bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Cry for justice
Authors: Mazrui Al-Amin
Published: October 2007

The author has been detained, uncharged and untried, since June 1982

Kilio cha Haki (‘Cry for Justice’) is a Kiswahili play set in Kenya during the colonial period. It is about the struggle between Kenyan workers on Mr Delamon's farm and the white settlers occupying their country. In this struggle, the workers are led by a brave woman, Lanina, who exposes the exploitation and injustice prevailing in the society. She succeeds in making the workers stand up and fight for their rights. In the ensuing struggle on the farm, three of Mr Delamon's assistants are killed. The entire workers' leadership is arrested and charged with murder. This was the beginning of the larger struggle for independence of the whole country.

Al-Amin Mazrui is a highly-respected Kiswahili writer and scholar, an executive committee member of the Kenyan Writers Association, and was a lecturer in linguistics at Kenyatta University College until his arrest in June 1982 and subsequent detention without trial: (see Index on Censorship 2/1983, back cover). Two weeks before his arrest, Kilio cha Haki was performed at the University of Nairobi. This first English translation of an extract from Kilio cha Haki has been prepared by the Kiswahili scholar and poet, Abdilatif Abdalla.
Base communities: helping the poor
Authors: Moll Peter
Published: October 2007

How 80,000 grassroots Christian communities give a voice to the poor in Brazil
The conversion
Authors: Bahereh
Published: October 2007

A short story about a Baha'i family which first appeared in an underground paper in Iran

There are about 300,000 members of the Baha'i religion living in Iran. It is the only religious minority not recognised by the Iranian Constitution. Since the revolution of February 1979, 141 Baha'is have been reported executed, and another 200 are in prison without having been charged. Between 5,000 and 10,000 Baha'is are thought to have left the country. Baha'is are usually charged with ‘Zionism’ and espionage on behalf of Israel, apparently simply because their world headquarters are in Israel. The ruling Mullahs are also infuriated by the Baha'i belief that the teachings of most of the world's great prophets - including Muhammad – are only relevant for a certain time and that their revelations ‘progress’ from one era to another. Baha'i property has been confiscated and the Baha'is themselves are subject to laws which effectively prevent them from holding employment. Recanting their faith and converting to Shia Islam is the only way they can escape persecution.

According to a recent report (The Times, 29 July), 22 prominent Baha'is were arrested in Iran following the executions in June of 17 members of the faith, including several women.

The following short story appeared in Spring 1982 in Nowbahar, an underground paper, where it was entitled ‘The day light came to our house’ and signed ‘Bahereh’, which means ‘The one who has seen the light’. The ‘Komiteh’ referred to in the first paragraph is the ‘Imam Committee’, i.e. the political police set up after the revolution in 1979.
Beyers Naudé and the Christian Institute
Authors: Shorten Richard
Published: October 2007

Started in 1963, the Christian Institute was banned in 1977 and so was its director, Beyers Naudé. Both remain banned.

The series of restrictions imposed on Dr Naudé by the South African government since his passport was withdrawn at Jan Smuts airport, Johannesburg, on 25 September 1974, has been’ chronicled in ‘Index/Index’. A five-year banning order was served in October 1977. In October 1982 it was renewed for a further three years; on 9 December 1982 it was partly lifted and Dr Naudé is no longer prevented from meeting more than one person at a time, and restrictions on his movements have been relaxed. But he remains banned. (For names of others whose banning orders were renewed on 1 July 1983, see Index/Index, p. 47).

The following article first appeared in South African Outlook, Cape Town, November 1982.
I take the side of truth
Authors: Havel Václav
Published: October 2007

Interview with leading Czech playwright
Turkey: Education undermined
Authors: Ersan Tosun
Published: October 2007

The military remodel the educational system
Amnesty and politics
Authors: Ennals Martin
Published: October 2007

Persecution East and West: Human Rights, Political Prisoners and Amnesty by Cosmas Desmond, Penguin Special $2.50
Catastrophe: For Václav Havel
Authors: Beckett Samuel
Published: October 2007

In a letter to Samuel Beckett written in April 1983, six weeks after his release, the Czech dramatist Václav Havel described ‘the shock I experienced during my time in prison when, on the occasion of one of her one-hour visits allowed four times a year, my wife told me in the presence of an obtuse warder that at Avignon there took place a night of solidarity with me, and that you took the opportunity to write, and to make public for the first time, your play Catastrophe. For a long time afterwards there accompanied me in prison a great joy and emotion and helped to live on amidst all the dirt and baseness'.

When he came out, Václav Havel wrote a similarly short piece, Mistake, as a response to the play Samuel Beckett had dedicated to him. While Catastrophe had its first performance at the Avignon Theatre Festival in 1982, both plays were produced as a double bill at the Stockholm Stadsteater on 29 November 1983, as part of an ‘evening of solidarity’ with Havel and his fellow-members of the Charter 77 human rights movement in Czechoslovakia. The text of Catastrophe will appear in a collection of Beckett's shorter pieces, to be published by Faber in London in June this year.

