Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin named among 37 ‘press freedom predators’ – Yahoo News

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are among 2021's most effective "press freedom predators," a watchdog says.

Xi and Putin, along with other world leaders such as Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, Supreme Leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are among the "37 heads of state or government who crack down massively on press freedom," according to a report by Reporters Without Borders released on Friday.

"Each of these predators has [his or her] own style," RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire said. "Some impose a reign of terror by issuing irrational and paranoid orders. Others adopt a carefully constructed strategy based on draconian laws. A major challenge now is for these predators to pay the highest possible price for their oppressive behavior. We must not let their methods become the new normal."

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Nearly half of the "predators" are appearing on the list for the first time, with MBS and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, whose "aggressive and crude rhetoric about the media has reached new heights since the start of the pandemic," among the new entrants.

The list also includes two women for the first time, dubbing chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Carrie Lam a "puppet of Chinese President Xi Jinping [who] now openly supports his predatory policies towards the media" and accusing Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh's prime minister, of "predatory exploits," including "the adoption of a digital security law in 2018 that has led to more than 70 journalists and bloggers being prosecuted."

Many of the countries whose leaders made the list are marked red or black on RSF's press freedom map, meaning those nations are "bad" or "very bad" for journalism, respectively.

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In November of last year, China, which is black on the press freedom map, pursued charges against Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer who reported from Wuhan in the early days of the outbreak, accusing her of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" for her work uncovering the Chinese communist regime's attempt to censor early reports of the emergent coronavirus. After a three-hour trial, she was sentenced to four years in prison.

In May, Ted Lipien, who previously served as president and CEO of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, accused Putin of "blackmailing the media organization funded by U.S. taxpayers, issuing fines and threats of criminal prosecutions unless Radio Liberty agrees to play by his rules" in an attempt to run the media organization out of Russia. Putin responded, "Unfortunately, the American media don't completely comply with the requirements of Russian law."

A record number of journalists were jailed because of their work in 2020, with at least 274 journalists sent to prison in relation to their work as of Dec. 1 of last year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. CPJ faulted "lack of global leadership on democratic values particularly from the United States, where [former] President Donald Trump has inexhaustibly denigrated the press and cozied up to dictators such as Egyptian President Abdelfattah el-Sisi" for "perpetuat[ing] the crisis."

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The U.S. has taken steps toward shoring up international press freedom, with Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Kaine proposing the International Press Freedom Act of 2021, a bipartisan bill that would promote global press freedom.

The bill, proposed in April, is being considered in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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Tags: News, Press Freedom, Journalism, Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Mohammed bin Salman , Narendra Modi

Original Author: Carly Roman

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Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin named among 37 'press freedom predators' - Yahoo News