UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt is to co-host a ministerial summit on media freedom in the wake of attacks on journalists throughout the world.
Speaking at the World News Media Congress in Glasgow yesterday, Hunt said the gathering will bring together senior politicians, international organisations, civil society and journalists.
He said: “A free media is not an optional extra, still less a “Western” value: it forms one pillar of a thriving society, benefiting people in every corner of the world.”
According to the latest World Press Freedom Index, the number of countries regarded as "safe, where journalists can work in complete security", continues to decline.
Nearly 100 journalists were killed last year and another 348 locked up by governments. In the UK recently, Lyra McKee was murdered by dissident republicans in Northern Ireland.
Hunt, one of the contenders to become the next Tory leader and Prime Minister, described McKee’s death as a “senseless killing of a talented young journalist”.
In his speech, he said that he had joined his Canadian counterpart, Chrystia Freeland, to launch a global campaign for media freedom.
He said: “Our aim is to shine a spotlight on abuses and raise the cost for those who would harm journalists for doing their jobs.
“We want to build a coalition of governments committed to a stronger diplomatic response when media freedom is curtailed – and to greater support when countries do the right thing, remove restrictions and push out the frontiers of free expression.”
As well as a planned summit next month, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, who represented journalists in Burma, has become his Special Envoy.
He added: “Authoritarian states might launch sudden “crackdowns” against corruption – which mysteriously target political opponents while leaving others untouched – but the risk of exposure by a free media is far more effective than any theatrical campaign.
“And how do we know this? Because of the ten least corrupt nations in the world, as ranked by Transparency International, seven are also in the Press Freedom top 10.”
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