World Press Freedom Day

Kim Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Ghani. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) for securing this debate to celebrate World Press Freedom Day.

The debate comes at an important time. Mere weeks ago, the world watched in horror as the Gazan offices of al-Jazeera and Associated Press were razed to the ground by Israeli bombs in a brazen attack on the media. The International Federation of Journalists reported that, at the same time in Jerusalem, Israeli police were deliberately and systematically assaulting, beating and firing stun grenades at Palestinian media workers. Today, I add my voice to the calls, including by the IFJ, for an end to impunity for these war crimes and for the shameful attempt to silence the media and reporting on the ground. These events followed two complaints submitted by the IFJ to the UN special rapporteurs in December 2020 about Israel’s systematic targeting of journalists working in Palestine and its failure properly to investigate killings of media workers—reminding us that the threats to journalists working in Palestine are consistent and stretch beyond the bombing campaigns.

The diversion of a flight and the arrest of journalist Roman Protasevich just days ago in Belarus, bringing the country’s number of detained journalists to 24, further increases the urgency of this debate. President Lukashenko has also taken action to harass and block the country’s most popular news website and has passed authoritarian measures relating to the media law.

Will the Minister call on the Government of whom he is a member to use every means at their disposal to compel the Israeli and Belarusian authorities to bring an end to the attacks on journalists? It is the case that 2,658 media workers have been killed globally in the last 30 years; that is about two every single week. And 84% of journalists who were killed in 2020 were knowingly targeted and deliberately murdered; that was a significant increase from 63% in 2019. In nine out of 10 cases, the killings remain unpunished.

Press freedom in conflict zones is an absolute necessity, but concerningly there is an increasing trend of journalists being killed in countries considered to be at peace; it accounts for 68% of all those killed. We can say in no uncertain terms that this is a crisis of impunity. In the last year, Turkey, Belarus, India, Myanmar and China implemented brutal crackdowns on their media. Nearly 400 journalists and media workers were being held in detention at the end of 2020. That is a historically high level. The number of women journalists imprisoned in 2020 increased by one third.

At home, the UK is ranked 33rd out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index, with our own record marred by restrictions on freedom of information, the detention of Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange, and active threats to the safety of journalists in Northern Ireland. These figures are shocking, and a concrete solution is desperately needed to reverse this dangerous trend. Will the Minister take up calls from the IFJ and media representatives on every continent for the establishment of a UN convention on the safety and protection of journalists, to ensure implementation of existing UN mechanisms, hold states accountable for their obligations, and end the impunity with which attacks on the press are currently conducted?

I will conclude by paying tribute to the bravery of journalists across the globe who work in dangerous circumstances to keep power in check. We must not mark World Press Freedom Day merely with words, but renew our efforts to ensure that threats to press freedoms everywhere are combated with decisive action, because press freedom protects us, and we must strive every day to protect press freedom.