Trolls and insults: Azerbaijan's exiled media increasingly under fire

After the total capture of the media environment inside the country, the government of Ilham Aliyev has turned its attention to silencing critics in exile.

The morning of 9 April did not promise to be out of the ordinary for Sevinc Osmanqizi, an Azerbaijani journalist based in the suburbs of Washington DC. She started her morning routine by making a fresh pot of coffee and readying her two sons for school. Prior to starting the daily broadcasts of her YouTube-based OsmanqiziTV channel, she checked her messages, which included links sent by friends to a broadcast that had aired a few days earlier on the recently-launched Real TV in Azerbaijan. 

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A short history of comic book censorship in America

Nothing defined 20th-century American culture quite like the comic book. Comics in their popular, serialised form emerged in 1930s New York City, mass-produced by recent immigrants and their children who had grown up reading one-strip funny cartoons. The early success of Superman (the concoction of two young Jewish immigrants, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster) spurred the rapid growth of the comics industry. By the mid-1940s, many small-time comic publishers were churning out hundreds of series and characters of all genres.

Soon after comics’ meteoric rise in popularity, the industry drew criticism. Comics were never regarded as “high art” despite the aspirations of many who worked in the industry. They were unapologetically for children and adolescents, produced as entertainment for the lower classes. Many of the comics genres that rose to extreme popularity in the 1930s, 40s and 50s revolved around crime, ghosts and ghouls, aliens, and pulpy romance. Notably, EC Comics started by Bill Gaines was famous for Crime Does Not Pay, a comic that published macabre tales that blurred the line between good and evil. Gaines inherited the publishing business from his father, who had died suddenly in a boating accident, and EC comics became synonymous with the seediest corners of the comics industry.

Save the Date
26 Sept: Truly Uncensored? LGBTQ+ Young Adult Literature
23 Sept: John Osborne’s Under Plain Covers
23 Sept: Walled In: Writers consider walls in literature and in our lives
More events to be added soon

THIS WEEKEND / Index at the Cambridge Folk Festival
Folk tales for grown ups

Join Index on Censorship for a weekend of talks and performances in the Flower Garden at Cambridge Folk Festival (1-4 August 2019).

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7 September / Symposium
The paradox of creative constraints

This public event will reflect on the paradox of creative constraints in contemporary cinema from the Middle East – a day of film screenings and panel discussions with filmmakers, funders and programmers, including some of the most innovative rising talents as well as established experts.

The symposium will offer new insights into filmmaking from the region, revitalising debates on cinematic creativity in sites of conflict and crisis in the Middle East and beyond.

Full details