bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Jihad for freedom
Authors: Soyinka Wole
Published: October 2007

The Nigerian Nobel Prizewinner on The Satanic Verses affair
Letter from a Chinese journalist
Authors: Anonymous
Published: October 2007

On 31 May a young Chinese journalist wrote this letter to a friend abroad, describing the events he had witnessed and the role of the press during the upheaval. It reached its destination on the day the massacre took place.
Crimes against the spirit
Authors: Deletant Dennis
Published: October 2007

A growing number of writers, intellectuals and party people are speaking up against the brutalities of the Romanian regime — and are being persecuted by an increasingly paranoid leadership.
A big house
Authors: Müller Herta
Published: October 2007

'Literature no longer exists in Romania', argues the Romanian-born novelist whose novel The Passport, extracted below, has just appeared in English
Censoring the African poem
Authors: Mapanje Jack
Published: October 2007

The poet's personal reflections on censorship, as given to the Second African Writers' Conference, Stockholm, 1986
Two poems
Authors: Mphande Lupenga
Published: October 2007

Lupenga Mphande was born in Malawi in 1947 and educated at the Universities of Malawi, Lancaster (Britain) and Texas (USA). He is currently Assistant Professor of African Languages and Literatures at the State University of Ohio at Columbus. He has had poetry published in Africa and abroad, and is also known as a dramatist.
A RAW deal for Jaffna's journalists
Authors: Gamini Gabriella , Chaudhary Vivek
Published: October 2007

On 18 September India and Sri Lanka signed an agreement for the withdrawal of 40,000 Indian troops from Sri Lanka. On 20 September the Indian Peace-Keeping Force and the Tamil Tiger separatist guerrillas declared an indefinite ceasefire. But the civil war has left deep wounds in the Sri Lankan press
Public funds make and break poets
Authors: Weinberger Eliot
Published: October 2007

Elemental things: the arts, money, government and pornography
Uzbekistan: the hostile earth of the friendly people
Authors: Akiner Shirin
Published: October 2007

The violence has an origin in the disaster of a colonial economy, environmental ruin and emotional reactions that thwart solutions
Censorship in retreat?
Authors: Szostkiewicz Adam
Published: October 2007

On 15 November Lech Walesa asked the US Congress for a Marshall Plan for Eastern Europe. Poland has opened to a fundamental debate, but the weight of Stalinist custom and law will affect change
What price academic freedom?
Authors: Hopkinson Amanda
Published: October 2007

A case study at the national university library, San Salvador
Sankara's legacy
Authors: Blay-Amihere Kabral
Published: October 2007

Two years after his death Burkina's press has been told to drop the charming revolutionary's name
The road to Damascus is plagued with censors
Authors: Sadiq Adib , Eber Shirley
Published: October 2007

President Assad's censors make Orwell a mere learner of the art of thought control
The tyranny of the majority
Authors: Seow Francis
Published: October 2007

Fundamental rights in Singapore have been eroded
'Lovers, lunatics and lallang'
Authors: Rajendra Cecil
Published: October 2007

The latest collection by the Malaysian poet sustains a courageous line
The people's news
Authors: Cheang Shu Lea
Published: October 2007

On the day that martial law was declared in China, video artist Shu Lea Cheang decided to go and see the situation for herself. 'By then you'd seen so much broadcast: people seemed so up in China, like in the 60s [in the US], and you sensed it was an historical moment; I wanted to be there.' Nan Levinson interviewed her
The Party line
Authors: Coulson Anita
Published: October 2007

Angola's media are controlled by the ruling Party, but economic reform could soon lead to a freer press
Press freedoms beckon... but the door is only half open
Authors: Coulson Anita
Published: October 2007

War, drought, famine, economic crisis and terrorism have encouraged self-censorship in Maputo
New Beginnings: Soviet literature in Glasgow
Authors: Bek Tatyana , Chukhontsev Oleg , Aygi Gennady , Zhvanetsky Mikhail
Published: October 2007

In November 1989, Soviet writers, poets and critics were invited to attend a major literary forum at the 'New Beginnings' Soviet Arts Festival in Glasgow, where selections from their work were read and discussed. Irena Maryniak was there. The following extracts come from addresses or interviews which members of the Soviet delegation gave
How society censors its writers
Authors: Epshtein Mikhail
Published: October 2007

Several Soviet participants at the New Beginnings Critics Forum in Glasgow expressed concern that censorship in the USSR could be reimposed at short notice if a major reversal of policy occurs. However, critic Mikhail Epshtein is disturbed more by the restrictions which society itself inflicts on writers. He spoke to Irena Maryniak
Pre-glasnost in Albania
Authors: Zanga Louis
Published: October 2007

After the downfall of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania, the Albania of Ramiz Alia remains the last country in Europe still in the full grip of totalitarianism. For how long is anybody's guess. Louis Zanga from RFE Research in Munich examines one sign of movement which takes place even in such a fossilized system as governs Albania
'Behind my back 14 were murdered'
Authors: Verdugo Patricia
Published: October 2007

In May this year, Index on Censorship (5/1990) reported on the series of revelations about the wave of murders of suspected oppoirents to General Pinochet's government in the weeks following the coup in September 1973. Chile is now bracing for the shock results expected from an inquiry set up by President Aylwin (see box) into the crimes of the dictatorship. Like Argentina in 1983, Chile is going through the terror and torment of putting together the story of the years of dictatorship. Recent documents published in Santiago are beginning to reveal the extent of the horror. These include the three volume Chile, La Memoria Prohibida 1973-1983 (several authors, Pehuen, Santiago 1989); and La Historia Oculta del Regimen Militar, Chile 1973-1988 (Antartica, Santiago 1990). The following is an extract from Chapter VII (What are we going to do, General?) of the book The Clawings of the Puma by Patricia Verdugo (Ediciones Chile America CESOC, Santiago 1989). It is accompanied by a brief radio interview Speaking out in Chile, where a cemetery worker describes his job in 1973.

