📣Freemuse’s State of Artistic Freedom 2026 report, Courage is Contagious, documents what Freemuse describes as some of the most alarming conditions facing artists and cultural workers today. Launched yesterday in Brussels at an event hosted by FERA, the Federation of European Screen Directors, the report is now available on Freemuse’s website.
From war zones to democracies under strain, artists in 2025 faced censorship, arrest, violence, displacement, and mounting pressure to self-censor. The report shows how war, authoritarianism, religious extremism, far-right politics, and deepening polarisation are placing artistic freedom under growing pressure across the globe.
The report identifies two overlapping crises shaping artistic freedom in 2025: armed conflict, which destroys cultural life and puts artists directly in harm’s way, and democratic decline, which gives governments new legal and political tools to suppress dissent.
The report maps eight interconnected trends driving this crisis:
📍war and its devastating impact on artists, cultural institutions, and heritage
📍the use of nationalism, religion, and security rhetoric to justify censorship
📍the spread of foreign agent laws targeting artists and cultural organisations
📍the criminalisation of artistic expression through terrorism, blasphemy, obscenity, and morality laws
📍increasing censorship and self-censorship around Gaza and Palestine
📍heightened repression of women artists, LGBTI+ artists, and marginalised communities
📍the targeting of music, film, satire, and online artistic expression
📍growing pressure from non-state actors, including online campaigns, religious groups, and organised crime
The report highlights acts of creative resistance where artists are using music, film, visual art, satire, legal action, and underground networks to challenge repression and defend free expression.
As #StateOfArtisticFreedom 2026 report makes clear, artistic freedom is fundamental to democracy and human rights.
👉 Read more: /freemuse-report-artists-worldwide-face-deepening-crisis
📷 Call to Arms (2015–2025), a sculpture by Elana Mann.
#ArtisticFreedom #Freemuse
Ahead of Tanzania’s UN Human Rights Council review on 5 November 2026, Freemuse and Selam have submitted a joint Universal Periodic Review (UPR) report on artistic freedom in the country. The UPR process of every UN member State takes place every four and a half years.
While noting progress since 2021, including reduced artist fees and commitments to support the arts, the report raises serious concerns about censorship, restrictive permit systems, repression of dissenting artists, and shrinking civic space.
Freemuse and Selam call for legal reform, independent regulatory bodies, and an end to censorship mechanisms that undermine artistic freedom.
Read the UPR report here: /minimal-reforms-are-inadequate-artistic-and-artists-rights-continue-to-be-repressed-in-tanzania
New research from Malaysia reveals how self-censorship is quietly reshaping the arts.
Across film, music, visual arts, and publishing, artists and cultural workers are adjusting, withholding, or rethinking their work to avoid backlash, restrictions, or professional risk.
The report, Understanding the Impact of Self-Censorship Among Artists and Cultural Workers in Malaysia, by ArtsEquator and Five Arts Centre’s RADAR, explores how censorship (direct and indirect) affects creative practice, career growth, personal well-being, and wider cultural discourse.
Drawing on five focus group discussions conducted in July 2025, the study shows that self-censorship is not just an individual choice. It is shaped by the broader cultural, political, and institutional environments artists must navigate.
Read the full report here:
/understanding-the-impact-of-self-censorship-among-artists-and-cultural-workers-in-malaysia/
#ArtisticFreedom #Malaysia #SelfCensorship
Across Latin America, artistic freedom is often formally recognised but not effectively protected.
Radar Bulla, Cartel Urbano’s artistic freedom monitoring initiative, documents cases of censorship, threats and criminalisation against artists and cultural workers.
The latest monitoring period, from November 2025 to January 2026, is part of an ongoing collaboration with Freemuse through the Building Bridges initiative, connecting regional documentation with international human rights standards.
Learn more about the cases and the wider monitoring work here: /bulla/el-riesgo-de-crear-asi-funciona-nuestro-radar-por-la-libertad-artistica
Image: Angel Carrillo
#ArtisticFreedom #RadarBulla #CulturalRights #Freemuse #CartelUrbano
On 6 April, Cuban artist and human rights activist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara ended an eight-day hunger strike in Guanajay maximum-security prison, where he has been arbitrarily detained since July 2021.
Freemuse urges the Cuban authorities to immediately and unconditionally release him, citing grave concerns for his health, safety and physical integrity, end all threats, harassment and reprisals, and ensure he has access to urgent independent medical care.
Read more: /cuba-free-luis-manuel-otero-alcantara
#FreeLuisManuel #Cuba #ArtisticFreedom #Freemuse #LuisManuelOteroAlcantara
Freemuse welcomes yesterday's acquittal of filmmaker Rojhilat Aksoy in a case brought under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code. The charges stemmed from an administrative application she filed for the screening of Aurora’s Sunrise (2022), an animated documentary directed by Inna Sahakyan about the Armenian Genocide, as part of a festival.
Aksoy was not involved in the film’s production and, as her lawyer argued, could not be held responsible for its content. Despite this, she faced charges of “publicly insulting the Turkish nation, the Republic of Turkey, and state institutions”. Her acquittal has once again highlighted concerns over freedom of expression and artistic freedom.
