Plus: Fake news speaks many languages, but it’s particularly fond of Spanish

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Three Journalist Deaths Fit Uneasily in Biden’s Human Rights Push ([link removed])
As a candidate, Biden rejected Trump’s stance of supporting autocratic allies and promised to restore U.S. leadership as a champion of human rights. As a president, his handling of the killings of three journalists–Brent Renaud, Jamal Khashoggi, and Shireen Abu Akleh–has led to accusations of betrayal from advocates and charges that the United States is doubling down on a familiar formula — valuing stable alliances over its stated values.

When American journalist Brent Renaud was fatally shot in Ukraine in March, the State Department angrily and quickly blamed Russia. When President Biden visited Saudi Arabia last week, the White House initially declined to say ahead of the meeting whether he would raise the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi with Saudi leaders. Later, under pressure, Biden said he had been “straightforward and direct” with them. And in Israel, Biden did not publicly mention the death of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed while covering an Israeli raid in the West Bank, until he met with Palestinian leaders in the second part of his visit and called for a “full and transparent accounting” of her death.

Human rights advocates said Biden’s approach could pave the way for future tragedies. Sherif Mansour, the committee’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, said Biden’s visit had linked the cases of Abu Akleh and Khashoggi, since in both cases he offered “vague statements” rather than full-throated advocacy. “It’s in the places where press freedom is lacking or nonexistent that it matters what the U.S. said,” Mansour said.
U.S. Free Expression Stories

Twitter worker accused of spying for Saudi Arabia heads to trial
While working at Twitter from 2013 to 2015, Ahmad Abouammo was responsible for helping notable figures in the Middle East promote their Twitter accounts. But the Justice Department says he misused his access to Twitter user data, gathering the personal information of political dissidents and passing it to Saudi Arabia in exchange for a luxury watch and hundreds of thousands of dollars. He is set to stand trial this week in federal court in San Francisco, at a delicate point in diplomacy between the United States and Saudi Arabia.
THE NEW YORK TIMES ([link removed])

Fake news speaks many languages, but it’s particularly fond of Spanish
An epidemic of Spanish-language right-wing disinformation that spiked around the 2020 election is revving up again ahead of the fall midterms, with fresh falsehoods spreading on the usual platforms but also on newer platforms, including TikTok, Signal and Telegram. The problem is hardly restricted to social media. Old-school media, particularly AM Spanish-language radio, is still an effective megaphone for false narratives, particularly in Miami, where far right-wing hosts have long dominated the airwaves.
THE WASHINGTON POST ([link removed])

Miami-Dade School Board votes to disallow 2 sex ed textbooks discussing abortion, contraception
The two separate textbooks are designed for middle and high schools. “It goes into details about medical procedures such as abortion,” said Alex Serrano, the county director for County Citizens Defending Freedom, the conservative organization that has highlighted a number of examples in the textbooks they believe are inappropriate, especially for middle school-aged children. According to the excerpts posted as examples, the textbooks also address: emergency contraception, natural methods like withdrawal, gender identity and sexual orientation.
LOCAL 10 ([link removed])
The Latest from PEN America
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Why SCOTUS’ Abortion Ruling Is a Disaster for Free Expression ([link removed])

Human rights are interdependent, and the fall of Roe v. Wade sets in motion a dangerous array of consequences that will cascade far beyond the gutting of abortion rights. The decision immediately triggered laws in many states that criminalize not just the person seeking an abortion, but also those who attempt to provide the services. Abortion access starts with access to information, and free expression is imperiled when information-sharing is considered a crime.
See the full op-ed, written by PEN America's Summer Lopez and Nadine Farid Johnson. ([link removed])

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PEN America Denounces Propaganda Against and Russian Imprisonment of Ukrainian Activist ([link removed])

PEN America is deeply concerned about the imprisonment of Maksym Butkevych, a human rights activist and journalist, who is being held by Russian forces as a prisoner-of-war. He was captured in June while serving with the Ukrainian army. False information contained in coverage of his capture and imprisonment reflects a Russian disinformation campaign attempting to undermine him and his work, PEN America stated.
See the full statement. ([link removed])

