bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Book boom in Tehran
Authors: Anonymous
Published: October 2007

The US Ambassador's Mission to Iran has sold 300,000 copies; the Shah's book is banned; a biography of Robespierre is popular but the bestseller is Orwell's Animal Farm. Interest in Marxism and religion is waning, but banned Iranian writers flourish in samizdat.

The following article was written for the first issue of Kayhan, an émigré Persian language weekly first published in London on 11 June. Kayhan was originally founded as an independent daily in Tehran in 1941 and became the largest circulation newspaper in Iran. In September 1979 the Iranian revolutionary authorities took it over and now it is run by the Foundation of the Disinherited, an official organisation. Kayhan's former proprietor and editors left the country and are now responsible for the London Kayhan.

The article was written by one of its correspondents in Tehran who prefers to remain anonymous.
Nightmare country
Authors: Kihazo David
Published: October 2007

David Kihazo is in his early 30s. He became an undergraduate student of English literature at Makerere University in 1971, the year in which Idi Amin seized power. His closest mentor was David Rubadiri, poet and academic, who as a Malawian found his position increasingly untenable and finally had to go into exile from Uganda'. David Kihazo has been a secondary school teacher and a Makerere Fellow in Creative Writing, when he was able to develop his talent for and interest in drama. He is at present Editor (correspondence courses) in the University's Centre for Continuing Education.

The problem for him and for many other members of staff at Makerere is that, in their perception, the expectation of improvement in their own condition and the condition of the country after the defeat of the Amin regime has not been realised. The solidarity of Makerere staff has collapsed now that the pressures remembered in this article have gone and other types of pressure (ethnic and religious) have appeared, leading to fission and new demoralisation in the university community. Despondency among younger staff such as Kihazo has been increased by economic hardship. An assistant lecturer's salary for a month will buy one bunch of matoke (plantain), the staple foodstuff; this will last for about a week. Nothing is left over for any other needs and under-nourishment leads to further lowering of spirits. Makerere staff spend much time hunting for money to live on (a professor will use his old car as a taxi, a woman lecturer spends spare time at the market) and many take refuge in alcohol as the quickest way out of their predicament. There is also cynicism among young intellectuals at the sight of former exiles now mysteriously wealthy.

Kihazo himself feels he is in a dead-end, rather mechanical job. The typical ‘qualification inflation’ of the Third World means that his talents and background are not enough to secure him an academic post (for that, he needs a Master's degree and the university has no money for staff development for persons who are not already in an academic post). He is still valiantly creative; both in spoken and written words, but he and his friends constantly explore the question: ‘What went wrong?’ The trauma suffered under Amin is still vividly with them and they necessarily continue to explore it and the intellectual listlessness and apathy which seem to have followed.

The author has had a collection of his poems published in Uganda and some have been anthologised internationally.
Whither India?: How free is the Indian press and what is the future of India's much-prized democracy?
Authors: Theiner George
Published: October 2007

While on an official visit to Britain in September 1983, Mr Justice A. N. Grover, Chairman of the Press Council of India, expressed a wish to visit our office and talk to us about our coverage of his country. We were flattered that Index should figure on Mr Grover's list, together with the BBC, ITV, The Times, the NUJ, and the British Press Council, but somewhat surprised by his criticism, which can be summed up as follows:

‘You did a marvellous job in criticising Mrs Gandhi and supporting her opponents during the Emergency, when censorship was brought in, journalists and editors were arrested and detained, and the freedoms of which India is justly proud ceased to exist. Why, though, do you now continue to write about India? The Emergency ended six and a half years ago and we again have a free press, which does not suffer from any interference by the government and is only subject to the supervision of the Press Council, a completely independent body. India has a democratic system of government, and freedom of the press constitutes one of its pillars.’

Mr Justice Grover's complaint about Index was directed at two items which appeared in the course of the previous year: an article on ‘India's Press’ by Kalpana Sharma, who as Editor of Himmat had earned our admiration during the Emergency; and four mentions of India in our chronicle section, Index/ Index, in particular a reference (in Index 3/1982) to reports of ‘harassment, arbitrary arrests and murders of journalists over the past few months’.

If a journalist gets shot or stabbed somewhere in the provinces, that has nothing to do with the government, Mr Justice Grover argued, so why report it as if it were a curb on the freedom of the press? I explained that Index does not limit itself exclusively to criticising governments for their acts of censorship but tries to give a wider picture of the problems and dangers faced by journalists and others in the context of freedom of expression, but when my distinguished visitor left I felt that he was not convinced.

