This section is to keep you in touch with what's new at Free Word, what issues people are concerned with, what national and international events we are addressing - with podcasts and articles.
Smartphone message monitoring may be necessary for governments, but it should not turn to mere snooping, says Salil Tripathi.
After China, India. The battle between state power and corporate power has taken a new turn in India, and at stake is the false mutual exclusivity between freedom of expression and freedom from fear.
The Indian Government has [...]
Today Tony Blair’s much anticipated autobiography hit the book shelves today. High sales have been reported but more importantly so have juicy revelations about his time as Prime Minister, his opinion of his successor and his personal drinking habits at Number 10.
Though a copy of the volume, titled ‘A Journey’, has made it to Free [...]
Prohibitions on reporting on green movement leaders are just the latest restrictions imposed by the Islamic Republic. Negar Esfandiary reports
In the latest move on press censorship Iran has ruled that “Leaders of Sedition” is the only admissable name when referring to any member of the opposition movement in newspapers and magazines.
In a letter addressed to [...]
English PEN is pleased to report the release of another Cuban writer imprisoned since 2003. Poet and activist Régis Iglesias Ramírez as freed on 17 August 2010 and arrived in Madrid the next day. Iglesias’ release, along with that of journalist José Ubaldo Izquierdo Hernández in late July, means that a total of 12 writers [...]
Read More »On BBC Radio 4’s Today program this morning there was a report on the decline of local libraries: their user numbers have recently fallen by 30%. In response the Reading Agency have released this statement talking about how libraries are changing with the times and becoming more efficient:
Responding to cuts
There’s no point pretending libraries will [...]
On 24 and 25 August, the first international conference on transparency, free flow of information and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), takes place in London. An international gathering of 70 development and transparency experts from the free expression, human rights and development communities, as well as government and inter-governmental organisation representatives, are attending.
The two-day [...]
ARTICLE 19 is deeply concerned by the Azerbaijani Supreme Court’s decision to uphold rulings in the case of bloggers Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade. ARTICLE 19 believes that Milli and Hajizade, who are imprisoned on charges of hooliganism, were targeted for expressing opinions critical of the Azerbaijani authorities. ARTICLE 19 calls on the Azerbaijani government [...]
Read More »Booktrust is delighted to announce the launch of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2011. The Prize honours the best work of fiction by a living author, which has been translated into English from any other language and published in the United Kingdom during 2010. Uniquely, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize gives the winning author and [...]
Read More »Following rigorous campaigning by ARTICLE 19, two Special Mandates on freedom of expression are currently in Mexico on a joint official visit. Catalina Botero, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression for the Inter American Commission of Human Rights, and Frank la Rue, the UN’s Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression, are the [...]
Read More »The recent death of two environmental journalists, Ardiansyah Matra’is in Papua and Muhammad Syaifullah in Kalimantan, and the series of threats received by at least four local journalists in the run-up to local elections in Papua, underlines the intense pressure faced by journalists when covering environmental degradation and local politics in Indonesia. ARTICLE 19 is [...]
Read More »
Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy 
Sign up to our free newsletter to stay in touch with Free Word via email here
