A resolution widening threats to freedom of the press and free expression around the world, and reaffirming the vital role that a free and independent press plays in informing local and international audiences about public health crises, countering misinformation and disinformation, and furthering discourse and debate to advance healthy democracies in commemoration of World Press Freedom Day on May 3, 2021.

III 117TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION S. RES. 241 Recognizing widening threats to freedom of the press and free expression around the world, and reaffirming the vital role that a free and inde- pendent press plays in informing local and international audiences about public health crises, countering misinformation and disinformation, and furthering discourse and debate to advance healthy democracies in com- memoration of World Press Freedom Day on May 3, 2021. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES MAY 26, 2021 Mr. MENENDEZ (for himself, Mr. RUBIO, Mr. CARDIN, Mr. COONS, Mr. KAINE, Mr. MARKEY, Mr. MERKLEY, Mr. SCHATZ, Ms. CANTWELL, Mr. VAN HOLLEN, Mr. CASEY, Mr. CRAMER, and Mr. BOOZMAN) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations RESOLUTION Recognizing widening threats to freedom of the press and free expression around the world, and reaffirming the vital role that a free and independent press plays in informing local and international audiences about public health crises, countering misinformation and disinforma- tion, and furthering discourse and debate to advance healthy democracies in commemoration of World Press Freedom Day on May 3, 2021. Whereas Thomas Jefferson, who championed the necessity of a free press for a thriving democratic society, wisely de- VerDate Sep 11 2014 03:37 May 27, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR241.IS SR241 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 2 •SRES 241 IS clared, ‘‘Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.’’; Whereas Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declara- tion of Human Rights, adopted in Paris on December 10, 1948, states, ‘‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opin- ion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and im- part information and ideas through any media and re- gardless of frontiers.’’; Whereas, in 1993, the United Nations General Assembly pro- claimed the third day of May of each year to be ‘‘World Press Freedom Day’’— (1) to celebrate the fundamental principles of free- dom of the press; (2) to evaluate freedom of the press around the world; (3) to defend the media against attacks on its inde- pendence; and (4) to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives while working in their profession; Whereas the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act of 2009 (Public Law 111–166) expanded the examination of the freedom of the press around the world in the annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices published by the Department of State; Whereas, on December 18, 2013, and December 18, 2019, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 68/163 and Resolution 74/157, respectively, on the safety of journalists and the problem of impunity, unequivocally condemning all attacks on, and violence against, journal- ists and media workers, including torture, extrajudicial killing, enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, and VerDate Sep 11 2014 03:37 May 27, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR241.IS SR241 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 3 •SRES 241 IS intimidation and harassment in conflict and nonconflict situations; Whereas the First Amendment to the United States Constitu- tion and various State constitutions protect freedom of the press in the United States; Whereas the United States Government has used the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (subtitle F of title XII of Public Law 114–328) to place targeted visa and economic restrictions on individuals, including for their roles in the targeted killings of journalists; Whereas, in an effort to combat attacks against journalists, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken recently announced a new policy allowing the Department of State to impose visa restrictions on individuals who, acting on behalf of a foreign government, are believed to have been directly engaged in serious, extraterritorial counter-dissident ac- tivities, including those that suppress, harass, surveil, threaten, or harm journalists, activists, or other persons perceived to be dissidents for their work; Whereas the 2021 World Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters Without Borders, warns that the COVID–19 pandemic ‘‘illustrates the negative factors threatening the right to reliable information’’ and amplifies the many cri- ses that threaten media freedom and pluralism; Whereas the Freedom in the World 2021 report, published by Freedom House, noted that 2020 was an especially haz- ardous year for democracy, during which ‘‘less than 20 percent of the world’s population [then lived] in a