Global Free Speech

Global Free Speech covers international stories and trends affecting the right to speak, publish, and share ideas across borders. From government crackdowns to grassroots movements, this category highlights the global fight for free expression in diverse political and cultural landscapes.

Becoming by Michelle Obama was among the targeted titles. Photo: Patti McConville/Alamy When a school librarian from Greater Manchester came to Index with a shocking story about nearly 200 books being hauled from her shelves and losing her career to a “safeguarding” complaint, we promised to conceal her identity. At her request, we renamed her Emily and we did not name the school. She was terrified about the repercussions if her name was known, both from the school and from other people who might target her online. We kept our promise. Now, a local media outlet has uncovered and published the name of the school. Emily’s identity remains hidden. The school in question is the Lowry Academy in Salford, part of the United Learning Trust. There were extra details Index could not reveal when the name of the school was concealed. We can now address these issues, which are in the public interest. We can reveal how the local authority upheld the safeguarding complaint that destroyed a librarian’s career, the evidence that contradicts the school’s response and the bigger concerns for both Greater Manchester and the United Learning Trust. Initially, Emily told Index, she thought the situation “was a sick joke”. She first heard of the threat to her job when the Lowry Academy’s headteacher took umbrage at Laura Bates’ book Men Who Hate Women in the school library. The nonfiction title, where Bates goes undercover to expose vast misogynist networks and communities, had been ordered by Emily for the Life 101 section for older students, after training she had received about incel culture. The school launched an investigation into both the library and Emily. She was soon reported to the local authority as a safeguarding risk, simply for stocking books. Nearly 200 books were removed and AI was used to categorise the reasons for each book’s removal. You can read more about what happened to Emily in our investigation. While the name Lowry Academy is new, the public might be more familiar with it as the former Harrop Fold School, featured on the Channel 4 documentary Educating Greater Manchester. The school, whose leadership changed after it was fully academised in 2020, had a “good” Ofsted rating in 2024, but it was noted that pupils in key stage 4 had limited time devoted to personal, social and health education. The academy is now part of the United Learning Trust, which says on its website that its ethos “is our expression of our Christian roots, in schools which are fully inclusive and both welcome and respect students and staff of all faiths and none”. A former student from Lowry Academy got in contact with Index, after the name of the school was revealed. He studied at the school until 2024, and said he spent all of his break times in the library. He described the vast and inclusive set of books, spanning across genres. He said he found the library purge and the way Emily was treated “quite grotesque.” “It was disgusting how it was all handled,” he added. He was shocked by the list of targeted books, and said he’d read a few of the biographies. He also read a lot of George Orwell, while he has friends who read many of the manga books. He believes the loss of titles from the library will have a big impact on current students who, like him, find a safe space in the library. “They won’t have the freedom of reading what they want to read,” he said. While the Lowry Academy did not respond to Index for comment, the Manchester Mill reported that the school told them: “It is not the case that books have been ‘banned’ by the school. Following concerns that a number of books within the library were neither age nor content appropriate, an audit was conducted. Following this, books have been placed into age-appropriate categories and returned to the shelves. A very small number of books were deemed inappropriate even for older children due to their content and have been removed.” It may be true some books have now been returned, but they were undoubtedly removed in the first instance. Lowry Academy refused to engage with Index or other organisations to explain what had happened to the books. Index has documentary evidence to support the claim that the books were indeed initially removed from the library during an “audit”. In an email from the school to Emily during the investigation, she was told: “Attached is the list of books [the designated safeguarding lead] has removed from the library. Please note that the audit is still ongoing, and the DSL has confirmed that she is alleging these books are not suitable to remain in the library. The investigation will be based on the attached list.” Further to this, in the school’s investigation report, they concluded with the recommendation: “Continue the audit of all library resources until the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) is satisfied that any material deemed inappropriate for a school setting has been removed.” In an email from the school to Emily during the investigation, she was told: “Attached is the list of books [the designated safeguarding lead] has removed from the library. Please