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Saturday, July 25
Global Free Speech

Victoria Roshchyna was killed in Russian custody in September 2024. Photo by: Handout In 2002 the acclaimed reporter Anna Politkovskaya wrote in Index that Russia was lawless. She longed for a normal life and to return to Moscow after years spent reporting on the war in Chechnya. She did return to the capital, eventually, but the lawless Russian state then turned on her – in 2006 she was found murdered outside her apartment block, on Vladimir Putin’s birthday. Many see her killing as the turning point – the moment when any pretence that Putin was cut from liberal cloth disappeared. After that, few inside the country or outside it could sustain the illusion that democracy would come to Russia. When, on 24 February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin demonstrated his intent to expand his autocratic empire. From the get-go the war felt close for Index, not just because geographically Ukraine isn’t that far from the UK, but because Index was founded in 1972 following dissident protests against Moscow’s invasion of Czechoslovakia just four years before. From that time through to Politkovskaya and the present day, we have consistently worked with dissidents campaigning against Russia’s tendency – regardless of regime – to control its neighbours and, occasionally, send in tanks. In the four years that have passed since the full-scale Russian invasion, Ukraine’s free speech landscape has significantly worsened. In the parts which Russia occupies Putin has consciously sought to obliterate what makes the country unique. Cultural, intellectual and academic institutions have been pillaged, books relating to Ukrainian identity destroyed, and prominent journalists and around 200 writers and artists have been killed, either fighting on the frontline or murdered by Russian forces. A less popular topic to discuss is censorship that originates from within the parts of Ukraine still sovereign under Volodymyr Zelenskyy. For several years now journalists have been sounding the alarm over what they see as media restrictions that cannot be justified by wartime pressures. Last year there were also protests over proposed legislation that would tighten government oversight of two key anti-corruption agencies, and in so doing risk their independence. We have highlighted these actions and have stood in solidarity with those being silenced during the war, including publishing the words of Victoria Roshchyna and Victoria Amelina – two young women murdered to stop them saying more. In our Autumn magazine last year, we published the work of three young Ukrainian poets Artem Dovhopolyi, Maksym Kryvtsov and Volodymyr Vakulenko killed in the last four years. It is Russia itself though that has drawn our attention most. If the lights dimmed when Politkovskaya was murdered, they were basically switched off in 2022. Too many people – regime critics and opponents – are either in jail or in exile or have been murdered. As for the average person, information is now tightly restricted. Mr. Nobody Against Putin, a film worthy of every accolade, lays bare the extent to which young minds are shaped and controlled, while the recent blocking of WhatsApp, and the pushing of internal messaging service, MAX, are barely concealed attempts to ensure no conversation remains private. Anniversaries don’t necessarily take stories on, but they do focus the mind. Four years on from those dark days in February 2022, much of the world’s attention has shifted. Not so for the people in Ukraine and Russia whose struggle for freedom of expression has only become harder. READ MORE

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Victoria Roshchyna was killed in Russian custody in September 2024. Photo by: Handout In 2002 the acclaimed reporter Anna Politkovskaya wrote in Index that Russia was lawless. She longed for a normal life and to return to Moscow after years spent reporting on the war in Chechnya. She did return to the capital, eventually, but the lawless Russian state then turned on her – in 2006 she was found murdered outside her apartment block, on Vladimir Putin’s birthday. Many see her killing as the turning point – the moment when any pretence that Putin was cut from liberal cloth disappeared. After that, few inside the country or outside it could sustain the illusion that democracy would come to Russia. When, on 24 February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin demonstrated his intent to expand his autocratic empire. From the get-go the war felt close for Index, not just because geographically Ukraine isn’t that far from the UK, but because Index was founded in 1972 following dissident protests against Moscow’s invasion of Czechoslovakia just four years before. From that time through to Politkovskaya and the present day, we have consistently worked with dissidents campaigning against Russia’s tendency – regardless of regime – to control its neighbours and, occasionally, send in tanks. In the four years that have passed since the full-scale Russian invasion, Ukraine’s free speech landscape has significantly worsened. In the parts which Russia occupies Putin has consciously sought to obliterate what makes the country unique. Cultural, intellectual and academic institutions have been pillaged, books relating to Ukrainian identity destroyed, and prominent journalists and around 200 writers and artists have been killed, either fighting on the frontline or murdered by Russian forces. A less popular topic to discuss is censorship that originates from within the parts of Ukraine still sovereign under Volodymyr Zelenskyy. For several years now journalists have been sounding the alarm over what they see as media restrictions that cannot be justified by wartime pressures. Last year there were also protests over proposed legislation that would tighten government oversight of two key anti-corruption agencies, and in so doing risk their independence. We have highlighted these actions and have stood in solidarity with those being silenced during the war, including publishing the words of Victoria Roshchyna and Victoria Amelina – two young women murdered to stop them saying more. In our Autumn magazine last year, we published the work of three young Ukrainian poets Artem Dovhopolyi, Maksym Kryvtsov and Volodymyr Vakulenko killed in the last four years. It is Russia itself though that has drawn our attention most. If the lights dimmed when Politkovskaya was murdered, they were basically switched off in 2022. Too many people – regime critics and opponents – are either in jail or in exile or have been murdered. As for the average person, information is now tightly restricted. Mr. Nobody Against Putin, a film worthy of every accolade, lays bare the extent to which young minds are shaped and controlled, while the recent blocking of WhatsApp, and the pushing of internal messaging service, MAX, are barely concealed attempts to ensure no conversation remains private. Anniversaries don’t necessarily take stories on, but they do focus the mind. Four years on from those dark days in February 2022, much of the world’s attention has shifted. Not so for the people in Ukraine and Russia whose struggle for freedom of expression has only become harder. READ MORE

