Tag: meme

Last year, FIRE launched the Free Speech Dispatch, a regular series covering new and continuing censorship trends and challenges around the world. Our goal is to help readers better understand the global context of free expression. Want to make sure you don’t miss an update? Sign up for our newsletter. 

Guilty finding for German editor’s doctored “I hate freedom of opinion” image 

Germany’s speech policing can’t stay out of the spotlight for long, apparently. This month, David Bendels, editor-in-chief for the Alternative for Germany (AfD)-affiliated Deutschland Kurier, received a seven-month suspended sentence for “abuse, slander or defamation against persons in political life.” 

The offense? Bendels had edited and posted a photo of Interior Minister Nancy Faeser so that a sign she held said, “I hate freedom of opinion.” (Just think of how many different versions you saw of the Michelle Obama sign meme here in the U.S.) A Bavarian district court found Bendels guilty under a provision giving advanced protections to political figures against speech. Bendels’ sentencing has provoked criticism outside of his political circle, with figures like former Green Party leader Ricarda Lang questioning the “proportionality” of the ruling.

Political speech under fire, from Thailand to Zimbabwe to Russia 

• American academic Paul Chambers, a Naresuan University lecturer, has lost his visa and is facing trial after the Royal Thai Army accused him of violating Thailand’s oppressive lese-majeste laws. The laws, which ban insults to the country’s monarchy, regularly result in long prison sentences for government critics.
• Hamas militants tortured a Palestinian man to death after he participated in anti-Hamas protests.
• A St. Petersburg military court sentenced 67-year-old Soviet-era dissident Alexander Skobov to 16 years in prison for participating in the Free Russia Forum and making a social media post in support of Ukraine.
• Indian comedian Kunal Kamra is experiencing a wave of retaliation after joking about state leader Eknath Shinde at a comedy club. Kamra is facing multiple criminal charges, including defamation, as well as death threats. But he isn’t backing down — his response on X included a “step-by-step guide” on “How to Kill an Artist.”
• Zimbabwe police have detained journalist Blessed Mhlanga for weeks on charges of “transmitting information that incites violence or causes damage to property.” He had interviewed a veteran and political figure who called for the resignation of President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
• Israeli military temporarily blindfolded, handcuffed, and detained filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, best known for the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,”  while he was receiving medical care after settlers attacked him during Ramadan near his home in the West Bank.
• Burkina Faso’s military junta is accused of forcibly conscripting journalists who criticized severe press freedom violations in the country.
• Nigeria’s Borno State arrested a 19-year-old for his viral social media post criticizing public schools in the region and intend to charge him with “ridiculing and bringing down the personality of” the governor.
• Lawyers representing dissenting voices aren’t free from consequences, either. An Iranian court sentenced a dozen lawyers who provided legal services to clients from the country’s 2022 protest movement to three years in prison on “propaganda” charges. 

Turkey targets journalists amid protests

Last month, Turkish police banned protests in Istanbul and arrested the city’s Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a popular rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The crackdown has extended to the press, too. Authorities arrested BBC correspondent Mark Lowen and deported him for “being a threat to public order,” arrested AFP photographer Yasin Akgül for “taking part in an illegal gathering,” and charged Swedish journalist Kaj Joakim Medin for allegedly “being a member of a terrorist organization” and “insulting” Erdogan. 

The latest in tech and censorship:

• Late last month, a massive earthquake struck Myanmar, causing thousands of deaths and injuries. But the country’s military junta nevertheless continued severe restrictions on reporting and internet access, hampering recovery efforts.
• The Kenyan high court in Nairobi ruled that a lawsuit alleging Meta’s content moderation practices fueled violence in Ethiopia can go forward.
• Meta says it’s facing “substantial” fines because it “pushed back on requests from the Turkish government to restrict content that is clearly in the public interest” in the aftermath of Mayor Imamoglu’s arrest.
• Turkish authorities also demanded the social media platform X block hundreds of accounts within the country, to which X partially complied but has since challenged some of the orders “to defend the expression of our users.”
• X is also challenging the use of a provision of India’s Information Technology Act to issue content takedown orders.
• India’s Supreme Court, in response to Wikimedia Foundation’s appeal against an order from the Delhi High Court, pushed back against that court’s demand that Wikipedia take down a page detailing Asian News International’s lawsuit against the Foundation.
• The Investigatory Powers Tribunal issued a ruling opposing the UK government’s attempt to keep secret Apple’s appeal against orders that it offer a backdoor in its encrypted cloud service for users around the world.
• European Union authorities are reportedly planning to announce penalties including “a fine and demands for product changes” against X for alleged violations under the Digital Services Act.

