NB: This fearless intellectual, who defied the mighty Chinese Communist Party even as he fought for the freedom of the human mind, died in hospital on July 13, 2017, denied the right even to proper treatment. Beneath the image is an extract from Simon Ley’s review of Liu Xiaobo’s book, No Enemies, No Hatred. It… Read More The Legacy of Liu Xiaobo
Aakash Hassan in New Delhi Indian authorities have been criticised after a Kashmiri photojournalist said she was barred from taking a flight to New York where she was scheduled to receive the 2022 Pulitzer prize. Sanna Irshad Mattoo, 27, was in a team of Reuters photographers who had won a Pulitzer for feature photography for their… Read More India criticised over arbitrary travel bans after photojournalist blocked from Pulitzer trip
Helen Davidson Chinese censors have reportedly been ordered to flood social media with innocuous posts about Xinjiang to drown out mounting complaints of food and medication shortages in a region under lockdown for more than a month. The Ili Kazakh autonomous prefecture, also known as Yili, is home to about 4.5 million people, and is believed to… Read More Xinjiang lockdown: Chinese censors drown out posts about food and medicine shortages
Comedian Kunal Kamra’s scheduled show in Haryana’s Gurugram was called off following protests by the right-wing organisation Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) Kamra was slated to perform for his gig on September 17 and 18 at Studio Xo Bar, however, it was ordered to be cancelled after the VHP filed a complaint with Gurugram’s district commissioner.… Read More Dare you to condemn Godse: Kunal Kamra’s letter to VHP after show gets cancelled
There is no existing vocabulary to illustrate a condition that requires a special kind of reality. Once it comes to a point when the authority cannot rationally communicate or have a clear exchange of ideas or when they cannot allow the argument, then the only thing they can do is to make you feel that… Read More Ai Weiwei: ‘I became the enemy of the established power, but without a crime’
By Arzu Geybullayeva Police in Turkey have arrested pop singer Gülşen (full name Gülşen Colakoglu), 46, pending trial, over a comment she made about religious schools, months ago during one of her concert. Last April, Gülşen, joked about one of her colleagues’ Imam Hatip past during a concert in Istanbul. Imam Hatip high schools are Islamic religious education institutions originally… Read More In Turkey, Pop Singer arrested for Offending Clerics
By Nasim Ahmed | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – The firing of Palestinian American woman, Natalie Abulhawa, has sparked a debate over free-speech, “cancel-culture” and the ever-growing crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism. The 25-year-old athletic trainer was fired by a private girls school in Bryn Mawr over years-old social media posts criticising Israel. In March the… Read More The Real Cancel Culture: Anti-Palestinianism and the Crisis of American Free Speech
By Andy Lee Roth / Project Censored Violence is the most basic and blunt form of press censorship. To kill or imprison a journalist is to silence the public’s source of news. To date, 33 journalists around the world have been killed this year and another 494 are currently imprisoned, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Put another… Read More The Deadly Business of Reporting Truth
On Salman Rushdie by Justin E. H. Smith “Never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things – childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves – that go on slipping, like sand, through our fingers.” — Salman Rushdie The goring of Salman Rushdie… Read More The Fragile Bodies of Famous Men
How journalism in Kashmir has been driven to the edge TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY SHAHID TANTRAY AT 1.45 PM, on 15 January, an armoured cavalcade rolled onto the premises of the Kashmir Press Club—Kashmir’s largest body representing journalists—in Polo View, abutting Srinagar’s Lal Chowk. There had been heightened police presence at the club since the day… Read More Dead Lines
After the truth-shower 