The opening speaker is Brigadier General Joaquin Lagos Osorio, commander of the Antofagasta region, behind whose back General Sergio Arellano Stark executed detainees awaiting trial.
Censorship and its aftermath
Authors: Gordimer Nadine
Published: October 2007

This is the text of the leading South African novelist's address to English PEN's international Writers' Day in London on 2 June 1990
The destruction of Kuwait's press
Authors: Haeri Safa , Darwish Adel
Published: October 2007

There is not much to choose from in the many-sided Gulf crisis: Saddam Hussein, despot searching for a pan-Arab role; family fiefdoms created by European colonialism; and the US as post-imperial policeman. But an Iranian journalist and Index's Middle East editor argue that Kuwait's press used to offer a lively and relatively free atmosphere
A sense of solidarity
Authors: Blandiana Ana
Published: October 2007

One of Romania's most celebrated poets, Ana Blandiana spoke to Ursula Ruston in London in October 1990 about her personal experiences of censorship under Ceausescu and about the continuing problems in Romania
Shaking Albania's torpor
Authors: Hadji-Ristic Petar
Published: October 2007

Young people feel betrayed by leading writer's departure
Chinese swamp Tibetan culture
Authors: Barnett Robbie , Longrigg Clare
Published: October 2007

In October 1987 police fired into a crowd of pro-independence demonstrators in Lhasa. Communication lines to the outside world were cut. Foreigners' hotels were searched and all film was confiscated — within two weeks, all foreign journalists were asked to leave. Journalists in China were required to report that police had not used their guns, and that Tibetans had been shot by fellow demonstrators
A hero of our time: Filming Venedikt Erofeev
Authors: Maryniak Irena
Published: October 2007

An interview with Pawel Pawlikowki, of the BBC, about his recent television documentary
Terrorism against the Punjab media
Authors: Natt Kulbir
Published: October 2007

Rajinder Kumar Talib, All India Radio's station director in Chandigarh, was shot dead on 6 December 1990. His killers objected to the use of the word 'terrorist' in reports on their armed campaign.
The tale of a lesson learned too well
Authors: Mukong Albert
Published: October 2007

Cameroon's thought police ransack homes and personal relationships in their search for dissent
'We are all equal'
Authors: Durran Mary
Published: October 2007

CERJ of Guatemala received the 5th annual Carter-Menil Prize (with the Civil Rights Movement of Sri Lanka) in November 1990. The award constitutes international recognition of the work of local human rights groups and their struggle for civil liberties
Thwarted promise
Authors: Rayns Tony
Published: October 2007

International acclaim has not protected China's 'new cinema' from ideological and commercial pressures at home. Now, its most talented directors are looking abroad for support
Women beware men
Authors: Vasudev Aruna
Published: October 2007

Caught between the strictures of the film censors and the demands of commercial cinema, Indian women are walking a celluloid tightrope
Free, frank and over forty
Authors: Boughedir Ferid
Published: October 2007

The director of Tunisia's biggest ever box-office success talks about breaking taboos in Arab cinema
Islamic visions and grand illusions
Authors: Allamehzadeh Reza
Published: October 2007

Having watched the failure of its home-grown Islamic cinema, the Iranian regime is forced to open the doors to the talents of an older, more liberal, tradition
In the steps of the pioneers
Authors: M'Mbugu-Schelling Flora
Published: October 2007

The problems that beset the founders of African cinema continue to dog today's film makers
A case of the blues
Authors: Mbachu Dulue
Published: October 2007

Nigeria's censors may do their worst, but money has become the last enemy and film makers are giving up the unequal struggle
Iron fist, silver screen
Authors: Essoulami Saïd
Published: October 2007

Film is an arm of party propaganda in Saddam Hussein's Iraq
Le Messager: Saved by the streets
Authors: Njawe Pius
Published: October 2007

On 17 January, Pius Njawe, editor-in-chief of the independent Cameroon weekly Le Messager, received a six-month suspended sentence for insulting members of the National Assembly. Deprived of his passport, he was unable to attend the conference on the press in Africa organised by Unesco and the Panos Institute in Paris at the end of the month. The following address was delivered in absentia to the gathering.
Dorfman: a case of conscience
Authors: Graham-Yooll Andrew
Published: October 2007

Visiting London last December for a reading of his work at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman discussed his writings with Index. No longer exiled, Dorfman wrestles with the ghosts of an oppressive and censorious past
Tongue-tied in Uganda
Authors: MacArthur John R
Published: October 2007

