Index on Censorship is a campaigning publishing organisation for freedom of expression, which produces an award-winning quarterly magazine of the same name from London. The present chief executive of
Index on Censorship, since 2008, is the author, broadcaster and commentator
John KampfnerJohn Paul Kampfner is a British journalist who was editor of the weekly political magazine the New Statesman between 2005 and 2008...
, former editor of the UK political weekly
New StatesmanNew Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
. The present editor of the magazine, since 2007, is former BBC radio journalist Jo Glanville.
It is directed by the non-profit-making Writers and Scholars International, Ltd. (WSI) in association with the UK-registered charity Index on Censorship (founded as the Writers and Scholars Educational Trust), which are both chaired by the British writer and broadcaster
Jonathan DimblebyJonathan Dimbleby is a British presenter of current affairs and political radio and television programmes, a political commentator and a writer. He is the son of Richard Dimbleby and younger brother of British TV presenter David Dimbleby.-Education:Dimbleby was educated at Charterhouse School, a...
. WSI was created by poet
Stephen SpenderSir Stephen Harold Spender CBE was an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work...
, Oxford philosopher
Stuart HampshireSir Stuart Newton Hampshire was an Oxford University philosopher, literary critic and university administrator. He was one of the antirationalist Oxford thinkers who gave a new direction to moral and political thought in the post-World War II era.Hampshire was educated at Repton School and at...
, the then editor of
The Observer David AstorFrancis David Langhorne Astor CH was an English newspaper publisher and member of the Astor family.-Early life and career:...
, writer and Soviet Union expert
Edward CrankshawEdward Crankshaw , was a British writer, translator and commentator on Soviet affairs.Born in London, Crankshaw was educated in the Nonconformist public school, Bishop's Stortford College, Hertfordshire, England. He started working as a journalist for a few months at The Times...
. The founding editor of
Index on Censorship was the critic and translator
Michael ScammellMichael Scammell is an English author, biographer and translator of Slavic literature.-Life:He was educated at the University of Nottingham, and obtained a doctorate at Columbia University where he is currently a professor of writing....
(1972–81), who still serves as a patron of the organisation. It is based in the
Free Word CentreThe Free Word Centre is an international centre promoting literature, literacy and free expression, based in Farringdon, London. It is funded by the Arts council and its director is Rose Fenton. It opened in June 2009 and hosts ten resident organisations including ARTICLE 19, English PEN and Index...
for literature, literacy and free expression in London.
The magazine
The
Index on Censorship magazine was first published in 1972. It supports free expression, publishing distinguished writers from around the world, exposing suppressed stories, initiating debate, and providing an international record of censorship. The quarterly editions of the magazine usually focus on a country or region or a recurring theme in the global free expression debate.
Index on Censorship also publishes short works of fiction and poetry by notable new writers.
Index Index, a round up of abuses of freedom of expression worldwide, was published in the magazine until December 2008, when it was transferred to the website.
The original inspiration to create
Index came from prominent Soviet dissidents (see Founding History, below), but from its outset, the magazine covered censorship in right-wing dictatorships then ruling Greece and Portugal, the former military regimes of Latin America, and the former
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and its satellites. The magazine has covered other challenges facing free expression, including religious extremism, the rise of nationalism, and
Internet censorshipInternet censorship is the control or suppression of the publishing of, or access to information on the Internet. It may be carried out by governments or by private organizations either at the behest of government or on their own initiative...
.
Writing in the first issue in May 1972 Stephen Spender wrote:
“Obviously there is the risk of a magazine of this kind becoming a bulletin of frustration. However, the material by writers which is censored in Eastern Europe, Greece, South Africa and other countries is among the most exciting that is being written today. Moreover, the question of censorship has become a matter of impassioned debate; and it is one which does not only concern totalitarian societies.”
Accordingly the magazine has sought to shed light on other challenges facing free expression, including religious extremism, the rise of nationalism, and Internet censorship. Issues are usually organised by theme, and contain a country-by-country list of recent cases involving censorship, restrictions on
freedom of the pressFreedom of the press or freedom of the media is the freedom of communication and expression through vehicles including various electronic media and published materials...
and other free speech violations. Occasionally,
Index on Censorship publishes short works of fiction and poetry by notable new writers as well as censored ones.
