Ladies and Gentleman, Esteemed colleagues of the Inter American Press Association – it is my great pleasure today to accept the Chapultepec Grand Prize on behalf of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
CPJ is headquartered in the United States but it has its birthplace – and in many ways its heart – in this region, indeed in this country. In 1982, when three British journalists were arrested here in Argentina while covering the Falklands War, it was a newly formed Committee to Protect Journalists who helped secure their release. Back then, CPJ was little more than an idea. Formed by two young journalists, Laurie Nadel and Michael Massing, it was born in response to the plight of another South American journalist, Paraguayan reporter Alcibiades González Delvalle.
In May 1980, Delvalle, a columnist for Paraguayan newspaper ABC Color, arrived in the United States for a one-month tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department. One week into his stay, González learned that a warrant had been issued for his arrest back in Paraguay.
González had long been a target of the Paraguayan government, both for his incisive reporting and for his work as the head of Paraguay's press union. The warrant was issued over investigative articles he had written about Paraguay's criminal justice system. Though facing up to three years in prison, González decided to return home and confront the government.
While in the United States, González met news writer Nadel on a visit to CBS. When she learned of his decision to return home, she called Massing to see if he would be interested in a story about him. In the process, both journalists became concerned about what might happen to González once he returned home. They began searching for an organization that could watch over his return and make sure he didn't simply disappear.
When they couldn't find one, they created it: The Committee to Protect Journalists – or CPJ as we are known to many – was born.
While CPJ may have grown somewhat since then – we now have more than 80 people working for the organization across the globe – our goal remains the same – to raise awareness of the persecution of journalists worldwide, to provide them with assistance so they can continue to report, and to advocate on their behalf.
Then, as now, the majority of journalists in need of CPJ's help were local journalists reporting on local issues. Back then, CPJ focused most of its efforts on authoritarian regimes. In 1982, for example, CPJ undertook a mission to Central America, where participants gathered information about attacks on journalists in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. A recent report about that trip is striking – not least because some of the questions it wrestled with: Who is a journalist? Which journalists should we defend? How can we have influence? – are questions that CPJ still wrestles with today.
But while many things are still the same, much has changed over the past four decades. And, sadly, the environment for journalists is deteriorating. This afternoon, I want to set out the main threats to journalists as we see them at the Committee to Protect Journalists and what we can do to address them.
I want to start by addressing the war in – and on – Gaza. Covering any war is risky but the number of journalists killed in Gaza since the start of the latest war is unprecedented. It is unprecedented because of the way in which Israel is conducting this war – in contravention of international humanitarian law and with the support of allies such as the United States, Germany and United Kingdom. Not only is Israel indiscriminately attacking civilian populations, but it is also directly targeting them, including journalists – a group that is explicitly, legally protected during war. At least 128 journalists have been killed since the war began – 126 of them killed by Israel. All but five of those killed are Palestinian. In at least five cases, but we are investigating at least 10 more, it is clear Israel deliberately targeted the journalists, which is a war crime. The number may be far higher. Since CPJ – like all foreign media – is not able to access Gaza, we are reliant on an ever-dwindling group of reporters, colleagues of journalists, family members and friends to help us verify the details of each killing. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate – one of three local and regional groups whom CPJ has supported with funds to buy emergency supplies for journalists inside Gaza – estimates that one percent of Gaza's entire press corp has been wiped out.
Make no mistake. These killings are part of a systematic attempt by Israel to censor information coming out of Gaza and the West Bank. Journalists are being subjected to arbitrary detention by Israel in which journalists have reported being tortured and subjected to cruel and degrading treatment. Buildings housing media organizations have been bombed. These are civilian facilities also protected under international law. Al Jazeera was forced off air in Jerusalem and its Ramallah bureau forcibly closed by armed military personnel. Journalists and others in desperate need of medical treatment outside of Gaza – where medical facilities have, as a recent UN inquiry found, been systematically and deliberately decimated – are being prevented from the timely evacuation they need for life-saving treatment.
These are not the acts of a democracy. These are not the acts of a country that believes in a free press.
Nor should any country who claims to defend a free press tolerate such actions, or provide the means for such suppression.
CPJ has worked tirelessly to document the killings, the suffering, the arrests and the censorship over the past 12 months. This is the core of CPJ's work. By following the practices of the most diligent journalists, we ensure that our documentation is accurate and actionable. It is only thanks to this rigorously and meticulously researched data that we are able to do the rest of our work: providing assistance to journalists at risk and advocating on their behalf.
