The WSIS+20 Forum High-Level Event is intended to serve as a platform for multistakeholder discussions with the aim of taking stock of achievements and key trends, challenges, and opportunities since the Geneva Plan of Action in 2003.

The WSIS+20 Forum High-Level Event is co-organized by ITU, UNESCO, UNDP, and UNCTAD and co-hosted by ITU and the Swiss Confederation. It also has as its Platinum Partner the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and as its Gold Plus Partner the Communications, Space and Technology Commission of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The UAE’s Federal Law No. 15 (1980) on Press and Publication remains one of the most restrictive laws currently in force in the Arab world, with absolute control of the media, governing censorship of national as well as international publications. According to Reporters Without Borders, “The government prevents both local and foreign independent media outlets from thriving by tracking down and persecuting dissenting voices. Expatriate Emirati journalists risk being harassed, arrested or extradited.”

The situation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabi may be worse. Access Now claims that “In Saudi Arabia, expressing yourself online is extremely dangerous. Numerous bloggers, dissidents, and women’s rights defenders have faced unjust prosecution, harsh prison sentences, and travel bans simply for expressing dissent and standing up for human rights. This digital repression is set to get even worse. Saudi authorities have recently proposed two laws that, if enacted, would further restrict free expression online, even potentially silencing people outside Saudi Arabia.”

The organisers of the WSIS+20 High-Level Event apparently see no irony in having two Partners with lamentable track records in media freedoms and democratic communications. Those present at WSIS 2005 in Tunisia, will remember the overt harassment of the government security services. The country’s then ruling party, the Constitutional Democratic Assembly, routinely used the threat of terrorism and religious extremism as a pretext to crack down on peaceful dissent, severely restricting freedom of expression and freedom of association.

WSIS+20, which takes place in 2025 and which should uphold communication rights to help achieve whatever emerges from the UN Summit of the Future taking place in September 2024, may be the last chance for communicative justice based on plurality, diversity, and the genuine participation of civil society in its conception, implementation, and operation.

Photo: Week 27 of an anti-government protest in Haifa, Israel, July 2023  Credit: RnDmS/Shutterstock

On December 10, 2023 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) will be 75 years old. As a benchmark of democracy, we rightly celebrate observance of its Article 19 on freedom of opinion and expression and the right to seek, receive, and impart information.

Often overlooked, as Cees Hamelink points out in his new book Communication and Human Rights, is Article 28: “Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set out in this Declaration can be fully realized.” And that broader framework depends on the ability to communicate freely, safely, and with respect for human dignity.

Effective participation in society is founded on freedom of opinion and expression, access to information, and media freedom. And yet, according to Weaponizing the Law: Attacks on Media Freedom, a report published in April 2023 by the Thomson Reuters Foundation:

Effective participation in society is founded on freedom of opinion and expression, access to information, and media freedom.

Philip Lee

“Among the many and wide-ranging threats to media freedom that have proliferated in recent years is the mounting number of legal attacks on journalists and journalism, often used to silence public interest reporting and exert control. An array of sweeping and repressive legislative, regulatory, and other legal threats to journalists are stifling their ability to operate freely and independently, with grave repercussions for the journalists themselves and for the audiences they serve.”

Contradicting the vision of the UDHR, journalists are being threatened by abuse of defamation laws; criminalisation of criticism and social unrest; “catch-all” national security and public order offences; non-speech related crimes; and combining legal charges as a tactic to secure their conviction.

In Italy in October 2023, the Criminal Court of Rome convicted writer Roberto Saviano of libel and fined him €1,000. Initiated by current prime minister Georgia Meloni, the lawsuit came after critical comments by Saviano on the TV programme Piazzapulita about Meloni’s migration policies.

Sabrina Tucci, a spokesperson for Pen International, the global writers’ association, commented, “This verdict underscores the challenges writers and journalists face in their pursuit of free expression and reminds us of the critical importance of defending writers’ rights and freedom of speech – in Italy and beyond.”

Also in late October 2023, Chinese authorities in Hong Kong denied a visa to Rowena He, an eminent scholar of China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown, preventing her from returning to her teaching post at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. China is not alone in cracking down on independent journalists and academics who criticize the regime, all of whom risk reprisals.

