The Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA) has joined media freedom groups supporting Julian Assange, an Australian citizen whose unjust prosecution continues to undermine press freedoms and human rights.

In light of recent developments and mounting concerns over Assange’s deteriorating health, JERAA said in a statement it had urged the United States to drop all charges against Assange and facilitate his immediate return to Australia.

Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has been the subject of relentless persecution by the US government for his efforts to expose war crimes and government misconduct.

• READ MORE: Other Julian Assange reports

Assange received a Walkley Award in 2011 for outstanding contribution to journalism through Wikileaks, which included the release of the 2010 “collateral murder” video and the publication of classified US diplomatic cables, shedding light on atrocities committed by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“It is concerning that Assange faces up to 175 years in jail if found guilty of espionage charges — a sentence that would effectively silence whistle-blowers and journalists worldwide,” JERAA said.

The association said it believed that Assange’s indictment set a dangerous precedent and posed a grave threat to the fundamental principles of press freedom and freedom of expression.

‘Enough is enough’
JERAA commended Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for his support in calling for Assange’s release and said it echoed his sentiment that “enough is enough.”

PM Albanese’s recent vote in the federal Parliament for a motion demanding Assange’s return to Australia underscores the legitimacy of our demand. The motion, which received overwhelming support, leaves no room for ambiguity — it is time to bring Assange home.

The WikiLeaks 2010 “collateral damage” video.         Video: Al Jazeera

As the UK High Court prepares to rule on Assange’s appeal against extradition in a two-day hearing next week (February 20-21), and with Prime Minister Albanese’s continued efforts to advocate for Assange’s release, JERAA has urged the US to heed the calls for justice and drop all charges against Assange.

It is imperative that Assange’s rights as an Australian citizen be respected, and that he be afforded the opportunity to return home.

JERAA president Associate Professor Alexandra Wake said that while some members might not agree with all Assange has done in his life, it was clear that his work was central to our “understanding of press freedoms and human rights”.

“JERAA upholds the principles of a free and independent press. It is time to end the trial of global media freedom,” she said.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has hailed the news that Narges Mohammadi — an Iranian journalist RSF has been defending for years — has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her “fight against the oppression of women in Iran,” her courage and determination.

Persecuted by the Iranian authorities since the late 1990s for her work, and imprisoned again since November 2021, she must be freed at once, RSF declared in a statement.

“Speak to save Iran” is the title of one of the letters published by Mohammadi from Evin prison, near Tehran, where she has been serving a sentence of 10 years and 9 months in prison since 16 November 2021.

• READ MORE: Iran’s jailed rights advocate Narges Mohammadi wins 2023 Nobel Peace Prize
• Other Narges Mohammadi reports

She has also been sentenced to hundreds of lashes. The maker of a documentary entitled White Torture and the author of a book of the same name, Mohammadi has never stopped denouncing the sexual violence inflicted on women prisoners in Iran.

It is this fight against the oppression of women that the Nobel Committee has just saluted by awarding the Peace Prize to this 51-year-old journalist and human rights activist, the former vice-president of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, the Iranian human rights organisation that was created by Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer who was herself awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003.

It is because of this fight that Mohammadi has been hounded by the Iranian authorities, who continue to persecute her in prison.

She has been denied visits and telephone calls since 12 April 2022, cutting her off from the world.

New charges
At the same time, the authorities in Evin prison have brought new charges to keep her in detention.

On August 4, her jail term was increased by a year after the publication of another of her letters about violence against fellow women detainees.

White Torture: The infamy of solitary confinement in Iran with Narges Mohammadi.

Mohammadi was awarded the RSF Prize for Courage on 12 December 2023. At the award ceremony in Paris, her two children, whom she has not seen for eight years, read one of the letters she wrote to them from prison.

“In this country, amid all the suffering, all the fears and all the hopes, and when, after years of imprisonment, I am behind bars again and I can no longer even hear the voices of my children, it is with a heart full of passion, hope and vitality, full of confidence in the achievement of freedom and justice in my country that I will spend time in prison,” she wrote.

She ended the letter with a call to keep alive “the hope of victory”.

RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said:

“It is with immense emotion that I learn that the Nobel Peace Prize is being awarded to the journalist and human rights defender Narges Mohammadi.

At Reporters Without Borders (RSF), we have been fighting for her for years, alongside her husband and her two children, and with Shirin Ebadi. The Nobel Peace Prize will obviously be decisive in obtaining her release.”

On June 7, RSF referred the unacceptable conditions in which Mohammadi is being detained to all of the relevant UN human rights bodies.

During an oral update to the UN Human Rights Council on July 5, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran expressed concern over the “continued detention of human rights defenders and lawyers defending the protesters, and at least 17 journalists”.

