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Theme: Corona and the threats to freedom of speech in the name of the pandemic

Editorial

Who is Dancing in the Shadow of Corona?

Who is Dancing in the Shadow of Corona? Perhaps I have never been so thoroughly reminded of my privileges as I have been...

Text: Casia Bromberg June 10 2020
Article

New perspectives on free expression in Turkey during Covid-19

In Turkey during the pandemic hundreds of students have been forced to move back home to their families, entailing a risk for those who have other values than their parents or are otherwise exposed in...

Text: Zeynep Serinkaya Winter August 12 2020
Article

The new face of censorship

Self-censorship creeps up on and moves into the spines of journalists who work for free expression. When the threat is indirect – Slovenia’s journalists and writers can be published without risking...

Text: Tanja Tuma July 28 2020
Poetry

Two poems by Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir

In the poem “A bird clock” the Icelandic poet Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir speaks to us from an unknown place far away. The poem becomes a personal meditation on the interaction of the quiet moments of...

Text: Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir July 21 2020
Article

Self-reflections in 2020

“..I remember an early test report where a psychologist said: ‘Brian would rather be given a hiding than be ignored." Duuh! Wouldn’t everyone? Long before words like social distancing and self...

Text: Brian Carmichael July 13 2020
Feature

A letter from Poland

“Ever since power in Poland was taken over by Law and Justice, we are increasingly giving our support to organizations or initiatives that do not have state support, but which for many people become...

Text: Wiola Wejman June 29 2020
Article

A Pandemic of Mutual Mistrust

How does one handle an epidemic when conspiration theories are given space in national television and when politicians and doctors alike deny the existence of the virus? Liza Aleksandrova Zorina...

Text: Liza Alexandrova-Zorina June 23 2020
Poetry

Two poems by Arinda Daphine

With her politically loaded texts the performing poet and social justice lawyer Arinda Daphine calls for action. She wants to awaken her audience and contribute to change in Uganda — a country...

Text: Arinda Daphine June 16 2020
Article

The Pandemic Has Totalitarian Powers Thriving

In the wake of the pandemic, China’s oppression of its people is intensified: to warn one’s family on facebook about the magnitude of the spread of the virus may accrue a citizen high fines or cost...

Text: Ye Lin June 10 2020

Theme: China’s repression of Uyghurs

Editorial

Testimonials we must acknowledge

Imagine that you are in exile. In your home country your father has just passed away and the only way for you to say...

Text: Elnaz Baghlanian April 06 2020
Article

The Uyghur Trauma and the Threat of Collective Amnesia

“Similar to other suppressed and colonised people around the world, there is an imminent risk that the next generation of Uyghurs will suffer from collective amnesia,” writes Patrick Hällzon, doctoral...

Text: Patrick Hällzon June 01 2020
Article

A language on the brink of eradication

In China, to speak and write in Uyghur is acutely dangerous. In 2017 in China Uyghur was forbidden as a language of tuition in secondary schools and Uyghur textbooks have been replaced by Chinese...

Text: Zulhayat Otkur May 26 2020
Article

My fate wasn’t in my own hands

The activist Halmurat Uyghur, who among other things initiated the movement #MeTooUyghur, began his political engagements as a direct reaction to his parents’ internment in a re-education camp in...

Text: Halmurat Uyghur May 19 2020
Poetry

Two poems by Tahir Hamut

Tahir Hamut is considered one of the foremost modernist poets in the Uyghur language today. For three years in the 1990s, he was jailed in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region after being falsely accused...

Text: Tahir Hamut May 15 2020
Article

Life and death under China’s control

Alongside advanced AI technology, China has engaged millions of Han Chinese cadres as human spies with the task of living in with Uyghur families to monitor and thereby control people’s thoughts and...

Text: Rukyie Turdush May 11 2020
Poetry

Two poems by Erkan Kadir

“There’s no land for us,” writes the poet Erkan Kadir in his poem “Poverty” about the tragic destiny of the Uyghur in China. In 2016 he left the Xinjiang Province in China for studies in Turkey, but...

Author: Erkan Kadir May 08 2020
Article

Cultural genocide is the new genocide

The Chinese government is undertaking a broad assault on the culture and heritage of the Uighurs, Kazakhs and other indigenous peoples in Xinjiang, China, including disappearing their poets, artists...

Text: Magnus Fiskesjö May 05 2020
Poetry

To my friends from Chile

In 2003 the writer and poet Abdushukur Muhammet fled the oppression in the Xinjiang Province in China. Today he lives with his family in Sweden. His three published works in Uyghur can no longer be...

Text: Abdushukur Muhammet April 27 2020
Fiction

An unanswered telephone call

To leave one’s home country for a safer life can entail a long-lasting inner conflict. In this story the Uyghur author Aziz Isa Elkun depicts the everyday consequences of a life in exile: phone calls...

Text: Aziz Isa Elkun April 15 2020
Article

The robots are watching us

China is the leading country in the world when it comes to facial recognition and where this technology is spreading and developing in a rapid pace. Maya Wang, China senior researcher at Human Rights...

Text: Maya Wang April 06 2020
Article

My first cellmate in Kashgar

The Uyghur writer and language scholar Abduweli Ayup is one of hundreds of people who have been imprisoned in the so-called re-education camps in the Xinjiang Province. His crime was speaking and...

Text: Abduweli Ayup April 06 2020

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