The latest on threats to freedom of expression around the world
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Friday, 03 February 2023
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Normally busy streets were empty during Silent Strikes where protesters stayed at home. Credit: Mizzima News
What do you do if you live in a country in which dissent is ruthlessly crushed and you want to protest? In an inversion of logic, you stay indoors. That was what people did this week on the two-year anniversary of the junta's seizure of power. Social media was filled with captivating photos of streets that were completely barren (see photo above). The protest, coupled with the hashtag #SilentStrike, took place in more than 150 cities across Myanmar ([link removed]) . It's a pretty smart move. After all, it's hard to arrest someone for simply not leaving their house, and doing nothing might even be more disruptive than doing something. The protest is also really needed. The anniversary has led to a flurry of articles on the current state of freedoms there and the picture that has emerged is very desperate. We spoke
([link removed]) to two people with first-hand experience - a Burmese journalist and former political prisoner called Wai Moe, and Dan Anlezark, the deputy head of investigations at Myanmar Witness ([link removed]) . According to Anlezark, the junta are intentionally burning down villages that are home to the opposition at an alarming rate.
On the note of protests that say little or nothing but make a big impact (are they the new vogue?) since December China has been arresting people who were involved in the A4 Revolution. The arrests follow the same trajectory - the people were initially questioned, then released and thought that was the end of it, only to be taken away later and not heard from since. Here's a list of the ones we know of: Xin Shang, 29 and a filmmaker, was arrested on 7 January for "endangering public safety"; Zhai Chunming, a pharmaceutical representative at Astra Zeneca in Beijing, detained since 8 January for "picking quarrels and provoking troubles"; Sun Yingqi, artist, now missing; audit associate at KPMG Josephine Hou Jinyi, arrested on 24 January; Nina Li Yuanjing, an accountant at PwC, and Li Siqi, a 27-year-old journalist, both arrested on 18 December for "picking quarrels and provoking troubles"; teacher and feminist activist Zhai Dengrui, arrested on 22 December; Cao Zhixin, an editor, arrested on
23 December. Most of them had either studied in the USA or the UK or had plans to. Most of them are women. The targets of the Chinese government are nothing if not predictable.
As for the targets of the Iranian government, this week it sentenced a couple ([link removed]) to a total of 10 years in prison simply for dancing. The couple, in their 20s, were arrested after posting a video of themselves spinning next to Tehran's Azadi (Freedom) Tower (the irony of the location has not been lost on anyone). Iran has not always been like this, something that the artist Soheila Sokhanvari wants to remind people. She currently has an exhibition at London's Barbican, which explores 28 women from Iran who were either forced into silence or exile in 1979, when the Islamic Revolution led to a rollback in women’s legal rights. Much of their work is censored in Iran today. We spoke to Sokhanvari, who said she chose these women as "they were essentially erased from the record by the regime”. Read our interview with her here ([link removed]) .
Finally, what can we make of the failed coup in Brazil almost one month on? A journalist in Brazil tells us ([link removed]) he believes he's living in the worst time for free expression since the end of the dictatorship in 1985. He says free expression is being squeezed between Bolsonaro devotees, who are lapping up and flooding social media with fake news, and Lula's government, overstepping in their efforts to control the fury. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro, who is under investigation in Brazil for his role in the riots (he has voiced "regret" for the unrest, but denied he caused it) appears hellbent on riding it out from the balmy shores of Florida, US visa depending. There really is little justice in this world. Sorry not to end on a more positive note.
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** Online Safety Bill edges forwards
but issues remain
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[link removed] seven years of debate, five Secretaries of State and hours and hours of parliamentary discussion the Online Safety Bill has reached the second chamber of the British legislature. In the coming months new language will be negotiated, legislative clauses ironed out and deals will be done with the government to get it over the line. But the question for Index is what will be the final impact of the legislation on freedom of expression and how will we know how much content is being deleted as a matter of course. Read our CEO Ruth Anderson's weekly blog post ([link removed]) .
** EVENT: 8 February. Author Zinovy Zinik
in conversation with Martin Bright
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[link removed] publication of Zinovy Zinik’s collection of short stories, No Cause for Alarm, coincided with the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year. The idea of launching the newly published book in Moscow has become unthinkable. At an event organised by Pushkin House in London on 8 February, Zinik and Index editor at large Martin Bright will be discussing the paradoxes of different forms of exile, the sense of complicity and dissent, vagaries of censorship, as well as cultural stereotypes that new arrivals in Britain from different countries have to confront. Book your ticket here. ([link removed])
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** From the archive
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** The human face and the boot
Ma Jian
Spring 2021
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The celebrated Chinese author reflects ([link removed]) on the terrible legacy of the Chinese Communist Party, including reference to Li Wenliang, the whistleblower doctor who died three years ago on 7 February
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