Index On Censorship

Index on Censorship is a campaigning publishing organisation for freedom of expression, which produces an award-winning quarterly magazine of the same name from London. The present Chief Executive of Index on Censorship, since April 2012, is Kirsty Hughes, who has covered international politics and public policy over the last two decades including for thinktanks (Chatham House, Friends of Europe and others), the European Commission, and Oxfam. The present editor of the magazine, since 2007, is former BBC radio journalist Jo Glanville.

It is directed by the non-profit-making Writers and Scholars International, Ltd. (WSI) in association with the UK-registered charity Index on Censorship (founded as the Writers and Scholars Educational Trust), which are both chaired by the British writer and broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby. WSI was created by poet Stephen Spender, Oxford philosopher Stuart Hampshire, the then editor of The Observer David Astor, writer and Soviet Union expert Edward Crankshaw. The founding editor of Index on Censorship was the critic and translator Michael Scammell (1972–81), who still serves as a patron of the organisation. It is based in the Free Word Centre for literature, literacy and free expression in London.