indexoncensorship

This article first appeared in the Spring 2026 issue of Index on Censorship, The monster unleashed: How Hungary’s illiberal vision is seducing the Western world published on 2 April...

Could it be harder to commemorate the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre yesterday – on its 37th anniversary – than last year when it was already incredibly hard? Apparently yes, and this applies to people outside China too.

In Beijing itself, members of the Tiananmen Mothers group have reportedly been barred from visiting a cemetery where their children are buri...

Every year, as 4 June approaches, an old ritual unfolds in China.

Censors spring into action. Social media posts disappear. Searches for “Tiananmen”, “June Fourth”, “1989”, and even more cryptic references are scrubbed from the internet. Activists are placed under surveillance, or sent on forced holidays. Foreign journalists gather in Hong Kong, Taipei, London...

Israel has established a police body that reviews and analyses work by foreign journalists and these dossiers are used as the basis for denying entry into the country. The practice has been uncovered after the release of police documents following a court appeal by Italian freelance photojournalist Alessandro Stefanelli against being banned from entering Israel last year to c...

It will be no revelation when I say Belarus prisons are bleak. The conditions are dirty, the routines mind-numbing and the guards brutal. But perhaps this detail will surprise you: in the middle of some prisons are books. Beautiful, transportive books. Even politically risqué books. “This atmosphere was complemented by an unexpectedly rich library, where prisoners could even ...