GAZA JOURNALISTS HONOURED
Palestinians covering war in Gaza awarded Unesco world press freedom prize
THE United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) on Thursday awarded its world press freedom prize to all Palestinian journalists covering the war in Gaza, where Israel has been battling Hamas for more than six months.
“In these times of darkness and hopelessness, we wish to share a strong message of solidarity and recognition to those Palestinian journalists who are covering this crisis in such dramatic circumstances,” said Mauricio Weibel, chair of the international jury of media professionals. “As humanity, we have a huge debt to their courage and commitment to freedom of expression.”
Unesco director-general Audrey Azoulay paid “tribute to the courage of journalists facing difficult and dangerous circumstances”.
According to the New Yorkbased Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 97 members of the press have been killed since the war broke out in October, 92 of whom were Palestinians.
The war started with Hamas’ unprecedented Oct 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s offensive against Hamas has killed at least 34,596 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s Health Ministry.
Meanwhile, media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders warned of declining government support for press freedom as it unveiled its annual world rankings yesterday.
Norway retained its top position, while Eritrea came last, taking over from last year’s lowestranked
country, North Korea.
Among the most significant declines were Afghanistan, which fell 26 places to 178th, Togo, which fell 43 places to 113th, and Ecuador, which fell 30 places to 110th.
The bottom 10 included China, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Eritrea.
The watchdog warned that politicians in many countries were targeting the media.
“Some political groups fuel hatred and distrust of journalists by insulting them, discrediting them and threatening them. Others are orchestrating a takeover of the media ecosystem.”
It singled out Argentina under newly elected President Javier
Milei, down 26 places to 66th, saying his decision to shutter the public press agency Telam was a “worrisome symbolic act”.
It highlighted Italy under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, where a member of her coalition is trying to acquire news agency AGI.
Respondents in 138 or threequarters of countries reported that political actors were often involved in disinformation and propaganda and that this was systematic in 31 countries.
The watchdog said there was “spectacular mimicry of Russian repressive methods” in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, as far as Serbia, “where pro-government media carry Russian propaganda and the authorities threaten exiled Russian journalists”.
The most challenging region remained the Middle East and North Africa, where the situation was “very serious” in nearly half the countries, with Qatar now the only country where the situation was not classified either as “difficult” or “very serious”.
Europe was the only region to include any countries classed as “good”.
Greece was ranked worst in Europe at 88th, coming below Hungary and Poland.
Despite improvements, Greece was criticised over its continued failure to deal with a scandal around wiretapping journalists by the intelligence service and the murder of veteran crime reporter Giorgos Karaivaz in 2021.