{"id":239452,"date":"2021-07-15T09:45:27","date_gmt":"2021-07-15T09:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/?p=60461"},"modified":"2021-07-15T09:45:27","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T09:45:27","slug":"ajfs-peter-greste-presses-for-media-freedom-act-to-protect-journalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/07\/15\/ajfs-peter-greste-presses-for-media-freedom-act-to-protect-journalists\/","title":{"rendered":"AJF\u2019s Peter Greste presses for media freedom act to protect journalists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>The Press Freedom Tracker launch video featuring Peter Greste and the tracker team. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Rbh4t6t89-Q\">Video: AJF<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/category\/pacific-media-watch\/\">Pacific Media Watch<\/a> newsdesk<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Peter Greste-fronted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.journalistsfreedom.com\/\">Alliance for Journalists\u2019 Freedom<\/a> is launching a press freedom tracker for use in engaging with politicians and government officials to push for better protections for journalists in the Asia-Pacific region, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afr.com\/companies\/media-and-marketing\/peter-greste-pushes-for-media-freedom-act-to-protect-journalists-20210713-p5895m\">reports Miranda Ward of the <em>Australian Finanancial Review<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Greste, who spent more than 400 days behind bars after he and two colleagues were charged with terrorism offences while on assignment for Al Jazeera in Egypt, said the press freedom tracker would record incidents, both attacks on press freedom and positive steps forward, and help the AJF and other stakeholders assess the state of press freedom in the region.<\/p>\n<p>Peter Greste wants to help the Australian public understand the challenges facing press freedom in Australia.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.journalistsfreedom.com\/press-freedom-tracker\/\"><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> AJF&#8217;s Press Freedom Tracker<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_60466\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-60466\" style=\"width: 680px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-60466 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Peter-Greste-AJF-680wide.png\" alt=\"Peter Greste AJF\" width=\"680\" height=\"522\" srcset=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Peter-Greste-AJF-680wide.png 680w, https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Peter-Greste-AJF-680wide-300x230.png 300w, https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Peter-Greste-AJF-680wide-80x60.png 80w, https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Peter-Greste-AJF-680wide-547x420.png 547w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-60466\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Journalism professor Peter Greste &#8230; biggest challenge facing press freedom in Australia is making the public understand the threats facing media. Image: Screenshot\/Pacific Media Watch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s designed to be something that looks at the state of press freedom, the direction of travel and whether it\u2019s up or down across the Asia-Pacific region,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re also being very careful not to rate countries because we don\u2019t think that\u2019s necessarily helpful. What we\u2019re looking at, though, is a way of comparing and contrasting the way that various countries handle press freedom across the region and the broad direction of trends.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Greste said the AJF would use it as a tool \u201cfor opening political and diplomatic conversations and as a tool for advocacy\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The AJF was formed in 2017 by Greste, lawyer Chris Flynn and former journalist and strategic communications consultant Peter Wilkinson. Flynn and Wilkinson worked with the Greste family to free Greste from an Egyptian prison.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Complement advocacy work<\/strong><br \/>\nThe press freedom tracker, which was launched in Brisbane yesterday, will complement the AJF\u2019s advocacy work and how the organisation engages with governments to discuss press freedom issues.<\/p>\n<p>Greste said the AJF was also working on its \u201cregional dialogue\u201d project, which is a series of semi-formal meetings between news companies, governments and security agencies designed to help each understand the other better and find better ways of working together.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the chief arguments is that there\u2019s often talk about the trade-off between press freedom and national security, the balance between press freedom and national security, which implies that if you have more of one, by definition, you have less of the other,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe disagree with that characterisation. We think that press freedom is actually part of the national security framework. It indirectly helps government function better, it helps the system work more effectively, it helps expose corruption within governments and organise crime.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The biggest challenge facing press freedom in Australia, said Professor Greste who is also UNESCO chair in journalism and communication at the University of Queensland, was making the general population understand the threats facing media.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOpening up a daily newspaper, it doesn\u2019t feel as though Australia press is limited in any way. We don\u2019t have explicit censorship and not seeing journalists thrown in prison. Up until the [Australian Federal Police] raids [on the ABC and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/national\/for-we-are-one-and-safe-how-australia-surrenders-its-liberty-by-tiptoeing-around-press-freedom-20210603-p57xut.html\">a News Corp journalist<\/a>], we weren\u2019t seeing police kicking down the doors of journalists in a rage reaction. So it doesn\u2019t look as though journalism is in a crisis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Greste said that if the public had a better understanding of how \u201cdangerous it is for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.afr.com\/politics\/federal\/whistle-blower-protection-makes-us-unequal-before-the-law-20191029-p535ew\">sources within government to speak to journalists anonymously, confidentially<\/a><em>\u201d,<\/em> and the effect that has on stories that are not being told, he believed it would be more widely recognised that journalism in this country was \u201cnot as healthy as we\u2019d like to believe\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><strong>No constitutional protection<\/strong><br \/>\n\u201cThe challenge is getting the public to understand the role that journalism plays, and appreciate that role, and recognise the loss of press freedom that we\u2019ve seen since 9\/11. The impact that the national security legislation has had on press freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In Australia specifically, the AJF is pursuing the creation of a media freedom act that would help provide protections to journalists and compel the courts to consider press freedom in any case that would affect the state of press freedom in the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAustralia is about the worst Western liberal democracy in the world when it comes to legal and constitutional protections for things like freedom of speech and press freedom,\u201d Greste said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have no constitutional protection at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The AJF hopes a media freedom act would help protect news organisations from police raids such as the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.afr.com\/companies\/media-and-marketing\/police-raid-on-abc-unconstitutional-20190801-p52czc\">AFP\u2019s 2019 raid on the ABC\u2019s Sydney headquarters<\/a>\u00a0by insisting judges be obligated to consider press freedom and the public interest before signing warrants to allow such raids to take place.<\/p>\n<p>Greste said that while a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afr.com\/companies\/media-and-marketing\/press-freedom-inquiry-rejects-contestable-warrants-proposal-20200826-p55pmv\">parliamentary inquiry in August<\/a>\u00a0last year recommended sweeping reforms, politicians need to find the will to implement the recommendations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe opportunity for the AJF is to help the public understand this and to find and develop political support for media freedom,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re getting some support, we\u2019ve had a number of politicians approach us. We\u2019re in the process of drafting an act. We\u2019ve been speaking to a number of independent MPs about working on the idea and certainly politicians in the Coalition and in the Labor Party privately have been expressing support for the idea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just that it\u2019s hard to put on the political agenda and get the kind of moment that we need to see a piece of legislation go through.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Republished with permission from the Alliance for Journalists&#8217; Freedom.<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/2021\/07\/15\/ajfs-peter-greste-presses-for-media-freedom-act-to-protect-journalists\/\">Asia Pacific Report<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Press Freedom Tracker launch video featuring Peter Greste and the tracker team. Video: AJF Pacific Media Watch newsdesk The Peter Greste-fronted Alliance for Journalists\u2019 Freedom is launching a press freedom tracker for use in engaging with politicians and government officials to push for better protections for journalists in the Asia-Pacific region, reports Miranda Ward<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1207,2783,175,10703,5,495,94,652,32011,358,12,366,32012,14,653,32013,537],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239452"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239452"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239513,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239452\/revisions\/239513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}