CYRIL RAMAPHOSA: We must jealously safeguard our country’s media freedom
Dear Fellow South African,
We live in a country where not just journalists but any member of the public is able to freely articulate their views, their opinions and indeed their dissatisfaction without fear of retribution.
As we conclude Freedom Month, we recall how far we have come from the days where social protest by artists attracted banning orders, and critical reporting by journalists risked imprisonment or the closure of publications.
Last week, the organisation Reporters without Borders published the 2021 World Press Freedom Index, a barometer of the state of media freedom across the globe.
(Latvian Public Broadcasting) Latvian officials took a moment May 3 to express support for journalists and journalism on World Press Freedom Day.
President Egils Levits led the way, tweeting in English.
As we celebrate the #WorldPressFreedomDay, we must remember that freedom of speech is the basic component of human personality and humanism, which are undermined by authoritarian regimes, “well-meaning” anonymous social media “content administrators”, automated algorithms alike. Egils Levits (@valstsgriba) May 3, 2021
But this was just part of a string of tweets on the subject of freedom of speech in which he said: FreedomOfSpeech must be as unrestricted as possible. It should be at the sole discretion of democratically elected legislature, which must respect specific views of people expressed on public platforms and define absolutely clear criteria for countering factual disinformation.
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Today, May 3, thousands of netizens are marking World Press Freedom Day by tweeting out, among several hashtags, the slogan #JournalismIsNotACrime. I don’t know who came up with the slogan, but it has always struck me as slightly inadequate. For a profession that deals in the written word, it exhibits a clumsy degree of semantic slippage, from the “ought” to the “is.” While journalism shouldn’t be a crime, there are of course many nations in which journalism very much
is a crime, and for quite unsurprising reasons.
Take Myanmar, where since the military coup of February 1, the country’s junta has arrested an estimated 73 journalists and media workers, slamming shut the door that creaked on its hinges and swung open during the political liberalization of the past decade.
With GE15 on the horizon, there is a grave risk that arrests will continue to rise.
Respect for freedom of speech in Malaysia is in free fall - a decline illustrated by two recent arrests.
On the evening of Friday, April 23, seven police officers broke down the door of graphic artist Fahmi Reza’s home, arrested him, and took him to the police station for questioning. His alleged crime? Creating a jealousy-themed
Spotify playlist in a satirical response to a controversial tweet by Malaysia’s queen.
Although he was released on bail after 24 hours, he is being investigated under Malaysia’s notorious Sedition Act, which criminalises any speech with a tendency to “excite disaffection” against or “bring into hatred or contempt” members of Malaysia’s royalty.
From the president’s desk President Cyril Ramaphosa
Dear Fellow South African,
We live in a country where not just journalists but any member of the public is able to freely articulate their views, opinions and indeed dissatisfaction without fear of retribution.
As we conclude Freedom Month, we recall how far we have come from the days where social protest by artists attracted banning orders, and critical reporting by journalists risked imprisonment or the closure of publications.
Last week, the organisation Reporters without Borders published the 2021 World Press Freedom Index, a barometer of the state of media freedom across the globe.