Senate warns of threats to free press around the world
Published: May 1, 2009
Updated 6 months ago
Burma, Iran top group’s list of worst countries for bloggers; Obama expresses concern
Freedom of the press is one of the most hallowed of the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and has seen America through thick and thin, even as time and technology have changed the way news is delivered.
Today, the U.S. Senate marked World Press Freedom Day by issuing a resolution acknowledging threats to the free press abroad and “reaffirming the United States’ commitment to promoting this essential right globally.”
The bipartisan effort was spearheaded by Democratic Sens. Russ Feingold, John Kerry, Patrick Leahy, Dick Durbin and others along with GOP Sens. Dick Lugar and Johnny Isakson and “independent Democrat” Joe Lieberman.
Said Sen. Kerry (D-MA), the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, “A free press holds powerful people and big institutions accountable, and gives voice to people and interests who might never be heard, and that is a sacred freedom that should be protected and spread around the globe.”
Sen. Feingold (D-WI), himself a former White House contender, said, “A free society depends on a free press, and it is our duty to promote and protect this freedom around the world.”
Added Sen. Leahy (D-VT), “[W]e are reminded that an open and accountable society comes with the duty of its citizens to seek out the truth and to empower themselves with that knowledge. All of us have an interest in preserving press freedoms and protecting the public’s right to know.”
The Senate resolution, as described in a press release issued to RAW STORY, “celebrates the fundamental right of freedom of the press, commends journalists around the world for their work holding government accountable and strengthening civil society and pays tribute to those journalists who lost their lives in the line of duty.
“The resolution,” continues the release, “also condemns actions around the world to suppress the freedom of the press and calls for the U.S. government to develop a system to more rapidly identify, publicize and respond to threats against press freedom worldwide.”
Hundreds of journalists were arrested, attacked, threatened and even kidnapped around the world in the last year, according to Reporters Without Borders, while over one hundred reporters and other media personnel died on assignment, per the International Federation of Journalists.
In Iran, jailed U.S.-born journalist Roxana Saberi was reportedly on a hunger strike, a claim denied by the Iranian government, which is also holding noted blogger Hossein Derakshan.
President Obama marked the day with a statement in which he expressed special concern about the journalists detained in Iran and also in North Korea. Obama used the occasion to “sound the alarm about the growing number of journalists silenced by death or jail as they attempt to bring daily news to the public.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a nonprofit organization based in the U.S. that promotes press freedom, has meanwhile posted its list of the ten “worst countries to be a blogger.”
Burma (Myanmar), where one blogger is serving an almost 60-year sentence for publicizing post-cyclone video footage, tops CPJ’s list, with Iran and Syria at Nos. 2 and 3, respectively.
The group’s list is rounded out by Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Tunisia, China, Turkmenistan and Egypt.
The complete CPJ report is available at this link.
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Yet another concrete aspect of the Bush Republican party legacy. Let’s dedicate the periodical section of George’s presidential library to this phenomenon.
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[...] via Raw Story » Senate warns of threats to free press around the world. [...]
More song and dance by US politicians to fool the sheeple that they’re actually doing their jobs, while the US government itself still continues to spread outright lies regarding the ‘war on (some) drugs.’
I wonder if these groups who rank press freedom around the world will mention Russell Tice’s contention that the NSA was intercepting every email, phone call, fax, and text message from various news agencies in the US for years under the Bush administration. Or if they’ll note that no major news outlets have actually reported on this except MSNBC. Notably not the NYtimes even though Tice was an informant for their original piece about wiretapping. Some freedom of the press we’ve got there.
Yes, we must be very careful to protect Bigga Badda Bob from the free press.
Senators Kerry and Leahy said it best. It’s great to see this battered country stand firm in defending a basic principle–– in protecting free speech for EVERYBODY.
“There are none so enslaved as those who think they are free.” Voltaire…..This beaner flu coverage has sure taken the light off of the Bushco criminals investigations…now the flu is not as bad as thought. Imagine that!!! Golly Gee Whiz.
Free press. 90 percent of the media is owned by just a few conglomerates, about the same proportion as those who hold the wealth in this country. Most news is filtered through these few sources. In order to get real news one must go to the internet, or foreign news sources. This effectively blocks the majority of Amerikans from getting the truth. So much for FREE press.
A filtered press is not a free press. Money rules our news more than ever now that ownership of the MSM is controlled by only a few corporations. If the article reflected the true scope of the comments from Washington, this point was not at all addressed. I’m very disappointed but not particularly surprised that the downside of media consolidation is not on Washington’s radar.
The trouble with this is that the countries mentioned with the worst records have a life style that is nothing like the US and so totally different you can’t impose US standards to those countries and say they are not meeting up to them. They don’t believe the same things or stand for the same things as a democracy. As much as I hate the fact that a blogger is in jail for 60 years I also hate the fact that US newspapers are disappearing at a rate almost alarming because people prefer the internet where they can go the site of their choice that usually provides them with the news they want through their own political prism. I wonder how long blogs could survive with the loss of the newspapers and the news they provide that so many link to. The media and the free press became no longer free years ago when they decided to become much more political and started lining up on political sides. Now when a paper folds so many of the reactions become - So what they were too liberal, or so what they were too conservative. The free press is in jeopardy everywhere just the severity of the problem differs from place to place.
[...] certainly share the President’s concerns about the suppression of the media in places like Myanmar and Iran. But I am also quite concerned about this country’s media, [...]
If we actually had a ‘free press’ in this country the following news story would be broadcast nationwide…
The evidence is in… ‘Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe’, a peer-reviewed scientific paper has recently been published in the Chemical Physics Journal detailing the use of nanothermite to bring down the three buildings in NYC on 9/11 by controlled demolition. We must demand a new, thorough and “independent” 9/11 investigation. Now.
The US is 36th in the world in truth told from our media..We need to clean our own house first.