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In 2002 the acclaimed reporter Anna Politkovskaya wrote in Index that Russia was lawless. She longed for a normal life and to return to Moscow after years spent reporting on the war in Chechnya. She did return to the capital, eventually, but the lawless Russian state then turned on her – in 2006 she was found murdered outside her apartment block, on Vladimir Putin’s birthday. Many see her killing as the turning point – the moment when any pretence that Putin was cut from liberal cloth disappeared. After that, few inside the country or outside it could sustain the illusion that democracy would come to Russia. When, on 24 February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin demonstrated his intent to expand his autocratic empire.

From the get-go the war felt close for Index, not just because geographically Ukraine isn’t that far from the UK, but because Index was founded in 1972 following dissident protests against Moscow’s invasion of Czechoslovakia just four years before. From that time through to Politkovskaya and the present day, we have consistently worked with dissidents campaigning against Russia’s tendency – regardless of regime – to control its neighbours and, occasionally, send in tanks.

In the four years that have passed since the full-scale Russian invasion, Ukraine’s free speech landscape has significantly worsened. In the parts which Russia occupies Putin has consciously sought to obliterate what makes the country unique. Cultural, intellectual and academic institutions have been pillaged, books relating to Ukrainian identity destroyed, and prominent journalists and around 200 writers and artists have been killed, either fighting on the frontline or murdered by Russian forces. A less popular topic to discuss is censorship that originates from within the parts of Ukraine still sovereign under Volodymyr Zelenskyy. For several years now journalists have been sounding the alarm over what they see as media restrictions that cannot be justified by wartime pressures. Last year there were also protests over proposed legislation that would tighten government oversight of two key anti-corruption agencies, and in so doing risk their independence.

We have highlighted these actions and have stood in solidarity with those being silenced during the war, including publishing the words of Victoria Roshchyna and Victoria Amelina – two young women murdered to stop them saying more. In our Autumn magazine last year, we published the work of three young Ukrainian poets Artem Dovhopolyi, Maksym Kryvtsov and Volodymyr Vakulenko killed in the last four years. It is Russia itself though that has drawn our attention most. If the lights dimmed when Politkovskaya was murdered, they were basically switched off in 2022. Too many people – regime critics and opponents – are either in jail or in exile or have been murdered. As for the average person, information is now tightly restricted. Mr. Nobody Against Putin, a film worthy of every accolade, lays bare the extent to which young minds are shaped and controlled, while the recent blocking of WhatsApp, and the pushing of internal messaging service, MAX, are barely concealed attempts to ensure no conversation remains private.

Anniversaries don’t necessarily take stories on, but they do focus the mind. Four years on from those dark days in February 2022, much of the world’s attention has shifted. Not so for the people in Ukraine and Russia whose struggle for freedom of expression has only become harder.