That work has increased exponentially in recent years and there are several reasons for this. The first is a rise in prolonged complex crises that create ongoing challenges for journalists. These include the crisis precipitated by the US withdrawal from, and retaking of Afghanistan by the Taliban in 2020; the continued conflict in Myanmar; Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine; and the ongoing crises in Yemen and Sudan; as well as the narco violence in Mexico, the political repression in Central America and Cuba, the coups in the Sahel, to name a few. Contentious elections, peddlers of conspiracy theories and deniers of climate change all feel threatened by the facts and lash out accordingly, whether at protests or in court rooms or online. All of this has resulted in an unprecedented rise in the numbers of journalists going into exile and requiring emergency support to relocate. This year alone, the amount of funding CPJ has provided for exile assistance has increased by 227 percent. That's just money. The figure does not include all the work done to provide letters of support, advice, and advocacy to help journalists forced to leave their homes.
Democratic decline – both gradual and rapid – is also spurring a rise in the numbers of journalists at risk, as is the emerging threat of organized crime — which often infiltrates and co-opts the state. Since August, CPJ has been providing support to colleagues in Venezuela, for example, to ensure those who want to continue to report have access to VPNs. Surveillance and the use of spyware has become an increasing feature – and CPJ now provides more and more digital safety training and advice to journalists across the world. This advice includes, of course, ways of dealing with the deluge of online harassment experienced by women journalists and those from marginalized communities in particular.
One key feature I want to stress is how – more and more – this harassment of journalists is taking place not just in authoritarian regimes but in supposed democracies. Two former winners of CPJ press freedom awards are currently in jail – Jimmy Lai and Jose Ruben Zamora – wrongly held in Hong Kong and Guatemala respectively. These are countries who publicly espouse democratic values but who are using and abusing their legal systems to punish independent reporting. This is not rule of law – it's cruel law.
Too often, those who carry out these abuses against journalists go unpunished. Our most recent impunity indices show that in at least 8 out of 10 cases the murders of journalists fail to fully punish the perpetrators, creating an environment in which those who carry out such killings feel empowered to continue. I do not need to tell this audience that the dangers for journalists in Mexico are most acute. The most dangerous country for journalists outside a war zone, Mexico has failed to resource the mechanisms that would help keep journalists safe – or ensure their killers are punished.
I have painted a sweeping image of deadly and destructive forces of censorship. But what is to be done in such an environment? Well, the first thing I would say is 'We must not give up hope'. I believe most of us who are journalists became so because we are optimists (we certainly don't do it for the pay!). The world feels dark right now. We are seeing an international rules-based system – always precarious, frequently flawed – crumbling before us. World leaders are prepared to throw away basic human rights to win popularity, engaging in dangerous rhetoric that demonizes the weakest in society. Lies and rumours are being given energy and emphasis by a technology that makes it harder and harder to distinguish fact from fiction. Our planet is burning. And all of that puts those that report these truths at risk. But there is hope.
There is hope because we know what can make a difference.
Raising awareness makes a difference. This is what underlies our work as journalists and it is what underpins our work at CPJ. It helps keep pressure on governments and ensures those engaged in suppressing media freedom know they are being watched. Crucially, it is also an essential form of support for those targeted. Time and again, CPJ hears from formerly imprisoned journalists – journalists like recently released Radio Free Europe reporter Alsu Kurmasheva – that the knowledge groups are out there fighting for them helps give them the courage to go on.
Providing assistance makes a difference. In recent years, CPJ has provided assistance to hundreds of journalists – offering everything from support to those in prison so they can buy basic supplies or so that families can visit their loved ones – to legal fees, to mental health support, to the costs of evacuation and temporary accommodation. But we know emergency assistance can only go so far, particularly for those going into exile, which is why CPJ is pushing governments around the world to create dedicated visa schemes for journalists at risk that would enable them to find safe refuge swiftly, and, crucially, to continue their work as journalists in exile for as long as is needed.
In coming years, we also expect those who cover climate change and its devastating impacts to need especial assistance and for that reason last month launched a $1million Climate Crisis Journalist Protection Initiative to do just that. I know how important the issue of climate change and environmental degradation is to those in this region and look forward to working with colleagues here to bolster journalists' safety for those reporting on it.
Advocacy makes a difference. Twenty days after CPJ and other rights groups filed a query to the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances asking for the Iraqi Kurdish government to clarify the fate and whereabouts of Syrian journalist Sleman Ahmed, the government allowed the Independent Human Rights Commission to visit Sleman Ahmed and gave him access to a lawyer.
Not all advocacy moves as rapidly. It took 35 years for justice to be served for the killing of Peruvian journalist Hugo Bustíos Saavedra – 35 years to convict and sentence former army general Daniel Urresti Elera for his part in Bustios' murder – that's three decades too long but it shows justice is possible. That's why CPJ is pushing for an international investigative task force mechanism that can ensure the killings of journalists are properly investigated and those responsible held accountable.
Awareness. Assistance. Advocacy. These make a difference. But if you ask me what I really think has impact? Well, that harks back to the very founding of CPJ. It's a continual putting into practice of the idea that we all have a responsibility for one another. And that working together we will forge a better future. That is why I am grateful for the partnerships with so many of you here in this room – and why I am pleased to accept this award, which I see as a pledge to building more alliances over the years to come.
Thank you.