The US Department of State on Tuesday issued a press statement condemning the harassment, intimidation, and surveillance carried out against journalists to constrain them from performing their journalistic duties. The statement was issued to mark the International Day to End impunity for crimes against journalists.
“A free and independent press holds leaders accountable, protects the rights of citizens, and ensures our communities are well informed. In too many countries, journalists face the threat of violence or imprisonment for their reporting. The United States condemns threats, harassment, and violence targeting journalists and media workers,” the statement said.
In its statement, the US department said the threats against journalists have increased manifold, notably from governments that have the resources to go beyond borders, employ digital surveillance tools and track journalists’ communication and whereabouts to clamp down on their abilities to report on corruption and repression.
“Now, more than ever, we must stand against the increasing use of physical attacks, online harassment, intimidation lawsuits and regulatory pressures being used to silence media around the world,” the statement read.
“On the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, we renew our resolve to advocate for an open press free from unjust restrictions, and to hold to account those who attack press freedom,” the statement added.
American duplicity on protecting rights of journalists while persecuting Julian Assange
Although the US Department of State emphasised the need to safeguard journalists from repressive regimes that targeted scribes and suppressed them from reporting inconvenient truths, it nevertheless underscored the hypocrisy of the United States in pontificating on press freedom while persecuting Julian Assange for uncovering America’s war crimes.
Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, is currently under imprisonment at one of the harshest jails in the United Kingdom for exposing US war crimes and their undercover secrets. He has been lodged in prison since 2019 when he was removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He had taken refuge in 2012 in the Embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault case that was subsequently dropped in November 2019.
He was indicted by US authorities on 17 charges of espionage and one charge of computer misuse related to the publication of secret US military documents that carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison. The charges against Assange is that he published secret documents obtained by former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, some of which included the disclosure of foreigners who were aiding the U.S. military abroad. He is also accused of plotting to hack computers and conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information.
It was recently reported that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United States of America (USA) was even contemplating kidnapping and assassinating Julian Assange. The discussions regarding the same reportedly occurred in 2017 after Donald Trump took oath as the president of the USA, as per some reports.