We are delighted to be the first to print both these plays, and we would like to thank Samuel Beckett, Faber & Faber, and Rowohlt Theater Verlag for giving us permission to do so.
Why Tiempo is under attack
Authors: Black George
Published: October 2007

‘Those who are not with the government are considered enemies of Honduras, anti-patriots, Communists’ says Tiempo's editor, Manuel Gamero

Honduras was until recently an area of calm in the stormy region of Central America. Now, however, its civilian government is hard-pressed by the armed forces who have involved the country in the struggle against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and the guerrilla fighters in El Salvador. Both Honduras' press and university are coming increasingly under attack, as George Black, a British journalist who is on the staff of the North American Congress on Latin America in New York, here explains.
The war of words in Southern Africa
Authors: Hardy Pauline
Published: October 2007

How can the ‘frontline’ states counter the propaganda offensive from South Africa?
My brief for Ghana radio
Authors: Karikari Kwame
Published: October 2007

The Acting Head of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation explains the role of radio and answers charges that the government of Jerry Rawlings has tried to ‘muzzle’ the press

This interview was given on 4 July 1983, during a short visit to London. Later that month, journalists working on the Free Press newspaper were arrested and detained, and the paper has not been published since.
Books in Chile
Authors: Edwards Jorge
Published: October 2007

How the censorship of books has evolved since 1973

Born in Santiago de Chile in 1931, Jorge Edwards is a distinguished novelist and short story writer, whose writing career began in 1952 with El Patio and has included such works as Los Convidados de Piedra (1978), and Las Máscaras (1980). He also served Chile as a diplomat, and represented Salvador Allende's government in Cuba for several months in 1971. His experiences there provided the material for a book, Persona Non Grata which at one time had the dubious distinction of being banned in both Chile and Cuba. Edwards resigned from his diplomatic career when General Pinochet took over in 1973, and lived in Spain for several years. Since his return to Chile in 1978, he has dedicated himself to writing and to the defence of writers' freedoms, being one of the founders of the Chilean Committee for the Freedom of Expression. Here he traces the various stages of the Pinochet regime's attempts to suppress and control the publication and distribution of books in Chile.
Discussion about poetry with an Inspector
Authors: Pomazov Vitaly
Published: October 2007

A Moscow poet recalls his conversation with the KGB

This is the transcript of a conversation between the Russian poet Vitaly Pomazov and KGB staff member Yu. N. Uvarov on 21 April, 1982, at the Serpukhov KGB Administration. Present during the conversation was another KGB staff member, who declined to introduce himself. Some of the remarks are his. The transcript was made by Vitaly Pomazov from memory following the conversation and is slightly abridged.

The heading is a word-play on a famous, very ‘Soviet’ poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky, ‘Discussion about Poetry with a Finance Inspector’, It is an accurate and poignant reproduction of a situation very familiar to nearly every uncensored person of letters in the Soviet Union, and, indeed, in all countries of the Soviet bloc. The basic purpose of such ‘preventive conversations’ is ordinarily to ‘sound out’ the author of a ‘criminal’ work, but they are often also an attempt to warn him of ‘responsibility for acts perpetrated’. An appropriate ‘steps taken’ entry is made in the ‘offender's’ dossier as a result of such discussions.

Vitaly Pomazov (born in 1946 or 1947) studied history at the University, but in 1968 was expelled from both the Komsomol (Communist Youth Organisation) and the University. The reason was his sociological research study ‘State and Democracy’. In 1971 Pomazov was arrested on a charge of ‘anti-Soviet activities’ and sentenced to one-and-a-half year's imprisonment. After completing the prison term, he was forbidden to live in Moscow and moved about 50 or 60 kilometres to Serpukhov, where the conversation took place. He is editor of the typewritten literary miscellany Protalina (untranslatable expression — it describes a patch of land in early spring, from which the snow has disappeared during a thaw, while the surrounding countryside is still covered with snow and ice).
The year of miracle and grief
Authors: Borodin Leonid
Published: October 2007

Extract from a novel by a Russian author recently sentenced to a long term in a labour camp

The author is a 46-year-old Russian historian who used to be the headmaster of a village school. In 1967 he was sentenced to six years' imprisonment for his membership of the All-Russian Social-Christian Union and after his release he worked as a labourer. In May 1983 he was sentenced to another ten years' term in a labour camp, to be followed by five years of internal exile. The charge was ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda’ allegedly committed through his literary work. He was adopted as prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.

The following is an extract from Borodin's novel which is to be published in English by Quartet Books, to whom we are grateful for permission to print it.
Piano-bar: Short story by a Haitian
Authors: Dévieux Liliane
Published: October 2007

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western world. The average yearly wage is 300 US dollars. Its resources, human and material, have been squandered by the brutal Duvalier dynasty that has ruled since 1957. Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier ignored the rule of law and set up his own security forces (among them the infamous Ton-Ton Macoutes) to silence all opposition. Torture, arbitrary arrests and expulsions, and long periods of detention without charge became commonplace. Vicious abuse of human rights continued when his son, ‘Baby Doc’, took over in 1971 and proclaimed himself president-for-life. Since then there have been successive waves of attacks not only on political opponents, but also lawyers, intellectuals, and journalists. In addition, writers in Haiti have to contend with 85–90% illiteracy, a complete lack of publishing possibilities, and virtually no public libraries. The majority of them have joined the exodus of Haitians seeking a living abroad, which has taken 300,000 to New York (and made it the second largest ‘Haitian’ city) and some 30,000 to Montreal, where Liliane Dévieux, the author of this short story, has lived since the mid-1970s.
Doctor honoris causa Václav Havel
Authors: Kyncl Karel
Published: October 2007

