Ten years after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the world has changed for those who practice journalism.
Policies adopted in the aftermath of the attacks have led to profound impacts on civil liberties, in particular freedom of expression and press freedom, as governments – in some cases quite cynically – have used the attacks to seek to curtail the watchdog role of the media, to broaden law enforcement powers and to restrict access to information in the name of security. In many instances involving allies in the so-called ‘War on Terror’, Western governments simply looked the other way when journalists were being targeted – the necessary price for intelligence sharing, and military and other assistance.
From Eritrea, where well over a dozen journalists were jailed under anti-terror legislation following Sep. 11, to Azerbaijan, which kept a journalist in prison even after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that he had been unjustly jailed, to Ethiopia where just this week two foreign and two local journalists face lengthy prison sentences on terrorism charges, to Pakistan, where the intelligence services, operating with seeming impunity are regularly accused in assaults and killings of journalists, it’s the same story: Journalists face increased threats and targeting because of the new post-Sep.-11th reality.
The International Press Institute (IPI) marks the 10-year anniversary of the day that “changed everything” by talking to recently-released Azerbaijani journalist Eynulla Fatullayev; to Umar Cheema, an investigative reporter for the Pakistan newspaper The News; and to Raphael Perl, the head of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)’s Action Against Terrorism Unit.