When journalists and media rights activists gather in Helsinki to mark World Press Freedom day Tuesday, there will be a notable absence: Journalist Khadija Ismayilova, recipient of this year’s UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, is currently serving a 7.5-year sentence in Azerbaijan for her work exposing government corruption.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says some 200 journalists like Khadija are currently jailed across the world. And prison isn’t the only way that governments co-opt or suppress the media.
Thai journalist Pravit Rojanaphruk was also invited to Helsinki, but the ruling military junta has banned him from leaving the country – a small price to be paid, he recently wrote, “as journalists elsewhere face long-term detention or even assassination.
Global press freedom has fallen to its lowest point in more than a decade, notes Freedom House in its latest annual report, which scores 199 countries and territories, democracies and autocracies. “Only 13 percent of the world’s population enjoys a free press—that is, where coverage of political news is robust, the safety of journalists is guaranteed, state intrusion in media affairs is minimal, and the press is not subject to onerous legal or economic pressures,” the report finds.