People’s right to communicate is underpinned by media freedom, which requires constant vigilance and accountability if democracy is to flourish.

Philip Lee

The Thomson Reuters report calls on advocacy groups, the legal community, democratic governments, intergovernmental organizations, and journalists themselves to play a key role in responding to this phenomenon. “Sustained international attention, tangible government action to curb negative legislative trends, and expanded access to legal support to prevent and defend against these threats are urgently needed.”

While celebrating the spirit of the UDHR, complacency is not an option when it comes to achieving its overriding aim: universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms. People’s right to communicate is underpinned by media freedom, which requires constant vigilance and accountability if democracy is to flourish.

Photo: Zieusin/Shutterstock

The Nobel Committee’s choice then and now was a strategic act, a statement not only about conditions in specific countries but threats around the world. Just recently, as the official announcement states, Maria Ressa and Dimity Muratov “are receiving the Peace Prize for their courageous fight for freedom of expression in the Philippines and Russia. At the same time, they are representatives of all journalists who stand up for this ideal in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions.”

It may not be that much of an overstatement that today we face a war on facts, and a war on public interest journalism that is predicated on exposing facts.

As Maria Ressa stated almost immediately after receiving the call from the Nobel Committee, “It’s a recognition of how hard it is to be a journalist today”. Journalists, she said, are in a “battle for truth, a battle for facts. We hold the line.”

It is a battle that some journalists are paying with their lives, as Muratov stated when he said his award was for his six colleagues who have been killed because of their reporting. The International Federation of Journalists has published an annual report since 1990 on killings of journalists; in 2020 65 were killed – 17 more than in 2019 – with at least 229 in jail.

Ressa’s experience of threats, harassment and criminal charges also demonstrates the new front of the war against journalism online. Julie Posetti of the International Center for Journalists writes, “her situation best illustrates the convergent political, technological, commercial, and legal threats hobbling contemporary independent journalism and risking the lives of journalists around the world. As only the 18th woman to ever win a Nobel Peace Prize, this award also highlights the experience of women journalists, who sit at the epicenter of risk on the new front line in the global struggle for media freedom and journalists’ safety.”

Posetti shared a big data analysis of the online violence Ressa experiences, published by the International Center for Journalists:

After examining half a million social media posts directed at Ressa over 12 months, we concluded:

• • Almost 60 percent of the attacks on Ressa we extracted from Facebook and Twitter were designed to undermine her professional credibility and public trust in her journalism.
  • Credibility or reputation-based attacks frequently used disinformation tactics and abuse, conflating Ressa and her journalism with “fake news” (such as calling her “Queen of Fake News,” “LIAR,” and “#Presstitute”).
  • More than 40 percent of the attacks in the combined data sets targeted Ressa at the personal level—often viscerally—with misogynistic and racist hate speech routinely deployed.

There is also direct evidence that online violence targeting Ressa has offline consequences. It subjects her to very real physical danger, with frequent rape and death threats, and it has created an enabling environment for her persecution, prosecution, and conviction. She has been served 10 arrest warrants and detained twice since 2019. In July 2020, Ressa was convicted on a trumped-up charge of criminal “cyber libel,” which saw her sentenced to a jail term of up to six years. That case—based on a law that criminalizes journalism in contravention of international human rights law obligations—is currently under appeal before a Manila court. But she is concurrently fighting a slew of legal battles, ranging from cyber libel to tax- and foreign ownership-related cases, which could see her jailed for decades.

In September, WACC and the World Council of Churches and other partners organized a symposium on “Communication for Social Justice in a Digital Age,” publishing a manifesto as a result of discussions. The Nobel Prize-winning journalists exemplify the kinds of justice described in the manifesto:

“We need principles that allow all people to engage in transparent, informed, and democratic debate, where people have unfettered access to the information and knowledge essential to peaceful coexistence, empowerment, responsible civic engagement, and mutual accountability.”

Ressa has said she hopes the prize will provide a protective shield for her and other journalists in the Philippines against physical attacks and online threats. As reported in The Guardian, she said, “This ‘us against them’ was never the creation of the journalists, it was the creation of the people in power who wanted to use a type of leadership that divides society… I hope this allows journalists to do our jobs well without fear.”

