Toronto, July 6: The international press advocacy organization, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is planning to publish a gallery of grim portraits of 37 heads of state or government who crack down massively on press freedom. Some of these “predators of press freedom” have been operating for more than two decades while others have just joined the blacklist, which for the first time includes two women and a European predator. Nearly half of the 17 predators are making their first appearance on the 2021 list, which RSF is publishing five years after the last one, from 2016. All are heads of state or government who trample on press freedom by creating a censorship apparatus, jailing journalists arbitrarily or inciting violence against them, when they don’t have blood on their hands because they have directly or indirectly pushed for journalists to be murdered.

“There are now 37 leaders from around the world in RSF’s predators of press freedom gallery and no one could say this list is exhaustive,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. “Each of these predators has their own style. Some impose a reign of terror by issuing irrational and paranoid orders. Others adopt a carefully constructed strategy based on draconian laws. A major challenge now is for these predators to pay the highest possible price for their oppressive behavior. We must not let their methods become the new normal.”

While this gallery portrays crown prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, Supreme Leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Ali Khamenei, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko, Equatorial Guinea’s president Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Eritrea’s president Isaias Afwerki and Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame, also there are two other female predators in Asia. One is Carrie Lam, who heads a government as the chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region since 2017. Another woman predator is Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s prime minister since 2009, whose predatory exploits include the adoption of a digital security law in 2018 that has led to more than 70 journalists and bloggers being prosecuted, the RSF news release says.

Pic from Reporters without Borders