[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 6]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 7640-7641]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    CONGRESSIONAL FREEDOM OF THE PRESS CAUCUS ON WORLD PRESS FREEDOM

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ADAM B. SCHIFF

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                          Monday, May 23, 2011

  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the thousands 
of men and women of the media here and around the world who strive 
every day--many of them in the face of extreme violence and 
repression--to report the news. This is the lifeblood of democracy. I 
do so as Co-Chairman of the bipartisan, bicameral Freedom of the Press 
Caucus, and on behalf of fellow Co-Chairman of the Caucus, Rep. Mike 
Pence.
  Chartered 18 years ago by the UN, World Press Freedom Day was hosted 
for the first time this year in the United States and was marked by a 
three-day conference here in Washington attended by journalists and 
media leaders from around the world. World Press Freedom Day isn't, 
however, fundamentally an academic or congratulatory exercise, Mr. 
Speaker. Rather, as defined by the United Nations:
  ``It serves as an occasion to inform citizens of violations of press 
freedom--a reminder that in dozens of countries around the world, 
publications are censored, fined, suspended and closed down, while 
journalists, editors and publishers are harassed, attacked, detained 
and even murdered.
  ``It is a date to encourage and develop initiatives in favour of 
press freedom, and to assess the state of press freedom worldwide.
  ``It serves as a reminder to governments of the need to respect their 
commitment to press freedom and is also a day of reflection among media 
professionals about issues of press freedom and professional ethics.
  ``Just as importantly, World Press Freedom Day is a day of support 
for media which are targets for the restraint, or abolition, of press 
freedom. It is also a day of remembrance for those journalists who lost 
their lives in the exercise of their profession.''
  One journalist who was brutally taken from us was, of course, Daniel 
Pearl of the Wall Street Journal, whose name last year graced the 
bipartisan Freedom of the Press Act. That legislation emphatically put 
Congress, the President and our Nation strongly on record in support of 
freedom of expression by mandating more detailed reporting than ever on 
its fate around the world in our State Department's annual Human Rights 
Report.
  Significantly, Mr. Speaker, Congress expressly required in The Daniel 
Pearl Freedom of the Press Act that the State Department chronicle not 
only where repression is at its most brutal and obvious, but also to 
shine a bright light on ``indirect sources of pressure, and censorship 
by governments . . . .''
  In the past months we have seen an unprecedented wave of protests and 
demonstrations sweep the Arab world. Two governments--in Tunisia and 
Egypt--have fallen to the demands of pro-democracy protesters, while 
others have come under intense pressure. These uprisings have 
highlighted the level of violence and physical harassment directed at 
the press. We've seen journalists threatened, arrested, beaten, 
assaulted, and in some cases even killed, while working on the 
frontlines in the fight for democracy and greater opportunity.
  After two months of silence, Lara Logan, the CBS reporter who was 
sexually assaulted by a mob in Cairo's Tahrir Square the night that 
President Mubarak stepped down in February, opened up about the brutal 
attack in an emotional interview on ``60 Minutes'' Sunday. Logan, whose 
attack shined a light on the dangers that female journalists face while 
working abroad, said she is proud to have broken the silence on what 
some female journalists have experienced but never talk about for fear 
they will be taken off the story.
  ABC's Christiane Amanpour and Fox News Channel's Greg Palkot and Olaf 
Wiig also faced physical assault and intimidation during the protests 
that swept Mubarak from his post--notable examples out of as many as 
100 journalists who were assaulted, threatened or detained during the 
uprising in Egypt.
  Elsewhere in the Arab world, four New York Times reporters were taken 
captive by Libyan government soldiers outside of Benghazi in March. 
After enduring harassment and abuse, they were thankfully released.
  Less fortunate were award-winning photojournalists Tim Hetherington 
and Chris Hondros, two of the most seasoned photojournalists, who were 
killed while covering a battle between rebels and Libyan government 
forces in the city of Misrata. Theirs is not only a loss to their 
friends and families, but also a great loss to the profession.
  Freedom of expression cannot exist where journalists are not safe 
from persecution and attack, which have an unnerving effect on the 
profession. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 16 
journalists have been tragically killed this year. Alarmingly, the 
failure to punish or even seriously investigate crimes against 
journalists has now reached appalling proportions.
  And although one can certainly find such censorship in the Middle 
East and North Africa, or in countries such as China, Cuba, Kazakhstan, 
South Korea and Syria, sadly it exists and may be getting worse much 
closer to home.
  As just reported last month by the State Department--and as borne out 
by major 2010 reports of the Organization of American States, the 
Committee to Protect Journalists, Freedom House, and many others--our 
own hemisphere is home to many disturbing examples of what Ms. June 
Erlick, a former correspondent now with the David Rockefeller Center 
for Latin American Studies at Harvard called a ``much more insidious'' 
form of press repression. Quoted in the Committee to Protect 
Journalists' ``Attacks on the Press 2010'' report, Ms. Erlick 
elaborated that, ``You never know where the censorship is coming from--
through threats, attacks on the streets, new laws, or lack of access. 
The threats are always there and sometimes lead to self-censorship even 
before censorship begins.''
  In the spirit of this World Press Freedom Day, Mr. Speaker, let me 
then use the balance of my time to turn over just a few of these ``much 
more insidious'' rocks:

[[Page 7641]]

  In Venezuela, the government has engaged in what CPJ unambiguously 
calls ``a systematic campaign to stifle dissent.'' It included barring 
the publication of photos in conjunction with reporting on rampant 
crime and unsolved murder cases; suddenly voiding the broadcasting 
license of the nation's oldest television channel and a major critic of 
the government; and exploiting or inventing technical regulations to 
administratively shut down dozens of radio stations also critical of 
the government.
  In Ecuador, the OAS' 2009 Report of the Inter-American Commission on 
Human Rights special rapporteur for freedom of expression found that, 
``Ecuador has seen a rising climate of polarization in which attacks on 
and threats against journalists and media outlets of all editorial 
positions have increased''; a March 3 Inter-American Press Association 
report stated flatly that the government had ``redoubled its 
offensive'' against press freedom; and, just last month our own State 
Department's 2010 Human Rights Report found--among many other actions--
that, ``In June and July, during the broadcast of the Soccer World Cup 
matches, the government ran a media campaign against the press, 
referring to media outlets as corrupt and delinquent.''
  . . . And, in Argentina--according to The Wall Street Journal, The 
Economist, and The Financial Times among many other outlets--for more 
than two years the government has waged an escalating war against 
critical media outlets. Specifically, the government: was just found by 
the nation's Supreme Court to have unconstitutionally allocated 
government advertising funds to reward news outlets favorable to its 
policies while withholding such funds from opponents; shut down and 
tried to literally force the sale of the nation's biggest private 
internet service provider; orchestrated a surprise raid by 200 federal 
tax agents on the offices of the nation's largest media company and 
then dismissed the raids as a ``mistake''; and--in a series of moves 
taken directly from the original Peronists' playbook--is seeking 
aggressively to seize control of the nation's newsprint supply to 
silence opposition newspapers by literally making it impossible for 
them to go to press.
  These are just a few of the things happening in a few of the 
countries in our own backyard, Mr. Speaker, that justify--indeed, 
demand that Congress remain vigilant and vocal in defense of freedom of 
expression everywhere . . . not just on World Press Freedom Day, but 
every day of every year.

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