A head of state is chary of offending influential neighbours and locks up his newsmen instead
Zimbabwe: one state, one faith, one lord
Authors: Hove Chenjerai
Published: October 2007

The one-party state depends on its praise-singers, the army of sycophants, flatterers and toadies who furnish the ruler's court. These are extracts from a speech made in Harare, 'A culture of burdensome sycophancy; or, sycophancy and the one-party state', by the novelist Chenjerai Hove
The wedding for the dead
Authors: Khaksar Nasim
Published: October 2007

Reality becomes the stuff of nightmare and ghosts haunt the living daylight in Iran's Islamic republic
Canada: territorial imperatives, state reservations and free speech
Authors: MacLaine Craig
Published: October 2007

When the Mohawks laid claim to ancestral lands, the media found themselves caught in the crossfire of attempts to keep the story out of the headlines
In the Land of the Zombies
Authors: Maja-Pearce Adewale
Published: October 2007

The cautious counsel keeping a low profile, but this means nobody calls Banda's bluff. The author, Index's Africa specialist, was in Malawi in May 1991
An expense of money in a waste of weapons
Authors: Parsons Anthony
Published: October 2007

Britain's former ambassador to Iran reflects on the compulsions that keep the arms exporters in business — and argues for a change of heart among the Big Five
The military necessity
Authors: Kramer Mark
Published: October 2007

The obsessive secrecy that has always surrounded Soviet military matters is succumbing — but very slowly — to what one critic of his country's policy calls 'the healing ray of glasnost'
Patriotic blindness and anti-truth weapons
Authors: Miller Marc S
Published: October 2007

War reporters in the Gulf proved unequal to the challenge of disentangling military fact from fiction
Arms for apartheid: the secret world of sanctions busting
Authors: Cawthra Gavin
Published: October 2007

When South Africa was subjected to sanctions it built a domestic arms industry under the UN's nose
Beyond the veil
Authors: Rashid Ahmed
Published: October 2007

In Pakistan, as in India, the army exploits the people's fear of the enemy across the border
Fearful symmetry
Authors: Smith Chris
Published: October 2007

India's unbridled military spending has gone unchallenged and ruined the economy
Togo: coup after coup
Authors: Drifter Alain
Published: October 2007

Hesitant steps to freedom by state radio and television are threatened by a disgruntled army
Zaire: work for the night-owls
Authors: Drifter Alain
Published: October 2007

Mobutu's hit men strike in the dead of night
Niger: the rise and rise of democracy's press
Authors: Ousseini Ali
Published: October 2007

In one year, five new, independent papers have appeared on the stands extolling multi-party politics and a new era of free expression
Tunisia: freedom to discriminate
Authors: Donnadieu Jean-Louis
Published: October 2007

The government is helping the legalised opposition parties to relaunch their publications, but the Islamic opposition is not invited to the party
Freedom and responsibility
Authors: Blom-Cooper Louis
Published: October 2007

The future of press regulation in Britain
The obscure limits of freedom
Authors: Mousavi Naheed
Published: October 2007

Novelists who have been liberated from the early excesses of the Revolution are still confounded by inane regulations and the attacks of the zealots
The Iranian Four Seasons
Authors: Rabihavi Qazi
Published: October 2007

In homage to the living memory of Gholam Hossein Saedi, Iranian playwright, who died in Paris in 1985
Hunger for democracy
Authors: Sunmonu Hassan A
Published: October 2007

Poverty is no basis for democracy. If the West wants to encourage Africa in this direction, it must reconsider its economic policy on the continent, argues a trade union leader
Preparing the ground for the future
Authors: Turok Ben
Published: October 2007

Africa's new spirit of democracy will retain its impact in the long term
Dispossessed without trace
Authors: Monbiot George
Published: October 2007

Land reform in Brazil has gone into reverse: the forests burn and peasants die but the press retains its murderous silence
Democracy scores an own goal
Authors: Lek Hor Tan
Published: October 2007

When elections throw up unwelcome surprises, change the rules and move the goalposts, said the army. But the game goes on
Still under the influence
Authors: Dissez Anne
Published: October 2007

Despite the proliferation of new newspapers and the freedom to speak their minds, Algerian journalists cannot shed their old habits
A matter of conscience
Authors: Levinson Nan
Published: October 2007

Serving members of the US military claim the right not to go to war
Standing on the First Amendment
Authors: Levinson Nan
Published: October 2007

The increase in violent and discriminating outbursts has led to some dubious new laws that appear to threaten free speech
Kuwait: white knights
Authors: Adler Michael
Published: October 2007

Despite the promises of the Emir while in exile, the press is still kept on a tight rein
The register of adulteresses
Authors: Pilch Jerzy
Published: October 2007

Jerzy Pilch is a writer and literary critic. In 1983 he co-founded the underground literary circle Na GYos, which organised regular readings of suppressed writing. He now regularly contributes to the journal Na GYos, launched in 1990, which grew out of these informal gatherings. 'The register of adulteresses' comes from the novel Proza Podrózna ('Prose Travels') to be published in 1993 by Puls Publications, London. This extract was first published in Polish in Puls 53, 1991.
The knowledge lost in information
Authors: Chadwick Paul
Published: October 2007

Australian journalists do battle to prove that while repression may be relative, their desire for free expression is not
Black Liberation Radio
Authors: Sakolsky Ron
Published: October 2007