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PEN America Condemns Sentencing of Belarusian Journalists ([link removed])

The recent sentencings of Yury Hantsarevich and Katsiaryna Andreeva (Bakhvalova), journalists in Belarus, are a devastating reminder of ongoing attempts to silence journalists and undermine free expression there, PEN America said. Hantasarevich, a correspondent for Intex-Press, was convicted of facilitating extremism and sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. He sent photographs of Russian military aircraft equipment to Radio Free Europe, an organization that has been designated as “extremist” in Belarus. Andreeva, a correspondent for Belsat, was found guilty of ‘state treason’ because she recorded a November 2020 protest, and sentenced to more than eight years in prison.
See the full statement. ([link removed])

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PEN/Penn Ukrainian Poetry in Translation Reading ([link removed])
Friday, 7/29 | 12pm – 2pm ET

Join PEN America and the University of Pennsylvania for another reading of Ukrainian poetry in the original language and in translation. Moderated by Kevin Platt of the University of Pennsylvania and with support from Polina Sadovskaya ([link removed]) and Rachel Landau of PEN America, the event will include five poets reading works in Ukrainian with accompaniment and input by literary translators in English. This reading is part of the PEN/Penn Your Language My Ear ([link removed]) translation project, which builds cultural bridges and amplifies poetic texts from across Eurasia.
Learn more and register. ([link removed])

Global Free Expression Stories

Russia fines Google for failing to remove news it calls ‘fake’
A Russian court fined Google about $360 million for failing to remove content the country deems illegal, including coverage of the war in Ukraine. The forbidden content includes clips encouraging Russian citizens to participate in protests and news Moscow considers “fake.” Four months ago, President Vladimir V. Putin signed a law effectively criminalizing any public opposition to the war as an attempt to silence critics while spotlighting pro-Kremlin media. Under this law, even the use of the word “war” is off limits.
THE NEW YORK TIMES ([link removed])

In Argentina, one of the world’s first bans on gender-neutral language
Last month, the city government in Buenos Aires banned teachers from using any gender-neutral words during class and in communications with parents. The city’s education minister said such language violated the rules of Spanish and stymied students’ reading comprehension. These word changes, which had been informally adopted by teachers in schools across Buenos Aires, were a deliberate effort to include people who don’t identify as male or female in a language where many words are categorized as either masculine or feminine.
THE NEW YORK TIMES ([link removed])

Russia's independent TV Rain channel back on air from abroad
TV Rain, Russia's last independent channel, is back on air, more than four months after being forced to close over its coverage of the war in Ukraine. Known as Dozhd in Russian, it resumed broadcasting from Latvia, streaming a news programme on its YouTube channel. Dozhd was blocked by Russia's authorities in early March - just days after Moscow had invaded Ukraine. Many employees then fled Russia, and later started work on rebuilding the channel abroad. Analysts say YouTube is likely to be the only way most people in Russia will be able to access the channel's output via virtual private networks (VPNs).
BBC ([link removed])
Spotlight: Nasrin Sotoudeh
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Nasrin Sotoudeh is a prominent writer, human rights lawyer, and activist who is well-known for taking on high-profile political cases on behalf of women and children in Iran. In 2019, Nasrin was sentenced to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes. She is currently on temporary release for medical furlough. She is the winner of the 2011 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award ([link removed]) . Since 2011, PEN America has championed her work and advocated for her freedom.

Learn more about Nasrin Sotoudeh's life and work with PEN America ([link removed]) .

Below is an excerpt from a recent statement from Nasin in Ms. Magazine:

In these difficult times, when the women’s movement in the United States is facing assault and the right to abortion has been radically restricted, I wish to stand by you and declare my support from our corner of the world. [...] After the 1979 Iranian Revolution, new laws that drastically stripped women and girls of their rights were part of an insidious larger effort to limit civil liberties for everyone. As someone who lived through (and campaigned against) this loss of freedom and democracy, I can offer a warning: It will not end with this Supreme Court decision on abortion.

Read her full statement ([link removed])
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