Every year on May 3rd, all the world emphasize the importance of the freedom of press. This post is a summary of three articles. The first with the title of, "Secretary-General `s Message for 2014." Published at http://www.un.org/en/events/pressfreedomday/2014/sgmessage.shtml. The second with the title of, "Halftime for the Brazilian press." Published at http://cpj.org/reports/2014/05/halftime-for-brazilian-press-censorship-violence-vicious-cycle-of-impunity.php. The third with the title of, "Press freedom at the lowest level in a decade." It was published at http://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/freedom-press-2014#.U29ybYFdXHg
Each year on World Press Freedom Day, we reaffirm our commitment to the fundamental freedom to receive and impart information and ideas through any media, regardless of frontiers. Yet every day of the year sees this right under assault. Journalists are singled out for speaking or writing uncorfortable truths - kidnapped, detained, beaten and sometimes murdered. Such treatment is completely unacceptable in a world ever more reliant on global news outlets and the journalists who serve them. Last year 70 journalists were killed and 211 were being held in prison. There must be no impunity for those who target journalists for violence, intimidation or distorted uses of legal procedures to disrupt or impede their work. Free media, traditional and new, are indispensable for development, democracy and good governance. They can promote transparency about goals that governments will adopt, progress as well shortfalls. Social media offer new tools for accelerating citizen participation and economic and social progress. The media`s watchdog function is essential for holding governments, businesses and others to account. On this day, I call on all governments, societies and individuals to actively defend this right as critical factor in achieving development goals.
Will justice prevail over censorship and violence? Brazil is home to vibrant media, but journalists are regularly murdered with impunity and critical journalists are subject to legal actions that drain resources and censor important stories. After initially failing to recognize the gravity of the threat posed by unchecked violence against the press, Brazilian authorities have taken steps to bring the killers of journalists to justice. These efforts are to be commended, but despite the convictions, the murder rate for journalists has not declined, and Brazil continues to feature on CPJ`s Impunity Index, mired in 11th place on the rankings of countries around the world where the killers of journalists go free. Laws on the books continue to make it possible for powerful figures to bring punitive suits against critical journalists. The political environment surrounding the World Cup is likely to be volatile. Large street protests fueled by anger over the extravagant expenditures on sport stadiums rather than on unmet social needs are expected to resume once the matches get under way. By mid-July, several questions will be answered. The vicious cycle of impunity. In 2012 the murder of a soccer journalist in Goiânia may run counter to the official narrative of success, it reflects the disparate realities of a country as immense as Brazil, and depicts a darker side of "the beautiful game." Human rights abuses and press freedom restrictions were at the forefront of discussions of recent Olympic Games in China and Russia, but many in the international community might be surprised to learn that Brazil is the 11th deadliest country for journalists. The wave of deadly violence has hit provincial journalists much more than their colleagues in major urban centers, a circumstance that may have made the killings easier to ignore. A closer inspection of some of these cases, however, reflects the unique challenges of attaining justice in Brazilians journalists`s murders. The authorities in Brazil often come tantalizingly close to solving the murders, only to see cases evaporate just before the final reckoning. The resolution of the case of murder of Domingos Sávio Brandão. owner and columnist of the daily Folha do Estado in Cuiabá, was by no means swift. It was not until October 2013, 11 years after the crime. The other recent convictions snared only the triggermen. The cases of Edinaldo Filgueira and Décio Sá hold many parallels. Sá was one of the best-known journalists in the state of Maranhão. A marked contrast to the relatively rapid investigation and trial in Décio Sá case is the lack of progress in the case of the less prominent blogger Mario Randolfo Marques Lopes, whose body was found along with that of his companion in Rio de Janeiro state two and half months before Sá murder. Marques had also written about local political corruption and alleged police involvement in criminal activity. The only development in the investigation was the decision to exhume the blogger`s body in February 2013. If anything can be learned from the erratic nature of the Brazilian justice system, it is that the most powerful force for combatting impunity is often the press corps itself. Victor, who founded the Edinaldo Filgueira Institute to promote freedom of expression, said the convictions in the Filqueira case would never have been achieved without the mobilization of bloggers, who put together a conference where they commemorated Filgueira as a patron of all bloggers, and established a National Bloggers day in his honor. A similar form of grass-roots mobilization was used by the Vale do Aço press corps in Minas Gerais state last year. After journalist Rodrigo Neto and photographer Walgney Assis Carvalho were murdered in a period of weeks, a group of local reporters founded the Rodrigo Neto Committe to investigate the killings, and to continue the work the journalist left behind.
Global press freedom fell to its lowest level in over a decade in 2013, as hopes raised by the Arab Spring were further dashed by major regression in Egypt, Libia, and Jordan, and marked setbakcs also occurred in Turkey, Ukraine, and a number of countries in East Africa. The year`s decline were driven by the desire of governments to control news content, harassment of journalists covering protest movements or other sensitive stories; restrictions on foreign reporters or tightened constraints on online news outlets and social media. Even more open media environments are not immune to pressure on press freedom. The year featured the most decline of the past decade in the U.S.A., due to government attempts to control official information flows, particularly concerning national security issues; the legal harassment of journalists with regard to protection of sources; and revelations of surveillance by the N.S.A. Disclosure that surveillance was being conducted by governments against ordinary citizens as well as key political figures intensified concerns on a global level about the ability of journalists and others who gather and disseminate news and information to protect sources and maintain their digital privacy.