The micro-watt radio movement demands access to the airwaves and creates a revolution
MacHumanRights
Authors: Whittaker Gwendolyn
Published: October 2007

New technologies are changing the nature of grassroots activism
Dialogue suspended
Authors: Byrne Eileen
Published: October 2007

Algeria's independent papers accused the Prime Minister of slander but, in the end, felt too vulnerable to take on a man who had already banned a dozen of their number
Democracy by minority
Authors: Landor Jeremy
Published: October 2007

There are still no-go areas in Kuwait's new order, notably critcism of the royal family
Hunt the plot
Authors: Thomas Magdala
Published: October 2007

Censorship in Saudi Arabia is inflexible and all-embracing, but has its lighter moments
Belarus & Ukraine
Authors: Maryniak Irena
Published: October 2007

There is a wealth of literature in the independent states of Belarus and Ukraine, much of it untranslated until now. The dissidents of yesterday are the literary heroes of today, and there are as many opinions as there are voices
Month of the reed
Authors: Pashkovsky Yevhen
Published: October 2007

Proesia: an excerpt from the novel No Autumn for an Angel
Summer in the Trans-Dniester
Authors: Bosatikova Nadezhda
Published: October 2007

A member of the Moscow-based Memorial Centre for Human Rights visits the breakaway former Soviet republic — and fears the spread of armed conflict to Moscow itself
Battle for the Balkans
Authors: Thompson Mark , Sunley Johnathan , Sweeney John
Published: October 2007

Nora Beloff's objections to our Balkan coverage (Index 9/1992), published by us under the title 'Former Yugoslavia: setting the record straight' (Index 1/1993 p31), has roused greater controversy than the original. We publish below a number of letters received by the editor in response to Ms Beloff's comment. All are from journalists and writers active in the Balkan arena
Democracy takes the high road
Authors: Latynina Alla
Published: October 2007

All roads in Russia lead to high-handed authoritarian government. In a country that lacks experience of any alternative political culture, even democracy must go that way
Breaking the information blockade
Authors: Pesic Milica
Published: October 2007

After the breakup of the former Yugoslavia and the ensuing war, communications in the region were severely disrupted. The Alternative Information Network (AIM), a computer network of independent journalists based in different centres in the new republics, was set up in October 1992 to combat these restrictions.
How big was my village
Authors: Hoffman Matthew
Published: October 2007

The freedom and diversity of information offered by the technology of the global village could founder on the concentration of political and commercial power in the hands of the world's media moguls
Death by radio
Authors: Misser François , Jaumain Yves
Published: October 2007

If Rwandan crimes against humanity ever come to trial, the owners of Radio des Mille Collines will stand at the head of the accused
Won and lost
Authors: Regan Jane
Published: October 2007

Behind the dancing crowds, the drums and bamboo-pipe-trombones, the beautiful murals, smiling soldiers, new schools and cleaned-up sewers, there is another side to the US occupation of Haiti
Quit knocking sanctions
Authors: Flint Julie
Published: October 2007

It is not sanctions but Saddam's relentless war against his own people that is killing Iraqis
Pious intentions
Authors: Rojas Velarde Luis , L'Homme Cristina
Published: October 2007

Villagers take on the government in a fight against toxic dumping
Staying on
Authors: El Lugañero
Published: October 2007

The following letters were sent to Index by a young writer living In Havana, known as EI Lugañrnero (The villager). He is part of a movement of writers — all born since the Revolution — known as the Novísimos
In search of Veps
Authors: Tien Davrell
Published: October 2007

Within 100 kms of St Petersburg a tiny, isolated community, all but destroyed by Stalin and now threatened with extinction, battles for recognition of its language and culture
Whatever happened to Rabbi Weiss?
Authors: Warszawski Dawid
Published: October 2007

A member of Poland's tiny surviving community of Orthodox Jews examines the catalyst that unleashed a long pent-up debate on anti-Semitism
A law fit for intervention
Authors: Maharajh Robert
Published: October 2007

Sovereign states or individual human rights? Which does the law favour?
Brothers in arms
Authors: Arthur Charles
Published: October 2007

US occupation troops in northwest Haiti have closed down a radio station for criticising their close collaboration with the Haitian army
Beyond privacy
Authors: Long Scott
Published: October 2007

Gay and lesbian life cannot subsist on secrecy. It needs community and language, recognition and belonging
Trapped in its own history
Authors: Belge Murat
Published: October 2007

The legacy of its founding father, Kemal Atatürk, hangs heavy over the modern Turkish state
Up for adoption
Authors: Nicholls Tom
Published: October 2007

RSF started its adoption scheme in 1989. By affiliating imprisoned journalists to media organisations around the world, it aims to prevent them from disappearing into obscurity. Throughout 1994, La Lettre reported on several of its cases
After Rwanda
Authors: Barnabé Jean-François
Published: October 2007

Burundi's media has learned nothing. Undeterred by the slaughter across the border, its hate press fosters the same ethnic violence that plunged Rwanda into its nightmare
Libel and more
Authors: Bernard Fabienne
Published: October 2007

Five Australian journalists have been found guilty of contempt of court since 1989; two were imprisoned
The untouchables
Authors: Chichizola Jean
Published: October 2007