Toulouse University awards an honorary degree to Czechoslovakia's greatest living playwright, who is banned
Hunger for the truth
Authors: Orlos Kazimierz
Published: October 2007

A Polish writer explains why unofficial writing flourishes

Kazimierz Orlos was born on 26 December 1935 in Warsaw. In 1960 he graduated from the Law Department of Warsaw University and then worked for some years as a legal adviser to, among others, some of the biggest construction works. He has published three volumes of short stories: Miedzy Brzegami (‘Between River Banks’) in PIW 1961; Koniec Zabawy (‘End of Games’) in Czytelnik 1965; Ciemne Drzewa (‘Dark Trees’) in Czytelnik 1970; and two novels — Cudowna Melina (‘Magic Den’) 1973 and Trzecie Klamstwo (‘The Third Lie’) 1980 — published by the Institut Literacki in Paris. In 1983 a book of short stories Pustynia Gobi (‘The Gobi Desert’) was published in London by PULS Publications.
Excessive secrecy, lack of guidelines
Authors: Falloon Virgil
Published: October 2007

A report on military censorship in the West Bank
How I run Radio CX-30
Authors: Araujo Germán
Published: October 2007

Radio CX-30 is a small, independent radio station in a country ruled by the military; its director explains how he and his station have managed to survive.

Plaza Independencia is at the very heart of Montevideo, Uruguay's capital on the Rio de la Plata. Its buildings are symbolic of both the country's past and what has happened during the past decade of military rule. In the centre of the square is a statue to General Artigas, a hero of the fight for liberation from Spain in the nineteenth century, who put forward revolutionary land reform proposals. He died a pauper in exile. Opposite is the one-storey Presidential Palace, now in the shadow of a ten-storey military headquarters under construction for the past few years, but still unfinished. The other side of the square is dominated by Montevideo's traditional luxury hotel, the Victoria Plaza Hotel. This too has changed hands in recent times, and now belongs to the South-Korean inspired Unification Church (the ‘Moonies’) who bought it in 1982. To make their financial dealings simpler, they bought a majority shareholding in the Banco de Credito, Uruguay's third largest banking group. They also set up an evening newspaper Ultimas Noticias, run by the former secretary of the armed forces' information services. At one end of the Plaza Independencia is the arch leading to the spur of land which comprises the old city and the port. These were sealed off in June 1984 when a leading political exile, Wilson Ferreira Aldunate, returned from eleven years abroad after being elected as the Blanco party presidential candidate for controlled elections which the present military-backed government has called for November, after all their previous plans for continuing their own rule met with steadfast opposition from the Uruguayans.

The radio station which has been prominent in giving a voice to that opposition is housed at the opposite end of the square, in the Palacio Salvo, a piece of grandiose Spanish architecture which somehow suffered a mid-century continental drift and found itself on the far side of the South Atlantic rather than in Barcelona. Radio CX-30 occupies the second floor of the rambling building. The defiant stance it has adopted towards the military government, particularly since 1980, has made it very popular, and its entrance is thronged constantly with people hoping to get their complaints heard, or to talk with its director, German Araujo. He is a small man with aquiline features and seemingly boundless energy. Appointed to head the radio in 1973, his personal prestige has grown with its popularity, and reached a high point last December when he embarked on a hunger strike in protest at the government's closure and occupation of the radio.
‘Is Togo television yours or mine?’
Authors: Placca Jean-Baptiste Dossè
Published: October 2007

When the President, General Eyadema, put this question to the presenter of the 8 o'clock evening news, there was no doubt about the answer.

The debate about a New International Information Order seems for the time being to have ground to a halt. Western critics of these proposals tend to fall back on one basic argument: the safeguarding of freedom of information, already in a poor state around the world. Their concerns are shared by many journalists in countries whose governments are calling for change, which only serves to show that their arguments are not entirely without foundation.

But then, how do Third World governments make use of the means of information at their disposal? Why is it that the very idea of their countries' playing a more active part in the international exchange of news should spark off such distrust, not only in the West—particularly in the United States — but even among their own journalists?

The ideal way of obtaining a complete response to this question would be to take each country in turn and analyse its system of information, taking each piece of the mechanism apart in order to demonstrate the various obstacles, deliberate or otherwise, to the free flow of information. Such a study is beyond the scope of the present article.

Instead, we will limit ourselves to one example which may serve to shed light on the others: the tiny West African state of Togo — 35,000 square miles and 2 1/2 million inhabitants. Not that everything that happens there is valid everywhere else; but one can find solid examples of practices employed, to a varying degree, in a significant number of other Third World countries, particularly those of French-speaking Africa.
How Sysoev became a non-conformist
Authors: Sysoev Vyacheslav
Published: October 2007

An extract from the autobiography of an extraordinary writer and artist now serving a prison sentence in the Soviet Union
Black education
Authors: Kambule T. W.
Published: October 2007

Protest by black school students at their inferior education system first erupted in Soweto in 1976. T. W. Kambule, for over 15 years Principal of Orlando High School, Soweto — a community-built school and for 25 years the only secondary school in Soweto — here explains why young Blacks have continued and increased their protests. A year ago he predicted further outbreaks, worse than 1976, if the signs of discontent continued to be brushed aside.

