In solidarity with those journalists and reporters who must endure the violence and abuse as thrust upon them and against them, we publish the following, conscious that while, we may be too miniscule to suffer the same fate, we suffer nonetheless, albeit not to the same degree. Trying to dehumanize, humiliate and starve a profession is as undignified as murder.
All of the predators referred to, are corrupt and believe that they are super humans as they are able to get their cronies, cohorts and legions to carry out their selfish and weakling acts. They know the usefulness and the humanness in the work of journalists to their fellowmen, but the fellowmen are never the interests of these predators.
What they do not realise is that if they would use the brain that they believe is so super to others to do good, while showing respect and allowing dignity, their own happiness will light up those they use to do their evil bidding.
No one expect these to change overnight, but what we ask is to begin. The only reason journalists and newspapers, the media are not allowed to flourish is because they gravitate to exposing bad. If someone does bad, he knows that it is bad, but his first inclination is to hide it, which makes it so much more worse because he does only more evil to cover it up.
On World Press Freedom Day, Reporters Without Borders is releasing an updated list of 39 Predators of Freedom of Information – presidents, politicians, religious leaders, militias and criminal organizations that censor, imprison, kidnap, torture and kill journalists and other news providers. Powerful, dangerous and violent, these predators consider themselves above the law.
“These predators of freedom of information are responsible for the worst abuses against the news media and journalists,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. “They are becoming more and more effective. In 2012, the level of violence against news providers was unprecedented and a record number of journalists were killed. World Press Freedom Day, which was established on the initiative of Reporters Without Borders, must be used to pay tribute to all journalists, professional and amateur, who have paid for their commitment with their lives, their physical integrity or their freedom, and to denounce the impunity enjoyed by these predators.”
Five new predators have been added to the list: the new Chinese president, Xi Jinping, the Jihadi group Jabhat Al-Nosra from Syria, members and supporters of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Pakistan’s Baloch armed groups, and Maldives’ religious extremists. Four predators have been dropped from the list: former Somali information and communications minister Abdulkadir Hussein Mohamed, Burmese President Thein Sein, whose country is experiencing unprecedented reforms despite the current ethnic violence, the ETA group, and the Hamas and Palestinian Authority security forces, which are harassing journalists less.
To draw attention to their abuses, Reporters Without Borders has drafted indictments against some of these predators in the hope that they will one day be brought before competent courts. To better highlight the gulf between propaganda and reality, the statements of some of them have been contrasted with the facts. And to show how some predators really think, we have presented their innermost thoughts in the first person. We had to use a little imagination, of course, but the facts alluded to conform to reality.
The plea from our corner as insignificant as it may seem will resonate if our the people we deal with deign themselves to be different and crave good and move away from the corruptible . It will slowly rub off and stick somewhere else and so on and so on it goes. Can this be a world to look forward to?
For this, we really only need to remember Edmund Burke, who is most famously noted for the popular saying, “All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke is considered one of the foremost political thinkers of 18th century England.