Russia's media comes to grips with the strong men of the Moscow mafia
Legal: Gay Legislation
Authors: Bruni Laura
Published: October 2007

A legal column dedicated to the memory of Bernie Simons (1941-1993), radical lawyer and defender of human rights
Find me a war
Authors: Valenzuela Cecilia
Published: October 2007

With elections due in April, the war with Ecuador has become President Fujimori's most Powerful campaign tool
Never mind the language
Authors: Rich Vera
Published: October 2007

On 14 May the people of Belarus will participate in their first fully democratic parliamentary election. But without an independent press, the odds on a fair contest are not good
Who shoots first
Authors: Tystad Martin
Published: October 2007

The Egyptian government has gone on the offensive against Islamic militants: government troops shoot to kill in the alleys of Cairo and no-one asks questions
Still waiting for justice —
Authors: Lehrfreund Saul
Published: October 2007

The number of prisoners on death row in the Caribbean who are innocent victims of miscarriages of justice or who have not had proper legal representation is unknown. But if Clifton Wright's case is anything to go by, many innocent men may be facing execution
Silence in Gaza
Authors: Johnson Rhys
Published: October 2007

Under pressure from Israel, the Palestinian Authority is coming down heavily on its own cities
The cost of war
Authors: Pope Nicole
Published: October 2007

Turkey turns its back on Europe togo after its Kurds
Net wars
Authors: Wood Darrin
Published: October 2007

Chiapas: the revolution will not be televised ( but it will be on-line)
Rewriting history
Authors: Fernández-Armesto Felipe
Published: October 2007

We live in an age of iconoclasm: we have felled Churchill, Kennedy, Lenin, Mao. Heroes come and go, history marches on, written and rewritten to fit the needs of the time and the exigencies of political propaganda
Screening rape
Authors: Mills Jane
Published: October 2007

There is a gap at the heart of mainstream portrayals of male sexual violence to women — a silence
Horror: on the edge of taste
Authors: Kermode Mark
Published: October 2007

Horror films present the censor with a problem: how to make 'acceptable' a genre that deals with the 'unspeakable'
Turkish roulette
Authors: Imset Ismet
Published: October 2007

The freedom enjoyed by Turkey's profuse and colourful daily newspapers does not extend to their Kurdish counterparts
Many books, few ideas
Authors: Belton Neil
Published: October 2007

The market has become the great homogeniser: it determines what is published, reinforces bias and puts culture in a strait-jacket
Welcome to the market
Authors: Maryniak Irena
Published: October 2007

Writers in eastern Europe have lost their readers as well as their cosy status under Communism. Publishers, too, are feeling the chill wind of a less than friendly market free-for-all
The crest of a rave
Authors: Vitukhnovskaya Alina
Published: October 2007

The generation who first experienced freedom have become the tools of a new totalitarianism, as chilling and pervasive as its predecessors
The true cost of artistic expression
Authors: Mendoza David C
Published: October 2007

Just 68 cents buys a whole lot of culture and keeps alive the cultural diversity and hard-won, fundamental values dear to most Americans
Writing inside the hyphen
Authors: Enwezor Okwui
Published: October 2007

The work of African American artist Carrle Mae Weems confronts the world and Its bad faith towards repressed groups: those whose every gesture towards speech has been hounded and terrorised Into muteness
End of an era
Authors: Gresh Alain
Published: October 2007

The Gulf War was a watershed In Saudi Arabia. Once there was oil, untold wealth, silence and repression. Today, depicted coffers no longer buy silence or compliance. Repression has deepened; domestic unrest is growing. And, from exile, a persistent and vociferous Islamic opposition is aggravating the twin crises of legitimacy and succession afflicting the ruling family
Oil, arms and immunity
Authors: Vidal-Hall Judith
Published: October 2007

Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses are among the worst in the world. Why does it routinely escape public censure?
Over the horizon
Authors: Murphy Richard W
Published: October 2007

The oil must flow...and human rights and democracy are the price to be paid for security and stability In the Gulf. But for how long?
Good luck and Allah bless
Authors: Aburish Saïd
Published: October 2007

A looming dynastic crisis, on top of unprecedented social, political and economic problems, presents King Fahd's successor with some serious challenges
Networking for God
Authors: Newey Adam
Published: October 2007

God's minions are marching on the superhighway, banners waving, preachers and zealots to the fore. But is it any more than a (mutually) self-cancelling Tower of Babel effect?
Never mind the politics feel the spirit
Authors: Maryniak Irena
Published: October 2007

Religion is all the rage in Russia. Confessions old and new, large and small; New Age cults from abroad as well as the homespun messianic variety are thriving. And with a credibility rating of 53 per cent, the Orthodox Church Is well ahead of the presidency, the Communist Party and the army
Dumbing down
Authors: Danielyan Mikael
Published: October 2007

Democracy in Armenia plays second fiddle to the 'great national idea'. Backed by a willing 'patriotic' press, the government has got most dissenting voices nicely stitched up
The killing spree
Authors: Vidal-Hall Judith
Published: October 2007

Behind the recent massacres In Algeria lies a darker struggle: war between the rival clans of the military government, one now in a marriage of convenience with the armed wing of the banned Islamic Salvation Front, the other fighting to ensure its for survival behind a democratic facade
A bridge too far
Authors: Kumar Radha
Published: October 2007

