Whereas in Germany, the advantages and disadvantages of uncontrolled freedom of speech especially in social media are discussed quite frequently these days, in many other parts of the world, freedom of expression is a rare commodity which often has to be fought for at an enormous risk.

On the occasion of the commemoration of May 10, 1933, the day of the book burning at Bebelplatz in Berlin, the Turkish-Syrian journalist Onur Burçak Belli, the Syrian journalist and human rights activist Yasmin Merei and the Foreign Affairs Correspondent of Die Zeit Michael Thumann discuss the current restrictions on freedom of expression and the court trials against journalists in Turkey. Belli and Merei are former Feuchtwanger fellows at Villa Aurora, the former exile residence of Lion Feuchtwanger, whose novels fell victim to the fire in 1933.

About the Feuchtwanger Fellowship: In cooperation with the Feuchtwanger Memorial Library, Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e.V. awards the scholarship sponsored by the Federal Foreign Office in memory of German exile in the US and the continuing suppression of freedom of expression in many parts of the world.