Free country, the smallest proportion since 1995’’; Whereas, according to the Committee to Protect Journal- ists— VerDate Sep 11 2014 03:37 May 27, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR241.IS SR241 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 4 •SRES 241 IS (1) at least 30 journalists were killed in 2020, 21 of whom were singled out in retaliation for their work, an increase from 10 murders in 2019; (2) Mexico, Afghanistan, and the Philippines had the most retaliatory killings in 2020; (3) at least 274 journalists were behind bars in rela- tion to their work on December 1, 2020, marking the fifth consecutive year that at least 250 journalists were imprisoned globally; (4) China, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia were responsible for nearly half of all jailed journalists world- wide; (5) journalists around the world have been targeted by sophisticated spyware products that pose a severe risk to their safety and the safety of their sources; and (6) the world’s most censored countries include Eri- trea, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia, China, Vietnam, Iran, Equatorial Guinea, Belarus, and Cuba; Whereas the Government of China has unleashed an on- slaught of attacks on press freedom in China and Hong Kong, including through— (1) state-sponsored censorship and disinformation campaigns limiting access to information about the novel coronavirus, including through its censorship of virus-re- lated keywords on social media platforms; (2) attacks on press freedom in Hong Kong, includ- ing the passage of the National Security Law, which poses an existential threat to the city’s tradition of press freedom, and the arrest and subsequent conviction of Jimmy Lai, owner of Hong Kong’s largest media outlet, Apple Daily, and an outspoken democracy advocate; (3) arrests or other repressive actions against inde- pendent journalists and others in mainland China at- VerDate Sep 11 2014 03:37 May 27, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR241.IS SR241 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 5 •SRES 241 IS tempting to share uncensored news or opinion about the COVID–19 outbreak, including the detention of citizen journalist Chen Qiushi, who remains incommunicado; and (4) the detention of journalists critical of the Gov- ernment of China, including Chen Jieren, who was sen- tenced to 15 years in 2020, following 2 years of incom- municado detention, after blogging about allegations of corrupt local officials; Whereas Afghanistan remains one of the most dangerous countries for journalists, with— (1) militant groups targeting at least 4 journalists for murder in retaliation for their work in 2020; and (2) at least 4 media workers killed in early 2021; Whereas Belarus has witnessed sweeping attacks against the press since Alexander Lukashenka’s fraudulent election in August 2020, where since the beginning of 2020, near- ly 550 journalists and media workers have been harassed, assaulted, imprisoned, or otherwise retaliated against for their work, including— (1) Katsiaryna Barysevich, a physician, and Artsyom Sarokin, a journalist, who were respectively charged with 6 months and 2 years in a penal colony (on charges of disclosing medical data and instigating a crime, respectively) for disclosing information about a protestor who was killed during a crackdown on dem- onstrations against President Lukashenka; (2) Katerina Borisevich, a journalist charged with 6 months in prison after contradicting official statements about the cause of death of a protester; and (3) Katsiaryna Andreyeva and Daria Chultsova, journalists sentenced to 2 years in prison (on charges of VerDate Sep 11 2014 03:37 May 27, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR241.IS SR241 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 6 •SRES 241 IS violating public order) for filming live coverage of the vio- lent dispersal of a protest against President Lukashenka; Whereas Reporters Without Borders asserts that ‘‘press free- dom in [Burma] has been set back ten years in ten days’’ after the February 2021 military coup, during which— (1) at least 40 journalists were arrested, including BBC journalist Aung Thura and Associated Press jour- nalist Thein Zaw; (2) media workers were forced into hiding and con- fronted censorship, harassment, internet blocks, beatings, interrogations, threats, and injuries at the hands of the military; and (3) multiple independent media outlets had to cease operations or close altogether or had their licenses re- voked by the military; Whereas Cuba remains a highly restricted environment for independent media, marked by internet restrictions and constant harassment of journalists and news outlets, in- cluding— (1) independent journalist Yoel Suarez, who was summoned to a police station in March 2021 for the sec- ond time in 2 months as a result of his work; (2) Iliana Hernandez, who was charged with illegally possessing journalistic equipment in January 2020; (3) Luz Escobar, a journalist who was repeatedly barred by security forces from leaving her home; (4) an official