Partition never did solve anything - unless at great price. Yet today, 50 years after the old 'divide and quit' formula was first applied to British India, it is being dusted off and reapplied to the newest 'ethnic' problems
Notes from Dunkeldeutschland
Authors: Webb WL
Published: October 2007

Reunification turns out to have a rather different price tag from the one west Germans thought worth paying for at the time. The hidden cost is now falling due and it's the 'Ossis' — east Germans — who are paying with post-dated credits. And for many, the 'disappearing' of their past is too heavy a price.
No port in a storm
Authors: Cahn Claude , Foley Michael , Hardy Jeremy
Published: October 2007

What part did the media play in provoking the flight of the Roma from Slovakia and the Czech Republic? Does the press in the British Isles stand guilty of inciting hatred against our new arrivals? Claude Cahn in Budapest, Michael Foley in Dublin and Jeremy Hardy in London pose the questions, and find some uncomfortable answers...
Tapes of wrath
Authors: Vulliamy Ed
Published: October 2007

They see portents in flying saucers and dollar bills: America's militias are preparing for war, and for some it can't come soon enough. Oklahoma City was their calling card
Look to the people
Authors: Gorbachev Mikhail
Published: October 2007

Russia's politicians have reconstructed themselves behind the same Kremlin walls as their Communist predecessors and are beginning to take on the same dictatorial characteristics
A matter of honour
Authors: Simonov Alexei
Published: October 2007

Media freedom is sacrificed to the honour and dignity of Russia's governing elite
New Russia: what the people think
Authors: Lieven Anatol
Published: October 2007

Russia's changing, but not as fast or as far as some imagine
The code war
Authors: Banisar David , Davies Simon
Published: October 2007

As the Internet and other communications systems reach further into everyday lives, national security, law enforcement and individual privacy have become perilously intertwined. Governments want to restrict the free flow of information; software producers are seeking ways to ensure consumers are not bugged from the very moment of purchase
Turkmen delights
Authors: Dubnov Arkadij
Published: October 2007

The cult of the great leader is alive and thriving in Turkmenistan. There's not a lot of free expression, but with regularly paid pensions and salaries, free education and healthcare, absence of inter-ethnic strife, a stable life in towns and villages and no crime, claims the President, no-one's very bothered
Sea of troubles
Authors: Ataniyazova Oral
Published: October 2007

The devastating pollution of the Aral Sea was the worst environmental disaster to come to light with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Its impact on the population of Uzbekistan is worse than that of the fallout from Chernobyl, says a local doctor, but no-one is doing anything about it
Wise women of Kyrgyzstan
Authors: Aitmatova Roza
Published: October 2007

It's the women of Kyrgyzstan who are shouldering the responsibility for leading the country out of a social and economic crisis
Pipe dreams
Authors: Rashid Ahmed
Published: October 2007

China's entry into the Great Game presents a challenge to other leading players. It threatens Russia's grip on its former republics and is a check on US ambitions in the region
Poverty goes global
Authors: Middleton Neil
Published: October 2007

Poverty is the worst and most widespread of all human rights abuses. The main offenders are the world's trading and financial institutions in pursuit of more and faster returns on capital
Truth, trials and tribunals
Authors: Goldstone Richard
Published: October 2007

Judge Richard Goldstone,the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague, discusses the establishment of an International Criminal Court and its relationship to Truth Commissions such as that in South Africa
The Gypsy Bible
Authors: Farhi Moris
Published: October 2007

The brutal and relentless persecution of the Roma, unleashed soon after their arrival in Europe, has been one of the greatest crimes of history. Hopes that the 'enlightenment' that so strongly condemned the Nazi's genocidal policies would finally enable this peaceful people to take its rightful place in the family of women have proved tenuous. Today the persecution of the Roma continues; in Eastern Europe, particularly, its virulence generates fears of a new Holocaust. Children of the Rainbow tells the story of Branko, a survivor of Auschwitz, who sets out to liberate his people and to fulfil their secret yearnings for reunification in their mysterious homeland. Romanestan.

And he comes to hear of the 'Gypsy Bible', the holy scripture that made the Roma a great people, but which, according to oral tradition, perished in the mire of time. A Bible miraculously reclaimed, by a seer, from the collective memory of the Roma as they stood before the crematoria of Auschwitz. A Bible hidden and awaiting discovery. A Bible that prophesies his leadership. A Bible that will regenerate his people. That will reunite them. That will lead them to Romanestan...