note that the audit is still ongoing, and the DSL has confirmed that she is alleging these books are not suitable to remain in the library. The investigation will be based on the attached list.” Further to this, in the school’s investigation report, they concluded with the recommendation: “Continue the audit of all library resources until the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) is satisfied that any material deemed inappropriate for a school setting has been removed.” Index has seen extensive documentary evidence proving Emily’s claims. These documents have also been seen by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) and their School Libraries Group (SLG), who have both been supporting Emily. During their investigation, evidenced in these documents, the school shared examples of the removed books with the trust’s safeguarding lead, who said: “The school should ensure that library materials reflect the values and ethos of the school”. The values described on the school website are “aspiration, respect, confidence, creativity and resilience”. The investigation report said that the trust’s safeguarding lead had stated: “Some of these books would be indefensible to parents and expressed concern that the material does not represent a balanced view aligned with the values the trust seeks to promote.” During the investigation, the school also showed concern for their reputation, writing in a report: “I believe there has been a failure to prevent students accessing inappropriate books, this constitutes a serious safeguarding breach under KCSIE 2025. Had parents been aware of this, the school’s reputation could have been brought into significant disrepute.” The Lowry Academy story is not simply a case of one overzealous headteacher. Not only have several senior members of staff been involved, but the trust and the local authority have also played key roles. Margaret Woodhouse, the chair of the school’s governing body, is also the independent chair of the Greater Manchester Learning Partnership, where school leaders across the region work together. Emily was reported to the local authority as a safeguarding risk on 9 December 2025 and her hearing was held on 5 January 2026, after she had resigned. When the committee, known as a LADO, made their decision in January 2026, they substantiated the allegation, stating that Emily had not caused direct harm but that she had failed to follow safeguarding procedures. Index has seen redacted minutes of the meeting. The meeting was held by Salford City Council, and there were four people in attendance. Two were from the school, one was the LADO chair and one was the LADO administration officer. The allegations against Emily were specifically around “introducing inappropriate material into the school library” and nothing else. No previous concerns about her had been raised. In the meeting, the school’s senior vice-principal explained that the referral was made “after discovering multiple books in the school library containing inappropriate content. These books had been loaned to children and did not align with the school’s curriculum”. They confirmed that the investigation was prompted by their discovery of Men Who Hate Women, saying: “the content was inappropriate for children and even challenging for adults to access”. At one point, the LADO chair asked why Emily “began ordering controversial titles and whether this was a recent development”. She later “confirmed several books were adult literature and therefore unsuitable for a school setting”. Some of the books removed include Michelle Obama’s Becoming, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and Andrew Flintoff’s autobiography Second Innings. As Caroline Roche, chair of the School Libraries Group (SLG) told Index, librarians all make different decisions about which books to stock based on their students and communities, and are ready to defend their collections. Indeed, many GCSE English set texts were not written for children, including Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. They contain challenging topics, as do many others. In Salford City Council’s decision, there appears to have been a lack of understanding of the role of a school library – an increasing occurrence when it comes to school leadership, when there is an absence of statutory guidance for school libraries. The Lowry Academy boasts on its website that “reading is central to the development of our students”, and talks of how students can read all kinds of genres – horror, graphic novels and classics among them. Students will “be exposed to unfamiliar topics to broaden their understanding of the world around them,” the school writes. Many titles in these genres were indeed removed from the school library during the purge. The school’s investigation discussed the removal of a Nineteen-Eighty-Four graphic novel. And mere paragraphs later described how a senior staff member felt the library’s ‘Life 101’ section (where Emily kept books for school leavers) was inappropriate, “based on the association with the television program Room 101, where undesirable items are symbolically discarded”. They were seemingly oblivious to Room 101’s origins in Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four. The day Index published our investigation, the Lowry Academy posted a Facebook video promoting a The Traitors-style game, where staff would be “banished”. It was filmed in the school library.  “It has come to our attention that among our staff we have some traitors,” one staff member says on the video, without an ounce of irony. Not for the fact that one of their staff has already been “banished”, not for the fact that books have been banished and not for the fact that The Traitors is a programme about murder and deception, not made exclusively for young people. Although, of course, enjoyed by many. Index believes this story is of huge public interest. Not only because the freedom to read and intellectual freedom are under attack in a school setting, but also because important safeguarding procedures appear to have been misused by multiple people. We fear we will see more stories like this if changes are not made, and that school librarians will self-censor through fear. Index has approached the Lowry Academy, United Learning Trust and Salford City Council for comment. United Learning acknowledged the request but did not provide a comment before publication. The others have not replied. READ MORE

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When a school librarian from Greater Manchester came to Index with a shocking story about nearly 200 books being hauled…

Photo: Janine Wiedel Photolibrary/Alamy Disney’s 2025 release Elio was a flop. Some believe they self-censored and that contributed to its commercial failure. The central character was initially portrayed as queer-coded, reflecting original director Adrian Molina’s identity as an openly gay filmmaker. There was then a change of director, audience testing, feedback from leadership and any hint of gay was removed. Standard editing procedure? Perhaps. Changes to a film from test stage to release aren’t unusual and Index doesn’t cry censorship just because something gets cut. Pixar’s chief creative officer Pete Docter recently justified the removal of Elio’s LGBTQ+ plot elements, saying Pixar is “not [making] therapy” and that parents should be in the driving seat when it comes to these conversations. Again fine. We don’t need everything our kids watch to be learning opportunities or “therapy”. It’s OK for some stuff to simply be about entertainment, though I’d argue the two need not be in conflict. But context is everything. Disney’s 2026 offering, Hoppers, was accused of dialling down themes of environmentalism, while the director of a movie in early development apparently said there shouldn’t be divorce in it. Whatever was included or not in the film – and we will never know the reasons for certain edits – Hoppers was still not nearly conservative enough for MAGA influencer Alex Clark, who dubbed it “non-Biblical” and unsuitable for children under 10. Children aged 10 to 13 should only watch it if they could discuss it with their parents afterwards, she opined. Concerns that Hollywood is being asked to bow to an increasingly censorious conservative right, rather than embracing artistic freedom, are demonstrably not the idle musings of the ultra-paranoid conspiracy theorist – and that’s when we do pay attention. The topic of what’s appropriate for children to see and read is hot right now. Last week we reported on a Manchester school that had targeted close to 200 books from its library over “safeguarding” concerns. Where book banning occurs, it’s pretty much always justified by the same line – the titles aren’t age-appropriate – often with little to no explanation given beyond that. Why, for example, is it ok for children to study racist depictions in Othello, as they routinely do at secondary school, and yet not read Michelle Obama’s biography, the latter being on the Manchester cull list? The conversation around age-gating online has a similar flavour, albeit with more understandable origins; kids can now fairly easily access porn online that is more extreme than anything available in Soho’s seediest licensed sex shops back in the day and a trial that concluded yesterday in California found Meta and Google liable for mental harm caused to a young woman who became hooked on the platforms as a child (they look set to appeal the ruling). We should be able to discuss and address issues with the online world (as I do here) and acknowledge that not everything is fine to show to children and young people. Age classifications are there for a reason. But we should also be wary. The language of “safeguarding” and “age-appropriateness” can and is easily co-opted by those with an agenda that goes far beyond genuine concern for children and young people’s well-being. Taken to its extreme this agenda lands you in a place like Hungary, where children’s books with LGBTQ+ themes are routinely wrapped in plastic, lest a kid leaf through one in a bookshop. Or worse still Russia, which passed a law aimed at protecting children from “harmful information” back in 2012 and has since then been removing books with abandon, jailing queer people (who’ve been cast as the central propagators of harm) and creating an internet that more closely resembles Beijing’s. Protect our most vulnerable, yes, just avoid throwing free expression to the wolves in the process. READ MORE

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Disney’s 2025 release Elio was a flop. Some believe they self-censored and that contributed to its commercial failure. The central…

