YouSaid · the spoken record

Pearl

lines on the record
14
first
2015-05-27
most recent
2015-05-27
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1
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un-security-council

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  1. “All that said, I am intensely conscious that in the end it is the solidarity of ordinary people that will drive humankind forward - ordinary people such as the journalists I have just quoted, who have exemplified a moral courage that I truly hope will inspire the ordinary person in each of us.”

    2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source

  2. “Member States have agreed to reduce impunity through resolutions on the safety of journalists and the United Nations Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity. These rhetorical commitments are welcome, but we need to see more concerted efforts on the ground to actually implement them. Jailing and attacking journalists will not help defeat terrorists; it will only make them stronger. The Security Council must warn States that they should not use national security as an excuse to jail, harass or censor journalists. A statement or resolution outlining the threats journalists face, not only by terrorists but by the anti-terror movement as well, would be an important indication of this commitment.”

    2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source

  3. “Governments and terrorist groups alike can bypass these objective witnesses and take their messages directly online and to social media. The lack of objective reporting means that extremists and Government propagandists are free to control the dissemination of information - information that is not based on facts and not investigated and confirmed by professional reporters. This has enormous implications when one needs to make informed decisions. Furthermore, Governments are using terrorism charges as an excuse to clamp down on dissent and criticism. Journalists are routinely targeted and killed for their reporting on terrorist groups, while others are censored or imprisoned by Governments seeking to respond to the very same threat. Already this year more than 25 journalists have been killed, the majority of them murdered.”

    2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source

  4. “It happened in a car that drove the 1,500 kilometres from Cancun to Puebla. They threatened to kill me, throw me out to sea and more. But I arrived at the prison alive because the media had managed to reveal the identity of my persecutors. Both of them were policemen." Freelance photojournalist Nicole Tung, talked about Syria: "Covering Syria means facing a multifaceted set of problems, from bombardments to snipers to kidnappings by the Government, Islamic extremists and criminals. It is a place where journalists and Syrian activists must operate in a conflict of staggering destruction and desperation, and where no side"- and this is what is worrisome - "believes in the benefit of truth-telling any longer." The neutral space in which journalists can operate as independent witnesses is shrinking.”

    2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source

  5. “I don't want to go back to Chechnya, but ifI don't who will?" Her articles had freed the wrongfully imprisoned and helped recover the abducted. She was murdered in front of her home in 2006. War correspondent Marie Colvin, killed in Syria in 2012, wrote, "We go to remote war zones to report what is happening. The public has a right to know what our Governments and our armed forces are doing in our name. Our mission is to speak truth to power. We send home that first rough draft of history. We can and do make a difference in exposing the horrors of war, and especially the atrocities that befall civilians." My dear friend Lydia Cacho, who revealed a pedophile network in Mexico, wrote: "I will never forget the face of General Montafio, who, with his colleague Agent Pe'rez, spent 20 hours torturing me psychologically, physically and sexually.”

    2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source

  6. “Mass surveillance by some Security Council member States puts journalists and their sources at risk, undermining the trust and confidentiality vital to qualityjournalism. Additionally, an increasing number of countries are now using anti-terrorism laws to muzzle the press even further. Why do we journalists continue working in such circumstances? Over the years, I have talked extensively to my colleagues on this subject. Those are people whom I am going to quote, and I am not quoting them because oftheir nationalities or because they happen to be women, but for rather for their bravery. I remember meeting the excellent Russianjournalist Anna Politkovskaya when she was receiving an award in New York. She said, "I am exhausted. I have seen too much.”

    2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source

  7. “A great majority of them are freelancers, which means they also face the added threats of sexual violence, cyberattacks on their integrity and harm to their families and children. But let us not fool ourselves. Daesh and the likes are only the visible part of the iceberg. The worrying truth is that the response from Governments around the world is equally damaging and dangerous tojournalists. Nearly 60 per cent of journalists jailed around the world are imprisoned on anti-State charges. Murder is the ultimate source of censorship, and not only in the case of Daesh. In 2014, impunity injournalism murder cases reached a staggering 96 per cent - a figure that Christophe Deloire just mentioned - and the remaining 4 per cent obtained only partialjustice.”

