Jemimah Steinfeld
CEO @indexoncensorship.org and journalist. Chat mostly human rights, free speech, politics, climate & China.
Sometimes in Guardian, BBC, Independent, Prospect, Times, CNN etc.
Author of book on sex & youth in China.
- They don’t just cut ribbons! They’re the head of our state. It’s scandalous the way they’re treated as if above the law.
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- Of all the horrible things I’ve written about recently in the world this is the story that really broke me. Cruelty on top of cruelty on top of cruelty. www.indexoncensorship.org/2026/02/in-i...
- Reposted by Jemimah SteinfeldYesterday, five-year-old Liam and his dad Adrian were released from Dilley detention center. I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning. Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack.
- It feels wrong to focus on an arrest amid mass slaughter but that instinct itself is misleading. An arrest by that regime is still an egregious act, and outrage doesn’t need to be reserved for the worst possible outcome.
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- “Keen to learn & receptive”, “a huge Liverpool fan”, “he really loved Belarus”, “great fun!” That’s how lots of us remember our colleague Andrei who is spending his 5th year behind bars in Belarus for helping pro-democracy protesters. I want him out. Now. www.indexoncensorship.org/2026/01/bela...
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- Reposted by Jemimah SteinfeldI want to say this too: this victory was won because we had observers EVERYWHERE. ICE and CBP couldn't set foot in our city without cameras rolling. Much of the nation seemed determined to ignore our plight for weeks, but the avalanche of documentation we produced dragged the nation to us.
- “Children suffered “so much psychological stress that parents said they were hitting their own faces or wetting themselves despite being potty-trained”. Description from an ICE detention centre. And to protest this you run the risk of being killed. It’s a disgrace what’s happening in the USA.
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- Reposted by Jemimah Steinfeldin case you're curious about how angry Minnesota is about ICE, it was -20 today
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- A really good read if you want more context to what’s happening in Uganda right now. And from a beautiful writer no less
- Imagine facing a decade in jail simply for lighting candles to memorialise the dead. That’s Hong Kong justice for you www.bbc.com/news/article...
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- Reposted by Jemimah SteinfeldCrews today dismantled plaques telling the stories of enslaved people who lived in the President's House in Philadelphia following orders by President Trump and Interior Secretary Burgum to remove content at national parks that “inappropriately disparage” the US. 6abc.com/post/philade...
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- "I just want to be alive" says Uganda opposition leader Bobi Wine. This is not hyperbole. He's in hiding, men are camped out at his home and leading officials have issued constant threats. Visibility matters right now. Global attention could save his life. observer.co.uk/news/interna...
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- Oh lord. Shabana Mahmood wants a system of U.K. policing and justice where “the eyes of the state can be on you at all times”. Said every authoritarian ever. uk.news.yahoo.com/labour-want-...
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- #Iran: Doctors on the ground report at least 16,500 protesters were killed within as little as two days. That's a kill rate similar to the Rwanda genocide. That's shocking. www.thetimes.com/world/middle...
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- The most batshit path to hell paved with good intentions idea ever, tapping into the very real inherited trauma that many of us Jews feel www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
- Even if huge numbers of my relatives hadn’t died in the Holocaust this would still be a depressing headline. Of course it’s no coincidence it’s happening right now, just as we need to learn about bigotry’s darkest chapter the most www.thetimes.com/uk/education...
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- The book industry may be past its most shouty, cancelling phase (peak years 2020–2022?), but it’s still far from truly pluralistic. Fear hasn’t disappeared. That needs to change. Me in @thebookseller.com www.thebookseller.com/comment/we-d...
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- Latest I'm hearing out of Iran is morgues full of people, protesters being gunned down on the streets in huge numbers, security men roaming with machetes and a shortage of blood in hospitals to respond to all of this. It's literally a massacre, a digitally blacked-out massacre.
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- The courage of the Iranian people against such a brutal state apparatus is the most humbling thing to behold. I hope they prevail.
- The right to protest has been suspended, journalists have been arrested, people are being pulled over by armed militia who are checking their phones - the aftermath of the USA's actions in Venezuela is grim. Made all the worse by how low the bar was already. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/0...
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- The situation for rural migrant workers in China is being described by some as the “three nos”: no jobs to find, no land to cultivate, no place to go. They’re protesting, far more than the CCP would like. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...
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- "I can say what I think about Putin-that he is an aging sociopath, spreading his rot not only inside the country but across the entire world. If refusing to shove my tongue up my ass is extremism, so be it-I’ll be an extremist." 👏 Nadya T from Pussy Riot. www.indexoncensorship.org/2025/12/puti...
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- We all knew Jimmy Lai would be pronounced guilty today because we’ve seen how completely wicked Hong Kong’s justice system has become. But it still stings like hell. Lai can appeal next month. The fight for justice for this remarkable man, and indeed for freedoms more broadly, continues.
- Carmen Lau we have your back. The CCP, Hong Kong authorities and their lackeys are trying to make you feel as scared and small as possible because they're pathetic and desperate. Know this - you're not alone. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
- My quote leading on the Guardian homepage and with that chances of visiting USA in next few years plummeting even further. But I’d rather keep my soul than sacrifice my voice. Full article - www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
- This week alone the US government has - > instructed staff to deny visas to people who work on factchecking & content moderation > announced plans that tourists from 42 countries should reveal their social media activity & other details from last 5 yrs as part of entry This is INSANE
- A minimum of 60,000 killed in three weeks in Sudan & very little outrage. Have we entered a new normal where we accept such things? Compare & contrast to Darfur circa 2004. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
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- "The most ironic victim of the war on censorship so far, though, must be the Open Technology Fund, which... funded anti-censorship and anti-surveillance efforts." Brilliant piece from @jamesrball.com on the Trump administration's disingenuous free speech crusade. www.theverge.com/features/839...