It is thanks to Mohammadi’s journalistic courage that the world knows what is happening in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s prisons, where 20 journalists are currently detained.

They include three other women: Elaheh Mohammadi, Niloofar Hamedi and Vida Rabbani.

Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

Ahead of national elections in the Philippines next month, the state has stepped up its attacks on Nobel Peave laureate Maria Ressa and the news outlet she leads, Rappler, reports the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders global media watchdog.

“This dramatic escalation in the legal harassment of Maria Ressa and Rappler highlights the urgent need for the Philippines’ to decriminalise libel and do away with laws that are repeatedly abused to persecute journalists whose reporting exposes public wrongdoing,” said the Hold the Line Coalition Steering Committee.

“The state’s blatant attempts to suppress Rappler’s election-related fact-checking services is an unacceptable attempt to cheat the public of their right to accurate information, which is critical during elections.”

• READ MORE: Prosecutors throw out Quiboloy follower’s 7 cyber libel raps against Rappler
• Other Maria Ressa and Rappler reports

The Philippines president election is on May 9.

Fourteen new cyber libel complaints have been made against Rappler in recent weeks, naming several journalists and their sources in connection with reporting on President Rodrigo Duterte’s pastor Apollo Quiboloy, who is on the FBI’s “most wanted” list, and eight of his followers.

Quiboloy and his associates were charged with conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion; sex trafficking of children; marriage fraud; fraud, and misuse of visas; and various money laundering offences.

Quiboloy’s company Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI), which has attacked independent journalists and news outlets reporting critically on the Duterte administration, was recently granted a TV licence by the government.

However, Rappler reports today that a panel of prosecutors in Manila has thrown out seven cyber libel complaints filed against Rappler Incorporated, four journalists, an academic, and three former members of Quiboloy’s Davao-based Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC) in connection with a series of news reports and interviews about the influential doomsday preacher.

In addition to these cases, Ressa has been named personally as one of 17 reporters, editors and executives, and seven news organisations in cyber libel complaints brought by Duterte government cabinet minister Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi.

Legal harassment
He alleges Ressa and the other named individuals and organisations “publicly accused [him] of graft” by reporting on a graft suit filed against him and a businessman.

Cusi is demanding each of the accused pay him 200 million pesos (nearly US$4 million) in damages.

Ressa did not write the article published by Rappler.

If the authorities choose to prosecute these cases, they will become criminal charges with potentially heavy jail sentences attached.

Having already been convicted of one criminal cyber libel charge, which is under appeal, and facing multiple other pre-existing legal cases, Ressa testified before the US Senate last week about the state-enabled legal harassment she experiences:

“All told, I could go to jail for the rest of my life. Because I refuse to stop doing my job as a journalist. Because Rappler holds the line and continues to protect the public sphere.”

In parallel, Rappler is facing another legal challenge, with the Philippines’ Solicitor-General petitioning the Supreme Court to void Rappler’s fact-checking agreement with the Commission of Elections (COMELEC).

Countering disinformation
As a result, this collaboration between Rappler and COMELEC designed to counter disinformation associated with the presidential poll has been temporarily halted — just over a month from the election.

“This new wave of cases and complaints, which represents an egregious attack on press freedom, is designed to undermine the essential work of fact-checking and critical reporting during elections — acts which help uphold the integrity of democratic processes.

“Rappler must be allowed to perform the essential public service of exposing falsehoods, particularly during the election period, even when these prove politically damaging for those in power,” the coalition said.

The Philippines is ranked 138th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index.

Statement by Julie Posetti (ICFJ), Gypsy Guillén Kaiser (CPJ), and Daniel Bastard (RSF) on behalf of the Hold the Line Coalition.

• The #HTL Coalition comprises more than 80 organisations around the world. This statement is issued by the #HoldTheLine Steering Committee, but it does not necessarily reflect the position of all or any individual coalition members or organisations.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says it is very disturbed by the “11 journalism rules” that the Taliban announced at a meeting with news media on September 19.

The rules that Afghan journalists will now have to implement are vaguely worded, dangerous and liable to be used to persecute them, the Paris-based global media freedom watchdog said.

Working as a journalist will now mean complying strictly with the 11 rules unveiled by Qari Mohammad Yousuf Ahmadi, the interim director of the Government Media and Information Centre (GMIC).

• READ MORE: Other Afghanistan media freedom reports

At first blush, some of them might seem reasonable, as they include an obligation to respect “the truth” and not “distort the content of the information”, said RSF.

But in reality they were “extremely dangerous” because they opened the way to censorship and persecution.

“Decreed without any consultation with journalists, these new rules are spine-chilling because of the coercive use that can be made of them, and they bode ill for the future of journalistic independence and pluralism in Afghanistan,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

“They establish a regulatory framework based on principles and methods that contradict the practice of journalism and leave room for oppressive interpretation, instead of providing a protective framework allowing journalists — including women — to go back to work in acceptable conditions.