Malak Mattar is a Gazan artist based in London This article first appeared in the Winter 2025 issue of Index on Censorship, Gen Z is revolting: Why the world’s youth will not be silenced, published on 18 December 2025. The tortuous process that led to the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords only came about after sustained Palestinian resistance to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, beginning with the First Intifada of 1987-91. This pushed the international community into action, the subsequent negotiations including several Arab countries alongside Israel and representatives of the Palestinian nation. But the Oslo Accords did not live up to their promise, and did not end the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Thirty-two years on, and two years into Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, President Trump’s 20-point peace plan similarly seeks to bring about a new Middle East. The cessation of hostilities presents an opportunity for comparing the two plans, and to ask a crucial question: Will this new initiative fare any better in bringing peace, justice and security to the region? Two groups were opposed to the Oslo Accords from the start: Israel’s right wing, and the Islamic resistance group Hamas. Today, the two groups are in control of their respective territories. Hamas holds sway in Gaza, and the ultra-nationalist religious parties have held the Israeli government hostage since the last parliamentary elections in 2022. In 1991, as the International Peace Conference that ultimately led to the Oslo Accords convened in Madrid, I was visiting Geneva, attending a meeting of the Palestinian Welfare Association. In different ways, many of us living in the Occupied Territories had struggled to bring an end to Israel’s occupation of our land. I took the path of human rights, exposing Israel’s repeated violations of international law. The Intifada of 1987-91 was Palestine’s war of liberation; collectively, we were proud of our success in bringing Israel to negotiate with the Palestinians. After my meetings in Geneva, I travelled to the town of Brunnen, to begin a three-day walk around Lake Lucerne. I needed to be by myself and to have some time to reflect. I was expecting that we were at the cusp of a period of peace and an end to our long-lasting struggle. I wanted to think about where this would leave us. Passing through the attractive city of Lausanne, I recalled visiting there with my parents in 1971, when I was 20. My father had often mentioned visiting the city in 1949, when he took part in the conference of the UN Palestine Conciliation Commission. Of the conference itself I knew very little, and I didn’t think to ask him more. As we entered the city, I could tell that my father was wistful, yet I still did not try to inquire what was going on in his mind. How I regret this, especially as the struggle for the right of return of Palestinian refugees forced out of their homes between 1948 and 1949 is still continuing. I was more interested in visiting the prison dungeon in the Château de Chillon, near Montreux on Lake Geneva. It was more than half a century before I learned fully about my father’s role while writing my book, We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I. I left on the nine o’clock boat from Brunnen to Treib, and then started my hike. The Swiss, I had heard, would be doing their traditional annual walk around the lake, this year commemorating the 700th anniversary of their federation. I expected to find many walkers along the path but soon realised that those who had wanted to walk the route had already done so and gone. I was the only one hiking, and so I had the path to myself. Forty-two years after my father’s participation in the conference at Lausanne, another conference was taking place, this time in Madrid. Perhaps because the earlier conference in Lausanne had failed, the organisers of this new initiative wanted it to take place somewhere else. Spain, with its famous history of Arabs and Jews producing a rich civilisation together, was certainly a more auspicious venue. I did not know what one could reasonably expect from Madrid. James Baker, US Secretary of State, had consumed public attention with his lengthy deliberations about the procedure to be followed. At the time, it was claimed that Baker did not show the list of Palestinian participants to Israel in advance of the conference. A small gesture, but enough for Faisal Husseini, a recognised local leader, to claim a meaningful victory. We, he said, had the final say about our representatives, not Israel. But these were hollow words. Israel had, after all, excluded the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Palestinians from Jerusalem. But somehow, it was deemed good for morale if the Palestinians believed that Israel had not chosen their delegation for them. I hoped that this was not indicative of what was to come. On the eve of the Madrid conference, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir addressed the European Parliament. Highlights from his speech were broadcast on Israeli television’s evening news programme. It was not Palestinian self-determination that was an obstacle to peace, he told the parliamentarians, but rather the refusal of the Arab states to recognise Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu, more recently, has repeated similar claims. The broadcast then cut to Yigal Karmon, an adviser to Shamir on counter-terrorism