Index looks back on the day that changed Europe
[link removed]
[link removed] Donate ([link removed])
[link removed] Subscribe ([link removed])
Friday 8 November 2019
** The day the wall came down
------------------------------------------------------------
Thirty years ago this month, the world changed: a border that divided a city for 28 years was brought down. The Berlin Wall was both a physical and ideological barrier, and that night – 9 November 1989 – brought friends and families together and changed the face of Europe.
During those years of separation, many were killed trying to escape from the east to the west. Italian lorry driver Benito Corghi was shot and killed in 1976 while making a delivery and his widow's impassioned plea to the East German officials in Rome was in vain. Index reported at the time ([link removed]) said: “People who gun down other people simply for walking along a road don’t listen to widows.”
Among the many who celebrated the wall's fall were East German filmmakers, who had endured years of having their work banned, being banished themselves or finding it impossible to work. In 1965 there was a major crackdown on films – many of which were never seen or did not resurface until 1990. In this article from 1991, film historian and critic Ralf Schenk says it was a “cultural crime that was never made good”. ([link removed])
Five years after the fall, British historian Timothy Garton Ash wrote an article for Index looking at the aftermath ([link removed]) – the good and the bad, the velvet revolutions, the wars and the glimmer of hope that was created.
More news and features from Index on Censorship ([link removed])
** Altan released, but the fight goes on ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------
[link removed]
This week Turkish journalist Ahmet Altan walked free after three years in prison.
Index nonetheless remains concerned that Altan was convicted and is on probation, and his co-defendants – Fevzi Yazıcı, Yakup Şimşek and Şükrü Tuğrul Özşengül – remain in detention after having been convicted of “membership of a terrorist organisation".
In June 2019 Index on Censorship magazine interviewed ([link removed]) Altan in prison about his writing and his family tradition of dissent: “I came out against the unlawful practices of both the era of military tutelage and that of the AKP: I believe I am a target of their anger.”
** Zehra Dogan: Index award has heightened my profile ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------
[link removed]
When Zehra Dogan was in prison, she used inventive means to keep communicating through words and art. The Kurdish painter and journalist, and winner of the 2019 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award for Arts, was imprisoned over her reports from Turkey’s Kurdish region.
Without access to materials, but with stories to tell, she used dyes made from crushed fruit, herbs and blood to paint, using newspapers and milk cartons as canvases, before being released in February 2019.
We caught up with Dogan to find out what she has been working on since winning the Index on Censorship award.
Subscribe to Index on Censorship today ([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.
[link removed] ([link removed])
============================================================
Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can ** update your preferences ([link removed])
or ** unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])
INDEX ON CENSORSHIP © COPYRIGHT 2019
** Privacy and Cookie Policy ([link removed])