Pakistan’s blasphemers still under attack

Late last month, a Pakistan court sentenced five men to death for posting “blasphemous” content online, a common charge and penalty in Pakistan. But that’s not all. A Pakistani YouTuber is also facing blasphemy charges (not his first) for naming a perfume “295” — a reference to the blasphemy law in the country’s penal code.

Let’s check back in across the pond…

Lately, it seems not a day goes by without the UK’s free speech issues hitting the headlines. This month is no different. Here’s the latest:

• As I’ve written about in recent editions of the Dispatch, the UK has been flirting with enforcement of blasphemy laws in the country. That risk has advanced with the charge of “intent to cause against the religious institution of Islam, harassment, alarm or distress” filed against a man who burned a Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London. The alleged target in the case — the “religious institution of Islam” — is notable.
• On the other hand, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority chose not to act on hundreds of complaints filed over an allegedly anti-Christian KFC ad that “depicts a man being baptised in a lake of gravy before transforming into a human-sized chicken nugget.”(Last year, the ASA did act against a comedy tour ad that could cause “serious offence” to Christians.)
• A lower court in Poole found anti-abortion activist Livia Tossici-Bolt guilty on two charges of breaching a public spaces protection order for standing outside an abortion clinic with a sign that read “Here to talk, if you want.” The court gave her a conditional discharge and ordered her to pay £20,000 (about $27,000) in legal costs.
• Over 30 police officers arrested six activists from Youth Demand at a Quaker meeting house in London “on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.” One member said the group was “so incensed” by the raid “that they didn’t even offer officers a cup of tea.”
• Hertfordshire police are conducting a “rapid and thorough review” after the arrest and 11-hour detainment of  a couple on various charges, including harassment and malicious communications because they voiced complaints about their daughter’s school on WhatsApp.
• The aforementioned arrests are just a drop in the pond — data obtained by The Times found that UK police are detaining around 12,000 people annually for “sending messages that cause ‘annoyance’, ‘inconvenience’ or ‘anxiety’ to others via the internet, telephone or mail.”

China’s critics targeted in Hong Kong — and Canada 

Milan digital gallery Art Innovation is facing criticism for its response to an artist it featured in a short video broadcast on billboards during a recent art fair in Hong Kong. In it, artist, CCP critic, and frequent target of censorship Badiucao mouthed the words, “You must take part in revolution,” a Mao Zedong quote and the title of his new graphic novel. 

When he announced that he planned to publish a statement about his effort to skirt Hong Kong’s censorship laws, Art Innovation warned him there would “definitely” be legal action if material “against the Chinese government is published.” And in a social media post, the gallery said Badiucao was not upfront about the “nature of the work” so they “can consider it a crime.”

And that’s not all the news out of Hong Kong. In recent weeks, a 57-year-old man was sentenced to a year in prison for “seditious” social media posts including some calling the Chinese government a “terrorist state” and an “evil axis power.” Police also took in for questioning the parents of U.S.-based democracy activist Frances Hui, who is wanted in Hong Kong on national security charges.

Hong Kong’s campaign to target its activists is causing a stir elsewhere, too — in Canadian elections. Canadian member of parliament and Liberal Party candidate Paul Chiang stepped down from the April 28 election days after a video of comments he made earlier this year surfaced. In it, Chiang encouraged people to bring Conservative party candidate Joe Tay, who is wanted by Hong Kong authorities, to Toronto’s Chinese consulate to collect a bounty for him.

P.S. If you enjoyed this newsletter, you may be interested in my book, “Authoritarians in the Academy: How the Internationalization of Higher Education and Borderless Censorship Threaten Free Speech.” It comes out Aug. 19 and is now available for pre-order!