In September 1984, Kambule told us: ‘Just now at the time of writing, schools have been closed in and around Soweto for a radius of 50 miles. Things are bad, and the government as usual is using strong-arm tactics, and the situation is deteriorating by the day. And there is no visible attempt to address the problems. The authorities are fanning the flames which border on a revolution. Even now there is a massive stay away from work by all and sundry. We are worried and the rulers indifferent.’

In 1977 Kambule resigned with 400 other Soweto teachers and is now Senior Lecturer at the Department of Mathematics at the University of Witwatersrand. The article first appeared in Indicator, Volume 1, No 3, published by the University of Natal.
Odd Man in
Authors: Pavlovsky Eduardo
Published: October 2007

Teatro Abierto (‘Open Theatre’) was launched in Argentina in 1981. It was the idea of a number of playwrights, directors and actors, many of whom had spent all or many of the years following the 1976 coup in exile abroad. They were determined to demonstrate that theatre was still a living art in Argentina in spite of repeated government censorship and outright repression by means of bannings, threats and blacklists. ‘We reckoned that if we all appeared together, they couldn't possibly silence the whole thing,’ one of the founding group commented. Their idea was to put on 21 short plays at the rate of three a day over a week, with repetitions of the plays over a month. However, halfway through the first week, just after the performance of a play which contained references to the thousands of ‘disappeared’ in Argentina (see Box), the theatre staging the plays was burnt out. Several people, never subsequently identified, broke into it and spread phosphorus bombs throughout the auditorium. The theatre was gutted, and since it was not insured, has remained empty ever since. The outcry against such a blatant attack on freedom of expression was so great that the season of plays was quickly offered a home in a larger theatre, where the remaining works were performed, arousing enormous public interest.

Teatro Abierto 1981 was an important psychological turning point for cultural life in Argentina under the military. The fact that a group of artists had stood together and refused to allow any interference with their work greatly encouraged others. Their initiative was soon followed by similar events in dance, cinema and photography, all of them demonstrating the vitality of Argentine cultural expression despite six years of official censorship and neglect.

The play which follows, Odd Man In, was one of the works presented in the 1981 series of Teatro Abierto. Its author, Eduardo Pavlovsky, returned recently to Argentina after spending several years in exile in Spain. He has described his escape from Argentina in the following fashion: ‘In my play Telarañas (‘Cobwebs’) there is a scene in which two gas board officials force their way into a home. In fact, they are not from the gas board at all, but are torturers. Cobwebs was written in 1976 and put on at the Teatro Payró in 1977. It lasted two days. I received a letter from the Secretary of Culture of the City of Buenos Aires asking me to withdraw it. Possibly because I wasn't fully aware of the kind of situation we were really in, I took no notice, and forced them to issue a formal banning decree. Three months later, two ‘gas board officials’ came to my place asking for me. Luckily my secretary realised what was going on, and phoned to me upstairs. By this time, another eight ‘gasmen’ had appeared. If I'm here to tell the story, it's because by then I had climbed out of my window and escaped across the roofs.’
Shanty Town Theatre
Authors: Radrigán Juan
Published: October 2007

‘The critics awarded us the prize for the “Best play of the year” … but the main thing was that that year in the shanty town enabled us to attract an audience among trade-unionists and slum dwellers, who later followed us into the playhouses …’

Though many Chilean intellectuals and writers were forced into exile by the repression which followed the 1973 coup, others stayed to fight the restrictions and harassment as best they could from inside the country. One notable example of this is the playwright Juan Radrigán. To survive, writers have developed a kind of self-censorship which means that their message is there to be understood if the public knows what to look for, but is never overtly expressed. The author situates his work not on the level of everyday reality, but couches it in the most general terms possible. It is left to the audience to work back from this universal level to a discovery of the relevance of the work to the reality surrounding them. Many of those writing poetry and for the theatre in Chile since 1973 have adopted religious themes and language since these lent themselves best to this kind of approach, and also because the Catholic Church was the only source of criticism which could not be suppressed by the authorities. Radrigán, however, has remained outside this current, perhaps unable to accept the message of hope which underpins the Christian tradition. He came to writing plays late in life, after working in a textile factory and elsewhere, and since 1979 has been one of the most significant voices in Chilean theatre. His characters are drawn from the poorest groups in Chilean society, but are projected on to the level of universal archetypes. In the main, they have abandoned hope about their own situation, and are worn out, old, defeated, or mentally disturbed. They are the end result of a brutal process which has left them at the bottom of the social scale stripped of all hope. In Radrigán's best-known work Unalterable Facts, death is the only exit. This message of despair in Radrigán's work has been criticised both inside Chile and abroad by opponents of the military regime as not emphasising enough the possibilities for social and political change, but his plays do give a convincing psychological portrait of how more than a decade of repression can work on the minds and expectations of a people. Juan Radrigán was interviewed recently by the Chilean writer Tito Valenzuela.
Alternative Theatre
Authors: Wójcik Agnieszka
Published: October 2007

