Photo: Noah Buscher/Unsplash
 

As we were preparing this week's newsletter, news began to filter in about the death of Vladimir Putin's fiercest critic, Alexei Navalny, in a penal colony in the Arctic Circle. Putin has long shown his disregard for human rights and has shown no qualms in silencing his critics in whichever heinous way he chooses. One of our regular contributors, John Sweeney, who has met both Navalny and Putin, shares his thoughts on his "fond and foolish friend" below. But first our regular newsletter, written before this latest revelation.

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My friend - who shall remain anonymous - works at one of the big management consultancies - which shall also remain anonymous. Back in November the global head called an all-company meeting in which they effectively told everyone they were no longer allowed to discuss Israel-Palestine. It had become so toxic, so polarising, and they needed their staff to get along in order to get work done. This was more of a request than an order; there would be no punishments for going against it. Censorship it was not.

But elsewhere we have seen punishments for expressing one's views publicly. Artists, academics, writers, even footballers have lost their jobs for voicing an opinion that is seen to be on the wrong side of the conflict. People protesting around the world have been arrested. So too have journalists simply for covering these protests, as was the case last weekend in New York when Reed Dunlea was thrown to the ground, had his equipment damaged and was charged, somewhat ironically, with resisting arrest.

At the same time we've seen people being attacked for not expressing a view. Since 7 October social media feeds have filled with posts calling on people to speak up - first against Hamas atrocities, then against Israeli atrocities. The impulse for solidarity is understandable. It's just at times these posts have felt less like an ask and more like a demand. 

In the analog world such behaviour reached an extreme last Saturday at London's Soho Theatre. There the comedian Paul Currie wrapped up his show calling on everyone to stand in support of the Ukraine and Palestinian flags. When one audeince member didn’t (Liahav Eitan, an Israeli) they were hounded out of the room by both comedian and audience, who allegedly chanted "get the fuck out". Thoughtful reflection on the incident came from fellow comedian Simon Evans (here) in which he said free speech grants comedians a lot of licence but Currie clearly crossed a line. 

All of the above are serious attacks to free expression. But they are nothing on the violations that are happening every day in Israel and Palestine itself, for which the implications of not being able to speak freely are far more profound. In Israel, we've heard reports this past week of both the police and Benjamin Netanyahu's "thugs" attacking people on the streets who've protested the current conduct of the war, including those simply calling for consideration of the remaining hostages.

Across the border in Gaza two Al Jazeera journalists have been badly injured while doing their jobs. It's unclear whether they were injured because of where they were or what they were doing. Still, it is yet another attack on media freedom, a cornerstone of free expression. 

That's quite a tally of violations in the past week alone and yet it's far from unusual within the context of this awful war, which is precisely the problem. Today we run the risk of normalising censorship, of becoming inured to its corrosive nature. We need to find a way out of this mess before it’s too late. 

Jemimah Steinfeld, editor-in-chief