Friday, 18 July 2025
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** Afghans at risk on all fronts
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The Telegraph has named it “the most expensive email in history” and that's the story that dominated the UK this week – news ([link removed]) of a leaked dataset on Afghans who helped the British government, the super injunction that kept the story in the dark and the hundreds of millions spent on getting some of the named out of Afghanistan. But while the focus was on those leaving the country, a separate story has been developing throughout. Iran has deported over one million Afghans ([link removed]) back into the country this year. It's a similar case in Pakistan, though the exact numbers here are hard to ascertain. More still are being threatened with deportation, such as Zahra Shams, an Afghan
journalist who was arrested with her family this week by Pakistani police, as reported by ([link removed]) the Afghanistan Journalists Support Organization (AJSO). It's important to state just how dangerous it would be for her if she were forced back.

“Afghanistan is like a cage for women, and we're coming back to that cage,” said a 17-year-old girl in an interview ([link removed]) with the New York Times, who returned last week. Few can argue with the word “cage”. From bans on women visiting parks and no secondary school for girls to a law against ([link removed]) women's voices being heard out loud in public, life for Afghan women today is terrible. Rukshana Media reported this week on Taliban forces administering electric shocks ([link removed]) to women over breaches of a hijab mandate, which in some instances have been so strong they’ve knocked women unconscious.

At Index, where we have a history of working with political prisoners, we've been calling it a domestic prison. Afghanistan - with a population of 41 million - is arguably the world's biggest jailer. What girls and women are going through is nothing short of appalling.

We are still hearing a bit about life on the ground in Afghanistan, thanks to organisations like Rukshana and AJSO and the occasional focus in international media. But it’s far from enough. That’s why Index is prioritising working with Afghan women right now. Over the coming year we’ll publish their letters and creative writing. We’ll centre their voices – the very thing the Taliban is trying to take away. If you feel as passionately as I do here, we'd gladly receive donations ([link removed]) . Every time we get £250 we are able to publish another article, paying women who might otherwise be financially struggling and keeping morale up in a country where 68% of women ([link removed]) have rated their mental health as “bad” or “very bad”. It’s our humble contributio
n to counter the silencing of Afghan women and to keep Afghanistan in the spotlight outside of breaking news on data leaks.

Click here ([link removed]) to donate.

Jemimah Steinfeld

CEO, Index on Censorship


** More from Index
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From the UK to Benin: The week in free expression ([link removed])

A round-up of the key stories covering censorship and free expression from the past seven days ([link removed])

Africa’s appetite for coups grows as military leaders strengthen their grip ([link removed])

Army generals have seized power across the continent promising democracy - it hasn't happened ([link removed])

Will The Telegraph’s new owners give China media influence in the UK? ([link removed])

Luke de Pulford argues why we must all take note, before it’s too late ([link removed])

Environmental defenders facing violence as social media platforms fail to act ([link removed])

As social media companies pull back on content moderation, climate activists are being targeted ([link removed])

How Iran and Israel control information ([link removed])

Two journalists reflect on how the truth about war is obscured by their own governments ([link removed])

Kenya’s president takes aim at protesters ([link removed])

William Ruto continues to use force to quash peaceful demonstrations ([link removed])

Index and others urge Greece to create national plan to fight press attacks ([link removed])

We wrote to the Greek Prime Minister about reforms needed to address media freedom concerns ([link removed])

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** Land of the free? Magazine launch and panel discussion
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Join us on Tuesday 5 August at St John’s Waterloo for the launch of our latest magazine issue on the impact of the Trump administration on free speech in the USA and beyond.

With Peter Geoghegan (Democracy for Sale), Charlie Holt (Global Climate Legal Defense), and Erica Wagner (The Observer) and Hanna Komar (Belarusian poet).
REGISTER ([link removed])


** From the UK to Benin: The week in free expression ([link removed])
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** >> UK: ([link removed]) Kent woman threatened with arrest over Palestine flags ([link removed])
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** >> BENIN: ([link removed]) Exiled journalist forcibly detained in Côte d’Ivoire and extradited ([link removed])
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** >> RUSSIA: ([link removed]) Authorities crack down on “extremist” Google searches ([link removed])
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** >> AFGHANISTAN: ([link removed]) Local reporter arrested and equipment confiscated ([link removed])
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** >> CHINA: ([link removed]) [link removed] corporation seeks closure of uncensored WeChat archive ([link removed])
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** >> PHILIPPINES: ([link removed]) Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa acquitted in criminal case ([link removed])
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** Flashback
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One Letter ([link removed])

by Liu Xiaobo ([link removed])

Volume 39, Issue 4 ([link removed])

“one letter is enough

for me to transcend and face

you to speak”

Sunday marked eight years since writer, human rights activist and Nobel Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo died. Xiaobo played a crucial part in the 1989 pro-democracy movement, staging a hunger strike in Tiananmen Square. Despite facing persecution, he continued to speak out in favour of freedom of expression and democracy for the rest of his life.

He was arrested in December 2008, and sentenced a year later to eleven years' imprisonment for undermining the state authorities. He died behind bars on 13 July 2017. This week, we look back on his poetry.Read the story here. ([link removed])


** Support our work
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The world is becoming more authoritarian and our work calling out human rights abuses and promoting freedom of expression in countries such as Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan 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: (Afghans facing deportation in Iran) Sayed Habib Bidell / Alamy Stock Photo; (Empty chair for Liu Xiaobo) The Nobel Foundation 2010 / Ken Opprann

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