Since 1981 it has not been the professionals but the amateur ‘student’ groups who have kept alive an underground theatre free to express what it likes, how it likes
Reports
Authors: Mrozek Slawomir
Published: October 2007

When a citizen's duty is to help the state in its glorious task, every little report helps
Interview
Authors: Sobol Joshua
Published: October 2007

‘I feel the necessity to go back to the past in order to understand what happens here, what the hell is going on with our Zionism here in Israel’

Joshua Sobol is one of Israel's most controversial dramatists. He is the author of the much discussed and much acclaimed plays Soul of a Jew and Ghetto. Clive Sinclair talked to him in Tel-Aviv about his plays and the censor. The interviewer is the literary editor of the Jewish Chronicle, London.
The Game
Authors: Rathenow Lutz
Published: October 2007

Lutz Rathenow (32), together with Frank-Wolf Matties, Jürgen Fuchs and Bettina Wegner, represents a new generation of opposition writers in East Germany. Brought to early prominence, they filled the gaps in a literary community decimated by the expulsion and emigration of many leading spokesmen. Rathenow has been fighting state censorship since 1980, when he became the first East German writer to be imprisoned for the crime of publishing a book abroad. In early June 1984, the staging of his pantomime play, Keine Tragoedie (No Tragedy) was cancelled a few days before opening at a university theatre in Leipzig. The director of the play was later suspended and the actors submitted to a ‘personal and artistic aptitude test’ to gauge their suitability for continuing in the pantomime group. This action followed a protest letter by Rathenow to the Ministry of Culture, which was leaked to the Western press, sharply attacking restriction on literary freedom in the GDR.

The following sketch (translated by Jean Brown) is published here by permission of Piper publishing house (Munich); it appeared in Lutz Rathenow's book Boden 411. Stücke zum Lesen und Texte zum Spielen (Ground 411. Pieces for Reading and Texts for Acting). This book was impounded by the authorities when it was sent to Rathenow by his West German publisher – a fact which he duly included in his letter of protest to the Ministry of Culture.
‘I will not Work in such Conditions any more…’
Authors: Lyubimov Yuri
Published: October 2007

‘When my first production The Fallen and the Living was closed down, some friends of mine arranged a meeting for me with Andropov. He was Secretary to the Central Committee at that time. I had a long conversation with him. He started by saying: “I thank you as a father”. I didn't understand and said, “What for exactly?” He replied: “You didn't accept my children into the theatre”.’

The chief director of the Moscow Taganka Theatre Yuri Petrovich Lyubimov was in London at the end of 1983 and in early 1984. He collected the Evening Standard prize — England's most prestigious theatre award — for his staging of Crime and Punishment based on Dostoevsky's novel.

In London, Yuri Lyubimov made a number of statements in which he severely criticised official Soviet cultural policy, in particular with regard to the theatre. These statements caused anger among Soviet embassy officials in London and even provoked threats.

On 17 February 1984 Lyubimov granted M. Fillimor, a correspondent of L'Alternative, the interview which we publish below. Yuri Lyubimov asked for the interview to be prefaced with two epigraphs: one from A. Pushkin — the second from F. Shalyapin's book The Mask and the Soul. The quote from Shalyapin comes from the 1932 Paris edition of the work (the corresponding pages are omitted in the Soviet edition). The interview was first published in the magazine L'Alternative, Paris.
Gyorgy Konrad
Authors: Heron Elizabeth
Published: October 2007

‘I engage in politics so that I can write freely and we can develop peacefully without political interference,’ says Hungary's well-known writer

Gyorgy Konrad's latest book Anti Politics has been welcomed by E. P. Thompson as ‘a book of exceptional importance’. It has reinforced the international acclaim won by his earlier works, but has also accentuated his position at the forefront of dissident politics in his native Hungary. Yet Konrad is a writer who thinks politics is like a contagious infection, something to get rid of. Elizabeth Heron went to Budapest to find out how a writer survives on the Cold War frontier.
Press Freedom
Authors: Barang Marcel
Published: October 2007

Between 1979 and 1982, 47 journalists were murdered; they are believed to have been killed because of their investigations. Seven more were assassinated in 1983, and one in 1984.
Munnansi
Authors: Petley Dexter
Published: October 2007

Munnansi is a small weekly with a reputation for accuracy. At the end of 1984 four of its staff were arrested and the paper went underground.
Manlio Argueta
Authors: Hopkinson Amanda
Published: October 2007

‘This is what you'll get next time,’ said the pistol-waving policeman. ‘Why don't you get out? We're sick and tired of poets in this country.’ In 1972 Argueta left El Salvador for Costa Rica.
Blood Relations
Authors: Argueta Manlio
Published: October 2007

A short story set in El Salvador
A Tale of Two Brothers
Authors: Elansari Nour al-Din
Published: October 2007

Nour al-Din Elansari is a Moroccan poet, calligrapher and a member of the Moroccan Union of Poets. He came to France to study for his doctorate but soon got involved in the Paris-based campaign to release the jailed Moroccan poet, Abdellatif Laabi. This angered the Moroccan government, for his crime was twofold: poetry and activism. Police started to visit his family in Marrakesh regularly to interrogate them about Nour al-Din's activities. He chose not to return to his country or publish there, while his younger brother Ibrahim, also a poet, was arrested and jailed in January, 1984.

