TODAY: WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY

May 3, 2023 -Durt Fibo

Today is World Press Freedom Day, an annual holiday declared by the United Nations General Assembly 30 years ago to acknowledge the indispensability of freedom of the press. It was also instated so that governments would uphold the right to freedom of expression, as enshrined in Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

This day begins with a grisly report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that at least 67 newspeople are known to have been killed worldwide in 2022 – a 50% increase over the previous year, and the highest number since 2018. 35 of the 67 known killings last year occurred in Ukraine, Mexico and Haiti.

The CPJ ended their presentation with a timid but ominous estimate of nine journalists and media workers killed thus far in 2023, with several hundred imprisoned or in torture cells around the world.