Iran Press/ America: Journalists covering protests in the United States should be permitted to do their jobs without fear of attack or arrest, the United Nations human rights office said on Friday, reported by The Independent.
A mounting crackdown on reporters by authorities has been seen in recent weeks as the Trump administration has deployed federal agents to several cities where demonstrators are calling for racial justice.
And now, UN human rights spokesperson Liz Throssell has spoken out to protect the press.
“[The protests] must be able to continue without those participating in them and also the people reporting on them, the journalists, risking arbitrary arrest or detention, being subject to the unnecessary disproportionate or discriminatory use of force or suffering other violations of their rights,” she said at a news conference in Geneva.
Her comments come after weeks of US authorities attacking and arresting the journalists who are covering the historic racial protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd.
On 1 July, Andrew Buncombe, chief US correspondent with The Independent, was arrested in Seattle while covering the police clearance of the Capitol Hill Organised Protest (CHOP). He was charged with failure to disperse despite repeatedly identifying himself as a journalist. He was held for at least eight hours before being released.
More than 70 journalists in the US have been arrested during Black Lives Matter demonstrations, while dozens of others have been injured by rubber bullets, pepper spray, and tear gas. The US Press Freedom Tracker has collected more than 500 reports of journalists being targeted during unrest in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by police in late May.
Throssell, from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, raised concerns over reports that people were being detained by unidentified federal officers in Portland, Oregon.
“That is a worry, because it may place those detained outside the protection of the law, and may give rise to arbitrary detention and other human rights violations,” she said.
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