Abstract
The non-stop oppression of freedom around the world means the work of Index is as important as ever, says incoming chief executive
I think every one of us has had at least one of those moments in 2020 as we’ve seen almost too much news – too many things that have touched our hearts or made us angry.
In recent months, the world has been dominated by Covid-19 – a virus that none of us had heard of this time last year but which, as of mid-August, has now killed more than 735,000 people globally and infected more than 20 million. Those are just the official statistics. In reality, we have no idea how many people have actually died, untested and alone.
But what we do know is that some governments have chosen this pandemic as cover to restrict free speech and attack our basic human rights. According to Index’s disease control tracker, there have been more than 240 incidents in which the premise of protecting public health has been used to curtail freedom of expression.
We’ve seen the global impact of the Black Lives Matter movement which, after years of demanding change, came to rightly dominate the news agenda after the horrendous killing of George Floyd. It has inspired a new generation of equality campaigners and forced all of us to reflect on what really matters. The loss and pain of so many has made us think about what social justice can and should look like in the 21st century. It has widened the debate about how we should all reflect on our history.
In July, we saw investigative journalism at its best when the story of Uighur Muslims and the horrifying events in Xinjiang finally got the global attention it deserved. The appalling actions of the Chinese government have been exposed. The world has watched the Uighur people transported to “re-education camps”, we’ve heard the stories of family members being disappeared, and we’ve seen the piles of hair believed to have been forcibly cut in images reminiscent of the Holocaust.
The charge sheet against the Chinese government is ever growing. Beijing has made significant moves against the residents of Hong Kong with the national security law, instigating a new regime that is completely at odds with the spirit and letter of the Sino-British Joint Declaration. Campaigners, journalists and people of faith have been arrested without cause, media outlets have been raided and books have been removed from libraries. The thought police have moved in and their targets are those who speak out.
But China is not alone in seeking to roll back the freedoms of thought and expression that go hand in glove with a functioning democracy. The totalitarian actions of Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus, with his farcical election and the deployment of the military to quell the protests, are the latest in a long line of worrying developments which put free speech at risk. Consider, too, Narendra Modi’s government in India, with its revocation of Article 370 last year and the repressive lockdown faced by the residents of Jammu and Kashmir, as well as the troubling development in Poland, where Andrzej Duda was re-elected on an alt-right populist ticket which seeks to scapegoat and marginalise those who dissent or wish to protect their freedom.
Collectively, we have so much to be angry and worried about – and that’s before we start to reflect on the latest actions of Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu, and dozens of othern leaders who apparently view their accumulation of personal power as the sole objective of government.
Each of these issues has a clear connection: without journalistic freedoms, without our rights to free speech and association, and without social media platforms and global news coverage, we simply wouldn’t know about them.
We wouldn’t know about Merdan Ghappar, currently incarcerated in an Uighur camp. We wouldn’t know about the arrest of Wilson Li, the ITV freelancer, in Hong Kong and we wouldn’t know the name of George Floyd. The fact that we do reminds us again of the power of our collective voices and how much we need to cherish and protect our rights to use them.
That is why I am so proud to be the new chief executive of Index on Censorship and to help lead that fight. Index was launched nearly 50 years ago to provide a voice for the persecuted and to shine a light on the actions of repressive regimes. We have fought numerous battles in the last half-century, but if the past few months have taught us anything it’s that we still have many more fights ahead, and your voice and that of Index has never been more needed or more important.
Hong Kong protesters leave their mark on the streets in the city
CREDIT: Pop & Zebra/Unsplash
In the coming months, the team and I want to work with you as we redouble our efforts to ensure that this magazine and our organisation are fit and ready for the fights ahead, and that we are using every tool at our disposal to shine a spotlight on governments that for too long have been able to hide in the dark.
This year has been a heart-breaking one for too many families in every part of the world. Index was established originally to provide a home and some hope for Soviet dissidents and others who no longer believed that anybody was listening to them. My promise to you is that Index will continue this tradition and be a bastion of hope for those people leading the fight against repression; for those who struggle to have their voices heard and their experiences recognised; and, of course, for those whose names we don’t yet know – but will.