Index on Censorship

As local and international rights organisations held events and activities surrounding the second anniversary of Bahrain’s pro-democracy uprising, protests across the country were met with violence from the authorities resulting in the death of a teenage boy.

Military censorship and wide-reaching gag orders are a fact of life for Israeli journalists, but this particular gag order was absolute.

An Egyptian court approved a month-long ban on YouTube for refusal to remove the controversial anti-Islam film, the Innocence of Muslims, which sparked angry protests and calls for its removal in September 2012.

In a report published on 22 January, the European Union’s High-Level Group on Media Pluralism and Freedom presented ideas for the regulation of journalism in the EU. One proposal suggested that member states should have media councils or regulators that could remove “journalistic status”.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets in three Suez Canal cities on Monday night, defying a night-time curfew and a month-long state of emergency declared by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi a day earlier.

Brazil’s Judiciary has approved the creation of a permanent forum about freedom of the press, with the goal of debating court rulings on the subject and preparing judges to making more well-founded decisions.

The Civic Solidarity Platform and the International Partnership Group for Azerbaijan (IPGA) condemn the harsh response by the Azerbaijani authorities to recent protests in the country, and call on the Council of Europe to ensure Azerbaijan respects its human rights obligations as a member state.

India’s healthy and lively debate about digital freedom stands as a beacon of hope in the face of some of its more disturbing laws. But the laws will need to change, if India is to be a country that stands for Internet freedom, says Index on Censorship.