Reporters endure oppression around globe
World Press Freedom Day this year came two days after President Donald Trump said again last week that he would look at ways to weaken First Amendment protection of a free press in America.
The irony is not lost on us. Trump’s ongoing attacks on the press and the First Amendment (which also protects his free and sometimes wildly inaccurate speech, of course) are among many illustrations of the importance of World Press Freedom Day, which was founded by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993.
Here are some other illustrations, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists:
■ Since 1992, 1,236 journalists have been killed, and 65 percent of the deaths were by homicide. The deadliest countries are Iraq (179 journalists killed), Syria (108), Philippines (78), Somalia (62), Algeria and Pakistan (60 each), Russia (56), Colombia (47), India and Mexico (40 each).
■ Eight journalists have been killed in 2017. The most recent was Maximino Rodriguez, a freelance journalist who was shot dead on April 14 while covering crime in La Paz, Mexico.
■ Thousands since 1992 have been imprisoned — 259 in 2016 alone.
■ Some 452 journalists have been forced into exile from their home countries since 2010, many under threat of violence or imprisonment, or both.
■ The 10 most-censored countries in the world, based on severe limits on the media, are, in descending order, Eritrea, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, Iran, China, Myanmar and Cuba.
In Eritrea, in northeastern Africa, “President Isaias Afewerki has succeeded in his campaign to crush independent journalism, creating a
media climate so oppressive that even reporters for state-run news outlets live in constant fear of arrest,” the Committee to Protect Journalists wrote. “The threat of imprisonment has led many journalists to choose exile rather than risk arrest. Eritrea is Africa’s worst jailer of journalists, with at least 23 behind bars — none of whom has been tried in court or even charged with a crime.”
In some countries, such as Turkey, governments have taken to silencing the watchdogs in the media by shutting them down. The administration of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has shut down more than 160 media outlets in less than a year.
Those all seem extreme, right? Like something that could never happen in the United States, right?
I hope to God that nothing like that ever happens here, and not just because I am a journalist. I hope and pray it never happens here because if it does, it will be the end of our democracy.
So when the president attacks reporters day after day for doing their jobs and reporting facts that might be uncomfortable to him, or when he attacks the First Amendment itself, we all should be alarmed. We all should ask the president to follow the request of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres:
“On World Press Freedom Day, I call for an end to all crackdowns against journalists — because a free press advances peace and justice for all,” Guterres said in a statement.
“Journalists go to the most dangerous places to give voice to the voiceless,” he said. “Media workers suffer character assassination, sexual assault, detention, injuries and even death.”
Guterres called on world leaders to defend a free media.
“This is crucial to counter prevailing misinformation,” he said. “And we need everyone to stand for our right to truth. ... When we protect journalists, their words and pictures can change our world.”
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