Deserving recognition

Reporters Without Borders, the international non-profit, non-governmental organisation that promotes and defends freedom of information and freedom of the press, has just released its 2016 annual report in which it normally ranks 180 countries according to the level of freedom available to journalists, while presenting a snapshot of the media freedom situation based on the evaluation of pluralism, independence of the media, quality of legislative framework and safety of journalists in each country.

One alarming finding in this year’s report is the fact that journalists continue to be purposely targeted and killed while they perform their duty.

According to the report, 57 journalists were killed this year alone, 19 of them in Syria. 

Journalists are often killed in order to silence them, to stop them from exposing facts about grave human rights violations in many parts of the world. 

As the organisation’s director general, Christophe Deloire, said in this year’s report, journalists are being liquidated by “press freedom predators”, state actors or otherwise, who use force or intimidation to close media outlets arbitrarily and gag journalists in order to keep the world in the dark about atrocities perpetrated in some countries.

Worse, said Deloire, “violence against journalists is more and more deliberate”. 

“They are clearly being targeted and murdered because they are journalists.”

Without correspondents risking their lives to report on conflicts and wars, the international community would have no way of knowing about the violence and killings that occur in many parts of the world.

Syria, Iraq and Yemen, in the Middle East, have been scenes of gross and systematic human rights violations that would have been left unexposed had it not been for the journalists who risked their lives to carry out their mission and tell the truth. 

Jordan ranked eight places better in this year’s report, compared to the previous one, but media experts believe more needs to be done, especially in the field of legislation, to improve media freedom.

Topping the index list are three north European countries (Finland, the Netherlands and Norway, in that order), while in the last three positions came Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea (last).

The countries that rose most in the index include Tunisia (96th, up 30), thanks to a decline in violence and legal proceedings, and Ukraine (107th, up 22), where the conflict in the east of the country abated.

The countries that fell farthest include Poland (47th, down 29), where an ultra-conservative government seized control of the public media, and Tajikistan, which fell 34 places to 150th as a result of the regime’s growing authoritarianism.

The report is important and often feared by governments.

More significantly, it shows the state of the media across the world and presents the often-chilling situation in which journalists in different countries operate.

It illustrates how their lives are often in danger for the mere fact that they expose an unsavoury truth.

Journalists, therefore, must not only be honoured and recognised for their valuable contribution to societies, they also need to be protected from physical harm and threats to their freedom.

There are already conventions and laws to promote freedom of the press and extend protection and support to journalists, but sometimes these are overlooked.

Much clearer, and stronger, national and international laws need to be adopted to keep those who work to inform the public safely.

As Deloire said, the “alarming situation” in which many journalists find themselves “reflects the glaring failure of the international initiatives aimed at protecting them, and is a death warrant for independent reporting in those areas where all possible means are used to impose censorship and propaganda, especially by fundamentalist groups in the Middle East”.