Sitting in London, I am painfully aware how very different a country seems to be, depending on one's point of view: depending, that is, on whether one lives in that country or outside it. I therefore welcomed the opportunity — with which an invitation in March this year to attend a conference and give several talks on freedom of expression presented me — to go to India and find out for myself.
Choe — detained cartoonist: The Thieu government arrested the cartoonist as a ‘Communist agent’ in 1975; the Communist government considered him a ‘reactionary’ and have kept him in a re-education camp since 1976
Authors: Thuc-sinh
Published: October 2007

Choe (real name Nguyen Hai Chi) was a leading political cartoonist in South Vietnam, whose work also appeared in Newsweek and the New York Times. He was arrested as a ‘Communist agent’ by the Thieu government during its last months in power. In April 1976, one year after the Vietnamese Communist take-over, Choe was arrested as a ‘reactionary and counter-revolutionary element’. He has since been held in a ‘re-education camp’ without charge or trial. In the following, Thuc-sinh (the pseudonym of a specialist in Vietnamese affairs) describes the circumstances of his arrests.
Remove the chains: South African censorship and the black writer
Authors: Tlali Miriam
Published: October 2007

The Amsterdam Comité tegen Censuur (‘Committee Against Censorship’ which was set up by the SLAA literary association last year as a Dutch offshoot of Index) has organised a series of talks by well-known writers on various aspects of censorship and repression. The first of these talks was given in June by the Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti. In the second, on 11 September, the South African novelist Miriam Tlali dealt with the problems facing a black writer in her native land, and in particular with the even greater obstacles which a black woman writer has to overcome.

This is an edited version of Miriam Tlali's text.
August Cathedral: An extract from a novel about Port-au-Prince by a Haitian writer exiled in 1980
Authors: Clitandre Pierre
Published: October 2007

Pierre Clitandre was born in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince in 1954. In the early 1970s, he became involved in the opposition journalism which was highly critical of President ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier's corrupt and dictatorial regime. In 1978 he took over the editorship of the weekly Le Petit Samedi Soir, which was often the most outspoken of the opposition publications. In November 1980 President Duvalier purged the opposition — politicians, journalists and intellectuals — and Clitandre, amongst many others, was forced into exile. As well as a journalist, Clitandre is a talented novelist. The following extract is from his first novel Cathedrale du Mois d' Août ( ‘August Cathedral’, published in Paris by Editions Syros in 1982). The title refers to the old bus with which the novel's hero John struggles to make a living. In addition to his adventures, the book presents a fresco of the miserable existence of the Haitian peasants who are forced off the land into the wretched shanty slums that ring Port-au-Prince. Pierre Clitandre now lives in New York, where he edits a newspaper for the numerous Haitian exile community and is completing a second novel, Baron le Vivant, about the drama of the Haitian ‘boat people’ who were forced to flee their country.
The Policing of Hope
Authors: Selic Momcilo
Published: October 2007

A recently exiled writer recalls the many writers who since the war have been silenced or isolated
The News Bulletin
Authors: Anonymous
Published: October 2007

A samizdat poem from Saudi Arabia

In the Arab-speaking region the main medium of dissent is poetry. What follows are extracts from a Saudi poem which forms part of the unofficial literature in Saudi Arabia. Such poems are typed, photocopied and circulated privately.
Censorship American-style
Authors: Bass Carole and Paul
Published: October 2007

Market forces and weak-kneed publishers put paid to many controversial stories, as in the cases of Alice Walker, Barbara Koeppel and Jonathan Kwitny. Does this matter?
Schools Under Occupation
Authors: Faramarzi Scheherezade
Published: October 2007

What has been the effect of the war on schools, children and teachers in Southern Lebanon?
The Minutes of the Thought-Police
Authors: Seymour James
Published: October 2007

The leaked minutes of a high-level meeting on 17 October 1984 reveal the plans of Taiwan's military government for further suppressing ‘thought pollution’, ‘cultural pollution’ and ‘illegal opinions’

The following are the minutes of a secret meeting of high officials in Taiwan in which the participants discuss how political dissent, especially unofficial magazines, can most effectively be controlled or repressed. The island is ruled under martial law administered by the Taiwan Garrison Command, which explains why most of those taking part in this meeting are military figures. Taiwan also has numerous other security agencies, many of which were represented at the meeting.

The document was leaked from within the Taiwan government, and made public by three men sued in the Peng-lai Tao ( ‘Neo-Formosa’) magazine case, which is referred to in the document. Their purpose in releasing it was to demonstrate that the ‘libel suit’ which had been brought against them was actually part of the government's campaign of political repression.

The text is taken from the Chinese-language weekly Fa-yang ( ‘Development’) No 11, 21 January 1985. Fa-yang attempted to publish the text, but the government discovered the magazine's plans. The issue was banned and Fa-yang has been suspended from publication for one year.

Two other independent magazines also attempted to publish this document. One was Dongbei Feng, No 3, 22 January 1985 (actually, Neo-Formosa under a new name), which was banned and confiscated. The other was the moderate magazine The Asian, No 1, 19 January 1985, half of whose press run of 20,000 copies was confiscated. Although outlawed, many copies of the magazines with the document which we print here were circulated underground. The document has been seen by a high party official, who implicitly confirmed its authenticity. Minor deletions and explanatory comments are given in square brackets. Transliterated names are given in the manner preferred by the Chinese Nationalists (roughly approximating to the Wade-Giles system). Otherwise, however, the transliteration follows the more internationally recognised pinyin system.

In addtion to the minutes, other documents have come to light such as a table of projects to be undertaken by the government against dissidents. This table (in Chinese) is available from the Society for the Protection of East Asians’ Human Rights, PO Box 1212, New York, NY 10025, USA.

