CIVIL, a human rights and freedoms organization, established in 1991 and having set up the organizational unit CIVIL Media in 2009, is celebrating World Press Freedom Day with around 40 articles, including 25 statements by renowned journalists and experts in the area of the media. The fight for freedom of expression and informing does not last just one day, hence this activity of the Organization will continue with the same pace in the following period.
In the past 11 years, CIVIL has been working on creating a media platform that is free, independent and open. The organization decided on such an endeavour in conditions of media darkness, when the regime used to turn journalists into microphone holders, and the media into their propagandistic and nationalistic advertisement board. Media workers and human rights activists, as well as their families and their close ones, were under threats, blackmail and pressures, were beaten up, persecuted and imprisoned. Many attacks have still not been clarified, as well as deaths during the authoritarian regime 2006-2016.
The achievements after the fall of the regime in the area of strengthening media freedoms are evident, but accompanied by numerous weaknesses and challenges. The weaknesses and challenges are a result of the trends of a broader regional and global character, but not such a small part of them are also of subjective nature.
At the global level, the coronavirus pandemic has caused tectonic shifts in the domain of freedom of expression and informing. The measures for tackling the pandemic across the whole world have endangered human rights and freedoms, especially in parts of the world where they already were a serious challenge.
The consequences from the restriction on rights and freedoms with the aim of preventing the spread of coronavirus are yet to be felt in the entire world. Additionally, the deep recession that is already shaking the world will contribute to additional erosion in the respect for human rights and freedoms, and thus restricting the right to freedom of expression and information.
In parallel to the pandemic, an infodemic is spreading at an even greater speed. In the past period, based on the long-term monitoring, CIVIL has concluded and has alerted the public multiple times that the infodemic has not bypassed neither North Macedonia. At the same time, fake news, disinformation and hate speech are a weapon in the propaganda of certain political parties and centers of the political and criminal underground, whose goal is to undermine the trust of the citizens in the health care system and in the institutions overall. The media play a major role in the spreading of these hybrid threats against democracy.
A major problem is also the impunity for attacks against professional media and media workers. Incitement speech on the social networks very often stems precisely from the media production of certain political, business and criminal structures in the country. The lack of appropriate response by relevant institutions only encourages these centers to reinforce their destructive action. This threatens the public interest, and especially puts professional media workers at risk.
Media workers face many other challenges, of which one of the most visible ones is the chronic problem with the amount of their income, which is a result of the economic circumstances in the country and beyond, but also absence of measures for stimulating professional media work.
CIVIL remains open for cooperation with all relevant media organizations and the media, with the goal of strengthening freedom of expression and information, which are a fundamental human right, guaranteed by the Constitution, laws and international law.
Happy Press Freedom Day!
CIVIL Communication Team
