What if all journalists had the right to freedom of speech?

I believe that if I was to ask any student at Durham their opinion on a controversial topic, they might indeed decline to give it for personal reasons, but I could almost guarantee that their reluctance would have little to do with a genuine fear of the repercussions being life threatening. As young people living in Britain, we have been taught to believe that the world is our oyster, a place where we can say, think and feel what we want, and in which anyone who dares to judge us for our beliefs is frankly out of order.

But what if this wasn’t the case; what if every time you shared your opinion you had to look over your shoulder for a person that would go to any lengths to silence you? It is appalling to me that even in the 21st century; there are many countries where journalists live in constant fear for their lives. We have seen in the recent past horrific examples of the consequences of honest journalism in the brutal beheadings of James Foley and Steven Sotloff carried out by ISIS in Syria, the videos of which sickened the stomach of the nation.

This ‘organised silencing,’ is a worldwide phenomenon and one which even I have had personal contact with. In 2012 my elder brother George went to live in Libya just after the fall of the Gadaffi regime, driven by the desire to witness firsthand the growth of a new democracy. He was working as the editor of Libya’s first English language newspaper that he helped to set up named the ‘Libya Herald,’ and also as the Times’ Libyan correspondent. Gradually, during his work, George became aware of an extremist Islamist network in Benghazi, (a city about 404 miles east of the capital Tripoli.) This group were discontented at the lack of power they were receiving in the new democratic regime and in an attempt to ‘make their voices heard,’ were systematically murdering government officials who stood in their way.

Not only was George astonished at their behaviour, but what shocked him further was the reluctance any one had to tackle the issue. As far as the central government in Tripoli were concerned, these attacks were happening outside of Tripoli and it would only put them at further risk if they tackled the issue head on; not something they were keen to do considering the huge amount of violence and upheaval the country had just suffered. George however could not let this rest on his conscience and thus published an article in the Libya Herald which revealed the names of the perpetrators and their actions.

No sooner had this article been published than it went viral in Libya. People translated it from English and posted it all over the web, including on forums such as Facebook. George received a huge amount of positive reaction for being brave enough to write about it, but he also knew that this publicity would be placing him in serious danger, and he was right. Fortunately, about a week after the article was published, George caught a plane home to spend Christmas with his family, but during this time he received a call from his co-editor, Michelle Cousins, telling him he had received a tip off that the group he had exposed had managed to track down George’s flight details and would be waiting to ‘take him in for questioning’ as soon as he landed back in Libya. Realising how serious this threat was, George took the wise decision not to return to Libya, but this meant a huge sacrifice in leaving behind all that he had worked for and achieved in the past year.