Disarmament For Development counterpunch.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from counterpunch.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Thirty years ago, between April 29 and May 3, 1991, some African journalists converged on Windhoek, Namibia to ponder the role of a free, independent and pluralistic media in the light of the constant pressures and violence faced by media professionals working in Africa at the time.
The conference, titled, ‘Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Media,’ was held at the instance of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in partnership with other UN Agencies such as UNDP and with the support of 12 international agencies, ranging from Nordic funders, the International Federation of Journalists, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, and the World Association of Newspapers, among others. Participants were drawn from 38 countries.
At least 60 journalists worldwide lost their lives on the job in 2020, according to Unesco, a sad continuation of targeted attacks on the press, mostly for its obligatory scrutiny of public officials.
In a world that thumps its chest for supposed progress made in guaranteeing press freedom, more than 60 deaths is, by any standard, an astronomical number.
Although what meets the eye in these scenarios is an attack on individual practitioners and who they work for, conventional wisdom would have it that the fundamental victims of this carnage are free speech as a principle, and the citizenry in its entirety.
If the press is cowed into silence and the people robbed of information about the true state of public affairs, detractors have essentially won the unholy war of disinformation. Press freedom blackouts provide a fertile ground for not only authoritarianism, but the trampling underfoot of all remaining fundamental rights, as well as abuse and plunder of national resources with