US is not country it presents itself to be
By Trend
There is still censorship in the US, the chairman of the Central
Asian & Southern Caucasian Freedom of Expression Network (CASCFEN)
Azer Hasret said.
“The obstacles are created for media activity,” he said. “Today
journalists and ordinary citizens can not fully enjoy freedom of
expression.”
He was delivering speech during the hearings dedicated to "Human
rights situation in the US. Foreign Policy Paradoxes" in Baku Jan.
15.
Hasret said that the US is promoted as a country where the rights
and freedoms of citizens are undeviatingly ensured.
"On the contrary, human rights and freedoms, including the freedom
of expression and freedom of media, are grossly violated almost
every day,” he said.
“In December 2010, a group of senators with Joe Lieberman forced
Amazon.com to remove WikiLeaks from its server. At the beginning of
the same month, Obama’s administration banned the representatives
of the state agencies and educational institutions to use
WikiLeaks. But then the State Department denied this, although the
US leading media outlets emphatically stressed this ban."
Hasret recalled that The Guardian wrote on December 3 of the same
year that the Library of the US Congress, US Department of Commerce
and other state agencies confirmed the ban to use WikiLeaks.
"In a letter of protest addressed to President Obama in the summer
of 2014, around 38 journalist organizations called for the
government to refuse from political pressure while disseminating
the information on the federal authoritative bodies,” he said. “We
can say that such a mass protest was made for the first time in the
US history."
He said currently, expressing concern over the current media
situation in the US, the Committee to Protect Journalists in New
York is collecting signatures for appealing to the US President
Barack Obama.
“The appeal that was also signed by me demands to create normal
working conditions for journalists, to stop any persecution in the
US,” he said.
The NGO head said that more specifically, three demands have been
put forward in this appeal: the US president should instruct to
stop the secret persecution of journalists and unlawful
intervention into the devices used by media structures; to put an
end to the aggressive attitude to journalists in the US; to put an
end to legal persecutions aimed at attracting journalists to
cooperation with intelligence services and blackmailing those who
provide information.
He said there is widespread practice in the US to attract
journalists to cooperation with intelligence services by using
various methods of pressure.
“Police attacking journalists, arresting them during mass events is
normal and usual for this country,” he said. “The developments in
Ferguson city when tens of journalists were beaten and arrested, is
the example for this.”
“Naturally, the point is that all this was committed by the
police,” said the NGO head.
He said that after the murder of black Michael Brown by the police
on Aug.9, 2014, 52 journalists were subjected to violence by the
police and 21 media representatives even were arrested, according
to Pen American Center.
“The most interesting fact is that the international structures
which state that human rights are protected in the US, do not react
to these developments and try to prove to us that such events do
not happen in this country,” he said. “This means that these
structures are also controlled by those who define the official
political line of the US.”
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