James D. Seymour, an Associate Research Scholar at the East Asian Institute of Columbia University (New York), comments on the leaked minutes and Taiwan's system of censorship and repression.
Desegregating the Theatre
Authors: Gray Stephen
Published: October 2007

Before the recent relaxation of performance controls, theatre in South Africa was shaped and controlled by the law.
What the Censor Omitted
Authors: Moravius
Published: October 2007

The official edition of the memoirs of Jaroslav Seifert leaves out nine chapters and numerous paragraphs, sentences and names. The discrepancies were noted in a recent Prague samizdat.
Purvis
Authors: Michal Karel , Theiner George
Published: October 2007

Short story by a Czech writer for whom exile was fatal
A Simple Solution
Authors: Kraus Ivan
Published: October 2007

A feuilleton of advice for the Rumanian leader
The Will to Silence
Authors: Radner Ephraim
Published: October 2007

After publishing this article, the author, an Anglican missionary working in Burundi, was expelled from the country. Soon afterwards a further twenty-six missionaries were expelled for 'spreading abroad tendentious information’.
History in a New Light
Authors: McDonald Robert
Published: October 2007

Those who suffered at the hands of the Left during 1944-9 believe that history is being rewritten and perverted. The Left argues that after 25 years there is at last an alternative to the ‘official version’
Mau Mau through the Looking Glass
Authors: Lonsdale John
Published: October 2007

In Kenya there's fierce disagreement about what the Mau Mau were fighting for
Sadeq Sedaqat of Class 4-D
Authors: Khorsandi Hadi
Published: October 2007

“Spring comes in various forms. One type of spring is the ‘Spring of Freedom’ which is the season when they close down newspapers and shut down magazines and strangle journalists… ”
Gholam-Hoseyn Sa'edi
Authors: Sabri-Tabrizi G. R.
Published: October 2007

A memoir of the Iranian writer who recently died in exile
At the Frontier
Authors: Sipanda H.
Published: October 2007

A radio play by a South African who cannot write under her own name
Where Truth is on Holiday
Authors: Ankomah Baffuor
Published: October 2007

‘When they have put stones into your mouth, they turn round to say your teeth are no good’. The lot of the Ghanaian newspaper editor today.
Three feuilletons
Authors: Vaculík Ludvík , Theiner George
Published: October 2007

‘“You aren't a member of the Writers Union, nor are you registered with the Literary Fund,” he said to me on one occasion, “so that means you're no writer.” Oh dear, I thought, who is a writer, anyway.?’
A people's artist: Vladimir Vysotsky
Authors: Rubinstein Natalya
Published: October 2007

For twenty years Vysotsky's songs were heard and loved throughout Russia — but they were never officially published until after his death
Intimidation and prosecution of journalists
Authors: Stewart Gavin
Published: October 2007

A preliminary checklist of cases occurring between September 1984 and 16 June 1986
African freedom of speech
Authors: Ayittey George
Published: October 2007

'Societies that advance are those that permit a free debate and exchange of ideas for better solutions to be found. We cannot do this in Africa because the press is owned by the state. A foolish government policy cannot be challenged and the whole country is led down the tubes.'
Ghana's Free Press
Authors: Blay-Amihere Kabral
Published: October 2007

The last editor of Ghana's last independent newspaper explains why the paper stopped publication
Catholic radios under attack
Authors: Montes Maria-Rosa
Published: October 2007

Four local radio stations broadcasting in the indigenous languages have received a brutal hint to curb their criticism of the government.
Writers who found their voice
Authors: Sionil José F.
Published: October 2007

A Philippine writer outlines the impact on literature of the Marcos years; and an extract from Mass, 'a frontal attack on Marcos and his regime', which had to wait six years before it could be published.
The ‘Communist conspirators’
Authors: Tan Lek Hor
Published: October 2007

Twenty-two people have been detained or served with restriction orders. Their leader, claims the Singapore government, is Tan Wah Piow, who is studying law at Oxford University
The tale of the golden fish
Authors: Rybinski Maciej
Published: October 2007

A folk story, with a twist in the tail
Diary of Russian enlightenment
Authors: Laird Sally
Published: October 2007

Moscow, January 1988: Lawyers plan changes in the law. The existence of ‘Press Club Glasnost’ is questioned by the Soviet Committee for European Security and Cooperation. Professor Morozov explains the Serbsky Institute. Skandal threatens the Burlatsky Commission. A dinner for Andrei Sakharov. A meeting with ‘The Victims’ — and with the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. Civilisation at the ‘Club for Social Initiatives’.
The cost of a newspaper
Authors: Setiawan Hersri
Published: October 2007

A memoir of an incident on Buru island, the main detention centre for tapols — Indonesia's political prisoners
Interview
Authors: Serote Mongane Wally
Published: October 2007

‘When we say we are not prepared to accept white domination, we are not prepared to accept relegation into backyards of history, it seems the West cannot understand what we are talking about. Everybody talks about a bloodbath. Privately one wonders how it is possible for the world to talk about a bloodbath with such great familiarity when the world has gone through two world wars.’ The South African poet is interviewed by Jane Wilkinson
Why we need Utopia
Authors: Soriano Osvaldo
Published: October 2007

‘We have a culture in debt within a society in debt. A majority of our post-dictatorship intellectuals have become increasingly insular and narrow-minded
Glasnost bestseller
Authors: Rubinshtein Natalya
Published: October 2007

Below, and in the article which follows, two Russian writers — one in London and the other in Siberian exile — look at the impact of a long-suppressed anti-Stalinist novel
Investigating the bath tub
Authors: Esterházy Peter , Krassó György
Published: October 2007

