U.S. authorities should protect rather than attack journalists covering anti-racism protests, human rights monitors of the UN and the Organisation of American States (OAS) said, blaming President Donald Trump for hostility towards the media.
Reporters have been attacked, harassed, arrested and detained, said David Kaye, who monitors freedom of speech for the UN, and Edison Lanza, who does the same for the OAS.
“The press plays an essential watchdog role in democratic societies,” the two experts said in a joint statement, calling on authorities to guarantee the public’s right to get informed about the protest movement.
The UN and OAS observers said that Trump’s verbal attacks against the media “contribute to an environment of hostility and intolerance.”
In addition, they decried the militarisation of policing in the U.S., which “encourages law enforcement to see protesters and journalists as belligerents.”
Using weapons such as rubber bullets against journalists is banned by international law, they stressed.
The media freedom observer of the Organisation for Co-operation and Security in Europe (OSCE), which includes the U.S., has named around a dozen reporters who have been injured by non-lethal police weapons.
There have been at least 200 incidents of journalists covering the protests being attacked, intimidated or arbitrarily arrested, despite wearing clear press credentials, according to UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet.
