00:00The UN Secretary General noting that journalists in Gaza have been killed at a level, quote,
00:05unseen in any conflict in modern times.
00:08Well, for more on this, then Laurent Richard joins us on the program.
00:13He is an investigative journalist and also the founder and director of the international
00:17nonprofit Forbidden Stories.
00:20Thank you very much for joining us.
00:24So has any concrete progress been made at all in addressing violence against journalists
00:29over the past year or so?
00:31No, actually, that's worse and worse year after year.
00:36When you look at the situation of what is happening currently, as you mentioned before,
00:39in Gaza, this is one of the first time in modern history, then journalists cannot access
00:45the area.
00:46And the journalists who are within the area in the Gaza Strip are survivors amongst all
00:51the survivors.
00:53And more than 100 already have been, have been killed.
00:57And we investigate the global pattern of the Israeli military forces to to target some
01:04of them specifically because they were journalists.
01:06So if you look at the situation worldwide, it's worse and worse, not only about the killing,
01:12but as well about digital threats, harassment online, disinformation campaign against them.
01:19It's worse and worse because there is on one hand some technology and some more power to
01:25some to some industries to run some disinformation campaign and harassment online.
01:33And in the meantime, there is impunity.
01:35What is impunity?
01:36Impunity means that out of 10 killings of journalists, only one of those masterminds
01:44will be will be fined by the justice.
01:46I mean, the orders can get easily away because no one are looking after them because there
01:52is a level of corruption that is extremely high.
01:56And and this is why at Forbidden Stories, we try to defeat impunity with journalism,
02:01with collaborative journalism.
02:03Our mission is when one journalist is killed is to continue his work.
02:08And why we are doing that, we do that for two main reasons.
02:11The first one is to make sure people get access for critical information.
02:15Journalists got killed because they're they're investigating environmental crimes, because
02:19they are investigating money laundering, corruption stories.
02:23And those stories matters for all of us as citizens.
02:26And those stories are global because it's talking about climate change.
02:30And we need to continue those work because it's it's an important formation for all of
02:36us as citizens.
02:38And the second reasons of why we are doing that, we do that because we want to dissuade
02:43the killers to kill the journalists, the enemies of the free press, to kill the journalists,
02:47to harm them, because if they kill one of us, the story will survive and will be amplified
02:53and will be on the front page of many newspapers.
02:57So we want to send them a strong signal that killing the journalists won't kill the story.
03:02And this is our way to defeat impunity.
03:05Now, that is, of course, essential work.
03:09But I think there's a paradox given just how bad the situation has gotten, because most
03:14countries have actually made commitments themselves towards ending impunity for crimes
03:19committed against journalists.
03:20So what is preventing international leaders from doing more to act on their very own engagements?
03:28I think you're right.
03:29You have on one hand some public speeches and statement of leaders of the world saying
03:35that freedom of the press is crucial.
03:37In the meantime, you can see exactly in reality the opposite of what is happening.
03:42Look at what Donald Trump was saying a few weeks ago and even a few years ago.
03:46He was repeating the same kind of very dangerous statement, designing and labeling journalists
03:53as enemy of the people.
03:55So if he got elected, you can imagine what autocrats in the world will do and will say
04:03if the president of the U.S. is considering a journalist as an enemy of the people.
04:09Look at what happened even after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, who was a Saudi journalist
04:14who was killed in the consulate of Saudi Arabia from Turkey.
04:19And there is a full impunity on this case, because there is geopolitics behind, there
04:26is a diplomacy reasons behind that, that may be preventing leaders of the world to address
04:33the real issue.
04:35And that's very concerning, because it's not a question of about keeping the journalist
04:40safe.
04:41It's about keeping democracy and our society safe without information, without journalists
04:50free to report on what matters.
04:52There is no future for democracy.
04:55So it's about all of us to consider again the role of journalists and the role of access
05:00of information in our daily life.
05:04To finish, unfortunately, we just have time for one more question, but I do want to focus
05:07on the situation in Gaza, because it is, of course, the site of the deadliest periods
05:12for journalists in modern history.
05:13Forbidden Stories has a project there.
05:16Israel says that its killings of press workers have been unintentional.
05:20But it's now also claimed that six journalists working in Gaza are terrorists.
05:24And I'd like to know from you, is this something that we're seeing more often, where belligerents,
05:29countries, militaries are justifying targeted journalists by or justifying targeting journalists,
05:34rather, by saying that they're actually militants and not really press workers?
05:39Well, first, two things to say on that, first of all, with the Gaza project and with many
05:44partners, including Israeli and Palestinian journalists and many other journalists, we
05:48were able to achieve the Gaza project by investigating the way journalists in Gaza, where some of
05:55them were specifically targeted by the Israeli authorities.
06:00And we were able to prove that.
06:02Then regarding the propaganda of the Israeli authorities, yeah, it's not new that they
06:07are playing propaganda, labeling some journalists as terrorists without any strong evidences.
06:12It happens in the past, in a few months ago, when they were saying that a journalist called
06:17Mustafa Touhaya was a terrorist, but they were not able really to prove that.
06:22And the same for the six other ones, where we need as a journalist to investigate any
06:28issues and any document that should be provided by any authorities.
06:32And so far, the documents provided, as mentioned by many organizations as CBJ and others, are
06:38not enough to conclude.
06:40So the best way to solve those issues is to let the press enter inside the Gaza Strip
06:48and do our work, meaning telling stories for the for the readers.
06:52That will prevent crimes, war crimes, to be committed and multiplied with impunity.
06:59This is the most urgent thing to do, to open the area to journalists that the first time
07:04in modern history that we can see a conflict where there is that is a black hole for for
07:09journalists and for access to information.
07:12Laurent Richard of Forbidden Stories, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
07:17Thank you for having me.
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