Press Freedom
CPJ Updates
- Alarm bells: Trump’s first 100 days ramp up fear for the press, democracy
- 2024 is deadliest year for journalists in CPJ history; almost 70% killed by Israel
- In record year, China, Israel, and Myanmar are world’s leading jailers of journalists
- Haiti, Israel most likely to let journalists’ murders go unpunished, CPJ 2024 impunity index shows
- No justice for journalists targeted by Israel despite strong evidence of war crime
- On Edge: What the US election could mean for journalists and global press freedom
- Forced to flee: Exiled journalists face unsafe passage and transnational repression
- Israel-Gaza war brings 2023 journalist killings to devastating high
- 2023 prison census: Jailed journalist numbers near record high; Israel imprisonments spike
Reporter Without Borders
OPC Applauds Obama for Signing Daniel Pearl Media Act
The Honorable Mr. Barack Obama
President of the United States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500
Mr. President:
The Freedom of the Press Committee of the Overseas Press Club of America (OPC) applauds the Daniel Pearl Act on Freedom of the Media which you signed yesterday, authorizing the Department of State to compile a public list of all nations and states violating that freedom.
For more than seventy years, the OPC has objected to government abuses of press freedom through letters to leaders, appropriate cabinet officers, and chiefs of police. In recent years, we have received increasing numbers of responses, indicating that political leaders are aware of how quickly such actions damage their country’s global image.
Such a public gesture as your signature to the Daniel Pearl Act, making it a law, lends increased authority to our efforts and those of fellow organizations to aid our colleagues in distress, in prison or otherwise. Archives of our press freedom letters on our website (www.opcofamerica.org) attest to our efforts and results.
Our good wishes to you, Mr. President. Again, we are grateful for your efforts, which aid our cause.
Respectfully yours,
Jacqueline Albert Simon
Larry Martz
Freedom of the Press Committee