Index on Censorship weekly round-up
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Friday, 18 August 2023
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Rishi Sunak meets Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the 2022 G20 meeting. Photo: Simon Walker/No 10 Downing Street
Saudi Arabia has dominated the chatter at Index HQ this week. First we received news that on Sunday Mohammed Alhajji, a prominent Saudi scholar and Snapchat influencer, had been detained ([link removed]) . We looked into him and couldn't find evidence of him saying or doing anything political, which is not to say that he hasn't. Alhajji is a public health expert and we need only mention Li Wenliang, China's whistleblowing doctor who died after being detained, to know that health is essentially political. Still, in lieu of evidence of a Saudi regime slight, the general consensus is that he was arrested because of his large social media following. I'm sorry what? Are authorities effectively saying use social media just don't use it that well?
I probably shouldn't be surprised. Saudi is Saudi after all. Perhaps Rishi Sunak could raise it with Saudi's ruler Mohammed bin Salman on a potential forthcoming visit to the UK ([link removed]) .
What I was more surprised by was Tuesday's news that Vice was spiking articles ([link removed]) critical of the kingdom. Yep, the once fearless, we'll-print-whatever-the-hell-we-want media empire is now part-owned by a Saudi firm and has staff in Riyadh. One specific article on the ill treatment of LGBTQ people was highlighted, which was apparently squashed because of fears for the safety of their Riyadh staff. Now I think we can all agree that we don't want any more arrested journalists in the world and I think we all respect any organisation that takes the safety of journalists and sources seriously. At Index we won't run articles if we deem the risk too high. Still, it's a real shame that Vice has landed in this place. So Index did what Index was basically set up to do - we reached out to the authors of said piece and offered a home for it on our site. You can read it here
([link removed]) and more about why we did it in this opinion piece for The Guardian ([link removed]) .
I'd like to do a quick newsletter shout-out to our superb editorial assistant Francis Clarke on this. It was Francis' idea to run the Saudi story and it was Francis who did the bulk of the back-and-forth. In many newsrooms and organisations editorial assistants and fixers are instrumental to getting a story out and yet rarely do they get much, nay any credit. That's never sat well with me, in general and especially at Index. So, thank you Francis!
In other news seven prominent Hong Kong activists, including media tycoon Jimmy Lai, were cleared of charges ([link removed]) for organising a protest in 2019. Sadly their convictions and sentences for participating in said rally remain. My cynical take is that the overturning merely serves as a smokescreen to make us think Hong Kong still has rule of law when it doesn't. Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, who is on Lai's legal team, also had a less than peppy take. Her words: "This decision is too little, too late, and it is no more than a figleaf of due process for a system which is fundamentally unfair... #JimmyLai should never have been convicted for organising this event & today's quashing of his conviction... shows that." Caoilfhionn, I 100% agree.
And that's all for now.
Jemimah Steinfeld, editor-in-chief
** Afghanistan's musical desert
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Afghanistan's all-female Ensemble Zohra, now in exile. Photo: World Economic Forum, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
It was the two-year anniversary of the fall of Kabul on Tuesday. We've reported frequently on how journalists have been singled out by the Taliban, less so on the ill treatment of musicians. But as Spozhmai Maani and Rizwan Sharif write here, they have been targeted by the Taliban from the get-go. "Just a couple of days into the Taliban’s regime they brutally killed a famous folklore singer. On 27 August 2021, Fawad Andarabi was murdered at home," they wrote. Read more on the bleak musical landscape in Afghanistan here ([link removed]) .
** Nigeria - a country just for men?
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A woman protests in Lagos, Nigeria. Photo: Adekunle Ajayi / Alamy Stock Photo
Nigeria’s elections earlier this year perpetuated the marginalisation of women. Women are getting fed up. “It’s always men making policies for women. Policies about our bodies, policies about our movements, policies about our lives,” Nimisire Etomimo, a gender equality advocate and writer who joined in a 2022 protest, told Index. Can these protests go anywhere? Chidinma Iwu reports ([link removed]) .
** Send a postcard of support to Jimmy Lai
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Left: Painting by Lumli Lumlong. Right: Messages 1..." (2015) by the Hong Kong visual artist, curator and writer, Mei Yuk Wong
Jimmy Lai is a 75-year-old businessman and founder and publisher of Apple Daily, a Hong Kong newspaper that was forced to close in 2021 after the Chinese Communist Party's crackdown on pro-democracy protests in the city. A longtime critic of the party, Lai is one of the most high-profile pro-democracy campaigners to have been arrested in Hong Kong since the Chinese government enacted the National Security Law in June 2020. Lai was charged with violating the National Security Law in August 2020. His trial for that case is scheduled for September 2023, but since his arrest he has been convicted on separate charges of fraud and organising illegal protests.
Index is now launching a campaign to allow Jimmy's well-wishers to send him postcards containing messages of support which we will forward to him in prison. Find out how to take part here ([link removed]) .
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** From the archive
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** Word search
by Rachael Jolley and Ian Rankin
Autumn 2018
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As people flock to Edinburgh for the Fringe enjoy this short story ([link removed]) from one of the city's most famous residents. A world in which books are obsolete? Now that's a terrifying idea (unless you're a US book banner, in which case you might think it's delicious).
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