Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak out in support of international press freedom and to highlight, in particular, two egregious cases of government assaults on the rights of journalists. This Saturday, a court in Egypt will decide whether to execute an award-winning photojournalist for doing his job. While in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, the Nobel Prize-winning former political prisoner, Aung San Suu Kyi, has overseen the imprisonment and sentencing of two Reuters reporters who were attempting to shed light on the atrocities committed by the Burmese military against the Rohingya minority. In Egypt, Mahmoud Abou Zeid, who is known professionally as Shawkan, was taken into custody along with two other journalists while photographing the violent dispersal of a protest in Rabaa Square on August 14, 2013. The other journalists were foreign nationals and were released within hours, while Shawkan, an Egyptian, has been abused and beaten, denied his freedom, due process, and adequate medical treatment ever since--simply for doing his job. In 2016, the U.N. Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued a report on his case, calling his detention ``arbitrary'' and recommending that he be released immediately. Shawkan received the 2018 UNESCO Freedom Prize and has been recognized by press freedom organizations worldwide for his outstanding contributions to the profession in the face of danger.…”