A prize-winning Hungarian novelist discusses new developments in his country's literature — and the ways in which East-West politics can distort our perception of cultures ‘in-between’.
The partisan birch tree
Authors: Jančar Drago
Published: October 2007

Drago Jančar (40) is a Yugoslav novelist and playwright who lives in Ljubljana. Since 1987 he has been President of the Slovenian PEN Centre. In the last ten years, he has published two novels, three plays and two books of short stories. His controversial observations on the cultural climate in Yugoslavia are particularly interesting because he is not a censored author. The following is an edited version of his contribution to a recent PEN conference in Bled on ‘The writer as a spiritual minority’.
Poems
Authors: Ataie Iraj Jannatie
Published: October 2007

Iraj Jannatie Ataie (b. 1947), renowned in Iran as a poet, playwright and songwriter, was imprisoned under the Shah and is now in exile from the Khomeini regime. He lives in Britain, where several of his plays have recently been staged to great critical acclaim. Prometheus in Evin, staged in Farsi at the Royal Court in London last year, was hailed by The Guardian as ‘a brilliant and compelling universal story … which must place [Ataie] in the forefront of international playwrights today’. The play, which examines with ruthless honesty the lot of. the intellectual under repressive regimes, has now been produced in English (in Ataie's own translation) by the Mazdak Theatre Group (Young Vic Studio, 3–22 October 1988).

A benefit reading of Ataie's poems, in aid of the Kurdish refugees, will be held at the Young Vic on 16 October 1988.

The poems below were written in English.
How the Hebrew press is censored
Authors: Pallis Elfi
Published: October 2007

As controls over the Israeli press have become more stringent, journalists have also grown more defiant. The editor of the London-based Israeli Mirror reports
Blindfold justice
Authors: Chaoui Abdelkader
Published: October 2007

A Moroccan author serving a 20-year sentence for allegedly 'plotting against the state' describes scenes from a mass political trial in 1977
The Second Channel
Authors: Lusheng Jia
Published: October 2007

The encouragement of the commercial spirit in China has led to a flourishing 'alternative' trade in books. But many of the new booksellers are barely literate and deal mainly in pornography. A Beijing journalist gives an insider's view.
A paper with a conscience
Authors: Verbaan Mark
Published: October 2007

A journalist on The Namibian reports on the problems the paper has faced through refusing to exercise self-censorship
Inroads into silence
Authors: Harding Jeremy
Published: October 2007

A British correspondent reports on the courage of Mozambican journalists faced with war, famine — and silence
Thirteen hundred years of quiet rebellion
Authors: Wood Frances
Published: October 2007

A specialist on Chinese history traces the tradition of intellectual defiance back to the third century BC
Sun's fight for press freedom
Authors: Schoenhals Michael
Published: October 2007

How editor Sun Changjiang flouted the rules to give the students sympathetic coverage
The fabricated conspiracy
Authors: Yahuda Michael
Published: October 2007

What's the official story on the students' 'counter-revolutionary rebellion'? A London-based expert analyses a new report
Fou Tsong : I wept for China
Authors: Lek Hor Tan
Published: October 2007

The hell with China. That's the attitude!' The famous pianist talks about the tragedy of a country led by 'gangsters'
The most famous tomcat in town
Authors: Blandiana Ana
Published: October 2007

How one of Romania's best poets was banned for publishing a children's poem about a cat
Tiananmen Square
Authors: Xiaobo Liu , Duo Zhou , Dejian Hou , Xin Gao
Published: October 2007

The following are extracts from the text of a declaration issued by four student leaders in Tiananmen Square just before the massacre on the night of 3/4 June 1989. This translation was first published in The Independent, 10 June 1989.
A trip to Moscow
Authors: Sinyavsky Andrei
Published: October 2007

The exiled dissident and celebrated writer returned to the Russian capital briefly for his friend's funeral
The sad and unheroic story of the Soviet soldier's life
Authors: Maryniak Irena
Published: October 2007

An Estonian reporter's expose prompts his call-up by the army. Madis Jurgen left Tallinn on Friday 13 October, bound for New York and Toronto, from where he decided to await events
The 'Russian ideal'
Authors: Aksyuchits Viktor
Published: October 2007

The editor of Vybor, a samizdat journal that seeks the revival of Russian Christian values, talks to Alyona Kozhevnikova about his journal and its aims
Magyar diary
Authors: Kyncl Karel
Published: October 2007

In August, Index on Censorship's East European researcher Karel Kyncl visited Hungary. He was granted an entry visa in his stateless person's travel document at the Hungarian consulate in London.
Benazir's first birthday
Authors: Hussain Mushahid
Published: October 2007

Prime Minister Bhutto marks her first year in office on 2 December. A former newspaper editor praises her for a little liberalisation of the press though many bad habits remain
Life Censor Banda
Authors: Kalemba Robert
Published: October 2007

In Malawi's catalogue of restrictions even weeping is declared subversive
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
Authors: Churchill Ward
Published: October 2007

Celebrated author Peter Matthiessen wins a five-year struggle against the suppression of his book on the FBI's secret war on the American Indian Movement
China update: repression continues
Authors: Tan Lek Hor
Published: October 2007

