Yesterday, May 3r^d was Press Freedom Day. But is the press really free? It is estimated that 199 journalists were jailed last year and 110 killed (2015).

Each year on World Press Freedom Day we hear the horrific stories of endangered journalists. In addition to news, the internet brings us dispatches of attacks on journalists in disparate places but all with the same intent to silence those who report uncomfortable truths, says a report on a leading media channel.

Colombian reporter Jineth Bedoya Lima wrote recently of her kidnapping and rape while pursuing a story; in Ethiopia, respected editor Eskinder Nega has been in prison since 2011 serving an 18-year term under the country’s repressive anti-terrorism act; and, in Egypt, reports come weekly of journalists arrested or disappeared.

On this day, May 3, diplomats, United Nations officials, politicians, news executives and journalism advocacy groups all pledge to do better to protect journalists because we believe in the essential mission of journalism: To expose injustice, human rights violations and corruption. Then the day passes and the press of news goes on.

American journalists are seldom murdered in the United States or put in prison to stop publication or the broadcast of a story.  Journalism in the US has its challenges, from government secrecy, anti-whistle-blower laws and the disruption of the advertising business model that has sustained it for several generations, says the report.

“Freedom of expression, and in the heart of it press freedom, represents the natural immune system of any society. In human bodies, the first thing viruses target is the immune system. Exactly like in human bodies, dictatorships first target freedom of expression and more specifically press freedom,” writes Lorraine Isabel.

Sonali Samarasinghe’s husband had been assassinated on January 8, 2009, in his car on the streets of Colombo, Sri Lanka, on his way to work. Her husband, Lasantha Wickrematunge, was a well-known and influential editor of an independent newspaper that was particularly critical of the policies of former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa. His murder has still not been solved but suspicions have centred on the government in power at the time. “We felt hopeless,” she said of Sri Lankan journalists then. “We experienced the anguish of being under attack.”

Now a minister counsellor in the Sri Lankan mission in New York, Samarasinghe is working for the new president, Maithripala Sirsena, who was elected after the end of a horrific war with the Tamil Tigers.

She has been allowed back into the country recently after having to flee for her life in 2009. She is pleased that reporters have more freedom now and that Sri Lanka may adopt a Right to Information Act for the first time. “Press in Sri Lanka has really opened up. Certain groups that were on blacklists were removed.”

Roozbeh Mirebrahimi, an Iranian journalist and blogger, had spent time in Iran’s worst prison for his reporting. Now he and other Iranian journalists are reporting on events online for readers in Iran.

Others like Ethiopian Kassahun Yilma, a former reporter with Addis Neger, a newsmagazine that closed after government intimidation. Yilma is now working again as a journalist after spending his first months in the US doing manual labour. He is reporting on Ethiopia.

Charles Kabonero, a Rwandan journalist charged by the government after investigating corruption, is in exile.

Agnes Taile, of Cameroon, used her own money to start a website and hire reporters in that country to cover issues ignored in the press there. She ran out of money.

Yehia Ghanem, the distinguished Egyptian journalist, was convicted of ridiculous charges after he attempted to set up a training programme for Egyptian journalists covering the 2012 election of Mohamed Morsi, whom the military deposed a year later.

Ghanem can’t go back to the Egypt. He is mocked in the government press and has not seen his family there since. Ghanem is writing a book about his ordeal.

At a World Press Day event at the United Nations two years ago before diplomats, aid workers and UN officials, Ghanem spoke eloquently of the struggle for journalism freedom in his country:

“Freedom of expression, and in the heart of it press freedom, represents the natural immune system of any society. In human bodies, the first thing viruses target is the immune system. Exactly like in human bodies, dictatorships first target freedom of expression and more specifically press freedom.”

Shouldn’t the journalist be allowed to do what they want to? Think on it and share your views.

[Prepared by Animesh from media sources]

  Freedom, Journalist, World Press