- This is excellent news. When (not if) we have won the campaign to #StopSLAPPS, this should be used as a perfect case of how effective advocacy works. It can take years & have setbacks but with clear goals, team work & patience it can still succeed. An important lesson for these beleaguered times.
- Headline change request please: "Hong Kong threatens foreign media". www.reuters.com/business/med...
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- “The message was clear: Private grief was allowed; organized grief was not.” Brilliant piece on how well-oiled the repressive response was from Hong Kong authorities to the first major disaster since imposition of NSL. Learnt from Beijing after years of finessing. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/b...
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- "We only know about this because someone filmed it. Otherwise, this might well have gone down as a military operation where two people - invariably referred to as "terrorists" - were killed." Concise & to the point here. All signs point to impunity once again. news.sky.com/story/bluesk...
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- "While the OSA’s aims are commendable, the road to mass censorship is paved with good intentions." If you're looking for the most thorough explanation on why end-to-end encryption matters & why the OSA could destroy it read on. Privacy = basic human right www.indexoncensorship.org/2025/11/new-...
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- "Poets don’t threaten democrats – a stanza from the poet laureate, Simon Armitage, will not keep Keir Starmer up at night – but dictators feel differently." 100% this on our arts award winner Mohamed Tadjadit. Art unites & subverts = autocrats' nightmare. observer.co.uk/news/interna...
- Am buzzing about the @indexoncensorship.org awards. Our winners are just the most incredible people. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Saturday Mothers, Carlos Correa & Mohamed Tadjadit - all heroes. And buzzing that Deputy PM David Lammy called Index "iconic". So that's official now. Index = iconic.
- Trump’s vibe this week: brutal murder of a journalist? Shrug. Reporter asking probing questions? ‘Quiet, piggy.’ Didn’t have high expectations from the man who called media ‘enemies of the people’ but he’s stooped to the lowest lows.
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- Roma lost her job when the Taliban took over, she has an ill child at home & struggles to afford proper medical care. She said writing this letter was the best thing that has happened to her in years. I'm thrilled we @indexoncensorship.org could publish it. www.indexoncensorship.org/2025/11/we-l...
- This is one of the most extreme examples of Beijing meddling in UK academia to date but it's alas far from the only one. I have many examples of Beijing's long arm chilling speech on our campuses here. So the question is, can this be a wake-up call, finally? www.theguardian.com/education/20...
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- A privilege to have met Pasha, the protagonist of the new film Mr Nobody Against Putin, earlier this week. Insanely brave, cool and humble. I implore everyone to see this film. Understand what is happening inside Putin's Russia to the youngest minds. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
- "Pity the ones who fear a girl with a pen. Pity the ones whose ideas are so small they must crush something bigger to feel powerful. But do not pity us." Read this because a) it's brilliant & b) Afghan women need their voices amplified, again and again and again. rukhshana.com/en/they-shou...
- "It feels different this time" said an exiled Chinese Christian in response to the arrests of scores of pastors in China this month. The CCP has never been hot on Christianity but under Xi the attacks to the faith have grown exponentially. It's desperate now. www.dw.com/en/why-is-ch...
- Humbling being on a panel with Verity & Lucy Nevitt behind @thegeminiproject.bsky.social & lawyer Jennifer Robinson, speaking about how SLAPPs further silence victims of sexual assault. What a disgrace SLAPPs are. @indexoncensorship.org report here for more www.indexoncensorship.org/2025/10/the-...
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- Iran reportedly plans to deploy 80,000 new morality police in Tehran to enforce women’s dress codes, while those close to the Ayatollah break them. Let's not shame this woman. But let's speak out about the grotesque hypocrisy & the need to end all shame. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...
- Holy smokes. Check out my prompt and then check out the answer on this Google AI overview about Liu Xiaobo. If anything highlights the problems of AI from a mis/dis-info perspective...
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- No answers as to why this professor wasn’t allowed to board a plane to leave the USA but let’s concentrate on what we definitely know, which is terrible - he was leaving because threats to his life due to his teaching had become so extreme he feared for his life www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
- "The Party’s tight control on historical narrative has rendered much of the pain afflicted in the name of liberation — or after liberation had ostensibly been achieved — unspeakable." Powerful from @yangyangcheng.bsky.social on voicelessness of Chinese women chinabooksreview.com/2025/10/09/f...
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- Another day of digital darkness in Afghanistan. This is desperate and devastating. Global leaders need to condemn this at top volume.
- “Yet for all their claims of free speech absolutism, it now seems clear comedy’s champions of liberty are all too happy to censor themselves for the right price.” Excoriating but fair. Huge inconsistency here on the part of the currently in Saudi comedians. www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...
- Afghan girls and women use the internet for everyday communication, alongside education, both having been extremely curtailed since the Taliban came back. With a soaring mental health crisis, the internet is therefore a lifeline for them. This isn't just an inconvenience. This is about survival.
- Best Friends Forever statue has been removed as fast as it went up. Shame! Autocrats have no sense of humour. www.npr.org/2025/09/24/n...