Following the collapse of the ruling communist parties in Eastern Europe, and the uncertainty in the Soviet Union, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party is anxious about China's internal problems
Doi Moi, or eat first, talk later
Authors: Tan Lek Hor
Published: October 2007

Vietnam's season of openness appears to be at an end
Freedom within limits: the new media
Authors: London John
Published: October 2007

After elections in May, outrages in June. On 20 June President Ion Iliescu took office and tried to disown the savagery he had called for by the miners-turned-storm-troops. Romania Liberá had been forced to stop publication on 15, 16 and 18 June for the first time in its history. Romania had told the world that change after Ceausescu would be delayed. An Index correspondent looks at the early exercise of freedom.
Legal rights can threaten freedoms
Authors: Mendus Susan
Published: October 2007

'Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? — fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?'
'We were feminists in Africa first'
Authors: Ata Aidoo Ama
Published: October 2007

The Ghanaian writer was interviewed in Harare, in July 1990, by Adewale Maja-Pearce
Against the pleasure principle
Authors: Herzi Saida
Published: October 2007

A short story from Somalia
Cabbage pickle and press pay-offs
Authors: Hor Tan Lek
Published: October 2007

South Korea has gained many individual freedoms in three years, but, whether prompted by the 'rites of spring' or corruption in government, discontent and disenchantment have been widespread again this year
Spreading news on a shoe-string
Authors: al-Batsh Mageda
Published: October 2007

The Palestinian Journalists Union has about 200 members. Since the start of the intifada, over 50 of them have been detained and eight deported. There are four daily papers, four weeklies and two monthlies. Distribution is estimated at a mere 54,000 copies and, in the end, who is interested in reading a Palestinian newspaper? Only the censor. The people in the Occupied Territories know in advance that they will find nothing of interest. All that is left are biographies of movie stars.
The train of wonders
Authors: Green Dror
Published: October 2007

A story banned in the Occupied Territories caused uproar in Israel
Pavlov, Prague airport, and the sleep-walker's memories of going home
Authors: Kyncl Karel
Published: October 2007

The return to a country that was one's own, after seven years in exile, produces great elation and deep depression, historical and personal. This was the experience of Karel Kyncl in April and August this year
Romania: Lost planet in the Gutenberg galaxy
Authors: Ruston Ursula
Published: October 2007

In a country still starved of information Romania's media face an uncertain future
The triumph of skill over adversity
Authors: Chamley Santorri
Published: October 2007

Often against the odds, a vibrant film culture has continued to grow in Senegal
Stripping the well-stocked shelves
Authors: Graffy Julian
Published: October 2007

The shelf life of many Soviet films is ending as the Conflict Commission gets its hands on them
First impressions and second thoughts
Authors: Ferman James
Published: October 2007

The president of the British Board of Film Classification explains his philosophy
When memory speaks
Authors: Girven Tim
Published: October 2007

Jeanine Meerapfel found her attempts to chronicle Argentina's 'dirty war' hampered by changing political circumstances
Play politics: policing theatre in Indonesia
Authors: Webster Andrea
Published: October 2007

The openness promised by President Suharto has closed the doors on Jakarta's popular theatre
Indonesia: still stamping on the cockroaches
Authors: Drake Caroline
Published: October 2007

Suharto's 'new ideas and dialogue' remain more honoured in the breach than the observance
Monitoring the opinion polls
Authors: Watch Asia
Published: October 2007

Indonesia's glasnost is short-lived as religious sensibilities are allowed free rein to harry the press
Yesterday's heroes
Authors: Debord Bernard
Published: October 2007

The Party press in Mongolia is starting to break old taboos and report the real world
Defending the new frontier
Authors: Figallo Clifford
Published: October 2007

Electronic communications fall victim to the same restrictions as the written word in an earlier age
Going private at full speed
Authors: Gilbert Isidoro
Published: October 2007

President Menem's drive to trim Argentine state enterprise is creating a new set of media millionaires
Colonel Fazzoletto's barbecue
Authors: Paoletti Mario
Published: October 2007

An award-winning writer born in Buenos Aires in 1940,Mario Paoletti became deputy editor of the newspaper El Independiente, in La Rioja Province, in 1960. In 1976, when the armed forces took over government, El Independiente was stormed by troops and many of its staff were arrested. Paoletti spent over four years in various prisons in Argentina, without charge or trial, accused of being an 'ideological delinquent'. In 1980, on his release, he went to live in Toledo, Spain, where he still lives.

Colonel Fazzoletto's barbecue will be included in Hand in Hand Alongside the Tracks — Argentine Stories, to be published by Constable, London, in February 1992.
A Cold War casualty
Authors: Rodriguez Eugenio
Published: October 2007

The exiled Cuban millionaire club resident in Miami, right-wingers all, have plans for taking over after Castro — but democracy and free speech are not on the agenda
El Salvador: a battered way of life
Authors: Cañas Antonio
Published: October 2007

Corrupt owners, nervous journalists and ten years of civil war ensure that the news does not get told
Hawks, doves and ostriches
Authors: Lee Eric
Published: October 2007

Left and right in Israel at once condemned then split over a TV film about army undercover action
Interarms and the man
Authors: Cummings Sam
Published: October 2007

