{"id":2205,"date":"2014-07-19T13:48:56","date_gmt":"2014-07-19T13:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=2205"},"modified":"2014-07-19T13:48:56","modified_gmt":"2014-07-19T13:48:56","slug":"jodie-ginsberg-the-new-dissidents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/jodie-ginsberg-the-new-dissidents","title":{"rendered":"Jodie Ginsberg: The new dissidents"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"headshots-afterthewall\"<\/a>Index CEO reflects on the changes wrought by the fall of the Berlin Wall as part of #AftertheWall<\/span><\/p>\n

By Jodie Ginsberg \/ 11 July, 2014
\nAfter the Wall panelists.
\nMartin Roth, Kate Maltby, Sebastion Borger, David Edgar, Tomasz Kitlinski and Timothy Garton Ash.<\/p>\n

In 1977, the Russian dissident Alexander Ginzburg \u2014 whose detention and sentencing almost a decade earlier helped to spur the creation of Index on Censorship \u2014 was again arrested by the Soviet authorities. For 17 months, a team of KGB officers interrogated the poetry publisher, threatening to arrest friends and colleagues unless he co-operated, attempting to scare him with the prospect of the death penalty and denying him medical treatment.<\/p>\n

In the midst of this, Ginzburg recalled: At least I knew they would not kill me before the trial. \u201cThis is because I was a defended person, someone whom the West knew about and was likely to make a fuss about. Without this form of defence, political prisoners just die\u201d.\u0094<\/p>\n

I was reminded of Ginzburg\u2019s comments last night as we discussed freedom in Europe 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. A question was posed: Are we more free than we were in 1989? In a surprisingly tightly contested vote, the majority edged it with the decision that we were freer.<\/p>\n

Kate Maltby, one of our panellists, pointed out that her Hungarian family could now travel freely to meet loved ones outside the country, something they could not do before the wall fell. Others on the panel, which included historian Timothy Garton Ash and playwright David Edgar, pointed to political plurality and greater protections for free expression. Martin Roth, director of the V&A museum, recalled the East Germany\u2019s transition to capitalism in Dresden, with graffiti reading \u201cElect money\u201d. But a warning note was also sounded that reminded the audience that hard won freedoms need to be protected. Tomasz Kitli\u0144ski, Polish political philosopher and civic activist, put it best when he described the new dissidents: artists and writers who continue to face threats from the authorities. He pointed to cases like that of Dorota Nieznalska, who was convicted of blasphemy, fined and prevented by a judge from leaving the country for displaying a piece of art that included an image of a penis on a cross. The exhibition of which her installation formed part was closed down by authorities.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For detail please visit here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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