Donald Trump, Erdogan Tagged as Global Oppressors of Media

Baguio City, Philippines, MINA – US President Donald Trump and several other world leaders were tagged in the Global Press Oppressors list of the New York-based press freedom watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Philstar reported.

As Trump announced his “Fake Media” awards, the CPJ also named in its list the leaders who use rhetoric, legal action and censorship to try to silence their critics, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was dubbed the “most thin-skinned.”

The CPJ list features leaders from China, Egypt, Myanmar, Poland, Russia, Turkey and the US who have gone out of their way to attack the press and undermine the norms that support freedom of the media at a time when a record number of journalists are being jailed for their work.

Turkish authorities, according to CPJ, have repeatedly charged journalists, news outlets and social media users for insulting Erdogan, its other leaders and “Turkishness” in general.

It quoted Cumhuriyet, a national daily, as reporting at least 46,193 cases handled by the Turkish judiciary since 2016 for insulting the president, Turkish nation and the Republic, parliament and other government branches.

“It’s staggering to see the extent to which some world leaders are so fearful of their critics and the truth. At a time when the number of journalists in prison globally is at a record high, the failure of President Donald Trump and other leaders to stand up for press freedom risks weakening democracy and human rights,” said CPJ advocacy director Courtney Radsch.

Trailing Erdogan, the CPJ placed Trump in second spot for his threats to “open-up” libel laws, sue news organizations or subject broadcast licenses to review.

“He regularly attacks outlets and individual journalists on Twitter and in speeches, calling them ‘sad,’ ‘failing’ or ‘garbage’,” the CPJ noted.

Since declaring his presidential candidacy in 2015, Trump has reportedly posted about 1,000 tweets critical of the press.

Aside from the “most thin-skinned” category, the Global Press Oppressors list also include the “Most Outrageous Use of Terror Laws Against the Press,” given to Erdogan and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and “the world’s worst jailer of journalists,” which was given to Turkey for placing at least 73 journalists behind bars.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin were named, respectively, in the “Tightest Grip on Media” category.

The CPJ said Beijing uses a combination of traditional censorship and internet controls to keep news media in line. It also tagged China as “one of the world’s worst jailers of the press,” citing at least 41 journalists imprisoned in 2017.

As for Putin, the CPJ said the “independent media has been all but eradicated as journalists experience threats of violence or imprisonment and other types of harassment” following a move to order international news organizations to register as foreign agents.

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi also did not escape the list after she was named the “Biggest Backslider in Press Freedom.” Polish President Andrzej Duda was named second in that category.

In 2015, the CPJ listed Myanmar as the “ninth most censored country” in the world. (T//RS5/RS1)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)