The latest on threats to freedom of expression around the world
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Friday, 17 March 2023
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Iranian writer and activist Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, who wrote for Index in 2018, remains in jail in Iran
One year ago yesterday, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was released from Iran’s grip. She was held arbitrarily for six years, after being detained by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard at the airport in Tehran, torn away from the daughter she was still breastfeeding. Human rights organisations campaigned ceaselessly for her release. Her husband Richard Ratcliffe devoted himself to a kerbside hunger strike, risking his health in a desperate attempt to inspire action from the UK Foreign Office. It worked.
It is the anniversary of a new, freer chapter for Zaghari-Ratcliffe. And that’s just about where the good news ends. Thursday also commemorated six months since Jina ‘Mahsa’ Amini’s ([link removed]) story ended, after the 22-year-old Iranian-Kurd was arrested, beaten and killed by ‘morality police’ for allegedly wearing her headscarf improperly. What Amini will never know is that she sparked a revolution.
We have been continuously pulling at these two threads from Iran, and for today’s newsletter the stories collide.
In September 2018, Zaghari-Ratcliffe expressed her thoughts through poetry for Index ([link removed]) from Evin Prison in Tehran. At the time she said: “It is the hope of being free that keeps me going, the hope of gaining freedom back one day.”
Her fellow inmate, Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee ([link removed]) , also wrote for us. The Iranian writer and political activist was imprisoned for an unpublished short story found in her home, in which she had criticised Iran’s practice of stoning. Simply daring to put a story on paper landed her in a cell. In her poetry for Index she wrote of:
“The vultures who
Dress like policemen
And pull the trigger without asking
Your name”
Zaghari-Ratcliffe is now reunited with her husband and rebuilding a relationship with her daughter Gabriella. This week, Penguin announced it will be publishing the couple’s story in October, titled A Yard of Sky. But Iraee remains behind bars. After being released from Amol Prison in May 2022, she had barely tasted freedom when she was arrested again the following November. In January 2023, she was charged with "gathering and colluding against national security" and “propaganda against state”. in connection with the nationwide protests following Amini’s death.
In 2017, Richard Ratcliffe wrote for Index about why protest makes a difference ([link removed]) . For Zaghari-Ratcliffe ultimately it did.
“It’s always been important for me to say ‘I’m not going to go quiet’,” he said.
“Part of the process is trying to make things uncomfortable for the authorities.”
But for those protesting in the wake of Amini’s death, protest has come at a price. Thousands took to the streets in Iran and beyond, burning their headscarves, cutting their hair and raising their voices. Top Iranian chess player Sara Khadem made a bold move to compete without her headscarf, while actress Tareneh Alidoosti posed on Instagram without a veil. In the latest issue of Index ([link removed]) published in January, Iranian journalist and activist Masih Alinejad told us, “I believe we are hearing the death knell of the Islamic Republic. It is the beginning of the end.”
The arrests came swiftly. So did the executions. Four young men ([link removed]) were forced into unjust show trials and lost their lives at the hands of the regime: Mohsen Shekari, Majidreza Rahnavard, Seyed Mohammad Hosseini and Mohammad Mehdi Karami.
Hundreds more protesters have been killed in clashes with security forces, including Nika Shakarami ([link removed]) , a 17-year-old who was pictured burning her hijab.Tens of thousands have been arrested. Dozens have been sentenced to death or charged with offences that could end in death sentences. Now reports of abused child detainees are even emerging, and schoolgirls have been subjected to suspected poisonings. Ahead of the month of Ramadan, Iran claimed this week that the supreme leader has pardoned 22,000 people ([link removed]) arrested during the protests. Those charged with “corruption on Earth” will not be pardoned. So far, no-one outside Iran has confirmed the release.
When Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s plane touched down on UK soil, we joined the nationwide sigh of relief. But just as she is now speaking up against the detention of protesters in Iran, so must we all. We might be celebrating freedom for one woman but we aren’t pulling any party poppers yet. Not while so many people remain behind bars in Iran simply for speaking their minds. Iraee is just one of them.
Katie Dancey-Downs
Assistant Editor
** The aftermath of the Gary Lineker affair
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[link removed] slew of censorship stories unravelled at the BBC over the last week. Kicking it all off, Gary Lineker compared the language used by the UK government’s proposed refugee policy to that used in Nazi Germany. The BBC was not happy. But plenty of people spoke up in support of Lineker, including Afghan sports journalist Saeedullah Safi. Read his reaction for Index ([link removed]) .
The suspension of Lineker also led to the British parliament discussing the impartiality of the BBC. Language is important and definitions even more so when you’re talking about issues of such importance. And both in the House of Commons and in certain media outlets the BBC suddenly was no longer a public sector broadcaster – it had become a state broadcaster. Not so, says our CEO Ruth Anderson ([link removed]) .
** Meet the speakers for our hybrid conference on 23 March
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The speakers at next week's anti-SLAPPs conference, taking place face-to-face in Dublin and livestreamed online, include Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur,
Bill Browder, human rights campaigner, Ivana Bacik, Leader of the Labour Party and TD for Dublin Bay South, Neasa Hourigan, Green Party TD for Dublin Central and Bill Emmott, former editor-in-chief of The Economist. Book your free place here ([link removed]) .
** Journalists battle for truth
after Turkish earthquakes
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[link removed] Turkey’s Kahramanmaraş province was hit by two powerful earthquakes on 6 February 2023, the government responded by attacking the country’s already beleaguered press and journalists. Since the earthquakes, free speech NGO the Media and Law Studies Association has been monitoring these attacks. The results are very concerning. It is time now to take stock, lay bare abuses and ask the right questions. Read the story here. ([link removed]) Photo: Hilmi Hacaloğlu/VOA
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** From the archive
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** Trolled by the president
Michela Wrong
June 2021
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In this article, the author details the campaign of harassment ([link removed]) she received after publishing her book Do Not Disturb. This revealed Rwanda President Paul Kagame's campaign to harass, intimidate and assassinate opposition leaders, activists and journalists at home and abroad, which Wrong says is "a campaign to which Western governments have largely turned a blind eye".
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