swimming with hands and legs tied

Abu Azad, a senior subeditor at The Daily Kalbela, describes the environment for journalists in Bangladesh (ranked 163) as a pool in which they “swim with our hands and legs tied”, in spite of freedom of the press being one of a list of fundamental rights of citizens guaranteed by the Constitution. “Laws like the Digital Security Act (DSA) ensure that the press can’t work freely; with rules like members of the press prohibition to take pictures in certain areas, denied access and collection of information, and so on. Even though you know there is corruption taking place, you can’t cover it. Freedom of the press in the country is actually a joke”, he claims.

Since its approval in September 2018, the DSA has served the government, the official party, and its supporters’ best interests in silencing its critics. Just in the first trimester of 2023, 56 journalists were tortured, harassed, threatened, or sued across the country under the secondary law. Organizations like Human Rights Watch have referred to it as a “draconian law” that has driven newsrooms towards self-censorship.

Bangladeshi journalist Shafiqul Islam Kajol went missing in March 2020 and imprisoned a month later under the Digital Security Act for his Facebook posts. He was later released on December, after almost 8 months in prison. Photo:Sultan Mahmud Mukut

In Azad’s words, this is now a normalized practice among journalists: “I somehow censor myself when I feel it’s needed. I think, ‘If I write this, what will be the consequences? Will there be any harm that might be caused?’ This is something I do even though I don’t want to. Everyone working in a newsroom, I can say, got used to it.” This measure, as undesirable as it is, keeps expanding among journalists since escaping the threats has meant repercussions for their family members. If any political report published by a Bangladeshi media outlet is considered harmful by a politician, Azad explains, there will be retaliation because “they want to take revenge, first against the journalist, but if they somehow escape the threat, then they target their family members. One can risk their life but not their family.”

Subtle silencing in india

Back in August 2022 for example, Gautam Adani, a magnate closely associated with Prime Minister Narendra Modi acquired NDTV India, one of India’s oldest news broadcasting channels. Three months after the takeover, Ravish Kumar, senior executive editor at the news outlet, known for its fierce and critical coverage of government policies and citizens’ voices, resigned via a YouTube video. This corporization of new media outlets has turned the newsrooms into spaces with little space to report on political issues, especially because access to information is limited. “There is a lot of opacity in how authorities work and they do not want to share any details. It just makes doing your job very difficult”, Singh stresses. 

Since Modi’s ascension to power in 2014, India’s ranking on the World Press Freedom Index has been consistently falling. And it appears like its dissension will only go further.

On August 3rd, 2023, India’s upper house of parliament passed a law that aims to expand the powers of the government to, for example, enter the premises of a publication “to inspect or take copies of the relevant records or documents or ask any questions necessary for obtaining any information”, as it is stated in the draft of the Press and Registration of Periodicals Bill, 2023. In the same month, three other criminal law bills were introduced, all with a clear intention to repress journalists.

One of them proposed to replace the sedition law used repeatedly to jail and harass journalists, with an even more ambiguous and broader clause that punishes with seven years of prison everyone who encourages “feelings of separatist activities” or endangers the “sovereignty, unity and integrity of India.” The key components of the other two laws are surveillance and detention without charge.

crisis among journalists in latin america

While public officials from Bukele’s party claim insistently that there’s no harassment to the press because not one journalist has been put in jail nor killed and no media operations have been shut down by the government, Congress led by the official party ruled a gag law that to prevent any media outlet from disseminating any message allegedly created by the gangs. They justify the measure to avoid creating “panic” within the citizens.

Carlos Dada, director and founder of El Faro describes the situation as “extremely serious, but not surprising.” The control the president has over the three branches of government, along with the entire judicial system was, in Dada’s words, plotted by Bukele and his circle. “Their dictatorial plan involved concentrating power by seizing control of all government institutions and shutting the door on dissent, public oversight, and any possibility for alternation in power”, he says.

Since 2019, Salvadoran journalists, particularly those who work for El Faro have faced and fought harassment in multiple forms. “The president has also used state television and radio to falsely accuse us of money laundering. But, above all, we are responding to and appealing multiple Treasury Ministry audits and fabricated criminal accusations in different administrative forums and courtrooms despite the fact that in El Salvador there is no longer a separation of powers”, he stresses. The magnitude of the persecution is such that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights had already issued precautionary measures in February 2021 to 34 members of the newspaper.

In order to keep its financial operation safe, El Faro moved the administration to Costa Rica, the country with the highest rank of freedom of the press in the region (33), although it has gone down abruptly in the last year: from 8 in 2022 to 33 in 2023. For María Fernanda Cruz, an ex-editor of La Voz de Guanacaste and advisor to the board of this independent regional newspaper, the reason behind it is Rodrigo Chaves, the president who took charge in 2022. In order to gain popularity he has turned the press into the enemy. “The way he is portraying journalists as the enemy has empowered people who already felt frustrated with journalists to agree with him. They needed an enemy, too”, she explains.

Chaves holds press conferences on a weekly basis, but these are no longer a space for questions, but rather for displaying his and his officials’ dislike of what the press has recently published. “Sometimes he even portrays himself as a journalist that interviews his own ministers”, Cruz elaborates.

These public attacks as sitting president started in August 2022, when he discredited a journalist from La Nación, Costa Rica’s main printed newspaper, present in the room. The intimidation has escalated quickly and judicial resources have already been asked to preserve the well-being of journalists.

 The Constitutional Chamber stated last May that “certain expressions and words used by officials are not justified and do constitute an excess, which could lead to harassment of the media and journalists in question” in response to a request for constitutional protection against Chaves.

The ruling has not had the desired effect. On November 7, journalist Vilma Ibarra, an investigative reporter from Channel 7, received an online death threat from an anonymous president’s supporter.

As deteriorating as the situation is, Chavez believes that there is a main game changer for Costa Rican journalists: a system of checks and balances. “Despite being labeled as enemies by the president, we continue our work, confident in the strength of our institutions and the robust democracy supporting our efforts.”, she concludes.