Global Investigative Journalism Network (https://archive.gijn.org/tag/freedom-of-expression/)
Throughout much of the world, journalists’ legal rights of expression and access to information are ever-changing — and physical harm or financial injury are too often common. So it is some comfort to know that there are organizations willing to defend those legal rights established by regional, national, and international laws.
More than 130 journalists were killed in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Honduras in the years between 2011 and 2020, many of them attacked while investigating political issues, corruption, and organized crime. RSF has analyzed the attacks and found that half of the journalists had received threats related to their work.
As we prepare to gather in Johannesburg for #GIJC17, it’s worth noting the many challenges African journalists face. From South Africa to Somalia, July was a particularly ominous month for free expression on the continent.
Join us today in honoring World Press Freedom Day and lend your support to free and independent media around the world. This year, the annual event focuses on the theme of “Safe to Speak: Securing Freedom of Expression in All Media.” As part of that, UNESCO has released an infographic on the dangers of being a journalist in a culture of impunity.
When Clare Rewcastle Brown founded the Sarawak Report in 2010, it was designed to highlight issues affecting indigenous communities in Malaysia, but it soon became instrumental in breaking what the US attorney-general has described as the worst form of kleptocracy in history — the 1MDB scandal involving the plundering of state funds allegedly by Malaysia’s then prime minister and his associates.
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Media Environment
The Bahraini constitution guarantees freedom of expression and the press, excluding opinions that undermine the fundamental beliefs of Islam or the “unity of the people” and those that promote “discord or sectarianism.”
Online is no refuge: The PEN American Center, an association of writers and others working to defend free expression, created this interactive report to showcase the global rise of digital repression, using data from its case files over the past 12 years.
Journalism has never been easy in Kazakhstan. The outspoken newspaper Uralskaya Nedelya has rarely known a moment’s peace. But it is usually the lawmaker’s pen and the judge’s gavel that are the main enemies of the independent press.
Close to 99% of crimes against journalists and the media are committed with impunity in Mexico, according to this infographic created by the International Freedom of Expression Network (IFEX). The numbers show an alarming trend: 72 journalists were murdered between 2000 and 2012.
The lights of free speech are being steadily extinguished across the Arab world, heralding a new era of ignorance, intolerance, and repression. Saddest of all, the majority of Arabs — who saw free speech as the only gain from the Arab Spring upheavals – now seem willing to accept the loss of this universal human right, in return for promises of stability and economic prosperity.