Yesterday, 3 May 2018, was World Press Freedom Day and many noteworthy activities took place. The Economist and many other newspapers of course paid attention with grisly statistics from the Committee to Protect Journalists and other sources. It was also a time to award courageous journalists and cartoonist; just to mention a few:
Musa Kart was announced as the 2018 laureate of the International Press Cartoon Prize by Cartooning for Peace.
The 2018 International Press Cartoon (or Drawing) Prize, presented biannually in Geneva, was awarded to the Turkish cartoonist who was recently sentenced to almost four years in prison for “aiding terrorism”. He is a 64-year-old artist working with the Turkish daily newspaper Cumhuriyet and was described as a “free spirit and a remarkable artist” by Swiss cartoonist Chappatte, a member of the jury.
It was also the day of the presentation of the first Ari Rath Prize for Critical Journalism (established to honour journalists who have rendered outstanding services to critical reporting on immigration, expulsion and asylum, committed to respect for human rights, in the spirit of the former editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, who died in January 2017). Austrian journalist Alexandra Föderl-Schmid was the laureate.
Alexandra Föderl-Schmid who helped shape the daily newspaper “Der Standard” for almost three decades. / Picture: © Wikimedia Commons / Franz Johann Morgenbesser.
For more on the many human rights awards for the media and journalists see: http://trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/
The Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) partnered with the London-based International Observatory of Human Rights (IOHR) to commemorate World Press Freedom Day in Stockholm with an event focused on Turkey, which leads the world in the highest number of journalists in jail. According to SCF data, 258 journalists and media workers were in jail as of today, with 59 of them already convicted on dubious charges of terrorism, defamation and coup plotting. In addition, 142 Turkish journalists who were forced to go into exile or still remain at large in Turkey are wanted for arrest by authorities.
In his article, Tashi Wangchuk insisted that his language advocacy was peaceful and non-political. His attempts to persuade the Chinese government to guarantee Tibetan language instruction were conducted through official channels and he made it clear that he was not advocating Tibetan independence. Instead, his main focus was ending the destruction of Tibetan language and culture. Despite taking these precautions, Tashi Wangchuk was arrested on 27 January 2016, held in an unknown location and later stood trial in a closed session. See also:
https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/03/07/china-and-the-un-human-rights-council-really-win-win/
And then there were many smaller events all around the globe that also deserves attention, such as Amnesty International Nepal voicing support to journalists as human rights defenders (such as Charan Kumar Prasai and Subodh Pyakurel and Rajan Prasad Kuikel).