In Paris, Index on Censorship met Nour al-Din, who explained what it was like to be an exile.
In the Women's Prison
Authors: Saadawi Nawal el , Eber Shirley
Published: October 2007

A memoir of arrest and interrogation by one of Egypt's leading feminists.
The Life and Fate of Vasily Grossman
Authors: Voinovich Vladimir
Published: October 2007

‘Comparing all the finest examples of the epic novel written since the beginning of the Soviet regime, I would say that Life and Fate is the most important’
Let us Love the Censor
Authors: Fedorowicz Jacek
Published: October 2007

‘The censors are not entirely the government's men, so we should not push them into its embrace. The censors are people who at a critical moment of change could be on our side’
Afraid of the Word
Authors: Lazikani Muhydin
Published: October 2007

Jailed for a poem, shunned by employers, the Syrian writer Muhydin Lazikani finally found work abraod, as a ajournalist in Abu Dhabi — only to be sacked when President Assad complained of his articles
Landlocked and Uninformed
Authors: Demafouth Jean-Jacques
Published: October 2007

‘To be well-informed in the Central African Republic requires listening to the BBC, the Voice of Germany, or Radio France Internationale — but also in absolute secrecy.’
The Fishing Line
Authors: Kotrlá Iva
Published: October 2007

The case of Iva Kotrlá is a reminder that independent thought remains punishable by law and that the ‘interests of the Republic abroad’ may be damaged by a poet expressing his or her feelings.
Spring Wind Blows no Good
Authors: Seymour James D.
Published: October 2007

Classified government document reveals how Taiwan's Garrison Command plans to stifle dissent
Warmer Climate for Literature
Authors: Shapiro Judith , Heng Liang
Published: October 2007

‘The writer must have full freedom to express his own feelings, excitement and thought… For a long time the party has interfered too much.’ These words by the party representative at a recent writers conference have caused a surge of optimism among writers and artists
In the Shadow of Numeiri
Authors: Berger Carol
Published: October 2007

Are the Sudanese ready to stop repressing their opponents?
The Lost Generation
Authors: Rakotoson Michèle
Published: October 2007

In this interview with Wendy Davies, a young Malagasy writer describes her attempts to write about some of the problems in her country faced by women, children and ‘people who are virtual slaves’.
Losing Readers in Argentina
Authors: Puig Manuel
Published: October 2007

Argentina, 1973, Perón is back. ‘There was room only for praise, all criticism was blasphemous … I began to sense a certain hostility in the media.’ So Puig left and abroad he found new readers, new censors but the contact with his own countrymen was lost.
Will Stalin Become a Non-person?
Authors: Vinograde Ann C.
Published: October 2007

Was Stalin ‘the greatest’, ‘quite important’ or ‘too crude’? It depends on which edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia you consult
Not in Belfast
Authors: Bew Paul
Published: October 2007

Why are historians in Northern Ireland denied access to documents which can be obtained in London?
Women in History
Authors: Hufton Olwen
Published: October 2007

Largely excluded from the historical picture by generations of male historians, women's history offers new avenues for exploring the past
Filling the Gaps
Authors: Labanyi Jo
Published: October 2007

Ten years after Franco's death, Spanish libraries still suffer the effects of 40 years’ censorship
John Baker the Evangelist
Authors: Battěk Rudolf
Published: October 2007

The prison letters of Battěk, which provide the setting for the sayings of John Baker
Tuol Sleng Extermination Centre
Authors: Hawk David
Published: October 2007

Khmer Rouge documents record the arrest, interrogation, torture and murder of 20,000 prisoners at Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh
A Modest Request for Reforms
Authors: Konrad György
Published: October 2007

‘Europe is made up of individuals, not governments. We have gathered here so that the message of the Europe of writers might be heard, besides that of the Europe of states’
A Besieged Culture
Authors: Vladislav Jan
Published: October 2007

Writers, artists, journalists and scholars living in Czechoslovakia describe their situation today
National Commission on Disappeared People
Authors: Más Nunca
Published: October 2007

Extracts from the testimonies of victims of Argentina's years of terror, when close on 9,000 people are known to have ‘disappeared’
Out of step
Authors: Pomerantsev Igor
Published: October 2007

Igor Pomerantsev, a writer who left the USSR in 1978, discusses the situation of the younger generation of poets, the successors of Yevtushenko and Brodsky
Zorba, the Yugoslav
Authors: Selic Momcilo
Published: October 2007

Short story by a writer now living in exile
The Congo Censorship Commission
Authors: Menga Guy
Published: October 2007

A former head of programmes at Congo Radio recalls his experiences
Poems
Authors: Prigov Dmitry , Laird Sally
Published: October 2007

Verses by a poet living in Moscow who has never been officially published
The doubts of a bigamist
Authors: Vásquez Ana
Published: October 2007

‘To be in exile is difficult and easy‥’ A Chilean in Paris on the marvellous opportunities and painful choices which exiles face
Caution is the watchword
Authors: Heard Anthony Hazlitt
Published: October 2007

‘If journalists, doing their job, can simply be picked up and detained, they have no independent role left.’ The editor of the Cape Times describes the situation facing editors and reporters since 12 June
The press under Aquino
Authors: Lent John A
Published: October 2007