It is also up to all of us, to enable and protect a society in which journalists can conduct their vital public service and in which all of us can engage in open, truthful and accountable public debate. This global call to defend journalism is a global call to us.

Photo: Presslab/Shutterstock

Two tragic events have thrown that statement into sharp relief: the global coronavirus pandemic and the murder of George Floyd in the USA.

Index on Censorship has been mapping attacks on media freedom related to the coronavirus crisis. Rachael Jolley, editor-in-chief, has noted “We are alarmed at the ferocity of some of the attacks on media freedom we are seeing being unveiled. In some states, journalists are threatened with prison sentences for reporting on shortages of vital hospital equipment. The public need to know this kind of life-saving information, not have it kept from them.”

Lake View, Chicago, IL, USA
Photo: Max Bender/unsplash.com

Free Press Unlimited is calling for women to be seen and heard – especially during the ongoing pandemic. One of the key objectives of its current Gender Equality in the Media (GEM) programme is to ensure balanced and diverse representation of women. Covid-19 has highlighted the need to monitor how gender-sensitive is the content of news and information about the pandemic. Data from Women in Global Health (February 2020) indicate that for every three men quoted in media coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak, only one woman was quoted.

This finding is well known to the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) and the Global Alliance on Media and Gender (GAMAG), which have long called for the creation of databases of women experts for the media to draw on when it comes to matters of public concern.

In the USA, with the killing by police of George Floyd and the civil unrest that followed, attacks on press freedom have escalated with violent assaults on journalists, who have been shot at, tear-gassed, clubbed, shoved, and otherwise abused. Such actions suggest intentional targeting of the press.

Repeated claims of “fake news” and naming the press as “enemies of the state” by the current president have created a situation – it seems – in which many in law enforcement believe that “anything goes”. Yet, ordinary people have a right to be informed, to be given an unbiased and accurate picture of what is going on.

Whatever the crisis – Covid-19, police brutality, climate change – the press best serves the country when it serves its people, not the government. As The Washington Post proclaims, “Democracy dies in darkness”.

Photo above: A young woman wearing a mask and black lives matter t-shirt marching in a #BlackLivesMatter public demonstration in Cincinnati. Credit: Julian Wan/unsplash.com

The 2020 edition of the Index, which evaluates the situation for journalists in 180 countries and territories, identifies five converging crises: geopolitical (due to the aggressiveness of authoritarian regimes); technological (due to a lack of democratic guarantees); democratic (due to polarisation and repressive policies); trust (due to aggravated suspicion of the media); and economic (impoverishing quality journalism). These are currently compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic.

RSF’s “global indicator” – a measure of the level of media freedom worldwide – went up by 0.9% in the 2020 Index. However, in the years since 2013, it had gone down by 12%. The proportion of countries where the press freedom situation is “good”, remains unchanged at 8%, but those where the situation is “very bad”, has increased to 13%.

Mistrust of media outlets accused of broadcasting or publishing news containing unreliable information continues to grow. The antics of political leaders seeking to bolster their own image or to be re-elected have made the situation worse.

In the US, the 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer produced by the public relations and marketing consultancy firm reveals that despite a strong global economy and near full employment, none of the four societal institutions that the study measures – government, business, NGOs and media – is trusted.

According to Edelman, “The cause of this paradox can be found in people’s fears about the future and their role in it, which are a wake-up call for our institutions to embrace a new way of effectively building trust: balancing competence with ethical behaviour.”

In addition, in many countries global digital transformations have weakened the media. Falling sales, less advertising revenue and increased production and distribution costs have forced news organisations to restructure and lay off journalists.

The economic downturn has also accentuated issues of media ownership and control, threatening journalistic pluralism, diversity and independence. Local, community-led media have been particularly impacted.

Trust in governments, public institutions, and the media is vital if global crises such as health, climate, and forced displacement are to be properly understood and policies crafted to address them swiftly and efficiently.

Access to independent, diverse and reliable information underlies decision-making that can save lives and livelihoods. Rebuilding trust must be a priority for the next decade.

Photo above: Metamorworks/Shutterstock