Friday, 04 September 2020

Court case in France reminds us of those who died for a cartoon

Cartoonist Georges Wolinski in 2007, who was killed at the Charlie Hebdo office in 2015. Credit: Alvaro/Wikimedia Commons

This week a terror trial commences in France, with 14 people charged with being accomplices to the terrorists who murdered 12 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo back in 2015. We remember those who were murdered at Charlie Hebdo, as well as the four people who were later murdered at a Jewish supermarket and the 11 others injured.

"These were acts of terror. Designed to silence and scare. They were attacks on free expression and on freedom of religious belief. They were a hate crime. And even worse they led to more hate, more fear and more abuse towards the French Muslim community," writes Index on Censorship CEO Ruth Smeeth.

Read the full article here.

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Lights out for the last independent media in Hungary?

After a decade of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s rule, Hungary’s media landscape is in turmoil. Last month, 70 of the approximately 90 journalists working at Index.hu – which had been considered one of the last major independent news outlets in Hungary – resigned after the editor-in-chief was fired by the company’s CEO.

“For years, we’ve been saying that there are two conditions for the independent operation of Index: that there be no external influence on the content we publish or the structure and composition of our staff. Firing Szabolcs Dull has violated our second condition. His dismissal is a clear interference in the composition of our staff, and we cannot regard it any other way but as an overt attempt to apply pressure on Index.hu,” the departing journalists wrote in an open letter.

Read more about Index.hu and the joint letter we sent this week to the European Commission to speak up for Hungarian media here.

BBC's attack on comedy is not funny

Photo: Adam Jones, Ph.D./Global Photo Archive/Flickr

Our television screens are becoming a battleground for society’s broader culture wars, writes Head of Content Jemimah Steinfeld in The Independent this week.

Steinfeld discussed reports that the BBC's incoming new director Tim Davie's wants to rid the BBC of a “left-wing bias” in the broadcaster’s output, with comedy shows in particular in the firing line. Building on original research in the forthcoming magazine, which reveals an attack on comedy shows perceived to be on the right, Steinfeld says:

"The best comedies look into society’s inner soul and shine a spotlight on what defines, unites and divides us. Sometimes this is beautiful, other times ugly as hell. Often it's uncomfortable. Whether it’s a fake Jesus in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat singing “throw the Jew down the well” or today’s Fleabag masturbating onscreen to the horror of anyone prudish, comedy aims to provoke. This provocation reflects not only who we are at that moment in time, but when executed effectively it also drives us to question who we want to be.

Great comedy needs free expression. It’s its lifeline. And some of the best comedy offends those on both the left and the right."

Read the article in full.

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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