Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field.

CGFoE’s Editor Anastasiia Vorozhtsova recently visited The Other Russia, an exhibition organized by Memorial, Russia’s oldest and most prominent human rights organization, now exiled. Narrating 35 years of Memorial’s work, the exhibition chronicles a sustained effort to preserve historical truth and resist autocracy.

“[The Russian authorities] today are scaring people into silence,” Elena Zhemkova, Managing Director of Zukunft [Future] Memorial, told Anastasiia. “And one of the features of this intimidation campaign is its lack of logic: repression has no boundaries.”

Founded in the 1980s to document Soviet-era human rights violations, Memorial later began exposing Russia’s present-day ones. In 2021, the Supreme Court ordered Memorial’s liquidation: formally, for its failure to comply with the “foreign agent” laws; but in court, the prosecutor argued that Memorial created a false image of the Soviet Union as “a terrorist state.”

In her blog, Russia’s Memorial in Exile: Giving People the Opportunity to be Brave, Anastasiia reflects on the current state of the right to historical truth in Russia. “These days, remembering the Soviet past means seeing contemporary Russia with clarity,” she writes. “Soviet-era repression—its scale, its arbitrariness, its lack of logic—forced people to live in dread. Remembering the names and fates of its victims became, then and now, another kind of act: that of resistance.”

Read the full article on our website.

A prisoner’s letter, censored, Suzdal, 1924. Source: Memorial’s exhibition The Other Russia in Hamburg, Germany, January 2026.

Drawing of a prisoner’s barracks by Ivan Sukhanov, Kemerovo, 1935/36. Drawing of the GULAG was possible only in secret. Many pictures were destroyed during searches. Sukhanov’s drawings are among the very few that survived. Source: Memorial’s exhibition The Other Russia in Hamburg, Germany, January 2026.

Court of Justice of the European Union
Amazon EU Sàrl v. European Commission
Decision Date: November 19, 2025
The General Court of the Court of Justice of the European Union dismissed an action by Amazon EU Sàrl and upheld the European Commission’s decision designating the Amazon Store as a “very large online platform” under the Digital Services Act (DSA). The case arose from Amazon’s challenge that the DSA’s designation criteria and subsequent obligations violated its fundamental rights under the EU Charter. The Court found that while the DSA’s obligations interfered with Amazon’s freedom to conduct a business, this interference was justified, proportionate, and necessary to mitigate systemic risks posed by platforms with vast reach. It further held that the obligations did not infringe the rights to property, equal treatment, freedom of expression, or private life, as they were prescribed by law, respected the essence of those rights, and served the overriding public interest of consumer protection and a safe online environment.

United Kingdom
Rex v. Hamit Coskun
Decision Date: October 10, 2025
The Southwark Crown Court (England and Wales) overturned the conviction of a man who burnt a copy of the Koran outside the Turkish Consulate in London. The Court reaffirmed key principles of English law that there is no offence of blasphemy in England and Wales, and that that freedom of expression includes the right to express views that “offend, shock or disturb.” The Court held that his conduct was neither “disorderly” nor “likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress” under section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. The Court further determined that the man’s conduct fell within the scope of political speech, noting that he acted alone outside an embassy, an established venue for protests, protested for only a few minutes, and was empty-handed, all of which made it unlikely to cause harassment or distress to others.

Türkiye
Yaman Akdeniz Application (3)
Decision Date: July 2, 2025
The Constitutional Court of Türkiye held that the state’s refusal to provide an academic with requested statistical information, despite a final court order, violated his freedom of expression under Article 26 of the Constitution. An academic and civil society actor had sought data on the number of prosecutions and investigations authorized under specific articles of the Turkish Penal Code. The Court reasoned that the administration possessed the data, the necessary infrastructure, and a statutory duty to provide it, and its refusal to comply with a binding judicial decision served no legitimate aim. It held that denying access to such information, which was crucial for public oversight and academic work, did not meet a pressing social need in a democratic society. The Court consequently ordered the disclosure of the information and awarded compensation to the applicant.

CGFoE thanks Dr. Yaman Akdeniz of the Freedom of Expression Association (IFÖD) for alerting the Team about the ruling. In case you missed it: Dr. Akdeniz recently spoke to CGFoE about the dire state of freedom of expression in Türkiye and his continuous efforts to counter censorship. Read the interview here.

At CGFoE, we are always seeking new judicial decisions to include in our database. If you are aware of a case that would be a strong fit and have access to the relevant legal documents, we invite you to get in touch with us at globalfreespeech@columbia.edu. The CGFoE Team will review all submissions.