affairs. No one – no one – would get to Madrid without Israel’s approval, he declared. “It is man by man,” he added, in his bad English. Karmon’s depressing words notwithstanding, the conference did take place. The floodgates of hope were ready to burst, and Israeli intransigence could not stop this. After Saddam Hussein’s defeat in the First Gulf War, a massive defence mechanism against the very notion of hope had emerged. And yet. The Palestinian Land Registration Department was packed with people buying land. Palestinians who were living in Kuwait were in Amman, waiting for the return. Before the selection of delegates, we had felt a long way from the march of events. Everything seemed to be happening above our heads. It is much the same today, the disillusion that has emerged from negotiations over Trump’s plan seeming very much like it did in 1991. But then, every peace conference must seem like a letdown. What war has ever brought satisfaction to everyone? Peace conferences, at best, are compromise agreements. Thereafter, everything depends on what the parties are able to make of them. Even so, there were objective indicators in the Oslo Accords pointing to disaster. First, the illegal Jewish settlements on our land were to remain in place, with no agreement on freezing their expansion. And then, there were no guarantees concerning the creation of an independent Palestinian state at the end of the process. Trump’s plan echoes these uncertainties. The withdrawal of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) from Gaza is to be “based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarisation”, to be agreed upon by the IDF and the International Stabilisation Force created for Gaza. What does this mean in fact? That “Israel will retain security responsibility, including a security perimeter for the foreseeable future”. It also means that as of now, there is no end envisaged to the siege of Gaza. This means, amongst other things, that Gaza will not be able to import machinery required for reconstruction. The other problematic area in the plan relates to Palestinian statehood. The plan states that “while Gaza re-development advances and when the PA reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood”. Translation: even if the Palestinian Authority carried out the prescribed reforms, there is no guarantee that these will be followed by a Palestinian state. Palestinian interests, once again, were being determined without the input of Palestinians themselves. Back to 1991 and Lake Lucerne. Having reached the top of the first ascent, I began the descent. The lake was framed by steep cliffs, and the walk was not as easy as I had anticipated. But at least I had no worries about finding the path, as this was well marked. A refreshing wind blew as I walked and breathed in the crisp clean air. How different it was, I thought, to walk in this Swiss terrain rather than the familiar hills of Ramallah. Around Lake Lucerne, nature is washed and rejuvenated regularly. The rains collect in streams and waterfalls, or remain on the peaks in the form of snow or glaciers. I remembered, on my first visit to the region with my parents, being impressed with the rushing water. I was nervous, but also emboldened, by the powerful thrust of the water, gushing down forcefully. In Ramallah, where the rains are far less frequent, everything remains in place for years. A thin layer of lichen grows on rocks, giving them a leaden and ancient presence. But the most striking difference between Lake Lucerne and Ramallah is that their mountains are majestic: imposing, remote, safe from human domination. Ours are mere hills, easily reached, vulnerable to the greed of jealous suitors. As I continued my descent, the words of Haidar Abdul Shafi, head of the Palestinian delegation to Madrid, came back to me. In his speech he was addressing, “the Israeli people with whom we have had a prolonged exchange of pain.” What a brilliant way to put it. The tragedy, as I felt it, was that even if peace should be reached it would be impossible to undo the pain that had been inflicted and suffered up to this point. Before the whole world, Haider had pronounced: “We, the people of Palestine, stand before you in the fullness of our pain.” He was offering our adversary hope, by declaring that the Palestinian nation was willing to live side by side with them in peace, sharing the land as equals. Now that my wife Penny and I are older, I no longer think that everything is possible. Time has become a pivotal factor in my life. Sometimes one succeeds, and sometimes not. I have had my share of both. Either way, I have had to learn how to accept failure as failure, rather than as a temporary setback that I may still get a second chance to rectify. Will the wheels finally turn, I wondered? Abdul Shafi had indeed said what the Israelis claimed that they were hoping to hear. I wanted to believe that peace, in some form, was on its way. I was already beginning to think about what would come next.But while Abdul Shafi was speaking, Yitzhak Shamir had looked on with cold eyes. Most of what Abdul Shafi had said was forward-looking. The deeply-felt pain of the Palestinians had been given ample expression, but he had also paid recognition to the solidarity of those Israelis who had shared our pain with us. There was a reaching-out for the Israelis, and for the world, to accept our