The 'uncrowned king' of the arms bazaar talks to Caspar Henderson of detente, dictators and the hardships of the business
Mega bucks and some very big bangs
Authors: Barnaby Frank
Published: October 2007

The failure of past attempts at arms control leaves little ground for optimisim, argues a former director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, who asks if governments have learned anything from the conflict they fuelled in the Gulf
The road to Khafji
Authors: Colijn Ko , Rusman Paul
Published: October 2007

Fake licences, compliant civil servants and devious routes ensure that the arms reach their destination — somehow
The cost of a soldier
Authors: Somerville Keith
Published: October 2007

Arms expenditure costs Africa its health, education and long-term development
A system of literary manipulation
Authors: Crick Joyce
Published: October 2007

Writers helped to censor their own work, and became accomplices of the establishment
The ghost on the shoulder
Authors: Kunert Gunter
Published: October 2007

With hindsight, censorship in the GDR was not, as many victims would like to think, an invigorating element which might have strengthened imagination and staying power. On the contrary, censorship was a malicious poison which spared no one, the invisible effects of which will exercise our minds for many years to come
Berlin-East: the other side of the city
Authors: Rathenow Lutz
Published: October 2007

The exerpts below are from the third edition of Berlin-East, the Other Side of the City. Originally published in West Germany in 1987 by S Piper Verlag and reprinted in 1988 by Hartenberg, this edition, published by Basisdruck, a new publisher located in the East of Berlin, has added two chapters to bring the book up to date. These give an impressionistic account of the days just before and after unification.
The right to remain ignorant
Authors: Long Gerald
Published: October 2007

The public, it seems, have a strong desire to be kept in ignorance of the more unpalatable aspects
'We have democratised the news'
Authors: Ekpu Ray
Published: October 2007

The editor of Nigeria's leading news magazine spoke to Dulue Mbachu about how his publication picks its way through the minefields laid by the military government
The Catholic bishops speak out
Authors: Chiona J. , Mikhori F. , Chimole M.A. , Assolari A. , Chamgwera A. , Chisendera G.M. , Roche J. , Gamba Fr
Published: October 2007

Pastoral Letter from the Catholic bishops in Malawi. To be read in every Catholic Church on Sunday 8 March 1992 (the first Sunday of Lent). All the bishops will be in their respective Cathedrals on this day.
Inside the Chinese gulag
Authors: Dicker Richard
Published: October 2007

Beijing replaces a long silence with a misinformation campaign
The Balkans
Authors: Ruston Ursula
Published: October 2007

Regimes are trading in the old Communist mythology for new ones of their own, making history a battleground in the struggle for political supremacy. Censorship now, as before, plays a vital role in the abuse of power
The war of words
Authors: Ruston Ursula
Published: October 2007

A number of leading journalists recently held an unprecedented meeting in Düsseldorf to discuss the future of their profession in a once common homeland, now divided by war
Holding on to the home front
Authors: Hadji-Ristic Petar
Published: October 2007

Their grip on Belgrade TV is the only thing that keeps Slobodan Milosević and his government in power
The last Albanian waiter
Authors: Elsie Robert
Published: October 2007

Since the Serbian government ended autonomous rule in Kosovo in mid-1990, 115,000 Albanians have lost their livelihood, victims of systematic ethnic discrimination known as differencim (differentiation)
Kasëm Trebeshina, prophet
Authors: Elsie Robert
Published: October 2007

In 1953, one of Albania's more outspoken writers warned Enver Hoxha that he was leading his country down an irreversible road to ruin. It cost him 23 years in prison. Today, he is one of a handful of survivors to have emerged from the concentration camps since the fall of the dictatorship
The future is for everyone
Authors: Dimitrova Blaga
Published: October 2007

A dissident writer who nevertheless succeeded in getting her work published (see Index 2/1991 p13), Blaga Dimitrova remains a leading figure in Bulgarian literature. Since December 1991, she has been the country's Vice-President. She spoke to Bulgarian sociologist Valentina Stoeva in Sofia earlier this year
Beware bats in the radio belfry
Authors: Jaumain Yves , Tamboura Belco
Published: October 2007

Even with Mali's former President Moussa Traoré safely behind bars things can still go mysteriously wrong on the airwaves
Freedoms in conflict
Authors: Strossen Nadine
Published: October 2007

Ensuring that women are protected from sexual harassment at work, and preserving freedom of expression as guaranteed by the First Amendment, can be a tricky business
Education through ignorance
Authors: Button Patti
Published: October 2007

Politically and morally motivated activists are denying US women access to sex education and foreclosing on their right to abortion
Goodbye Columbus
Authors: Garner Mandy
Published: October 2007

Angered by the West's celebration of its 'discovery' of their world, indigenous people of the Americas and beyond find their own media voice
The transitional politics of human
Authors: Soyinka Wole
Published: October 2007

Excerpted from an address to the Association of Nigerian Authors at their annual meeting in Abeokuta, Nigeria, on 30 October 1992.
A little bit pregnant
Authors: Kasriel Ken
Published: October 2007

Degrees of freedom jostle with nationalist expectations of the media at war
The Popular Front for the Liberation of 20 million ecus
Authors: Maja-Pearce Adewale
Published: October 2007

A recent meeting in Brussels, convened under the auspices of the European Commission, concluded that a newly-created fund to help the press in Africa was best administered from Europe
Refugees from Shangri-la
Authors: Hutt Michael
Published: October 2007

