The Fund for Free Expression is the only one of the six divisions of Human Rights Watch focused not on a region but on a theme--freedom of expression around the world and in the United States. In 1991, the Fund expanded its program to:

-- emphasize the relationship between censorship and global social problems.

-- investigate and analyze restrictions on freedom of expression in the United States.

-- work with the regional divisions of Human Rights Watch and other organizations on freedom of expression issues around the world.

-- campaign against human rights abuses involving the academic community.

The Fund also administered a second round of grants, made possible by a legacy from writers Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett, to writers around the world who have been victimized by political persecution.

Censorship and Global Problems

The Fund emphasizes the connection between freedom of expression and global social problems such as AIDS, famine and environmental degradation to establish that censorship and information policies are important elements in the debate about these issues. The first such global study, Off Limits: Censorship and Corruption, was published in July. It documents the extent to which a taboo topic for the press in many countries is the wealth accumulated by heads of state--and their families and associates--during their terms in office. Corrupt regimes resort to censorship about their own self- enrichment because they realize that their very maintenance in office is at stake: widespread anger over revelations of corruption played a major role in the downfall of the regime of Erich Honecker in East Germany and the Tiananmen Square uprising in China. The report examines the means by which information is kept from public scrutiny through case studies of six countries around the world, including the bribery of government critics in Zaire, a climate of self-censorship in Paraguay, and expulsions of foreign correspondents in Indonesia.

In the first half of 1992, the Fund will publish two other thematic reports. One concerns the censorship of minority languages around the world--including the movement to establish English as the official language of the United States. The other, undertaken in cooperation with the Natural Resources Defense Council, will be a series of case studies on the persecution and harassment of individuals and organizations working to protect the environment in a number of countries.

Freedom of Expression and the Gulf War

The Fund played an important role in documenting, analyzing and challenging restrictions on freedom of expression imposed in connection with the war in the Persian Gulf. The U.S. Defense Department imposed severe curbs on the right of the news media to cover military operations. Reporters were required to travel in "pools" accompanied by military escorts, and to submit all dispatches for advance review by a military censor. In apparent deference to Saudi Arabia, the staging ground for allied operations, the Pentagon censored publications sent to U.S. troops in the Gulf, limited what they could say or write about a variety of topics, and impeded their freedom to engage in Jewish and Christian worship.

On January 10, the Fund, joined by six other U.S. anti- censorship organizations, wrote to Defense Secretary Richard Cheney to express opposition to the new rules, arguing that no case had been made for the imposition of more onerous restrictions than were in place during the entire Vietnam War, when reporters could travel freely on their own and file reports without submitting them to military censors. The letter asserted that "it is precisely in times of national crisis such as war that the freedom of the press and the public's right to know, on which our constitutional system of self-government depends, becomes most vital." The Fund also participated as amicus curiae in the lawsuit The Nation Magazine v. U.S. Department of Defense, a challenge to the constitutionality of these rules.

Shortly before the onset of the war, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began to interview Arab-American individuals and organizational officials, ostensibly to gather information about possible terrorist activity in the United States. These interviews were widely criticized by Arab-American groups and civil rights and liberties organizations, including the Fund, which in a January 15 letter to Attorney General Richard Thornburgh argued that "such an approach presumes the disloyalty of millions of Arab-Americans and persons of Arab origin lawfully residing in the United States, and has a chilling effect on their rights to take part in the public debate over the appropriateness of U.S. actions in the Persian Gulf."

On January 28, less than two weeks after the start of the war, the Fund issued a newsletter, "Freedom of Expression and the War," which analyzed the Pentagon's press restrictions and policies affecting speech and expression by military personnel, and the FBI's questioning of Arab-Americans. On February 27, the Fund issued a supplement, "Managed News, Stifled Views." Among the abuses documented by the Fund newsletters were the detention at gunpoint of reporters who attempted to leave the official press pools and excessive delays in approving material submitted for prior security reviews or excision of material that was embarrassing to the military.

The Fund also criticized other governments for managing the news to maintain or manufacture consensus for their role in the war. Iraq imposed government escorts on foreign correspondents, and censors monitored and screened their reports before transmission. No foreign journalist was permitted to visit Kuwait from the August 2 invasion until after the cease-fire. Saudi Arabia banned or censored all foreign publications, with particular attention to articles that mentioned civilian bombing casualties or were deemed to favor the Palestine Liberation Organization. Egypt, Morocco and Turkey--the other principal U.S. allies in the region which backed the coalition's war effort in the face of substantial popular opposition--moved to disguise the extent of their role and to quash dissent.

Turkish state television, for example, used much of CNN's material on the war, but when the coverage turned to such matters as U.S. strikes at Iraq from Turkish bases or the shortage of gas masks in Turkey, programming was interrupted for a "commercial break" or footage of a scenic waterfall. Raids from Turkish air bases were never mentioned in any official statement or on state television or radio.

The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights reported that as many as two hundred political activists and students were detained in Egypt. Israel closed press offices in its occupied territories and arrested the Palestinian writer and peace activist Sari Nusseibeh on "spying" charges which were widely believed to be spurious. Fearing mass protests, King Hassan of Morocco ordered sports events canceled and schools closed, and threatened agitators with trials by military tribunals. The newest U.S. ally, Syria, detained eighty writers and intellectuals for expressing support for Iraq.

