Freedom of the press is a precious privilege that no country can forego – Mahatma Gandhi.
Missiles can’t defend against the spread of the deadly Ebola virus, but accurate information, widely shared, can. Guns and knives can’t uncover public officials on the take, but scrupulous research and careful interviews can. Information and ideas, and the ability to freely share them, are the world’s most powerful weapons.
That’s why freedom of the press matters. In America, the Trump Administration’s foreign policy may be entering an isolationist phase, but international issues, from rising seas to smuggled drugs to hacked computer networks, will continue. The world needs journalists in all sorts of places to gather information and distribute it to the general public. The world needs that information to stay safe.
But 2017 was a bad year for reporters. At least 42 journalists were killed in the line of duty – murdered outright, caught in combat crossfire, or mortally injured on assignment – according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. That figure doesn’t include reporters killed in vehicle or plane accidents, or those wounded or imprisoned because of their work. Local journalists – people from the areas they report on – faced the highest risk.
In India, Gauri Lankesh, a journalist-turned-activist from Bengaluru, was shot dead by unknown assailants outside her home on September 5 last year. She worked as an editor in Lankesh Patrike, a vernacular weekly started by her father, and her own weekly called Gauri Lankesh Patrike. At the time of her death, Gauri was known for being a critic of right-wing Hindu extremism. She was honoured with an award for speaking against right-wing Hindu extremism, campaigning for women’s rights and opposing caste-based discrimination.
In the Philippines, an unidentified gunman shot and killed Christopher Iban Lozada, a radio broadcaster with the privately owned DBXF Prime Broadcasting Network news station on October 24, 2017.
And in Afghanistan, Abdul Samad Rohani disappeared on the evening of June 7. His body was found with multiple bullet wounds the next day in a cemetery near Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand province, according to local and international news reports. Rohani was the Helmand reporter for BBC’s Pashto service and contributed to the Pajhwok Afghan News agency, the country’s largest independent news service.
On the whole, the number of reporters killed has come down from a decade high of 74 in 2012, but other threats are rising.
Meanwhile, record numbers of journalists have been incarcerated by various governments all over the world. Al Jazeera’s journalist Mahmoud Hussein has been detained by Egypt’s government for over 394 days now.
Mexico is a special concern. It is one of the world’s most dangerous places for reporters – six were murdered there last year and many others attacked or threatened. And its government consistently fails to identify, prosecute and punish those who order the killings.
Also, circumstantial evidence suggests that Mexican officials planted spyware in the mobile devices of some investigative journalists, anti-corruption campaigners and human rights advocates.
Mexico, like the United States, protects freedom of expression in its constitution. That country’s next president should make defending freedom of expression a key priority.
For democracy to flourish world over, it is imperative to revere freedom of the press and enable free flow of information. It is, therefore, incumbent upon government leaders and prominent public officials to defend it zealously.