Ireland drops six places in Press Freedom index because of politicians using ‘judicial intimidation’

A man rests on posters of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, Hamza Al Dahdouh and Samer Abu Daqqa who were killed while reporting in Palestine, in conjunction with World Press Freedom Day in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Friday. Photograph: Fazry Ismail/Shutterstock

“We are writing to you to express our alarm at the news that Sinn Féin TD Chris Andrews is taking legal action against The Irish Times and its political correspondent Harry McGee in response to an article about Sinn Féin’s response to the Hamas attack published last month,” the letter said. Sinn Féin public representatives north and south of the Border have taken a series of legal actions against journalists and media outlets. Ms McDonald is suing RTÉ over comments made on radio and her husband is suing journalist and politician Shane Ross over statements in his biography of Ms McDonald published in 2022.

The party’s spokesman on housing, Eoin Ó Broin, has rejected claims in the past by Micheál Martin of Fianna Fáil and Leo Varadkar of Fine Gael that Sinn Féin has a policy of taking legal actions against journalists and media outlets. “This finding is based on the fact that, of the five indicators used to compile the ranking, it is the political indicator that has fallen most, registering a global average fall of 7.6 points.”

“In China , in addition to detaining more journalists than any other country in the world, the government continues to exercise strict control over information channels, implementing censorship and surveillance policies to regulate online content and restrict the spread of information deemed to be sensitive or contrary to the party line,” the authors say.

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