REPORTERS SANS FRONTIÈRES REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS

• Reporters Without Borders (RSF) founded in 1985 in Paris.

• It is an independent NGO with consultative status with the United Nations, UNESCO, the Council of Europe and the International Organization of the Francophonie (OIF).

• RSF has foreign bureaus in 10 cities including Brussels, Washington, Berlin, Tunis, Rio de Janeiro, and Stockholm.

LAUNCHED IN 2008

• RELEASES ANNUAL “ENEMIES OF THE INTERNET” LIST

ENEMIES OF THE INTERNET• AZERBAIJAN

• BAHRAIN

• CHINA

• CUBA

• IRAN

• KAZAKHSTAN

• MALAYSIA

• QATAR

• RUSSIA

• SAUDI ARABIA

• TURKEY

• TURKMENISTAN

• UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

• UZBEKISTAN

• VIETNAM

CHINA

• Mass blocking of foreign websites, spying on cyber-dissidents, using social networks for propaganda purposes and “digital bonfires” of Uyghur sites – China continues to have one of the world’s most sophisticated systems of Internet surveillance and censorship. Its mechanisms for filtering and monitoring online content are collectively known as the Great Firewall of China.

• Launched in 2003, it can filter access to foreign sites and block keywords such as “human rights,” “Tiananmen” or “Liu Xiaobo.”

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER

• Liu Xiaobo has been a strong spokesman for the application of fundamental human rights also in China.

• He took part in the Tiananmen protests in 1989; he was a leading author behind Charter 08, the manifesto of such rights in China which was published on the 60th anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 10th of December 2008.

• The following year, Liu was sentenced to eleven years in prison and two years' deprivation of political rights for “inciting subversion of state power“

• LINK

CHINA TOP JAILER OF JOURNALISTS• Twenty-eight years after the

ruthless crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989, China’s prisons currently hold more than 100 journalists, citizen-journalists and bloggers, including a Nobel peace laureate and three winners of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF)-TV5 Monde Press Freedom Prize.

• LINK

CASE STUDY: MEXICO

• PEGASUS COULD OBTAIN CONTACTS, EMAILS, TEXT MESSAGES, THE DETAILS AND CONTENT OF CALLS, AND CONVERSATIONS ON WHATSAPP, SKYPE AND EVEN TELEGRAM, WHICH IS REPUTED TO BE SECURE.

• Discovered through University of Toronto’s citizen lab.

• “The illegal surveillance of journalists constitutes a grave violation of the freedom to inform and the confidentiality of sources, especially in a country in which it is already particularly difficult and risky to cover corruption.”

LINK

NETIZEN AWARD WINNERRAIF BADAWI

• Winner of 2014 Netizen Award

• Blogger was arrested in 2012 on charges of insulting Islam through electronic channels

• Sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1000 lashes.

• Received first 50 lashes in 2015

HOSTING BLOCKED WEBSITES

PRESS FREEDOM

BAROMETER

JOINED JULY 12 DAY OF ACTION

• “The neutrality principle has made the Internet an open, creative and free space, but this is already under threat from the world's authoritarian states, led by China and Iran. It would be disastrous if the United States were to give it up as well.”

• LINK

WORLD PRESS FREEDOM INDEXSINCE 2002

TOP TIER

• NORWAY

• SWEDEN

• FINLAND

• DENMARK

• NETHERLANDS

• COSTA RICA

• SWITZERLAND

• JAMAICA

• BELGIUM

• ICELAND

THE BLACK LIST

161 EGYPT

165 IRAN

166 YEMEN

168 SAUDI ARABIA

173 CUBA

175 VIETNAM

176 CHINA

177 SYRIA

178 TURKMENISTAN

179 ERITREA

180 NORTH KOREA

CC BY-SA 2.0: Stephan North Korea — Pyongyang, Arirang (Mass Games)

WE’RE #43

16 GERMANY

22 CANADA

39 FRANCE

40 UNITED KINGDOM

42 BURKINA FASO

43 UNITED STATES

147 MEXICO

148 RUSSIA

155 TURKEY

LINK

FIRST AMENDMENT UNDER INCREASING ATTACK

• US press freedom, enshrined in the First Amendment to the 1787 constitution, has encountered several major obstacles over the past few years, most recently with the election of President Donald Trump.

• He has declared the press an “enemy of the American people” in a series of verbal attacks toward journalists, while attempting to block White House access to multiple media outlets in retaliation for critical reporting.

• LINK

WAR ON WHISTLEBLOWERS

• The Obama administration waged a war on whistleblowers who leaked information about its activities, leading to the prosecution of more leakers than any previous administration combined.

• To this day, American journalists are still not protected by a federal “shield law” guaranteeing their right to protect their sources and other confidential work-related information.

• And over the past few years, there has been an increase in prolonged searches of journalists and their devices at the US border, with some foreign journalists being prevented from any travel to the US after they covered sensitive topics such as Colombia's FARC or Kurdistan

ALARM OVER TURKEY

• Turkey is one of the most alarming cases in the 2017 Index. Ranked 155th after falling four more places in the past year, it has fallen a total of 57 places in the past 12 years.

• The coup attempt in July 2016 swept aside the last restraints on the government in its war against critical media. The ensuing state of emergency has allowed the authorities to disband dozens of media outlets at the stroke of pen month after month, reducing pluralism to a handful of low-circulation newspapers.

• More than 100 journalists have been detained without trial, turning Turkey into the world’s biggest prison for media professionals.

MEXICO’S DECLINE

• Mexico is another country that stood out last year. Ranked 75th in RSF’s 2002 Index, it has fallen almost 75 places in the past 15 years and is ranked 147th in the 2017 Index after 10 more journalists were murdered in 2016 (and another spate of killings in March 2017).

• It is riddled by corruption and violent organized crime, especially at the local level. In the states of Veracruz, Guerrero, Michoacán, and Tamaulipas, it is extremely dangerous for journalists to cover sensitive subjects, especially as impunity for crimes of violence against the media feeds a vicious circle that continues year after year.

OVER 800 JOURNALISTS KILLED SINCE 2005

Media outlets, journalists, NGOs and prominent figures on every continent have joined in calling for the appointment of a “journalists’ protector” with the position of special representative to the UN secretary-general for the safety of journalists.