Index on Censorship weekly round-up

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Friday, 29 November 2024
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Presidential election tallies stream down a wall alongside photos of prisoners who were detained amid a government crackdown in August. Photo by AP Photo / Matias Delacroix / Alamy

As thoughts turn to the festive season, Americans will have the chance to ponder what the New Year and a Donald Trump presidency will mean. But this is not the only significant election in the continent to have happened this year.

This weekend Venezuelans will take to the streets to demonstrate against President Nicolás Maduro’s refusal to acknowledge his defeat in elections on 28 July ([link removed]) . The opposition candidate, 75-year-old Edmundo González Urrutia, has pledged to return to the country from exile ([link removed]) in Spain to take office on 10 January 2025, ten days before the Trump inauguration. His victory has been recognised by the international community, including the White House.

International human rights groups have raised concerns about the increasing authoritarianism of the Maduro government with widespread surveillance of its citizens and arbitrary detention of political opponents. According to UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, 7.7 million Venezuelans have left the country ([link removed]) as of May 2024, which accounts for roughly 20% of the entire population.

González, who has never stood for office before, took the place of the original opposition candidate Maria Corina Machado, when she was banned from standing by the government ([link removed]) and forced into hiding. Machado now faces charges from the Venezuelan federal prosecutor, which accuses her of supporting American sanctions against her country.

Machado has joined fellow opposition figure Magalli Meda in calling for protesters around the world to paint their hands red as a symbol of the suffering of the Venezuelan people as they take to the streets around the world. The UN reported that at least 23 protesters were killed at anti-government demonstrations ([link removed]) in the weeks after the election and approximately 2,400 were arrested.

Despite the desperate situation for Venezuela as it sinks further into economic crisis and international isolation, this year’s elections have provided a model of democratic activism. Voters were shocked when the government announced that Maduro had gained a convenient 51% of the vote but failed to provide numbers. This in a country whose election system was described by the Carter Center, set up by the former US President Jimmy Carter, as “the best in the world”.

In this context, readers of this newsletter would be advised to listen to the latest episode of the This American Life podcast, which includes a report ([link removed]) on Venezuela by Nancy Updike. A transcript ([link removed]) is also available.

Updike tells the story of the movement, led by citizens, to document the country’s entire voting record, precisely in case that Maduro’s ruling party tried to fix the vote. The movement was called Seiscientos Kah, which means 600k, and was so named because of the number of volunteers needed to make the checks. The organiser is now in hiding.

Every voting machine in Venezuela prints out a tally of votes for each candidate on election day. Each candidate is allowed a witness at every one of the 30,000 machines stationed around the country. 600k was set up as a giant relay race with the witnesses at the start and activists collecting the results and taking them to monitoring centres at secret locations. Here, using a laptop, a scanner, and a portable generator, the results were then uploaded to a website and the original copies taken to a separate secret location.

This extraordinary process meant that when polling closed, opposition supporters across the country uploaded videos of people reading out the results, which had come directly from the voting machines.

The situation in Venezuela remains grim. Updike quotes from a UN report on the protests against Maduro after the election. Those charged with terrorism and incitement to hatred included: "opposition political leaders, individuals who simply participated in the protests, persons who sympathised with the opposition or criticised the government, journalists who covered the protests, lawyers for those detained, human rights defenders, and members of the academic community".

A statement from a member of the UN fact-finding mission said that many of those detained: “were subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, as well as sexual violence, which was perpetrated against women and girls, but also against men".

Maduro has called the actions of the 600k movement a “coup”. In fact, it may provide a blueprint for the fight against election-rigging by authoritarian governments around the world.
Martin Bright is editor-at-large at Index


** COP29: Azerbaijan’s flagrant human rights abuses undermine its role as climate conference host
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The portrayed image of COP29 is different from the reality. Photo by cop29.az

Whether it be through the song and dance of Eurovision or the tense COP29 negotiations, Aliyev’s regime is desperate to cover up its abuses in glam and glitter. But attention should bring accountability, and the international community must make sure that while the president basks in the spotlight, he does not extend his dangerous grip in the shadows, writes Emily Boyle ([link removed]) .
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** Mohammed Zubair: Index award-winner targeted with sedition charges
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Mohammed Zubair has faced significant threats for running his fact-checking platform in India

A First Information Report (FIR) ([link removed]) has been issued against the co-founder of Alt News ([link removed]) , Mohammed Zubair due to his reporting on comments made by the controversial Hindu priest Yati Narsinghanand. Zubair was last year’s winner of the Freedom of Expression Award ([link removed]) for his fact-checking and journalism after he endured a cascade of FIRs, which led to periods of imprisonment and a high-profile supreme court win. This recent FIR marks an alarming escalation. It cites an offence under the sedition clause of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita ([link removed]) , India's reformed criminal code. While this reform was promoted as an opportunity to remove the stain of British colonial rule, when it
comes to the sedition provisions, it was not so much a removal as it was a process of modernisation. Index are deeply alarmed by the continued use of sedition to target journalists like Mohammed Zubair, and we will continue to monitor the case as it goes to court on 3 December.


** The dangers of boycotting Russian science
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Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev meets with Russian scientists participating in experiments at the CERN particle physics laboratory before the country was excluded over the Ukraine war. Photo: Kommersant Photo Agency/Alamy

As physics laboratory Cern ends co-operation with Russia this week over the Ukraine war, JP O'Malley argues that sanctioning Russian scientists will undoubtedly damage Russian science in the long term, but it’s unlikely to alter Russia’s present political reality. Read his article here ([link removed]) .


** Boualem Sansal faces life imprisonment if found guilty of national security charges
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Algerian-French writer Boualem Sansal. Photo by Nicolas Roses / ABACAPRESS.COM / Alamy Stock Photo

Boualem Sansal is one of Algeria’s most prominent and outspoken writers, who has established an international reputation for his work. Twelve years ago, he called on the writers of the world to fight for peace. Now they must come together to fight for him, writes Martin Bright ([link removed]) .


** From the Index archives
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** Courting disapproval
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** by Shahira Amin
Winter 2014
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Laila Soueif, mother of the British-Egyptian blogger and activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, has now spent more than 60 days on hunger strike in protest at the ongoing failure of the Egyptian government to release her son. El-Fattah has now served two five-year sentences. Soueif believes he should have been released on 29 September and she met the UK foreign secretary David Lammy this week to press for action.

Back in 2014, Shahira Amin wrote about the aftermath of the military takeover after El-Fattah was first arrested. Read her article here. ([link removed])
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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.

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