Today, on Human Rights Day, the IPI global network urgently calls on states and leaders around the world to step to the defense of human rights and press freedom, as essential cornerstones of free society.
The free flow of information is a fundamental human right that unlocks the exercise of other rights: the freedom to hold opinions, the right to equality, the rights to life, liberty, and security. A free press is essential for holding the powerful to account for actions and decisions affecting these essential rights and freedoms.
Yet press freedom is under major strain in every part of the world, as authoritarianism gains ground and democracy is in retreat. Journalists are facing alarming and escalating attacks — including physical attacks, legal harassment and arrests, censorship, surveillance, and coordinated campaigns to discredit their work, to vilify them, and to intimidate them into silence. In some cases, journalists have even paid the ultimate price for their work. This is often because a free and independent media can expose the powerful to so-called “uncomfortable truths.”
At the same time, leaders around the world — in autocratic and democratic states alike — have demonstrated an alarming lack of political will to uphold their commitments to safeguard human rights, including freedom of the press, under international law. The broader erosion of human rights commitments, mechanisms, and norms has put the future of free media — and indeed free society — at risk around the globe.
As the free press comes under unprecedented pressure, IPI urges states and world leaders everywhere to step to the defense of journalists and the critical role they play as a check on the concentration of power and a safeguard against tyranny.