And Branko finds this Bible...
Digital dystopia
Authors: Williams Granville
Published: October 2007

What will it mean for free expression when the box in the corner can supply rolling newsbites, hard-core, the weekly shopping and the National Curriculum?
By any other name
Authors: Mobasser Nilou
Published: October 2007

Phoenix-like, Iran's most popular paper rose each morning from the ashes of censorship with new plumage
Listening in silence
Authors: Campbell Duncan
Published: October 2007

On the twentieth anniversary of the UK's notorious 'ABC' secrecy trial, one of the defendants exposes the Anglo-Saxon Trojan horse that keeps an ear tuned to Europe from secret bases in the UK and breaks the spirit, if not the letter, of the UK's treaty agreements with the European Union
An unsavoury business
Authors: Petley Julian
Published: October 2007

Fear of libel actions and of losing advertising revenue has persuaded most media organisations to leave well alone when it comes to exposing some of the more unsavoury aspects of the burger giant McDonald's
Cache 22
Authors: Baird Tewksbury Russell
Published: October 2007

A technical 'fix' to speed-up data transfers could result in an . Irreversible loss of free expression on the Internet
Out of darkness
Authors: Baca Susana
Published: October 2007

The denial of black memory in favour of social assimilation has dogged the Afro-Peruvian experience, burying many of its rhythms
Out from under
Authors: Rostropovich Mstislav
Published: October 2007

The cellist, pianist and conductor Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, was born on 27 March 1927 in Baku, Azerbaijan. He joined the Moscow Conservatory in 1943 where he studied composition with Dmitry Shostakovich and won the gold medal in the first All-Soviet Music Competition at the age of 18. In 1951, he won the Stalin Prize and five years later was appointed professor of celio at the Moscow Conservatory. With his wife Galina Vishnevskaya, a leading soprano with the Bolshoi, he became one of the first Soviet 'ambassadors of culture' and made regular concert tours to the West in the 1950s and 60s. His troubles with the authorities began in 1970 when he wrote an open letter to the Soviet press in support of Alexander Solzhenitsyn who had just been expelled from the Writers' Union after winning the Nobel Prize. The letter was never published within the USSR; Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya were banned from foreign travel for four years
Surviving Stalin
Authors: McBurney Gerard
Published: October 2007

The story of Dmitri Shostakovich is the story of Soviet music, official and unofficial. His life dominates the whole central arch of this story, from his eruption onto the world stage with his First Symphony in 1926, through Stalin's repression of the mid-30s to the renewed onslaught on composers following World War 11 and, in the end, through to Kruschev and Brezhnev
Broken rhythm
Authors: Ashkenazi Vladimir
Published: October 2007

The celebrated Russian pianist and conductor, Vladimir Ashkenazi, was born in Gorky in 1937 and made his debut as a pianist at the age of seven. he studied at the Central Music School in Moscow and at the Moscow Conservatoire. After winning many international prizes, he defected to the UK in 1963. From 1978-1996, he was musical director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and now conducts the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. He has lived in Iceland since 1972
Does Allah like music?
Authors: Verney Peter
Published: October 2007

Music possesses a potency within Sudanese society that is sometimes difficult for western cultures to understand
All quiet in Kabul
Authors: Yusufzai Rahimullah
Published: October 2007

Native guile and the inalienable melody of daily life have postponed the extinction of music in Taliban-held Kabul
The fate of Tang Xianzu
Authors: Shizheng Chen
Published: October 2007

Even 400-year-old classics can still offend delicate sensibilities
Tales of Terezín
Authors: Ludwig Mark
Published: October 2007

The Nazis used music as a propaganda tool in the service of its doctrine of racial purity and superiority. Composers and musicians who did not fit the formula found themselves in the camps
A suitable case for censorship
Authors: Menuhin Yehudi
Published: October 2007

When Index last devoted an issue to banned music Yehudi Menuhin called for an end to Muzak, In vain it seems. He returns to the fray
Key to the highway
Authors: Klimis George , Wallis Roger
Published: October 2007

Record company mergers and intense commercial pressures are making life difficult for existing stars and wannabees alike
The shallow grave of empire
Authors: De Figueiredo Antonio
Published: October 2007

Secrecy was the cornerstone of empire, a masque that distorted both the ruler and the ruled
In pursuit of the millennium
Authors: Clarke Peter
Published: October 2007

Apocalyptic cults and messianic religions are mushrooming In Brazil's seething urban slums and deprived Indian areas
A trip into Blair's labyrinth
Authors: Geraghty Tony
Published: October 2007

Despite movement towards peace, army activities in Northern Ireland remain a dangerous subject for any British writer
The unforgiven
Authors: O'Farrell John
Published: October 2007

Eamon Collins, the IRA man turned peace proponent, died where he lived, erasing the word 'tout' from his walls while his neighbours watched and waited
Mugabe hits out
Authors: Jere-Malanda Regina
Published: October 2007

Judges, journalists and elements of Zimbabwe's military join forces against their President, who, as usual, is far from amused
The price of hate
Authors: Lamarche Gara
Published: October 2007

It's not safe to be gay in the USA. How to curb the most blatant and Insidious form of late-twentieth century hate speech?
Echoes of lost grandeur
Authors: Hammond Andrew
Published: October 2007

Bibliophiles fear that Egypt's latest 'Grand Project' Is In danger of ending up as a collection of symbols rather than of books
Bureaucracy of evil
Authors: Morgan Peter
Published: October 2007

Quietly and methodically the assets of murdered Jews were disposed of by the Nazis - only now are the records of those carefully ordered transactions coming to light
Morning in the library: 1975
Authors: Gordimer Nadine
Published: October 2007

Its battles for racial and ideologicai purity left apartheid South Africa one of the most censored nations on earth
Barefoot messengers
Authors: Medcalf John
Published: October 2007

