HISTORICAL FACTS: 12 - The Untold Story

Jailed Iran Activist Escalates Hunger Strike, His Brother Says

A jailed Iranian freedom of speech campaigner who is on a hunger strike and "in critical condition" will start refusing water after being denied medical leave, his brother said Saturday. Hossein Ronaghi, 37, was arrested days after speaking out against a bloody crackdown on protests that erupted across Iran in…

Asharq Al-Awsat · Nov 13, 2022

India urged to improve its human rights record at the UN

UN member states ask India to protect minority rights and freedom of speech, but New Delhi defends its rights record.

Al Jazeera · Nov 11, 2022

US sanctions Iranian foundation that funded bounty on Salman Rushdie

‘The United States condemns such incitement and the attack on Rushdie in the strongest terms as a blatant assault on freedom of speech and an act of terrorism’

The Independent UK · Oct 28, 2022

Iran Steps Up Activist, Journalist Arrests in Protest Crackdown

Iran is stepping up arrests of activists and journalists in a crackdown against civil society as anti-regime protests rage nationwide, activists say. Twenty journalists have been imprisoned since the protests erupted earlier this month over the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, who had been arrested by the country's notorious morality…

Asharq Al-Awsat · Sep 27, 2022

Tunisian journalists denounce president's law on prison terms for false information

Tunisia's president on Friday decreed a law imposing prison terms for spreading false information or rumours online, a move immediately denounced by the main journalists' union as an assault on freedom of speech.

Reuters · Sep 16, 2022

Mass firing at UAE newspaper raises censorship concerns

The closure of Al Roeya reflects the limits set on freedom of speech and local media in the UAE.

Al Jazeera · Sep 13, 2022

Supreme Court to revisit LGBTQ rights – this time with a wedding website designer, not a baker

A simmering, difficult, and timely question returns to the Supreme Court this fall: What happens when freedom of speech and civil rights collide?

The Conversation · Sep 9, 2022

Gorbachev and glasnost: how his fragile legacy of free speech has been destroyed by Putin

Mikhail Gorbachev was only Soviet leader for a little over six years, from 1985 to 1991, but they were six years that changed both his country and the world. His policies of perestroika (reconstruction) and glasnost (openness) gave ordinary citizens the opportunity to exercise real political freedoms, including freedom of…

The Conversation · Sep 1, 2022

'Caméra Libre': a French plan to foster freedom of speech for muzzled filmmakers

France is to help filmmakers from countries where freedom of speech is under threat with a new residency programme that will support a dozen directors each year.

Radio France Internationale · Aug 30, 2022

Corruption in South Africa: new book sets out how ruling ANC lost the battle

One of the greatest benefits of South Africa’s democracy is freedom of speech and publication. Mpumelelo Mkhabela’s book, The Enemy Within, is the latest in a cascade of publications over the last decade that record corruption and theft by leading politicians in the country’s ruling party.

The Conversation · Aug 30, 2022