\n<\/p>\n
Freedom of the press around the world has fallen to its lowest level in a quarter of a century, according to the leading Paris-based press freedom NGO, Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), or Reporters Without Borders.<\/p>\n
Every year, RSF publishes a World Press Freedom Index used to compare the level of freedom enjoyed by journalists and media outlets in 180 countries. Its ranking uses a five-point scale to assess a country\u2019s level of press freedom, ranging from \u201cvery serious\u201d to \u201cgood\u201d.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n For the first time since RSF started producing the index in 2002, more than half of the world\u2019s countries fall into the \u201cdifficult\u201d or \u201cvery serious\u201d categories for press freedom \u2013 \u201ca clear sign that journalism is increasingly criminalised worldwide\u201d.<\/p>\n Only seven mostly Nordic countries are ranked with \u201cgood\u201d press freedom, with Norway, the Netherlands and Estonia in the top three. France ranks 25th with a \u201csatisfactory\u201d score, while the United States ranks 64th with a \u201cproblematic\u201d score, falling seven places since President Donald Trump took office.<\/p>\n RSF reports that Trump \u201chas turned his repeated attacks on the press and journalists into a systematic policy\u201d, citing the detention of Salvadoran journalist Mario Guevara, who was later deported, while he was documenting a protest against immigration raids, as well as the suspension of several notable public media institutions.<\/p>\n In Latin America, RSF highlighted the dramatic fall of Javier Milei\u2019s Argentina (98th, -11) and of El Salvador (143rd), which has dropped 105 places since 2014 following the launch of a war against the Maras criminal gangs.<\/p>\n The press freedom NGO said that \u201cEastern Europe and the Middle East are the two most dangerous regions for journalists in the world, as they have been for 25 years\u201d, notably putting Russia (172nd) and Iran (177th) in the bottom 10.<\/p>\n It added that wars and restrictions on access to information are some of the driving factors for the decline in press freedom. It cited Israel\u2019s attacks on journalists in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon as an example of this, ranking Israel 116th.<\/p>\n \u201cSince October 2023, more than 220 journalists have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli army, including at least 70 who were slain while carrying out their work,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n Broadly speaking, RSF reported that \u201cthe criminalisation of journalism, which is rooted in circumventing press law and misusing emergency legislation and common law, is proving to be a global phenomenon\u201d.<\/p>\n It reported that more than 60 percent of countries \u2013 110 out of 180 \u2013 have criminalised media workers in various ways, notably citing India (157th), Egypt (169th), Georgia (135th), Turkiye (163rd) and Hong Kong (140th) as prime examples of state-imposed crackdowns.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough attacks on the right to information are more diverse and sophisticated, their perpetrators are now operating in plain sight,\u201d Anne Bocande, RSF\u2019s Editorial Director said.<\/p>\n She cited \u201cauthoritarian states, complicit or incompetent political powers, predatory economic actors and under-regulated online platforms\u201d as the main causes \u201cfor the global decline in press freedom\u201d.<\/p>\n Bocande called on democratic governments and citizens to do more to end this global criminalisation of journalists, particularly through \u201cfirm guarantees and meaningful sanctions\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cCurrent protection mechanisms are not strong enough; international law is being undermined and impunity is rife,\u201d she said. \u201cInaction is a form of endorsement,\u201d while concluding that \u201cthe spread of authoritarianism isn\u2019t inevitable\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Freedom of the press around the world has fallen to its lowest level in a quarter of a century, according to the leading Paris-based press freedom NGO, Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), or Reporters Without Borders. Every year, RSF publishes a World Press Freedom Index used to compare the level of freedom enjoyed by journalists and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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