For centuries the Himalayan kingdoms between India and China have inspired the romantic longings and imaginings of Westerners, who believe them to be out of time and beyond change. One by one, these miraculous realms have been swallowed up or absorbed into the real world. Only Bhutan remained, the image of the 'last Shangri-la'. Now even that is threatened
Ground to a standstill
Authors: Corley Felix
Published: October 2007

The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh is five years old. Oil-rich Azerbaijan has brought Armenia to its knees and captured a quarter of Karabakh's territory. Though cold, hungry and depressed, the Armenians are not giving up
End of a honeymoon
Authors: Antip Igor
Published: October 2007

Sinister changes are devastating Romania Libera, the newspaper which has, for the past three years, been Romania's most powerful voice for democracy
Studio B : a lone voice
Authors: Shubart Tira
Published: October 2007

A single TV station in the states of former Yugoslavia attempts to keep the record straight
One day in the death of Pervomayskoye
Authors: Kolesnikov Andrei
Published: October 2007

On 15 January, after the six-day siege of Pervomayskoye in Dagestan, where Chechen fighters had been forced to take shelter with hostages from Kislyar, Russian troops stormed the village destroying everything in their path. Soon after these events, a journalist from Moskovski novosti describes a scene that has come to typify the brutal 15-month war in Chechnya
In search of the new republic
Authors: Rousselot Fabrice
Published: October 2007

Lord Justice Scott's exposure of the secrecy and duplicity that characterised the UK government's arms deals with Iraq should have come as no surprise to a society in which, acording to a French journalist working in London, the 'culture of secrecy' is endemic and reaches out well beyond the confines of Parliament to operate as the most powerful form of censorship
Press law 93, 1995
Authors: Eldin Hafiz Salah , Rogan Eugene
Published: October 2007

After a period of relative freedom, Egyptian journalists are threatened by a retrograde new law
Speaking in tongues
Authors: Neier Aryeh
Published: October 2007

The suppression of minority languages is a recipe for disaster
Open to change
Authors: Pope Nicole
Published: October 2007

Cosmetic surgery on its repressive laws has done little to change the face of Turkey's onslaught on its writers
Blind eyes to the pirates of Beijing
Authors: Hilton Isabel
Published: October 2007

In 1995, publishers spent US$1.5 billion putting their books onto CD-Rom. Good news for the hi-tech pirates, but, goes the consensus, the screen will never replace the intimate pleasure of a good book
Fiction's freedom
Authors: Alrawi Karim
Published: October 2007

The government and its Islamic opponents join forces to cripple Egyptian publishing
A different peace
Authors: Masalha Nur
Published: October 2007

It was not only the bombs that derailed the Middle East peace process. Even before then, the omissions of the Oslo Accords, the refusal to talk to Hamas when the chance offered and the reluctance of Israel to treat on the hard questions, had slowed down negotiations on a peace many Palestinians felt left them worse off than ever. Now, Shimon Peres's brutal bombardment of Lebanon has removed peace from the domestic agenda. It may have improved Peres's credibility with the Israeli electorate; It also risks driving more Palestinians into the arms of Hamas
Why we should have known
Authors: Holland Mary
Published: October 2007

The renewed IRA bombing campaign should have come as no surprise, argues one of Ireland's leading columnists. The media were In a position to know, but failed to warn the public
A little knowledge is a useful thing
Authors: Fisher Mark
Published: October 2007

Freedom of Information Acts cannot force governments to behave; they can and do lead to better decision-making and restore trust between the public and politicians
Capital television
Authors: Poptsov Oleg
Published: October 2007

The entry of private capital into Russian broadcas ng bodes no good says its former chief, dismissed by President 'eltsin In February this year
Party political messages and the direct method
Authors: Galperovich Danila
Published: October 2007

Presidential candidates discover the power of public relations. Pressing the flesh and chatting up the journalists give the Communist leader a head start
Alien watch
Authors: Dow Mark
Published: October 2007

News footage In April of California deputies brutally beating two Mexican Immigrants, and the deaths of seven more In a car chase Involving Border Patrol agents, shone a spotlight on the Issue of Illegal border-crossing. The US government has spent $13 million since January fortifying the border, but despite the best efforts of the Border Patrol to keep them out, nearly two million unregistered Mexicans are thought to be living in California alone
Review: It may be hi-tech, it ain't sense
Authors: Petley Julian
Published: October 2007

Quick-fix technical answers to complex social problems only compound the Issues they seek to resolve
Unholy covenant
Authors: Kimmerling Baruch
Published: October 2007

Yitzhak Rabin was murdered because his policies threatened the creeping process that is moving Israel away from a secular state to one ruled by religious laws
The functions and benefits of religion
Authors: Sorush Abdolkarim
Published: October 2007

Religion and state must be separated for neither will prosper while mullahs govern. Excerpts from a lecture first printed In Kiyan, 'a monthly journal In the field of philosophy and religion', November 1995
Post-war amnesia
Authors: Moorehead Caroline
Published: October 2007

When the Allies went to war for Gulf oil in 1991, they cloaked their intervention in the language of human rights. Today, they and the region have forgotten how to speak the words
Zero-tolerance gospel
Authors: Shapiro Bruce
Published: October 2007