Over the years,
Index on Censorship has presented works by some of the world's most distinguished writers and thinkers, including
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynAleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was aRussian and Soviet novelist, dramatist, and historian. Through his often-suppressed writings, he helped to raise global awareness of the Gulag, the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system – particularly in The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of...
,
Milan KunderaMilan Kundera , born 1 April 1929, is a writer of Czech origin who has lived in exile in France since 1975, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1981. He is best known as the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and The Joke. Kundera has written in...
,
Václav HavelVáclav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
,
Nadine GordimerNadine Gordimer is a South African writer and political activist. She was awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature when she was recognised as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity".Her writing has long dealt...
,
Salman Rushdie,
Doris LessingDoris May Lessing CH is a British writer. Her novels include The Grass is Singing, The Golden Notebook, and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos....
,
Arthur MillerArthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...
,
Noam ChomskyAvram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
, and
Umberto EcoUmberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
.
Recent issues under the editorship of Jo Glanville have covered obscenity, the ‘Bush Legacy’ and a look back at the
Satanic VersesThe Satanic Verses was a purported incident where a small number of apparently pagan verses were temporarily included in the Qur'an by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, only to be later removed...
20 years on. There have been special issues on China, reporting from the Middle East, internet censorship. The Russia issue (1/2008) won an
Amnesty InternationalAmnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
Media Award 2008 for features by Russian journalists
Fatima TlisovaFatima Tlisova is a Russian journalist currently living in the United States.- Refugee status :...
and Sergei Bachinin, and Russian free speech campaigner Alexei Simonov.
Between 2005 and 2009, the magazine was published and distributed by
RoutledgeRoutledge is a British publishing house which has operated under a succession of company names and latterly as an academic imprint. Its origins may be traced back to the 19th-century London bookseller George Routledge...
, part of the
Taylor & FrancisTaylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in the United Kingdom which publishes books and academic journals. It is a division of Informa plc, a United Kingdom-based publisher and conference company.- Overview :...
group. Since January 2010 it has been published by
Sage PublicationsSAGE is an independent academic publisher of books, journals, and electronic products in the humanities and social sciences and the scientific, technical, and medical fields. SAGE was founded in 1965 by George McCune and Sara Miller McCune. The company is headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California,...
, an independent for-profit academic publisher.
In addition to print and annual subscriptions,
Index on Censorship is available as an app for the iPhone/iPad.
It is also a partner with
EurozineEurozine is a network of European cultural magazines based in Vienna, linking up more than 70 partner magazines and institutions from 34 European countries...
, a network of more than 60 European cultural journals.
Publishing landmarks
Other landmark publications include
Ken Saro-WiwaKenule "Ken" Beeson Saro Wiwa was a Nigerian author, television producer, environmental activist, and winner of the Right Livelihood Award and the Goldman Environmental Prize...
's writings from prison (Issue 3/1997) and a translation of the Czechoslovak
Charter 77Charter 77 was an informal civic initiative in communist Czechoslovakia from 1976 to 1992, named after the document Charter 77 from January 1977. Founding members and architects were Václav Havel, Jan Patočka, Zdeněk Mlynář, Jiří Hájek, and Pavel Kohout. Spreading the text of the document was...
manifesto drafted by
Václav HavelVáclav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
and others. Index published the first English translation of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
Index on Censorship published the stories of the ‘disappeared’ in Argentina and the work of banned poets in Cuba;the work of Chinese poets who escaped the massacres that ended the
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese , were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China beginning on 15 April 1989...
.
Index on Censorship has a long history of publishing writers in translation, most recently
Bernard-Henri LévyBernard-Henri Lévy is a French public intellectual, philosopher and journalist. Often referred to today, in France, simply as BHL, he was one of the leaders of the "Nouveaux Philosophes" movement in 1976.-Early life:...
,
Ivan KlimaIvan Klíma is a Czech novelist and playwright.- Biography :Klíma's early childhood in Prague was happy and uneventful, but this all changed with the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938, after the Munich Agreement...
,
Ma JianMa Jian may refer to:* Ma Jian , Chinese basketball player* Ma Jian , Chinese writer* Muhammad Ma Jian, Confucian scholar who became an Islamic jurist...
and Nobel laureate
Shirin EbadiShirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer, a former judge and human rights activist and founder of Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. On 10 October 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially women's,...
