Free Press Condemns Ongoing Arrests of Journalists at Occupy Protests

On Saturday, six journalists, many with press credentials, were arrested when Oakland, Calif. police clashed with Occupy protesters. These arrests bring the total number of journalists detained in Occupy protests nationwide to nearly 50. Free Press has been tracking journalist arrests and press suppression related to the Occupy movement since September. The full list can be viewed here: http://storify.com/jcstearns/tracking-journalist-arrests-during-the-occupy-prot[1].

“While most of the attention surrounding journalist arrests at Occupy protests has focused on New York City, these arrests in Oakland remind us that this is a national issue,” said Josh Stearns, Free Press journalism and public media campaign director. “Saturday marked the worst night for press freedom in the United States since the NYPD’s raid on Zuccotti Park last fall. It is easy to count the number of journalists who were arrested, but it is impossible to quantify the number of stories that will go untold because of this interference with freedom of the press.”

Journalists arrested in Oakland included Gavin Aronsen of Mother Jones, freelance journalist Susie Cagle, Yael Chanoff of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Kristin Hanes of KGO Radio, Vivian Ho of the San Francisco Chronicle and John Osborn of the Bay Area Reporta.

Since September journalists have been arrested at Occupy events in 10 cities around the U.S. Due in large part to these arrests, the United States plunged 27 spots in Reporters Without Borders’ 2011 press freedom index. The United States is now ranked 47th in the world for press freedom.

Source URL: Read More
The public content above was dynamically discovered – by graded relevancy to this site’s keyword domain name. Such discovery was by systematic attempts to filter for “Creative Commons“ re-use licensing and/or by Press Release distributions. “Source URL” states the content’s owner and/or publisher. When possible, this site references the content above to generate its value-add, the dynamic sentimental analysis below, which allows us to research global sentiments across a multitude of topics related to this site’s specific keyword domain name. Additionally, when possible, this site references the content above to provide on-demand (multilingual) translations and/or to power its “Read Article to Me” feature, which reads the content aloud to visitors. Where applicable, this site also auto-generates a “References” section, which appends the content above by listing all mentioned links. Views expressed in the content above are solely those of the author(s). We do not endorse, offer to sell, promote, recommend, or, otherwise, make any statement about the content above. We reference the content above for your “reading” entertainment purposes only. Review “DMCA & Terms”, at the bottom of this site, for terms of your access and use as well as for applicable DMCA take-down request.

1 2

Share