National Post (National Edition)
The terrible price of press freedom. Glavin,
THIRTY-TWO JOURNALISTS DIED THIS YEAR SO THAT YOU COULD KNOW THE TRUTH
It was the saddest way to begin the week in the lead-up to World Press Freedom Day. Ten Afghan journalists murdered on Monday, all in their 20s, all deliberately targeted. The least we might do is say their names.
Yar Mohammad Tokhi, camera operator, Tolo News. Ebadollah Hananzi, Sabvon Kakeker and Maharam Darani worked for Radio Azadai. Ghazi Rasoli and Norozali Rajabi, camera operators, TV1. Shah Marai Fezi, photographer, Agence France-Presse. Salim Talash, reporter, Mashal TV. Ali Salimi, camera operator, Madhal TV. Ahmad Shah, reporter, BBC Pashto service.
The first nine in that list were slain in the Shashdarak district of Kabul. They had arrived at the scene of a suicide bombing that had just taken the lives of 16 people. Milling in the chaos of the aftermath, another suicide bomber, posing as a journalist, blew himself up in the middle of it all. The 10th in the list, the BBC Pashto reporter, was gunned down on his way home from work, in Khost.
It was the worst day for journalists in Afghanistan since Jan. 20, 2016, when a Taliban suicide bomber on a motorcycle rammed a Tolo TV minibus and blew himself up, killing seven Tolo TV staff. Monday’s tragedy was also the single most horrific day for journalists in Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban regime in 2001.
On Thursday, the 25th anniversary of the first World Press Freedom Day, UNESCO will mark the event at a ceremony in Accra, Ghana. This year’s theme is “Keeping Power in Check: Media, Justice and The Rule of Law.” Stern words will be spoken, and there will be a recitation of jingles, and there will be uplifting speeches. The Afghan journalists will be remembered out loud, and mention will be made of the 22 other journalists and media workers murdered around the world so far this year, by the count of the International Federation of Journalists.
A good choice, Ghana. The first independent subSaharan, stable and relatively prosperous since the early 1990s, and led by the 72-year- old President Nana Akufo-Addo, himself a former human rights lawyer, Ghana shows up in a perfectly respectable 23rd place on the Reporters Without Borders’ 2018 press freedom index, out of 180 countries. Canada shows up in 18th place, tucked comfortably between Luxemburg and Australia. The United States, long a leader in global press freedom, comes in well below Ghana at a dismal 45, between Romania and Italy.
The results may appear slightly skewed, owing to the methodology involved, which takes in an “abuse score” derived by tallies of abuses and violence targeting news media. The tallies are maintained by teams of specialists and tabulated into a quantitative analysis. Owing to the subjectivity this might introduce in the mix with the qualitative data, it should not come as too much of a surprise that Canada’s “abuse score” is tied with both Algeria and Niger. Maybe you’ve all be shouting too loudly about the right-wing media. Or about the left-wing media.
The Americans took an abuse-score lashing. They have been using the news media to yell at one another at the top of their lungs lately, and sometimes the news media yells at Americans, and President Donald Trump refers to the news media as “enemies of the people,” a Stalinist turn of phrase. This would unavoidably weigh down the United States’ overall score, coming in with an “abuse score” that ties with Cambodia, which comes in with an overall score putting it at 142nd out of 180 countries.
Yes, Cambodia. In February, the Cambodian Centre for Independent Media concluded that the “facade” of press freedom had collapsed with the closure of dozens of news organizations across the country. Among the forced closures: 32 radio stations that were known to carry non-aligned and sometimes critical coverage of the regime in Phnom Penh.
The top five on the Reporters Without Borders’ list: Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland and Switzerland, in that order. The bottom five: China, Syria, Turkmenistan, Eritrea, and dead last, North Korea.
The Chinese Communist Party is marking World Press Freedom week by unveiling a raft of new police-state measures aimed at tightening its chokehold around the throats of China’s online news sources. Released Tuesday, the new rules set out by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) will require that online news editors must be approved by the Communist Party and online reporters will be required to obtain credentials provided at the conclusion of indoctrination courses run by the party. Any joint ventures with foreign partners must be approved by the party.
As for jailing journalists, Turkey remains the worst, followed by China and Egypt. The three regimes account for fully half of the 262 journalists the Committee to Protect Journalists identified behind bars in 2017.
The world’s worst enemies of press freedom should be expected to get away with it for the foreseeable future, sad to say. Neither the United States nor the European countries that once led the world in matters of freedom of expression could be bothered these days to disturb a status quo that affords impunity to the world’s most habitual press freedom offenders.
As for the rest of you, the one thing you could do is subscribe to a proper newspaper or two. If you get all your news online, for free, remember: you get what you pay for. Another thing, on Thursday, remember those brave young Afghans. If you’re the type of person that is so inclined, remember them in your prayers. Say their names.
Yar Mohammad Tokhi, Ebadollah Hananzi, Sabvon Kakeker, Maharam Darani, Ghazi Rasoli, Norozali Rajabi, Shah Marai Fezi, Salim Talash, Ali Salimi, and Ahmad Shah. Without a free press, there is no democracy, no liberty. It is a grand old cause, so remember those Afghans.
They died for it.
WITHOUT A FREE PRESS, THERE IS NO DEMOCRACY, NO LIBERTY.