notice from the Cuban Ministry of Labor and Social Security in February reiterating the longstanding government policy that bars independent ‘‘journalists activities’’ and the independent publishing of ‘‘edition of newspapers, tabloids and magazines in any format’’; and VerDate Sep 11 2014 03:37 May 27, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR241.IS SR241 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 7 •SRES 241 IS (5) a March 2020 raid on the office of the Instituto Cubano por la Libertad de Expression y Prensa (ICLEP) publication Paginas Villarenas, during which Cuban Gov- ernment authorities confiscated equipment and detained multiple journalists; Whereas Egypt’s restrictions on the media have accelerated under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi since 2013, with at least 27 journalists imprisoned during 2020, including— (1) Esraa Abdelfattah, who has attempted multiple hunger strikes to protest her torture and mistreatment while detained; (2) Shimaa Samy, who was detained on charges of joining a terrorist organization, spreading false news, and misusing social media for his work; (3) Hisham Abdel Aziz, an Al Jazeera journalist on the verge of losing his eyesight following untreated glau- coma while in prison; and (4) Mahmoud Abou Zeid, who was released after 5 years in prison, but remains subject to a 5-year probation term that requires him to spend the hours of 6:00 p.m. through 6:00 a.m. at a police station every night; Whereas assaults on press freedom in El Salvador imperil its fragile democracy and include both verbal attacks on journalists by political leaders and use of state power to intimidate independent media, such as— (1) the ongoing criminal investigation against outlet El Faro, which was launched after it reported damaging information about the administration; and (2) the online attacks and threats to journalists from the outlet Revista Factum, which has been banned from press conferences at the presidential residence; VerDate Sep 11 2014 03:37 May 27, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR241.IS SR241 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 8 •SRES 241 IS Whereas, according to Reporters Without Borders and Free- dom House, Indian authorities have recently imposed internet and communication blackouts, detained and charged journalists covering political demonstrations, and called for the temporary blockage of journalists and media accounts on Twitter; Whereas Iran remains a hostile environment for the press, where media workers are subjected to summons, arrests, and unjust sentences, including— (1) investigative journalist Ruhollah Zam, who was executed on December 4, 2020, after being disappeared in October 2019 and charged with ‘‘corruption on earth’’ for his reporting; (2) freelance journalist Fariborz Kalantari, who was sentenced on February 7, 2021, to 7 years in prison and 74 lashes for using his telegram channel to circulate arti- cles about corruption charges brought against the ex-Vice President’s brother; and (3) editor of weekly Agrin Rozh, Mahmoud Mahmoudi, who was arrested by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence in Sanandaj after issuing an open letter calling for the release of detained Kurdish activists; Whereas Reporters Without Borders reported that Mexico was the world’s deadliest country for journalists outside of a war zone in 2020, where reporters covering stories on political corruption and organized crime are frequently assaulted and murdered, including— (1) Ruben Pat, a local news website editor who was gunned down on the street after requesting urgent pro- tection when one of his reporters, Jose Guadalupe Chan Dzib, was murdered; and VerDate Sep 11 2014 03:37 May 27, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR241.IS SR241 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with BILLS 9 •SRES 241 IS (2) Mario Leonel Gomez Sanchez, a journalist who was murdered in the southern state of Chiapas after cov- ering cases of increased violence and alleged corruption implicating municipal officials; Whereas, on March 1, 2021, the Day of the Journalist in Nicaragua, 470 journalists from around the world signed a letter denouncing years of persecution of journalists in Nicaragua, which has included news outlets forced to close and individual journalists being threatened, har- assed, sued, surveilled, jailed, and forced into exile, in- cluding— (1) Miguel A´ngel Gahona, who was shot in April 2018 while filming riots; and (2) Miguel Mora, Director of 100% Noticias, and journalist Lucia Pineda, who were arrested in April 2018 and subsequently tortured; Whereas Honduras remains one of the Western Hemisphere’s deadliest countries for journalists, where those working for opposition media or who are outspoken critics of the government are subjected to harassment, intimidation, and death threats by the country’s security forces and its affiliates, including— (1) freelance journalist Luı´s Alonzo Almendares, who was killed by 2 unidentifi [Text truncated for display. 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