 "Photo: Photo courtesy of flickr.com")
Who can forget the scenes on television of former President Bill Clinton walking off of a jet onto the tarmac after flying to Pyongyang, North Korea to negotiate the freedom of two United States journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling? The two were arrested in March2009 after allegedly crossing into North Korea from China while working on a story about refugees. They had been found guilty of "hostile acts" and illegal entry into the communist state.
Many Americans expressed fears that the journalists would be used as "bargaining chips" by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il in his efforts to win concessions from Washington, including humanitarian aid or direct talks with U.S. diplomats. After Clinton’s visit, the two were granted amnesty by the government of North Korea and allowed to return back to the United States.
But should we have to send in former heads of state to free writers and reporters who are just trying to do their jobs?
Since 1992, 805 journalists have been killed worldwide, 517 journalists have been murdered with impunity, 35 journalists have been imprisoned in Iraq, and just four short months into 2010, there have already been seven journalists killed around the world.
The Committee to Protect Journalists is dedicated to seeing that reporters never again need to be bailed out of a situation like the one that occurred in North Korea. According to the committee’s website they “promote press freedom worldwide by defending the rights of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.”
A group of U.S. foreign correspondents created the independent, nonprofit organization in 1981 in response to the often brutal treatment of their foreign colleagues by authoritarian governments and other enemies of independent journalism. With journalists around the world being attacked, expelled, imprisoned, abducted and killed it seems that the committee has the right idea.
CPJ’s website continues to state that “without a free press, few other human rights are attainable. A strong press freedom environment encourages the growth of a robust civil society, which leads to stable, sustainable democracies and healthy social, political, and economic development.”
In a June, 2005 entry of his blog from Iraq, American freelance journalist, Steven Vincent said of Iraqis: "The people here desperately need — and deserve — law and order, a sense that justice can prevail against malevolent powers stalking their nation."
In August of that same year, Vincent, who accused the police force of Basra, Iraq of being infiltrated by Shiite militiamen in a New York Times column and his Internet blog, was found shot to death in the southern city after being abducted by armed men driving a police car. Vincent and his female Iraqi translator were abducted at gunpoint by five men one evening as they left a currency exchange shop. Vincent's body was discovered on the side of the highway south of Basra. He had been shot in the head and body and his translator was seriously wounded.
Vincent was killed less than two months after his blog post, simply for speaking the truth about what needed to be done in a nation that is void of democracy and freedom. This murder continues to show the high price journalists pay to report abroad, especially in those nations tainted by war and other conflict. Reporters Without Borders, an international organization which has fought for press freedom since 1985, has said, "It is absolutely appalling that insurgents use this kind of barbaric violence against people whose job is just to observe and report, and who just carry a notebook and pen."
It is evident that there needs to be more awareness raised in order to improve the safety of journalists, especially those reporting in war zones. With one dozen countries deemed “Internet Enemies,” and another dozen nations under surveillance, this world in which we live is growing increasingly more difficult to report from and the restrictions of other nations are threatening to halt or even reverse the media globalization that democracies worldwide have worked hard to create.
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