Paris (AFP)
The coronavirus also strikes information: under the pretext of fighting the epidemic of Covid-19, many governments around the world prevent journalists from working, denounce the defenders of press freedom.
In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban voted for emergency measures promising up to five years in prison for spreading "fake news" about the epidemic or government measures. While it is the rare independent media in the country that are regularly the subject of such accusations.
In Turkey, ten journalists suspected of "spreading panic and fear" were arrested or summoned by the police, according to Reporters Without Borders. In Turkmenistan, the word "coronavirus" has simply been banned from the vocabulary of the state media, a "denial that endangers the most fragile Turkmens" and "strengthens the authoritarian regime", accuses the NGO.
RSF set up a press "Observatory 19" in the days of the coronavirus on Wednesday, pointing to this violence and threats.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, for its part, called for the release of all journalists in prison around the world, for whom freedom is now "a matter of life and death".
- Eradicate rumors? -
"Some of the liveliest centers of Covid-19, like China or Iran, are countries where the media have not been able to fulfill their function of informing citizens," said Christophe Deloire, secretary general of RSF. "There may be governments that overreact. It is legitimate to want to stamp out the rumors. But others want to gag the media that disseminate fair information. And the shock is such that, at the moment, these measures can pass".
In this emergency context, censoring the epidemic at the local level can deprive other countries of vital information and precious time.
In China, the first epicenter of the epidemic, all references to the new coronavirus were censored for weeks before the country recognized the scale of the epidemic, according to a Canadian study. General terms like "unknown Wuhan pneumonia" have been taboo on several applications.
And the attacks are spreading as the epidemic progresses.
In Belarus journalist Sergei Satsouk was arrested on March 25, three days after the publication of an editorial on the coronavirus and four days after President Lukashenko asked the intelligence services to prosecute the authors of information on the coronavirus . The journalist faces seven years in prison for "corruption", but has not yet been charged.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a TV reporter was chased and then run over by his motorcycle by police, while he was filming a report on confinement, according to RSF, which cites other cases in Senegal and in Uganda.
- Emergency censorship -
In India, the government has asked to validate upstream any publication that talks about coronavirus. The measure was censored by the Supreme Court, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi also asked journalists that they "fight against pessimism, negativity, and rumors", according to his website.
The situation is made all the more complicated by the fact that containment measures complicate the work of journalists. And that the crisis risks bringing many media to its knees economically, threatening their independence.
In addition, in a flow of anxiety-provoking information, certain media could be tempted by self-censorship, so as not to worry their public in the face of the proliferation of more or less verified information on social networks and not to darken the picture.
"The only thing that reassures the free citizen is that we tell him the truth," said French lawyer François Sureau on Wednesday on France Inter. "We do not need to be reassured, we need the government to be asked questions, and that we can judge for ourselves, as citizens, the validity of the answers it gives."
On the contrary, this crisis could be "a historic opportunity for governments", according to Christophe Deloire of RSF, "to take measures guaranteeing pluralism and the reliability of information (...) We knew that informational chaos could put in danger to democracy. We now know that it can endanger our health. "
© 2020 AFP