Friday, 21 March 2025
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** Power to the people?
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Protest is in Index’s DNA. We were founded following calls for help from Russian intellectuals Pavel and Ivy Litvinov and Larisa Bogoraz – people who faced constant persecution for their roles in the democratic movement in the Soviet Union – so from the outset we’ve stood with those who’ve taken their fight for free expression to the streets. Given our history, in 2018 we dedicated an issue of the magazine to the anniversary of the 1968 global protests and examined the state of protest rights 50 years on. We noted ([link removed]) [link removed] “the right to protest is under threat in democracies as well as authoritarian states”.

Looking back at that issue seven years later feels very bittersweet. The biggest threat we observed then to protest rights in the UK was the privatisation of urban spaces ([link removed]) . As for the USA, there was nothing too alarming during Donald Trump’s first term. Instead Micah White, one of the co-founders of Occupy Wall Street, wrote ([link removed]) about how protest was failing and why we needed new forms of activism.

Today it’s almost impossible to keep track of stories concerning threats to protest rights in both countries. Take Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, for example, who has now been in detention for more than a week without any charges issued. Due process ([link removed]) has been torn to shreds in an attempt to intimidate and silence others.

Or take the Greenpeace case in North Dakota, where a jury on Wednesday decided ([link removed]) that the global climate campaign group must pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to the oil and gas company Energy Transfer for its role in protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace argues that this lawsuit is an attack on the right to protest, a sentiment echoed by constitutional experts (and indeed, us).

In the UK, protest legislation passed by the last government has led to arrests and long prison sentences for several individuals. Two weeks ago, a judge reduced some of these sentences, calling them “manifestly excessive” ([link removed]) , but the reduction did little to change the message – be careful what you protest against, and where you do it.

Even in our courtrooms, activists face pressure to abandon their political beliefs in order to avoid harsher punishments. A recent study ([link removed]) highlighted this trend and called for it to end.

This is far from the full picture, and while it’s true that many of us can still protest, the right is now far from universally applied. This must concern us all. A good response to this, nay the only response, is to keep talking about these threats, and also to keep protesting, which is exactly what we’ll do next Tuesday. In true Index fashion, we’re heading ([link removed]) to the Belarus Embassy in London to protest Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s clampdown on, well, protest. Join us while you still can.

Jemimah Steinfeld

CEO, Index on Censorship


** More from Index
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Standing in solidarity with VOA, RFE/RL and RFA ([link removed])

The Donald Trump administration is moving to shutter these essential media outlets ([link removed])

USA must protect press freedom after gutting of USAGM ([link removed])

President Trump signs an order calling for the the independent media agency to be “eliminated" ([link removed])

The extraordinary decency of Athol Fugard ([link removed])

Filmmaker and actor Gavin Hood reflects on his relationship with the late South African playwright ([link removed])

The end of impunity for Rodrigo Duterte ([link removed])

Justice has finally caught up with the former Philippines president ([link removed])

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** Belarus Liberty Day protest
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Join Index on Tuesday 25 March for a powerful Belarus Liberty Day gathering outside the Embassy of Belarus to demand freedom for political prisoners unjustly detained by Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s regime.

In solidarity with those behind bars, members of the Belarusian diaspora will read letters from our Letters from Lukashenka’s Prisoners campaign.

LEARN MORE ([link removed])


** From elsewhere
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**
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** >> GEORGIA: ([link removed]) Human Rights House Tbilisi's bank accounts frozen ([link removed]) [link removed]
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** >> TURKEY: ([link removed]) Police detain President Erdoğan’s main political rival ([link removed])
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** >> CHINA: ([link removed]) Wang Jianbing released, continues to face threats to his freedom ([link removed])
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** >> HUNGARY: ([link removed]) Authorities ban LGBTQ+ pride marches ([link removed])
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** >> USA: ([link removed]) Scientist banned from entering the country over opinions about Trump ([link removed])
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** Flashback
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World Poetry Day: Bearing witness through poetry ([link removed])

by Emma Sandvik Ling ([link removed])

Index on Censorship, volume 50, issue 4 ([link removed])

“In this sapped spring of endless legends

they will thrive like a flower jungle.

Death is no stranger —

if you daren’t fall, you are no flower.”

Extract from the poem Hlaingthaya by Thitsar Ni

On World Poetry Day, we revisit the stories of two poets on the frontline of censorship. Thitsar Ni shares his poem Hlaingthaya which bears witness to the 39 people killed in protests in a township in Myanmar on 14 March 2021. Meanwhile, Choman Hardi’s poetry reflects on women's experiences of Saddam Hussein's Kurdish genocide in the 1980s. Read more here. ([link removed])



** Support our work
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The world is becoming more authoritarian and our work calling for the protection of protest rights in the UK and USA and promoting freedom of expression in countries such as Belarus, the Philippines and Myanmar has never been more important.

By supporting Index on Censorship today, you can help us in our work with censored artists, jailed musicians, journalists under threat and dissidents facing torture or worse.

Please donate today ([link removed])

Photos by: (Protest) Alisdare Hickson / CC BY 2.0; (Thitsar Ni) Craig Ritchie

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