It would be hard to start this week's newsletter without acknowledging today's date - 27 January. It was this day in 1945 that Auschwitz Birkenau, the biggest and most infamous concentration and death camp, was liberated. This was not, sadly, the end of the road. Many of those who were freed that day went on to die shortly after from complications due to being in a camp geared towards killing. It was also not the end of the road because the hatred that built the train tracks to the camps exists still today. It exists in the shadows, in the conspiracy theories that permeate the dark web, and it exists in daylight. Across the world minorities continue to be openly attacked purely because of who they are. It is a theme that our CEO Ruth Anderson reflects on in her weekly blog.

We spend a lot of time talking about the Uyghurs, and for good reason. The camps that China has built in Xinjiang are as close to Auschwitz as we have seen since 1945. Less talked about is the awful treatment of Muslims in India. Perhaps that will change. News this week of a BBC documentary on India's current leader Narendra Modi being banned in India has likely led to more people wanting to watch it and discovering just how autocratic and hateful his country is becoming. The first part of the documentary looks at Modi’s actions during the Gujarat riots in 2002, when nearly 1,000 Muslims died. The BBC uncovered a report from the British government criticising Modi's conduct (he was chief minister of Gujarat at the time), which found that the riots had “all the hallmarks of an ethnic cleansing”. That was in 2002. Today it's even less safe to be Muslim, as Somak Ghoshal reported for us here. 

The Nazis tried to cover their tracks - they burnt documents and blew up crematoria; Xi Jinping tries to cover his tracks - just ask the few international news crews who have been to Xinjiang; and Modi tries to cover his tracks, even arresting students who want to watch the documentary. We can't let these people get away with both the crimes and deleting knowledge of the crimes. We won't. 

It can be hard to keep on speaking out when everywhere seems to be taking a downward turn, but this week we have edged closer to one victory. Following an incredible investigation by openDemocracy into how the UK government helped a sanctioned oligarch sue a British journalist, SLAPPs are once again in the headlines and chatter amongst MPs to legislate against them has grown. Read why they're so damaging. Will 2023 be the year the UK finally rids itself of dirty money? We really hope so. 

An added bonus: if the UK does stop SLAPPs it might help the country climb up our just launched global freedom ranking index - the Index Index. The UK scored woefully low within Europe, ranking as only “partially open” in every key area measured. It joined countries such as Botswana, Czechia, Greece, Moldova, Panama, Romania, South Africa and Tunisia. The poorest performing countries across all metrics, ranked as “closed”, were predictably Bahrain, Belarus, Burma/Myanmar, China, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Laos, Nicaragua, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Rwanda was ranked as significantly restricted, which we're highlighting in light of the last remaining independent journalist dying last week under suspicious circumstances. Read more about John Williams Ntwali here. 

Signing off with a request to not just never forget but to keep on fighting for freedoms. 

Happy birthday Andrei Aliaksandrau: 
You'll never walk alone

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