First-of-its-kind review into persecution of lawyers defending journalists
PICTURE: Tara Winstead/Pexels
American Bar Association Centre for Human Rights
and the Thomson Reuters Foundation
As ‘lawfare’ against journalists escalates in intensity and complexity, lawyers play a critical role in safeguarding free and independent media.
As a result, they are themselves becoming the targets of a wide range of attacks that seek to undermine these efforts. In particular, governments around the world are threatening, arresting and prosecuting lawyers to deter them from representing journalists or human rights defenders.
Despite this, the persecution of lawyers on account of their representation of journalists has not been an area of extensive study.
To fill this gap, the American Bar Association’s Center for Human Rights, Media Defence and the Thomson Reuters Foundation have partnered to conduct a first-of-its-kind review of individual cases of harassment or persecution of lawyers defending journalists.
This research relied upon publicly available information from reputable databases and websites of international organisations, bar associations, civil society organisations, and online news publications. To the extent possible, this information was corroborated with the lawyer involved, or civil society organisations working closely with them.
The research identified over 40 cases of lawyers targeted for defending journalists, consulting with journalists or otherwise defending media freedoms. While the research surveyed the last 10 years, most of these attacks happened in the last five years, across 10 countries: Guatemala, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia, Zimbabwe, Kyrgyzstan, Ethiopia, Belarus, China, and Hong Kong
Lawyers representing journalists are often simultaneously defending human rights activists and opposition figures, which further contributes to and compounds the risk that such lawyers take. However, these figures are likely not representative of the persecution lawyers face globally.
Information on this topic is scarce, with some cases subject to confidentiality orders or never reaching the legal system or being publicly available. When the government is involved in persecuting lawyers, harassment and threats often go unreported by lawyers to protect themselves, their families and their clients from further retaliation.
This preliminary report highlights trends that have been identified from the initial findings.