After the revolution came competition, sensationalism — and investigations into newspapers run by ‘Marcos’ cronies’
Tales from Kolyma
Authors: Shalamov V.T.
Published: October 2007

In the late fifties Shalamov smuggled out Kolyma Tales, a collection of stories based on his 20 years in the Siberian camps. The two tales we publish here appear in English for the first time.
Who's afraid of Dracula?
Authors: Ionescu Dan
Published: October 2007

A British TV programme on Dracula has caused a remarkable stir in Rumania
War of words
Authors: Matheson Catherine
Published: October 2007

Physical attacks and threats to withdraw state advertising from the media combine to keep the Salvadoran press in line
Full circle to dictatorship
Authors: Cuadra Pablo Antonio
Published: October 2007

‘Calling ourselves the enemies of Imperalism, we have hidden the real and dangerous loss of our sense of Independence. Calling ourselves the standard-bearers of liberation, we have left no room for man in our concept of the State.’
Julio Cortázar and the Eagle
Authors: Ramírez Sergio
Published: October 2007

‘As for the humble democracy which will emerge from this bloody clay kneaded by countless hands, don't ask me before time what it will look like. I'll explain it to you once the clay is fired. Meanwhile, if you won't help shape it, at least don't get in the way.’
How I was fired
Authors: Heard Anthony Hazlitt
Published: October 2007

Former editor of the Cape Times, who was awarded the International Federation of Newspaper Publishers’ Golden Pen of Freedom in 1986 after his interview with banned leader of the African National Congress Oliver Tambo, speaks about 16 years of editing under apartheid, and his dismissal in August
Curbing the press
Authors: Maliakan Joseph
Published: October 2007

The September raid on the Indian Express, and the prospect of repressive legislation, are Rajiv Gandhi's way of telling the press to stop annoying him
Pinochet and I
Authors: Littín Miguel
Published: October 2007

An interview with the Chilean film-maker who secretly returned from exile to make a clandestine film about the state of Chile
Singing in the dark rain
Authors: Gibbs James
Published: October 2007

Poets, novelists and censorship in Malawi: the cases of Felix Mnthali, Jack Mapanje, Frank Chipasula and others
Interview
Authors: Rudenko Mykola
Published: October 2007

At the end of last year, the Ukrainian writer, prominent human rights activist and political prisoner, Mykola Rudenko, was freed and allowed to leave the Soviet Union. A decorated war veteran who suffered a serious spinal wound at the siege of Leningrad, Rudenko enjoyed a successful career as writer, poet and playwright, and had over 20 books published. That was before he became a friend of Andrei Sakharov and Major-General Petro Hryhorenko (or, Grigorenko) in the early 1970s and joined the Soviet human rights movement. Although harassed, arrested and briefly detained in a mental hospital for becoming a member of the Soviet branch of Amnesty International, Rudenko went on to found the Ukrainian Helsinki monitoring group in November 1976. The following year he was arrested and given a twelve-year sentence of camps and internal exile. In 1980, his wife Raisa was also punished by a ten-year term for campaigning for his release. Shortly after his arrival in the West, Rudenko was interviewed for Index by Bohdan Nahaylo.
Fooling with words
Authors: Iskander Fazil
Published: October 2007

‘A real artist can't help but create truth, which in a certain sense is what freedom is.’
Early struggles
Authors: Nowakowski Marek
Published: October 2007

One of Poland's most distinguised writers recalls his negotiations with the censor which, for a price, sometimes enlarged the writer's freedom
Mrs Hoffer's cat
Authors: Diószegi Olga
Published: October 2007

A Play in One Act

These complaints are echoed throughout Central and Eastern Europe. The fear of new, unconventional and non-conformist work by young writers and artists is markedly bigger in Communist countries than in the West. State media officials view the young newcomers with deep suspicion especially because they often voice doubts and disillusionment, and consequently are dangerous ideological heretics.

The one-act play Mrs Hoffer's Cat is Olga Diószegi's first play. An amateur theatre group at Szeged University reportedly became very enthusiastic about it at first — they even wrote music for it — but then abruptly fell silent. Miss Diószegi has a strong feeling that pressure was exerted by the local Communist and Youth organisations, a result of her connections with samizdat literature.
In the pit
Authors: Djilas Milovan
Published: October 2007

A short story

On 3 March, the Reuter correspondent in Belgrade reported: ‘The Yugoslav literary newspaper Knjizevne Novine has published a short story by Milovan Djilas … His first work published at home for 34 years, it was printed so that readers could ‘judge him on his literary merits’.

Mr Djilas (76), once a close lieutenant of Tito, fell into disgrace in 1954, serving nine years in jail and being expelled from the party for criticising Tito's policies. He is widely known for his political books and essays, not so much for literary fiction. We acknowledge the publication of his short story in Knjizevne Novine as a step in the right direction; when the same story was printed some time ago in Encounter and Tempo Presente, both periodicals were banned in Yugoslavia.

