The latest in freedom of expression from around the world

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Friday, 18 September 2020


** Mehdi Rajabian's Iran: where
making music is a crime
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Mehdi Rajabian is a musician in Iran, where women’s behaviour and expression – including their ability to sing in public or record their songs – is severely limited by the regime. But Rajabian has been determined to defy the authorities’ efforts to intimidate him, repress his art, and silence women’s voices. “I need female singing in my project,”

In August, Rajabian was summoned by the security police, who arrested him and took him to court. He was handcuffed and brought in front of a judge, who told him that the inclusion of women’s voices in his project “encouraged prostitution”. Read the full story here ([link removed]) .


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** "I am free to practise my religion: others, like the Uighurs, are not": Ruth Smeeth
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This weekend marks the Jewish New Year, the beginning of the year 5781. I will be spending the weekend with my family, keeping to the Rule of Six of course, eating honey cake, celebrating the fact that even in the middle of a global pandemic we get to be together.

We’ll laugh, we’ll chat and we might even Zoom in to watch part of the religious services. It will be a relatively normal (if a little surreal because of Zoom) high holy day and no one will bat an eyelid.

Because I live in the UK, I am free to practise my religion without restriction, I am legally protected to be a British Jew and I get to use my voice to fight for others. I am lucky. We are lucky. Others simply are not.

Read why our CEO Ruth Smeeth will be thinking about the plight of the Uighurs this weekend in her weekly blog for Index ([link removed]) .
[link removed] July, Index on Censorship held a virtual round table to discuss what measures can be taken to protect journalists in Europe against strategic lawsuits against public participation (Slapps). These are vexatious legal threats and actions taken out by powerful people and are intended not to succeed in court but to saddle critics with prohibitively expensive, time-consuming, and nerve-wracking legal processes.

Read our new report Breaking the Silence ([link removed]) on how journalists might regain their voices.


** Meet the great-grandmother kicking back against Lukashenko in Belarus
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On 9 August, Belarus went to the polls to elect their president. Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, was seeking a fifth term.

When the result was announced, Lukashenko had won 80% of the vote. However, the Belarusian people believed the election was rigged and took to the streets in their thousands to protest peacefully.

One of those protesting was 73-year-old great grandmother Nina Bahinskaya, who has become a famous face on the streets of Minsk as she squares up to Lukashenko’s riot police. Watch her exclusive interview with associate editor Mark Frary here ([link removed]) .


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.

We rely on donations from readers and supporters. By donating ([link removed]) to Index you help us to protect freedom of expression and to support those who are denied that right.
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