Global Expression Report 2021, Resources for the media

The COVID-19 pandemic drove home just how vital access to accurate, reliable and timely information is during a global health crisis. It made it clear that freedom of expression is the fundamental human right enabling us all to demand the highest attainable standard of health.

When faced with such crises, governments have a fundamental duty to be transparent about their decisions, and a legal obligation to protect people’s lives.

And yet the GxR21 reveals that, rather than focusing on controlling the virus, protecting public health and improving access to information, governments presented a false choice between human rights and public health, wasting public money and valuable time by using the pandemic to entrench their power.

Key findings:

During 2020, two thirds of all countries imposed restrictions on media in relation to the pandemic.
Following the downward trend from 2019, the global score for Freedom of Expression and the Right to Information has reached its lowest point since 2010.
The starkest deterioration in the GxR scores came from data looking at freedom of assembly and public participation in decision-making. Quinn McKew, Executive Director of ARTICLE 19, has described the decline in clear terms

“The global pandemic has brought the world to a tipping point, and where governments and private actors face a stark choice. They must either commit to building a world based on rights to expression and information or they must become bystanders to the rapid decline in the freedoms that sustain robust and engaged societies. In every community, in every country — if we are to address the serious global challenges we face — expression must be at the heart of new power relationships.”

GxR analysis:

— In 2020, 62 journalists were killed and a record number — 274 — were imprisoned. Journalists, bloggers, human rights defenders (HRDs), political activists and whistleblowers were arrested, detained and summoned for questioning, often arbitrarily, and prosecuted for criticising governments’ responses to COVID-19, expressing views on the pandemic, or sharing information, including in Palestine, Poland, Madagascar, Eswatini, India, Tunisia, Niger and Cameroon.

China, Turkey, and Egypt were the biggest jailers.

— Of 620 violations of press freedom recorded globally in the first 14 months of the pandemic, 34% were physical and verbal attacks on journalists; 34% were arrests of journalists, or charges filed against journalists and media organisations by governments; and a further 14% were government-imposed restrictions on access to information. Arrests quadrupled from March to May 2020, and harassment and physical attacks rose across the world – from Brazil to Italy, Kenya, Senegal, and Nigeria.

— Whistleblowers were inadequately protected – and, in many cases, even silenced by governments themselves. Most of this violence and harassment happened in a context of total impunity. Most murders of journalists do not even reach the headlines in international media. Even those that do, such as Jamal Khashoggi, Jan Kuciak and Daphne Caruana Galizia, do not get justice – even though high-level government officials were implicated in their deaths. In the case of Khashoggi, UN investigators faced death threats.

— In 2020, three-quarters of women journalists experienced online abuse and harassment. HRDs are also under attack. At least 331 were killed in 2020, 69% of whom were working on indigenous people’s or land rights.

— The majority of killings of human rights defenders took place in Latin America; Colombia alone accounted for 53% of murders of HRDs globally.

— Two-thirds of the world’s population – 4.9 billion people – are living in countries that are highly restricted or experiencing a free expression crisis, more than at any time in the last decade.

— Seven countries – with a combined population of 72 million people – saw a significant decline in their overall environment for freedom of expression.

— In Asia and the Pacific, 85% of the population lives in countries where free expression is in crisis or highly restricted – a 39% rise since 2010.

— In the Americas, the regional global score for freedom of expression is at its lowest in a decade.

—Not a single country in Africa has a good GxR score, meaning more people are living in countries where free expression is in crisis or highly restricted than have been in the last decade.

— In Europe and Central Asia, 34% of the population live in countries where free expression is in crisis.

— In the Middle East and North Africa, 72% of the population lives in countries in crisis.

courtesy www.article19.org

Copied and Posted on Pak Press on Saturday, August 28, 2021