We are proud to present another short story by Milovan Djilas; in sending the manuscript, Mr Djilas was the first writer to respond to our invitation to contribute to this 100th issue of Index on Censorship.
The day dreamer
Authors: Khaksar Nasim
Published: October 2007

A short story by a writer who was imprisoned under the Shah and again under the Ayatollah and now lives in Holland
Religion and human rights
Authors: Soyinka Wole
Published: October 2007

‘We know of the wrongs of economic deprivation, of the explosive inequity of inegalitarian societies … But a conspiracy of diplomatic silences appears to overtake the civilised world where the ravages of religious extremism plead for urgent redress. It is time, surely, for an aggressive recognition of the aggressive face of religion.’
Living with disagreement
Authors: Ndebele Njabulo
Published: October 2007

We should begin from the unavoidable truth that conflict, misunderstanding, and disagreement are an inseparable part of the human condition. Indeed, it could be said that at the centre of political history has been the effort to find ways of dealing with the phenomenon of disagreement.
Market freedom
Authors: Torres Antonio
Published: October 2007

‘A country like Brazil which owes such an enormous amount has had to hand over its cultural market to its creditors. This means that 80% of what is published is foreign literature, above all North American’
Power and Creative Strategies
Authors: Soyinka Wole
Published: October 2007

The ‘divine right of kings’ which ended with the decapitation of crowned heads of Europe several centuries ago, has — need I state the obvious? — been replaced by the ‘divine right of the gun’ on this continent. We must now invite all our dictatorships, under no matter what camouflage, and however comparatively civilianised and domesticated they are — to set a definitive date within this century for the abandonment of this denigration of our popular will
Bombing the news
Authors: Painter James
Published: October 2007

In March 1986, when Vinicio Cerezo became Guatemala's first elected civilian president since 1966, there were high hopes that he could bring an end to the political violence which had disfigured the country's recent past. Over two years later, it is plain that he has been unable to wrest real power from the armed forces, and though the human rights situation has improved, there are still numerous reports of disappearances and of violence used by the security forces against people from allwalks of life. Nor have the Guatemalan human rights groups had any satisfaction in response to their demands that those responsible for the thousands of deaths which occurred under previous military governments be brought to justice. Some Guatemalan exiles returned home to take advantage of the promised democratic opening under Cerezo, and attempted to widen the space for political debate. But, as the coup attempt on 11 May showed, the possibilities for such freedoms have again narrowed abruptly. Here a London-based researcher who recently travelled to Guatemala describes the current situation.
No news is bad news
Authors: Glass Charles
Published: October 2007

Who suffers from poor media coverage of the Middle East in the US? The ABC News correspondent argues that it is the American public itself that suffers from its failure to be properly informed.
Mahfouz and the Arab voice
Authors: Booth Marilyn
Published: October 2007

The award of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature to the controversial Egyptian novelist has intensified the debate on cultural identity and free expression in the Arab world
The intellectual
Authors: as-Sawah Wa'il
Published: October 2007

Short story by an imprisoned writer.
Prague autumn
Authors: Laird Sally
Published: October 2007

The editor of Index on Censorship describes what happened when she went to a banned symposium in Prague.
Memoir of terror
Authors: Janabi Nabil
Published: October 2007

An Iraqi poet, now living in exile in Britain, describes his experience of torture.
The National Theatre's Burning Down
Authors: Anderman Janusz
Published: October 2007

Janusz Anderman (40) belongs to the angry 'Generation of 68'. He was an editor of Puls, one of the first uncensored literary periodicals in Poland. In 1980, he was involved in liaison work between the Union of Polish Writers and Solidarity. After martial law was declared in 1981, Janusz Anderman helped found the Committee of Aid for Internees and was arrested and detained at Bialoleka Prison.

His first two books, Dead Telephone Games and Temporising were brought out by state publishing houses; Dead Telephone Games won the official award for the best first book in Poland in 1976. But Poland Under Black Light, which addressed life in Poland since December 1981, was not submitted to the censors. It was published simultaneously in Polish by Puls in London and by Kreg, an underground printing house, in Poland. An English translation was published by Readers International/Persea Books in 1986.

The short story below appears in the second collection of stories by Janusz Anderman to be translated into English: The Edge of the World (Readers International 1988, translated by Nina Taylor). The author lives in Warsaw.
Bondage and Beyond
Authors: Caistor Nick
Published: October 2007

How Cubans view themselves, their soul, Fidel — and the world outside.
The sin of thinking
Authors: Hidalgo Ariel
Published: October 2007

Ariel Nidalgo, a Cuban academic and writer, was arrested on 19 August 1981 by members of the Department of State Security and charged under Article 108-1 of the Cuban Penal Code ('Enemy propaganda') with 'incitement against the social order'. In late 1981 he was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment, and eventually released on 4 August 1988. He now lives in Miami, USA. Below, we publish Ariel Hidalgo's testimony on his imprisonment and the background to it..
Signs of life
Authors: Strelyany Anatoly
Published: October 2007

A prominent Soviet journalist looks at the role of the press under Gorbachev and discusses what a totally free press would mean
Prisoner without a crime
Authors: Mukong Albert
Published: October 2007

'I only wanted my liberty to be away from that place. Indeed my spirit revolted against its very existence'
Thirsting for books
Authors: Ngatara Ludovick
Published: October 2007

A Tanzanian journalist looks at the reasons for this country's book drought and says international help should be welcomed
The Annunciation
Authors: Uhde Milan , Day Barbara , Martin Jitka
Published: October 2007

A banned comedy by one of Czechoslovakia's leading satirists.