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1 week ago | 
indexoncensorship.org | Mark Stimpson |Daisy Ruddock |Jemimah Steinfeld |Martin Bright
Today, the torrent of online information, misinformation and disinformation makes it harder than ever to stay in the loop. As we get bombarded with news from all angles, important stories can easily pass us by. To help you cut through the noise, every Friday Index publishes a weekly news roundup of some of the key stories covering censorship and free expression from the past seven days.
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1 month ago | 
indexoncensorship.org | Katie Dancey-Downs |Daisy Ruddock |Mark Stimpson
Responding to news that Apple will be before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal on Friday, representatives from Big Brother Watch, Index on Censorship, and Open Rights Group have written to President of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, the Rt Hon Lord Justice Singh, calling for the case to be made public. The letter states that the “case implicates the privacy rights of millions of British citizens who use Apple’s technology, as well as Apple’s international users”.
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1 month ago | 
indexoncensorship.org | Jemimah Steinfeld |Katie Dancey-Downs |Daisy Ruddock |Mark Stimpson
According to some analysts, the largest student-led demonstrations in Europe since 1968 are taking place today in Serbia. I almost missed that sentence in this story from the Sunday Times last weekend given all of the other news vying for my attention. I’m glad I didn’t. The article itself is well worth reading – a story that pulls in Abu Dhabi developers and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Now dodgy planning regulations aren’t exactly the lane of Index.
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1 month ago | 
indexoncensorship.org | Mark Stimpson |Sarah Dawood |Jemimah Steinfeld |Amy Fallon
The beauty and power of Iran’s music is being strangled, with many musicians jailed and tortured purely for raising their voices against the regime’s viciousness and in harmony with those protesting against it. The case of rapper and Index Freedom of Expression award-winner Toomaj Salehi has been the highest profile case of Iran cracking down on freedom of expression among the country’s musicians but he is not alone.
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Dec 19, 2024 | 
journals.sagepub.com | Mark Stimpson
MARK STIMPSON speaks with lawyer PETR PETRENKO, an exiled supporter of jailed Russian anti-war protestersFOR SEVERAL YEARS now, Russian exiles have been writing letters back home to people jailed for opposing the war in Ukraine. These exiles have now been joined by many others worldwide and the number of political prisoners in Russia has topped 1,000. Sometimes those prisoners send letters back, but they often send artworks as well.
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Oct 7, 2024 | 
journals.sagepub.com | Simon Singh |Mark Stimpson
UK Journalist SIMON SINGH won a landmark legal battle calling out “bogus treatments”, but as Index’s MARK STIMPSON discovered scientific truths are still being contestedFIFTEEN YEARS HAVE now passed since the publication in the UK of an article about science, or rather pseudo-science, which kicked off an expensive legal battle and ended, five years later with the reform of Britain’s libel laws.
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Sep 26, 2024 | 
indexoncensorship.org | Mackenzie Argent |Mark Stimpson
On Monday 16 September, the United States imposed financial sanctions and visa restrictions on Georgians who they believed to be involved with violent crackdowns on peaceful protests that had occurred in the country’s capital Tbilisi in the spring. The protests were sparked in resistance to the passing of a “foreign agents law”, which shares similarities with an existing law in Russia – raising concerns that the Georgian government is aligning more closely with the Kremlin.
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Sep 25, 2024 | 
indexoncensorship.org | Mark Stimpson
We are writing to bring attention to the case of the visual and performance artist and master’s student, ODEE, who is being sued for damages (including legal fees likely upwards of £500,000) in the High Court in London on the 25 and 26 September 2024. The lawsuit has been brought against ODEE by Samherji, one of Europe’s largest fishing companies based in Iceland, for the unauthorised use of its website and brand.
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Sep 24, 2024 | 
indexoncensorship.org | Mark Stimpson |Martin Bright
This afternoon, the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, will address world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly. He left Tehran for New York on Sunday, reportedly accompanied by a large delegation of 40 people, including close family members. Pezeshkian’s trip to New York comes as renowned rapper and human rights activist Toomaj Salehi remains in prison in Iran despite widespread international condemnation.
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Sep 24, 2024 | 
indexoncensorship.org | Mark Stimpson |Martin Bright |Shohini Chaudhuri
Photo: Kennedy Library (CC-BY-NC.20)Banned Books Week is here once again. And so too are more stories of books being censored across the world. This week, Pen America reported that the number of book bans in public schools has nearly tripled in 2023-24 from the previous school year. While the week-long Banned Books Week event, supported by a coalition including Index on Censorship, looks largely towards bans in the USA, we’re taking a moment to reflect on global censorship of literature.
