Debris are seen on site of the destroyed Mariupol children's hospital as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues, in Mariupol, Ukraine on March 9, 2022.UKRAINE MILITARY/Reuters
Rachel Pulfer is the executive director of Journalists for Human Rights.
“They focused on the kids.”
The voice of Sevgil Musaieva, editor-in-chief of Ukrayinska Pravda, cracks on the phone.
“There is a children’s hospital in Kyiv. It is full of children who have lost their parents to the conflict, and are wounded. The Russians chose to target it. That’s one of the stories we want to tell.”
Ms. Musaieva would like to do a full-scale investigation of the attack on the children’s hospital. But to do so, she needs expert training, mentorship – and funding.
Yet, Ukrayinska Pravda’s human rights stories must be told – not only in Ukrainian, but also in Russian, and in English to a global audience. Clear documentation of the human rights abuses happening in Ukraine is essential to holding those responsible accountable. This is especially needed at a time when, as per recent polling by The Economist, fewer than 50 per cent of Americans aged 18 to 29 believe Russia is targeting civilians, let alone committing human rights atrocities.
Journalists have never been more critical to our understanding of what’s at stake in a global crisis than they are now. Independent journalists enable the international community to make sense of the war in Ukraine; they’re also on the front lines of what Nobel Peace laureate Maria Ressa calls the “fight for truth” against disinformation. Yet, as this year’s Press Freedom Index produced by Reporters Without Borders demonstrates, journalists worldwide are also being targeted as never before. In Russia, journalists now face a 15-year prison sentence simply for using the word “war” to describe what is happening in Ukraine. In Afghanistan, meanwhile, media outlets are being systematically shut down by the Taliban, and critics silenced.
With two massive global crises in which journalists are explicitly being targeted now upon us, there has never been a more urgent moment for Canada to step up and show leadership on media freedoms.
The role of journalists documenting human rights abuses, while also combatting the Russian-led disinformation war in Ukraine, is absolutely critical. Without continuing access to reliable, credible information about human rights abuses in Ukraine, the international community remains ignorant about the scale of the crisis. Meanwhile, Ukrainians are left vulnerable to Russian disinformation campaigns, which deliberately sow confusion about where, when and how they plan to attack.
As Maria Ressa put it recently at a Massey College event in Toronto, disinformation campaigns take the pattern of “repress, suppress and replace.” The perpetrator works to repress journalists’ voices, suppress people’s access to credible information, and replace credible fact-driven narratives with meta-narratives designed to gaslight and confuse.
Journalists for Human Rights has worked with Canadian disinformation expert Marcus Kolga and Syrian-Canadian human rights lawyer Zein Almoghraby to document how disinformation in a conflict zone can kill. Following the playbook used in Syria, Russian bots share information on social media implying the Russian military is creating humanitarian corridors, only to then bomb those corridors. Russian military will imply they are withdrawing from a given theatre, only to then target civilians who return to that theatre.
To save lives, more work to support journalists in the fight for truth is urgently needed. This includes training on how best to combat Russian disinformation, more financial support, and expanded access to global media platforms. For example, Ms. Ressa’s co-Nobel laureate, Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, called in late April for the establishment of an independent media platform supporting diaspora independent Russian journalists in exile. This would ensure Russians as well as English-language audiences have access to facts about the conflict, at a time when access to facts is more compromised than ever.
Lives are at stake, and Canada must act with an urgency that is currently lacking. Canada needs to do concrete work to realize the Media Freedom Coalition’s promise of emergency visas for journalists and expedite visa processing to meet the urgent need of the times. Separately, Canada needs to step up to offer proper financial support at appropriate scale for independent Russian-language and Ukrainian-language journalists. This would empower these journalists to fight Russian disinformation and misinformation in Ukraine and access international media networks to better share their stories on a continuing basis.
“Why are journalists being targeted?” asked Ms. Ressa. “Because we push back on lies. Because we hold power to account. Join the battle for facts and truth.”
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