Law and order evangelists are out on the streets of New York brutally tidying away crime and indigence. They claim a high rate of success — but theirs is not the only way
Do unto others
Authors: Cook Robin
Published: October 2007

New Labour's foreign secretary promises a more ethical foreign policy and puts human rights at the centre of Its agenda
Ethics man?
Authors: D'Ancona Matthew
Published: October 2007

New Labour's intentions are good but realpolitik and the domestic economy may prove greater obstacles than Robin Cook would have us believe
Deadly harvest
Authors: Moorehead Caroline
Published: October 2007

The new British government gives a boost to worldwide moves to ban landmines
Policing parades
Authors: Blom-Cooper Louis
Published: October 2007

A more distanced, less emotive approach to its concerns would go a long way to enhancing the credibility of human rights lobbyists
Post-akhundism in Iran
Authors: Halliday Fred
Published: October 2007

Iran is at a decisive, difficult point in its history. The certainties of the revolutionary period have crumbled, but the shape of the future, and the forces that could determine it, remain obscure
A case for oil
Authors: Morse Edward L
Published: October 2007

The oil industry has an image problem. Or is it more than that: a complete disregard for the land and the people in whose countries it operates? Whatever the case, unless the industry cleans up its act and addresses its critics, it could find itself facing regulation from outside
Company rules
Authors: Walmsley Emily
Published: October 2007

Ecuador's Secoya Indians opt for oil, but find the pay-off doesn't live up to the promises
Wakeham's private wars
Authors: Davidson Arthur
Published: October 2007

If the Press Complaints Commission wants to avoid a privacy law in the wake of the Diana affair, it'll have to give its self regulatory code a few teeth
Songs of Partition
Authors: Sen Sudeep
Published: October 2007

Our poems from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh explore partitions of thought, emotion, intellect: between people and within relationships; between ideas of the traditional and the modern; of exile, loss and dislocation. They cover a broad spectrum of generations and origins and a few of the many languages of the subcontinent.
An anatomy of dictatorship
Authors: Michnik Adam
Published: October 2007

independent Burma is 50 this year. For many there is little to celebrate after 35 years of military rule. Could this be the year of change, asks a Polish observer who finds much in Rangoon to remind him of Poland's own confrontation with dictatorship
The diamond wars
Authors: Misser François
Published: October 2007

A power shift in the diamond industry is the key to the recent series of conflicts that are changing governments in West and Central Africa.
A prayer for Chernobyl
Authors: Aleksiyevich Svetlana
Published: October 2007

On 26 April 1986, at 01.23 hours and 58 seconds, a series of explosions destroyed the nuclear reactor and building of the fourth power generator unit of Chernobyl atomic power station.

During World War II, the German fascists destroyed 619 Belarusian villages along with their inhabitants. As a result of the Chernobyl disaster, the country lost 485 villages and hamlets. During the war, one in four Belarusians lost their lives. After Chernobyl, one in five Belarusians, 2.1 million people, are living in contaminated territory. Seven hundred thousand of these are children.

Ongoing low level radiation results in a year on year increase in the number of Belarusans suffering from cancers, mental debility, neuro-psychological disorders,and genetic mutations.

'Chernobyl' volume of the Belarusian Encyclopaedia, Minsk, 1996.
Web wars
Authors: Pantic Drazen
Published: October 2007

The conflict In Kosovo is unique: it is the first small war to grasp the propaganda possibilitles of the Net. But giving Kosovans their own voice is not easy
Closure of the exposé factory
Authors: Uceda Ricardo
Published: October 2007

The Peruvian media and the government are in a state of virtual war
Muffled voices
Authors: Kohen Arnold
Published: October 2007

As Suharto tumbled, East Timor experienced a frisson of free speech - tempered by the fear of a return to the usual pogrom
What every woman wants
Authors: Hashemi Fa'ezeh
Published: October 2007

An interview with the founder and managing editor of Iran's latest paper, Zan, the first daily for women
Rats on two legs
Authors: Anyanwu Christine
Published: October 2007

The death of Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha released her from a 15-year Jail term for reporting the news. Freedom does not take away the stain of conviction nor the fear next time
Lines of attack
Authors: Glanville Jo
Published: October 2007

If you want to take the temperature of Arab-Israeli relations, a look at the cartoons that enliven the newspapers on the two sides is instructive
Under the dragon
Authors: Nita Yin Yin May
Published: October 2007

Ten years ago, after a series of bloody confrontations in which up to 5,000 Burmese were killed by security forces — more than in the 1989 Tiananmen massacre — the Burmese military took over the government of the country in September 1988 and instituted severe censorship with total disregard for human rights. Despite the overwhelming victory of the National League for Democracy in the 1990 elections, the military remains in power. Burma's economy is in ruins and human rights abuses continue; but the generals show no willingness for dialogue and, as the anniversary of their takeover approached, renewed their attacks on the NLD and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi
Radical memory
Authors: Gibbons Luke
Published: October 2007

By refusing to see the past as over and done with, especially the past of the victims of history, commemoration becomes radical memory, not a consolation for things past nor an exercise in futile nostalgia
Borders
Authors: Fisk Robert
Published: October 2007

There is nothing unique about Ireland's border problems; yesterday's border conflicts are today's hotspots from the Lebanon to Yugoslavia