Operation Guiding Light was the codename for an Imperial project to quash dissent on the planet Lothal and shape public opinion in favor of the Galactic Empire. Criticism of the Empire was forbidden under this directive, but the directive also forbade any focus on the planet's past, as nostalgia was considered to be a product of dissatisfaction and anger among the populace and thus to be suppressed.
Using her forged Imperial security clearance, Merei Spanjaf was able to discover a list of dissidents and their supposed crimes that were being prosecuted by the Empire under this Operation, including a reference to her friend Holshef, a poet. Everyone on the list was a painter, poet, or storyteller of some type and, as far as Spanjaf could discern, none had ever so much as picked up a blaster.