● Türkiye: Social Media Platforms Turn to Censorship to Protect Commercial Interests. Citing Bianet, IFEX spotlights a new report, Digital Obedience Regime: Social Network Providers and the Illusion of Transparency in Türkiye, by The Freedom of Expression Association—İFÖD. The report’s authors, CGFoE expert Dr. Yaman Akdeniz and researcher Ozan Güven argue that, following amendments to the Internet Law No. 5651 in 2020 and 2022, the major social networks—Facebook, X, TikTok, YouTube, and LinkedIn, among others—have put their commercial interests ahead of users’ freedom of expression and right to access information by complying with the censorship demands of the Turkish authorities.

● Georgia: Evidence of Abuse of Process in Trial of Renowned Journalist. TrialWatch released its assessment of the trial and conviction of Georgian journalist Mzia Amaglobeli, highlighting violations of her right to a fair trial. As the Georgian people continue to protest the ruling pro-Russian Georgian Dream party, Amaglobeli, co-founder of Batumelebi and Netgazeti and 2025’s recipient of the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, was prosecuted for an altercation with a policeman and sentenced to two years in prison last August. TrialWatch emphasizes that the evidence of abuse of process exposes an intent to target a leading independent journalist and intimidate Georgia’s other dissenting voices.

● United States: ​​Ringing the Alarm Bells—Rising Authoritarian Practices and Erosion of Human Rights. Marking one year into President Donald Trump’s second term, Amnesty International sounds “twelve alarm bells,” grouping the administration’s multiple human rights violations into twelve authoritarian practices. The first five concern freedom of the press and access to information, freedom of expression and assembly, civil society and universities, political opponents and critics, judges, lawyers, and the legal system. Amnesty emphasizes the mutually reinforcing nature of these violations: the targeting of the press leads to fewer human rights abuses exposed, and the suppression of protests forces people into self-censorship.

● Burundi: Sandra Muhoza Is the Only Woman Journalist Arbitrarily Detained in Sub-Saharan Africa. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the four-year prison sentence that the Ngozi High Court in northern Burundi handed down to ​​journalist Sandra Muhoza last week. The procedure, mired in irregularities, was based on charges of “undermining the integrity of the national territory” and “racial aversion.” “This very harsh sentence imposed on a journalist who did nothing more than share a message in a WhatsApp group for news professionals shows the real intention of the judicial authorities: to continue treating journalism as a crime,” said Sadibou Marong of RSF, which referred the case to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights last year.

This Week in Protests

In Iran, the state has responded to nationwide protests with lethal force. As the internet shutdown remains in place, the Human Rights Activists News Agency cites 4,902 confirmed deaths, while 9,387 are still under review; at least 7,389 people have been severely injured; the total number of arrests has reached 26,541. In Uganda, the Monitor’s spotlight last week, President Yoweri Museveni, 81, was declared the winner of a seventh term as a result of the January 15 election; a crackdown on the civic space escalated; opposition leader Bobi Wine called for peaceful protests.

Minneapolis: January 7—ongoing

In Minneapolis, Minnesota, protests against President Trump’s anti-immigration policies intensified in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of Renée Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent on January 7. The demonstrations, part of the city’s grassroots mobilization against ICE operations, have been met with force.

Demands: With roughly 2,000 federal agents deployed to Minneapolis (and 1,500 active-duty soldiers on standby in Alaska), the protesters have been calling for an end to aggressive immigration enforcement operations and demanding accountability for the death of Renée Good.

State response: In their clashes with protesters, federal agents have used tear gas and pepper spray, among other excessive force tactics.

Significance: The protests have drawn national attention and legal action. Last Friday, a federal judge in Minnesota granted a preliminary injunction, restricting federal agents’ measures during protests. In an 83-page ruling, Judge Kate M. Menendez barred retaliation against people “engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity” and the use of pepper spray or other “crowd dispersal tools” in response to protected speech. On January 21, in a win for the Trump administration, the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily lifted those restrictions.

FoE Violations: Having reviewed dozens of witness statements and video evidence, Judge Kate M. Menendez found that “the record adequately illustrates that the defendants have made, and will continue to make, a common practice of conduct that chills observers’ and protesters’ First Amendment rights.”

● Journalism, Media, and Technology Trends and Predictions 2026, by Nic Newman. In a recent report, the Reuters Institute foresees an abundance of existential challenges the media will be confronting over the next year, with Generative AI and personality-led news emerging as the most formidable ones.

● Breaking Points—Digital Attacks on Human Rights Defenders in the Majority World. Documenting various forms of digital attacks on human rights defenders globally, Digital Democracy Initiative underscores an alarming trend: “online aggression is increasingly resulting in life-altering, offline consequences.”

This newsletter is reproduced with the permission of Global Freedom of Expression.  For an archive of previous newsletters, see here.