, and news reports including Anna Politkovskaia's coverage of the war in Chechnya (Issue 2/2002).
Sir
Tom StoppardSir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...
’s play
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1977) which is set in a Soviet mental institution, originally performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, was inspired by the personal account of former detainee Victor Fainberg and Clayton Yeo's expose of the use of psychiatric abuse in the USSR, published in
Index on Censorship (Issue 2/1975). Stoppard became a member of the advisory board of Index on Censorship in 1978 and remains connected to the publication as a Patron of Index.
Index on Censorship published the World Statement by the International Committee for the Defence of
Salman Rushdie in support of “the right of all people to express their ideas and beliefs and to discuss them with their critics on the basis of mutual tolerance, free from censorship, intimidation and violence. Six months later, Index published the
Hunger Strike Declaration from four student leaders of the
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese , were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China beginning on 15 April 1989...
,
Liu XiaoboLiu Xiaobo is a Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist who called for political reforms and the end of communist single-party rule in China...
, Zhou Duo,
Hou Dejian侯德健 , born October 1, 1956 in Taiwan, is a songwriter, composer, and singer.Since the 1980s, his songs have been popular in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. His songs are written mostly in Chinese, with a few in English...
and Gao Xin.
Index Index, a round up of abuses of freedom of expression worldwide, continued to be published in each edition of the magazine until December 2008, when this function was transferred to the website. The offences against free expression documented in that first issue’s
Index Index listing included censorship in Greece and Spain, then dictatorships, and Brazil, which had just banned the film
Zabriskie PointZabriskie Point is a part of Amargosa Range located in east of Death Valley in Death Valley National Park in the United States noted for its erosional landscape...
on the grounds that it ‘insulted a friendly power’ – the United States, where it had been made and freely shown.
Index on Censorship paid special attention to the situation in then Czechoslovakia between the Soviet invasion of 1968 and the
Velvet RevolutionThe Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that took place from November 17 – December 29, 1989...
of 1989, devoting an entire issue to the country eight years after the
Prague SpringThe Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
(Issue 3/1976). It included several pieces by Václav Havel, including a first translation of his one act play
Conversation, and a letter to Czech officials on police censorship of his December 1975 production of
The Beggar's OperaThe Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...
by
John GayJohn Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch...
.
The magazine also carried articles on the state of the Czech theatre and a list of the so-called Padlock Publications, fifty banned books that circulated only in typescript. Index also published an English version of Havel’s play
Mistake, dedicated to
Samuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
in gratitude for Beckett’s own dedication of his play
Catastrophe to Havel. Both short plays were performed at the Free Word Centre to mark the launch of Index’s special issue looking back at the changes of 1989 (Issue 4/2009).
Campaigns
Free Speech is not For Sale, a joint campaign report by Index on Censorship and English PEN highlighted the problem of so-called
libel tourismLibel tourism is a term first coined by Geoffrey Robertson to describe forum shopping for libel suits. It particularly refers to the practice of pursuing a case in England and Wales, in preference to other jurisdictions, such as the United States, which provide more extensive defences for those...
and the English law of defamation’s chilling effect on free speech. After much debate surrounding the report’s ten key recommendations, the UK Justice Secretary Jack Straw pledged to make English defamation laws fairer.
"A free press can’t operate or be effective unless it can offer readers comment as well as news. What concerns me is that the current arrangements are being used by big corporations to restrict fair comment, not always by journalists but also by academics." He added: "The very high levels of remuneration for defamation lawyers in Britain seem to be incentivising libel tourism."
Earlier in 2009
Index on Censorship had joined forces with
NewsweekNewsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
magazine and the
Committee to Protect JournalistsThe Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent nonprofit organisation based in New York City that promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journalists.-History:A group of U.S...
to campaign publicly and privately for the release of Iranian filmmaker Maziar Bahari. Bahari was arrested without charge during the 2009 Iranian Election Protests and after nine days of maltreatment, "was forced to give a false confession". After 118 days in jail, Bahari was released on October 20, 2009.
