Committee to Protect Journalists - Attacks on the Press: Journalism on the Worlds Front Lines

Contents

Founded in 1981, the Committee to Protect Journalists responds to attacks on the press worldwide. CPJ documents hundreds of cases every year and takes action on behalf of journalists and news organizations without regard to political ideology. To maintain its independence, CPJ accepts no government funding. CPJ is funded entirely by private contributions from individuals, foundations, and corporations.

Cover image: French photographer Rmi Ochlik covers a demonstration in Cairo. Ochlik was killed on assignment in Syria in February 2012. (AP/Julien de Rosa)

Cover design: John Emerson

Editorial Director: Bill Sweeney

Senior Editor: Elana Beiser

Deputy Editors: Kamal Singh Masuta, Shazdeh Omari

Edition Editor: Lew Serviss

Copyright 2013 by Committee to Protect Journalists. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

ISBN 978-1-118-55055-7 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-118-61137-1 (ePDF)

ISBN 978-1-118-61137-1 (Mobi)

ISBN 978-1-118-61129-6 (ePub)

From the Editors

A fledgling Committee to Protect Journalists first published Attacks on the Press in 1986. It was, literally, a list of attacks against journalists, produced simply on typed pages that were held together with staples. The organization quickly expanded its efforts, publishing bound editions of the annual survey, each year adding substance and context to the reporting. Attacks on the Press soon became a leading resource on international press freedom, all the while evolving to put greater emphasis on analysis and include ever-more ambitious digital companions. With the publication of this new edition, CPJ takes another important step in the evolution of Attacks on the Press . Were proud to announce a new partnership with Bloomberg, which is underwriting the publication of Attacks on the Press , and Wiley, our new publisher. With their expertise, the new edition of Attacks on the Press leverages CPJ research to look ahead at the emerging issues confronting journalists across the world. In this new anthology of essays, youll read the stories of international journalists writing about matters of life and death in the field, the views of the pre-eminent journalists who serve on CPJs Board of Directors, and the analysis of CPJ staff working to protect the press in every corner of the world. We continue to publish our detailed, country-by-country research reports on cpj.org . With this volume, we begin dating the editions in the year in which they are published to reflect the currency of CPJs research. Weve also changed the subtitle to Journalism on the Worlds Front Lines to highlight the extraordinary challenges facing journalists working in dangerous and repressive places worldwide. Their stories illustrate the importance of a free press to every citizen of the world.

By

A dozen smugglers were squatting next to their mules. We should have left hours earlier. The four of us in the BBC team worried that if we didnt go soon it would be dawn before we reached Lebanon. A Syrian patrol might spot us on the bare hillside. We were on the edge of the mountains that run along Syrias border with Lebanon, falling away into the Bekaa Valley, and not all that far from the official border crossing on the Damascus-Beirut highway. There had been a gunfight in the next village, they told us, a battle for control of the smuggling routes (and for the big profits from selling weapons to the rebels). Three men had been killed. The mules owner was on the winning side. But hed be late.

When he did arrive, we set off up a steep hill, the rocky ground luminous white under the full moon. Some of the mules were loaded with rocket-propelled grenades and a heavy machine gun for a village on the way. The others, we rode. The smugglers were the scum of the earth, said one of those in our group. It was Ramadan, but they werent fasting. They swore. When we parted ways 12 hours later, one got very aggressive as we checked the mules panniers for anything left behind. Back off or I shoot, he snarled from atop a black horse. F--- you and f--- your sister. He had stolen a flak jacket, we discovered later.

We were using this criminal gang because rebel fighters were unable to take us back the way we had come, through the town of Zabadani. There was too much shelling. We could hear it in the distance as the sun came up, volleys of far-off thunder from the tanks and artillery pieces we had seen ringing the town two weeks earlier. That crossing, into Syria, hadnt been easy, either. It was too steep for mules so we walked for three nights, legs aching, lungs burning, stopping to rest before we edged round Syrian army posts as quietly as we could in the dark.

That journey was in August 2012, one of a half dozen covert trips across the border that we made for the BBC over the past year. The crew consisted of a cameraman, Fred Scott; a medic, Kevin Sweeney; our translator, Ghassan (who was not using his real name); and me. We did this to be able to cover the insurgency from the inside. But, mostly, we had to sneak in because the regime was not granting visas. Despite the governments promise to the United Nations that foreign reporters would be given access, visas were often impossible to obtain. A hard slog with low-life smugglers was a small price for avoiding the Syrian security forces. Seven years for crossing the border illegally. Another 10 for having a sat phone, an activist warned when we were setting up our first trip, in November 2011. Do you really want to do this?