    2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source

  8. “In my case, that translates into 13 years of a daily struggle - with a little help from my friend here, who is my son - to oppose hatred with empathy, violence with compassion and ignorance with education. I am not alone, but we have become targets. Insurgent groups no longer use reporters to transmit news, but instead kidnap them to make news. They treat us as enemy combatants and spies. This is our everyday reality. In many cases, the journalists taking this on are freelancers. That means young journalists doing the job that the mass media is increasingly reluctant to do. Often, they have no insurance, little training or equipment and no support. But they do have as much to lose as anybody else in this Chamber. Women are bringing the world more than half of the news.”

    2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source

  9. “But we are dealing with a group of militants who dehumanize themselves enough to kill a journalist whom they knew to be innocent and whom they held for an entire year. How do we deal with this? How do we create a counter narrative? I believe that in Islam the most elaborate form of jihad is the battle an individual fights with him or herself to become enlightened. I and many journalists members may never hear about do what we can with the tools journalism gives us to destroy the base on which terrorists operate, that is, hatred. Accordingly, we report on what hatred feeds on - ignorance, prejudice, greed, corruption, human rights abuse, brain washing and the act of simplifying what cannot be simplified.”

    2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source

  10. “Let us not forget that beyond the news are individual lives; beyond the politics is a human society; and beyond our differences is our common ground. That common ground is what terrorists are seeking to destroy. They want and they need to end dialogue, understanding and bonding among people. How do they operate? They create a narrative, they use labels, and mostly they thrive on our weaknesses. Wars and conflict cannot live without a narrative, a justification that breeds on ignorance, fear and frustration. They kill journalists, workers of non-governmental organizations, Americans, Jews, those whom they call infidels and so on, in the hope of dispiriting all those who identify with their victims. Labels do not matter to them.”

    2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source

  11. “The courage to honour the truth, no matter what the circumstances are, no matter how unpleasant, no matter how contrary it is to what the majority thinks. Those individuals who truly have the strength to empathize with others and the determination to honour the core values of journalism, such as giving a voice to the voiceless, resisting power, and letting those values that define our profession become who we are. That search for integrity is our lifeline; but it is not only ours, it is also that ofthose here. For we are the ones who ensure that the public and politicians alike have the information they need to make informed choices: that the world is aware of the atrocities carried out by Daesh in Iraq and Syria, by Boko Haram in Nigeria and by the drug cartels in Mexico and Central America.”

    2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source

  12. “It is not recklessness; it is not a search for fame or adrenaline. Rather, it is an intimate process, the profound will to enlighten humankind, to go beyond the obvious, to fight preconceived ideas, to battle the corruption and the greed that are crippling our societies. Today, the confusion within our profession is great. We are searching for economic models, and we are trying to counter the competition of the Internet. Some run after breaking news for the sake of breaking the news. Others are walking on shaky ground, blurring further the frontier between proper journalism and entertainment news. The media itself needs introspection, so I will not talk on behalf of the media as a whole. Instead, I would like to concentrate on those journalists who have the courage to embrace the complexity of our world.”

    2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source

  13. “To me, courage - intellectual and moral - is the active ingredient that will allow us to use our destinies to inspire others and to defeat oppression. It was Mark Twain who said, "It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare". I believe there is no greater courage than the strength to live up to one's values, no matter what the circumstances. To stand up and speak takes courage; to sit down and listen also takes courage. I therefore thank the Council for doing this. Somewhere during the wars, we journalists have lost the old, unspoken agreement that we were a neutral and fair profession. As a result, we are in danger. All of us are forced to wonder what kind of journalism exactly is worth dying for. Often, true acts of courage are invisible to others.”

    2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source

  14. “Ms. Pearl: I thank you, Mr. President, for inviting me to share my thoughts on the safety of civilians, and particularly journalists. I believe the future depends on the depth and intensity of the vow embraced by people today. I think that this is very good news, as it is very difficult to stop someone with the strong sense of justice. The will to ensure that no one else, including future generations, must endure the suffering that afflicts us depends upon individuals. Journalists everywhere are those single determined individuals who increasingly are bearing the weight of our democracies on their own. I am speaking at a troubled time for our profession, a time that requires all of us to take a step back and display more than one form of courage.”

    2015-05-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7450 (2015) · source