Friday, 19 September 2025
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** Haiti’s violence is so extreme, it’s difficult to face up to it. But we must.
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Haiti has played on my mind for months, not least since reading a piece ([link removed]) in the Miami Herald in June about people being beheaded in a church. That level of violence will always make one sit up but what really got to me were the perpetrators. It was not at the hands of the infamous gangs – it was at the hands of so-called self-defence brigades set up to fight the gangs. At the time of reading this I was surprised the story wasn’t more widely covered. I mostly put it down to one simple fact – a challenge we are all too familiar with – distraction by other world events. I’ve now done some digging and it’s more than that.

Today Haiti is facing an intense crisis, or “total chaos ([link removed]) ” as the UN has described it. They’re led by a coalition set up almost two years ago to offer stability after the former prime minister, Ariel Henry, was ousted. Except the coalition is deemed dysfunctional and useless. A network of gangs control swathes of the country, a main spokesman for the largest being the ominously named Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier ([link removed]) (Barbecue is in fact simply a reference to his mother’s food stall). The gangs run many of the roads, a convenient way to tax people using them and grow rich in so doing. The country’s main airport, in the capital Port-au-Prince, is effectively closed after several planes were shot at. A patchwork of counter militia have emerged who rival the gangs in violence. Thousands have been killed, millions displaced, starvation is rife, as is rape.

Given the violence, alongside the logistical challenges of getting in and out of the country and travelling internally, international media have largely stayed away. This is a big frustration for Michael Deibert, an author, journalist and Index contributor ([link removed]) , who is rare in actually still visiting (and will be writing more in-depth for Index on this). He has been reporting from Haiti for decades and was last there in July. While he recognised the extreme difficulties for foreign correspondents, he did nevertheless stress that they needed to be there. As an aside Deibert also told me that he regularly receives videos of gang atrocities.

Deibert’s point about the absence of foreign media is made all the more important because local journalists are struggling to report the story. They are terrified of both sides – the gangs and militia – and speaking to either in the interests of impartial journalism risks them being deemed a “collaborator”. Meanwhile even seemingly neutral areas to cover, like the reopening of a hospital, have led to the death ([link removed]) of several of their own.

The violence isn’t just about silencing the messenger, it’s about the message: A viral video of someone being murdered, the ringing sounds of gunshots in the distance, a woman raped in the open – these make people incredibly cautious about speaking out lest they’re next. The UN might describe the scenes in Haiti as “total chaos” but they’re also ones motivated by total control.


Jemimah Steinfeld

CEO, Index on Censorship


** More from Index
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From Israel to the UK: 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])

Freedoms in flames: Trump’s second term in figures ([link removed])

Index takes a look into the data around the US president’s flurry of activity since his second term ([link removed])

An un-American story on book bans ([link removed])

Librarians and public institutions in the US are facing a growing threat to independent thinking ([link removed])

From Nepal, a familiar warning ([link removed])

Are recent crackdowns on digital freedoms tackling hate speech or increasing censorship? ([link removed])

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** Truth, trust and tricksters in the age of AI
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As AI rapidly transforms society, how do we operate in the mirror world of AI and identify the truth tellers from the tricksters?

Join us for a panel discussion with Kenneth Cukier (deputy executive editor, The Economist), Timandra Harkness (writer, broadcaster and presenter) and

Dr Eduardo Alonso (professor of Artificial Intelligence/director of the AI Research Centre (CitAI) City St George's).
REGISTER ([link removed])


** From Israel to the UK: The week in free expression ([link removed])
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** >> ISRAEL: ([link removed]) Film festival faces funding cut threat for Palestinian film ([link removed])
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** >> UK: ([link removed]) Trump picture on Windsor Castle leads to four arrests ([link removed])
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** >> TOGO: ([link removed]) Former defence minister arrested after criticising government ([link removed])
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** >> GLOBAL: ([link removed]) Politicians in 50+ countries used anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric in campaigns ([link removed])
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** >> AFGHANISTAN: ([link removed]) Taliban shuts down WiFi in Balkh province ([link removed])
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** >> AZERBAIJAN: ([link removed]) Appeal court upholds sentences in “Abzas Media” case ([link removed])
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** Flashback
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Don’t say ‘gay’ ([link removed])

by Ugonna-Ora Owoh ([link removed])

Volume 53, Issue 2 ([link removed])

“The queer-bait election saga, where the government uses a minority group as a pawn to gain political favours from the public, is a common phenomenon. And because queerness is seen as a huge taboo in most countries in Africa, LGBT+ individuals suffer.”

This week, a new report ([link removed]) by Outright International found that politicians in at least 51 countries used anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, signalling what the Director called a “weaponisation of hate”. We’ve reported on the anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric in Ghana which has only worsened in recent years following the passing of a bill criminalising anyone who identifies as part of the LGBTQ+ community. 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 Haiti, the USA, Tanzania and the UK 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: (Port-au-Prince, Haiti. 2nd Apr, 2025) © Patrice Noel/ZUMA Press Wire; (Protests against Ghana’s LGBT+ bill) Li/Picture Capital via Alamy

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