The list published on Monday includes 37 heads of state and government who, according to the RSF, “embody the ruthless repression of press freedom in a particularly drastic way.” Also new are the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the Hong Kong Prime Minister Carrie Lam.
Since Orban and his Fidesz party came to power in Hungary in 2010, they have gradually brought the media landscape under their control, said RSF. The public broadcasters were centralized in the state media holding MTVA. The regional press has been fully owned by Orban-friendly entrepreneurs since 2017. Important independent media have been switched off.
According to the RSF, most of the newcomers this year were recorded in the Asia-Pacific region, where 13 of the 37 “enemies of freedom of the press” rule. The Hong Kong Prime Minister Lam was added, among other things because in the Chinese special administrative region with the newspaper “Apple Daily” a symbol of freedom of the press had to cease operations.
Bolsonaro and Crown Prince bin Salman are also on the list
Brazilian President Bolsonaro is also on the list for the first time. He insults, denigrates and stigmatize critical journalists and above all rely on online networks to bypass traditional media, explained RSF.
The newcomers also include the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince bin Salman, whom RSF accuses of crimes against humanity for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, among other things.
In Eastern Europe, RSF has counted the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko as rigorous “enemies of freedom of the press” for more than 20 years. Since Putin took office, at least 37 reporters have been murdered because of their work, and hardly any of these crimes have been solved.
In Belarus, Lukashenko brutally suppressed the free dissemination of information, said RSF. More than 500 journalists have been arrested since the protests against the government that began last summer and, in some cases, severely ill-treated in prison.
“New names have been added in all regions of the world,” explained RSF Managing Director Christian Mihr. “Their methods of suppression are different, but they serve the same purpose: to prevent critical reporting at all costs.” The list also includes many longstanding “enemies of freedom of the press”. They include Eritrea’s President Isaias Afewerki, China’s head of state and party leader Xi Jinping and Syria’s ruler Bashar al-Assad.
