The Macedonian authorities use very heavy-handed methods to crush criticism and investigations into political corruption. Free expression is under increasing threat. More than half of Macedonia's citizens are scared to openly express their opinions. Journalists are pushed into self-censorship fearing that telephones and emails are monitored.
The case known as `Likvidacija', Macedonian for `Annihilation' gives a breathtaking example of power abuse as on May 2013 the investigating journalist Tomislav Kezharovski (1965) is arrested by special forces and sued for an article he wrote in 2008. Despite the absence of any evidence that he violated any law, Kezharovski was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. After spending five months in jail, in cramped and unsanitary conditions, and without access to medical treatment, he was released into house arrest pending the outcome of his appeal. As in January 2015 his sentence was reduced to two years, he was arrested again to serve the remaining five months. Widespread domestic and international protests, by hundreds of journalists and activists led to Kezharovski's release. This essay describes from experience about the lawlessness of the system and the unimaginable prison conditions in present Macedonia.
A publication of the Eva Tas Foundation.
The Eva Tas Foundation encourages publication and promotion of texts that are, no matter where and no matter how, subject to censorship.
In the holiday paradise Vietnam, social media are allowed only to provide and exchange personal information. Bloggers and cyberdissidents who dare to question the government's legitimacy or domestic policies are ruthlessly suppressed.
Political blogger Bui Thanh Hieu (1972) nevertheless uses the Internet to criticize politically hot topics, such as Vietnam's territorial claims within China as well as its handling of land disputes with the Catholic Church. In response to this, Hieu was arrested, his computers confiscated. The license for his Internet café in Hanoi was revoked. Hieu persisted however: his blog was being read by up to 15,000 visitors per day. Because of his commitment, he was arrested and detained on numerous occasions. At the invitation of the city of Weimar, Germany, he was finally able to leave the country. There he finished Speaking in Silence. In this short story he laments, with humour and irony, the behaviour of civil servants of the special judicial, administrative and technological strike force, who control online information.
A publication of the Eva Tas Foundation.
The Eva Tas Foundation encourages publication and promotion of texts that are, no matter where and no matter how, subject to censorship.
Freedom of expression in Honduras has been kidnapped. Those who are afraid of the truth attempt to imprison it in the depths of the earth. Kidnapped seeks to expose the problems for freedom of expression in journalism and literature in Honduras, the forms of censorship that have been introduced to conceal the truth, but also the creativity of Hondurans who refuse to be defeated in the face of this oppressive system.
Kidnapped describes how the Honduran state, responsible for protecting this right, essential for democracy, has both in the past and present placed obstacles in the paths of those who decide to defy censorship, with harmful and even fatal consequences.
The Honduran journalist and human rights defender Dina Meza (1963) is active on the field of freedom of writing in different ways. She is currently President of PEN Honduras, part of PEN International, and director of the pasosdeanimalgrande.com digital newspaper which covers freedom of expression issues and the general human rights
situation in Honduras. Dina Meza received Amnesty International UK's Journalism
Under Threat Award in 2007 and the PEN International/Oxfam Novib Freedom of Expression award in 2014. Also in 2014, she was one of Reporters without Borders' 100 Information Heroes and a nominee for the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards.
A publication of the Eva Tas Foundation.
The Eva Tas Foundation encourages publication and promotion of texts that are, no matter where and no matter how, subject to censorship.
