(United Nations) “Around the world, press freedom is under attack,” the UN secretary-general lamented on Tuesday, denouncing targeted journalists and disinformation.
“All our freedoms depend on freedom of the press […] Freedom of the press is the lifeblood of human rights,” Guterres said in a video message released on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the International Day of freedom of press.
“But in every corner of the world, freedom of the press is under attack,” he added.
“Journalists and media workers are being directly targeted online and off while doing their vital work. They are daily harassed, intimidated, arrested, imprisoned,” he added. Not to mention those who are simply killed.
The Secretary General also drew attention to “the increasing concentration of the media industry in the hands of a few and the bankruptcy of many independent media”.
“Truth is threatened by disinformation and hate speech, which seek to blur the lines between fact and fiction, between science and conspiracy,” he said.
A theme echoed by the Director General of UNESCO who organized this event at the United Nations in New York to mark this thirtieth anniversary.
“These new challenges facing journalists come at a time when we need them more than ever, because the advance of the digital age is changing the entire information landscape,” insisted Audrey Azoulay, emphasizing the crucial role of a “professional, free and independent” press in “deciphering, unveiling, decoding”.
She said it was “unacceptable” that journalists were “harassed, attacked, sometimes imprisoned, just for doing their job.”
“We are thinking today of each and every one of them, because beyond their personal situation, it is the service they render to society as a whole that is at stake,” she insisted. , without citing one in particular.
New York Times managing editor Arthur Sulzberger directly “brought attention” to Evan Gershkovich, an American Wall Street Journal reporter detained in Russia on espionage charges which he denies. “He remains imprisoned in Russia on false charges and must be released.”
