Journalists and Media Workers: Safety and Security

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 24th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, for securing this debate and for an introduction that did not fall into outdated 20th century tropes about the idea of us over here with media freedom and them over there without it. The V-Dem—Varieties of Democracy—Institute’s report, Defiance in the Face of Autocratization, concludes that democracy around the world has receded to the level it was at in 1985 and that censorship and the intimidation of the media is a key factor in that. Brazil and Poland are two of the countries it sees crossing over from democracy to autocracy. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, set out, we are seeing lots of cases of media suppression in the United States but also a huge suppression of academics who are often the commentators and analysts in the media, crucial voices that are now being silenced by the Trump presidency.

The focus has to be truly on journalistic freedom as a good in itself, not on using it as a stick with which to beat the people we want to beat while quietly ignoring what our friends are doing. I will focus particularly on the many journalists and activists who have campaigned on environmental issues around the world, noting the British journalist Dom Phillips who was murdered in the Amazon while investigating illegal fishing, logging and drug trafficking in protected indigenous reserves.

A lot of this repression is about not just states, but the actions of corporate actors. Will the Minister say what we are going to do to strengthen UK law to exclude from our supply chain actors that are involved in the repression of free speech and the murdering of journalists and the activists who supply them with information associated, in particular, with extractive industries that damage the rights and lives of indigenous people?