When our press is under attack, let’s react like Slovakians

Today is World Press Freedom Day.  A free and independent press is like oxygen for democracy. That is why I joined the Freedom of the Press Caucus in the House of Representatives, where I and others fight for the rights of journalists and the indispensable role they play in democracy.

It is also why I am so concerned about the alarming state of press freedom today. Around the world, press freedom is under assault. Demagogues paint the press as enemies of the state. Oppressive laws limit the space for journalists to operate, while financing and publication becomes more difficult and concentrated in fewer hands. Most worryingly of all, in less than a year, two investigative journalists were murdered for their work within the borders of the European Union, where we thought press freedom was well-protected.

{mosads}Daphne Caruna Galizia was a journalist known for investigating the corruption of Malta’s elite, including the sale of Maltese citizenship to foreign kleptocrats looking for EU havens, Azerbaijan money launderers, and Iranian sanctions busters. She was murdered on Oct. 16, 2017, by a bomb planted under the seat of her rental car. A seasoned investigator, she had faced down harassment, threats, and government intimidation for years.

Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak also investigated government connections to organized crime and corruption. On Feb. 25, he and his fiancée, archaeologist Martina Kusnirova—both only 27 years old—were executed in their home in western Slovakia. It was the first time in Slovakia’s 25 years of independence that a journalist had been murdered for his work.

The reactions in the two countries have been stunning—and edifying.

Though the hitmen who killed Daphne Caruna Galizia were caught with the help of the FBI, those who ordered her murder remain at large. To finish the stories she began, a group of journalists affiliated with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) launched the Daphne Project.  The official reaction is much less promising: dozens of libel actions brought by people in or close to the government speak volumes about the effort to silence her work, and show the way that libel laws can be weaponized. Shockingly, many of those cases are still pending, even after her death.

In Slovakia, leading papers in the country joined forces to publish the unfinished story that Jan was working on when he was murdered, leading to the extradition to Italy of a suspected mobster associated with the notorious ‘Ndrangheta. Long-simmering frustration with corruption and the shock of the double murder triggered waves of protest around Slovakia—the largest since the end of communism.  The sustained public outcry forced the removal of some implicated officials, then the domino resignation of high-level officials ultimately including the Prime Minister. Slovakia’s people have sent a message that they will not sit idly by as press freedom, and democracy, is attacked.

In the United States, the freedom of the press is also under attack but from the unlikeliest of places—the person who holds the office of President of the United States and a man who took an oath to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. The current president regular disparages the media as “fake news” and has personally attacked those who have questioned his fitness to serve.  He appears to believe that he has license to wage war on the press.  In doing this, he is attacking and undermining the very freedoms he enjoys daily. Since the time he was a presidential candidate, the current occupant of the White House has disparaged disabled journalists; attacked any number of women and minorities; characterized Mexican immigrants as murderers and rapists. The list goes on and on and on.

When our press is under attack, let us take a page from Slovakia’s book. It is not enough to rely on our institutions, strong though they are. Like Slovakia, we must rely on our people and always stand against those who would vilify the media, deflect the truth, and see our press drowned in a flurry of insults, invectives, and tweets. Protecting the First Amendment is a collective responsibility. It is up to all of us, lest we wake up to a country where our rights to free speech are lost.

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee is a Member of the U.S. Helsinki Commission. The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission, is an independent agency of the Federal Government charged with monitoring compliance with the Helsinki Accords and advancing comprehensive security through promotion of human rights, democracy, and economic, environmental and military cooperation in 57 countries. The Commission consists of nine members from the U.S. Senate, nine from the House of Representatives, and one member each from the Departments of State, Defense, and Commerce.