline: Steve Komarnyckyj
Beyoncé is blacklisted in Russia and the question remains: who runs the world?

The beacon of hope: Nilosree Biswas
The next chapter is unwritten for a library in Delhi

A story of forgotten fiction: Thiện Việt
In Vietnam, book censorship is a fact of life

Special Report: Unsung heroes - how musicians are raising their voices against oppression

The sound of silence: Sarah Dawood
Musicians in Afghanistan fear for their livelihoods, lives and culture

The war on drill: Mackenzie Argent
Artistic freedom is not a privilege extended to all musicians

A force for good: Salil Tripathi
Exploring the soundtrack of resistance in Bangladesh

Georgia on my mind: JP O’Malley
In the face of repression, the beat goes on in the Caucasus

Murdered for music: Kaya Genç
The meeting of politics and song can be deadly in Turkey

A Black woman who dared to rock: Malu Halasa
How one artist smashed into a genre ringfenced for white men

Fear the butterfly: Katie Dancey-Downs
Iranian singer Golazin Ardestani will never take no for an answer

In tune with change: Tiléwa Kazeem
In Nigeria, Afrobeats is about more than a good song

Singing for a revolution: Danson Kahyana
Nothing enrages the Ugandan government like hearing Bobi Wine

Cuba can’t stop the music: Coco Fusco
Government and musicians alike understand the political power of song

Comment

Dangerous double standards: Youmna El Sayed
Israel’s closure of Al Jazeera’s offices is a warning sign for press freedom

Musician, heal thyself: Mike Smith
The death of Liam Payne brings the issue of mental health into sharp focus

Democracy, but not as we know it: Martin Bright
Is the USA stuck in the hinterland between democratic and autocratic?

Silence has to be permitted in a world with free speech: Jemimah Steinfeld
Index’s CEO argues that the right to stay quiet is as precious as the right to protest

Big Tech shouldn’t punish women for seeking abortions: Raina Lipsitz
Trump is incoming. So too is a growing threat to online abortion discussions

Culture

Cell dreams: Russia’s prisoner art: Mark Stimpson
Dissident artwork created under Putin’s nose, and shared with Index

No Catcher In The Rye: Stephen Komarnyckyj, Hryhorii Kosynka
The words of a writer killed by the Soviet regime live on in a new translation

A life in exile: Mackenzie Argent, Jana Paliashchuk
What it means to be homesick, through the eyes of a Belarusian poet

An unfathomable tragedy: Sarah Dawood, Dimi Reider
One year on from 7 October, a moving piece reflects on the human devastation

You are now free: Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin, Katie Dancey-Downs
An exclusive translation from a Sudanese writer in exile, who has faced ban after ban

Putin will not stop until he’s stopped: Evgenia Kara-Murza
The Russian dissident who fought for her husband’s release (and won) has the last word

Contents – Inconvenient truths: How scientists are being silenced around the world

16 Oct 2024 | Belarus, Bolivia, China, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, Magazine Contents, Malaysia, Pakistan, Palestine, Russia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Volume 53.03 Autumn 2024

Contents

Ever since Galileo Galilei faced the Roman inquisition in the 17th century for proving that the Earth went round the sun, scientists have risked being ruthlessly silenced. People are threatened by new discoveries, and especially ones that go against their political ideologies or religious beliefs. The Autumn 2024 issue of Index examines how scientists to this day still face censorship, as in many places around the world, adherence to ideology stands in the way of scientific progress. We demonstrate how such nations crack down on scientific advancement, and lend a voice to those who face punishment for their scientific achievements. Reports from as far as China and India, to the UK, USA, and many in between make up this issue as we put scientific freedom under the microscope.

Up Front

When ideology enters the equation: Sally Gimson
Just who is silencing scientists?

The Index: Mark Stimpson
A tour around the world of free expression, including a focus on unrest in Venezuela

Features

A vote for a level playing field: Clemence Manyukwe
In Mozambique’s upcoming election, the main challenger is banned

Whistling the tune of ‘terrorism’: Nedim Türfent
Speaking Kurdish, singing in Kurdish, even dancing to Kurdish tunes: do it in Turkey and be prepared for oppression

Running low on everything: Amy Booth
The economy is in trouble in Bolivia, and so is press freedom

A dictatorship in the making: Robert Kituyi
Kenya’s journalists and protesters are standing up for democracy, and facing brutal violence

Leave nobody in silence: Jana Paliashchuk
Activists will not let Belarus’s political prisoners be forgotten

A city’s limits: Francis Clarke
The Hillsborough disaster still haunts Liverpool, with local sensitivities leading to a recent event cancellation

History on the cutting room floor: Thiện Việt
The Sympathizer is the latest victim of Vietnam’s heavy-handed censors

Fog of war masks descent into authoritarianism: Ben Lynfield
As independent media is eroded, is it too late for democracy in Israel?

Movement for the missing: Anmol Irfan, Zofeen T Ebrahim
Amid rising persecution in Pakistan, Baloch women speak up about forced disappearances

Mental manipulation: Alexandra Domenech
The treatment of dissidents in Russia now includes punitive psychiatry

The Fight for India’s Media Freedom: Angana Chakrabarti, Amir Abbas, Ravish Kumar
Abuse of power, violence and a stifling political environment – daily challenges for journalists in India

A black, green and red flag to repression: Mehran Firdous
The pro-Palestine march in Kashmir that became a target for authorities

Special Report: Inconvenient truths - how scientists are being silenced around the world

Choked by ideology: Murong Xuecun, Kasim Abdurehim Kashgar
In China, science is served with a side of propaganda

Scriptures over science: Salil Tripathi
When it comes to scientific advancement in India, Hindu mythology is taking priority

A catalyst for corruption: Pouria Nazemi
The deadly world of scientific censorship in Iran

Tainted scientists: Katie Dancey-Downs
Questioning animal testing is a top taboo

Death and minor details: Danson Kahyana
For pathologists in Uganda the message is clear: don’t name the poison

The dangers of boycotting Russian science: JP O’Malley
Being anti-war doesn’t stop Russian scientists getting removed from the equation

Putting politics above scientific truth: Dana Willbanks
Science is under threat in the USA, and here’s the evidence

The science of purges: Kaya Genç
In Turkey, “terrorist” labels are hindering scientists

The fight for science: Mark Stimpson
Pseudoscience-buster Simon Singh reflects on whether the truth will out in today’s libellous landscape

Comment

On the brink: Jo-Ann Mort
This November, will US citizens vote for freedoms?

Bad sport: Daisy Ruddock
When it comes to state-sponsored doping, Russia gets the gold medal

Anything is possible: Martin Bright
The legacy of the fall of the Iron Curtain, 35 years later

Judging judges: Jemimah Steinfeld
Media mogul Jimmy Lai remains behind bars in Hong Kong, and a British judge bears part of the responsibility

Culture

The good, the bad and the beautiful: Boris Akunin, Sally Gimson
The celebrated author on how to tell a story, and an exclusive new translation

Song for Stardust: Jessica Ní Mhainín, Christy Moore
Celebrating the folk song that told the truth about an Irish tragedy, and was banned

Put down that book!: Katie Dancey-Downs, Allison Brackeen Brown, Aixa Avila-Mendoza
Two US teachers take their Banned Books Week celebrations into the world of poetry

Keeping Litvinenko’s voice alive: Marina Litvinenko
The activist and widow of poisoned Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko has the last word

Is jail time for Just Stop Oil protesters justified?

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.