United Nations Raises Alarm About Dwindling Press Freedom

UN officials and media outlets warned Tuesday that Press freedom is under threat in every corner of the world, with journalists being harassed, imprisoned, and assassinated on a regular basis.

On the eve of World Press Freedom Day, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a rallying cry for journalists and media around the world.

In a video message, he said, “All our freedom depends on press freedom”, referring to it as the “foundation of democracy and justice” and the “lifeblood of human rights”.

Addressing a conference held at UN headquarters in New York, Mr. Guterres said, “But in every corner of the world, freedom of the press is under attack”.

To highlight the issue, UNESCO awarded the 2023 World Press Freedom Prize to imprisoned three Iranian women, two journalists, and a human rights activist.

While Guterres did not point fingers, other speakers did, such as Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is being held in Russia on espionage charges that he has denied.

During the meeting, Wall Street Journal publisher Almar Latour said, “The fight for press freedom, the fight for Evan’s release is a fight for everybody’s freedom”.

Dozens of news outlets have condemned the charges against Gershkovich as unfounded, and US President Joe Biden has called his detention “totally illegal”.

Other journalists have noted the profession’s increasing dangers.

An Iranian-American journalist living in exile, Masih Alinejad said, “I’m coming from a country, Iran, where being a journalist is a crime… (and) can land you in jail, can get you killed, can get you tortured”.

In 2022, 55 journalists and four media workers were killed in the line of duty, according to Reporters Without Borders.

Mr. Guterres said, “Truth is threatened by disinformation and hate speech, seeking to blur the lines between fact and fiction, between science and conspiracy”.

Journalists, he claimed, “are routinely harassed, intimidated, detained, and in prisons”.

Others expressed similar worries, including the head of UNESCO, which is organizing a commemorative gathering at the United Nations in New York on Wednesday.

According to Audrey Azoulay, the digital age is altering the entire information landscape, making professional, free, independent journalism more important than ever.

She stated that harassment and intimidation of journalists was unacceptable.

“We have arrived at a new fork in the road,” she explained.

She further said, “Our current path is leading us away from informed public debates… a path towards ever more polarization”.

“Censorship has also become increasingly widespread”, said Agnes Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International.

She explained, “Sadly, censorship has become the default position of many governments in terms of controlling the knowledge of their societies”.

Iranian journalists Elaheh Mohammadi and Niloufar Hamedi, who helped reveal Mahsa Amini’s death in jail in September, and human rights activist Narges Mohammadi received the UNESCO prize.

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