‘Tyranny and persecution’
“These rules open the way to tyranny and persecution.”

The first three rules, which forbid journalists to broadcast or publish stories that are “contrary to Islam,” “insult national figures” or violate “privacy,” are loosely based on Afghanistan’s existing national media law, which also incorporated a requirement to comply with international norms, including Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The absence of this requirement in the new rules opens the door to censorship and repression, because there is no indication as to who determines, or on what basis it is determined, that a comment or a report is contrary to Islam or disrespectful to a national figure.

Three of the rules tell journalists to conform to what are understood to be ethical principles:

• They must “not try to distort news content”;
• They must “respect journalistic principles”; and
• They “must ensure that their reporting is balanced”.

But the absence of reference to recognised international norms means that these rules can also be misused or interpreted arbitrarily.

Rules 7 and 8 facilitate a return to news control or even prior censorship, which has not existed in Afghanistan for the past 20 years.

‘Handled carefully’
They state that, “matters that have not been confirmed by officials at the time of broadcasting or publication should be treated with care” and that “matters that could have a negative impact on the public’s attitude or affect morale should be handled carefully when being broadcast or published”.

The danger of a return to news control or prior censorship is enhanced by the last two rules (10 and 11), which reveal that the GMIC has “designed a specific form to make it easier for media outlets and journalists to prepare their reports in accordance with the regulations,” and that from now on, media outlets must “prepare detailed reports in coordination with the GMIC”.

The nature of these “detailed reports” has yet to be revealed.

The ninth rule, requiring media outlets to “adhere to the principle of neutrality in what they disseminate” and “only publish the truth,” could be open to a wide range of interpretations and further exposes journalists to arbitrary reprisals.

Afghanistan was ranked 122nd out of 180 countries in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index that RSF published in April.

Reporters Without Borders has condemned the tax evasion charges that the Philippine Department of Justice  is bringing against the independent news website Rappler and its president, journalist Maria Ressa.

The Paris-based media freedom watchdog has called for an end to this blatant judicial harassment.

Rappler and Maria Ressa are to be accused of tax evasion and failure to file tax returns in 2015, according to the indictment announced by the DOJ on November 9 and due to be filed in court this week, RSF (Reprters Without Borders) said in a statement.

Ressa could be facing up to 10 years in prison under section 255 of the tax code.

This is the first time that Ressa is being personally prosecuted in the war that President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration has been waging against her and against the country’s leading independent news website.

The announcement came amid yet another sign of international recognition for Ressa in Paris during the weekend, when 12 heads of state and government undertook to take action in defence of “information and democracy” on the basis of the declaration drafted by an international panel created at RSF’s initiative, of which she is one of the 25 members.

“These crude ploys that the Philippine authorities are using against Rappler could be dismissed as bordering on the absurd if it were not for the serious threat they pose to this symbol of press freedom,” said Daniel Bastard, head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.

“This harassment is clearly designed to bring down a media outlet that dares to provide investigative coverage of President Duterte’s policies.

‘Persecution unacceptable’
“The government regards its founder, Maria Ressa, as someone to be crushed because of her determined defence of the freedom to inform. This persecution is unacceptable and must stop.”

The DOJ bases the indictment on the Philippine Depositary Receipts (PDRs) that Rappler Holding Corporation, the company that owns the website, issued in 2015 in order to raise international funding.

The indictment claims that Rappler gained 162.4 million pesos [2.7 million euros] from the transaction, which it failed to declare in its tax return. In reality, the PDRs were just a fund-raising mechanism, with no transaction and no profit.

“The DOJ nonetheless claims an insane 844 percent shortfall in Rappler’s tax declaration and a tax liability of 108 million pesos (1.8 million euros),” said Bastard.

Repeated attacks
For more than a year, Rappler has been the target of repeated attacks designed to intimidate its journalists.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced in January that it was revoking Rappler’s licence on the grounds that it had violated a ban on foreign ownership of media outlets, spuriously claiming that, by issuing PDRs to raise funds, it had sold some of its stock to foreign investors.

RSF immediately referred this unacceptable attack on media independence to the United Nations, UNESCO and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

In response to Rappler’s appeal against the summary revocation of its licence, a court ruled in July that the website should be allowed “reasonable time” to resolve any dispute about its financial structure.

The Rappler reporter assigned to covering the Malacañang presidential palace was meanwhile denied entry to the palace in February on Duterte’s personal orders.

And in March, the authorities announced that they were reviving a previously dismissed defamation action as well as preparing a tax evasion complaint.

The Philippines is ranked 133rd out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index.