These campaigns and others in process are illustrative of CEO John Kampfner’s strategy, supported by chair Jonathan Dimbleby, to boost Index’s public advocacy profile in the UK and abroad since 2008. Until then the organisation did not regard itself as “a campaigning organisation in the mould of
Article 19ARTICLE 19 is a London-based human rights organisation with a specific mandate and focus on the defence and promotion of freedom of expression and freedom of information worldwide...
or
Amnesty InternationalAmnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
,” as former news editor Sarah Smith noted in 2001. preferring to use its “understanding of what is newsworthy and politically significant” to maintain pressure on oppressive regimes (such as China, from 1989) through extensive coverage”.
Website
The Index on Censorship website http://www.indexoncensorship.org was relaunched on 11 May 2009, replacing the former www.indexonline.org blog. The new website provides the hub for all the organisations published writing, events and programmes. It carries some content from
Index on Censorship magazine, but mostly originally commissioned articles and blogs on free expression issues.
The site also has an extensive archive of resources which offers a searchable global listing of organisations and media that champion freedom of expression; reports surveying freedom of expression around the world; links to censorship circumvention guides and software; and a selection of the best writing about landmark issues in the fight for free expression over the years, such as the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the controversy surrounding the publication of the Danish cartoons, and internet censorship. It provides information about all current events, issues of magazines and projects that the organisation is undertaking.
Arts and international programmes
Index on Censorship also runs a programme of UK based and international projects that put the organisation’s philosophy into practice. In 2009 and 2010 Index on Censorship worked in Afghanistan, Burma, Iraq, Tunisia and many other countries, in support of journalists, broadcasters, artists and writers who work against a backdrop of intimidation, repression, and censorship.
The organisation’s arts programmes investigate the impact of current and recent social and political change on arts practitioners, assessing the degree and depth of self-censorship. It uses the arts to engage young people directly into the freedom of expression debate. It works with marginalised communities in UK, creating new platforms, on line and actual for creative expression.
Index on Censorship works internationally to commission new work, not only articles for print and online, but also new photography, film & video, visual arts and performance. Recent examples include an exhibition of photostories produced by women in Iraq,
Open Shutters; and programme involving artists from refugee and migrant communities in UK, linking with artists from their country of origin, imagine art after, exhibited at Tate Britain in 2007.
Index is also working with Burmese exiled artists and publishers on creating a programme in support of the collective efforts of Burma’s creative community. Index also commissioned a new play by Actors for Human Rights, Seven Years With Hard Labour, weaving together four accounts from former Burmese political prisoners now living in the UK. Index also co-published a book of poetry by homeless people in London and St. Petersburg.
Partners
Index on Censorship works in partnership with all the major groups working for freedom of expression rights, including
Amnesty InternationalAmnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
, the
American Civil Liberties UnionThe American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
(ACLU),
LibertyLiberty is a pressure group based in the United Kingdom. Its formal name is the National Council for Civil Liberties . Founded in 1934 by Ronald Kidd and Sylvia Crowther-Smith , the group campaigns to protect civil liberties and promote human rights...
, English PEN,
International PENPEN International , the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere....
and many other groups to create landmark events of national and international significance. Index was one four international freedom of expression organisations on the programming committee of the First Global Forum on Freedom of Expression in Oslo June 1 – 6 2009.
The organisation regularly contributes to the national and international media, and plays a regular part in major literary events and public debate, including the Hay and Edinburgh Festivals and political functions such as the Institute of Ideas, the Convention on Modern Liberty.
Index on Censorship is a founding member of the
International Freedom of Expression ExchangeThe International Freedom of Expression eXchange , founded in 1992, is a global network of around 90 non-governmental organisations that promotes and defends the right to freedom of expression....
, a global network of non-governmental organisations that monitors
censorshipthumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
worldwide and defends journalists, writers, Internet users and others who are persecuted for exercising their right to freedom of expression. It is also a member of the
Tunisia Monitoring GroupThe Tunisia Monitoring Group is a coalition of 21 free expression organisations that belong to the International Freedom of Expression Exchange , a global network of non-governmental organisations that promotes and defends the right to freedom of expression and freedom of the press.The IFEX-TMG...
, a coalition of 16 free expression organisations that lobbies the
TunisiaTunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
n government to improve its human rights record.
Founding history
The original inspiration for Index on Censorship came from two prominent Soviet dissidents,
Pavel LitvinovPavel Litvinov is a Russian physicist, writer, human rights activist and former Soviet-era dissident. He is the grandson of Maxim Litvinov, Joseph Stalin's foreign minister during the 1930s, and as such was born and raised amongst the Soviet elite...
