Two women leaders and a European leader made it to the ‘predators of press freedom’ list, which is created every five years by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
Reporters Without Borders (RSF), an international non-profit for journalists, has published a gallery of portraits of 37 leaders who suppress press freedom. The names of two women and a European leader appear on the list of “predators of press freedom” for the first time. Seventeen of the leaders listed are making their appearance in the list for the first time. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi also features on the list. The two women leaders on the list are Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister since 2009, and Carrie Lam, chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region since 2017. Sheikh Hasina is on the list for adopting a digital security law in 2018 that resulted in more than 70 journalists and bloggers being prosecuted. Carrie Lam, according to the RSF, has proven to be a puppet of China and openly supports predatory policies towards the media, RSF said. Her actions led to the closure of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper on June 24, 2021, and the jailing of its founder Jimmy Lai, a 2020 RSF Press Freedom Laureate. In a first, a European Prime Minister, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, has also been termed a predator of press freedom. Another new entrant to the list is Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro whose “aggressive and crude rhetoric about the media has reached new heights since the start of the pandemic”. The 35-year-old crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, has entered the infamous list for his alleged repressive methods, including spying, threats, abduction, torture and other acts. The assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi within the Saudi consulate in Turkey in 2018, was also cited as a reason for including the Saudi prince in the list. Some of the other leaders termed as predators include Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, Kim Jong-un, Supreme Leader of North Korea, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko. RSF termed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s predatory method “national-populism and disinformation”. RSF stated that Modi as Gujarat’s Chief Minister used the state as “a laboratory for the news and information control methods” that he deployed nationally after being elected as Prime Minister in 2014. RSF termed Modi’s “leading weapon” is to flood mainstream media with speeches to “legitimise his national-populist ideology”. The PM has developed close ties with billionaire businessmen who own media houses, RSF noted. “This insidious strategy works in two ways. On the one hand, by visibly ingratiating himself with the owners of leading media outlets, their journalists know they risk dismissal if they criticise the government. On the other, prominent coverage of his extremely divisive and derogatory speeches, which often constitute disinformation, enables the media to achieve record audience levels. All that is left for Modi is to neutralise the media outlets and journalists that question his divisive methods,” RSF said. Modi has a judicial arsenal that is a threat to press freedom, RSF added. Journalists in India risk the possibility of life imprisonment under sedition charges, it noted. The predators of press freedom list is prepared every five years, with the last one released in 2016. The list consists of heads of state or government who trample on press freedom by creating a censorship apparatus, jailing journalists arbitrarily or inciting violence against them. Nineteen of the countries ruled by those listed as predators have been coloured red on the RSF’s press freedom map, meaning the situation is bad for journalism. About 16 countries have been coloured black, meaning the situation is very bad. The average age of the predators is 66 and more than a third (13) of them are from the Asia Pacific region, RSF said in their statement to the press. “There are now 37 leaders from around the world in RSF’s predators of press freedom gallery and no one could say this list is exhaustive,” said RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire. “Each of these predators has their own style. Some impose a reign of terror by issuing irrational and paranoid orders. Others adopt a carefully constructed strategy based on draconian laws. A major challenge now is for these predators to pay the highest possible price for their oppressive behaviour. We must not let their methods become the new normal,” he added.
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