This year, billions of voters will make their way to the polls for a record election year in a world fraught with polarization and mis- and disinformation. We rely on journalists to unearth the facts that help us make decisions about our leaders, and journalists are facing increasing challenges to doing this vital work.
In 2023, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) documented journalists around the world being targeted, threatened, beaten, detained and harassed while covering elections. International journalists were expelled from countries holding elections. Media outlets were suspended and censored, and internet access was restricted.
January 6 marks the third anniversary of the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol, when rioters attempting to stop the certification of the election results attacked journalists and scrawled “Murder the media” on the Capitol doors. CPJ is already planning for the U.S. presidential election taking place later this year.
But first, on January 7, the people of Bangladesh, where press freedom faces serious challenges, will head to the polls. CPJ has worked extensively to defend journalists in Bangladesh and continues to monitor and advocate on their behalf.
“Journalists, whose daily reports are the lifeblood of information flows that make dynamic economies possible, risk being silenced in an amplified government crackdown,” CPJ’s director of advocacy and communications, Gypsy Guillén Kaiser, wrote in The Diplomat with Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights’ Angelita Baeyens. They wrote that Bangladesh authorities “are systematically stifling local independent media in the run-up to the election.”
CPJ and its partners in the #KeepItOn coalition call on the Bangladeshi authorities to protect open and secure internet throughout the 2024 elections. CPJ is striving to keep journalists safe. Here are tools to prepare for 2024 elections
