Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Right states everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
While every human has the right to exercise this right, Journalists need to exercise it the most because their profession demands it- the right to express their opinion. But the recent reports and studies made by The Guardian stated that journalists have had a terrible time last year and even in this year as well. In 2017, 78 journalists have been murdered and 326 have been imprisoned. What is even more shocking is that, in 2018 31 journalists around the world have been killed. The rate of death of reporters deployed in civilian region is higher than the reporters in war fields.
In the recent times, Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabian journalist was killed by Saudi Special Forces in Istanbul. On 2, Oct 2018, Jamal entered the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul but he didn’t leave. Jamal was critical of the Saudi’s ruling royalty. At first Saudi Arabian govt denied killing him but on Oct 20 they admitted his killing. In 2017, another high profile journalist/whistleblower, Daphne Caruana Galizia, the woman who led the Panama Papers investigation was killed by bomb. Panama Papers includes 11 million documents that consist of several influential celebrities, industrialists and politicians who have hoarded their black money in different parts of the world. She was silenced.
Even in India, in 2017, notable journalist Gauri Lankesh was killed by unknown assailants . In 2018, Nakkheeran Gopal, a leading journalist’s freedom of speech was tried to made silent but the press united to save him.