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Cockroach Janta Party protestors holding posters of Bhagat Singh at Jantar Mantar, July 2026. Photo: Pelph Hoters/CC0 1.0 Towards the end of last year, when I was editing our magazine about Gen Z revolts around the world, I asked around about India. Was a Gen Z revolt likely there? After all, young people had toppled governments in neighbouring Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. The consensus was that despite the increasing authoritarianism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government, India was on a different trajectory to its much smaller neighbours. The young middle class were largely apolitical. Earlier protests had simply “petered out” because the country was so diverse no one could agree with one another. Eight months later, it turns out there is something which unites young people – the understanding that they are despised by the political elites. The Cockroach Janta Party was formed after a satirical call on social media by student Abhijeet Dipke, a recent graduate from a US university who heard the chief justice of India comparing young unemployed people to “parasites” and “cockroaches”. What would happen, he wrote on Instagram, if all cockroaches came together? It was a call that resonated. Within days of being formed the party’s Instagram account had 22 million followers – far more than the nine million following Modi’s BJP. The authorities tried to strangle the movement at birth, and the Cockroach Janta Party‘s X account was closed down pretty quickly by Elon Musk’s platform after anonymous complaints. But that didn’t stop the momentum and soon the anger was focused on the leak of medical exam questions, meaning millions would have to do expensive retakes. The issue was emblematic of wider problems of graduate unemployment reported to be at 40% for under 25s. In the last week we have seen thousands of Gen Z demonstrators taking to the streets calling for the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Even the India opposition leader Rahul Gandhi (who has not been popular with young people) has tried to get in on the act and was briefly arrested after joining a sit-in in Delhi. Other disturbing responses have included violence used against some protesters, the prohibition of protests near the parliament building in Delhi and the use of internet shutdowns being deployed in areas where demonstrations were planned to start on Monday. Internet freedom campaigners in India, including the Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC), have condemned the targeting of the protest with an internet shutdown as setting “a dangerous precedent” as it “strikes at the heart of the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression”. They also are demanding to know why no order was issued to authorise the blackout, seemingly in violation of the law and not in accordance with the Supreme Court’s ruling on this issue. India has long turned to internet shutdowns for the flimsiest of excuses. According to Access Now India was the world leader for shutting down the internet for six years in a row ending in 2023 (ahead of places like Iran, Russia and Myanmar). The SFLC warn that together with reports of social media content about the protest being “shadow banned”, as well as the closure of roads and metro stations, the government seems to be trying to disrupt protest rather than guarantee public safety. None of this is deterring Cockroach Janta Party supporters. If anything, it seems to be encouraging protesters to turn out. And the party’s popularity carries with it a message; globally connected young people are coming together and they are forces to be reckoned with. READ MORE

Global Free Speech

The Royal Courts of Justice. Photo: StevovoB/NeedPix Years ago when still a baby defence barrister, a brief landed on my desk. The defendant, we shall call him Mohammad, was from Somalia. He was a PhD student travelling for his studies to Germany when civil war broke out. Mohammad’s sister was raped by soldiers; his father murdered. Newly married with a baby, he used all his money to pay for passage to the UK. This meant using forged travel documents. The family were eventually granted asylum. But Mohammad kept the forged passport; a symbol of his past life, perhaps. On a trip to visit German friends, the forged passport was discovered. He was charged with an offence to which he had no defence in law. The first trial saw running battles between me and the judge. At every opportunity he angrily reminded the court  of the defendant’s guilt. His summing up consisted of countering the arguments I had advanced in Mohammad’s defence. After two days deliberating, the jury were discharged, unable to reach a decision. The second trial was before a different judge. No angry exchanges. Just a measured, even-tempered stewardship of proceedings. A unanimous acquittal followed. Absent a bullying judge, this jury felt free to deliver a verdict according to their conscience; a principle called jury equity. I did not explicitly reference this principle in my closing speech. Nonetheless, it has often featured, in cases like Mohammad’s, when attempting to appeal to a jury’s sense of compassion. It was clear when Mohammad walked tearfully from the dock, that every right-minded person in that courtroom knew his prosecution, though lawful, was wrong. And so to the Filton trial and the unprecedented prosecution of my friend, Rajiv Menon KC, due to stand trial on 28 July for alleged contempt of court. Rajiv was lead counsel representing the first of six Palestine Action defendants charged with offences arising out of an incident in 2024 at an arms factory in Filton, Bristol, owned by Israeli-based Elbit Systems. During the incident, the defendents smashed equipment and one injured a police officer.  At the trial the judge made orders prohibiting defence barristers from mentioning jury equity in their closing speeches. That effectively meant forbidding them from telling the jury that they (the jury) were free to act on their conscience despite the law. The trial judge alleges that Rajiv disobeyed the order and has asked another judge to try him for contempt. The Filton trial was, in many ways, different from Mohammad’s. However, the principles at stake are the same. You may not agree with the Filton defendants’ cause or their methods. And, we can all sympathise with the police officer injured whilst doing her job, but we must all surely agree that every defendant deserves a fair trial. By severely limiting some defences, removing other defences altogether, and making orders disallowing defence counsel from referring to long-established basic principles like jury equity, a trial judge is at risk of reducing the jury’s role to a ceremonial one. That is why everyone should care about what happened in the Filton trial and what is happening now to Rajiv Menon. This is not just about a closing speech made by one defence barrister. Most defence barristers have, at some point, relied on the constitutional right of a jury to acquit even when a judge thinks that guilt is a forgone conclusion. It is a principle considered so important that it is enshrined on a plaque in the Central Criminal Court. And yet, today the very mention of it is being prohibited in protest trials, with the accompanying threat of contempt proceedings. 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One of the twelve, Tarlochan Gata Aura, admitted making and storing the bombs to protect his community. The late Sibghat Kadri QC, head of the chambers where I trained, was one of the defence barristers in that trial which ended with acquittals despite overwhelming evidence against them. Constantly interrupted by a hostile judge, the defence were warned against making the trial political. Kadri, a barrister who believed it was every lawyer’s duty to fight inside and outside the court, must be turning in his grave. READ MORE

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