#RojhilatAksoy #Turkey #Türkiye #ArtisticFreedom #Freemuse
Freemuse joins the International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk's (ICFR) calls on the Turkish authorities to end their oppressive treatment of Kurdish and Armenian film workers, and stands firmly with Rojhilat Aksoy and her colleagues in their right to freely express themselves and bring any story — Kurdish, Armenian, or otherwise — to audiences near and far. We call on the Turkish authorities, especially the regional authorities of Diyarbakır, to immediately drop all the charges against Rojhilat Aksoy, and for the international film community to stand with her.
Read more: https://www.icfr.international/cases/drop-charges-against-rojhilat-aksoy/
#RojhilatAksoy #Turkey #Türkiye #ArtisticFreedom #Freemuse
📢 Programme Announcement
Artists, filmmakers, advocates, researchers, and experts from across the region and beyond are coming together—voices that don’t often share the same room, but need to now more than ever.
This isn’t just a conference. It’s a space for gathering knowledge, having real conversations, sparking bold ideas, and driving collective action towards artistic freedom.
If you care about the future of creative expression, you need to be in this room.
For further info, visit our website
🔗 bit.ly/ICFS2026 or click the link in bio!
Freemuse warmly welcomes the adoption by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights of the 'Resolution on the Promotion and Protection of Artistic Freedom in Africa'.
It underscores a growing recognition of the vital role that artistic expression plays in democratic societies. This represents a significant milestone in advancing freedom of expression, cultural rights, and the protection of artists across the continent.
We are honoured to have been invited to work on the draft, and extend our sincere appreciation to Hon. Geereesha Topsy-Sonoo, ACHPR Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information, for her leadership in launching this important initiative.
We look forward to working with the Hon. Topsy-Sonoo in ensuring its meaningful impact on policy and practice to protect artistic freedom across Africa.
https://achpr.au.int/en/adopted-resolutions/654-achprres654lxxxvi-2026
#Freemuse #ArtisticFreedom #FreedomOfExpression #CulturalRights #HumanRights #Africa #ACHPR #AfricanCommission #ArtistsRights #CreativeFreedom
La crisis social y económica de Cuba ha agravado las dificultades, mientras las autoridades siguen procesando penalmente a manifestantes, artistas y críticos con cargos amplios como sedición y alteración del orden público.
Según el Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Culturales, al menos 17 artistas seguían en prisión al cierre de 2025.
Con motivo del #MusicFreedomDay, reiteramos el llamado a no olvidar la situación de los músicos cubanos en prisión y a mantener la solidaridad con ellos, entre ellos Maykel Osorbo, Nando OBDC y Mister Will D’Cuba.
Más información: /musicos-cubanos-en-prision-un-llamado-a-la-visibilidad-y-la-solidaridad
#LibertadArtística #DerechosHumanos #LibertadDeExpresión #Freemuse #MusicFreedomDay #Cuba #MaykelOsorbo #NandoOBDC #MisterWillDCuba #CartelUrbano
Georgia’s cultural life is being dismantled.
In the capital, Tbilisi, exhibitions are closing, organisations are shutting down, artists are leaving, and independent cultural spaces are coming under growing pressure. As curator and researcher Lali Pertenava describes it, artists in Georgia are “trapped” by laws that criminalise foreign support, silence dissent, and make independent civic and cultural work nearly impossible.
And yet, resistance continues.
Every Saturday, musicians march through Tbilisi with drums and traditional instruments. Artists hang poetry in public spaces. Cultural workers and civil society are finding a shared language through art, protest, and daily acts of defiance.
As Pertenava says, “Ongoing, daily resistance is how artistic freedom is represented”.
This is not just about culture. It is about freedom, memory, and the right to speak, create, and exist without fear.
Read the interview with Pertenava here: /the-trap-has-new-rooms-art-freedom-and-resistance-in-georgia
#Georgia #ArtisticFreedom #FreedomOfExpression #Tbilisi #HumanRights #CivilSociety #Resistance #ContemporaryArt #Freemuse
In late 2022, in Chengdu, a major city in southwest China, people held up blank A4 sheets by candlelight during the White Paper protests, to signal "everything we want to say but cannot say".
At this protest, a young Uyghur rapper, Yashar Shohret (Uigga), briefly sang a lament for those who died in the apartment fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang, before police intervened and detained him for about twenty-one days. Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic minority, mostly Muslim, indigenous to China's Xinjiang region.
Arrested again in August 2023, Yashar's case shows how identity, language, and art become "evidence": from having to translate lyrics into Mandarin in 2017 to a three-year sentence linked to his creative work. He will be twenty-eight when he is released in the summer of 2026.
Singing in your own language shouldn't be a crime. #MusicFreedomDay
Read more: /lucky-star-when-a-uyghur-rappers-voice-became-a-crime
#ArtisticFreedom #HumanRights #CulturalRights #FreedomOfExpression #Freemuse #Uyghur #China #YasharShohret