, grandson of the former Soviet Foreign Minister,
Maxim LitvinovMaxim Maximovich Litvinov was a Russian revolutionary and prominent Soviet diplomat.- Early life and first exile :...
, and
Larisa BogorazLarisa Iosifovna Bogoraz was a dissident in the Soviet Union....
, the former wife of the writer,
Yuli DanielYuli Markovich Daniel was a Soviet dissident writer, poet, translator and political prisoner.He frequently wrote under the pseudonyms Nikolay Arzhak and Yu. Petrov .-Early life and World War II:...
, who had written to The Times in 1968 calling for international condemnation of the rigged trial of two young writers and their typists on charges of 'anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda'. (One of the writers, Yuri Galanskov, died in a camp in 1972).
Spender organised a telegram of support and sympathy from 16 British and US public intellectuals, including W.H. Auden, A.J. Ayer,
Yehudi MenuhinYehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...
,
J. B. PriestleyJohn Boynton Priestley, OM , known as J. B. Priestley, was an English novelist, playwright and broadcaster. He published 26 novels, notably The Good Companions , as well as numerous dramas such as An Inspector Calls...
,
Paul ScofieldDavid Paul Scofield, CH, CBE , better known as Paul Scofield, was an English actor of stage and screen...
,
Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....
,
Bertrand RussellBertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
and
Igor StravinskyIgor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, among others. In reply Litvinov suggested, in a letter later published in Index’s first issue, for some form of publication "to provide information to world public opinion about the real state of affairs in the USSR".
Spender and his colleagues, Stuart Hampshire, David Astor, Edward Crankshaw and founding editor Michael Scammell sought to go further than this, wishing to cover then current censorship in right-wing dictatorships such as Greece, Portugal, and the military regimes of Latin America, as well as in the former Soviet Union and its satellites.
Describing the organisation's objectives Hampshire said ‘the tyrant’s concealments of oppression and of absolute cruelty should always be challenged. There should be noise of publicity outside every detention centre and concentration camp and a published record of every tyrannical denial of free expression.’
The magazine was originally to be called Index, as suggested by Scammell, a reference to the lists or Indexes of banned works that are central to the history of censorship, including the Roman Catholic Church’s
Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of Forbidden Books), the Soviet Union’s
Censor’s Index and apartheid South Africa’s
Jacobsens Index of Objectionable Literature.
Scammell later admitted that the line
on Censorship was added as an afterthought after it was perceived that the reference was not clear to readers. “Panicking, we hastily added the words 'on censorship' as a subtitle,” wrote Scammell in the December 1981 issue of the magazine, “and this it has remained ever since, nagging me with its ungrammaticality (Index
of Censorship, surely) and a standing apology for the opacity of its title.”
Freedom of Expression Awards
Index on Censorship annually presents awards to courageous journalists, writers, lawyers, campaigners, filmmakers and whistleblowers from around the world who have made a significant contribution to free expression over the past year. Sponsors have included
The GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, the Economist Group, and the London law firm Bindmans.
2009 winners: Journalism:
The Sunday LeaderThe Sunday Leader is an English-language Sri Lankan Sunday newspaper privately owned and published by Leader Publications, which is known for its outspoken news coverage.-Controversy and retaliation:...
– Sri Lanka; Film: Ricki Stern and Ann Sundberg,
The Devil Came on HorsebackThe Devil Came on Horseback is a documentary film by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg illustrating the continuing Darfur Conflict in Sudan. Based on the book by former U.S. Marine Captain Brian Steidle and his experiences while working for the African Union, the film version had its premiere at film...
; New Media:
PsiphonPsiphon is a web proxy designed to help Internet users securely bypass the content-filtering systems used to censor the internet by governments in places like China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Pakistan, Belarus' and others...
; Books:
Ma JianMa Jian may refer to:* Ma Jian , Chinese basketball player* Ma Jian , Chinese writer* Muhammad Ma Jian, Confucian scholar who became an Islamic jurist...
,
Beijing Coma; Law: Malik Imtiaz Sarwar.