' Senores bibliotecarios, I am a simple illiterate woman but, thanks to one of your books, I have learned to make trousers and shirts. The men used to buy their clothes from a village called Hong Kong, but now they buy them from me.'
In praise of the plagiarist
Authors: Whitfield Susan
Published: October 2007

Up to the modern era censorship remained less of a threat to the survival of books, than accidental loss and destruction in fires, rebellions and wars
Embattled books
Authors: Mitchell Emily
Published: October 2007

Last year alone, 478 challenges - attempts to remove materials from public libraries, schools and school libraries - were reported to the American Library Association
Musical obsession
Authors: Azad Arif
Published: October 2007

Pakistan has banned its most successful pop group ever - the prime minister doesn't like the lyrics or the tunes
A very special relationship
Authors: Lewis Flora
Published: October 2007

For all the new technology, not a lot has changed in the reporting of war
The uses and abuses of science
Authors: Tudge Colin
Published: October 2007

There are many reasons why science, its discoveries and its applications, are inaccessible to the public. Those who suppress it — including the scientists who fear to share their ideas with us — must be seen as the enemies of society
Dreaming in Monsanto
Authors: Palast Gregory
Published: October 2007

Editors who defy government censorship fall flat on their backs when faced with powerful commercial interests
A paradigm under pressure
Authors: Stewart Gordon
Published: October 2007

Censorship of AIDS research is as weird, and as dangerous, as the disease itself
Watch this space
Authors: Rich Vera
Published: October 2007

The Soviet space programme generated intense secrecy and censorship, hiding disasters from prying eyes in East and West and even today the secrets are not yet out
Misreading the tea leaves
Authors: Sheridan Michael
Published: October 2007

The mistake made by foreigners is to take signs of media freedom in China as proof of new directions in political life
You're not ill, you can't be
Authors: Dekker Vincent
Published: October 2007

Six and a half years after Holland's worst ever air disaster, a Dutch parliamentary commission of inquiry has severely criticised the government's response, admitting for the first time the link between the crash and a number of unexplained illnesses
In the land of raï
Authors: Amari Chawki , Vidal-Hall Judith
Published: October 2007

Rap, articulating all the anger and frustration of a younger generation, is taking over from the traditional raï of Algeria
Keeping shtum
Authors: Fisher Mark
Published: October 2007

Far from extending the public's right to know, the new Freedom of Information bill offers some additional and imaginitive ways of maintaining secrecy
Spiking dissent
Authors: Wasley Andy
Published: October 2007

Across Europe, reporting direct action and promoting dissenting viewpoints has led both mainstream and alternative media into conflict with the law
South Africa: the morning after
Authors: Griffin Michael
Published: October 2007

South Africa's latest drama caused a storm when it hit small screens in February. But the real triumph was that township life could look and sound as snappy as NYPD or Homicide: Life on the Streets
When a language dies
Authors: Milloy John
Published: October 2007

For over a century, the Canadian government suppressed the language and learning of its aboriginal peoples through a system of enforced schooling in 'civilised' culture. The system was only abandoned in 1986; the pain it inflicted, as well as the problems it created, live on
The carriers of no
Authors: Hall Pinder Leslie
Published: October 2007

When the landclaims of aboriginal people came to court in Canada, the judge was embarrased and a whole culture found itself on trial
The silence of the forest
Authors: Padel Felix
Published: October 2007

As the modern world encroaches on their world, India's 60 million tribals are driven from the forests they have protected for millennia
Life and death in the forest
Authors: Ramnath Madhu
Published: October 2007

For 17 years, Madhu Ramnath has lived and worked as a botanist and anthropologist in Bastar, south-eastern Madhya Pradesh, the most remote and tribal area of central India. He speaks the Durva language: he has listened and learned from the people. The stories, poems and anecdotes that follow allow us, too, to listen to adivasi voices for the first time. They illustrate the state apathy that is common in the district and the level to which state-adivasi relations have sunk. They also show the resourcefulness of the adivasi in dealing with the unexpected - while the concept of a postmortem was a familiar one, suicide by hanging was new to the village
New myths for old
Authors: Zanic Ivo
Published: October 2007

The Kosovo legend is only one of the many myths that bedevil the modern history of the Balkans
Bite pop
Authors: Cloonan Martin
Published: October 2007

Britain's Broadcasting Standards Commission may not be a censor, but it is a watchdog with teeth - particularly when it comes to pop
Fifth time lucky?
Authors: Behnoud Massoud , Mobasser Nilou
Published: October 2007

The Iranian century is marked by a succession of coups, counter-coups, revolutions and returns to dictatorship. The 1979 revolution produced its own crop of dictators and tyrants, but now, it's time for another go at freedom
Dark victory
Authors: Smith Patrick , Gömöri George , Wilmer Clive
Published: October 2007

US post-Cold War triumphalism masks a manifest uncertainty about its destiny in the 21st century
Strangers among us
Authors: Goytisolo Juan
Published: October 2007

Europe's long-held fear of Islam continues to shape its political attitudes and social identity
Indian angst
Authors: Tripathi Salil
Published: October 2007

The defeat of Congress in 1989 changed Indian politics, society and economics forever
War trap
Authors: De Waal Alex
Published: October 2007

The Cold War was never cold in Africa. Militarisation, repression and outright war during the Cold War decades condemned Africa to a cycle from which it seems unable to escape