Four Portuguese media bodies, including Expresso, were this week presented with the news that they are banned in Russia; a commendable “award†for those who practice this noble profession under the rule of law. A plural press has always been and will continue to be one of the basic priorities of any form of democratic government, where autonomy, independence and, above all, the freedom to question must be fostered. Now, scrutiny and the truth have always bothered those who have things to hide, and the Kremlin has its hands dirty with unreported facts.
In countries where there are impediments to the search for truth and the reporting of facts, whether in Europe or outside our borders, there are usually political forces capitalizing on this opacity and silence. In Russia, according to the ranking of the “Reporters Without Borders” project, almost all independent media outlets have been banned, blocked and/or declared “foreign agents” since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. nia, in 2022, with the rest being subject to military censorship sponsored by the political apparatus. To the surprise of absolutely no convinced democrat, in 2024, Russia is in the gap in the world ranking of press freedom (162 out of 180 countries). ).
Perhaps the most disturbing fact in this conversation is that the political dimension of press freedom, which is complementary to the sociocultural, security, economic and legislative dimensions, is the one that has deteriorated the most in recent years. In other words, it is politicians, governments and parties who most represent a growing threat to journalism, comparable to other dangers, such as internal insecurity. If the role of States as guarantors of press freedom is not being fulfilled, there is still a worrying increase in pressure, coercion, disrespect, lack of accountability and political hostility to proactively harm free journalism, which culminates in the instrumentalization of social media for campaigns of harassment, disinformation and incitement to hate. In a democracy, this tendency has everything it takes to lead us straight to a dictatorship.
It then becomes clear that it has never been more necessary to rethink the protection of this exercise in full law and in full security, and that it lacks effective legislative mechanisms at an international and multilateral level. Approved in 2015, Resolution 2222 of the United Nations Security Council refers, for example, to the need to protect journalists in the context of armed conflict, which in little or no way allowed prevent the deaths of more than 100 journalists in the Israel-Gaza war.
Also in times of peace, journalists are not free from attack, and women are victims who stand out: they account for less than 15% of arrests worldwide, but represent more than 50% of sentences. long speeches delivered in the last year, according to the same report. Stories of murder, harassment and violence against women journalists come to us from Bangladesh and Iran to the USA and Canada.
Anyone who believes that threats against social communication only emerge abroad in less democratic countries is mistaken. Within Western democracies, the self-proclaimed leaders of robust institutions and progress, journalists are also being silenced one by one. With the extreme polarization of the public debate and political exercise, the pro-Kremlin prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, and his counterpart in Slovakia, Robert Fico, stand out, as well as the parties in power in Hungary (67), Malta (73) and Greece (88), the three EU countries with the worst ranking in the press freedom ranking. The USA (55), France (21) and the United Kingdom (23) are also under surveillance, thanks to the arrest of journalist Ariana Lavrilleux by French authorities and the detention It is Julian Assange, released precisely at the time of writing this paragraph. Let’s wait and see in which new countries this chronicle will also be read in the coming years.