2008 winners: Journalism:
Arat DinkArat Dink is a Turkish journalist of Armenian origin and the executive editor of Agos, a bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly newspaper published in Istanbul...
and
Agos magazine;
Mohamed Al-DaradjiMohammed Al-Darraji is an Iraqi Dutch film director. Al-Daradji is a dual Dutch-Iraqi citizen. He studied theatre directing in Baghdad and fled to The Netherlands in 1995, where he specialised as a cameraman. Later he graduated with two MA's in cinematography and directing in Leeds at The Northern...
and
Ahlaam; New Media:
Julian AssangeJulian Paul Assange is an Australian publisher, journalist, writer, computer programmer and Internet activist. He is the editor in chief of WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website and conduit for worldwide news leaks with the stated purpose of creating open governments.WikiLeaks has published material...
and
WikileaksWikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
; Books:
Francisco GoldmanFrancisco Goldman is an American novelist, journalist, and Allen K. Smith Professor of Literature and Creative Writing, Trinity College. He is workshop director at , the journalism school for Latin-America created by Gabriel García Márquez...
,
The Art of Political Murder; Law:
U GambiraU Sandawbartha, commonly known by his pseudonym of U Gambira, , is an imprisoned leader of the All-Burma Monks' Alliance, a group which helped lead the 2007 Burmese anti-government protests....
and the Monks of Burma.
2007 winners: Journalism:
Kareem AmerAbdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman Amer is an Egyptian blogger and former law student. He was arrested by Egyptian authorities for posts on his that were considered to be anti-religious and insulting to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak...
; Film: Yoav Shamir,
Defamation; Whistleblower:
Chen GuangchengChen Guangcheng is a blind civil rights activist in the People's Republic of China who drew international attention to human rights issues in rural areas. He was placed under house arrest from September 2005 to March 2006 after talking to Time magazine about the forced abortion cases he...
; Books:
Samir KassirSamir Kassir was a Lebanese professor of history at Saint-Joseph University and journalist. Born to a Palestinian father and a Syrian mother, Kassir received his degree in philosophy and political philosophy in 1984, in 1990, Kassir earned his PhD in Modern History also from the University of...
; Law: Siphiwe Hlope.
2006 winners: Journalism:
Sihem BensedrineSihem Bensedrine is a Tunisian journalist and human rights activist.-Biography:She was born in La Marsa, near Tunis and went to France to study at the university in Toulouse, where she earned a degree in philosophy....
; Film:
Bahman GhobadiBahman Ghobadi is an Iranian film director of Kurdish ethnicity. He was born on February 1, 1969 in Baneh, Kurdistan Province. Ghobadi belongs to the so called "new wave" of Iranian cinema.-Biography:...
,
Turtles Can Fly; Whistleblower: Huang Jingao; Books: Jean Hatzfeld,
Into the Quick Life: The Rwandan Genocide – the Survivors Speak and
A Time for Machetes: the Killers Speak; Law: Beatrice Mtetwa.
Robert Fisk
In December 2002
Index on Censorship faced calls to cancel a charity performance of the
John MalkovichJohn Gavin Malkovich is an American actor, producer, director and fashion designer with his label Technobohemian. Over the last 25 years of his career, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award...
film
The Dancer Upstairs at London's
Institute of Contemporary ArtsThe Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
(ICA). Speaking to students the previous May, Malkovich had been asked who – as the star of
Les Liaisons DangereusesLes Liaisons dangereuses is a French epistolary novel by Choderlos de Laclos.Les Liaisons dangereuses may also refer to:* Les liaisons dangereuses , a 1959 film adapted by Claude Brulé and directed by Roger Vadim...
– he would like to fight a duel with. He picked
Robert FiskRobert Fisk is an English writer and journalist from Maidstone, Kent. As Middle East correspondent of The Independent, he has primarily been based in Beirut for more than 30 years. He has published a number of books and has reported on the United States's war in Afghanistan and the same country's...
,
The IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
newspaper's Middle East correspondent, and Glasgow MP
George GallowayGeorge Galloway is a British politician, author, journalist and broadcaster who was a Member of Parliament from 1987 to 2010. He was formerly an MP for the Labour Party, first for Glasgow Hillhead and later for Glasgow Kelvin, before his expulsion from the party in October 2003, the same year...
, adding that rather than duel them, he would "rather just shoot them".
