The Embassy - Part II

A journalist from a fictitious country attracts the attention of powerful forces that he does not yet fully understand

As I explained in my announcement post, each part of this serialized story is going to be accompanied by a discussion of related information or thoughts, available to all subscribers. This time, I want to talk a bit more about the deteriorating climate for freedom of the press and free thought within the Western world, which is directly related to some of the events happening in the story.

The past years have seen some notable examples of Western journalists arrested and interrogated about their work in countries within the Western sphere of influence. Last year, journalist Richard Medhurst was detained at a U.K. airport and brought to the police station for interrogation. The police searched his luggage and confiscated his equipment. He was put in solitary confinement for many hours and not allowed to contact his family or a lawyer.

There was also the situation of the Israeli government detaining Grayzone journalist Jeremy Loffredo for four days for reporting on Iranian missile strikes. He and three other journalists were beaten, blindfolded, threatened with death, and jailed.

Going back a bit further I am reminded of how Glenn Greenwald’s partner was detained and questioned for hours about the Snowden reporting, and of journalists reporting on U.S.-Mexico border conditions being forced to disclose photographs they had taken. And of course the decades-long persecution of Julian Assange, which only last year came to an ignominious end.

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Devices get confiscated, sometimes temporarily sometimes indefinitely, and the journalists (or their partner) are put under immense pressure to disclose their sources or provide access to sensitive information. Their accounts of these experiences, together with scores of notable stories that have been occurring over the past decades, especially since terrorism and other ‘security’ legislation and policies became more normalized as part of the War on Terror, are what have made these scenarios all too easy to imagine. As this worrying trend continues, and seems to be intensifying, being a journalist or simply someone who shares truthful information about crimes committed by our governments is becoming an ever more dangerous occupation.

Of course, there are other even worse examples I can point to, with journalists arrested, tortured, or simply shot dead in places like Gaza, China, or Egypt, but that does not make what is happening in the West any less problematic. Here, freedom of the press and freedom of speech are supposed to be guaranteed by law, just like the protection against arbitrary arrest and the right to a fair trial. These protections put some restraint on how far the state is willing to go, but if there are no repercussions or no courts or media who push back against it, things are likely to get worse.

While the situations in Western countries like the U.S. and U.K. that I mentioned so far appear to be exceptions to the norms, they have the chilling effect of showing what professional and personal risks you are taking when going against the government, even as an accredited journalist, which is precisely the point. Make an example out of a small number of people at or outside the margins of acceptable debate and it becomes all too likely that many people will think twice before taking the risk of something similar happening to themselves.

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Below these lines you’ll find Part II of The Embassy. The previous parts of the story can be found here:

The Embassy - Prologue

The Embassy - Part I

The Embassy - Part II