The murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia topped the list of the 10 most urgent cases of press freedom cases around the world for January by the One Free Press Coalition.
The One Free Press Coalition, a united group of pre-eminent editors and publishers using their global reach and social platforms to spotlight journalists under attack worldwide, today issued its monthly “10 Most Urgent” list of journalists whose press freedoms are being suppressed or whose cases are seeking justice.
In a statement, the coalition said that “topping the list” was Maltese journalist Caruana Galizia, who was murdered in October 2017 after receiving numerous death threats regarding her controversial political reporting.
Only recently has the Maltese government acknowledged their mishandling of the murder case, with the country’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, announcing his resignation on January 12, the coalition said.
Since its inception, the monthly “10 Most Urgent” list has brought attention to journalists throughout the world who may not have otherwise had a voice. Of the 56 journalists featured on this year’s monthly lists, at least 10 have been released from prison, including Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo in Myanmar, and Miguel Mora and Lucía Pineda Ubau in Nicaragua. In addition, the case of Turkish journalist Pelin Unker was recently dismissed by courts shortly after being featured in March, and Moroccan journalist Hajar Raissouni, featured on the October list, recently celebrated her wedding after her release from prison.
The list, which was published today, includes the following journalists, ranked in order of urgency: Caruana Galizia, Esraa Abdel Fattah, Ilham Tohti, Agnes Ndirubusa & Iwacu team, Aleksandr Valov, Jesus Medina, Jamal Khashoggi, Masoud Kazemi, Qazi Shibli and Nariman Memedeminov.
The One Free Press Coalition is comprised of 37 prominent international members including: Al Jazeera Media Network, AméricaEconomía, Associated Press, Bloomberg News, The Boston Globe, BuzzFeed; CNN Money Switzerland, Corriere Della Sera, De Standaard, Deutsche Welle, Estadão, EURACTIV, The Financial Times, Forbes, Fortune, HuffPost, India Today, Insider Inc. Le Temps, Middle East Broadcasting Networks, NHK, Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Quartz, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, Republik, Reuters, The Straits Times, Süddeutsche Zeitung, TIME, TV Azteca, Voice of America, The Washington Post, WIRED, and Yahoo News.
One Free Press Coalition partners with the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) to identify the most urgent cases for the list, which is updated and published on the first business day of every month.
The mission of the coalition is to use the collective voices of its members – which reach more than 1 billion people worldwide – to spotlight brave journalists whose voices are being silenced or have been silenced by “standing up for journalists under attack for pursuing the truth.”