Fisk reacted with outrage and the media rights group Reporters sans Frontieres condemned Malkovich, but in an online article Index's then Associate Editor (now deputy CEO)
Rohan JayasekeraRohan Asoka Jayasekera is a British journalist, editor, web designer and occasionally controversial activist for free expression and media rights...
, dismissed the actor's comments as "flippant" in an article on the organisation's defunct www.indexonline.org blog site:
- Over the years since (the Rwanda
Rwanda or , officially the Republic of Rwanda , is a country in central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.4 million . Rwanda is located a few degrees south of the Equator, and is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
genocide), and not without criticism, Index on Censorship has turned to reporting the areas where the right to free speech conflicts with these other rights. Index on Censorship is a journalistic enterprise, not a campaigning agency. This has freed it to make judgement calls — some say to equivocate — on when and where and how and why the freely expressed word can be a direct threat to other human rights.
The fundraising event went ahead in December 2002 despite a street protest outside the ICA. Since taking over as CEO in 2008 John Kampfner has strongly reinforced the campaigning profile of the organisation (see Arts and Advocacy programmes above).
Theo Van Gogh
In November 2004,
Index on Censorship attracted further controversy over another www.indexonline.org blogpost by Jayasekera that, to many readers, seemed to condone or justify the murder of Dutch film-maker
Theo van GoghTheodoor "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch film director, film producer, columnist, author and actor.Van Gogh worked with the Somali-born writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali to produce the film Submission, which criticized the treatment of women in Islam and aroused controversy among Muslims...
. The blog described van Gogh was a "free-speech fundamentalist" on a "martyrdom operation[,] roar[ing] his Muslim critics into silence with obscenities" in an "abuse of his right to free speech". Describing van Gogh's film
Submission as "furiously provocative", Jayasekera concluded by describing his death as:
- A sensational climax to a lifetime's public performance, stabbed and shot by a bearded fundamentalist, a message from the killer pinned by a dagger to his chest, Theo van Gogh became a martyr to free expression. His passing was marked by a magnificent barrage of noise as Amsterdam hit the streets to celebrate him in the way the man himself would have truly appreciated. And what timing! Just as his long-awaited biographical film of Pim Fortuyn
Wilhelmus Simon Petrus Fortuijn, known as Pim Fortuyn was a Dutch politician, civil servant, sociologist, author and professor who formed his own party, Pim Fortuyn List ....
's life is ready to screen. Bravo, Theo! Bravo!
There were many protests from both left- and right-wing commentators.
Nick CohenNick Cohen is a British journalist, author and political commentator. He is currently a columnist for The Observer, a blogger for The Spectator and TV critic for Standpoint magazine. He formerly wrote for the London Evening Standard and the New Statesman...
of
The ObserverThe Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
newspaper wrote in December 2004, that:
- When I asked Jayasekera if he had any regrets, he said he had none. He told me that, like many other readers, I shouldn't have made the mistake of believing that Index on Censorship was against censorship, even murderous censorship, on principle – in the same way as Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
is opposed to torture, including murderous torture, on principle. It may have been so its radical youth, but was now as concerned with fighting 'hate speech' as protecting free speech.
Ursula OwenUrsula Margaret Sachs is a publisher, editor and campaigner for free expression.-Early life:She was born Ursula Margaret Sachs in Oxford, England, to Emma Boehm and Werner Sachs, a chemical engineer who became managing director of a multinational company dealing with non ferrous metals...
, the chief executive of
Index on Censorship while agreeing that the blogpost's 'tone was not right', contradicted Cohen's account of his conversation with Jayasekera in a letter to the
Observer.
Danish cartoons
In December 2009 the magazine published an interview with
Jytte KlausenJytte Klausen is a Danish-born scholar of politics who teaches at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.Klausen is a graduate of the University of Aarhus who earned her doctorate at the New School for Social Research in New York....
about a refusal of
Yale University PressYale University Press is a book publisher founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day. It became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but remains financially and operationally autonomous....
to include the
Mohammed CartoonsThe Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after 12 editorial cartoons, most of which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005...
into Klausen's book
The Cartoons that Shook the WorldThe Cartoons that Shook the World is a 2009 book by Brandeis University professor Jytte Klausen about the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. Klausen contends that the controversy was deliberately stoked up by people with vested interests on all sides, and argues against the view that it...
. The magazine declined to include the cartoons alongside the interview.