In Great Britain, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) blocked a documentary on the export to Iraq of British-built superguns, on the grounds that the "tone is wrong." France banned the distribution, publication or sale of three publications deemed pro-Iraq, on the grounds that they "defend interests that are contrary to France's interests" concerning the war, and expelled one of the editors. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation faced a government inquiry following complaints from Prime Minister Bob Hawke about its war coverage.

Virtually every country with a significant Muslim population, whether or not it was a party to the Gulf War, cracked down on dissent. Anti-war demonstrations were banned in Djibouti and Sri Lanka, and peaceful protesters were met with police violence in Nigeria and Pakistan. Tunisia and Algeria went one step further and expelled foreign reporters who had arrived to cover anti-war protests.

U.S. Free Expression Issues

As a U.S.-based free speech group which is a component of an international human rights organization, the Fund attempts to bring a worldwide perspective to bear on American civil liberties issues. For example, a newsletter issued in June, "Secret Trials in America?," compared the Bush Administration's proposal for secret courts to try suspected alien "terrorists" with similar provisions in other countries criticized by the State Department in its annual human rights report.

The Fund also issued several other reports on U.S. free expression issues:

-- In September, "SLAPPing Down Critics" documented the use of harassment libel suits and tort actions to intimidate community and public interest organizations.

-- In October, "The Supreme Court and Free Speech" analyzed the erosion of free speech protection in two important decisions of the Court's 1990-91 term: Barnes v. Glen Theatre, in which the Court cited public order and morality concerns to justify a state's ban on expressive activity (in this case, nude dancing); and Rust v. Sullivan, in which the Court upheld a federal regulation barring government-funded family-planning clinics from mentioning the availability of abortion as an option.

-- In December, "Muzzling Student Journalists" documented the rise in censorship of the student press since the Supreme Court's 1988 decision in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, which permitted school administrations to restrict student speech on the basis of "legitimate pedagogical concerns."

The Fund participated in a coalition of groups working to overturn the "gag rule" on abortion advice in federally funded family planning clinics. In May, continuing its long-standing concern with protecting "free trade in ideas," the Fund joined Helsinki Watch in writing to Congress on behalf of legislation to remove from the Immigration and Naturalization Service's "lookout list" persons who were listed solely because of their political beliefs.

Joint Projects with Regional Divisions of Human Rights Watch and Other Groups

The Fund expanded its work with the regional divisions of Human Rights Watch on certain reports and projects relating to freedom of expression. In October, the Fund joined Helsinki Watch in releasing Restricted Subjects: Freedom of Expression in the United Kingdom. In November, the Fund joined Africa Watch and the PEN American Center in sponsoring a panel discussion, "Challenging the Politics of Despair: Writers and Human Rights in Africa." The Fund and Africa Watch are preparing, for publication in 1992, a major report documenting limits on literary freedom in Africa. Also in November, with the International Freedom to Publish Committee of the Association of American Publishers, the Fund issued a newsletter, "The Threat Against Salman Rushdie: 1,000 Days Later." With Americas Watch, the Fund is preparing a report documenting limits on freedom of expression in Miami's Cuban exile community.

Committee for International Academic Freedom

The Fund organized and launched a new committee of Human Rights Watch, the Committee for International Academic Freedom, to protest human rights abuses involving academics. In contrast to writers, journalists, scientists, physicians and other professional disciplines, teachers and scholars lack a group to focus on their human rights problems. Yet, educators are heavily represented among the world's political detainees, and universities are at special risk from most repressive regimes. The Committee for International Academic Freedom will send letters and cables of concern to governments on behalf of imprisoned or harassed academics, and oppose censorship and the closing of universities for political reasons. Four university presidents--Jonathan Fanton of the New School for Social Research, Vartan Gregorian of Brown University, Hanna Holborn Gray of the University of Chicago, and Charles Young of the University of California at Los Angeles--took the lead in forming this new group. In addition to providing support for endangered scholars in other countries, the committee will keep the U.S. academic community informed about human rights abuses against their peers, and encourage academics to take a greater role in defending the rights of their colleagues worldwide. Among the subjects of the committee's first protests were police attacks on peaceful student demonstrators in Zimbabwe, the firing of four academics and the detention of two student leaders in Tanzania, and the extrajudicial execution of two architecture students in Guatemala.

Hellman/Hammett Grants to Persecuted Writers

The Fund also administers grants to writers in financial need as a result of political persecution, under the terms of legacies from the writers Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett. In 1991, the second year of this program, twenty-one grants generally of $10,000 each--were made. Among the recipients were Alaa Hamed, an Egyptian novelist facing blasphemy charges; Petre Mihai Bacanu, a Romanian editor sentenced to prison by the regime of Nicolae Ceaucescu and harassed under the new government; Byron Barrera Ortiz, a Guatemalan journalist forced to flee the country after a death squad wounded him and killed his wife; and Zargana, a Burmese satirist serving a five-year prison term for his political commentary. Grants were also made to writers from Argentina, China (3), Iran, Liberia, Malawi, Peru, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Togo, Turkey (2), the United States (3) and Vietnam. In addition to these annual grants, for which nominations are solicited in the fall and decisions announced early in the following year, smaller amounts are available from a special emergency fund.