by Maddalena Pezzotti –
Reporters sans frontières or Reporter without borders, a Paris-based non-profit organization with consultative status at the United Nations, was founded in line with Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the aim of safeguarding the right to information. It releases an annual report, the World Press Freedom Index, which analyzes the state of the art of press freedom in 180 countries and is now in its twentieth edition. According to the results surveyed, in 2022, a polarization of the mass media was highlighted, a reflection of that between states on an international level, which in turn fueled it, and a communicative chaos due to the effects of fake news, proliferated in the deregulated space of the internet. Divisions have increased in democratic societies due to the spread of disinformation circuits amplified by social media, which undermine civil harmony and tolerance in public debate.
The war in Ukraine is an illustration of these tendencies, as the confrontation was preceded by belligerent propaganda by the factions involved, and by supporters and allies on both sides, which forced the cooperation of the media, distorted some facts and promoted partial views. Confrontations between nationalist blocs have also increased in other regions of the world, for example in India and Pakistan, and in the Middle East; in the latter case with a direct impact on the conflicts between the Arab states and the Israeli-Palestinian one. The high presence of partisan media has also strengthened internal social conflicts and political tensions, as in the United States and France. The suppression of independent spaces and the harassment of dissidents, observed in China, Russia, Belarus and Poland, have consolidated positions of information control.
Five criteria – political scenario, regulatory framework, economic context, socio-cultural environment and security – form the basis of the evaluation, for each of which a value ranging from 0 to 100 is assigned. The penalizing scores for Italy came from the political indicators and cheap. The report refers to the abuses of mafia networks and widespread self-censorship. Our country (58th) loses seventeen positions, placing itself just below Romania and Macedonia, and slightly above Niger, Ghana and Kosovo. In the European Union (EU), only Hungary, Poland, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Malta and Greece occupy a worse position. In general, the economic situation is worrying in a record number of 28 countries and 12 are on the red list. At the bottom, are Syria (171st), Iraq (172nd), Cuba (173rd), Vietnam (174th), China (175th), Myanmar (176th), Turkmenistan (177th), Iran (178th °), Eritrea (179th), North Korea (180th); while the podium goes to Norway (1st), Denmark (2nd), Sweden (3rd).
In Europe, the murders of journalists are back, which took place in Greece (in last place in Europe) and the Netherlands; those of years earlier, in Malta and Slovakia, have not yet been punished, despite developments in the field of justice. In Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands, reporters, prejudicially associated with government positions, suffered violent verbal and physical assaults, and bullying of various kinds, by riotous demonstrators. In Slovenia, Poland, Hungary, Albania and Greece, draconian anti-press laws have been stepped up. In the case of the United Kingdom, the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States, after lengthy legal proceedings, has set a damaging precedent for global press freedom. In addition, the EU provision, passed outside any logic of law, to ban the Russian media, can be used in the future as a pretext for arbitrary decisions by populist or illiberal premiers that are not lacking in the Union.
The landscape in North Africa, excluding Egypt, has never been more alarming. In Algeria and Morocco, the judicial persecution and imprisonment of journalists has become routine, with wide margins of impunity; the majority of opposition newspapers have been blocked or definitively truncated. Press freedom has completely disappeared in Libya and Sudan, the omnipresence of regular and irregular military forces exerts strong pressure, and the institutional vacuum does not guarantee the basis for a safe recovery of the information infrastructure. Ups and downs in Mauritania and Tunisia have seen both promising interludes, with the reclassification of crimes of opinion in Mauritania, and the incorporation of the principle of freedom of the press in the new constitution in Tunisia, and the continuation of precarious conditions in practice and the decree of states of emergency that cancel the progress made.
Despite an era of publishing liberalization which, starting in the 1990s, in Africa has benefited from the democratization of countries such as Senegal and South Africa, there remain situations of total closure to independent means of communication, accompanied, as in Eritrea and Djibouti , from surveillance and sanctions, and repeated boycotts of the internet. Laws criminalizing journalism and high levels of social disrepute for journalism, as well as the impact of political instability and internal armed conflicts, generate a scenario in which expulsions, kidnappings, secret detentions, and assassinations proliferate, in Benin, Mali, Burkina Faso, and different forms of repression of divergent voices in Angola, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia.
The Middle East continues to be an unsafe area for journalists, characterized by a spiral of violence that reaches the point of death threats and killings. State inaction in Lebanon has driven many into exile. The conflict in Yemen has claimed lives among war reporters, but others have been subjected to specific attacks against their person. The Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip has cost blood. Saudi Arabia and Turkey, with their despotism, are veritable prisons for reporters, with specious or unfounded charges ranging from “insults” to authority, to “membership of terrorist organizations” and “propaganda”, interference in administration of justice, harsh sentences and extrajudicial executions. In Iran, the two main perpetrators of crimes committed against representatives of the press in the last twenty years have become president of the republic and president of the judiciary. Arbitrary arrests and imprisonments continue without the minimum guarantees provided for by international instruments.
An absolute vigilance of information manifests itself in those countries of Asia and the Pacific, where military coups d’état (Burma), the seizure of power by extremist groups (Afghanistan), or the perpetuation of autocratic regimes (North Korea) , have precipitated the quality of civil coexistence and raised a wave of abuses and violence against opponents. Press freedom has been tightened in Vietnam and Singapore. This has also deteriorated in India, Sri Lanka and the Philippines, where nationalistic turns lead to operations of harassment against critical journalists, and again in Japan, South Korea and Australia, where the pressure of large industrial groups, owners of editorial assets, encourages approval. The semi-autonomous territory of Hong Kong, chaired by China, had the most dramatic drop in the rankings.
The environment is toxic in Latin America. Aggressive rhetoric against reporters and the trivialization of their work, in Cuba, and in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Mexico, El Salvador and Brazil, is translated into collective campaigns of intimidation, targeted harassment of individuals, often women, and abuse of lawsuits. The attacks are accompanied, in the most deplorable episodes, by kidnappings and killings. Nicaragua slumped in the rankings, losing thirty-nine positions, following the imposition of a fourth consecutive term of the president, and the ferocious annihilation of dissent, which led to the dismantling of alternative means of communication, and a forced exodus of journalists. El Salvador maintains a government which, by portraying the press as the enemy of the people, and forcing legislative changes that harm free expression, causes it to fall thirty positions, and to suffer one of the most serious declines for two consecutive years. Mexico’s homicide rate makes it the most dangerous country in the world for reporters.
In the United States, while there has been a slight improvement, chronic issues persist including the closure of local news outlets, media radicalism, the erosion of the print media fueled by digital platforms, and a climate of animosity towards journalists. Even in Canada, while long-standing efforts to protect press freedom are recognized, national reporters have suffered harsh and hostile treatment as they cover the pipeline of health care reform. The executive’s change of conduct has led to arrests in conjunction with indigenous protests for the construction of the pipeline in British Columbia, pushing the country back five positions.