Index on Censorship weekly round-up

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Friday, 01 March 2024
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Jonny Lee Miller in Sam Holcroft's A Mirror at the Trafalgar Theatre (trafalgartheatre.com/shows/a-mirror/). Photo: Marc Brenner

Some months ago, I had the honour of being asked to talk about the work of Index on Censorship to the cast and production team of A Mirror, a play by Sam Holcroft about an imagined authoritarian state. The plot was straight from the pages of our magazine: in a country where all plays must be cleared by the censor, a group of actors stage a secret performance under the cover of a wedding.

During a break in rehearsals, the writer, director and actors fired questions at me about the history of dissident artists, our experience of working with writers in prison in Belarus and how to ensure we don’t endanger our contributors. At this point in the production process, the questions kept returning to how to make what they were doing with A Mirror relevant to a British audience. Where were the parallels with the suppression of protest in the UK? Were there subjects that couldn't be discussed on the British stage or in the media? Had I ever been harassed by the authorities for my work as a journalist?

I told them I thought it was important to distinguish between the experiences of writers, artists and intellectuals in the UK and their counterparts in Russia, China or Afghanistan. It was distasteful to suggest there was any comparison. I’m sure Holcroft never had any intention of drawing such crude parallels and I’m equally convinced it would never have made its recent much-deserved transfer to the West End if it had gone down that path.

It is a good rule of thumb not to describe writers in Britain as dissidents and the government in Britain as authoritarian. And yet sometimes a case comes along to challenge that comforting view.

This week, Northern Irish journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey finally succeeded in having their case examined by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. The two men were arrested by the Police Service of Northern Ireland in 2018 after making a documentary about a notorious 1994 massacre of six Catholics by Loyalist paramilitaries in Loughinisland. The film, No Stone Unturned, investigated allegations that police colluded in the murders. Northern Ireland’s top judge condemned police raids on the journalists’ homes when the case came to court. McCaffrey subsequently discovered that the PSNI had gained authorisation to access his telephone records in 2013, after he made a request to its press office concerning police corruption.

Amnesty International described the two-day hearing in London as a test-case for free expression in the UK and the tribunal judges were urged to be as open as possible despite the secretive nature of the tribunal. Index joined the Committee to Project Journalists and Reporters Without Borders in issuing a statement which stated, without hyperbole, why this case matters so much: “The use of covert surveillance against journalists who speak the truth to power harms everyone’s right to freedom of expression and information. We are also concerned that it is not only journalists who are subjected to unlawful action by public authorities using covert intrusive techniques involving UK authorities”.

We can only hope the IPT does its job. Such oversight is all we have to protect us from the abuse of state surveillance. Such institutions are precisely why the UK is not an authoritarian regime on the lines of the imaginary country in A Mirror. Birney and McCaffrey do not face exile or incarceration in a prison camp, but their treatment was still appalling. While keeping a sense of perspective, we should stop short of congratulating ourselves for not being as repressive as Putin or the Taliban.

Martin Bright, editor at large


** Calls to sanction architects of Uganda’s
Anti-Homosexuality Act grow
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Protesters outside the Ugandan High Commission in London, including Peter Tatchell, call for action over Uganda's anti-LGBTI+ laws. Photo: Maggie Jones via Flickr (PDM 1.0 DEED)

A prominent Ugandan LGBTQ+ activist Steven Kabuye, who nearly lost his life when he was attacked by unknown men in January this year, believes politicians and other leaders fomenting hate in his country against vulnerable communities must be put under targeted sanctions. As a result, Kabuye backs calls by LGBTQI+ campaigners ([link removed].) in the United Kingdom to bar the Speaker of the Ugandan parliament, Anita Annet Among, from entering the country to attend celebrations around the Commonwealth. Read the story here. ([link removed])
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** Mexico: Obrador’s attacks on freedom reach new heights
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Mexico's president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Photo: Eneas de Troya/Flickr

In the ongoing battle for freedom of expression in Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s relentless attacks on journalists and democratic institutions have reached alarming heights, posing a severe threat to press freedom and democracy in the country, writes our CEO Ruth Anderson ([link removed]) .

The latest incident involved an investigation by a New York Times journalist into the Obrador administration’s alleged connections with drug cartels.


** From the Index archives
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** Fifty years of pride and prejudice
by Peter Tatchell
Summer 2022
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A reflective piece of the successes and shortfalls of Pride in the UK from the leading campaigner ([link removed]) , a timely read after another country (Ghana) passes legislation to further marginalise and criminalise LGBQT+ people.
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Index on Censorship defends people's freedom to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution. We publish censored writers and artists, monitor and campaign against censorship, and encourage debate.

We rely on donations from readers and supporters. By donating ([link removed]) to Index you help us to protect freedom of expression and to support those who are denied that right.
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