Governments are using this crisis as an opportunity to clamp down on the press. In many cases the attack on press freedom has come from countries with a long history of censoring uncomfortable news. The IPI points out that in China, news websites have been shut down, social media protests criticising authorities have been clocked and citizen journalists have been targeted directly. But as this map from Index on Censorship, which has been monitoring COVID-19 related attacks on press freedom worldwide, shows, the erosions to press freedom are happening everywhere.

Meera Selva, Director of our Journalist Fellowship Programme and author of this piece, spoke about the threats to press freedom during the pandemic on Thursday 7 May.

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