Artistic freedom under threat from authoritarian and illiberal regimes

Throughout history, artists have been vanguards of social progress because of their unique ability to inspire and influence change through the power of art and storytelling. Aware of this, repressive regimes who wish to silence dissent are quick to target artists and to limit artistic expression. 

Unfortunately, the systematic suppression of artists and artistic freedom more broadly is often overlooked in policy discussions due to a lack of understanding of the vital role artists play in protecting and promoting democratic norms and values. 

Artistic Freedom Initiative (AFI), a New York based legal advocacy group focused on artists rights, aims to bridge this gap through research. Driven by a commitment to create meaningful change in the field of artistic freedom and improve conditions for artists in their home countries, in 2021 AFI established the Artistic Freedom Monitor to address the root causes of artistic suppression and advocate for more thorough protections of artists’ rights. 

Threats to artistic freedom

Since 2021, we have been studying threats to artistic freedom and speaking with artists about the challenges they face. Serving as a lead researcher on AFI’s recent reports on artistic freedom in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Latin America, I have identified two major trends that threaten artistic freedom in the world today: the persecution of artists by authoritarian regimes and the rise of policies encouraging self-censorship under illiberal governments. 

Speaking to the first point, we have witnessed a clear trend in authoritarian leaders targeting artists whose works they perceive as a challenge to their rule or to dominant social norms. This development has most recently been seen in Afghanistan, Iran and Russia, among other countries.  

Officials in such regimes use a variety of tactics to intimidate artists and to stop the spread of their work, including censorship, blacklisting, harassment, arbitrary arrest or detention, false imprisonment and assassination. As these governments operate with impunity, artists have no valid defence or recourse mechanisms, leaving them perpetually at risk of persecution.

Artistic expression not recognised as a qualifier for asylum

In our 2023 report, Artistic Exodus: Journeys of Afghan artists fleeing Taliban rule, AFI spoke to several artists who had experienced persecution at the hands of Taliban authorities. One such was Sahraa Karimi, a filmmaker and the first woman to serve as Director of Afghan National Film. Even before the Taliban came to power, Sahraa received several death threats from them because of her films about women’s rights. 

When the Taliban seized power in August 2021, she knew she could not safely continue her work in Afghanistan and was in urgent need of immigration support. Days after she left the country, her house was ransacked and taped off by authorities, evidence of the Taliban’s intention to target her. 

The Taliban’s threats against Sahraa’s life because of her socially engaged work may amount to persecution under international human rights law, potentially qualifying her to seek humanitarian immigration relief abroad through political asylum as a human rights advocate.

But many Afghan artists struggle to access immigration relief due to the failure of humanitarian aid practitioners to recognise artistic expression as a qualifier for political asylum or other forms of relief. Consequently, they remain in Afghanistan where they either continue to risk their lives to practice their art or self-censor to avoid the consequences. As authoritarianism continues to spread, the low approval of artists’ claims for humanitarian aid as a particularly vulnerable social group is a serious problem.

Subtle suppression and intimidation

Artistic expression is also under threat in democratic countries where ‘illiberalism’ has taken root. In Hungary, Poland, and most recently Slovakia, governments have infringed artists’ rights using law and policy to subtly suppress artistic expression. 

These governments are using overly broad laws to intimidate and deter artists from engaging in critical work. They are also blocking dissenting artists’ access to professional opportunities by filling national arts and culture institutions, including universities and funding bodies, with party loyalists to ensure control over the sector. 

In our 2022 report, Cultural Control: Censorship and Suppression of the Arts in Poland, we identified how the former Law and Justice (PiS) Party encouraged the use of an outdated blasphemy law to incite fear in artists whose works contradicted or criticised Catholic or nationalist themes, the Party’s two major campaign platforms. 

The blasphemy law, listed under Article 196 of the Polish Penal Code, gives a criminal sentence of up to two years imprisonment for artists whose works “offend the religious feelings [of another]”. 

AFI spoke to visual artist Marta Frej for Cultural Control, who reported being criminally charged under the blasphemy law for one of her works in 2021. The work in question depicted a figure like the Virgin Mary donning a Covid-protective face mask featuring a red lightning bolt, a well-known symbol of the reproductive rights movement in Poland. 

Marta was questioned by the prosecutor’s office and, though the charges were ultimately dropped, she suffered personal and professional consequences related to the charge. She paid significant fees for legal representation, faced a backlash in the media and lost opportunities from employers that didn’t want to be associated with the controversy. 

Self-censorship on the rise

Though the majority of charges under the blasphemy law are dismissed in Poland, concern about potential criminal punishment and the indirect damages associated with the charges produces fear in artists. To avoid these negative outcomes, many artists have begun to self-censor their work. 

In effect, the law acts as a powerful deterrent for socially engaged artists, and PiS’s encouragement of its use has allowed them to suppress artistic expression without overtly rolling back rights. Similar trends can be observed across much of Eastern Europe, raising concern about the efficacy of existing protections for rights frameworks. 

Though suppression is distinct from persecution, artists in both situations struggle more than their fellow human rights defenders – including activists, journalists and lawyers – to access support when their rights are threatened or violated. An initial step that policy makers can take to ensure that artists can start to receive needed support in both contexts is to acknowledge the crucial role artistic expression plays in promoting healthy democracy. When artistic freedom is acknowledged as a keystone of democracy, governments will be more likely to ensure that mechanisms to protect it are robust and firmly established.

As a researcher specialising in human rights, I am alarmed at the rising attacks on artists and artistic freedom, and deeply concerned that these issues are not given the resources or attention they deserve from governments and policy makers. 

International arts and human rights communities must take action to promote the recognition of the crucial role artistic freedom plays in protecting democracy, and in doing so, close policy gaps that prevent artists from accessing support when their rights are suppressed or violated. 

Johanna Bankston is Senior Officer, Human Rights Research & Policy at Artistic Freedom Initiative.
 artisticfreedominitiative.org/ 
@artistic_AFI
 linkedin.com/in/johanna-bankston