Violence against press and journalists in the US hits another record
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According to a report by Freedom of the Press Foundation, violence against free speech is rampant in the US.
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Trump supporters stand next to media equipment they destroyed during a protest on January 6, 2020 outside the Capitol in Washington (AFP)
On January 6, 2021, journalists who were reporting on the Capitol riots were assaulted and had their equipment, which cost thousands of dollars, damaged. In April, another journalist who was reported on Black Lives Matter protests stood on trial. There are many examples of instances in the US where journalists have faced violence, either by rioters or by the state itself.
Journalists in 2020, on average, were arrested or assaulted more than once every day - 2021 was even worse.
The US Press Freedom Tracker, where Freedom of the Press Foundation works with the Committee to Protect Journalists and other press freedom groups, has documented violence against journalists in the US since 2017.
In 2021, over 140 assaults on journalists took place, placed in the "Physical Attack" category. This number surpasses the number of assaults from 2017 to 2019 combined. In addition, 59 arrests or detainments which were reported by the tracker in 2021 are the equivalent of arrests and detainments in 2017 to 2019 combined. There were 142 assaults on journalists in 2021.
In the Capitol Riot, the tracker documented more than 16 journalists who were assaulted in Washington while covering the events. Furthermore, Coronavirus-related assaults increased from 4 in 2020 to 14 in 2021.
In 2020, 142 arrests and detainments took place, which is almost a 1500% increase from 2019, which reported 9. In 2021, that number was 59. Half of those detained last year were detained in kettles, a tactic used against large crowds.
The lastest of the arrests were on Christmas Day while two journalists were covering homeless peoples' evictions in North Carolina: They are currently facing charges of trespassing, and the hearings are in March. Matilda Bliss, one of the reports detained, had her phone confiscated during the detainment.
The United States has attempted to obtain phone and email records as part of a procedure against journalists: In June 2021, the US Department of Justice told The New York Times that the CIA secretly got the phone records of four of the newspapers' reporters a year back. These efforts, under Biden or Trump - or any other US president - are ongoing.
The website reports, "The Trump administration, together with the CIA, also reportedly plotted to kidnap—and possibly even assassinate—WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been held in a London jail since 2019, Yahoo! News reported in September. In October, more than two-dozen major civil liberties and human rights groups, including FPF, sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding that the DOJ drop its prosecution of Assange, underscoring “that the criminal case against him poses a grave threat to press freedom both in the United States and abroad.""
Biden has continued Trump's legacy in moving to extradite Assange, who exposed US war crimes.
