Human Rights: Journalists

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My Lords, I strongly agree. These are repulsive occurrences wherever they occur and I salute the campaigning zeal of the noble Lord in his feelings on this matter. He mentioned three countries where I agree that some very ugly things have occurred. I have a long list of the areas where we, the Government, are seeking to help and work with the relevant Governments to tackle the terrorising, murder and threatened assassination of journalists, including in Russia, Mexico and the Philippines, as the noble Lord said, as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq. If he would like, I will send him the list, but it is long. We are determined to use what influence we have, which is bound to be limited in some cases, in all these horrific instances.

[Lord Alderdice]

My Lords, do my noble friend and Her Majesty's Government accept that an attack on a journalist is not merely an attack on a profession and a professional? Because of the extremely important part that journalists play in democratic governance and in holding Governments and others to account, an attack on a journalist in the way described by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, is an attack on democracy. Therefore, countries which do not maintain the special place of journalists and protect them are countries which cannot properly be regarded as truly democratic, as our own can be.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My noble friend is absolutely right to put it in those terms. An attack on freedom of expression and responsible journalism anywhere is an attack on, as it were, the supply chain which leads directly to our own freedoms in this country.