Biden must do more to protect free speech
For simply working in the media in their country, three Afghan journalists lost their lives on March 2. The women were in their early 20s, worked in eastern Afghanistan and, according to the Washington Post, were gunned down while walking home after work.
The Islamic State claimed credit for the attacks. They reportedly went after the women because they worked for media outlets the Islamic State considered “loyal” to “the apostate Afghan government.”
Tragically, the deaths of these journalists are not uncommon in Afghanistan.
The Associated Press reports that 15 members of the media have been killed in Afghanistan over the last six months. Another woman who worked at the same television station as the three latest victims similarly was murdered in December.
The sickening deaths highlight this reality: A crackdown on freedom of the press and freedom of expression threatens a reliable flow of information.
When nations lack that reliable flow, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, for citizens to work from a common set of facts.
That predicament not only strengthens the hands of terrorists or autocrats, but it also undermines the stability of a nation when fewer and fewer people know what is happening in their countries.
True, even free societies like our own are wrestling with disinformation and trust in the media. Still, the Biden administration should counter the threats to press freedoms and free speech around the world. What happens in other nations can impact our own country in unpredictable ways, as the spread of the coronavirus and the attacks of September 11 showed.
Freedom of the press is being restricted in a disturbing number of countries. In Burma, for example, authorities on March 8 canceled the licenses of five media organizations that were covering protests in their country.
And, alarmingly, Freedom House details the threat to independent reporting and free expression in its new Freedom in the World 2021 analysis. This fact from the report particularly should alarm any of us who value free speech: Freedom of personal expression has experienced the sharpest decline of any democracy indicator since 2012.
The result is bad for both individuals and the flow of information. A prime example is China’s sentencing last year of citizen journalist Zhang Zhan to four years in prison for her reporting on the outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan.
Similarly, a thorough crackdown in Hong Kong on democracy activists’ freedom of expression has occurred over the last year. In January alone, dozens of individuals were arrested. One of those was young pro-democracy leader Joshua Wong, who strongly hinted at his likely imprisonment in an interview last summer that my Bush Institute colleagues Lindsay Lloyd and Chris Walsh and I did with him for our Democracy Talks series.
In Egypt, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned Egyptians last month about speaking too freely about matters in their country. “I don’t say don’t talk, but before you speak, look and listen.”
That threat, along with harassment of Egyptian bloggers and activists and their family members, hardly bolsters free speech.
Of course, the most egregious example in recent years is Saudi agents’ brutal murder of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The CIA reports that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved of his gruesome slaying.
Examples need not be that severe to silence journalists and individuals alike. Attacks on a free press get their point across even without murder: Beware of what you write, report or say. You may pay a price.
With that as the undertone, it is only natural that people start censoring themselves.
Whenever that happens, a country pays a price.
Governments are not held accountable. Transparency about institutions vanishes. And people retreat into their bunkers, thereby weakening the bonds of social trust that allow healthy societies to develop resilience and enjoy prosperity.
To its credit, the U.S. government quickly denounced the slayings of those three young Afghan journalists.
The Biden administration next should emphasize the stabilizing role of a free press when meeting with other leaders, including in face-to-face meetings between the president and counterparts in nations that are cracking down on free expression.
Congress should also adequately fund organizations like Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia — and ensure they remain free to do independent reporting without interference. They are a lifeline to dissidents searching for reliable information.
That reliable flow of information is what a free press and free speech provide.
Democracies like our own cannot bring back the lives of those Afghan journalists, but we can redeem them by promoting and protecting the right of individuals to report upon and speak freely about their countries.