aspirations for self-determination, to correct the injustices caused to generations of Palestinians. But all the while Shamir looked on with a deadpan face, unimpressed and unmoved. But while Abdul Shafi was speaking, Yitzhak Shamir had looked on with cold eyes. Most of what Abdul Shafi had said was forward-looking. The deeply-felt pain of the Palestinians had been given ample expression, but he had also paid recognition to the solidarity of those Israelis who had shared our pain with us. There was a reaching-out for the Israelis, and for the world, to accept our aspirations for self-determination, to correct the injustices caused to generations of Palestinians. But all the while Shamir looked on with a deadpan face, unimpressed and unmoved. When it was his turn to speak, the Israeli prime minister began by decrying the attempts of others to re-write history. But then, he went on to do exactly that. He repeated the famous Zionist claim, that “hundreds of thousands of Arabs who lived in Mandatory Palestine were encouraged by their own leaders to flee from their homes.” He did not even deign to call us Palestinians. And then to what he deemed to be the “root cause of the conflict”: “Arab refusal to recognise the legitimacy of the State of Israel”. Shamir denied the Occupation, refused to acknowledge either the fundamental rights of the Palestinian nation or their suffering. The West Bank, for Shamir, was Judea and Samaria; he belittled our aspirations for a nation, declaring that while “the Arab nations” controlled a landmass of 14 million square kilometres, Israel (in his estimation including the Occupied Territories) controlled a mere 28,000 square kilometres. “The issue is not territory but our existence,” Shamir concluded There was nothing new in Shamir’s speech. If anything, it merely served as proof of Israel’s intransigence, the only difference being that it was now being proclaimed from the podium at the opening of the historic peace conference. This did not bode well for the future. Today, this same Israeli intransigence persists, Shamir’s rhetoric replaced with Netanyahu’s bluster.After my return from Switzerland that winter of 1991, a third snow of the year fell on Ramallah. I decided to take a walk on a street behind the Evangelical Home, on a path that ran parallel to Tireh Road. The hill ahead seemed colossal, as though the houses on it were perched atop a huge edifice. It was engulfed in fog, permitting only a blurred view of the limestone houses and the dark rock of the gardens behind. Towards the east, the sun (which I could see blurred like a shiny chalk ball in the west) was reflected in the clearing sky. Beneath that clear cap, the clouds and the fog below were still thick. The features of the familiar landscape were altered, the horizon redefined as a line slicing the eastern sky into thick stratus clouds and the clear sky. Beneath, one could spot here and there the hills behind, covered by a shimmering sheath of fog, milky white clouds shrouding the familiar hills in mystery. On my way back, I could not resist walking down towards the wadi. Every level I reached opened up the view, the fog receding. But the mystery ahead remained, elusive and out of reach. What, I wondered, would be the future of these hills if Israel were to get its way? What would happen if negotiations could not stop the Israeli intentions that even then I knew so well? Twenty-five years on, I now know this future. The hills where I had once enjoyed walking have now been militarised, with Israeli settlements perched atop. Armed settlers in balaclavas brandish machine guns, attacking farmers and peaceful villagers in their homes. There is nothing in Trump’s plan that is likely to alter any of this depressing reality. Apartheid has only been given a boost, and the new initiative will not bring peace to the Middle East. The Trump plan has been described as “sugar-coated neocolonialism” – not only a moral atrocity but a policy one, too. Like the earlier experiment of the Oslo Accords, the 20-point Trump peace plan is likely to only mark another dismal failure. And so, we will continue to suffer war after war, without hope of reprieve. All illustrations by Malak Mattar, a Gazan artist based in London READ MORE

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At the time, it was claimed that Baker did not show the list of Palestinian participants to Israel in advance…

Jafar Panahi’s 2025 thriller It Was Just an Accident. Photo: Handout “We are worried about what is going to happen. Every morning, we wake up to the sound of explosions. Many places have been destroyed, and I know that some civilians have been killed as well. However, the Islamic Republic does not give us any accurate information, and the domestic news agencies are only propaganda centres for the regime. Because of this, we truly don’t know what is really happening or what awaits us.” These are the words of an Iranian dissident who has managed to contact us from inside the country after Israel and the USA started bombing Iran. They are too concerned for their safety to be named. Iran’s internet has been blocked for days now. There are reports of people protesting from their homes being shot at. The UN has warned that imprisoned Iranian protesters face “expedited” executions. There are fears about conditions deteriorating in Evin prison where a lot of political opponents of the regime are being held. Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi is currently in a jail in Zanjan, a city northwest of Tehran, and her situation is unknown. It is impossible to know exactly what is happening. In war the truth only comes out later – if at all – and disinformation is king. What is worrying is that there is such uncertainty about the outcome, and concern now that the USA and Israel don’t much care about the freedom of the people of Iran. Tens of thousands who bravely came out on the streets earlier this year to protest the regime were brutally murdered, many more arrested. Most shockingly, verified accounts have documented how the Revolutionary Guard swarmed hospitals, prevented medical care, took people off ventilators. Some doctors have even reported that wounded protesters who were being treated were later found with bullet holes in their heads. On Monday Index screened Jafar Panahi’s new film It was Just an Accident in advance of it coming out on Mubi this Friday, 6 March. It is a must-see if you want to understand the varying points of view of ordinary people in Iran. One of the people who talked on our panel discussion after the screening, Tara Aghdashloo, an Iranian writer, director and poet, wrote on Instagram of the current dilemma of those watching what is happening from afar: “Whoever we blame – this moment is overwhelming. There is pain, hoping for something good out of it, more pain, terror, remembering the mass murders by the regime yet fearing what these missiles and bombs could do to family and friends and innocent people, to our environment, infrastructure, our historic sites. Elation, even daring to hope that this fascist dictatorship might be gone once and for all. But remembering that the safety of my people is now in the hands of the same leaders, and that we’re expected to bet that our liberation is in a series of missiles that is shaking the city.” To be an Iranian dissident must be profoundly lonely and confusing. The autocratic ayatollah has been killed. But there is no succession plan for democracy. At Index we have always stood up for the people who want Iran to be finally free, for the women and young people, for the rappers, poets, artists and writers and all those who have put have themselves again and again in the firing line for the right to express their full selves without fear of torture and death. READ MORE

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“We are worried about what is going to happen. Every morning, we wake up to the sound of explosions. Many…

Investigative journalist Saddia Mazhar (right) documenting women arrested on International Women’s Day. Photo: Saddia Mazhar All over the world, International Women Day is celebrated to recognise the achievements and rights of women. But unfortunately, in Pakistan, that recognition means nothing. The reason: on that same International Women’s Day, in Islamabad, the federal capital of Pakistan, 44 women taking part in the annual Aurat March (a non-violent demonstration by women’s rights activists demanding social and economic rights) were detained by the police. The were held simply because they were planning to celebrate and put on a rally in the capital to recognise the achievements and challenges of women in Pakistan. The Aurat March activists were picked up by the police under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which was imposed in the federal capital Pakistan is a deeply patriarchal society where women lag behind in everything, which is why women face discrimination, violence, and sexual harassment on a daily basis. Perhaps unsurprisingly Pakistan was ranked bottom amongst 148 countries such as Sudan, Chad, Iran, and Guinea in the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report 2025, with only 56.7% gender parity. This is even worse than in 2022, when it ranked 145th out of 146 countries, above only Afghanistan. The Aurat March organisers stated on X that they “were peacefully exercising their right to protest.” Three women journalists who had gone to cover the protests, including investigative reporter Saddia Mazhar (pictured), were also arrested. Reports suggest the women marchers, before being arrested, were dragged, beaten up, and had their arms twisted by the police. Shahbana Zafar, the wife of Harris Khaliq, Secretary General of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), and others went to the Women Police and Child Station to meet the arrested marchers and they too were detained After their release, the Aurat March organisers held a press conference at the National Press Club. They stated that the theme of Aurat March Islamabad was a feminist constitution, among other things. As a result of the arrests, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s message on International Women’s Day drew strong criticism from female social media users. His message on X read: “On International Women’s Day, I wish to reiterate my government’s commitment to ensuring a safe, equal and enabling environment for women. The government is taking steps to empower women, protect their rights and provide them opportunities to excel in every field.” READ MORE

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All over the world, International Women Day is celebrated to recognise the achievements and rights of women. But unfortunately, in…

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