Attacks on journalists are escalating, and the UN is sounding the alarm
The killings of journalists rose to a new high this year, with 67 lost globally. And the United Nations is sounding the alarm about a further threat to silence media — the “misuse” of judicial systems to attack press freedoms by expanding criminal and civil defamation measures, as well as intimidating lawsuits aimed at stifling free expression.
Also, the numbers of reporters imprisoned around the world set a record this year — 363 as of Dec. 1 — and that risk continues to stalk a free press, largely because of a rise in authoritarian crackdowns on criticism, antidemocratic regulations and growing intolerance of independent reporting.
The press is under attack as never before, simply for trying to tell the truth, from Russia’s outlawing facts about its war on Ukraine to violence in Haiti, organized crime in Mexico and assaults on press freedom in nations such as China, Saudi Arabia and Myanmar, and sadly, too many other places.
Democratic governments and societies must heed the U.N.’s warning and fight back harder, raise public awareness and counter these trends with laws and litigation of their own to defend international standards for freedom of speech against a growing body of laws that criminalize expression.
The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, released a report this month detailing a disturbing trend by several countries toughening or reintroducing provisions on libel, defamation and insult intended to address cybersecurity, “fake news” and hate speech.
In a world awash in online lies and conspiracy theories, there’s a case to be made for fighting back against false news and malicious misinformation. But new laws approved in the last five years to combat misinformation, disinformation, cybercrime and loosely defined threats to health or national security have also had “potentially dire consequences for media freedom” globally, according to the UNESCO report “The “misuse” of the judicial system to attack freedom of expression: trends, challenges and responses.”
These actions are hitting journalists hard, and despite some success in international efforts to curb them, 160 countries — 80% of the world’s nations — still criminalize defamation. At least 57 laws or regulations promulgated in the last six years in 44 countries contain overly vague language or disproportionate punishments that are endangering online free expression and media freedom, UNESCO warns.
“This analysis demonstrates that the issue of defamation, both criminal and civil, needs to be addressed in the national legislatures according to international standards, from the point of view of protecting freedom of expression and the vital work of journalists,” said Tawfik Jelassi, UNESCO assistant director-general, in releasing the report.
Criminal and civil defamation cases can have a chilling effect on journalism by effectively silencing reporters, overwhelming them psychologically, sapping their time and savings with costly, often baseless litigation and potentially bankrupting them. This can damage their reputations, push them to censor their own stories or get them jailed unfairly for reporting.
UNESCO singled out a dubious practice of filing strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, as particularly pernicious. These are claims initiated by powerful figures or government officials attacking weaker parties who disseminate information they see as in the public interest. But claimants in these lawsuits often file them not to win but to counter what they view as unfavorable stories, with expensive, time-consuming, nuisance litigation designed to stop journalists form advancing their work.
Plaintiffs in SLAPP cases bring them in domestic courts and also transnationally — trying to thwart global investigation consortiums. And they often use “forum shopping,” or “libel tourism,” to shop around for courts and judges seen as more favorable to the outcomes they seek, the UNESCO report said.
Examples abound. When Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated by a car bomb in 2017, she was battling 43 civil and five criminal libel lawsuits from a variety of businesses and politicians. She was a fearless crusader against corruption, and her eldest son, investigative journalist Matthew Caruana Galizia, told The Guardian that SLAPP lawsuits had made his mother’s life “a living hell.”
Another example is veteran U.S.-Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, who was convicted of criminal cyber libel for her reporting on a prominent businessman in the Philippines. She and a co-defendant plan to appeal the ruling to the Philippine Supreme Court and use the case as an opportunity to oppose the criminalization of libel and defend press freedom.
In America, the First Amendment is a strong bulwark against such nuisance lawsuits because its petition clause guarantees the rights of citizens “to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Furthermore, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., recently sponsored a bill in the House aimed at curtailing meritless lawsuits against protected speech at the federal level and punishing the wealthy and powerful who file them unjustifiably.
But there is much to be done around the world, and American journalists have a stake in this work. UNESCO argues rightly that democracies and world organizations must continue to press other states to repeal criminal defamation laws and replace them with appropriate civil defamation legislation in line with international standards. That means public officials get no special protections from reporters doing their jobs, that opinion writing is commentary and not prosecutable speech, that journalists get to do their work without legal harassment and that governments crack down on baseless SLAPP lawsuits.
Coalitions of civil society, nongovernmental organizations, media and public figures must speak loudly on this issue, mobilizing public awareness and action, and judges and prosecutors should apply international standards in all defamation cases. It can’t just be left to human rights organizations.
Journalists exercising their freedom to cover the news as they choose are preserving our freedoms, too, often under difficult, dangerous conditions. They deserve legal, moral and global support.