US officials call for their government to be held accountable for crimes against journalists… indirectly

US officials from the Biden-Harris administration have called for action against their government and its allies for crimes against journalists… albeit indirectly.

To mark the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists on 2 November, several US officials tried to act as if the US cares about journalists. But they can’t gaslight the world that easily. Because we’re keeping the receipts.

To begin with, the US ambassador to the UN (who has faithfully continued Washington’s habit of vetoing any measure aiming to hold Israel to account for its brutal occupation of Palestine and the genocidal war crimes that perpetuate it) said:

In Russia, Gaza, Iran, and all around the world, journalists face grave threats simply for doing their jobs.

Today, on the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, we call on the international community to make progress on the UN Plan of Action on the…

— Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield (@USAmbUN) November 2, 2024

The awful Matthew Miller, meanwhile, has acted as the Biden-Harris administration’s spokesperson for Israel… sorry, the Department of State. And he said:

Today, the United States reaffirms its commitment to ending impunity for crimes against journalists. We call on all governments to protect journalists from violence and hold perpetrators of crimes accountable.

— Matthew Miller (@StateDeptSpox) November 2, 2024

Hold the US to account!

So in their own words, we should ‘hold the perpetrators of crimes to account’. Excellent. How about we start with the US crime of torturing Julian Assange (with the faithful complicity of the UK)?

This year, the WikiLeaks journalist walked free after 12 years of persecution and five years in a high-security prison. The US government had been seeking his extradition from the UK for, as CAGE International says, “exposing the war crimes, torture, and abuses perpetrated by US, British, and other Western forces during the unlawful invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq”. After his release, Assange told the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE):

I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today after years of incarceration because I pled guilty to journalism

PACE also recognised Assange as a political prisoner.

Back in the US, meanwhile, journalists don’t feel much safer. According to a Pew Research Center survey from 2022, most US journalists feared deeply for the future of press freedom. And in October 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released a report saying:

The safety of journalists in the United States is no longer a given as members of the media face a slew of threats – including violence, online harassment, legal challenges, and attacks by police – that could coalesce to undermine press freedom

It added:

As of September 2024, assaults on journalists in the U.S. in relation to their reporting have increased by more than 50% compared to 2023

Hold Israel (and its US backers) to account!

As Middle East Eye has explained, the US has “fast-tracked weapons and armaments to Israel’s military and provided a diplomatic shield for Israel at the United Nations” during its genocidal campaign in Gaza, all while giving Israel “$3.8bn in military aid each year”. And this is despite the CPJ criticising the “unprecedented” impact of the assault on journalists. The CPJ says:

As of November 5, 2024, CPJ’s preliminary investigations showed at least 137 journalists and media workers were among the more than tens of thousands killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, and Lebanon since the war began, making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.

The CPJ insists that it considers Israeli occupation forces to have “directly targeted” five of the journalists they killed, and is still investigating other cases. The deaths, meanwhile, come on top of injuries, arrests, “multiple assaults, threats, cyberattacks, censorship, and killings of family members”.

The CPJ stresses that it “has called for an end to the longstanding pattern of impunity in cases of journalists killed by the IDF”. And it explains that:

Journalists are civilians and are protected by International Law. Deliberately targeting civilians constitutes a war crime.

The CPJ also asserts that Israel is currently the second worst offender “in letting journalists’ murderers go unpunished”. At the same time, the CPJ’s 2023 prison census places Israel as the joint sixth worst jailer of journalists, with “the highest number of arrests of Palestinian journalists since CPJ began documenting arrests in 1992”.

US impunity over crimes against journalists must stop!

The US officials’ comments may have been disingenuous. But they were right. The impunity must stop. And the US can start by holding itself and its closest allies to account for their own heinous role in trying to silence the truth.

Featured image via the Canary